Walking

I had suspected that I could walk to my Chiropractor, but never made the time to do it until my job changed to part-time. I got myself ready a half hour early, put on my ergonomically designed sneakers, screwed up my will power and headed off. About 10 minutes it took. It's almost the same distance as my walk to yoga, but in the oposite direction. And it's right next to a coffee shop and a children's consignment shop, making the whole thing a pleasant outing, yet for the first year I lived here I drove.

My husband and I have both noticed that even though we moved with great intention to a house where we could walk to stuff, it is hard to get past the mindset we developed in the car-centric community we used to live in. I got in the car to check out our local guitar store for a Mandolin strap, and my partner said "it's pretty close- you could walk." But I thought "who's got time for that? I'm a busy person" There was construction on the street to the store, and what with all the traffic lights and one-way streets, I was pretty embarrassed by the time I arrived at the shop few blocks from my house. He was right- it really was pretty close.

On my jog each morning I run past a river of folks walking up the hill to the local college. They walk past me in skirts and high heels, carrying briefcases, coffee cups, lunch bags. Some of them have special ergonomic walking shoes, but most just do it. People walk here. (This is partly because there are no parking spots closer than the ones in front of my house, which is why you can never find parking near us during the day) Our son knows that if we are going to the library or the toy store, we are going on foot. We've added the Guitar store, the sandwich shop, yoga, the chiropractor, and even the place where the "Living Wage" committee meets. Little by little we are changing our habits. Once we moved to a pedestrian friendly community, all we needed was the will and little extra time. And comfy shoes. Now if only I could find some that look good once I arrive.

What I miss

It's funny the things i miss from my old life. The drive down the Central Expressway blasting dance music. That yoga pose we used to do where you lunge low with your front foot on a block. Sunday night football games that end before bed-time.

Found Us

After almost a year of waiting for the birds to find our feeder, I switched birdseed to the "Ithaca Blend" and even though it is freezing and wet, I see a bird near the feeder every morning as I peer out my window. Sadly, the birds are usually not eating, but watching this guy who seems to empty the feeder as fast as I can fill it.

It's all about the pretzels

Overheard at last night's study group:

"So panentheism says that god is in that bowl of pretzels?"

"Yes but God is not limited by the pretzels"

"Sally McFague says that 'God is sacramentally embodied; God is mediated, expressed, in and through embodiment, but not necessarily or totally'"

"So god is in the pretzels, but not necessarily and totally."

"I guess for me the thought of pretzels being empty of God makes me feel kind of weird. In my theology God is necessarily in the pretzels."

"But not totally."

Heart Centered

I love my congregation.
I don't mean "This organization has a lot of assets and dynamic energy for growth"
I mean I love them.
Sometimes it makes my chest hurt, the warmth and connection I feel for them.

I confessed this to my environmental study group last night, and realized I love them too.

This got me to wondering -- why am I so heart centered all of a sudden? My guess is that I now have the time to feel things. Working full time with a Silicon Valley commute and a small child I often felt numb. I wonder if now that I work part time, and most of that from home, I finally have time to feel stuff. I have noticed about myself that my mind zooms ahead of what my body can do, and my emotional body falls even behind that. "Go on ahead" it says "I'll catch up" Which is probably why I am often a grump on my day off- I sat still and my emotions caught up to me.

It's Here

Right now the first real snow we have seen in Ithaca is falling in giant fluffy flakes. It is coating the grass and trees lovely against the night sky. The flakes are so big that I swear I could feel them through my hat hitting the top of my head as I walked home from yoga. Now if I can just find that brush thing for the car...

Robert Reich

I did not know this.
Robert Reich is so smart.
He's probably my favorite policy wonk.
No offense to Rachel Maddow.

Sharp left turn

Sometimes when you are writing a sermon, you realize that you are actually writing more than one sermon, and trying to cram them into one. This just happened to me. Realization dawned when I noticed I was up to 3600 words (2000 is about what my congregation enjoys). So those other 1600 words I had been working so hard on for the early part of this week all went into a special file I promise myself I will use later. Fortunately the 2 sermons were practically perferated, so it was not too hard to tease the 2 apart. I am surprised by what remains however. It is not at all what I thought my sermon would be about. The title on the order of service will not be the one listed in the newsletter I tell you what.

Away

When Congress approved a bill allowing off shore drilling, they were sure to include the restriction that drilling must happen at least 50 miles off shore.

Recently we have been watching a lot of super hero movies on Family Movie Night. In at least two Batman movies and one Spiderman movie the hero solves the problem of the ticking bomb by throwing it "away" into whatever body of water is handy.

Lately Scientists have let us know about the growing dead zones in the oceans, which are not only deeply uncool of us to perpetrate on our oceanic friends, but also is impacting jobs and food supply for those human communities who have relied on the fish who used to call those now-dead areas home.

I know that the Spiderman movie is make-believe; what concerns me is that the media is portraying and perpetrating this deep-seated idea that what happens under water is not relevant. If our archetypal heroes don't notice what harm they do to our eco-system, we know this reflects our own unconscious assumptions that what happens 50 miles off shore is not worthy of our consideration. Regardless of what we teach in school about the water cycle and "where food comes from" on the deepest level we are are forgetting our dependence on the part of our ecosystem that exists under water.

Guys

My generation uses the word "guy" to mean "person" especially in the form "you guys." I have a plastic box marked "guys" in my son's toy cabinet that is filled with little rubber dinos, sharks, and cartoon characters of both genders. So when a woman from my church pointed out to me a couple of years back that "guy" is actually NOT gender neutral, I was skeptical, and almost dismissed her point since the usage is so widespread, but I hung on to her challenge and have been chewing on it ever since.

I was only a little girl when our church hymnal was reprinted to include gender neutral language. This was back in the day when people used the word "Man" when they wanted to say "Human" or "Humanity." To my young ears this was preposterous. Man means an adult male person. Duh. How anyone could say that it was gender-neutral was beyond me. Recently I remembered how hard the feminists of my mother's generation worked to get across the idea that "Man" and "Person" were not the same word.

When one looks up Guy, one finds that the use of the word to refer to people of all genders is not primary. The first definition is "Man"

Hmmm.

Suddenly I realized I am not going to be able to use the word "guy" any more without feeling weird about it. This is especially tricky when one is talking with folks whose gender is in transition, or has been a cause of some pain or discomfort. When someone has transitioned from male to female after a long hard struggle, maybe the word "guy" doesn't honor that journey. Ouch. I wonder how long it will take me to switch over from "guys" to "folks". Or maybe an old fashioned y'all would feel more inclusive. I'm going to have to get a jar to stick a quarter in each time I screw up until I get it right.

Prop 8

Wait, I just heard that it looks like Prop 8 will pass in California. I've put my Kleenex box away. It's time to get back to work. Sigh.

11:01

I had imagined celebrating an Obama victory. I thought it would feel something like the Eagles winning a really important football game: I imagined myself cheering and jumping up and down. But at 11:01 when they called the race for Obama I was silent. My husband and I opened our bottle of celebration wine, and tears ran down my face as I tried to process the enormity of what has just happened, as I tried to exhale after holding my breath all these months. This is real. It can't be taken away. History has turned a corner, and we can never go back. MSNBC alternated between numbers and graphs, and video of Americans, grocking this new reality, who knew exactly how I felt.

As the great orator and president-elect Barak Obama began to speak a feeling crept up on me that I soon recognized as pride. We had done something together, we the American people, that shone for all to see. I have always loved my country, but recently I have been ashamed of her actions in the world, and as a liberal growing up in the time of Regan and Bush, have felt like my role in this tribe was as dissenter and critic. But last night the American people chose the candidate that took the high road, the candidate who spoke of hope and unity, and the candidate who crossed a barrier I was resigned to believing would not be crossed in my lifetime. And he won by a landslide. Dear readers, I think I am going to run out of Kleenex before I am done wondering over this turn of events.

Gathering Dark

The prospect of my second winter in the North East is making me nervous. We started getting ready ridiculously early this year; bringing in tools, denuding our son's fort of carpet and toys, pulling sweaters and gloves out of storage. For a month now I've been waiting anxiously for the winter. But of course it doesn't come all at once- it's like the cartoon sequence of the comic hero whose free fall is broken by a tree limb momentarily, only to resume a fall broken by subsequently lower and lower branches. The cold snaps, and plateaus and snaps again. On a day like today when the sun is shining, I am happy to put on my warm socks and take another 500 pictures of leaves in various stages of their fall process. But last week when it rarely got out of the 30s and the clouds never lifted the winter darkness loomed oppressive. Now that daylight savings time is over, the growing night is upon us. I am ready to hibernate, and can't believe that life plunges forward when we should all clearly "shelter in place".

Please Vote

Please vote tomorrow. So much depends on each of us participating in this decision. And if you can vote between 9-4:00, this will help reduce the crowds for those who must vote before or after work. Both campaigns have worked hard to register new voters, and we'd hate for them to get discouraged by long lines in the evening.

Trickle Down

When the banks started to crash I had an almost giddy sensation realizing that those who were feeling that pain were mostly stock-holders and folks in "wealth management." None of my bank accounts closed, and I felt (aside from the declining value of my 401k) like things would be okay for those of us not involved with high finance.

I don't feel that way any more. It's true that none of those folks closest to me have been laid off or have lost their homes, but we feel more and more like we are on board a roller coaster that is just headed over the crest of a very high track. The questions of how long the drop will last, and whether our safety restraints will protect us as we hit the bottom is anyone's guess. I am not optimistic, and yet we continue to be employed and can still pay our bills, so the descent is still for us in the realm of anxious imaginings. Yet we know from recent experience with the oil industry that while corporations are slow to share their profits (Exxon Mobile had again record profits even while passing on burdensome prices to consumers) they are always ready to share their losses. I have no doubt that the losses felt by so many at the top are trickling down, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

in the mean time, I am grateful each time a paycheck comes, knowing there are no guarantees. We batten our financial hatches and wonder when and how hard the economic storm will hit.

Sowain

Tonight we drove up to the top of Dawes Hill to celebrate Sowain with friends. With a ritual journey into the underworld. We bundled up for our walk through the woods, but even before the sun set, we were all wishing we had one more layer (my son on his hands, me on my feet).

My son got to process under a dragon's tail, and hold his own candle. He was sad that there was not more pomegranate seeds and whole wheat bread to eat during the ritual. (yes, this is the kid who normally refuses all food that doesn't fall into plain pasta category)

My son spontaneously told the story of how the Rainbow Bird brought light to the world.
Mama spontaneously told the story of how Persephone became a part-time hospice chaplain.

Our favorite quotes:
"Never go into the Underworld without your friends"
"It's COLD in the underworld!"

10th Anniversary

Today I celebrate the 10th anniversary of my ordination to the UU ministry. 10 years ago today on a dark fall evening my friends played drums and cello, extended their hands in fellowship, charged me, told tales out of school about the time I chose "the path less traveled" in ritual class, and laid their hands on me as I became a for-real minister and got to us "Rev." at the beginning of my name. I think back over 10 years of ministry, noticing how much I have learned, and how much more there is to do and to know.