reminders

I am going so stir-crazy and its horrible because the more time I am at home just reading articles & books & watching shows-- the less I feel able to socialize or the will to do anything. I find myself wishing to throw myself into drama just to have a mobilizing factor. Sometimes I think we fall in love to escape our own boredom, to invent a story line for ourselves-- not that that lessens love, if just seems like we spend so much time waiting for something in our lives to be consuming, to matter. Does that make sense? For some people its religion, or a lover, or a cause. I guess we all want meaning in our life and sometimes it falls back into a just sort of existing state. I am not sure what I need to create in Baltimore, it freaks me out that I committed to staying here till next August. 14 months. What gives my life meaning here-- eventually I'll be working and giving a lot of time and energy to that... but, I don't want what I am doing to be the only defining thing. Yesterday I was at the library and this lady started talking to me-- just the smallest conversation but I could tell she wanted to talk to someone and it made me feel more alive too, to have a genuine interaction even though it wasn't deep, it was just kindness, just noticing another human being's significance in front of me. Lately in this funk I've been irritable towards my family and feeling less and less like talking to anyone- it seems energy consuming to create friendships... yet, I know that what gives me meaning is connection to others. It is so hard to keep seeing something worth exploring in any human that crosses my path. It's so easy to reduce people to an idea and dismiss them thinking I don't like that idea or "they won't get me" ... I want to be a person who lives with wide open arms, that welcomes in the stranger & the person I assume I will not like or be known by and learn how to dismantle myself for them, to see them, ask them questions. I am so miserable at that so often. I think that is a reason I have been missing Dorothy's Place (the day shelter) so much lately... because I was forced to connect to people I would never have imagined a connection too- forced to connect not over my ideals, politics, or fatih-- but just over being there, being present in that small crowded room, together, and knowing I was meeting another human- "a self that touches all edges."

rant.

Today I was excited to go to my first meet-kindred-spirits in Baltimore activity... a feminist reading group. After taking the metro, I arrived worried that I was 10min late and for some reason it was canceled this week. So feeling disappointed, I tried to get directions to a support Bradley Manning event and failed. (I always feel that any attempt at bravery should be met by an equal force of the universe extending goodwill to you, really!) But instead, I got back on the subway, and met a young man who gave me a tract/witnessed to me, then told me about how he was thinking of leaving his church because they support women in leadership and he wants to follow the true gospel. I felt like screaming, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? and ranting about patriarchy. It seems so typical, boring, and infuriating that I have to hear these perspectives & be told that God and Biblical authority support his view.

It upsets me that his sincerity, as a new and excited Christian, is warped by culture and main stream Christianity to support oppression and sexism. It was the type of interaction that represents why I feel uncomfortable in church, why two weeks ago I wanted to write a letter about inclusive language to my church pastors. Because too many people grow up with this idea that God is male and that God wants males to be overseeing women. The young man expressed genuine belief that women are equal but "different", that they might even have more wisdom, it's just not God's way for them to be in authority. (bah!)

We ended up riding the metro together while I tried to listen, encourage him to consider other perspectives and asked questions, and wondered how to be authentic in the interchange --and it was actually a good interaction.

I've been letting myself feel angry lately, sitting with it and I think this is a good place to be in and explore it.

Now I am going to watch something fierce and eat chocolate. 

as spring begins

This afternoon my parents and I planted our garden.

Yesterday I was searching for apartments in the city and trying to fend of a rising swell of panic at the expenses and fear of being trapped in the exburbs.

I've been feeling contrary. I wore my End the Occupation shirt to my parents church this morning -- not out of solidarity as much as a statement of my worldly, moral superiority. The sermon began with a long golf analogy/story and I was already feeling distant from the speaker, until we all had to stand and read from Ephesians together-- about how Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between us, which is a passage connected to so many pieces of me. As the speaker unpacked his own prejudice & pride, I wrestled with mine. Church is difficult for me. I light my candles at night and whisper my thoughts- addressing them to various names of God, read poetry & prayers (this week Adrienne Rich and Thomas Merton) & passages from scripture (unconsciously Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, & Mark). I wish church felt more like those moments. I feel defensive at church, so aware of non-inclusive language, of a million Hes and Fathers batting at me, I feel defensive at the way my worship has been manipulated in the past, I feel angry at the politics and the lack of politics. I don't want to be there, and yet, there, I know it is a growing experience to try to listen, to try to be open to the sincere experience of others in worship and gathering, to be open to this tradition that is part of my story, to be open for the Spirit ("she is the spirit of wisdom & she is truth"- as Em wrote so beautifully.) Maybe that's the point-- if church is about worshiping, perhaps the truest thing I can do is go to church with my parents, wrestle and attempt to love my neighbor as myself in the midst of church. Love is worship. 

So, I put on my to-do list... write a letter to the pastors about inclusive language.

Speak. I tell myself this. I thought in church today, I need to speak to everyone like they are someone dear to me, that I can share my whole self with, not as much diplomatically as honestly.

There are so many things I need to give voice too & want to write about (especially instead of harboring these little seeds of resentment & pride- my own wall-mortar.) When I was in Harrisonburg I visited Shalom and teared-up with joy at the sense of belonging & struggle & beauty that gathering together can be. The message was also much needed and also about walls (maybe I don't like church because I'm always convicted? Which is probably why I should keep going.)

Being home is going to be a challenge. A dear friend and I have been talking about sunday-debriefing chats-- which might be much needed. Yes, I have been feeling a bit ornery and contrary lately, but maybe this is a good mood to sit with, to explore. I am happy and anxious and curious and many things about this stage.

Things I accomplished today:

Editing a few chapters of my mom's novel
Finally unpacking and setting up my altar
Building a raised bed for my garden (using a hand saw and power drill.- learning power tool skills from my dad.)
Cooking 'compost' stir-fry like Ellie
Reading 'History Will Absolve Me' and two of Fidel Castro's other speeches
Listening to lectures on postmoderism from coursera
Watching Game of Thrones & Downton Abbey 

color

Happy till it almost hurts.


&
it always begins a quiet day, the restlessness
then this:
(might as well do what I want while the summer's still mine.)
hair chalk: brilliant.