but gravity always wins

∙ her green plastic watering can ∙ for her fake chinese rubber plant ∙ in the fake plastic earth ∙ that she bought from a rubber man ∙ in a town full of rubber plants ∙ to get rid of itself ∙ it wears her out, it wears her out ∙ she lives with a broken man ∙ a cracked polystyrene man ∙ who just crumbles and burns ∙ he used to do surgery ∙ for girls in the eighties ∙ but gravity always wins ∙ and it wears him out, it wears him out ∙ it wears him out, it wears him out ∙ she looks like the real thing ∙ she tastes like the real thing ∙ my fake plastic love ∙ but i can't help the feeling ∙ i could blow through the ceiling ∙ if i just turn and run ∙ and it wears me out, it wears me out ∙ it wears me out, it wears me out ∙ and if i could be who you wanted ∙ if i could be who you wanted ∙ all the time, all the time ∙

metamelomai

Last summer over a Prestige at the beach, my pal Alex who works for the United Nations spoke of his family back home in Ethiopia. We got to talking about the most famous singer from Ethiopia,Gigi Shibabaw. He rambled on about how many concerts Gigi had coming up because of “the millennium.” After all, in Ethiopia it was only 1999. Now, my friend Angela lives in Ethiopia, where the millennium was just recently celebrated.

It is eight years ago in Ethiopia.

By the authority vested in me thanks to my participation in divinity school, I will now make the bold assertion (like the kind the Dean graciously warned about, and charged us with, at graduation): the eight year gap comes from use of the Julian calendar versus the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Angela occasionally excuses the technological difficulties in our communications by saying things like, “Sorry, it is only the year 2000 here.”

It got me thinking. What if we could travel back to eight years ago, like Angela? All of us. Even George Bush. And Britney Spears.

Ahhh, an age-old question: “What would I do differently?” You know- I am naturally wary of people who say things like, “no regrets.” I kinda feel like things work out the way they should; but on the other hand, having regrets means learning, gaining information, and a willingness to take responsibility. In my life, in the situations in which profound beauty have come from great suffering, I still think, - - wow, I could have handled that a little bit better,- - or, - - I could have made some better choices during this or that, even though I accept that it is all over now. Over. Forever.

In the year 2000 I was nearly twenty-two years old, and it was my senior year of college. I don’t think that I would choose to go back, even to fix things with the information I have now. The thought of it exhausts me. I look forward to saying things like “back when I was in my twenties.”

So maybe this means I can say that I have “no regrets.” But I don’t think so.

kill your television, or that annoying couple on the eharmony commercial

I’ve been watching an enormous amount of TV lately. What at first was a treat has since been a reminder of why I don’t own a television, (despite my angst of baseball-season-separation and lack of opportunity to conquer the Daily Double). For me, turning on the TV exposes my most sacred peace to the chronic illnesses of consumerism, anxiety, fear, and reality TV shows (that I somehow can watch numerous episodes of). But please don’t reduce my aversion to TV to an assumed, snobbish, distaste for that which lies outside of the intellectual, because through the internet and grocery check-out magazines, I too indulge the absurdities of pop culture. All-in-all, I guess I understand my distaste for TV to be founded on the same reasons I don’t like Las Vegas: too much stimuli and not enough space or time to sort it out. My basal ganglia can only handle so much.

During the past couple of days, on the couch coping with illness, it has just been me and the TV, while my books and pens lie neglected on the floor, lonely, and unused- - all of us wondering when - - if ever - - energy and focus will allow utility again. These days of re-exposure to TV have evoked a new reason for my dislike (and now distrust) of TV – there are families, and couples, and committed people all over TV. Everywhere, a culture where people couple-off and reproduce, and society encourages and rewards them for it. For this togetherness is not a communal one. I am not witnessing community where it ‘takes a village’ – rather, I am told (and learning) that it takes a husband, and a Mom, and there are usually heavily deciduous dogs running on freshly cleaned, white tiled floors.

Oh God, every time I see that commercial about the cell phone Family Plan Free Minutes and the spilled milk, I first wonder why I can’t seem to understand what the milk connection is and then I just want to cry my eyes out because I feel so lost. Oh, and on “Trading Spouses” today- I had endure witnessing two families as they experienced the longing for the temporarily traded spouse, but I kept on watching, almost dreaming that someone was missing me. Is this what it is sometimes like for kids of divorced parents? Is this how my gay friends feel in this heteronormative society? Or is just me, and somehow, I have step-by-step and year-by-year violated the governance of American society? I have noticed that the weather reports cause a similar sensation for me. Like the storms in the northeast yesterday - - I kept watching and it made me think about growing up in New York, and having a family, and listening to the scary rain on the roof at night after I moved to my room in the refurbished attic of our little house.

But I also discovered a new good thing about TV today. The Country Music channel. While tuned in there, I feel understood. There, exist others who feel alienated, too. They’re always on the outside looking in, too. Although, that Jesus Take the Wheel song freaks me out a little bit. I am not so sure I want Jesus driving my car.

a great multitude as one

Before watching Obama’s speech on TV this afternoon, I was breezing through a book called The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Philip Jenkins. In addition to a thorough account of ideas on Christian universality in the African church and global south, Jenkins exposes the notion of Christianity as westerndom for the myth that it is, - at first, by discussing how a Palestinian centered world was recartographied - if you will – into a Roman centered world. Then, Jenkins reminds readers that the holiest of practices of Christianity were established in modern-day Tunsia and practiced three hundred years before Christianity was legalized in Europe; and of course, according to Acts, it was an Ethiopian who first converted to Christianity. Still today in Ethiopia where a Solomonic tradition of thousands of years stands against the oppression of forms of imperialism, a tradition of mysticism and hope prevails in the face of the crushing forces of death.

We are all Palestinian. We are all African.

So today, an American with an African father went to Europe and asked for a help in healing the strife of both the highlighted and forgotten parts of the world. He said, “Now the world will watch and remember what we do here - what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time? Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words "never again" in Darfur? Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world? Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don't look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people? People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time.”

We are all Berliners.

Obama called for conversation and trust, peace and cooperation. “The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow,” he said, after highlighting the World War II airlifts of food to Germany. I couldn’t help but think of what a miraculous thing it has been for me to watch and listen to upper-middle class Americans on mission trips in Haiti. Something forever changes when they briefly suffer with their Haitian brothers and sisters, witnessing their crushing hunger and sadness. It feels like watching a miracle also, to see a slender, brown-skinned, man represent America, me, and my family extending an open hand across Atlantic ocean after eight years of cowboys offering only the absolutes of silence, torture, and death. I will pray for sustainable miracles, and hope that President Obama remembers he is a Palestinian-African-Berliner.

i know it is not john wayne

blog posts suspended

Per my employment contract with Obama for America and the Indiana Campaign for Change, I am suspending my blog for a while.

Until later.

Barack the vote.