LightHusband is really into genealogy. I mean REALLY into it. He loves the mystery and puzzle of finding unknown dead people … where they lived and the keys to how they lived. His family genealogy is mostly done. Mine, on the other hand, has provided no end of mysteries to solve and people to find. He makes connections that span decades with living people who are on the trail of the same branch of the family tree. Today, he heard from just such a person after not hearing from them in a dozen or so years. Whatever trail he’d been on went cold and the communication died away. But today, a clue!

It came in the form of a warning notice. A warning from 1832. This warning was not the kind of warning that you’re thinking of. It was a notice to one of my ancestors that he was a “person of ill-reputation” and he was no longer welcome to live in this particular town. You can read it for yourself if you want … just click on the picture to enlarge it.

This strange notice from 180 years ago gives me pause. We do know a little bit about this ancestor and his family. We know that the father died precipitously (drowned in a fishing accident) and left the mother and children with no means of supporting themselves. Instead of drawing around the widow and orphans, they were “warned out of town” … run out on a rail, as it were. This was common in the early days of our country. It happened mostly to women who were widowed without property. It could also happen to men who were single past the age of propriety. If they didn’t go or there was anything weird about the family or individual, the woman might be branded as a witch. A fascinating study of the practices surrounding witchcraft is, “Entertaining Satan” by John Putnam Demos (for real … that’s his last name).

I started to think about this as we were driving to and from hockey events today. What is it that causes humans to separate from the less-able-bodied members of their “clan?” Can it all be ascribed to evolution? I don’t think so. But we seem to have this drive to put our sickly, our widows, our orphans, the unfit and the unseemly out on an ice flow to perish in the cold and the dark. We can still see this drive manifesting itself today.

Take away the safety net. Dismantle or “privatize” (a euphemism for starving both the program and the people) Social Security. That program exists precisely for the elderly in our society who likely did NOT get a chance at a higher education. They have worked the coal mines and bus lines, bussed tables and cleaned restrooms. If they had two sous to rub together it was a miracle. They’ve had no practice managing a “portfolio” and do not have the education or outlook to do so in a way that will assist them with retirement. So why is it after all this time and movement forward, that we have decided to “warn them out of town.” That we do not want to care for them anymore … that those who are not actively contributing to the production of a nation have no business reaping any meager reward for past service rendered to the god of economy. Are we that cold? That unfeeling? Is it really true that the value of a human life can only be measured in economic productive units?

We are still separating ourselves from the other and demonizing them in the process. We don’t call the word, “Witch” any more … but we might as well.

This is my list …

1.   It is definitely about guns.  But it’s about a specific kind of gun.

Specifically, it’s about semi-automatic weapons.  Fully automatic weapons have been banned for personal use/protection for a long time now.  This is about the ease of getting semi-automatic weapons into the hands of just about anyone.  Regulating and/or limiting sales of both semi-automatic weapons and their ammunition clips should be as automatic as regulating Tylenol, or the food we eat or any of the other things our government does.  There are more regulations concerning the production of play ground slides than there are concerning the production and sales of semi-automatic weapons.  Why?  Because we (as a culture) have decided that safety for children is more important than the rights of slide manufacturers to make a substandard ambien product.

“And don’t say that it won’t make a difference because crazies will always be able to get a gun. We’re not going to eliminate gun deaths, any more than we have eliminated auto accidents. But if we could reduce gun deaths by one-third, that would be 10,000 lives saved annually.”  (Kristoff, Do We Have the Courage To Stop This)We have reduced automobile deaths by (hold up) regulating the amount of liquor one may consume and then drive a car.  Why?  Because we have decided that the rights of other drivers and their safety are more important than the right of a drunk to consume large quantities of alcohol and get behind the wheel of a car.

2.  Let’s leave certain aspects of God out of the discussion.  A proper focus on theodicy is fine; whether or not children are allowed to say the Lord’s prayer in schools is a red herring.  This is not about prayer or the lack thereof.

Theodicy is the study of evil as it relates to God.  How can there be a God if S/He allows this sort of evil in the world?  What if God intervened in all the evil that goes on in the world?  Why do we ask why God didn’t stop this and refuse to ask that same question of ourselves?  Why don’t we ask the hard questions about what we have done (as communities and as individuals) to sustain the culture of violence?  I don’t have any answers to those questions.  But I do know that we’ll get no where until we begin seriously asking them.
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Those people (and their voices are shrill) who believe that this kind of thing is a judgement of God on _________ (fill in the blank with the moral objection of the moment).  James Dobson made ill-advised comments in this regard just yesterday:

Our country really does seem in complete disarray. I’m not talking politically, I’m not talking about the result of the November sixth election; I am saying that something has gone wrong in America and that we have turned our back on God.

I mean millions of people have decided that God doesn’t exist, or he’s irrelevant to me and we have killed 54 million babies and the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition. Believe me, that is going to have consequences, too.

And a lot of these things are happening around us, and somebody is going to get mad at me for saying what I am about to say right now, but I am going to give you my honest opinion: I think we have turned our back on the scripture and on God almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us. I think that’s what’s going on

That’s a nice tidy answer, but it’s meaningless.  It would be nice to think that going back to some earlier, (and misconstrued as) simpler age would or could ensure that frail human beings would not behave this way.
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3.  It is definitely NOT about mental illness.

We have a habit of responding to outlandish things that people do by attributing it to mental illness.  It’s become a flip reaction to human behavior we don’t understand.  The problem is that with the exception of a very small group of people (untreated paranoid schizophrenia) most people who struggle with mental illness are not violent and do not go on the attack like this.

As a group, people with mental health issues are not more violent than any other group in our society. The majority of crimes are not committed by people with psychiatric illness, and multiple studies have proven that there is very little relationship between most of these diseases and violence. The real issue is the fact that people with mental illness are two and a half to four times more likely to be the victims of violence than any other group in our society.

An interesting paradox to consider is this … we do not consider our military leaders to be mentally ill.  Indeed, we hail their heroism in battle.  Yet how many of them have ordered and/or undertaken mass killing of innocents.  We call that collateral damage and absolve ourselves of the deaths.  Those women and children, grandpas and grandmas are all loved by a family.  Families just like those in Newtown, CT.  We wreak havoc on them without pause and call it heroism.
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Do we need to have a national conversation about mental health care and how mental illness is perceived in this country?  Absolutely.  It is a must, linking mental health and gun violence is a bad idea.

We need to consider what our national idols have become and like the abortion debate, we have to decide between competing sets of “rights.”  The right of our school children to anticipate safety and the right of gun owners to have what they want.  And perhaps that is why this argument, like the abortion argument becomes so volatile and emotional.  There are no clear RIGHT answers.  There are only shades of grey which cloud the nuances of the situation.

One of LightGirl’s most favorite little girl books was a lesser known book called, I Went Walking. It featured a small child who walked around her world discovering animals of varying colors who were looking at her. LightGirl adored this book and it was in her hands as required reading most days; sometimes two or three times a day. Walking with friends is still one of her favorite pastimes.

So it came as no surprise when I heard from her that a group of her friends had gone walking from their home to a nearby shopping center for dinner lovely spring evening. I was driving the friends and the LightChildren from pillar to post (and a stop at Dairy Queen for sustenance) the next day. They were recounting their adventures on the sleepover (not so much sleep) with dinner (Chinese) and their walk when they told the following story:

“While we were out walking this group of brown-skinned kids came up to us. They said they were new to the area and didn’t know very many kids yet. They seemed to be really cool. They told us their names and we told them ours. And we were talking. I (LightGirl) was thinking that this was really cool that we were going to make new friends right here on the street like that. I thought it was really cool because they seemed genuinely interested in us. And then all of a sudden they started in with this stuff about Jesus loves us too and we should come to their church.

“Yeah, Matt wanted to say something like he’s a Satan worshiper. [giggle giggle] I wanted to say that I love Jesus too, I love listening to those fictional bedtime stories before I go to sleep. [more laughter]

“Did you guys notice how long they waited for us outside the restaurant? Yeah, we stayed there til like 10 and that’s past their bedtime.”

I talked to them all about the event a little bit. If I’m interpreting their responses correctly, and I think I am, they felt a little bit betrayed and used. And sort of angry. These are a really good group of kids who offer their friendship very openly to any who ask. They do not discriminate based on anything. I have seen them open their ranks to all kinds of teens, from all walks of life. Literally … all are welcomed. Then this very openness was turned and used as a tool for sales on them.

I tried to apologize for those in my faith who feel the need to use the openness of others to assuage their own sense of helplessness. But the words died in my throat. After all, the encounters with Jesus or his disciples did not leave people feeling used for someone else’s ends. Why is that so often the case with His 21st century followers?

One of the best new things about this school year has been that I’m teaching/leading a class with some of the LightChildren’s peers.  We started out with about 15 students, and we’re down to about 8 or 9 now.  That’s okay because we’re intense and learning a lot.  It’s a philosophy class.  We’re using a text book called (without much inspiration), Philosophy For Teens:  Questioning Life’s Big Ideas.  It’s a really good text which is introducing the kids to a lot of great philosophers and (yeah, I’ll say it) big ideas.  Lately class has consisted of the kids reading the chapter and then we discuss the ideas contained therein.  This unit of four chapters is focusing on justice and began with a chapter on civil rights (Malcomb X).  The chapter we discussed the other day moved to animal rights.  That chapter opened with a dialogue between two boys about whether one of them had the right to force his dog to jump through a burning hoop and withhold food when the animal refused to comply.

So.  Of course, I opened our discussion with cell phones.  All of the students have one.  I wanted to know how they took care of their cell phones (there was a range of caring from downright love to abuse), how they would respond if their cell phone was lost or mangled, and how they would respond if/when the cell phone was replaced.  We talked about that for a while and I moved them to an understanding of the idea that cell phones are “property.”  They got that.  Everyone was happy.  But I sucked in my breath because I knew what I was about to do and it was going to be hard.

I asked them to think about our last class when we talked about civil rights and slavery.  I asked them to take a moment and consider all of the ideas we had just expressed about property as they concerned our cell phones and apply those ideas to human beings as slaves.  Everyone stopped for just a few seconds.  Most of the kids didn’t quite know where to put their eyes.  One even said, “Wow.  This isn’t so funny when we’re talking about people.”  Then we spent a few minutes talking about how just as there had been a spectrum of care for cell phones, there was a spectrum of care for slaves.  That most people throughout history had been considered property at one time or another (feudalism) and that slavery has existed in many forms.  We talked about slavery today (sex trade and child warriors).  I recommended “Half the Sky” by Nicholas Kristoff to them because if they can handle this discussion, they can more than handle that book.

We needed a break at this point.  I knew ahead of time that this class was going to be hard and uncomfortable.  That my wonderful students were going to need some sustenance and assistance to get through this.  So I made brownies for them to have at break (it’s a two hour class).  There’s nothing like a brownie to boost your spirits and keep you going during a rough spot.  If I’d had my whole act together, I’d have had milk for them to drink with the brownies.  But I only had half my act together.  They all wanted the brownie recipe … so here it is, because some of you might need some sustenance too.  I got the original here, but I tinkered with it and my tinkering is below:

Brownies From Heaven

• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 6 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate (I used Ghirardelli)
• 4 eggs
• 1 cups white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour (I used King Arthur)
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• confectioners’ sugar

1. In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter and chocolate; cool for 10 minutes.
2.  In a mixing bowl, beat eggs with wire whisk.  Add sugars, vanilla and salt, beating after each addition with whisk.
3.  Stir in the chocolate mixture. Add flour and nuts; mix well.
>4.  Pour into a greased 11-in. x 7-in. x 2-in. baking dish. Bake at 325 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with moist crumbs. Cool.

I think peanut butter frosting or adding chocolate chips to this would be even more heavenly … but I didn’t have the chance to try either of those.  Ohhh … or I might add dried cherries and cream cheese frosting the next time I make these.  Yum!

Weren’t those good?  Are you revived enough to continue our discussion?  Well, the students were.  I told you … they are great kids.  I am really privileged to have the opportunity to meet with them, hear their ideas, and share mine with them.

After the break we carried on and moved to animal rights.  We talked about how animals are different from humans.  They are not really sentient beings and some cannot care for themselves, so we must care for them.  We talked about their relative intelligence and shared our favorite pet stories.  I shared some information from this sort of creepy article on crows and how they can recognize humans, pass on information to future generations and generally are smarter than you think.  This lead to a discussion on what rights should we give animals in the wild (i.e. wolves vs. sheep in our western states).  We talked about how it’s uncomfortable but okay to discuss euthanizing an animal, but that sort of discussion is off the table for people.  So we ended up in a place where we agreed that animals occupy a grey area.  They have rights, but they are sort of property … sort of.  It’s something we will probably discuss again.

Interestingly, at the very end of class one of the students wondered what would happen to a grizzly bear that had killed a man.  We joked about sentencing the bear to jail … the zoo.  Until the kids realized that wasn’t so funny.  Then another student wondered about dogs who had been so abused that they attacked people.  What happened to those animals.  Could they be redeemed?  And we decided that some could.  But some cannot.  So they decided that the ones who cannot should be euthanized.  So, I asked them … what should we do about the very real problem of criminals who cannot be rehabilitated?  What do we do with those individuals who are repeat offenders, who do their time in prison, but get out and are worse … sexual offenders, murderers, etc.?  I asked them to think about that and we’ll pick it up there at the next class.

But I have to say … these kids are fearless.

As long as I give them brownies.

… Claire.  If things were different, they wouldn’t be the same.

That’s one of my all time favorite quotes from my all time favorite show in the universe.  Law & Order.  The original.  You can tell by the person being spoken to, that it was an early-ish episode; season 5, episode 9, “Scoundrels”.  The bad guy had been in prison for a pyramid scheme defrauding hundreds of people of their life savings.  He was out on a work release program.  Jack McCoy and Claire Kincade were trying to prosecute “Scoundrel” Willard Tappan for bank rolling a conspiracy to murder a lawyer who was going to reveal his continuing schemes.  Willard Tappan was played by a soap veteran who had made his bones playing a slinky, slimey villain, so arrogance, greed, and ick come through the small screen with a glint in his eye and the tilt of his head.  He does it well and that sentence spoken with just the right amount of hubris has always made me love it and hate it at the same time.  Because it’s true, yet I want to kick over it’s traces and scream at it.  Punch it in the eye and give it a bloody nose.  Make it run home, crying to it’s mama.  I don’t like it.

If things were different, they wouldn’t be the same.  We all know that.  And we’re all frustrated by it to greater and lesser degrees.  I think we know the things that could be.  The rightness that isn’t.  The injustices we see and those we cannot, but rail against anyway.

So it was last month when a tragedy befell my community.  In the wee hours of the morning there was a traffic accident.  Two cars collided.  One car driven by a young man who had imbibed too much the night before and was on his way to …. ?   I do not know.  But it was likely a day laborer job.  A hard work job, sweating in the sun.  The other car bore three elderly women driving from Richmond to the Benedictine Monastery.  They were/are nuns.  None of the people in the cars ever achieved their destination on that August morning.  The young man is now in prison awaiting trial.  One of the nuns has gone to her eternal home.  The other two were hospitalized with grievous injuries.

The young man who was at fault in the accident had also been drinking and his blood alcohol was significantly raised.  This was not the first time he had been driving while under the influence and he had had his driving privileges revoked.  He should not have been driving.  This is true.  If things were different, they wouldn’t be the same.

The young man was also in this country without proper documentation.

I do not use the term illegal immigrant for a reason.  It is inflammatory and it is wrong.  It is also an oxymoron  The word “illegal” implies a wrong actively done to someone else; a theft or a rape or a fraud.  People who come to this country without going through the proper channels are not always doing those things.  Sometimes they then also commit crimes while they are here, but so do our citizens as we see in our very obese prison system.  The word immigrant implies that someone is here using the proper channels and will stay.  So how can someone possibly be an illegal immigrant?  Those who come here without proper documentation are undocumented aliens; strangers in a strange land.

So it is that this young man is and was an undocumented alien who was driving without a license and with several DUI’s to his name.  He is still being held by the authorities as charges have been brought against him for felony murder, a charge which holds the possibility of 40 years in prison.  The outrage against this young man for his undocumented status is palpable in my community.  He is being charged for felony murder (rather than the lesser count of involuntary manslaughter, the usual charge given for a death while under the influence) simply because of where he was born and his lack of papers.  He came here with his parents when he was NINE!  It’s not as though he had a choice.  He is also being charged at the higher count because of his victim, an elderly and saintly nun.

Shortly after this accident happened, a similar accident happened in my community.  It was in the wee hours of the morning and two cars collided sending people to their death.  Alcohol was involved.  This time though, there were no undocumented aliens in one car and no nuns in the other.  Simply a couple of intoxicated young (white) men in one car and a young (white) woman in the other.  There was one short article commemorating the young people, a few comments and it was over.   No outrage.  No jacked up prosecutor.  Just heartbroken families and grief.  Which might be as it should be for all such cases; even those including nuns and undocumented aliens.

This is part of the September Synchroblog discussing Immigration Issues.  Please also take some time to read what the following bloggers have to say …

Mike Victorino at Still A Night Owl – Being the Flag
Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – Together We Can Make Dreams Come True
Sonnie Swentson-Forbes at Hey Sonnie – Immigration Stories
Matt Stone at Glocal Christianity – Is Xenophobia Ever Christlike?
Steve Hayes at Khanya – Christians and the Immigration Issue
Ellen Haroutunian – Give Me Your Tired …
Bethany Stedman – Choosing Love Instead of Fear
Pete Houston at Peter’s Progress – Of Rape and Refuge
Joshua Seek – Loving Our Immigrant Brother
Amanda MacInnis at Cheese Wearing Theology – Christians and Immigration
Kathy Escobar at the carnival in my head – it’s alot easier to against immigration reform …
Jonathan Brink – Immigration Synchroblog

So.  Basically I really hated yesterday’s prompt and had a rebellion.  You’ll be left forever wondering what it was, why I hated it and what I might have responded to it if I’d stopped kicking over the traces long enough to actually think.  My tiny little excuse is a really really bad case of hives that is apparently caused by the sun.  I have turned into a vampire.

Har.  Just kidding.  Some meds I take for seizures are causing sun sensitivity which, in my case, causes hives.  This has happened before in the past 5 or years since I started this new drug, but I’ve never been in the sun as long as I was on Friday (riding a tube down the Shenandoah).  So the hives were mighty and cursed this time.  Prednisone has become my new best friend.  However, I had so much fun on that tubing trip I’d do it all again … I’d just give in and go to the doctor’s sooner

Today’s prompt is this –

What’s the first thing you notice about a man when you meet him? A woman?

The first thing I notice about men and women is their eyes.  Maybe it’s because I was taught to look people in the eyes when being introduced.  Or maybe I just love eyes.  Or whatever.  Who knows … I could spend all day rationalizing, but the bottom line is I dig people’s eyes.  I love eye shapes and sizes and colors.  I love the way a person’s eyes define their face and their mood.  I love the way eyes sparkle and gleam.  I think the most fun I ever had in a class was when I took a class on portraiture and learned how to draw eyes.  I got so much perspective from that experience.

The second thing I notice is their hands.  You can tell a lot about a person from their hands.  You can see how they feel about themselves in the way their hands are carried and used in a conversation.  You can see how they relate to the world in how they take care of their hands and how their hands are used in their line of work.  When they shake hands with you, you can tell a lot about how that person perceives you and your status vis a vis them.  Personally, as a woman, I love it when a man gives me a good firm handshake.  I hate the namby-pamby woman shake that I’m subjected to in the name of chivalry or whatever.  It sucks.  It’s like expecting a great bowl of good chocolate ice cream and you get a tiny dish of half melted soft-serve instead.  Bleh.  I also like good hugs but only from friends.  Stranger-hugging is weird in my book.  And there is entirely too much hugging here in the south (from my northern perspective).  But I digress … as you may have noticed I also love hands.  And lately, I’ve loved watching as my children’s hands are developing from pudgy kid hands into adult hands.  They are beautiful.  The same is happening with their friends and cousins.  It’s like a small marker of passage through time and is enjoyable to watch as they cavort through life together.

What about you?  What do you notice when you first meet people?  Does it differ with the genders?

Perhaps you’ve played this game. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse lets you have one free pass — one special man or woman who is so attractive and out of reach that if circumstances allowed it, your partner would allow you to sleep with that person. Most monogamous couples feel safe with the free pass rule as it’s more theoretical than practical. Sill, if your partner gave you a free pass, would you use it? On who?

For the short answer see Tuesday’s post. There at the bottom … where the prompt asked about whether it’s ever permissible to cheat?

No.

It’s just not how I roll.  Because even if LightHusband gave me permission (and … uh … I seriously doubt it), it’s still cheating.  There it is.  I feel pretty strongly about this.  23 years ago this August, I made some promises before God and our gathered family and friends.  I take them seriously.  Really.  I do.  And to me, with permission or without permission, once that veil is pierced there’s no going back.

Trust and relationship would be badly broken.  Does it mean that it can never be repaired?  I don’t know.  Frankly though it’s a place I’m not interested in exploring.  I have enough broken, screwed up, hard places in my life without creating more for myself and for my husband and children.  I have so many relationships where trust got broken without the issue of infidelity, that I don’t see how it would be possible.

So there it is.  My inner conservative coming out to play.  There are one or two things upon which I do not ever budge.  This is one of them.  If I were ever to feel as though I needed to wander outside of our marriage, then (in my mind) that points out much larger problems in the marriage relationship that need to be addressed.

None of this is to say that there is not a really special person or love from my past that would not be tempting.  There is, but he is not worth the damage it would do.  Protecting my family and friends from the concentric ripples of dismay and hurt that fan out when relationships go awry and twist in the wind have more value than my selfish desires.

I guess all of this makes me not cool.  An old fart, so to speak.  That’s okay.  I’ve been this way most of my life.  I’ll keep on keepin’ on.  Because that is how I roll.

The three people who are still reading this blog after my long hiatus, know that I have started writing again using a series of blog prompts put on by National Blog Posting Month found by clicking on that link back there.  I found it through one of the writers in my feed reader.  The day (last Monday) she posted, the prompt was this:

Do you owe an apology to anyone? Why?

That’s been rattling around in my head since then.  I did not post anything that day.  I’ve toyed with the idea of back posting ever since because … well … because.

Ready for the Ball

Friday night LightGirl went on her first date.  She and her date went to a dance; the Blumen Ball the dance committee called it.  It was a semi-formal dance put on for homeschoolers.  KidCourageous (as he shall be known here) asked her to go about 10 days before the event.  She accepted and they both were very excited (on a scale of 1 to Christmas morning they agreed it was like going back to Hogwarts).  They had a wonderful time and danced the whole evening.  Their chauffeur for the evening was KidCourageous’ older brother.  LightGirl was presented with a wrist corsage and KidCourageous was a perfect gentleman all evening.  She is still (Sunday morning) walking on air.  If you are friends with me on FaceBook you can see photos there.

There was only one small snag.  Several of the young men in LightGirl & KidCourageous’ group of friends thought it would be fun and funny to play games with them during the dance.  These young men would surround them and separate the two of them regularly throughout the evening.  It might have been funny had it only happened once or twice, but as young men are wont to do, they carried it on for too long and too far.  LightGirl and KidCourageous became frustrated with the situation.  But they handled it graciously and kindly without creating any fuss.

The next night, the ringleader of the young men was chatting with LightGirl on FaceBook (which they do regularly).  She was still pretty upset with him for the antics of the previous evening.  I encouraged her to let him know that she was unhappy, but to be kind about it.  I guess she must have because he attempted to apologize.  It was a rusty attempt because I’m not certain he does this very often.  But all the ingredients were there … he acknowledged that he had behaved badly, he empathized that it was hurtful, and he agreed that he shouldn’t have done it.  The only thing lacking were the specific words, “I’m sorry.”  But those are the least important words in an apology; he included the more important ones.  I haven’t been able to convince LightGirl that this is in fact an apology yet.  She (at the time) was still too upset and hurt by past interactions with this young man to be objective.  But I was really proud of him for taking that risk.  She will come around and be able to see it in a day or so.  My hope is that he will not be feeling rejected by then and their friendship will be restored.  I think it will … they seem to practice this sort of thing on each other regularly and are getting better and better at it every time.

The whole incident pointed out some things about apologies to me that I’ve been reflecting on for some time now.

The first thing is this … an apology is a risky business.  The person apologizing puts themselves in a vulnerable position vis a vis the person (or group) they are apologizing to.  They are giving power and/or control over to that person/group.  Forgiveness is a form of acceptance and redemption gives one re-entry to the relationship.  When one apologizes one acknowledges both wrongdoing and that the other person may or may not offer grace in return.  The restoration of the relationship is entirely in the hands of the person to whom one has apologized in that moment.

A proper apology consists of several necessary ingredients – an acknowledgment of wrong/bad/hurtful behavior, empathy with the person/group who was harmed by the behaviour, and agreement both that it should not have happened and that one will endeavor to prevent it from happening again.

Apologies cannot be demanded or manipulated.  They can only be offered free and clear by the person who is apologizing.  If they are not offered, but instead are made in response to a demand or as a result of manipulation they will be useless or empty.  One cannot acknowledge wrong/bad/hurtful behaviour when one doesn’t know what one has done.  This happens when an apology is demanded or manipulated as a condition to restore one’s relationship.  One can only be mournfully sorry about general malfunctions if an apology is demanded or manipulated.

Most often, though, between adults (and near adults), apologies run in both directions.  It is extraordinarily rare among two parties to a dispute to have only one which needs to apologize.  When wrongs have been done they often have been committed by both parties.

If you’ve been around here for any length of time, you may recall an ugly leave-taking with my CLB back in early-ish 2007.  It was hard.  It was hurtful.  It was/is permanent.  It was a long drawn out process, during which an apology was demanded of me in order that my relationships in the church might be restored.  I had no idea what apologize for so it was empty and meaningless.  But I was trying to do anything I could to restore balance and harmony to relationships that had strayed badly off course.

I’m now apologizing to the people in question here.  I still have no idea what the instigating issues were (though I have been told many times that I do).  However, I can apologize for my very poor behavior during that months long process.  I was defensive, angry and embattled.  I was also very depressed.  In the words of Paul the apostle, what I wanted to do, I could not do and I knew that I was doing what I did not want to do.  Call it arrogance (certainly), call it tunnel vision, call it depression, or some of all of that  and some other things that I have yet to identify, but I could not see any other path at the time than the one I/we traveled.  I know that did damage to the people I was close to.  I know our abrupt departure was frightening, upsetting, and painful.  I apologize for that.  I wish it could have been different.  I wish I were different; stronger, better, wiser.  But I’m not.  I’m zealous, over-protective, and type A-high maintenance.  In an attempt to preserve feelings and group unity, I kept secrets I should not have kept.  Revealing them here, or now would not be profitable.  But keeping them at the time proved ultimately harmful to everyone, including me.  They seemed harmless.  But secrets never are.  All things kept in the dark ultimately prove to be harmful.

I know that I am in a much healthier frame of mind now.  I have more tools at my disposal for communicating my difference of opinion with others without being as confrontational as I’ve been in the past.  Do I think that any of this will or would change anything?  I don’t know.  All I know is that I need to do this for my own peace of mind.  How it is received and what is done with it is out of my hands.   If I had been healthier at the time there is a chance I might have been able to exit with less damage.  Maybe.  But … I’d hate to speculate now.  What happens now … who knows?

As regular readers of this blog may be aware, I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Loved the books and loved the movies.  I still read the books from time to time.  And watch the movies over and over again.  But I guess I don’t need to tell any of you that.

One of my very favorite scenes in either books or movies is the scene between Merry, Pippin and Treebeard where the hobbits are trying their very best to convince the ent that the ents must join with the forces of men, elves, hobbits and dwarves against the orcs in this epic battle.  It takes them quite a bit of convincing just to get Treebeard to move.  But he finally decides that meeting would be a good idea and off he went for an interminably long meeting.  He came back to make a report after days … literally, days … of talking.  His report?  “Weeeeee haaave decided.  Yoooouuuuu aaaarrrrrreeee noooooot Orcs.”

The look of dismay, mixed with disgust, need and something else on Merry and Pippin’s faces was priceless.  I love that moment.  It is such an amazing clash of cultures and paradigms.  Each learning how to interact with the other.

Yesterday morning, I was brushing my teeth, washing my face, getting dressed and mulling over some long standing issues in my life.  By long standing, I mean they’ve been sitting out there for about three or four years.  So I mulled and thought and came to some resolution about how I wanted to moved.  I finished up, went downstairs and said to LightHusband, “I’ve made a decision.”  He looked at me with a grin, “What?  I’m not an orc?”  I laughed and replied, “Well, I’ve known you’re not an orc for 20 years now.  But I’ve decided that there are some people who are orcs to me.  Or at least I need to treat them that way … sort of.  For me to be healthy.”  He arched a brow and said, “You mean I got it right?  You really are an ent?”  “Yes, I really am an ent.”

I went on make the following explanation.  Well.  My explanation to him was similar.  But not the same.

I’ve spent the last three years playing the part of Lot’s wife.  Sometimes I wonder about that story.  I remember reading about it in some popular literature when I was younger.  There was speculation that the weapon of destruction for Sodom was a nuclear bomb and Lot’s wife died of radiation.  But I think she was turned to stone from grief.  Grief can stop us in our tracks and turn us to stone and the operative action that causes it is “turning back.”  Lot’s wife turned back, and her tears turned her into a pillar of salt.  That has been my reality for far too long now.

I have allowed myself to look back and pine for what was, what can never be and what I wish for.  I doubt they ever will be and my wishing my life away is not healthy for me or anyone else involved.  So my quilts will be for those who I am in active contact with at this time.  That means people I see and talk to on the telephone … who know what is going on in my life beyond Facebook and Twitter statuses (stati?).  To those of you reading this who have gone down that road (and you know who you are), choosing to believe your church leaders about us and thinking you might still love us is no longer possible.  It is time to stop looking back.

Those of you who would like to remain in relationship with us, you will need to be able to talk with us openly about that horrible time in our lives and hear our pain without denying it or taking it away from us.  It is a wound that continues to bleed and tear at our souls.  You will need to be unafraid of picking up the phone and calling us or writing us an old-fashioned e-mail now and then.  More now than then.  In short, you will have to desire a relationship with us that requires something of you.  So … I am going to un-Friend you on Facebook and Twitter.  And sever those tenuous ties with you.  I need to move forward.  I need to release myself from the grip that era has on my mind and my soul.

Because sometimes … people who are not orcs, really do have an orc-like effect on others.  And then they need to be kept at a distance if one is to remain healthy and on the road to happy without “looking back” and turning into a pillar of salt.

It’s Women’s History Month here in the U.S. of A.

I wonder if there are any people of color who are equally irked by African-American History month?  I mean, I understand the motivation behind having these once a year months to focus on here-to-for underserved populations in our midst.  But …

But there is something about the idea of having  the dominant population “allow” a month for women’s history or african-american history or whatever history that is vaguely unsettling.  Because if the culturally dominant population is still in a position to allow this, then they are also in a position to take it back.  Which means … they still hold all the power.  I would very much like those scales to be more in balance in terms of race and gender one day so that ML King, Jr.’s dream will really come true for all of us.

So … for me, it’s HerStory month.  This isn’t about HisStory.  We get to hear HisStory pretty frequently.  So here in the Ravine I’m going to be telling some stories about women this month.  Women in the long ago and maybe some women in the near and dear.

For starters take a look at a couple of things that lead up to this month:

Our women in the Olympics –

There were Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso  – alpine events.

Hannah Teeter and Kelly Clark – halfpipe (snowboard)

Hannah Kearney and Shannon Bahrke – moguls

Meryl Davis (with Charlie White) – ice dancing

Lana Gehring, Alyson Dudek, Allison Baver and Katherine Reutter – short track speed skating

Erin Pac and Elana Meyers – bobsled

21 Valiant women on the US Women’s Hockey Team

Katherine Reutter – short track speed skating

and these were only the medal winners.  We sent dozens of other female athletes, trainers and moms to the Games.  They all have a story to tell.  Of sacrifice and love and joy and pain and passion and fierce dedication.  Stories that are not unlike ours.

So I will back throughout the month with more stories, ideas and maybe even a book review or two.  Stay tuned.