Writing, Parenting, and Working in the Mess: Authentic Spirituality and Social Justice

I think I'm supposed to be paying attention, but I've only half-discovered what the lesson is. My daughter needs a new social security number. I was advised by everyone prior to the adoption--her social worker, her guardian ad litem, the attorney who finalized our adoption--to get her a new number as soon as the adoption was final. It would be too easy for the people from her biological family to find her if she continued to use her number. Already, her biological mother has the address to the adoption agency we used, which, although it is in a different town, is near enough that this makes me nervous. She is allowed to send S. letters to this address, which are apparently piling up, though S. has so far shown no interest in reading them. In any case, I assumed this would be simple--make copies of some documents, fill out some paperwork, send it all in, receive new number in...OK, I'm not naive. I figured it would take a few weeks. About a month after sending in the paperwo...

I know there is controversy surrounding Obama's choice for the minister who will offer the inaugural prayer. I also know that his decision to ask Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop who identifies as a gay man, to pray at the opening event tonight was likely a political move, perhaps even a way to appease the GLBT people who were angered by what they perceived as an insensitive move. Admittedly, I've been a bit bitter about this decision--I love Robinson, but I also hate for a member of the GLBT community to be used in this way, as a public appeasement for the liberals who feel slighted. And now, the controversy continues; some stations did not run the prayer, starting their coverage after its offering. I'm not going to jump quickly to assume that this was purposeful, but it is too bad...because, now that I have read Robinson's words, I think they are words all of us need to hear. I felt proud to be a Christian, a feeling that is rarer and rarer these days. Robinson...

I heard from a former student today. “I’m grieving,” she wrote. “I used to be able to write what I was feeling, but I can't anymore. I feel like I've lost something.” She is in medical school, and her journey to that career began, ironically, in her introduction to creative writing course with me in 2001 (I think it was 2001—is that possible?). She is a gifted writer—this was clear about her from the first assignment she submitted—but she is also gifted at connecting deeply with others. This was clear when I observed her for the first time in the Alzheimer’s unit, where she had been assigned to visit weekly and to record the residents’ words and write found poetry from them. That year, she wrote a beautiful essay for the families of the residents with whom she worked, one that I still use in my student manual as an example. N finished her English and Spanish majors, then went on to try working in a nursing home in the activity department, then a hospital as a translator. Eventu...

I promised my cousin I would blog about the New Year's soup. So, Lia, for you, I just have to say that the soup on New Year's day was phenomenal--maybe the best ever. Our family is Greek, which means that we eat and sing a lot over the holidays and that all of our celebrations reach into the late night--to leave a home at 11 is considered early. My favorite tradition of all is singing the Greek new year's song--partly because it is something we have been doing on New Year's day for as long as I can remember, partly because it's one of the only true "old-time" traditions we still follow that's stayed the same since I was a kid, and partly because the song itself is so beautiful. The song starts out simply, praising the beginning of a new month and a new year and the closing of the old. But later, the song becomes a dialogue between the singer and St. Basili, who is the "Santa Claus" of Greece and comes on New Year's Day. The song asks St. ...