I am a loose cannon.

There has been this nagging thought in the back of my head for years now. I may have recounted this experience before, because it nags at me, but I think I’m coming to the place of extracting the thorn.

Several years ago a spiritual leader at one of the Christian organizations I worked for told me that he didn’t think it was a good idea for me to be in a mentoring position with young highschool kids. The position that I wanted involved physical labor and conversation a few hours each day. His primary contentions were my radical beliefs: deeply empathizing with Buddhism and loving Henry David Thoreau (also having a nose-ring, which Lamar later removed with wire cutters). He felt that I might endanger his and the organization’s already precarious position with conservative parents. But Walden, really? Every highschool sophomore in California reads Walden! Maybe the reason I could never make sense of it is because it really didn’t make sense. Time to move on, right?

But here’s the deal. He was right. I am a loose canon. Having my own thoughts and wanting to express them is dangerous… but awesome. For the first time in way too many years I am not under the payroll of any Christian organization– it is such an incredibly liberating feeling! As I said to my dad last week: “Dear Church, Glad you’ve decided you want young adults in your organization. Now that you have us, take note: we have opinions, we have politics, we are college educated; we are here and we are LOUD.” Our church, The Church… everybody needs to make some changes.

Honestly, I don’t know if that will get us anywhere– and maybe I just like to buck the system just for the sake of being a loose cannon. Maybe this is my long-delayed teenage rebellion. Does it really matter? I’m so over subconscious motivation, these days I just try to do what feels right.

Also, I can’t remember how to break this off into pieces so that the whole long post doesn’t appear at once  (you know, how to create the “jump”) so if anyone has advice on this it would make everyone’s eyes bleed less, I am certain.

The Un-American (and Un-Christian?) Way

Today I had a decidedly un-American experience. A relative stranger asked me for help. Not a creepy stranger, not a weird favor, just needed a ride to the VW dealership several blocks down. I was headed in exactly that direction and was so shocked that I said yes; I’m glad I did it.  I had to ask him where he was from, and he mentioned he had only been in the U.S. for about fifteen years; he was born and raised in India. Of course, I already knew he was a foreigner– true Americans observe a strict taboo against helping each other.

As I drove myself home I started thinking about the way that a small group (maybe a large group, I don’t know) of people at my church want to bar “neighborhood” people from receiving free dinners at our Big Wednesday night program or from coming at all, really. These neighborhood people have been labeled (by some) as “Dave Kerr’s People,” as though a pastor offering hope and a free meal to people in need was something preposterous (he associates himself with sinners and the mentally ill!). At first I thought that the issue was pure classism, but I think that today I changed my mind. It’s not just about being prejudiced against people of another socioeconomic status, its the inability to understand what it is like to trust oneself to the goodness of a fellow human being.

And that, my friends, seems like a spiritually impoverishing state of affairs.

Blah, blah, blah.

Some days are better than others, but for the most part, I have such a bad case of the blahs.

I just don’t know how to make my life here work yet– juggling jobs, school, home, church… I feel so disorganized and disconnected. I’m pretty sure I always feel like that, at least a little bit, but coming back to Modesto has complicated my life in the sense that I have re-diversified my commitments (as opposed to “simply” working one job and going to school in Big Bear). I’m almost positive I am going to drop out of grad school after this semester: it was a good idea, but a bad school. What can you do? For the time being I am just trying to do good work, love my ballet students, make a young adult church group happen, and maybe, just maybe, keep a steady supply of clean clothes ready to wear.

Have I mentioned we need a vacation?

 

 

It don’t matter if you’re back or white?

U.S. Justice of the Peace Denies Mixed-Race Marriage

I don’t really even know where to begin with this one.

Do I feel personally affronted, perhaps, that someone questioned the viability of an interracial marriage, even to the point of generalizing all interracial marriages? Am I shocked that such a blatant example of racism could occur in our seemingly “modern” society? (Not, we see manifestations of racism every  day). Am I enraged by the assumption that marriage should, in fact, necessarily produce children? Am I angered by Bardwell’s squeamishness for “mixing races” and obvious disdain for integration?  Am I appalled by the fact that, as a Justice of the Peace, Bardwell feels he has the “right” to impose his personal prejudices on couples, regardless of any notion of civil rights? Am I intrigued by the implications of the corresponding anti-discrimination rhetoric, and the extent to which is applies (or doesn’t apply) to other couples wishing to make life-long commitments in marriage?

Yes.

Mostly, I’m just really, really sad.

Lady Lazarus

Golden, originally uploaded by corypina.

With the advent of real fall weather I feel that I am finally waking up from a long, fuzzy, and HOT hibernation.

I therefore feel that it is appropriate to wake the blog.

Soon there will be pictures of our new house to share, but first I have to take some.

More to come soon.