Vanless

I was reading the Scene last night and found a full page ad saying that Van Morrison will be at the Ryman Auditorium on March 13 and tickets go on sale Saturday morning. Hammy got on-line and discovered the pre-sale is this morning with tickets costing $200 each. As much as I'd LOVE to see Van again, and as much as it pains me, I can't justify $450+ for a show.

We saw Van on my birthday 2 years ago. It was his first Ryman show and the first he'd ever played in Nashville. It was wonderful. First of all, the Ryman is the best place to see music: The acoustics are great, it's small and intimate, there's not a bad seat in the house (except behind the support posts) and it's the "mother church" of country music-everybody who's ever been anybody in country music has played there. There's a sense of reverance for the history that most artists have for the place.
I can't say whether Van felt that way about playing there; if he did, he didn't show it. He doesn't show much of anything, when he performs. His performances are absolutely timed and perfectly choreographed; each note and gesture is rehersed. Oddly, rather than making his music mechanical or stiff, it seems to allow all the soul inside to be secure enough to flow. We saw him at Memphis in May almost 13 years ago (a terrible time. It was hot and crowed and Zed was an infant and Declan was 4 year old. We only stayed for the first few songs). The next day, we happened to catch him on Leno or Letterman or one of those shows. Whatever song he did was movement-for-movement exactly the same as the night before. But it didn't seem "mailed in" the way I would expect. His music transcends a moment or a venue or a particular performance. It's like he inhabits the music and can pull us into being there with him.
Ok, I'm sounding goofy about this. I'm disappointed that I won't be seeing him again. But I've seen him once at the Ryman and it's enough to carry with me. Spending almost $500 to see him again seems greedy, especially when we're working so hard to pay off dental bills and house improvement loans and need to have our roof repaired.
Sigh...

Humility

I do a lot more thinking about God and my relationship with God than I do actually living in God. Van Morrison's song (which I've written about before):

When will I ever learn,
To live in God.
When will I ever learn?
God gives me everything I need, and more.
When will I ever learn?

speaks to my condition but I phrase the question more as "how will I ever learn to live in God" than "when".

I've written about how I understand sin to be anything that I allow to come between me and God. Over the last few days what I have come to see that I am my biggest obstacle to Truth. No, duh. But what I mean is that I'm totally in love with myself, with my uniqueness and individuality. I'm so quirky and funny and curious and interesting. I plan things, learn, organize; I lead people. I'm so wonderful. Yeah, God made me, and thanks, God, but now, watch me go! I worship at the alter of my own self.

I am so enthralled with me that I have been unable and, if I am honest, unwilling to let go of myself to let God be the true center of my life; my center and my purpose. I am so clearly, so well defined. Each facet of my me-ness has been nurtured and tended to with much affection.

God is real to be but also a vaguely defined concept. I mean, I have felt God in me. I feel God in me, moving in my life. God is an energy, a power; peace. God moves through me. But what is God?

I'm not asking this rhetorically. How can I learn to place God in front of me in my life when I don't know or understand? How can I let Spirit "break" me open when I'm so busy with my good intentions?

I wrote this on Susanne Kromberg's blog, yesterday. I don't even know if I spoke to what she was asking but this is what came out:
"Early Quakerism (Religious Society of Friends of Truth) was more socially diverse and was full of miracles. From what I've read and learned, it seems to me that early Friends experienced an immediacy with Spirit, a Divine Fire, that seems to have cooled to a comfortably warm ember for us. We expect miracles, but only modest, quiet ones, not the big, messy, loud kind. They also suffered under tremendous persecution while many of us rest on the laurels of our history, not putting ourselves on any kind of line. There’s not much strong emotion in our Meetings for Worship, no danger. Our Spirit given messages are subtle (sometimes prefaced with, “I heard an article on NPR…”). How can new folks know God is moving among us when our messages are given so politely? A newcomer, one completely unfamiliar with the Quaker practice of waiting, may not be able to overcome their initial discomfort with the strangeness of our method of worship to feel the WORSHIP or the still/movement of Spirit."

Is this what I'm needing? Danger in Meeting? I think, yes, if by danger I mean Spirit shaking me out of my sense of complacency and comfort. I want to open myself to God's will for me. I hide behind my own self; my day-to-day life based on my will and my desires. I want to learn to be trustworthy for God, to be faithful, to mind the Light, to submit. I feel the need to be challenged, either directly by God, or through my spiritual community.

But am I ready to fear God? Am I prepared to deny my own self, to "live in the Cross"? Am I truly prepared to let God live through me, to use me and all my quirks and gifts for God? I want to turn myself over to God but I still don't know how. I mean, I want to, but spend most of my time forgetting. For me, my spiritual awareness seems to be two-steps-forward, one-and-a-half steps back. I say I want for God to change me, to "call" me so I can be baptized in Spirit. I think I do. But am I really ready to give myself over? I have to trust that God will call me when I am ready. My work now is to, perhaps, think less and listen more. I need to climb down off my alter. I need to learn to appreciate my gifts for what they are: Gifts from God, not of my own design, to be used humbly in the service of God. Oh, boy. That's the crux here: humility before God.

Putting along

Yesterday, I ran errands on my scooter for the first time. I rode to Target to purchase new stockings and toothpaste and wound up with those and tea, a new watch, and some frozen meatless bbq stuff (the wonders of everything under one roof). I was going to proceed from there to Caroline's but, although the temp was supposed to be in the mid fifties, it was overcast and windy, so I called her to let her know that I will pick up the article another time (she emailed me later to say that the article does not really apply, anyway). The Charlotte Ave. Goodwill was on my way so I stopped and found a new black sweater for me to wear while working (it will fit nicely under my riding jacket) and a hoodie for Zed. I'd brought my messenger bag with me, so stuffed all my purchases in it and rode on. Next I stopped at my neighborhood Kroger for dinner fixins. But this time, the under the seat storage was full, my bag was full and I tried to put things in the "glove box" which is aptly named: It's possible that a pair of gloves will fit it, but only that; actually, I fit 2 pears and an orange in it.

I think running errands will be much easier when I get my topcase mounted so I don't have to juggle everything.

What I'm finding is that it takes a lot longer to ride the scooter than to drive a car. I don't take the interstates or Briley Parkway so I'm having to go roundabout ways to get places via secondary streets. Putting on riding gear, ski mask, helmet, coat, purse/bag, ski mittens, not to mention finding a place to park and lock, takes more time than shutting a door and fastening a seat belt. But it's a lot quicker on the scooter than the bus, and a whole lot more fun!

The reactions I get from people are funny. Almost invariably, guys in sports cars pull up next to me, check me out and then have to speed away, as if a woman on a two-wheel motorized vehicle is somehow a threat to their masculinity. Old men are amused. Old women look shocked. Young women look intrigued. Kids look impressed. My little People is an eye catcher.

I rode in heavier traffic on Charlotte and White Bridge with nary a second thought. No problems at all. I'm beginning to feel quite comfortable but I do look forward to many things becoming second nature to me.

Thank you, Sharon

I just got back from Meeting. Second hour was lead by a women who recently began occasionally attending when she is in town visiting her daughter. She spoke about the overt and systematic racism that she has experienced in a Quaker Yearly Meeting. Her story is painful and dumbfounding, especially within the context of a Friends Meeting. She is hurt and angry and I perceived her as coming across, at first, as rather aggressive. Once she began talking and I began to hear her story, I began to understand and empathise.

Up until not too long ago, I didn't really understand how my life was affected by racism until someone I met in an on-line forum likened it to sexism. Lightbulb! Of course. I see sexism all the time. Now that I am aware and see racism in many, many things that are "normal" in our society.

One way I can understand this is through my experience of having studied the history of the medicalization of childbirth. Up until very recently (and even still in some drug trials), the male body was the norm for physical health which meant that the female body was pathological in that it differed from the norm. Childbirth, which never happens to men, was seen as an inherent emergency. Actually, any part of a woman's reproductive system was pathological because it deviated from the norm of the male body. So, male=normal and female=abnormal.

As it is in our society in regards to race. White=normal and black/brown/tan=abnormal. The white experience is taken for granted as being the norm. White is a race but when we talk about "race issues" we're never talking about our own problems, biases, or viewpoint, we're always talking about the pathological "other". We never look at how we are able to take for granted that we are a part of the dominant culture because we simply do not see that we are, in the same way that we don't often think about air as we breath.

I'm very sorry that this Friend had the experience that she did with her Yearly Meeting. I'm sorry, too, for those who have been so wrong in that YM. I appreciate that she was able to share her experience with us. I think what she said has opened us to begin discussing how we may be complicit in the racism in our lives even by unquestioningly accepting the benefits of being white in our society.

There is a Season...

It's funny how I can sit down to write about one thing and then be lead to go somewhere else. Yesterday's post is an example. I was sitting down to write about energy levels and cycles but wound up writing about "koyaanisqatsi", life out of balance.
------------------------------------------------------------

I don't think my energy level is changed by sunlight or weather. I love gloomy, rainy days as much as bright sunny days. I think my body connection is to my ancestral roots in Ireland because getting wet, being in rain or snow don't bother me a bit. Maybe I was a duck in a past life.



I have several friends who are affected by "seasonal affectiveness disorder". During the short sun days of winter, they don't have much energy and seem to feel really depressed and unhappy with missing out on their normal activities.



My thinking is this: Maybe every day/week/month/season is not supposed to be like every other one. We live in a climate controlled culture. Many people go from their box=house to their box=car to their box=work/store/mall(/whatever). People seem to think that every day should be as productive as every other day; that what they do in May is the same as what they should be doing in January. But maybe, we're not supposed to live that way. Maybe, the dormancy of winter is for us, too, as well as nature; I mean, we are a part of nature, n'est ce pas? Think about the fact that it's only been since the advent of common people owning motorcars that we have believed ourselves to be above the dictates of weather. Throughout all of history, people would hunker down around the fire in cold, wintery weather, going out only for the most important or festive occasions. Only in the past 50 years or so, have we had the ability to travel with rapid enough speed in an enclosed (usually heated) box to get from point A to point B without being much impacted by temperature and moisture. But our bodies are still built for the past howevermany bijillion years of living in and with weather.



So I say: Embrace winter! Snuggle down. Make stew. Play board games. Read books. Write letters. Feel grateful for modern heating systems. Honor the season and nature. Find the rhythm in this day and time of year and learn to enjoy it's small blessings. Life doesn't always have to be busy and "productive". As nature intended, sometimes a time to pull inward and hibernate is the most regenerative thing one can do.