Red Light, Green Light, Slow Year, Fast Year
At 7:44am, one year ago today, our Little Bean finally came out into the world, with what felt distinctly like a “plop!”
From that moment on, things have felt like they are both, at one-and-the-same-time, in slow motion, and speeding by.
The first six months sometimes included what felt like the longest days I have ever known. I remember watching the clock, breaking up the hours in my mind into half hour segments until my partner and co-Mama would get home, and only allowing myself to think about getting through the next half hour. The baby would fall asleep in my lap and would wake up if I moved, so I didn’t move, sometimes for 2 hours or more. I remember being hungry, famished actually, and just being still and waiting. I remember having to go to the bathroom but not strategically being able to figure out a way to do that that would be safe for the baby. Our Little Bean was colicky and probably also reacting to our cross-country move when she was six weeks old—who can blame her for being fussy-pants? And, still, there were days that felt absolutely interminable, nights when she was crying at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m., or both, when I literally thought “how are we going to keep doing this?” At times I felt incredibly angry that no one had sat me down and really spelled out how incredibly hard those first six months can be, how absolutely soul-draining.
And I understand, as a wise grandmother said to me recently, that when someone shares the news that they’re expecting a child, “it’s hard to know what to say.” So we say “Congratulations,” and we send gifts and make meals, and we hope they’ll be okay. That they’ll make it through those first rough weeks and months.
And then, at some point between five and six months, things eased. Some combination of the following had occurred: we’d adjusted to our new reality, Little Bean was becoming more and more delightful, and we started having a babysitter come help for a few hours a few times a week. Now, finally a year later, there are a whole host of things I have a new appreciation for. One is just the combined set of feelings a parent can have about a child’s birthday that, before becoming a parent, I had no awareness of. I feel this sense of relief, gratitude, accomplishment and celebration, all mixed up together. We got her through the first year, the year of not yet eating “regular” food, the year of moving across country, this first year with its particular first-year-worries like SIDS and initial reactions to vaccines and solid foods and basic growth-and-development stuff and all of that.
I also feel truly amazed at what occurs in a human child in one year. In 365 days, she goes from being a “plop” to being a little person with a feisty spark and touching gentleness about whom another mom at the National Building Museum today observed: “she has such a sweet personality.” She most definitely knows who her Mamas are, she knows that as much as she’d like to, there are a great many things she should not put in her mouth so she looks at us first to check, she knows that she loves drumming and she knows how to press “play” on the CD player (over-and-over again; she’s still learning to press “play” once and then step back and enjoy the music). She knows that she loves bananas and avocados and she is eager to try whatever it is we are eating. She knows how to fall asleep on her own and most of the time she knows how to scootch on-and-off the bed safely. She knows the baby signs for “more,” “all done,” and “swimming” and she loves to wave “bye-bye” and “hello” to just about anyone and everyone especially if we don’t tell or ask her to, first. She knows when she’s at home. She knows her name.
There are so many things that have happened in this first year that I understand now why people say “it flies by.” It’s truly astonishing how much changes just from week-to-week and month-to-month. I’ve taken probably thousands of pictures and I probably haven’t taken enough, because there is so much that is uncapturable. She is growing up so quickly. In fifteen years now, she can get a learner’s permit — or, wait, fourteen years? That can’t be right.
But perhaps it is. Right. Right that our children would grow up just fast enough to take our breath away and make us want to pay close attention to them, every day. And right that those first six months don’t go on forever. As my partner and co-Mama says now: “what’s five months of hell?” I understand now why people say “it’s worth it.” I understand why people say that when you have a baby “everything changes.” Yep, and yep, and…wow.
Free Will, Fate, and Destiny: A Humanist Perspective
Human religions have always been built upon foundations of the best available science of the time. Sometimes that science said that the middle earth sat in a large tree. Sometimes science said the earth sat on a turtle’s back. Ezekiel knew that the earth had four corners and was held up by pillars–heavens above, Sheol below. Upon these foundations, human beings built views of how the world worked.
An important reason that I became a Unitarian Universalist many years ago was the movement’s tradition of incorporating reason and science into religious understanding. When science finds that the earth moves, Unitarian Universalists don’t have to deny science. We say, “Hmmm. That’s interesting!” That’s why I’m a humanist and religious naturalist, standing in awe inside the great cosmic show.
Nowadays we know that our fate lies within the unfolding of the Big Bang. We still don’t know whether that fate lies in a universe that will expand forever, eventually succumbing to heat death, or if there might be a Big Crunch in our future, one that might even lead to another Big Bang. Whichever way the future may pan out, our ultimate fate is sealed in forces considerably larger than primate consciousness.
Similarly, carbon-based creatures have a predictable trajectory, from our constituent elements created in the explosion of stars, to the momentary cohesion that we call life, to our decomposition, and, eventually, that aforesaid fate at the end of the Big Bang.
So, what of this consciousness we experience now, in this fleeting moment we call human life? What better way to spend those brief moments than in awe and gratitude?
Is there free will or fate? Whether or not there’s a deity that has the hairs of our heads numbered, bad things keep happening to very good people. Observation indicates that a lot of chance is involved. After all, for each of us, our genetic material has more immediate and local origins than that birth in the explosions of stars. We arise as individuals in hemispheres, nations, regions, tribes, genders, and economic situations, all at specific times, all with measures of power within us and over us.
For example, a recent study shows that where I was born, in the Southern United States, only four percent of people become professionals. Four out of one hundred. That’s fate . . . Created not by the gods, but by very human decisions. (Don’t get me started on the sequester!)
Is there free will? Yes–it’s all up to us. Except when it’s not. A fact of our realities is that the fate of each of us belongs not only to you or me, but ALL of us. All of us.
That’s why I’m a humanist. In this very human world, it’s all up to us. We create problems; we can solve them, if we work at it. That’s the beauty . . . and the challenge . . . of how it is, according to science and reason.
It’s just how it goes in the backwash of that really Big Bang . . .
Keep the Faith!
art by Kristi of Barn Owl Primitives
In his story of a man with a sneering wife, Sufi master Rumi begins:
A special guest was coming to visit and the man worked 200 days to earn the price for the quality lamb kabob he wished to serve this guest. On the appointed day, the man bought the meat and brought it home for his wife to cook and then went to fetch the guest.
While he was gone, the wife cooked the kabob and
ate
every
bite
of
it.
When the man returned with the special guest, she greeted them at the door, saying “the cat has eaten the kabob. You’ll have to buy more, if you have any more money.”
The husband asks a servant to bring the scales and the cat. The cat weighed three pounds. “The meat was 3 pounds and one once. If this is the cat, where is the meat?” “If this is the meat, where is the cat?” Start looking for one or the other!
Sometimes truth can be found on a scale. Usually, it is a more complex endeavor for us human beings. The recent trial of George Zimmerman for the death of teenager Trayvon Martin revealed a plethora of truths in the lived experiences of the people of United States. Some have an expectation of justice within the justice system. Others have no expectation of justice within what they consider a criminal system – one that actively perpetuates crimes against humanity.
What you look like, where you grew up, who you live with – all of these are complex predictors of how you experience truth and what truth you experience.
Walking away from the Justice for Trayvon Vigil in New Orleans last week, I met up with a history professor from Tulane University. She brought up the Jena Six, which some of you may remember as a time when the criminal justice system in Jena, Louisiana revealed to the nation its deep roots in the Reconstruction Era, built after the abolition of slavery to maintain control over black bodies. In 2007, a nationwide protest against the mockery of justice there descended upon the town of Jena, population 2,500, with an estimated 50,000 protesters.
There were so many people – and so few white people. The professor I was walking with said, “if you took all the Unitarians out of the crowd, I could have put the white people present in my car.”
Author activist Jordan Flaherty, in his book Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six reports that “perhaps one to three percent of the crowd was white, in what amounted to a disturbing silence from the white Left and liberals.”
I would call it a disturbing silence from white people, regardless of their political stance. When children of color are demonized by a criminal justice system created for and by white people, we cannot be silent. We cannot be absent.
What was faithful was the profession of divine living by the white Unitarian Universalists who showed up, were called out as allies, people living into the truth of beloved community with their bodies, their whole and holy beings.
What was faithful was the profession of divine living by the Unitarian Universalists of color who walk in this faith with trust that we are going to live into our collective covenant with more and more anti-oppressive skill, more and more respect for the inherent worth and dignity of each person, more and more beloved community.
When we show up as our whole and holy selves, lives are transformed, systems are changed, beloved community becomes possible. Keep the faith, beloveds. Keep showing up on the side of love in this world.
_________________
References:
The Essential Rumi, 1995 (translated by Coleman Barks).
Flaherty, Jordan. Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, 2010.
America’s God (a lullaby)
“It was all God’s plan.” George Zimmerman
In the United States, God
loves white and violent, it
seems; loves what’s inhuman,
it looks. Look at His plan
working as it does. In the
US, God loves those laws
that fill the jails, that fill
the pockets of the rich,
it appears. Just look. He–
yes, must be a He–gives
a vindictive wink and nod
to the violent, as long as
it’s Christian.
In the United States, God
likes the way Florida does it.
Loves the way Texas does
people in. Likes his women
on a short leash; his people
poor; likes violence and guns
a lot. In the United States, God
loves his guys white. Just look.
See how things are in the plan.
In the United States, God likes
many of his children murdered.
Some in prison. Most poor. Just
look at the justice. It’s some
God’s plan.
Dreaming in Circles
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It is said that if a group of people sleep arranged in a circle—heads at the center and feet out like spokes—they create a dream circle. Two or more people in the group may have the same dream at the same time.
I tried this once with a group of friends, but I must confess, it didn’t really work for me. Mostly I just had a rather poor night’s sleep.
The Light of the Faith
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Imagine stepping into the sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva, Illinois. With narrow rows of wooden pews and the bright glow of stained glass along each side of the meetinghouse, you might think you had gone back in time.
In this gathering place, it is easy to get a sense of the generations taught, married and memorialized; the countless songs, prayers and words that have rung through the air. Gathered in 1842, the presence of the Society’s “cloud of witnesses” is almost palpable, even when the sanctuary stands empty.
Embodied Justice, Embodied Speech
Beloveds, let us have a common vocabulary. In the midst of the conversation on race prompted by the verdict of the Zimmerman trial, allow me to point us toward the 4 I’s of Oppression, spelled out clearly here by YouthBuild USA: – https://youthbuild.org/sites/youthbuild.org/files/Four%20Is.pdf Ideological, Institutional, Interpersonal, and Internalize Oppression. Recognize that racism operates on many levels in this country. If you do not know this, please take the time to learn about it before joining loudly in the conversation. This matters.
Let us hear truth when it is spoken to power. Let us keep the dialogue grounded in the realities of oppression. And if you are white, keep showing up in solidarity with all who call for Justice for Trayvon. It is beyond time for more than a handful of white people to stand on the side of love in this country.
Dear ones, let us live into the possibility of Beloved Community with courage and grace.
How Many Summers Left?
I do not love hot weather. I do not love intense humidity and stepping out into the outside world and feeling myself gasp. And, for better and for worse, I live in Washington D.C., where this is how it is in July and August.
On the other hand, my grandmother turned 90 years old this year. I hear that the summer right now in the Portland (Oregon) area is beautiful, and that she and the many people that I love there are really enjoying it. Savoring it.
One of my mantras is “Life is for Living.” Living, as fully as we can, as compared to surviving, or enduring. So I try to find ways to embrace experiences that I could all too easily grit my teeth and bear. So even though a part of me would love to hide out the hot days inside in the air-conditioning, we are going camping with friends this weekend. Outside.
Earlier this week I shifted my thinking about the summer from weeks and months to seasons. When I think about the summer as a whole season, I think about the way we yearn for it to come in the long nights of winter. I think about all the particular enjoyments of summertime — lemonade and long evenings, neighbors outside, thunderstorms, fireflies, ice cream.
Perhaps because of all the intense talk of mortality, racism, violence and death earlier this week, or perhaps because of thinking about my grandmother enjoying her 91st summer, I asked myself a question I can’t know the answer to, a simple question that is also hard to ask: “how many summers do I have left?”
I find this a powerful question. It makes me pause. I have no idea. I certainly have hopes for many, many more summers, in good health and with people I love and enjoy. But I don’t know. And just asking the question challenges me to notice what is special about this day, this week, and appreciate it. Asking the question propels me to treasure life, to savor the mess of camping gear piled up in our living room right now, to acknowledge my worries about heat and our family as indicators of how much I love these people and care about them. Seasons are big enough that really, in the arc of our lives, we don’t get to really savor all that many of them. And so I ask myself again: “How many more summers will there be, for me?” I hope there are many, even hot and humid ones. We will come up with some fun and messy water games on this camping outing, I know it. We may well drive around in our air-conditioned car to get the baby to sleep in the 100 degree heat index, and if so, we will be grateful for our car, our modern convenience and our privilege to own it. And along the way we will be savoring our lives, grateful for another day, another hot and, yes, splendid season on this earth.
My Covenant with All That Is
I pledge to follow
The earth’s gentle curve
As I go;
I pledge to breathe only air as I am able;
I pledge to breathe often;
I pledge to eat of the earth;
Nothing other shall pass my lips.
I pledge to wend along the ways,
Trodding earth, never air,
Clouds and sun above,
What rocks are there under foot.
I pledge to see as best I can in bright sun;
I pledge to squint as I am able in dark;
I pledge to remain
Upright at times
When I am able;
To lie prone when the need arises.
I pledge to find flames hot;
To find snow cold;
To find water according to its fashion;
I pledge to love as best I can;
To hate sparingly;
To mock seldom;
To judge not;
To jump to few conclusions;
To subscribe to few illusions.
I pledge to be
As I am able
And to cease
As the rules require.
Stand Your Ground
George Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin. Apparently he was allowed to “stand his ground” against a young man whom he deemed dangerous by virtue of the fact that the boy was African-American and wearing a hoodie. Trayvon, it seems, was not allowed to stand his ground against the man who was stalking him, first by car and then on foot, because, you know, white people aren’t dangerous. Until they kill you.
What I want to know now is what I’m supposed to tell my daughter, an African-American teenager. Maybe, since she’s a girl, she won’t be seen as quite so threatening by white strangers on the street. Maybe, when she starts driving, she won’t be pulled over by the cops for “driving while Black” – at least not as often as if she were a boy. (Lord, here I was just worried about when my teen starts driving because, you know, Teens. Driving.) Maybe she will just be followed in stores when she goes shopping. Maybe men will just make assumptions about the sexual availability of my beautiful girl.
But I have to explain it to her. I have to explain why George Zimmerman literally got away with murder, and why so many people seem to think that’s OK. I have to explain how Trayvon was armed with a sidewalk – a sidewalk! – which somehow made his young Black presence more of a threat than a white man with a gun. I have to explain, because she’s being raised by white parents, and as a child she was protected from much of the bitter truth of racism in this country. Because we knew to teach our little girl about the Civil Rights Movement and the heroes who fought racism so that she could live in a better world. But we couldn’t stand telling a five-year-old, a six-year-old, a seven-year-old what is obviously the case, that those heroes were only able to take us a few steps down the road, and we have so much further, so much further, to go.
But she’s a teenager now, tall and strong, who carries herself with a dancer’s confidence and grace. And now I’m going to have to explain to her that while she will need to stand her ground with boys who want more from her than she wants to give, and she will need to stand her ground against peers who want to offer her alcohol or drugs, and she should stand her ground against anyone who wants to convince her that their warped world-view is true, that she cannot afford to stand her ground if she is unjustly accused by the police, or anyone else in authority. And she cannot even afford to stand her ground against some self-appointed vigilante who decides to appoint himself in charge of where she is or is not allowed to walk. Because no amount of dignity or self-respect is worth getting killed at the hands of someone who knows you are dangerous because of your clothes and the color of your skin.
She cannot afford to stand her ground. And so I am going to have to. I, and all my other white, middle-aged friends and family who are entitled to walk down a street anywhere we like, we are going to have to stand her ground. We are going to have to tell the truth about racism, about guns, about where the danger in our society really lurks. And maybe, when I know that thousands and thousands of middle-aged white people are standing her ground, standing Trayvon’s ground, then having this conversation with her will not completely break my heart.
