Dear Diary,

I'm not usually a twelve year old girl, but here I am sharing a poem in my online diary. What else should I do to finish the performance? I don't have any My Chemical Romance to listen to... Maybe I'll put my picture of Zac Efron on the back of my bedroom door- I mean a picture- a picture of Zac Efron on my door.

"Obvious Song"
by Paulo Freire

I chose the shade of this tree
to rest from all I will do
while I am waiting for you.

One who waits and only waits
lives out a time of waiting in vain.

Therefore, while I wait for you,
I will work the fields, and
I will talk to the men.

My body burned by the sun, I will drench it in sweat;
my hands will become calloused hands,
my feet will learn the mystery of the paths,
my ears will hear more,
my eyes will see what they did not see before,
while I am waiting for you.

I won't await you only waiting,
for my waiting time is
a what-to-do time.

I will distrust those who shall come to tell me,
in whispers and cautiously,
"it is dangerous to act,"
"it is dangerous to speak,"
"it is dangerous to walk,"
"it is dangerous to wait, in the way you wait,"
for those one refuse the joy of your coming.

I will distrust those too who shall come to tell me,
with easy words, that you have come,
for those ones, as they naively herald you,
will first betray you.

I will be preparing your arrival
as a gardener tends to the garden
for the rose that shall come in the spring.

A Horse and an Aardvark Go on a Date...

At some level I felt like apologizing for wanting to see Semi-Pro. I will find plenty of funny about it and people smarter than me would say it's a tired old trick. But that's funny too. And now I read this:
"I'm trying to totally exhaust people's capacity for seeing me in these types of movies."
I don't know how that lets me off the hook. I don't entirely know that I'm on a hook, but now, this seems to make it even funnier to me.

There was a summer that Camp Roommate and I were comedy gold. He and I would perform the song Wipeout. He banged out the rhythm on an overturned pot and I would groan the melody while dancing. We thought it was fun to do, but funny to perform, especially because the song lends itself to never ending. I don't mean that the act itself was all that funny, but the performance of it as a thing was funny. So we performed it as a joke early in the summer and were requested to perform it throughout the summer. Some people thought the act itself was funny, most people didn't- but performing it was a joke and doing it over and over made it even funnier to me. There was a "How am I not myself" moment, but pushing something beyond the point of possibly funny, through awkward, to absurd is hilarious to me.

I also think this is funny:

Less than 20 dB

Unless you're better than me, you've probably heard that Starbucks will be closing their doors for three hours in a move to save their coffee soul.

It's true.

I like that idea. I like that Howard Schultz, back in the saddle, after having done more than possibly anyone other than Mr. Coffee to make coffee so ubiquitous worries that he has commodified the experience. I know it's hard to tell when I'm being ionic, or even ironic, (even I can't tell sometimes, thank God~ for my irony mark) but I really do like that kind of self-awareness.

It's rare anywhere and he's part of the machine.

My blood used to oil parts of that machine. Regular readers of this blog may want to reconsider their existence, and may also remember I was a Starbucks barrista.

Tooting my own horn, I was the kind of barrista that would get us a five star snapshot. Now to sound like a "It Was Good, But You Should've Seen It With the Broadway Cast" I stopped frequenting Starbucks when they started selling hot sandwiches. That was sort of the last straw in a change that I felt was occurring while I still worked their. It was a change marked by a number of things- no more cinnamon twists, larger retail spots, more and more cross marketing, hot sandwiches.

I know Starbucks is a global corporation so it's silly to think of them as a small neighborhood business, but as far as global corporations go, it was like a small neighborhood business. It lost some of that with these changes. I think Howard saw that that was disappearing.

So they're closing to maybe find what was lost. Like I said, I like that. Oh I know it's just a gimmick. But it's an important gimmick. At least, it is in the life of Starbucks.

I probably won't go back. I've found a new place. But I think it is none the less important for Starbucks to do this.

Now, I'm going to take it too far. But I'm going to take it too far because so many church leaders stupidly think churches should be run like businesses. I don't always know what that means, though it generally corresponds to a sense of masturbatory, ego feeding, greatness- becoming bigger to become bigger.

What if churches tried that? I don't mean self-affirming back-slapping. That is already tried a-plenty. What if there was the opportunity to stop what one does to question what one does? What would one find?

I know that's crazy talk. There couldn't possibly be anyway to stop what we do as churches to be confronted with something beyond us~

In Case of Rapture...

I've heard more than a few times now, concern about Mike Huckabee's performance in the Republican primaries as well as hope that he can use his influence among some conservative Christians as a lever to influence candidate selection. I mean I've heard this in churchy circles. I've heard church comrades express this.

I don't hide my political leanings, nor do I expect anyone else to necessarily hide their inclinations or hold their tongue simply because I'm a brown lefty, as long as they're willing to be called on their BS. So when I heard, multiple times that this concern and hope are rooted in a desire to finally have "a real Christian" president, I crapped. Then I asked, what were the last seven years? I tortured any sense of what "Christian" might mean for you, and now you tell me it wasn't necessary? When did this realization strike you? It certainly wasn't three years ago. At what point did you jump the 30 Percenter Express? Is this part of the same phenomena that cause a certain stripe of Christian to jump on other cultural trends five years behind the curve? Is this the political equivalent of "God Tube"?

It's statements like that that tempt me to believe in the phrase "You people."

The best response, well really the only response other than "... uh well..." was the following:
"Well if George Bush is a Christian, he's the kind who would have a 'God is my co-pilot' bumper sticker, but Huckabee's would say, 'If God is your co-pilot, change seats.'"

So there you go.

... Start Clapping
Faith and Inspiration Playlist

What's In A Name?

In one of our Sunday school classes we're going over an Evangelical Declaration Against Torture.

When I've mentioned that to people, they've often said it's a weird topic for a Sunday school class. Maybe. But we seem to be enjoying it. As much as one can enjoy the topic of torture and not be hellbound, I suppose.

In any case, we're not just looking at it to say "agree" or "disagree" or to come away from it and be able to conclude "torture bad." I guess that's part of it, but as much as is possible in a 45 minute, once a week class, we're also looking at it to sharpen the edges of our understanding, to see how this particular document sees the world, and to know how something we call the Word confronts that sense of the world- our sense of the world.

So that's that. So far so good.

A couple of times in I've wondered how to approach a certain issue, especially as it reflects our place in creating a sense of "the world". For example, in discussing the history of human rights I wondered how pointed to make the document's veiled reference to the evangelical objection to gay people's audacious claims that they be seen as people with the rights we would say that being human includes. How do I address that we're able to include a blastocyst in our understanding of humanness but not "a gay"?

I kept it veiled. I'm a sell out.

But one thing that could not remain easily hidden was the dearth of positive participation by evangelicals in the creation of contemporary understandings of human rights language. Drag.

It would be a happily spinable absence if it was a matter of evangelicals wishing to remain in some critical position to those Modern conceptions of self and humanity, but this was not the case- and it would be very difficult to say it was. The truth is, in recent history, evangelicals have largely been on the wrong side of most issues.

The document itself attempts a funny reconstruction of history by identifying the wonderful role Christians have played in developing a particular conception of human rights; it identifies a history of participation by groups that are not a part of contemporary evangelicalism. Ignore for a moment that when we want to construct a history of any Western concept we can say Christianity had a role in it, for good or ill; that's not the issue here. I mean it speaks of the role Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Deists, Natural Law Philosophers, and 17th c. English nonconformists had in developing a sense of human rights but doesn't acknowledge that evangelicals, either didn't exist at the time or were on the other side of the fence from these groups, often making sure the gatekeeper didn't let the others in. So to say we (as evangelicals) are a part of that train is a bit disingenuous.

I would add a big "EXCEPT" though. Evangelicals did, because of their understanding of Christianity, participate in some of the English speaking world's most progressive movements for a brief part of history. It's worth mentioning that before the Civil War and the advent of inerrancy statements evangelicals were unequivocally hippies.

But now? Ugh.

Anyway, in class we had to address that we are not the heirs of Martin Luther King Jr. or those who fought alongside him, but instead we (and I still say "we") took up the cause of those who fought against him- who wanted the negroes to take it easy, to know that God is in charge, who said, "Only when Christ comes again will the little white children of Alabama walk hand in hand with little black children." (Google it.) We were not part of that great human rights tradition- not as evangelicals anyway. I guess we could be as Quakers, but we're Evangelical Quakers. Actually, we're not even that. We're Evangelical Friends. Evangelical Friends Church Southwest.

We made ourselves contradictory. When I say "we" I mean that group in that classroom who wants to understand themselves as Quakers and evangelicals.

It's strange for a Quaker to be that. We want to carry the torch for abolition, pacifism, workers' communes, Civil Rights, and advocating the bombing of North Vietnamese water supplies.

I'm of the mind that the the two can't go together. I'm of the mind that it was a mistake to want to be called Evangelical Friends.

That happened. I mean, there was a moment in time when a group known as Southwest Yearly Meeting had to decide about being called Evangelical. And know we are.

I've talked to people who participated in that move who say it was a matter of clarifying that these particular Quakers were professing Christians. When they said "Evangelical" they meant Christian- I suppose one can make that claim. In the same way, I can claim that our church is led by presbyters so we're presbyterian.

I'm sorry if saying we're presbyterian causes confusion for anyone out there. When we use a term it means precisely what we want it to mean, nothing more nothing less. So we're Glendora Friends Presbyterian Church.

I suppose we do have the ability to use words any way we wish- but the sense we're trying to make depends on the sense a word can make. So we can say we're "Evangelical" because we love Jesus and preach the Gospel and that's all we mean by that, but unfortunately, that's not all that's meant by that.

It's a mixed bag. Depending on whom you ask, you might hear the label wasn't at all tied to the broader American understanding of "evangelical." So even though it meant Reagan, the Moral Majority, Hal Lindsey, and a Southern Christianity it didn't necessarily mean Reagan, the Moral Majority, Hal Lindsey, and a Southern Christianity. Even though that's the direction these Friends were moving, the label didn't mean, that's the direction these Friends were moving.

Fine. It doesn't mean that. Just like I don't mean we're Presbyterian when I say we're presbyterian. Just like I didn't call you "stupid," I said what you did was stupid. (You have to have siblings for that to make sense.)

It's also unfortunate that we couldn't have said, "I suppose it's not always clear what is meant by Quaker, but perhaps you will know us by our fruit, perhaps you may know we are Christians by the way we love each other and demonstrate this love to the world."

But who does that?

Well, in recent history, it hasn't been evangelicals.


So it's all garbage. No. It's not. I hope, in the truest sense of the word, I hope that maybe we can mean and be evangelical in a way that is wholly foreign to us. Maybe we can be evangelical in the way our Sunday school class is kinda' evangelical, in the same way the declaration is essenatially evangelical, the way the gospel itself is evangelical. It's that strange point of divinity that confronts who we think we are.

We could mean that. We just have to show that that's the case.

And I Think I'm Going to be Recorded?
Irresistible Bliss- Soul Coughing

WHAT!

I was so wrapped up in making Valentine's Day special for the Qweenbeen I totally forgot to do anything for you- I'm so sorry I took you for granted. I hope you accept a belated Happy Valentine's Day wish from me. Here, an oldie but... well it's an oldie where I come from:

Going To Jupiter

I hope, in the same way I hope televangelists will some day come out as ironic performance artists, that the Enzyte commercial creators are actually mocking the idea of masculinity that they are ostensibly targeting.

It's possible, though very unlikely.

What I hope is since the commercial is offering a product for male enhancement what they mean is Enzyte enhances what it means to be male (an adjective) thus making male characteristics more prominent in the same way someone might enhance what it means to be ugly, or dumb, or malodorous. This is how one makes sense of "Bob's" vacant eyes and wide-mouthed grin. His maleness is enhanced to the point that he is made a vapid, dumb-struck, shell.

I like that.

I don't mean to say that "male" is idiotic so enhanced male is more so. Rather, that the sense of male to which Enzyte appeals and demonstrates is idiotic and so one who practices it is an idiot.

So then Enzyte is intentionally an aposematic marker for idiocy and to that end it actually does deliver on its promise of enhancing maleness.

What do you know?

What I know is now that I've knocked Enzyte out of the way, next to go are Billy Mays and international calling cards. Thanks for the work FSC.

It's In The Bible, People

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Kansas activities officials are investigating a religious school's refusal to let a female referee call a boys' high school basketball game.

The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.

The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs.

SI.com

So what's the problem?

Forward Thrust Is Proportional to Airstream Mass Times The Velocity of the Airstream!

Let this be a lesson to the rest of you!

This is what happens when you don't believe in physics.

Unless You Turn and Become Like Children...

Watch this clip and note how the dialogue of Casablanca is especially wooden and hacky.

I don't mean to say, "Hey, did you ever notice Casablanca isn't so great? It's actually a poorly written and acted pile of crap. Who are the jerks that like this?"
It is wooden dialogue isn't it? And isn't the interaction stiff and awkward? But that's a good thing. The stiffness depends on the scene, they're actors acting like people who are acting like they aren't in an awkward situation. So that's good. I mean the stiffness performed in the scene is especially revealed by the voiceover.

And isn't the humor in Singin' in the Rain more humorous. It's not that the added voices are the joke- or the only joke. They seem to reveal more humor in the scene itself.

The scenes are fictions and so the supposedly unnatural layer returns us to the product of the fiction. It puts us into a critical mood so we might see the material as an object. I don't mean we see it objectively. Pfffttt. you should know how I feel about that. I mean we can see it a bit more as the part of a machine that it is.

How might I do that elsewhere?

Ugh- Now you have to go here

And All for Ten Bucks

...

Barber: So do you think people still believe in spiritual magic and shit like that?
Skybalon: Maybe, it depends on what kind of spirits or magic we're talking about. I think we still believe in types of magic.
Barber: Like astrology and lighting candles?
Skybalon: Eh, no. I mean like turning the sweat and blood of poor people into dollars.
Barber: Yeah, that's a pretty good trick.
...

Then the conversation turned to zoophilia

H to He

I would guess most people would say they couldn't affirm the idea that might makes right, but what we might say aside, that's how we live. I don't mean "might" simply in the sense of who has the sticks and guns. I mean might in the sense of whatever has power. Certain things have power and those things make up how we see right and wrong.

Again, I think we probably don't want to say that's what we do, but it is what we do. For example, let's say, for the sake of argument, everyone everywhere says stealing is wrong.

Fine.

Stealing, boo!

But, what we say counts as stealing having some kind of sense depends on who we are. Finding a dollar on the sidewalk? Not stealing. Slipping a candy bar into your pocket at 7-11 and leaving without handing over some money? Stealing. Walking out of the supermarket with the pen you used to write a check? (Who writes checks, grandma?) Not stealing. Giving someone eight dollars an hour for their work? Not stealing.

Whatever, you get the point. What we say is wrong as we live it depends on some sense of us. I know that doesn't seem like it should be so. I know we want to say there is some objective certainty we'd like to have about right and wrong. It can't be so dependent on the vagaries of history, culture, life, and actual existence; that would mean anything goes wouldn't it? (And if history shows us anything, it's certainly not that anything goes~*)

C'mon. Quit being a baby, and confront how you actually live. Or quit being a Calvinist and live in the reality of the Word. Either way, are you really going to try to get away with saying that truth and questions of morality are facts or objective things?

I know the answer to that. We do try to get away with saying that is so. Even as we are busy creating our moral sense of the world, we do so with a wink. We cover the scaffolding surrounding our world with a tarp of "objectivity." Done and done.

Silly us.

But who cares? I mean if you want to pretend that X can be known to be wrong as certainly as the earth spins on an axis, that's great. Barring any mitigating circumstances, you'll likely live as if X is wrong. If I'm going to pretend that I only can know X is wrong because of some complex network or web of layered meaning, commitments, conditions, and narrative, then fine. Barring any mitigating circumstances, I'll probably live as if X is wrong.

Of course if we don't realize we are busy creating the boundaries of understanding we might not realize we are busy creating the boundaries of understanding. Something like this might fly under the radar. This being:

"The White House said Wednesday that the widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding is legal and that President Bush could authorize the CIA to resume using the simulated-drowning method under extraordinary circumstances."

Hmm... maybe what MY PRESIDENT means by history being the judge is that, if we work hard enough now, well create a world wherein it is impossible to say, "Tying someone up and drowning them is wrong."

Worse... maybe not worse... Bad right along with everything else, if we don't realize we are busy creating the boundaries of understanding maybe we'll start to be so sure of ourselves and the world we've made we become the people who say stuff like, "God I thank you that I am not like other men..."

But who cares?

Oh and that time I don't mean it rhetorically. Really, who cares? Anyone? Please, help me out here.

* From now until some point in the future when I won't, I will use this symbol "~" to denote irony.

That Sounds About Right

I know it must be tough right now for REAL CONSERVATIVES who don't have a clear ersatz Jesus as a candidate, but I am not a REAL CONSERVATIVE, so I watch with a bit of schadenfreude the fight to be the discipline daddy. I am plussed by the sheer inanity of the Republicans. That bodes well for thoughtful voters, though I wouldn't call Clinton or Obama "president elect" just yet (I'm sure something scary can happen or we'll invade Iran and the horses-in-midstreamiots will rule again).

Who's going to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell? Who's going to double Guantanamo? (I say more asbestos, more asbestos!) Who hates THE GAYS the most? What a silly pissing contest. I think most people have had their fill of urine. Still, I've often lacked the imagination to see how low we can go.

But whatever the future holds, I am especially glad, and it's something I can happily affirm, so many are saying that the Republican candidates, if not perfect, are at least a part of Reagan's stool.

That I like.

We've Much to Be thankful For

I know sometimes I may seem a bit pessimistic or appear given to cynical suspicions and assumptions. If it ever seems that way it is only because I have a sense of transcendent hope; I believe in an an other-than-worldly potential. On what grounds could I possibly level a critique against narrow, self-interested, death-mongering or a deadly acquiescence to subjugating powers were it not for some sense of awareness of that which transcends our subjective existence?

Seriously, I mean on what grounds could I do it? Someone else might do it another way, but what else could I do? I despair only because I know there is a reason to hope.

So when I see examples of realized potential I am thankful and feel compelled to share those examples with you.

You've seen the new presidential dollar coins, yes? I, for one, love them. I wish we had five and ten dollar coins as well. I don't know if it's their cosmopolitan appeal or that there's something irresistibly power-uppy about them, but I often go out of my way to get change in these wonderfully alien bits of Americana. I'm also a fan of the unique state quarters but that's more a matter of seeing what each state imagines to be emblematic of itself. You're so lame, Michigan. But maybe there's something in the art work on these dollar coins too. Maybe I love the modern flare and pomposity of a 3/4 view portrait over the staid classical profile of all our other coins. Whatever it is- they're good.

I was aware, though, that some had a problem with these coins. Specifically, the problem was these coins had "In God We Trust" printed on the edge instead of on either face. To some, this seemed like a move to eliminate God from America or something like that. As at least one moron asked, "Has [sic] the ACLU and the militant atheists infiltrated the U.S. Mint?" It also didn't help that one run of the coins was mis-died and "In God We Trust" and "E Pluribus Unum" were left off entirely.

But like I said, this is supposed to be a happy time- and so it is. Thankfully, some very concerned Christians- deeply concerned Christians- concerned with the condition of our souls- concerned with how well we represent Jesus Christ- concerned with actually living out the good news of the Word, the Word that confronts us to change our history from death to life, from oppression to freedom- decided this is exactly the kind of thing the Gospel challenges. And challenge it, it has. Thanks to legislation sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, in the future, God will be right where God should be- eternally fixed next to a dead rich white person's face.

Wow.

Aren't you inspired? Aren't you filled with the hope of God's spirit? Especially when you consider how small this group of concerned Christians must be, aren't you filled with the hope of possibility? If this small vocal group can change the very structures of government- literally- doesn't it give you confidence and a blessed assurance in the kind of faith that can move mountains?

Hooray.

And aren't you further blessed by the knowledge that we truly do have a responsive and representative government?

For such a time as this and all that..., dummies.