Blog o' Gnosis

Writing is such a solitary pursuit. Or rather, it is solitary only in a sense. I need utter stillness around me, and writing within that stillness I find all the ways I am connected with everyone else.

I was at it the other day, although my thoughts were elsewhere. I had just received an email relaying the sad news that my cousin’s son had been killed in a car crash. Another 20-year-old coming to a tragic, untimely end; a handsome kid that had just met his West Coast cousins a year previously, at a family reunion.

News like that, laden with the otherworldliness of grief, takes several days to work through one’s system. I was noticing how, after a couple days, the torrent of feelings had become manageable, and this fresh loss had become another thin layer added to the transparency of sadness I seem to carry with me.

My paternal grandmother was a Naval officer’s wife, and through the years she spent travelling with her husband and sons from base to base, she always employed a housekeeper. The last of these, when she and my grandfather were in their late 70s and living in a modest apartment in Oakland, was a woman named [...]

I first met Darcy Gen when we were barely in our 20s. She had just moved out to the West Coast to be with her sister Margann, my best friend and housemate. Darcy was escaping a life of dead-end jobs, alcohol, and abusive boyfriends back East, and we folded her into our new family with all the enthusiasm and optimism of youth.

It took a few years for Darcy to find her footing, but she had the courage to look life in the eye and rise to any challenge. She struggled with the low self esteem that caused her to seek out men who were no good for her. She knew she had a problem with drinking and hauled herself out of those patterns too, finding new strength in recovery.

Another year of losses, of big questions that elbow their way into the room and refuse to leave. A young man who grew up down the street and went to school with my kids was stabbed to death at a party this weekend. Two young men charged with his murder had a brother killed in Iraq at the beginning of the war.

What happens to kids? What makes one succumb while another one thrives? I don’t understand it, and all my pat answers, fears and suspicions merely mask the fact that I simply don’t know. I can’t keep my kids safe now that they’re grown, and the more beautifully they blossom the more I am aware of how fragile our hold is on this life we cherish.

I’ve always liked the phrase “Winter break” even though I long ago realized that it is simply a kindly old euphemism for “not really a break at all, plus it’s cold outside.” Winter break always includes some great time with my kids and family, my daughter’s birthday, Solstice, Christmas, delicious food, and maybe a day or two of rest if I’m clever about it. But it also means squeezing in as much work time as possible around the edges of all those holy days and holidays.

This year I have a very big task on the work table, one that looks daunting from the outside but will no doubt become manageable once I dive in. I’ll be getting ready to teach my first class as a faculty member at Cherry Hill Seminary.

My sisters and I were all subjected to a rigorous musical education as we grew up. We all took piano lessons from the age of five, and by the fourth or fifth grade we all had taken up a second instrument as well. Two of the sisters quit taking piano lessons by the ninth grade, the other two—my sister Sarah and I—continued through high school. Sarah and I both began college as music majors, and she went on to graduate with a BA, two MAs, and a PhD in music-related fields.

This morning I took my camera to Doran Beach, in order to capture some of the great profusion of blossoms there. It is a peaceful place to walk and think, especially on overcast mornings before the weekend crowds. I am not much of a photographer; my technical expertise lies somewhere between point-and-click and set-your-own-f-stop. Except [...]

All kids needs rite of passage ceremonies when they come of age. We planned an elaborate one for my nephew Alex, a small intimate one for my niece Rose (both of whom lived with us during their teenage years—long story), another complicated one for Bowen and a big community celebration for Lyra. The most important [...]

I finally got around to watching Jesus Camp last night, and while I was horrified at how these kids were being brainwashed I also recognized some disturbing similarities between different brands of “spiritual” childraising. Watching Pastor Becky Fischer in action, I couldn’t decide whether she ought to go to prison or a mental health facility for how she bullied those kids into crying and being ashamed for their “sins,” then turned around and filled them full of crap about being the “chosen generation” to lead Christians through the “end times.” It’s a bi-polar emotional feast, and it left me wondering just what skeletons in her closet have caused her to be such a militant.

When I was growing up, on Easter morning we’d come out to the dining room to find lovely big baskets full of malted milk ball eggs, chocolate bunnies and marshmallow chicks waiting for us. Later, my mom would hide jelly beans in the green shag rug of the living room and we’d go searching for them, a little less enthusiastically. Can there be anything less exciting, really, than finding a crushed lemon jellybean full of rug hairs and dirt? Fortunately there was chocolate to eat, so none of us had to dwell on the unfortunate jellybean portion of our second favorite Christian holiday. (I dimly recall earlier Easter egg hunts out in the grass, but I think in later years she got too tired to do that and downscaled the whole outdoor component. WWJD?)