you know that thing? where you are looking for a job… or something… and you want to pray for help or something, but then you get all all all superstitious? is that just me? where you want to pray a certain number of times and THEN you’ll get the job. where maybe if you’d given that change to that homeless man yesterday, you’d have gotten the job. where it’s still all about you, and you make the (possibly valid) excuse that the job you want is so that you can live out god’s plan for you, except, aaaaaaaaaaack! where is it where is it where is it? and isn’t there something you can control here? is your situation fate or god or both or neither or what?
this past saturday was the teachers for social justice conference.
rewind a little for me to tell you that, um, i quit my job. you know, the one i’d been glowing about not too long ago. i still love the agency, but in terms of skills and interests, the position wound up not being a good match for me. i spent some time feeling elated and free after quitting and then there was a deep crash in motivation and self-confidence. i found a job rather quickly, and i’ll probably be starting that on friday, but the climb out of mild depression is not as swift as i would like. i’m fine, but it’s weird going from Having a Purpose to Um… What Should I Be Doing With Myself?
but the teachers for social justice conference was a help in that.
funnily enough, both of the workshops that i went to had something to do with transformation in the title. it absolutely wasn’t intentional, but you know, that’s always been one of my interests. the first was on transformative life skills. the job i’m starting soon is as a paraprofessional (which means a classroom assistant, usually with special education students), and the workshop seemed like it might give me some good tools to use with students one on one, especially those with attention issues and stuff. it was all about breathing and centering and stuff like that, so it kind of was about being a quaker. it was interesting how the workshop was both about helping kids find ways to calm down and about helping us educators be calm. (they did a great impression of educators frantically trying to get kids to calm down. “settle down! SETTLE DOWN!!!”)
the other workshop was “Message to Transformative Teachers: The Process and Potential of a Culturally Empowering Pedagogy.” i picked it out of a ton of inspiring looking workshops, and honestly, the number of wonderful buzzwords in a lot of the descriptions became sort of a blur to me, and i couldn’t tell if i was going to this workshop because i understood what it was about or because i didn’t. but it was pretty amazing. i took tons of notes and part of me is tempted to put them all up here. but the gist of the whole thing was how we need to really understand where youth are coming from and not blame them for being who they are. it was particularly for working with high school aged youth of color. i don’t work with high school aged youth, but the workshop still felt applicable. the presenter, patrick camangian, was hugely inspiring and great to listen to.
the thing that’s stuck with me most is just the offhand comment that he made about how “thuglife” is actually an acronym. i had no idea. i guess it comes from tupac, and it stands for “the hate you give little infants fucks everybody.” it’s pretty amazing. it’s been going over and over in my head a lot since then, informing my thoughts on the systems and institutions in this society.
yesterday, i had to get a tb test, and i went to the public health clinic that i usually go to. i tend to go to the transgender night, but this is the second time i’ve had to do a walk-in during regular hours. i arrived 1 hour after they opened, the number that was showing on the board was 66, i pulled number 79. i sat for 2 hours and watched as the number crawled up to 69.
this place is ugly, doesn’t seem totally clean, and the bathrooms smell really bad. the people who work there are tired and grouchy. the people who go to the clinic are primarily people of color, and since it’s a public health clinic, they are all pretty darn poor.
after two hours i stepped outside and called around to other clinics that had been referred to me for this process. i finally became convinced that the “adult and travel immunization clinic” would actually work for my work tb test, and wow, it was actually the same building. the front door this time instead of the sketchy back alley entrance. it’s clean, there’s carpet, there’s music playing, the receptionist smiled at me, and i got seen in half an hour. the people around me were mostly white, and seemed mostly middle class.
in the first clinic, a man came in and not finding a place to sit, sat on the trash can.
today i was talking to a friend and she said, “do you think infants get hated often?” and i said, “maybe not directly, but institutions are constantly telling them and their families that they are garbage.”
after i got my tb test yesterday, i took the bus home. a man and woman got on the bus carrying full trashbags. i think they were full of cans. i was reading, but soon i noticed that an african-american woman was yelling at them. something about how they had insulted the way that she smelled, but it’s them that smelled. the woman with the bag and the african-american woman threatened each other. the woman with the bags got up and started yelling, “i’m not afraid. i’m not afraid.” she seemed chicana or native american. i got off a stop early because it was crowded and i was freaked out. as i was walking home, i saw basically everybody get off at the next stop, and the man punching the window of the back door of the bus, yelling “you better get off that bus right now” the glass was broken, and spit came flying out.
the hate you give little infants fucks everybody.
me saying that has elements of appropriation, and it’s definitely been used with more violent rage than i’m comfortable with, but it’s true and it’s big.
what am i going to do about it, i’m not sure yet. i really want to, though.
america, why are your libraries full of tears?
it’s international blog against racism week! every year when this comes along, i find myself trapped in some sort of weird writer’s block. i want to say Something, and i usually have Lots to say on the topic, but now, this week, i can’t even begin.
i’m reading a collection of the writings of bayard rustin right now and i just read a peace about the journey of reconciliation. in 1946, the supreme court passed the morgan decision, which said that interstate travel wasn’t subject to jim crow laws. to test this, rustin and 15 others, black and white, took greyhound and trailways buses through the south, with the black folks sitting in the front and the white folks sitting in the back. they went on different trips, not all on the same bus at once, but there were always people of color and white folks participating in the experiment. the reactions were mixed, but rustin concludes that the predominant feeling was that of “confusion.” there was actually little violence and what there was was directed at the white folks participating. there was support and there was rage, but the men (they were all men) on these trips held steady.
what am i as a white ally doing that’s anything like this? what is the religious society of friends doing that’s anything like this? i’m romanticizing the past surely, but oh golly, we’ve gotten so comfortable. challenging things breaks us out of those comfort zones and it’s so hard to be bothered when we’ve got “martha stewart shams and sheets and sugar free powdered iced tea, vanilla coke, lemon pepsi, friends episodes on dvd” as kimya dawson sings about. we are trapped in some sort of ridiculous pleasuredome where all of these things keep consoling us. it’s not just quakers and maybe quakers are sort of better at breaking out of that consumerism thing than some other people, but we’re still stuck somewhere.
is that racism? “your problems can wait, my problems can wait, let’s watch some tv…” it’s despair. and laziness. and cowardice too, in this land of the brave. “i will never fix things so i will console myself with stuff… and i won’t talk to you because you are a stranger… and so i will never hear you and i will never realize i need to change and i will continue to be sad and yet content in my world of privilege…” is that racism? i think it’s all over america. i do it.
“America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic? “
~from “America” by Allen Ginsberg
there are many sides to any story. there are many sides to my own stories. there are the stories i tell now and the stories i’ll tell tomorrow. and there are the stories that tell one part of how i feel right now, and stories that tell a whole other part of how i feel.
the important part of my last post for me was that Right Then, i was feeling Very Disillusioned. as i wrote it, i tried to express that it was probably temporary and that i also felt a load of other things. i was as frustrated with the person in question, and as sympathetic to my meeting as i was angry and disillusioned. it felt urgent and it still feels important that i wrote it from the lens that i did, because i don’t express that part of things much. and there’s always a part of me that wants more from quakers, that wants to push harder, that wants to hold the group accountable to the things that i’ve learned from quakerism to hold myself accountable to.
it hurt people. i didn’t want to hurt people. but it’s hard not to hurt people when one is speaking from hurt. (which is a potential lesson from our experience with that person.) but there’s also tremendous potential for healing. which was what i was going for. i was hoping that in being honest about how i felt about the situation, i could heal and the meeting could heal.
of course, with blogs, honesty becomes one-sided and poisonous. whether you intend it or not. it doesn’t feel like dialog, and it can seem invasive.
i’m leaving my post up, because it’s true. it’s also only part of something. it’s not totally true. it’s not my whole truth, and it’s not The whole truth. but it’s true for what it is. and because there are posts before it and after it that keep it in context. our meeting wasn’t perfect, it did the best it could, it’s been amazing for me, i wish it could be amazing for everyone. that’s what i tried to tell. you miss that if you only read that post. that’s another scary thing about blogs. mine’s a conversation with myself and it’s easy to misunderstand things when you just catch part of a conversation. it might be a generational thing, i might be embarrassed someday, i regret that it was hurtful, but i think this blog serves the community best when the seams show. a flawless community is not real– as much as i wish it were.
i’ve gotten 10 visitors in the past few days that have visited my site from searching for cubbie, quaker, and blog. before these past few days, that had happened a couple of times, but once i became controversial, people wanted to find me. i hope that they will come back and see the calm days, the loving days, the joyful days. those are most days.
i hate that our meeting has caused people pain. i hate it because it has not caused me pain, and that makes me feel strangely guilty, very sad, and a little angry at everyone involved. who are you that you can not be perfect to me and also this person? who are you that you do not find the perfection here? who am i that i am willing to accept this place that has wounded you?
when i posted about feeling like an enabler, it was true. there have been times when i feel like i’m making excuses for abusive behavior to a wounded person. i am not wounded by these people, but i’ve seen it happen, and i’ve tried to make the woundings not true. “have you tried this? have you considered that?” i feel like i’m making excuses. there is a truth to the disconnect between mine and others’ experiences that is not abuse, but it feels so much like my experience of dealing with abuse that i don’t know how else to name it yet. i’ve known denial. i haven’t known this “one person’s medicine being another person’s poison” like this before.
since my post, i’ve gotten 3 phone calls and a few emails. i’ve felt embarrassed, stalked, hounded, and loved. every conversation, i expected some sort of cease and desist order, but instead, i got love. some hurt, some agreement, tons and tons of love. and not just to me. i heard about so much love for this man. and honestly, i’d sort of forgotten that part, even as i claimed to sort of remember. i’m sorry i forgot. i’m sorry if you felt like your efforts and care was dismissed. i screw up. and you still love me. i raged like i did because i believed we could handle it. i forgot that that could hurt you, but i knew i’d be forgiven. that’s pretty juvenile, i guess. i’ll try not to take advantage of that again.
talking with him that day reminded me that i need to be honest. and it reminded me that i have not been faithful to all that i should be honest about. i’ve talked in my clearness committees about my yearnings for scary conversations, and haven’t really done them. i initiated a one-sided scary conversation over here, not expecting the sort of follow-up it had, and was confronted with a number of scary conversations that made me want to show up at meeting with movie star dark glasses. but i didn’t. i held myself accountable to my words. and now i will start on those scary conversations that need to be had. the ones that don’t ambush– the ones where we choose to be brave and face each other and ourselves… and god or whomever is there to keep us safe there.
today, i went to quarterly meeting for the first time. it was in santa rosa, at friends house. it was exciting to go up. i’m glad i got to go. i’m glad sf meeting got to have a young adult presence…
but as i looked around the room, during worship… which maybe i “shouldn’t” have been doing, but i needed to know… i couldn’t see a single person of color. this doesn’t mean that there weren’t any, but there were none that i recognized as such, so maybe i was part of the problem of invisibility of some people of color– but i don’t think there was a giant presence of people of color, no matter how correct my perceptions were. after worship, i went to the restroom, and there was a person of color… cleaning the floor.
as the day went on, i saw most of the participants of quarterly meeting, and i thought of 2 as people of color. i saw about 8 different staff members and thought of 3 as people of color. i saw about 10 residents of the facility who didn’t seem to be participating in the meeting, and about 2 seemed to be people of color.
aren’t i a good ally?
it felt so heavy then.
there was worship sharing along the theme of the day, which was “the still center of the whirlwind.” the queries were about a time that we had felt like we were in a storm, and had an experience of the light…
i couldn’t get out of my current state, so focused on what to do with it. and then i thought about this quote i read recently about grace being having your heart broken by the things that break the heart of god. and of course there’s presumption in believing you know what breaks god’s heart… but i focused on letting my heart be broken. because i suddenly knew that i could only go anywhere if i did that. i could only find joy & courage if i let my heart break.
… but maybe it’s too simple. maybe my joy was my pride in being so “good.” such a good white liberal.
maybe.
i don’t know. all i know is that i felt worn out for the rest of the day, but also called and blessed.
we need to fix this and i need to learn how to help fix this. it is broken, it breaks us, it breaks hearts, and it can be so much better.
yesterday, i had this deep conversation about peace and war and how war is so much easier to do than peace, but that peace is so much more worth it. growing up, i always wondered “can’t we all just get along”? and the older i get along, the more i recognize the difficulty in that, and how rewarding facing the challenge is. and how our current power structure works around oppression via war– the rich and powerful sending the oppressed out to fight those they wish to oppress. and how rewarding that is for the powerful and rich. and how hard it is to have hope living in that sort of power structure. we talked about utopian communities vs. making small changes but still being complicit in so many ways and the pros and cons of buying local food.
anyway… this came to me again on the bart to meeting and then again at meeting. i had this message about this difficulty and how meeting is a place to find inner peace to take into the meeting community to practice our peace skills for the broader world. i felt the familiar tingly feeling i’ve come to recognize as a nudge to speak. i took a deep breath and…
someone else stood. and said something very similar to what i’d been contemplating. and right behind me, i heard someone whisper something, and i whirled around and glared. except that i hardly faced them, couldn’t see, and whirled back immediately. which was SO RIDICULOUS! and so i started to sit there and beat myself up about it, which was also ridiculous.
i sat for awhile longer, facing my anger and my guilt and my pride and my frustration, and then i felt something deeper than before, and i stood and gave vocal ministry… in the second person! it was about that experience and ended with “and the message you were going to say is that peace is really difficult. and now you know it.”
***
other things:
* i’m feeling less cranky about my young adultness. i had some really enriching conversations with other young adults today which really helped me have patience with myself and remember some of the things to not be cranky about.
* i’ve been in a cranky-ish place in general. it always seems like when i am in a place of idealistic understanding of my place in the world, my patience with everybody is slimmer than usual.
* i’ve been testing a leading around a beyond diversity 101 training for trainers done by niyonu spann. i think i’m supposed to go, and i’ve talked to a few people about it, and am currently in contact with our ministry and oversight committee about some sort of group to help me test the leading and support me through the experience. once again, i’m just so full of gratitude at the support and love i get from these people. i feel like such a squeaky wheel, but people don’t seem to be covering their ears. it’s so good. thank you thank you thank you.
before i moved to san francisco, i lived in olympia, washington. i did americorps, and was active in a queer men’s group. in both of those organizations, i became active and vocal about race and general oppression issues. i organized an anti-oppression training for my americorps team because it looked like it wouldn’t happen otherwise (i had tons of help and had someone else come in to DO the training, but i was kind of “the squeaky wheel” that got it to actually happen), and started an anti-racism discussion group for the queer men’s group.
when i moved to san francisco, i was planning to continue on a similar path, but got busy with my various jobs, and just that whole job of acclimating. race in san francisco is different from race in olympia.
but in the past few weeks, i’ve started talking about it more, and particularly within the quaker meeting. i think it’s because it’s such a safe space for me, really, and because i have definitely done that whole “oblivious white liberal” thing my whole life, but then there’s the way that in a quaker context, i always have “soapbox or leading” questions. and it’s tricky.
there is a particular sorrow that comes from critiquing someone’s beloved project when they don’t expect it– and i’ve done that in the past month. and there is a particular joy in having someone else bring up issues that they’ve been struggling with and to just say, “yes, yes, thank you, yes, i am so glad i am not alone”– and i’ve done that in the past month.
i made a comment at the thursday night study group a couple of weeks ago about race and how it’s not hugely better than it was 50 years ago. which is just as simplistic as saying that it is, and… i wasn’t there. how do i know? and it’s just from gobbling down theory by people that i believe “know.”
and then this past week, we read about someone (not actually john woolman, though we talked about how he said similar things) who said that the effects of slavery on slaveholders was worse than on slaves. which made me go, (inside my head) “DUDE!? SERIOUSLY!?” because it feels a little gross. because while someone might be corrupted and that can be infinitely terrible in a way that is different from bodily suffering, i don’t think the two things can be compared. and any attempt comes out all wrong. (just like my 2007 statement about 1957 race relations.) but it got me thinking anyway about how that mindset is still here. white supremacy/privilege is all-pervasive still, and the thing that i think is worse is that it’s not as recognizable. “i DON’T think of myself as better than these people, OF COURSE, and yet, i am stomping all over them, but i don’t know it. and don’t tell me or else i’ll get defensive.” and that’s pretty corrupt.
also at this past thursday night study group, someone spoke about some ideas he’s had for how to get more people to come to our meeting. he had a great metaphor about how we are a beacon on a hill, but the path is completely obscured. which is true. and his ideas were really good, too.
but my immediate thought was of fear at our capacity for welcome.
i’ve felt really welcomed and loved at this meeting, and i’ve loved that, but there are moments where i just feel like it means that i am easily palatable.
and today at meeting i really thought i was supposed to say something. but i instead chose to sit with questions about where that feeling was coming from. it seemed to easy to say what i felt like i should say, and too other-critical and outward. but what i was going to say was a query:
are we prepared for what we want? can we be? we are welcoming, but are we ready to welcome strangers, strangers who remind us that before they came we were actually not perfect?
… which is a good question for me in all sorts of ways when i change the “we”s to “me”s, and i will sit with it myself, but i really need to start having more conversations about this community i’ve become a part of, and the way we all deal with privilege.
(i think what really got me started was this post about racism and christianity and how linked they are…)
***
i read the religion of jesus the jew at a recommendation of chris m. about my questions about where judaism and christianity meet, and i have to say that 95% of it was boring, hard to read, and not at all what i was looking for, but the other 5% was spot on and perfect and interest and answered a lot of questions…
and it also got me thinking about jesus’ religion as a religion of end times… and the way things sure as heck feel like they’re ending these days… that whole “we’re either going to blow ourselves up or just destroy the world with our decadence” thing…
i haven’t gone much further than that, but it’s been interesting.
***
in terms of my news that’s not happening just in my head… at today’s business meeting, they read my membership letter that i wrote on september 18 (366 days after i started coming to meeting. my rough drafts were written the day before). eep!
and i’ve not been blogging due to the lack of my own computer, but charles martin brought me his old computer, and once i actually get a wireless card for it, i’ll be around more.
quaker furniture
my home, head, and heart are in a weird state of shambles lately. i’m not sure exactly what started it, but somehow, i am spending much of my time wandering through a whole bunch of rough stuff. my demons are loud and impressive, but i am looking at them and saying, “how did you get here? why are you here?” which is helping, i think. but i’m busy. and tired. and my shoulders are knotted up. and i feel like i am in crisis mode, even though the crisis is all in my own head…
oh, right, and also in the state of my apartment. it’s been a pile of boxes since we moved in, but thanks to a quaker friend we were able to go out and buy furniture… and now thanks to another quaker friend, puck is able to drill holes to build the furniture. i’ve been pretty hands-off on the building process, which is hard for me. i’m trying not to take responsibility for every little moment, but you will still find me apologizing pretty regularly for pretty silly things.
chris m. was the one who loaned the drill to us, and on sunday, he spoke about building the beloved community. other people spoke about love and community in all sorts of ways and it was really amazing. i love my quakers because i know that even when i am not listening to love, someone there will be, and i will get so much out of all of the different ways that they work to show and be and do love. right now, that love is easy for me– this group of new intimates to love and be loved by. it reminds me of what i want with those who i am closer to, who i have a longer history with– my partner, specifically, and myself, especially.
at meeting for business this month, we were encouraged to think about some queries about what we need to change. i don’t remember all the details. i should have posted then. but anyway, it was a worship sharing i guess, and people spoke about a variety of things, and at some point i said something. i spoke as an outsider coming in and how there is always so much work every group needs to go through and that’s good and self-critique is good, but so far, the truth for me has been that no matter what, i know i will find love at the meeting.
that is true. there is so much love for me in that group of people, it’s amazing. i know that there are people who will hug me or give any type of help they can if i ask for it. and i’ve been asking for it. i’ve got a place to stay when i need to be by myself for awhile, i’ve got a friend with a truck who will help us acquire storage furniture, i’ve got listening ears. and i feel called to give it back in ways that i can, and also, i feel like i am able to give back. that whatever i can do is enough. it’s amazing.
but, even before i said it, i thought a lot about people who are not me, and their ability to find love there. i thought about the guy who came in and caused a fuss when i greeted, and about the person who had spoken not long before and had been cut off by the clerk, and about the way that we are in the tenderloin and all of the people in the neighborhood who we would not welcome with open arms. i am struggling with that so much. do we open them with closed arms, folded over our chests, “come in but don’t get to close, and you are welcome to leave whenever you’d like… please”? that’s what it feels like. i am told that everyone is treated with respect, and i see a lot of trying to treat people with respect, but i also see myself in the place of those people– me with less social skills, a few more obvious crazies– being treated the way these people get treated, and i think it would hurt.
and so, when the person who had been told to be quiet spoke in hurt and anger, i felt it. i felt the hurt and anger, and i felt the guilt for all the ways i am distant.
and yet… there is a history of the meeting that i know little about. and there is a history of me that is about me putting so many people ahead of myself that i get tired and angry and defensive and broken. these walls protect us somewhat. this is our sanctuary. but. but. but. we are talking about how to get more people through our doors, and i’m for that, but i’m still not totally comfortable with how we treat those who are aleady coming in.
i haven’t posted in a long time, because i have been in 12-kinds-of-angst land. crises of faith and crises of relationship and crisis of understanding my past and a just generally very full head. of the kind that comes out with bitter, tired, confused thoughts that don’t seem right for public consumption.
but this is my quaker journal, and by that i mean my space where i figure out faith… and so what better place to discuss my crisis of it. it’s scary, though. i’m afraid of being preached at, or hollowly assured with platitudes that don’t mean a lot to me in my current condition.
basically my head has gotten into an endless argument with god. and not really with, more like at. “god,” my head says, “god, so there’s us. and we’re flawed. and you want us to be better than we are. but you made us flawed. right? (silence) yeah, you’re right, i’m confused about that. but the point is… i think it’s sort of passive aggressive. ‘you are flawed. your flaws are many. sometimes your flaws make it impossible to find me. but i want to be found. why can’t you see me?’ we didn’t give ourselves our flaws. you did, the world did, and maybe we did, some, but… we are struggling with them, too. so we’ve got these flaws to deal with, and you’re out there somewhere being perfect, saying, ‘drop those flaws and follow me.’ but we can’t. our flaws are always there. except who’s to say that they are flaws? i mean, all of them. i mean, i’ve spent a long time getting used to the fact that i have flaws, and kind of sort of loving them. as part of my humanness. which is unavoidable. and kind of beautiful. and here you come back again telling me i am somehow perfectable. but why am i not perfect yet? why why why why why why why? why can’t i just say, ‘okay, this is what i’ve got. this is who i am. it’s not everything but it’s what i have.’ why is our ability to survive and try to be better not enough? and why are they so hard?”
when i was small, i was told that i was everything my parents could have wanted in a kid… and more! somehow, somewhere in this, i decided that maybe i was the second coming. seriously. i don’t know when i gave up that idea, but i do know that at 15, i went crying to my mom, telling her that i had to confess, i wasn’t perfect, i’ve never been perfect, and i can never be perfect, and i was sorry that i had led her to believe that, but it was a lie.
this christmas, nothing went right. and nothing felt right. all of the traditions were gone, my mom was really sick, my grandparents eyed my warily. did i smash what we used to have with my transness? this is related because this argument at god happened just after i got home from “home.” my struggle with perfection was suddenly big again, because my family had fallen apart, and i was somehow responsible… from out here in california.
i keep scrambling about inside myself, tearing down any sort of spiritual hope, screaming about my imperfection, and getting a little crazy with rituals, hoping that they will somehow fix me. i know that this is the wrong way to go about it. i know it. but i go up on my tiptoes before my idea of god, saying, “fix me fix me fix me fix me” so loud that i can’t listen to any way i might be fixed. to listen to any way that i might stop needing to be fixed. to listen to that voice that i heard before i left, the one that said, “rest. i am here. be still and know that i am.”
