"Religulous"

Religion. Ridiculous. It's actually the title of a real movie (that I haven't seen - yet) out in some theaters. I saw an interview with Bill Maher, the comedian star, on the Daily Show (DS) a few weeks ago, and I've been thinking about it ever since. The movie is more or less a religious satire, probing peoples' certainty about their own religions.

I was a little put off when the DS interview began, thinking, "How can you just go turn religion into a word and movie called ridiculous?!" Followed shortly by - "Hmm, but to be honest, I do agree that religion/faith can seem fairly absurd, if you step back and look from outside ."

Just as I was writing off Maher as a cocky and wealthy not-quite-athiest, he won me over with what I thought was a pretty profound statement. Halfway through, he said "I understand that not having faith is a luxury of a good life. If you're in prison and a guy says "all I have is Jesus," I get that." I realized that as I find myself sorting through aspects of my own faith this fall, it is only because my life is luxurious and good.

Fast forward. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, a one-year-old friend of ours had a severe seizure out of nowhere, and he spent the most of the weekend in ICU. At the end of the holiday weekend, I watched a TV movie (24) about young boys being conscripted into rebel militias in Africa. On a personal scale, and on a big-picture global scale, both of those situations gave me an in-your-face reminder of how life is not always so good.

Religion (or better put, faith?) may be ridiculous. Until we realize that we need it. When I need someone bigger than the world to fix the injustices of nations. When I needed peace and comfort as I watched my mother come to the end of her earthly life. When I cry out for healing for a friend or their child.

I don't have a catchy closing thought, because there are plenty of things on this topic that are still very fuzzy to me. I'll just observe that for today, life is not quite luxurious enough for me to throw in the towel and say it's all "religulous".

Daily Show interview re: Religulous
Other movies that have provoked these thoughts over the past year - Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland, Blood Diamond

Heigh ho, heigh ho...

'Tis the season when I pay for the 4 weeks of vacation that I am about to take from teaching college. The days leading up to vacation are a ridiculous flurry of writing exams, grading exams, papers, labs, and on and on.

I have a growing appreciation for work - it gives me reason to focus, deadlines that make me feel productive (no matter how out of control the rest of my life is!), people that I must interact with. I think that work has the potential to bring out the best in us, but at least gives us a reason to get up in the morning. Sometimes, it literally drags us out of bed in the morning, if your work is your kids!

Anyhow, work necessarily gets in the way of hobbies like baking cookies, blogging, even necessities like picking up my house. All the thoughts I'm wanting to write about will have to wait until I get at least a little more work done. Happy working to you too - stop reading and get back to work!

Flat out cool!

I'm a bit of a tomboy. Yet I've always had long hair, maybe as much because it is easy to put it into a ponytail as it is to do fun "up-do's" with. A couple of months ago, I was in getting a semi-annual hair cut, and asked my stylist (again) for some much-needed style tips. Her first tip was - you've got to have a flat iron. Hmmm, I always thought those were for people with really curly hair who straightened it. Not for people like me, with a just-barely-obnoxious wave!

Well, I went out and got my first flat iron a month or so ago. It has changed my life! In about 5 minutes, I can now go from ponytail hair with a big crease in it, to smooth straight hair for an evening out. WOW. Why did I never know about this great new tool before?! The just-barely-obnoxious wave in my air-dried hair can actually be made to disappear for the first time in my life. If you have survived for 28 years like I did without a flat iron, it's time to give in and get one. In case you are like me, or are a boy and have no idea what a flat iron is, here you go:

Added bonus? This morning in our bathroom, I frantically got the last couple creases out of my hair and John smoothed the creases out of his un-ironed dress shirt. He glanced at my flat iron. Hey, he said, do you think that would work on the hem and buttons on my shirt? It worked beautifully. I'll iron my hair, but I guess I no longer have to iron his shirts! That's flat out cool.

One whole month of blogging

I took this random little risk and started a blog one whole month ago. A few observations on how it's going...

- I was most worried that not a soul would read it and my inexpert writing would be criticized. Well, in addition to Dad, quite a few of you have visited, commented, emailed - and none lambasting my grammar mistakes or loopy logic. I thank each and every one of you!

- One big reason I wanted to write here was to lay a bit more myself out there for you all to see and share, including (and especially) my family and friends. And in doing so, maybe inspire you to see and share more of yourself with others. So far, OK!

- It's kind of fun to have an outlet for actually thinking, a reason to process some of my thoughts and write them down and think that they are possibly interesting or inspiring. Mothering two little kids and/or teaching chemistry doesn't always lend itself to that, so this writing is fun. Previously, my only outlet for philosophy was my amazing husband John. Now I can debate with him and then some!

- Suddenly having a vested interest in the world of "blogging" is kind of distracting and obnoxious. Yes, I'm more willing to read/comment on someone else's blog than before, but I'd still much rather invest in the interesting people that I see face-to-face every day. So I'm getting the hang of being a fairly selfish blogger I guess, not feeling compelled to obsess with the blog-o-universe just because I have a teeny bit of it.

- Being brave is contagious. My thinking this last month has become, "If I can write a blog that who knows who will read, I can certainly open up about myself a little more to other people I meet, and try other little things that I've been too shy to do."

So I guess I'll stick with the writing experiment for at least a little while. Thanks for reading!

What's your world view?

Recently, a few books and these quotes got me thinking about why I should clarify my own world view. I hope it's a topic that might get you thinking too...

"How we understand ourselves and the world around us determines the kind of life we make."

"If we don't know what we believe...how can we live it and defend it? Our ignorance is crippling us."

So, what's your world view? Is your view mostly based on faith or religion, is it based on the subjects you've studied, based on someone else's view (agreeing or disagreeing with them), based on your life experiences?

Rachel (my two-year-old) is just learning to ask - "why?" But the only answer that she knows to give yet is - "Because." Our conversations go something like this: "Why Mommy?" "I don't know, what do you think Rachel?" "Because!"

I want to work at going a little further than that - not only being unafraid to ask "why?" and "who?", but also having more to answer than "I don't really know, just because." Today, I've only got my own questions to share (answers and ideas are swirling!). I hope these questions get you thinking too, about what your world view is, and why it matters.

Who is god? One being, creator, in everything, near or distant, constant or changing?

Who are you, and who are the other 6 billion people on the earth? Immortals, reincarnations from another life, equal or inequal beings, responsible for each other or not, connected to people in current, past and/or future generations?

What is your view of time? Is time cyclical or linear, with beginning and end or not?

What do these things mean - forever, love, purpose, justice, good?

They're hard and defining questions, if you stop and think about them... Do you have a question to add? I'm not ready to give you a pat list of good Christian answers, but I'll share more of my big and small thoughts in the days to come.

Wanted: Woman running through park, pushing blue and yellow sleigh. Possibly stripping. Definitely freezing.

Did I catch your attention? Did you happen to drive past Hessel Park and see her this morning?!

Well, it was me. After a two week break from walking Abby to school and running outside, I'm back! So here I am with a quick shout out to Jim/Ana/JingleBells5K and two moms from Abby's school. See, it had been a very mild fall, and then suddenly autumn began her quick descent into winter, and the temperature dropped to 30F or colder in the mornings. I relegated myself to the treadmills at the gym.

But then something strange happened. I enjoy the solitude of jogging, but I'm always up for a little competitive (athletic?!) challenge. In spite of the weather, the two girls I've met that walk or bike their kids to school every single day kept doing it. One brings her one-year-old along, the other continues biking three miles to her son's preschool. And then brother-in-law Jim asked if I'd run a 5K in a few weeks. I couldn't help but rise to the challenge.

So, this morning, I made my first foray back into the cold, pushing Rachel in a giant bike-trailer-turned-jog-stroller (a.k.a. sleigh), wearing a heavy coat and eventually "stripping" off my hat and gloves because I was actually warming up! I ran miles of random quick intervals, and just the thought of what I must have looked like barreling quickly around town makes me laugh. (Unfortunately for you, I couldn't find the camera this morning to share the moment.)

Moral of the story - just keep doing whatever that great little thing is you're doing - you never know who you might inspire to step out into the lonely cold and copy you!

Thanks Jim, Ana, J, and L!

When a stereotype is not enough....

"I do not like that man. I must get to know him better." Abraham Lincoln

I'm a Christian. Regrettably, I've sometimes allowed that to color my viewpoints of other religions, other people, other worldviews. I found Lincoln's insight on a box of tea a couple of months back. I've been thinking about getting past my stereotypes and first (flawed?) impressions ever since.

I attended a professional development seminar at work yesterday, discussing "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz with about twenty other random colleagues. I expected it to be a book about achieving better communication skills with my students. It was that, but it also turned out to contain a significant amount of "new age" and "relativist" type ideas that I don't really agree with. With a strongly Christian background, I've actually never sat down with a book on either of those topics, considering them more or less devilish. I decided that rather than cancel out of the reading and discussion, I'd try and get to know the ideas a bit better.

I don't like most of the worldviews that Ruiz put forth in the book. But because I read the book, and then sat down to discuss it with others, I discovered a few things -

1) For all of the differences I saw, there were a striking number of similarities between Ruiz's beliefs and my own. I am sure that we could talk for hours.
2) On the other hand, allowing myself to be confronted with such a different belief set helped me sort through what I believe surprisingly clearly.
2) Our discussion at work wasn't at all "weird" or "anti-God" - in fact, others tied in what they had read to verses from the Bible, sermons on Sunday.
3) Talking about the text gave me a chance to get to know many other people from work, who were drawn to open up about their life views, values, experiences. I am certain that a fairly different group would have shown up at a "Bible study".

The thought that I took away from the book and the day? It was the third agreement: Don't make assumptions. Have the courage to ask questions.

Don't like someone, don't like what they believe, don't like what they said? I'm going to continue to work at following Lincoln's example and do the really difficult thing - get to know them better.