Dodging the Blog

I'm terrible. I keep intending to write about organized religion, and then I don't know what to say yet so I dodge the blog completely.

I've been busy with various house projects lately - trying to get a little less dependent on my e-world. It's kind of nice to work with real pictures instead of just digital pictures, and to read books on paper instead of blogs and essays on screen all the time. I recently came across the following quote by Elton John:

Let's go out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging. I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole Internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span. There's too much technology available. I'm sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting than it is today.

I don't know about music, but I'm thinking in my personal life at least this is true. I may have to start setting a schedule of time online. Sometimes I may have to push myself a little to get on the computer, but sometimes I may have to cut it off earlier than I otherwise might for the sake of my personal health & creativity. All that blue light isn't good for me anyway.

My Shamanic Son

When Simon says his name it sounds like he says "shah-mon." I love this. He tells me over & over that he's a shaman.

According to Wikipedia, shamans are

"people who have a strong interest in their surrounding environment and the society of which they are a part."

Simon is VERY interested in his surrounding environment and society. Also,

a "shaman" being the Turkic-Tungus word for such a practitioner and literally meaning "he who knows."

I'm regularly stunned by all he knows. Again:

One of the most significant and relevant qualities that separate a shaman from other spiritual leaders is their communications with the supernatural world.

I have no doubt that my kiddo is in regular communication with some one(s) in the spiritual realm. He speaks a language that someone understands, and I think he gets regular answers. Finally:

Often the shaman has, or acquires, one or more familiar helping entities in the spirit world; these are often spirits in animal form, spirits of healing plants, or (sometimes) those of departed shamans.

I wonder if my cat doesn't have a spiritual counterpart that helps Simon. Those two have a special bond.

I genuinely don't mean to trivialize shamanism...actually, as I skimmed the article there was a lot that stood out to be true. I have long ago learned to seek truth wherever it may be found, and not limit it to one culture or religion or denomination or government.

And I supposed Simon could have some shamanic capabilities. I've heard lots of people say that small children are more closely connected to the Divine than any of us for a few reasons:

1. they only recently joined this earthly life and may have some memory of being a spirit in the company of the Divine previously
2. they don't have all the "baggage" from living in this world yet
3. they are open - deeply open - and accepting of things adults might explain away or ignore

There are probably an abundance of other reasons, but I don't need to over analyze. For now, I'll just be sure to listen to my little "Shah-mon."

Economies and Boats

At what point does a person’s dim financial situation reflect his or her own choices and shortcomings as opposed to a societal indication of trouble? Or at what point is it no longer the fault of the individual if they are being beaten by the system?

We're having a rough time right now, financially speaking. I have a great part-time job with pretty good pay, but I only get paid once a month and not always in a timely way. Even so, it's only part time, so there's limited income potential. Adam's self-employed, but there haven't been enough medium to large sized jobs, and the little ones don't pay very well. So he's looking for employment.

I guess we'll join the ranks of families who attemped to be self-employed, and then our small business will go out of business after just a few years. This in itself isn't such a big deal, really. We both knew it wasn't probably going to be a long-term situation. It's just frustrating that Adam's working his way through school to get his degree, but now due to our economic situation we're being forced into looking for a job anyway - about 2 years before his degree will guide him to employment.

So I've been thinking a lot about jobs and the economy.

Whenever I read about universal health care I am highly interested, because we're in that pot of people who need it. We make little enough to qualify for Medicaid and most sliding scale situations, but we don't have the right sort of documentation to prove our meager income, so we can't get it. We can show our tax information from last year, but that's not really accurate to this year at all. So we get stuck.

And I'm not trying to get out of taking personal responsibility for our tight and stressful situation, but since taking it on myself & trying to fix it comes all TOO naturally for me, I thought I'd try a different approach.

What if I let go a little?

What if it's not completely something that we have control over? What if we are simply an unfortunate product of our small town economy? What if we are a symptom of a national illness - a widening gap between the rich and all the rest of us? I used to be upper middle class, or at least middle class. I'm clearly now very much lower middle class, if there is such a thing as a middle class. And is this something we can change on a person or family level? Or is it more systemic?

Do I just have to learn to get better at the rules of the game, and then play to win like the rich do? Is there another option?

And then I think of another way for me to step back a little and let go. What about trusting the Divine? When we first moved here to Silver City most of our friends practised a very earth-centric spiritual life. The Universe provided for our greatest needs - and it always did. Since that time I have come back to my familiar home within the great, diverse, welcoming family of Christianity. So maybe I can learn somehow to trust God.

Then my question becomes - at what point can I just step back and trust God to provide for us, and at what point is God shaking her head and saying "I've given you the tools to pull yourself out of this - don't give up!"

I'm reminded of this story:

A religious man is on top of a roof during a great flood. A man comes by in a boat and says "get in, get in!" The religous man replies, "no, I have faith in God, he will grant me a miracle."

Later the water is up to his waist and another boat comes by and the guy tells him to get in again. He responds that he has faith in God and God will give him a miracle. With the water about chest high, another boat comes to rescue him, but he turns down the offer again because "God will grant him a miracle."

With the water chin high, a helicopter throws down a ladder and they tell him to climb up. Mumbling with the water in his mouth, he again turns down the request for help for the faith of God. The man drowns. He arrives at the gates of heaven with broken faith and says to Peter, "I thought God would grant me a miracle and I have been let down." St. Peter chuckles and responds, "I don't know what you're complaining about, we sent you three boats and a helicopter."

So now I'm wondering - what boat is right in front of me that I'm failing to climb into?

Sushi Success

On Saturday I attended a sushi class at The Curious Kumquat. Our good friends own the store, and sometimes I help out when they need shifts covered, so I am getting quite familiar with various ins & outs of the store. Last month they hired a chef to teach a sushi class on a day that I was running the register - and I heard peals of laughter, regularly, coming from the kitchen. When the class was over I watched everyone emerge with containers full of sushi rolls they'd made, and then most of the participants bought several ingredients to presumably go home & make some more.

I promptly signed up for the next class, which was this past weekend. I'm not sure we were quite as rambunctious of a class as last month's, but we certainly had a great time. If nothing else, the class demystified the art of sushi making, while simultaneously elevating it into something we may never master.

I realized that it's relatively easy to make mediocre sushi. This is the part that is liberating. The ingredients are not complicated or expensive, and it really is fun to prepare and assemble. The part that is daunting is realizing that there are an infinite number of varieties and presentations, and I may have to attend Sushi II to get even a little start on that.

But when I got home we sliced up the sushi rolls I'd made and snacked on them as our first phase of dinner - and they were tasty. I was impressed with the cross-section view of the third & final roll I'd made, because I think I did it pretty much correctly.

Now I'm inspired to purchase the "staple" ingredients so I can have a "sushi kit" in my kitchen, ready to go. Just some wasabi, pickled ginger, rice vinegar, soy sauce, nori, rice and my rolling mat in a box and I'm good to go!

One interesting tidbit I learned: "Sushi" has nothing to do with fish. It's sushi if it's got rice, nori, and rice vinegar together. "Sashimi" is the term for the sushi-grade fishes.

Happy eating!

To Be Continued

This year is the 50th anniversary of the United Church of Christ denomination. Our local church is celebrating it this Sunday, and I've been actively involved in planning the celebration for it.

Then just a few moments ago I ended up chatting with a friend about organized religion, for all its lovely and unlovely characteristics.

I intend to put some thought into this and write about it - maybe on Sunday after we've had the event. As it is, I still have a few deadlines in the next few days and just don't make time for blogging when non-virtual life is keeping me quite fully active.

Look for a blog with a little thought & soul by mid next week at least.