further up and farther in

moving

2008-02-23T10:26:00.000-08:00

we're moving blog providers. I've been thinking about doing this for a while and the babe seems like a good excuse to branch out into some new things.

I've started working with wordpress and I'm already a little frustrated that none of my widgets are supported here (goodreads, accuweather, babystrology). The pictures also seem to download painfully slow. But I'm going to try it out. If things get too frustrating, back to blogger we go!

Our new site:

http://signonthewindow.wordpress.com

oh baby.

2008-02-19T21:27:00.000-08:00

Time to come clean. I'm 13 weeks pregnant.

Today baby came back with a clean bill of health and a solid sounding heart (140 BPM).

We're excited, and have no idea what we are doing.....

God help us.

Amen.

p.s. Enjoy our creepy baby widget

health care on the ballot

2008-02-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

If you're reading this blog, chances are good you have health coverage either privately or from the state. If you don't, it's likely you're a student or someone who thinks they are healthy enough that they can take a chance on not being covered. If you are on a state sponsored plan like our Oregon Health Plan, you are well enough and educated enough to manage the massive bureaucracy surrounding this system. I get my health insurance from my work. We actually have the choice of two health insurance plans, one from J's work and one from mine.

While I'm sure there are some readers who are exceptions, the socio-economic/education level of my friends is such that they know how to find out their options, work with what they've got, budget and get it done. For me, my experience with the ease of health care options has made the issues of medical coverage reform a bit hard to grasp.

L'Arche certainly changed my perspective on that.

The year I lived in the community one of our core member's mother died. She had been the primary care taker, paper handler, form signer for Marilyn for over 60 years. When she died we had to go back and track down everything in Marilyn's life and redesignate, reassign and reassess. There was a two week period in which we were scrambling to figure out the specifics needed to support our friend's very complex medical care.

It so happened that Jane died within a few days of when a "vital" piece of paperwork was due to the Medicare office. That same week Marilyn chipped one of her teeth fragile from years of pre-l'Arche neglect (adult institutions for the disabled tend to be places of horrific abuse and lack of attention. Estimates are that 3/4 of all adults in these institutions are sexually abused by their usually female caretakers). By the time we got this paper in we were told she had been suspended from the plan.

The next week we spent hours on the phone explaining what happened and getting corrective paperwork to the department. In the end she was put on a lesser plan for a month until they could sort through everything.

My job was to find Marilyn a dentist with the "lesser plan." Folks, I called over thirty-five dentists and found not one who would be willing to treat her. They said the paperwork on the other side took too long and that they rarely saw the money within a year. I got to the point of asking these dentists to do it "just this once." I was flat out begging. By my last phone call I just put down the phone and started crying.

When I called DHS for some back up they said they couldn't help me. They didn't keep a list of dentists accessible through the plan. I called other group homes, I asked people in our community. I had the perseverance and time to try and sort this out and still couldn't make it happen. Imagine a single mother working two jobs or a man with a disability who lives on his own. In the end, M didn't get her teeth treated for another 2 weeks. If you've ever chipped your tooth, you can imagine what this was like.

So, yes, I feel hopeful when I hear the first presidential candidates in my lifetime talk about "quality, affordable, portable health care." I can't help it. Although my expectations are low for the beginnings of a program like this, the idea that someone is actually making this a mainstay of their platform is remarkable to me. Likewise, I am discouraged John McCain voted against expanding the enrollment date for Medicare, increasing the prescription drug benefit or allowing prescription drug benefits at all under Medicare. His vote is the reason why one of our severely disabled, non-verbal core members now has to pay $5 per prescription. This doesn't seem like a lot until you're on five meds and don't work.

I understand that it's not just about getting everyone covered; it's about the quality of coverage. But until we have a president who is genuinely invested in the former, there will be little attention to the former.

But enough blogerizing. Time to enjoy the beautiful day.

heresy

2008-02-13T20:59:00.000-08:00

We're getting towards the middle of Christology. A lot of what we're working on now is primary text on the Incarnation of Christ. What has stuck out to me through Apollonius, Origen, Athanasius, Irenaeus is the deep entrenchment of the early church and Patristic fathers in Platonism/Gnosticism. I'm discovering that a lot of the ancient heresies around Incarnation have to do with protecting God from the flesh. Thousands of pages are spent refuting the sects and heretics who couldn't stand it that Jesus came out a slimy baby from a woman's vagina, blew his snotty nosed, urinated on the ground and smelled bad when he sweat.

Even the church fathers who defend against Arius, Nestorius and Eutyches have a hard time with the real dirt and grime of Jesus' earthly being. Tertullian is just classic with his discomfort. After going through a long description of the disgusting nature of childbearing and the foulness of infants he explains that even God redeemed this through taking on birth. (Tertullian was also a misogynist. Go figure.)

Hans von Balthasar to the rescue. In wisely summing up the relationship of Jesus' self abandonment and exaltation, he quotes extensively from Barth.

A theologia gloriae, celebrating what Jesus Christ in his Resurrection, received for us, and what he is for us as the Risen One, would have no meaning unless it also contained in itself the theologial crucis: the praise of what he has done for us in his death and of what he is for us as crucified. But no more would an abstract theologia crucis have meaning. One cannot celebrate in proper fashion the passion and death of Jesus Christ, if this praise does not already contain in itself the theologia gloriae: the praise of him who, in his Resurrection, receives our justice and our life, the One who rose from among the dead.

I love what Barth is saying here. The heretics (and most of the Fathers) were getting their ideas about god from the Greeks: transcendent, impersonal, untouched, untainted and unmoved. Barth is saying that they got it all wrong. What it actually means to be God, the definition of god-ness is to be "in the work of the world's reconciliation." Balthasar has a nice gloss on this statement: "once we realized that even the most extreme Kenosis, inasmuch as it is possibility in the eternal love of God, is englobed in that love which takes responsibility for it, the opposition..... is fundamentally overcome."

careful, I'm feeling a little punchy today.....

2008-02-08T16:22:00.000-08:00

Today I was ecstatic to learn that a federal appeals court struck down the EPA's plan to cap and trade mercury from coal burning power plants instead favoring a straight cap on emissions. Now, to be fair, the EPA plan would have reduced mercury by 70%. The problem is this would take TWENTY FIVE YEARS.

I can't figure out why seven years later I am still shocked when I hear that our government continues to try things like this. Living in the Northwest I am especially aware of the battles with the EPA appointees from the Bush administration. Trying to take salmon off the endangered species list. Allowing logging in areas with spotted owls. Permitting snow mobiles in Yellowstone. Drilling in Alaska's protected areas.

But those are minor issues compared to 60,000 children (mostly low-income) being infected with mercury poisoning every year. I've been to the pier in San Fran where poor migrants from China still fish off the docks to feed their kids despite it being in Bay View Hunters Point, the worst polluted area in the city. Those are also minor issues compared to the immediacy of change necessary to halt the affects of climate change. Our current administrations says it has gotten the message, but it certainly has not.

So I have some questions/thoughts for the non-voting crowd. How are we going to address global climate change if the science says we need immediate macro-solutions controlled by the feds? All the suggestions from the policy side say cap and trade is too slow. We need to have emission regulations on the two polluters that contribute 80% of our output - cars and factories. This isn't something that is going to change with lightbulbs and recycling, these are policy issues. And we need to implement these solutions quickly.

There are a lot of reasons non-voters are able to sleep easy not participating in national political issues like these. Halden describes voting as "pure theatrics" where you get to decide between two undesirables. His alternative to voting is participation "in the re-shaping of human social relations in Christ." He provides no framework for what this actually means but I have a guess. When Christians take this particular line they often are saying, "If every one in the church built hospitals, cared for the disabled and loaned each other money we wouldn't need to vote. We would be doing the work of the government."

These are particularly naive statements first, because Christians haven't been doing these things, and certainly not to the extent to let us think we don't need the help of our government. Second, this kind of thinking fails to address funding from the government (Christians also don't give money), state provided health insurance for the poor or the big one we just mentioned, regulation of the environment. To me, this way of thinking represents one of the great Hauerwasian sins: treating the world as you want it to be, not as it is.

A more nuanced perspective comes from Sheldon Wolin and his concept of fugitive democracy (via Isaac). On his great, lengthy piece on Wolin, Isaac provides a quote on voting.
“The citizen is shrunk to the voter: periodically courted, warned, and confused but otherwise kept at a distance from actual decision-making and allowed to emerge only ephemerally in a cameo appearance according to a script composed by the opinion takers/makers”
Wolin talks about voting as luring citizens into the belief that they have particular controls over the democratic system while a whole different reality is happening all around us. The Superpower, “an expansive system of power that accepts no limits other than those it chooses to impose on itself,” is at work of its own accord. I won't sum up any more; you will do better to read it yourself.

While Isaac doesn't get into any specifics until he starts answering posts, one result is a move to the local as the space of production for discordant democracy "rooted in the ordinary." There are a lot of people doing great work in the particulars of grassroots advocacy of this kind. Rom Coles, who has a most pleasant mustache, is one of these theorists/activists. His work has centered on Durham CAN, our local IAF affiliate. They work on local and state issues organizing congregations, neighborhood associations, unions and like-minded groups to bring about change at a most basic level.

The necessity of the local, of our involvement on behalf of those who sweep our city streets, work in our schools and are put to death under our capital punishment systems makes Eugene McCarraher's comment about the last election one of the most "ugh" comments of the past year:

I stayed home on election night, watched a movie on the couch with my beloved wife, and retired in the knowledge that the empire would remain in someone’s untrustworthy hands.

I would feel a lot more comfortable if he'd passed up the movie to write literature for a janitors strike.

Grassroots organization and advocacy is likely the best way for Christians to take seriously our claim to advocate for the alien, the orphan and the widow while being wary of the soothing voice of your every-four-year vote. But also vote in national elections. Don't vote because there's no hope outside our government or because it's your patriotic duty. And don't think voting gets you off the hook from participation in local movements. Vote because its a small contribution, hopefully your smallest contribution to helping our government behave.

prophets of a future not our own

2008-02-02T07:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I taught a 3 hour in-service to Catholic elementary teachers in the Salem-Woodburn area on Catholic Social Teaching (CST). At times like this I am acutely aware of how often I am called to live between the worlds of Evangelicalism, Anabaptism and Catholicism. My work often takes me into situations like this where I am asked to articulate to a community not my own their social tradition in a way they can (hopefully) embrace its challenge.

It was an interesting day with a few road blocks I didn't expect. First, I forgot that most of them didn't want to be there. They have to go to these in-services and most of them would rather be doing something else on a Friday. I also misinterpreted their level of self- and ecclesial-reflection. I started to notice in their small groups discussions that they weren't talking about the assigned questions ("what are some barriers for embracing CST as a central aspect of faith?" "What is challenging for you about CST?" "What are the steps for you to take social justice deeper in your own life or the life of your church community?"). They really didn't want to go there. And even though I was open to objections and questions (I myself don't find the theme of Rights and Responsibilities particularly compelling) I got nothing back.

At one of the breaks a younger teacher came up to me and said, "just so you know, I'm the odd one out at my table." She went on to explain that everyone at her table "already knew this stuff" and thought the church was already doing everything I talked about. It was a good review but there wasn't much more to say.

Huh?

For those of you unfamiliar with the social tradition of the Catholic church, its pretty radical and directive stuff. In my more bombastic moments I'm apt to say that the term Catholic Social Teaching is weak sauce. Essentially we're talking about the Gospel.

CST's documentary history started in 1891 with Pope Leo calling for the formation of unions and just wage scales during the labor and human rights abuses of the industrial revolution. In other words, there is nothing abstract of theoretical about these works. They are writings in ethics that have very specific policies and agendas attached. The teaching documents from the USCCB explicitly state that capital punishment is as much a degradation of human dignity as abortion or euthanasia. And if you pushed CST to ts logical conclusion, it strongly calls into question the just war tradition.

Not only that, CST isn't something you can choose or not. The bishops explain that living out the Catholic social tradition is as obligatory as Mass attendance or Confession. While Catholics are like every other Christian tradition in picking and choosing, I know a lot of "to the book" devotees who don't believe social justice is a root matter of faith.

At one point I asked them, "do you think that being Catholic means you have to take a certain position on social/political issues like immigration and capital punishment?" The answer, of course, is yes. I saw some heads nod but I'm wondering if they were hearing what I was saying. My goodness, how different the world would look if Catholics demanded immigration and criminal justice policies that honored the God-imaged-ness of each person in the same way they demanded an end to abortion.

Overall it was a fairly discouraging experience. I kept reminding myself that most of my work comes to fruition in my students long after they have been with me. For some it's the time when they discover that the janitors in their work place don't have health coverage or that there's a whole section of their new city where only white people live. Sometimes word of these revelations and their resulting actions makes it back to us. Most of the time we live in hope.

in harms way

2008-01-27T20:15:00.000-08:00

At church today the flowers on the altar were given in memory of the Tet offensive in Viet Nam. Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the Tet under General Westmoreland. 58,000 Vietcong were killed and 1,400 U.S. troops over 3 months.

While I know it's important for Christians especially Mennonite Christians to keep catastrophes like this before us, I was a little suspicious. I get worried when we arbitrarily pick "social justice" moments to commemorate in ways that otherize those being remembered. I feel like this is a staple of liberal Protestant churches.

But then our pastor Rod explained a little more about the flowers. They were purchased by a member of our parish community who served with Mennonite Central Committee in Viet Nam 1968, during the offensive.

As Rod reminded us, the 60s were a time when a lot of people were trying to stay out of the service and away from Viet Nam. Instead of running away, MCC ships off its own people at the height of the Tet offensive to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to tell people the Good News of the one who taught us to love our neighbor unto death.

I think that people who don't know a lot about Anabaptists are often discouraged about pacifism because it seems, well, passive. Jessie's story is a reminder to me that being a Christian is closely linked to martyrdom. Rather than laying down our lives for freedom or the state or an amorphous "safety," as Christians we've been called to lay down our lives for our enemies.

It sounds crazy, going into a war zone armed with food and water and medicine, not carrying a gun because you oppose the war your country is fighting. But what a witness to the kingdom breaking in around us.

I'm taking Christology this semester

2008-01-24T17:39:00.000-08:00

"From the cross is a prayer and, indeed, the only prayer known to
Christians. All our prayers are prayers only in sharing in the prayer of the
cross, the exchange between Jesus and the Father in which Jesus offered the
whole of his life to the Father and the Father raised him from the dead."
Hebert McCabe, Good Friday: the mystery of the cross

old testament

2008-01-17T19:32:00.000-08:00

About 50 of us from Portland Mennonite ventured into "Bible in a Year" on Jan 1. I am already a miserable failure at reading every day but I have managed to keep the pace (about 3 chapters a day so far).

It's been great rereading the Hebrew Scriptures. Since we are part of a denomination intensely focused on the NT, I don't hear as much of the rough and tumble as I used to. I am also noticing that the lectionary can pull punches with what it casts in our path day to day and week to week. Reading two chapters a day front to back is gritty and, frankly, disturbing.

This has also been a great reminder of why I loved OT in college. At one point in time, before I learned of language requirements like Akkadian and Syro-Phoenecian, I actually wanted to be a Hebrew scholar. I still love the Hebrew language which has always seemed as gritty and obscure as the stories written in its tongue. Here are the lessons anew from this round (still in Genesis).

Lesson 1- the ancient Hebrews are completely messed up. It's quite shocking. Generation after generation they are taking multiple wives, murdering, tricking their brothers, running away, laughing at God, lying to kings, disobeying, disobeying, disobeying. And those aren't the Canaanites; those are the Hebrews. As I am reading this again and in such high volume I can truly say that as God's people, these folks in the Bible are unrecognizable!

Lesson 2 - God is always faithful. In spite of how ridiculous the Hebrews are, God returns again and again. I know that's something people say all the time and is starting to be an evangelical cliche, but seriously. There is very little to like or admire about these people. Yet God is dragging them out of burning cities, intervening when they lie to several pharaohs over several generations, blessing them when they scheme and cheat, opening their wombs even though they are snobs to their sisters.

Lesson 3 - I'm a lot less comfortable with OT sketchiness. Like Lot offering up his ENGAGED virgin daughters to a rabid mob of homosexual men. Or Jacob being blessed for tricking Laban out of his flocks and Esau's blessing. Or Leah and Rachel essentially making Jacob a prostitute for the highest mandrake bidder. In some ways I'm glad to not be in an environment where a prof tries to smooth over these rough edges with a pithy one liner. I'd rather take a little time to let this sit.

It's great to be intensely back in the Bible and in community with our church. I never thought I would again see the day when my roommate (now husband) and I sat up for hours trying to figure out why the heck Jesus got baptized....

the poor who are with us

2008-01-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was another intense day in Old Town with our friends on the street. The small group I am leading spent the morning working hospitality at the Downtown Chapel, our host for the week. We welcomed about 100 guests. Some just wanted coffee and bagels and conversation. Others were trying to get on the Oregon Health Plan or into a shelter. Other were looking for dry socks, underwear or a toothbrush.

We also visited a transitional school for children in homelessness and served dinner at St Francis Dining Hall, a daily soup kitchen in SE. It was a day full of conversations, almost all enlightening as I was reminded how the dignity of the human person is constantly put on hold for those men and women at the bottom.

(One of the most interesting conversations I had was with a man who hadn't seen a doctor in ten years. He told me that when Hilary is president, he will definitely be able to see a doctor.)

This morning I am reading a great article from the Times about moralization. It's written by a psychologist, not an ethicist or a thelogian, so it presents some challenging ways for Christians to approach questions of moral development. There is the expected annoyance of situational ethics that tends toward foundationalism, but then the argument makes an interesting U-turn, suggesting that the story-ing (mine not Pinkers word) of our communities makes a Rawlsian move towards universal norms unintelligible. Pinkers uses the anthropological example of the moral coherency of the Sudanese who wanted to execute a British school teacher rather than have the blasphemy of a teddy bear named Mohammed slide. Try to make that a comphrehensible moral argument for an American.

The author pins down as the source of our moral formation protection of and solidarity with our community. One great example of how deeply universal this tendency is was an experiment done on rhesus monkies who would rather starve than pull a lever which would simultaneously deliver food and a shock to a fellow monkey.

Yesterday I had an experience that has happened only a few other times in my life. The last time was also when I was working at a soup kitchen. I was washing down a table when I remembered that I should be cleaning this table as though preparing it for Jesus (my love of the Benedictines shining through). After reading the Times piece I am struck by the brilliance of Jesus' formation of his people through encounter as we are taught to see our community as breaching the Chosen People. In my brief moment of clarity last night Jesus WAS the man sitting beside me; they were my community, my brothers and in them was reflected the living God.

This is the story of Lazarus' brothers who found themselves scratching their heads when asked why they never visited Jesus in prison or fed him in his hunger. In Gospel teaching like this I am reminded of the importance of frequent physical encounters with the poor. If the protection and care of our community is one of the innate and mobilizing factors in our morality, then what better way to train the kingdom then by commanding us to encounter those most Other in a way in which we are expected to see ourselves, our God and our sin. What if our community, through gentle patience, was permeated by every member of creation?

My encounters yesterday also helped me to better place God's option for the poor. Gutierrez reminds us that God's option is inclusive; it begins with the poor but it does not end. Again, it seems that the poor challenge us most acutely in seeking to protect our community. They smell or have addictions, suffer from mental illness, are stripped of dignity, require assistance eating, bathing, putting on their shoes. What could be further from our image of self? What could be further from our image of the God who created heaven and earth with a mere thought? Yet Jesus comes to us in frailty and becomes disabled and disfigured upon the Cross. God invites the most wretched to be his mirror.

Sometimes the mystery and love of God is more than my head or heart can hold.

wow

2008-01-10T18:43:00.000-08:00

I found myself forgetting somethings these last few days.

The big one was how much one simple post can unleash! But tonight I am only weary. I just spent a restless night sleeping on the floor of a homeless shelter in downtown Portland with 40 of my students who are on an Urban Policy Plunge. This morning I packaged apples for families who are going hungry this winter. I visited a free clinic that treats the chronically homeless, 50% of whom suffer chronic depression and many of whom have attempted suicide. I met a man who has been homeless for 14 years and saw his wife almost raped under the bridge where they sleep.

I'm just plain weary. I'm even more weary now to come home and read responses about the importance of a Christian President and about how "life" trumps quality of life. It's not your fault, my dear sisters. Just bad timing. Those aren't the realities I've seen today. Today I saw suffering, sickness, loneliness and terror. My heart is heavy and I need to be on my knees asking the Lord to help me repent of my arrogance, my wealth and my judgment (in MANY areas).

Tonight I am tired of the brokenness of our world. Last night I was waiting for Jacob to drop of my things at the Downtown Chapel when I saw a man trying to sleep in the corner. He was rubbing his chest to stay warm beneath this thin cotton jacket. He was shivering so badly it made me cold just to look at him.

I felt completely helpless. I couldn't let him in - it wasn't my place. And I had nothing to give, not even my own coat. I stood there for ten minutes watching him. But for the rest of the night I could barely sleep. I knew he was still out there, fighting off the cold for sleep.

That's all my heart can handle for now.

just. keep. breathing.

2008-01-03T19:26:00.001-08:00

In case you hadn't heard, tonight was the Iowa caucuses. This is always a turning point in the election year for me. It's the time when I begin to try to defuse my vitriol for Christian nationalists and Christian fundamentalists. I fail. Every year I fail.

I could already start to feel my blood boil watching Mike Huckabee supporters kneeling in a circle in prayer during the caucus. It could be that my beloved Barack was doing something similar, but it never became a photo opp.

I need to remember that chances are very good that any of the candidates on either side would use the Lord for their ends if it seemed like it would give an advantage. But what gnaws at me is evangelicals coming out en masse for a politician basically because he is a Baptist minister. The term "evangelical base" makes me want to vomit.

In case you hadn't heard, the radical hate group the Minutemen recently endorsed Mike Huckabee. This was alarming for any of us who knows that God is pissed about immigration policy that advocates mistreatment of the alien, the orphan and the widow.

See, it's already starting. I'm trying to prepare my heart for the next nine months.

uh-oh, somebody call Amy Laura

2007-12-20T21:23:00.000-08:00

Get ready. A whole post devoted to something I read in People Magazine.

Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16 year old sister of the infamous pop diva is pregnant. The response has been loud and angry because Jamie Lynn isn't just Britney's sister. She plays a straight-laced, boy-shrugging-off high school student on a Nickelodeon TV show.

The first thing that came to mind when I heard this news (which is ubiquitous and even in the NYTimes) was a Christianity Today article written by Amy Laura Hall.

Hall points out the odd juxtaposition of a culture that reviles teenage pregnancy but let's its 4 and 6 year old daughters dress like "French maid" and "sexy cat" for Halloween. Messages here: we're setting you up to be seen as an overtly sexualized being long before you are ready to conceive, we know you are going to have sex anyway, always use condoms, if you do get pregnant think sensibly about the consequences and act out of this fear. This particularly teenage pregnancy has evoked remarks like: "doesn't she know about condoms? What was she thinking?" "Her life is over." "Her parents must be ashamed." That's the key word here: shame. And it's going on thick.

I am waiting for some Christian outcry but my guess is that the church will follow the crowds gasping and staring at Jamie Lynn's swollen womb. Interestingly we are in the season when we remember how our ancestors-in-faith looked upon another teenage pregnancy with disdain.

While I doubt miss Spears is carrying the savior of the world, I do know she is carrying a child made in the image of God. What I would want my child to learn from this is that, no matter what, we will honor all the gifts God has given, even if they are unexpected and life-altering. Perhaps Amy Laura's daughter said it best. She remarked after hearing one of her mom's lectures on this subject, "Mom, if God gives me a baby before I am married, I won't worry. I know that you and Dad would take care of it so that I could stay in school."

Her response is poignant and honest:

After taking a deep breath and squeezing back tears of sheer parental terror, I agreed that she was right, that we would help her and her baby no matter what. I pray that the situation will not arise, but I also pray that should it arise, her father and I, as well as the congregation into which she has been baptized, will be worthy of her confidence, for to fail her would be contrary to who we hope to be. To fail her would be the true shame.

Advent III

2007-12-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love about Portland Mennonite is the way we help identify and utilize all the gifts of our congregation. This comes from being in a church that has historically taken very seriously the "priesthood of all believers." Whether you sing, play, preach, sweep, saw or mend, there is a way your are intrinsic to the the life of the body as it carries out in our particular worship life. This sometimes means honoring a range a gifts, something else I find refreshing about our church. Having grown up in a parish where choir required auditions with paid soloists and only the clergy preached, this is a big shift.

One of the best examples of how this looks comes from our instrumental accompaniment. Emily Hershberger is one of the violinists who frequently plays pre-service. She is amazing. Then other violinist I like to call "not so good violin guy," or NSGVG. NSGVG is in his seventies and is very sincere and heartfelt about his playing. As the name NSGVG says for itself, he's most of the time off tempo, sometimes squeaks and almost always gets ahead of the piano. He also plays as often as Emily. And no matter who accompanies him on piano, there is a grace to the way she or he compensates to stay with him. Because of this NSGVG is one of the best parts of church for me.

I was thinking about NSGVG last week when reading a story in the NYTimes about physician assisted suicide. The NYTimes article spent quite a bit of time on the feminist objection to PAS, an objection that speaks much to PAS in general. The concern of feminist Susan Wolf is that more women attempt suicide than men. While men are more successful, if women were given adequate methods for suicide, the kind provided by PAS, women's euthanasia rate would sky-rocket.

What's behind the disproportionate rate of female suicide and euthanasia? Wolf writes that people rarely want to end their lives because of unmanageable pain (a nurse friend confirmed for me that with current technology there is rarely such a thing as "unmanageable pain") but men and women have very different reasons to request the procedure. Women kill themselves because they sense that they are a burden on their families. As primary caretakers for the sick and needy in their own families, placing the responsibility to provide care through a long and difficult illness on another is unthinkable. As Wolf describes, we live with a particular female cultural myth: "women as caretakers; women as affected by long-scripted cultural roles of sacrifice and suicide; women as prone to defer to the paternalism of their physicians, who are most often men."

On the other hand, all the powerful lawmakers who actually campaign for PAS are white, well-educated men. Their reason for wanting euthanasia is that they don't want to become vulnerable - they want to be in control. These are men like Washington lawmaker Gardner who is championing the death with dignity law in this state. Wolf says that for women the male mantra "my death, choice" is a fallacy. We are much to gendered for this kind of unbiased rhetoric:

To incorporate the delivery of death into medical training would, Wolf said, cause a fundamental shift in medical consciousness; the condoning and teaching of assisted suicide would mean, in ways both subtle and significant, that such aid was encouraged. And when a doctor was confronted with a desperately ill and despairing woman, he would be more likely to think, under laws like Gardner’s, that she would be better off dead. Whether the patient requested death and the doctor swiftly agreed, or whether the doctor softly suggested it and the patient, confronting a verdict of her own worthlessness, consented, the result would be the same.

I'm always wary when someone, especially I, try to use the church to solve all our problems. I know that there are deeply rooted histories and practices of misogyny in our church. I also know that we continue to prioritize the giftedness of our men. At the same time, there are moments when the church is the church and NSGVG is playing the violin. While there are certain people who want us to get out the hook every time he plays, the overwhelming response is to see the giftedness and holiness in this fellow Christ-follower.

The insistence on "rights language" in the pro-PAS argument ultimately means the rights of those who can speak for themselves (white men). This kind of language refuses to give space for the gift of dependence. The L'Arche community is one place where this lesson is particularly present. But anyone who has cared for an elderly parent, a small child or a disabled sibling also knows what this means. If we began to see our sick and dying as imbued with this unique opportunity to be present to the dying Christ, if we understood dependence as the lesson in virtue that allowed us to befriend God, if care-giving was an act we instituted in our church practice like Eucharist or Baptism then the whole conversation would change.

Theotokos

2007-12-08T12:40:00.000-08:00

I was going through some old pictures when I ran across this image I had saved from my time at Duke. This was the icon that was hanging in the Divinity library where I was studying when two of my friends came to tell me that one of our friends had been killed in a car accident the night before.

Looking back, I always felt like this painting spoke much about Andrew's death in this season of longing when we are called to come full face with the world's suffering into which Jesus would break forth. I am reminded this Advent that Mary bears a child, her first born son, whom she will live to see tortured to death on a cross.

Carole Baker, the artist wrote this poem to accompany her painting:

"O Season of the Holy Womb"
by Carole Baker

O season of the holy womb
The anguished world awaits.
With all our eyes 'afixed on she
Who carries forth the Gate.
For through this child she bears a gift
O life with God in grace.
O Holy Womb, in you gestates
The light of Heaven's face.

Happy Hanukkah

2007-12-05T20:24:00.000-08:00

In my tradition it is Advent season, the time we sing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" as we prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus.

But two nights ago another ancient holiday began. This is the third day of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. It celebrates the re-dedication of the Temple which was desecrated during the Seleucid Empire just a few centuries before Jesus was born.

This is a significant piece of history for Christians. The Maccabees help us to understand why everyone was so discontent with Jesus. Under the new persecution of the Romans some two hundred years later, there were a ton of people fashioned after Judah the Maccabee who claimed they were the Messiah sent to set the people free from their oppression. Thousands of Messiahs emerged, led bloody revolts and were crucified by the Romans.

This week also marks when our office receives "holiday cards" from other offices on campus. One in particular caught my eye this year. It was from the very active and large ROTC cadre on campus. And the picture on the front was stunning. I couldn't find the real thing, so please enjoy my "paint" drawing. In case it's heard to read, embossed white letters in the background read things like "peace," "security," "liberty," "freedom," "honor."

"My goodness!" I thought at my desk. "Some has sent me a a Hanukkah card!"

It's so Maccabean! I am holding on to it as a visual in case I ever teach a class on the books of Maccabees. Here's why: the Maccabees offered peace, security and freedom by military might under the banner of nationalism, the same things proclaimed by the card, the same thing our government is trying to convince us it can do in Iraq (bring peace with the sword).

But this isn't the peace of Jesus, the peace of the Christmas season. Into the world a child is born and the government rests on his shoulders. In the midst of fear, anxiety and rage Jesus comes, born in a manger to a unmarried teenager. He comes to us in the weakness of flesh proclaiming the good news to the poor. He is the prince of peace who will redefine Peace itself. He offers no quick solutions. Although he is God, he raises not even a hand to those who drag him to death itself. He never meets a government official or tries to influence the powers that be. Instead he wanders and begs for food, heals the sick and shames the wise.

Because of my deep respect and love for the Jewish tradition I don't very often like to compare Judaism and Christianity like this. More so, I am painfully aware that Christianity only actually stayed faithful to the Jesus who loved his enemy as himself for four hundred years. But we have this glimpse, this little pocket of time when the church really believed the kingdom of God had broken into the world. I pray constantly for the return of our church to the Prince of Peace.

pictures and a video

2007-11-26T14:17:00.000-08:00

Check out a short youtube clip here.

presente!

2007-11-23T10:53:00.001-08:00

So more on the SOA protest. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the School of the Americas, a quick background. The School of the Americas is a training facility for Latin American armies, militias and police. It's well documented that those trained by the SOA have enacted all sorts of human rights violations upon their own people. Most of those killed were "counter-insurgents," those working against oppressive regimes in their countries. One of the most famous was Fr. Oscar Romero who was murdered by soliders in El Salvador while saying Mass. In 1989 nine Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered. Graduates from the SOA have been connected to paramilitary organizations, drug cartels, guerilla militias and torture camps. They learned it all at Ft Benning.

In 2001 the U.N. did an investigation into SOA and discovered training manuals teaching students torture and assassination. The school claims to be training for the spread of democracy which I believe is true. The problem is that this is democracy at any price. The school was shut down and reopened some six months later under the name Western Hemisphere's Institute for Security Cooperation, WHINSEC. Supposedly the training changed. Yet SOA grads continue to end up in the news doing the same old thing.

The protest/vigil occurs once a year on the anniversary of the nine murdered priests. It is staunchly non-violent and deeply rooted in the social justice tradition of the Catholic church (the vigil was first organized by a Maryknoll priest). The main event happens on Sunday when a group of 25,000 (SOA Watch estimate, Ft Benning said only 11,000) show up at the gates and walk in a slow circle as the names of each person killed by someone who graduated from the SOA is sung. Everyone has a white cross and holds it up after each name saying, "presente." It's an act of solidarity, saying "although the world stood by while you died, we will never let this happen again."

SOA/WHINSEC weekend also ends up being something like a family reunion for folks like me. I saw people I knew from Jubilee Partners, Koinonia, Open Door, LA Catholic Worker, the Jesuit Volunteers and Sojourners. There were friends, friends who knew friends and those who will be our friends next year. It's a huge celebration of the great work being done in so many different ways around the country and the world.

Technically the goal of the protest is to shut down the school. Interestingly, Amnesty International doesn't promote this as a solution. Their opinion is that even if the school closed down, it would just open again somewhere else. I think they're right. The real solution (one which SOA Watch works on quite actively) is to get Latin American countries to stop sending their militaries to SOA/WHINSEC. So far I think six countries have agreed.

This was my first time at the vigil and I was with seven seniors from University of Portland. Last year we only sent two students and before that I believe we went through several years without sending any students. Students at my university are highly resistant to the idea of protest. One guess as to why is the obsession with effectiveness. If it doesn't seem like it will make an immediate change through an acceptable channel (legal, safe, fast, affirmed) then we shouldn't be doing it. I think the large ROTC presence on campus also makes it difficult to allow conflict on this issue to exist. It's better (read easier) to just ignore it and try to get along. Because of this, I think the vigil is one of the most effective training tools for civic engagement. Someone described it to me as a "protest fair." While I don't love bumper sticker social justice (how about just living faithfully?) it's great for my students to see that there are all sorts of movements happening and so many young people involved.

I know one of the difficult parts for them was all the rhetoric around "making change." I couldn't agree more. Always at things like this there's a lot of talk about a better world, the end of conflict and war. That's why a visit to Koinonia Partner Farms is always so wonderful. After the vigil ended we drove an hour out visit the community in Americus, GA. I went there with my students over the summer when I was leading our Civil Rights program. It's one of my favorite places. I always appreciate experiencing the dailyness of their struggle to live racial and economic equality in the deep South. Protests are important but these are short term signs of change. People go home, forget. Lives don't necessarily change. The people at Koinonia live the message out every day and they extend their reach in amazing ways.

The breadth of Koinonia's witness especially hit home talking to one of the older guys. He was referencing one part of the vigil (No Mas! No More!) and telling us how that originated there on the farm. But at the time they weren't talking about SOA but the Civil Rights struggle. Then it was Vietnam. Then it was nuclear proliferation. Then it was the Cold War. Struggles for justice are not going to be over until the Lord returns. If the SOA shuts down, there will be something else to take it's place, some other way the poor are brought low. There always has been. But I also know that the church (and those outside the church who teach us to be the church) will always be ready to say "presente" for the alien, the orphan and the widow who are shot down, starved, tortured or disappeared. That's the kingdom of God.

I'll load up some pictures when I come back from Iowa.

whoa nelly

2007-11-21T07:29:00.000-08:00

Phew! It's been an exhausting few days with a lot more travel than expected. I am now in Iowa with Jacob's family, a day and half earlier than expected. It's all thanks to the nightmare we call holiday travel.

This past weekend I was at Ft Benning, GA with a group of students from the club I advise (The Latin American Solidarity Club). We were participating in the School of the Americas/WHINSEC protest. I will write more about this a little later but you can learn a lot about our country's most famous counter-insurgent training facility at SOA Watch.

On the way back I got stuck in Birmingham over night and, rather than fly back to Portland for t-minus 10 hours, I took the next plane to Iowa (via Louisville and Chiacgo and Omaha. ugh). And now it's snowing so hopefully Jacob will be able to get into night. Sad.

Like I said, I will share more about the particulars of the SOA protest a little later. Let's just celebrate the fact that I got 7 students to Georgia and back for a protest without being arrested.

dependent rational animals

2007-11-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

Receiving help is hard for a lot of us. I don't think we can really know how challenging this can be until we find ourselves in a place where we are forced to receive assistance. I had two experiences this week that reminded me of how difficult it is to feel dependent.

The first was This American Life. The show was called "How to Rest in Peace" where the last segment was about a man who helped his elderly mother "practice" her suicide. He would be there when she showed him her method, to talk her through her fears, to help her think through the decision. This was a woman who greatly feared all the things associated with being old, particularly pain and disability. Rather than "lose her mind" or have someone else sponge bathe her, she decided to overdose.

I thought this was especially interesting because I now have a disabled person living with me. Jacob broke his hand last week playing hurling. He has a long fracture leading from his left ring-finger knuckle down the hand. We're looking at potential surgery for the finger and 5 weeks in a very obtrusive cast (picture below for your enjoyment).

What I've noticed this last week is how much Jacob doesn't want to be a "bother." I catch him trying to do all sorts of things, like butter bread (try that with one hand) or open plastic bags. Of course there are some things he simply can't do: wash his hair, tie his shoes and button anything. It's a lot of dependence and a lot of asking for help. There's also a lot of humility in feeling helpless about daily homecare in laundry, dishes and making the bed.

Fortunately, I have a PhD in inter-dependence from the L'Arche community. We joke that Jacob is my core member. The only difference is that he's much more stubborn about doing things on his own. Last week he didn't shower for 5 days without telling me (there's a lot of two handed waterproofing prep involved). Now that I am caring for Jacob in this particular way I can see how much strength it takes for our friends at l'Arche to receive our care.

I think about that woman who killed herself to avoid a life in the hospital. How could her world have been transformed by allowing herself to be cared for by her son; how might his life been enriched and transformed by caring for her? Living through the failing of our bodies and the willingness to carry each other gently towards death is perhaps the greatest act of loving-kindness we can experience. I am so grateful for Marilyn, Joni, Adam and Erin and now Jacob for teaching me this every day.

The woman I want to be

2007-11-09T17:44:00.000-08:00

Making dinner for my disabled husband (if you hadn't heard, Jacob broke his hand last Sunday playing the traditional Irish sport of hurling) I was listening to one of my favorite programs, This American Life. It was an archived program about wrongful convictions. The first "act" was about these three guys who spent half their life in prison for a rape and murder they did not commit.

The woman who defended them, spent $50,000 of her own money and 600 unpaid hours to bring the case to trial, was Kathleen Zellner. And get this. Her daughter and now associate went to Wheaton College and graduated in 2002. Okay. One for Wheaton.

Seriously, after hearing this addition of TAL I ever so briefly contemplated taking out an LSAT book from the library. Then I remembered that one of our law school-graduate friend is working as a temp for Citi Bank and the other is working in-house for JP Morgan. Hmm. Maybe not.

And if any of you know Anne Zellner, tell her I think her mom is the best.

The Feminist

2007-11-04T15:36:00.000-08:00

my handsome assistant.

For Christmas last year my little sis gave her new brother-in-law a book called "Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World." An ambitious title, I know. But he loved it And, like any book worth reading, in the process he had a moment of conversion. He became convinced that the central role of home brewing needs to go to the women. (Jacob says men are called brewers and women brewsters. I think we should all just be brewtrons, but whatever.)

The chapter that struck the ethical chord is called "The Great Beer Gender Bender" and in it the author describes himself as a femaleist (nyuck, nyuck, nycuk). He talks about the role women can play in taking back the now industrialized culture of beer, back to something that was ours.

For thousands of years brewing was women's craft in the home. He writes, "as modern industrial capitalism emerged as a main organizing force in the world, men transformed brewing from a craft into an industry; and from a culture to a commodity" (65). The 1516 Reinheitsgebot law in Germany forced controlled production of beer and in the process ousted women's in-home recipes and brewing processes. With the mass production of beer came the loss of its cultural significance.

What this means for the Florer-Bixlers: I am the brewster in the family. The beer tools are mine. The beer choices are mine. Jacob will not instruct, recommend, correct or influence. He is my assistant.

The amazing thing is, none of this was my idea. Jacob had to fight hard for this place of subordination. The beer gear was my birthday present from him but it took me a long time to get started. Something in me didn't want to mess it up or thought that he would do it better. I realized that I'd been socialized to see beer production as male.

We just bottled our second batch of homebrew, a clone of The Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen. Our first batch, a clone of Fat Tire from the New Belgium Company was awesome. I am slowly gaining confidence and am thankful to my assistant for spurring me on. In two weeks we crack our first bottle of Flo-Bix Gold Hefeweizen. If you are in Northeast Portland stop by and try some for yourself!

adoption business

2007-10-31T21:37:00.001-07:00

In the past two weeks I've read two interesting articles about international adoption. The NYTimes magazine had a piece about the joys and perils of tracking down birth mothers. The verdict - you may not get what you want. There were some stories of really great birth mothers who were hoping to reconnect but also stories about adoptive families who found the mothers had HIV, abused their children or were downright dishonest.

The Mother Jones article had a different spin (surprise, surprise). This was about the adoption industry, provocatively entitled "Did I Steal My Daughter?" The article looked at Guatemalan adoptions and the author's finding that her daughter is likely a product of the baby stealing that is becoming somewhat of an epidemic in Latin America.

This was also a week we met for church small group. We're reading a book by David Augsburger called "Dissident Discipleship." The other night we were trying to name specific practices of discipleship and I mentioned adoption. Jokingly I commented, "now one of you here just has to adopt and we'll be all set."

Of course the response was, "well, what about you two?"

What about us? Articles like the dissuading NYTimes and Mother Jones articles are only part of the landscape of daunting questions that face us as we consider how to welcome children into our family. We've got a lot of stuff to work with and through. My best friend Gwyneth is an international adoption social worker. My mom is adopted. In Jacob's ethics of totality, we aren't allowed to call ourselves pro-life until we adopt.

Many of our friends are and have been birthing children of late. On the recommendation of Gwyneth, Jake and I plan on welcoming a biological child before we adopt. The theory is, adoption happens suddenly and can often leave parents completely unprepared. If you can conceive, having a child this way tells you exactly how much time you have before baby enters your life.

This isn't the only thing we've had to consider. We haven't been married for a full year, the minimum time suggested before starting the process (Catholic Relief Services requires couples to be married for two years). We're also wondering about our geographic stability. We're not planning to stay in Portland too much longer. Would it be traumatizing for an older child to experience yet another massive change in her life after so much upheaval? Also, we don't want to adopt infants so chances are good the biological family will be in the picture. Do we need to commit to one space so that we can foster a good open adoption with a birth family? A big one: should we be birthing any biological children?

It's no wonder more people don't adopt. This kind of stuff is so complicated that it can become paralyzing. At the same time, that Oregon DHS webpage has had the same kids staring back at me for the last two years. When do we finally just say yes?

My real fear is that the comparative ease of birth children is going to overtake us. I can imagine waking up one day and having 3 biological kids and thinking, "whoa. What happened?" Looking back I remember many college friends telling me that one day they planned to adopt. I don't have a single friend who has done so yet. It could be that adoption is somewhere in the future, but maybe not. Statistics say probably not. Is there a way to encourage each other towards this kind of discipleship? Are there conversations we're not having, questions we're not asking, ways we need to better support one another? Is it crude to call this holding one another accountable?

get out the brooms

2007-10-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

Social Justice themed children's books

2007-10-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

Sojourners magazine this month included a list of social justice themed books for kids. Since all ya'll seem to be reproducing, I thought you might enjoy a few of the titles.

As always, I will be living out parenthood through my goddaughter, Geneva, so keep an eye on the mail Ladwigs! I am particularly excited about ¡Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can! Janitor Strike in L.A. Other good finds:

A Ride on Mother’s Back, by Emery Bernhard. Illustrated by Durga
Bernard. This book celebrates the different ways people carry their babies
around the world. The illustrations are very appealing. Gulliver Books, 1996.

Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara Joosse. Illustrated by Barbara
Lavallee. This is a tender story of a young Eskimo child testing her
independence from her mother, and a wonderful mother who constantly reassures
the child that nothing could ever change her love for the child. This book is
also a good introduction to Eskimo or Inuit culture. Chronicle Books, 1991.

Martin’s Big Words, by Doreen Rappaport. Illustrated by Bryan
Collier. A beautifully illustrated and wonderfully told story of the life of
Martin Luther King Jr., ending with the assurance that “his big words are alive
for us today.” Hyperion Books for Children, 2001.

Friends from the Other Side /Amigos del Otro Lado , by Gloria
Anzaldúa. Illustrated by Consuelo Méndez. This bilingual story of friendship
between a South Texas Chicana girl and a boy from Mexico is very appropriate in
today’s reality with regard to immigration. Courage, friendship, and wisdom
abound. Children’s Book Press, 1997.

Truth about the Rockies

2007-10-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

I’m getting a little tired of hearing about the Rockies being the underdog. On the radio it’s, boo hoo, the Rockies have never been to the Series. Boo hoo, the Red Sox just won a pennant. This is ridiculous. Here’s why:

The Rockies are an expansion team! They have been around for FIFTEEN YEARS! The Red Sox have been the Sox since 1908 and before that were the Americans (1901). The Rockies haven’t been around long enough to be the underdog.

Let’s never forget that before 2004 the Sox hadn’t won the Series since 1918. And, I ask you, are we saying a team that has LOST in 16 playoff appearances over 89 YEARS is not a wretched peloton indeed? When the Rockies have reached this level of misery, then we can talk.

By my calculations, that date will be 2096 when the Rockies will need to have lost this and 16 more playoff games.

Manassas, land of the free, home of the bigots

2007-10-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

You know it's bad when you open up Mother Jones to find an article about your hometown (entitled "Manassholes") staring back at you.

Manassas has always lived somewhere on the border between despair and apathy, but now we've reached a zenith. Worried about falling house prices and all them brown skins clogging the wheels of the justice system, Manassas has introduced several city ordinances. One requires only "families" to live in homes. "Families" now constitute only immediate relatives. Guess which people groups live with more than their immediate relatives: immigrants from the South. In addition Prince William County is now denying legal services to undocumented workers and checking IDs on every brown skin person they come across. Out here we call this racial profiling.
But not in Manassas.

The Washington Post has written several articles about the situation. I'm at the "spitting tacks" level of anger about all this. The words, "we should move back there" have actually escaped my lips. Help Save Manassas can blow as much steam as they want but I wonder when they are going to realize that the people who clean their bathrooms, build their houses, pick their food and watch their children are the "illegals" who have no place to sleep at night because of the new ordinances.

There are ways to address the situation of Hispanic immigration to the States. Let me suggest one starting place: NAFTA. Until Manassasans stop acting like this is a problem that's going to clear up because they separate a few families through deportation or cause a few people to freeze outside at night before cooking their burgers, we're not going anywhere. Maybe it's time to ask questions about the conditions of workers in the maquillas along the border, about how trade policy contributes to social unrest in the South, about flooding markets with our products and killing off any chance for trade. Maybe it's time to ask about food insecurity, inability to find adequate health care, what it's like to live without a future or a hope.

It's frustrating to have your confirmations about your hometown confirmed: backwards, bigoted, uneducated, unaware of anything outside ourselves. I'll be home for Christmas. Anyone up for protest organizing?

"'Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow.' Then all the people shall say, Amen!'" Deuteronomy 27:19

beautiful san fran

2007-10-18T08:45:00.001-07:00

I am just returned from taking 26 students to the bay area. We spent 3 days looking at issues of environmental justice and racism. EJ and ER are ways to describe how the poor are disproportionately exposed to toxins in their air, water and land. We looked at several communities where the rates of breast cancer, asthma and preventable hospitalization are triple what they are in wealthy communities. Oh, and these poor communities are predominantly made up of blacks, Asians and Latinos.

Despite it's LEED-certification and renewable energy, there are lots of people living in low income housing right across the street from the most polluting power plant in the entire city. The group we worked with in Bayview Hunters Point (the part of San Fran that experiences environmental inequality) is supported by a group called Greenaction. If you ever are in the area, they give "toxic tours" like the one we took.

In Richmond, about 20 miles away, people live with no buffer zone between them and the Conoco plant. A few years back there was a huge fire at the plant. The warning system malfunctioned and the company was forced to warn people through manual calling. Guess what: they only called the executives who lived on the hill above the plant. The people within half a mile directly in the line of smoke got all their news from English-speaking TV. Unfortunately not many of the families speak English.

The group we worked with in Richmond is called Communities for a Better Environment. They also give toxic tours.

These are great community organizing groups who have managed to do astounding things, like shut down whole power plants. One of my favorite stories of this kind comes from East Palo Alto where Youth United for Community Action, a youth organizing group managed to shut down the entire Romic facility polluting their backyard.

There are also several groups working on local food systems and food security. One of those groups is People's Grocery. We spent a day working on their farm in Sunol, CA, about an hour from San Fran. They specifically work with West Oakland. Check out these statistics: in West Oakland there are 30,000 people, 32 liquor stores, 15 fast food chains and ZERO GROCERY STORES. People's is working to create the first co-op there. They also run a farm stand, teach cooking classes and work in the schools.
That's about it! A fun week doing my job.

friendship: christianity and homosexuality

2007-10-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to post for a while on a friendship with a classmate from Duke. I met Hannah (not her real name) at orientation for the Religion Department at Duke. I was immediately intrigued. Hannah was Jewish and in the New Testament program. She had converted to Christianity and joined Jews for Jesus in an early decade of her life. During that time Hannah discovered she was gay and was forced/felt ostracized from conservative Christianity and left the church.

What's amazing about Hannah is that she isn't angry. She's probably the least angry person I know. She wasn't angry at men or the church or Jews for Jesus. This was all just a part of her story. Hannah was also religiously nebulous. If we talked about faith there was always a kind of exasperated question mark over the conversation. It was fascinating.

There were things about me Hannah didn't know. She didn't know I went to Truro (formerly Episcopal) Church. She didn't know I once worked for the Institute on Religion and Democracy. And while Hannah knew I was a Christian I wasn't about to give her the chance to sideline me with Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. Looking back, I know Hannah would have been able to hear me even through those things.

But the point of this is a conversation we had, one of our last, near the end of my time at Duke. Two of our other religion department friends, straight white women, were talking to Hannah about me. It just so came up that I was an evangelical Christian. One of the women asked her, "so don't you have a problem with the fact that Melissa may think it's not okay for you to be gay?"

Fortunately Hannah brought this up to me. She was a little sheepish about it. My first question was, "so what do you want to know?" "I don't know..." was the reply. I asked her, what do you think she meant by, "okay for you to be gay?" Does it mean I think there should be hate crime legislation around sexual orientation? Do I think same-sex unions should be legalized? Do I think same-sex marriages should be legalized? Do I think homosexuality is a "broken state?" Do I think same sex partners should receive the same benefits as married couples? Do I think gay men and women should be able to marry in the church? Do I think we should ordain gay people?

Hannah I talked some more and realized that not even she was sure where she stood on some of these issues. Instead, it felt like our friendship was being questioned by two activist who weren't even part of the gay community. If Hannah, a lesbian was having trouble sorting through the nuance, how did these women come to such firm conclusions.

It's the nuance that really catches my ear when representatives from extremes begin to debate this issue. On the left are people like our common friend who see all these issues as exactly the same; lose one battle and you've lost the war. On the other side are Christians who don't support hate crime legislation. Do we really want to oppose legislation that would deter people from dehumanizing someone for any reason? Isn't the basic principle of protecting every person made in the image of God?

There is one nagging question that unsettles me more than hate crime legislation. How do we respond to gay couples with adopted children? I know several couples who adopted infants and now have children in their teens. Are we really telling them it's time to break up the family, that someone needs to move out? I've yet to hear a gentle, articulate, truthful and compassionate answer to this question from a Christian. Whether you think gay men and women should be adopting is beside the point. It's already happened.

I should also say this doesn't make me any less sure of the biblical mandate on sexuality or any less sure of what the church's ultimate position should be (just in case someone wants to accuse me of being "blinded by compassion" although maybe there are worse things to be blinded by). That doesn't answer the question. I can say as much as I want about the way the world should be. But I'm trying to be honest about the way the world is.

I invite your thoughts....

ron sider, starfish

2007-10-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

One of the books that had a profound impact on me as an undergraduate was Ron Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Sider's book was one of the first that asked me to question my affluence and comfort. He brought up all sorts of amazing and earth-shattering ideas about simplicity. He really spelled it out, everything from not buying new clothes to eating less meat. I had never heard anything like this before. Sider was talking about solidarity with the poor, something evangelical Christians generally struggle with. I can truly say he changed my life.

So when we heard Ron Sider was in town last night we went to see the man in the flesh. Sadly, it was disappointing. I think part of this had to do with the fact that I haven't been hanging out with evangelicals much lately (Jacob says Mennonites are evangelicals but I don't fully agree). Sider spent almost his whole talk justifying from the Bible preferential option for the poor. I was thinking, have we really not moved past this? Has this not been established yet?

But the best/worse part came at the end. He was basically avoiding questions about what exactly we were supposed to do day to day, the exacy opposite of what Rich Christians was all about. Weak sauce. His suggestions were limited to: 1) pray about what to do 2) join the group sponsoring this event 3) tutor in downtown Portland.

There's nothing wrong with those things but these people were hungry to have their lives changed and that. was. it. I was going to ask about the war tax but we ran out of time.

As my friend Laura pointed out, the highlight of the night was that he actually used The Starfish Story, a story that, the first time you hear it, you may think "awe, that's nice" but after you think about it for a second you realize it is pure, unadulterated CHEESE.

heck, why not another!

2007-10-04T21:12:00.000-07:00

I had some other updates to share....

1. in case you missed it, tropical storm Melissa has come and gone and unless you are reading this from West Africa you probably didn't even notice. I only get to have a hurricane named after me every five years so it is a little depressing that we didn't make it all the way to "hurricane status." I was just wanting to form and spin off to sea so I guess it's all right in the end. Sigh.

2. we just added pictures to our flickr page (scroll down to the right). You can catch up a little bit on the Bixlers' visit to San Juan Islands and Seattle.

3. This video is addictive so be prepared to set some regular time aside in your daily life to check it out. Ah, Mennonite youth. This is the future, my friends. Bearded man is pretty much the reason the Eley-McClains are able to serve in Latin America. Let us thank him.

The best part are the youtube tags for this video: "Jesus" "poverty" "love" "charity" "Mennonite" "Christian." That about sums it up!

life and times

2007-10-04T16:43:00.000-07:00

Miss me?

It's been a little while, longer than usual. In the meantime two of our friends gave birth (welcome to the world, Jacob and William), both sets of parents visited and I had another marathon class weekend (2 down, 3 togo!).

Now I'm stuck at work waiting to lead the intentional-living community here on campus in a theological reflection on gender and embodied discipleship. I know. You wish you could be here.

This is part of the article we are reading. Yes, it is Amy Laura Hall but it's all I had time to dig out today. Plus it's one of the most eloquent pieces I've read on the economic construction of gender.

Although upper-class women have long avoided the “women’s work” relegated to their gender, middle-class women are now increasingly expected to forgo, or they jettison by their own choosing, the work of feeding, clothing, nursing, and otherwise tending real bodies. As women have entered the workforce in earnest, the middle and upper-middle classes in the one-third world have hardly redistributed these tasks. Rather than men joining women in the servant ministry of mopping floors, washing dusty feet and touching broken bodies, women who are economically capable of doing so are joining men in the aviodance of this work. Men and women are all alike, disembodied and self-deceptively self-sufficient, in the new economy.

Such self-sufficiency is a lie against which Christians must testify. The middle and upper classes are hardly self-sufficient; rather, they are dependant upon an underclass that cares for other people’s children, runs thechash registers, and serves the burgers. In my own experience, many mainline churches are sorely tempted not only to accept these patterns and eschew discipleship, but to mimic our culture’s expectations–to hire inexpensive caterers to replace the covered-dish supper, foriegn nannies to soothe the babies in our creche, and low-wage orderlies to spoon food into the mouths of the Church’s patriarchs and matriarchs. Mumbling something about “gifts," about who is best suited to such service, some Christians attempt to robe this parasitic economy in theological garments.

let's bike to work

2007-09-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

I'm a member of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance Bike Commute Challenge here in good old Portland, OR. They are tracking bike commutes around the city. This was the very exciting email I received this morning.

"After two weeks, we all (there are more than 10,000 of us) had logged 37,000 bike trips, and nearly 350,000 miles traveled by bike. That represents about 344,000 pounds of CO2 kept out of the atmosphere from the driving we didn't do, and about $48,000 worth of gas we didn't buy. And it represents nice views, fresh air, good workouts and fun rides! Thanks everyone!"

Yeah! And on that note, we are proud to welcome the newest member of our family: a blue VW TDI Golf which we hope to drive very, very little.

over the rhine

2007-09-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

All the graduates of evangelical colleges who reside in Portland gathered last night to hear Over the Rhine at the Doug Fir. I wore my Gordon La Vida t-shirt. No bites. We did see a few Wheaties.

Karin and Linford were devastating as usual. It was hard to imagine them back in 1999 playing a free concert in the dining hall at Gordon.

on not responding

2007-09-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

Since we started the blog over a year ago I've come across the network of theology blogs out there in the world. As most of you know, I love theology so getting into the mind of those asking great questions and engaging in conversation seemed like a great thing.

Those which I tap into a lot are the musings of a post-liberal person usually emerging from evangelicalism, usually with some advanced theological education. But these blogs aren't written by a "person," they are written by, from what I can gather, white men. It's also interesting that they have all read practically the same books: Lindbeck, Hauerwas, Rowan Williams, Newbigen, Yoder. They spend a lot of time working through these writers, all of whom are also white men. Many of their blogs have completely bombastic names.

It is very rare to find a woman even engaging in these conversations. And the tone of conversation is certainly never like that of the recent NFP discussion here at "further up." I am appreciating Lisa's comment about the personal nature of the conversation. Allowing me some room to exegete that (maybe further than Lisa would want!), good theology requires attention to the ways our bodies are deeply intrinsic to the patterns and habits that constitute common life in the reign of God. Good theology is very much "in here."

This isn't to say that these twenty- and thirty-something men don't have something to contribute to the conversation. But to be comfortable with the complete exclusion of the Lukan voice (racial and ethnic minorities, global church, women, children) seems like a place the church ought not to be. Maybe it's time to start asking new questions or at least where these questions are coming from.

My sensitivity to this has been heightened by Sr. Kathleen McManus, the Dominican sister who teaches my Foundations of Catholic Systematic Theology course. While she works to address the hierarchical oppression in the Catholic church (which is much more overt), what I see from the bloggy guys is a pattern of knowing and expressing knowledge that looks almost the same.

For a while I wondered, where are all the "serious" theologically minded women bloggers? I know women who are theologians and I would love to see what they are writing. Why aren't they getting out there? And if they are out there, why aren't the bloggy guys hooked in?

But could it be that the blog is a form of knowledge creation and expression that is by its nature exclusionary/sexist/racist (anti-feminine)? And what does it mean that I am so addicted to reading these blogs?

Happy New Year

2007-09-12T17:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Rosh Hashanah. At sundown we start a new year in the Jewish calendar. On this day YHWH moves from the throne of judgment to the throne of mercy.

And keep your eyes open. According to the Mishnah on this day we are to expect the resurrection of the dead.

nfp, round 3

2007-09-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I am writing this instead of going to bed. I am an idiot. Today was my second day as a Masters of Pastoral Ministry student in a joint program run by Gonzaga and University of Portland. Being a member of a "gravely deficient ecclesial community" in a Catholic program is quite fun. It's really a deaconite formation program but let's remember that it's free and theology. My two favorite things.

So, despite being in class for, and no I am not making this up, 10 hours this weekend (only 3 to go!) I am posting.

I was thinking a lot today about Lisa's comment which suggests that the Pill and NFP are principally the same thing since they both add an element of control to the conception process. I've heard this question a lot and until I was practicing, I didn't really have an answer.

In many ways this is a question best answered by a former Pill user, of which I am not (are you reading this Seeca?). But from someone who has only practiced for fertility awareness, this is what I've got.

My experience with Pill users is that missing a dose or "being late" induces fear almost immediately (the friend out there who is on the Pill because of a medical issue, this is not you to whom I refer). The issue is that Pill users are set up so that worst thing that can happen to them is for the products to be "ineffective," in other words to create a life unexpectedly. I just feel very strange about that as an emotional response to pregnancy. This is not to sentimentalize birth at all. I think this is true of a 50 year old who finds out she is pregnant with a son with Downs. As Agnieszka Tennant writes, the Pill engenders a sense that life is predictable and a child becomes a foil to best laid plans.

This is not what I experience in those who practice NFP. The worst thing that can happen is that you welcome a child but that is something different when the reality of child is always before you. Even though the method is no less effective, your body and life are prepared for the interruption simply because of the community, formation and commitment required by the method. There is something in the practice that trains me to think differently about life much in the same way that you learn to believe the unbelievable by saying the Nicene Creed week after week.

This is my experience: I never ever assume that a child is not somewhere nine months out. And there are small daily practices which keep this reality before me. I take prenatal vitamins. I stay in "prenatal shape." I think about nine months from now and always have in mind the logistics it would take to provide a flourishing atmosphere for a child.

This isn't baby obsession. I still drink beer. It is keeping in mind that I've been gifted to have a body where life can be fostered. I never consider myself "safe" from children because my formation around sexuality refused to see children as something I needed to be vaccinated against.

I cannot stress enough that I am a relatively financially stable, married, mental illness-free, prescription drug-free adult. If I could blanket the continent of Africa with condoms, I certainly would. But the situation many of us find ourselves in does necessitate deeper reflection on our formation around this issue. I'd love to continue the conversation as you see fit.

Two articles

2007-09-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks the lively conversation from the women of Tavilla Hall on the Pill/abortifacient question. I actually spent months trying to decide if I ever wanted to post on this subject. I hate Christian scare tactics and don't ever want to come across as dogmatic about this issue. It is something I feel passionately about. I also think this is a severely neglected moral issue for Christians, one that we don't like to think about because it is (not for all people, but most) that most horrific of things, inconvenient.

There are a few articles we've mentioned in "comments" that give better context for this discussion and they fall along very different lines:

One is by a Dennis Sullivan who suggests there is no Christian ethical or moral quandary around the use of oral contraceptives. The second is a Christianity Today article from a few years back about one woman's encounter with "the evidence" and how it changed her contraceptive practice. She also gives a shout out to my girl, Dr. Amy Laura Hall.

"The Oral Contraceptive as Abortifacient: An Analysis of Evidence"

"A Hard Pill to Swallow"

which comes first?

2007-09-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Jacob and I have a bet going, one which will have to wait to be settled in the new heaven and the new earth.

Which will come first: the Catholic church ordaining women or letting priests marry?

Jacob falls on the married priest side; I think women will take ordination vows first.

Our reasons:
Jacob: "I intuited it." No, I am not making this up.

Melissa: "Already women are pretty much running most Catholic parishes every where in the world. One priest for every ten churches? Who do you think is arranging altar guild, teaching RCIA, running Christian ed, serving Communion and reading the lectionary? Not the dudes who make up 2% of the congregation. One day the church is going to wake up and realize that women already ARE running the church."

Feel free to weigh in....

nfp update

2007-08-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the wonder that is facebook I recently reconnected with a high school friend, Jen, who recently welcomed her first child. She was asking me how the old nfp (natural family planning) bit was going for me and Jacob. And since we've posted on it before, I thought I would give you an update.

It's going splendidly. I don't understand why more people don't try it. The stigma, I guess. But really it is so easy. The hardest part is recording your temperature each morning, the rest is just keeping track of your own body throughout the day.

The real trick is the mental piece. I was convinced it wasn't going to work the first month. I lost all confidence and just said, "oh my gosh, we are going to get pregnant." When we didn't and once we'd had some time to trust the method, it was clear that this thing really works! I should qualify this by saying that we think it works. We could just be infertile. There's only one sure way to find that out and we aren't ready to test those waters. But my leutal cycle is long enough, my fertile days are just about average and I ovulate at almost the same time every month. With two years of tracking my cycle under the belt, it's easy to tell when I'm ovulating even when travel or stress invade.

What's most interesting about this experience is the appreciation it has given us of the odd choices we make about creating other human beings. This may seem strange, but every month I feel a bit of loss. Nothing depressing or hyper-emotional, just a sense that a potential human being, my half of the genetic code is now unavailable. Jacob and I also talk about how weird and creepy it is to even think about "planning" for our children. Of course we talk about our budget and bank statements and hope that the Lord prepares us financially to welcome the gift, but at the same time it's more than a little shocking to think about stopping something from existing!

At the same time, nfp has helped us to see life in it's much broader context. While I still think we would be devastated by a miscarriage or to find out we were unable to bear children, we have a better appreciation of miracle of the creation and an excitement to welcome life in whatever form it is gifted to us. That may be fostering, adoption or living with the disabled (hopefully all three!) but regardless, we've discovered a fascination with the way the body works.

This was put into perspective for me after reading a recent article in, of course, the nytimes about a new birth control that will completely suppress the menses. The assault on womanhood continues. Just to prepare you, you are about to receive an onslaught of ads from Wyeth, the maker of Lybrel who want you think your period is bad for you. Yes, that's right. They have tons of reasons to back it up, none of them very convincing from my angle.

But what's even more sinister is that really, no one on the pill (anything with progestin and estrogen) is having a real period. The sugar tablets you take during the off-week at the end of the month are simply there to let loose a hormornal disruption previously kept in check by a steady diet of drugs. Essentially, Lybrel is just taking away the sugar pills.

In other words, you are NEVER ovulating if you are on the pill. Ovulation takes place weeks before menses ensues and the hyped up estrogen tricks your body into thinking this has already happened. But, the pill is only 98% effective. How? you may wonder. A little something called "break through ovulation." There aren't any really good studies on this because it's so hard to detect. But some estimates have it that 27 out of 100 cycles experience breakthrough ovulation.

So why isn't the pill not only 73% effective instead of 98%? One of the "advantages" of the pill is that it thins out the lining of uterus so if ovulation does occur, the newly formed zygote can't survive and it is discarded. Moral problem for Christians? Probably, or at least a practice that demands a lot more attention, especially from Protestants. Would love to hear any thoughts.

Freshman Service Plunge

2007-08-24T12:14:00.001-07:00

Phew! The longest 2.45 days of the year are over. Every August we welcome the University of Portland freshman through an optional pre-orientation service program. It's an exhausting few days that takes months to plan. This year we had around 200 participants, about 1/4 of the freshman class.

Remember being a freshman? They were all excited and nervous and ready to meet new people. They also are, for the most part, completely clueless. If I ever get frustrated I just say to myself, these are high school seniors with a summer vacation. In other words, they have no idea. I counted up some terms we used that I'm sure were completely new: voluntary poverty, solidarity, food security, systemic change.

It's an incredible experience to be the first educational experience students have at UP. On the Service Plunge we have two tracks: a basic and an advanced. The advanced is my territory and this year's theme was "the working poor." We introduce the group that chose this track to food insecurity, networks of dependence and living wage. We did a letter writing campaign on the Farm Bill and they all read Nickel and Dimed. I think it went well, but we'll see what the evaluations say...

This experience also impresses upon me how informed about justice issues I have to be. This week I needed to be able to summarize the Farm Bill at the drop of a hat, to give someone the statistics on food insecurity in Oregon (11.8% of the population) and to explain to someone the philosophy behind Portland's only youth homeless shelter. I just wrote a discussion guide on global climate change, I'm chairing a committee on a mosquito net distribution program in Kenya and I'm setting up a native american immersion alternative spring break in Alaska.

This is also the reason my job has such a high burn out rate. It's hard to keep current on all of these areas of service and justice. I've only been doing this a year and I'm already starting to identify with my predecessor's reason for leaving - you never get to commit to one community and to do it well. You may enable others to find their passion and you do become an excellent teacher. But I long for l'Arche, for the rhythm of the community and to live with those whom the world despises. The excess of university life, the hierarchy, the budgets, the price of admission is
always present to me. Hopefully I will never become comfortable with this. I can only teach about the poor for so long. Sometime soon I will need to return to the poor to be present to them and to know my own poverty through them.

a hard rain's a gonna fall

2007-08-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

In case you hadn't heard, the rapture may be happening soon. Evidence? Bob Dylan played a concert at Messiah College in Grantham, PA. Messiah is one of the colleges in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, although Messiah has Brethern roots which is a bit atypical for an evangelical college.

So following up on the evangelical quiz post, I thought all of you who scored in the 21+ bracket would be amused by the conversation that went on around this concert which you can read about here. Those of you who scored under 10 may be horrified or perhaps only confused (I hope only confused).

Do you really need to justify brininging BOB DYLAN to campus? Reading some of these questions you'd think that the Student Activities board had recruited 50 Cent or Metallica.

It's this kind of thing that makes me feel like the CCCU colleges are administrated by people who resemble the "Chrustian" Bible salesman from Flannery's Good Country People.

Here's a great evangelical moment for you: I've only had one true "witnessing" talk with someone. I was living in Israel with some hippie who were really into the new age spirituality stuff that's big in that part of the world. My friend Omer had never met a Christian before and wanted to know about Jesus. I realized that he already knew a lot of the Bible stories and was turned off by traditional Judaism. But he loved Bobby D. So we listened to "John Wesley Harding," by far Dylan's most christic album, written shortly after his near-death motorcycle accident. I told him who Jesus was through the lyrics and where the same stuff showed up in the Bible. I don't know what happened with Omer's spiritual journey, but I do know that he gets Jesus.

Evangelical Quiz!

2007-08-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if you’ve run across it yet, but frequently when perusing Lark News I’ve seen ads for “The Field Guide to Evangelicals.” This is the quiz you can take to see if you are indeed ensconced in evangelical subculture. Here’s a few:

1. In the last election you:
a. Made MoveOn.org your homepage.
b. Listened carefully to both candidates’ positions.
c. Tithed to the Bush campaign.

2. Your children attend school:
a. at the local public school.b. at a private school.c. in your living room.

3. You think “backslide” is:
a. A country dance step.
b. A type of alcoholic drink.
c. A sinful state of non-belief.

I didn’t find these question sufficient, especially for younger evangelicals who are more likely vote Democrat, care about global warming and to see abortion and the death penalty as part of a consistent ethic of life. These are the Sojourner-subscribing, Derek Webb-listening, Imago Dei-attending kids who made up the majority of mine and my sister’s friend at Gordon College.

So I made up my own quiz with the help of my husband. Between Wheaton and Gordon, we think we’ve got something good. I think it represent what is now the normative thought and ethic for evangelicals my age.

Take our quiz and let us know how you scored via the comments. You can score more than once on the same question if both a, b and c apply to you

1. If you have ever referred to yourself as…
a) a “post-evangelical” 1 point
b) a “recovering evangelical” 2 points

2. If you attend(ed) a university where….
a) Dancing was illegal at some point during your time there and you thought this was bogus 1 point
b) There were times in the week where the opposite sex couldn’t be in your dorm room and you thought this was bogus 2 points
c) The campus was dry and you thought this was bogus 2 points

3. You have ever looked up a Greek word (even if you have never taken Greek) to resolve one of the following questions:
a) If women should cover their heads in church 1 point
b) If women should be in leadership positions in the church 2 points
c) If women should submit to their husbands 3 points

4. If you
a) Consider the band u2 the paramount of Christian music 1 point
b) Ever questioned u2’s Christianity because you saw a picture of a band member smoking 2 points

5. One point for each of the following bands whose CD you owned. Two points for having attended a concert featuring this band.
-Audio Adrenaline
-DC Talk
-The OC Supertones
-Skillet

6. If you ever felt pressured to raise your hands in worship 1 point

7. If you know all the verses to “Amazing Grace” 1 point
One extra point for every alternative musical arrangement of Amazing Grace you know

8. If you have ever been through an entire debate about a social or political issue only mentioning what the Bible says about that issue 1 point

9. If you have actually thought about whether or not you should have sex before you were married 1 point
If you didn’t have/are not having sex before you were/are married 2 points

10. If you used the phrase “lay it at the foot of the cross” with any frequency at any point in your life 2 points

11. If you have ever broken up with someone/been broken up with, been proposed to/proposed to someone or have tried to start a relationship with the justification, “the Lord wants me to” 1 point

12. If you have ever used the adjective “radical” to describe how you want to be as a follower of Christ (e.g. “radically orthodox” or “radical Christian”) 1 point

13. You asserted your evangelical alterity in college by… 1 point for each of the following
a) piercing some “alternative” place on your body or face
b) dying your hair a strange color
c) majoring in anthropology
d) majoring in philosophy
e) majoring in the fine arts
f) forming a worship drum circle
g) attending an Anglo-Catholic, Mennonite or Catholic church

14. You have the following contact with DC/LA, Creation Festival or Cornerstone
a) know what theses are 1 point
b) 1 point for each one you have attended
c) have led a youth group to one of these 2 points

SCORING
35 + You are the poster child of the young evangelical. Might be time to let go of some of those Sandy Patty CDs.
21-34 You’re there. Be proud of that you still know the words to “I Don’t Want It”
10-21 You’re may be straying from the evangelical way. Or you tend towards an older school of evangelicalism. Or else you never were.
-10 Mainliner, Catholic or Other

Melissa’s score – 26

"design flaw"? sheesh

2007-08-09T19:12:00.000-07:00

I finally got to listen to the l'Arche "Speaking of Faith" on the way to work yesterday. Overall, I thought it was a very good overview of life in the community, both the struggles and the joys. But I also don't think the show shared some of the difficult parts of the community. Some of those things are discerning when you can't support a core member any longer because they become too ill or mentally unstable. L'Arche isn't a hospital or a nursing home. The reality that there is only so much we can do is a very difficult part of life together.

Also, no one seems to like to talk about the continuing displacement of the Christian story from l'Arche. As l'Arche has grown, it has become inter-faith and in some place (Portland), no faith. What I mean is that our community attracts people who are disconnected from any religious tradition or are angry or on the fringes of their religion.

Maybe it's the northwest, but the talk from a lot of the communities is always focused on the life of Jesus. Now I go to a Mennonite church and I am all about the life of Christ, but Jesus doesn't work without the church. It doesn't take long for the "good moral example" to unravel. You can only support an ethic of the Beatitudes for so long before you start to wonder, "hey, why are the poor blessed?"

(Prepare for sermon regurgitation from last year) It's a misguided ethic according to Will Willimon. He says in "Resident Aliens" that the Beatitudes are descriptive, not prescriptive. They are describing a community, helping us identify the things in our world that are "kingdom things." In the process we too will be transformed into kingdom image bearers.

That's always what l'Arche has done well. But anything less than the power of Christ to raise the dead is weak sauce indeed.

Lamest quote of the show: "The people I met at l'Arche were able to forgive God for their design flaw." blech.

L'Arche on the dial

2007-08-06T19:23:00.000-07:00

I just found out about a great radio program called Speaking of Faith. Some of the interesting ones I've run across: Shane Claiborne and the New Monasticism, Kingsolver and living off the land and two evangelicals views on homosexuality.

This week there was an episode about l'Arche! I haven't heard it yet (I'm saving it for my bike ride tomorrow) but I'm sure it's an earful. They focus on the hard-core community in Clinton, Iowa by far the most rural and hard to "staff" of any l'Arche community. They always have Jesuit novices helping out and I think they pay their assistants something like $200 a month. Holy mackerel!

You can find the episode by clicking here.

what to do to avoid writing a sermon....

2007-07-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

these are our simpsons characters. you can make your own at the simpson's movie website

smith rock state park

2007-07-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

we're back from a weekend trip to oregon's high desert to the south and east. you can check out our pictures on the new flickr badge we added to this blog (it's to the right and down a bit).

or you can just go here

if God had a wallet, your picture would be in it

2007-07-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

That is what's written on the church sign I pass every day coming home from work. Biking slows the world down quite a bit and I'm starting to notice more of my world.

As kitchy as it seems, it was a good reminder of how precious we are in the eyes of God. That takes on a lot of significance in the world of eugenics. In case you missed it, this past weekend's NYTimes magazine had a fascinating article on egg donation and IVF. It chronicles the stories of several women who underwent the therapy, including the author.

It's really interesting to see the reasoning for the women who went through the extremely painful and expensive process (like upwards of $35000): they wanted to feel. That word was used over an over again: feel the breastfeeding, feel the kick, feel the growth. The author calls it "the dream of replicating oneself," knowing that the thing inside you is yours. Since you get to pick out the egg, you know everything about the donor. You can even match the blood type so, if you choose, you can fool your child into believing she is a biological match to your DNA. One woman eventually settled on a donor because they both liked The Princess Bride.

Of course, for these women the opposite of "one that's yours" and "the dream of replicating" is adoption. All the women rejected this option. They consistently returned to wanting to feel the baby. But there were some other darker reasons for not wanting to adopt. They wanted to control the baby's genes, not end up with some random assortment. They wanted to see their husband's characteristics in the child. And, they note, some adoptions end up "like a nightmare."

I found this one of the most telling moments in this regard :

“I had my sense of self-worth tied up with having a ‘normal’ family,” Deborah explained. “You know, the family with two children. It was always this destination to be counted upon. It was what made tolerable all the losses along the way, the surgeries, the ostomy bags, everything."

That was the crux of this whole article for me. It wasn't about welcoming a child, it was about having a family where all the factors could be controlled, where you could end up with something perfect. No mention that children never turn out the way you may want them to, that they might die young of cancer, leave the faith or leave you. There was also not a single mention of adoption of older children or of infants of color or with a disability. In fact, one woman went through her $35000 process only to learn her daughter had Down Syndrome. She terminated the pregnancy.

Infertility is always a difficult topic for Christians (I think) to talk about. I feel like I am surrounded by women who are facing this. I recently learned one of my co-workers at UP is infertile and so is another friend from l'Arche. My friend Gwyneth works at a adoption agency and she tells me that everyone there assumes they can't bear children because they work with so many women who cannot. It's a tender issue which brings out so much longing and sadness. I remember one story Gwyn told me of a woman who, early in her marriage thought she was pregnant. She and her husband were scared to death and prayed hard that they weren't pregnant. Ten years later she knows she can't carry to term and she can't believe there was ever a time when she wouldn't have welcomed pregnancy with open arms.

But I also know there is something that can happen after that mourning. My favorite theologian, Amy Laura Hall explains that Christians don't need IVF because we believe that parenting is something different than having a baby in your belly. The story we hear again in again in the Bible isn't one about God being our natural father, but a story of a people who were from a distant land, who were adopted as sons and daughters of the promise. The children that we welcome, whether by birth or adoption, are always our adopted children who ultimately belong to the Lord.

I want to honor the pain of women who have discovered that something dear to them, the idea of having a biological child, is no longer available. At the same time I want to recognize the pain of those children who have been "aged out" of the adoption process -- no longer wanted because they are too old, have too much baggage, too many social issues, too many special needs or too many siblings. I can't go to the Oregon DHS webpage without bursting into tears reading the profiles of the children listed there. But I can believe that if God had a wallet, every last one of their pictures would be there.

pictures from vacation

2007-07-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

mangroves.

the hanging bridges at rainforest in Arenal

At Toad Hall, some of the best food in Monteverde

Note my reaction to the 6:30 am tour time down the river. We did see a 4 meter croc that woke me up.

Mommy and daddy in Nosara

The "resplendent quetzal" -- the most sought bird in Costa Rica. Thought he deserved a shout-out for being so hard to find.

Sunset in Nosara

Dad "surfing"

The live volcano, Arenal

Heather and Jacob preparing for the zipline canopy tour in the Cloud Forest Reserve

I am smiling on the outside and peeing my pants in fright on the inside

Fairly traded coffee from a farmers co-op we visited through the Monteverde Cafe

stateside

2007-07-08T17:05:00.000-07:00

Whoa! Giant picture of the Oregon coast! I finally broke down and changed our template but I see you are being overwhelmed by my amateur photography. If you know how to fix the size, please fill me in.

We got back last night from a much needed vacation. We loved Costa Rica, especially the end part which we spent in Nosara at the beach. Ticos know how to protect their favorite places -- simply make the roads impassable. If you're willing to brave it, then you are in! Monteverde was also like this, roads that can only be compared to those of Uganda (that I know of).

But that's where the East Africa comparison ends. This is the furtherest I have ever been south on the American continent (unlike Jacob who studied Spanish in Mexico and Peru) so I don't have much to which I can compare Costa Rica, but it was incredible. They are very serious about community-supported agro-tourism. Besides the shut-out roads to fragile ecosystems, Costa Rica is heavy in protected lands and in prosecuting those who harm endangered species. Their "zoo" is actually an endangered species recovery project. Many people in rural areas are part of fair trade coffee co-ops which supplement their professional income. We visited one of these places in Monteverde.

I also have taken for granted just how easily screwed a country can be just by being in proximity to the US. The Bush administration has been pressuring president Arias to reverse his stance on off-short oil drilling. Even more interesting/frightening/typical, Pres Bush is a former board member of Harken, the company who would do the grilling.

We also saw a lot of graffiti in San Jose that said "No TRF." We asked our cabbie and he said this had to do with anti-free trade agreement protest. While Costa Rica has been the only Central American country to ratify CAFTA, there is still some strong debate on the subject. Pres Arias called for a nation-wide referendum to decide the country's involvement. Hopefully they will take a good strong look at what NAFTA did to small farmers in Mexico before they vote.

More later when we have some pictures to show....

Costa Rica con los Bixlers

2007-06-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

We're off again! We have a gruesome flight through the night (complete with 5 hour layover in Houston) before we arrive in sunny/rainy Costa Rica. We'll be checking out the rainforests in Monteverde, the volcano at Arenal and the peninsula beaches. We'll report on the journey, our first Bixler family vacation as Florer-Bixlers when we return on July 8.

The challenge of eating local

2007-06-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

One of the big topics of conversation around our house is where we get our food. I was interested to see how we were doing in terms of food miles. Just how many hours on a plane were logged (and subsequently carbon emitted) before our asparagus got to our table? After grocery shopping a few weeks back we made a list.

Kettle Chips - Salem, OR
Jelly - Hood River, OR
Corn Syrup - Sugar Land, TX
Beer - Portland, OR
Polenta - ?
Bread - Eugene, OR ?
Granola - ?
Milk - Crabtree, OR
Eggs - Arcadia, OR
Organic, fairtrade sugar - South America
Yogurt - San Leandro, CA
Parmesean - Brownsville, WI
Leeks - Portland, OR
Spinach - No. CA
Carrots - No. CA
Pears - No. CA
Apples - Yakima, WA
Onions - Portland, OR

The way to calculate food miles can be found at the UK Lifecycles Project. The Brits are big on calculating food miles but I've yet to find any resources in the US. Since the measurements involve weight of food, which I didn't record, we couldn't get an exact number.

Plus, we ran into another big problem -- we don't know where half the stuff actually came from. Anything that is processed, even granola, flour or rice comes in on trains to big warehouses from all over the world. Just like de Beers diamonds, there's no way to know whether your polenta is coming from Iowa or China. Even if our bread is made in Eugene, who knows where the flour came from.

More bad news. I've seen the winter storage units in Yakima, WA that house the squash, onions and apples. They me be local, they may even be in season, but I wonder how many tons of carbon are being produced by the fridges that keep our fruit and veg good throughout the winter.

In a lot of ways this was a discouraging exercise. We know we can't live off vegetables alone but how the heck can we figure out where the grains are coming from? I know Barbara Kingsolver recently wrote about her "return to the land." Her family moved out to a farm in Virginia and lived off only local produce. I wonder how she solved this dilema.

One resource some of you may find helpful is Simply in Season, the newest of the Mennonite Church cookbooks. It's one of our favorites. I think we've made the borscht 50 times. There's also a children's version which looks awesome.

At the end of the day, we can't just throw up our hands and give up. When we get frustrated we return to our wedding day Scripture and remember that God actually made a covenant with the earth itself. The redemption of Hosea 2 is a redemption of all living creatures, right down to the creeping crawling things. To finish, some Biblical theology (and hopefuly inspiration) as we seek to eat and walk the earth with the hospitality of Christ:

On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, ‘My husband’, and no longer will you call me, ‘My Baal’. For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more.

I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety.

And I will take you for my wife for ever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord.

Amen.

Hello Iowa. Goodbye Iowa.

2007-06-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

I am taking a breather.

It's been a well-travelled summer for me thus far. I'm on my third out-of-Oregon trip since May. This time we are in beautiful, sunny Iowa for the wedding of Jacob's childhood friend, Ryan Alexander. They've known each other since they were 9 months old. One of my favorite pictures in the world is the two of them at age 1 taking a dip in a huge tin bucket owned by Jakey Bakey's grandma Peg.

I like Iowa and it's always nice to be back here. It's also a strange experience to be in a place where people don't leave. Jake's grandma was the homecoming queen of his high school and his grandpa was the star quarterback. Their original one room schoolhouse still stands next to giant Valley high school.

And his sisters are here, one married, along with all the aunts and uncles, some of the cousins and lots of old time friends. It's not that no one ever leaves the fold, but there is a rootedness here.

Being here, even for just a few days helps me to understand Jake a little better and not to be frustrated when he has the "eh, Portland is all right I guess" attitude about our city. I also better understand the tension -- wanting to be near the people and place where you are from but not knowing what you would do there or how you could still exist in the same way or if that life dos still exist.

Because Iowa has changed. It's as much Johnson Creek Suburban Wondermall as it is Bridges of Madison County. Des Moines is hosting world renowned triatholons, producing big-buck ethanol and the property values are starting to creep up. We heard a news report about the last "all service" fill-up station in a small town closing and we had to change the channel because Jake was getting choked up. It's that sort of thing.

I'm trying to imagine seeing this stuff from Jake's position. You travel to Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Ireland, study in Britain, learn two new languages and find out that the closest thing to a life well lived is happening in rural Iowa. Then you come to learn that that life is dying while everyone around you is lusting after a new Starbucks in the style of an Italian villa and a shopping mall that is a replica of a street front from your grandpa's town (with validated parking). Weird weird weird.

the mothership

2007-06-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how many of you out there in the sphere know this, but University of Portland is not a state school. It is run by Congregation of the Holy Cross. Another interesting fact: Notre Dame is also a Holy Cross college (my impression is that most people think it's Jesuit because most things that are awesome are Jesuit).

We at UP have an interesting relationship to ND. Some people where I work refer to Notre Dame exclusively as "our sister school to the East." No, I am sadly not making this up. Putting ourselves in relation to Notre Dame is, for some, a full time job. I find this a bit strange, but then again most of these people I mention went to Notre Dame. And love Notre Dame football. And (most of all) want Notre Dame's "so big we wallpaper the dorms with twenty-dollar bills" large endowment.

And here I am, on the city on a hill, the holy of holies. This was Notre Dame conference week for me where I got to check out the very impressive and well funded (as in they have a roof that doesn't leak) Center for Social Concern. Now I don't have the regular ND envy of my colleagues. In fact, Notre Dame has consistently fought against a student-initiated living wage policy at their school for years despite the clear violation of dignity of the whole person present throughout Catholic teaching. But the Center, ah the Center....

But the living wage bit does bring up some interesting questions. Why would a Catholic university like mine want to replicate an institution that refuses to live up to its own mission by denying it's workers' basic needs? I am baffled. I know I have said this before, but it does bring out the very difficult issues of educational institutions who try to act as both places of faith and places of business.

It's also amazing what students who are serious about justice can do. I met one of the students who headed up the living wage campaign before she graduated last May. Now she works with Chicago's IAF. I always pray that the Holy Spirit will lead our students into work like this and to challenging our campus community to be alter Christus, one who's identity is inseperable from Christ. That's our baptismal covenant: living as one bound to the being of Jesus and living a life that resist the power of Satan in all forms, including soulless business ethics.

But for now, I conference.

and back again....

2007-05-31T19:49:00.000-07:00

Here I am, back from the South. We had a great time but it's hard to summarize three weeks. So, the highlights:
1. meeting a woman whose husband shared underwear with Martin King (their home was the place Dr King stayed when he was in Selma for the march and he would often borrow clothes)
2. eating rattlesnake
3. for the first time meeting someone who literally gave up all he had to follow the Lord -- Millard Fuller who founded Habitat for Humanity but first gave away his fortune to live at the Koinonia farm in Americus, GA
4. getting a Sunday school lesson on the book of Revelation from Jimmy Carter (although not as awesome as meeting Fuller)
5. walking across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma
6. meeting the family for whom we built a house in Port Sulfur, LA (yes, as lovely as it sounds)
7. Preservation Hall Dixieland Jazz -- trombone night
8. catching up with my friend R.G. who is living the Gospel as a United Methodist pastor in Birmingham
9. getting to know all my students; praying, celebrating Mass, eating together, hearing stories, crying, talking about the future, talking about the past
10. laying brick (cardinal rule: "mud is cheap, time is expensive. So lather it on.")

Here are some pix:
Kelly Ingram Park where the Children's Crusade for Civil Rights took place

The "Foot Soldiers" headquarters in Birmingham

The famous tractor ride around Koinonia Partner Farms

Musician's Village where we worked for one of our Habitat days

a visit to Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World! (we met a nun who knew the owner so we got in for free)

And now I am back in Portland. All the students have dispersed for the summer and I am desperately trying to pull together a paper on the Catholic Social Teaching from our immersion program to present at Notre Dame next week. When I am there I will also get to see these:

That's right! I am going to visit godbaby Geneva, mommy Lisa and new baby brother. I am quite excited as the last time I saw G she was in the "only my mommy can hold me" stage which was not cool.

Finally, in other news, we got a new couch and a new bike!

Okay. So really these items are only new to us. The bike came from the Community Cycling Center which restores old bikes for commuters and the Christmas-colored couch comes from my co-worker Kacy. Either way, we are thrilled.

back after a while

2007-05-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I leave for the field experience part of the Civil Rights immersion class which I instructed this semester. Please say prayers for us while we are gone. We will be exploring the heritage of modern and historic civil rights in the South from May 8-28.

I won't be blogging during that time but you can check out our Civil Rights Plunge blog.

We will be posting a few updates. On the "read more" key you can see a map of where we are.

Here's the itinerary:

May 8
Fly to Birmingham, Al

May 9-10
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, walking tour
Joe Rush Urban Mission painting project

May 11-13
Americus, Ga visiting the Koinonia Community

May 14
Tuskegee University

May 15
Montgomery, Al

May 16
Selma, Al

May 17-25
Habitat for Humanity Project in New Orleans, La

May 26
New Orleans tour day

May 27
Return to Birmingham

May 28
Fly home to PDX!

Can you believe this is my job?

dislocation

2007-05-03T21:09:00.001-07:00

We’ve been going to a Mennonite church since I moved to Portland in August of 2005. It was what we know now as a classic Mennonite moment. Someone from the church I attended in North Carolina (Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship) grew up in this church in Portland where his parents still went. He said we should go check it out. Two years it’s the only church I’ve regularly attended.

In addition, I have not set foot in an Episocpal church in Oregon. This is very strange for me. I grew up in the Episcopal church and loved it. The liturgy, the music, the theology. But certain things were making that a difficult choice for me by the time I was in graduate school. I wish it was some really righteous anger about something holy (war, sex, etc) that made me pack my ECUSA bags. Really, it was just feeling tired and torn and not sure I could exist in the politics of the Episcopal church. The in-fighting was so nasty and bitter.

The Mennonite church is also a strange move becomes I am a sticker. Even when it's hard, even when things get bad, I think they're something to be learned and some way to grow and be transformed. I’m a little wary of people who leave churches for greener pastures. Like the music is better at First Pres. Or the preaching is great down at Main St. UCC. Our move felt different than that. It wasn't discontent. It was dislocation. It was seeing two sides develop into mutually hostile neighbors, each one eventually giving a damn about the other. I was starting to resent both sides and the fact that I had to be on one.

Leaving the Episcopal church wasn’t even leaving. It was not showing up one day and realizing that the place you were growing happened to be in the shared community center in Chapel Hill. The people you wanted to be like were the twenty people who showed up their on Sunday nights.

I wandered into this little Mennonite church to hear a guy speak about his MCC work in Iraq. And then I stayed. Maybe I thought that it was so crazy that they were sending people to Iraq that this must be the Gospel. Maybe it was the potlucks or not having to hear about/avoid talking about homosexuality on a weekly basis. Maybe it was that I was given something to do in the service my second week there. Maybe it was not being pigeonholed as the "enemy" based on which organizations I worked for, where I studied or what church I attended. Whatever it was, here we are.

I just got back my final Augustine paper on City of God. On one section Dr. Cameron interprets my writing as “a Lutheran reading, a ‘two kingdoms approach.’” But in the next paragraph he writes – “an Anabaptist rendering of a Lutheran reading. And I think it’s the better.”

It could be that’s all I’ll ever be – an Anabaptist rendering of an evangelical Episcopal tradition. After two years I’m starting to feel the ecclesial homelessness. Not Episcopalian. And as much as they would love to bring us into the fold, can we really say we’re Mennonites? I am trying to sit with the restlessness, to wade into the strangeness, to wait and to see.

shame and awe

2007-04-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

Confession. I have a slight addiction to nytimes.com. To make matters worse I recently received FREE online access to the "Times Select" which has not helped the problem. Fortunately, staying on top of current events is actually written in my job description.

And actually today this job gave me a raise making this an ironic time for this post. Regardless, I did notice an article in the old NYT yesterday.

Women make only 80 percent of the salaries their male peers do one year after college; after 10 years in the work force, the gap between their pay widens further, according to a study released Monday.

The study, by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, found that 10 years after college, women earn only 69 percent of what men earn.

They controlled for all likely factors and the result?

"likely due to sex discrimination."

For crying out loud. So, despite having higher GPAs, even in math and science and possessing better and more college education, we're still making less. But here's the real kicker:

Part of the wage difference is a result of people's choices, another part is employer's assumptions of what people's choices will be. ... Employers assume that young women are going to leave the work force when they have children, and, therefore, don't promote them.

Of course I am now at an age when babies seem to be bursting from the seams (shout out to the K-Js). And Jake and I are in discussion about this ourselves. Already we're starting to wonder what the job situation will be like for me post-baby. I don't particularly like the idea of staying at home but the alternative is also hard to imagine.

Here's something I've learned in my first "real job" (listen hard all you soon to be college grads): working 40 hours a week does not mean 40 hours. You really work as much time as it takes to "get the job done." This means un-told hours at conferences, on immersion programs, at school until 9 pm for programs, speakers, films and classes plus the regular 8-4. Some of these activities you just can't do with el nino (which is Spanish for... the nino). Like hang out in Tijuana with Salesians monks or pouring concrete for low-income housing in Birmingham.

I seriously applaud my jefe Tom for hiring me (and my coworker who is also recently married and getting ready to jump on the preggers train) but it also seems wrong and weird to be grateful I was hired because I am of child-bearing years. This article also reminds me that some "formation" needs to happen in our office. Make no mistake, universities are The Corporation, only it pretends not to be which is probably worse.

These conundrums have endeared me to Amy Laura Hall, the sweet Southern theologian from Duke Div. She does some incredible work on women, culture and child-bearing. She has a great article in Christianity Today called "Unwanted Interruptions" (but you need special pay-for-it access to read online). In essence she is tying hostility in the womb to hostility outside the womb. It's no wonder that children are seen as a hinderance to working well and consistently. But it shows very little imagination.

One of the ideas that has come out of reading Hall has to do with creating spaces for children in our so-called professional lives. I work at a Catholic university and Catholic's are supposed to be serious about families. So how about making a little space? How about making my hours flexible? How about working from home some of the time? How about having the baby in the office on occasion? How about really only asking the prescribed 40 hours from me?

I keep thinking that if we can take this seriously at University of Portland then maybe it will redeem the idea of the mother-worker. If any place needs this modeling it's the university. So many young women are struggling with this question. It would be great to show them one way.

"your laughter into mourning"

2007-04-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve been feeling a bit sore lately. It’s mostly my back but my whole body feels a little achy. I’ve had some trouble sleeping and most days at work I’m a bit down in the dumps.

This is happening for a lot of people this week, especially those of us who work at university campuses. There is something so shocking about an event you could imagine being replicated on your campus. An angry student, a disgruntled student, a student who just never fits in. And suddenly everything goes wrong.

All the pictures of the students who were killed look like my students. The things they were doing and the things they loved reminded me of all the kids who come through Volunteer Services, take our classes or go on our immersion programs.

I’ve been focused on the Virginia Tech event quite a bit in the past two days, especially the media coverage. But something else caught my eye when I opened up the NY Times this afternoon.

171 killed in Iraq.

I heard the story on the way home, about separate bombings at checkpoints, in a market, at a training center. I see this headline a lot, but there was something a little different in my heart this time. I thought more about what each of those lives meant and it produced a wave of sorrow.

I wonder what it’s like to be an Iraqi living in Baghdad. If anything, the shooting at VT is giving me an increased sense of empathy for the Middle East communities which find themselves daily subjected to the violence we saw on April 16, times 5. Tom Friedman, in his classic Beirut to Jerusalem talks about the psychological trauma and the toll it takes on the body to live in a place where terror is always a threat. I can see my little pains magnified in the great pain of that country.

We will never have profiles and pictures for each of the Iraqis killed today at the hands of their own countrymen. But somehow seeing the information about the Virginia Tech students helped me to remember and grieve all those who have died more deeply and with more conviction. My heart cries out that Christ invade our world with the forgiveness and compassion of the one who laid himself on the cross for our sake.

the place we live....

2007-04-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

Five Great Things About Portland
1. The months of March-September. We get sun like we get rain -- in big doses for months at a time.
2. The Time Zone. Most sporting events (like the recent NCAA championship) start showing at 9 pm on the East coast. In Oregon we get to see everything 3 hours earlier! Since we are big wimps about sleep, we see sporting events we would never see if we lived elsewhere in the country.
3. The airport. Did you know PDX has free wireless? And a restaurant that serves ten types of sausages? And 3 alternatives to Starbucks? And plentiful rocking chairs?
4. Green, green, green. Biodiesel stations, restaurants that serve only food grown in a 50 miles radius, a five-cent “return fee” on anything that can be recycled, organic beer, community supported agriculture and 6 different farmers markets.
5. Location. Mount Hood, Columbia River Gorge, Deschutes River, Mt St Helens, Willamette Valley, Pacific Crest Trail, the Long House, Buffalo Exchange, the Hawthorne Neighborhood, brew pubs, Rose test garden, Washington Park, Mt Tabor, L’Arche Nehalem, Stumptown Coffee, Cannon Beach, Newport

Five Things About Portland We Could Do Without
1. The months of October-April
2. The Time Zone. President Bush loves to make press announcements between 9 – 10 am EST, exactly the time when I on the West Coast am getting ready for work. No matter where you stand on the political chasm, hearing W’s voice at 6:30 in the morning is brutal. Hence we have developed a “No Bush Before Noon” rule in our house.
3. Travel. Living a 6 hour plane ride from my family. Jacob’s Iowa hometown is less intense flying-wise but most flights go into Omaha which adds two hours on to the trip. No weekend visits to the fams for us...
4. Misuse of the word Spirituality. We think this is way lame. For some reason the word “religion” went out of use in Portland a while ago. And instead of having the east coast sense to call secular humanism secular humanism, everyone here is into the vogue loosey-goosey term “spiritual.”
5. Couldn’t come up with a number 5…..

And on an unrelated note I couldn't help but add this amazing Colbert clip. I think we've watched this fifty times...

on the border

2007-03-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

On Monday I got back from spending a week with the Salesian priests and fourteen students in Tijuana. We were there with Los Embajadores to explore border issues, particularly identity, immigration and service. The Salesians are pretty amazing. They work at the oratorios (community centers) from 8 am to 8 pm, six days a week. Their dedication to the church and to the people they serve was a sign of faithfulness that touched all of us.

We also worked real hard. I was in the "concrete mixing " crew while the other half of our group pick-axed a mountain into sandbags to reinforce a hill. We were also forced to jugar futbol with all the ninos which was a painful experience. We were pretty bad. Or I should say, I was pretty bad.

One of the most stirring moments of our trip was visiting the Border Beach. This is the only place on the US/Mexico border where families on each side can come to meet. On the US side there is a big sign that says the water is toxic. On the Mexico side it's one of the hotter tourist spots in the area. Ironically this area is called Friendship Park. We learned that the greatest economic disparity between any two borders in the whole world is between Tijuana and San Diego.

We also spent some time at Casa del Migrantes, a homeless shelter for people who've been deported from the US. The guy I had dinner with was in he states for 35 years, made $25/hour as a construction worker, has a wife and kids still in California. It was uneblieveable. If he ever wants to visit his sons he has to go to Border Beach (which is only open on the weekend) and talk to them through the fence under the watchful eye of the Border Patrol. See pictures below.

Diane Lane is on my street -- RIGHT NOW!

2007-03-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

Yes, you heard right. THE Diane Lane is filming a movie about a serial killer who posts images of his grizzly murders on the web. The murders are happening literally two houses down from us. Although we do live in an apartment complex for retired nuns, our building must have been here for a long time because all the other houses in Irvington are real nice. It will be a little creepy seeing our neighbors house is a horror film but also really cool.

How strange also that last night we were watching Hollywoodland, also starring Diane Lane. It is offically "Diane Lane Week" in our house and as such, I give you the following "did you know."

1. Diane Lane was a child star who first appeared on the scene in 1979
2. Her first film was in French
3. She is an Aquarius
4. She's a filmed in another city where I have lived -- Gloucester, MA ALSO when I was there
5. Francis Ford Coppola had a crush on her
6. Lane dated Jon Bon Jovi
7. Her mother was a Playboy model
8. She was born in New York City
9. She was nominated for an Oscar in 2003

Baby talk

2007-02-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

Guess what! We're not pregnant. We're two cycles through the Fertility Awareness Method and not a fetus in sight.

What I can say is that NFP has truly been transformative in the way we think about childbearing. I was reminded of this for a couple reasons; once during my Augustine class. We are reading Confessions and Gus is sharing with the reader the time in his life when he was in a starter marriage to a concubine. He was sexually faithful to her for 18 years, they lived together and had a child. For all intents and purposes, it was a marriage but he goes on to say this in Book IV:

"This experience taught me at first hand what a difference there is between a marriage contracted for the purpose of founding a family, and a relationship of love charged with carnal desire in which children may be born even against a parents' wishes -- though once they are born one cannot help loving them."

These first two months have been a transition from the latter to the former. When I completed my first post-marriage cycle we were both so relieved! We talked about putting "a star on our chart" and how we were proud of being so careful.

This month things have been a little different. It started out with the fact that my mensis would begin a little later than usual because of a plane trip I took to a conference in D.C. Because of the trip, I ovulated about three days later than usual. The rule with NFP is that, if you are still having high temperatures three days after your leutal cycle ends (which is very consistent and not affected by stress, sickness, planes, etc) then you are most likely pregnant.

Jake and I were talking about this the night before I thought I would start mensis. I said, "but if I don't get my period by Thursday, we're probably pregnant." We both paused for a second but the conversation ended. The next day, indeed I found I had not conceived. When we "debriefed" the experience Jacob told me that the night before he'd had a dream about a baby in our lives. He remembers feeling completely at peace.

While there was still a sense of relief, this month I think we also feel a slight sense of sadness. For all the will-be-grandmothers in the house, fear not. We definitely still feel relieved! But I think we are coming to a sense of the awe of the gift, of how precious it is to bear the image of God in your bodies and wonderous it is to be fully in the grasp of that potential. Perhaps, though, the greatest gift of all is that peace Jacob felt, the peace that transcends fear and want and falls helplessly into the arms of our creator. What a gift indeed.

ready for more?

2007-02-24T10:34:00.000-08:00

It's always hard to know people's tolerance for wedding photos. But in case you had a hankering to relive that day gone by, here is the link to our photos on snapfish courtesy of the great Phil Jones.

Wedding photos

And if you're really feeling ambitious or bored, check out photos in slide-show format.

saints, bridges and beer

2007-02-23T22:39:00.000-08:00

Today was the feast day of Polycarp, a first century dude who was burned at the stake at age 86 for refusing to bend the knee to the king of Turkey. I like Polycarp and I like him even more now that I am taking Augustine. You may not have seen much “book blog” movement from us lately. Fear not. We are still reading, Jake the Narnia Chronicles and me tons of the bishop of Hippo.

One of the things that sticks out most from Peter Brown’s biography of Augustine is his assessment of how the saint got so darned introspective. Brown explains that in the first three centuries Christian histories focused exclusively on the last years of a saint’s life because Christians were getting martyred all over the place. It wasn’t until the fourth century, when Constantine and the Church picked up the sword that Christians plunged headfirst into their interior castle.

In other words, early on Christians’ lives were something the state feared and repressed. The witness of Christ created fear in those in authority. After Constantine the only real devil was inside. I think it’s a remarkable insight, the psychological change that came with embracing the power of this world.

Other news: I gave a natural family planning talk last night along with my (ironically) very pregnant Catholic friend from campus ministry. There are now quite a few UP students who know much more about my reproductive cycle than I ever thought they would. The hilarious note: I was the “medical ethicist” on the panel. Secondary note: get a degree in religion; you can pass as anything at all.

J has also started some temp work which has been good. We’re also trying to ride the bus more often which has led to some very funny transit experiences. Today I managed to go over the Steel Bridge a total of four times in my commute. Not sure how that happened.

After work it was meeting downtown for pints at Kell’s, $3 curry chips and yes, another trip back over the Steel Bridge. Just another week in paradise!

green wedding article

2007-02-10T18:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/fashion/11green.html

I found this is a great article in the Times with some very helpful tips. While our wedding ended up being more "Trader Joes" than "CSA" we did our best to make it sustainable. It's a hard job, especially when you are committed to getting married at a church in the suburbs of Washington DC. But for those of you still on the way, chech this out.

www.portovert.com

Wish that was around when we were planning our wedding....

new life

2007-02-05T18:04:00.000-08:00

Me: "So how was your day?"

J: "great! We got this beautiful kind of pearly plate in the mail."

M: "that sounds nice."

J: "and something else amazing happened."

M: "really? What!"

J: "Yes. You know that enamel coated cast iron pan. Get this. I let it soak overnight and this morning when I emptied it, the egg came off without me scrubbing at all!"

M: "wow. That's really great."

J: "I just got way too excited about that didn't I..."

That's life in the home, I guess. Excited about our new pans. I'm glad someone is here to be. It is very nice to have Jacob at home cleaning up odds and ends. We know the party can't last forever and we are hard on the job search. Keep us in your prayers.

Besides that, we're back in the day to day. The wedding seems like several years ago with all the normalcy that has kicked in. We're enjoying being together!

yeah for marriage!!

2007-01-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who came out to witness our vows and to party down with us last week. We had a great wedding/reception in Fairfax and an equally lovely reception in Iowa. We're back in Portland now after a few short days on our very cold "mini-moon" to NYC. We had a great night at Lincoln Center watching the ballet and did the tourist stuff Jacob hadn't done in the past. He liked the dinosaurs.

We felt so loved and supported last weekend. Our five flowergirls were the life of the party and we really enjoyed meeting our two new baby friends, Ella and Adelaide. What a blessing to have so many people who love us and care about us make time in their schedules to journey out for the wedding. Also, some special thanks to Phil Jones our enthusiastic and wonderful volunteer photographer. I am adding some of the photos he sent us below.

Hotel info

2006-12-04T19:24:00.000-08:00

We have two places with blocks of rooms saved. Just let them know it's the Bixler-Florer wedding.

If you're interested in staying closer to Manassas, my home town you will want to stay at the Manassas Courtyard. You probably don't want to stay here unless you are in the wedding party or are excited about touring Civil War battle fields since all the action takes place a half an hour down 66.

Courtyard Manassas Battlefield Park
10701 Battleview Parkway
Manassas, Virginia 20109 USA
703-335-1300

$84/night
one king or two queens with a sleeper sofa
starts 1.13.07

The church and reception are much closer to the Fairfax Courtyard.

Courtyard Fairfax Fair Oaks
11220 Lee Jackson Highway (Rte. 50)
Fairfax, Virginia 22030 USA
Phone: 1-703-273-6161

$74/night king with sleeper sofa
$84/night for 2 queens

Directions
From Dulles airport to Courtyard Fairfax Fair Oaks

From Dulles airport to the Manassas Courtyard

From the Manassas Courtyard to the church

From the Fairfax Courtyard to the church

In other exciting news, we may end up getting married in the parking lot of Truro Church as it is likely to split from the Episcopal church. To read all about on the front page of the Washington Post click here.

Of course, I am sure nothing like that would happen. We hope.

Babies are good for Christians

2006-11-29T20:25:00.000-08:00

This interview with Katharine Jefferts Schori appeared in the New York Times Magazine this past weekend. I read it and then heard someone mention it in a sermon. It’s interesting enough and shameful enough to share a bit.

How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country?

About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children.

Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?

No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.

As Jacob pointed out, chances are good that those parents and one child/no child families are leaving a larger carbon footprint than poor families with a ton of kids that don’t have a huge house to heat and drive 2 SUVs.

I also love the connection between better-education and lower birth rates. Smart people don’t have time for babies or see them as a burden on the earth. Even more awful is the insinuation that Episcopalians have no theological reason for welcoming children. Good Lord! What has this church come to! This interview makes me want to have 10 kids and certainly reaffirms our reasoning for the practice of NFP.

And congrats to Jane and Chad on the recent welcome of baby Ella. Jane, you are a champ.

Adam

2006-11-18T11:05:00.000-08:00

Adam is one our friends from l'Arche. J and I went over to Nehalem to visit him, Joni, Erin and Marilyn last night. We won't be here for Thanksgiving and wanted to say goodbye before we flew back to Virginia.

On the way out the door Adam ran over and told us that he was going to get a "big piece of pizza" for us. We were a little confusued until Jacque, one of the assistants told us that Adam was starting Special Olympics skiing. The way they were told to slow down is to make a big piece of pizza with their skiis. It was great. We'll take our's with extra cheese.

The other great part of l'Arche right now is how the folks are getting confused about the whole husband/wife bit. Marilyn always refers to Jacob as my wife and yesterday Adam wanted to know where Jacob's husband was. They are so great.

We're excited to go home on Wednesday but even MORE excited about getting more RSVPs from you guys (hint hint)! Please let us know by Dec 1!!!!

OH NO!!!!

2006-11-09T10:38:00.000-08:00

Technology has failed us. Maybe.

Making a long story short, the link I put on our site last week (which had worked when I tested it a few weeks ago) no longer seems to be connecting us to the RSVP page. Instead you have to go through our The Knot Webpage. I have changed the link now but I'm afraid we might have missed a couple.

All that to say, we have gotten a few replies (I think from people who went to the website first) but might have missed yours. We are so sorry! If you aren't listed below, we haven't heard from you.

The Joneses
Uiyeon Kim
Melanie Parker
The Von Lehes
The Leos
The Phillips
The Hanway and Higgs family
The Wilders
Gwyneth Jones
The Kilgores
The Kenneys
Emily Kaasa

Please do try again! For those of you whom we don't hear from, we'll send a reminder postcard on the due date.

You can RSVP by going to the site by emailing me directly at melissa.bixler@gordon.edu

Again, our apologies!!!!

RSVP and Registry

2006-10-31T20:35:00.000-08:00

After a week of clipping, folding, copying and pasting we are finally done! Invitations are in the mail and on their way to your door.

RSVP
You will notice that there aren't reply cards. We wanted to cut down on the postage and the paperwaste by asking everyone to RSVP electronically. You can do that by clicking the link to the right under RSVP. This will take you to our webpage on the knot which can also be found here. Please RSVP by December 1.

Also, just a reminder from our save-the-dates that the 14th is a Sunday. Monday is MLK Jr's birthday weekend and we wanted to give people more time to travel without taking off work.

Registry
We registered at a few places but one is a little unusual. There were a lot of stores where we wanted to register that didn't have a system to do so. So we found something called myregistry.com which let's us register for anything. We take a picture or find a gift on-line and we can add a page onto our registry. Click on the box marked "buy gift" and it will take you to the website or information where the gift can be purchased. The gifts are arranged by price.

Some gifts, like our Calphalon pans or homebrew kit can be found anywhere so we're happy to get them from the cheapest place they can be found. Other things we're happy to get in any form -- like a wooden salad bowl. Please consider a local artist or store. And be sure to mark that you bought the gift so we don't get two!

That's the story. Pretty soon we'll be updating this page with hotel information and directions to the church so keep checking back!

Quick References
Nearest airport: Dulles (IAD)
Second closest: Regan-National
Probably too far away airport: Baltimore-Washington
City of the wedding: Fairfax, VA
Bixler's city: Manassas, VA
Our registrys: myregistry.com, Ten Thousand Villages, Sur La Table, Gaiam

Rural Plunge

2006-10-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

This past week I was in Yakima Valley, WA with ten students on the Rural Plunge. It's fall break at UP. Every year Volunteer Services sponsors an alternative break trip to learn about farmworker communities. It was an eye-opening experience into the world of those who grow, pick and pack our food. We met families who had crossed the border from Mexico, making their way up the coast and going from season to season picking crops. We volunteered at Head Start, taught an ESL class, went to WA Apples packing plant, picked for a day at Inaba Farms and went to a farmworkers rights radio station.

We also met a lot of folks who were farmworker rights activists. One was Tomas Villanueva who is running for state senator. We went to a forum he spoke at called "Our Neighbors on the Edge" sponsored by the churches of Toppenish. We learned about the crises in health care and education for undocumented workers in the Valley and we heard from all the candidates for state legislature from that district.

All the challengers were brown (either American Indian or Hispanic) and all the incumbents were white farm owners. It was a strange thing to see and we were especially disturbed by how clueless the farm owners were about the issues impacting workers' lives. A few days after this we met with Tomas to hear his story: living in the labor camps in the 60s, earning his GED by night, dropping out of college to work with Cesar Chavez. It was a moving story. At the end Tomas told us that many of the whites in the Valley didn't want to support him because they assumed he was only representing the workers. He smiled a little and looked at each of us. "I am not a racist," he said, "but I do hate injustice."

For one of our nightly reflections I read the sections from the last chapter of Lamentations. This trip may have been the first time these words have a face.

We must pay for the water we drink;
the wood we get must be bought.
With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven;
we are weary, we are given no rest.

Our skin is black as an oven
from the scorching heat of famine.
Young men are compelled to grind,
and boys stagger under loads of wood.
The old men have left the city gate,
the young men their music.
The joy of our hearts has ceased;
our dancing has been turned to mourning.

But you, O Lord, reign for ever;
your throne endures to all generations.

I was amazed by how many people wanted to go back to Mexico but couldn't, how many people missed their families and felt isolated from their communities by language and culture.

But we also had a lot of fun being there. We had an interesting group: three international students (No. Ireland, Mexico and China), all majors and years. My student leader, Michelle, was awesome and we were able to laught together and be changed by what we saw.

They were a good group and I continue to pray that a few of them feel the call of God on their lives to be agents of change for people in the Valley.

Michelle wondering why our apples from the farm look so different than the waxy cardboard apples from Washington Apples.

My little pumpkin heads at Inaba Farms.

Val and Joe setting up for the Epic Head Start "Healthy Me" fair that we staffed.

Katie with our celebration pinata.

Jacob with bunnies. Sweet.

New Columbia

2006-10-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

This week Jacob and I were able to do a real couple thing -- we went on a date with some friends! Stacey and Josh Noems work in Campus Ministry at UP. They are Notre Dame folks who moved out here after their time with Jesuit Volunteer Corps. We had dinner togther in the school caf with their two kids, baby Simon and five year old Oscar. It was the "Eat Local Challenge" at UP where everything served comes from within 150 miles of the schools. It was quite a feast and a real testimony to the abundance we can glean so close to home.

We also got to visit their home, something I've been wanting to do for a while. The Noems live in a place called New Columbia. It used to be Columbia Villa, one of the worst ghettos in the city. Ambulances and pizza drivers refused to go into the neigborhood. It was dotted with meth houses and the violence was never ending.

A few years ago the Housing Authority emptied the whole place out and ripped out every apartment. Within a year the area was transformed into a mixed income housing experiment. There are houses, apartments and townhouses, lots of green space, a community education center, a school for learning trades and a brand new elementary school called Rosa Parks.

The housing comes in three levels -- straight rent/mortgage, affordable housing and section 8. All the sudden there are young professionals living beside single mothers who live beside multi-generation immigrant families. It is a truly remarkable scene. It's really transforming North Portland by getting people to live next to each other, the anti-gentrification.

Jacob and I were so impressed by the neighborhood and to hear about how so many people are being transformed simply by living beside one another. It's certainly a place we could see ourselves living in a few years.

Book Blog

2006-09-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

Check it here.

Shower-in-a-Box, plate progress

2006-09-21T17:09:00.000-07:00

I had a great surprise when I got home yesterday -- a box from my sweet friend Sara Ardrey-Graves. Sara is one of the women of ladies night, a group of Duke women in religious studies who got together once a week to enagage the holy and the some times questionably holy.

When Sara was simply Sara Ardrey we all went down to the beach after classes were over for a week of amazing beach bonding. It was like a bachelorette party that lasted five days.

But after that we all went our own ways. Molly is a Methodist minister, Amy Griz the Baptist version. Sara is ministering to California surfer youth. We've got PhD programites, Uganda university theology profs and West Bank peace workers in our group. We're across the country and around the globe, from Texas to the West Bank.

It's hard to lose fellowship like that. There have been emails and occasional phone calls but, of course, that isn't the same.

So it was a DELIGHT to come home to my little NE Portland apartment to find a box with individually wrapped gifts from each of the women from the great beach excursion. Bridal-shower-in-a-box was a sweet, wonderful surprise. It was like getting a global hug.

I also got some great pictures of our plates from Chris Haw. It is so awesome to remember that they are just clay from the earth. Here they are in nascent form.

New Address

2006-09-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

Here's the address of our little tiny apartment in NE Portland. It's me there for now and then Jacob too when we get married. Pictures coming soon....

1926 NE Tillamook St.
Portland, OR 97212

ROTC, Walmart and the art of negotiation

2006-09-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

Working at UP is interesting. It's interesting to be a pacifist at a school with a heavy ROTC presence, to be a Mennonite(ish person) at a Catholic school, to be back in the Corporation after a year scrubbing the backs of the disabled. I love my job because I am paid to bring conversation to each of these places of potential conflict. Because these conflicts are particular and personal for me, they have a sepcial relevance for my work.

One "moment" of late was a conversation with the Director of my department, Tom. He's part of Wal-Marts greening intitative. After protestors and lobbyists put a heap of pressure on Wal-Mart, the company formed panels across the country to get it's greening action underway.

Tom's really torn about it. So am I. In the news a few months ago we learned how Wal-Mart fires pregnant employees and won't hire those who were feeble or old because they don't want to pay the insurance bills. They have some of the worst wages and benefits of any multinational and are completely blind to the sweatshop labor which provides their goods.

So they want you to help their stores not pollute the earth by producing less carbon emissions. What's a guy to do?

I have my own struggle. ROTC is a huge place of contention for me, especially at a Catholic Christian school. One of my students recently asked me to help her plan a trip to Fort Benning for the School of the Americas protest/actions. Suddenly there is all this negotiating. How do you be in relationship, in community with our ROTC brothers and sisters and still speak from a place of grave concern? How do we enter the sorrow that there are places we simply cannot travel together? And, perhaps most chilling, what does this mean for us under the banner of the cross?

Our readiness to renounce our legitimate ends whenever they cannot be attained by legitimate means itself constitutes our participation in the triumphant suffering of the Lamb.

This is the John Howard Yoder quote that follows me with these thoughts. They may not sound like very wedding-esque thoughts, but there are so many questions about being well in the world about us at all times. One of the main ones is the difference between acting charitably and acting sustainably. We eventually chose a caterer who didn't have to drive a large gas guzzler an hour to reach us. But we didn't get to support the charitable organization we wanted to. We landed with a local woman who started her own company and was very sensitive to our desire to use local food and wine.

It's great. But these are the kinds of things we turn over in our daily life. But this is the journey! It's birth control and Safeway, Mac computers and NFL football. And we're blessed to be in the conversation, to be together in it.

Dishes

2006-09-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

We finally found some dishes we like, and someone to make them. Chris Haw is our hired potter who will be making our dishes over the next few months. I know of Chris, who lives in the Camden House in NJ, through friends from Duke. I saw his pottery and asked if he would be willing to make a set for us. He agreed and we will be getting 6 sets at $37 a set by January.

You can more about the ministry of Camden House here. This house is part of a larger movement called the New Monasticism. Since the folks at Camden House share their worldly goods, Chris' pottery goes towards their work. You can check out the rest of his stuff (and place your own order) by going here.

Jake's LandRover

2006-08-28T18:57:00.000-07:00

This is Jacob's latest project. With a little backing from his dad, the first Landrover is ready to ship from the UK to the US (soon, he adds). This is a market tester for a possible (serious) business. We'll see where it goes.....

Update and Bridal Shower Pix

2006-08-25T22:48:00.000-07:00

Ah, the Service Plunge is finally over. We successfuly navigated 160 freshman through service projects around Portland and logged close to 1000 volunteer hours. While it was great to meet the new UP students, the highlight for me was the student staff. I was so impressed by their hospitality, their eagerness and, by many, their faith. I loved seeing them interact, ask questions and foster relationships with their small group. I also enjoyed bringing Adam and Erin to the final dinner. The transition between my l'Arche life and University of Portland seemed almost seamless. I also got to see some places in PDX I haven't yet, like the Catholic Worker in North Portland.

In other big news, we've got an apartment! I won't be living with the nuns after all, but the same sisters also own an apartment complex which has a few units they rent to "friends of the community." Most of the people who live there are nuns. I think we will be one of three tenants who are not. The rent is cheap and it's in a beautiful part of NE Portland, close to the school. To make things even better, Sister Kate, who used to live downstairs gave us her furniture! This is huge for us since currently we own only a wicker couch and a used mattress.

I'm also adding some bridal shower pictures from the other week. The one at the top is from a recent trip Jacob and I took to Cannon Beach.

Cindy and Shannon chat with Maureen Wheeler. We had the shower in theh Laurelhurst Park. It was a beautiful day and Heather did a great job organizing.

When five year olds are involved you usually end up sharing the spotlight. Here's Jacob's cousin Wren "helping me" open my gifts.

This is a basket I got as a gift. Heather filled with individually wrapped items for our kitchen.

At the end we invited the boys (my dad, Jake's dad and Jake himself) to join us for smores.

phew!

2006-08-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

It's the last of my seven-day work weeks. This past week we welcomed student interns on a retreat and now we are into staff training. We end with a Service Plunge for incoming freshman and then get right into Orientation. To make things more exciting we welcomed both the Florers and the Bixlers to Oregon last week. I didn't see them too much but Heather and Jacob held down the fort and took them to the beach, to St Helen's, over to Mt Hood, down the Gorge and through Portland.

We also had a bridal shower while they were here. I'll post pictures when I have a second (whenever that is). Right now Jacob is moving me out of l'Arche and helping to paint my room. I can't wait to sleep this weekend....

Get thee to a nunnery?

2006-08-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

It's the last week for me as a live-in assistant at the l'Arche community but I am going out with a bang. Tomorrow we leave for Spokane, a seven hour journey, with all the core members and three assistants in the van. We're going to Regional Gathering, where l'Arche communities come from Tacoma, Seattle, Orange County and Portland meet to pray and party with the Spokanites. I am excited but also wary of the exhaustion that comes from these types of events. I start full time at University of Portland on Monday and go right into a retreat with student staff that weekend. Staff training start the day after we get back which leads into the Service Plunge for incoming freshman then orientation that weekend. All of this was unforseeable when we invited both the Bixler and Florer families to visit right smack in the middle.

The other news is that there is a great chance we have found a new asssitant to take my place in the house. That's great for the house, but it does mean I need to find another place to live. We didn't want to start renting an apartment we would both live in because we would be paying two rents for four months.

The solutions presented itself with Sister Susan, the nun who has been my housemate for the past year. Her convent has several guests rooms which they rent for cheap to people like me who are in transition. So, it may turn out that I will live with three ninety year old nuns for the next few months. Since Jake would be over there a lot, we both went to a meeting with the community the other night. One of the sisters said, "we can tell everyone that we nurtured a romance in our convent!" Hilarious.

SAVE THE DATE

2006-08-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

We finally sent our Save-the-Dates (actually, if you are on Jacob's list, sorry. Yours have not been sent yet as Jake is still gathering addresses). It feels good to have some basic wedding things solidified. We're getting married and having a Virginia reception on January 14th. We are also having a reception in Iowa the Saturday after the wedding for family and friends from the midwest who couldn't make it to Virginia. Please come to one or both!

You can start RSVPing even now by going to our TheKnot wedding website (the tab for this is in the upper right hand corner of this page). You can also wait for more details when we send out our invitations in a few months. Please let us know if you have any problems with it. We're trying to avoid using up anymore paper and postage by doing all our RSVPs online or by phone for those who don't use the computer.

Also, when I was at the postal box I noticed that I put Jacob's address as the return but with my zip code.

I doubt it matters too much, but in case you needed to send us something or want to have a correct address it is

Jacob Florer
1316 SE 35th Ave
Portland, OR 97214

A Troop? A Herd? A Pack?

2006-08-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

One of my desires for our wedding was to have a large number of flower girls. First, we have about a thousand little girls in our lives. Between church and school friends having babies, we had quite a few options! And since weddings are especially fun for small people and even more for flower girls, and since we want a fun wedding, we decided on six flower girls.

We're trying to decide what you call six flower girls. I think a troop is the best description. We are thankful for the participation of three of the Hanway-Higgs girls, the two Buchinsky women and Jacob's firey red headed second-cousin, Wren Florer.

The only bummer is that Truro, the church where I grew up and where we are having the wedding, is loathe to allow flowers thrown down the aisle. They have a million other picky rules along these lines but we're working with it. Right now we're trying to decide some alternatives. Maybe bubbles? Maybe just holding their own bouqets. Any suggestions, send them our way.

Reception Fun

2006-07-27T12:47:00.000-07:00

What we really want out of our wedding reception is for everyone to have fun. Right now we're brainstoriming and would love some input. Since Burke Fire Hall is set up to be a bingo place on the weekends we thought we would just go along and have some bingo called by our band throughout the night.

We're also interested in intergenerational dance participation. To encourage this we've hired the Moonlighters, a DC based Motown/Oldies group. We're hoping young and old alike will get down to James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Aretha, The Four Tops and The Platters. We've also made a special request to hear "When Love Comes to Town" by u2, featuring BB King. Don't be surprised if I get up on stage to exhibit my vocal stylings on that one.

We are also looking for ways to get people talking. We're planning on putting a fact about each person on the backs of your name table place cards. Instead of numbered tables they will be labeled with the names of places important to me and Jacob. I also love something we did at my friend Jane's wedding: if you want to see the bride and groom kiss, you or a group of friends stands and sings a song with "love" in the lyrics.

That's what we've got so far. If you have any ideas or things you've seen get people energized at other weddings, send us a comment. We're pretty much up for anything. Pinatas? Jewish chair dance? Break-dance circle? Bobbing for apples? Let us know what you think would be fun.

overwhelmed (again) by decisions

2006-07-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

yes, its true. As of last week we actually still had made no firm plans about our reception, catering, etc. The Knot keeps flashing 166 days left! 165 days left! 164 days left! prompting me further and further into the agony of indecision.

We have (we think) actually now made a plan about the locale for our Wedding At Cana themed reception: The Burke Firehall in, well, Burke! We're borrowing from our friends Jamie and Catherine on this one but we never had illusions of being original. So Burke it is. And we made Save the Dates so that's good.

I've reached the end of caring about anything else. Cheese plate or fruit? Salmon or trout? Accoutrements to accompany a chocolate fountain? Band playlist? First dance song, last dance song, father-daughter dance, monkeys performing at the wedding, wedding flowers, colors, fire-breathers, napkins, Cirque de Solei, china.... For crying out loud! We're about at the point where free reign will be given to the illustrious Robbin Bixler, mother of mine and most patient wedding muse.

So I hear the drums of apathy pounding in the distance, with every moment closing in on this wedding. At this point we just want to get married, get everybody feed and drinked, dance to a few tunes and call it a day. who's with me? anyone? anyone....?

It doesn't help that this has been such a busy time. I am now spending two days a week (my technical "weekend" from l'arche) at University of Portland and hanging with the folks the other five. Jacob is now a daylaborer/househusband. I am enjoying him as my helpmeet/driver/lunchmaker/ironer-of-work-clothes more than I ever would have imagined. We are indeed thinking the househusband thing may be an excellent career for him and are pursuing the possibility accordingly.

Nothing to despair about. Just a full time. We are blessed by the way the doors are opening and by feeling called ever deeper into life together. The new job is great, the transition out of l'Arche smooth. I continue to cultivate relationships with the folks in the house and to enjoy the community of our church. And did I mention that my mom is a rockstar? Wait. What was I complaining about....

oops!

2006-07-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

Argh. I realized yesterday that our "comment setting" for the blog allows only registered "bloggers" to leave comments. We've fixed it so now anyone can respond. Just hit "comment" and leave your message.

Sorry about that.

That being said, we would love feedback on Bixler-Florer vs. Florer-Bixler.

Needing Input on Last Naming

2006-07-16T16:51:00.000-07:00

A while ago my friend Ashley asked me what Jacob and I are planning to do about our last name. At the time the most natural course of action was for me to stay Bixler, him to stay Florer. I couldn't imagine a great reason to change my name to Florer and vice versa. We flirted with a bunch of ideas, the best one being making up a new word from some or most of the letters in our names (e.g. flixrer, rexflo, olexef, lixbore).

As time went on, in the course of our cooperative naming process it became clear that Jacob had one particular desire in this area. Mostly, he wanted our whole family to have the same last name. So we were left with hyphenating our names. We see this marriage not only as the conjoining of two people, but of two families, two communities, two distinct stories. We bring to our union our Bixler-ness and our Florer-ness.

Now we transition into aesthetics. They're not the prettiest combo (ah, how lucky you are Ardrey-Graves family and Hevelone-Harpers. Kielsmeier-Jones is a mouthful for sure) but it's what we've got.

Here's where we could use your help. Which do you think sounds better: Bixler-Florer or Florer-Bixler?

We were leaning strongly towards the former until my sister mentioned that "Bix" is such a dominating syllable that "lerflorer" becomes this slushy afterthought. Putting "bix" in the middle, she pointed out, is a wake up call in the middle of the soft sounds "florer" and "ler." It becomes two distinct words instead of one. In Jacob's words, "it makes me feel married."

Thoughts? opinions?

Casper the Friendly Volvo

2006-07-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

Yeah! We have a new car! The Beast, our somewhat difficult, always loud F250 Diesel (the one in which we got engaged) has needed a replacement or at least a suplement for a while now. The Beast's little sister, our lovely new (1985) Volvo showed up today via Canby, OR. She's a turbo diesel with a rebuilt engine, came biodiesel ready and will be up for a veg oil conversion as soon as we can find the cash. It's a mommy-prep car, e.g. could handle three small people, a stroller, two car seats, a set of snowshoes, a hitchhiker, a bike and a CSA pick-up.

Here are some pictures with the folks who are equally excited about the new arrival (Erin announces "Jaba coming!" when he's in the truck still three blocks away because its so loud).

Everybody came out to see the new ride

Adam tests out the seat

Joni giving her approval

Leo in Blood Diamond

2006-07-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

I read in Time magazine on the plane back from Boston that Leonardo DiCaprio will be starring in a new movie called The Blood Diamond, set in Sierra Leone. It's depicts how gem sales funded African civil wars in the 1990s.

"De Beers (the world's largest diamond distributor) says it will spend $15 million to counter publicity its execes say will hurt sales around the film's winter release."

Too bad they aren't spending that money to improve their laborers' camp conditions, provide adequate health care and ensure that their profits are no longer going towards brutal, fascists governments.

Just a reminder: Green Karat.

The Times They Are A Changin'

2006-07-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend Jacob and I were up in Boston for the wedding of my good friend Carla. It was a great reunion with friends from Gordon, their spouses and offspring.

While we were there I got a call from the University of Portland offering me a job. Two weeks ago I was on-campus interviewing for the position of Assistant Director of the Office of Volunteer Services. UP is a Holy Cross school and as such their volunteerism is grounded in the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, not the run-of-the-mill secular humanism or resume building of a lot of mainstream universities. I am really excited about what they are doing (and by how much they are going to pay me).

It's a bittersweet transition but one we feel called to pursue. I will still be involved with l'Arche on the Financial Planning Committee and as an extended community member. In addition, UP's Volunteer Office has supported the community for over a decade, providing summer interns and work crews who come to the house once a month. They even host an on-campus worship service called REEX (Religious Experience for Exceptional People) which I will in-part oversee next year!

To make things more exciting, Jacob is finishing up at the farm early and he will be looking for a new job too! So, on our Thing to Do list we have find a new job, move into a new apartment, plan a wedding and buy a car. My goodness....

We are, however, incredibly thankful for the ways the Lord has opened and closed doors in the past few months. We've been praying hard for wisdom and guidance, that we can be faithful even in these slim times. We feel like there are some amazing things in store for us.

PS
I just have to share. On a completely unrelated note, yesterday at the airport I saw Long Duk Dong. Who the heck is that?, you might be wondering. That was the name of the character from the 80's movie, Sixteen Candles. He was the crazy foreign exchange student. I was convinced it was him but a little thrown off by the fact that he was sitting in my waiting area getting ready to take the jumpflight from Seattle to PDX. I mean, why is Long Duk Dong going from Sea-Tac to Portland anyway?

Well, I came back from getting some food and he was gone! I looked across the way and saw him boarding with First Class on a flight to Los Angeles. Confirmation. I think so.

article on birth control

2006-07-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

Amy Laura Hall a theological ethicist from (surprise) Duke did this interview with The Other a while back. She shares about biomedical technologies and birth control practices.

"An Interview with Amy Laura Hall"

Natural Family Planning

2006-06-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

Me holding my God-daughter, Geneva about a minute after she was born

Q: What do you call a couple practicing the Rhythm Method?

A: Parents

Yes, we have heard this joke before. What Jake and I always say is, "well, we're not practicing the Rhythm Method; we're using natural family planning."

Huh?

Most people think of the rhythm method as that inaffective Catholic practice used to decide when to have sex based on the menstural cycle. The myth is that every woman everywhere, across the world ovulates at exactly the same time -- on the 14th day of her cycle.

This is sadly untrue. Women ovulate at different times, sometimes different times every month. Ovulation is affected by stress, plane rides. Practicing NFP requires vigilance in order to do it well. Everyone I know who has gotten pregnant on the NFP we are using either knew they were taking a risk having sex near the date they ovulated or weren't charting accurately.

But often all we hear is, "pregnant on NFP. Big surprise." There are so many misconceptions around NFP. When a friend recently heard we were doing NFP he was skeptical. He respected our decision but thought it was crazy that we could be pregnant at any moment. He was a bit surprised to hear that there is only a 24 hour window once a month in which to conceive. Our friend was imaging that we were fertile all the time! This new information made the whole venture a lot more realistic for him.

The journey into natural birth control is a theological issue for me and Jacob. I know this makes a lot of folks bristle. What we don't mean: that people who use barrier methods or oral contraception are going to hell. We certainy know there is a time and a place for birth control, particularly in countries with high numbers of HIV/AIDS infection where women have very little control over what their husbands bring into their beds.

What we do mean is that, first and foremost, children are a blessing. Because they are gifts we treat them as such and welcome them with the same hospitality. We also want to establish a marriage that honors creation. Both of our bodies are set up with systems and signs which tell us when we are present to the week when we are able to conceive. There are ample amounts of time where our sexual activity is procreative for our relationship building but not for child-conceiving (i.e. times when the gift is not available). We want to work within those boundaries and into the cycles which are part of who we are as created beings.

In other words, NFP is a gift! The belief in each other's fidelity allows us to have sex without a barrier; the belief in God's radical abundance allows us to trust in the process of our bodies; our belief in the church's committment to raising our children with us frees us from the fear of want.

As for the specifics, for those interested, I will give a brief outline. There are three signs to tell fertility:

1. position of the cervics
2. the viscosity of daily cervical fluid
3. waking temperature

With these steps I can pinpoint which day I ovulate. There's about a ten day window of abstinence for those trying to avoid conception (like us) because sperm can live in a woman's body for up to five days after intercourse (how cool it that!). The other days buffer the post-ovulatory phase, just in case alcohol, a plane ride or a temperature from sickness are masking the signs that ovulation has happened.

I've been "charting" (which is what this process of mapping the month is called) for about six months. It's incredible how clear the signs become, how amazing it is to know what my body is doing and how it is preparing each month to bring life into the world. I also want to remember, though, that one of the main reasons for doing this is to put our lives firmly in the plans of God. My friend Seeca reminded me the other day that, for all our trying, sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes we find out we're infertile, can't carry a pregnancy to term or have to use birth control because of a medical issue. For all our trying, God is the one in control. In all things, we are entrusted to his unfailing love.

To hear about our method of Natural Family Planning check out this link.

Family

2006-06-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

Three Generations: Jacob, his mom, grandma, and great-grandma

This past weekend Jacob and I went back to Iowa for his sister's wedding. I have met lots of the Florer and Fredregill families in the past two trips to the mid-West, but this was the big show. Everyone I had heard about and seen in pictures was there. It was a beautiful celebration of family and friends and the grace we receive from those who bind us together as families. Since my family is so small and detached, this was also a huge culture shock, everyone living in relative proximity, still involved, still present.

What I especially appreciated was getting to know all the people who helped form my future husband. These people all share a piece of both Jacob's biological makeup and his upbringing as a learner, a friend and a man of faith. I wanted to thank every person I met for the person he has become, for the gifts he brings to the world and for the way he blesses my life. I also found some great pictures of baby Jake which I thought everyone would enjoy.....

Baby Jake at six months

A young start to coolness (especially loving the snoopy belt buckle)

107

2006-06-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

One of the best parts of the Melissa/Jacob story is how many times we missed running into each other in the past few years. The big miss was when we both were studying in Oxford in 2002. As it turns out, we lived half a mile from one another. It's also a little funny that both our house numbers were 107 (the l'Arche community's number is 107 also). I worked at a pub, the Eagle and Child where lots of the Wheaton boys frequented so chances are good we ran into each other at least a few times. We even went to the same Anglican church!

But we had a few other close calls. When I was digging in Israel Jacob was on Wheaton's holy Lands tour. He visited the tel, Hazor that summer just a few hours after our work day ended. When I was a grad student at Duke, he came and stayed with some of our good guy friends a few separate times. Even with him going to vespers and me studying in the building next door, we never crossed paths.

Guess things needed to come full circle. We're really happy to cross each other's path every day now.

Guests!

2006-06-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

Wedding news is slow but we are happy to welcome lots of friends into the area. Our good friends the Smalleys from North Carolina were up here last week. Our friend Joshua also stayed for a while. Now my sister is in Portland for the summer working/living in l'Arche (l'Arche is often a family affair). Gwyneth and Carla were out here, as were Lindsey and Frank as well as our friend Joseph. Soon both sets of parents will be out in the great Northwest. Come out and visit us! We always have room on the couch....

Jacob and Joshua being technical

Colonials, Sodexho and corporate responsibility

2006-06-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

Things were going just to smoothly....

A few weeks ago Jacob and I were able to secure the site for our reception. We were doing the usual dance between cost and committment but felt like we landed a nice medium. George Mason University rents out a ballroom space which we thought was perfect. We were strictly avoiding those places which operate off the wedding industry. These places will charge you thousands more for a wedding than if you were to, say, rent the space for your Grandma's birthday. They almost always require you to use their caterer, have an open bar and charge absurd fees for stuff you never thought would be extra (like lighting? give me a break).

GMU seemed perfect. They are close to the church which cuts down on driving (read gas useage). They would let us use whatever caterer we wanted and charged a reasonable fee for the faciltiies. Plus, I felt like I was supporting the school which provided one of the best NCAA cinderella basketball stories of the decade. Even though they messed up my bracket big time, I became a Colonials fan after Duke's horrible performance at the Big Dance.

But problems are starting to arise. GMU will let you use your own caterer, but not their kitchen (thank the Lord my mom's a contract manager and pays attention to this stuff). GMU let us know they would be happy to have Sodexho cater my event.

A little background on Sodexho. They are the country's biggest food service company. Most meal plans we were on in college, most hospital food, most vending services in the USA are provided by this monster of a multinational. In their words, "The people of Sodexho touch the lives of millions of men, women and children each day."

Unfortunately Sodexho hasn't always touched lives in a positive way. In 2001 a lawsuit for discrimination was filed against the company. Seems Sodexho refused the promotion of over 3,400 mid-level black employees. There were also incidents of the n-word being thrown around the office and certain accounts being ignored because they were "black accounts." They settled for $80 million in 2002.

Perhaps the words "blood-sucking leech monster bound for the hottest depths of hell" are going through your mind right now. But hold on. Since 2002, the company has initated a new series of "corporate responsibility" clauses. They have a pretty awesome website to back it up complete with measured results of their progress over the years. They are contributing to a breakfast program for low-income school children, signed on to the Global Sullivan Principles for Social Responsibility, offer fair trade coffee and now provide a line of local, organic food. On the protest side, the critics of Sodexho have badly written and/or defunct websites, no new information and offer a lot of opinions without factual support.

Still, for us, this isn't an easy decision. We were really excited to use Fresh Start catering, a work program of DC Central Kitchen. The Kitchen offers a culinary school for chronically unemployable adults. The first job you get after graduating is with Fresh Start. You get experience and a resume builder before going on to working for other companies.

It's a brilliant idea and one we want to support. But without use of the kitchen (which we think is pretty insidious of GMU because of course this forces you to use their caterer) we can't do it. Plus Fresh Start doesn't have linens or dishware so we have to go to another company for that. And at this point in the game it's hard to imagine going through the work of finding another location.

Not only that, we also want to support companies that are trying to clean up their acts in the same way we want to support larger supermarkets who offer local, organic produce. Like all things, this is a negotiation. Ultimately, we are interested in change, in seeing companies respond to internal problems, put environmental sustainability into action and provide proper support to their employees. We aren't interested in being angry for the sake of being angry.

If we do decide to go with Sodexho we will write them a letter letting them know that we are giving them our business because of the changes they've made and for the ways they have responded to the lawsuit. We're also happy for any input anyone has on this topic.

Candles for you!

2006-05-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago core member Erin Wheeler went with me to see a Mariners game in Seattle. She was mostly in it for the hamburger but I think she enjoyed seeing the people in the stadium and yelling "go team" (although unfortunately indiscriminate about which team she yelled this at).

Another great part of that time was visiting the l'Arche community in Seattle (l'Arche Noah Sealth). We were there for the Director's 25th anniversary in the community which meant one morning Erin got two breakfastes which was okay by her. We stayed for a few nights in Angeline house where my friend Leah from Duke is an assistant.

We also got to meet a bunch of the folks who work in the candle workshop, the work program run by the community. About a month before our trip, Jacob and I decided to ask Noah Sealth if they would make candles as gifts for our guests. Two hundred candles was a tall order because they are a small operation but the project leader, Alex said they could swing it with enough time in advance. If you end up liking the candles and want to order more, you can contact the community through this link.

One of the challenges for many men and women with disabilities, particularly those with moderate disabilities, is the lack of things to do during the day. Most work programs run half-day and group homes/foster care agencies are expected to have their clients sit around in the house after 12. Many work programs use these folks to fill time, don't pay a fair wage and often maintain poor facilities. There are many l'Arche communities which provide alternative experiences. In our region, L'Arche Tahoma Hope in Tacoma operates a farm and gardens project. They write:

"The mission of L'Arche Farm & Gardens is to provide work in an atmosphere of dignity and respect, using horticulture and art to broaden and enhance the unique gifts of adults with developmental disabilities."

Other communities run candle or soap workshops. You can also checkout the previous post about Eileen in D.C. who is a part of Art Enables. Jake and I are excited to share with you our l'Arche life through the giftings and talents of the core members who share life in Noah Sealth.