The Christians see God as the father but it is an unfair way of looking at God. How can only a father-god produce children, animals and food. Mothers are the ones who produce children, and you can't have one gender without the other. They depend on each other in all reproduction. So I believe in the God and Goddess. So, I can not be a Christian because I believe in God as both a man and a woman. The Christians deny this fact and so their churches are patriarchal. Women have suffered for thousands of years under a patriach both as humans see god and in the society. It has denied women equality.
It is time for the return of the Goddess. Women have come so far in the last two centuries. To truly change a society we have to change how we see everything. Patriarchal society is misogynistic and women do not have the respect they deserve just as members of the human race.
Women don't take leadership at the expense of men. We rule the world as equals. Men and women need each other and their talents. I think when one gender is absent things become unbalanced and poison. It is like the yin-yang and it is balance to have men and women represented and we work together.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Selfishness
I find the word selfish an interesting world first of all due in part to its negative reputation. I pose the question what is wrong with selfishness?
Selfishness is an accusation by other people when one puts oneself first. To me, putting one's needs and interests first quite denotes a level of self-esteem. Once we are adults who is there other then oneself to put ones interest first?
Let us also consider the opposite to selfishness or selflessness. I immediately think of the Christian martyrs who all seemed to die horrific deaths at least in the past. I don't know about you but I have no desire to die a horrific death. Selflessness would be putting others interests before your own. There are places where this naturally occurs like in the field of parenthood. Psychologically speaking one cannot help others or even love others until they love and take care of oneself. Selfishness is not a term we use about ourselves but is an accusation made my others who have their own self interest at heart.
So lets say for a second I completely own selfishness. That I go about my morning doing only the things I like to do and the things that make me feel good. Let me cast off the expectations of others and do what suits me best. Let me be my own person through dress, language, occupation and hobbies. Let me realize my potential and celebrate me in all my gifts and worthiness. Let me cast off everyone elses opinion of me and not to care what others think of me. To me this isn't selfishness but self actualization. I would argue that so-called selfish people are the truly happy among us because in doing what is best for self life is good.
Selfishness is an accusation by other people when one puts oneself first. To me, putting one's needs and interests first quite denotes a level of self-esteem. Once we are adults who is there other then oneself to put ones interest first?
Let us also consider the opposite to selfishness or selflessness. I immediately think of the Christian martyrs who all seemed to die horrific deaths at least in the past. I don't know about you but I have no desire to die a horrific death. Selflessness would be putting others interests before your own. There are places where this naturally occurs like in the field of parenthood. Psychologically speaking one cannot help others or even love others until they love and take care of oneself. Selfishness is not a term we use about ourselves but is an accusation made my others who have their own self interest at heart.
So lets say for a second I completely own selfishness. That I go about my morning doing only the things I like to do and the things that make me feel good. Let me cast off the expectations of others and do what suits me best. Let me be my own person through dress, language, occupation and hobbies. Let me realize my potential and celebrate me in all my gifts and worthiness. Let me cast off everyone elses opinion of me and not to care what others think of me. To me this isn't selfishness but self actualization. I would argue that so-called selfish people are the truly happy among us because in doing what is best for self life is good.
The Church Together
I was reminded today of my childhood Sunday school and learning of the children's song, "I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together." So much is said in these words, in fact I think it would be a good mission statement for all churches. However, it is not true and that is why I no longer belong to a church.
After meeting many gay and lesbian people who are beautiful people, I cannot abide churches who do not allow gay and lesbians to fully participate in the church as leaders. It is obvious that being gay is a trait one is born with. No one would choose to be born gay in our society where gay people are treated as second class citizens.
In writing, in the Presbyterian church or the church of my childhood blacks and women fully participate in leadership. It wasn't so long ago an elder said upon finding his next preacher was a man, "Good finally a real preacher." Black people are disenfranchised in the church otherwise there wouldn't need to be an organization of Black Presbyterians and a committee called Racial and Ethnic Concerns,
It is interesting that Christians are so unloving when the Church at its inception was started by a social justice rabbi, who talked to Samaritans and prostitutes and ate dinner with tax collectors. Jesus taught us to love one another. He never spoke anything about gays in the four gospels and yet the church does not welcome gays with open arms. It seems the church forgets its real reason for being.
After meeting many gay and lesbian people who are beautiful people, I cannot abide churches who do not allow gay and lesbians to fully participate in the church as leaders. It is obvious that being gay is a trait one is born with. No one would choose to be born gay in our society where gay people are treated as second class citizens.
In writing, in the Presbyterian church or the church of my childhood blacks and women fully participate in leadership. It wasn't so long ago an elder said upon finding his next preacher was a man, "Good finally a real preacher." Black people are disenfranchised in the church otherwise there wouldn't need to be an organization of Black Presbyterians and a committee called Racial and Ethnic Concerns,
It is interesting that Christians are so unloving when the Church at its inception was started by a social justice rabbi, who talked to Samaritans and prostitutes and ate dinner with tax collectors. Jesus taught us to love one another. He never spoke anything about gays in the four gospels and yet the church does not welcome gays with open arms. It seems the church forgets its real reason for being.
50 Years of Peter, Paul & Mary
I got home from the Airline History Museum and turned on the TV and discovered a show on Peter, P.aul and Mary. Peter, Paul and Mary always makes me nostalgic. First off, Peter, Paul and Mary were the music of my childhood. One of my earliest memories was lying on my Mom and Dad's bed with the evening light reflecting on the wall through the curtains listening to Leavin' On A Jet Plane and then Puff the Magic Dragon. The record player was a gray stereo my Mom had since the time she was a teenager. Lying on that bed I felt the power of music and the sound of working for Justice. In my childhood I thought my destiny was to grow up to be a Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. Certainly, my entire life I have always been aware of the work for social justice.
Tonight I sit in my parent's living room with the family Christmas tree lighted with Mike's 400 LED's and on the tree are over forty years of family memories made tangible through the collection of ornaments. So many of those ornaments represent my dear angel mother and I feel her spirit wrapped around the tree and I feel the poignancy of the memories of my mother. My mother was the true social justice worker in our family. She believed in social justice through education. She is the person that created me into a critical educator and a disciple of Paulo Friere whose Pedogogy of the Oppressed has changed so many of us. As teachers we really are head learners because by our students we are taught. Education is about hope and cultural capital to provide a way out of poverty and oppression. My mother taught me that we must respect the differences in people and celebrate diversity. My mother whose influence is in hundreds of classrooms did more with her life I feel then most politicians because she taught teachers how to teach all children. She taught students to teach for change and a better world. God I love that woman and she was my mother.
And then, after remembering I wonder what my role will be in the work for social justice because aren't I part of the change in the world? I am my mother's daughter, after all. People only knew her locally but my mom was a great woman and I am her daughter. She could be a hard mother to be a daughter of but she made me strong and beautiful. I like the person she helped to mold into the woman I am today. I hope she is in heaven sitting with Mary Travers and Pete Seeger singing all the old songs of social justice. I'd have it no other way. Love you, Mom!
Tonight I sit in my parent's living room with the family Christmas tree lighted with Mike's 400 LED's and on the tree are over forty years of family memories made tangible through the collection of ornaments. So many of those ornaments represent my dear angel mother and I feel her spirit wrapped around the tree and I feel the poignancy of the memories of my mother. My mother was the true social justice worker in our family. She believed in social justice through education. She is the person that created me into a critical educator and a disciple of Paulo Friere whose Pedogogy of the Oppressed has changed so many of us. As teachers we really are head learners because by our students we are taught. Education is about hope and cultural capital to provide a way out of poverty and oppression. My mother taught me that we must respect the differences in people and celebrate diversity. My mother whose influence is in hundreds of classrooms did more with her life I feel then most politicians because she taught teachers how to teach all children. She taught students to teach for change and a better world. God I love that woman and she was my mother.
And then, after remembering I wonder what my role will be in the work for social justice because aren't I part of the change in the world? I am my mother's daughter, after all. People only knew her locally but my mom was a great woman and I am her daughter. She could be a hard mother to be a daughter of but she made me strong and beautiful. I like the person she helped to mold into the woman I am today. I hope she is in heaven sitting with Mary Travers and Pete Seeger singing all the old songs of social justice. I'd have it no other way. Love you, Mom!
Monday, October 13, 2014
Silence Forgotten
As I walked today, I chattered excitedly to myself (after all many hours of solitude have made me an avid self talker). I was excited about the new experiences I am having by finding parks in my vicinity, parks where I have never gone before and finding places for my soul to convene with nature. You see I have a new nifty application on my phone that lets me look up walking trails in my area and track the speed and amount of walking I accomplish. But in my chattering thrill of new adventure I figuratively kicked myself when I realized the one thing I had forgotten was silence. Silence? Silence is golden so the proverb says but I am not silent near enough of the time. It is like the rattle of my brain cells compels me to roar away chattering always chattering, when sometimes in the convening with nature I could find my soul if I could learn to still the chattering of my mind and actually hear and feel what nature is trying to tell me. Birds fly away when I walk down the nice cement path because unlike a bobcat in the woods I can not silently pass. I need to cultivate silence, not that I don't think or pray but just listen, listen to what the Earth mother is trying to tell me as I strengthen my body. Silence....shhh! Be still and know that I am.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Professional Athletes
I know when I use the word 'despise' to demonstrate my feeling about professional sports the word 'despise' may seem harsh to some. I despise professional sports. However, I do not despise sports. One of the most positive and fun experiences I had in high school was attending a high school football game with young men I knew from attending classes with them. I sat in the wooden bleachers with parents, and other young men and women. The sport was organic with muddy uniforms and when the players tackled one another I heard the crash of plastic against plastic. That was a special memory. These kids didn't play the sport for money or fame. They played it because they loved football. A sports experience like that I adore and cherish.
In the news this week are the stories of professional football players who abuse their wives and children. These men make salaries the majority of us will never see in our bank accounts. These players for their ability to handle a football and run down a field are put onto a pedestal by adults and children a like. Kids wear the jersey and the jersey number of these players. Little children dream of being these players. Only a few lucky and talented athletes make it to this level of professional sports but to the rest it is a pipe dream. Not everyone who dreams the dream of professional athletics can achieve that level. I for myself do not admire the professional athlete for one, I was never very good at athletics and as a child it was the gifted football players and cheerleaders who bullied me relentlessly. Also where are women in professional sports? Women's sports are relegated to secondary spots on every athletic station in the land and with the advent of cable TV I have over one-hundred sports channels and I am lucky if a women's game is on even one of these channels. So women are not represented in the sports world if you do not count the T & A factor of the professional cheerleaders. Not every little girl wants to cheer a game because some want to play the sport and they should have that opportunity. How can women hope to ever be taken seriously in professional ball games when the players in one of the most popular sports in the United States choose to allow violent men to play without any personal cost to himself when he chooses to beat a wife or child. The league can not decide once under fire what the appropriate response to the abuse allegations are. They want to sweep it under the rug but many of us no longer can stomach the oppressive acceptance of violence against women and children because to accept it is to seal women's fate as second class citizens. It is the denial of person-hood to those people who are not grown men.
This kind of blatant disregard for women and children is similar to another largely male organization, the Roman Catholic Church whose cardinals could not agree on what to do about the child abuse that was institutionalized with the Church. How many accusations of child rape ended up in the diplomatic pouch of the Vatican never to see the light of day again? I bring up this institution as well because I see a theme with women and children emerging. It is the reminder of the historical and societal treatment of women and children as chattel and also as less then human. Even in the twenty-first century when so many strides have been made to allow women and men to have equity in the world we still are fighting for fundamental personhood for people who are not adult males. It angers me and disappoints me. I am delighted that the press and other groups will not let these issues of inequality rest until something is done. I am glad that women will stand up and be counted.
The point remains that we should ask more of our heroes and leaders then abuse: physical, emotional and sexual. We should ask for heroes that do not hit their wife and child. We have to expect more of ourselves and of the powers that be whether recreational or spiritiual. I look forward to the NFL having to answer for their treatment of players who have been accused and found guilty of abuse against their domestic partners and children.
In the news this week are the stories of professional football players who abuse their wives and children. These men make salaries the majority of us will never see in our bank accounts. These players for their ability to handle a football and run down a field are put onto a pedestal by adults and children a like. Kids wear the jersey and the jersey number of these players. Little children dream of being these players. Only a few lucky and talented athletes make it to this level of professional sports but to the rest it is a pipe dream. Not everyone who dreams the dream of professional athletics can achieve that level. I for myself do not admire the professional athlete for one, I was never very good at athletics and as a child it was the gifted football players and cheerleaders who bullied me relentlessly. Also where are women in professional sports? Women's sports are relegated to secondary spots on every athletic station in the land and with the advent of cable TV I have over one-hundred sports channels and I am lucky if a women's game is on even one of these channels. So women are not represented in the sports world if you do not count the T & A factor of the professional cheerleaders. Not every little girl wants to cheer a game because some want to play the sport and they should have that opportunity. How can women hope to ever be taken seriously in professional ball games when the players in one of the most popular sports in the United States choose to allow violent men to play without any personal cost to himself when he chooses to beat a wife or child. The league can not decide once under fire what the appropriate response to the abuse allegations are. They want to sweep it under the rug but many of us no longer can stomach the oppressive acceptance of violence against women and children because to accept it is to seal women's fate as second class citizens. It is the denial of person-hood to those people who are not grown men.
This kind of blatant disregard for women and children is similar to another largely male organization, the Roman Catholic Church whose cardinals could not agree on what to do about the child abuse that was institutionalized with the Church. How many accusations of child rape ended up in the diplomatic pouch of the Vatican never to see the light of day again? I bring up this institution as well because I see a theme with women and children emerging. It is the reminder of the historical and societal treatment of women and children as chattel and also as less then human. Even in the twenty-first century when so many strides have been made to allow women and men to have equity in the world we still are fighting for fundamental personhood for people who are not adult males. It angers me and disappoints me. I am delighted that the press and other groups will not let these issues of inequality rest until something is done. I am glad that women will stand up and be counted.
The point remains that we should ask more of our heroes and leaders then abuse: physical, emotional and sexual. We should ask for heroes that do not hit their wife and child. We have to expect more of ourselves and of the powers that be whether recreational or spiritiual. I look forward to the NFL having to answer for their treatment of players who have been accused and found guilty of abuse against their domestic partners and children.
Monday, May 26, 2014
The Problem with Angst
I call it angst, which means to me the inability to proceed due to an overburdened mind. Some might call it lack of self-esteem, though I balk from that term because it seems so cliche in our world today. It is true, that when I sit down to write my two tardy essays, I have the overwhelming feeling that I will be unable to succeed. What makes me feel this way? I wonder. Is it the fear of succeeding or the fear of failure?
I know I have written successful papers in the past. I know that I am of above average intelligence. What I know, if I am honest with myself is that I let my former supervisor into my mind, when on a cold December day two years ago, she expressed to me in these very words, "You fail at everything." It wounded my heart because as a former teacher,I know you never focus solely on the negative. There is always something positive to say. But not that day with my boss at Park University. I don't know if I am wounded that this message came to me in the hallowed halls of my Alma Mater, like the institution itself spoke to me that way. Or, is it the shame of these words being spoken at all to me. Shame! And then my mind conceives all that I have failed at and I feel down right non-human.
Is this how oppression starts? Is this how souls no longer choose to succeed? Do they get the message that they cannot succeed and that they are worthless. The students I taught at the alternative school De La Salle have been told all their lives that they are good for nothing. It was at parent/teacher conferences that a grandmother cried tears of joy and she told me, "You are the first teacher to ever say anything nice about my grandson." I remember thinking how much we have failed her grandson that it took until his last couple of years of school to be told he has worth. Is it too much to see the intrinsic worth of people in our world?
It was Winston Churchill who said, "Never, Never, Never give up." and he also said, "If you are going through hell, keep going." I know Winston Spencer Churchill had a noble pedigree but there are things for which he had to overcome. First off he was to my understanding dyslexic and he was also manic-depressive. I also know from the wonderful PBS series narrated by Ian McKellen that he lost everything in the House of Commons early on in his career. He basically went home disenfranchised from his political career. After a brief hiatus he came back even stronger then before. I take much strength from Churchill's example. With the help of a loving family, my life is not too shabby. I cannot give up. I cannot listen to the words of that evil supervisor who sought so desperately to beat me down. Courage. Take courage! I can finish my essays and my degree and take my place among the professions of my creative temperament. I shall succeed!
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