Tonight I went to one of the many Amazing Faiths Dinner Dialogues around Houston, and it was actually pretty awesome. I was kind of conflicted about actually going, but it ended up being really powerful and lovely.

Perhaps this will be a catalyst to get me to be more active in spiritual life here.

This evening Mom and I attended the Progressive Forum again. 
Tonight the speaker was Karen Armstrong, and she was amazing. Brilliant. Incredibly well-spoken, fun to listen to, grounded in her knowledge, and beautifully eloquent. Plus bonus British accent.
But seriously, I was so moved at times during her lecture, and her answer to one of the questions during the Q&A portion had me choked up.
It reminded me with deep, loving nostalgia of the best of my class in Seminary.

Her talk was about god, in a very early sense of the word. She spoke of traditions having a special language and breathing to discuss god, the concept beyond realization. About finding the moment when one's word become too much and one is reduced to silence and awe. (Like the moment, the beat at the end of a symphony, the breath before the applause begins.)  The goal of the practice is to breathe in the silence, in the presence of that awe.
She spoke of creation stories or cosmologies as therapeutic exercises, guides for personal creativity with an emphasis on personal sacrifice. Never does something come from nothing; something always from something.
She spoke of revelation as an ongoing process. Scripture, in the Rabbinic tradition, as something to be re-interpreted for and by each generation.
She spoke of the complementary relationship in pre-16th century society between logos and mythos. Logos as knowledge, science, the physical reality. Myth as a way to deal with inner issues, emotion, pain, despair, psyche. Myth as a program for action. Religion, she said, is like dancing - a skill requiring practice.  A belief is not enough. And belief as a word did not mean then what it did now, but represented a commitment, love, dedication, a doing.
She spoke of dialogue as a spiritual exercise in the Socratic tradition, its goal to realize the profundity of human ignorance, and from there begin to seek wisdom. She said that one difficulty we have now is that instead of proceeding in the dialogue with gentleness, as Socrates said, these days we feel the need not only to win, to prove our knowledge, but also to humiliate our opponents.
And of course, she spoke of compassion. She is developing a Charter for Compassion online. (See the page at the TED prize about her wish.)

One of the most intriguing and resonant things she said, to me, was about the need for silence.  Specifically inner silence as a place of spiritual revelation and knowing. This reminded me so much of one of the books that was formative to my young spirituality, Sati by Christopher Pike. We are all god, and this can be discovered in silence.

When asked to describe her idea of god:
"I try not to have any ideas of god at all." She does not wish to 'domesticate the transcendence', but to keep it in the realm of music, poetry, etc. She feels intimations of awe and wonder during the day: "I do feel touched within, but what that is I don't know - and it's better not to ask."

At the very end she spoke about hope for the future in the face of so much misunderstanding and upheaval.

In short, it was an awesome evening.

Also, happy happy birthday to my awesome Dad. :)

Every year for Mother's Day, this is the hope I post. Let us make of today and everyday a remembrance and an ongoing labor toward peace and tolerance.

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation, written in 1870:

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Mom came in earlier to ask me where I was going to put my altar in my newly re-arranged room.  She asked about what goes on an altar (did I need some doilies? -- this is a running family joke), and I mentioned that I didn't have all my tools yet, missing a ritual knife.
So she goes off and comes back holding several small folding knives with mother-of-pearl handles that belonged to her mother. Now I have two of them on my shelf with my wand, chalice, candles and incense.
She also reminded me that I have a 3-or-so foot tall plaster column with a Corinthian capital left at the house from my younger days, and did I want it back? Perhaps it would make a good altar. So I moved that into my room, too.
Peter had to work today, and Hillary is off with her family, but they are going to be home tonight to spend time with us. Hopefully we will play some games.

There have been so many funny little moments that I'd love to share, but I find they don't all translate very well to screen.  You'll all just have to take my word for the fact that we're mostly enjoying our time, even though we aren't really having Christmas as such.

Now I'm going to work on more art, and write out some cards to send during the Epiphany and pre-Imbolc season.

An absolute fairy-tale wedding weekend it was, too. 



( more photos beneath )

Ali & James Wedding Set on Flickr (aka Lando goes to New York!)

Still no power.

The wedding was amazing and wonderful, just a fairy tale experience. However, I had not thought ahead well enough (and I packed in the dark), because it was *cold* in the Catskills in the evenings and at night. I had to borrow clothes to stay warm.
Other than the cool weather, it was a beautiful weekend full of old friends and new, and the ceremony itself was wonderful.  Photos to come, although I didn't actually take as many as I thought I did. Mostly I took loads and loads of Lando. As his fairy godmother, this is entirely right and proper, but I really did think I had more general shots.  Hee. 
Donna, Jon, and I rented a car for the trip and Jon drove while I navigated. So Jon, in true Star Trek style, called me "Number One."  Fun times. I got to do some awesome dancing, including a jitterbug with Renee and some Charleston styling.  w00t! 
My tummy did not behave for the entire weekend but at least it didn't start being really bad until after the reception. And the caterers very kindly had gluten-free exceptions set aside for me among the regular hors d'oeuvres so yay them.

Now it's back to work. Whee.

Hooray!
It was a fun and wonderful and moving weekend, even though Tropical Storm Hanna got the reception just a bit wet.  Behold, more photos beneath the cut:
( Read more... )


Also, apropos of nothing but my frustration with the batch editor in Flickr and my own dorkitude, it sucks to have your camera set to the wrong year for something like this.  :P

Mom has declared that if there is no baseball involved, then the science fiction can't be spiritual, so that list we were talking about earlier? Totally wrong. Except Sisko, of course. And Babylon 5, thank goodness.

In other news, we watched the first part of the season finale of Doctor Who (because we are Luddites who wait for it to show on SciFi, and wonder of wonders I have managed to stay largely unspoiled thanks to LJ-cuts) and... wow. Want next part.

[Beware - random rambling and completely tangential ranting! Seriously, why do I blather about something so ridiculous?]

So, beliefnet has put up a "Top Ten Greatest Spiritual Figures in Science Fiction" without putting in any sort of disclaimer that they are actually only referencing filmed science fiction, as in movies or TV.

Leaving aside for the moment (with effort) the fact that they're cutting themselves off at the knees to ignore written science fiction, they also seem to have a focus on benevolence and/or destiny that I suppose is just expected over at happy beliefnet land. Too few of their choices struggle, doubt, or encounter complex or negative consequences to their devotion. Isn't it a bit annoying to see that time after time the person with the "destiny" or the person with the blind and devoted faith end up being right/redeemed/saved/lauded/saving the world?

I'm not saying that saving the world is a bad thing, or that saving the world as a spiritual character is bad. I love a world-saving spiritual figure as much as the next person, as long as I don't have to start worshiping them, too. 

Or maybe I am just bitter because of the omissions on the list in favor of choices that seem like pandering to the mainstream pop culture? (Come on, David from A.I.? Really? John Connor in the Top Ten? And whatsisname preacher man from Contact? OMG, read the book! I didn't like the way the movie spun that sub-plot at all. Although of course now I can't actually remember everything that happened. Hm. Well, when has that ever stopped me from going on a tear?)

I'm not sure I like the language that seems to indicate that faith is always a good and benevolent force in society or in science fiction, especially when it works in tandem with science. Faith is just as much a hallmark of the villain, or the ambiguous figures, and some of the most interesting antagonists in any genre are those who are not evil, simply opposed to the goal of the protagonist. Where are the characters whose spiritual growth comes from having their faith questioned or destroyed and having to rebuild themselves and their worldview from the ground up? (Keeping in mind that I don't watch Lost and haven't seen enough Battlestar Galactica to know about those two characters. Perhaps they redeem the whole list.)

Lisa suggested that I make my own Top Ten. Hmmm. That's actually really hard. I would probably have to do a very serious definition of my idea of a great spiritual character so that I myself would know whether or not to put, say, Indiana Jones or Lt. Cmdr. Data on it. I could probably do a whole list of spiritual characters from just Babylon 5. I think I'd have to decide whether, like beliefnet, a spiritual character needs to have a defined system of belief, or if it is enough for them to simply exist in a way that was spiritually fulfilling/morally consistent/involved some fundamental spiritual change or re-evaluation during the course of the character's story that brings greater fulfilment and inspiration to the audience.

I don't think Yoda would make my Top Ten.

I think too much.
 
Oh, well.

We all lost a great man and a great fighter for social justice.

If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness.

And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.  You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, and a soul generated by love.

[...]

Every now and then I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator—that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning.

If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school.

I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.

I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.

I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question.

I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry.

And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked.

I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.

I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.

Excerpt from "The Drum Major Instinct", a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, on 4 February 1968

I have a set of CDs of his speeches and sermons, and hearing it in his voice is quite amazing.
He was a fighter and a rabble-rouser himself, who did those great things but never lost sight of the people he was helping - not only the Civil Rights struggle on behalf of black Americans but social justice for all people.

And if you haven't in a while, go take a look and a listen at King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

MLK, Jr - more than the sanitized newsroom icon...

Stoning King - CommonDreams.org:

King offered damning indictments not only of racism, but of capitalism, of militarism — and of nationalism and imperialism; this is most clear in his speeches against the Vietnam War in the last year of his life:

"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. … There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, ‘Be nonviolent toward [Selma, Ala. sheriff] Jim Clark!’ but will curse and damn you when you say, ‘Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children!’ There is something wrong with that press! …

“To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. …

“I’m convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. … When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. … True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation.”

In case anybody was really in any doubt, more reasons to run screaming from a Huckabee candidacy:

Huck, the Constitution and 'God's standards' - First Read - msnbc.com:

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

My mother regularly wakes me up on the weekends by shrieking.  I have 3.7 seconds of absolute panic and then I realize, "Oh, it's the baseball/football/soccer/fill-in-sport-here game." 

Apparently, watching TV with Mom and me is very difficult.  We've been watching Tin Man on Sci-Fi for past two nights, and making snarky comments.  Mom and I snark about the names; the dialogue; the acting; the internal story logic.  And every time Dad sighs and mutters, "Can't you just suspend your disbelief for a couple of hours and enjoy the presentation?" Well, we are enjoying the presentation. And snarking at it.
I do wonder on occasion if this interpretation would make any more sense if I read the books. But on the whole, probably not.

This morning there was ice on my car.  On Sunday when I took out the trash it was muggy and I was in a tank top and flip-flops.  Today there was ice on my car.  Thank you, East Texas weather.  If you don't like it, just wait. 

My office is having a door decorating contest for the holidays.  I want to do something Solstice-y.  Any ideas?

Also, Happy Hanukkah! 

We have begun the Season of Light.  (I know because my neighbors down the road have a giant illuminated inflatable Santa on a Harley in their yard.  If that doesn't scream "Season of Light!" I just don't know what does.) 

And in the spirit of Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men (hey, it's not my holiday slogan, but it's a pretty good one), Banksy returns to Bethlehem at the BBC In Pictures.  Be sure to click through them all.

Tonight at the Tarot Meetup we had a speaker about psychometry, and she did some demos with objects we'd brought in.   I gave her an egg cup that had been my grandmother's, and she proceeded to totally blow me away with detailed info.  I mean, really pointed stuff that was utterly correct. Some things were slightly off, but on the whole the impression was amazing.  (For example, she made a couple of comments and then paused, hefted the cup thoughtfully, and said, "Did she have diabetes?"  Woah, dude.  That's what killed her.) 

I also showed a lot of people my version of the Star a la Harry Potter, and was told that I should look into deck publication (by the psychic, no less!).  Well, I think any hifalutin' thoughts like that will have to wait until I have more than one sample card.   But it was nice to hear that everyone liked the work (with a few really great suggestions for tweaks) and thought the project was fun and exciting.
I had a fantastic Wizarding Rock conversation with Colleen and Bobby, as well, which was nice because how often in random non-fannish meetups do you come across an adult person who knows what Wizarding Rock is, let alone listens to it avidly and treks all over the country to go to concerts? 
Ah, fandom. 

I also won the door prize this month!  Woot!  Free book! 
Plus when I got home, the Black Death was waiting for me!  He is so cute!  I'm debating whether he should stay at home or come with me to the office. 

If anybody out there wants to be in on the Harry Potter Tarot debate (and uses Google Docs), I am allowing collaborators on my planning document.  If you really want to read it without commenting, I can make viewers as well.  I just ask that commenters choose a text or highlight color and identify it at the top, and that nobody delete any comments that are already there.   

I think the next card I'll work on is The Moon.  It's one of the least debated.  The Moon and The Tower are, in fact, the two easiest cards.  They are pretty much explicitly handed to us within the pages of the books. 

For my personal deck choices, the next least-debated card is Justice.   So perhaps those three could round out my goals for the pre-holiday weeks.  With those and my two fanon-based gift illustrations, I have a pretty full slate. 

Arrr, me hearties, on today of all days:

Fight Global Warming, Become a Pirate!

Hip Hop Caucus: Rev. Yearwood Released, Charged With Assault - Part of Increasing Capitol Hill Crackdown On Voices of Dissent:

"How am I supposed to convince other African-Americans to come to Capitol Hill to participate in democracy, when Capitol Police will go so far as to jump me when I question my exclusion from a hearing that is open to the public? We all know what 'driving while Black' is, well I'd call this 'democracy while Black.'"

Go read the stories. Watch the video. Then tell me what you think about the LA Times version of events.

Suddenly, there was scuffling. A clot of Capitol police coagulated in the hallway. In the middle was the Rev. Lennox Yearwood, an antiwar activist who had apparently attempted to push his way into the hearing room and was wrestled to the floor.

Or the Washington Post version:

the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., of the D.C.-based Hip Hop Caucus, who allegedly refused to move back after jumping in front of a line of people waiting to get inside the room. He was charged with disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer, Capitol Police said.

The only two major news outlets I found in a (granted, quick and dirty) search of Google News for "Rev. Yearwood Congress" got it wrong, and not just wrong but maliciously wrong. Only independent, "liberal", or protest news venues covered the whole thing.

Democracy Now! has been covering this from the start, and had Rev. Yearwood on the program this morning. It's really disturbing that events have progressed to the point that "public discourse" is limited - forcibly - to those members of the public and those topics of discourse that come pre-approved by government agents.

We have an election coming up. It's not the 2008 election that obsesses the news media and the popular imagination (what little of it is left after Reality TV, video games, and social networking get through), but it's our democracy on the line even so. Americans, go vote this November. And every time your section of the country votes, go make your mark on your corner of this democracy.

This article asks profound questions and underscores the lack of true tolerance in the nation (and the world?) today. As an interfaith minister this is one of the times I really feel that lack.  The idea that a profession of faith, any faith, sincere or insincere, is automatically morally superior to atheism is extremely uncomfortable to me.   As if religious morality hasn't led us all into a morass of violence and recrimination. 
Addressing atheism was one of the (many, I grant) places where my short seminary training let me down.  For a group positing tolerance and understanding among people, somehow they still manage to slice off little bits of humanity. 
I'm actually reminded a bit of my Epicurean days (circa 2000), when I believed down to my bones that the soul was mortal and this single animated existence was my only mark upon the universe.  Perhaps the well-known adage, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die," would have been better rendered, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we end, and all chances for physical or spiritual experience cease."    This is life, right now, this moment, the conscious experience of emotions and sensations distinct from any idea of God or afterlife.*  Afterlife is just that: after life.  Live first, and respect those who do so with no anticipation of later reward, but simply to revel in this marvelous experience of being human. 

Matthew Chapman: At Last A Comic Book Atheist Hero - Living Now on The Huffington Post:

Pat Tillman, an extraordinarily square-jawed football player who gave up a lucrative professional life to go and fight for his country, was at first hailed as a hero by a military eager for good publicity. When it was discovered Tillman died as a result of "friendly fire" -- he was shot at close range in the forehead, which seems a little too friendly -- his family pressed hard for a more thorough investigation.

Lt. Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, an officer with responsibilities for Tillman's unit, complained that his relatives were being so insistent because, like Pat, they were atheists.

*Full Disclosure: I am not an atheist.  I have a religion, although it isn't a mainstream practice.  As part of that religion, I believe in the concept of panentheism, the Divine immanent in the universe as well as transcending it.  For me the energy/spirit that lives in every cell in my body is the Ultimate Reality, which some call "God" (and others call Physics).  But for the purposes of this paragraph, and the article to which I link, "God" is a word describing a particular, discrete deity-type, the Jehovah/Father of the Abrahamic traditions.  With that type in mind, I do believe that the experience of life on all its levels - spiritual, mental, physical, emotional - is distinct from God and the afterlife. 

Crossposted to The Soul Unfolds

My flight leaves at 7:30. I have to be on the road with Dad by 5 to get to the airport. Oh, how I hate flying from Bush. Rar.
Wish me safe (and prompt and relatively stress-free) travel, as I wing my way to BWI and thence to the haven of FSG. Hurrah. Can't wait to see the girls again.
I hope I have packed everything I will need. I am paranoid about this.

Now to finish up Saturnalia before I get going.

(cross-posted to The Soul Unfolds.)

In the tarot, The Star card is often encapsulated in a single word: Hope. The Star offers a respite from the deconstruction and self-examination of Death, The Devil, The Tower. The Star reminds us of our inner strength and calls us to a higher spiritual self.
That's why I call Maxine Hong Kingston a star in the subject of this post. I just watched her interview with Bill Moyers on PBS. She has created a community of healing through her workshop, Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, a gathering of people suffering through trauma and pain, many of them veterans of Vietnam. These people have found healing and a measure of peace through writing.
Maxine and Bill discussed the transformative power of story, especially of writing our stories. One thing that she said stuck with me. By writing our stories we take the chaotic and random memories and emotions of our lives and give them shape. We create a form, and that form can then be communicated to another person. Communication creates connection creates compassion. The authors and poets featured in their anthology have used writing as healing, have saved their lives and created a place to which others can turn for hope.

MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: That what I mean is that when people share their stories and they share their hardships, that all of us will listen. We'll help carry the burden. And so, after writing in such a way, in which we release our feelings we take the-- something that happened chaotically in the past. Or it happened so subtly, that at the time, you hardly notice you're-- there's no time to think it over.

But later, 39 years later, putting it into words, slowly-- understanding one's own feelings, and understanding the point of view of others. And shaping what happened into a form and this form is a beautiful form. The form of a story, the form of a poem -- after immersing one's self in all of that, then there comes the understanding, recognition, reconciliation.

I am awed and amazed by Maxine Hong Kingston, not only for coming through her own trauma by creating this healing community, but for her way of expressing those concepts about writing and the healing power of story. Human beings are creatures of story. We live in story, and by taking control of the story, giving it shape through our thoughtful expression, we quite literally create our worlds.
Perhaps no one short story anthology will stop a war. No single non-violent protest will end all violence forever. But by sharing ourselves, by becoming beings of peace ourselves, by baring our truths to our community, we create a small circle of peace. That circle can expand as our communities do, as our communications do, until like the ripples left by a pebble in a still pond, the circle reaches the very edge of possibility. There lies the power to change the universe.

You can watch video of the program or read a transcript (and more than just Maxine, other contributors to the anthology are interviewed and several excerpts and poems are read) at the Bill Moyers Journal website.

Last night was another great evening for the Houston Tarot Meetup.  We discussed three more cards (The Tower, The Star, The Moon) and had some really great insights.  I am in love with The Tower now.
I also got an incredible reading from one of the ladies there.  She used three decks to do some very intriguing personality readings, things that were so spot-on I was disturbed.  But the reading on the whole was very positive.
I also did a reading for someone there, another pretty much total stranger, and the reading prompted a lot of fascinating statements from me that came out of *nowhere*, but apparently were totally relevant.  That connection to intuition during a reading is one of the experiences that makes me believe in Powers beyond human ken, because there is no way to get that breadth of life stories out of ten picture cards, no matter how detailed the pictures. 
So, a great meeting.  Lovely people, exciting discussions, intriguing insights.
And at least two people are looking at my spread for Lidiya.  Interesting stuff coming up there, too.