As most of you know by now, LightGirl has been playing hockey since she was 12. To say she loves it is an understatement. If more than 7 days go by in a row in which she is not on the ice, she starts to get a little wiggy.

This year she is playing for a competitive travel team (Tier 1). The coach gave a version of the following to the team parents in a meeting back in June:

“We are a competitive team for this area. But there are a lot stronger teams out there. Put it this way … there are approximately 200 D1 (NCAA top level) scholarships for women hockey players. Of those 200, all but 11 of them usually go to Canadian women. The remaining 11 are spread out amongst all US women hockey players. We are going to play hard and practice hard, but if you really think your daughter is a serious candidate for one of those 11 scholarships, you are in the wrong program. “

My husband told me about this the other day as I wasn’t at the meeting. And I thought about it for a while. He’s right about this program … it’s a good one, but there are many others that are out there and girls who are going to go to a top-rated hockey college will be playing for those other programs … not here in Northern Virginia. He will push this team to do their best, but ultimately, any success these girls accomplish will not be here, but will be because of the lessons they’ve learned here … on the ice. And that’s a good thing.

I thought about this for a while and let it percolate as I thought about the church and the damaging, hurtful ideas I see out there being promoted by people who claim the name of Christ.

I thought to myself that it’s extremely unfortunate that the church does not have anyone from the outside that will be heard to say, “If you think you’re special enough to speak judgement into this or that situation, you’re in the wrong program.” You’re in the wrong place to be making statements about God and what S/He wants or will do or … anything. You … We don’t have the knowledge necessary to make those judgements. We don’t have anyone who can intrude on all the righteousness and self-righteousness to say, “Wait a minute. Stop and think about who you are and what needs to happen here.” What are the real measures of success? And are we chasing the wrong rabbit?

Remember that childhood nursery rhyme?  We used it to ward off name-calling and taunts; as an umbrella of protection when words rained down pain upon our little heads:

Sticks and stones may break my bones
But words will never hurt me.

Then we all grew up and we learned how much power there is in words.  We learned that words, when they are repeated over and over again, can become a person’s reality and perception.  We understand now that name-calling and taunts create a poisonous environment for children and workers.  We even have a name for this … we call it bullying and it has garnered a negative reputation nationwide.  Behaviour that makes some people uncomfortable by putting them down, threatening them with harm, making pejorative statements about their ethnicity, gender or any other physical characteristic OR their belief system is generally considered off limits.  This is considered negative behaviour and in many cases is shunned or disallowed.  Why?  Because “nice” people don’t do that, sweetie.  People who are educated, with manners; people who want to be known by their self-control (as ladies or as gentlemen) don’t do those kinds of things to others.

Yet there is one large crevice where we still allow this sort of bad behaviour.  Nay … there are some portions of our culture who even encourage it.  That would be our political culture.  Our political culture (and one party in particular) takes pleasure in name calling, insults based on race, gender and physical characteristics and creating a poisonous environment for others.

What happened in Tucson was tragic.  But it was only a matter of time.  And frankly, I am surprised it did not happen sooner than this.  I expected this sort of thing to happen on the campaign trail last October.  Yes, that young man is mentally deranged and that is very sad.  But mentally deranged people listen to rhetoric just like the rest of us.  The only difference is … many people with these mental health issues cannot separate rhetoric from reality.

That is why putting out websites with crosshairs on Democrats and encouraging your followers to carry weapons to rallies (even though they may -or may not- be unloaded) is dangerous.  While people have every right to do those things, those are not necessarily the most responsible or the most gracious things to do. Encouraging your followers to stop and accost motorists with bumper stickers of your opposition on their car with antagonistic, insulting, and pejorative questions is not responsible leadership.  It makes for great drama and excellent ratings, but it creates an atmosphere of poison and hate.  This is the sort of atmosphere which will bring the mentally challenged people out with their guns (in this case a Glock 9mm … because I’m certain that’s an excellent hunting weapon) to hunt people.

And in this poisonous atmosphere that we have created, please don’t anyone act surprised.  Because now we have lowered ourselves to the level of many developing nations where they shoot politicians when they don’t like them.

These words were spoken by Clinton in 2010 as he reflected on the Oklahoma City bombing:
“The words we use really do matter. There’s this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike.”
h/t Liz Dyer

The first rumble of something in the wind came late yesterday.  I was tired.  Grumpy even.  The day had been empty and I was supposed to be able to sew all day after a busy weekend.  But I ended up driving all day.  So I sat on the sofa and was mad.  It had been good for everyone else.  Just not me.  There seems to be a theme in that lately and I am slowly but steadily ending up without so much wick to my candle.  So I checked into my googlereader and found that kathy escobar had posted a rather interestingly titled post, “drinking the company koolaid.” Now since she usually writes about more Jesus-y things and her church-y gathering, I wondered what could be up with that!  And read it.

It was a most uncharacteristic rant from her about the state of women in the church.  Not that she thinks that women in the church over all have it made and we should stop going on about it.  Far from that.  It’s just that usually she has other things on her mind.  And she is very good about choosing her battles (windmills) very wisely.  She is no Don Quixote (unlike yours truly).  She referenced a post by Pam Hogeweide (Happy Christian Women … really??) … which is a must read.  But more importantly, she linked to some data that is being published by Jim Henderson, of Off The Map.  It’s a recent Barna Group survey of 603 Christian (self-described) women and what they thought of women and leadership in the church.

What he has published so far seems to be fairly provocative –

1. 84% say that their church’s perspective on women in ministry is almost identical, very similar, or somewhat similar to their own.

2. 83% say that their Senior Pastor is somewhat, highly or completely supportive of women leading in their church

3. 82% say they can tell by their church’s actions that the church values the leadership of women

4. 81% say that their church provides women with the same degree of leadership opportunities as Jesus would.

5. 72% say they possess a lot of spiritual freedom in their life

6. 70% say that the media has little influence on their decision-making

7. 71% say fear is not something they experience ever or often in their life

8. 62% say that ALL leadership roles are open to them in their church.

9. Only 1% say they often struggle with jealousy

10. Among those who feel they are capable of doing more to serve God, and should be doing more, only 4% say that their fear of failure is holding them back from doing more to serve God.

I commented at Jim’s blog (where he published this data).  I’m wondering how this survey was taken.  If it was taken on paper (either virtual or literal) or by phone that would give different results … especially when dealing with a group of women.   I think that this is incredibly revealing of how the church has become a system of brain-washing rather than God’s Kingdom revealed tiny piece by tiny piece. Because the Kingdom of Heaven is not about men or women or leadership.  Or who will be first.  It’s about who will be last.  It’s about finding the lost sheep, the lost penny; giving away your wrap when someone needs a shirt; enabling someone to care for others when at first they can barely care for themselves; it’s about spreading the Love Divine around, not keeping it for yourself.

It made me angry to read these statistics.  It made me angry, not just for the women … but for all the people involved in those churches.  They are losing out.  This is not the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, or as he walked with his disciples or at any time.  Would even Peter, or John the beloved disciple be able to answer these questions so affirmatively?  How about Mary Magdalene?  Good grief, if even the disciples struggled with jealousy why on earth can only 6 women out 603 acknowledge it?  Perhaps it was the word, often, that threw them off.  Maybe they decided that they could deny that jealousy was something that strolled in and regularly did battle in their hearts.  I know I will stand up and say that I am jealous all the time.  It doesn’t make me mean anymore, but acknowledging it to myself and being able to laugh at it has made it easier.

Then this report made me sad.  The kind of sad that aches in my bones.  Because when I look at it I see poverty.  The church in North America (like the US) may have a lot of money.  It may have a lot of stuff.  We may also have a lot of people for all I know.  But we are starving to death.  Emaciated and dying for lack of food, water and oxygen.  Worse, we are doing it to ourselves.  With a huge smile on our faces.  We are a people with anorexia or bulemia.  When we look in the mirror we see fat and happy, but the reality is we are starving.  Dying.

In the end, we can know a lot of stuff about the Bible.  We can even know a lot of stuff about God and Jesus.  But if we do not have love … love enough to be honest with ourselves and our neighbors and our communities, then we are nothing but a clanging gong.

And mostly I’m sick of guns!!

I have a 12 yo son.  Lately (as in for the past year) it seems as though the only game he and his friends can play is war of some form or another.  They play it on video games.  They play it with nerf guns.  They play it with air soft guns.  He plays it in his head all by himself.  He and his dad watch WWII movies or Vietnam movies.  They talk battle tactics.

I’m sick of living in a culture that is permeated with war and news of war.  Of living in a society where bomb blasts and mourning top the daily headlines.  And soldiering (killing) is glorified.

Literally … it’s making me sick.

I understand why it’s happening … I’m just sick of it.

UPDATE – I had to put my beloved dog of 8 years to sleep very unexpectedly this afternoon.  The comment thread is now closed.

 It all started with a rainy, windy Saturday afternoon.  We took the LightChildren and a friend down to Church Street to see the sights and pass some time because when it’s rainy and windy “dey ain’t nuthin’ doin'” at the cottage.  So off we went to find our fortunes … or perhaps a board game and a fresh book.  LightBoy in particular was in need of fresh reading material.  So once the rain really started we took refuge in Borders.  After finding a board game based on Halo, we made our way to the Young Adult section to find a book or two for our young man.  There we were accosted by shelf upon shelf of book covers that missed the bulls eye of soft porn only by the narrowest of margins.  There were books all aimed at young women wanting to fit in and these days it would appear that fitting in requires merchandizing your body and making an object of it.  That was the lesson I took from the book covers.  It was difficult to find a book which would hold a young man’s interest in that section and we gave up … and got him Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.  I’m not certain the books in that section would hold my daughter’s interest either … but that’s another story.

Then later in the week two other things happened.  First I had a mini-reunion with my two best (girl) friends from highschool.  We’ve maintained sporadic contact in the (cough-cough) years since graduation and get together too infrequently for all of us.  This was the longest reunion of all … we got to spend eight hours together all at one whack.  It was fabulous.  In a funny coincidence, we all three have two children; each of us have an oldest daughter and a youngest son.  The daughters are all in highschool and the sons are all in middle school.  Among many of the issues we discussed about our children was that of reading and books and from there the larger issue of boys and reading.  So it was with interest that I followed the second happening –  Open Mic at IMonk Cafe:  What Boys Might Read … there was a fairly lively discussion (128 comments at last count) about books of interest to boys at the middle to high school age.

It’s a great thread and is an incredible resource of reading material for all children in the middle to highschool ages.  I’m going to be referring back to it again and again throughout the year for both LightChildren.  LightGirl has read many of the books suggested, but there are many there she hasn’t.  LightBoy would enjoy many of them and has yet to engage them.  But here’s the thing that makes me peevish … what the hell was going on in Borders and why couldn’t I see any of those books that day?   The only thing I could see were dime store trash aimed at girls.  I didn’t say anything, but LightBoy turned to me in frustration and said, “Mom, these are all girls books.  Where are the books I’d like.”  I had to find a computer and do an age related search to find a book.  It was ridiculous.

Then I started really thinking about it.  I remembered back to when I was young.  I had a blue bike.  The only thing that denoted that my bike was a “girls” bike was the cross bar; mine swooped down for my now non-existant skirt.  The bikes my brothers rode had a crossbar that went straight across and if they jammed their crotch on them it was very painful.  Makes no sense.  Given our anatomical differences, boys should have the low, swoopy cross bar and the one for the girls should go straight across.  But back when bikes were first developed, girls wore skirts.  Now, of course, when one attempts to purchase a bike for one’s child one must purchase a pink flowery bike for a girl or a blue racing-ish bike for a boy.  This means that if you have a child of each gender you buy two bikes of every size (or you become adept at painting bikes).

Have you looked at women’s clothing lately?  Particularly outerwear?  Most of it is pink or purple.  Heaven forfend if you want navy blue, then you have to buy men’s sizes.  What if you have big feet?  Then you are relegated to men’s sizes and men’s (boring) colors.  Land’s End/Sears is the worst.  I’m fairly certain there are gay men with big feet who want brightly colored foot wear.  And there are women with big feet out there who want it too.  Like me.  And there are women with smaller feet who don’t want to wear brightly colored footwear, they want to wear the boring colors.  And short men with small feet.  The point is … why the genderism/sexism in all the marketing?

Is this what all of the feminists really fought for?  Is this what equality really looks like?   Really?   Somehow, I don’t think so.  It doesn’t feel right, or just or sane at all to me.  I’m not advocating for men and women to look alike by any means, I celebrate my difference daily.  But the result of this feminist revolution seems to be that we have fewer choices, not more and those choices seem to be based on market forces, rather than justice.

and it all makes me really peevish.

Like war and high finance and other fancy stuff.

The president and Congress are wrangling about a new spending bill.  It’s called a Stimulus package and it’s rumoured to cost about $850Billion in funds we do not have.

It’s okay though.  We didn’t have $700Billion Congress gave to Wall Street.

We didn’t/don’t have the $1 trillion or more that the war in Iraq is going to cost.

Everyone is busily pointing fingers and shouting about how beleagured their side is and the rightness of their cause.

Here’s an idea.  Let’s total all the figures up.  I was in the advanced math program when I was in high school.  So let’s see how I do with this.

$850,000,000,000 + $700,000,000 = $1,550,000,000,000 (that’s domestic spending)

The war of choice in Iraq $1,500,000,000,000 (that’s an extremely conservative estimate that I used just to make a nice round number).  A more responsible estimate from Joseph Siglitz (see the link above) is $2.4 trillion dollars.  This may change as our withdrawal plans are telescoped under President Obama … oh wait, that would mean we’d spend less money we don’t have at the hands of a Democrat.  But under Republicans, we were committed to spending more.  Despite my enrollment in advanced math, this is complicated.

Nice.  $3,000,000,000 … $3 TRILLION dollars in debt.  Hmmm and only $850,000,000,000 of it from Democrats.  So who are the tax and spend monsters here, exactly?  I just can’t keep it straight anymore.

What do I think would be a really good idea?  Only spend money we actually have.

If we don’t have money to keep troops in Iraq, then I guess they need to come home.

If we don’t have money to give to corporate baboons … I mean bankers … then I guess they’ll have to figure out other ways to fund their multimillion dollar retreats, private jets and end-of-year bonuses.  But I’m damn tired of paying for it.

The only thing I think we should be spending money on right now?

Creating jobs … programs such as the CCC during the 1930’s.  The Civilian Conservation Corps kept millions of men and women off the public dole and off the streets.  It built our interstate highway system and created our national and state park system.  Bring it back … put our people to work in meaningful jobs rebuilding our country.  Bring our industry back home.  I’m sick and tired of buying fabric and clothing manufactured overseas by slave labor and in inhumane working conditions.  I want to know that men & women here have a job OR conversely that the men and women overseas (not children) who manufactured my stuff are not dying to work.  Either way, I am tired of crap at crap prices just to make a few people rich.

Education … real education, not force fed trivia in the name of passing tests.  Let’s teach our children how to enjoy life long learning, not the drudgery of how to pass a test.  There’s nothing intrinsically beneficial to the child or the country in that.  Being able to pass tests is a skill, being able to develop technology is a gift.  We need to put our money and resources  into developing our children’s gifts and talents, their skills will naturally follow along.

Healthcare … our healthcare system is broken by greed.  What kind of system is it where my husband cannot get coverage for 10 $600 sugar shots to provide relief for his chronic debilitating back pain.  It is non-invasive and 90% effective.  He can get coverage for surgery which would be more than ten times more expensive and the chances that it would be effective are less than 50%.  Not even a gambling addict would take those odds.  Worse, a single mother with 6 children under the age of 7 can get covered for fertility treatments that cause her to bear 8 children, but I cannot get covered for birth control … because my “plan” will not cover it.   We have seniors and children literally rotting from lack of preventative health care that would cost pennies, but it will make insurance companies and drug companies millions for them to get really sick.  Drug companies are allowed to push vaccines that are not really necessary through fear and intimidation (have you seen the ads for bacterial meningitis?  ask yourself how many cases there really are a year and do the research).  It’s sickening.

Food … yes, food.  Our agri-industry is killing us.  It is walking hand in glove with the healthcare industry.  Twinkies are inexpensive.  When you’re living on a fixed, substandard income it’s a lot easier to eat mac ‘n cheese and chips than it is to eat fruits & vegetables.  But it’s the fruits & veggies that will keep you well and chronic illness away from your door.  As it turns out, an apple a day really will keep the doctor away.  But only if you wash it really carefully.  Read Michael Pollan.  Then read him again.  Then write to Congress and the President.  If you want your tax dollars spent on something real, get them to stimulate CSA’s and community gardens.

Well … come to think of it.  That looks remarkably like a household budget, doesn’t it?  I think Congress (on both sides of the aisle) needs to get rid of their household help and begin to live like regular folk once again.  Remember that they are first and foremost, civil servants.  They are in office to serve us, rather than the reverse, which currently appears to be the case.

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P.S.  Please do not use comments to tell me how you think I’m all wet behind the ears or stoopid or something because, “of course money has to be spent on defense, and this or that or the other thing.”    I’m using my space here to talk about what I think the top priorities are.   And you’re probably not going to change my mind about those things.  I’ve spent a long time thinking about them and coming to these conclusions.  If you want to disagree with me, that’s fine, but please use the comments to write in a positive manner, in ways that are constructive and will move the conversation forward.  If you can’t or won’t, you’ll prob’ly find your comment deleted without explanation.

I’m so angry right now I almost can’t sleep at night.  It’s a boiling, gutteral fury.  When I try to speak of it, I begin to sputter and use bad language because I don’t have enough words to express the utter depth of my rage.

My in-laws turned 70 this year.  My mother will turn 70 early next year and my father is 75.  My parents are extremely fortunate because a relative left them unexpectedly very well off about 14 years ago.  However, my in-laws are not in that place.

My father-in-law worked hard all his life.  He still works hard.  He is 70 years old and with a bachelors degree in economics he works in a hardware store.  This year they will not be taking their annual three month winter trip to Florida as they cannot afford it.  Financially.  Unfortunately, their children and children-in-laws are all holding their breath for the toll this will take on their health.  They are good people who depend on the vagaries of the stock market for their fixed income retirement package.  They are good people who were depending on the stability of real estate to sell their home of 35 years when they needed to to supplement their retirement income.  Now they can do neither.

Remember when I said that the first national election I ever voted in, I voted for John Anderson?  Well … I had turned nineteen that May and Ronald Reagan won that election for those of you who remember which race John Anderson ran in.  So, for the entirety of my adult life, I have heard lessons on the economy from the conservative side of the street.  In a nutshell, those lessons may be summed up by saying, “The market will correct itself, the government does not need to regulate it.”  and “We’re not a socialist state, keep the government out of the market.”  Don’t fool yourselves, Bill Clinton was no liberal when it came to economics.  There was a very good reason why he kept Alan Greenspan in charge of the Federal Reserve for almost the entirety of his presidency.  Clinton was a fiscal conservative and only barely a social liberal.

Yet, every time I turn around these same fiscal conservatives … these Republicans who hue and cry about the government staying out of the market … run to the government for a bailout when their greed fails them.  When their pride, hubris, greed and foolishness fail and put all of us in jeopardy … they run to the government teat, just like a welfare mother in the projects.  I am way past disgust.  Just where exactly do they think that government money comes from?  The trees?  No … I have news for these financiers of great and immortal fame … it comes from me and you.  We are now paying for their foolishness.

Those men of millions and billions, who ran their companies into the ground, ran to Uncle Sam for help cleaning up the mess, are now keeping the millions they gained personally and have the unmitigated gall to fight for their 60 and 70 million dollar severance packages.  They are keeping their houses (multiples each), their personal jets, their yachts, their jewelry, their … whatever, whatever, whatever AND all their money AND we get to clean up the mess they made; AND we get to pay the court fees for the battle that they’ll stage to keep their severance packages.

The ugly thing about this is this is privatizing gains and socializing losses. So when things are going well, the managements make out, the shareholders make out, the counterparties are fine. All the private sector people do well. But when something goes wrong, when decisions are made that turn out to be bad decisions, the U.S. taxpayer has to take on the problem.

And there’s something very wrong about that. Because all of those people that made all that money are running off here into the distance with the money, carrying it in their bags. And the United States taxpayer is on the hook. Gretchen Morgenson of the Times on Bill Moyers Journal Sept. 19

So … when does the market correct itself?  I’m just curious.

I think these people need to help pay for the mistakes and help clean up the mess they’ve made … just like I do with my children.  The only thing anyone “needs” is one house and one car.  Strip them of everything else and use that money to begin the bailout … that’s market correction.  Because I want someone, anyone, to help my in-laws out of this mess.  They have lived life well, made responsible, wise, and even generous decisions … so why on earth should they and everyone else who have done likewise be made to clean up this mess?

After all, the only people who didn’t see this coming were those who don’t know their history.  That would be … almost everyone.