sublet needed in oakland/berkeley/emeryville

hey a friend of mine and his wife and child are looking for a sublet in oakland/berkeley/emeryville. They are totally awesome and amazing people who are from this area but currently living in Istanbul, Turkey. They will be back here jan 10-feb 12 and are needing a place to sublet. Their only requirement is that it have wireless internet (and presumably have enough space for the three of them).

If anyone knows of anything, please please let me know and I will pass it on to him. THANK YOU!!!!!

for santa fe

As crushes fade into moments
that will catch in my throat
as I put miles between us,
there will be pieces of my heart
left in the red dirt and fading bruises.

I am falling in love with the idea of you,
and you as well,
sometimes
and this idea of you is wrapped up in the landscape
wide open and painfully beautiful.

there is the shape of your body in these mountains
broad shoulders
muscles, stomach,
the things that clothes conceal
and the clouds that rush over head
as fast as glances I almost miss
and wonder what they mean.

sometimes we are actors
playing out our parts
of lust and flirtation
sometimes we are intimate
in tears and gentle breezes
of friendly touch.

yet there remains the scorching sun
to remind me of the harshness of all these emotions
burning my skin.

I know that I cannot stay,
and this is perhaps why it is the idea of you
I am falling in love with
because the reality is not something
I know how to catch hold of.

and even if I could
I would not know what to do
with the precious thing cradled in my hands
calloused with my time here.

so I kiss your cheek
and lay silently next to you as you sleep
the sleep of a desert rain storm
the sleep of a desert dryness
the sleep of red dirt
of hidden lakes
of hollyhocks
of secrets yet to be whispered
and a history longer than can ever be known.

santa fe, I will leave you
in a few days
and goodbyes will choke me
but I will take you with me
underneath my fingernails
and down
where bone meets bone.

your memory will be in the places
where the landscape of my heart has been changed.



- summer 2007

apology to my body

I'm currently in a class on forgiveness, and this week we had to write apologies, and this is what I wrote...

An apology to my body

Dear Body, You and I got off to a good start this semester, but as we are both aware we have had some troubles, sickness, injury, the whole teeth thing. I apologize for not trying harder, for not recognizing how important exercise is for us. I know that I often take the easy route – that first sermon I wrote still is so true and needed in our life. I know I need to work harder at finding balance, committing to creating a regular schedule for us. I have not given up on you body. I know we dream of better things. I have made promises that have been broken. About food, working out, all of those things. And I still love you just as you are, and this is not being written to say that I apologize for not making you skinnier or more beautiful (even though we both know I think that sometimes). I'm sorry I don't pay attention to you when I should, that I ignore your wisdom to slow down, or get up and do something, or to stop eating because I'm full, or to have breakfast everyday because it makes us feel better, or to go to sleep earlier instead of forcing myself to stay awake. I need to listen to you more often. Without you I'd be nothing. I know I neglect you sometimes because I am afraid. Afraid of the dentist and the doctor and that we won't be able to achieve the things we dream of. I apologize for all the times I've said you were fat and ugly. For the times I have shared you with others in ways that were not safe for us. For the times I have put us, you, in danger. I want to say I apologize for all the times I've cut you, burned you, hurt you, but I think we both know that was something we both needed. I do apologize though for all the times I've said I'm not strong enough, or small enough, and in saying all that I've turned against you. I hope we can find a way to work together better in the future. I know we could accomplish so much if only I believed in you more. I will try to celebrate you more often, value you and what you tell us. I love you body, even though it is hard for me sometimes.

Life in the circus ain't easy

For those of you who don't know... but you should all know... I am in Santa Fe attending the Wise Fool Women's summer circus workshop/camp. And now I will tell you all about it.

Where to start?

I arrived here with Casey on Monday, May 28th, after driving from Oakland. We quickly found a place to lay our heads, and then wandered downtown. On the 29th I started my classes, and we headed out to El Dorado (25+mins outside of town) to stay with my friend Alice. Casey stuck around until Wednesday night, but before that we drove all around so he could see Santa Fe, and we ate plenty of breakfast burritos.

Shortly after I got settled in El Dorado, Alice left for a week to visit family, and while she was gone I got sick sick sick. Three days of fever. Exhaustion, and congested everything. It was frustrating to miss class and even when I was in class, it was really hard to push myself. Not to mention living way out of town and about 5 miles from the nearest grocery store. I watched a lot of cable tv.

When Alice got back, her daughter Meghan came with her, so I moved into town to stay with another couple from the church here. They are currently out of town for a week as well, so I've got their big house with a hot tub all to myself for a little while.

So those are the nuts and bolts, but here's some more of the fun stuff.

I have been taken over by crushes on people I can't have - so reminiscent of the old days in Santa Fe. But they are fun crushes, ones I can gossip about with friends, and ones that will be left behind here when I go. I have forgotten how much fun crushes can be, in the right circumstances.

Circus has been a mixed bag. I am by far not the best at anything in my class of 25 women. And this is something that I am not always good at accepting. I'd rather just not participate than be bad. But I am trying to push myself. The hardest thing for me has been the aerial class. I don't think there has been a class yet where I haven't wanted to cry. I think this is because it's the only class where I feel like I really can't do anything, or much of anything at all. And I missed one of the classes because of being sick, and I sat out on another because I had terrible cramps. Also I have some weird skin problem on one of my fingers, which makes hanging from the trapeze really difficult. sometimes I feel like I don't want to be on the aerial equipment badly enough to deal with all the pain it causes (physically). And then I wonder if that just an excuse I'm making so that I don't have to face how difficult it is for me (mentally/emotionally). On an exciting note, I am loving stilts and acrobatics (clowning and juggling are close seconds). I have been getting together with friends from class to practice acro moves and it's super fun.

I guess I feel like part of being in this workshop was to really have to push myself to experience my body and what it can and can't do, instead of assuming what it can and can't do. All of my teachers are really supportive, but to be honest, sometimes I feel like I can get away with not pushing myself as hard as I'd like to. Part of that again is because I've been sick, and it has been really hard to push myself. Coming into this, I knew I was going to be in the bottom of the class in my starting ability, but I was hoping that I would be the girl to impress everyone with how hard I try, even when things are really hard, but I find that I've been giving up more than I want to be, and that is something I need to work on.

The friends that I've reconnected with, and the new one's I have made are so great. I was pretty nervous coming back here that people would remember be as I was when I left, and that girl is quite different than the one I am now. But everything has gone swimmingly. It's really good for me to be surrounded by women, and queer women. Rosie and I have become instant friends, hanging out all the time and having a blast. Debs is really great, and I'm excited that she and I will be performing together in the drag show cabaret. I hung out with Michelle (who is my band mate from Big Judy) a bunch before I got sick, and we even had a reunion tour concert at a party she had. I'm getting to know Indi, slowly but steadily, and she inspires me a lot (as do all these women really). Then there's Kathy who I just ran into, and it's great to see her, and she has changed since we knew each other. I think she has some of the same nervousness about people treating her like someone she used to be, and not who she is now. But it's been lovely to see her. And then there's JD who I'm working on some new acro moves with, and Kiki who is just the sweetest. Not to mention all the women in the class, and the women teaching the class. I just feel really loved and supported here. It's really beautiful.

Speaking of the drag cabaret... I will be performing in two shows this weekend as Neil Down. Yipee. This has been a fun process too. Working with other kings to really choreograph numbers and have them really polished before the show.

And I've been riding my bike. And I've been trying to eat well. And I've lost 7lbs, which hopefully is an indication that I am on my way to a healthier me. And I've found time to pray. And I'm falling in love with life. And I have bruises.

time for a banana,
ktm

looking for a place in santa fe for 6 weeks May28th-July10th

Hey friends, and friends of friends,

I will be in santa fe for 6 weeks or so
this summer for a circus workshop with
Wise Fool, and I need a place to stay.
I don't need much, just a place to rest
my head.

I can spend a total of $400 for the six
weeks, but I am more than willing to
help with cooking and cleaning, laundry
etc. I don't take up much space and I
am easy to get along with. I would also
be willing to do some trade in exchange
for rent, depending on if any of my
skills overlap with your needs. I'm
good at sewing and other crafty-ness.

I will be there from May28th-July10th
give or take a day on either side.

Thanks so much!
and please forward to your friends!

KT M.

Starbucks as a Spiritual Practice: The Blog

Hey everyone!

The blog has been birthed. It only has one entry so far that is just a brief introduction. I will try to update it on a regular basis.

Thanks for giving it a look.

sbuxspiritualpractice.blogspot.com/

-KTM

who's a nerd? I'm a nerd!!!

Finite-Infinity:
A Model for Understanding the Relationship Between Self and Other

Introduction:

This paper will attempt to explore my understanding of the allergy to the other in the context of understanding a self as either a finite container or an infinity when the self encounters an other. In the first part of my paper I will discuss my understanding of the “allergy”. I will also talk about the concepts of the self/other as finite containers and as encounters of infinity, explaining the ways in which both are useful and also problematic. In the second part of my paper I will suggest that a new view of self/other is used, that embraces both a finite and infinite understanding of self/other encounter. This model will hopefully be able to embrace the usefulness of both these two pieces, while still remaining conscious of the problems that each have brought up. In the conclusion, I will offer a further explanation of how the synthesis of finite and infinite can be realized and can also help create healthier, non-allergic, relationships between the self and the other. In this paper I will use gender as a way to put into more concrete terms the theoretical understanding I will be discussing. I want to acknowledge here that gender is the one category of identity that I have chosen to use to illustrate my points. But as you will see in my paper, I will also be critical of doing just this, using an identity to explain the entirety of something. So I would like to point out that when I speak of gender in this paper, and specifically my gender, it is both an essentialized category of ways of being, as well as located in a specific body that also carries many many identities that affect the way that gender is experienced.

Part One:

Understanding the “Allergy to the Other”

In the book, Totality and Infinity, Emmanuel Levinas writes about the construction of the other in terms of a self that is understood as self sufficient and contained. He is critiquing this understanding of the self that comes out of the Enlightenment. He posits that by setting up a totality for what a person is, using a metaphor of destiny based on war time in which there is an understood outcome – to win or lose, a self is created in opposition to an other, both having finite boundaries. He writes, “The visage of being that shows itself in was is fixed in the concept of totality, which dominates Western philosophy. Individuals are reduced to being bearers of forces that command them unbeknown to themselves. The meaning of individuals (invisible outside of this totality) is derived from the totality” (22). Instead he suggests that selves and others embody an infinity, here using the concept of eschatology in contrast with his war time metaphor – where the outcome of the future has more possibilities than win or lose, and therefore diffusing the strong opposition between self and other. He writes, “The eschatological vision breaks with the totality of war and empires…'It does not envisage the end of history within being understood as totality, but institutes a relation with the infinity of being which exceeds the totality” (23). The significance of this is that for Levinas, the understanding of infinity leads to an ethic of responsibility to the other. “…'infinity is produced in the relationship of the same with the other, and how the particular and the personal, which are unsurpassable, as it were magnetize the very field in which the production of infinity is surpassed” (26).

Having a finite self in opposition to the finite other creates the allergy. This is understood as a self defining themselves as a finite container that can possess finite knowledge of the other. This contained or finite self can be understood as thinking that the only truth is the reality and knowledge that the self possesses. This self is not relational. It has no way to encounter otherness except to understand it in the terms of itself, because the only true reality is that of self knowledge and everything else is questioned. The contained self, the non-relational self, privileges its own knowledge of the world over others’ experiences, because self-knowledge is the only truth. Because of this, the self has the power to name, define and erase the other.

Instead, the model of understanding the self/other relationship as based on an encounter with infinity is suggested in Levnias’s concept of infinity. It gives us a different way to look at self/other that does not give the power of naming, defining and erasing the other to the self. If the self and other are to be understood both as infinite beings (not having any finite limit to its understandability) then the argument follows that a self is never able to posses full knowledge of the other and therefore does not have power over the other. If the self and other come out of the creation of an encounter, than the self has a responsibility to the other. This is because without the other, there would be no encounter, and therefore no self. This challenges the idea that the self can exist on its own. By creating a model of self/other understanding that is relational, it is suggested that there can be a primacy of reality without the supremacy of one reality over another, thus alleviating the allergy to the other.


The Finite Container

The allergy to the other is directly experienced in situations of dominant culture(s) oppressing the other. This manifests itself in many ways that come out of the power for the self to name, define and erase the other. There is a power dynamic that plays out in the self/other relationship within dominant/oppressed relationship. Here we see the finiteness of the self of the dominant culture not only as a means to control the other, but as norms that the other must conform to so as not to be other. For instances, the normative self in western culture currently is the white heterosexual able bodied upper middle class biological male. These identities are not only boundaries or containers for the normative self. These norms are also what the other defines itself against; the other is must be in opposition/subordination to the identities of the normative self.

Many people have chosen to address this allergy by giving primacy to non-dominant identities as a way to give power to them. For instance feminism, the gay rights movement, etc, are all examples of trying to oppose the allergy to the other (oppression) in a way that gives voice to an identity that is typically silenced by the dominant culture. By placing such an emphasis on a particular identity, people are able to overcome some of the allergy that exists in the act of the dominant culture erasing the other. Instead of an other that is defined by the knowledge that the dominant self possesses, the other is now made up identities the other defines for itself. These identities stand on their own, and attempt to define themselves as selves, and not in subordination to the dominant self.

Yet even as the other disrupts the normative self by redefining its identities in its own terms, these new identities still create essentialized categories that place boundaries on the other. Even as feminists rally in the name of women against sexism, there is still a limit to what a “woman” is understood to, or can be. Most identity based studies, politics, theologies, have normative assumptions in one way or another for instance, some feminism does not talk about class/ability/sexuality... etc. Many only address the one layer of identity in the context of the rest of identity being normative or absent from the conversation. It’s like a science experiment where there is one variable and the rest of identity is assumed as a control of normativity. This silences anyone with in the identity category who does not also embody the normative ways of being in other identity categories.

There is also an attempt to complexify identity politics by moving beyond the idea that the other can be understood in single identity categories. Instead the other is seen as having multiple identities. Yet even if we have these multiple identities, each identity is “knowable” or essentailized, and therefore there is the same problems of being able to be possessed. Every time an identity is named someone is left out no matter how many multiple identities they claim, because there are limits to what someone can be to fit into any specific identity. The self/other is not made up solely of these identifications of particular categories, but these identities are the language the self/other has to talk about who it is. (Language being not just written/verbal, but cultural language as well). Even though there is an infinite possibility of ways of being in this world, the self/other still only has language to talk about some of them. And this language of identities limits the possible ways of expressing a self/other. For instance, if there is only a language to express squareness, and someone is a circle, they can only be a square without corners. So the circle cannot fit into the normative model of “square” and then becomes the non-square, or the pervert-square, or even the sinful-square, and in this definition of the circle by comparing it to a normative way of being, the circles is constructed as other, and in the same breath, the allergy to it is constructed.

The conceptualization of gender is another way in which the circle/square metaphor can be illustrated. In dominant western culture we have two options for gender – male and female, or masculine and feminine. It is only through these categories and this language that any combinations of gender that exist is understood. When someone presents any gender, it is read as masculine or feminine or a combination of both. There is nothing that is read as neither. Our language permeates existence, and there is no way to conceive of something outside of this totality. For people who feel that they are neither masculine nor feminine they still only have the language of male and female to express themselves. Alternatively, if that person feels wholly other, neither masculine/feminine – something that is outside of this totality or finite boundary of gender possibilities – that person will still be read by dominant culture through the lens and language of male/female gender.

The Infinite Encounter

The encounter with the other as an encounter with infinity is predicated on the idea that neither the self nor the other is capable of ever being fully known or understood. In this model, the self is pushed to move beyond naming or labeling the other. This ability to see past specific identities allows the self to acknowledge an underlying humanity in the other. Because the self sees the other not as an object, but as a subject with the potential to be many things, the self can get past the simplification and reduction of the other’s reality into something the self can posses and absorb.

James Cone, in his book, God of the Oppressed, sees the distinction between a finite or totalizing understanding of the other and the knowing that there is always more that we can never know (infinity), as the difference between ideology and theology. He suggests that theology brings with it an understanding that, “The Divine is more than what we think, perceive, and dream at any moment in time, and it’s this “more” or otherness in divine reality that makes it necessary for theology to recognize its conceptual limitations” (96). When theology becomes ideology, the recognition of conceptual limitations is no longer present. Instead there is an idea that there is finite knowledge that can be possessed about the divine. Cone goes on to say, “Any theology, therefore, that fails to accept the finitude of its categories, speaking instead as if it knows the whole truth and nothing but the truth, is guilty of blasphemy, that is, of an ideological distortion of divine reality”. This concept is applicable to not just the encounter with the divine, but also to the other. It says that there is a way of understanding the other that is not ideological, or in other words, that does not define a finite truth of the other. In Levinas’s concept of infinity, the self/other is always more than what we think, perceive, and dream at any moment in time. This “theological” thinking about the other should free the self from the ability to oppress the other through possessing or defining it.

In the book, I and Thou, Martin Buber speaks of the necessity of moving past the boundaries of language, because there is a truth that lies beneath the confines of language. He says, “And even as verbal speech may become word in the brain of man and then become sound in his throat, although both are merely refractions of the true event because in truth language does not reside in man but man stands in language and speaks out” (89). For Buber, to have an encounter that does not objectify the other (what he calls and I-Thou relationship), the self (or the I) must relate deeper to the other than the level of language and reach the level of connection of the soul (infinity).

Yet I question the ability to have an encounter without stagnating the experience and putting boundaries and limits on what is experienced in the encounter. To digest the encounter the self creates a “snap shot” of the other, limiting and categorizing it. When the self has an encounter and does not, cannot, see the infinitude of the other, it could potentially assume that what is experienced is all that there is. Any encounter between self and other happens in a specific location of time, space and culture. Because of this, the “snap-shot” of the other that the self creates, captures a finite picture of the other within the given location of the encounter. Once this finite “snap-shot” is created, the self is back in the position of being able to have an allergy to the other.

Because the self does not exist outside of time, space and culture, it has lenses, or filters that process information in ways that have been ingrained into the self. These lenses correlate to sets of knowledge assumed to be true about certain identities. Again using gender as an illustration, when a self encounters an other that it perceives to be female, not only does the self code the other as female, but the self also super imposes onto that “snap-shot” its understanding of what femaleness is. The self can then assume that this other is weak or bad at math or any other piece of knowledge that the self thinks it possess about the category of femaleness. Instead of seeing infinite possibilities for the way this other could be embodying gender, the self turns first to the language/categories it has for understanding the other, and then makes assumptions based on the knowledge it thinks it possess about this category.

If the self is able to enter into an encounter with the other and absolve itself of its lenses and see only the potential for infinite variety, the problem would not be solved. Even though I have said that language and categories of identity are problematic, because both the self and the other exist in specific locations, there is a truth to their experience of these identities. Because our culture does indeed operate with both the concept of finite identity categories, and the lenses that go along with them, the other experiences the reality of the allergy that goes along with this. To encounter an other in western culture, and to look past identity completely, is in some ways as destructive as limiting the other to certain categories. For someone to see me and not acknowledge my femaleness, they are also overlooking the truth to my experience as a woman in our culture. An equality of infinity does exist in a culture that operates out of an understanding of self/other that is based in finite categories, and has a finite amount of language.

Part Two:

The Finite-Infinity

As it has been shown, there are problems with both seeing the self/other as finite containers, and in an encounter with infinity. Finitude leads to the dominant self being able to possess the other, and infinity either leads back to finitude, or denies concrete realities of the other.

There is truth to the self/other that lies in both the concept of the finite container and the infinite encounter. In, I and Thou, Buber writes that humans are twofold. They have both the inclinations towards objectifying reality, and also seeing the infinite beingness that permeates all of reality underlying the particularity of things.

“The world is twofold for man in accordance with his twofold attitude.
He perceives the being that surrounds him, plain things and beings as things; he perceives what happens around him, plain processes and actions as processes, thing that consist of qualities and processes that consist of moments, things recorded in terms of spatial coordinates and processes recorded in terms of temporal coordinates, thing and processes that are bounded by other things and processes capable of being measured against and compared with those others – an ordered world, a detached world…'
…'Or man encounters being and becoming as what confronts him – always only one being and everything only as a being. What is there reveals itself to him in the occurrence, and what occurs there happens to him as a being. Nothing else is present but this one, but this one cosmically. Measure and comparison have fled” (82-82).

Though Buber seems to see these twofold attitudes as mutually exclusive, I think that they can and should co-exist within the self/other relationship.
Human beings have infinite possibilities of ways of being. Yet each person exists in a specific location with a specific set of languages and categories in which to express this infinitude of being. The self/other is at the same time both finite and infinite; the self/other should never be only one! The self must relate to the other as a subjects in a location, and see not only the pieces of who it is, its identities, personalities, bodies, but also see that that is not all that the other is. The self/other is both its categories, and more than its categories.

To further understand the make up of the self/other, I suggest that we see the development of being as a careful tension where it is both finite, but in that has an infinitude. Each self/other has a finite limit to what combination of possible ways of being it can manifest in its process of becoming. This finitude is one of personality, genetics, location and culture. It is also constructed in the bounds of language and categories. Within this finitude, there still lies the potential for infinite variation of combinations of identity that could be expressed at any moment of encounter. By simultaneously recognizing the finitude and infinity of the other within an encounter, the self allows for the truth of the lived bodily experience of the other, while affirming that this one projection of the other is only one specific set of combinations in a vast array of possible ways of being that the other could embody. Since neither the self nor other is stagnate, but always in the process of becoming, recognizing the finite-infinity allows the self to encounter the other both in the truth of its concreteness and in the truth of its malleable existence.

In terms of gender, since this is the on going illustration of my points, a self can encounter an other an read what the other’s perceived gender identity is, thereby affirming the lived embodied experience of the other in that gender category. And at the same time the self must recognize that beyond this category lies a much more complex other that does not adhere to the strict boundaries of the definition of that gender category. By doing this the self can circumvent its lenses in reference to the particular gender category that they perceive the other as belonging to. If a self were to encounter me as an other and see my femaleness, the self would recognize what that means in terms of the truth of my lived experience within my culture. Yet, the self should also know that because of the infinity each being contains, that my actual self does not wholly fit any essentialzed notion of femaleness.


I’m a Subject; You’re a Subject: embracing the finite-infinity

The allergy to the other is the perversion of the other and the projection of hegemony of the finite self onto the other. But, if the self can come to terms with its full capacity, its finite-infinity, it is less likely to project the things it doesn’t like about itself onto others.

The self must be aware of the parts of its identity that are constructed through the limitations of language and categories, and yet realize that theses constructed identities are also an integral part of the self is. The self must realize that it is not only these pieces; it is also the possibility of infinite variations in its process of becoming. The self must be able to see itself as a subject in order to see the other as a subject. As long as the self turns itself in to an object, rejecting its finite-infinity and only seeing its finiteness, it will be unable to embrace the finite-infinity of the other.
I want to go back to Levinas’s notion of the responsibility to the other because of the self’s reliance on the encounter with the other to be a self. In the finite-infinity model I suggested, there is a similar dynamic. Because the self/other contains infinite variations, a self on its own could never fully recognize the other, nor itself. Also, the self carries with it the lenses that come from the self’s location. The self is usually unaware of these lenses. If the self is to ever be able to understand its own constructed identities, it needs the encounter with the other to uncover its lenses and constructions. The self that tries to see itself as a subject solely based on self-reflection, will not be able to truly reach this goal. By relying solely on self-reflection, a self returns to privileging its own knowledge over the truth of the other. The self has a responsibility to the other to allow the other’s being to illuminate the full capacity of the self. This illumination ca bringing awareness to the self of places in which the self is not allowing itself to be a subject, and is instead holding on to the truth of categories without seeing the constructed limitations of these categories.

To make this clearer I offer this concrete example. A few years ago I was at a workshop on gender variation and transgender issues. A woman in the workshop was complaining about someone she worked with. This person did not have a stagnant or easily definable gender presentation. The woman felt it was too hard to interact with this person because she did not know what pronouns to use, or what bathroom the person should go into. She felt this person should just pick one gender and stick to it so that her life at work would be easier. In this situation the woman was the role of the self that refused to see the limitations of her constructed notions of gender. The gender variant co-worker was the other. This other was offering to the self a way in which to realize the infinitude of gender possibilities that underlies our cultures constructed norms. There was the potential for the self to become more fully embracing of her finite-infinity with the understanding that gender could be more fluid, and the places in which her female femininity fell short of the normative structures of femaleness, were not places to hide from, or try to fix or correct. In the book, Trans Liberation, Leslie Feinberg writes about the potential for growth and understanding for all people, through an expanded understanding of gender. “All your life you’ve heard such dogma about what it means to be a ‘real’ woman or a ‘real’ man. And chances are you’ve choked on some of it. You’ve balked at the idea that being a woman means having to be thin as a rail, emotionally nurturing, and an airhead when it comes to balancing her checkbook. You know in your guts that being a man has nothing to do with rippling muscles, innate courage, or knowing hot to handle a chain saw…'Yet these images have been drilled into us through popular culture and education over the years” (3). Feinberg goes on to say, “Our struggle [trans liberation] will also help expose some of the harmful myths about what it means to be a woman or a man that have compartmentalized and distorted your life, as well as mine. Trans liberation has meaning for you – no matter how you define or express your sex or your gender”(5).

The self must be aware of the truth of societal constructs, and also the limitations they bring. By acknowledging these limitations and moving past them, the self can become more fully whole, embodying more of its potential within its finite-infinity. And the self has to be in encounters with the other to be able to realize the constructs that the self holds as truth, that are actually deconstructable.

Conclusion
Hopefully this paper has shown that the self/other can be both finite and infinite in the way that it is understood. Being either finite or infinite is problematic on its own, yet by combining the concepts of finitude and infinity, a more complete self/other can be understood. The finite-infinity of the self/other allows each to have its particularities recognized and affirmed while not allowing the particularities to be the end point in understanding. For the self to encounter the other as this finite-infinity, both the self and the other need to be subjects. For a self to be a subject it must understand and embrace the full capacity of itself. To do that the self must also understand that the categories it uses to define itself, though they have truth in the lived experience, are constructed and can be deconstructed to create for a more full potential of embodying its infinity. The self must be in encounters with the other to be able to recognize the pieces of identity the self takes to be immutable truth. With the knowledge that the self gains in the encounter with the other, if the self is actively engaging the other as a subject, the self will be able to deconstruct some of its own boundaries, allowing itself to move towards a more whole self. The more whole the self is, the less allergy there is in each encounter, which should leader to a healthier relationship between the self and the other.

A sermon for you on this Sunday morning

Stuck Between a Rock and a Lazy-boy

There is a concept I learned about in a political science class in college, cognitive dissonance. We were talking about it in the context of making political decisions, leaders making decisions that seemed to go against apparent logic. They made decisions that were not for the good of the nation, or even worse, going to cause destruction, yet they seemed to think they were doing good.

The dictionary defines cognitive dissonance as simultaneously held incongruous beliefs and attitudes such as a fondness for smoking and a belief that it is harmful. The idea of cognitive dissonance was first proposed by the psychologist Leon Festinger in 1956, and is much more complex than this simple dictionary definition. But I’d like to hold onto an idea it brought up for me. That is, we have a tendency don’t we, to do things because they are easy, even if they aren’t really good for us, like not quitting smoking, when we know the damage it causes us. We simultaneously hold incongruous beliefs and attitudes, and opt for the one that is easy.

We do other things too, like staying in a job we don’t like, because it’s easier than facing quitting and finding a new job, we stay in relationships that aren’t working, because in someway it seems easier than being alone, we eat fast food, because it’s easier than making a nutritious meal at home, we cut corners, we spend 15 minutes circling the parking lot looking for a space by the door, when we could have just parked in that open spot only a few yards further away, we wait for the crowded elevator when the stairs really would have been faster.

And what about in our communities? This isn’t something we just do on a personal level. We shop at Wal-mart because everything is there under one roof, and is more convinient than going to locally owned businesses for the things we need. We don’t talk with our neighbors and our children, because we’d rather watch the new episode of the Sopranos. We skip out on coffee hour, or small group ministries, because there just doesn’t seem to be time for them. How many times have we walked down the street and avoided the eyes of someone asking for change, so that we didn’t have to face the realities of poverty. Have we overlooked other problems here in our community, because it is easier to pretend that everything is ok? Isn’t it easier sometimes to not hear the voices that cry out for help?

This thing that I bring up this morning, isn’t just about taking the easy road. It is of a theological nature. What do we think is the “good”?

We get a lot of messages all the time about what is “good”. Especially in our society we are told that beauty, money, status, these are all things that are good. Living “the easy life”. But does the easy life really reflect a good life?

Author Tennessee Jones writes, “For an inner life to be fulfilling, one has to be able to take on the richness of pain, joy, love and struggle, and understand that the truest things are those that are always in the process of becoming. The answer is both prophetic and very simple. It is through struggle that we find ourselves.”

It is through struggle that we find ourselves. Through struggle…' It is not through sitting back and letting life happen, it is not through taking the easy road, because to do other wise seems too hard.

Our faith affirms this doesn’t it? We as Unitarian Universalists believe in the search for truth and meaning. The search. Not the simple acceptance of the answers that those who came before us have laid out. We don’t come to church each Sunday to be given “the answers”. Our faith holds dear an idea of struggle, of doing the hard work to find the truth, the hard work that is the good.

The thing is, we do think we are happy doing the easy things sometimes. We think that what we are after is happiness, the life of ease, but are we really happy? Are we really doing what is good?

I want to tell you a story. It is the story of a young girl named Liza and her grandmother who she loved very much. Each weekend Liza would walk the 5 blocks to her grandmother’s house and sit by her reclining chair and tell her about her week. She would tell her Grammy, as she called her, about kids at school, what games she played, what snacks she ate, what people brought for show and tell. Her Grammy would smile and listen closely and ask questions. Then Liza would ask her Grammy what she did that week. Every time it was the same, “well Liza dear, you know Grammy’s old. It’s too hard for me to get up out of this comfortable chair.” A few months went by, with the same pleasant visits, Liza telling her stories, and Grammy sitting there and listening, with no story of her own to share. One rainy afternoon, Grammy was walking down the stair of her house to get her news paper, when she slipped and fell, breaking her hip. One day while Liza was visiting her at the hospital she overheard Grammy talking to her dad. “you know,” her Grammy said, “the doctors tell me if I had been in better health, gotten more exercise, gone out once in a while, I would be stronger to recover from my fall. It was just that that old recliner was so darn comfortable, and it seemed like too much trouble to get up and do anything.”

Liza was sad and went to her Grammy to ask if she could help. “Well honey, your Grammy’s not doing well,” she said, “but God has his plans for me, and I don’t think there’s much I can do now.” Liza, having never gone to church before because her parents didn’t attend, didn’t really have much of an understanding of God. She has heard people talk about God before, and never had a clear picture of what they meant. But something in her told her that if there was something called God, it wouldn’t want her Grammy to be hurt. “But Grammy,” Liza said, “I don’t think God wants you to be hurt.” Grammy smiled, as tears came to her eyes. She was overwhelmed, in that moment, with the innocence and hope that shone on Liza’s face. She saw her little granddaughter as an angel. The first sign from God she had seen in a long time.

And with the inspiration and love from Liza, Grammy eventually did recover from her fall.

Sometimes we are stuck, not between a rock and a hard place, but a rock and a lazy boy. Something that is hard, and something that is easy. And often we need to find a way to do the things that are hard, because they are the things that are good for us.

Tennessee Jones writes about “gospel moments”. I want to pause here for a moment and say something about this word “gospel”. Going again to the dictionary, it is defined as “good news” and denotes (1) "the welcome intelligence of salvation to humankind as preached by God and God’s followers”. So Jones is writing about these “gospel moments”, moments in which the “good news” makes itself present. The times when we can see angels, or hear the voice of God, or simply be inspired, to get up and do something. He says, “some part of me has always been trying to figure out what gospel means. It was the gospel feeling I first started trying to write about, and it was the gospel feeling that enabled me to come down off the mountain. I said I’d do everything in my life for those little bits of transcendence, and those are what I’d make my life be about. Dedication to those moments is the only thing that will save you from wasting your life, or ending up with one you regret. They have to be your guiding light.” He goes on to say, “I am trying to figure out what I would call the prophecy of everyday. We have to hope that there is something better than what we have always known. Our souls must be alive in order for our bodies and minds to do the work”

Our souls must be alive in order for our bodies and minds to do the work.

So what is it that makes our souls alive? Where do we find “gospel moments” where do we hear the good news? What is it that speaks to us in god’s words, and when do we see the faces of angels, or maybe, just maybe when is it that we find inspiration to get up and do the hard things. What makes our souls alive so that our bodies and minds can do the work?

For some of us it might be prayer. For some it might be meditation. It could be art or music or poetry a quiet walk in the woods. It might be the laughter of our children, or the warm hug of a friend. These things, they can all be gospel moments. Times when the intelligence of salvation is spoken to us. We need to find these moments, recognize them and hold them close.

There is something else that moves us out of those easy places. As I was writing this sermon, I got to thinking about the time before I came to seminary. Had graduated from college and was living with my parents. It was an easy life. I had a job I enjoyed, I had a roof over my head, food on my plate, cable television, it was an easy life. But I wasn’t growing. I was ignoring my call. I was sitting back, I was taking the easy road. The idea of uprooting my life, leaving my family and friends and a place I had called home my since birth, it seemed too hard. Going somewhere I’d never been before. Taking the first steps toward the rest of my life…' it was easier to stay where I was.

There have been times in my life where I have found those beautiful gospel moments that move me to struggle to do the good. And I’d like to tell you that I was moved by some divine inspiration to get up and move across the country and attend Starr King. But it wasn’t really like that. What happened was that the easy went from being easy to being too hard. And the thing that was hard, well it became necessary. I wasn’t happy. It was as if my soul had died. There was not much for me in that life (except cable tv), no purpose, no process of becoming. And I said this wasn’t divine inspiration, but God has many ways of talking to us, of making us listen. Sure it wasn’t peaceful and poetic, full of the joyful spark of God, but the moments where the easy becomes to hard, these moments can be gospel moments too. The good news was that the life that was so easy had reached a breaking point, and I was free then to do what was good, what was hard. These breaking points can be moments when our soul comes to life.

Though I use the metaphor of the rock and the lazy boy, I want to acknowledge that these can look quite different for some of us. I’m sure for some of you out there, that the rock, or the hard stuff, is what seems easier. People who would rather just keeping working, keeping pushing themselves, because it’s easier than sitting down and breathing. We need to sit down and breathe sometimes too.

I’m not standing up here telling you something new. We all know that at some point when we were stuck between a rock and a lazy boy, that we chose the lazy boy. We are aware of those moments when we hold seemingly incongruous beliefs and attitudes. But I am up here to remind you to pay attention to those times, and why we are making the decisions we do. What is the good really?

Like Liza’s Grammy in the story, we need to do the little things that seem to take us out of our comfort zone, so that we stay strong for when we will inevitably need that strength. We need to practice talking to each other in honest ways, so that when there is a problem it isn’t so hard to talk about it. What if everyday we did one thing that challenged us, that was hard, but good. What if we got up out of that lazy boy and pushed back the rock that seems to be in our way? We need to find those things that inspire us to get up and get into it, whatever that “it” is for each of us.

When we take the easy way out, we don’t take care of ourselves, we avoid getting to know each other, we stop working for justice, we don’t hear the voice of God, we let our souls die. As we do the things that are hard, we take care of ourselves, we foster and build community; we take care of things before they get worse. As we struggle, we are also searching for truth and meaning, instead of accepting what lay before us without question. We grow as spiritual beings, we find ourselves, we hear the good news.

Maybe hearing this sermon isn’t easy. Maybe just listening and hearing these word can be the challenging thing you do today. Perhaps knowing that you part of a congregation that shares a common fellowship who support you and are with you in your struggle to do what is good, perhaps knowing that you have peers around you that share a common devotion to searching for those gospel moments, those bits of inspiration that keeps your soul alive, can be your motivation today.

For an inner life to be fulfilling, one has to be able to take on the richness of pain, joy, love and struggle. Our souls must be alive in order for our bodies and minds to do the work. Let us find the inspiration to get unstuck, let’s let God in, let’s us hear the good news, however it comes to us so that our souls can be alive! So that we can do what is good! What is hard, but ultimately is good! Listen, can you hear it?
Amen.

the road comes to an end.

well folks I am back. *takes a deep breath* It has been quite some time and quite an amazing time.

I will be moving to the mission on the 31st.

I will be starting school soon.

I want to learn how to speak Hungarian. If you know of anywhere I should do this let me know.

I need to find a job.

I need to figure out student loan crap.

I need to take a shower and go to bed... and that's what I am going to do.

call me. we'll do lunch or something.

a cavity for each tooth, or at least it seems that way.

Dentist Mix

Serenade - Arab Strap
Displaced - Azure Ray
We're the same - Azure ray
Love and some verses - Iron & Wine
All rooms cable a/c free coffee - the extra glenns
sweet jane - Coyboy Junkies
Carefree - Colecovision
the baddest - Jessy moss
In the Sun - Joseph Arthur
My heart's reflection - Yo La Tengo
paint's peeling - rilo kiley
fast girl - Sarge
Memories- The Extra Glenns
Sweetly - Susan Howe
Picutres of Houses - tilly and the wall

I started the process of getting my teeth repaired today. just one filling to see how I could handle it. I didn't run. I stayed in the chair. I have a bunch more to get done in two weeks, and then there's the tooth I'm pretty sure they are going to pull out.