I'm Dreaming of a Green Spri-ing

Yes, it's only February 21, but I don't care. It's snowing today, and we'll end up with around four inches of the white stuff. I've already cleaned several heavy inchess off my car this morning, tomorrow morning will necessitate the same. 

And I'm thinking of Spring. 

That's the thing about Chicago Winters. We were treated to a few gorgeous days that reached the sixties. Trees all over the place have little knobbly buds beginning, because they were faked out by the warm weather. Lawns throughout the city shone emerald from the mixture of precipitation and sun they'd received. 

People want to burst out into our own form of Spring-selves, too. Our faces smooth, our eyes lose their squint, our backs straighten as we stand taller, reaching for the sun and its warmth...

"Faked out again," the snowflakes silently taunt us as they continue to coat us back into our Winter-selves. 

I won't bow down to the snow and cold. I've set the picture below as my desktop wallpaper, reminding me that inside, it's warm, it's green, and full of life!

(If anyone feels so inclined to use this photo as their desktop wallpaper, please be my guest - it's quite calm-invoking.) 

Sick of sick, sick of alone

For the past four and a half days, I've been cooped up in my condo, only venturing out when I can force myself to take the dog out. She, meanwhile, has been loving having me home, and has been cuddling up to her sick mom quite nicely most of the time.

It's amazing, though, that even though I'm stuck here, I don't exactly feel disconnected. I've been more or less living on Facebook, not only trying to beat high scores on Tetris, but checking out what friends are posting, looking at pictures, commenting on friends' pages.

The outside world seemed pretty close two days ago, when looking out the window, I noticed a dog walker friend walking with a police officer, quite purposefully. As they approached the corner, a few squad cars and unmarked cars pulled up. The focus of everyone's attention was a distraught looking woman, hands gripping a handkerchief as she spoke to them, my friend obviously trying to comfort her. I'll have to wait until she and I bump paths walking our dogs to find out the story on that one...

I also received a text message from a dear college friend, telling me that she and other members of her family had just sung her father into the next life. I called her immediately, but of course, there is nothing real to say beyond 'sorry'. Her father was a pastor; they know his salvation is sure. They knew the end was upon them. Doesn't really help. Prolonged or sudden, it's never easy.

Yesterday was also a day for family contacts. I played a little game on the FB sites of some nieces and nephews, then got email news about my sister's knee surgery, and pictures of another sister's grandson. Chatting back and forth, sharing little bits of each other's lives, it makes us seem so much closer.

I received phone calls from both of my bosses - one preparing some work for next week; the other had a recap of what I'd missed and plans for two weeks hence.

Then later last night, another email from church, regarding songs for this coming Sunday. I'd also had contact with my pastor in previous days concerning the Thanksgiving Eve joint service with our Hispanic sister congregation.

And of course, almost every day, my son has been around for part or most of the day.

So why do I feel so cut off?

It's that human touch, that face-to-face factor that's so important. There are times when I do just want to be alone, but if I go for extended periods without some serious human interaction, my extroverted spirit gets restless, lonely.

We read a The History of Love for book club, and one of the main characters was a slightly crazy old man who lived by himself. He would do odd things now and then to make sure that people saw him, noticed him - like dropping all his change on the floor as he was buying something at the convenience store. He'd get food delivered to his house so that he'd know at least one person had seem him that day.

So yes, I did in fact just order in pizza even though I've got a fridge full of food. I'm sick of being sick, and I'm sick of being alone, and I'm sick of being cooped up. Three seconds with the pizza man isn't exactly my idea of high quality discussion time, but at least I'll know someone else has seen me today!


ED: Well, pardon me for whinging a little... it's nice that the cold finally made it's way out of my system (only after 2 and a half weeks), and I seem to be left with the obligatory runny nose and cough that are more or less constant companions during the winter in Chicago.

Sankofa Processing #3

Trying to encapsulate thoughts about Sankofa is like playing one of those video games, where just when you think you've gotten a handle on things, the game pieces start multiplying, and spill over the top again.

One thing that was reminded to me on the trip was the fact that I'm an external processor, and have to either talk things out or write things out a couple of times before I'm satisfied with them. It's been helpful to talk things out with a couple of friends the last few days.

In The Color of Fear, Victor tells David that he expects people of color to act like him, talk like him, be like him. David is continually coming at things from a one-sided viewpoint, never stopping to consider that other people, other people groups, come at things from a different viewpoint than his.

In her paper, White Privilege, Peggy McIntosh suggests that the people with the power, the advantage, the privilege, want to level things out by trying to raise others up to their level rather than giving up some of that privilege and power. Again, they're coming at it from the wrong direction.

Similarly, I've been wondering if instead of deciding, "I'll treat all the people of color I come across just like my White friends and acquaintances," one should decide, "I'll treat my White friends and acquaintances just like I treat people of color.

Can we do this? I don't know.

The fact that I have friends - good, trusted, loved, intimate friends - who are different ethnicities than me does not mean I've "gotten over" my ingrained prejudices. Now and then I am disgusted to realize that I'm profiling as I walk down the street. Who's a gangbanger? Who's just a thug? Who can I ask for directions/change/to take a picture with my camera? Who hates me because I'm White? Who is a working man/woman just like me? Who...

Notice none of those questions were directed at myself... Do I make more pay for doing the same job as him/her? Do I have a lower mortgage rate than him/her? Am I looking at a man coming home tired and dirty from a hard day of work and assuming he's homeless?

The thing with ingrained prejudices is that they're ... well, ingrained. Deep. Hard to dig up, hard to root out.

But we need to do the hard work. God help me. God help us.

Sankofa Processing #2

One reason why it's been difficult to process through Sankofa is that it seems like so much has happened since then that is also pertaining to race, or racial righteousness, or discrimination. Maybe it's that I'm looking at everything through a different lens. I don't know, but check this out:

• The very next day a dog-walking neighbor and I were talking, and she started railing on the people in her building (she's White - they're African American and southeast Asian) and I had nothing to say in response
• Our whole group got an email from Mona, one of the event co-leaders, about her son who was almost arrested for DWB (driving while Black)
• My son's and my less-than-fabulous (yet oh-too-common for many) experience at Cook County Hospital
• Seeing the homeless guy at 7-Eleven
• Reading Eugene Cho's blog entry about the Spanish basketball team taking a picture making slanty-eyes, and all the comments it's engendered (p.s. all of Eugene's blog is a worthy read, btw)
• Telling a friend that I don't think a joke is funny because it has racist undertones
• (From before I went) Refugee families from Burma (Myanmar) continuing to come to our church; council trying to figure out what we can do for them, as their needs are great
• Wondering why my son can't seem to get a full time job, and wondering if his race is working against him
• Listening to the advertisements for This American Life, where they were telling a story about BWB (biking while Black)

And just tonight I finally read a paper called White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack. Man. It is deep. It says so much in a relatively short paper. We talked on the bus about a number of the points that Peggy McIntosh, the author, writes about.

Her list of privileges is incredible. This is the stuff we, I, White people, don't have to think about, and often refuse to think about. And many of us have no idea, no freaking idea, that we have it so well.

Sankofa Processing #1

What to say about Sankofa?

I could write about the schedule - almost 72 hours together, half of which was on board a bus, awestruck at the sites we visited, moved by the videos we watched, especially The Color of Fear, inspired and intimidated by the conversations we had.

Or I could focus on the sites we visited: the 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma; the John Perkins Institute in Jackson, and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, which has been converted into the National Civil Rights Museum.

In some ways, Sankofa now seems a world away - perhaps because of the very nature of it. We are separated off, cocooned into a bus that becomes our world for several days. Our sense of time gets a little goofy, because of the long hours we spend viewing films and discussing them or the places we have visited.

As much as possible, I tried to capture sights on film and impressions on paper, which I have yet to transfer into understandable notes. Overall, I still have an overwhelming feeling akin to despair. On one hand, Sankofa was a wonderful experience, one I intend to repeat. But it is not a feel good trip. It is not like going on a weekend retreat. You do not (hopefully) come out of it saying, "oh, God is so gooood, my eyes are ooopened, now I'm awaaare, praise the Lord, and life will be better from now on."

At the start of Sankofa, a couple of the women said that they were frankly tired of having to deal with these issues; they've lived them every day their whole lives. And I can't blame them.

No matter how awaaare (of self and/or society) I might become, the truth is, I can go on with my life, enjoying the benefits of not having to be aware of my race, not worrying about being profiled by the police while I'm driving, not being looked at suspiciously by people on the street or in shops. I don't have to think about the fact that I am White.

Freedom to be oblivious to matters of race. In The Color of Fear, one man asked another what it was like to be White. The White man really had no answer. He didn't have to know.

At the start, we were all asked how we thought of ourselves in terms of race. Several of the White people said White, or European American. I was the first person asked, and I didn't interpret the question as 'how do I label myself'; but rather what I thought about myself in terms of race. The first word that came to mind was privileged, but I was hesitant to speak that aloud until someone else did.

Another woman said that she felt no identity as 'White'. I agree. There is no feeling of common identity or of shared experience, whether it be good or bad.

No, this was not a feel good time. And lots more processing has to take place.

Are you my neighbor?

Yesterday on my way to work, I stopped off at my 7-Eleven. Instead of the usual homeless guy sitting on the window ledge, there was this (presumably drunk) guy, sleeping. How do we react to this? Call the police? ER? Try to get him taken to a shelter or something?

Seriously, what is the proper response? Pray for him? Surreptitiously take his picture, hoping no one will notice?

I saw a guy drunk out of his mind and trying to sleep on the sidewalk once years ago when I used to work in a different neighborhood (Belmont/Pulaski area, where unfortunately the sight of drunk Poles was all too common). The sidewalk he was on happened to belong to the bar where he most likely got trashed, and I notified the people inside, hoping that they'd do something for one of their patrons. (I don't think they did squat.)

Still freshly post-Sankofa-generally-thinking-about-righteousness mindset, this kind of thing keeps churning around. Wish I had me some answers.

Atlanta in August

Sankofa. What was I thinking, signing up to go to the Deep South in the middle of the hottest month of the year?

It's about 36 hours till the bus leaves, and I'm feeling anxiety for any number of reasons... the discomfort of spending so much time on the bus... wondering how we'll change clothes, wash up the first morning... will the others think I'm shallow... what will I dredge up from within that I don't want to face...

I really am eager, too. I figure the current state of busy-ness will work in my favor in that I won't have as much time to worry while I'm frantically trying to get a number of things done before we leave.

Sankofa. What will you bring?

Birthday plans

So I've sent out this email invitation to some friends, and am waiting (im)patiently to see if we can make a party of it for this Sunday. I'm so excited!!

TO MY BESTEST BUDDIES,

I am beginning to feel my age (beginning, hah!), and want to start doing things I've always thought were cool, but never got around to it, didn't think I could spare the money, whatever.

So my birthday is coming up next week, and I think it would be fun to celebrate by doing one of those things I always wanted to do - CHICAGO BOAT TOUR!!
(you can tell I'm excited by the double exclamation points!!)

This coming Sunday, July 27, I'm booking tickets four an architectural cruise with Wendella Boat Tour. Do you want to come along? They have an internet price of $22. (Realizing, of course, that our friendship is PRICELESS!!)

Let me know ASAP, and I'll book enough tickets for all of us.

Hoping you'll be able to come,
Waiting with baited breath (get it - baited - boats - fish - BAIT!!!!!),
Me



I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope they can all come. I've never done a Chicago boat anything, except for that one time I could wish I could forget when I was young and stupid and got drunk and then had a seizure on a guy's boat, then got back to my apartment really late the next morning, and there was Big you-know-who coming out of my apartment because everyone was worried about me because I wasn't answering my phone and they didn't know where I was, and thought maybe I had a seizure or something (which I had, but...) and so you-know-who came up and we had been separated for over a year by then and it was really weird and uncomfortable because it was kind of evident that I was still a little hung over - not to mention the fact that I had been with another guy - plus the fact that he was feeling a bit put out by coming all the way to the North Side to see if I was all right like some kind of big humanitarian gesture or something, so that experience doesn't really count. Plus I could never make the toilet flush on that boat.

So anyway, it would be nice to get a positive boating experience for my birthday this year!

(By the way, all these photos were lifted from the Wendela website and are from the architectural tour.)

Sitting Pretty

return to me
Originally uploaded by Swedish Colombian

We take photos because we want to remember, record something. I often take pictures of places I think of as ideal sitting, thinking, reading, chatting, dreaming spots. Some day, I'd like to make myself a photo book of all these places.

Like this bench in the Botanic Gardens. Almost everyone was walking past it on their path to see everything the Gardens have to offer. Its hard to slow down and just sit somewhere, when you feel you have to keep going. But I always think of the places I want to go back to...

That Swoosh

Recently one of my coworkers asked us, "Did you ever have one of those Swoosh moments?" She went on to explain that she thought she had not reserved enough hotel rooms (a major element in her work right now), but then realized that she had indeed resolved the situation the day before.

She went on to define for us what a 'swoosh' moment meant. It's that feeling you get in your stomach, that 'oh, [crap], what did I forget' mixture of uncertainty and panic, accompanied by rapid heart rate, shortness of breath and knowing, just knowing, that because of your incompetency, some big disaster is about to happen. 'I've let something fall through the cracks.' or: 'I've left people high and dry.' or, and almost always: 'Everyone will be so disappointed in me.'

Of course, often the Swoosh is usually followed by a realization that all is well, the fear was unfounded. However the accompanying relief is not exactly pure, more like a 'dodged that bullet' kind of feeling.

I hate the Swoosh. When my friend brought it up, I immediately recognized what she was talking about - I'd just never given it a name (other than an 'oh [crap]' moment). I've had it too many times. Does that mean I'm too busy? Too disorganized? Not confident enough in my skills or work? I'm not certain.

I could say God is doing a great big tap on the shoulder, because my knee-jerk reaction is to yell silently, "Oh, God, help!!" But I don't think he's really that masochistic...

Stargazing

When I took Lucy out for her walk tonight, I was struck by the beauty of the clear night sky. The Big Dipper was immediately visible as I looked up, quite the rarity in the city.


Sometimes I wish I could go out and stargaze every night, in a place where the night sky was unpolluted by city lights. Here's a picture of the constellations in the winter sky. Hmm... not quite what I see when I look up at the sky in winter. If I'm lucky, I can count maybe 20 sky objects on a clear night.



Tonight there's supposed to be a red moon due to a lunar eclipse.
Historically, they say Colombus fooled the Native Americans into giving food to him and his men by telling them the gods would make the moon turn red in anger if they didn't... of course he had an almanac on his side. Cheating Spanish bastard...

But I just can't see dragging myself out at 3:30 on a frigid winter night to look at the moon - even on a beautiful clear night like we're having here. *sigh* I'll just google images tomorrow and see if anyone captured it and wish I would have taken the picture myself.

Part of a Family

During this past week of Midwinter, I realized something. At some point in the week, I connected with people from every decade and every phase of my life.

• Becky and John E have known me since I was a year old, and Karen H was my pastor's wife at our church in the mid sixties. (Of course, I could also name my own sister, who attended Midwinter, and whom I've known since, well...)
  
• I met Keith S, Bob A, Pete H, Bruce L, Rick M all at Camp Mission Meadows in my early teens in the seventies. I would have been at Scandia Cov at the time.
  
• I met Eric Sparrman, Dave G, Dave K and Lana H at North Park in the late seventies. I went first to North Park Cov, then Iglesia del Pacto de Albany Park.
  
• Baxter and Margie S let me live in their home in Medellin, Colombia in 80-81. I also met Carol B that year (in Ecuador), and Ray D, who was head of World Mission at the time. In Colombia, I mostly attended house services.
  
• I had classes with Noel C, and knew who Pat G was at North Park in the early eighties. Back to IdP Albany Park.
• Bob S, Dave and Laurel G, Eric H, Steve and Mary Jane D are all friends made at Grace Covenant in the early nineties. Stuart M and Deb G were my two pastors during the nineties.
• The list of people met since 2000 is simply too long to name - people both at Grace and through work, and who were all at Midwinter.
  

This list is just people I know; if I expanded the list to include people who knew Mom and Dad, or siblings, it would be huge. (And I run into people who knew my sisblings from their camper days or working stints at Mission Meadows, or those who know my siblings from the churches they've attended, or from their time at North Park.)
Family. Awesome... gives me a warm feeling inside.

Being a Witness

"There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear...
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down"
- Buffalo Springfield, For What It's Worth

There is something happening here, although it is clear that it's something good that's going down in the ECC. These are interesting days; this is a very interesting and critical point in our history as a denomination.

And I feel like I'm a witness.

I've been able to personally watch the 5-fold test emerge from a brainstorming session in an Ethnic Commission meeting into a movement of the ECC. (photo: Gary Walter tallying responses at the 5-fold round table in 2004)

I've been able to watch as the position of director of congregational vitality went from proposal to funding approval to hiring to practice. And the word is spreading. Churches around the country are excited and hopeful of reigniting that spark again.

I've been able to watch as data was collected and predictions made about the future of the ECC if our attendance continues to grow as it has been. This past week, numerous presentations / discussions were held on the topic of the ECC in 2020.

I'm watching now as our denomination prepares to vote on a new President in 5 months time. It's exciting to think about both what has happened under Glenn's presidency and what will happen under Gary's.

Being a witness is cool...

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Coming close, home again

Yesterday I had just left a friend's house when I realized I had a flat tire. Not ideal in any weather, but especially bad when the temp was barely in the positive range. Thankfully, I was able to limp to a gas station and call for help. (It was not a service station, mind you. The man could sell me candy and coffee, but anything to deal with the car - I was on my own!) After the spare tire was put on, I set out to drive the 15 miles home. I hate it when some moron is driving 45 on the expressway with their flashers on. Well, I was that moron yesterday. I finally got off the expressway and started getting closer and closer to home. With each successive street sign, a little tension peeled off my shoulders. By the time I made it to the tire store a couple blocks from my house, my good mood had returned, and I was able to breathe normally again.

This morning in church we sang a song called "I Fall Before You Now," which talks about surrendering to God, worshiping him, not being able to resist his love and his beauty. The chorus says, "I'm coming now, coming in, coming close, home again." I was reminded how song really does capture the feel of coming close, and coming home again.

Those feelings I had yesterday as I got closer and closer to home: relief, safety, security, warmth, love, it's all there.