Obama at the Forum

My friend Andy rocks the casbah. He, along with his friends Chris and Dennis, got up at 3 am Saturday and drove to Harrisburg, to be in line by 5 am for first come, first serve tickets to Obama's town hall meeting at the Forum (they didn't start handing out tickets until 9 am). It was only supposed to be one ticket per person, and Andy had tried to get a hold of me Friday night and see if I wanted to go down with them, but I didn't get the message until Saturday morning when it was too late to join them.

BUT, it turned out the first however many people could get TWO tickets a piece, and they were close enough to the front that they got them, one for Andy's wife Meg, and one for me.

So yesterday after church I wolfed down some lunch, then Chris picked me up, then drove to Dennis' to pick him up and meet up with Andy and Meg, then we caravaned to downtown, parked in Dennis' sister's apartment lot, and walked to The Forum. It was still two hours before they opened the doors, but we wanted good seats.

I've been keeping an eye on Obama since he won the Senate seat in 2004. In fact, I sent an e-mail to all my friends a month after that, right after I came back from the SOA/WHISC protest , calling for a Martin Sheen/Barack Obama ticket in 2008 (I put him in the veep spot then because he was a lesser known entity, and I wasn't sure the country as a whole was ready for a black frontrunner - plus, West Wing was really popular at that time, so I thought Sheen would have an "incumbant advantage" with the kind of folks that show up on "Jaywalking").

But I digress - my point is, Obama's been my candidate of choice since he announced he was running. So I was thrilled to have a chance to hear him in person. And I was not disappointed - the man is brilliant, articulate, and engaging, and he really believes in this little experiment called America, he really believes in both the power and the empowering of the people - that was evident throughout the night, from the Harrisburg campaign organizer who spoke at the very beginning, through Barack's opening comments and unscripted answers to spontaneous audience questions, all the way to the campaign volunteers inviting more people to join and volunteer as we were leaving. He is a true Progressive, his policies and his rhetoric embody a Lutheran-esque dialectic - there is a distinct role and function for the government, but government can't do everything, people have also got to step up.

And, in my opinion, people are much more likely to step up if they're invited. In my opinion, he's the first politician who has TRULY extended that invitation - to participate in the process, to have a voice at the table, to step up to your responsibilities in your own community and your own life - in a LONG time.

It was by far the most racially diverse, and most racially balanced, political gathering that I have ever been to, which was cool in itself. There was also a greater diversity of chants going on in the crowd, including some that were much more rhythmic than what is usually heard at gatherings where the majority of attendees are white - as a lifelong musician and people watcher, I found that interesting.

Andy taped the whole meeting and will be posting it on YouTube - look up "Obama's White Preacher" for the footage.

Also, WHTM, the abc affiliate in Harrisburg, interviewed the lady standing right in front of us in line. They framed it really tight, so Andy and Chris were cut out, and I am standing right behind the woman from the camera's point of view. But that'd be Meg and Dennis standing behind her on the right side of the screen. And at one point, she moves her head a little and you can see my ear and a little burst of red hair.

Hillary's still ahead in the polls here, but it's a long way to April 22. So if you're in PA, or you're an Obama supporter somewhere else in the country, stand up and keep fighting, because

YES, WE CAN.

Lost

When I was five years old, I got lost at the Minnesota Zoo. It was a busy Saturday, I was stubbornly refusing to hold anyone's hand as we moved about, and every dad and their brother was wearing jeans and the same color Izod polo shirt (I think it was red), including mine. I followed the wrong guy into a building, and by the time I realized that, my dad was nowhere to be seen. I looked around desperately for a minute or two, then approached the desk, huge tears welling up in my eyes.

I didn't understand how these things worked, didn't realize I was actually safe and had gone to the right people who would help me find my dad - rather, I was certain I was going to end up in an orphanage, and/or with my picture on the side of a milk carton, never to see my family again. A nice lady, an employee of the zoo, sat me on top of the desk and started asking my name and where I was from, and listened patiently, trying to discern my answers through the sobs. Just then my dad walked in the door to report me missing - I don't think either of us have ever been so happy to see each other as in that moment.

I share this because on Monday, I got "lost" in New York. I have been to New York City several times and know my way around well (man, do I love that place - it's like an endless State Fair!). Dad and Brenda had never been, so we spent the day being tourists, riding the City Sights on/off tour bus. At Ground Zero, we were crossing the street with a large group of people that split in two, and Dad and Brenda went left toward St. Paul's Chapel, while I went right to go further down the block and see if we could find another vantage point on the reconstruction. I thought they were behind me, but when I looked up they were nowhere to be seen, and in a split second, I was five years old at the zoo again. As I scanned the crowd and couldn't find them, I felt the panic rising in my chest, and actually had to stop, take a deep breath, and remind myself: "I am 30 years old, I know my way around Manhattan, and I have a map, money, and a metro card in my pocket."

Then I remembered we both have cell phones! I kept scanning as I called him, then saw them looking for me across the street. I walked towards them and waved, they finally saw me, and when I got to them, my dad said "What, are we back at the zoo?!"

Funny how both of us went immediately to that moment. Funny how moments like that sear their memory in your brain and still have the power to induce irrational panic 25 years later. All in all, it was a pretty brief and fairly harmless experience of being lost, both times. But since Monday, I can't help thinking about the kind of hell that people who've experienced _serious_ traumatic stress must go through every day - all the little things that could trigger their own dark memories and set off a wave of uncontrollable fear and panic.

How do you heal from something like that? What, if anything, can the people of God do to help with that healing?

Peace,
C.

It's Not Easy Being Green

At least not in central PA. If you want to recycle, you have to save it all up and haul it to a collection center yourself (how I miss the convenient roadside pick-up of my youth!).

But that's not the worst of it - the recycler is very specific about what they will and will not take, and employ a recycling Nazi to make sure you follow the rules. And some of the rules are ridiculous.

For example, I know it's important to keep plastics sorted by type, but within type - #1 plastic is #1 plastic, whether it's shaped like a pop bottle, an egg carton, or a rectangular box that had held pre-washed salad. It can all be mixed together. But our local recycler only takes #1 plastic in the shape of pop bottles. The Nazi goes through and checks the bins and will use one of those little extendo-gripper thingys to pull out anything not shaped like a bottle.

Why, you may ask? I'm pretty sure it's because the recycler doesn't trust people to sort their plastics, so it's easiest for their employee to only have to look for one shape - anything not that shape is thus summarily dismissed, even though it's really perfectly good, recyclable #1 plastic.

Because I am a consientious recycler who does take the time to check the number and sort my plastic, this irritates me to no end. Especially since we live in an area hard hit by unemployment thanks to factories that fled overseas, I don't understand why you'd pay only one guy to pull out things that are truly recyclable, when instead you could pay several people to work at the recycling plant, sorting through and pulling out what is NOT truly recyclable.

Of course, this has turned me into a rogue recycler. If it's #1, I still take it and wait until the Nazi's not looking, then dump it in the bin. If he pulls it out later, it's on his conscience, but at least I made an attempt to recycle it.

My other great frustration for the past couple of months has been trying to properly dispose of a burned out CFL. First I took it back to Lowe's, thinking since they sell the things they must have a way to dispose of them. Nope. In fact, the young punk working the lighting aisle told me to just throw it away.

"But they have mercury in them," I said.

"Not that much, it's not a big deal," he replied.

"If everybody throws them away, then it BECOMES a big deal."

He just shrugged and walked away from the crazy environmentalist before I could indoctrinate him any further.

Today I tried taking it to the hospital's home health services store (suggested by someone at church). It was a good impulse - thinking if they'll take back mercury thermometers, maybe they'll take mercury-containing lightbulbs. But no such luck. And again, looked at me like I was crazy, wondered why I wouldn't just throw it away.

So I'm still stuck with this stupid bulb. But I guess I'm not alone - tonight msn.com had an article about the difficulties with properly disopsing of CFLs, and how even state officials that should be in control of such things will give people incorrect information. Sigh - what's a conscientious rogue recycler to do?

Seriously, if anybody has any ideas of where I should try next, I'm open to suggestions.

In other news, though the ELCA kindly sent me my very own hard copy of the sexuality study, it's now Holy Week, I'm still recovering from a case of the crud, and my dad and stepmom are arriving any minute for a week-long visit, so I won't have anything more to say on the matter for at least a couple of weeks. But thanks to everyone who commented on the last post -
we'll pick up the discussion after Easter!

Peace,
Catrina

Let's Talk About S-x, Baby

Well, the ELCA's draft statement on sexuality was finally released today. In the interest of full disclosure, I have not read it all - I'm going to print it out at work tomorrow so I can mark it up as I go through it. But I did read about the last 15 pages of it (atypically jumped to the end and worked my way backwards).

So, these are some initial reactions based on what I have read so far:

I have to say, I'm surprised by how strongly the statement condemns cohabitation, as well as how strongly I reacted to that condemnation.

First, a semantic issue - that section's heading says it will address sexual relations outside of marriage, but then uses the word cohabitation throughout the rest of that segment, as though the two were interchangable. While it may be true that many who are cohabiting are also sleeping together, it's not true of everybody - yet everybody who lives together outside of marriage is condemned, the way I read this statement.

Second, a justice issue - in the section on marriage, the statement clearly affirms the traditional definition of marriage to be a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman. Thus, such strong condemnation of cohabitation seems to me like a back-door way of condemning homosexual relationships (which would, by the definitions laid out in the document, merely be cohabiting).

Third, an outreach issue - we keep saying we want to reach out to the young adults who are noticiably absent in our congregations. The hard facts on the ground tell us that many of these young adults have, are, or will live together outside the bonds of holy matrimony. So, what, are we reaching out only to slap them in the face? That's a great invitation.

Fourth, a personal issue - as the child of a broken marriage and a very nasty, protracted divorce, I understand the impulse to "test the waters," the desire to live with someone for a while before you commit yourself to them for life, I understand the logic that says it's better to make a short-term mistake than a lifelong one. I think a lot of young adults carry some similar emtional baggage, and that is part of what is driving the trend in cohabitation. So, given that I share in my generation's "issues" and attitudes toward marriage, given that, were it not for being a pastor, I myself might insist on a trial period of cohabitation before tying the knot (and fully believe it is possible to do so chastely) - how can I cast this stone? I can't. Not without being a huge hypocrite.

So those are my biggest critiques thus far. In fairness, I'm sure the conservatives in the church are also going to gripe that the document is a tacit acceptance of homosexual relationships, since it affirms that the church is called to minister to all of God's children, and one possible way of ministry "will call our same-gender-oriented brothers and sisters in Christ to establish relationships that are chaste, mutual, monogamous, and life-long. These relationships are to be held to the same rigorous standards and sexual ethics as all others."

So, once again it seems we've managed to come up with a document that includes a little bit of something for everybody to hate! I'll be curious to see how the debates unfold.

I also had to laugh out loud at the section that affirmed singleness, particularly the part that said "It [the church] recognizes
that unmarried members, single or otherwise, have distinctive forms of commitment to and reliance upon friends,
family members, coworkers, and the fellowship of Christ." Yeah, that's why the ELCA keeps sending its young single pastors to live in isolation, often in rural areas, though sometimes, pardoxically, in the midst of major cities, but in both cases, far from the family and friends to whom they are committed and upon whom they so distinctly rely (and I say that as one of the lucky ones who landed 20 minutes away from her best friend - my outrage is on behalf of my not-so-lucky friends and colleagues who bravely continue to serve God and create a life out of a rather lonely existence with virtually no thanks to or help from the wider church).

So, I'm sure I'll have more to say once I've actually read through the whole document, start to finish. But I'm curious to hear other reactions, especially from you fellow Lutherans. Leave a comment here, write on your own blog, send me an e-mail, but consider yourself tagged.

Peace,
Catrina

PS - In the good news department, the sunglasses have been found, they fell out of my pocket at the Stone's house. They are now safely back at my house, where they patiently await my next attempt to lose them.

21st Century Snake Oil

A couple different days this past week, the New York Times has run articles about the latest alleged memoir (this one about life in a gang) recently exposed to be a huge fabrication.

Here's what I don't understand: in the good old days, when you MADE UP a story, you submitted it to publishers as a work of FICTION. So why are the people making up these stories submitting them as memoirs? Plenty of novels have been written in the first person, with a sort of memoir-esque tone about them. Plenty of these novels have even been grounded in the author's own experience, though in their retelling the people and events have been altered or embellished (exhibit A: Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried).

So why on earth would you submit something that you know to be a work of fiction as a true personal memoir? Do publishers have different (read: lower) standards for memoirs than they do for novels? Or has our society become so obsessed with "reality" entertainment that we will no longer read fiction that reverberates with truth but will voyeuristically consume other peoples "true" tales? Or is this a capitalizing on your 15 minutes of fame run amok? That a good novel will maybe land you some interviews on bookish programs with a small audience, but a sensational memoir might put you face-to-face with Letterman?

I just don't get it. And I don't like it. I mean, using an unreliable narrator as a literary device is one thing, being steeped in post-modern philosophy and believing all truth is relative and contextual is quite another thing, but bold-faced lying is a whole different beast altogether. And it seems to me, to pass off as a memoir what you know is fiction is a bold-faced lie (made worse, in this case, by fabricating a charity online, as an attempt to cover the tracks of the original lie). It's a con, no different than the old-timey itinerant hucksters lying through their teeth as they try to sell you their "miraculous" medicine. And I just don't get how a con lives with themselves - or, as importantly, with others - when their whole lives are built around deception, around seeing how far and how long they can ride the lie, around how much money they can make before their house of cards comes tumbling down.

Instead of the poor, Jesus should have warned us about the unscrupulous who will always be with us. . .

Peace,
Catrina

Paging St. Anthony

I'm normally a bit of an absent-minded professor, but these past couple of weeks have been ridiculous.

First I lost half of my warmest pair of gloves. Then I managed to misplace my sunglasses (prescription sunglasses to boot - pricey to replace!). And now my yoga teacher has apparently fallen off the face of the earth. Or moved to India to join an ashram. Or entered the witness protection program.

At the end of our class last fall, we had talked about the possibility of her coming to teach a six-week class at the church. She said she would do it if I could get at least 7 people interested, which I did. She was actually very excited about the idea, as was I - it seemed like a situation where everybody wins - yoga instructor gets paid for practicing yoga, I get to keep learning from a great instructor at half the price the university was charging, people in the congregation and surrounding community have a low-impact way of improving their physical and mental health, and the church starts to shift its paradigm from private religious/burial club to community resource.

I've called several times over the last two months to try to set up the class, and always the cell phone went straight to voicemail. I left messages and figured she was busy with the holidays, or was maybe traveling a lot. Never heard back from her. Called again last week, and the number has been disconnected. I googled her name (it's thankfully unusual) to make sure there hadn't been a freak accident I hadn't heard about, but no obituaries came up. So, she has inexplicably disappeared, which makes me both sad that there will be no yoga at UIC this spring, and even moreso worried for her well-being.

But I'm trying to stay optimistic. I've been retracing my steps with the other lost items, and I did find my glove tonight, soaked and muddy but still there at the edge of the parking lot in Selinsgrove where I accidentally dropped it two weeks ago. And I've determined I lost the sunglasses the night of the Oscars - I took the confirmands bowling and then went to an Oscar party at Beth Ann and Karl-John's. The bowling alley hasn't seen the glasses, so I'm really hoping they fell out of my coat pocket at the Stone's, and now that they are back from vacation, I can finally find out.

In other news of the found, this past Sunday I finally "found" a college classmate and neighbor who has recently moved to the area (or it may be just as fair to say she found me). I had noticed the move in our last class newsletter but was unsuccessful finding a local phone or address for her and her husband. I was going to wait until things settled down after Easter and try to get a bead on them through the alumni office, but wouldn't you know, they came to our SVC concert this past Sunday! I heard a familiar voice call my name when I walked into the post-concert reception, and there they were. She didn't realize I had moved to Lewisburg a few years ago, so was quite surprised to see my name in the program! It was good to catch up, and now we each have each other's phone and address and whatnot, so we can hang out.

So, seeing as how my luck is beginning to turn, and the lost are beginning to be found, hope springs eternal that the sunglasses and the yoga instructor will also soon reappear. But prayers also spring eternal for the teacher, that wherever she is, she's ok.

Peace,
Catrina