Grandma

I suspect that most children harbor a secret belief that their grandmother is special and very much better than all the other kids' grandmas, or at least the lucky ones do. I was one of these lucky kids.

My grandma had the perfect grandma voice--a lightly southern drawl with a lot of vibrato. Growing up, we always got a kick out of her command to "warsh up" for supper. And even though we chuckled, we also held a deep-seated conviction that this is exactly how grandmas are supposed to sound. When I was older, in high school and college, I would play my grandma's voicemails for my friends because the sound of her voice was just so perfect, soothing and familiar.

My grandma had the perfect house--tucked away on a hill in the small mining town of Globe, Arizona. Her house was seasonal flowers in her garden and tinkling wind chimes on the porch and a little yellow sewing room-turned-library just for her. A room of her own, filled with shelves and stacks of books. Her system was simple--one bookcase for "to read" books and one for "read," and I was welcome to read and keep any of the books on the latter bookcase. Her house had a closet full of board games and a dish full of candy, and it was the place to which Lauren and I would fantasize about running away when our parents made us clean our room or eat our peas.

My grandma always made time with her special. Whenever the grandkids stayed at her house, she would spoil us with little treats right before bed, which she called "midnight snacks." Later, we learned that these midnight snacks may have been more about her own sweet tooth than ours and that they weren't actually served at midnight. At the time, though, it felt like a magical hour. We had gotten to stay up to midnight with our grandma and share a sweet before bed.

My grandma was an artist. Her house with my grandpa was filled with her paintings and pencil sketches, beautiful landscapes and other scenes with A. Todd inscribed in the corner. She could also sing. One of the clearest memories I have of being with my grandma is sitting next to her in church and hearing her belt out the hymns in a way that no one else in the family could. She could fill her house with song, whether she was singing, humming, or whistling. No one in my family inherited her voice, but I see her artistic talent in my sister, and I seem to have her fondness for whistling tunes.

My grandma was whip smart and so funny, in that subtle, sardonic commentary sort of way. She had a phrase and a comment for every situation, and she was a formidable board game player. She had an eye for those double and triple-word score squares in Scrabble, and, after she played a particularly impressive word, she would do a celebratory arm motion that most resembled a bird pecking at you. I only beat her in Trivial Pursuit once, the last time we played, when I was a PhD candidate and she was over 80 years old. A lifetime of reading and her ability to retain information about mid-century cinema and current affairs made her damn near unbeatable.

My grandma was a constant presence of support and comfort, of inspiration and wisdom, of perfect, unconditional love in my life, which has made the past year so hard. About a year ago, she started to lose her balance and the falls started. With each fall, she would lose a little bit of what she enjoyed in life. She could no longer drive, she had to stop bowling, and, finally, she had to give up her home in Globe and with it her much-cherished independence. Yet, even though game nights became less frequent as her energy lessened and even though she missed her home in Globe, she was still my grandma. She always wanted to know what's new with you, and we spent our last visit discussing politics and joking about current events. But her last fall caused a stroke, and with the stroke she lost her ability to speak to us, to laugh, to ask us about our work, families, plans for the future. The stroke made the last time I saw her incredibly painful because my goodbye, my last expressions of love and gratitude to her, could only be met with silence and tears.

And now my grandma is gone. I will miss her contagious laugh, her running commentary on family affairs, her yawns like Santa Clause, pronouncing each yawn with a "ho." I will miss her voicemails checking in on me, her wishes of love at major life moments. I will miss her celebrations when she was beating us at board games, and I will miss the woman who has had such a stabilizing and reaffirming effect on my life. I will miss having her on this side of eternity, as Anne Lamott would say, but I am also grateful to have had her in my life. She was so special, and all of her children and grandchildren are lucky to have been loved by her for as long as we were.

Enneagram Obsessed

I have always been fascinated with personality typing systems. The first time I took a Myers-Briggs test and got my type (INTJ), I took every test I could find online just to confirm, and then I read everything I could about my type. My obsession did not stop there either. I would have my friends take the test while I anxiously awaited the results and then read everything about their type. I would make poor Matt answer each question on the questionnaire--occasionally annoyingly chiming in with are you sure that is what you would do? You don't do that!--while I ticked off the boxes to get his results and then I would read aloud the descriptions of his type even though he was not all that interested. 

I went through the same phase when my friend Kim introduced me to my natal chart (double Capricorn, rising Taurus). I've spent days of time on Cafe Astrology and Astrodienst reading about the minute details of my horoscope. I also had Kim calculate the natal charts of all of my siblings and closest friends. If you have ever received a text from me asking where and when you were born, I've probably read your natal chart! I am just fascinated by this shit. 

Enter the Enneagram. 

The Enneagram is a personality typing system that is especially beloved among Progressive Christians. I know the Enneagram number of pretty much every Christian public figure I follow on social media (Rachel Held Evans-3, Nadia Bolz-Weber-8, Sarah Bessey-9), and when they were all talking about a new book about the Enneagram: The Road Back to You, I bit the bullet and ordered the book to find out my number. Of course, I then read every book I could find on the subject, took every available online test (even though they don't encourage tests as an accurate measurement) and listened to several different Enneagram podcasts. True to form, I also texted all of my closest friends and family with a link to this test asking them to take it and tell me what they got. 

According to the Enneagram, there are 9 types of personalities: 

1. The Perfectionist/ Reformer

2. The Helper

3. The Achiever/Performer

4. The Artist/ Individualist

5. The Observer/ Investigator

6. The Loyalist

7. The Enthusiast

8. The Challenger

9. The Peacemaker 

Ones, Nines, and Eights represent the instinctive center, meaning that they operate mainly from the gut. Twos, Threes, and Fours, operate mainly from the heart, or the feeling center, and Fives, Sixes, and Sevens operate predominantly in the mind. 

ONES: 

The perfectionist is marked by a strong inner critic that is always telling them that nothing is as it should be and everything can be improved, including themselves. They suppress their anger so much so that they wouldn't identify as angry, but they actually feel more rage than almost any other number. They are rule followers with a strict ethical code and they always endeavor to appear polite, which can make them seem distant and inauthentic to others. The One's main motivation is to live the right way and improve the world around them. Their biggest fear is that they are corrupt. Their "deadly sin" is anger, which they feel as a smoldering resentment because the rest of the world will not conform to their high ideals. Hillary Clinton is a One. 

TWOS: 

The helper is is friendly, caring, and generous. They are the people who bring treats into the office for their coworkers' birthdays and they are probably the person you go to when you need someone's contact information, because they are in contact with every one. They present the image of being the one who takes care of others' needs but secretly they wish for their caretaking of others to be reciprocated. The Two's motivation is to be loved and needed. Their biggest fear is that they are unloved and unneeded by their loved ones. Their "deadly sin" is pride. They believe that they alone know what everyone around them needs and so consider themselves indispensable. Princess Diana was a Two. 

THREES:

The Performer is high-achieving, image-conscious, and productive. They enjoy leadership roles and they seek out careers that can offer them accolades, status, and prestige. Threes are extroverted and know how to perform for whatever room they are in at the time, which means that Threes can seem very different to people who know them from different contexts. Threes are motivated by their desire to succeed or at least appear successful, and they fear being seen as a failure. Their "deadly sin" is deceit because they will deceive others to preserve their image and they will deceive themselves to the point where they cannot tell the difference between their image and their true self. Beyonce is a Three. 

FOURS: 

The individualist is marked by a desire to be unique. Prone to melancholy, they are moody and feel emotions more deeply than any of the other numbers. They are drawn to artistic endeavors. Fours are motivated by a desire to be understood and understand their identity, but they fear that they will never find their personal significance or be truly understood. Their "deadly sin" is envy because they believe that everyone else possesses something that they cannot have and without it they are incomplete. Jackie Kennedy was probably a Four. 

FIVES: 
The investigator is analytical, detached, and withdrawn. They prefer thought to action and can get caught in a pattern of endless deconstruction and reconstruction of their beliefs, philosophies, and theories. They are drawn to scholarly work or any work they can conduct independently. Fives are motivated by a desire to acquire knowledge and maintain their independence, and their deepest fear is that they are actually incompetent. Their "deadly sin" is avarice because they will hoard their personal time, belongings, and ideas--because they want to be independent and because they can find other people to be draining and invasive--which in turn causes them to withhold love and affection from their loved ones. Dr. House is an example of an Enneagram 5.

SIXES:
The Loyalist is devoted, practical, and hard-working. They're basically Hufflepuffs. They like clear rules and boundaries and they appreciate consistency in their home and work life. Loyalists are motivated by their desire to feel secure and they fear anything that jeopardizes their security. Their "deadly sin" is fear, because they can get caught up in worst-case scenario thinking, and they can find themselves blindly loyal to authority figures and systems if they think that authority will protect them. All of the sources say Frodo is a six, but I think Sam is an even better example of the Loyalist. 

SEVENS: 
The Enthusiast is the pleasure-seeker of the Enneagram. They are fun-loving, energetic, and spontaneous. They live for tomorrow, constantly seeking the next adventure, and they suppress their own negative emotions. The most annoying thing for a Seven would be someone who likes to dwell in their bad feelings or meditate on past mistakes (so a lot of my blog posts would make a Seven very uncomfortable😉). Sevens are motivated by a need to feel happy and stimulated and they fear feeling pain. Their "deadly sin" is gluttony because they have a hard time believing that there can be too much of a good thing. Miley Cyrus is a 7. 

EIGHTS:
The Challenger is independent, strong, and powerful. They tend to be loud, energetic, and physically dominant. Eights are the most confrontational number on the Enneagram, and they like to take on the role of defender of the underdogs. They make good advocates and activists for this reason, but unhealthy Eights can also pick fights just to prove they can win. Eights are motivated by a desire to be in control and they fear vulnerability or losing control to others. Their "deadly sin" is lust because they lust after power and intensity. Alec Baldwin is an 8 (so is the asshat he's been impersonating on SNL, but we won't talk about that).  

NINES: 
The Peacemaker is easy-going, self-effacing, and accommodating. It can be hard to type Nines because they are so used to adapting their needs and desires to those of others so as not to rock the boat. Peacemakers possess an inner "tranquil ocean" to which they can retreat when the outside world has become to overbearing or upsetting. They are motivated by a need to keep the peace and avoid conflict and they fear anything that might disturb their inner calm. They also fear being separated from their loves ones. Their "deadly sin" is sloth because their inner calmness and easy detachment can lead to an extreme passivity, almost as if they are sleeping through their life. Mr. Rogers was a 9. 

There are other cool features of the Enneagram, like the "wings." Each number is influenced by the numbers on either side of it and people are said to have one dominant "wing." So, for example, an Enneagram One could be a 1 wing 2 or a 1 wing 9. The 1 wing 2 would be a little more social and actively involved in peoples' lives, earning them the nickname of "the advocate," while the 1 wing 9 would be a little more withdrawn, earning them the title of "the idealist." So, when figuring out your number, you also want to pay attention to the numbers on either side of it. There are also numbers that you "move towards" in stress and in security, but I won't get into that now. 

So, that's the Enneagram in a nutshell. If you want to take a test to see your number you can do so here, and if you want to read more about all of the numbers you can do so here. 

Now, the Enneagram peeps strongly discourage typing other people since someone's number is supposed to be determined by self-reflection and self-identification, but to make things fun, I'll let you guys guess what my real number is. I first took the test right after the election, so I was filled with a boiling anger and outrage at all of the the injustice in the world, so I mistakenly typed myself as a One. I am an oldest child, straight-A student who was raised with a strict moral code, so it was easy for me to see myself as a perfectionist, but I no longer think that is my real number. I don't fear that I am corrupt and I am not really much of a rule follower. I think this post contains a lot of "tells" for what my real number is. Also, if you wanted to share your number so I can geek out about your type, I would love that. 

Seven Shades of Shit: A Review of Fifty Shades

I would like to start off by saying that Fifty Shades of Grey is easily the worst book I have ever read, and I read the entire Twilight series. It originating as fan fiction has nothing to do with how crappy it is. I've read much better fan fiction. Secondly, "seven shades of shit" is a real quote from the book (it's what Christian might beat out of Ana), so that might give you an idea of the author's superior writing skills. In order to limit the length of this rant, I am going to share the seven worst parts about this book:

1.) The author does not know what subconscious means. Ana is constantly personifying her "subconscious" and her "inner goddess." Her subconscious is a half-moon spectacle wearing librarian who scowls at Ana and shames her for being a slut. Her inner goddess is always doing things like jumping for joy over Ana's sex life with Christian. I would like to strangle them both. But, apart from how annoying they are, someone should tell James or her editor that subconscious means "mental processes of which the individual is not aware." You cannot know what your subconscious is thinking, much less what she is wearing. I believe she means "inner conscience," but somehow her editors never figured that out.

2.) Ana is the least believable character *ever*. This girl is a graduating English major who wants a job in publishing and she doesn't own a laptop and refers to them as some sort of inconceivable space machines. Also, she is a virgin because she has *never* met any guy ever that she was physically attracted to until Christian.

3.) The author uses the same words repeatedly to describe Ana's reaction to Christian. She "gasps" when he looks at her in "that way." Her breath hitches, she inwardly sighs, or she thinks of her hunger that is "not for food." She gasps over thirty times just in the first half. And this classic-book-loving English major alternates between saying "oh my" and "holy shit" when Christian overwhelms her, which is all the time.

4.) Christian Grey is an abusive psychopath, and it has nothing to do with his kinks. He is a controlling sociopath all.the.time. When Ana does not answer her emails at work, he has a blackberry delivered to her work so she can answer him at any moment. He tracks her phone so he can know where she is all the time, and when she pisses him off while in Georgia, he flies across the country to stalk her while she's at dinner with her mom. He is seriously the worst. If you thought Edward dismantling the engine in Bella's car so she couldn't leave her house was charming, Christian is the boy for you! I will admit that I find Mr. Rochester and Heathcliff attractive even though I know they are shit, but Christian Grey can kiss my ass.

5.) The sex scenes stop being sexy a quarter of the way in as they all are either described in exactly the same way--desire pools in her belly, she can feel it "down there"--or they get creepy abusive, i.e. I'm going to rape you and if you get aroused, I'll beat you. Sexy!

6.) The book feigns depth by continually likening Ana to Tess D'Urbervilles and mentioning all of the classical music Christian listens to. Just stop.

7.) Finally, the most repulsive part of the whole novel is that James dedicates the book to her husband, referring to him as the master of her universe, just begging readers to think of her husband as the inspiration for Christian Grey.

Beautiful Creatures

In Beautiful Creatures (2009), Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl make the unusual decision to narrate the romantic plot through the male point of view.  Instead of being inside the head of a teenage girl, the reader views the narrative through the eyes of Ethan, a sixteen-year-old boy. At first, I welcomed this shift in perspective because I anticipated that it would be a refreshing change from the traditional, female-narrated young adult romance. However, only a few pages into the book I wanted out of Ethan’s head. It turns out that being inside this sixteen-year-old boy’s head means listening to him objectify teenage girls, rank them on a scale of hotness, mercilessly mock the girl whose body type does not fit his ideal, and slut shame girls who dress too promiscuously for his taste. As our point of view character, Ethan invites the reader to judge the girls’ bodies and sexuality in a way that is especially problematic for a book whose target audience is teenage girls.

Of course, a certain level of objectification of the opposite sex is par for the course in young adult romances. For example, Jacob Black’s six-pack abs are seared into the minds of Twilight readers; however, Ethan and his friends go beyond checking out teenage girls by ranking them in order of hotness. When Lena, Ethan’s future girlfriend, comes to Gatlin, Ethan and his friends ask if she is “Savannah Snow hot?” Ethan then describes Savannah Snow as “the standard by which all other girls at Jackson were measured,” who is “5’8” worth of the most perfect legs you’ve ever seen” (18).  We then learn that Emily is Savannah’s less-hot sidekick who has more to offer under her bikini top. Between Emily’s bra size and Savannah’s legs for days, it is apparent that the hottest girls at Jackson High look nothing like most sixteen-year-old girls. Nevertheless, even these sixteen year olds who are built like twenty-somethings cannot compete with Lena and her cousin, as Ethan tells us that they are the hottest and second-hottest girls in Gatlin. Ridley, Lena’s cousin who wears see-through lingerie as clothes, gets ranked as “third degree burns” hot which is above “Savannah Snow hot” (116). This culture of ranking girls based on their bodies not only objectifies teenage girls, but it also sets unrealistic standards for “hotness” that most sixteen-year-old girls do not meet.

In addition to ranking girls on their hotness, Ethan also harshly mocks girls who do not fit certain standards. This troubling habit is most evident in his description of Charlotte, one of Savannah’s less attractive friends. Ethan first lets us know that Charlotte is overweight when he is disappointed that, when the boys were waiting for a glimpse of Lena, “the only thing we got to look at was too much of Charlotte Chase in a jean skirt two sizes too small” (18). Ethan repeatedly refers to Charlotte’s clothes being too tight, at one point even saying that she is “gasping for breath” because she is squeezed into too-small clothes (338), but in case the reader did not pick up on the fact that Charlotte is chubby, her prom dress rips and the whole school sees her in her underwear. When this happens, Ethan describes her panties as “the size of the state of Texas” and describes her resulting cry as a “now-everyone-knows-how-fat-I-really-am scream” (269). Ethan invites the reader to join in on the humiliation of an overweight teenage girl who is ashamed of her body. The last look we get at Charlotte is when Ethan sees Emily glaring at Charlotte and interprets her look to mean “maybe you should lay off the pie and put some effort into looking that gorgeous” (338). While Ethan’s ranking of girls’ hotness could possibly be excused as the male equivalent of the descriptions of chiseled abs in most young adult romances, there is no excusing his harsh criticism of Charlotte’s body throughout the novel.

Finally, Ethan also assumes the authority to determine which high school girls are sluts. Ethan divides Gatlin girls into two groups depending on where they buy their prom dresses: Little Misses or Southern Belles (260). Little Misses were pageant girls, the daughters of pageant girls, or the daughters of “women who wished they had been pageant girls” (260). Ethan notes that “these were the same girls you might eventually see holding their babies at the Jackson High School graduation in a couple of years” (260). While there is some biting humor in this remark, his prediction of which girls will become teenage mothers based on what they wear to prom problematically links clothing with sexuality in a way that is reminiscent of rape arguments that blame the victim. However, not even the girls who choose Southern Belle dresses are safe from being skanks in Ethan’s eyes; the last view we get of these girls is of them “looking skanky in their tank tops and baby tees” at Lena’s birthday party (357). Ethan divides high school girls into sluts and nice girls, but Lena is the only teenage girl that escapes being labeled as a slut by Ethan. Ethan’s identification of high school girls as sluts disturbingly links a girl’s clothing with her sexual desire and suggests that teenage boys have authority over adolescent female sexuality.

In many ways, Ethan’s biting criticism of girls’ bodies and sexuality is reminiscent of the voice of the “mean girl” of series like Gossip Girl; however, the mean girl invites sympathy in a way that Ethan does not. Oftentimes, the mean girl adopts the persona of the “bitch” as the only route of power she sees available to her as a woman. Readers are also aware that her treatment of other girls is problematic, so we are not invited to share her viewpoint. Further, mean girls are frequently dethroned, and they usually learn to forge female bonds and make reparations for their past deeds.  On the other hand, at the end of Beautiful Creatures, Ethan is left as our trusted point-of-view character; there is no sense that we are supposed to be aware that his perspective is problematic, and he does not come to any realization that he has been treating girls wrongly. Instead, Beautiful Creatures invites the readers to agree with Ethan’s girl hating and slut shaming, which encourages teenage female readers to accept his chauvinistic view of the female body and possibly even turn his discriminating male gaze onto themselves. While Beautiful Creatures breaks with tradition by allowing us into the mind of a sixteen-year-old boy, Ethan’s mind is not a welcoming space for young female readers or one I am comfortable inhabiting.

This post was originally published on Swampish, the blog for UF's Center for Children's Literature and culture. Find the original post here. 

Graduation Remorse? On Regret and Moving On

I am quickly approaching the last graduation of my lifetime (please God. Do NOT let me get any more degrees), and, as with everything about my experience in a PhD program, it has caused a lot of navel gazing. While most people, myself included, usually approach graduations with a sense of celebration and pride (and maybe a bit of dread because those ceremonies are so fricking boring), I'll admit that I haven't been able to find the joy.

The last time I was in Arizona, I was talking to my mom about my upcoming graduation, and she asked me, "So, knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time would you do it all over again?"

The fact is that I regret getting a PhD, deeply. It makes other people uncomfortable when I say that, but it is what it is. If I could go back in time, I absolutely would have walked away from academia after my master's.And I would have got my master's in education, not literature. I have spent a lot of the last five years beating myself up for that. Idiot, you did this to yourself. If you HAD to do a PhD, why did you not accept U of A's offer? Why didn't you leave after your exams? Why didn't you get a more practical degree? Why? Why? Why? 

But, here's the thing: I couldn't have known that I would feel this way when I made my decisions about grad school. 

It's not like I wasn't forewarned. I had professors tell me that the jobs just weren't there. I even had a professor tell me that I should think about taking time off before the PhD because it would mean a lot of sacrifice. She said, it means living in poverty into your thirties. You are going to watch your friends buy houses, have kids if they want them, and build lives that you cannot afford. She said, you will have to commit to live anywhere to get that first job and work several temporary positions before you land the one that sticks. But twenty-three year old me thought that all sounded fine. I don't care about houses or savings or kids, I thought. Matt and I can live anywhere! 

And then I moved to Gainesville for five years. Here's the thing, I shit on Gainesville a lot, but Gainesville is not a bad place to live. I could do a lot worse. And that's the problem. I quickly learned (surprise!) that I cannot live just anywhere and be happy. 

And then I started to notice the logistical difficulties of the whole moving around with no money thing. Moving is expensive. We had to load up our credit cards to finance the move out here, and we were never able to get them back down, with Matt's student loan payments and me making 15k a year. When it became time to think about those temporary college teaching positions, I knew that we cannot afford it. I can't just keep moving around, building up debt, pursuing a dream job that I will likely never land. 

There's also the added shittiness of living across the country from every one you know and love AND being too poor to afford to visit for the holidays, or when your loved ones fall ill or get in a serious car accident or have babies or get married. It began to feel like a sort of exile from everyone I cared about. 

And then there's the whole issue of my decisions affecting another person. Matt very graciously moved out to Gainesville with me so we could do this thing, even though it meant working a retail job he didn't want to keep for years while he tried to find something, anything, that would use his education. If I decided to hop around the country pursuing the job I used to think I wanted, it would mean uprooting Matt every year or two to move to a new location. 

And so, as graduation approaches, I now know that I am not equipped, mainly psychologically, to do the thing I thought I wanted to do with this degree because I just am not willing to continue to make these sacrifices. I spent the last five years being less happy than I could have been, and now I do not know what I will do next, and that kind of sucks. But, at least I know what I am not willing to sacrifice now, so that's one upside. If nothing else, I am leaving my PhD program really knowing myself. I've done so much self-reflection and reevaluation it's frankly ridiculous. 

So, yes, I regret this degree, though I've loved the students and classes I have taught here. And, yes, I feel like a freak because I can't find the joy in completing the degree. But, I can realize that there was no way for me to know all of this five years ago, and I can try to have some grace for myself and forgive myself for choosing wrongly. I came here thinking I was Cristina Yang, someone who would pursue my dream job regardless of the personal sacrifices, but I'm not. I'm someone a little sappier, who misses my AZ friends and family too much to plan my next steps far away from them. I'm someone who wants a house, damn it, with a yard. I'm someone who wants work to be a much smaller part of my identity. And I am learning to be okay with that. I still, however, am someone who wants Sandra Oh's hair, because, come on. 

P.S. Everyone should be watching Killing Eve 

The Strange Side Effects of Getting a PhD

The PhD experience has been, for me, basically a series of existential crises. The problem with getting a PhD in the humanities is that you go all in on a very insecure future. You leave your friends, your family, your beloved town in the mountains, and you arrive in a swampy new city, missing everything you left behind. Professors warned you that the job market was terrible, that the jobs themselves were scarce, and that, even if you got the job, the workload was intense and poorly compensated, but you were too used to being the exception, the exceptional one who got the awards, the scholarships, the teaching positions, the acceptances to PhD programs, so you block it out. But then, each month that you spend in this new swampy town that you just can't quite love or feel at home in, reality sets in just a little bit more. As you see classes of PhDs graduate and only one might get "the job," or you watch people walk away from the program entirely and you're just a little envious, or you notice that the people who are getting "the jobs" are going up on the job market for 3-5 years before they get a position, you start to question and doubt everything. I mean, you've put ALL of your eggs in this basket, and its a shoddy basket. Meanwhile, while your future looks bleaker and more insecure, you watch your friends buy houses, travel, start families, etc. and you are plagued by FOMO. Again, professors warned me of this, but I just wasn't mentally prepared for it. Few people know this, but when I passed my exams, I reacted by hysterical sobbing. It all seemed so meaningless. I put so much stress and work into getting to this moment and it seemed like such a waste of time. Needless to say, I was not in a good or healthy place then. I wasn't in a good or healthy place for much of the last few years.

I've spent a lot of time in my PhD program looking back over my shoulder, turning into a pillar of salt, as I berated myself: I should have gone to U of A, because then I would have been close to my family and friends while I had these existential crises. I should have gone to Illinois State, because their program prioritizes teaching more and I now know I prefer teaching to research. I should have never gotten the damn PhD. I should have looked for jobs after the masters. I should have become a high school teacher. I should have become a lawyer. You name a past decision I pondered, and I thought I should have done the other thing. The thing that did not put me where I am.

I thought about leaving, but my ego didn't want to have this move, all of these crises, be "for nothing." I needed the degree to justify all of those choices I now regretted. And so, I then responded by shutting down any of my hopes in this career plan. I am not going to apply for anything in academia, I said. I want job security! I want work/life balance! I'll become a librarian, a HS teacher, anything that will hire me. All of these things are true. I do value work/life balance. I do want job security, but it is not necessarily true that you can't have these things in any job in academia. I was being hyperbolic out of self-defense because I did not want to put myself up for something with such a high rate of rejection.

In the mean time, I responded to my constant crises with some soul-searching. In my first year here, I had a crisis of faith, and left the type of churches I grew up attending. Now, I am perfectly at peace in a new church home, one that is progressive, that welcomes doubts and intellectual challenges to dogmatic beliefs, and allows for mystery. I am now a person that does yoga almost daily and believes in the power of reciting mantras and setting positive affirmations. I meditate. In other words, it is well with my soul. I also started making an effort to stay in touch with those back home, sending notes and little cards, letting them know that I think of them often even though I am not with them often. And that helped. I adopted two more animals. I'm not saying that it was done for healthy reasons, but my pets also bring me a lot of joy. And I started to realize that all of these things matter to me much more than any career. Finally, finally, I was able to come to a healthier place of peace and self-forgiveness this past Spring semester. The constant meltdowns of being in a PhD program pushed me to do so much work on my self and find ways in which I am in control of my own happiness and not relying on outside markers of status and success that I was finally able to stop berating myself for pursuing the PhD in the first place.

Once I reached a better place, where I am at peace with my faith and spirituality, with my family and home life, with my dreams of the future, etc, my productivity returned. I'm back on a regular pace of writing. I presented at a conference. I'm back into the groove of things, and, with that, my ego returned. Last week after the conference, I got a follow-up email from a professor I've never met but have a lot of respect for about the research I presented. It was one of the moments when I think, okay, sometimes I am good at this academia thing. I love teaching, and I think I am good at it. I hate the constant rejection and revision of the research side, but sometimes, like when I submit a dissertation chapter that I feel pretty good about, and I've sent off the final proofs on a chapter in an edited collection, and I receive positive affirmation about a conference presentation, I think I can do this. So, of course, because I am me, this resurgence of my confidence caused me to panic. I had already decided tor reject this! I don't want to want this. I don't want the rejection of the academic job market. And so, I vision boarded, like the true introspective hippie I've become.

When I reflected on what components I need to be happy in the future, to be secure, the answers came easily. I need a steady spiritual practice and I want to grow in my convictions and right actions in that arena. I want to live in a landscape I love. I need to see the sky. I need elevation changes on the horizon. I need to see mountains, and I'd love to be in the mountains, because I want to spend more time outdoors, but I am a picky bitch about which outdoors landscapes I enjoy. I don't like flat land and I do not care about beaches. I want a home. A place that is our own, with a small yard for the dogs, and space to host visitors. And I need to be closer to my friends and family. Matt and I have set a goal of no more than 15 hours of driving time away from Gilbert, so that we can put all the animals in the car and get home in one day of driving. And as far as the job goes? I'd like to still teach or work directly with students. The only thing that I need out of a job is the feeling that I am impacting someone or something. That my skills are helping someone directly. That's why I like teaching. So, I'll apply for some college teaching jobs, some secondary teaching jobs, and some college advising positions, and I want to learn more about Children's Librarian programming positions. If I don't get the fanciest jobs, that is totally FINE because what I've realized is that what I do to pay the rent and get health insurance matters so little to me in the scope of things.

These are not things I knew or thought I needed when I chose to leave Arizona for a PhD program in Florida. I was going to be the career woman who didn't marry until my late 30s, if at all, who moved across the country in pursuit of ambitious career goals. Of course, Matt came along way too early for my plans, so I accepted that I would be a young married person, but I still thought career goals topped everything else for me. And now, thanks to four years of breakdowns, and yoga, and meditation, and general navel gazing, I know that what I need is to just live somewhere I love, somewhere I can go outside and enjoy nature, somewhere with good local food and closer to our friends and family. I am motivated to finish the degree, not for the career opportunities it will bring, but because it means we are free to move on and find the right place for us.

Being in a PhD program was so much harder and stranger than I ever could have imagined, but it turned out to be the perfect reason to sort out my priorities, and for that I am grateful.

Dear (Fellow) White People

The first time my Facebook posts started drawing rebuke from certain friends and family members was when I posted in defense of Black Lives Matter. One racist acquaintance took to commenting in ill-formed and misspelled sentences about how Black people were thugs, and when I deleted his comments, he took it as an invite to start private messaging me Infowars and Breitbart articles about how Black people are thugs, and didn't I know that BLM was a terrorist organization that wants all white people dead? They're not and they don't, and that person has since been deleted and blocked. I got into a political argument with a family member about the death of Freddie Gray. Can't they agree that, regardless of a person's race or even crimes committed, they don't deserve to have their spinal cord severed in the car ride to the police station? Before Trump's campaign, BLM was the topic that opened my eyes to the disconnect between my world view and the world views of people I know and love. But what is to be done about it? 

Sometimes, like when that person used to be married into your extended family and isn't any more and private messaging you offensive and violent garbage, they can be deleted. Sometimes, you love this person and have an otherwise close relationship with them so you drop it to save the relationship. But, you can't let it go permanently. I can't let it go because lives are on the line. 

Two years ago, 9 Black church members were studying their Bibles on a Wednesday night in their sanctuary, their safe place, and a white supremacist murdered them, a white supremacist radicalized by the same alt-right conspiracies and hate speech that have found an elevated platform under this administration. This white supremacist took the lives on nine people, without guilt, because he believed the hateful ideologies maintained by Breitbart, and InfoWars, and the other insane rags racists like to message me articles from. White supremacy means that Black Americans are not safe in their own houses of worship. These ideologies have consequences. 

Yesterday, the courts ruled again that cops can kill Black people without legal consequences. Philando Castile was pulled over in a traffic stop because the officer thought he "looked like someone involved in a robbery" even though he couldn't get a good look at the passengers... Castile then informed the police officer that he had a gun on him because he had a concealed carry permit before reaching for his ID in his wallet. The officer shot him SEVEN times, killing him, with his fiancee in the passenger seat filming the whole exchange, and his young daughter in the backseat, watching her father get murdered. Yesterday, the jury found him not guilty, not even on charges of murder, but on charges of second-degree manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm. Does it matter that Castile was following the directions of the officer and had a permit to carry? No. Because the officer's fear of a Black man with a gun justifies that man being shot seven times inside his own vehicle in front of his child. Does it matter that Castile was not a robber, but a beloved public schools worker whose death inspired the school children to send him letters with hand-drawn rainbows expressing how big his heart was and how sad they are that he is gone? No. Because his Blackness overrode the goodness, the love he poured into this world. This case shows once again that racist fear matters more than Black lives, and living good lives won't keep Black people alive. 

Today is just another day in America with yet another reminder that our racism has deadly consequences. So today I'm praying for a day when we can agree that Black Lives Matter, regardless of political party affiliations, and I'm donating to organizations that support black communities and advocate for police reform. I'm also promising that I will continue to have tough conversations with my people, because we cannot allow this hate to flourish in our own families, our own communities. It's just too dangerous. We have to do better, for Philando Castile and for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Tywanza Sanders, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, Depayne Middleton Doctor, Reverend Daniel Simmons, and Myra Thompson. 

Philando Castile

Spiritual Strategies for Resistance; Or, How I'm Tricking Myself into Being Less of an Asshole

A few days ago, a car with a huge TRUMP/PENCE bumper sticker appeared in my neighborhood. A few weeks before that, a car with a Sons of the Confederacy sticker started parking in my spot. I would like to take lots and lots of credit for not leaving any snarky notes on either of these cars. I didn't rip the stickers off, or spit on them, or death glare their owners. These are all things I wanted to do, but I did not do. And eventually I grew a little annoyed at my inability to go high, or remain above, or generally not go into an internal rage about these cars. I found myself walking the dogs on a new path just so I could avoid the hot rage boiling up in my stomach. My rage at these cars (and their owners) wasn't affecting them; it was affecting me. And to repeat a refrain from last week's post, I do effing yoga! I meditate! So what gives?! It is deeply unfair that I have not completely mastered contemplative practices and transcendental meditation, that I have not, in short, become a completely different, non-violent, non-reactionary, non-judgmental person. How rude.

I can walk the other way to avoid seeing the offending cars in my neighborhood, but I cannot avoid seeing them in the parking lot at Target or driving in front of me on campus. This is central Florida after all. Walking the other way is really not a solution. So, I started doing a small thing every time I see a bumper sticker that would usually send me into a rage spiral: I started praying for its owner. When I am walking the dogs, and I see that TRUMP car, I mutter under my breath "Lord soften their hearts." When I am walking the dogs alone, this is fine and good. But, yesterday, I was walking to the campus parking garage with Matt and I saw a Hillary Liar Liar bumper sticker paired with a Trump sticker (oh the irony!), and, in the middle of my sentence, I said "Lord soften their hearts" and shook it off. This caused some confusion because I had been talking to Matt about how predatory academic publishing can be, and he thought I was talking about Academic publishers, and I guess that works too. Then, later last night, I saw a car covered in roughly 50 bumper stickers with everything from hate speech towards Obama and Hillary to slurs against all Liberals. You know the car. We've all seen this car. The "Lord soften their hearts" wasn't doing the trick so I just kept going: "Lord, soften their hearts, quicken their minds, improve their knowledge!" So, is this strategy a little pointed and self righteous? Oh yeah. Does it help to remind me of the humanity behind the bumper sticker? A little. Does it help me shift my rage response into something different, focusing my energies on my desire for more intelligence and kindness in the world? Yes.  And, if I'm lucky, maybe it will keep me from any car accidents caused by rage black outs.

Because I am naturally a bit of an asshole, a bitch, etc., this small act is about all I can manage on my own, so I listened to a Liturgists podcast I've been meaning to listen to in which they interview Christina Cleveland about spiritual strategies for healing and advocacy. Cleveland is a professor of reconciliation theology at Duke Divinity, and the Liturgists hosted a conversation with her post-election but pre-inauguration about how those that felt broken, dismayed, and bitter about the election could more forward. If you have a little over an hour and this is a topic that interests you, then I suggest you listen to it, because it was an amazing conversation. But, if not, I'll boil down some of the tips that I found so useful.

Cleveland, like me and so many of my colleagues, had to teach the morning after the election, and she entered a classroom of depressed, shocked, and terrified students that needed healing. These are the steps she led her students through, and the ones she recommends for all of us trying to cope with the grief and resentment and get to a better place: She began the class by allowing them to lament; they shared their collective grief, anger, and fears for the future. Then, she asked them to reflect on what God means to them and the goodness they still see in this world. Then, she borrowed a technique from AA practices called the Resentment Prayer. She asked her students to create a list of things that they want to pray for for themselves--good health, better relationships with loved ones, freedom from fear, etc.--then, after they had compiled their lists, she told them that they would be praying those things for Trump instead. She said, we are going to force ourselves to pray for this goodness in his life. After they were done with that, they did the same thing for Trump voters. Wow.

I don't know about you, but I was nowhere close to having any impulse to pray for Trump or those who voted for him on Nov. 9th. I still have a hard time praying for Trump. I'm convinced her students had the advantage over me because they didn't know what she was going to make them do. I know, so it's very easy for me to say that my "Resentment Prayer" for Trump is that he become more honest, mentally stable, and aware of the hate in his heart. While some of these things might be what I would also pray for for myself, I can obviously skew the list if I know I am going to make myself pray for Trump instead. Plus, I'll admit I do not want to pray for his health. Now, I do not exactly pray against his health, but I do feel small amounts of hope when I read about his atrocious dietary habits and distrust of exercise--like maybe nature will take its course. It's horrible, I know, and I wish I didn't feel this way, but I do. It is much easier for me to do this prayer technique with his supporters, and it has been so helpful in forcing me to recognize the humanity, the god-given potential (to borrow a phrase from Hillz), of even those I deeply disagree with. And someday I'm hoping to get to a point where I can pray for Trump's good health and mean it.

Another strategy that they discussed is making a list of the ways in which the Trump voters you know still do good in this world. One of the hosts said that it helps him to realize that the main difference between him and Trump voters is just his level of awareness and acknowledgement of these social issues. He (as a white man) is equally as complicit in the white supremacy that enabled Trump and many of his voters, but he, unlike them, recognizes it for the evil that it is. At the end of the day, many of their actions (good and evil) are pretty comparable. I've also found it super helpful to distinguish between policies and action when I am trying to overcome my resentment of the other side. One of the main recipients of my resentment and judgment is Conservative Christianity. I find so many of the beliefs of these churches abhorrent and offensive, and I blame them for allowing millions to think that somehow supporting the hateful treatment of the poor, the immigrant, the outcast can be a Christian stance. So, when I do this exercise, I list the good they do in this world regardless of their ideologies I find so toxic. For example, most conservative megachurches are heavily involved with food pantries and kitchens. They fund and volunteer at shelters, and lately they have become more involved in foster care and adoption. These are all causes I believe in too. It helps me to overcome my reactionary rage if I remind myself of the good these institutions are doing in this world, and how they can afford to help some of these situations in ways that I, and the smaller churches I attend, cannot. I then do this on a smaller level. For instance, one of the things I admire about X Trump voter who I am trying to soften my heart towards is that they easily maintain a friendly and welcoming stance towards strangers. They will give someone in need a ride, they will stop to say hello, they build relationships with their employees. I, on the other hand, avoid eye contact with as many humans as possible. So, in this way, X  Trump voter lives out their Christianity more authentically than me since I find it so hard to make my physical actions reflect the welcoming ideals I firmly believe in. It has helped me immensely to remember the ways in which I fail to live up to all of my values. It undercuts my tendency towards self-righteousness and indignation and reminds me to be humble in my assessment of others.

So, these are just some of the things that I do to try to trick myself into being less of an asshole. I pray for the hearts of the owners of offensive bumper stickers. I pray for all of the blessings that I would want for myself and my loved ones to fall on those I resent, and one day I hope to be able to do that with Trump. And I make lists--who doesn't love some good list making?--of the ways in which I fail to live by my values and the ways in which those I've been judging do embody some of those same values. I have no expectations that any of these practices will actually change the hearts and minds of those I oppose. My desire is that it will help soften my own heart and allow me to assume a more peaceful and contemplative stance towards others. I don't want to let the bastards grind me down, or lessen my humanity, or zap my emotional energies. And, the most optimistic part of me--which is a very tiny, minuscule piece--hopes that someone on the other side is doing the same thing.

On the Inconvenience of Other People; or Why, Despite All of the Meditation, Yoga, and Prayers, I'm Still A Bitch

Since I decided to leave the loud, Right-Wing, hateful version of Christianity for a quieter, more contemplative Christianity, I have become a person who meditates, who does yoga, who prays the Daily Offices (sometimes). I try to do at least one of these things a day. I might read one of Father Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations and spend 10-15 minutes meditating on recognizing the image of God in all people, or I might do some Yoga with Adriene repeating one of her mantras like I am grateful or I am kind throughout the practice, or I might recite some prayers from one of my prayer books asking God to temper my self-righteousness with humility. These practices have nurtured my spiritual growth and helped me to become a more balanced and empathetic human being, in my private life, but most people who know me, who hang out with me or have had a conversation with me in passing would probably be surprised that these are things that I do. Because here's the thing: even though I meditate on practicing gratitude and kindness, even though I pray for humility to temper my indignation and for the ability to speak in love, even though I recognize that all humans are sacred, I remain a bitch, an asshole, or--on good days--just a little cold, in my day-to-day life.

I would like to blame other people. It is much easier for me to love my neighbor by donating to causes that help the least among us, the refugees, the poor, the victims of hate crimes and oppression, than it is for me to be kind to my literal neighbor. After all, they slam the kitchen cabinets when they cook, they park like idiots who have never seen a straight line, and they complain that you are moving furniture late at night when you are most definitely on the couch watching Netflix. For me, a good relationship with a neighbor is one in which we both avert our eyes and pretend not to notice each other when we pass each other in the stairwell. I detest small talk, so I avoid my neighbors when I can, and some of my neighbors downright annoy me. It's so simple to  love my neighbor in Syria through donations or letter writing, but it seems nearly impossible for me to show love to my literal next-door neighbor.

But what about non-neighbors? I pretty much struggle to show kindness and empathy to most people I interact with on a regular basis. For example, I avoid any sort of socializing or mingling with my colleagues if I can help it. The annual department party is something I used to force myself to go to (all the while being annoyed and desperately wishing to escape); it is now something I gleefully ditch. Most of the people I've worked with probably think I am a bitch, and they are not wrong because I can be bitchy. It's actually my first response to social situations. Since I came to Florida, alone, I've gossiped about colleagues behind their backs, I've scoffed at their struggles, and I've celebrated their failures. I've been actively kind to maybe ten of my colleagues in my 4 years here. I'm telling you, I am a bitch, and the yoga hasn't cured me.

Then there's the (few) people I actually let in. I do not make friends easily, and I do not keep many of them. My closest friends are from high school, and I still keep in touch with that small group. I made a handful of friends in undergrad, mostly Matt's friends and my sister's boyfriend. I made 3 friends in my master's program, and they were the people I shared an office with. And, in Florida, I've made a few friends. Even with my friends, I can be a bitch. I tend to tune out when they are struggling with something and need to talk it through, or I am too forceful with my opinion of what they should do, and I've always had a problem with talking about the person who's not in the room at the moment. I do think that I have improved since my younger days. In high school and undergrad, my friends grew resentful of my exacting judgment. I could be cruel to them when they did something I did not agree with. I was often not a good friend, and I have worked to change that. However, I still wish that I could be a more loyal friend, that my first response to a friend's pain would be compassion and not "this is how you should fix it," that I could get over my tendency to engage in petty gossip even about my own friends. I need to be kinder in my friendships too.

Finally, there's family. If I wanted to go into detail about how my bitchiness affects my ability to be a good sister to my siblings, I would need another blog post. Let's just say my exacting judgment and cruel responses to someone acting in a way I wouldn't have always plagued my relationships with my siblings. I'm sure its the subject of several of their diary entries and rants to friends. This is something I've worked on changing, and I think I've made progress. However, I do still struggle to forgive family members for doing something I disagree with, especially when it comes to Trump. While I have been the subject of some familial ugliness this past year, my immediate family has stood by me and defended me, and for that I am grateful; however, someone in my immediate family voted for Trump, and I have struggled to get over that. It feels personal. It feels like a rejection of me and the many well-reasoned (or so I thought) calls for logic and compassion I posted throughout the election year. I've struggled to show grace to those I love who voted for that man. I've struggled to forgive them. I've struggled to understand their point of view.

On some level, I recognize that my own coldness in social interactions, my tendency to gossip and mock, my obvious annoyance and disgust with other people, detracts from my credibility when I am calling for kindness, compassion, and empathy. Why should someone listen to me when I am arguing for a truer, more compassionate Christianity but I fail to show compassion to my friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers? I truly believe all of these things, and yet, I so struggle to put my beliefs into action when it comes to people I have to interact with. People I've never met do not disappoint or frustrate me, and so it is so much easier to show them love and kindness. It is much more difficult to practice kindness to the person who voted for Trump, who parks in your spot, or who posts too many obnoxious hipster photos to Instagram.

By now it's probably become obvious that I do not really think the problem is other people. We are all human. They are doing their best to get by. They are grappling with the same world filled with hatred and violence and darkness that I am. Most days I think that the problem is me. After all, I meditate! I read!  I pray! I recite mantras! I practice yoga and yet I remain inflexible (both physically and mentally). At times I think that these contemplative practices are just at odds with who I am. I'm just not a hippie-dippy, share-the-love sort of person, right? But, then again, some of these practices have to resonate with me if I choose to return to them day after day. So, maybe my bitchiness, my tendency to respond to others with rejection, cruelty, or self-defensive withdrawal, is not who I am. It's just who I have been, and Who I Am Hates Who I've Been (that's a little Relient K reference for you). Or maybe both of these things are true. Richard Rohr would say that viewing this as one of two options reflects that I am trapped in the Dualistic Mind. It's not either/or; it's both/and. Humans are complicated, and yes, annoying, and that includes me. I am a meditating, yoga-doing, mantra-reciting hippie, and I am a judgmental bitch. I am both, and maybe accepting that both of these sides of me can coexist will allow me to acknowledge my bitchy impulses and still choose kindness and empathy. People will continue to do annoying things, and my bitchy self will continue to be annoyed by them. People will continue to piss me off and disappoint me and drive me crazy. However, my hippie self knows that I can acknowledge my emotional responses as valid but still choose kindness and empathy. It's not a failing on my part that I am annoyed by other people, but it is a failing when I allow that annoyance to prevent me from treating others well. So, that's where I've arrived on the issue. How hippie-dippy do I sound? ☮

Not My President (?)

On any given day since November 8th, I am not sure which emotion is going to beat out all of the others for top position. Outrage, anger, depression, and terror have all been top contenders, but today I mostly feel embarrassed.

The president of the United States commented that he had just left the Middle East while he was in Israel. His official statement on the Manchester terrorism event  called the attackers "evil losers," and his note at Yad Vashem, a Holocaust memorial in Israel, read like the note of a school field tripper who was just glad to have an excuse to ditch class: "It's so great to be here with all of my friends. So amazing!" At best, everything this man says and does sounds like an adolescent schoolyard bully, but he's not a child. He is just too intellectually lazy and emotionally incurious to care about anything but his own popularity and power. It embarrasses me. I am ashamed that this man leads my country and I worry about what the rest of the world now things about us. How could anyone elect this man to lead a nation?

But here's the thing: I didn't vote for him. He's "not my president," right? Why am I so embarrassed? It's not like he represents me or my values. I did everything I could to prevent his election. Why am I wracked with embarrassment while his supporters are incapable of being shamed by his actions?

I think part of the answer to these questions is that, though he does not represent my values or my beliefs, I come from the community that widely endorse this man. I am white and Christian. Growing up, I never heard the terms "evangelical" or "mainline." I was just a Christian. I had no familiarity with denominations or with these labels, but I grew up in non-denominational churches that were non-affirming of queer people, that denied any scriptural authority to women, and denied the possibility of evolution. The churches I attended did not always scream their conservatism from the roof tops. In fact I only realized some of their stances from noticing what was taught and not taught, how certain scriptural passages were interpreted, who was allowed to speak on Sunday mornings. In the current political climate, these stances have become more boldly stated. I was recently Facebook stalking a former pastor and I found out he is now involved with what I would label a truly nutjob church. Their statement of faith denies the validity of psychology and counseling, labeling it anti-biblical because it robs God of his authority. Really. When I think about the damage that that position could cause, especially when you consider that the church is non-affirming of queer existence. Queer Christians have the highest suicide rate in the nation and you want to deny them the counseling that could be life saving? It disgusts me. And I was a bit horrified that this man used to deliver sermons to me every Sunday. What other sorts of dangerous ideologies did he have that I never knew about? When I look at all of this, I understand how people in these churches could be convinced to vote for Trump in droves.

Now, I do not want to sound ungrateful for my childhood and adolescent churches. I wouldn't trade away my summers at church camps or the personal faith that often sustained me in adolescence. I still find solace in many of the worship songs I sang in these churches. My siblings and I were all raised in this brand of Christianity, and we all became empathetic, balanced, and open-minded adults. There were also some things that I would change if I could--the sexist and damaging purity rhetoric that only targeted girls, and the youth group meeting where the pastor told us that a nuclear bomb had been launched towards us so that we would get right with God (really), for starters. While I can name the blessings of this faith tradition, I left this brand of Christianity several years ago.

The Christ in my gospels in on the margins. He stands by the vulnerable and he is not interested in rejecting outsiders from his presence. My Christianity is about recognizing the image of God in all of humanity, it's about defending human dignity. My Christianity is about realizing that we are all one, and anything that harms one individual is anti-Christ. This includes homophobia, racism, sexism, war, terrorism, hate crimes, etc. etc. etc. And while there are some evangelical churches that practice this type of Christianity, I have found this expression of faith in the Episcopal church.

So, I am a former Conservative Christian and because of this Trump is my president. The church that elected Donald Trump is in my blood, and perhaps that is why I feel a bit complicit and embarrassed. I also feel complicit (and complicit by the dictionary definition, not the Ivanka definition) because I failed to reach my people over 2016. My Facebook friends can all attest that my 2016 posts were largely addressed to White Christians. I spent the year desperately trying to appeal to our common faith. I was convinced that they could see that Christ's message was one of radical inclusion, that the gospel truth is that we should welcome the stranger, that all humans carry the image of God and so of course black lives matter. But I couldn't even convince people in my immediate family of this. I failed, and I suspect that I failed because I struggle to "speak the truth in love" instead of screaming the truth in outrage and frustration, and so I accept some responsibility for Trump's election.

Finally, when I started this blog I said I was going to address my tendencies to be an asshole. You perhaps noticed that my tone is a bit more vitriolic than my progressive profession of faith might suggest. Here, I say that when I look at the gospels I see a Christ that is interested in radical inclusion and yet, I love to say that what Trump supporters believes is not Christian. I say Christ includes everyone, but I still groan when my church prays for POTUS in our Prayers of the People every Sunday. And I would grimace if someone showed up to church in a MAGA hat. So, I am working on it. His supporters may support things that I see as purely anti-Christian, but they are still Christian. I do not know their relationship with Christ and I do not know the mind of God. Even though the Episcopal Church is more liberal than most, I am sure that when I take communion every Sunday I am at the table with Trump voters, which means we are one in Christ. And I am working on accepting that. I'll close with a passage from a prayer from St. Augustine's Prayer Book that I have to pray quite frequently since the election:

Grant, O Lord, that I may remember your rule and follow your example by loving my enemies and by speaking the truth in patience and love. Give me courage to work for what is right and just in all of my dealings. Temper any righteous indignation with patience and humility and keep me from any collusion with injustice. 

Amen.

Start a Blog, They Said

2016 has brought a lot of ugliness to the forefront of America's consciousness. Half of the country watched in horror as the other half elected a man who seems to represent the worst of this country: nativism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, ableism, etc. etc. etc.; name a prejudice and we bleeding hearts can point to the ways in which Trump has bolstered it. Among those of us who watched in horror and disbelief were those who were watching the culture they were raised in pledge allegiance to this man and the hate he represents. I'm speaking specifically as someone raised in the White Conservative Christian culture. So, for me, it felt personal. The same people who ingrained WWJD in my adolescent brain lined up to endorse a man who represents so much that Jesus opposed: assault and disrespect of women, robbing of the poor, unapologetic dishonesty, etc, etc, etc. I was perplexed, heartbroken, betrayed, and angry for much of 2016, and all of that has remained with me since his election. All of this heartbreak and anger manifested in several ways in my life. I remain depressed and every day feels like waking up in a hell dimension. I now invest a lot of my time into following international politics that I would not have cared about one year ago (CONGRATS to the French for rejecting their own racist psychopath). And I now suffer from a tendency to get on my soapbox on Facebook. It is that last development that has led to this blog.

While my Facebook rants and ramblings have been welcomed by some on my feed, they have resulted in a fair amount of blocking and nastiness from some in my family. And that's fine, really. Throughout it all, I've had several people tell me I should start a blog. Some of them suggested this as an underhanded way to get me to STFU on Facebook. If I start a blog, offended parties can just choose to not click into the posts rather than having to be reminded that I find their behavior and their candidate deplorable on a regular basis. This blog isn't for them. Some suggested it in a genuine way, implying that they appreciate my voice and maybe my stark, and I guess this blog is a little bit for them. However, most of all I guess this blog is for me. If my Facebook rants are any indication, I have a lot of processing to do, so why not channel it into a blog?

Once I decided to give in to the suggestions that I start a blog, the first difficulty was what it should focus on. There are enough people on the internet sharing their moral outrage so I did not want it to be necessarily a political blog. Plus, I fear having to deal with the Pepes and trolls in the comments section if my blog found its way into the deplorable circles of internet hell. For me, the biggest struggle with all of this has been that my journey from Republican teenager to Bleeding-Heart adult (maybe I'll share more on that later) has largely been caused by development in my empathy. I know in my bones that Trump is despicable and vile because I now empathize with communities that I never thought about when I was more conservative. In part, this is due to my Liberal Arts education and in part it is due to listening to new voices (in the classroom, on Twitter, through literature, etc.). My bleeding-heart sensibilities have also been strengthened by my journey towards a more progressive Christianity, following the lead of my spiritual gurus, Anne Lamott, Diana Butler Bass, Rachel Held Evans, and Nadia Bolz-Weber, among others. And therein lies the rub. If I claim that empathy is what led me to become more liberal, then how can I hate Trump and his voters with a sometimes-all-consuming passion? (And I do). How do I resist the assholes without lapsing into asshole-dom myself?

So, I titled this blog "Confessions of a Recovering Asshole" because I recognize the tendency in myself to be an asshole. When I see loads of rich white men celebrating stripping healthcare away from millions, I think Ugh! Have some empathy you shitheads!, and then I wish pre-existing conditions on those men. When I see a Trump/Pence bumper sticker, hatred boils in my stomach and I think What trash! See the problem with that? Now I'm not saying that everyone should feel guilty for wishing suffering on the men who are bankrupting our nation to line their pockets; I am just saying I do, because it is out of step with my own journey. So, I'm here to call out my own asshole moments, work on keeping my empathy even while I watch those in power dismantle good programs and endanger people I care about, and maybe just maybe escape the perpetual outrage culture I find myself enmeshed in. Because I do not want to contribute to the ugliness that is boiling over in this country. I want to try to speak from love and I desperately want to come out of all of this without a hatred of humanity, and neither of those are easy things right now. So, join me, or don't. I may post frequently, or I may not. My blog may be helpful or entertaining to any readers that stumble across it, but I'm perfectly fine if the only person it helps is me.