Something highly conceptual, not too much work. I have no ideas. I need ideas!
(There were all these upsetting girls in Seattle for whom Halloween was like prom: expensive, labor-intensive, snotty. I used to love Halloween until it became this like small one-upping girl war. I want Halloween love to come back! Funness! Silliness!)
10.27.2007
Fraught lovers.
Me and my church. We love each other, but we fight like cornered dogs.
It's only since I've been interacting with people at General Theological (the Episcopal seminary in Chelsea which I very very chose not to attend) that I've realized that partnered white men are the cream of the f***ing crop in the Episcopal Church. They cruise. They get ordained super-fast. The rest of us, we wait. We get told to be more prayerful. We are told to wait, and wait, and wait. We are the Eternal Postulants. It's hard.
I had a few brief confrontational e-mails with my bishop about this, and she came to visit last week. We had lunch, good good lunch, where she made sure I knew she had my back. The Commission on Ministry has to be handled in particular ways, but she and I have bone-deep understandings, and I love her. It helped, but it doesn't fix the ways this happens systematically throughout the national church. I am trying to stay vocal about it, especially with these white boys who will have parishes very soon, to try and show them how NOT to do this to people who will go through the discernment process in their parishes.
This Polity class at General is making me frustrated. I am now just keeping a running tally of the frightening/misogynist remarks the bishop makes during each class. (One week there was a lovely combination of using a priest killing his wife as the example of what kind of information one should not preach on and of saying, "Well, why shouldn't we bless same-sex couples? We bless dogs. And cars." Um.) I have been told that one does not lodge complaints at General. We'll see. I wish someone other than me felt like hell about it.
Preaching is awesome. And I like teaching a lot. A lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot. I'm starting to think that if I do doctoral work, it will be about using Foucault and Butler and Spivak to talk about the politics of interpretation, particularly in relationship to the Greek Scriptures, and the implications for Christology. I want to talk about permeable, negotiated selves, and what happens when we attempt that process transtemporally, and with someone we make particular faith claims about. Still sorting this.
I'm playing a lot of Excuse 17 these days. And Neneh Cherry. And I think it may be time to let go of my prejudices against the Raincoats.
The Trazodone is helping me sleep, but now I'm sedated most of the day, and I don't know quite what to do about that. Check-up next week.
It's only since I've been interacting with people at General Theological (the Episcopal seminary in Chelsea which I very very chose not to attend) that I've realized that partnered white men are the cream of the f***ing crop in the Episcopal Church. They cruise. They get ordained super-fast. The rest of us, we wait. We get told to be more prayerful. We are told to wait, and wait, and wait. We are the Eternal Postulants. It's hard.
I had a few brief confrontational e-mails with my bishop about this, and she came to visit last week. We had lunch, good good lunch, where she made sure I knew she had my back. The Commission on Ministry has to be handled in particular ways, but she and I have bone-deep understandings, and I love her. It helped, but it doesn't fix the ways this happens systematically throughout the national church. I am trying to stay vocal about it, especially with these white boys who will have parishes very soon, to try and show them how NOT to do this to people who will go through the discernment process in their parishes.
This Polity class at General is making me frustrated. I am now just keeping a running tally of the frightening/misogynist remarks the bishop makes during each class. (One week there was a lovely combination of using a priest killing his wife as the example of what kind of information one should not preach on and of saying, "Well, why shouldn't we bless same-sex couples? We bless dogs. And cars." Um.) I have been told that one does not lodge complaints at General. We'll see. I wish someone other than me felt like hell about it.
Preaching is awesome. And I like teaching a lot. A lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot. I'm starting to think that if I do doctoral work, it will be about using Foucault and Butler and Spivak to talk about the politics of interpretation, particularly in relationship to the Greek Scriptures, and the implications for Christology. I want to talk about permeable, negotiated selves, and what happens when we attempt that process transtemporally, and with someone we make particular faith claims about. Still sorting this.
I'm playing a lot of Excuse 17 these days. And Neneh Cherry. And I think it may be time to let go of my prejudices against the Raincoats.
The Trazodone is helping me sleep, but now I'm sedated most of the day, and I don't know quite what to do about that. Check-up next week.
10.12.2007
Please support my friend.
The fabulous Nina is baking pies for many, many, many hours in order to honor her mother, who died ten years ago, and to raise money for low-income cancer patients. Please, please visit her website: Pieathon and sponsor baking time or (if you're in NYC) buy a pie. Good karma, God will love you even more, all that good stuff.
10.09.2007
I hate the Royal Tenenbaums.
10.08.2007
Warning: some hard stuff news stories.
Monday night.
Thinking about a lot of things. Thinking about this. And this. And this book. A lot because Onleilove and I want to make chapel for people who have experienced sexual trauma. We want to scream and make safe space to break things. We both think lighting candles (which Christians do for everything) is insufficient to the threat, and to the lived reality, of a lot of bodies.
Went to the Long Island wedding yesterday of Kenny B and Ally. A couple beautiful moments. The best photobooth pics ever. Hanging out with Jeremy and Emily. Talking to Allison's dad, who had gone to see her burlesque show (eep!), and who was so very very proud of her "for being so confident in her own skin...I see so many brides get married here, and some of them are just so uncomfortable. I'm proud of her, out there with her red dress and her tattoos." Hava Nagila. More food than H. and I had maybe ever seen in one place. Crazy dancing. (Side note: after 2 hour yoga Sunday morning and hours of walking and trains and dancing in 4 inch heels, my legs are totally shot). Lots of laughter on the LIRR.
I am up writing an analysis of a 15-minute lecture I delivered last week in my pedagogy class about thinking about gender in the church. I'm sick (I kept pushing it off and today it came back and bit me), and I'm not thinking well, although the experience was pretty big. Something will get written.
I'm falling in love with Dan Bern all over again. Especially this song. It's important for me to remember faith, past belief.
Can I just say how much I love my best friend? A TON. I've been thinking a lot lately about how important it is for me to have a best friend, finally, after so many years. I have a complete wealth of good friends right now in my life, for which I am thankful and bewildered (what did I do to deserve these fan-TAS-tic people in my life?). I am also experiencing a real lack of babies. For the past 10 years, I've been taking care of someone's bubs, and now there is a lack of baths and bubbles and little crackers and naps and warm heads and snuggling and laughing hysterically. It's a big place of emptiness, although when baby Grace left last year, I got so lonely for Jane and Ben and Alice and Bea that I knew I couldn't keep doing that kind of loss again and again. It's an interesting void that I will be living with for a while.
Must continue to write paper. For real. Kisses.
Thinking about a lot of things. Thinking about this. And this. And this book. A lot because Onleilove and I want to make chapel for people who have experienced sexual trauma. We want to scream and make safe space to break things. We both think lighting candles (which Christians do for everything) is insufficient to the threat, and to the lived reality, of a lot of bodies.
Went to the Long Island wedding yesterday of Kenny B and Ally. A couple beautiful moments. The best photobooth pics ever. Hanging out with Jeremy and Emily. Talking to Allison's dad, who had gone to see her burlesque show (eep!), and who was so very very proud of her "for being so confident in her own skin...I see so many brides get married here, and some of them are just so uncomfortable. I'm proud of her, out there with her red dress and her tattoos." Hava Nagila. More food than H. and I had maybe ever seen in one place. Crazy dancing. (Side note: after 2 hour yoga Sunday morning and hours of walking and trains and dancing in 4 inch heels, my legs are totally shot). Lots of laughter on the LIRR.
I am up writing an analysis of a 15-minute lecture I delivered last week in my pedagogy class about thinking about gender in the church. I'm sick (I kept pushing it off and today it came back and bit me), and I'm not thinking well, although the experience was pretty big. Something will get written.
I'm falling in love with Dan Bern all over again. Especially this song. It's important for me to remember faith, past belief.
Can I just say how much I love my best friend? A TON. I've been thinking a lot lately about how important it is for me to have a best friend, finally, after so many years. I have a complete wealth of good friends right now in my life, for which I am thankful and bewildered (what did I do to deserve these fan-TAS-tic people in my life?). I am also experiencing a real lack of babies. For the past 10 years, I've been taking care of someone's bubs, and now there is a lack of baths and bubbles and little crackers and naps and warm heads and snuggling and laughing hysterically. It's a big place of emptiness, although when baby Grace left last year, I got so lonely for Jane and Ben and Alice and Bea that I knew I couldn't keep doing that kind of loss again and again. It's an interesting void that I will be living with for a while.
Must continue to write paper. For real. Kisses.
9.27.2007
God repents.
I'm really interested right now in texts that deal with God changing God's mind. We're looking at Exodus 32:1-14 today in class on my suggestion. Any thoughts, people?
I like the idea that we, people, human beings, agents, free will-ers, have a say in the making of God's mind. What I'm finding is that there aren't too many scholarly articles willing to cope with this in depth.
I like the idea that we, people, human beings, agents, free will-ers, have a say in the making of God's mind. What I'm finding is that there aren't too many scholarly articles willing to cope with this in depth.
9.16.2007
Sunday night.
Went to my new favorite place: World Yoga Center. Little teeny anusara studio on the UWS. The teacher, a sub, kicked my tuchus. I got to demo handstands and then do a bunch of handstands, and thought about all that love and goodness Lisa has poured into me for the past five years. We also did nineteen hundred lunges. And then pigeon. I hate pigeon. My knees are quivering still. Really deep sivasana.
Then Jerry and I walked to the 70th Street pier, where there was a carnival for toddlers and saw the teensiest Ferris Wheel ever (we agreed neither of us would trust our kids in it). We drank beer and I had a Hebrew National with sauerkraut and good mustard for $3. Yum. We talked classes, and selves, and love, and figuring out who gets to decide who you are (answer: God. And you. And people who love you and have known you for a long time. But mostly really just you and God). We watched the sunset. A good night.
I have more work than I have time for tonight, but whatever.
Then Jerry and I walked to the 70th Street pier, where there was a carnival for toddlers and saw the teensiest Ferris Wheel ever (we agreed neither of us would trust our kids in it). We drank beer and I had a Hebrew National with sauerkraut and good mustard for $3. Yum. We talked classes, and selves, and love, and figuring out who gets to decide who you are (answer: God. And you. And people who love you and have known you for a long time. But mostly really just you and God). We watched the sunset. A good night.
I have more work than I have time for tonight, but whatever.
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