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

“And who knows that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” That is what Mordecai tells his cousin, Esther, who had been in his care as a daughter for many years before becoming queen. She has the chance to save the Jews, her people, and Mordecai tells her that perhaps she became queen exactly for this reason. I love this story, and was delighted this morning that it was my Bible reading for today. But it is also a dark story, a story of powerlessness and bigotry and hate. First, Queen Vashti is deposed simply because she does not follow her king’s/husband’s commands. Then, the king searches for a new wife from all the beautiful women in the land, and the book of Esther describes in great detail all the preparations each woman made before being presented to the king. Eventually, the king chose Esther, a Jewish girl with no parents. (Mordecai encouraged Esther to put in an application). Only he does not know her history. He knows only that she is the most beautiful of ...

I am getting over a week-long illness that literally knocked my breath out of me. It was by far the sickest I’ve ever been, with the exception of an operation I had in college, and it came about a week after almost all of my friends or their children had been sick, a week of providing dinners and babysitting and other kinds of help. Of course, as always, that help came back to me tenfold when it was my turn. I am back to work now, almost completely well, thanks in part at least to the love everybody showed me this past week. Finally feeling better enough to be back to something resembling a normal routine, I read the week’s Bible passages this morning. The gospel reading reminds us, among other things, that whoever welcomes a child into her life welcomes God. On that note, I have three stories that I will just leave here, not bothering to interpret them, except to say that they are wonderful testaments of God working in our lives through children: I am lucky to have many little people ...

So much has happened that I hardly know where to begin. I have a new home! It has been a blessing in more ways than I can count. First, purchasing it was an accomplishment, one I can’t pretend didn’t matter. For most of my 20s, I refused to take the responsibility of managing my money seriously, and I continue to pay for it now in my mid-30s. The fact that I was able to purchase a home, and that I am now completely in control of how I spend my money, has given me a new lease on life and put the end of my credit card and student loan debt in sight. More importantly, the weeks I spent cleaning, pulling out carpet, and painting, and the move itself, reminded me of how lucky I am. I was surrounded by friends at every moment, all of whom helped for countless hours. Their labor was, of course, important, but so was their company. It is never easy to end a relationship, to begin again, and I had all kinds of fears about what such a change would mean in our small town, but I have realized in t...

A couple years ago (I don’t actually remember when!), two people I love very much asked me to marry them. Apparently, they told me, I could become a “minister” in three minutes over the Internet. If I did this, I would be able to legally marry them and any other couple (that is, any couple with the right to legally marry in this country). They aren’t religious, at least not in the strict sense of the word, but they are spiritual in a thoughtful, humanistic, practical way that I admire. They wanted somebody they knew well to be the officiate. I was honored, and also a little terrified. As usual, worst-case scenarios sped through my mind. What if they wanted me to write the ceremony and found what I’d written terribly cheesy and meaningless? What if I ruined their wedding by having a panic attack right there in front of 100 or so of their closest relatives and friends? These fears were short-lived, but there were at least three other reasons that I waited a fairly long time before givin...

Anele Rubin’s first book of poetry, Trying to Speak, is the best book of poems I’ve read in over a year. Rubin’s poems are both perfectly crafted and deeply resonant with a range of emotions as varied as the notes the keys on a piano can generate. Lately it seems I find books that do one or the other, but not both—they are either carefully crafted but not deep enough, or full of a raw, real truth that is, unfortunately, not conveyed in language precise or stark enough to leave me breathless. I feel awed only when the poet is engaged with a question or idea that is sustained throughout a manuscript and explored courageously and meticulously and tenderly. Perhaps I am so drawn to the poems in Rubin’s book because they are about the struggle to be fully present in one’s own life, one of the topics I wanted to explore originally in this blog. This struggle is always present in the poems, and the poems’shapes reflect the content flawlessly. The narratives and images feel reticent, small, ca...

That Time of Year In the academic world, this is the time of year full of engagements, picnics and end-of-semester galas and graduation parties. It is a little dizzying, all this celebration, especially in a time of so much pain. The service-learning end-of-semester celebrations—including an art show at a coffee shop, a poster session and recital on campus, a poetry reading at the local nursing home, a picnic at my place, and a mural unveiling at the Salvation Army, in about that order (did I mention I’ve been busy?)—have been colored by the realization that we will be working with a much smaller budget and possibly fewer staff next year due to budget cuts and the looming end of a federal grant, and that two of our most dedicated student workers are leaving the program, one because she’s graduating, and the other because she’ll start student teaching in the fall. All week I have been saying goodbye to many students whom I care for deeply, who have helped build the service-l...

Tonight I went to church for the inaugural Academy Awards movie night sponsored by the social action committee. I thought the new event was a great idea—a chance to see some good movies (most of which I would never otherwise get a chance to see), and to have some good, and, I hoped, deep discussion about the issues the movie addressed or reflected. Tonight’s movie was Crash. There were about 20 people there, ranging in age from five to 80-something. I won’t even attempt to write an astute review of the movie itself. I have a terrible memory, and I need to see a movie at least three times before I feel like I’ve really taken it in—and while this is also true for the things I read, I seem to be especially flawed at following a plot on screen. I was excited nevertheless to talk about the movie afterwards, to see what a movie about race relations in L.A. might say to a bunch of liberal Christians living in West Central Minnesota. After the movie, as usual, everyone was reluctant to talk....

I decided I would read each of the Greek Orthodox Holy Week services this year in place of my morning meditation. This morning, I read the Monday night service, which centered around the parable of the 10 virgins who wait for the bridegroom to show up to take them to the wedding feast. Half of them run out of oil while waiting, and of course the bridegroom comes at exactly the moment when they have gone looking for more oil. Because they aren’t there when he arrives, they are locked out of the wedding feast. The parable is part Boy Scout motto, part Mean Girls . (Did I mention that when the “unprepared” virgins ask the other ones to share some of their oil, they are refused?) It’s always been more than a little troubling. It reaffirms already problematic stereotypes about women. It positions God as a man-to-be-desired, one who takes his time, who deserves to be waited for, one with the power to turn people away. In the story, there are no second chances, no rewards for the women who to...

When I was a kid, I learned there were two Easters: “American” Easter, the one most of my friends celebrated, and “Greek Easter,” the “real” Easter. American Easter often fell on Greek Palm Sunday, so when all of my friends were joyfully eating whatever they gave up for Lent, I was bitterly following a strict Holy Week diet (eating nothing from an animal for seven days) and going to church at least once every night. Actually, that’s the narrative most Greek-Americans tell about their childhoods, but truthfully, I loved Holy Week. It was my favorite time of year. Now, the closest Greek Orthodox Church is three hours away. Since I moved to Minnesota six years ago, I have driven into the Twin Cities to attend “Greek” Good Friday and Easter liturgy every year. I miss the earlier though less ornate services, like Lazarus Saturday, a simple Liturgy the day before Palm Sunday that ended with the women gathering in the church to dye the eggs for Easter and fold the palms for Palm Sunday. I lov...

I seem to have developed the worst memory for what I read—as well as a terrible habit of watching Law and Order reruns whenever I'm exhausted at the end of the day. I had a mother who was fanatical about making sure our lives never revolved around T.V., so naturally, as an adult, I chose a partner who insisted when we moved in together that we needed satellite T.V., and I find myself turning on the television much more often than ever before (but never, it seems, at a time when something actually good is on!). I don’t know if the T.V. habit is pure laziness or connected in some way to a need to turn off my brain after a long day or (as one friend suggested) an attempt to numb out so I won't have to do the writing I'm supposed to be doing. Probably a combination of all of the above. In any case, I’m hoping this blog will get me back into the habit of reading daily and thoughtfully, of living the way I used to live, partly in my regular waking life and partly in the imaginar...

Today, when asked, “What do you think the theme of Cinderella is?” a fifth grader answered enthusiastically, “Don’t lose your shoe!” I was observing a service-learning student who is teaching creative writing in the elementary school. The fifth graders had been working on a short story for a couple weeks, and today, they were learning now to bring together all the elements of story writing, to make something of meaning. The idea that stories need to mean something isn’t a simple concept to explain or understand. As soon as the kid shouted out, “Don’t lose your shoe!” several students kicked off their shoes and wiggled their toes. I had to keep from laughing out loud. Later, the fifth graders diligently continued to work on their stories while my student made the rounds. One student sat at his desk, hands folded, not writing. My student approached this boy and said, “I’ve never seen you before. Are you in this class?” He shrugged. “Is this where you’re supposed to be?” she repeated, us...

Today, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni came to the University of Minnesota, Morris, the small, public liberal arts college where I teach creative writing and first-year writing and coordinate the service-learning program. I had the opportunity to meet with her and two of my students for an hour to talk about writing and, later, to hear her give a public reading and lecture. I love Divakaruni's novel _Queen of Dreams_. Admittedly, it is the only one of her 14 books that I have read (though after her reading tonight, I will certainly be reading more). It is a beautifully written book that resonates with the topic of this blog--writing, spirituality, and social justice. When reading Divakaruni's novel, it is clear that she is as much a poet as she is fiction writer. Her sentences are lyrical and heavy with vivid imagery. I use the word "heavy" intentionally, because when reading _Queen of Dreams_, I felt I was part of a world that was dangerous and oppressive, full of secrets...