home to me

Yesterday, we took Mama (my mother-in-law) to the airport, back to Florida after an unsuccessful year of trying to find steady work that pays enough to be able to survive living in the Bay Area. It was sad to say goodbye to someone that I've grown close to, someone who has become a member of my family (or, actually, to whom I've become a member of her family). And today after a church service that emphasized how much abundance and blessing we receive as human beings, we had a fantastic brunch with my friends Emily & James. Then I started reflecting on a few difficult conversations I've had lately, with and about relatives and ancestors, the complications of family relationships. Some days are just a little deeper than others. I came home and listened to "Home to Me" by Josh Kelley (and a version from Noah's Arc, by Patrik-Ian).
Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am to be creating a home and a family with my partner. I think this photo, taken by our friend Mateo, sums it up. The funny thing is that before the photo, we were arguing about something - and even though we were mad at each other about whatever-it-was, we had commitment, trust, and love to relax in each other's arms and work it out. Given some of my past crazy relationship habits, even after 2 years sometimes I still can't believe we've got something so good.

privilege & silence / guilt as a spiritual practice

Today, PSR's Dismantling Racism Coordinator asked me to attend a session with our Board of Trustees, where a white anti-racism trainer (Francie Kendall) led them through an exercise to build awareness about white privilege at our school. I had attended the trainer's session with students a couple weeks ago, and it was eye-opening in some ways, and in other ways it confirmed things I already knew. At the student conversation, I noticed how easy it is for white people to talk about everything else besides racism (so several talked about physical access to buildings, for example, instead of talking about how racism gets built into the structures and creates "structured blindness" to oppression). I didn't say anything then, and I promised myself I'd say something the next time it came up. At the Trustees' meeting, I remained silent again, even when I noticed that explicit mention of race barely happened - many participants simply referred to it without name, or talked about "unwelcoming" or "power" without drawing the connections to racial justice. It was an example of Francie Kendall's concept of structured blindness or structured sidestepping the issue at hand. And again I said nothing - I disappointed myself. Debriefing with my partner and later with Emily, I know that I'm in a learning process, and that next time I will have more motivation to practice sharing what I observe (and know to be true). As Emily pointed out, guilt works to my advantage in this case, because it motivates me to action.
It reminds me of my work talking about male privilege and sexism. It's hard to "develop a backbone" (thanks to Megan Dowdell by way of Emily), and it usually happens in little ways. Guilt also works to motivate in a larger sense - just I was motivated by my concern that I could be seen as a potential rapist or sexual assaulter to a woman who doesn't know me, I could also be a potential harasser and white supremacist (or insulting white liberal do-gooder!) to a person of color who doesn't know me (and, frankly, to a lot of white people who are looking for allies in white supremacy or white liberal do-gooding). So it's my responsibility to change the tide. My creative writing teacher in college (a Black woman poet) wrote a poem called "Unlearning Not to Speak" about trying to overcome the cultural messages that kept her silent. Corresponding to her learning, I had to Learn Not to Speak. And now I have to learn how to speak again, with my new consciousness. And to ask others to hold me accountable to doing this.
Will you join me?

detachment and suffering

In my religious searching, I've often stumbled on the concept of detachment as the goal of spiritual practice. I hear about this in some strands of Buddhism, and it's especially pronounced in the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita teaches two spiritual paths: one of personal devotion to the God Krishna, and one of pursuit of the eternal Brahman/spirit of the cosmos. Both teach a practice (yoga, in the broad sense. not in the solely physical practice as often understood in the US) of transcendence of passions and detachment from outcomes (both positive & negative). I think this formulation of ancient Indian religion was also part of the background of Buddhism. Certain aspects of Buddhism also teach this detachment. I've been reflecting a lot on my resistance to detachment. While a reduction of suffering is a noble and necessary goal - and a practice of contemplative detachment & presence is a good way to get at reduction of suffering - detachment seems like a peculiar way to live in the world. I've been told by many people that it isn't detachment as distance. Not like the goal is to be unaffected by anyone else, but rather to understand that there is something beyond the daily good and bad of life, beyond the ebb and flow of passions. I get that, and maybe I'm just stuck on the word detachment. My answer to suffering isn't detachment but engagement. It's to go deeper in relationships, in presence with others - in a sense, to attach more. I think it has a lot to do with cultural message of white manhood (where there's often a favorable emphasis on detachment, reduction of emotional response, and boldness in the face of difficult and potentially hurtful situations). Coming from that, the answer isn't further detachment but closer connection. Obviously, the goal isn't to be swept away by suffering, or to be rendered useless by the overwhelming nature of suffering in the world. So an element of touching the larger canvas of the universe (God, Brahman, ?Nirvana?) is important. I think part of the issue is how we understand transcendence, too. My theology professor, Mayra Rivera, has just published a book called "The Touch of Transcendence: A Postcolonial Theology of God" where she argues that "God is not within human grasp but always within human touch." It's about "transcendence within," which I think is what I'm trying to get at. I guess I have to read the book, eh?

update on 8

Today in the mail, I got a "Cops Voter Guide," which has an image of a police offers on the front. After getting pissed off about a few things on it, I noticed that it doesn't seem to be affiliated with any actual police officers. And most of the endorsements are paid for.
Be that as it may, this little postcard says to vote yes on 8 0 "Restore traditional marriage. Cops know children raised by a married mother and father have the best chance for success. Prop 8 strengthens traditional marriage." First of all, why should I trust a cop to tell me about marriage? How does he or she have any more authority than anyone else? Second of all, my partner and I have quite a traditional relationship. We don't want to wake up when the alarm goes off. We deal with budgets and car issues. I make dinner and he cleans up the dishes. We share taking out the recycling and trash. We call each other at lunchtime and talk about each other's day. We go to bed early a lot. I challenge you to find how our home wouldn't be a good place to raise successful children. Let's not kid ourselves - the success of children rests not on the marriage status of the parents but on the quality of parenting, and support systems like financial, educational, social...

you may be interested to know, my relationship does not lead to incest

We are connecting with Our Family Coalition, an organization that advocates for and assists LGBT families in the Bay Area. They put out a resource guide to LGBT-family-friendly services. They recently sent a rescindment of their endorsement of a local pediatrician because she signed a "Yes on 8" argument in the mass-mailed California Voter Guide. [Prop 8 is a proposed amendment to the California constitution that says "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."]. OFC sent a letter to this doctor, and here are excerpts of her reply (and my response):

"I am hoping that my gay/lesbian families -who I so appreciate and enjoy caring for - will realize that there is a difference between allowing gays/lesbians to form families and adopt children without terming this a marriage. Because of the judges' ruling, there would be no religious exclusion allowed - churches may be forced to marry couples in disagreement with their church doctrine. I am also concerned that this ruling actually opens the door to other relationships (such as polygamy, incest) that may not be in the best interest of children."
"I trust you have seen the love and care that I have demonstrated to you, as I have to all my families without regard for who constitutes the family. I have always attempted to keep my public policy concerns separated from the medical care I provide."

Dear Dr. ---,
I understand that you provide adequate care for your clients, no matter what their family status. I also believe that you truly appreciate your customers. I do question your ability to keep public policy concerns separate from the medical care you provide. How can you provide an adequately caring environment when you seem to believe that the parents of some of your clients are less legitimate than others--that their families are somehow not quite real.
But that aside, I have two bigger disagreements. First of all, no one forces a church to marry anyone. The church, like any provider of a service, has the right to refuse to provide service. And frankly, I support the church's right to discriminate in this case. I would challenge the church on theological and Biblical grounds, but it's really no skin off my back if your church doesn't approve of my relationship within its walls and authority. But that doesn't give your church a right to enforce its beliefs in a civil context, especially when there is no single religious or Christian view on same-sex marriages.
But let me tell you what really steams me: You imply that my right to marry my partner somehow paves the way for incest. You don't know me. But if you did, you'd see that nothing about my loving, consensual, caring relationship connects with incest. In fact, if I take your argument seriously, incest would be legal under the proposed amendment--as long as the couple is a man and a woman. Given the long battle of recognition of same-sex relationships in the US, I'm surprised that you think it's plausible that same-sex marriage somehow is "closer" to incest. I don't have the statistics on me, but I believe that most incest is committed by heterosexual men. I do know at least one kid who grew up in a polyamorous household, and she's actually one of the better adjusted women I've met. You do realize that in our Christian Bible, polygamy was quite common in ancient Hebrew cultures. And aside from Jacob and Esau's quarrels and King David's sons' craziness, I don't recall any kids being seriously messed up by polyamory. And actually I think in both their cases, the conflict was more about land, money, and acension to the throne. Maybe we should create a constitutional amendment unrecognizing inheritance. Sorry, I'm being silly.
I think I can see your logic, even if I don't agree with it: somehow same-sex relationships are somehow more sinful or "wrong" than heterosexual relationships, and it is some kind of slippery slope from there to incest. That's really twisted thinking. Like assuming that if we admit women into the medical field, then somehow that's a slippery slope to letting children and animals become doctors.
I do appreciate your willingness to go public with your opinions, and I hope you are equally willing to hear from some of the gay and lesbian parents of your clients.
Sincerely,
Wade

email response to fear

My brother sent me three emails: One that galvanizes prayer warriors against Obama's election, appealing to concerns that he is Muslim, that the US will be taken over by "Arabs," and that he hates Christians and white people. One says that Fox News will be airing a documentary about how terrible Obama is. And one is about a tourist who contrasts "polluted" "Arab-run" Egypt with "clean" Israel. Though I'm not clear why I bothered, this is my reply to him:

Actually, my deep and profound prayer is that hatred, fear, and ignorance are conquered by God's abiding and transformative love. My fervent prayer is that we as Christians recognize our God-given duty to be radically loving, radically welcoming, and impossibly hopeful in creating justice and mutual respect for the world we live in. My hope is that God's spirit of love can transform the fear I read in the emails you sent.

Regarding the pollution in Egypt, it is actually the Christian nations in Europe and America that created pollution in the form of combustion engines, fossil fuel-burning electric plants, and disposable products (that get thrown away and blown around as trash). The pollution described in your email already exists in the US--and you're right, it is scary.

Our land is sorely in need of healing, this is true. And my sorrow is that a political election is fueling fear instead of hope. It is exploiting economic concerns and fear of difference (racial fear, fear of those who have a different religion, fear about loss of security) by providing information without proof, instead of providing solutions and hope.

I have read some of Jeremiah Wright's sermons and watched some interviews. I think he speaks prophetically about very real injustices that exist in our country. Like ancient Hebrew prophets under the Babylonian empire and like Jesus' ministry under the Roman empire, Wright calls out for justice for those who have been oppressed. We as Christians (including Barack Obama, who is decidedly NOT a Muslim) are in a position to heal injustice - not create further wounds and more fear.

love,
Wade


For your consideration, I also included an essay written by my friend EJoye, one of the greatest ministers-in-training I know. She reflects many of the hopes I have for the future in an essay she wrote for Clergy for Obama:
[Find this on EJoye's blog]

spirit rock

Yesterday afternoon, a couple friends invited us to an afternoon retreat at Spirit Rock (a Buddhist retreat community/center in Marin) for a celebration of LGBT couples, love, and marriage. It was attended by all kinds of couple of different ages, orientations, and anniversaries, as well as some single people. When they asked us to meditate on our purpose for being there, this thought crystallized for me:
My relationship with my partner has profound healing power. This is why I changed my perspective from not wanting to have anything to do with marriage into seeking a commitment and marriage with him. This healing power is visible not only in the way he helped me heal after my bike accident, but in the soothing of some of my deepest scars of fear, anger, and hurt.

On a spiritual level, relationships can be inherently healing in the way people can connect with each other, when people can see each other fully as flawed and fabulous. And just as easily, relationships can be profoundly hurtful if they are blind to human reality, if they ignore or diminish the fabulous, or if they expect perfection. In a recent white anti-racist group I attended, the leader referred to this: Relationships are the only thing that can heal injustices, through sharing the spark of awareness and vision and through organizing to counteract systems of structured injustice.

I think I needed to write that, because there's a lot of scary negative going on in my inbox (thanks to my brother) and a deep struggle going on in my friend EJoye (see her blog for more).

conservative Christian sexual crises

Today I talked with my mom about some relatives going through a family crisis. The father, a leader in his church, has had a private practice for a long time, and recently the oldest sons, along with a few other unnamed clients, were part of an investigation that revoked the father's license due to sexual assault during some treatment sessions, when the son was a child. In public statements, the son emphasized that he acted out of love and hope that his father can get help. You can imagine the fallout, the guilt, shame, family divisions, anger, counter-accusations, acrimony...
This is a family I grew up with. The oldest son was my age, and I remember him stealing my bubble gum and letting me shoot tin cans with his bb gun. This is also a very conservative, evangelical Christian family. It reminds me of other sexual crises among conservative evangelical Christians. I have a knee-jerk reaction when I hear those stories: I gloat that these supposed morally pure folks are being exposed for the repression that undergirds their hatred. When I heard about this, I had the knee-jerk reaction, but I also reacted to the sorrow and trauma, the awfulness that lies in the aftermath of the father's actions and the investigation later. It's a different side of the public shame and humiliation.
It leaves me with a lot to think about in my knee-jerk reactions and how I hear about moral crusades, sexual repression, and shame.

It may also effect my response to recent emails sent by my brother & sister-in-law, which sound the moral conservative Christian alarms they're sounding about "if Obama takes over the presidency!" They pray against him (and somehow link a friend's trip to Egypt to fear that "Arabs will take over the US" and create noise, trash, and air pollution).
My prayer is that hatred and ignorance are transformed by love, and that Christians recognize our religious duty to be radically loving, radically welcoming, and hopeful in creating justice, mutuality, and respect for the global & multispiritual community we exist in.

more on christian arrogance

Today I was listening to the UpFront Radio podcast by New American Media (who promotes and covers news & reporting by people of color). One of the August podcasts features an interview of Parvez Sharma, the filmmaker who made "A Jihad for Love," about gay and lesbian Muslims. In it, he said, "I'm a little bit tired of well-meaning, angst-ridden liberals always wanting to jump on the 'save Iran from itself' bandwagon." He's referring to white/Western gay rights people who try to push an agenda of asylum or Westernization for same-sex loving people. He calls this the "It's not right unless there's a pride parade" mentality. I think this is a gay version of Christian arrogance, put forth by well-meaning people.

Emily also brought up an important point in her comment to my last posting: the impossibility of living up to ideals. I think I came across as arrogant myself, as if I've arrived at the 'correct' viewpoint, and I am pristine in loving my enemies and all that. That's not the case. It's more a matter of trying to figure out what it means to love and be civil in the face of profound disagreement and possibly even harm. The last time my mom said, "...but I still love you," I had to stop and ask, "what does that even mean?" I had to ask myself that. What does it mean to be angry at my mom, but to still love her. What does it mean for her to love me and not accept a significant part of my life (not to mention that my partner is part of makes me loveable and who supports my love for her). My mom is advanced over many conservative Christian parents of LGBT children, in her unwillingness to kick me out of her life, to break communications entirely (and I guess I am advanced in maintaining a relationship with her). But what does it mean to love me without accepting that I'm gay? What does it mean to love her without accepting her anti-gay stance as theologically accurate in a broad sense? I refuse for our "love" to be abstract--it has to take concrete form somehow. Mom and I agreed that love took the form of still calling each other once a week.
The other side of maintaining civility and space for people I disagree with is knowing how to bow out when I can't maintain civility. There has to be room for people to say "I can't have this conversation" because it's too painful or triggering. Right? I don't know. I found out that Parvez Sharma has a blog at ajihadforlove.blogspot.com I'm hoping that reading more in his blog, about his interactions with anti-gay Muslims can illuminate what it means to do this kind of spiritual work: insisting on the correctness of his perspective while engaging with those who are different. One of his posts talks about the leader of a Muslim Students Association who says Islam and homosexuality cannot be reconciled, but who thanks Parvez for humanizing Islam. Dialogue continues in that kind of environment. I don't know, I'm starting to ramble.

on christian arrogance

here is an essay i'm working on for Logos, the student newsletter of PSR. i'd appreciate comments if anyone has them:

Recently a prospective student asked me about an incident in a class he visited. Introducing himself, he mentioned that he was also looking at Fuller. Someone made a sarcastic comment and the class laughed. The prospective student laughed, too, he said, “but I don’t really know why. I haven’t seen much difference between the schools so far.”
Talking about this later, Joellynn Monahan (my boss, the Admissions Counselor at PSR) told me about a sermon she heard that demonized fundamentalists using the same “fundamental” framework the sermon was supposedly resisting. Afterward, in the community prayer, she prayed, “May we be saved from fundamentalisms in our own progressive theologies and ideologies.” May we be saved, indeed, from our own progressive arrogance. For those of us who are former Christian conservatives, may we remember the possibility of movement, deepening, and expansion of spirituality. For those who are spiritually progressive, may we remember who our God is. The God I used to believe in had limits, exclusion, and a sense of security. My perspective has changed, but I continue to fight that way of relating to God: as if there are limits on who can experience love, grace, and acceptance. In a recent class on post-colonial theory, someone asked, “Can you have an identity without excluding an ‘other’?” My answer (for now) is “No, there are boundaries between what is and what isn’t – but you can have an identity without committing violence against an ‘other’ who is outside your identity.” To me, progressive faiths, in their many manifestations, derive power from our experience of freedom, love, acceptance, and a living, ongoing revelation of spiritual knowledge that isn't confined to a single book, time period, or authoritative interpreter. My hope is that our faiths will not be weakened by hatred or by vilifying those we disagree with.
My mom and I are dealing with her fundamental objection to my gayness, her faith-based inability to accept the legitimacy of my deeply loving and joyful relationship with my partner – and my inability to see how homosexuality is sinful, my insistence that my relationship is acceptable to God and humanity. Our conversations are painful and awkward, but in our own ways of faith, we both believe that God is still speaking to us in this. Despite radically different theologies, we are committed by our faith to respecting each other’s spiritual journey and to a (sometimes desperate) attempt to maintain a loving relationship. There was a time when I condemned gays to hell, and a time when I switched the language and not the theology – condemning anti-gay Christians and conservative fundamentalists to hell. Now, through my ongoing spiritual journey, in conversation with my mom, I am learning to let go of spiritual arrogance, to find room in my faith for spiritual pathways that work for others even if they don’t work for me.
If we want to heal the wounds of violent exclusion in ourselves and in the world, we must allow our own and others’ wounds to speak anger, pain, and justice without eternal condemnation and further destruction—to be healers instead of perpetrators of further violence.
This difficult work requires patience, forgiveness, faith in possibilities, and boundless, irrational hope. To me, that’s part of what Christianity is about.

a condition for people like me

Last night I learned about a condition where the risk factor is being a skinny white male--they actually said I fit the textbook description. I know, I know, you're thinking racism, sexism, that kind of thing. Those are true, also (though I don't know how skinny factors into that). Actually this time I'm talking about "bleb disease," which can lead to spontaneous pneumothorax. Which is what happened Saturday, though I didn't get it checked out until yesterday. I went to a clinic to check out a chest pain I'd been having, and they discovered that I had a slightly collapsed lung--so they sent me to the ER. Judging from symptoms I described from Saturday, it was probably more severely collapsed but I was able to recover. Judging from symptoms I've had in the past, since 6th grade, it's probably happened before but I never saw a doctor about it. Which means, according to the doctor, I probably have this bleb disease thing (not glamorous-sounding, I know, but quite descriptive). The thing is, very simply, a few of the little air sacs in my lungs are probably enlarged and weakened for unknown reasons, sort of like a blister only filled with are (those are blebs). And for equally unknown reasons, these blebs occasionally burst, allowing air to seep from the lung into the lining that surrounds the lungs. Depending on air pressure, it can cause the lung not to inflate properly. If you've seen the move Three Kings, you know what I'm talking about, though with a bullet wound it's obviously a lot more serious. Luckily for me, the air pressure wasn't a problem on Saturday, and I have a healthy set of lungs--so my lung recovered fairly well.
At any rate, I have some more appointments today, but things are fine. I'm thinking of starting a club of unfortunately-named illnesses. We have a friend who was diagnosed with sagging brain syndrome, which is actually a very serious condition, despite the funny-sounding name. Any other ideas about unfortunately-named illnesses? Post them in comments.

happy birthday

It feels funny to say I'm 29. To me, 29 is the age of older siblings and cousins. It signifies settledness, a steady job, kids, that kind of thing. Part of the problem is culture--the culture I grew up in doesn't match the culture I choose to live in. My supervisor at the Center for Women & Gender told me that at 28, you start to feel more settled in yourself. This is true. I feel like myself, standing on my feet, and not so subject to the drama of adolescence and college. But at the same time, I feel funny still in grad school, like I'm not as evolved as I should be. I have to get over those expectations.

At any rate, I really just wanted to write about my birthday celebration. I made cupcakes using my partner's favorite vegan chocolate cake recipe. Mama bought a pie and sparking blueberry juice, so we had a toast when I got home from work on Friday. Mama and Papa gave me some nice gifts, including slippers and a salad spinner. My partner got me tickets to MacB, a hip hop version of MacBeth at the African-American Shakespeare company, and he took me out to dinner at La Taza de Cafe. The dinner was really good--a couple of Cuban tapas and slow-roasted, garlic studded pork with rice, beans, and maduros. They also have great cocktails, and the flamenco show was very nice. MacB was better in concept than reality--the show tried to take on too much, though some of the individual details were kind of brilliant, setting the story in a Bay Area record company, adding funny contemporary touches to Shakespeare's dialogue, and setting a bunch of the soliliquies as raps (most of which worked). The opening to the second half of the show with the witches ("Bubble bubble toil & trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble") was particularly smart, with three Destiny's Child-esque women singing the incantation. It was cool to see, anyway, and it was a wonderful birthday present. Last of all, he made me a 29th birthday CD combining very sweet love songs, great nostalgic R&B, and a few tracks by New Kids on the Block (including one from the new album). Thank you, baby!!

hope & privilege

I'm starting to wonder if hope and optimism are a luxury, based on some level of privilege that comes from having basic needs met. I see a family member struggling after years of no job or inadequate jobs. I hear increasing negativity and cynicism in her voice, and her attempt to control it by thinking and planning. I feel helpless to do anything. Part of it is my own sense of hope and positivity--a better sense of myself and the possibilities for the future. I wonder if hope itself is a luxury that not everyone can afford.

I notice myself distancing from this sense of helplessness, as if it's a sort of personal failure on my part. I don't want to do that, but I don't know what answers I have.
Luckily, I have to read the Bhagavad Gita for a class, so maybe I'll learn a little something.