Inside Emerson House

The Young Adult Residents at the Mountain live in Emerson house- next to the lodge. This semester there are three females and one male- so Nelson is all by himself in one bedroom and us girls are in what used to be the artist's studio (huge windows, attached half-bath, track lighting...)

Our kitchen has a sweet gas stove and the living room has a gas fireplace. Main bathroom has a whirlpool tub... and dolphin shower curtain. In other words, we're living the high life.

To the Mountain

Leaving home is tough. I love my parents and enjoy spending time with them- the months I just spent in their house were a delicious vacation from the worries of young adult life. I was happy there, and did not want to leave. But, as they say, all good things must come to an end... and so yesterday I finished loading my belongings into the car and started driving over the mountains. The main interstate to North Carolina is still closed because of a major rockslide. The secondary route through the heart of the National Park is closed because of icing and a rockslide. So I went with the third option- a serious of winding country roads through the middle of nowhere. Except for some minor dizziness it was a pleasant drive- I took my time (not hard, since I mostly had the roads to myself) and took frequent snack breaks. I found an amazing arts center to stop at for a bathroom break. I took in most of the scenic overlooks along my route. And I arrived at the Mountain just as my book on tape finished, fifteen minutes before the program officially began. Success!!!

Winter Service

This is the service I delivered today at Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church. It's not perfect, of course, but I'm proud of my first effort all the same.

 

Reading/Meditation was Jacqui James "Dark and Light, Light and Dark".

 

Responsive Reading was number 543 by Greta Crosby:

Let us not wish away the winter. It is a season to itself, not simply the way to spring.

When trees rest, growing no leaves, gathering no light, they let in sky and trace themselves delicately against dawns and sunsets.

The clarity and brilliance of the winter sky delight. The loom of fog softens edges, lulls the eyes and ears of the quiet, awakens by risk the unquiet. A low dark sky can snow, emblem of individuality, liberality, and aggregate power. Snow invites to contemplation and to sport.

Winter is a table set with ice and starlight.

Winter dark tends to warm light: fire and candle; winter cold to hugs and huddles; winter want to gifts and sharing; winter danger to visions, plans, and common endeavoring—and the zest of narrow escapes; winter tedium to merry-making.

Let us therefore praise winter, rich in beauty, challenge, and pregnant negativities.

 

And of course we sang Shelley Denham's "Dark of Winter". The story for all ages was The Snow Country Prince.

Rev Jake Morrill played "Let the Mystery Be" for the offertory, which was perfect.

Oh yes, and this was my sermon/homily:

 

My first real introduction to what the depths of winter could bring was the summer of 2004, when I worked in Alaska as an outdoors skills counselor. Summer in Alaska is a big deal. Most Alaskans spend every moment they can spare out of doors during those months where the sun hardly sets. I remember one person telling me that in winter there are too many car accidents because it's dark and snowy, and in summer there are too many accidents because everyone is sleep deprived from staying out all night. They appreciate light and warmth on a level I'd never experienced in Tennessee, and I think every Alaskan is at least a little afraid of the dark. Some, of course, are more afraid then others. On one of my camper's forms the mother wrote that her daughter was terrified of darkness and if she got scared all we needed to do was "remind her that it was light outside".

For years I have thought of this as a fantastic metaphor for how often in our lives we overlook the love and hope and joy that surrounds us when we're sunk in private misery. I have grinned at the memory of rolling up this camper's tent flap so that she could, quite literally, see the light.

I wonder what the mother said to comfort this child in the winter months, when she could not bring the girl to a window and reassure her that the sun was still shining. Was her stuffed animal and mother's love enough comfort? Did having a night light help? For half of the year, after all, it was night-time in Alaska. What do we do when it really is dark outside, when the world truly is a cold and inhospitable place?

Here in Tennessee we rarely get significant snowfall or have the opportunity to ice-skate on a frozen pond under a clear blue sky. Winter is pretty dreary here, and in most of the places I've lived over the last five years winter was bitterly cold and dreary, which was not an improvement. I doubt many would argue with me that while snow is attractive, sleet and biting wind have few redeemable qualities.

Even places with "true" winter have fewer natural excitements to offer. The animals are in hiding or scurrying quickly to warmth. Most of the plant world seems lifeless and gray. The landscape is stark and uninviting, and we often can't see it because the sun is down.

This is not a season of doing, or of nature's bountiful splendor. It is not the time for a child's first swim in wild waters or a hawk's first flight. It is a time of darkness.

What on earth can we find to appreciate in such a horrid season?

Perhaps the only good thing about winter we can think of is that with all the leaves gone you can really see the trees. Certainly many of us appreciate the opportunities to spend time indoors with family and friends, gathered around the hearth. Maybe we're glad of an excuse not to venture out into the world. As winter continues and the holidays are over, the novelty of leafless trees has worn away, and we begin to feel the effects of cabin fever, where do we look for joy in winter?

Many of my Pagan friends say they love all of the seasons, and even appreciate them equally. What do they see in winter? It has none of spring's rising splendor or summer's warming glory or autumn's crisp flash. Winter mostly makes me want to hibernate.

I remember complaining to a teacher that February was the really the longest month of the year. I said I wanted to wake up the next day and find it had passed me by, and violets had bloomed outside. She warned me not to wish my life away. I was pretty sure at the time she had no idea how miserable this season made me.

Winter is dark and cold and sleepy. The animals are in hiding or scurrying quickly to warmth. Most of the plant world seems lifeless and gray. The landscape is stark and uninviting, and we often can't see it because the sun is down.

This is not a season of doing, or of nature's bountiful splendor. It is not the time for a child's first swim in wild waters or a hawk's first flight. It is a time of darkness.

Celebrating darkness seems nearly heretical. Darkness is synonymous in our culture with ignorance, pain, struggle, hardship, even evil. To go over to the dark side is to betray all that is good and noble, to give in to ambition and greed and fear. Yet perhaps if we believe that we are shorting ourselves.

In the balance of things we need pain and regret to appreciate joy and contentment. There can be no courage without fear, no glory without the possibility of failure. But embracing darkness is about more than this balance.

There is beauty in the dark, and comfort in the cold. We need rest as well as exercise.

There is strength to be found in Winter, a time for reflection and recuperation. We cannot always be growing and adventuring. Winter can be a time of strengthening before the harried seasons of light return, a time to ponder the depth of life and self, to look within and gather ourselves together.

And after all…Why are we afraid of the dark? Because our surroundings are hidden from us, because we fear the darkness within ourselves, because can't be sure there are no monsters lurking there? Light is hope and dark is fear, night is a time of despair. If light is truth then darkness is mystery, the unknown or the unknowable. We curse the darkness or light candles against it, seeking to turn night into day.

It may be true that it is better to light a candle then curse the darkness, but perhaps sometimes it is even better to calm down and let the darkness stay as it is.

We cannot see the stars if we stare at the streetlamps.

The dark is as sacred as the light.

Hope is not just the return of the light, that moment when the sun is seen again, it is the moment before dawn, that darkest hour.

Winter is a time of keeping faith. We must hold on to the hope that even as the days grow longer and weather gets colder our reflection and rest are held to some purpose. The seasons are precious because they are fleeting. Even in Alaska winter will turn to spring, spring to summer, summer to autumn, and round again to winter. We know this from experience, yet in winter experience is often not enough. This season of cold and darkness calls for something more, something from within ourselves. As the natural world is sleeping we must look to our own hearts and to the things that we create to find our happiness.

I fear winter because I fear that I am not enough.

Like Mariko and Kazuo I sometimes feel too small and lonely. There are limits on any holy optimism, and sometimes it truly is dark outside. What if I cannot find the courage to build and sustain hope in the cold dreariness? What if I cannot find the strength to trust and love and breathe deeply of that crisp chill air?

Perhaps my fears will help me to pay attention. If I notice that I am cold I think of those who have no snug house and down coats. If I am lonely I think of those who have been cast out of their families because of their gender or sexual orientation, those who know that society is against them. Winter is a time of choice as well as a time of faith. Will I hide behind my fears or face them? Will I weep in isolation or step out into the mystery of life? Will I admire the shapes of trees or begrudge them their lack of leaves? Will I wish my life away?

As Unitarian Universalists we take a path of immense courage when we say we do not know the answers, that we are often in the dark. Our faith is not necessarily an antidote to fear, for we acknowledge that things do not necessarily turn out well and the world is full of things to be afraid of. Yet we are not fear mongers or supporters of small mindedness. We stand on the side of love. Even on the dreariest night we hold to our hope for humanity and ourselves. We stand in the darkness, celebrating its beauty and its possibility. We stand by each other, even when the seasons are harsh. We cherish a sense of mystery, for it is in that we may hope to find wisdom.

I say we should welcome winter as a time of questioning and wonder and connection.

To quote a friend, "come over to the dark side. We have cookies".

Richard III... nerdy movie review

FINALLY saw the 1995 film version of Richard III with Ian McKellan and I LOVED it. Visuals were fantastic, acting was amazing (gotta love those let's-stuff-all-the-good-british-actors-into-one-movie films, particularly when that means seeing good character/comedic actors doing dramatic parts), and I thought the setting was intriguing.

My issues with it were these:

1. The house of York is the WHITE rose. What the crap is up with all the red? Okay, I know, it's that "Nazi England" look, and it works, but I was still annoyed.

2. They take out Queen Margaret and give her lines to the Duchess of York. WTF? The beauty of the Duchess's last scene is that you don't know what happens to her- that she's all destroyed with grief and just leaves. Don't put her on to a plane to France and turn her into the totally bitter old woman- she's a sweet elderly lady who tells her son off, not a hateful old hag! Though that did improve the "oh, poor Richard!" effect... maybe too much. Kindof oversimplifies his motivations, doesn't it? Otherwise loved the duchess character, of course. FAVORITE PART EVER.

3. The elder prince is supposed to be a strong character- he's the one person who sees through his uncle! That's one of the best parts of the play! Don't make him into a terrified and pompous pipsqueak of a tween. NOT OKAY.

Nerd rage over, returning to fan person mode.

I felt I should have been sad that Richmond's final speech disappeared, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't miss it. It's Richard III! The only person we want monologues from is Richard! Well, at least in a movie. On stage I'd prefer that be left in, thank you kindly.

Usually tragedies make me sad, but Richard III just makes me happy. The language, the characters, the melodramatic angst... *sigh* It's my absolute favorite of Shakespeare's plays.

Romeo and Juliet

I have always thought the title characters in this play were idiotic. If you look at the story dispassionately it is far more depressing then heartwarming. They were too young, had just met each other, made incredibly stupid decisions, and died because of silly mistake. It isn't exactly something we'd want anyone we love to emulate.

Yet the power of the story is not in its logic but its emotion. However ridiculous the story may seem when we lay it out in its bare bones, for those two characters it was REAL. Shakespeare's writing makes us see how real it was- that however unwise and impetuous and short sighted their love affair may have been, yet still it had legitimacy.

How many young couples (and lonely young persons) have longed for that legitimacy? Adolescent experiences may appear predictable and short lived, but that doesn't mean they aren't real. Perhaps it is an eccentricity of our culture that we honor that reality at all. Works that Romeo and Juliet open the door for real life stories of romantic love. The stories that we tell dictate what we will and will not accept, what we will choose.

There is good reason that so many more hetrosexual couples then queer couples survive out of college. The story of straight people meeting as undergraduates and getting married afterwards is a path well blazed and accepted. The story of two women meeting as undergraduates and getting wed, or two men? They have far far more to prove, and no clear trail to walk down.

Will there be an artistic or literary or dramatic work that blazes the trail for these couples? I find it hard to believe it is only a matter of politics. Politics ride on the stories that we tell and how those stories are told.

Writers and artists of all stripes, I dare you- rise up and create! Tell stories that will blaze the path! Romeo and Juliet had to die, and so did Harvey Milk, but there are so many more stories out there needing to be heard, needing your art to rise to cultural legitimacy. Brokeback Mountain was not enough. We need more.

Favorite Flower

Here is an entirely trivial thing- I have finally decided what my favorite flower is. Not conclusively, but I'm pretty certain.

I will always love daffodils, because they're the bright heralds of spring and my mother's favorite. I'll love violets and buttercups for similar reasons- they remind me of the spring afternoons of childhood. Daisies represent the best of Bryn Mawr for me, and are fabulously easy to draw. Black Eyed Susans make me smile- as do yellow orchids and roses and... well, let's face it, prettymuch every yellow flower.

But my favorite, I have come to realize, is the yellow primrose. The kind you find sold at the grocery store on the display next to the apple cider. Colorful and unprepossessing and incredibly dramatic. I like high maintenance plants that let me know how they're feeling, particularly when they respond so quickly and joyfully to attention and water and sunlight.

I think that if I were a domesticated flower I would be a primrose.

Idealism

A fantasy writer wrote that women are more likely to read fiction because they're prone to being idealists. They aren't content with unhappy endings.

We need cynical pragmatism too, but isn't it important for some of not to accept "that's the way it is"? Otherwise, how would anything ever change?

"Lesbian"

I am not a lesbian. Nor am I bisexual or straight. I reject those categories and labels. Mostly.

It would be more accurate to say that I wish I could reject those labels. I wish saying "queer" was as simple and powerful as I believe it can be. A label that's a rejection of labels can be difficult to explain.

More to the point, I struggle with the fact that I wish I was a lesbian. People know what that means, I know what that means, it's a definite category with a definite community. It's a strong place to stand. And even though I use the term queer and believe in that term, I find myself sometimes reassuring people that I'm "really" a lesbian, that saying queer instead is an activist stance. And that's not true. I am not attracted only to women, I just wish I were. I'm much more attracted to women, and not interested in men romantically, but... I'm not a lesbian. I feel this means I'm not a full member of the community, that I'll always be facing bi-phobia, that I have no right to speak up as a queer because I am not a full member of this otherized community.

No wonder so many who can't fit into that category end up pretending to be straight. It's tough and unrewarding, being in this gray area. Maybe that's why I'm so intent on making it a spectrum instead of a binary structure. It's repressive, and hurtful, and it impacts ALL of us. We shouldn't HAVE to be either Lesbian or Straight, or Gay or Straight, or take up the struggle of declaring ourselves Bisexual. Endorsing this binary hurts ALL of us.

And another thing, how obnoxious is it that even I would use phrase "pretending to be straight". Sexuality is fluid, but everyone out of the closet cringes at the idea that it's "just a phrase". I am TERRIFIED of the idea that I might date a man, enter into a male/female relationship, become a "girl" again. I don't want to be a straight woman, and if I was acting out that role in my life how could I be anything else? What a lot of crap!

In being a Queer activist I am fighting for myself, yes. But not only for myself. Here is a thing that is broken, and I will not let that stand.

Good Intentions

The book Good Omens tells us that the road to hell is paved not with good intentions but with frozen used car salesmen. I find this immeasurably reassuring.

Human beings are not perfect. We make mistakes, we don't think things through all the way, we work with an incomplete knowledge of circumstances. We also tend to be pretty quick to jump on the defensive.

I am bothered by the current debate on facebook about the breast cancer awareness campaign that has run viral through the social networking site.

It took me a bit to figure out why. At first I thought it was guilt- I had, after all, posted my non-bra color (I was wearing a tank top that day) as my status, though I hadn't passed the message along about why I'd done so. I'd even thought about going and putting on a bra just so I could post something ridiculous and appropriate to my sexy self. My grandmother and some of my former campers are facebook friends with me, however, so I resisted temptation.

No, I realized, it wasn't guilt. Or even embarrassment. I'm not a particularly private person, though I wish I could be myself and still have my personal life private, and this particular form of activism was something I was comfortable with. I've seen images of the bras decorated by artists to create awareness, I remember the time a Bryn Mawr group filled our campus center with bras for this very reason. Bras are a classic symbol of feminist activism, and have come to have meaning for the fight against breast cancer.

So. I hear the criticism- that breast cancer affects those who do not wear bras. That it's an obnoxiously gender specific campaign enforcing a gender binary we disagree with. That it's perhaps annoying voyeuristic.

Yet in my head what I see is whoever started this campaign. And I wonder. Why? Were they an idealist or being pragmatic (or, let's allow the possibility), obnoxious? They've certainly made people think about breast cancer, and that was supposedly the point. The critiques that have been made are part of an important debate and open the door for meaningful discussion.

Has whoever began this seen the critiques? Are they embarrased and disillusioned, or excited to have been the spark for discourse? What have they said to their friends, and their friends said to them, over the last couple of days? Are they pleased and proud, or angry and hurt?

The anonymity of the internet can be very frustrating, and things can so easily become what they were never meant to be.

I think whoever began this had good intentions, and I don't think anything has gone to hell.

Whoever you are, I salute you.

Oh, and black lace, in case you're curious.

Fishy Wishes

If fairy godmothers were a literal reality and you could request any set of skills or abilities or attributes, what would you ask for? I'm referring here to the fairytale name-day giving of gifts, when a child was told they would be fabulous at dancing or have really lovely red lips and nicely curled hair.

I've often wished I was musical. I'd love to be an amazing singer and guitar player, to be able to converse intelligently about string quartets and perhaps even have the skills to compose songs of my own. I just don't seem to have the attention span to learn a musical instrument, or the what-ever it is you need to become a good singer. Maybe I lack confidence and discipline as much as ability.

I don't want to be more physically attractive then I am, I'm intelligent enough for my own needs, and wisdom I think I'd rather earn then be handed. I wish I could fly, of course, but I've seen enough superhero movies to believe that would probably complicate things. I like being more honest then clever, have accepted that I'm a far better tactician then strategist, and don't particularly like the idea of someone else correcting my other personal flaws. Maybe it's silly to think the world needs a few incorrigible tactless empaths, but I'm mostly okay with being silly.

I do wish I was better at languages and had mythically impressive writing skills. Sometimes I think I am hopelessly lazy and unmotivated. But for the most part...

I like who I am. Isn't that what matters?

Journey Stories

In one of my grad school applications I had to write about several works of art/film/writing that shaped me. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was high on the list.

I'm watching Return of the King (extended version) with my parents right now, and am as ever amazed by the depth of thought that has gone into this cultural classic. No doubt I could write a years worth of blog entries on that topic alone. Here is a brief frivolous list of my favorite quotes.


#3: "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you!"- Sam, before he scoops Frodo up for the final push up Mount Doom (My other favorite Sam quotes are the ones referencing the fact that he's a gardener and what he yells as he runs up the stairs to rescue Frodo from the orcs).

#2: "If you want him, come and claim him!"- Arwen, daring the dark riders (ring wraiths) to step into her river so she can drown them.

#1: "I am no man!"- Eowyn, just before she fatally stabs the wraith who had informed her that no man could kill him.


I think we love journey stories because they help us to think about our lives as more than a series of moments. They remind us that we grow and change as we face challenges and build relationships and generally toddle along.

Thinking about this at New Years for obvious reasons- it's the traditional time for reflection, when we take the time to look at last year's journey and the year's journey to come. What fears have I overcome, new insecurities will I need to combat, skills have I gained?