Why Blog?
I wasn't going to do this. First of all, I am severely technologically impaired, to say the least. Second, my life seems to me to always be too full--I never have enough time to get anything done, so why take on another responsibility? Third, I am one of those writers who puts off writing whenever something that seems at the time to be more "important" or "necessary" comes up, and who has been known to abandon my spiritual practices when I need them most, and, finally, who has been known to get discouraged, exhausted, overwhelmed, and even depressed in the process of working for social justice. Lastly, I am generally shy. My partner and friends might disagree, but believe me, when it comes to the question of what it means to live a life of integrity, I feel wary of making myself vulnerable in my exploration.
So, as I said, I wasn't going to do this. But in the last year, I have had so many young writers, activists, and spiritual seekers ask me how I do "it." The "it" was one or more of the following:
**Write.
**Balance my need to stay centered with my desire to create positive change in the world.
**Send out what I write for publication, only to be rejected many, many more times than I am published.
**Justify living a middle-class life in a world of poverty.
**Live as a feminist when to be a feminist is so poorly defined.
**Make decisions about how I present myself to the world physically (i.e., how I dress, whether I wear make up, etc).
**Continue to live and stay involved in a small, rural community that has not always been the most affirming place.
**Continue to work in an ivory tower when there is so much work to be done on the ground.
**Stay involved in a church community that has not always been affirming--and stay involved in a struggle to make that community truly "open and affirming."
**Stay connected to my heritage as a first-generation Greek-American.
**Balance my multiple identities.
**Live as an out lesbian in a small, rural community.
**Speak truth to power.
**Work for social change without getting discouraged at how little can be done.
**Be a lesbian and a Christian.
**Call myself a Christian when to do so means to claim a very troubled heritage.
**Live as an ally to people of color and other oppressed people.
**Stay sane while working in the service-learning field.
**Stay sane while teaching on the college level.
**Teach, write, pray, and/or work in service-learning when there are so many other things I could/should do.
**Did I mention stay sane?
I didn't know what to tell them, mainly because I honestly don't feel I do any of these things particularly well. I would respond to these questions in long, elaborate e-mails, or (when inspired to do so) with a poem or story, or (most often) in long conversations behind the closed door of my office or in the small closet that is the Queer Resource Center at the university where I teach or in the office of the service-learning program that I coordinate or while walking or driving across town or in the reading room of my church or while working out next to someone at the gym or even, occassionally, over the phone to someone who would not give me her name.
Before, during, and after the conversation, I would panic, thinking perhaps that I would say, had said, was saying the wrong thing, that I was nothing more than a fake who really had no answers. And I would have to lift up every interaction that came from such honest and difficult places of confusion and pain in prayer, hoping that I and the other person had, in those intimate and awkward exchanges, found something of meaning.
So, in the spirit of "lov[ing] the questions themselves," as Rainer Maria Rilke put it, I decided to make the dialogue public. I hope this blog will keep me honest--will help me to grapple with these questions (rather than falling into a numbed-out way of living that ignores them), and will encourage me to continue to explore them in a way that might elicit conversation or thought or even change in myself and in any readers who happen to find their way to this place.
I plan to draw on a long tradition of mothers and sisters (and, occassionally, fathers and brothers) who have grappled with the connections among writing, spirituality, and social change as they relate to the hard work of living lives of integrity--and to tell stories from my life (without, of course, telling stories from the lives of so many who have come to me with these pressing questions--and so, if you are one of those people with whom I've exchanged such conversations, don't be afraid that I will reveal them here!).
This is a broad topic, to be sure. Perhaps tomorrow I'll realize I'm crazy to have thought this was a good idea.
More later.
So, as I said, I wasn't going to do this. But in the last year, I have had so many young writers, activists, and spiritual seekers ask me how I do "it." The "it" was one or more of the following:
**Write.
**Balance my need to stay centered with my desire to create positive change in the world.
**Send out what I write for publication, only to be rejected many, many more times than I am published.
**Justify living a middle-class life in a world of poverty.
**Live as a feminist when to be a feminist is so poorly defined.
**Make decisions about how I present myself to the world physically (i.e., how I dress, whether I wear make up, etc).
**Continue to live and stay involved in a small, rural community that has not always been the most affirming place.
**Continue to work in an ivory tower when there is so much work to be done on the ground.
**Stay involved in a church community that has not always been affirming--and stay involved in a struggle to make that community truly "open and affirming."
**Stay connected to my heritage as a first-generation Greek-American.
**Balance my multiple identities.
**Live as an out lesbian in a small, rural community.
**Speak truth to power.
**Work for social change without getting discouraged at how little can be done.
**Be a lesbian and a Christian.
**Call myself a Christian when to do so means to claim a very troubled heritage.
**Live as an ally to people of color and other oppressed people.
**Stay sane while working in the service-learning field.
**Stay sane while teaching on the college level.
**Teach, write, pray, and/or work in service-learning when there are so many other things I could/should do.
**Did I mention stay sane?
I didn't know what to tell them, mainly because I honestly don't feel I do any of these things particularly well. I would respond to these questions in long, elaborate e-mails, or (when inspired to do so) with a poem or story, or (most often) in long conversations behind the closed door of my office or in the small closet that is the Queer Resource Center at the university where I teach or in the office of the service-learning program that I coordinate or while walking or driving across town or in the reading room of my church or while working out next to someone at the gym or even, occassionally, over the phone to someone who would not give me her name.
Before, during, and after the conversation, I would panic, thinking perhaps that I would say, had said, was saying the wrong thing, that I was nothing more than a fake who really had no answers. And I would have to lift up every interaction that came from such honest and difficult places of confusion and pain in prayer, hoping that I and the other person had, in those intimate and awkward exchanges, found something of meaning.
So, in the spirit of "lov[ing] the questions themselves," as Rainer Maria Rilke put it, I decided to make the dialogue public. I hope this blog will keep me honest--will help me to grapple with these questions (rather than falling into a numbed-out way of living that ignores them), and will encourage me to continue to explore them in a way that might elicit conversation or thought or even change in myself and in any readers who happen to find their way to this place.
I plan to draw on a long tradition of mothers and sisters (and, occassionally, fathers and brothers) who have grappled with the connections among writing, spirituality, and social change as they relate to the hard work of living lives of integrity--and to tell stories from my life (without, of course, telling stories from the lives of so many who have come to me with these pressing questions--and so, if you are one of those people with whom I've exchanged such conversations, don't be afraid that I will reveal them here!).
This is a broad topic, to be sure. Perhaps tomorrow I'll realize I'm crazy to have thought this was a good idea.
More later.
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