Ooops.

So, what have we learned here, girls and boys?

Evidently, starting a blog series you don't have time to finish is a great way to accomplish blog-silence.

My self-righteous fervor has worn off, but I really do want to finish those thoughts. There just wasn't time in the moment they were so clear. And since then things have gotten busy. But I have been thinking thoughts (like how much I hate penne pasta, such an annoying shape!); it's just that I hated to interrupt myself.

But finally, it became clear that needed to happen. Why it took so long is beyond me, since I tend to interrupt myself frequently in most other venues.

Anyway, you would think this would all be a prologue to a nice, satisfyingly long set of posts, but I'm actually about to go on retreat for four days and won't have internet access. So I guess it won't.

Just to be Clear

Very Personal Thoughts on Race will continue as soon as I get a chance to resume it. Today I have to picnic. But I have not gotten to my main point yet.

Very Personal Thoughts on Race - Part Three - College

PLEASE READ THESE POSTS IN ORDER, STARTING FROM THE BOTTOM

When I went away to college, it was to a place that was a front-runner in the diversity movement. All incoming students were asked to read a book about race that we heard a lecture about during New Student Week and then discussed in small groups. My year's book was "A House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros. You should read it. She is amazingly evocative.

During my sophomore spring, there was a big, prolonged whoop-di-doo on campus. Charles Murray, of "Bell Curve" fame, had been invited to campus. Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure how that happened. We had a weekly convocation speaker every Friday, and the variety was rather staggering. But I'm not even sure any more if that was the slot he and his dog-and-pony show had or not. I don't know who invited him or why. I'm guessing they may not have realized what a big deal it would become.

Charles Murray's book "The Bell Curve" was the latest pseudo-academic attempt to present "evidence" for racial superiority and/or inferiority. Unsurprisingly, he thought he was proving that there were biological reasons why black people would never achieve as much as white people. You see why people were upset.

That term, I was taking a sociology class, a religion class and a class on the history of the Civil Rights Movement. So I spent a lot of time talking about this upcoming campus visitor. There were faculty forums organized to discuss the merits of listening to people we disagree with and to ensure that people were sufficiently informed to be able to see through him. We had floor meetings about it in the dorms.

One night, in the midst of this prolonged season of heightened tension/awareness/conversation, I had a dream. It wasn't that complicated of a dream. It was a dream about another floor meeting about Charless Murray coming to campus. What was important was what happened next.

When I woke up, I was mad. I was mad at Charless Murray for taking over my dreams. I was tired of the whole issue. I was tired of thinking about it, tired of talking about it, tired of dreaming about it. I wanted, I demanded a break. And then I realized something: it was only because I am white, and not some other color, that I even have the option of only dealing with race when I feel like it.

As a white person, being interested in race and racism is something I am free to choose. I can do it when I feel up to it, and then set it aside and go onto other things whenever I want. People of color do not have that freedom in our society.

This was a major revelation for me. I went from feeling indignant and mad to feeling ashamed and spoiled in about 4 seconds. That moment has shaped me ever since.

Very Personal Thoughts on Race - Part Two - Childhood

PLEASE READ THESE POSTS IN ORDER, STARTING FROM THE BOTTOM.

I grew up in the Midwest. It was a very small town, with basically very few people of color. There were two black sisters who went to my school. They had been adopted by white Mennonite parents. I didn't really know them, because they weren't my year in school.

In this small town, I had parents who were not much like everyone else's. The values, practices, and political beliefs and actions of my family were pretty different than most of the people in our area. Part of that picture was that, when I was growing up, the Civil Rights Movement was pretty much the paragon of faith in action in my family.

My exposure to people of color when I was growing up was almost entirely through church, at events beyond my local congregation. So the scourge of racism was pretty much introduced to me as a spiritual problem from a very early age. But it was also very theoretical. I did not know black people (or people of other colors either, for that matter). I did not interact with them, and I rarely had opportunities to talk through the messiness of race in Amerika. But for whatever reason, I knew I would want to when given the chance.

As I think about it, it might have been the music. The "Eyes on the Prize" series was required watching in my family, and the music of the Civil Rights era got into my bones. My soul recognized it as true and powerful. It made me want to be part of whatever it was that inspired people to do dangerous and bold things for the sake of justice. Little did I know at the time that I would spend almost a decade of my adult life in the Heart of Dixie.

Very Personal Thoughts on Race - Part One - Introduction

I have been inspired to write a series of posts on race and anti-racism work and my personal relation with them.

I want to begin by saying that I am very aware that these posts may end up sounding self-righteous. That is not my intention. In each of our lives, there are things we believe and live into seriously, and there are things we believe and don't live into so seriously. Anti-racism work is one of the things I believe in and live into seriously.

There are plenty of things I believe in, but don't do much about and haven't inconvenienced myself much for or re-arranged my life to change. Such things might include eating and producing organic food, stopping domestic violence, avoiding sweatshop labor, stopping war, and the list goes on.

For whatever reason, working to understand and dismantle racism, at every level possible is something that has taken hold of my life in ways that many other issues haven't. It has affected me spiritually, and because of that, I believe I have something useful to say about it.

It is my hope to be productive with these posts, despite the fact that they are inspired by disappointment in some of my colleagues. Please help me find what is useful out of these reflections. Please forgive me if I sound self-righteous. Please understand that I do not expect anyone else to do what I do though I'd love to have company, and that I am so glad there are other people who are picking up the slack on the issues I care about but don't do much about.

Church Ladies to Watch Out For!

You probably know some. You might be related to one. You might be one. Good for you. Today I want to talk about one in particular. Because she's hilarious, and nobody even realizes it.

I basically have a head Church Lady at my church. I sometimes call her the Keeper of All Things Proper. She's the one who made clear to me when I first had to do funerals what I should do. She's the one who "suggested" I register at both downtown jewelry stores when I got married because "some folks trade at one and some at the other."

A lot of assumptions are made about this woman. She's a little scary, I'm afraid, to some newcomers, despite the fact that she is sweet as pie to pretty much everyone. It took me about 3 years to figure out that I should just take what she says at face value and stop trying to divine what she was "really" trying to tell me.

I've heard people make comments about her, making clear that they assume she is pretty conservative and straight-laced. And I suppose, in many ways, she is straight-laced. But she's about as far from conservative as she could be, having grown up proper in the Heart of Dixie. (Did I mention she's a life-time member?)

I realized this yesterday in church, as I was observing her recite the Words of Institution. Maybe "recite" is the wrong word. In our tradition, lay elders preside at the communion table. This means different things in different congregations, but in our church currently, it means I do the Invitation to Communion and the Elder says the Words of Institution and prays over the Bread and the Cup.

But when this particular Church Lady Elder says the words of institution, she doesn't say them quite like you might assume, with lots of emphasis on "This is my Body" and "This is my Blood". What is funny is the dissonance between the tone of voice she uses to deliver the Words of Institution and her prayer and what she is actually saying. She is the opposite of a believer in transubstantiation. Maybe I'm giving credit to something that is simply anti-Catholicism, but I don't think so. She is clear that our tradition proclaims a representational presence of Christ. I've actually considered talking to her about it, though I haven't figured out a tactful way to do so, because sometimes she goes as far as to say that Jesus said, "This bread represents my body."

Which is not what Jesus said, if you want to go by the scriptural reference. I have finally recognized that this is a woman who is so not into washed-in-the-blood theology that she can't bring herself to say that Jesus said the bread WAS his body. She wants it to be something different than that, though I'm not sure she could describe what it is she's looking for. This past Sunday the way she got around it was really quite artful. And I was proud of her.

Because it's important, in our tradition, for people to be themselves at the Table. And for people to be honest about what they believe and to be accepting of different interpretations of what is going on at that Table. So I don't think I'll say anything to her.

What's amazing to me is that there is this Church Lady who seems, on first glance, to be someone you would assume would buy into all the usual, saccharine, hard-to-swallow but rarely questioned theology of the mainline but Southern church of the 1950s, but in reality, she is regularly expressing her more nuanced theology at the Table. And in reality, she will openly admit that she doesn't believe Jesus is the only way to heaven. And she loves to study other religions and, of all 12 books our book group has read, has enjoyed the two that touch on Islam the best.

I love it when people defy expectations. Especially Church Ladies!

The A Word and the C Word

Lent is a season that is very particular for some folks, though perhaps less so than it used to be. For us non-liturgical Protestants, it's pretty much whatever we want it to be. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. Many of our traditions pretty much ignored Lent until about 20-25 years ago. But now we're sort of into it; Ash Wednesday services and six-week sermon series and stuff like that.

One of the things that many of us cafeteria Protestants choose to do during Lent is to remove the A-word from our worship services. (Or is it the H-word?) What's funny is that, in one sense, Sundays don't even count as Lent, but since we're mostly a once-a-week sort of practice, we have to have it on Sunday, or people wouldn't notice it at all. So we don't "praise God" in Latin or Hebrew for six Sundays in a row. For my church, this means removing the Sung Response to our Assurance of Pardon and being careful about which hymns we sing.

I'm not sure what the history of eschewing the A-word is, though I suppose it goes along with taking out the flowers and paraments and other things that make worship festive. So I suppose it makes sense if that is what you think Lent is about. But I'm not sure if I do think that's what Lent is about, most helpfully. Repentance is, in fact, one of the most joyous things the church has to offer, after all.

So the other day, I had a weird thought about the use of words during Lent. For me, Lent is a season when we focus on the humanity of Jesus. He was in the desert for 40 days, being tempted. And the point of much of the temptation narrative is that he didn't take advantage of his holy status to improve his situation. He didn't turn stones into bread for himself, or let the devil do it for him. He didn't use his special position as Son of God to force God to save him from falling from a tall tower. The point, perhaps, was to experience the limits of humanity as fully as possible. And Lent is a season in which to bond as fully as possible with the reality of Jesus as human.

So what if, instead of taking out the A-word, we removed the C-word from worship? What is we only called Jesus "Jesus" and never "C Jesus" or "Jesus C" or "Jesus the C" or just "C"? I can tell you that having to do that would require a lot more thought from me about my every word during worship. It would complicate hymn selection, possibly beyond the point of practicability. But it would certainly get my attention. And even more, it might make a clearer and more important point than giving up the A-word. It would be like six weeks of giving up indulging in the "already" to focus on the "not yet", which to my mind, would make Easter all the more welcome when it finally arrives.

Automotive Dissonance?

Today on my way home on the interstate, I saw a vehicle with a speciality "Choose Life" license plate and an Obama/Biden sticker. Do you suppose that represented the expressions of two different people who both own the car, or one person who lives in a messy in-between place?

That is So Amazing

It is important to nurture one's sense of wonder. Even by accident.

The week after Valentine's day, I picked up some random things at the drug store left over from the holiday at 75% off. One thing was a pack of Lotto Romance Cards, with scratch off hearts that I'm not even going to get into here. (Let's just say it was fine that they were for sale at the corner drug store.)

The other was a tiny forget-me-not grow kit. It had really little clay pot, some seeds (way more than the pot could handle actually -- the directions note to plant the rest somewhere else), and a soil tablet. When the soil tablet was watered, it expanded to almost bigger than the pot. (I ignored the part in the directions where it said to water the soil tablet in something other than the pot, and so I had to take some out before planting.)

Anyway, I planted some seeds in this tiny little pot, and because it's Lent so we're praying daily and I placed the pot on the windowsill in front of my prayer chair, I have actually remembered to keep it moist, like it said to.

And little bitty green things have come up!

That's not even what I am amazed at. They are still very tiny, but I've already been able to tell that they grow toward the sun. And that is something about plants that I find almost creepy it's so incredible. Not only do they eat air and sunlight, they can, in a sense, move. And they move toward the sun. Fast enough to notice, sort of.

Perhaps one day, they will even bloom. The directions say to transplant them once they're a certain height, which will almost positively not happen if it's up to me, so I don't know if we'll get there or not. But I'm happy just watching them follow the sun.

Hypocrisy or Sensitivity?

I think I've mentioned that I've finally found an exercise routine that is getting me moving twice a week. As per all those articles you read about how to do that, it involves a Walking Buddy. My WB happens to be an Episcopal priest. We are having a great time multi-tasking: exercise and colleague time. Work out and theological reflection.

So yesterday, I forget in what context, WB stated that you shouldn't do things outside of church that you wouldn't do at church. And her example, as traditionally shared with youth groups, was that if you don't cuss at church you shouldn't cuss outside of church.

I had to respond, because I do, in fact, cuss outside of church and try not to in church. To be technical, I frequently cuss at church too, just not when other people besides my husband are around. Does this make me a hypocrite?

I argued - biblically - that it does not. My basis is Romans 14, where Paul writes about whether or not to eat meat sacrificed to idols. If you know that the idols are meaningless and nonexistent, he says, then you know that it doesn't matter if the meat was set on their altar before you eat it. On the other hand, there may be people in your community who are not as secure in their belief that the idols don't exist, who may be harmed or led astray by your eating that meat. So be sensitive, Paul says.

That is pretty much the way I feel about cussing. I don't really feel like "cuss words" are bad. Most of them, for me, have practically nothing to do with their technical meaning. They are ways of expressing strong emotion, which makes them very satisfying. Like meat. That is why I use them.

But I don't use them in front of most of my congregation because I understand that they have a different sensibility about "cuss words" than I do. Some of their perspectives I find a little ridiculous, but I try to respect them anyway. Words are powerful. Humanity has known this for centuries. But words are also just words. What makes the difference, in many cases, is intent.

Even I am on a spectrum. There are certain "cuss words" that I do not use because their literal meaning is too present for me and I don't want to say that. For instance, I try to avoid invoking God's eternal punishment on anything. Because that one has always been an issue for me, I've managed not to get in the habit of saying it. If I had, that might be a problem.

I will also admit that there was a phase in my life when "cuss words" were used to try to convince people (probably including myself) that I was cooler than you might assume. That was, in theory, an unhealthy phase, though I might argue, an inevitable and relatively harmless one. I'm pretty sure I'm over that now, though I've seen clergy and college professors who don't appear to be.

So is it convincing? Am I being sensitive to people with different (I won't even say weaker, like Paul does) belief systems than mine? Or am I a hypocrite because I am "different" in church than I am outside church? I'm not sure.

WB tried to invoke Jesus as a higher authority over Paul. And yes, Jesus talked about your soul being clean based on what comes out of your mouth. But I'm pretty sure he was talking about kind and true words instead of cruel or dishonest ones, not colorful ones. Other than that, I can't think of where he addressed it. And truthfully, I don't really think he'd care a whole lot.

Paul's letter seems the most instructive to me on this particular issue, and possibly on other "hypocrisy" issues you might be dealing with, drinking, dancing. But does it rest on an "what they don't know can't hurt them" argument? Because that definitely feels like a slippery slope. Perhaps one of the reasons I don't feel like a hypocrite with my congregation about cussing is because I'm pretty sure they know I do it. I don't try to hide it. I occasionally reference my foul mouth, without actually exhibiting it. Perhaps secrecy is the key here. Can you be a hypocrite if you're not trying to keep a secret? Is the key to sensitivity avoiding pushing something in people's faces but being willing to explain your understanding if anyone asks, without trying to hide the truth?

Thirteen on Thursday the 12th

1. You know what that means about tomorrow, right? Friday the Thirteenth actually has romantic significance in our house, so we're fine with it.

2. Of my wardrobe, probably 1/4 came from church yard sales, 1/4 from my sister (and some from mom), 1/4 from thrift stores in various states, and 1/4 bought new off extreme sale racks. Plus shoes. I've only ever bought "used" shoes once, and they really didn't seem used. $120 Ecco Mary Janes for less than $3. I have a pretty strong thrifty streak.

3. I think that secrets are bad for society. It amuses me how many basically under the radar sub-cultures exist in our world, simply because some people are threatened by other people being different than them. If we could all just agree not to judge, we wouldn't need so many secrets.

4. My heart is aching from all the shooting sprees this week. Our world is broken. I'm glad I believe in the cross.

5. Probably fewer than half a dozen items of furniture etc. in my house were bought outright. The rest were inherited from various people, living and dead. I appreciate this because furniture stores bug me rather a lot.

6. I am continually amazed that people are brave enough to have children. Babies seem to be busting out all over. My friend just this week. My sister and my niece-in-law in July. Two young women from church in October. Who are these people, and how did they get so bold? I don't know if it's the physical realities of giving birth or the insane challenges of raising children that scare me most. Wow. I'm glad someone's doing it, because I'm sure as heck not going to.

7. Strange piles of unknown bugs showed up in a weird place twice now at church. I'm really hoping they're not termites.

8. Plus, I think a cat or something got into the church this week. There was a -- how to say? -- TURD in the "library" and the food pantry basket had been raided by something that seemed to have claws. Not cool. Now we have to wonder if there's a hole somewhere or if the door was open too long while they were repairing the steeple this week.

9. I have a new joke going with my husband where I have decided to become a person who is known for absurd and salty metaphors. What's weird is that I have this sense that people only appreciate colorful phrasings if they were handed down from a great-uncle or someone like that. If you make them up yourself, I feel like people will think you're a fraud. What's up with that? I suppose the absurdist nature of mine also changes things. But it's easier to make things up if they don't have to make sense!

10. In a couple weeks, I am going to have to make an entertainment decision between an opera about dying nuns and the Vagina Monologues. Well, actually I might not have to choose between them, but that would mean attending both in the same weekend, which seems a little crazy.

11. I miss all the friends I have who live so very far away. I wish we all had jet-packs and could go see each other more often.

12. Speaking of jet-packs, I had one once -- in a roommate's dream! I would love to be able to fly, and I've never even had a flying dream of my own that I remember. This is one of the great injustices of my psychic life.

13. I've been living in a nice space lately, where Lent finally got figured out and it's too soon to be worrying much about Easter. And as it turned out, Lent appears to be amazingly low maintenance. It's quite lovely really.

Framing

People have been very up in arms about "earmarks" lately. Which is a little weird, since we all love earmarks. Just not if they're for someone else, evidently.

I wonder how the debate would be different if we were all required to call them "locally controlled spending projects" instead. A wise reminder from Melissa Harris-Lacewell.

Ten on Tuesday -- Labor News Edition

This Ten on Tuesday is brought to you courtesy of the Hightower Lowdown that arrived in my mail box today. You can check it out yourself at www.hightowerlowdown.org. It's run by a Texan named Jim Hightower who was a friend of Molly Ivins. (So you know he must be cool AND smart!)

1. In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was passed to protect American workers from greedy capitalists who were exploiting them. (And harassing them and firing them, and in some cases even killing them for protesting their exploitation.)

2. Ever since, but mostly since Reagan came into office, corporations have been trying (mostly successfully) to eviscerate the rights that the NLRA gave workers.

3. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) that is currently floating around in Congress attempts to restore the NLRA to what it was supposed to be: a set of laws designed to protect workers' rights and set limits on what companies can do to keep them docile and cheap.

4. One of the rights that is restored is the option of a "card-check" election, in which a union can come into being when enough employees sign cards saying they want one. This is a system that used to exist, that exists in Canada without problem, and that certain companies in the states still use.

5. CEOs are railing against the EFCA because they say it destroys the right to a secret ballot. What they don't say is that the secret ballot system remains an option under the EFCA.

6. What the CEOS also don't say is that in the secret ballot option, only one side gets to campaign -- them. And campaigning can involve mandatory meetings in which unionization is demonized (92% of companies do this), one-on-one interviews for each employee where management explains to each one why voting to unionize would be a bad career choice (78% do this), and bringing in outside "consultants" (ie. union busters) to demonstrate why a union is a bad idea (75% do this). In no other circumstance, would we consider this a "free and fair" election. So why are they acting like they're out to defend democracy?

7. Another thing the EFCA would do is sharply increase the penalties for employee intimidation and make it illegal to fire people for organizing activity. It also requires triple back pay for anyone who is fired.

8. The U.S. has the widest gap between richest and poorest (and richest and the rest of us) in the industrialized world. 68% of Americans believe that labor unions are necessary to protect working families.

9. There is a massive, heavily funded campaign going on to confuse Americans about what the EFCA will do, acting as though destroying it is necessary to defend the essence of democracy. If you hear anything about it from the following organizations, you might want to ask who is behind the message. Unfortunately, they won't tell you because they refuse to disclose their donors. The names alone make me want to puke.

Here's who you should listen to with a salt lick:
Center for Union Facts
Americans for Job Security
Coalition for a Democratic Workplace
Workplace Fairness Institute
Alliance for Worker Freedom
Save Our Secret Ballot

10. Finally, a red meat quote for a finish with a flourish: Wal-Mart's CEO, last October, on why corporate managers don't want card-check elections: "We like driving the car, and we're not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us."
Hightower leads off with another great quote from the CEO of Home Depot referencing "the demise of civilization."

Like I said, this is all straight from The Hightower Lowdown, Volume 11, Number 3, March 2009. Check it out yourself. Then call your elected officials. People like that are easily confused. They need you to help them see through the bull. I probably won't call mine, because they know it's bull and they love it that way. But some of you have reps for whom your voice could make a difference. Do it for all of us.

Hmph.

I really am feeling better. I didn't go do the things I might have done today, so that I could stay home and take it easy.

So I'm not really feeling so terribly pathetic anymore.

But I must still be a little sick, because earlier I had this totally brilliant thought for a post, and now I have no idea what it was!

Those Who Forget History...

are bound to end up looking dumb.

There is evidently something of a flap going on about whether Michelle Obama wears too many sleeveless dresses to too many formal events. I hesitate to even post about this, as I don't consider it anyone's business but hers.

But one of the articles responding to this flap has a historian of First Ladies commenting on Huffington Post that Michelle is by no means the first First Lady to bare her arms.

What's interesting is how many people are assuming the flap is caused by racism. I believe in racism, I really do. It is pervasive, insidious and many other bad, bad things. And it may have some bearing in this situation.

But I don't think that is the major issue. The historian is comparing Michelle to Dolley Madison and Mary Todd Lincoln and others. The most recent First Lady mentioned is Nancy Reagan. I know she wasn't really all that long ago, but...

I think people are reacting to this because our most recent First Lady, Laura Bush, was a very conservative dresser, as was her predecessor, Hillary Clinton. It's interesting to bring up a historian's perspective, but mostly because it makes clear how quickly we forget our history. People find Michelle's sense of style shocking simply because it's been a while since we've seen a First Lady looking so good. I predict they will get used to it sooner rather than later, and eventually people will forget it was even an issue.

What Will You Tell Your Grand-Children?

Thomas Friedman asks the question in this pointed column from today's NYT. He says 2008 was the beginning of "The Great Disruption" when things as they have been in the last 50 or so years started to fall irrevocably apart, requiring major re-thinking of the way the global economy is structured, economically and ecologically.

I think what I will tell my great-nieces and nephews is that my people had been expecting it for a while and that I was glad it came sooner rather than later. The sooner things fall apart, the sooner we can get around to building them back in more sustainable ways.

You're Invited!

To my self-pity party.

I am sick. I hardly ever get sick, so when I do, I am pretty fricking pathetic. I started getting a cold on Thursday, and tried to nip it in the bud, but it didn't work this week like it did last week. By Friday night, my head was leaking at a rate of one kleenex every two minutes.

Fortunately, I didn't have to preach this morning, which was a blessing for some many reasons. I thought I was starting to get better, since I wasn't quite so leaky today, but instead I've developed a sore throat.

So despite having spent some of my weekend advising talented seminarians about interesting projects and thinking some other random interesting things, I doubt I'll be sharing much here tonight or tomorrow. (I was out of town Friday and Saturday.)

So sorry about the silence, but please join the party!

"We all need help to feel fine -- Let's have some whine!"

(Oh, is that not what they meant?)

Justice is Difficult

It is very good news that the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, even if it didn't include a charge of genocide like it should have.

But it's very bad news that his reaction was to expel aid groups that are keeping large portions of the population alive. He is a very bad man, and he needs to be stopped.

Situations like this make it difficult to be a pacifist. Sometimes people are like two-year-olds. They simply won't stop throwing their tantrums, and they need to be picked up and put somewhere they can't harm anyone or anything.

The most disgusting thing about Bashir is that he's trying to turn his defiance into an anti-colonialism movement. Give me a break. That is insulting to thousands of people who have actually worked to liberate their countries from crazy totalitarians like him.

Here is the NYT news story on the situation.
And here is Nicholas Kristof's analysis. I don't agree with everything he says, but on Sudan, he has more authority than most, because he's been there, a lot, and he's allowed himself to be affected by the people. That, in my opinion, makes him more authoritative rather than less.

Lessons from a Desk

It's hard to climb out of a hole you don't know you're in.

Last night my Chorale rehearsal got kicked out of our normal practice space. Our director was annoyed, but I was actually quite glad because it meant that I got to sit at a desk instead of a normal chair. I love to have a desk. It means I don't always have to hold my music up with my arms, which is especially nice since some of it is copies that I un-stapled and it's nice to set down the pages we're done with. And with a desk, I can put my water bottle, or the tea I make at break, right there in front of me, instead of on the floor. And there was a nice little groove for my pencil so it didn't get lost.

I like having a desk. And the desk I chose last night was lovely. It was a pretty rose color and the top was nice and broad, plenty of space for all my stuff. I like to keep my stuff handy. Did I mention that I like to sit at a desk for choir rehearsal?

But my desk did cause me a few moments of anxiety last night, which turned out to be very instructive. I'm always on the end of my row anyway, but in between when I chose my desk and when the rest of everybody actually formed their rows and sat down (Strangely, most of them preferred regular chairs. Weirdos.), my desk ended up being rather far away from the next person in the row. So as we were warming up (standing up, of course), I was occasionally tugging on my lovely desk, trying to bring it into the fold a little farther.

This was mostly working, except for the slightly too-loud squeak it made. Except then something happened. It felt to me like I'd pulled too hard on some part of the desk and yanked something out of something else. And suddenly, my heretofore lovely desk had become a desk that doesn't sit evenly. It now had a short leg. A dramatically short leg. There was no way I was going to be able to sit in this desk without being completely distracted by the wobbling.

As we continued to warm up, I was terribly distracted, occasionally leaning down to try to figure out what part of the desk I had knocked out of kilter. I pulled. I pushed. I pulled and pushed simultaneously. It continued to wobble. Dramatically. My mind was racing with every mechanical gene I have, tring to figure out what sort of injury I had inflicted on the desk and how to fix it. Nothing was working. I had killed the loveliness of the desk. It's actually rather amusing how upset I was, not that I let it show. After all, it was clear no one else understood how great desks are.

Finally, we were done warming up, and it was time to sit down. For some reason that I no longer recall -- maybe I needed to get my pencil out of my purse, maybe I wanted my scarf out of my coat pocket, whatever it was -- I removed the items that were obscuring my view of the back leg that was on the far side of the desk from where I had been standing.

And I discovered that the leg I hadn't been able to see was sitting in a three-inch dent in the floor!

There was nothing wrong with the desk. All I had done was drag it into a hole. So I pulled it out of the hole, and the loveliness was restored. We had a great relationship the rest of the night.

But just think if I hadn't had occasion to look at the problem differently. I might have ended up sitting in a regular chair, totally wasting the opportunity of having rehearsal in a classroom. No, really, that's not the point. You know the point. Sometimes seeking out a fresh perspective is the most important thing you can do. But amazingly, we usually only do that by accident.

More than One Way of Being Diverse

So my congregation is mostly full of white people. In the last couple of years, that has begun to shift a little. But mostly, we are people of pallor.

I would dare to say, however, that we enjoy other forms of diversity. And one of them might make us more resistant to trouble from the economic crisis, according to this article from the Alban Institute. Dan Hotchkiss says that most people go to church with people of similar economic status, such that when they lose their jobs, they suddenly feel much less comfortable at church. Very sad.

I think our congregation actually has a surprising mix of socio-economic and education levels. And I fully admit that this is probably true in spite of me, rather than because of me. Ah, growing edges...

Water Good; Oil Bad

Here's some scary stuff about the environmental impact of bottled water from Mother Jones.

Plus a disgusting image: Imagine your plastic bottle of water 1/4 full of petroleum.

It includes a link to a guy saying "Bottled water drinkers are the new smokers." Rather provocative statement there. Time to dig out our old Nalgene bottles. (Though I've heard scary things about them too...)

Happy Birthday, Crème Anglaise!

So I don't really want to become one of those intensely self-referential blogs -- I really don't -- but I'm going to be self-indulgent today anyway.

Crème Anglaise was born on November 30th. So, in a sense, today is the three-month birthday of the blog. Assuming you can call March 2nd the same thing as February 30th.

So in honor of this milestone, which isn't all that impressive, but does make the blog old enough to get in some places (I'm looking at you, RevGalBlogPals!), I thought I would do a retrospective.

The first lines from the first blog posts of each of the last three months:

December First: "Today is World AIDS Day.

January First: "My husband and I returned from my in-laws' house in the northeast yesterday."

February Second: "Just in case you were not certain, the contraction that is used, supposedly mostly in the South, to shorten the words "you all" is not spelled "ya'll".

Can you guess which post got the most comments?

And on further reflection, I am grateful that I blogged yesterday, or that sentence above about avoiding self-referentialism but being self-indulgent anyway would probably get trotted out again when the blog turns one!

Haikus for a Snow Day in the South

I am a Yankee.
Minor accumulation
does not impress me.

Church cancelled today?
Not a chance, silly Dixie.
Just drive carefully!

Slippery highways.
Inexperienced drivers.
I should be nicer.


Bonus haiku for fellow EHS grads:

When cold and wet, fire
is your first priority.
Or blankets will do.