Spontaneous Musings

The weather smells tonight. That damp smell, that is wet. With a bit of lily thrown in. Like a pool without the cholrine or a shower. Three days straight of rain. This summer it rains for five days straight, takes a break over the weekends, then starts right up again. I feel like I am living in Seattle. And this ahem is the reason I don't live in Seattle. I require sunshine dammit.

Read two things in the morning paper today. The first made me laugh, the second made me think - about power, human rights and what is really really wrong with religion in our country.
( New York State Legislature Collaspes into Chaos )
The second was an interesting opinion piece by a guy against the gay marriage equality act.
This week the Metro is covering the gay marriage debate from multiple perspectives - because, NY State is still debating the issue. Yes, the Northeast has okayed it. But New York can't make up its collective mind on the issue. Yesterday they had opinion pieces from the Gay and Black Perspective. Today it is from the anti-same sex marriage perspective. One article states that proposition 8 supporters don't want to be called bigots. They aren't against gays having rights. Or civil unions per se. They are against defining marriage as anything but a union between a man and a woman. Here's the quote:

( We aren't Bigots, we just like things the way they are and always been, and how can the majority be wrong argument )

And here's the second article by Timothy Dalrymple.
( The Christian Anti-Gay Marriage perspective )

( my reaction to this )

I did not write my query letter again - have until June 20, when I'm going to share it with the writing group I've joined. But I wrote this...which I'd intended to leave opinion free - ie, my opinion not on it, but being me, I apparently found that impossible.

Dreary day. Spent much of it indoors, eating too much, reading the Barack Obama book, and watching tv - specifically my DVD of the BSG miniseries, the Torchwood episode entitled Adrift (we are three episodes behind in the States), and Mad Men, which is almost too deep for my overstressed brain to deal with at the moment but at the same oddly gripping. I find myself fascinated by Donald Draper, Peggy, and Vincent Karthesier's disenchanted ambitious married ad exec who can't figure out what it is he wants, jealous and resentful of what other's have.

At any rate, I read this passage in Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama this morning that I wanted to share, for reasons that should be apparent when you read it. Say what you will about Obama, he is certainly a thoughtful individual.

For many practicing Christians, the same inability to compromise [he was talking about abortion] may apply to gay marriage. I find such a position troublesome, particularly in a society in which Christian men and women have been known to engage in adultery or other violations of their faith without civil penalty. All too often I have sat in a church and heard a pastor use gay bashing as a cheap parlor trick - "IT was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" he will shout, usually when a sermon is not going so well. I believe that American society can choose to carve out a special place for the union of a man and a woman as the unit of child rearing most common to every cultur. I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex - nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.

Perhaps I am sensitive on this issue because I have seen the pain my own carelessness has caused. Before my election, in the middle of my debates with Mr. Keyes, I received a phone call from one of my strongest supporters. She was a small business owner, a mother, and a thoughtful, generous person. She was also a lesbian who had lived in a monogamous relationship with her partner for the last decade.

She knew when she decided to support me that I was opposed to same-sex marriage, and she had heard me argue that, in the absence of any meaningful consensus, the heightened focus of marriage was a distraction from other, attainable measures to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. Her phone message in this instance had been prompted by a radio interview she had heard in which I had referenced my religious traditions in explaining my position on the issue. She told me that she had been hurt by my remarks; she felt that by bringing her religion into the equation, I was suggesting that she, and others like her, were somehow bad people.

I felt bad, and told her so in a return call. As I spoke to her I was reminded that no matter how much Christians who oppose homsexuality may claim that they hate the sin but love the sinner, such a judgement inflicts pain on good people - people who are made in the image of God, and who are often truer to Christ's message than those who condemn them. And I was reminded that it is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided, just as I cannot claim infallibility in my support of abortion rights. I must admit that I may have been infected with society's prejudices and predilections and attributed them to God; that Jesus' call to love one another might demand a different conclusion; and that in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history. I don't believe such doubts make me a bad Christian. I believe they make me human, limited in my understandings of God's purpose and therefore prone to sin. When I read the Bible, I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must continually be open to new revelations - whether they come from a lesbian friend or a doctor opposed to abortion.

This is not to say that I'm unanchored in my faith. There are some things that I'm absolutely sure about - the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace.

( my own philosophical/religious musings on the topic )

Went to an interesting free concert last night held in the Winter Garden of the remaining portion of the World Trade Center. There's a few skyscrapers along Battery City Park that are still considered part of the WTC. You get to them by marching over the Ground Zero platforms or on the sidestreets around them. The Winter Garden is enclosed atrium, huge enough to house six live palm trees at full height. There's a stage at the front. And the ceiling is glass. Looks a bit like a catherdrale, albeit one inside an office building. My friend, W had invited me to see it with her after she got out of work.

The concert was the world premiere of an ecletic classical music piece entitled John The Revelator by composer Phil Kline, who was in attendance, and performed by Lionheart and Ethel (a string quartet). It was set up as a "mass" - with music compositions to blues spirituals, latin mass chants such as the Credo, Agnus Dei, Sanctus & Benedictus, Hebrew Lamentations, and poems by David Shapiro and Samuel Becket. Before it started, Kline explained that the concert was not a mass for the end of days, or the apocalypse - that apocalypse really didn't initially mean the end of days anyhow, so much as new vision or new horizon, another word for change. Odd never heard that definition of apocalypse before. And that prior to writting the composition, he studied the Bible in depth blathering about how it was a fascinating text - filled with violent history, poetry, moral and cautionary tales. He spent the most time on Revelations and determined Revelations wasn't about the end of the world either, so much as visions on how things may evolve. In short he read it metaphorically as opposed to literally. [Most disagreements regarding the Bible, actually regarding all literary/media/art/movie analysis, tends to be over metaphorical vs. literal interpretations. ]

Of the songs presented, it was Beckett's poem - put to music, in a striking way, that sticks in my memory the most. I reproduce the poem here:

Prayer: The Unnamable - by Samuel Becket.

Where now? Who now? When now? Unquestioning. I, say I. Unbelieving. Questions, hypotheses, call them that. Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on.

(Can it be that one day, off it goes on, that one day I simply stayed in, in where, instead of going out, in the old way, out to spend a day and night as far away as possible, it wasn't far. You think you are simply resting, the better to act when the time comes, or for no reason, and you soon find yourself powerless ever to do anything again. No matter how it happened. It, say it, not knowing what...)

...I shall not be alone, in the beginning. I am of course alone. Alone. That is soon said. Things have to be soon said. And how can one be sure, in such darkness?

To provide a bit of context: ( Read more... )

After the concert, came home and watched BSG of all things. ( Vague Spoilers - so vague in fact that you don't have to even watch the series to figure out what I'm discussing. I'm only discussing the theme of the episode, which intrigued me. Nothing else. Because well nothing else about it intrigued me - it was more of an episode about an issue not so much about character. )

The box meme

On a gloomy Sat, where one just wants to curl up and read a good book, came up with this meme that has been rolling about in my head most of the week or ever since I read the spirtuality meme online and had an interesting, albeit brief discussion with frenchani in my lj.

Meme – descriptive trait.
Box – a square, rectangle or even a circle, contains items, often a defined category with label attached.

Purpose – predicting behavior and interests and personality of individual answering the questions. Determining a commonality of interest or traits in order to select friends, spouses, lovers, members of a group, employees, applicants to graduate or undergraduate programs, and private schools. Knowing who fits where, who clicks with whom. Who should be excluded and who included.

Categories/questions obtained from applications, marketing questionnaires and surveys, quiz memes, online dating matches & email questionnaires.

Rules: 1. Define the category that you are answering. EX: What do you consider your country of origin to be? What does that mean to you, is it important?
2. Is it important others share these traits? Rate importance on scale of 1-10, 10 vital, 1 not. Would you reject or select someone based on their answer? How important is their answer to you? (ex: Define Liberal or conservative – what does it mean to you and how do you perceive the category that you aren’t? If you define yourself as liberal, do you dislike and reject conversatives?)
3. Length : one word or as many as you want.

Here’s the list of questions. I’m just doing 10. You can do as many or as little as you want. The questions have one thing in common, with the possible exception of the last one, done in honor of Halloween, is that they are all used to define what people are like, categorize, and reject or select them based on their answers.

1.Country of origin (also state or territory depending on where you live)
2. religious heritage (not to be confused with religion you currently practice or don’t)
3. racial background or ethnicity
4. age
5. gender
6. height and weight
7. education
8. Television watching habits: TV shows currently watch, how many hours a week, what you enjoy, how much is news related – tv news shows you watch
9. Movie watching habits: Types of movies you watch, movies you enjoy, most recent movies, favorites
10. Reading habits: Books, magazines, newspapers, journals you are reading
11. Listening habits: Radio stations, music, ipod, mp3, just CDs, tapes
12. Food – favorite foods, food issues, foods won’t eat – Vegetarian, Non-Vegetarian, Vegan?
13. Liberal or Conservative? (can be economic or social or both)
14. Religious belief (not to be confused with heritage: ie. Are you practicing a religion and do you believe in God?)
15. Sexual Orientation
16. Sports/Athletic Pursuits (what you watch, what you play, how much time you put into watching, do you bet on them)
17. Married or single
18. Do you drink (alcohol)? Socially? Extensively? Alone? Not at all?
19. Smoke or don’t smoke?
20. Fashion or Favorite Clothes (do you pay attention to fashion? Are you a shopper?)
21. Current Abode – home you live in (apartment, house, boat, trailer) and where
22. What state or country or territory do you currently live in? What village, city, suburb?
23. Children ? (Do you have them, how many, do you plan on having them, how do you feel about them? )
24. Occupation Currently Have and Occupation Currently Dream of. (Can be one and the same)
25. What do you fear?

I’m cut tagging my answers for length and well other reasons.

( “country )

( “religious )
( “racial )

( “Age” )
( “gender” )

( “height )

( “educational )

( “TV )

( “Movies” )

( “Reading )

Okay, do with that what you will. Off to run errands and such.