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contemplation upon a natal anniversary

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Well. Yesterday was my thirtieth birthday. Natal anniversaries are interesting times, especially milestone days like the decade markers.
I have said goodbye to the long, exciting struggle of my twenties, and hopefully opened up a brave new world in my thirties. I think that reflection is important any time, but a natal anniversary is a good time.

Farewell, Twenties! What did I love and hate and learn and experience while within ye?

  • I learned to live on my own, to make my own money, to spend it or save it as I wished.
  • I learned to live with other people, from friends to total strangers. I learned never to leave my dirty dishes in the sink. I learned the difference between privacy and indifference.
  • I stopped living up to other people’s expectations and began to define my own.
  • I found a deep spiritual connection.
  • I learned to respect, endure, and even enjoy four full seasons of the year.
  • I lost people I loved; I found new loves and a spiritual family that endures despite distance.
  • I accepted that I cannot manage money very well.
  • I learned that I do not do well in a traditional office environment, working as an administrative professional.
  • I hated living in one of the most exciting cities in the world and feeling trapped by lack of funds.
  • I hated the lack of direction that came with hopping jobs and struggling to develop creative arts while surrounded by folks who made me feel inadequate.
  • I loved my circle of friends.
  • I loved being a regular at the pub.
  • I loved walking and taking the subway.
  • I hated living within easy distance of beaches and museums I never visited.
  • I experienced terror, rage, panic, therapy, recovery, anxiety, paranoia, and hope.
  • I learned to love my body.
  • I published short fiction.
  • I hated feeling such envy for friends, coworkers, and acquaintances who traveled, or did brilliant art, or published a book, or did something else that I wanted to do.
  • I learned to channel envy into action toward my own goals.
  • I stopped biting my fingernails.
  • I began to pay attention to issues of sustainability and environmental impact in my life.
  • I made a difficult decision to leave the places that I knew, the people that I loved, and the life I found increasingly stifling.
  • I found new opportunities to build the life I want.

Thank you for the lessons, the joys, the sorrows, the adventures, Twenties!
Hello, Thirties! What dreams can I build with you? What foundations can I build to reach my castles in the air?

  • I dream of a well-paying, creative job to which I am happy to go in the morning. (So far, so good!)
  • I dream of financial well-being, savings, and comfort enough with my income to do things I enjoy.
  • I dream of the ability to choose well-made, sustainable products, or to make my own.
  • I dream of increasing time devoted to crafts.
  • I dream of growing skill and development of style in illustration.
  • I dream of a home of my own.
  • I dream of a family of my own.
  • I dream of enjoying my friends’ families.
  • I dream of becoming a part of a local and international community.
  • I dream of travel, international and domestic, with friends and alone.
  • I dream of road trips.
  • I dream of finding a spiritual niche in which I can root and grow.
  • I dream of changing the world.

I’m entering this new stage of my life with a tremendous feeling that anything is possible. Despite the overwhelming weight of all the ills of the world, I see rampant joy, growing interdependence, and exciting opportunity.

Activism, Politics

Clinton on Global Interdependence

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Today the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University presented the Shell Distinguished Lecture Series Presentation, “Embracing Our Common Humanity: Meeting the Challenges of Global Interdependence in the 21st Century” by The Honorable William J. Clinton, 42nd President of the United States.

I went to stand in the Faculty & Staff line at 1:30pm for a 3pm speech. The presentation was Rice community and invited guests only, but the lines were still quite long. While we sat in the bleachers (the speech was at Autry Court, where Rice plays basketball), the VIPs gathered in chairs on the floor. My coworkers amused themselves by identifying various Houston/Rice bigwigs. I didn’t get excited over any of them until we spotted John Glenn in conversation with someone. That was cool.

Clinton’s remarks were exceptional. I am not extremely politically savvy, but I fancy that I try to pay attention. This man had the events and people of the world at his fingertips; I wish we had more presidents as articulate.

I took some notes on the speech, although trying to recreate it would be folly. The man has a great presence, and it did feel very casual for all the security and VIP seating and whatnot. He concentrated on the idea of a worldview, which is a concept I’ve explored in other contexts, mostly religious, before. Here are my notes:

What is the fundamental character of the 21st century world? Interdependence.
Is it good? Yes, but… the world is unequal (that one is obvious), unstable (a new sense of shared vulnerability), and unsustainable (climate change, economic instability). He mentioned that while 70% of our oil is used for transportation, it’s the other 30% that is the real problem, because we have no viable substitutes for those products. (Hello, medical plastics…)

A solution? go from simple interdependence to integrated community, characterized by 1)shared responsibility, 2) shared benefits, and 3) a shared sense of genuine belonging, not just living on the same land.

This would involve revitalizing the military to be more efficient, but also revitalizing diplomacy. There are limits to how far anyone can impose their will. Building a world with more partners instead of more enemies is cheaper than going to war.

Paths to progress on these goals: relentless home improvement, here and abroad. Small governments cannot grow when they suffer corruption or incapacity. But also, the new world is dependent upon the American Dream being renewed at home, improving the lot of middle and working class Americans.

We, the Rice community and VIPs, represented a slice of the elite, and he acknowledged that several times. We, as a group of individuals, have more power to do than any group before… and there is a lot of doing that needs to be done.

After the speech Clinton took questions submitted by students. This was where I went all starry-eyed with admiration. The questions were sufficiently detailed and complicated that I had trouble even following the syntax for some of them. Almost all of them concerned foreign policy. Clinton took every question in stride, and answered them with clarity, sincerity, and knowledge – I’m sure he prepared ahead of time since the questions were pre-approved, but there was a big stack of cards and he only got about five of them. I was very impressed at the sheer amount of information he managed throughout the later part of the afternoon.

And at one point, someone asked him if he would comment on James Baker’s role in the Supreme Court decision on the Florida election in 2000. This was especially pointed as James Baker was sitting to Clinton’s left, having introduced the speech as Honorary Chair of the Institute with his name. Clinton laughed, and actually stomped his feet with what looked like glee as the question was asked, and Baker leaned over to Rice President Leebron and made a “whoo-hoo” sort of twirling gesture with one hand. That was just fun.

It was an entirely worthwhile way to spend a couple of hours of my day, even on the incredibly uncomfortable bench seating in the court.

Abrahamic Traditions, Celebrations, Christianity, Judaism

Interfaith Op/Ed

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Scott Korb & Leon Morris make a compelling argument that is both astute and intrinsically interfaith in their opinion piece, first published Dec 17th in the Baltimore Sun and reprinted today in the Chronicle:

Christmas Belongs to Christians

The essential discussion touches on one of my personal difficulties with the entire concept of interfaith ministry in its many forms: the loss of significance of cultural and religious events by attempting to make them “fit” into a dominant cultural paradigm.

It’s not that I think that the interfaith movement is wrong – I’d not be an interfaith minister if I did. I simply think that the movement is not about creating a common approach to spirituality, but rather finding a common ground for respecting and tolerating each other’s unique spiritualities.

I am reminded of something my mother heard in a lecture by Jill Carroll of the Boniuk Center at Rice University. Mom caught the lecture on public access, and related some of it to me when I moved back to Houston. She told me that Ms. Carroll said that tolerance does not require approval, permission, sympathy, or understanding of the other person or practice. One simply allows the other person to do as they believe is right, while they allow the same. (I am attempting to catch a rerun or a podcast of the lecture to quote it more effectively, but whether the quote is accurate or not, the point is well made.) Tolerance, the cornerstone of the interfaith movement, involves no great leaps of cooperation to show the other side how harmless/familiar/similar this side really is. It does not require an outsider to take part in order to fully appreciate the delicate nuances of practice.

Tolerance is simple, and non-intrusive.

It is a question both fascinating and pertinent, whether the “Happy Holidays” and “Season of Light” phenomena constitute an intrinsic devaluing of the practices and beliefs they purport to celebrate.

Can Unity of Spirit come from the forceful melding of cultural traditions, or should the global community, and especially America, practice tolerance and education in lieu of religious monism? Let the cultural melting pot proceed at its own pace; we needn’t hurry it along by invoking the cultural whisk quite yet.

As for me, I have celebrated Winter Solstice with dear friends, through dancing and song, thinking often of dearest spiritual sisters celebrating that night far away in New York. I have enjoyed a family White Elephant Party. I plan to partake of certain family traditions for Wigilia, a Polish Christmas Eve celebration, with my parents. Come Christmas Day I will play games – board games, card games, word games – probably long into the night, with my extended family. And on January 6th, I will light a candle for the feast of the Epiphany, make wishes for the New Year, and plan my charitable giving.
That is an interfaith celebration based on my personal spiritual path, my childhood memories, and respect for the cherished beliefs of my family and friends. Those things are important to me in a way that the practices of other religions cannot be; that does not lessen my tolerance, nor for that matter my respect and awe at other religious ceremonies, simply reflects my own experience of the season.

Abrahamic Traditions, Ancient Traditions, Christianity, History, Local

Dr. Elaine Pagels on Judas

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This evening Dr. Elaine Pagels spoke at Rice University on the topic of the newly published Gospel of Judas and its impact on the scholarship of early Christianity.

I had no real idea what to expect of the presentation, which was part of the Archaeological Institute of America’s Local Lecture Series. The venue was a gorgeous lecture hall, with a reception at the student center across the street. There were quite a lot of people there, mostly white, mostly middle-aged or elderly, although I spotted a few folks who were likely students. I hadn’t thought of it until I sat down in the hall, but it would have been a fantastic gathering for some local networking, if I’d had even a couple of contacts to aid with introductions. Perhaps I can continue to attend and figure out who the important people are.

I am, of course, a great fan of the various ancient texts which make up the Nag Hammadi Library and other sources of “lost” Christian writings. As Dr. Pagels pointed out, though, the name “lost” gospels is a misnomer. They weren’t lost, they were systematically and deliberately suppressed by the orthodoxy. These texts point out tremendous conflict in the early Christian movement, highlighting dissenting voices in debates about the nature of God, the Resurrection, and the amount of foreknowledge Jesus had about events.

According to Dr. Pagels, the author of the Gospel of Judas is a very angry Christian who is expressing a lot of objection to the practice of church leaders’ encouragement of voluntary martyrdom. In addition, there is a bit of mystery tradition as the author describes a “secret teaching” Jesus gave to Judas before asking Judas to betray him as part of a larger plan. The mystery involves a higher spiritual existence that gives a kind of immortality that is distinctly different from the idea of bodily resurrection put forward by traditional Christianity.

The vision of the spiritual plane that overlays this one echoes so many mystical traditions, from paganism to Sufism to even some Hellenistic philosphy. One of the phrases from her lecture sticks in my mind discussing death: stepping into God. That is really the attitude that the author of the Judas manuscript takes toward Jesus’s death. He was demonstrating that great mystery, showing through his own transcendence the power of leaving behind one’s physical body.

I am put in mind of Paul’s initial conversion, which if I recall correctly was a vision of light by the side of the road. That’s the kind of Resurrection I could imagine, a spiritual power that transcends the physical world and can reach infinitely through space and time.

One major point in the discussion touched on current events: the issue of the glorification of martyrdom. In the Gospel of Judas, Judas is described as scolding the other disciples for sacrificing children on the altar. There is a question to read between the lines there – what has the Church become, what kind of God do we worship, who would want the blood of our children? Are we turning to human sacrifice now? This question is born out of the cultural glorification of martyrdom during the 2nd century among the Church orthodoxy. And the Gospel is just the sort of dissenting viewpoint that modern scholars and Christians have never heard.

Early Church fathers went out of their way to tell their naive and trusting faithful not just that martyrdom was glorious when it was necessary, but that it was so glorious and desirable that they should activiely seek it out. There is a very great difference between telling someone to be willing to die for their beliefs if they are arrested, and telling someone that they should throw themselves at the cops to die in glory for their faith and secure their place in Heaven. Incredible, how parallel that seems on the surface to the current pattern of Islamic radicalism and their glorification of martyrdom through murder-suicide.

Yet, as Dr. Pagels pointed out, the early Christians were a persecuted minority that did face death if caught. To tell them that it was better to accept martyrdom than to deny their faith was in line with Christian thought. Early Christians never murdered non-Christians or bystanders in their pursuit of glorious martyrdom, though. There was a distinct difference in the context. Still, Dr. Pagels mentioned that upon reading the Gospel of Judas she was put in mind of an Imam today, protesting the great movement of glorious martyrdom through terrorism. This is a voice of protest as well as a mystical revelation.

The one topic Dr. Pagels only touched on briefly was the spiritual relevance of this Gospel and the others of the “lost” texts. She said that she did not read the texts as a minister would. That, of course, made me want to read them from that perspective. I will have to see about getting my hands on the texts and reading from several perspectives now.

On the whole I was fascinated by the lecture and discussion, and look forward to seeing Dr. Pagels’s forthcoming book on the subject next spring. I am also looking forward to exploring more of the Archaeology, Religion, Interfaith, and Cultural resources of the sponsoring organizations: Rice, AIA, The Boniuk Center, and The Center at Christ Church Cathedral.