This post could also be titled “What Will Our Daughter Learn From Us About Eating, Part 1/xx?” Already, we are in constant negotiations about eating. The current challenge is sitting down. We’d like her to “sit down, please” while she eats so she doesn’t teeter and fall painfully out of her high chair. But about a quarter of the way into what we were imagining was her meal, she’ll stand up and want to keep eating, standing up. How big of a deal do we make of this? What’s really important to teach or insist upon, here?
Already, we are starting to see our Little Bean indicate her likes and dislikes. When we first introduced solid foods (eons ago, now — as in, more than six months), she would be absolutely delighted by a particular thing (avocados, say, or pureed sweet potato) and eat it in mass quantity at every meal for days. All I had to do back then was keep up with the purchase and/or production of The Food of the Week. Now she enjoys some new something for a few meals and then tires of it. The Broccoli Trees that were so delicious yesterday get tossed today, well beyond the high chair tray.
Which brings me to one of my next conundrums. The “finishing your plate” conundrum. I know that these days we over-educated, over-anxious, often-white, pretty-privileged, 21st-century parents are taught not to stress our kids out about finishing their plate (’cause that could lead to obesity or, even worse I suppose, “food issues”). But am I supposed to just not say anything when half of the food I’ve prepared gets tossed off the food tray into never-never land (as in, never to be eaten again)? Isn’t that teaching waste and disregard for the precious resource of healthy, often organic (as in, not free, kid!), carefully-prepared food?
And don’t get me started (at least not tonight, anyway; I’ve got too many other things to do!) on the strange size-ism I’ve noticed throughout our kid’s infancy. For her entire first year, the first thing most strangers would say about our baby was “she’s so tiny!” Well, I’d say, she was born small, but she’s healthy and she eats plenty. At that point the conversation would usually stop because, from what I could tell, the other person was still marveling at how tiny our babe was for her age and thought I should be feeding her butter or something or was quite probably secretly starving her. Yes, she was small, and she is still small. Maybe she’ll be a smaller-than-average adult. But in the meantime, somewhere along the line, she and we will start getting messages about how important it is that she be skinny, thin, slender, petite, and so on (I know this, because some people have already said, after I say “she’s a healthy eater,” “well, I hope she’s not eating too much.” Omg, she’s one! All I want to be worrying about, and this is plenty, are the age-appropriate things like: is what she’s putting in her mouth actually food (or is it dirt, a quarter, or a nail? and is she chewing before she swallows so that she doesn’t choke?) The constant focus on size just bugs me, all around; why is there so much emphasis on size and so little conversation about actual health? Yes, it probably bugs me because I grew up in this world and in this culture, too. And I’m sure she already sees me glancing in the mirror or muttering about trying to lose weight. Already, I worry about what she absorbs from my own self-talk and struggles with food. Are all the questions about eating that I ponder, like those in this post and so many more, are these questions teaching her to be thoughtful about food, or neurotic (um, like me?)?
I am grateful for some of the resources I’ve stumbled upon so far about creating healthy eating habits and rituals with our children. In particular, Super Baby Food and The Family Dinner offer very different and equally valuable tips and tricks for creating positive, meaningful mealtimes. How have you wrestled with introducing foods to your kids, and what have been your best guides? Let’s have…uh…a glass of water, and talk about it.
There’s really no need to refer to specifics. When you’ve been a citizen of the United States as long as I have, you’ve heard it all before: national security; stopping this or that madman; ending drugs or terror or Communism; honor. Whatever. The point is always the same: now, in this situation, violence will actually work to fix the problem. Unlike all those other times! And the United States, like an abusive spouse, swears this time is not like all those other times.
But it is.
A few years back I worked with a group of committed Unitarian Universalists on what we call a “statement of conscience” concerning war. Oh, the squeals. The Unitarian Universalist movement is not, after all, a “peace church” like the Quakers or Mennonites. As a matter of fact, Unitarians and Universalist have been complicit with, if not instigators of, most of the violence in the US since that civil war referred to nowadays as “the Revolution.”
And so the well-meaning and committed group attempting a statement of conscience concerning the violence of nation-states sank into the weeds of “Just War Theory” and other bromides.
Pacifism has never done well among Unitarians or Universalists. The list of pacifist ministers is short, though the prominent Universalist Clarence Skinner and the prominent Unitarian John Haynes Holmes are on it. (The pacifism of Holmes led Theodor Geisel, pen name Dr. Seuss, to write, “If we want to win, we’ve got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not.”) Another name on the list is John H. Dietrich, a predecessor of mine at the congregation I now serve. It’s a short list, but I’m proud to be on it.
No, the present situation is not like the First or Second World Wars. Fortunately. And, yes, there were some good excuses for killing people, at least in the Second one. Still, the human propensity toward violence and its manifestation in the violence of nation-states is odd, to say the least. It doesn’t serve much of a purpose, either, does it? The human propensity toward violence does appear to be innate, though the fact that murder rates vary from one murder per hundred thousand people in many European nations to twenty murders per hundred thousand in the US argues that violence has a large cultural component. The US is a violent culture, and that violence spills out across the globe.
Will it ever end? Probably not. In the present kerfuffle, pacifists like me will have to bow our heads once again and wait for the inevitable results. But we aren’t required to like it. And we can keep calling it what it is–silly, silly, silly.
As I write, the President and Congress are discussing how to respond to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Not surprisingly, the blogosphere is full of strong opinions: that we must respond to the wanton abuse of citizens with chemical weapons, that bombing Syria would be a huge mistake, that force is the only solution, that force is never the solution, and on and on.
Here’s my best assessment: there is no good solution. I am certainly no expert on the political situation anywhere in the world, and certainly not Syria. But I get a sense of things from articles I read, and, frankly, the news is not good. As far as I can tell, no one in this fight is the hero, the virtuous protagonist who is bound to win in the end. We Americans love a narrative that echoes our national story of the little guy overcoming the superpower and establishing democracy to flourish for the ages. But whether or not that narrative is justified for the US, it certainly doesn’t look like it’s a tale that’s going to play out in Syria. People are being slaughtered. The suffering is immense. It’s hard to imagine that bombing anyone is going to help, but equally hard to just stand back and tell the world that there is now carte blanche to spray people with poison gas.
I would love to tell you what is right, what I think we should do, what we should all take to the streets and the airwaves and cyberspace to promote. Unfortunately, I have no idea. Here’s what I know. Life is full of untenable positions. As a minister you are called on to support people who have to decide whether to undertake medical procedures that will undermine the quality of their life even as they extend it. You counsel people who are trapped in unhappy marriages who know that leaving would be devastating for their children. You are there for people who are looking at providing years of round-the-clock care for a parent or spouse or child who is slowly failing, who want to give everything to their ailing loved one, but still yearn for a life of their own.
It feels a lot better when you can fix things, when righteousness prevails and happiness reigns. But that happens a lot less often than the stories and the movies would have us believe. All too often, there is no good answer, and whatever the conclusion, there is suffering as well as joy. What you learn as a minister is that while you may never have the stunning piece of wisdom that will set a suffering person on the way to happiness, you can listen. You can be prayerfully present, offering your witness to what they are going through. You can hope that in the conversation something will emerge that is clearer or more creative than what the person walked in the room with.
That’s all I’m able to advocate for at the moment – that there be as much listening as possible. As much prayerful presence as possible. As broad a conversation as possible. I hope that the conversation goes far beyond the president and congress, that it includes the UN, that Syria’s neighbors who are being flooded with refugees have a chance to speak. I hope that out of the listening there will arise some greater clarity, some greater creativity, than anything that we have yet seen.
I know that hope is not justified, that there is little that we have seen from anyone in the situation, including the US, that would lead one to expect something better than bombing. So, if nothing else, perhaps those of us who are without decision-making power, who have no control, can manage to be a model of that listening and that creative possibility. It’s not a solution, but it’s the best answer I know.
Yesterday closed out August, the first month of marriage equality in Minnesota. Fittingly, I saw it out just as I entered it in: officiating at a lesbian wedding. As I have stood before dozens of couples this month, and as I have sat in the chairs weeping for friends, I have a couple of thoughts about pastoral pieces that I think should be included in same sex weddings, at least where the law has recently changed towards marriage equality.
First, in each case there are people who love the brides, or the grooms, who are not ready yet to embrace this notion of marriage equality, and are thus not present to celebrate. I acknowledge that their love is real, none-the-less, and that we at the ceremony pray for the day when all will celebrate love, and join in witnessing same sex couples’ marriage vows. However, in the meantime, we appreciate the integrity and authenticity of those who chose not to attend, and know that they love the couple none-the-less.
This is important because in many cases there will be many conspicuous absences of key family members. Differences in family views were most evident when I officiated at the wedding of Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s lesbian stepsister, (See http://www.patheos.com/blogs/uucollective/2013/08/forty-seven-weddings-and-a-funeral/) but they have been somewhat present in every same sex wedding I witnessed last month. Family gossip lines being what they are, I am fairly confident that word of this naming and inclusion will reach the absent members at some point.
Second, because we have not yet reached a place of universal agreement about the blessing that these weddings bring to our wider community, I urge all who attend, particularly straight allies, to go back to work or neighborhood barbecues, and describe what they witnessed at the wedding. Describe the years that this couple has been together, the love that was evidenced at the service, how good it felt for people to be there, gay and straight alike. How, in fact, it strengthened participants’ own commitments to their spouses.
This is important because our campaign for marriage equality was story-driven, based on reflections of personal relationships with or on the lived experiences of gay and lesbian couples. Though the campaign for 51% of the vote is over, to reach the 80 or 90 percent of support which will ultimately bring us together, the storytelling must continue. People who voted against marriage equality need to hear about how it is actually impacting the people around them, to balance and ultimately dissolve the horror stories of mayhem and destruction of heterosexual marriage which they have heard.
Finally, I have remarked in each ceremony I’ve officiated (tip o’ the hat to my friend Kate Tucker for this frame) that, when couples have been together for decades faithfully and loyally, we are actually present to witness vows between them and the State of Minnesota as much as or more than vows between the couple. The State of Minnesota, finally, has stepped forward with a commitment to support same-sex couples for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part—by providing social security benefits and tax benefits, access to health care and hospital beds, and all of the ease which heterosexual couples expect in the aftermath of the death of their beloved—beginning with access to the body itself, and extending out to inheritance rights, and decisions about the funeral.
The first month is over, but the struggle for marriage equality continues, even as the IRS declares that married couples anywhere can file joint federal taxes. Until the patchwork of equality and inequality tips into a nation where couples don’t need to fearfully pack marriage certificates in their luggage when they travel across state lines, we have our work to do.
Meanwhile, mazel tov to all of the newly married couples in Minnesota and other states this month. Though some of us older folks might grumble that we feel as if we’re in our late twenties again, with weddings every weekend, the joy in the grumbling is readily evident. Finally, we’re being treated as adults!
It’s September, pretty much, and all-the-sudden. I feel the lure of “back-to-school” as surely as the tide pulls the sea back towards the glimmering moon. But I am not going back-to-school, I haven’t gone back-to-school in September for years. Isn’t it amazing, how integrated into our systems is the seasonal rhythm of our lives and our (cultural? national? sociological?) rituals? So many of us are not going back-to-school, and yet September still has a pull, a bittersweetness. The fresh calendar page of September can be a prodding, subtle messenger of transition and shifting, of return and newness, both. What will this year hold? Who will be in our circle, who will we be and who will we see in our lives, the way most of us once did when we gathered in something like “Homeroom”?
I took a 1/4-time job recently, coordinating the Coming of Age program for a thriving local humanist congregation, and it’s fascinating to me how delighted I am to be working again. Just that much: 10 hours a week or so, just a bit, and that is plenty for me and my family right now as far as my more spread-out energies — but it is also just enough to feel a part of something beyond our family, a part of a community and of the flow of the year, the year that involves returning, as we do, to our communities and routines, at the end of the summer.
I know there will still be some more hot, summery days here in D.C. I know that I have lots and lots of sometimes-tedious, sometimes-luscious unscheduled days with our Little Bean ahead. I know that there are many other people out there whose lives don’t shift all that much with the turning of the calendar page. I know I now have more of the juggling to do — life and home, household chores and work responsibilities, the daily tasks and the larger witnessing to the world and acting as best as I can. It actually matters again that I check my e-mail at least every day. And, what I notice most is that having a foot dangling in the water of our larger world is surprisingly exhilarating to me. I feel like I am more a part of the stream of life. As things get going, as all the “back-to-school” energy picks up around us, with students in school uniforms making their way in this direction and that, with school buses suddenly popping up again in front of me at every stoplight, I feel glad and grateful to be a part of that stream, in my own way, part of a community of people who observes the turning already of just a few leaves and feels the certain calling of fall.
You danced once, there, in those rocks.
It meant something. It all did—you,
your love, the beautiful stones. You
danced there, happy. It meant something.
Those things, they were as real as
the cotton in the threads of your scarf.
You danced there again, there, in those
rocks. Many things meant something—
your love was there. You danced, looking
to the horizon for meaning.
Those things, they were as real as
the thread in what you had lived for.
Still you dance, in those rocks,
there, wet in the rising tide. Your
love. Your happiness. The stones
cry out. Yet where is the strength
to turn? Even a bow is too much.
Those things. They were as real as,
as real as . . . Those things were real.
Today I am going to try and live into the simplicity and struggle of this covenant (co-created by junior high UU youth at camp this summer):
Respect, Kindness, Forgiveness, Focus.
Today I am going to aspire to be the human being I wish others would be to me and my neighbors.
Maybe tomorrow too. So much is possible.
And when (not if) I miss the mark, I will begin again in love.
For myself, for you, for all that is possible when we choose compassion over judgment, hope over harm…
Today.
A quick peek at www.godchecker.com gives some indication of the sheer number of times humanity has attempted to name The Ultimate.
At this point philosophers–and even most theologians–have given up on a proof of god and left the battlefield. For some, a god or gods is there, for others, not so much. We can debate the existence of a god or gods, but finally all we are debating is a subjective feeling, and the argument boils down to pretty much the same thing as arguing over whether a particular dish is too salty or too sweet. It’s subjective.
So, for much of humanity, belief in a deity or deities is like a taste for boiled shrimp: some are born loving them, some are born hating them, and some acquire a taste or lose the taste along the way.
What indubitably is here, there, and everywhere, is the universe that surrounds us—the whole enchilada—“everything that is, seen and unseen,” as the Book of Common Prayer would have it.
Of this thing we can say that everywhere is the center; nowhere is the center. Of this thing we can say that it is expanding, ever faster. We can call it the universe. The multi-verse. The Whole Enchilada. Yet, ultimately, we can be assured that this everything is one big something. And it’s a huge and marvelous mystery.
This everything is One, as the Hindus and the Buddhists would have it. This everything is The Way, as the Taoists would term it. Remember those words from the Ashtavakra Gita:
One believes in existence;
Another says, “There is nothing!”
Rare is the one who believes in neither.
That one is free from confusion.
This wholeness, in all its mystery and contradiction, has been a tough thing to grasp for the Western brain. Though the idea of the oneness and wholeness of all existence is at least six thousand years old in Hindu thought, we Westerners have built our cosmology and our language around polarities such as black and white, up and down, in and out, I and other, existence and non-existence, secular and religious.
In the West, the earth sat on pillars; had corners; and heaven was up there, hell down there. Our spirits went to those places. Our gods and demons lived in those places.
It’s not easy to get outside those understandings. Often we can’t, except by logic, with some anti-logic thrown in, and hard work. Or in those rare, amazing mystical moments when all feels like one and everything is A-OK. In our everyday lives, the earth sits, rock solid, and the sun and moon go up and down.
Yet none of this is “true.” We Westerners often think that thought is the only way to truth. And it is, for some forms of truth. Yet that sort of truth leads us to being “lost in our forehead,” as Hindus put it. “All up in our head.”
We can enter the space of oneness only by thought, then the letting go of thought. Why do something so foreign? Hang on. I hope to show you why . . .
Perhaps you have heard about Antoinette Tuff, who this week single-handedly prevented a massacre at an elementary school outside of Atlanta. When a man bearing an AK-47 and a variety of other weapons came into the school where Ms. Tuff works as a clerk she did not pull out a gun and shoot him, fulfilling the NRA’s fantasies of what protection looks like. Instead, she chose to respond to the gunman as a human being, not just a crazed killer. She told him her own story of heartbreak and getting through. She prayed. She told him that there was another way out, and invited him to lay down his weapons and give himself over to the police. And he did, without hurting anyone. In case the story isn’t wonderful enough at that, she gave him the opportunity to apologize over the PA system while teachers and students were still huddled in their classrooms.
Now, if you are a proponent of the idea that the best defense is a quick offense, then you will say that this is an anomaly, and that most people with violence on their minds cannot be talked down. While I have yet to see any particular evidence that this conviction is true, it also isn’t my point. If Ms. Tuff had pulled out a gun and shot the man as soon as she saw he was dangerous, teachers and children might have been saved, but someone would still have been shot. And in my theological world every life matters, even that of the gunman. But more than that, in the world of my personal convictions, love matters. Meeting people in their full humanity matters. And the true heroes are the ones who are willing to put their lives on the line in the service of love and humanity.
Antoinette Tuff is clearly a hero. So were the teachers huddled in their classrooms, determined that no child would be hurt on their watch. But you know what? Those teachers were heroes last week, when they didn’t have any idea that their school was headed for the news. They, and countless other teachers returning to school this season, were heroes when they stayed up late designing lesson plans that would engage children in the world of counting or chemistry or world history, working to get young people excited about the process of thinking in a world that is largely more interested in teaching young people to be excited about consuming. They were heroes when they scoured the garage sales looking for books that would make teenagers want to read; when they shared their lunch with a child who didn’t have any; when they stayed in at recess to talk with a child who was acting out in class to find out the source of his anger, rather than just sending him off to the principal’s office.
In the face of systems increasingly built around record-keeping and test-taking there are teachers – not all, but many – who continue to find ways to encourage creativity and critical thinking. In the face of increasing class sizes there are still teachers who still manage to meet each child as an individual, to accommodate each child’s needs and learning style. In the face of helicopter parents, parents working multiple jobs, addicted parents, and families living on the streets, teachers are providing environments where children can experience both responsibility and security. There are teachers – and a wide variety of other school personnel – who day after day meet child after child with love and respect and an abiding interest not only in who that child is, but also in who they might become.
In my book, that’s some kind of hero.
There is an old and often told story of a child walking along a beach, picking up stranded starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. In this story, an adult encounters the child and proclaims, “you can’t save them all. Your work doesn’t make a difference.” Replies the child, continuing in her labor “I made a difference in this one’s life. And this one’s life. And this one’s life.”
It is a powerful story about the importance of small acts.
And.
And it is cultural cover for a big lie. If that child doesn’t look beyond the stranded starfish to the re-graded shoreline, she cannot realize that the starfish are being stranded because the new vacation development changed the inflow and outflow of the tide. She cannot see the new drainage line funneling the city’s contaminated runoff into the sea to which she is returning the starfish.
Beloveds, let us commit to looking beyond the need presented in front of us and ask “why is this happening? What is going unquestioned in the larger system that allows people to be hungry, wetland to be destroyed, water to become scarce?”
And while we feed those who are hungry, let those of us who are not hungry recognize that we, too, are benefitting from a system that creates hungry people. Let us wonder, together, why this is – and then begin to work with those who are hungry to change the system that creates hungry people.
It is time for a culture shift, beloveds.
And.
And we are called to be a part of the change. Let the organizing begin.
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