Monthly Archives: April 2008

FUSS, bikinis, and board shorts: Passover teen ministry by the pool

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It’s 5:48AM Pacific Time, and I’ve been up for nearly three hours. I’m in Miami International (the appropriately acronymed MIA), which may be the worst major airport in America. I’ll be home, Lord willin’, in time for my night class. It will be a very long day.

We spent this past weekend at a Passover gathering with the Kabbalah Centre International here in Florida. I’m happy to report that the number of practicing Christians participating in Kabbalah Centre events continues to grow each year; I had many conversations over the past few days about the ways in which faith in Christ and the study of this ancient practice intersect. (An old post about the compatibility of Christianity and Kabbalah is here.)

I’ve been working with the teens in the Kabbalah Centre, continuing a role I’ve been honored to play in several different churches. And Saturday afternoon, before the first Seder began, we gathered about a dozen of them by the pool on a warm Florida afternoon for some conversation. The story of the Passover is multi-layered; it is a historic remembrance of the Hebrew people’s escape from slavery in Egypt — and much more. During this afternoon chat, we talked about our own “personal Egypts” and what we each longed to overcome. Passover is a reminder of the possiblity for both collective redemption and individual transformation. Focusing in on the latter, we asked each of the teens to share a little bit about what they wanted to “pass over and out of” this year.

It was a normal enough session, save for the fact that we were all in bathing suits. I remembered the last time I led a youth group discussion in a beach setting, several years ago. The discomfort and awkwardness was palpable then, and it was present on Saturday as well. So I gently steered the conversation right to that difficult place. Continue reading →

Home late Monday, and links

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My flight home from Florida just got changed from Sunday night to Monday morning. (So much for having “status” on American Airlines.) I know that some of my students read my blog, so if you’re enrolled in my Monday day classes, those classes are, I regret, cancelled. My Monday night class will meet as scheduled; I’m due into LAX now at 1:40PM and that ought to give me more than enough time to reach Pasadena by 6:00PM. I can’t promise a shower in between.

I’ll try to get back into regular blogging next week. For now, a smattering of links:

Chris Clarke’s new book, Walking with Zeke, is available. For fans of animals, good writing, or both, this is a must-have.

There’s a great discussion at Feministe about the perils and rewards of blogging about your personal life.

Daisy at Our Descent on the problem of “being a good man.”

Richard Mouw makes his usual good-sense on “seeker-sensitive” churches.

Brownfemipower on renouncing the feminist label.

Anxious Black Woman on keeping the feminist label.

A rape survivor looks for fellow survivors to help with a survey.

Lauren admits she loved Zamfir and his pipes when she was a child, and asks for readers’ embarrassing revelations about the poor aesthetic choices they made when they were small.

In a piece that may have more than a little bearing on the “attribution/appropriation” wars in the blogosphere lately, songwriter Darrell Brown tells of being an “emotional spy”:

We (songwriters) record everything we witness in some way or another, taking notes on scraps of paper or recording snippets of melody or other inspiration into our voice mail so when we are alone we can retrieve and use them later. Another friend, Mary McCann, a poet who lives in Seattle, summed this process up pretty well: “Keep livng and take really good notes.”

Yeah, that’s true for bloggin’ as well.

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Buying my friend a filet: of veganism, Volvos, and the complexity of seeing every dollar as a vote

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Our Florida vacation continues apace. Tonight, we drove up to Fort Lauderdale to have dinner at Sublime, one of the most renowned purely vegan restaurants in the country. There’s nothing like being able to go somewhere new and know that every last thing on the menu is completely “safe”, with no dairy or eggs or honey or any other animal product. The food was exquisitely good.

Greater L.A. has far too few “high end” purely vegan restaurants. (Madeline’s Bistro is perhaps the one exception). San Francisco has the splendid Millenium, where I carbo-loaded for a marathon last summer. And next month, we’ll be checking out the renowned Candle 79 in New York. But we’ve had Sublime on the list for a while, and I am delighted we got to experience it tonight.

A friend of mine asked recently how I, as a vegan, felt paying for other’s meat. I do take friends and family to lunch from time to time, and we rarely get a chance to go somewhere vegan. I always order a strictly vegetarian meal, but many of those whom I care about don’t. Some of my friends and family will eat vegetarian out of respect for my values, but I never insist that they do so. Recently, my wife and I picked up the tab at a dinner where two of our companions ate filet with lobster — about as “un-vegan” a meal as you could get. We had invited these friends to dinner, and we had selected a restaurant with multiple options; as a result, we ended up spending our dollars for something we find morally repugnant. Continue reading →

Short Update from Miami

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My beloved and I are in an unseasonably cool South Beach this morning. My poor wife, who craves the heat and humidity that reminds her of Colombia, was forced to wear a wrap as we ate a late pasta dinner on Ocean last night. I had a short run this morning on the boardwalk, and am now negotiating the dicey wireless and excellent coffee at the Tides Hotel.

I can’t recall a week where I’ve had more comments go into moderation! Unlike at the big, communal blogs, I have no one else to do the moderating for me, so I apologize if your comment gets stuck in limbo for hours and hours. Though I’ve closed commenting on the main post about the citation/stealing women-of-color controversy, my follow-up post remains open, as long as it is not used merely to continue the thread from the first one. And of course, personal attacks on anyone even tangentially involved in this sprawling controversy will be deleted.

I’ll be returning to what I hope will be thoughtful blogging a week from today; until the 22nd, I’ll be moderating comment threads and checking in regularly. I do appreciate both the traffic and the ongoing discussion.

For now, though, we’re going to enjoy a much-needed break here in South Beach and the surrounding area. Greater Miami both seduces and appalls, I find. After four visits out here in as many years, I’ve decided it’s very much the “nice place to visit, but wouldn’t want to live” experience. I would go absolutely mad in a world so utterly and indefensibly flat.

But hey, South Florida has its benefits. I’m going up to Boca Raton this afternoon to take a buddy of mine to lunch. Though he and I are both in our forties, knowing where we’re going to eat, we’ll be guaranteed to be the two youngest patrons in the place by at least a quarter century. I felt “old” a few weeks ago at the WAM conference; I feel positively coltish here.

Avoiding the zero-sum game: on feminist publishing, citing, and using Jessica Valenti and Andrea Smith together

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I’m taking a break from packing for our spring break trip to offer a Sunday afternoon post. We’re off tomorrow to the place where ‘Canes roam, where Democratic delegates wait in limbo this spring, and where dear old Gianni Versace breathed his last. It’s a region I love visiting every year, but gosh, I’m always as happy to leave as I am to arrive. It doesn’t help that I love the sun and the sun doesn’t love me. (My friend Joe and I used to run shirtless together; Joe, an ER physician, always called me a “melanoma farm.”) And I’m eager for the warm waters of the Atlantic.

Later today or tonight, I’m going to close comments I have closed comments on this post regarding the Amanda Marcotte, feminists-of-color, plagiarism/appropriation/attribution fight that happened across our corner of the blogosphere this week. I don’t regret having taken the tack I did in the original post, but I do appreciate the many and disparate voices that weighed in here. The general rule that threads rarely stay productive after the 200th comment may not have applied, but better not to push it. Two other threads with good discussions of this issue were at Feministe and Amptoons. I remain convinced of two things: first, that Amanda did nothing to deserve the opprobrium directed her way; two, that the mainstream, predominantly white feminist blogosphere (of which I am most decidedly a part) has more to do in terms of both listening and crediting what we hear.

When we were gathered in Cambridge two weeks ago for the Women, Action, and Media conference, I chose not to go to the panel on women–of-color bloggers. I missed out on the chance to meet the likes of Blackamazon, Brownfemipower, and Sudy. And I’ll be honest: I weighed whether to go up until the last minute. I talked to a few people at WAM whom I trust, and who were familiar with the often bitter and bewildering exchanges I had with many of those same bloggers in last year’s long and exhausting Full Frontal Feminism fiasco. (Do a search in my archives or in the archives of half the feminist blogosphere — first in May, and then around Thanksgiving, things got heated.) These friends told me that while there was some potential for good, it might be best if I didn’t go to the Women of Color panel. That was my gut intuition as well. Perhaps I flatter myself unduly, but I wondered if, in the aftermath of all that had happened, my presence would be a noticeable irritant. It would be hard — given that I was just about the only man over forty at the entire conference, and the only one in a bright pink shirt — for me to be unobtrusive. So I didn’t go. Continue reading →

Trojan Traurigkeit

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So, we’ve been having a battle royale in the feminist blogosphere this week. If you read the blogs, you know about it. Heck, I’ve had over 100 190 comments on a post for the first time since last fall, before my readership dropped during my January hiatus.

But other things matter, like Russell Arben Fox’s outstanding post about “treating cultists right”. It’s about the Fundamentalist LDS church in Texas and the government’s raid thereupon; Russell is a first-rate Mormon intellectual, and his piece is most welcome.

I was very unhappy to read this in the Los Angeles Times this morning: USC Will Disband German Department. Apparently demand has fallen for German language and literature courses, and a university that aspires to be one of the premier research institutions in the country has decided to axe the program. Current majors will be allowed to finish their degrees, but questions remain about how doctoral students in other departments who need German as one of their languages will complete that requirement.

I minored in German as an undergraduate. Indeed, I am but two courses short of a bachelor’s degree in German, even though I never achieved complete fluency in the language that was my father’s native tongue. (I visit my German-speaking relatives every few years, but otherwise, I hardly ever speak it anymore). I took plenty of literature courses, particularly on 19th century novels and short plays. I developed a particular fascination with Heinrich von Kleist, and wrote — on my old manual typewriter — one of the best papers I ever produced in college about his masterful Die Marquise von O. And yeah, the fact that he killed himself and his girlfriend in a suicide pact made him especially compelling to me.

My background in German language enriched my work as a graduate student in church history immensely. So many of the secondary sources I read were in German only. Much of my dissertation was influenced by Friedrich Prinz’s wonderful Klerus und Krieg im früheren Mittelalter.

I think lots of folks should do minors in a language. Though I sometimes wish now, two decades later, that I had majored in women’s studies instead of history, I have never regretted minoring in German. It enhanced and enriched my undergraduate experience immensely, and even now, I sometimes surprise people by being able to drop a line or two from Schnitzler or Goethe in the original. I’ve forgotten so much of what I learned, as I never use it anymore in this new life — but honestly, I am a better man today for having known it once.

Modern universities began in German-speaking lands. For a university like USC, richly endowed and increasingly academically respectable, to drop such a vital program is appalling. It represents a rejection of one of the foundation stones of Western heritage, and I fervently hope that the decision is soon reversed.

I’ll be speaking with my Trojan wife, a proud ‘SC alumna, and ask her to enclose a little note with her next check. Vielleicht auf Deutsch.

Off on America’s latest spring break, and a Friday reprint

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It’s a crazy Friday, and I’m not sure how much time I will have to post over the next ten days. I’m off on Spring Break next week (Pasadena City College has America’s last spring break, I’m nearly certain), so posting will be intermittent (but not entirely absent) between now and April 22.

Here’s a reprint of a 2005 post: Relinquishing Control: Some Thoughts on Men, Women, and the Domestic Sphere.

The comments below this post continue to come in, and there’s an interesting exchange worth following up on.

Stacer wrote:  it can be very hard for women to relinquish control over what is traditionally her domain, especially if she was raised traditionally and/or has family members who pressure her in that regard.

I replied: Helping wives to relinquish that sort of control is a task that men, especially those who also come out of a conservative background, ought to consider embracing.

Caitriona asked in response: Uhm, just how do you propose that men "help" their wives relinquish control in these areas?

This is getting into some tricky stuff.  Let’s see if I can wade through it.

I’ve known a fair number of women who have been raised with the notion that the home is their domain.   The cooking, the cleaning, the childcare, and the general presentation of the household are things they see as entirely, or nearly entirely, within their bailiwick.  While many feminists have rightly asked their boyfriends and husbands to "step up" and take an active role in domestic tasks, many traditional women have not.  In some instances, they don’t ask because they don’t expect their male partners to be interested or willing to help.  But in other cases, these women have bought in to the notion that their very identity as wives and mothers is inextricably linked with how they "keep house."

Again, it’s difficult not to share too much from personal experience.  I’ve lived with quite a few women (some to whom I was married, some not).  They came from widely divergent social, economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds.   In some of these relationships, my partner and I agreed to live in a kind of low-key slovenliness.  (I’m a bit of a slob, as anyone who has seen my office can tell you!)  In other cases, we agreed to keep the house or apartment up to a "higher standard", and we either shared the labor or (more recently) hired help to do it for us.

Continue reading →

“If I were better, he would never leave”: on romantic illusions, writing screenplays, and myths of male weakness

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It’s a crazy midterm-y type of day, and I don’t have much time in which to post. Yesterday’s post about having “so much love to give” struck a nerve with some folks. Hilary writes in response:

I’ve been reminiscing about what I could have done better as a girlfriend in my previous relationship, what I would change if I could go back, etc. My list of changes includes more sex, more time/work/reciprocity invested, more communication, less arguments, less jealousy, more love. Shit, that’s a lot of changes. I’ve learned a lot about myself and I feel I’ve vastly matured as a feminist, an independent, single woman, and a girlfriend. But I’m a bit nervous about my feelings of seeking to be the perfect girlfriend. I guess what I’m afraid of is being left, being cheated on, being criticized, because I know what all of that feels like and if only I could be the perfect girlfriend, that wouldn’t happen…right? What also scares me is that I’m not wondering to myself what I’ll get out of the relationship. Rather, I’ve been wondering what I can give to the relationship.

Conventional relationship advice to someone in Hilary’s position would applaud her focus on what she will do differently in her next relationship. After all, it seems mature and commonsensical to focus on self-improvement, on learning from past mistakes, and so forth. I’ve said a time or nine that one of the chief purposes of relationship — particularly an intimate and enduring one –is to serve as a vehicle for our personal growth. Given that we all know the dangerous old axiom “‘Tis better to give than to receive”, Hilary — and those like her — have nothing to worry about, right?

The problem, of course, is that as Hilary herself recognizes, her desire to be the “perfect girlfriend” is rooted in a fantasy that her perfection will ensure she will never be disappointed, betrayed, or left. Many of us, men and women alike, imagine that if we could just do things a little bit better, we could control how everyone else reacts to us. As anyone who has struggled with people-pleasing knows, the great dream of every people-pleaser is to be able to orchestrate everyone else’s emotional responses. “If I say things in just the right way”, the people pleaser imagines, “my boyfriend (girlfriend, spouse, mother, etc.) will follow the script I’ve written for them.” Continue reading →

Thursday Short Poem: Lux’s “The Milkman and His Son”

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Sometimes, one line or one image in an otherwise unremarkable poem grabs you and stays with you for a long time. It is so for me with Thomas Lux’s offering — the final lines resonate, and I wish, though I know I am not, that I was the sort of man of whom such things were said.

The Milkman and His Son

For a year he’d collect
the milk bottles—those cracked,
chipped, or with the label’s blue
scene of a farm

fading. In winter
they’d load the boxes on a sled
and drag them to the dump

which was lovely then: a white sheet
drawn up, like a joke, over
the face of a sleeper.
As they lob the bottles in

the son begs a trick
and the milkman obliges: tossing
one bottle in a high arc
he shatters it in mid-air

with another. One thousand
astonished splints of glass
falling . . . Again
and again, and damned
if that milkman,

that easy slinger
on the dump’s edge (as the drifted
junk tips its hats

of snow) damned if he didn’t
hit almost half! Not bad.
Along with gentleness,

and the sane bewilderment
of understanding nothing cruel,
it was a thing he did best.

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