Raising Fists Of Fire

(or how to bring out the feminist in me)

I started reading Jon Krakauer's book "Under The Banner Of Heaven" which is his nonfiction book about the Mormon faith which we borrowed from friends. I have been saying for years that Americans need to stop trying to fix the oppression of women in other countries because there's plenty of it right here in our own back yard. What I was thinking of were all the women getting raped on our streets and being bullied and beaten by their own boyfriends and husbands. Who needs to go to the Middle East to find women being treated like chattel?

Chattel always makes me think "cattle".

I have always been vaguely aware that men, in the last couple thousand years, have gotten permission to treat women like lesser beings almost exclusively from religion. They can open the Koran, the Bible, or Josef Smith's weird doctrines to find every kind of encouragement to demand "obedience" from the "weaker" sex. In no place will you find more proof that women are bad, that they can't be trusted, that they are traitors, and of course, whores. Because for some reason, God, in all his manifestations seems concerned that women might take over the world if not kept under check.

If women ran the world there are some pretty fundamental changes that would occur. We would probably still have wars, because women will fight just as hard to protect what's theirs as men will, but there would be a lot fewer of them because most women are too busy working their asses off to obsess over invading other countries. Rape would be one of those atrocities that would almost never happen; like cannibalism it would fade into obscurity. The majority of pedophilia would disappear.

This book has effectively flushed out my feminist ire. I have many times said that I am no feminist. I don't relate to man bashing. I like men for their own peculiar strengths as much as I like women. My sense of self worth isn't tied at all to how I compare to men. It bothers me to hear women sport slogans like "Whatever man can do, woman can do better" which is a lot like engaging in a pissing contest which is one of those masculine quirks that I find pretty gross and pointless and women being just like men makes them also no better than men. I have always thought that women should see that their worth doesn't need to be measured against a man's worth. We are all equal, but different. I really don't believe that either of the sexes is superior to the other.

I am not the same as a man. Except that we're both human.

I love chivalry. When a man opens a door for a woman, or offers her his coat in the cold, I don't see it as a sign that he thinks women can't open doors for themselves or that they are weak incapable beings. I have always seen actions like these as signs of respect, caring, and as a man's ability to stop thinking of himself for two seconds to open the way for a lady to pass through. There isn't enough of that kind of thoughtfulness and when I see it it makes me happy. Feminism has made men afraid of chivalry. Which I think is very sad.

However, reading about a religion in which women don't even get to go to heaven unless their husbands "call" them to heaven using their secret name makes me want to rise up with fire in my fists and knock down every man who ever made a woman believe that her spiritual life rests in a mortal man's hands. I want to burn all religious books in which women are called whores because they've been raped by man, because man's appetite cannot be controlled. If we're going to throw that word around at all I think we're going to have to call at least 50% of all men whores too.

But why do we need to throw that word around at anyone? I don't believe that God calls anyone whores, I don't think there is any cause for that word to be used in any context besides one in which a person engages in exchanging sexual favors for money. And just for the record, I don't think a prostitute deserves less respect because of her profession than anyone else deserves and I don't believe that God loves a prostitute less than a virgin or a man. In fact, next to a man who abuses his wife and/or children, I think a prostitute is a much better candidate for heaven.

Not that I believe in heaven. Because I don't.

I've said many times that I don't believe in God in a biblical sense. And I don't. I believe that God exists not as a personality that experiences human emotions but as a spiritual force in nature that is greater than ourselves.

I am not even a quarter of the way through this book but I can see it's going to stretch the elasticity of my beliefs and my perceptions of other people's beliefs. One thing this book confirms for me without question:

Fundamentalism in any religion is evil. If there have been atrocities, it is usually the fundamentalists at the bottom of it all. Every religion has them. In Islam it is the suicide bombers. In Christianity it is the people who are killing other people because they believe that life is the most sacred thing on earth. In Mormonism it is the polygamists who have taken inbreeding and marrying children off to old men to new heights of evil.

There must be some fundamentalist group attached to Buddhism, but I have not heard of any yet. It's hard to twist the Buddhist concepts into evil, but I'm sure if anyone can do it, humans can.

I feel very fortunate to know so many good men. Men who have a healthy respect for women...men who stand with the women in their lives as equals. I wish all women could know what it feels like to stand side by side with the weaker sex* working together at living this mortal life well.

I guess women have a lot of ass kicking left to do in order to free themselves from their chains. They should probably start by writing their own religious doctrines like men have been doing for a couple thousand years. Us Americans should probably stop looking in other countries' back yards for oppression to "fix" because there's a whole lot right here in our own.



*Ha ha ha.

I was going to make some apologies to go along with this post but I'm not sure I really need to. Hopefully anyone reading it can tell that my argument here is not against faith, necessarily, or with an individual's relationship with God but against the doctrines of faith and the people that use them to oppress and abuse others. If you are not such a person, than I am not addressing or criticizing your actions or your faith.

Head Trauma

There is a giant club swinging at my head. Who can I thank for this gift of mucus and sore throat and this head that feels as though it has been clubbed and then stuffed with cotton batting? Perhaps the girl with the soft ball size tonsils that sat on Philip's lap* at the toy store this week-end? Just when I thought I was in the clear to work my ass off in semi-comfort this whole week I have to come down with a doozie of a cold. There's no time to stop. Life does not wait for colds. Life runs right through them and often will bless you with a secondary cold just for the fun of it.

I was up until two am last night sewing. Aprons. Although I love aprons I sometimes hate them. I hate them when I have to sew the same one four hundred times. I want to make the new one but am not sure I have time to find out it's total crap. I am doing the Crafty Wonderland Holiday Sale in Portland this coming week-end and suddenly find I need to sew a ton of shit for it. What the hell have I been doing in the last few weeks? And how can I know what will sell? What to focus on? Angela says to make lots of Peace aprons. OK, but what about the pin-up fabric aprons? I would think those would do very well in Portland. I have limited time. And a cold. What to do?

Philip has a cold too. Max doesn't have a cold.

Incidentally, the gingerbread house making went quite well. The kids had lots of fun making them and only one of Philip's eyes is permanently crossed from all the frosting negotiations. My kitchen is a total wreck though. Oh well. The kids had fun. That counts for a lot. They will remember this kind of thing when they grow up. (Because I will remind them nonstop.)

I have been wondering this week what kind of a response I would get in this town if I told everyone I was Muslim? My mom thinks I need a religious alias to keep the proselytizing Christians from trying to save me. (Oh yes, there has been some "save this bitch from Satan" activity going on of late.) She says that they give up trying to help her find her way to Jesus when she tells them she's a Buddhist (which she is, mostly). She suggested that I could tell them I'm a Buddhist too, or a Muslim. I immediately had a vision of me being lynched. There are plenty of open minded people in my community who welcome people of all faiths, but those aren't the people I would worry about. It has recently come to my attention that McMinnville is truly the Bible Belt of the Pacific Northwest. Not being Christian here is like being a pagan in the deep south.

There is always the obvious path to take when you are the bright red bird in a sea of black crows: keep your mouth shut and try to blend in. I could do that.

No I couldn't! When standing around with a bunch of people talking church talk (it happens more often than you would suppose) it is impossible for me to just blend in. I don't even want to blend in. I don't want to live my life in the shadows, discreetly, like a lone Jew in a Nazi town. This is the United States and if there's one thing I am supposed be able to do here, besides carry dangerous weapons, it is the freedom to not go to church. Or share the same religion with my neighbors.

The truth is that I am fascinated by religion and I love to talk about it with people and I don't want to become a person who is unwilling to hear other perspectives at all just because there's always the risk that someone will mistake my curiosity for an interest in being converted. And they do. They do. Something about me and my openness makes naive Christians cherish a false hope that I am a lost soul just waiting to discover a jealous** God with a martyr for a son.

I've thought a lot about my inability to keep quiet about the things I think, the questions I have, the topics I open in public and how I could be making different choices. In the end I have to bring it all up. To hold it back would be like trying to hold the tide. So I will have to take the heat for it.

Time for work.

*aka: Santa's lap. Yep, Philip dressed up as Santa for the toy store this week-end.

**Jealousy and martyrdom being two of the least attractive of human traits.

The First Carrot

(And all kinds of talk about faith and karma and other heavy topics.)

This morning I came in with more beets (all small in size), one carrot, one tomato, two impossibly small yellow crookneck squashes, and a few more pickling cucumbers.

I also managed to pick this modest vase of flowers. If I want more flowers I'm going to have to go out there and pull up a truckload of weeds which are choking everything out. I'm going to have to deadhead the roses and pinch off the dead flowers from the daisies and zinnias.

Where I will find time for this while caring for my child who refuses to go outside unless I fight him tooth and nail, while Philip sends in resumes and looks for work which he needs to have if we are going to avoid having to sell our house, I really don't know. If I were to manage to squeeze out even a few moments to accomplish any fraction of the above chores...I have to pray my sore back doesn't turn into a broken back. I wake up every morning unrefreshed with that nasty ache in my shoulders, neck, and back. I think it's my bed trying to kill me in my sleep, but I can't seem to catch it in the act. It would never stand up in a court of law.

A low grade insistent insidious depression has been gracing me with an annoying inertia. I have no energy to do anything even when I have the time. Partly that's because having the store made my household come in last place for a year. Things are so out of order (and I have all the furniture and my whole studio from the store packed in my garage) that to do any small thing here requires a huge chain of events to precede it. Like, if you want to put away the emptied out canning jars as we use them, you must first make room for them somewhere which requires shifting everything in the kitchen just a little.

There's also this colossal anxiety. Always. Every day. Panic in my chest. Dread. Which mounts to an untenable cacophony every single day I listen to my boy complaining about pretty much everything in his life and how he may as well have not been born. Philip does a great deal to add to that cacophony with his own anxiety and the fact that he is always saying the right things to piss our boy off just a little more. How does a six year old access so much negativity? How does he come to see a spat with the neighbor kid as conclusive proof that he will never find any boys his own age who like to do the exact same things as him and he shouldn't even bother because there aren't any in our WHOLE TOWN?!

I guess the apple didn't even bother falling off the tree.

On a lighter note, if I just push everything aside for a few hours by using my superpowers to freeze the whole world in it's tracks, I could do my first batch of pickles of the season today. Maybe. If I can muster up the energy while I put Max in his closet with his game boy, just maybe I could do it. I've got enough from my own garden for a small batch. I love dill pickles.

One thing that feels really good and is a tremendous relief to me is the clean wood floors in my kitchen and dining room. AAAAAhh. No more repulsive animal and people stained oatmeal colored area rug. It's wonderful to walk on that smooth clean mopped surface. Cool to the toes, not harboring diseases or nasty little what-have-yous. The kitchen floor was just scary. I am not crazy about having wood floors in there, I mean to say that while hardwood is my all time favorite flooring, I'm hard on everything I own and use and the kitchen is a room in my house that gets tremendous wear. It just seems like that finish on the wood is going to wear out super fast.

Maybe not, though, it actually still looks pretty good when I mop it.

I don't have a lot of spiritual faith. Most of what I believe in I believe because I can see that it's true. Like karma. The concept of karma is even in the bible. It isn't called karma, but it's there. The whole concept that there are consequences for behavior, whether good or bad, that will lower on our shoulders. When we live thoughtfully with compassion for others we tend to have better relationships and people will reach out to you in times of need. If you live selfishly and meanly then you will find yourself shut off from all help in times of misfortune. This is a concept you can verify in your life. Try it and see. It's true that you will reap what you sow, though perhaps not immediately. That's not something I have faith in, it's something I believe because I've seen it born out my whole life.

I also believe that everything happens for a reason and that everything that happens is supposed to happen. I came to this sometimes uncomfortable conclusion in my early twenties when I found it couldn't be refuted by a reasonable mind. I don't think there's a person on earth who hasn't wished to refute it at some point in their life. But if something has happened, you can't reasonably say it wasn't meant to happen. Maybe YOU didn't mean it to happen, but it was meant to happen because it did. You can reasonably say that YOU didn't mean something to happen, but if you unload your own intentions and back off a little, you will see that the Universe, or God did mean it to happen, because it happened. Humans do not control the universe. Nature, facts, life cycles, maybe even God does, but we don't. So ultimately, what we mean to have happen in our lives is only a small part of our life. We have only control over the choices we make, not on the outcomes of our actions.

Somehow I think I may not have spoken as clearly as I had hoped.

It has always bothered me when people say "He/She wasn't meant to die so young!" But how can that be true if He/She is, in fact, dead? We are surprised when people die young, we are devastated, we are sorrowful, but how can we know what is meant to happen except by seeing what is happening and what has happened?

I take comfort in these beliefs. I have never been able to believe in the idea that God will take care of your needs if only you have faith in him. Oh yeah? I don't know about that. That's not something born out by proof in my opinion. I guess it depends on how you think God interprets our needs. I know that there are a lot of people out there who desperately need food and are dying because no food is available to them. Does this mean that what they really need is to starve to death? Or that they don't have enough faith?

It's entirely possible that when the bible mentions God always taking care of his children that it means only in a spiritual sense. Not in a literal corporeal sense. But if that's so, then I think it's unconscionable to tell people that God will take care of their needs as a form of comforting the poor, or the sick, or the lost and letting them think that if they pray enough and give the church money or whatever it is having enough faith means, that their sickness will be cured, their poverty lifted, or that they'll find their way back to themselves.

The idea of faith bothers me a lot. Faith as in: a belief not based on proof.

I do believe in the other definition of faith: confidence or trust in a person or thing.

They are not the same. Often, religion asks you to have a faith not based on proof.

I guess I'm thinking about all this right now because I believe that whatever the future holds for me and my family, whether we have to sell our house and rent something to get by, or whether we are fortunate and find work and get to stay here in some degree of comfort, I believe everything will unfold just as it's meant to. What we can do for ourselves is keep slogging away at trying to find work, put our best feet forward, try to tame the chaos that having and then closing a store has wreaked in our lives, and if we still end up a wreck, then that's just what we have to go through. As scary as it is to me to face joblessness in this strangling economy, I do not get to decide the ultimate outcome of my life. I steer it as best I can and then the rest is up to nature, luck, the forces that be, and possibly even karma.

The thing that worries me is that getting therapy, chiropractic medicine, massage, and counseling for Max, plus necessary trips to the dentist all cost money we can't afford to spend. Not to mention visits to the vet. I don't feel I'm in a position to take care of these important things until we have an income again. It's a classic American problem. It doesn't matter how important all of these things are, if you don't have the money for them, you don't take care of them.

I think I need to drink more coffee. I just heard from Philip a minute ago that the new pot of coffee I brewed spilled all over the counter because I failed to put the pot in correctly. Damn.

What's weird is that we are exactly where we were a year and a half ago. Exactly. As though we have made no progress at all. It kind of freaks me out. How long can a person go without work? No, don't answer that question, I already know the answer. I'm going to go investigate the coffee situation and put my head in the grounds.