May Garden

I don't have much to say today. Just wanted to share some pictures of one of my latest preoccupations. On the other hand, maybe there is nothing more profound than watching seeds grow into plants; plants that nourish our bodies and our souls. I know that after this winter-that-seemed-to-never-end, Jim and I have been watching over these little ones like expectant parents. We couldn't be more excited if we were first graders watching our very first seeds germinate. I'm sorry I'm not a better photographer or blog designer. I had trouble getting things to line up properly on the page, etc., so I hope you'll bear with me and just have fun looking at the transformation of the garden - that's for all you city folk who aren't knee-deep in weeding yourselves, of course.

May 10 (Left)

June 9 (Left)

May 10 Center

Our landlord decided in late May to plant three small spruce trees between each patio, and as you can see, it made a world of difference. Somehow, our space seems bigger and fuller now, more private and cozier. We love them. Plus we have several new pots, which is always nice. I kind of wish we had taken pictures the day we bought the pots that are now on the table (last pictures) and filled those and the long lettuce boxes with seeds. It was a cold and windy day, but we were so happy to finally have something to look at on our pation besides snow and ice! And now look! Since we have no children of our own, and our cats have done all the growing they are likely to ever do, I'm afraid you can look forward to more baby pictures of the garden as the summer progresses.

May 26 (Right)

June 9 (Right)

May 26 (Table)

June 9 (Table)

I just wish that we had the space for more vegetables! We have already eaten two salads from the lettuce, and have fruit on the big tomato plant. Lots of herbs, and we are going to get some strawberries going. I began with a color scheme for the flowers, but did not intend to plant very many. Then people began donating pansies – color unknown – and now I have this rainbow I wasn't expecting. Who can complain? The colors are so vibrant they brighten up the greyest days we have been having, and those yellow pansies are so sweet . . . But just wait for my lilies, cosmos, and poppies. The foxglove and columbine! All kinds of treasures in wait!

Old Testament Families

Following up on what I said in my last post, I am getting bored with my old journals, and have decided to get pickier about what I post. I am mainly going to follow the path I set out on when I began a letter to my mother a few years ago – to try to explain what I believe and why I believe it and how I came to believe it. Those things that are particulary relevant to that path, I'll go ahead and type up. And if there are other things – like this book review and the thoughts it spurred, or other major things, I'll add those as well.

March 24

I have to talk some more about religion. Last night I finished Rachel and Leah, and saw that he was unable to tell the whole story so there will be a fourth book, Wives of Israel. I felt like this book was not as good at evoking and explaining early Hebrew culture as the last ones, but maybe he felt he'd already set up the context. I kept having the feeling that he was more interested in explaining how polygyny might work, and there was a note of justification. I ended up feeling this was less about Hebrews than Mormons. Some examples – the entire relationship between Jacob and all the relevant women except Rachel centers on the reading of the Holy Word, the writen scriptures. Now that is likely supposed to be the foundation of family life for Mormons, but we are talking about the grandson of Abraham. He is thought to have lived c. 2100 BCE. So call it 2000-1900, generously allowing the Biblical reports of Abraham's age at Isaac's birth.

I believe this is about when Egyptians are developing their heiroglyphics – I'd have to check about all those languages (Sumerian cuneiform, etc.). What is importat is that even the dogged believers in Moses having written the Penteteuch personally don't put the date any earlier than 1400 BCE. He might have used earlier sources, they say, but come on, Hebrews writing their own distinct language (not pictographic, by the way, but phonetic) in 1900 BCE? And they are already ancient, according to Card. How ancient could they be, if Abraham was the first Patriarch, first one to make people realize they needed any history, and you are only one generation between you and that Patriarch? It just doesn't make any sense.

It wouldn't be such a problem for the book if it was just an occasional reference to a few holy writings. But the story doesn't work without it. Jacob and Rachel's relationship develops through their common interest in herding. Leah, though, would have had no reason to even see him except Card makes the "birthright" of Abraham this large collection of holy books. Lean and one of her future concubines, Bilhah, come to Jacob to learn the scriptures, and they learn to read and write and Bilhah becomes a scribe, copying all the texts.

He, Card, uses these books as a way to explain what happens in the Biblical story such that the people involved are all essentially good. I re-read the relevant part of Genesis last night and it is as I recalled – full of trickery, deceit, betrayal, jealousy, bickering, competition and exploitation. Hard to tell it in such a way that the people are good and their behaviors justified.

I recall being troubled with the story in childhood, but I don't recall what my parents said, if anything, to help me understand it. It is hard to explain away. Jacob makes a deal with Laban for Rachel's hand. He works 7 years for her in brideservice, and then Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah, the older sister with weak eyes. Then Laban says he'll give him Rachel, too, if Jacob does another 7 years. And after that, Laban continues to change the terms of the deals he makes with Jacob – Jacob says "10 times"!!!

As a child, I of course would have been unfamiliar with polygyny and bridewealth to begin with, making it harder to get a grasp on this story, to tease apart what is cultural and what is people behaving badly. But as an anthropologist, I am very familiar with many different societies who practice either or both, and with pastoralist cultures in general. Pastoralist, patrilineal cultures wherein sororal polygyny is practiced and either bridewealth or brideservice is paid also generally have an economic system of balanced reciprocity. The idea of balance in exchanges permeates the entire ideology (in fact, that is at base what bridewealth is – compensation for removing the valuable bride and her future labor and children from her household) and makes possible all kinds of other ideological and symbolic exchanges like sacrifice. But the point is – you DON'T TRICK PEOPLE OR GO BACK ON YOUR WORD!!!!! Not if you care about your family's good name. Not if you ever want to do business or marry any one else in your family or graze your sheep or water your cattle, etc. I mean, this is an absolutely unheard of, terrible, wrong, evil thing to do. Ask anyone living in a pastoralist society.

So Laban is a sneaky, lying, exploitative man. But Jacob is no better – he lied and deceived his own father in order to steal his elder brother's birthright and inheritance. One might think he's gotten what he deserves.

But what about the sisters? What did they do to be punished this way? Poor Leah, who is unwanted but forced to marry a man who is in love with her sister. Poor Rachel, who was expecting to be the sole or at least first wife of her beloved, who loves her in return. Now she is second wife, and then Leah gets all the first babies as her consolation. The two sisters get into a pissing (well, birthing) match to see who can have most sons and therefore their husband's love. They throw their handmaidens at him and claim their children as their own, in a way. Rachel has to wait and wait for her first child, and then her second one kills her in childbirth.

Leah has lots of sons, and more through her servant, and yet as soon as Rachel has one, she gets special treatment, as does her son. All those sons grow up to be pretty nasty characters, infected with the terrible jealousy, bitterness and pain of ther mothers' competition. All but the youngest, Joseph, who is spoiled by his father (Rachel's child, after all), but becomes a decent human being.

This is a terrible story in so many ways. When looking at it from the sisters' point of view, one has to ask, why did this happen to them? In Judaism there is only ever one answer to that question: because God wanted it to. Humans have free will, but God, knowing their (our) personalities, sets things up in such a way that he knows or can guess, which way a person will choose.

Either: 1. People make absolutely free choices and God then works with that choice, or; 2. God arranges things such that they will happen a certain way. Either way, isn't God still interfering? Still guiding people's choices, and thus removing one's free will? If you want to defy the will of God, the Semetic religions say you can't, because God can turn ALL things to His purpose. Right?

What I am trying to establish is that no matter how you think of it, even to add a third choice, that people will attempt to discern God's will for them and will thus do it – Jacob married both Leah and Rachel because that is how God wanted it. Why? Why did God want this so badly that he was willing to destroy all these lives (or let them be destroyed), let terrible deeds go unpunished, etc.?

Well, look what happens next, what comes out of it. Ah, the sons of Jacob are the origins of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Wonderful. God uses those tribes as a way to organzie his people all the way through history, even up to today. And they figure somehow in the End Times, as seen in John's revelation. I can't remember the details. Priests of one of the tribes must be in silent prayer at the temple, or something like that.

Is that supposed to console Leah? Comfort Rachel? Maybe it does, so that might be fine. But when one steps back a bit, and asks questions such as, "What does this teach us about the nature of God?" "About the human condition?" "About what God expects of us?" then I feel like some very serious issues are at stake.

First, one common lesson Christians take from tales like this are that God uses even bad people and bad behavior to achieve His ultimate purpose. God turns all things to good. But that ignores the fact, or at least the implication, that god in fact set things up SO that people would behave badly. It is an echo of the Garden of Eden story. God tells people to be good, but then arranges things, playing on his knowledge of our weakneses (which He gave us), to elicit that bad behavior that He needs in order to further the story, or make His larger point. I just keep seeing Yahweh set people up and knock them down.

Why? Perhaps his ultimate purpose is so wonderful that it justifies this interference, this manipulation of his creatures so they do what he told them not to. I mean, what if Adam and Even had just obeyed him? No story, period.

I've asked many times what the Ultimate Purpose is. And maybe that's presumptuous. Maybe we puny humans aren't qualified to know that. But we have brains, so let's use them. The Old Testament is really the story of one family. Starting with Adam it tells the story of him and his descendents. In the New Testament, it's important to the writers to establish the link, to show that "Hey! This is the same family."

All the other people in the OT are just props, bit players. So God's ultimate purpose must have something to do with this family. For Jews, who are all part of this family, that's great. God started the world with this family and will end it with this family. For them, they can find much meaning – God's purpose is related to them going through all these struggles in order for . . . what? For them to finally learn to submit wholy to God's will? Mightn't they have done that sooner if god hadn't kept creating tempting situations? OK, so he's training them to never give in, no matter the temptation, so that they will one day be a holy people who usher in the Messianic Age, in which life is great for everyone and they are all obedient to God's will. Well, couldn't he have just created them that way to start with?

Maybe it is important to have a bunch of creatures come to be good and obedient of their own choice. Why? Back to the idea of a battle to fight with an Other, and God needs an army. I don't know. But if you stick with just the Jews, then what was the purpose of there being people with whom Jews would never have contact and some who would never even hear of them?

I mean, this whole universe created so one family can play out this story in which one (or two) creatures become many. Are given free will, make a lot of good and bad choices, but ultimately learn to be good. One family. Does that feel remotely true? Not to me. Of course, Jews also see their story as one that is meant to be an example to all humanity of God's existence, his love, his will, his plan. But what IS that plan?

I mean, the Hebrews and then Jews were never recruiters. They didn't try to convert people, they didn't and really still don't go out of their way to welcome those who want to join them, and they never tried really to prove that theirs was the only God to others. So they are just being a quiet example.

Christians are the ones who decided that the God of the Jews is the only god for all people. They were the first to have the idea that God's plan was to extend his relationship to others outside the one family. It is important to them to demonstrate that Jesus is a member of that family, that he is the heir to the kingdom the family has become. And he is the door that allows all humankind to be adopted by the family and his subjects in the kingdom.

So Rachel and Leah's suffering becomes meaningful in that it produced this kingdom and the heir to it so that all creatures might be saved, in a Christian interpretation.

For me, I've come to a place where this story just doesn't make sense in those ways. If god wanted all people to be a part of this family, why didn't he do it from the start?

But it's not as if all those other people out there don't have their own stories!!! They have stories about their own families, their own gods, and their own importance in the universe.

All the small societies in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, the Americas, the islands (the 'Nesias, as I always think of them), they have had their experiences with God. They have developed or been given by god their own rules. Maybe not written down as the Decalogue of the Jews, but Hammurabi had his codes, Egyptians, various groups of Chinese, Indians, Maya, Aztec, Inca, Medes, Sumerians, Babylonians, Akkadians, and many, many, many others DID have holy scriptures, messages and lessons and morality plays and poetry. And all of those thousands of cultures without writing nevertheless have and have had extremely sophisticated and complex religions.

More, they had their own experiences of God or Ultimate Source or wahtever they called it. God spoke to them, too. Told them THEY were the special ones. Walked them through difficulties, comforted them, punished them, all the same things that Jews had.

And then in some places people came to understand Absolute Reality in a different way. As NOT a person. And they did their work, and they devoted themsleves, and they had their own experiences of the Divine, or Absolute, which were earth-shattering, every bit as much as the voice of God was to the Hebrew prophes, as ecstatic as the followers of Jesus. And they had their own saints and wise men. Their own martyrs, too. People who were so good the world couldn't bear their example. These wise men (and women) created their own holy books full of wisdom.

I could go on and on. But the question I want to ask is this: Are we really to believe that all the wisdom of the world is nothing, because it isn't the same as the message to the Jews? Can anyone believe that God created the world, and the huge variety of people, and either left them entirely alone, or spoke to them differently, just so, at the end, everyone would chuck the beliefs that God either allowed to grow into complex philosophies that give hope and wisdom and comfort to billions of individuals, or that God helped them create these alternate philosophies by guiding and interfering to teach them lessons . . . . All of that just so at the end, everyone would throw it all away and adopt the philosphy and faith of the Christians? Would decide that actually it was the fate of one Jewish family that mattered? Would decide to abandon their own ancestors, their own rich traditions and history just because Christians have so generously opened the doors and allowed them into the Jewish family?

I cannot believe it. And so I can no longer believe that Yahwe is THE god. I can't believe that by following a different path I will be damned to hell. And yet I still feel pain as I write these words. The Bible says that Jesus spoke of one unforgivable sin, and that is to deny the Spirit. To reject the Spirit of God. I don't know what that verse means. And for the longest time, my inability to correctly decode it has kept me in fear of being damned to hell for eternity.

Even though I don't believe I am or have ever truly rejected any Spirit of God. So why am I still afraid to commit on paper to a stance that is outside what Christians would accept? I'm still afriad of going to hell, even though I haven't believed in its existence for a good 20 years! It is such a deep-rooted fear. Christianity has done such a good job of detailing it and making sure people know that's likely where they are going. Hegemonic discursive power, indeed.

And that makes Christianity unique of the major religions. None of the others suggest that the majority of individuals are going to hell. That fear of hell and how it is used was one of the first, if not the first, thing that made me question my childhood faith. How could a loving God use threats of eternal damnation to get people to behave? Even half-way decent parents know better.

Jews don't even have a concept of hell, and it is them God mostly talked to. Muslims believe all will eventually make it to heaven. Christians really are alone in this hell-and-punishment obsession.

I am not going to let fear stop me this time. I do not believe that Yahweh, as depiced in the Bible, is the one and only God. Or if He is, then Jews and their descendent religions have got it all wrong.

I don't believe in the exclusivity of it. I believe there is an Absolute Reality. I believe that the early Hebrews had contact with it, and that their story reflects their understanding of that contact. I'm certain some of their prophets were close to that Reality, touched it, and were filled by it.

And I believe Jesus also was filled with and close to it, and that Jesus and the prophets before him were trying to show people how they, too, could be close to it. And the Hebrews I think better understood that this was their contact with the Infinite. They could and did accept that without making any statement that other peoples couldn't have their own contact. I believe that other peoples did and do have contact with that same Entity/Presense/Thing/No-Thing, and that each of them interpreted that contact in their own way, according to their own history and cultural context.

I don't know exactly how it came about that Christianity took on such an exclusive and singular quality. I guess it began that way, in that Jews, Jesus' Jewish followers, all believed he was the Jewish messiah. They never suggested Jesus was there for all. In fact, I think that would (and did) freak some people out. How could their messiah be there for everyone? He's supposed to kick Roman butt, not save it!

Jesus' message was inclusive, except when he says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by me." But what did he really mean by that? Many (most?) Christians use that quote to justify the conversion of the rest of the world. "You must convert in order to save yourself from eternal damnation."

Is that what he meant? What if he really meant, "You need to follow my directions?" Like the Buddha saying "You must follow the same path I did in order to find enlightenment. There is no other way but the way I did it." I find this entirely possible.

So if Jesus was inclusive, who wasn't? The early Roman church. Peter and his entire group didn't think Jesus message was for the gentiles, so why bother telling them? Again a reflection of the fact that Jews believed their relgion was their own. Their messiah their own. Their God their own. Everyone else could have their own gods. So the early Jewish Christians are exclusive, but not because they believe their religion is the only one in the world; the opposite, in fact.

Oh. Weird. So the exclusivity of Jewish Christians in Rome led them to . . . well, do it the other way. It is Paul, of course. He's the one who believes this message, this gospel, is for everyone. It is his inclusivity that leads to the Church's later exclusive position. Paul believes all the world should follow Jesus. Not because he thinks everyone else is going to some future hell, but because he believes Jesus' gift of Life, his good news, is a gift for all. He wants to share it. He does believe Jesus is coming again, he does believe there will be a heaven, a utopia, a messianic age, and he wants all people to share it.

He clearly believes that theGreeks and Romans with their pantheons are wrong, and he does try to convince people of this, but still his prosletizing feels more like someone offering a gift, being as inclusive as he possibly can.

But over time that message changed. I think it had to do first with the conversion of the European tribes after Rome had adopted Christianity. Because then it was a question of the powerful, civilized, clearly "more advanced" people – the Romans – moving into, conquering and ruling over diverse peoples with their own tribal and band-level religions. Non-Christian meant non-Roman and thus backward, disempowered, and clearly wrong about everything.

Once that association was made, it became easier for Christians to believe their way was the only way, and having people convert to your religion was also to have them convert to your culture, your economy, your political system. Those seeds of exclusivity and superiority grew through the "dark" ages, and by the time of European expansion were in full bloom. What fertile ground these twin attitudes found when the first indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas were contacted. To the Europeans who met them, these natives were clearly backward, lawless, and amoral; clearly in need of saving. And they frightened them into conversion with gruesome depictions of hell. Not to mention all the carrots.

It might only have been in that lonely time, the thousand years after the fall of Rome, when Europeans were cut off from people of other religions, that the idea of only ONE religion having any truth or relevance could have been born and survived.

And so, why should I let irrational fear stop me from fully embracing the faith I do have? Why should I not follow my own path to the center with no guilt and no fear? There is no good reason.

Nearing the End of the Journals

I had just come to the decision that I was bored to tears with my old journals and was just going to skip ahead to the part I've been working up to, when I realized that the next couple of days are actually fairly interesting. Long, but interesting. In fact, if you are willing to scroll down, or wade through more of the usual, you will get to a major statement. I am currently working on getting my summer course ready, and making revisions to my fall courses, so I have course design and teaching issues still in mind, even though I am supposed to be switching gears to writing research articles. And of course there is always politics. I may even be able to write a spiritual post about the campaign if I have some time this weekend. My journals are full of comment on my teaching; I usually don't present that here as it is not the subject of the blog. But this time it does seem relevant.

March 23, 2007

Yesterday my first class was still kind of dead. They just give me these looks, as if everything I'm saying is perfectly obvious and doesn't deserve to be answered. But then of course when you ask them, they don't know how to answer and they'll miss exam – EASY – exam questions. But that look, like it is all so obvious, is deadly. Jim recognized what I meant as soon as I said it. When you see it, even when you are seasoned, if when you've seen what a class will do with an exam, you still get thrown. I start questioning myself. Is this obvious? Too much to discuss? Is it old news? Stuff they've done a hundred times and know forwards, backwards and sideways? Do they all think I'm a droning old bag, going over it again?

And as self doubt creeps in, I begin skipping examples, requiring fewer people to throw in an answer, my voice becomes more shrill and the lesson I had planned to be so engaging and lead them down the path to enlightenment becomes just an exercise in stamina – can we all survive until saved by the bell? Horrible. I'd completely doubt my lesson plans except that I have that second section. They come in and while not a dream team in terms of engaged participation, they are heads and shoulders over the first section. They answer questions; act like they are actually thinking things through instead of going through the motions. They laugh at my jokes, and some ask questions and some nod, and I can sometimes see lights go on in heads and I know connections are being made, and then I know that my lesson plan wasn't terrible, and it wasn't all terrifically obvious, and then I have to wonder if instead, it wasn't entirely over the heads of the first class.

Teaching is a hard job! No matter how well you plan, you can never predict what any group of students will be like. However, I am getting better at thinking about where the average student will be in their knowledge and skills, and what kinds of gaps will be necessary for me to fill to get them where I want them to go, and then plan for that. Just build into the design of the course a way for them to get and practice the skills they need. As you know, since it is all I ever talk about. But it has been really helpful to apply the Tao te Ching to my teaching. My students are such a huge – a disproportinate – part of my life. Something I'm pretty sure they have no idea of. They'd probably freak out if they knew how much time I think about them as individuals, and of course as a class.

Well, it's 4 am. Should I go back to bed? Sleep for 2 hours? Or make coffee and just go on? Think with what my side is saying, I'll go for the coffee and Vicodin.

59

For governing a country well

There is nothing better than moderation.

The mark of a moderate man

Is freedom from his own ideas.

 

What an incredible line! Instead of thinking "it is better to not be a drunk" and being so tied to that idea that you become a rigid tee- totaler, you can be moderate in drinking. Instead of rigidly clinging to your own notions about what should happen next, or what the best theory or model is, one can listen to others, modify, expand, etc. Being free from one's own ideas ought also to be the mark of a scientist and a scholar.

Tolerant like the sky,

All-pervading like sunlight,

Firm like a mountain,

Supple like a tree in the wind,

He has no destination in view

And makes use of anything

Life happens to bring his way.

Nothing is impossible for him,

Because he has let go,

He can care for the people's welfare

As a mother cares for her child.

For governing a classroom well, there is nothing like moderation. It fits. I think this is a timely reminder, as I sit here, halfway through the first semester of my course design, and orders for fall text books will be requested next week. It is a good time to thoughtfully review how things have worked so far. And moderation can be a useful idea in this. Have I asked too much of the students in terms of work? I actually think not. Their grumbling has been really minimal. It is unfortunate that it is too much for me. But that's important. Isn't this verse telling me that being slavish to my ideas that the students need all of this practice is unhealthy? It is if I insist on doing it even though it so wipes me out that I can't give even the (XXX) students other things they need, let alone the (XXX) students, my research and service, my husband! So I'll need to give some thought to how to give students all those good things in moderation.

I need to try to plan each class with the whole picture of my life and duties in mind. Make sure there is balance and moderation. Then, in the class, group work is a good thing, but not every day. Ditto lecture, discussion, video, in-class writing, etc. I need to be free of my own ideas about what works in the classroom, and how much time it should take. I need to trim enough material to be sure to leave some extra days – at least 3 – for video and just taking longer to do what we need to do.

What about other areas of my life? Where else am I immoderate in my ideas? I am not moderate in the coffee I drink, or the sweets I eat, but what else? My face – due to an idea I have of what a woman's face should be like – no hair or clogged pore is allowed on my face! And of course, in going after them I sometimes make a bigger mess than I started with. Okay, but where am I not free in my ideas?

I have worked so much on this, and started out fairly open-minded, that it is hard for me to see where I am closed. I am certain that there are things I am inflexible about, but I do try to address them when I become aware of them, so the ones I have are the one's I am not aware of.

I'm very flexible in my theortecial approaches, which doesn't mean there aren't some theories I would never use; I don't agree with them. Ditto with religion and religiousity. Maybe it's in my ideas about Bush, and the religious right, and the neo, or theo-cons. But I don't at all think the book is saying one must be open to all ideas, even the ones we have considered and rejected as wrong, ill-conceived, immoral, unjust or evil. So I don't know. I'll have to keep thinking on it, and keeping my eyes open for ideas I ought to free myself of.

Looking at the description of the example – wasn't it brilliant of the writer(s?) to make statemenst about the Tao and how one should live one's life, and then follow up with a template? A model? I find it so helpful.

Tolerant as the sky, which sees all and everything and doesn't turn away. The differences students bring to class – I'm tolerant of most except those that interfere with learning. And I am less tolerant of those who don't fit my idea of what a student should be, by which I mean – people who are not there to learn, who are exceedingly lazy (I tolerate some laziness) or who are openly hostile to ideas and thinking. I could work more on freeing myself of ideas of "good" students. If some have decided to hang out in college without really applying themselves, who am I to judge them? I must evaluate their performance as part of my job, but as long as they aren't hurting the class, I can do better at accepting them – as students and people – in my heart. They may still learn something they need, whether or not they ever apply themselves. Or I might learn something from them.

I definitely need to be more tolerant of Jim. I think that living with another human being – for life – makes this a life-long project. Does it really matter how a person chews their food? Probably not. Another idea I've been trapped by.

At this moment, I do not get at all how a person can be "all pervasive as sunlight." One's tolerance, acceptance, love might make an attempt at it, but I'm gonna let this one go for now.

Firm like a mountain; that's pretty firm. Not unchanging, though. What am I firm in? Those same things I've been saying I'm not tolerant of or can't free (or don't want to free) my mind from. Like loving Jim and others. Believing in good, in helping one's fellows and receiving help from them. Of leaving the world better than you found it. So go ahead and be firm in these things, yet "supple as a tree in wind" at the same time. Firm, not rigid. Solid, but not impenetrable.

I really like the next part but I don't know how much I can apply it. How can I have "no destination in view"? I want to arrive at tenure, at having published articles, at building a study-abroad program, at being a loving and helpful wife, daughter, sister, aunt and friend. I want to arrive at my own center, able to control my responses to pain and disappointment. I want to arrive at wisdom. And it wouldn't hurt to arrive at solvency. Surely it isn't wrong or unhealthy to have such goals, so Lao-tzu must be saying something else.

Maybe these general goals are okay, it's having specific paths or plans for what they would look like fulfilled that is not helpful. Such as having one's heart set on a particular job for Jim, or a certin house. Even tenure here. A specific view of what a "good" wife or friend is, an image of what wisdom would look like (tall and bearded with a funny hat?).

If one doesn't have any distraction like this in mind, any preconceived notions, then one becomes free to "make use of anything life puts/brings into one's way". Flexibility. I love this idea, and I've tried to follow it. I know I've wanted to spend my life learning and writing and teaching, I just didn't know how for years. And even now, in this job, I won't be destroyed if I don't get to keep it. I just need to keep being this way; be wary of coming to want a particular thing too much.

The worst danger is Jim's job. When he applies for certain ones it is super hard not to want them with all of my heart. . . The Universe has a plan for us. I do believe, despite our free will, that if we are in balance with the Tao, have a good relationship with God, or identify with our Atman Brahman, or achieve Buddha-nature – however you want to put it – if we do that, then there is a place for us in the great Tapestry of life. Dr. K. called me an optimist. I'm not sure that's quite true, but I do have faith in the Universe. So I need to not hope for one particular job, but just greet Life openly, see what it brings me/us, and use that.

If I can do that – not only will our future take care of itself but we will both be better leaders. I had kind of forgotten we began with leadership. The promise here is that, "having let go of our ideas about what's right, we'll eventually be able to truly act in the best interests of others," to truly care about and protect the welfare of all. Quite a promise.

To change the subject somewhat, I am reading Orson Scott Card's Rachel and Leah, the third in his Women of Genesis series. And I think it is pretty good. Maybe not quite as good as Sarah and Rebecca, because in those he didn't have to split his attention.

What I wanted to say, though, is that my reaction is somewhat different. And it made me realize something that I am a little bit afraid to say, because of its profundity, how much it might mean. I think that I really do not believe in Yahweh anymore. At least not as He has come to be understood. And maybe it might seem to a reader that this is not news; I've written a lot that questions and doubts and rails at God.

But when I was younger that was something of a game. The equivalent of a child stamping her foot and saying, "I hate you!" to a parent. Other times I was expressing anger and betrayal and hurt. Sometimes it was real doubt, but the kind of doubt Paul spoke of, that can still be contained by belief.

For much of the time I've spent doubting and questioning, I believed in my heart that I would one day make peace and be able to find myself in Christianity. Or Judaism, at least. Perhaps even Islam. I've believed Jesus when he said "Seek and you shall find."

And I still believe that, have faith in it. But what I think I may have realized is that the path is never going to lead back to Judeo-Christianity for me. Yahweh is not, ultimately, what I was seeking. Since I have been steeped from early infancy on, in belief in this One God's presence, and have felt Him and praised and wrestled with Him, it is scary and sad and painful to give Him up.

Scary, because what if I'm wrong? He's a fearsome God. Jealous, demanding, and vengeful. But so sad, too, because He is gentle and loves unconditionally; because He knows the hairs on my head and rejoices for the lost lamb. He's been the recipient of so many thousands of my prayers. I've directed enormous amounts of energy into pleasing, serving, loving and trying to understand Him. Will I really be able to give Him up?

What makes it at least potentially possible is that I think I believe that I am not going to have to give up what is There, at the end of my seeking path. There is something there. It isn't "god" itself I no longer believe in, but Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, the god of the Jews, Christians and Muslims.

And so in a way it is not that I don't believe in Him, it is that I DO belive in Him/It/Her. There is a God who might even have spoken to Hebrews. But they and everyone after has gotten it so mixed up that I don't think it is even close enough that I can squeeze in under the multi-definitional umbrella of "Person of the Book."

My mother will be dismayed. It's strange. There will be a bit of a hole that has to do with history and ritual more than anything else. But the point is, it isn't any longer – or at least it isn't right now – a matter of my wanting desperately to believe, wanting to be converted, aching for a touch from on high. It is that all of that yearning is gone. It has been replaced with a quieter, more peaceful certainty that there is pattern and meaning in the Universe, and that I am part of it.

Still Getting it Together, March 19-24 2007

Well folks, it is taking me longer to get back into the swing of things than I thought it would. All I seem able to do is lay around and read novels. And a few other things. In fact, I'm going to have to write a real live, real-time post here pretty soon, because there is something so cool I want to share with you all that I just learned about (thanks, big sister!). In the meantime, here is the next installment . . .

March 19

Monday, and here I am at 4:30 am again. After going to bed at 11:30 and waking at 2, 3, and 4. First day back to work after the break, and I'm finding it tough to find the good in this pain. Maybe it will finally dirve me to do the meditation I need to be doing. I do feel I at least won't forget to make my doctor's appointment today. [Several pages detailing the work I accomplished over the break and what still remained to be done, plans for the rest of the semester, and the desire to move, buy a house].

At night as I lie awake, I've been visualizing not only me – healthy, strong, and pain-free, but also Jim – happy, employed, and fired-up about a project at work. Will just keep holding those images in my mind. Make them come true with the force of my will. Well, maybe not. Not exactly following the Tao, is it? Or the advice of the Gita. However, both suggest, along with Buddhism (and quantum physics) that our minds are very powerful; that we define and create reality. So, with gentle, constant reminders to the Universe of how it is supposed to be, we can nudge it in to that shape. That's the basic theory, as I understand it. In the language of Taoism, its more like; When one is in tune with the Tao, the River will run in such a way that it tumbles rocks into or out of place, cut down a sandbank, whatever it needs to do to bring things naturally into a shape that allows the River to flow a certain way. It goes around obstacles, or using those obstacles, makes them not-obstacles. I don't know. I had a picture of how it works but I can't articulate it. It isn't what I just wrote.

Maybe the Tao te Ching will have the words or a message today that helps me see this better.

55

He who is in harmony with the Tao

Is like a newborn child.

Its bones are soft, its muscles are weak,

But its grip is powerful.

It doesn't know about the union

Of male and female,

Yet its penis can stand erect,

So intense is the vital power.

It can scream its head off all day

Yet it never becomes hoarse,

So complete is its harmony.

 

The Master's power is like this.

She lets all things come and go

Effortlessly, without desire.

She never expects results;

Thus she is never disappointed.

She is never disappointed,

Thus her spirit never grows old.

 

At first I was going to say that visualization in Taoism works, because if/when one is in harmony with the Tao, one's desires are the desires of the Tao. But the reading reminds me that like Buddha, Lao-tzu says we must let go of desire altogether. No, that isn't quite right –we are to relinquish the wrong kinds of desire. Wanting to be healthy, in balance with nature, is an allowable desire. Wanting to be free of this physical pain . . . I don't know. I think not. Wanting Jim to be on his right path, using the skills and abilities the Tao itself gave him, and desiring that he, too, be on the road to a healthy soul – those are okay desires.

We must have those desires in order to choose and stay on the Way. Wishing he'd make a lot of money, wishing he'd have some power – those are things that – it isn't wrong to want those things – it just isn't in harmony with the Tao and is thus less likely to bear fruit.

We need to concentrate on being centered in the Tao so that our desires become the ones the Tao gives. Well, that sounds like hegemonic discourse. The Tao is not Big Brother. It is just that it is what it is. So powerful that we are only going to get what it provides, because we are wholly in it, of it and for it.

Go back to the ocean. If you stand in the water, where I had us before, and you decide with all your heart that you want the water to roll out, but never come back in as waves, because you want a wet, sandy area with lots of shells to play in. Maybe, if you had really honed your mind, you could get the waves to stay back for a while. However, unless all of creation shared your desire for the ocean to cease having waves, then all the laws of physics we believe in would eventually kick in.

Now, playing in wet sand, looking for shells is not a bad or evil thing (I don't think). So, if you were in harmony with the Tao, you could do something like let yourself go with the current, and it would deposit you in a wet, sandy, shell-filled beach.

That's closer to what I believe about how visualization goes with Taoism. However, I'm still caught by the "no expectations" part. How does one simultaneously hold an image of a thing or a state they desire, and at the same time have no expectations? I know, I've asked this before, and I suppose I'll go on asking until I really get it. I do believe there is a way, because there are allusions to being able to command, or to have such power the entire universe bends your way. Power, with no desire, no expectations. Will keep puzzling.

For now it seems clear that what I need to visualize is Jim and I both being on healthy, life-affirming, harmonic paths. Don't specify what those paths are, at least not too much, because that might lead to expectations. On the other hand, people say you must be specific. I think what I can do is visualize certain jobs, activities, etc., as symbols of the health I am desirous of. Make it clear to myself that these are not the exact things I need, just symbols of the kinds of people I'd love for us to be.

And in truth, I don't have a lot of specific desires. I want Jim to be happy. That one is so big, if I could have it I would willingly, joyfully, give up all the rest. But if I didn't have to, I would really like us to not have to worry all the time about money. I would love for us to have a house that would welcome guests and have enough space for a garden – one big enough that we could feed ourselves through much of the summer and can a good deal for the long winters. It would be even better if it had lots of pretty land and water around it, but I don't need all of that to be happy. It would just be so lovely to have our own space.

I'd like to get tenure and all that implies – that my teaching and research are good and fulfilling. But I don't need those, either. If I don't get tenure, I'll adapt. I'd love to have all my loved ones live long, healthy lives, but I realize I can't expect that. I'd love to be thin and beautiful, but I've been letting go of that dream for a long time, and I'm pretty comfortable in my own skin. Not perfectly, but its better.

Really, I know things won't make me happy. Getting my Ph.D. done was huge. It was the one thing I really wanted to make sure I did. And I'm very happy with my job. I'm glad I got it and I hope to keep it. I'm not feeling, though, that I could never be happy doing something else. So in terms of things like this, I'm okay – pretty okay – with letting them come and go.

But Jim's happiness – I want it so badly that it hurts. How can I let that go, and is it right to do so?

March 20

56

Those who know don't talk.

Those who talk don't know.

 

Close your mouth,

Block off your senses,

Blunt your sharpness

Untie your knots,

Soften your glare,

Settle your dust.

This is the primal identity.

 

Be like the Tao.

It can't be approached or withdrawn from,

Benefitted or harmed,

Honored or brought into disgrace.

It gives itself up continually.

This is why it endures.

 

Hmmmm. You'd think I'd have the message about meditating by now, wouldn't you? Why have I not done that in these early mornings alone, as soon as the pain recedes a little?

March 21

Okay, so how am I doing? Pretty good, overall. I'm doing a decent job of just letting the pain be what it is, though I still mention it too much. For a long time now, I've tried to just say, "The pain is strong" or "I'm hurting quite a bit". In other words, make statements of fact, not whine and complain. But I still do complain, or say I'm tired of it and want it to go away, or die down. All statements of fact, too, but clearly statements of desire, which I am trying to eliminate.

I did a good job being present in the moment yesterday, which is why the meeting was more interesting. I didn't keep looking at the clock, as I usually do. Same with students and their groups. I gave each one my full attention, not worrying about the others who were waiting, or just wanting to be done and out of there. So I'd say I'm making progress. Trying to remember that "life is easy." Just do the thing in front of me wholly, fully, give it all of myself, and leave it when I'm done. Of course, the nature of my work is that I have to have a large number of things always in progress, so I can rarely "finish" a job, but I can do as much of the task as is reasonable or as time allows. I'm doing better at that.

I felt it important to note this somewhere. I spend a lot of time in these pages noting work I should do on myself. Wanted to record somewhere that I am working and moving forward. I keep wondering, though, if at some point it won't be the logical next step to give up the journal.

What is a journal for but to record the past? Capture the present moment of thinking? If I were truly living each moment fully, would there be any more need to write like this? Maybe I would only write down important thoughts and ideas. I've often wished that's all my journal was – beautiful, deep thoughts. But I also feel like it's a muscle I'm exercising by writing, keeping words flowing. And right now I still need a way to work out my feelings and thoughts, even if they aren't beautiful or deep. What am I doing worrying about it? If I ever feel like giving this up or changing how I use it, I will, and I will want to! So what's to worry about? Because I did! I foolishly began to panic, thinking of this being stolen away from me. See how silly I can be? Gosh, I hope I'm making progress in catching such silliness sooner.

57

If you want to be a great leader,

You must learn to follow the Tao.

Stop trying to control.

Let go of fixed plans and concepts,

And the world will govern itself.

Well – I agree – to a point. People aren't all following the Tao, so they will still kill and steal without some control. But let's just apply this to me, as a teacher and researcher. I've been trying for a long time to make my classes more organic. To allow students to follow their noses to great ideas. The problem is, they have had their natural curiousity beaten out of them. When you give them freedom, they feel lost and afraid. So I am learning that I first have teach them how to let go of that bad training, how to try to find their own noses – their own interest and curiousity. Only then can you begin showing them a path, and then teach them how to follow it. It is just sad –it breaks my heart – to see these hundreds, who represent millions, of young people who have learned to not use their heads. They have been punished so often for so long anytime they expressed a desire for knowledge that wasn't in the lesson plan, that they have largely stopped - not just asking questions - they have stopped having any questions. So when you just let them go and say, "OK, we'll study whatever you want. What do you want to learn?" They don't know what to do. They panic.

So I guess I believe it is the teachers who are still teaching students to stifle their curiosity that need to learn this lesson in this stanza. It isn't that I don't have control issues in other areas of my life, but in my leadership, my teaching, my job right now is to teach students to be free. Teach them to stop relying on the fixed plans and concepts. Boy, I shared some of this with Jim and we had a wonderful discussion, pushing these ideas forward. So now it is 9am and I need to move on. To continue. . .

The more prohibitions you have,

The less virtuous people will be.

The more weapons you have,

The less secure people will be.

The more subsidies you have,

The less self-reliant people will be.

 

Therefore the Master says:

I let go of the law,

And people became honest.

I let go of economics,

And people became more prosperous.

I let go of religion,

And people became serene.

I let go of all desire for the common good,

And the good became as common as grass.

 

Interesting that Confucius lived about the same time, and said some of the same things, and some nearly opposite in philosophy. But for me, I think there is great wisdom here. That if you could start over with a fresh world, this would all be true. I wonder if it isn't the same with all these things – if students have to be taught to have curiousity, might it also be the case that after having been trained to live in the current system, people would also need to be trained to be honest, to be secure, serene, self-reliant, etc.? Its one thing to say people will rely on themselves if they have no subsidies, but when the entire economic structure of the world is designed to crush people at the bottom, I don't think that is a real solution. More to say, but have to go to work.

Here in May, 2008 – I am thinking a lot about the presidential campaign, of course, and I think that in fact, people have lived so long in a system of political corruption and dishonesty, vicious back-biting and backstabbing and under-the-table deals that they truly cannot recognize goodness, integrity, honesty and above-board dealing when they see it. People just don't know what to make of Obama because they keep expecting him to play by the old rules, and when he doesn't, they figure he must have an even more evil agenda up his sleeve. They have a hard time accepting that it is just simple honesty. Simple goodness, simple truth.

March 22

58

If a country is governed with tolerance,

The people are comfortable and honest.

If a country is governed with repression,

The people are depressed and crafty.

 

When the will to power is in charge,

The higher the ideals, the lower the results.

Try to make people happy,

And you lay the groundwork for misery.

Try to make people moral,

And you lay the groundwork for vice.

 

Thus the Master is content

To serve as an example

And not impose her will.

She is pointed, but does not pierce,

Straightforward, but supple.

Radiant, but easy on the eyes.

Once again, I agree in principle, but think there would need to be a transition time. My country does reasonably well with tolerance, in that we don't have too many repressive laws. However, our families and maybe schools and other areas, have become tolerant with no structure, and an "anything goes" attitude does not appear to lead to comfort and honesty. Or say in industrial and business law – we've been too tolerant of bad behavior, and people have just taken advantage. They have become extremely comfortable and extremely dishonest. I guess I'm saying it depends on what one is being tolerant of. Creativity? Diversity? Okay. Lying, cheating, exploitation, etc.? Not so much.

And same in the classroom. Tolerate behavior like talking, sleeping, leaving on phones, etc., and students will behave very badly, destroy the ambiance and make it impossible for anyone to learn. However, I have a pretty tolerant approach to absences and tardiness and my students now give me fewer dishonest excuses. And, once I'm able to get them to talk, I tolerate a wide variety of views and opinions. Their work – I've left things open and they first panicked – creativity not usually tolerated - but with time I hope they'll get comfortable with it.

The middle part is interesting and a little confusing – or rather, startling – and maybe really profound. Is it really the case that higher ideals will bring lower results? How can that be?

I can see how trying to make people happy is a recipe for misery. Witness all the parents who think making children happy is their job. Their children are miserable because they needed limits and got none, they needed adults to make decisions for them and were frightened by the responsibility of having to choose for themselves.

And I also see that efforts to rigidly control people's morality, to focus on that in school, say, by making people read the Bible and watch each other and confess their sins and have punishments like copying Bible verses, always being told they are sinning sinners – the awful Catholic schools of books and movies, encouraged people to actually become sneaky, lying, stealing, sex-having people. But these are excesses. Isn't it still right and good to have morality on the list of things you are trying to achieve? Don't we all want our people, nations, children, students to be moral?

The key, I guess, is in the first line. When the will to power is in charge. So it is okay to have the students' happiness and morality in mind as long as . . . what? I am not consumed with the desire to control them? The rules aren't written in such a way to give me power over them? Their happiness? Their morality? I'm just not sure how to interpret and apply this. Well, it's 7 am, and I'm eager to go see the students today . . .