finally!

Remember the Rebelution?
Well, you can browse the results now.

I feel so... edified.

thanks for all the tips

Ford looked stunned.
"Where have you been?" he demanded.
"Making some coffee," said Arthur, still wearing his very placid face. He had long ago realized that the only way of being in Ford's company successfully was to keep a large stock of very placid faces and wear them at all times.
From So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish


Tonight, at the Roadhouse:
Guest, with menu open: So, your Rattlesnake Bites... are they real rattlesnakes?
Me, with placid face secured: No, they're made with cheese and jalapeño peppers.
Guest, obviously disappointed and confused: Oh. Well, if it's not real rattlesnake, I guess we'll just take a Cactus Blossom.
Me, not out loud: That's not actually a cactus; it's made out of an onion.

Placid faces = Useful inventions.


Oh, and while I wouldn't expect anything called The Gender Genie to disappoint me, playing with it was tons of fun and even reasonably accurate.

The Gift

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he'd removed
the iron sliver I thought I'd die from.

I can't remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy's palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife's right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he's given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

-Li-Young Lee

ash wednesday

In the deep stillness of prayer my soul fasts. Fasting, at its heart, is turning away from what keeps me from God. Two things I must leave: the walls I build around the space that was made to be God's dwelling; the absurdities I keep in that space, so jealously hoarded. Taking down the wall that protects the false self I have been building, all these years ... risking exposure, emptiness, loneliness.

The fast is silence, ocean-deep and prolonged. Shard by shard, the wall begins to fall. Inch by inch, the space clears, and Love lights the shadows.... In letting go is abundance. In emptying I am filled. This is not denial, but freedom. Fast is feast.

-JoAnn Staebler

a Klashnikov and a black hose

As I write this, Oprah is on Channel 4 (one of the MBC channels we get on Nilesat), showing Americans how to get out of debt. Her guest speaker is telling a studio full of American women who seem to have over-shopped that they could probably do with fewer designer products. As they talk about increasing incomes and fortunes, Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking as she speaks. In the end she tells the reporter that she can’t talk about it anymore and she covers her eyes with shame.

-Link. River's blog is consistently one of the most horrifying things I've ever read.

long drive to Scot's house

I drove out to Scot's house last night, after a 6.5 hour shift at the Roadhouse, because I love his chickens t--h--i--s m--u--c--h.

Not really. The chickens are fun, but I'm a much bigger fan of the cat.

The first thing I did, upon arrival, was get my truck stuck in the snow. Funny thing about that; I was just telling a friend that all my arrogance over my winter driving skills would come back to haunt me. And there I was, all stuck and whatnot.

The second thing I did was swear loudly, and the third thing I did was make a cup of tea. After that it gets boring, and my nose was cold.

It's a long drive out to Scot and Jen's house, but the nice thing about it is getting Richmond, Dayton, and Cincinnatti radio stations relatively well. I appreciate having my scanning opportunities enhanced; each new station represents a higher chance that I won't be disgusted with the song they're playing.

Home played as I drove through Eaton, complete with the obligatory 'does every train in America have to go through Eaton, because it feels like I always have to stop at this crossing' experience. If you go here you can listen to the song yourself.

And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
“I’m fine baby, how are you?”
Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that

I owe my sisters Valentine's Day cards, I'm told, since I had snowdays on which to complete them. (And they aren't allowed to be Violentine's Day cards, even though that would be vastly more amusing.) I can make them belated ones, or just start now on some goofy Ash Wednesday cards; my mom wouldn't approve, but Kim at least would think they were great.

So I've been thinking about my sisters, and thinking about home... hardly suprising topics. Buble seems to be singing to a person who is home to him, rather than to a place. I tinkered with the idea that a person could be home for me. Maybe that's how I think of my sisters, or maybe it's how I could think of some dreamboat fellow like the guy who left his number with the bartender last night.

Maybe not, though. That's a lot of load for someone else to bear, to be home for me.

What would it mean to think of God as my home?

storytime

The wife of a man became very sick. On her deathbed, she said to him, "I love you so much! I don't want to leave you, and I don't want you to betray me. Promise that you will not see any other women once I die, or I will come back to haunt you."

For several months after her death, the husband did avoid other women, but then he met someone and fell in love. On the night that they were engaged to be married, the ghost of his former wife appeared to him. She blamed him for not keeping the promise, and every night thereafter she returned to taunt him. The ghost would remind him of everything that transpired between him and his fiancee that day, even to the point of repeating, word for word, their conversations. It upset him so badly that he couldn't sleep at all.

Desperate, he sought the advice of a Zen master who lived near the village. "This is a very clever ghost," the master said upon hearing the man's story. "It is!" replied the man. "She remembers every detail of what I say and do. It knows everything!" The master smiled, "You should admire such a ghost, but I will tell you what to do the next time you see it."

That night the ghost returned. The man responded just as the master had advised. "You are such a wise ghost," the man said, "You know that I can hide nothing from you. If you can answer me one question, I will break off the engagement and remain single for the rest of my life." "Ask your question," the ghost replied. The man scooped up a handful of beans from a large bag on the floor, "Tell me exactly how many beans there are in my hand."

At that moment the ghost disappeared and never returned.

-Link

important phone numbers

It was snowing as I drove to work last night. It wasn't a heavy snow, but the roads weren't plowed either, so conditions weren't great. There was a fellow walking up Rt.40 in the same direction I was driving so I stopped to pick him up.

He didn't speak much English, and my Spanish hasn't improved since I nearly failed it in college. He and I shared words to complain about the snow and the cold, and he asked if I was married or had babies, but we weren't able to communicate on an issue of great importance to both of us: where was he going? I thought he was heading to the mall, but he motioned me to drive past it. On down Rt.40 we went, and then turned around, headed back, taking turns at the wild gesturing and frustrated laughter.

Finally, he got me to stop at Hobby Lobby. I don't think that's where he was going, but at least he got to warm up a bit in my truck. He said something, and I tried to indicate that I didn't understand, which greatly disappointed him.

"You no like Mexicans?" he asked.

All my year and a half at ESR kicked in. What could be worse than accidentally representing myself as disliking someone based on ethnic group? So I replied, "no, no, I like Mexicans!"

"You like Mexicans to marry? Ella es muy bonita. My name is Jorge. Let me give number..." and he proceeded to tell me his phone number, which I promptly forgot because:
a) I don't remember phone numbers
b) I don't have a phone anyway, and
c) I didn't intend to call him.

So, I finally got to the Roadhouse, twenty minutes late. My lateness went unnoticed, because most of Richmond was panicking over the strange white stuff falling from the sky rather than coming for steak and beer. I clocked in, poured myself some coffee, and settled down on a stack of peanut boxes to read for class.

Toward the end of the first chapter, Paulsell notes that one of the most difficult of Jesus' teachings, that our helping others in need is helping him and that our ignoring others in need is ignoring him, is really an embodied command. It's about loving people in their bodies, whether they need food, clothing, shelter, or anything else.

That's all well and good, but what stood out to me was that Jesus had just told me that I was very pretty and offered me his phone number, and I hadn't even had the sense to write it down. I could have aced a prayer class with that one. Everyone else could have been labyrinth walking or chanting or whatever, and I'd just be looking for a phone...

"Hey Jesus, it's Julie. Remember me? I picked you up off the side of Rt.40 in the snow, once."
"Hm, yes, little red truck, dirty and made a lot of noise, heat was on but the fan didn't work? Am I remembering the right Julie?
"Well... yeah that's me."
"You dumped me in the Hobby Lobby parking lot because you didn't have the patience to learn my language."
"um..."
"I've got grace for the language issue, but you need to get your fan fixed. And seriously, vacuum. There's no reason to have that much hay on the floor of your truck when you live in a city.

Next time, next time I'll have paper and pen ready.

snowday squared

My dad, his truck, and a *lot* of snow.

In other news, I'm enjoying my second snowday in a row. It's a beautiful day: the air is crisp, the roads are what passes for plowed in Richmond, and the sun has even come out to sparkle on the new snow. I showed up at school for class today, assuming it wouldn't be canceled because, well, it's a beautiful day. And I could get bald-tired Barbwire out of the snowbank without even using a shovel, so why would school be canceled?

Ah, Indiana. What a great day.

one of ESR's favorite dead horses to beat

"Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are."
-Augustine of Hippo

ahem - now with pictures!

THE LAKE SNOW BAND WILL SWING BACK TO THE EASTERN SHORE OF LAKE ONTARIO AND BRING THE HEAVY SNOW TO THE REGIONS WHICH HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED CLOSE TO OR MORE THAN 100 INCHES. SNOW RATES WILL BE AROUND 2 INCHES PER HOUR AND MAY REACH 4 INCHES PER HOUR WITH ADDITIONAL SNOWFALL REACHING 3 TO 4 FEET OVER CENTRAL AND NORTHERN OSWEGO COUNTY BY MONDAY.
-link

That's my family, under the snow. They'll have good stories, I'm sure, better than 'Indiana folks don't know how to drive.'

Update: Ok, not my pictures. But my friend Lindsey took pictures of digging her car out of the snow.

in my email this morning

Sowing Hope, by Wendell Berry

In the dark of the moon,
In the flying snow,
In the dead of winter,
War spreading,
Families dying,
The world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside
Sowing clover.

pre-grumble announcement

But the fact that we're seeing a black candidate who seems infinitely more relaxed with himself than his female competitor speaks volumes about just how much we're likely to punish women who step outside the bounds of corporate-flavored gravitas.

Part of this is Clinton's own fault — the very act of saying "you keep telling me to be funny" is depressing evidence of her burdensome self-consciousness. But then again, female humor is easily bent into the worst cliches about women. Funny men, after all, are considered smart, confident and sexy. But wisecracking chicks risk accusations of bitterness, hormonal instability and the assumption (no matter what they look like) that they're using wit to compensate for physical unattractiveness.

-Link

This just reminded me about chapel tomorrow: led entirely by women, with only women speaking. I want to be excited- I'm all about people being able to hear their call to ministry without being slapped down for their gender- but I have a feeling I'll be grumbly afterward.

So, if you're in a mood to listen to a few hours of agitated gender theory tomorrow, take me out to lunch! That's my point. Because a free lunch is a good lunch.

busted out the markers

I've been drawing the same cartoon characters since high school, more or less, without paying much attention to them. None of them have names, and while all of them are somehow me, their individual personalities are rather diffuse. I'm taking Spirituality and the Body now, though, so I've been looking at them a little more closely. This one tends to hold who I am more than the rest, and what stands out to me now is how large her eyes are- up on stalks and looking at everything.

She's also got hips. Just sayin'.

I busted out the markers because pieces of a poem I posted before were in my head:

...I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray...

...Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go...

...a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

Not done; I labeled that post 'inauspicious beginings,' but that actually sounds rather encouraging. I am not done.

My recent attraction to this poem is all tied up with what Hugo wrote on conversion and regret. I'm struck by his words on forgiveness, in particular, but not in any way that I can articulate yet.

For something completely different: "...and then he's shouting that my astronauts were living together in sin and that they deserved to be mulched!" -Aqua Teen Hunger Force!

God's Wheel

God says to me with a kind of smile,
"Hey how would you like to be God awhile
And steer the world?"
"Okay," says I, "I'll give it a try.
Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?"
"Gimme back that wheel," says God.
"I don't think you're quite ready yet."
-Shel Silverstein

Letter from Soledad Prison

Hm. And hm again.

Speaking of imprisonment, we had some snow last night. Not a lot, but some. It stopped around seven, so I assumed that I'd be able to drive on a major road when I got out of work at eight-thirty.

But no- this is Richmond. The road was still covered with snow, and my bald-tired truck and I had an adventure getting home. I could hear my dad sitting next to me: Hold it steady. Don't brake, downshift. Watch that moron fishtailing in the Civic. Turn the radio off, singing is a distraction.

I left the radio on, but we made it home alright anyhow.

swirly guy said it

These aren't particularly funny cartoons from today's Ethics class. We're reading Hauerwas, which is great, but it took time and coffee to bring me to a point where I wanted to draw something other than pillows and blankets. The quote is from class, part of a larger image given about rules falling from the sky.

Hauerwas rejects both deontological and teleological ethics in favor of a narrative approach; our ethics are formed not by rules, nor by consideration of the common good, but by the stories that we tell one another within community. I'm not sure why he juxtaposes deontological with teleological, rather than with axiological, but on a broader level he sounds more like a sociologist than a theologian or philosopher anyway.

If our ethics are relative to the stories we tell one another, then sin would be telling a different story, tweaking the narrative somehow. I'm not sure what I think of Hauerwas, overall, but I can relate to a sense of my self as consisting of all the stories I've told and been told, stories about my family, about my church, about what it means to be from Upstate NY and what it means to be Julie. And when I step out of that story, I step out of myself. I feel smaller, scattered, and insecure.

The story goes on, though; the trick is the telling it.