slugg-ed

yesterday, when i walked out the door of my apartment, i saw a slug, spotted yellow and brown, on the concrete; dried out from the morning sun, guts smashed out the back - picked at by some marauding bird-

i wanted to pour water on it and say: i know how you feel.

a moment in expectation

this morning i wanted to make my coffee with cream and sugar

as if to give the day a heads up that i wanted it to be

rich

but i waited -

and instead of checking my email

or the Times

or my appearance in the mirror,

i went outside

where

the birds greeted me

the air pricked a chill

and a brown leaf stuck to the back of my heel as i walked along the sidewalk still wet with

the morning's dew

or yesterday's rain.

i (don't) feel like chicken tonight

dear all,

something i want to share from my sustainable agriculture class on the treatment of factory farm chickens:

http://www.chickenindustry.com/cfi/videogallery/

i am usually wary of seemingly anti-meat promotions that "tug on the heartstrings" but the sort of treatment towards chickens documented undercover in this film is inhumane and wrong. for example, the film brings up points that chickens are bred now to grow so fast (45 days) that the organs cannot keep up and the chickens die from congestive heart failure. chickens (and chickens for eggs, cattle, hogs, etc.) should not suffer in this manner; it is disrespectful to their existence and, i feel, not a biblical way to treat our fellow creatures.

however, i must say that i disagree with the end of the film promoting only vegetarian options. i am a vegetarian, but buying processed veggie foods is not really 100% great either, for your health (salt, etc) or the environment (transport, packaging, etc). i still feel at this point that killing an animal for meat is not morally wrong in and of itself, as long as it is done humanely and the animal is raised with respect (whether we should eat meat at all is another discussion).

bottom line from me: be mindful about what you eat and from where it comes. if you are in athens, ohio, we are very fortunate to have a great farmers' market that offers not only locally raised (some certified organic) veggies, but also locally raised (sometimes certified organic) meats and eggs. talk to the farmers selling the products you buy, either veggie or not, and think about this before you put the food on the plate.

if you live where locally raised products are not as readily available, there still might be alternatives. the first would be to cut down on meat consumption in general, and then, since we are talking about chicken here, many more stores are carrying "free range" and/or "organic" eggs and meats. as i learned today, the "free range" label is not regulated and could potentially mean several things, but generally, it suggests that the chickens have about 12 square feet each to roam. The USDA Organic seal is regulated. http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/Consumers/brochure.html

some food for thought.

wasting time?

i don't know what qualifies as wasting time anymore. i just came back from chatting on a porch with some good friends. the two girls, including me, were drinking water. the two guys were drinking beer. all of us were just chatting. so why did the guys classify their actions as "wasting an afternoon"? does the same go for leah and me?

earlier today, i woke up, worried a bit, got ready, went to the farmers' market and did some grocery shopping, put groceries away, helped out with earth day, heard a speaker, and then hung out with friends, oh yea, and there was probably some daydreaming in there.

which of the above constiute wasting time? why do we even have this phrase in our culture, what does it say about what we value?

friday morning threads

yesterady i stopped by the htc commons room here on campus to chat with students about the viriginia tech shootings. there were about five students there, mostly first-years.

some important questions emerged during the course of our 40 minute conversation. How has the press handled this crisis, what is the media's role in giving/not giving the public information about these sort of events? What is the value, role of mental health services in our society? What determines wheather a person will "crack" like this young man did? Will there be a backlash against Southeast Asian community in this country? How will the nature of campus security change after this event? What is our reponsibility as studnets and faculty to report indiviudals with "red flag" behavior? What does an event say about the US? Or does it say anything particular to the US? Why are these 33 students given more coverage than the hundreds of soldiers/civilians killed weekly in Iraq? What does it mean when campus police crews are given SWAT training? Are we always living in a sort of undefined war zone?

But perhaps the most saddening one for me was posed by Dr. St. John: what does the coverage of this event say about the nature of grief in our society?

Is our "moment" of silence really 60 seconds?

Less than 24 hours after the shooting, before many of the victims were buried, the president of VT lead the commencement service. Less than two hours after the news of the shooting broke, as one student mentioned, there was already a debate on the airwaves about the need for gun control. Within an hour of the shooting, CNN had found and purchased cell phone video footage from a VT grad student and posted it on CNN.com.

I believe that a large part of it is that information has become a substitute for emotional outpouring in our society. We, in our-hyperactive need for production of....something.... stick ourselves into a constant feed of informationinformationinformatoninformationinformationinformationinformationinformationinformation to satiate the desire to feel, and most importantly, to feel as a community, with one another.

There are better examples. as I was reflecting on this last night with my housemates, my wonderful friend Margo mentioned that in the Jewish tradition, there is a process to grieving, all of which involve someone being with someone else. The first year of mourning is broken down in five distinct phases:
The time between death and burial
The three days that follow, when the family is given space to grieve privately
Shiva, a weeklong shared mourning with family, friends, and community members
Shloshim (which includes the shiva), a 30-day period after the burial, in which the bereaved person eases back into life
Yahrzeit, the commemoration of the first anniversary of death, at which time the headstone is placed, and things return to normal, relatively speaking

Professor st. John was mentioning a society in crete (i have to check on this) where two days after a tragic event were dedicated for the community to wail, mourn, cry out. There are vigils, like the one ou had.

and, then there are blogs.

sure, our information age brings with it wonderful connecting tools. but it also, i think, puts us at a grave danger of alienating the head from the hearts, so to speak, and ignoring the heart.

running at night

i love running at night. even in the winter. there is something about moving under the cover of darkeness, under the stars that is both mysterious and liberating all at the same time.

there are some places on the bikepath where i have run many, many evenings; most, under the stress of some sort of writing deadline so that the grass literally holds words and phrases for me from these past escapes until i come back to visit them the next time. i guess these are an essay in and of themselves.

my favorite paths are the rougher grassy banks a bit farther from campus. i've also had lots of coversations with god in these places, asking him/her a variety of things, most of them preceeded by shouting or help! or what!!? other sorts of frusterated utterances. but whenever i go back and stop, breath, unplugg my ipod if i have it on, and listen, and yes, look at the stars, i feel that these conversations are not one way. it is good to remember to talk about thanks, to talk about joy, to talk about how something small went right that in the day.

writing all this makes me think about the poet mary oliver. somehow, i've just discovered her through a women and worship class i'm auditing at ou. anyway, she's good to slow yourself down and say thank you. i encouarge everyone to check out her why i wake early collection of poetry.

i'll leave you with one of them:



Bone
1.
Understand, I am always trying to figure outwhat the soul is,and where hidden,and what shape –
and so, last week,when I found on the beachthe ear boneof a pilot whale that may have died
hundreds of years ago, I though tmaybe I was closeto discovering something –for the ear bone
2.
is the portion that lasts longest in any of us, man or whale; shapedlike a squat spoon with a pink scoop where
once, in the lively swimmer’s head,it joined its two sistersin the house of hearing,it was only
two inches long –and thought: the soulmight be like this –so hard, so necessary –
3.
yet almost nothing.Beside methe gray seawas opening and shutting its wave-doors,
unfolding over and overits time-ridiculing roar;I looked but I couldn’t see anythingthrough its dark-knit glare;
yet don’t we all know, the golden sandi s there at the bottom,though our eyes have never seen it,nor can our hands ever catch it
4.
lest we would sift it down into fractions, and facts –certainties –and what the soul is, also
I believe I will never quite know.Though I play at the edges of knowing,truly I know our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving,which is the way I walked on ,softly,through the pale-pink morning light.
~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early, 2004)

rainbows and coal

a little story....

uncupping her hand, slowly, as if to keep something alive and jumping (like a toad), in, she waits for the flashes of pink and green and blue and purple to appear magically in the cold black stone as they had in her father’s callused palms just moments ago. seeing nothing but gray, she closes her hand again and squinting her eyes shut, shakes up the stone, thinking maybe the colors are playing a game with her – hiding. this time, she unfolds her fingers quickly and down, as if she were releasing a butterfly, but still, sees only the shiny gray and black of the stone.

worried, she tugs at the right braid of her pigtail and looks over at her father, sitting in a chair and leaning back towards the kitchen window, a bemused look about his face.

“come here, hoot, and let me show you something.” grasping her small forearm gently with his thumb and two fingers, he draws back the blinds and guides her still-open palms to the beam of mid-morning light filtered through the trees in the backyard. tilting her hands ever-so-slightly, she jumps as the reds and blues begin skirt across the surface and looks over at her father.

“the guys call it peacock coal because it looks like the feathers in a peacock’s tail.” yes, she knows the peacock, has read about it in one of her reading assignments: the bird with the funny black comb on his head who stole all the colors from the female. she had told her teacher that she didn’t think that was fair. “some oil or something gets on there and makes it shiny like that. it’s pretty rare.”

she turns the coal around and round in her palm until little sparkles appear on her skin and in the rivulets of sweat, building into faint, jeweled creases.

“thank you, daddy,” she whispers and kisses him on the temple behind his eye before she runs off to her room to place the coal on her shelf of treasures above her bed, between to her three-year-old sugar easter egg from the organist at their church and her t-ball trophy.

several times, even on rainy days, she would pick up the piece of coal, unhinging her palms in prayer trying to find her father’s rainbow in the slant of light from the bent slat of her bedroom blind.

(Back to) Soweto

Well, it's been a long time...

But here is a glimpse of my first trip to Soweto (SOuth WEst TOwnship) in South Africa.

“We can turn left up here,” said Dimpho, pointing towards a gravelish-looking road through a field that seemed either to be under destruction or abandoned construction. “Here?” I ask, uncertainly, looking at the ruts in the mud and smoke blowing across the field and the small group of people standing by. Soweto was not really the place I wanted to have a flat tire. Or spend the night.

“Yes, we can turn right here, yes, you are ok, and stay close to the left side that way we are out of the way, you know, if the bakkies want to come through.”

Dimpho was taking me through Soweto that afternoon, after I met her for the first time that morning about thirty minutes later than I was supposed to meet her because I, in my fear and general driving paranoia, could not find the parking lot for Carlton Center (the highest building in the Central Business District) in the CBD and because I was afraid to look at the road map for more than thirty seconds at the robot and to look, really, for more than thirty seconds for anyone and anywhere. So in my fear and general paranoia, I texted her for the third time, admitting, am lost : (, arranging to meet, instead, at the Market Theater complex: a five minute drive for me at that point and a twenty minute walk for her. And after chatting nervously with the car guard (well, a hozzit?, and molo and a very American attempt to talk about the sunshine) and anxiously kicking my right foot under a table in an outdoor café drinking tonic water, she had come, smiling and breathless and sweat dripping down her brow, and hugged me as if I were her sister, or at least her second cousin on her mother’s side.

Sitting down at a picnic table under a nearly- blooming jacaranda tree, I ordered a glass of mango juice and she, a glass of orange juice. And in the same breath, she began excitedly telling me about the meeting from which she had just come where the man was going to give her a several thousand rand loan towards her current project to build a bed in breakfast in Soweto. Our juices came: thought the cool velvety sweetness, we shared with each other about school, our families, being single, surviving Jozi, and why to keep going. “You know

And with that, I drove with her to Soweto.

Taking in my interest in coal mining, our first stop was in this field with two giant cooling towers, one painted brightly with people and trains, and the other, a giant advertisement for First National Bank. Known as the Orlando Park Towers, the two stacks were cooling towers for the Eskom station, providing electricity for Johannesburg’s white, wealthy northern suburbs. “And can you guess where all the pollution went?” Dimpho starts, angrily, sarcastically, putting her hands in her pants pockets and walking away, as I lock up the car and walk to meet her field by the towers.

Turning 180 degrees, from the towers towards the rows of Soweto settlements, I become slightly nauseated with a sharp smell of rotten eggs, garbage, smoke, and some other unidentifiable noxious odor blowing towards us with the wind. A couple of younger males in trousers and blue shirts walk by the road holding plastic bags; a few more bags are caught in the disturbed dirt behind us; one breaks free and blows up above me with the next trail of wind.

As I catch up to her in the field, Dimpho asks me if I recognize any of the figures painted on the mural, pointing specifically to a female near the top of the tower. I study it for awhile, and guess Miriam Makeba, about the only South African female musician I know besides Brenda Fassie. Dimpho laughs a little and asks how I know Miriam Makeba.

I tell her I have some of her music, and respond, rather defensively, “We isn’t she like, a famous South African musician? I mean, aren’t you supposed to know her? I wanted my iTunes purchases to count for something…

“Yes, yes, you are right. So is that what you think we do here in South Africa, dance around and listen to Miriam Makeba?” She is still laughing as I try to give her a serious response, then eventually corrects me, laughing, by telling me that the woman with the blue headdress is Yvone Chaka Chaka, a native Sowetan. Embarrassingly, I have to ask her to repeat it three times, and then, even though I don’t quite know why, have a good laugh at myself with her.

She points out a few other people, Nelson Mandela, soccer great, Jomo Somo, stopping a few more times quiz me on more of the brightly colored figures (all of which I fail). In addition to famous people, portraits of the yellow train running through Soweto and into the city, music stands, soccer balls, and street scenes fill up the space of the tower.

Looking beyond the right pictorial tower, I ask her what sort of building project is in the works. She grows serious, looks me in the eye, and shakes her head, kicking at a clod of grass, stirring up the dust.

”Yes, yes, about that one. That used to be the power station, you know, and now they want to turn it into another big shopping mall.” Because, you see, for them, that is the sign of progress – for them that is development. But this is not our sort of development, this is Western Development. Does this help my people here? I mean, yes, they say it will create jobs, sure, but what kind of jobs? The kind where you stand all day long and get nothing because they can always replace you with someone else if you want more rand or are sick or something, you see what I’m saying? Is this progress?

Her voice grows more animated. “I mean, sure it is fine to go shopping for whatever, but these are not goods from Johannesburg or even all from South Africa. How is this helping our economy here? Is this really what people want? I mean, we already have the Southgate (shopping mall), and that’s fine, people were excited about that because it will bring development, bring jobs. Do you think this is what people want?

I’m silent for awhile, thinking about the plastic bags in the dirt and the lady who tries to sell me a Sowetan every day as I leave Wits. “No, but maybe that’s only because it’s not what I want. I don’t like to shop too much, but I feel like I can’t say to people they shouldn’t want that.

She nods her head. “Yes, but you see what I mean, this is what people want. They want to spend their money in malls buying clothing that looks like, excuse me, what the girls in America wear. I mean, is this what we fought for, you know? Is this what the kids in June 1976 marched in the streets for…for this? For shopping malls? Is this what all these people on the mural I just told you about wanted? Is this our freedom? Is this helping my people?

“No. It’s apartheid again, keeping us in this Western market system. Why shouldn’t we be selling our own goods to the world, selling something that when you come here, you see something South African, something different that you can’t find anywhere else. My people, we should be offering goods that are unique, something of ourselves.”

I can only nod in agreement with her, offering here and there small bits of my own frustration with my culture of consumerism. But otherwise, I am silent.

“This is why I want to have my bed and breakfast, to have a place where people, local people, can come out and sell their crafts and have decent jobs, to come out and offer something unique, not just –malls.”

For the first time in ten minutes, I notice that she breathes.

Looking back again at the site of the future development, she shakes her head and turns back to face me. “I’m sorry. Maybe you think I am too much? Am I too much? I just think…

“No, not at all, I say quietly,” digging my toe into an exposed patch of red dirt. And we both turn our backs on the power station, the towers, facing full-on the largest black township in South Africa, in the mid-day sun, smoke blowing, and walk, heads down, back towards my car.

This picture belongs in another scene, but whatever. Dimpho is standing with me here in the top of the Regina Mundi Church where a great deal of the planning/meetings (and, unfortunately, shootings) took place during the struggle.