we invited authoritarianism into our homes and promised not to whimper while it danced on our necks.

it's understandable that pittsburgh was excited and optimistic about the prospect of hosting the g20.

if the world thinks of our fair city at all, it's generally in terms of air pollution and industry long gone, or of sports: the stanley cup champion pittsburgh penguins, the six-time super bowl champion pittsburgh steelers and, of course, the magnificent PNC park. nice distinctions and all, but not really saying much for the actual city itself and its inhabitants. meanwhile, the economy is in hell -- the handbasket burned long ago, and now it's just us. a little political distinction and glamour couldn't hurt, right? especially given that we're somewhat ahead of the curve on the whole recession thing, and frankly, we've been waiting for someone to acknowledge that fact.

right. except that we aren't DC. when we move here or choose to stay, pittsburghers are not willingly signing our lives away to be on city lockdown, overrun by police and tourists with agendas, unable to get to work or school or wherever. i'm a little bit of a spectacle junkie, and even i was overwhelmed, frustrated, disturbed and eventually infuriated by the events of what was basically a long weekend.

the issues, as i see them, in no particular order:

1. by the time it got here, it was played out.

the upshot of springing a major political event on a city like pittsburgh? it was all anyone (and i do mean anyone) talked about for a good two weeks before hand. too much. overkill.

2. traffic.

you know that line from grease where sandy tries a cigarette for the first time and rizzo says, "you shoudn't inhale unless you're used to it"? unless you've already been driving here for 2+ full years, you and everyone you encounter is screwed when you get behind the wheel.

also, see #1 -- most of that two weeks of chatter was about how awful the traffic was going to be. yes, we know. just awful. everyone's life will be ruined. so tragic. handle it.

also, i know people were moving around a little, what with fancy dinner at phipps and all, but literally everywhere i turned on thursday was blocked by police cars. i drove in three separate complete circles between my house and my coffee fix, and i am a pro at east end driving. no good.

3. the lingering post-steel era identity crisis.

yes, the city wanted the publicity, and yes, pittsburgh and pittsburghers wanted to be hospitable, and we felt guilty about that because it's supposedly a blue collar town and we don't need 'em cloggin' up dahntahn n'at. but we're also good, solid, respectable, PROUD folk, and we wanted to show that we're just as good and capable and welcoming as any other city. after all, as has repeatedly been mentioned, when reporters heard the g20 would be held here, they laughed -- to which pittsburgh said, "bring it on! we'll show you!" ...following which it privately muttered, "ugh, this is going to be SUCH a burden."

grateful or ungrateful? pittsburgh welcomes the world, or pittsburgh really wishes you'd all please just go home now? working-class, blue collar pride, or up-and-coming, successful city pride? we're pretty torn about all of it.

4. police state.

if you've wondered to yourself, "what exactly does 'g20' mean?" i'll tell you. it means cops. cops cops cops cops cops. more cops than you've ever seen in your life. in riot gear. looking either extremely dangerous or extremely bored. everywhere. on horseback, with dogs, on balconies, around corners, in shops. constant sirens.

by the way, a lot of these cops were from out of town. normally i'd say, well, okay, what's the difference?

a scenario: it's 2 am. you're on foot. you need to walk four blocks straight ahead, but the way is shut, so to speak, by two police cars. you ask the officers for a suggested alternate route. their suggestion involves walking through polish hill and the hill district. you are tired, and do not have a death wish. what do you do? (yes, this happened, though not to me.)

5. "i'm mad as hell and i'm not going to take this anymore"-itis.

what makes a protester?

there are things i'm not thrilled about (or, inversely, things i'm passionate about). i've participated in demonstrations and rallies and marches and whatnot. i've even traveled to other cities for them on occasion. here's a cool fact, though: each of those demonstrations or rallies or marches had a stated purpose.

there were some legitimate, well-planned, well-executed, coherent demonstrations during g20fest. to the best of my knowledge, those did not result in broken windows, lit dumpsters, stolen property, et cetera.

there were also some extremely poorly planned, poorly executed, totally incoherent protests and... let's call them "situations" that arose. it's an economic summit, not a catch-all soapbox opportunity. if you don't have an aim, you're going to miss. man, did some people miss.

6. the complex guilt factor.

cops are (mostly) blue collar, which we respect. but they're also cops, and they're EVERYWHERE, which is, you know, off-putting.

protesters represent the everyman, which we're all about, but the whole destruction of property thing -- not kosher.

where do you turn when your relatively quiet, happy little east end neighborhood morphs into a freakish police state and an aimlessly destructive mob target overnight? where is the third option?

right, there isn't one. everyone i've heard talk about this, including myself, sounds either like a raging conservative hick or a raging liberal anarchist. and most of us switch back and forth depending on the piece of the puzzle being discussed at that moment. it's more than a little bit sickening.

7. the obama voter's sellout dilemma.

pittsburgh votes democrat. fact. obama's got the steelers jersey and pens jersey to prove it. we love the man. obviously, politicians are politicians and there's nothing to be done about it, but as politicians go, he's a damn decent man. so when he invites the world to our doorstep to show us off, we blush a little and invite them all in.

the problem is, tony norman is right (again). we looked this thing right in the face and instead of really seeing it for what it was, we checked our reflection in its aviator sunglasses and considered what we'd look like in the media (remember, the camera adds ten pounds).


i have a sense that pittsburgh will experience positive effects from the g20 being here, though i couldn't say what those will be, and we may or may not recognize them when we see them. and at very least we can say that it didn't bring the city to the ground.

it was andy warhol, a pittsburgh native, who said in 1968 that, "in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." as a city, we're going on a bit more than fifteen at this point, but the subtext rings true: it's all in flashes, and the value of the minutes themselves is questionable, or perhaps irrelevant. around here, the g20 was a big deal; elsewhere in the US, not so much. the spotlight matters to the one in it, not to the audience. while warhol is often quoted either cynically or to with an implication of glamour, i like to think that what matters about the fifteen minutes is not the time itself, but the reflection and self-evaluation that happens afterward.

so what have we learned here?

you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here

yeah i said it.

there are a number of reasons that i'm not out there demonstrating. it's kind of new to me -- seeing some major forms of demonstration going on right around me and not having anything to do with it other than as an observer. (it actually reminds me a little bit of walking to class in athens, though most activists there had their act together.) the main reason is that, well, a lot of what i heard and read about prior to the start of the g-20 was extremely vague -- not in direction, but in purpose. i thought the idea of a "catch-all" protest seemed irresponsible, counterproductive for everyone, and disorganized, and decided to stay out of it.

this is not me bragging: i was right.

this is what's supposedly going on right now.

this is the angry drunk bureaucrat's open letter to g-20 protesters.

protesters, i hear you. we hear you. but you're going about this all wrong, and this is the result.

you're not in new york and you're not in DC. you're in the steel city, and people here not only don't like it when their neighborhoods and livelihoods are attacked by a bunch of out-of-towners in ski masks, they downright hate you for it. pittsburgh may not be massively patriotic in the national sense, but it's practically foaming at the mouth with hometown pride, and here you are attacking everything we've got and care about. i and many others will support you in assembling and demonstrating and making noise and blocking traffic, but starting fires and hurling "human waste" and rocks is over the line.

if you need help planning some sort of demonstration in the future, perhaps rely a little more heavily on city residents for guidance. we may be able to provide some insight into the workings of our fair city, and save you from either self-destructing or being expelled from the region by fired-up yinzers.

for example: STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM PAMELA'S, YOU RAGING JACKASS. try to pull that crap in the daylight and you'll only have your bandanna to save you. from the patrons, not the police.

in other news, last night i watched cops in riot gear spill out of a PAT bus like it was a clown car. right in front of me. out on forbes by the library and schenley plaza. the lit-up sign on the front of the bus said "SPECIAL" and "PITTSBURGH WELCOMES THE WORLD!" the next time anyone makes an argument for cutting public transportation funding... well, there you go.

free to the people

whew... that last post was pretty rough. remind me never to go that long without writing for an audience again. starting up is terrible.

something of substance: this. is sickening. infuriating. incredibly sad. and on all levels, wrong.

basically, if the PA state legislature doesn't approve a new sales tax, philly's library system will have to shut down, effective oct. 2.

i'm no expert on, well, anything, but it seems to me that killadelphia -- like any city -- could probably benefit from continued use of its libraries. not to mention that reading through the list of programs and resources that may be abandoned is downright depressing.

while the carnegie library of pittsburgh differs from philly's system in a number of ways, it's facing the same challenges. as someone who spends several hours a week at various branches and knows a few employees, i am certain that right now, the resources and programs provided by the carnegie library are vital to the pittsburgh community. i could go through the whole persuasive argument, but it's a library, for God's sake; it provides all sorts of media, and internet access, and a place to go, and community programming, for FREE, and if you really need to hear the whole argument in order to think it's a worthwhile cause, honestly, you should get your head examined.

something like the statement i just made can be conveyed to any of a plethora of public officials via communication methods suggested here.

even if you've never set foot in a library (and if that's the case, i do hope you'll give it a try -- they are lovely and, as i believe i just mentioned, FREE), this should be important to you. the entire mission of CLP is "to engage our community in literacy and learning." i know we're all still a little sore around the upper shoulders/neck region from the stresses of the whole "is it a speech about education or is it subversive propaganda?" ordeal, but collective exhaustion over a topic doesn't make the subject matter any less important. literacy and learning go in the "hooray, good things!" category, and shorting them out goes in the "boo, destructive and awful things!" category.

in other words, write a letter. please. even a postcard will do.

welcome back and some thoroughly disorganized thoughts on happiness

hey there. it's been a few months. the summer, you know. on with it...

Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.

-- Brave New World

i reread the above (the book, not just the quote) over labor day weekend.

that quote is far and away my favorite bit. the book itself is one of those which, though i'm glad to have read it, is not necessarily on my top 10 list.

that being said, the quote's just the tops. even more than the phrasing, what i love about it is what it implies: that happiness can be -- and, in fact, is -- simple, subdued, private; and that a lack of happiness can be (and often is) glamorous, sensational, thrilling. of course, an extension of the former half of that implication is the basis for the whole hellish societal system huxley's writing about, and the latter half is what gets people like myself with a penchant for hemingway and the beats and such in all sorts of trouble.

(can anyone actually read my writing, by the way? i've just reread that last paragraph.)

for the record, i'm not trying to say that happiness is boring, or that unhappiness is, by definition, exciting. i disagree with the designation of actual happiness as "squalid": i'm all for the quiet, peaceful, understated life, which i find "grand" in its own way. and i'm not about to start wishing for some part of my life to fall apart just to shake things up a bit (though a younger -- and, it could be argued, stupid -- me might have).

what i will say is that it's come to my attention over the course of several years that, to paraphrase my dad's description of a similar phenomenon is his life, the things i bitch about the most are the things i love the most. this may be true of everyone, or maybe just libras, or maybe just only children, or maybe just me and my dad. point being, i believe there's room for that quote to be both true and false. it runs alongside the same river as "you always hurt the one you love" (or, avenue q-style, "the more you love someone, the more you want to kill them") -- our most profound sources of happiness are also the things that cause us the most frustration, and the things that complicate our lives are also the things that give us a measure of peace and stability.

which is the whole point of the book, i suppose, even if huxley didn't mean it to be: if human beings are capable of anything complex, it's rationalizing paradox. we can't be satisfied with just being "happy" any more than we can be satisfied with being miserable. we need challenges to our happiness to make us happy. it's like the rationalization your parents gave you for having to leave your best friend's house after a super-fun play date when you didn't want to leave: if you don't go now, you'll never be able to come back.

sick, yeah? and also kind of lovely.

youthful idealism: lying dormant, or gone the way of the paperless office?

it's 2009 and we don't have flying cars or world peace, and C, X and Q are still included in the alphabet (see #16). but for most people our (my) age, the first action in the morning is checking something computer- or internet-related. when i wake up in the morning, before i'm capable of speech or fully opening my eyes, i can still type my laptop password (which is upwards of 10 characters) in about a second. and i'm not exactly a technology person.

i was shown a different version of this at a conference a few months ago. most of these things don't really surprise me -- a fact that decisively places me in a certain age group -- but it's kind of intense to see them all in sequence. (there's sound, but it's just background music.)



maybe this is bad (?) but i'm less interested in the question -- what does this all mean? you know -- than the facts themselves. i don't know that it all has to mean anything. i just want to know what's coming next. or what effects the reality of these facts have on people now: ones that now or soon will feel disconnected, and ones that are being born into this culture. because this isn't exactly a cultural shift. the culture shift already happened. i think the culture in which we exist now is one of continuing shift itself. so instead of saying we are at a moment of transition, i think we can now say we're a culture of transition itself. with so much connectedness and communication and increased speed and numbers of people, maybe "developed nations" don't have the time or space for stages anymore. that's the ultimate form of individualism, really: if everything is constantly changing and moving and transitioning, one person can only ever be at the same stage as him or herself. alone in a crowd, as it were. which also makes all the communication and connectedness both increasingly important and increasingly moot.

[i'm resisting the urge to make a pitch for summer camp here. suffice it to say that this kind of spiralling mental logic is one of the major reasons i enjoy closing my laptop for the summer and having no cell phone service.]

i think this is also why "our" generation (whatever that is) has so very much difficulty with rebellion. a lot of us grew up in a sort of, i'm sorry to say this, fight club mentality: that whole bit about having no great war, no great depression, no scars. nothing in which to participate or against which to rebel. the early-mid 90s suffered from severe 60s envy, but by the time the shit hit the fan (lots of it, and a very big fan*), it was a new millenium and we had become too jaded to carpe that particular diem. at least most members of our parents' generation waited until their mid-30s to sell out. we barely made it through high school.

* see: 9/11, war on terror, iraq, afghanistan, energy resource depletion, global warming, economic crisis, gay rights, the entire middle east, etc.

and on that note, i'm leaving my computer and going outside to frolic in the sunshine.

in praise of pico iyer

it's one of those days where it looks like i'm a reclusive blog fiend because i've posted two entries, but really i've been out and about and productive and exciting all day (and will continue once this is done). but i wanted to share this.

in high school we read "In Praise of the Humble Comma," and it remains one of my all-time top five favorite pieces. i don't know why i thought of it today, other than i've been writing a lot lately, and the last sentence keeps popping into mind. sigh. my hero.

the princes of the paupers and all the old showstoppers

last night i got to see ted leo and the pharmacists open for the new pornographers in a free outdoor show at CMU. between REAL! SOCIAL! INTERACTION! and hearing live a bunch of songs i love by two bands i love, it was several layers of sweetness.

until mid-afternoon, i didn't even know that the show was happening, so i didn't have much time to get myself in the concertgoing mindset -- or the CMU campus mindset, for that matter. so it was uncomfortable for a while, in the sense that we were older than a lot of people there, and that your typical drunk college floozies were dancing a little too emphatically for the amount of space available (not to mention Tallest Guy In The World, Tallest Girl In The World, and Very-Much-In-Love Tallest Couple In The World, all standing, obviously, directly in front of wherever you are). expected, but still distracting from the loveliness.

i understand it's carnival, and a concert, and i should have been prepared for all the accompanying characters, but i was still verging on exasperation when who should materialize behind my right ear but Loudest-Singing Guy In The World. right at the beginning of mass romantic. i glanced over, like you do. here stood this scrawny-looking, extraordinarily nerdy guy, no taller than myself (though probably 26), with a look on his face that said, "this is the song that saved my life," belting out the lyrics with all the tone-deaf power his little lungs could muster.

immediate, complete 180 from irritated to delighted. good for you, guy. the rest of the show i was on a cloud.

five by five here, b, living entirely large

pop quiz: how are your new year's resolutions going?

a few months ago, i set forth some of my resolutions for public observation. given that we're over three months in now, and given that the number one issue with new year's resolutions is that we tend to immediately forget about them, i thought i'd take this opportunity to be self-critical in a public forum and see how mine are working out.

i'll be going about this via my absolute least favorite of feedback tactics: the oreo cookie method. (as someone said at a tri-state session, "even if you don't know what it is, someone's probably used it on you." gross.)

one: i will (continue to) pay more attention to my physical wellbeing. waking up and going to bed at vaguely reasonable hours, exercising (read: walking around squirrel hill instead of driving), flossing. not difficult. four years of acting like i'm indestructible is probably enough.

i'm pretty pleased with this one, actually. the bedtime/wake-up hours, the flossing, the walking more -- plus yoga, and running around after/restraining/lifting small children. muscles. and, since i have an actual schedule during the day, i've been eating at regular times. gold star. downside: daycare = disease. i've been sick, on some level, since i started. the first week of february.

two: i will read more, and more often. for pleasure, i mean. this doesn't count textbooks and news and things i read to edit. if you're wondering, i'm going to reread house of leaves, followed by the subtle knife, and then... we'll see.

oh my. yes, i've been busy, and yes, i did read those first two. but, again with the vague directions leading to me just sort of abdicating responsibility. just because i enjoy reading doesn't mean it should be put off completely. this is the same logic that created struggles with english homework in high school. i always did chem or precalc first because they were awful and felt more like suffering (and, therefore, productivity), and then i'd run out of homework time (or fall asleep) and have to improvise in class when discussing the plot of... i don't know... what did we read in high school? MY POINT. i shall redouble my efforts. list to appear soon.

three: i will write more. or create more, or something. translation, painting, whatever. i think part of the reason college has been such a torturous experience is that i've been desperately trying to play academic for the past four years, and i truthfully just don't enjoy it that much. i'm a writer. i've been a writer. i will be a writer. granted, writers tend to be really exquisite liars (and by that i mean we're all in denial), but by not doing what i know i'm supposed to be doing, i've allowed my capacity for writing to atrophy. it's much more difficult now than it was two years ago, let alone four, let alone six. the backsliding stops here.

i still get lazy. i haven't written here in a while because Real Life is happening in full force, and sometimes it's hard to find time, or an internet connection. but, at very least, i've been diligent about keeping a writing utensil in hand. even if i'm not writing an epic novel or a collection of sordid pseudo-autobiographical short stories featuring warped versions of everyone i know (and don't think it won't happen someday), i make sure to embrace any bursts of inspiration. spending upwards of eight hours a week sitting in coffee shops helps. if nothing else, i'm confident in my progress.

not terribly shabby, if not fantastically excellent. i'll take it.

right. here's the question: if i am fulfilling my responsibilities to myself, my family, and the community, and also doing what is well-suited to my abilities, and living a productive and just life, and drawing on the linguistic stylings of plato, does not the universe, then, have some obligation to respond in turn? obviously not, but i like to imagine a reality in which it does.

so, 2009, here's the deal. i'm working and taking care of myself and embracing the positive. i'd like a little something in return. maybe we're just getting all the bad and crazy out of the way early so the rest of the year can be smooth sailing. but it's a little much. and don't think i don't appreciate the good things that have gone on this year so far -- i truly do, and there have been plenty. it's just hard to maintain a sense of perspective when all the tests present themselves at once. i'd like it if we could meet halfway on this. i'll keep up my end of the arrangement, and you just consider easing up on the havoc-wreaking. please. love, susan.

magical, out from blown speakers

1. to the person who knocked the driver's side mirror off my car: RUDE. i've tried, but i can't imagine a scenario that would allow me to give you the benefit of the doubt: you were either drunk or reckless or attempting to reprimand bickering children in the backseat by not paying attention to where you were driving. and at very least, okay, accidents happen, but good people leave notes.

2. to new jersey: full-service gas stations still make me really nervous, i'd like to be able to turn left more freely, and i think it's weird and kinda fascist that it's so easy to get into the state but you have to pay to get out. still, congrats on being home to the best diner/restaurant in my (rather extensive) experience. that spana-quesadilla was tremendous. also, thanks for hosting my first encounter with hail in years (seriously... it was cool, and it wasn't the huge, damaging kind).

3. to the 40-some people i encountered at the temporary flight 93 memorial off route 30: is that an average day out there? it wasn't the anniversary of anything, and it was kind of a random time of day, so i wasn't anticipating so much company. it was a little surreal -- not bad, just surreal. on a completely separate note, the ginormous cross? out of place. (not as out of place as this gem we encountered in memphis, but it conjures up similar emotions and debates.) this is what separates people. this is what makes some people even more passionately emotional about 9/11 and what really turns some people off and makes them cynical about the entire thing. it's possible (a wild thought, i know) that not everyone on flight 93 being honored by the memorial would have considered that respectful tribute. even for me, it cheapened an otherwise powerful experience -- probably not the intended effect.

in a few hours (hopefully after a nap), mark and i are departing for a magical week at disney's hilton head island resort for his birthday. it may thunderstorm the entire time, but mark my words, we will be on the beach. period.

i've become lazy in my blogging. it'll pick up again when i get back to some semblance of normalcy in my schedule. until then, a gift:

sean fournier : oh my
a free album. (really, it's not viruses or anything.) fyi, when you do "click here for the free album," the page to which it takes you plays music, so... you know... don't open it at work. i recommend "put the world on stop" as your first listen. he can get a little smarmy, but i figure, somebody's gotta balance out the lyrical genius of flo rida. (in semi-related news, t-pain is a month older than me. who else feels just a tiny bit like their life potential might have already peaked? at least i've got my dignity. sort of.)

and another gift, because you are so very pretty:

i'd like to do a song of great social and political import

one of those aspects of religion that's created difficulties for me in recent years is the meaning and purpose of prayer.

it's a complicated thing, to say the least. as humans, we want a fuller understanding of who we are, where we came from and why. we want things -- help, wisdom, material things, love -- and if we believe in the existence of a presence or being or reality or force greater than the whole of the universe's individual parts, generally speaking, we'd like to know more about whatever It is, and we'd like to be closer to It. moreover, if we believe along the lines of genesis 1:27, we'd like to better understand what it means to have been created in God's image, and become closer to that which we resemble.

so, what better way to get closer, to better understand, than to speak directly to God?

my difficulties with prayer fall into two categories:

1) the whole petitioning God thing just seems wholly infantile and irrelevant a lot of the time. in an age when people in general have a lot of trouble articulating pretty much anything in a thoughtful way and when individualism and personal worth are disproportionately thought to outweigh "the greater good" at all costs, it's too easy for "prayer" to mean "list of demands." this seems to me to be a step backward from getting closer to God (or from understanding anything). this is not to say that petition is altogether a negative -- but the proportion of requests to other forms of communication should be much lower than i think it tends to be.

2) to piggy-back on that idea of individualism and personal worth: while these are by no means bad things, when applied excessively to prayer they provide an easy escape hatch -- and by that i mean excuse -- for people who are uncomfortable with congregational worship.

now, i will be the first to say that there's nothing wrong with being uncomfortable with going to church or shul or what have you. some people just don't like other people witnessing them doing anything religious. some people are creeped out by group recitation or responses. some people feel alone in a crowd and would rather just be alone alone. some people dislike some of their fellow congregation members. some people simply don't understand what the purpose of attending services is. these are all valid experiences, and truthfully, i relate to most, if not all, of them.

but to decide that, based on one of those things, you're just going to be a christian or a jew or a muslim or a hindu or a buddhist or whatever else all on your own, purposefully separate yourself from a religious community and label it "introspection" is to deny the most basic elements of your nature. human beings are meant to be around other human beings. asceticism and purposeful temporary self-isolation aside (i'm not about to call out jesus for his 40-day wilderness stint while we're in the middle of lent), we are social creatures. if we are religious, we are then compelled to believe that our religion must also be social.

i think a certain view of prayer -- that its purpose is to be a direct communication between an individual and God, like a hotline -- fosters this attitude. i also think that, unfortunately, this tends to be the most widely-held view of prayer. i don't believe God needs you to direct a specific message, grammar and content edited, to "His" office on a cloud somewhere. i believe prayer is for our benefit, for our comfort and contemplation. and in light of that, i believe the community is important in prayer. i think we understand God and ourselves by being in the presence of one another. it's easier to look at your neighbor and identify God in him or her (see: fellowship; seeking and serving Christ in all persons) than to look at yourself.

let me interject here that i think meditation and personal reflection apart from a community setting is good, and healthy. i'm talking about completely severing oneself from the community. if you've concluded that you don't believe in God, okay, that's a decent reason to stop attending services. if you're physically unable to get to services, that's also a decent reason, though any decent community would help you get there (or bring the service to you).

i think it's supposed to be a little bit uncomfortable to worship around other people. whatever logic can be applied to spirituality tells me that some part of one's spiritual experience must be community-oriented. and the more we practice being an actual part of a community instead of just tolerating it, the more we get out of it and the more comfortable we become. more importantly, that's what my instinct and experience tell me.

as i was in sort-of-academic mode this past thursday for the last Taste of Judaism class, this whole struggle in my head over prayer and attending church and whatever else was not exactly the first thing on my mind, but it was brought there immediately when we read the following passage.

Prayer is not a matter of coming to God with our wish list and pleading Him to give us what we ask for. Prayer is first and foremost the experience of being in the presence of God. Whether or not we have our requests granted, whether or not we get anything to take home as a result of our encounter, we are changed by having come into the presence of God.

In congregational worship, regularly scheduled services on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I have come to believe that the congregating is more important than the words we speak. Something miraculous happens when people come together seeking the presence of God. The miracle is that we so often find it. Somehow the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. A spirit is created in our midst which none of us brought there. In fact, each of us came there looking or it because we did not have it when we were alone. But in our coming together, we create the mood and the moment in which God is present.

We don't go to church or synagogue at a stipulated time because that's when God has office hours. We go because that is when we know there will be other people there, seeking the same kind of encounter we are seeking.

-- Rabbi Harold Kushner, Who Needs God

for the moment, my mind is settled. i could go into an entire segment right now about exactly how much that passage screams scc, but for now i'll leave you with one more, my new favorite (of course), that summarizes the balance we have to remind ourselves to maintain:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? When I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?

-- Mishna Avot 1:14

this is why we can't have nice things

a question, unrelated to anything else: tina fey, how are you inside my mind, writing 30 rock episodes out of my inner monologue? it kind of tickles, and i'm kind of okay with it.

okay, so. i considered not writing about this, because... children! potential employers! etc! and there's so much potential for shaky ground and inappropriateness. but, since everyone reading this has the internet and, presumably, a radio, i'm just going to assume everyone's heard the asher roth song "i love college" and can fill in the little radio edit bleeps or whatever. not that much is bleeped out these days. if you haven't heard it, it's on youtube. seek and ye shall find (but you might not want to watch it at work).

first of all, lame. (sub-category: in my experience, most people who talk this much about how awesome their superhard party lyfe is do it because they kinda actually don't really have a lot of friends...)

second: blatant sexism is even more horrifying coming from supposedly "educated"/"college material" 20-something white guys in lacoste polos. you're not edgy. you're a jackass.

third: all other issues (and there are many) aside, it's slightly validating in the painful way to see and hear college described as what i've seen it overwhelmingly become: a four-year bender, a social trip. people in general don't have the capacity to live the sort of life this song describes and still be strong academically. there are exceptions, but they're extraordinary.

the expectation is that you will complete high school, go to college, graduate in four years, and then start a job search that may or may not have anything whatsoever to do with your degree -- or continue school in some fashion. high school is hard work, college is your reward.

this does two things, really (i'm sure it does more than that, but these are the ones on my mind at the moment). one, it makes the people who would have belonged in college 50 years ago feel like they're surviving high school all over again, just holding out for grad school or law school or med school or whatever. two, it prolongs the self-centered, entitled, snooty, privileged attitude of the kids whos parents bought them hummers for their 16th birthdays and who will be utterly lost after graduation when they have to start taking care of themselves like grown-ups do.

and the really awful part is that none of these things matter, because...

fourth: it's catchy. really catchy. and stuck in my head.

i'm going to go ahead and say it -- as a whole, our generation might just deserve (need?) to enter adulthood during a recession.

it's the end of the world as we know it and i feel fine (it's time i had some time alone)

remember that you are dust: it's a stark and somewhat morbid thing to have said to you, let alone individually, let alone while someone's smudging ashes onto your forehead. i'm not one for fire-and-brimstone or catholic guilt or whatever else, but i like this reminder. it's simple and to the point. you were made from bits and pieces of other stuff, and that's what you're going to be later on. there's no need for ego, because we're all in the same boat. simply recongize that you are profoundly lucky (or blessed; take your pick) to have had the chance to be more than dust for a while.

we're now well beyond the holiday season, it's february, most people have come to terms with the fact that obama is actually the president (as opposed to a pop icon), we're still at war, the dollar is worth bupkis, and now it's lent.

in the past, i've always felt somewhat down during this season. it hasn't really been for any particular pious reasons, either. it's mostly that i see people around me giving up things for lent -- things they tend to really like, which results in my having to deal with a bunch of cranky peers -- and i don't. i have reasons for that, but i still feel guilty when people i know give up chocolate or facebook or whatever. most people i know who participate in that whole practice aren't especially religious; for many of them, it's more like a second coming of their nearly-abandoned new year's resolutions. and more power to them. whatever works. it's just not for me.

i went to the ash wednesday service this year for the first time in a long time, and the tone was different from what i remembered. it put the whole lent business into context in a way that made much more sense than how i usually think of it. it's almost like a spiritual spring(ish) cleaning. a month of introspection and reestablishing what's important. which, by the way, is already kind of my Thing at the moment.

there's a whole long list of things to which we all confess at this service. there's a confession each week, but this one is longer and more detailed*, and it gave me pause: what exactly is the point? of confession, and this one in particular, i mean?

if the point is to atone for these various and sundry, uh, transgressions... that's a whole lot of pressure. enough to make it unreasonable. how does one actually atone for all that? not just say some words, but really, truly atone? because we're talking about your soul here. just saying. you can't exactly fake it.

if the point is to focus on the positive side (saying "we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves" becomes "i will love my neighbor as myself"), given the number and the complexity of things we're promising to do, that's also an unreasonable expectation. it's a nice thought, but it's too far-reaching to be attainable, goal-wise. even wild ambition-wise.

how do we go about working with this long, complicated list of things that are incredibly important, but also incredibly daunting as a collective?

as i was driving over to the service, i realized we were running late and the trip became agonizing. i don't act out my road rage (i barely ever use the horn, even), i just yell a lot and say outrageous things, which generally only serves to make myself more tense. once there, we sat directly behind two kids. one was squirmy and noise-making because he didn't want to be there; the other had half his toy collection with him and kept a running commentary going throughout the entire (otherwise very quiet, sober, respectful) service, up to and including a notification that he had farted.

i haven't been to this service in a long time, and i'm a little burned out on kids from working all day, and this kid is announcing his bodily functions, and i'm thinking to myself, okay, perhaps the way to go about this is to start with working on my patience. just that one thing.

i will attempt to pace myself. i will attempt to maintain a sense of perspective. instead of specifically giving up something, i'm spending this lent just letting a lot of things go, picking my battles, and playing them out with a generally more enlightened attitude. it seems like a better way to go through the day. "do without attachment the work you have to do."

at the Taste of Judaism class last night (part 2 of 3... i don't want it to be over), the rabbi mentioned that while prayer is communication with God, its purpose is not so much just asking something of God ("give me the power to do x," "forgive me for x," "bring x into my life," etc.) as it is reflecting on your personal investment in whatever it is you're praying about. in praying about x, i am meditating on what i've done or will do about it, or what someone else has done for me. it's about interactions between people more than divine intervention.

yoga, too, fits in conveniently well: awareness of posture, motion, and breathing; slowing down and paying attention to the details. focus on the self to focus on the bigger picture.

as a bonus, ideally, being more patient will mean less neck cramps and back spasms (fun!), a decrease in the likelihood that i'll eventually have high blood pressure, less wasted time and energy, better sleep at night and better relationships with... everybody?

this is not a declaration of passivity. i'm not advocating letting people walk all over you. but it's easy to get caught up in the moment -- and, there's a growing atmosphere of entitlement and self-importance plaguing individual lives and communication all over this green earth. reminding myself daily that my wants at this moment in time are not necessarily the most important factor up for consideration is... well, at very least, it's just polite.

it's going to be a long 40 days, but that's kind of the point.

_____________________________________________________________________

* it's called the Litany of Penitence, which is exactly what it sounds like. it's when:

We confess to [God] and to one another ...

We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven ...
We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. ...
We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives ...
Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people ...
Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves ...
Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work ...
Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us ...
our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty ...
For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us ...
For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us.

pretty thorough list, yeah?

shabbos goy goes to shul (sort of)

several weeks ago i stumbled across this. actually, i stumbled across it in the form of an ad in the post-gazette, but an online search sent me there. "a taste of judaism" is a FREE! series of two-hour sessions, weekly, for three weeks. it's for people from a variety of backgrounds (non-practicing jews, unaffiliated people, inter-religious couples, the generally curious, etc.) who are interested in learning more (or starting to learn anything) about judaism. in pittsburgh it's being taught at a bunch of different synogogues all over town by a variety of rabbis. the one for which i registered is within walking distance, at congregation beth shalom, and it started last night.

now, i've had a bit of a week, what with being sickly and spending my days around bunches of Terrible Twos (they're not actually terrible, but they do require a lot of energy). but i've also been looking forward to this class like you would not believe. as someone who suffered from a severe childhood case of Lone Neighborhood Gentile Syndrome, i was psyched to actually learn something about modern-day jewish practice (ancient israel is fascinating and all, but i'm inexcusably low on actual knowledge about the daily workings of judaism). suffice it to say, class #1 did not disappoint.

the mix of people is great, though i won't get into that here, as it would be something of a betrayal of trust. there are lots of question-askers, which i enjoy, because i generally am not one -- not because i'm uninterested; i just have difficulty thinking of questions to ask. (i'm not good with small-talk for similar reasons: i like thinking my thoughts all the way through, rearranging them, rephrasing them, ad infinitum... good for writing, but not so much in the moment.)

apparently the first class focuses on spirituality (the nature of God), the second on ethics (Torah, law, what God expects of us) and the third on community (israel, the jewish people). i feel pretty good about my footing in most of the source material, so i'm free to focus on the details and terminology and whatnot, and learn much more about midrash, which is difficult to do on one's own. also, my yiddish vocabulary is growing. watch out.

the whole overarching concept of struggling with God, of challenging and questioning and revisiting those questions and adapting, is a comfort to me. i find it much more ethically and theologically responsible than the inclination of so much of christianity to simply trust -- though, that inclination has its strengths as well. as always, i'm in favor of striking a balance between the two, which, for a christian, actually makes sense: we are products of the hybrid bible, a fusion of jewish thought pre- and post-christ. when i was little i used to tell people i was a reform jew, thinking it wasn't really a lie and sounded less odd than telling them i was episcopalian. again, weird neighborhood.

this follows on the heels of my first-ever yoga class experience, which i attended tuesday with katelyn. given that i haven't really used that kind of focus -- or most of those muscles -- since ballet oh so many years ago, it went well. it also left me more mentally, emotionally and physically stable than i'd felt in weeks. (i am not ignorant of eastern religions/am aware of the "flaws" of western adaptations of yoga, and i thought this particular class was conducted in responsible, respectful, non-hokey fashion; so it might miss the "point," but it's up to each of us to reach an understanding of what the "point" is, yes?)

my point being, there is much to be said for going out and actually exploring varieties of religious and cultural experience, beyond books and studies and even personal reflection. for that matter, there is much to be said for going out and doing something, anything, structured in the adult world aside from work. it's informative. it's fun. it's a way to meet people, many of whom are quite interesting. also, it's not going to a bar -- big points!!

i want to talk about yetzers, creative ability, and arguing with God, but it's not yet time... soon.

inquiring and discerning: part deux

still trying to learn french, by the way. still think it's just awful. and speaking it kinda hurts my nose.

umm, google's valentines day nameplate is a little bit horrifying:
...it'll get you.

maybe it's a holiday weekend special, combining with friday the 13th. happy pre-lupercalia, anyway!

a while ago, i mentioned that my overarching purpose in creating this blog was summarized in the phrase "inquiring and discerning." the time has come (the walrus said) to elaborate.

the episcopal church practices infant baptism, so i was baptized at roughly six months, at the same church i attend today. obviously, as an infant i was incapable of grasping what was going on; the purpose was to bring me into the family, so to speak -- to induct me into a community that would help raise me, and to which i could one day make a commitment myself, if i chose to do so.

i went through classes and was confirmed when i was twelve. (due to unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances, i now feel very strangely about my actual confirmation. this is an issue i hope to resolve someday soon -- and a topic for another entry.) the only thing i really remember from class was going through the baptismal covenant. it's in the book of common prayer, and it's in two parts.

first is the apostles' creed, your basic affirmation of faith. it looks pretty detailed, but it also leaves so many questions that we got into that whole conference of nicea mess (the one where we decided jesus was divine). as an outline, it's pretty thorough, though the nicene creed is what we actually say every week in church.

the second part is five vows, the response to each of which is, "i will, with God's help":

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

so, in the roughest of terms, 1) i will be part of the christian community/go to church; 2) i will resist evil, admit when i fail and ask for forgiveness; and 3) i will talk about these things and practice what i preach. 4 and 5 i find nearly impossible to summarize. if you can't phrase something better than your source, you're best off just using quotation marks. i will 4) "seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [my] neighbor as [my]self," and 5) "strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being," without exception.

i like the vows, and i like the response: any time human beings can bring themselves to simultaneously take responsibility and ask for help, i think it's probably a positive thing.

during a baptism, the following prayer is said sometime after the baptismal covenant:

Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon these your servants the forgiveness of sin, and have raised them to the new life of grace. Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.

any time i've had a doubt or a concern or shaded feelings about organized religion, i've consistently come back to this baptismal covenant. it doesn't erase the doubt or concern, certainly, but it reminds me that there are two sides to every coin. these things are the purposes, the positives, the reasons i got invested in this whole tangled worldview in the first place. if it was easy or straightforward, there would be nothing to challenge, nothing after which to inquire, nothing to discern: it would be a waste of human potential, ability, consciousness and (i believe) free will.

i know all the arguments for adult baptism, and they're legitimate and all, but here's the thing about infant baptism that makes me sure it's a sound practice: babies squirm and cry and grab at things they're not supposed to touch, and nobody can say, "listen, baby, this is a church service and you're supposed to be proper and well-behaved right now." the point isn't how the baby is dressed or whether the baby knows the right things to say or is polite or makes a face if water dribbles into its eye. the point is, it's marked as part of the community, and when it screams and squirms and wonders what the hell is being poured onto its forehead, it's part of our responsibility to help them understand. and if we don't know, it's our responsibility to ask and find out. the point isn't the structure or the formality; the point is inquiring and discerning, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, following jesus' example to the greatest of our ability.

if i had to summarize my beliefs in thirty seconds or less, i would direct the person asking to those five questions and that one sentence. it's far from a complete answer, but together they sum up what i think is probably the point of it all. it comes down to, "try to be a good person yourself, be good to all other people, recognize when you're not doing those things, and think -- with both your head and your heart." even if i'm horribly wrong and that conclusion makes me a heretic, i still think it's a pretty damn good guiding philosophy.

follow-up

going back to the post on atheism... wow, lots of comments! of substance! joy. i've been having a wonderful time reading your thoughts, comparing them, and revisiting my own in light of yours.

i guess it's only fair, since i asked for your opinions, that i clarify my own position. i've been known to play devil's advocate on these questions more frequently than i express actual opinions or beliefs. admittedly, this is in part because my beliefs about and opinions on this subject change frequently -- in minor fashion, but enough to prevent me from being so definitive about atheism as i am about, say, the absolute evil of not using one's turn signal.

i'm a word person (which is what got me into the whole religious inquiry mess in the first place), so i'm going to borrow caro's method of going after this.

re li gion
-noun
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.
7. religions, Archaic. religious rites.
8. Archaic. strict faithfulness; devotion: a religion to one's vow.

a the ism
-noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

now that those are out there, i'd like to explain why i find the atheism one to be inadequate.

it has often been stated, in somewhat minimalist fashion, that the divergence between science and religion is the result of one addressing what's there (science) versus addressing why it's there -- its cause (religion). likewise, the difference between science and atheism is that science addresses what's there and atheism addresses what isn't its cause. by definition, then, atheism in its various forms claims some other cause -- that is, science, reflexively. natural selection, biological necessity or chance is the "why." in this sense, atheism is absolutely "a set of beliefs concerning the cause ... of the universe," as well as, i'd say, its nature. (natural selection, by the way, is indeed something i'd classify as "superhuman agency," just as readily as i'd classify something i am unable to identify in the sky as a UFO.)

as for the purpose of the universe and the moral code bit, this is where denominations come into play. this is, so far as i can tell, the number one reason so many philosophers classify themselves as atheists: the challenge of grappling with this question is just too great to resist, and the freedom to do so is restricted in most theistic religions, despite virtually none of those religions supplying adequate answers to such questions.

while we're still somewhere near the subject, i should mention that i am perpetually in argument with myself over the differences between philosophy and religion. there is so, so, so much overlap that it's almost absurd to attempt to separate them. my general feeling is that, if the two form a Venn diagram, atheism falls in the crossover space and very rarely just to one side or the other.

if my views conflict, i blame either biology or brilliance: the NIH tells me i've got another few years before my brain's fully developed, and f. scott fitzgerald tells me that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." (take THAT, science!)

i guess there's got to be a break in the monotony, but jesus, when it rains how it pours

(before anyone attacks me for the use of that song in conjunction with this post: it just came up on my itunes, which is on suffle. minor serendipity, or something.)

the two-week hiatus is the direct result of my efforts to respond to each of the comments left on the last post (thank you all so much! they'll be showing up shortly) combined with my inability to complete anything in a reasonable amount of time. it's not procrastination, it's my perfectionist demon, so to speak.

one of the greatest, most challenging and longest-standing theological questions of all time is, "why do bad things happen to good people?" (an offshoot of this Big Question is why so often they happen in or around the month of february, but that could just be personal/etown-related.)

and yes, "bad" and "good" are relative, but that's not what this is about.

i have no intention of trying to answer the question, seeing as i lack not only the qualification but the perspective at this moment in time to do so.

this question is one of the most frequently cited by people experiencing a crisis of faith. and that makes sense: if we're just living our lives and nothing's particularly wrong; going to religious services mechanically; comfortable at worship to the extent that we're not really thinking about the words we say; or even if we're attentive and wholehearted in some form of worship, but either weren't prepared for tragedy or have been hit by a bunch all at once.

but to think about "bad things" or pain in terms of religion is to recount the history of virtually every major religion, from crucifixion to exile to persecution to the pursuit of the destruction of suffering itself to asceticism. and while, throughout the myriad "bad things" littering various and sundry scriptures and histories, many explanations have been offered, all leave something to be desired in terms of clarity, thoroughness, or theological consistency.

the greatest comfort i have when i find myself asking that question is that we don't know how everything works. i'm not comfortable with the "God has a plan" response; i find it vaguely insulting (oh, well, congratulations to Him then; how does that help me?), and implies that white-haired old man God is sitting up at a work desk on a cloud somewhere inside the pearly gates of heaven sketching out blueprints. it might be the case; what do i know? regardless, at a moment of tragedy, it's not what i want to hear.

it might just be semantics (again, what do i know?), but the thought that i don't know why things happen is much more comforting to me than any of the various, inherently flawed reasons other people can give. it leaves open the realm of possibility. i don't mean to imply that i'm the "ignorance is bliss" type -- just that in traumatic moments, sometimes it's good to be a little bit blind.

someone's going to punch me in the face for this, i'm sure of it, but i have to mention the bit from donnie darko* about why we have no memory of our infancy: "did you stop and think that maybe infants need darkness? that darkness is part of their natural development?"

*in an effort to save myself and have a hipster bitch moment all at once, i'll take this opportunity to swear to you all that i saw that movie the week it was released, before i had heard anything about it whatsoever. mark and i went into heads together and dee recommended it when we were having trouble finding something promising. i'm going to miss that store.

one of the most difficult things for me to understand when i started studying hebrew biblical literature was that the passages i was translating didn't seem to have morals the way i originally thought they did. most of the stories didn't seem to be there for the purpose of explaining or suggesting anything; they were just statements, as of facts. i could choose to draw a theological conclusion from them or not; they were just there; they just were, or rather, are.

why we experience pain (as opposed to how) is an impossible question. we didn't design ourselves or manipulate our own evolution, so we don't know.

i think when we ask, "why do bad things happen to good people?" we're asking the only question we can, though i think it also misidentifies the purpose of faith. i don't think faith or religion or whatever else is some kind of magic shield against suffering. i think that, among other things, it allows us to admit that there are some things over which we have no control, and about which we have no understanding.

i know that isn't a decent conclusion, but i also know that the moments in my life that i would classify as "religious experiences" have overwhelmingly been in light of tragedy, suffering or general sadness. we learn about ourselves in moments of extreme distress. this is a cheesy thing to say, which i'm okay with, at least in moderation. but my real point is that it's possible the question, the simple asking of it, is the important part. maybe we're supposed to come up with the response, "i don't know," stop trying to fix and control and respond, and just let it hurt for a while.

inflammatory statements! audience participation! a disclaimer!

i'm looking for responses on this one. whoever you are, if you're reading this, you now have a moral obligation to respond. ha. (sorry.)

is atheism a religion?

consider:

religion is a universal (or, at least, global) phenomenon. it's occurred everywhere and at all times in human history in one form or another, and it hasn't always -- or, even the majority of the time -- resembled the abrahamic traditions we in the west immediately associate with the word today.

even without searching beyond abraham, we can see parallels in the rising atheist movement to established religious tradition(s). as an educational sidebar, i'll mention here that the purpose of biblical prophecy was not to predict the future, but to assess the flaws of the current situation (religious, or social, or political, or what have you) and deliver the bad news, so to speak. and they tend to do it in rather abrasive fashion. they make spectacles of themselves, harshly criticize the status quo using violent or shocking speech, predict disastrous results to the people's behavior, and generally disturb leaders and otherwise comfortable people -- those who do not think about the consequences of their lifestyles.

christopher hitchens : read an excerpt from God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. that might be enough of a summary. i'll just add that he is mainly a political figure; the involvement of religion in the political sphere is, as far as i can tell, what brought him to it as a subject.

sam harris : i thought about not including him in this section, since he advocates simply not referring to himself as anything because of the cult-like image "atheist" invokes (see here). he is, however, a prolific contributor to the collection of literature growing in popularity among people who identify themselves as atheists, so he gets to be here despite himself. also, the initial speech he references was delivered to the atheist alliance conference... hard to avoid being associated with something if you're preaching to its major congregation.

richard dawkins : affectionately nicknamed "darwin's rottweiler," he focuses on the abrahamic faiths for rhetoric -- see the below quote -- but his actual efforts are more geared toward liberating atheists, via efforts like the atheist bus, scarlet letter t-shirts, etc. his website, at least, puts the most notable effort into creating the culture of atheism harris wants to avoid.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgivng control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

-- from The God Delusion

(not to reveal my slight academic frustration, but for the record, if dawkins is an authority on the bible, i am crown prince sultan bin abdul aziz al saud. please, take his assessment of the hebrew scriptures with a grain of salt.)

in attempting to counteract religion altogether, are atheism advocates such as these three succeeding? or are they actually participating in the establishment of a backlash, non-theist religion? and if they are, aside from being ironic, is that bad?

if atheism is not a religion, what is it? what positive form does/should "the absence of x" take, if any?

do these guys just have huge egos, messiah complexes, and/or bad personal histories with religious institutions? if so, does that matter? they've obviously tapped into something that, aside from pissing a lot of people off, really resonates with a lot of other people.

on a similar note, and to try a different angle...

from the rig veda:

Truth is one; sages call it by various names.

and, from the vedanta society of southern california:

Truth is one, but it comes filtered through the limited human mind. That mind lives in a particular culture, has its own experience of the world and lives at a particular point in history. The infinite Reality is thus processed through the limitations of space, time, causation, and is further processed through the confines of human understanding and language. Manifestations of truth—scriptures, sages, and prophets—will necessarily vary from age to age and from culture to culture. Light, when put through a prism, appears in various colors when observed from different angles. But the light always remains the same pure light. The same is true with spiritual truth.

This is not to say that all religions are "really pretty much the same." That is an affront to the distinct beauty and individual greatness of each of the world's spiritual traditions. Saying that every religion is equally true and authentic doesn't mean that one can be substituted for the other like generic brands of aspirin.

Every religion has a specific gift to offer humankind; every religion brings with it a unique viewpoint which enriches the world. Christianity stresses love and sacrifice; Judaism, the value of spiritual wisdom and tradition. Islam emphasizes universal brotherhood and equality while Buddhism advocates compassion and mindfulness. The Native American tradition teaches reverence for the earth and the natural world surrounding us. Vedanta or the Hindu tradition stresses the oneness of existence and the need for direct mystical experience. The world's spiritual traditions are like different pieces in a giant jigsaw puzzle: each piece is different and each piece is essential to complete the whole picture. Each piece is to be honored and respected while holding firm to our own particular piece of the puzzle. We can deepen our own spirituality and learn about our own tradition by studying other faiths. Just as importantly, by studying our own tradition well, we are better able to appreciate the truth in other traditions.

...

"As different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea," says an ancient Sanskrit prayer, "so, O Lord, the different paths which people take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."

can/should atheism be considered another of these traditions? why or why not?

[disclaimer -- i haven't answered many of these questions myself, so i'm not attempting to trap or trick anyone. if they sound biased in any way, it's unintentional; i'm just still figuring out the language for discussing this. and if you know me, you know i'm not going to be shocked, embarrassed or offended by virtually anything you say in response, short of flat-out insults (see: will secrist, boston, 10/8/2004... smartass). so, fire away.]

here we go steelers, here we go . . . pittsburgh's going to the superbowl

(see #2)

i do miss the line about one for the thumb, but it's a small price to pay for actually getting it.

anyway, here's to XLIII (please note: polamalu's number) and number six on the way.



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one bird down, one to go.

a very ominous assignment, with overtones of extreme personal danger

cleanfall was excellent! and the steelers are going to the superbowl! and we have a new president!

moving on.

actually, this is sort of related. excitement, enthusiasm, joy... these are generally good, healthy things. pleasant, for the most part. hype and hysteria -- these are not good things. these are annoying, distracting, abrasive things. also, they are often fake, or at least short-lived. most importantly, excitement and enthusiasm tend to get a lot more done than hype and hysteria, which tend to just lead to backlash when the honeymoon phase is over.

which leads me to this: now that the WOW IT'S THE NEW YEAR hype is pretty much over, i've got a brief bit to say about resolutions.

i never make resolutions by new year's day. this is for two reasons. one, new years eve usually sucks. with very few (and lovely) exceptions, this holiday and i have an extremely poor track record, so i'm seldom in a mood to be contemplative and reasonable. two, and more importantly, just on principle i try to give myself about a week before really settling in on what i'm serious about -- otherwise, getting all caught up in the rush of Starting Afresh, i make very earnest promises to myself that i simply cannot fulfill.

this year, it took a little longer than a week.

don't misunderstand -- i didn't dislike 2008. it wasn't a bad year. but it was, to be blunt, the year i didn't graduate from college; the year i didn't get a job; and the year i moved away from a bunch of people i very much love. without being melodramatic about it, i can admit that it's a bit boring and lonely with all those things piled up together. so settling in on a few solid, doable resolutions took a little more time than it did when i was, i don't know, twelve.

(also, my impulsive reaction when people asked about my resolution was to say, "get my shit together." could have had devastating consequences in the long run. obviously, cleaning up my language and being less flippant aren't major priorities at the moment.)

there are three.

one: i will (continue to) pay more attention to my physical wellbeing. waking up and going to bed at vaguely reasonable hours, exercising (read: walking around squirrel hill instead of driving), flossing. not difficult. four years of acting like i'm indestructible is probably enough.

two: i will read more, and more often. for pleasure, i mean. this doesn't count textbooks and news and things i read to edit. if you're wondering, i'm going to reread house of leaves, followed by the subtle knife, and then... we'll see.

three: i will write more. or create more, or something. translation, painting, whatever. i think part of the reason college has been such a torturous experience is that i've been desperately trying to play academic for the past four years, and i truthfully just don't enjoy it that much. i'm a writer. i've been a writer. i will be a writer. granted, writers tend to be really exquisite liars (and by that i mean we're all in denial), but by not doing what i know i'm supposed to be doing, i've allowed my capacity for writing to atrophy. it's much more difficult now than it was two years ago, let alone four, let alone six. the backsliding stops here.

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

this whole adventure in blogging would be part of number three, by the way. a small part.

big weekend

terribly important:

a review of cleanfall's debut album, idle talk! they are lovely. if you are in the lancaster, PA area and over 21, you should drop whatever you're doing tomorrow (saturday) night and go to their album release show. 9 pm, lizard lounge (at the chameleon club), $5. most likely, anyone reading this who fits that description already knows about it, but i figure i'm not hurting anything by mentioning it.

terribly audacious:

this coming sunday, january 18, has been declared national sanctity of life day!!!!!!

thank goodness there's a day for it, or we'd just ignore it altogether, yeah?

and now, a sketch i've titled, "if you wanted a national pro-life day, you should have just called it that."

The most basic duty of government is to protect the life of the innocent.

no shit? not to bomb the hell out of the evildoers? well, um, this is a little awkward... i hope the government's been performing this most basic duty behind closed doors...

My Administration has been committed to building a culture of life

no shit?! great! in what way? tell me more!!!

by vigorously promoting adoption and parental notification laws, opposing Federal funding of abortions overseas, encouraging teen abstinence, and funding crisis pregnancy programs.

okay, well, that's a let-down.

from the mouths of politicians, "promoting," "opposing," "encouraging," et cetera are people-pleasing, empty words. they're used to avoid indicating that, while they might wish they could, they either cannot, will not, or don't especially want/care to do anything material about whatever the thing is they're discussing. it's fluff. in the eighth year of his presidency, not many people are looking to bush as a mentor, and that's basically all those words mean.

later on...

America is a caring Nation, and our values should guide us as we harness the gifts of science.

really harness 'em. like, death-grip.

one. two. three. four (which, i'll grant, is by bobby kennedy, but if i can read lew rockwell on a semi-regular basis, we can all can handle this).

by the way, what are "our" values, exactly?

and finally...

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constistution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 18, 2009, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies

(by which i assume he means, go to church; it is sunday, after all)

and to underscore our commitment to respecting and protecting the life and dignity of every human being.

if you'd done your "basic duty," sir, this would just be an underscore. as it is, it's one of several last-minute, last-ditch efforts on your part to reclaim some moral high ground, and it's sad.