where is persistence

This has been an amazing week. Went to a lecture celebrating Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr which was outstanding. The lecture hall was filled - overflow crowd went to watch a live feed in another room, I am so hopeful for our future with all those young people joyfully carrying on King's legacy and work, especially his work against poverty and for social justice. Then on Tuesday watched the inauguration with hundreds of college students and grad students - again, a joyous and hope-filled occasion for our country.

Gathering with other people in lecture halls, listening to speeches, crying together, laughing together - these are bodily ways of continuing to walk together toward God's vision for all humanity. As I listened to the benediction at the inauguration, I saw a bit of the spirituality of persistence that has been in my thoughts lately. Pastors and persons of faith have not worked as individuals but as gathered people of faith - sometimes in front page ways and for many years now in quiet ways that don't make the news. Persistence can be a speech that echoes through a crowd of millions down through the years - but I think most of the time persistence is a quiet movement, a bodily experience.

Spirit and body, or mind and body, cannot be separated in a spirituality of persistence. To carry on in spite of.... to keep walking even when you are exhausted... to keep praying on your knees in spite of all evidence to the contrary... to reach out and hold another person's hand when you are too weak to carry on....

"To a feminist theologian the splitting of our bodies from our spirits, minds, or emotions simply does not make sense. I don't know where the spirit resides other than in my body. What happens in my belly is not unconnected to my brain. I am not advocating that one collapse different aspects of the human person into an amorphous jelly, or saying that my longing to be held is exactly the same as my ability to explain an isosceles triangle. What I do reject is a hierarchy that gives more importance and therefore more power to certain qualities of being human over others, and does so in terms of gender." Denise Ackermann, pg 78, After the Locusts

Ackermann says it well - spirit and body are not one undifferentiated substance, but my understanding and experience of spirit is mediated through my understanding (my brain) and my experience (my body). To persist in following the journey of my questions, to persist in my journey of prayer, to persist in faith when the way is dark and uncertain, this spirituality is what I have lived and what has carried me thus far.

persistence

This morning a blue jay greeted me, coming up to the feeder as I looked out the window at the day. Jays don't often come up to my feeders, so this was a treat.

Lately I've been thinking quite a lot about persistence. Perhaps it's because I've got a stubborn streak, or perhaps it's because my mother often told me that I didn't have "stick-to-it-ivness" - no matter what the cause, I am rather persistent now.

More than one of my friends have in recent days written to me about their spiritual struggles. They are having difficulty perceiving God, feeling abandoned to muddle through on their own. Different situations, but each difficult.

I hope they are each able to hang on, to pray persistently through the darkness. I've been thinking about different people from scripture who persisted through the darkness, those who clung to their faith. Haven't had time yet to work through scripture to find them, but hope to blog about this again soon. The spirituality of persistence seems to be an important theme.

Until then, I'll keep watching the feeder and the birds who visit through these cold winter months, and hope the robins come back soon.

twilight, dawn and all that kind of stuff

I have a confession. I don't like Twilight.

Both girls have read the series, Mary Grace is a big fan. James even read Twilight (and I'm not going to question why an adult male would want to read a book with a 17 year old girl as narrator). We went to see the movie as a family. It was entertaining enough.

However...

James left the novel for me to read, so I've been giving it a try. I don't like it. Never mind that this puts me clearly in the minority opinion of this series. Never mind that I can't actually tell the family I don't like it. I simply do not like this book.

I expected the novel to be better than the film, but it hasn't captured my attention. I'm also reading the Harry Potter series for the first time, after having watched the movies with the family as well. I like that series, so it's not fantasy or young adult fiction that I'm opposed to - it's the melodramatic, overstated restrained passions, the delicate fainting female lead, the perfection of the men, the "I'm not good enough" routines.... I can't even write coherently about it, it bothers me so much.

This harks back several years ago, when I took a course in European History from 1815 to 1914, and we read Frankenstein, Dracula and Germinal. I enjoyed Germinal. Hated Frankenstein and Dracula. The lead character in Frankenstein drove me crazy - make a decision and stick with it, stop complaining and moaning about everything! In Dracula, the limp, weak women bothered me no end. Why did all the male characters resist the vampire, but none of the women could?

So here we are, 2009 and another woman falls weakly for the "dazzling" so-called perfection of her male hero. ~sigh~ I sure hope I can find books with smart, decisive, independent women as lead characters and suggest that the girls give those books a try.

Next week I'm back to academic reading, have put in my book orders and they've started to arrive. Twilight and Mr. Potter will have to wait for another day.

It's that time again

It's time to pack up the Christmas decorations. Today I took down the Epiphany star we have hanging out on our balcony. Mary Grace made it from a Martha Stewart pattern, it's light stars strung together, so pretty.

I have to confess that I'm ready for Christmas to be done. I like having all my decorations out, the old familiar story books, each of the ornaments that hold cherished memories of family and friends. Memory and nostalgia are nice, but there comes a day when it's time to shift focus and look toward the new year.

That day is today. Celia has been working on a major room re-organization project for the girls. I've been working on calendars and scheduling issues. It feels good to be ready for whatever comes next.

In late 2007 I started the habit of kneeling to pray every evening. That habit has given me strength and courage to face the challenges placed in my path. I've been thinking about my blog title, and it's really true - I didn't plan to be here, in this place, in these circumstances... but I do like it, and with the grace of God, I'll make it through another year.

Enough with philosophical mullings, it's time to pack up another box.