A Cruise with Conservatives

Wild and Precious posted an article from the UK that is very interesting--about a journalist who went on a cruise with readers of the National Review. Neocons on a Cruise

New book: "Take This Bread"

One of the RGPB's recommended Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles. My copy arrived yesterday and in today's mail came the latest "Christian Century" magazine (July 10, 2007 issue), which has a review of this same book! (You can even read the review online.) The reviewer (Amy Johnson Frykholm) wrote this paragraph which has piqued my interest:

"The book is sprinkled with the very self-righteousness that Miles finds repulsive in other Christians. It is saved, however, by her rigorous self-examination and her acknowledgement that faith and conversion are long, hard processes."

This sounds interesting. Thank you, whoever recommended it!

Faith Story 4

RevDrKate and Gannett Girl have been writing their memories, just like I have. This one may get too strung out as it was the last year my mother was alive, and I didn't know she was dying. You may notice that God is never mentioned, as we continued to be unaware of the Divine Presence.

Since Faith Story 3 had me moving to Rhode Island from Texas with my family, that's where I will start. In August 1991, my children's ages were: DC-12; AE-9; BJ-6; MJ-almost 2. It was our first experience of having our children ride school buses to school. I remember that on the first day, BJ was starting first grade at a new school (for him), so my husband, MJ, and I followed him on the school bus to his school, so we could walk in with him.

I was worried about BJ getting needed speech therapy in first grade, because there was such a marked RI accent in the area we lived, but the speech therapist was from Oregon, so I was relieved. He only needed a little help that year and then was fine. But we laughed a lot with words particular to RI that didn't fit with our NW and TX orientation--here are a few examples:
bubbler= water fountain; cabinet=milkshake (a "milkshake" was exactly that--blended milk with a flavoring); grinder=toasted sub sandwich. We missed tortillas and Mexican food up there, but enjoyed the seasons. I also loved the little Japanese maple tree we planted in the front yard.

My mother came to visit around Halloween, when my birthday was, and at Christmas. On the rainy, windy, cold Halloween night (quite different from our TX Halloweens), DC stayed home for the first time on a Halloween night while my mother made chocolate coated peanut butter candies, which were to be frozen for Christmas. Strong, quiet husband CB took the other three children out in the cold, bundled up so their costumes could not be seen. MJ was a fairy and no one saw her wings!

My mother and father came for Christmas. Ironically, I took a lot of pictures of my dad, thinking that he could die soon, falsely assuming that women live longer than men. Looking back, I can remember my mother saying that she couldn't eat fatty things much anymore, but I just thought that was healthier. She was always trying to live healthier, so her "healthy" body wasn't used to fats.

In April 1992, my mother planned to visit for BJ's 7th birthday (and hers the week after), but didn't feel well and so delayed her visit. We'd planned a trip to Maine with her coming along, and still went with the kids. We had two motel rooms--one for the boys and one for the girls. DC complained bitterly how BJ got sick in the bed after a dinner of spaghetti (which BJ still doesn't like much). It was rocky ride home for this poor little guy who was sick, sick, sick, without us even having a doctor yet! I don't think he remembers Maine too fondly.

Several weeks later, my mother came to see us. She, MJ, and I went up to Maine. My mother was having stomach problems and couldn't eat much. She thought it was "nerves," because her father had always had a "nervous stomach."

Sometime in May, after her return to Bellingham, WA, a doctor finally determined what was bothering her. She hadn't wanted to worry me, so finally called to say she had a "growth" on her pancreas, continuing to tell me that no one in her family had ever had cancer, so not to worry. She bought new nightwear, which was never worn, to wear to the hospital for the surgery. Somehow, I knew there was something seriously wrong, and I called her gastroenterologist, who amazingly told me what was probably wrong with her, as I explained I was her only child living across the country from her. I could not breathe or cry and had my first ever panic attack, though I didn't know that's what it was at the time. I had no one nearby to talk to, and MJ was asleep!

I will always remember that night with CB sitting on one end of the couch and me sitting on the other. I was crying and saying, "What if she has cancer?" CB never said a word. I was heartbroken, and he seemed so distant. He told me years later that he didn't say anything, because he knew that my mother was going to die and he couldn't do anything to stop it. I felt alone, and that is a marker in my mind showing the precipitous slide CB and I made in moving apart from each other.

Life

Meditation for the Wisdom Class today is from Nan Merrill's newsletter "Friends of Silence." Nan is the author of the lovely book Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness


"The spiritual journey is a story of a return to our heart, the very center of our being, that has been obscured by our driving complusion to create our own identity."
~Fr. Pat Eastman

Remove the labels from your life!

Non-Duality Cartoons

I'm a Plugger!

Ever since we moved into our first house in Texas in 1979, I have liked to hang clothes outside on the clothesline. I tried to hang out clothes when we lived in RI and NJ, too, but it was too cold and not sunny enough! Today I hung out sheets and towels. I so like to do this!

Sorry case of Iraqi refugees

Little is said of the thousands who are fleeing sectarian violence or direct threats because the matter reflects badly on U.S. policy.

By Trudy Rubin Inquirer Columnist

When Tamara Daghistani's cell phone rings in Amman, Jordan, the caller is usually another desperate Iraqi refugee.

As we sat together last month, the call was from a woman who had fled Baghdad with her husband and three kids. Her husband was killed during a visit back to Baghdad to bury his mother. Now the woman has no way to support three young children. She sends her boys out to nightclubs at night to beg.

Daghistani spends her time helping less fortunate countrymen. With around 2 million Iraqi refugees crowded into Jordan and Syria, and 30,000 arriving in Syria weekly, this exodus is the biggest Iraqi crisis almost no one discusses. Certainly not President Bush.

The first Iraqi refugees to reach Jordan in 2003 were mostly wealthy supporters of Saddam Hussein. But their numbers have been eclipsed by waves of refugees from Baghdad and other cities.

"Most of them are fleeing sectarian violence and have been directly threatened," says Kristèle Younès of Refugees International, who just returned from Amman and Damascus. "Either they've been told to leave their homes or be killed, or they are Christians told to convert or leave, or they have been threatened because they've worked with Americans." But it's politically inconvenient for the Bush administration to directly confront this problem, because it reflects our failure to stabilize Iraq.

The United States - and the Iraqi government - appear to hope the refugees will return home. This is unlikely for the foreseeable future. More likely: If the United States draws down troops, the Iraqi exodus will turn into a refugee tsunami. But, because Iraq is such a hot-button political issue, there is no international focus on helping the refugees and their host countries cope.

"The two countries caring for the biggest proportion of Iraqi refugees - Syria and Jordan - have still received next to nothing in bilateral help from the world community," the spokesman for the United Nations' refugee agency, Ron Redmond, said last week. So far, most Iraqi refugees have been left to flounder with little or no international aid.

Jordan, a resource-poor country with high unemployment, has closed its borders to most new Iraqi entries. Most Iraqi refugees can't work legally in Jordan, or attend schools, which are already overcrowded, nor can they get health care. Jordan desperately wants to avoid another permanent refugee population, like the huge number of Palestinian refugees it has hosted for decades.

Syria still takes Iraqi refugees. But only 32,000 out of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children there can attend school because there aren't enough classrooms. "A whole generation of Iraqi children is in danger of missing an education," Redmond says.

Middle-class refugee families are running out of funds in Jordan and Syria, with no prospect of working; some women are turning to prostitution. Unless a solution is found for this problem, it could turn into a major security threat. What better recruiting pool for terrorists than angry young Iraqi refugees with no education, no jobs, and no chance to go home?

What's to be done? There are three ways the Iraq refugee crisis could be defused, if the White House would lead.

First, mobilize international aid to help Syria and Jordan cope with the refugees in the medium term, in hopes that Iraq will one day calm down. The goal would not be to integrate Iraqis - neither country could handle the burden - but to help with local health, education and water systems during a prolonged stay.

Second, encourage the Iraqi government to use its oil surplus to help its refugee population. "They could create a temporary ministry for Iraqi expatriates," says Daghistani, "and could be planning for repatriation later. It would be a tremendous boost for Iraqis who feel no one cares."

Third, the United States must plan on absorbing a large number of Iraqi refugees, especially those under threat for working with Americans. We've only admitted a few hundred since 2003, but were supposed let a few thousand in during this fiscal year. The result, so far, is shameful. We let in a whopping 63 refugees in June, according to State Department figures, and one refugee - yes, that's ONE - in May. (Sweden, for heaven's sake, has admitted 18,000 Iraqis since 2006.)

After the Vietnam War, America resettled more than 131,000 Vietnamese. Maybe it won't come to that with Iraqis. But history will judge us extremely harshly if we leave Iraq's refugees to rot.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/trudy_rubin/20070711_Worldview____Sorry_case_of_Iraqi_refugees.html

---

Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/trudyrubin.

This makes me feel ashamed and sad, just like the video Katherine posted here Other Christians are so Un-Christian At Times, Aren't They?

Remember

Months after my mother died, my friend Nancy (we met in Japan in 1962) sent me a poem/prayer that she received at a memorial service for unborn children. She had lost her first baby in utero. This poem/prayer has always comforted me. I put it on the memorial folder at my father's memorial service. I send it to friends who have lost a loved one. This past year, it was read at the funeral for my friend Terry's mother in Bellingham, WA and at the memorial service for an elderly friend here in Corpus Christi.

We Remember
from the Gates of Prayer
Reform Judaism Prayerbook

In the rising of the sun
and in its going down,
We remember them;

In the blowing of the wind
and in the chill of the winter,
We remember them;

In the opening of the buds
and in the warmth of the summer,
We remember them;

In the rustling of the leaves
and the beauty of the autumn,
We remember them;

And in the beginning of the year
and when it ends,
We remember them;

When we are weary
and in need of strength,
We remember them;

When we are lost
and sick at heart,
We remember them;

When we have joys
we long to share,
We remember them;

So long as we shall live
they too shall live,
For they are now a part of us as
We remember them.

7-14-92 My mother died.

Fifteen years ago today my mother died. She had been in a coma for about 24 hours. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 42 days before this date.

I am used to her being gone now. It was difficult to lose her 15 years ago. Now I realize that 15 years from now, I will be the same age she was when she died.

I remember months after my mother's death, little three year old MJ would say matter-of-factly, "Mommy is crying again." Sometimes she would even ask me when Grannie would come home from the hospital.

Death. Though I was not an observant Christian then, I believed that someone who died would be with God. I always knew my mother was all right, but I missed her greatly. It seems like the cost of love is losing what or whom we loved. I used to think the pain was so much because I had loved her so much, being an only child, after all.

Today I am also sad remembering the isolation my father and I felt, from each other and from God, whom we did not even think of. We were called and told very early in the morning that my mother had died in the hospital, so we went there in the dark. The room was unlit and gray where she was lying. My father and I looked at her and left. No prayers, no hugs, nothing. We didn't know what to do and didn't know how to turn to each other. Upon returning home, my dad started cleaning and throwing out her things from her bathroom--all the vitamins, swearing about them, as they were tossed. The discarding continued until her funeral.

Maybe some of this is due to my mother not going through all the phases of grief concerning death, according to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. (Denial and isolation; anger; bargaining; depression; and finally acceptance.) My mother always refused the idea that she was dying, and so we never talked about it at all. She didn't cry about it, though I did down in the basement, where MJ and I were staying.

My mother had an experience of the Holy before she died, which is another reason that I believe she did not think the cancer would kill her. Although not "religious," she practiced transcendental meditation. She told me how once during a meditation, she felt (and maybe saw) herself enveloped by light and love. That told her that she would be all right. Even then, I knew that meant that she would be "all right" after she died. I don't think she told anyone else of this experience.

The day my mother went into the coma, she had had an appointment with a pancreatic specialist in Seattle. Weeks before, I had driven her to the Olympic Penninsula to visit a homeopathic specialist. I will always remember how we went on a day that my father was working out of town. As we were driving on the freeway south, my thin, jaundiced mother would crouch out of sight when we thought we saw a car like my dad's approaching. I still have pictures of her sitting with MJ on the ferry.

Since both of my parents' deaths, I have experienced several friends dying, who suffered but also seemed to be "midwifed" into death. Alice, who had pancreatic cancer, and Margy, who suffered from ovarian cancer, both talked about death and God, plus had friends and family who encouraged them with visits, singing, and care. They had longer periods to adjust to the fact of dying, which probably helped, but they also were open to the fear and the inevitable process of dying. A church community helps, too, as would a family that was more intimate than my nuclear family had the capacity to be.

Today I remember my mother and my father. Now they experience the Love they did not know while alive.

Gay Couple Show How to Live

I don't often read "Dear Abby," but today's title caught my eye. "Abby" did a great service today by printing and responding to this letter about an elderly mother being cared for by her gay son and his partner. What love, forgiveness, and generosity this couple has shown to this woman. I hope everyone in the USA reads "Dear Abby" today.

MOTHER LEARNS LATE IN LIFE TO ACCEPT GAY SON AS HE IS

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I raised our two sons and two daughters. One son and both daughters married well. Our other son, "Neil," is gay. He and his partner, "Ron," have been together 15 years, but Neil's father and I never wanted to know Ron because we disapproved of their lifestyle.

When I was 74, my husband died, leaving me in ill health and nearly penniless. No longer able to live alone, I asked my married son and two daughters if I could "visit" each of them for four months a year. (I didn't want to burden any one family, and thought living out of a suitcase would be best for everyone.) All three turned me down. Feeling unwanted, I wanted to die.

When Neil and Ron heard what had happened, they invited me to move across country and live with them. They welcomed me into their home, and even removed a wall between two rooms so I'd have a bedroom with a private bath and sitting room -- although we spend most of our time together.

They also include me in many of their plans. Since I moved in with them, I have traveled more than I have my whole life and seen places I only read about in books. They never mention the fact that they are supporting me, or that I ignored them in the past.

When old friends ask how it feels living with my gay son, I tell them I hope they're lucky enough to have one who will take them in one day. Please continue urging your readers to accept their children as they are. My only regret is that I wasted 15 years. -- GRATEFUL MOM

DEAR GRATEFUL MOM: You are indeed fortunate to have such a loving, generous and forgiving son. Sexual orientation is not a measure of anyone's humanity or worth. Thank you for pointing out how important it is that people respect each other for who they are, not for what we would like them to be.

You could have learned that lesson long ago, had you and your husband contacted Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) when you first learned that Neil was gay. Among other things, the organization offers support groups and education for parents who need to learn more about gender issues. (The address is 1726 M St. N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20036.)

"Impasse and Dark Night"

I need to learn to call people. I tend to put off making phone calls so long that I don't do it at all. A friend called me this morning, and that was such a nice surprise that I am still smiling. She thanked me for sending them a copy of an article, "Impasse and Dark Night" by Constance Fitzgerald, which I had found in the huge Shalem Institute notebook for the program I'm in. Sending it to them was one of those nudges from God, which usually don't reward us with results or praise. However, this article spoke to her and her husband, who is going through intensive, rigorous chemo-therapy for cancer right now.

Coincidentally, this same article was footnoted in an excellent piece by Maggie Ross entitled "The Space of Prayer" in the July/August issue of Weavings http://www.upperroom.org/weavings/ .

And I discovered that the footnote includes the web address for this article. It is such a profound paper that I hope you will at least look it up. I am almost positive that you will want to print it for yourselves.

www.geocities.com/baltimorecarmel/johncross/impasse.html

"Word for the Day" from Gratefulness.org

Today's "Word for the Day" from http://www.gratefulness.org/ is exactly what I needed to hear today. If you want to subscribe to this daily mailing, go to the above site. There is always a short quotation, which is easily deleted after reading--or saved if it is especially pertinent. (And since I had never heard of Sharif Baba, I looked him up on google http://www.sherifbaba.com/baba.htm )

If you look at every human being
as a Divine mirror,
you will know yourself
and understand life.

~Sharif Baba

God in us

“God is everywhere and always with us, by us and in us. However, we are not always with Him, for we do not remember Him, and because we do not remember, we allow ourselves to do many things that we would not allow ourselves to do if we remembered God.”

“. . . remember that the Lord is in you and close by you and looks at you and inside of you just as intently as if someone were looking right at you.”

Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)

Russian Bishop and Staretz (elder)

Moving so much did what?

Many of you asked how I was affected by so many moves. As I grew up, it's hard to say what affected me most--frequent moves, being an only child, being introverted, or having an alcoholic father. Probably, I would say, "All of the above." (Like Gannet Girl, the circumstances sound worse than they seemed at the time. As a child, you accept your life "as the way it is." You don't know anything else, so life is this way. The only thing I ever compared my life to were families with more than one child--I always wanted a brother or sister.)

Having no siblings and being introverted were exacerbated by my father's alcoholism. Studies have shown that unwritten rules in alcoholic families are "Don't talk; don't trust; don't feel."
An isolated life came about through this lifestyle, as well as having no siblings for me, but also no other family nearby; no sense of community and no church community.

I was always a good girl and one of the best students in each class I was in. Each move seemed to cause me to become more shy. I think it took me awhile to feel safe, and then so often, we would move again.

I remember my mother telling me that she thought similar events would recur to "teach" each of us a lesson we needed to learn. (That's the closest she ever spoke to me of "divine providence," which may only be my interpretation of what she meant.) I've sometimes wondered about that when I think of all the moves that continued after we were married. If that is so, I never learned to move very well, which is another reason I reconsidered my call to ministry!

So how do moves affect the "move-ee"? I think it depends upon the person or child's support system and personality type. Also, the different lengths of time in each place would affect one.

I also think this has affected my thinking about living in a place, because I'll sometimes catch myself thinking, "Things will be different when I move." (This prevents action to change things, because I'll be moving. . . .) I don't do that as often now, but every so often I fall back into that old habit.

Meditation for Today's Wisdom Class

Belief brings me close to You
but only to the door.
It is only by disappearing into
Your mystery
that I will come in.

~Hakim Sanai
(1044?-1150?)

Places I've lived

After Mompriest commented on how many places she'd moved in only six years of her childhood, I started wondering if I could list the places I've lived. I'm not sure if I've ever done that, and I'd like to tell my children all the different locations I (and they) have been. Until I was in high school, my dad was in the Marine Corps, so he was transferred every few years.

Jan's childhood moves:
1. Bremerton, WA
2. Quantico, VA
3. Camp Pendleton, CA
4. Lubbock, TX
5. Lynden, WA (my mother's hometown, while my dad went to Japan)
6. Quantico, VA
7. Camp Pendleton, CA
8. Yokosuka, Japan
9. El Toro, CA
10. Bellingham, WA (while my dad was in Okinawa and Vietnam)
11. Camp Pendleton, CA
12. Bellingham, WA (where we moved when my dad retired from the Marine Corps) (1966-1971)

Jan's married moves:
1. Bellingham, WA
2. Seattle, WA
3. Richmond, VA
4. Newport, OR
5. Corvallis OR (where CB went to grad school)
6. Corpus Christi, TX (1978-1985)
7. Euless, TX (which I refer to as "Dallas")
8. Corpus Christi, TX (1988-1991)
9. North Kingstown, RI
10. Morristown, NJ
11. Corpus Christi, TX (1994-present)

Although I came to think of Bellingham, WA as my hometown (as I went to high school and college there and that's where we lived in my family's first non-military base housing), I have now lived in Corpus Christi, TX longer than anywhere else I've ever lived (a total of 23 years).

Faith Story 3--Having small children

In the spring of 1985, our third child was born, which was about the same time my husband found out he was transferred to Dallas. He worked up there, while we lived in Corpus Christi until the baby BJ was five months old. Right before we moved, he was baptized with my first and most enduring friend Lisa and her husband as God-parents. (We had met at a La Leche League meeting in an un-airconditioned house in the summer before our first babies were born.)

DC, AE, and BJ were baptized at All Saints Episcopal Church, my present church. In the recent baptisms here, I’ve become aware of how they were blessed then, even though I didn’t realize it. I know when they were baptized, I was too concerned about the wiggling children and crying baby that I might have to nurse in church—Horrors!! I still didn’t realize that God was in the midst of us, and now I am warmed to know he was. I have a totally new perspective on their baptisms, because I see the past with a new perspective—how the Divine enfolded us all, sealing each child for him forever. The reality was there then, but neither CB nor I saw it. The way opened, but each of us must be aware enough to enter in—we were not then, but are beginning to see so much more of God now.

We moved to Dallas and lived there for the next 2 years. CB traveled frequently; and we hardly knew anyone. BJ always wanted to be held and learned to scream to get his way. DC hated leaving his best friend and struggled and cried going to a new school for first grade. I still remember calling his kindergarten teacher, worried that he didn't like school, and she reassured me that after his first month, he'd feel better. That was true, and he suddenly shot off being able to read and loving it. 3 year old AE was very shy and hid under a coffee table at the first La Leche League meeting we went to. (I just recently learned that the LLL group this other mother and I started is still meeting!) I remember AE sweetly asking me sometime after Thanksgiving when her wish (from breaking the wishbone from the turkey) would come true--she'd wanted to become a fairy! I treasure the wistful look I recall on her face, so sweet and innocent. And this is the place where the family's interest in soccer started, with little DC playing for the first time.

We moved back to Corpus Christi with DC going into third grade; AE in kindergarten; and BJ a 2 year old toddler, who was always so chubby that he could never wear his brother's hand-me-downs. (He could only fit into Oshkosh coveralls!) My husband still traveled a great deal. I was grateful that my mother continued to visit from WA state two times a year, for several weeks each time. My dad, who hated to travel, would come for a few days each Christmas. This was a busy time of LLL meetings for me, school activities, and soccer for both DC and AE.

This is also when DC rejoined his best friend Chris, and they started a life-long bond with three other boys. (These young men have been in each other's weddings and continue to be in touch, even though they went to different colleges and live in different cities.) They always played soccer together, too. The family of one of the boys brought DC each week to the confirmation class at First United Methodist Church. We parents acted like ours had--in an a-religious way just as Gannet Girl's parents did--not caring one way or another. CB and I were in New York City when he was confirmed, and from what I hear, he had to wear an outgrown jacket and pair of pants. You can tell his parents "didn't care," which sounds reprehensible to me now.

This was at the time I was pregnant with our surprising fourth child. CB was still gone frequently, and no plans had been made, but God brought forth a baby, who is now MJ and my only child at home. It was quite a shock to find out I was pregnant, even after taking an at-home pregnancy test--When the doctor's office called after their test, I kept telling them there had to be a mistake! And how grateful am I that she was never a mistake! That spring, I remember taking DC and his four pals, with BJ to the rocks by the water here, and telling AE the secret of the coming baby, while the guys climbed and played.

When MJ was one year old, we learned that CB was being transferred to Rhode Island. That was a wrenching shock to the older kids and me. Coming from WA State, I thought I knew what "cold" weather was, but that winter (and autumn) in Rhode Island were quite a shock to us. We certainly had to buy a lot of warm clothes, coats, and blankets--things unnecessary in south Texas! So in 1991, we moved to Rhode Island.

Fundamentalists' viewpoint

Kirk Anderson http://www.kirktoons.com/

On npr this morning, two political cartoonists were interviewed in "Cartooning Bush and President Next." (And I tried to link it through the title, but somehow it didn't work, so here's the site http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11794366)
There are other samples of political cartoons that are quite good, even better than this one. This one hit me about the problems of humanity from all time--too narrow a view of God and of his "chosen."
It's an interesting article to read (or hear).

Cartoon! Enlightenment!

By Bob Seal, from Non-Duality Cartoons
http://www.bobseal.com/

Poem for Poetry Discussion

Primary Wonder

Days pass when I forget the mystery.

Problems insoluble and problems offering

their own ignored solutions

jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber

along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing

their colored clothes; caps and bells.

And then

once more the quiet mystery

is present to me, the throng's clamor

recedes: the mystery

that there is anything, anything at all,

let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,

rather than void: and that, 0 Lord,

Creator, Hallowed one, You still,

hour by hour sustain it.

-- Denise Levertov