some unfinished thoughts on voting

there's been lots of conversations this week among my circle of friends on campus about the presidential debates; the state of U.S. politics; a Christian understanding of voting; what it means to be a citizen. and when I say conversations - I mean some pretty heated discussions that ended without much resolution.

here are some thoughts swirling around in my head:

does a vote count as an affirmation of a party's platform?
what can a person do when they don't trust either political party?
what happens when a system is broken?
do you try to fix it?
do you try to fix it from within?
do you try to fix it from the outside?
if you don't vote, do you have the moral right to critique the system?
does voting matter?
is voting a worthwhile measure of citizenship?
that is: can a person be a good citizen while deciding not to vote?
do I want to be a good citizen?
can I be a good citizen of America while being a citizen of the Kingdom of God?
is it fair to focus all my questions & angst & frustration at the political system?
what systems of oppression am I participating in without even realizing it?
is being a member of a church denomination like being a citizen of a country?
that is, if I want to renounce systems of oppression, should I renounce "church" - at least "church" on a national level - oh, this is a messy question. I mean, can any organization larger than a local community ever work? It seems like whenever an institution or system or organization expands large enough that it can't see people's faces, it oppresses some group of people. (hm - I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with this explanation. Maybe I'll come back to it)
should a Christian vote?
what does it say if a Christian votes?
does it say that I care about the world?
does it say that I think I can legislate a solution to the world's problems?
does it say that I am trying to bring about the kingdom of God?
does it say that I have given up on the kingdom of God?
does it say any of these things?
does it say none of these things?
does voting matter???


Here is something I know: I am disenchanted with American politics. In 2008 when I was too young to vote I was burning with the desire to go out and cast my vote and claim agency as an educated, thoughtful, reasoned adult. Now that I am old enough, I feel almost certain that my vote doesn't actually mean anything. That if I was to vote it would be as though some advertiser had bought my loyalty for a bit of cash and some entertaining tv shows. The feeling that my government has sold out on its ideals and is trading in money and favors and power instead of democratic principles and freedom makes me furious. The feeling - more than a feeling, really - it is like a solid weight on my shoulder, this belief that if I were to vote nothing would change; that makes me sick. I don't trust my politicians, but I want to. I want to believe that they are working for the common good. I want to believe that they are wise and thoughtful and good. I just don't, anymore. And that loss of trust and hope is making me feel old and tired and worn out, this fall. 

good things

many good things so far this semester;

two of the best today. one, going to a friend's house to watch the Blue Like Jazz movie. two, the first hymn sing of the year - and the first hymn sing with my brother. :)

'you could put your life where your faith is'

I have a little circle of cardboard hanging in my room, and that's what it says:

you could put your life where your faith is

It's from MCC, and it's meant to sort of prod you into thinking about traveling to do missions. But it came to mind earlier today when I was well into my second hour of talking to Comcast representatives, trying to get my bill for internet access straightened out.

* * *

Most of what I've written this summer on this blog is about rejoicing in the mundane. I have even quoted David Foster Wallace, which totally came back to bite me today. 

I have to confess - I basically have this speech memorized. Not word for word (except a few parts), but I know the ideas really well. I've read this speech dozens of times. I think that it is brilliant, and it pretty much articulates the way that I want to live. 

So that is the history of this funny, ironic, enlightening moment today.

* * *

I was getting so, so frustrated today when I was talking to the Comcast people. I kept getting transferred around on the phones, and the hold music was starting to drive me up the walls.  The first guy had this really heavy accent, and after that it was like my annoyance threshold had been crossed. Everything else just put me more in the red zone. After getting transferred the third time to a different department, I could feel my anger settling into my body. And then I heard the hold music on the phone, and thought this line: soul-killing muzak or corporate pop. 

And then I was sitting there, thinking are you kidding me? I was thinking - this is where the rubber meets the road. This is my chance to put my life where my faith is. 

* * *

"By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home. You haven't had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it's pretty much the last place you want to be but you can't just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to manoeuvre your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough check-out lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can't take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.

Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn't yet been part of you graduates' actual life routine, day after week after month after year.

But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, 40-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest [responding here to loud applause] (this is an example of how NOT to think, though) most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.

You get the idea.

If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn't have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It's the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.

The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do. "

* * *

 Like he says - like I've put on this blog before - it is almost unimaginably hard to force myself to consider the other person. I am always the center of my own existence, and to try to get outside of that is so, so hard. But today, after a struggle, it happened. When the 3rd (or 4th) person I spoke to on the phone told me I had to go chat with someone on the internet, instead of flipping out (what do you mean I need to USE THE INTERNET! I DON'T HAVE ANY INTERNET, LADY!), I said thank you, have a nice day, good-bye now. And I went and internet-chatted a comcast guy in the EMU library, and he told me that the deal I had signed up for wasn't available in my area (my computer screen clearly showed "available in zipcode 22802," which is Harrisonburg), and though I could feel my blood-pressure rising again, I told him thank you for your help, I see, thank you, goodbye. And I thought about how dismal it would be to sit by a phone every day, answering to people like me who were so annoyed and angry. I thought about the new testament verse that says "in humility, value others above yourselves."  I thought about Jesus living as a servant. 

It seems impossible, sometimes. Impossible to live the way that I know I ought to. But little by little, as I grow and experience grace and meditate on the life of Jesus, I bring more and more of my self in line with my ideals. Little by little I learn to put my life where my faith is. 

"To have this to come back to"

It's my last night at home for the summer. I'm ready to head back to Harrisonburg - I miss my community there, and I miss the environment of the academic world. But it is always hard to end things, and equally hard to begin. 

*    *    *

I re-read The Wind in the Willows this summer and was blown away by this passage. When I read it back in July I thought oh, yes, this is how it is. This is always how it feels when I leave home. 

The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his head on his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour. He was now in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had quietly worked to bring about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple--how narrow, even--it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to; this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome. 

Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Like Mole, I don't want to abandon my new life with its splendid emotional and intellectual spaciousness. At the same time, I value my familiar 'anchorage.' It is easier to leave when I know I have this to come back to - this place which is all my own, this home that can always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.

'the really important kind of freedom'

...it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. -G.K. Chesterton


I read this recently and it reminded me of the people who live at the house I work at and my last entry on this blog, the one about the life of a perpetual child.


I can't really imagine being able to exult in monotony. To never grow tired of the banal, the trite, the routine, the infinite small moments that make up a life. But I keep coming back to this thought - what other way would I want to live? A lot of life is banal, trite, routine, and small. If I can't rejoice in these things, than there is a lot of life that I am squandering.


And THIS makes me think of (who else) David Foster Wallace & his beautiful and terrifying commencement speech [Kenyon College, 2005]. In this speech, given to graduating college students (which I will be so, so soon!), DFW reminds us that how we see our lives is a choice. He reminds me every time I reread this that it is hard to stay aware and awake and alive, but it is always a choice. (I lifted quotes from this lovely website):



There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?" ...if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.

...And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine and petty frustration.

...But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

...the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

...the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

"This is water."

"This is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

life through the eyes of a (perpetual) child

this summer i am working at a house where four adults with profound mental/developmental disabilities live. there's a whole lot i could write about things i've been learning - things about patience, about love, about humanity, dignity, the value of human life... etc, etc. lots of "big picture" things, you know; its like working there is teaching me little by little how to be a better human.

but not everything i'm learning is a big picture thing. sometimes there are just these small things that i see:

like tonight, when we took GD out on the porch to watch the fireworks and he sat for half an hour with his mouth literally hanging open, his eyes wide, the very picture of child-like delight. his eyes kept tracking the bright trails of light across the dark sky and he kept smiling and smiling, his mouth open.

it's not a big thing. i almost didn't even notice; i almost thought that the best thing was above me, exploding in the sky. but for some reason i did a double take, and thought about what, exactly, it might mean to have the proverbial 'faith like a child.'

watching fireworks won't ever get old for GD. next year he will have the same expression when he watches fireworks. 10 years from now, it will be the same thing. i guess you could think of that and think of how sad it is that he will never progress to anything beyond that. but then again you could also look at the awe on his face and wish that you had never outgrown the ability to be amazed by something you've seen a hundred times before.

it's all in your perspective, right? thanks, GD, for reminding me.

Living Deep Awake

I don't know where this saying comes from - I first heard it from a friend of mine at EMU. I think of it as my antidote to a society that thrives on antidepressants and corporate cubicle farms. It is possible to sleepwalk through life because of business or boredom or laziness or exhaustion. It's possible to just not. pay. attention.

I don't want that.

Living deep awake - it's the opposite of sleepwalking through life. Being aware of the life that is thriving around you. Alert to it, to the beauty; all this beauty, all around us, all the time.


Here is how I've been living deep awake this summer:

treating hanging up laundry like an art form
noticing the bugs outside, and smiling at them
listening to bon iver - putting holocene on repeat
writing poetry
reading poetry
shelling peas
riding bike with my dad and noticing shadows
sleeping enough (it's important. it helps me see things better. it helps me love the world)
listening to my thoughts
kayaking
shopping at the vietnamese grocery in lancaster city
taking risks
sending letters
loving life
loving God
loving the world


Mary Oliver writes: I don't know what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to be idle and blessed, which is what I have been doing all day.

I like that thought very much. I do know how to pay attention to the created world. I do know, little by little, a little more each day, the character of the Creator. I want to do this more and more. I want to see better. I want to be Awake.

blessings

there are lots of ways to remind yourself to be grateful; make lists of things that you are thankful for, pray (continually, give thanks in all circumstances...), surround yourself with people who are looking at those things in life that are lovely.

i am generally a grateful person, i think. on most days, i am the idealist, the optimist, the poet marveling at creation. but it is rare for me to be grateful about things that i don't like.

i don't like folding laundry. (matching socks = pet peeve of mine) today, though...today as i dumped my clothes on thia's bed and started sorting through the warm t-shirts and jeans and socks and sweatshirt and towel and sheets and pajama pants i thought i am so blessed.

i am grateful that i have so many clothes that it takes me a while to fold them. i'm grateful for the work of folding them. i'm even grateful for needing to match my socks.

so tell me - what 'annoying' thing are you grateful for?

time keeps getting away from me

i don't understand how it's been a month since i've blogged; anyway, today was a chance to slow down and breath again. it was good to be still; it is raining now and i am listening to the sound through the windows. 

It's been a long time

So it's been a while since I wrote anything on here. Partly because I'm busy, partly because I don't feel like I have too much to say; I guess that happens when you're a third year biochem major.

But. It is almost my 21st birthday, and tonight 8 of my best college friends and I are having a MURDER MYSTERY DINNER PARTY and I am so excited. (If you are confused right now, see here: Murder Mystery). Ours is based off of Hamlet and is more along the lines of the "interactive" style as explained on the wikipedia page.

Basically, this is taking our Friday Night "nerd dinners" to a whole new level. :)

Also, I don't have to cook AND I got to choose what we are having for dinner (gourmet mac&cheese, green salad, & apple crisp). I love birthdays.

This weekend I:

saw Star Wars: A New Hope for the first time, read The Hunger Games, saw my brother for about 5 minutes, ate lunch with my dad, played Portal for an hour, had my Friday Night Dinner/Discussion, turned in a paper, turned in a lab write up, took an online quiz for Neuro, read a bunch in the Neuroscience textbook, read a bunch of A History of the Jews, slept, ate toast with garlic salt (the quick way to make garlic bread!), slept, slept, did lots of laundry.

that's a pretty good weekend if i do say so myself.

some things I'm thinking about

what does it mean to develop ethics through the framework of friendship?
how does one cultivate a friendship with scripture?
this quote by herbert mccabe: "In one way (at one level), you could say that as knives are for cutting and pens are for writing, people are for living with each other."
what it means to live in a new creation
Psalm 8:
When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
      the moon and the stars you set in place—
  what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
      human beings that you should care for them?
  Yet you made them only a little lower than God
      and crowned them with glory and honor.

Abraham's entry into israel. the covenant that includes the phrase 'you will be a blessing.'

damascus; beit sahour, jerusalem

gaza

how to be a witness to suffering without being pulled under

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/haditha-killings-frank-wuterich-iraq_n_1230889.html?ref=world

my professor, peter dula, spending an easter in baghdad. peter teaching ethics here.

the stutzmans traveling with a new cross-cultural group

going to a sort of baby-blessing-party tonight for a woman from my homegroup

things I am not thinking enough about:

my ochem exam on friday