Election and Faith

Here in Washington state it looks like we've voted to approve R-71. Really what that means is that a nasty trick done by people who are scared and tried to sneak in some wording that was confusing, didn't work to overturn our "everything by marriage" law. Unless our ballot count changes drastically, same sex partners in our state have at least some protections.

My faith community strongly supported the effort to get this approved. There were interfaith marches in our little down town area each of the past three weeks. Yes, we have a congregation that is probably 40% GLBTQ, but that's not the core of the issue really.

To me this issue speaks directly to our faith. What is the very core of our identity as Unitarian Universalists? Who are we really? What are we here in this life to do?

It's the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

That's everything. Simple.

And it's our moral obligation as the people of this faith to work hard to build this world where each person is honored, each person has their basic human rights defended. That no one is left behind.

I hear all the time "what is our unifying message as Unitarian Universalists?" "what is the one thing we all can agree on?" "we define ourselves as what we are not, but what ARE we?"

I was raised Unitarian Universalist and while we didn't have great UU Identity curriculum or explicit faith formation in place in the 70s and 80s when I was in RE classrooms, I got it. No doubt. I know what it means to be Unitarian Universalist. I know what we believe.

We are a faith who believes in people. 'nuff said.

Interfaith...

It was a really good day for our congregation. Here in Washington, we've been fighting some crazy legislation that has us voting to affirm a law that is already on the books in support of equal rights for families of all kinds.

It's making some of us a little frustrated with the system. But leave it to the great minister I work with to pull together a group to make something good happen.

We grabbed a corner just two blocks up from where our congregation meets, and we marched. Not just our little congregation, but a whole interfaith presence.

There were the United Methodists, three congregations from the United Church of Christ. Some folks from the local synagogue were down on the next corner near the farmer's market. I know more than 50 of us all together carried signs and marched. We had kids and elders and even a couple of dogs. What a great real life demonstration that we don't have to believe alike to love alike.

It was a good day.

(the pics include some of the different faith communities represented, a photo of the clergy from the congregations--yes, all female,the minister, our RE chair and me, and my youngest son!)

Looks like Home

Here's the thing.

This time when our president stood at the platform and gave a great speech with a call to action for all of the citizens of the U.S. I noticed something I've never seen before.



This time the folks on that platform behind him looked like us. They looked like my family. It looked like us. There were white folks, and black folks and Asian folks and hapa folks. We can relate to Konrad Ng, the Canadian Chinese brother-in-law of the president. We can relate to Maya, our president's sister. We can relate to our president and his mixed race heritage. We can relate.

Even though I am the white one in my family, the people I hold dearest and closest and who live daily in this house with me are represented here on this platform.

It is something I can't even put words to. But is one of the most profound moments for us. Ever.

Hail to the Chief

Oh, it was a great day. I'm so happy that Barack Obama is my president. Really, he's my president??





Yes! He's your president, too! That is unless you are from someplace that is not the U.S. then bless you for reading this far anyway.

We had a big Inaugural Ball Bash. It was pot luck Except for the essentials. Like the Obamacakes. And the Joe Biden Jello. That was the best. The kids went WILD over it.




Some of them even sang about how wonderful the transition had gone, and how beautiful Michelle's gowns and suits were. Or maybe they just moved their mouth like they might be singing if they were old enough to know what singing was....



And some of us DID come in Ball Atire. Especially those that are young and just married. They think this is all marvelous, and of course they are absolutely right. Some of us just lag behind a little.



And in the end, if it was a really good party, the there is a phenomenal mess. Must have been a good one.



I mean really, what else could a person want? Good friends, good food, good drinks and a phenomenal president....



must be paradise!

And after all, isn't it really about honoring our leaders? Maybe "Ale to the Chief" is the wrong path to take....but it's all about hope! Thanks to all those who celebrated tonight, and all those who are solid americans. We're wickedly lucky to be here in this time, in this place. Let all be so blessed.

Sunny Day and the Inauguration Party Planning.

The sun has been out for TWO days now here in the Pacific Northwest. Oh thank you lord. It's so much better when the sun is out. And our mountain has been out, all our mountains even, the big one Mt Rainier to the south and the cascades to the east, and to the west the Olympics.


Oh so lovely.

And today it must have been 50 something. Heavenly. I didn't plant flowers though, instead I worked a kind of a long day at church (record attendance for children of 44 today) then went to the Y and then the whole family went to a movie and out for dinner at a little diner. It was fun. After a horrible day yesterday of children at each other's throats, this helped a lot.

Maybe we should always have a family date on Sunday evenings, but never will we tell them it's a "plan". No, just make it happen. That might be good. Right now they are playing rock music together, then their plan is to watch the Office and play the Office trivia game. Might just be worth it to have them get along.

On Tuesday we're having our own Inaugural Ball here at our house. You don't have have VOTED for Obama to come to the party, you just have to be happy that he's taking office. This allows my highly principled friends who vote third party to come. And the Canadians. And the kids!

Black tie and ball gowns are optional. I'm sure there will be many more Obama t-shirts, but wouldn't put it past some of my dear ones to show up in formal wear.

The menu includes:

Change Chowder
Hope Hummus
Joe Biden Jello (red jello with whipped cream and blueberries!)
Barack Brats
Revolution Rum

I think the cooler still has the "No Beer for Children" sign on it. And I'm sure there will be enough hammy kids that another "Think Studios" production will happen.

We'll all watch the ceremony again. We'll all watch the 2004 speech at the DNC. We'll watch some jib jab.

And we will break open the real french champagne. And celebrate. Should be a fun party. Wish I had more time to decorate and plan the Gala, but so what! It's gonna be a party, and an amazing change.

A Million Joys and One Snark

Just a little tiny complaint. I am overjoyed in this new beginning for our country. I love that Barack Obama is our president elect. I cried during his acceptance speech, and I feel personally ready to take on what we need to take on to redirect this country, as I imagine my grandmothers felt as we went into World War II. Really, I am transformed.

But just one little tiny thing:

Will there come a day when one barrier will fall first to a woman? Maybe I'm just swimming around here in my own funk about this, but could there be a woman who breaks a barrier before a person of color, who is a man? And no, Sarah Palin does not count. She was a "hail mary" pass, not a well planned and vetted leader.

This unsettled feeling is not playing well in my house. I live with one very old dog, one husband who was adopted from Korea as a baby and three Hapa young men. They don't want to listen to my feelings of being marginalized, of once again being led by men.

I can't blame them. It's not like Sen. Daniel Iouye is our president elect, they've yet to see an Asian man in a postion of such power in our country. But my sons have seen a mixed race man ascend through the minefield of torn alleginces and infighting that can plauge mixed race folks. Still, gender seems to be a game breaker.

Take, for instance, our own UUA Presidency. I don't get a vote because I am a Religious Educator, and not a minister, but if I had one, would I use it to elect a woman to lead us? Well, frankly, no. I would choose based on which candidate I felt could lead us, not as a token pass.

I do wonder. I don't have daughters, but I wonder how little girls are feeling in this post election frenzy? I'm overjoyed that young black and mixed race boys see by looking at their TV screens that they really can be the president of the USA.

What do little girls think?

Proof

If my dear old pal Ivan has enough hope to actually quote Bob Dylan, well then, this leadership change must be the real deal.

Hope.

Election Night Coverage spoofed by my kids

election 2008

We are humble and ready to serve for the benefit of

our country.

So, let us all be transformed.

Blessings.

Our Fifth Principle: In House

I just finished prepping the lesson for our Older Elementary Sunday School class for this week. We're using Toolbox of Faith by Kate Covey (do we have a Facebook fan page for her yet? we should) this week is about the Democratic Process.

It makes me so deeply grateful to be Unitarian Universalist, and to have been raised with these core values as a UU. Democracy is not about keeping *you* away from *my* stuff, it's about us, all of us here in this world today taking care of each other. And now as I plan this lesson with the RE volunteer and my brand new fabulous Associate DRE I am stunned at just what we do here in our little humble denomination, and our humble little congregation.

I was reading what Kate writes about direct democracy and about consensus, and of course I realize that our own Michael Kusz, who serves as the Sr. Manager of FUNTIMES Youth Caucus at GA, should go talk to the Older Elementary class this week! I mean, the Olympia Brown story is a big deal and important, but we have our own story, too.

We have the story of how the youth of Westside UU Congregation got the vote, how we changed our bylaws so people under 18 could be full members of our congregation and go to GA as delegates. And how one of those youth was voted into leadership at GA and then brought more justice and voice to all UU youth by serving on the Youth Ministry Working Group.

It's a good story on this good election day.

(I have decided that working by myself in my house all day was a really, really bad idea on this very highly heroically stressful day! And I'm taking the rest of the day to sit by the tv and to try to write my nano and to cook, and bake and sautee and keep my hands busy. Ah!)

Anxiety....

Does anyone else from the MTV 1.0 generation remember that old Pat Benatar song with the video where she was all freaked out? No offense to folks with real mental illness, but I'm kind of spinning on the Pat Benatar MTV kind.This election had better hurry up and get done. Oh my gosh. I swear I'm about to rip my TV off the wall.

And how are all you Nanowrimo folks doing? I can tell that Facebook has been busy! That's what I do while I'm mulling over a sentence or a shift....I flip between email, facebook and whatever else I can think of! But this year's writing has been faster than last year. And more folks I know are on the bandwagon--both new and old friends. So it feels like a whole "Breakfast Club" of us out there pulling together in our own Nanowrimo induced detention.
But it is clearly not enough to distract me from the election or the Halloween Candy. Maybe a part of the ritual after Nanowrimo is over, is joining Weight Watchers! Just like last year.

OK, everyone. Almost done. Oh my gosh I just caaaaaan't wait.

"Anxiety, can't get nothin' done. Anxiety, spoils all the fun....."

Past Ware Lecturer, Rashid Khalidi in the News

No, it wasn't that Barack Obama shared his peanut butter sandwich with Rashid Khalidi in Kindergarten, but now the country's best designer suit-wearing lipstick-covered Governor, Sarah Palin is trying to cast Obama as a dangerous radical by pairing him with Rashid Khalidi. History Professor Rashid Khalidi. 2007 Ware Lecturer Rashid Khalidi.


When I heard this I looked at my family, what? Rashid Khalidi, a P.L.O. spokesperson? I don't think so. My son and I saw him speak at the 2007 General Assembly in Portland, OR with a whole crew of other UUs and yes, he was tough on Bush policy in the Middle East, in Iran, toward Israel and the Palestinians, but he was clearly on the side of peace and on the side of the US. Just not Bush's US. Our US. The one filled with devout Christians and Jews and Muslims and religious folks of all kinds. The US filled with people who love and value peace and care for people who are oppressed by powerful nations.

Like our powerful nation.

We desperately need good men like Khalidi who will speak the truth and hold up the mirror so that we can see what our country is doing. Not just from behind our eyes, but from the view of the people who own the backyards our troops are in.

I hope Barack Obama brings Professor Khalidi into the cabinet as Secretary of State. I hope he's all over CNN. I hope his leadership is just the very kind that we are lucky enough to have in an Obama administration.

Maybe, just maybe, we in this privileged, mostly white, mostly Christian country can learn to leave behind prejudice that this Governor is preying on. We can learn that wonderful Americans can have the name Rashid Khalidi or Barack Obama and be ten fold the American of Joe Six-pack who seems, from all evidence, to care only for himself.

LREDA Fall Con: Better than the Obama OR McCain Rallies

I packed all my bags, slogged to the airport early early and early, and flew to Albuquerque. Here I am at the Liberal Religious Educators Association's Fall Conference. Fall Con! Cactus, colleagues, corn chips and creative chaos-the ultimate UU event. 

Even Barack Obama and John McCain came to town to get in on the action. 

I'm rooming with my dear friend from the east coast who I've already lived with once for a week at RE Leadership School, so we're cozy and comfortable together. The sun is warm when we get to snatch little moments of it, and the programming has so far only exploded about a dozen brains, so it's good but not taking too many people out. We have small groups to process the details of the days, we have wonderful music, we have the candidates for UUA President and mostly of course we have each other. What a divine blessing. 

I've gotten to see friends from across the country and meet people I've only known by name on the list serve. But best of all, I got to meet, face to face, UU bloggers! Like  Cindy from Happy Cindy Changes the World (and I guess I got to meet Cranky Cindy, too but she seemed happy to me!) and I got to meet Phil from Phil's Little Blog on the Prairie. A few folks even told me they read my blog. Wow, it is a small world.  I was really honored to think that people read this, really, lots. 

Of course there is too much to do, too much food, I'm drinking too much coffee and there is too much to think about.  

But it's hard to imagine that I'll get enough. 

Debate giddiness

I'm silly excited for this debate. Maybe I'll be sorely disappointed, or maybe the build-up will prove to be too much, but here in the house we're making tacos and buying the good beer and we cleared the calendar. We're watchin' the show!

Hope it's a good one!

Letterman rants!

This is so good!

That job on the right that I'm not even going to mention at all

Yeah, what Ms. Kitty said. Exactly.

I've been wondering why I'm having such a horrible reaction to the vice presidential choice on that side over there on the right. I cannot believe that conservative women think it's OK to be that gone from a little itty baby and a pregnant teen. I'm shocked, really stunned. I've worked and raised babies at the same time. It's really, really hard, and not just on the mom.

But I think my reaction goes back a ways past that. I think I might be one of the canaries in the coal mine. I was raised in day care, OK, it was my mom's inner city day care that she took over from my grandmother. Together one or the other of them ran it for 30 years--ending in 1979. But it was no being home. I wonder if my extreme commitment to one or the other of my kids' parents being home with them is about that.

Not that my mom did a bad job, she was an early-adopter feminist. And what they were given was the male model of power. Instead of social security benefits for stay at home moms, they were told to be equal they had to go out into the work force. She did a great job and made a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of low income kids. She took in blind kids and kids with cp and kids no one else took.

But I felt that my kids would be better served if one of the people who was in charge of raising them were there and in charge most of the time. And in fact, that's what happened. I went back to work when my oldest was six weeks old, but his dad took care of him, we swapped shifts. And when I worked full time swing shift with all three under 13, my amazing husband taught the kids to do dishes and laundry "engineer style" and they got to know the check out guy at the grocery store by name. Not that I think it's for everyone, but for me, there was no other way. No judgment on moms who chose a different path (well, unless running for an office you're totally unqualified for, then maybe a whole lot of judgment). But it's what was in my heart.

And now that I'm a professional religious educator with mountains of responsibilities, I still worry. But tonight the oldest made gravy and mashed potatoes to go with the roast in the crock pot. And the other night he made chicken teryaki and rice in the rice cooker, and gyoza with stir fried veggies. When I got home the rice maker was clean and put away.

I think it's OK.

But I still worry. And there is no way that anything on this planet or anywhere in any realm could make me leave my children and go do the kind of job that the person on the right who is trying for that one job is doing. Nope. My job is too important, you know, the one about rasing my sons. I'm not up for missing any big chunk of it thank you very much. I love it.

Barack Obama takes his daughters back to school

This is what I mean when I say "family values".

Praying for.....politician's children!

I have no idea what I think about all of these stories about Sarah Palin and her family and her daughter and the little wee baby. Well, I know a few things that I think:

I have this odd off balance sense might have been a somewhat better choice for the Republican VP choice. I have been a stay-at-home-mom first and whatever else second for a good sixteen years, when I did work full time, it was swing shift while still homeschooling three kids, isn't that what common culture thinks conservatives like? And then, I never would have even had an amnio because I wouldn't have aborted the child, not because I think abortion is wrong (I don't) but because I believe that for us, a full family with a good job can love and adore just about any child, for as long as we may have them in our lives. And then of course I have homeschooled various kids for years and years, isn't that a hit with conservatives?

OK, some of my views may have troubled a few folks, and I would have turned them down anyway (LOL!!) because I cannot imagine working that kind of an intense job with kids in the home. If my husband or even a grandmother was home to manage it all, well then maybe, but how would you know what was happening in their lives? How would you even know what they were thinking? Who their friends were? Which books they were reading? What hurt their heart? What made them really smile? How do you know that except for putting in the long hours and just really being there? I just don't want to miss that, any of it.

And then what is this doing to that poor sixteen-year-old girl. I mean, the whole world examining her belly? Oh poor dear! And if the mono really was a cover for pregnancy? Well then, don't you just wish she'd had good sex ed (can you say OWL?? And CONDOMS?) and that maybe someone had offered the dear an abortion? Or the option for adoption? Or just a loving "Juno-like" parent response that was all about support and love, not shame? And if it's not really the story, then still...millions of folks are looking at her belly, and wondering about her. Her mother should set the record straight just for her daughter's sake, unless there's no way to do that, then she should come clean and get out. Have some grace.

I wish for all of us just that; some grace.

Really? Vice President

When my 16-year-old son heard about McCain's VP pick this morning, he said "Well, then for sure the Democrats will win, race always comes before gender".

Ouch, that's cynicism. But I know where he got it. We were hanging out with our youth group last winter right about the time Obama came to Seattle. The youth group leader, a lovely young woman about 30-years-old said that of course Obama would be the nominee because race always comes before gender in breaking down barriers. Damn, if she isn't right. Not always, always of course. But still, nearly always.

I tend to be such an optimist, it's painful to even think, but of course it's true.

Still, I think it's a dirty, ugly move that panders to the lowest motives in politics to nominate this woman for VP.

Cynicism aside, I hope he's right.

The speech

So the powerful moment for my family was when the families gathered on the stage after Barack's speech and there was a Chinese Canadian man, a Hapa woman (his sister) black and mixed race African folks along with the whites.

This white house would understand race in a way that no other ever has.

This white house would understand my mixed race family in a way that no other ever has.

We are filled with hope.