Season of NonViolence

First of all, Happy Season of NonViolence!! Almost. It's coming up, time to get prepared...How are you going to celebrate the time between the deaths of MLK and Gandhi, two non-violent heroes who died as a result of violence? A Season for Nonviolence, January 30 - April 4, is a national 64-day educational, media, and grassroots campaign dedicated to demonstrating that nonviolence is a powerful way to heal, transform, and empower our lives and our communities. Inspired by the 50th and 30th memorial anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this international event honors their vision for an empowered, nonviolent world. Get ready, people. We are not those who govern us....more than ever, we need to celebrate the missions of visionaries like Gandhi and MLK. Heroes. (http://www.agnt.org/snv02.htm)

Teaching and the army...
No, this is not about the fact that No Child Left Behind legislates that our children will be actively recruited by the army when they get to high school...(that is just one more reason to vote...in my opinion, for Barack Obama, who if he's reading this, I desperately hope will run in '08). It's about the challenge teaching is and how you can't NOT grow from it. I've heard people say that they went to the army to learn discipline, etc., but I say...be an educator. It is boot camp for the strong of heart, and I believe that you'll never be the same again after you've been a teacher. I think the first 6 weeks of teaching, one is almost certainly borderline mentally ill, and I see the necessity in it being a contracted position. It takes awhile to get hooked. I remember early on thinking, "my blood pressure must be dangerously high; I bet that's grounds for release from my contract."-- so many seemingly unsolveable problems that you are honestly considered a failure if you do not solve...it's the most stressful event I've been through, and although I'm no cancer survivor (unlike Lori at missmelanoma.blogspot.com) , I've been through at least SOME stuff...

Puberty and Humility...
I'm teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th...6th graders and I, we connect. I've always connected with kids, and sixth graders are still totally kids. It's an almost effortless connection, and it's secretly gratifying to be instantly liked by them and strict at the same time. Obviously, I'm not there to be liked; but the days when I can do my job AND have a positive experience with my kids is much better than the days of personality clashes and attitude problems....

Ah, the eighth grade. I've learned the most from the 8th graders. I do not connect with them naturally...and I hear that we grow the most when we are challenged, so I must be growing. To me, they seem crazy... 50% grown, 50% kid, 75% illogical, 95% emotional. That doesn't add up, but it doesn't matter. We've not reached logic yet; our little frontal lobes are still waiting to finish growing....I tend to find myself on the same emotional roller coaster that they ride, in the theme park of change. For every time that I'm on the "high hill" of the roller coaster, secretly blaming my kids for their own age and home-life induced confusion/behavioral outbursts, I find myself plummeted down the tracks at speeds that steal my breath...all the way down to humility, which is very...well, humbling. They are the tea cup ride, too. One minute going a million miles an hour, and then at once barely turning...my auto thought is to judge them as adults b/c they seem more like adults...but, they are not. Instead, I try to see them like God would see them, or how their parents may have seen them when when they were first born...Like an anthropologist, I've also studied the secret language of adolescence...I've composed the following handy guide for those of you who might run into adolescents at home, work or more likely, in the mall...

Easy Reference Adolescent Language Guide: Conviently printable for theater visits and mall encounters!
#1: " I don't care" = "I'm confused." "Do you care about me?" "I'm having a bad day." or "I do care, but my friend doesn't, so I'm going to say I don't. We'll talke later."
#2: "That is so gay" = "I don't feel like doing that." or "I don't know how to do that" or "Does my hair look okay?" or "I started my period."
#3: "Those shoes are tight" = "Your shoes are ugly, and I'm making fun of you" or "I like your pumas"
#4: "I hate you" = "Do you hate me?" "Do you like me?" "I'm having a bad moment." or "My mom is drinking again." or "I like your pumas."
#5: "Miss, we broke up. Now, we're 'friends with benefits'" = "I'm totally doing IT, and why is the blood running out of your face?"

16 more days to Christmas Vacation

I know, teachers aren't supposed to think like that. If you think that's bad, you should hear the thoughts in my head when one of my students told me I need to dye my hair today; this color doesn't work for me. Homonal little angel.

You know what, though. I haven't quit. I'm miserable
in a lot of ways, and this is stressing me to the max,
but I'm sticking with it even when it's far from
perfect.

when ure hero falls

Posted in dedication to two boys who I teach (middle school English/Reading). Names changed & details altered...you know, just in case.

Juan has a sibling who was shot and killed several years ago in a gang related incident. He works a night job to help his mother with the bills. Half-awake, he sits in my class scribbling precocious lines of poetry onto my assignments (which he sometimes finishes). Clearly an old soul, murky from the hazy confusion of adolesence along with the oppression of poverty and it's angry mirror of violence. He wants nothing to do with gangs or violence, he tells me on one of the mornings that he has wondered into my classroom before school. It has hurt his family enough. He just got off of work. He says he's tired, he will try to pay attention.

The other boy, Miguel (a gang member; a kid who has been in a lot of trouble), tells me with heavy eyes that his father has begun drinking again after two years of sobriety. It is my planning period. I don't know where he is supposed to be, but he is not there. His mind is at home anyways. His eye is on the bottle that has stolen his dad away. His body is in my classroom, looking for an answer that I've been looking for for years. I share an anecdote about my own trip down this road, and I think back to my grade school counselor, Mrs. Johnson. When I was young, she shared with me a version a piece of her life story that was similar to mine; in a breath she handed to me my discarded, crumpled potential -wrapped carefully in a tiny box, tied with strings of hope. She was my proof that it was possible to make it through something through which I didn't feel I had the strength to withstand. By virtue of existence, she was the hope that remained in my Pandora's box. "God must be preparing you to help another child through this," she said.

I grasped the box of my fragile potential with knuckles whiter than winter; I tucked it deep in my soul. Sometimes I forgot it was there. And, sometimes I forget it is there. And sometimes it sings the songs it knew all along. The songs that all of our souls have always known. I believe life is about clearing a way to our souls, which have always known "the answers"...Clearing the distractions of life...the crippling oppression of poverty, the paralyzing oppression of wealth.

I do not know if I will make a difference as a teacher, but I know that the difference is already in me. At times, I am blinded by the endless distraction of beauracracy and expectations I do not know how to meet. Overall, it gives me clarity...Not clarity in my own life, but a clearer picture of the world as it really is. At night, I drive home to my comfortable, if not fancy neighborhood where most people pretend that poverty does not exist. It would be comforting to believe that, but in the morning I go back to the school that is 95% poor and minority, tucked away between used car lots and gang signs painted on overpasses. This is reality.

As for middle school...I never thought I would teach middle school; it was the worst time of my life. Adolesence in itself is pandora's box. By definition, it is a time of trauma. Add poverty. Add violence. May my kids recognize the elusive hope that hides in the corner; some never find it. Pandora found it. Mrs. Johnson found it, and she showed it to me.

I believe that Tupac found it, be it with slippery fingers. He wrote about it time and again.

Tupac wrote this poem after his seemingly untouchable mother became addicted to cocaine. She was/is an activist for social justice, a vigilante. A liver of life who gave up on living for a while.

When Ure Hero Falls
4 My Hero (My Mother)
by Tupac Shakur

When your hero falls from grace
all fairy tales R uncovered
myths exposed and pain magnified
the greatest pain discovered
u taught me 2 be strong
but I'm confused 2 c u so weak
u said never 2 give up
and it hurts 2 c u welcome defeat
when ure Hero falls so do the stars
and so does the perception of tomorrow
without my Hero there is only
me alone 2 deal with my sorrow.
your Heart ceases 2 work
and your soul is not happy at all
what R u expected 2 do
when ure only Hero falls

other places.

My mind is other places, but I wanted to say a hello. A quote...



The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

i can't live if living is without you

I've been sort of blue lately. Or, bored. Bored. Blue. I don't know. I've finished the Teach For America-ish certification program that was keeping me ever so busy, and now I'm just looking, looking, looking for that elusive pay check. I went into teaching for all of the mushy reasons, but right now, I'm all about the paper. I'm also all about a reason to get up in the morning!

I'm one of those people who is pretty motivated and healthy when I stay busy...I totally thrive there. During the majority of the summer, I was super busy-- a little too busy, honestly, but I do so much better in life when my plate is full. Now that I don't have anything on my plate, really, I'm honestly pushing miserable a little bit. It's summer! I love summer. I'm one of those annoying people who doesn't even mind the heat. I'm not getting out there and doing the things that I love, though. I love reading in coffee houses, yoga, walking my dog, going on long bike rides-- I don't do any of that-- There is a "hot" yoga studio a block from me offering unlimited yoga for $10 for 10 days, and I kept saying, "tomorrow, I'll go." Did I? Nope. You'd think that with all this time on my hands, I would have a pristine apartment and would be exercising daily. Nope, nope. Catching up on my correspondence? Nope. Re-watching "You've Got Mail," b/c I'm too lazy to even change the DVD? Uh, maybe.

I keep saying to myself that I am SO excited that once I get a job, school will start soon...b/c I know that this apathy will take care of itself once I'm busy again. The fact is, though, I can't depend on external factors to maintain my quality of life. I really need to get out there and live my life. I always go on and on and on about living life to the fullest, and I've yet to find the most full version of my life on my futon.

Unfortunately, this is all I have right now...b/c not a lot has been going on! I spent time with friends yesterday...drank red wine and even wore a little of it. Overall, I'm doing great, really--- I just need to push through this next week or so of not a lot to do.

nine one one.

Have you watched this? Interesting perspective on 9/11. I've heard that this will be released in theaters as well, but the video is free to watch here, and it's streaming, so you don't have to wait for it to download.

my humps.

my humps. my humps, my humps, my humps. my lovely lady lumps. in the back and in the front. my humps.





Friday night, I was having a drink at a bar with my friend Elizabeth and my husband, Bruce. We were listening to a karaoke version of "my humps," and we were probably the most sober people within at least a few yards. Above the bar was a television showing videos of Israel's attack on the Beirut International Airport. We all acknowledged the dichotomy of the situation, and had a short discussion on some of life's more political questions. Some of these questions, I have grappled with for years. I can remember being a child and learning about the Holocaust; I remember casting judgement upon every human living at the time, who chose to do nothing...who did not research their intuitions, their fears...who were disconnected as families and individuals were exploited for labor and slowly murdered...How could it happen???

Later, I began reading Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor who is famous for many things, including his words on indifference.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

so, I ask myself...
What are the responsibilities of a citizen (of a state/nation/world)?
Where is the line between indifference and a clean conscience?
In other words, am I doing enough?
Is it enough to simply vote your conscience...
or should we be doing more?
Is it enough to show up at a protest,
or should we be doing more?
I think of all of the terrible things...
Darfur...human exploitation...Iraq...economic exploitation
I know that if these situations were right in front of me,
I would feel so differently. If someone were dying in front of
us, wouldn't we do all that we could to save them?
When can we say we have done enough?
I tend to think that most answers to these questions are rationalizations, and that the true answers were held by people like:
Jesus,
Mother Theresa,
Gandhi,
and Dorothy Day...
Are conviction and conscience relative? Was Mother Theresa's calling hers alone...or one that most of us simply ignore?


...I know one thing: Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Being "non-political" may be a comforting thought; however it is my belief that citizenship should be taken seriously...not doing so gives up your power, which can (and has!) been used to exploit, to steal, to kill. The concepts behind America are pretty fantastic--I've included an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence here:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

What Would Martin Luther King Do?

On April 4, 1967, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King spoke at Riverside Church in New York City on the subject "Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence." Note the similarities between Iraq and Vietnam. A question I'm asking myself is, "are we doing enough?" It seems that people generally agree that the dissent involved in this unjust war is not as powerful as the dissent found in Vietnam. I wonder, what is the difference? Are we more disconnected? More busy? Are we afraid to think about it? Is it just too hard? This is only an excerpt of his speech; if you want the full text and cannot find it online, email me and I'll pass it along. :)

In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam Iraq. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.…

What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam Iraq, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government many Iraqis, including the entire Sunni population, will not have a part?… Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of new violence?

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.…

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam Iraq and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam Iraq is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese Iraqis, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam Iraq. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam Iraq. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.…

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning torturing human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.