There once was a kitty who lived in a shoe...

I had big plans to lure Elijah to my Wellingtons and take a photo of him inside. Alas, his big tiger instincts botched my plans.

BAIT


HOOK


DESTROY!

sharpening our lenten knives

I own only one sharp knife. It is small. Tuesday night I was told of its formal name: “a paring knife” and I was also notified that such a knife would by no means be sufficient for a “normal person’s kitchen”. My disinterest in all things culinary is nothing new. I’ve baked no-bake cookies and made 10 Minute Rice in three minutes. One boyfriend joyfully noshed on raw cauliflower after an earnest attempt to serve him baked eggplant for dinner, and another asked in his annoying Afro-British accent, “Have others tried to domesticate you, and they’ve failed?” - - Making me sound less like a woman who prefers to have food prepared for her and more like a feral beast. Somehow though, I have survived in the United States sans the ability to cook, and also without a television or an alarm clock, for what it is worth.

The controversy surrounding my paring knife and the frustration it caused Ben really got me thinking about the things people do in their own lives that cause me such distress when I am in their space. You know, those things that just amaze me that somehow they too manage to survive. Things like the oh-so-common Hansel and Gretel sort of trail of shoes and dirty clothes through the apartment that so many boys seem to be fine with. Or how my friends in the burbs choose to drive their two tons of steel every time they need something from the CVS around the corner. Or the fact that people say they don’t have enough time to exercise or write notes. How do these people survive, I wonder?

I guess they must have a nice knife collection.

food for thought

But emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. and being found in human form. - Philippians 2:7

During Lent, for Christian sub-communities - - specifically converts (pre-baptismal catechumens), new christians (neophytes), and penitent apostates (atoning sinners)- - and the community as a whole there exists a season of abstinence, discipline, self-restraint, and contemplation. Therein lays flesh filled optimism, turning toward the resurrection of Christ. Lent, therefore, provides the church with a unique opportunity to be active contrarians to the norms and ways of our sick, scarce culture; it is a time to live over and against the selfish and unequal mainstream values of modernity.

One way in which this can be activated is through fasting, as recommended by Paul in Acts 14:23. Fasting activates a bodily attempt to “die” of self in order to live for Christ. This self-denial resides in union with Christ’s sacrifice not only of his life, or in his resistance of temptation in the desert, but in his humiliating experience as a smelling, pained, tortured body, hanging on the cross.

St. Leo the Great said that Lent was a time to prepare for salvation. Those awaiting baptism, the church-going, and those returning to the church can engage in a communal fast as preparation for salvation, and a “rebaptism” in Easter. Lent presents spiritual struggles, and fasting is a tool to assist in working through those struggles. It is also an act of social justice. When I consume less, I leave more for others to consume. When I take in less food and water, there are gleanings for the needy as commanded by scripture.

In the same vain that hunger strikes are a means of non-violent resistance to oppressive conditions, fasting speaks truth to power. In pre-Christian Ireland, hunger strikes were used to publicly bring attention to injustice. During the early 20th century, hunger strikes were used by Gandhi in India against the British. Suffragists, Caesar Chavez, and Guantanamo detainees have fasted in opposition to inequality in gender, labor, and justice, denying ones body of bread, speaks over and against the system and the worldly emptiness that pervade society, hoping for a new bread of life in Christ.

The story of Elijah reveals the power fasting has in connecting with God. Elijah goes into the desert to hide after great violence. He asks God to end his life, takes nothing in, and then gives his life over to God entirely. Soon food is delivered, and not by the Sala Thai delivery guy: BUT BY AN ANGEL! Then comes revelation and courage. Elijah may return to Israel. Fasting may help us all return to Israel. Caution however, after Moses fasted, he received the Ten Commandments. With self-denial comes wisdom, followed by responsibility in a world of irreversibility.

for it is important that awake people be awake

A Ritual To Read To Each Other
By, William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

a crisp peace

On the eve of the inauguration of Barack Obama, the ghost-like presence of my need to write lingered in my space. For three days I partied until 4:00 am; there was a Bush effigy, visiting with Ohio 2004 folks, early morning meals and a large concert on the mall. DC had briefly morphed from a culture of professionals tackling structural unpleasantries to well, just a big party. But on Martin Luther King Day, the eve of the inauguration, in the air circulated quietness. An absence of anxiety. A blatant peace. It seemed as if the laborious commitments that led this movement to this moment had gone on Sabbath. It was lovely.

"beyond danger, is opportunity"

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new years day

While reading a book about the Historical Jesus and the Cult of Mary, something quietly appeared to me, something that I had never realized or probed before. According to Luke chapter 2, each man owed Augustus taxes and in response, Joseph fled and left Nazareth for Bethlehem. My defiant grandfather apparently didn’t pay taxes for years. When he died, my father received a bill from the IRS, (gulp). In a day and age where a woman making $60,000 a year is taxed at 25% by a country selling arms to Israel and invading sovereign nations, Joseph’s plan sounds good to me! Where shall we go? Bethlehem? Port-au-Prince? Philly? Shall we take the Acela train there? Anyway, when I die, I certainly hope someone will read the barbarically highlighted portions of my books for it will remain as only one of my two legacies.

While reading this marvelous account of the myth of Mary, I listened to Nina Simone in the background as she sang about the tragedy of love, and the devastation and responsibility of being born black. On Saturday, the Obamas move into the Hay-Adams (on my street!) for two weeks proceeding the inauguration. The beautiful Hay-Adams (where I have had tea in the parlor and drinks on the roof). Who would’ve thought the off-spring of willing and also forced African diaspora could reside at the Hay-Adams, the Blair House, or even, the White House.

My blog was originally intended to be a place to tell some of my “crazy stories” that my friends insist I write a book of (ehhmmm, Jeremy). The blog, however, has morphed, unfortunately and most recently, into a true blog: an online journal. The tragic sensibilities of my Irish heritage and the story of the year have taken this blog hostage, but in 2009, I am determined to reverting it into a place for social commentary and the sharing of old stories.