Companions on the Journey

I've had a lot to think about lately, and this blog—half forgotten even by its authoress—seems like a decent place to start writing it out.

First, the obvious: it's been a little over a week now since my American neighbours' disastrous election, in which the outcome that I, and many others, had feared actually did come to pass: the angry, shouty jack-o-lantern with a straw hairpiece became the next in line to be one of the most obviously powerful people in the world, and it was of little consolation that he didn't seem to actually want it.  My guess is that he had actually planned to lose and then make a big stink about a rigged and corrupt system that didn't give him what he said he wanted.

He didn't figure, I suppose, on his platform of hate, suspicion, greed, and fear being enough to carry the day.

I've heard of deaths, mostly suicides, in connection with his win, because people who were already bigoted felt freer than they have in years to torment people who are part of already marginalized populations.  This is even happening up here in Canada; the bullies have always been here, of course, but they have become bolder.  I haven't heard too much of anything happening in my neck of the woods, yet, but given the relatively high levels of racism here, it's probably only a matter of time.

It's been difficult to see what's been happening practically right on my doorstep, knowing that there was very little I could do (since it's not my country) to help avert it, and yet feeling like I share in the blame.  By and large, white people—including a majority of white women—were the ones who voted him in.

If anyone from a Roman Catholic background reads this, they will probably recognize the title of this post as the name of one of Carey Landry's better-known hymns.  (Indeed, this is one that, when I was growing up, popped up at Mass so frequently that even now, many years after I ceased to be a practising Catholic—though I've been to Mass a few times since my closest friend became the organist at a Catholic church earlier this year—I could still sing accurately in my sleep.)  It's been on my mind quite often in the last week.

Actually, my mental playlist since the American election has been quite interesting.  It's also included Melissa Etheridge's "Pulse", "Service" (another childhood favourite hymn), "Let There Be Light" (one that I've learned since I started singing with my Anglican choir), John Farnham's "You're the Voice", and  (somewhat oddly, I admit) "I Walk With the Goddess" and "We Won't Wait", the last of which is widely accepted as the Pagan national anthem.  (Confession: I've been listening to "You're the Voice" for the last several minutes.)  

Aside from "I Walk With the Goddess," though, I think I do sense something of a theme to these songs that have been occupying so much of my mental real estate lately.  The idea that we're all in this together somehow (even "We Won't Wait" refers to taking action to safeguard the Earth, even if it is in terms that imply that neopagans are the only people who care enough to save it because everyone else, especially Christians, are huge assholes who just want to burn and pillage it) is a powerful one.  I suspect that if the world is to survive what's coming, if Trump and his handlers do act on even half of the regressive policies that they're already talking about, there's going to have to be a hell of a lot of cooperation among the people who oppose them.  That's going to mean that a lot of the divisiveness (including, by the way, the not inconsiderable issues caused by white people who think that we're at the centre of all things) that has plagued progressive movements is going to need to be dealt with.  Otherwise it's going to be a fun little game of "Divide and Conquer" while one of the most powerful nations on Earth slides into fascism.

We need to care for each other.  We need to act with justice, as much as we're able.  We need to resist the temptation to see anyone who's different as automatically an enemy, stop instantly condemning unfamiliar people as garbage.  Above all, we need to love, and to act on that love in every possible way.  As a very wise friend of mine recently said, in the end, that may well be what saves us.

An Extra Reason to Care

When I was working on my teaching degree, I had to take a class on educational law. It was an interesting subject, if a bit dry, and I always looked forward to that class.

 The room was set up with a number of round tables, likely in order to facilitate discussions (and there were many). This was helpful during group work, of course, but if you were unlucky enough to have to sit with your back to the front of the room, it could be a bit of a pain during lectures!  At my usual table, I normally sat with two other women who happened to come from the other two Abrahamic religions.  Looking back, it seems almost like the setup for a joke.  ("A Christian, a Jew, and a Muslim sit down at a table...")  But the three of us got along extremely well, and I suspect that if we'd been able to spend more time together, we would have become very good friends.  As it is, I think of M. And V. often, even now, and I hope they're well.

Especially V., these days, because she was the one of the three of us who was Muslim.  And since the attacks in Paris a couple of weeks ago, all the things I've heard of happening to Muslims, especially women—I hope that she will not be targeted for abuse.  In my years of postsecondary education, and in the years since my formal studies ended, I have met many people who are Muslims, or who at least come from Muslim families.  And every single one of them is a reason why I care about the discrimination which they face, and why I'm fairly vocal (elsewhere, not necessarily on this blog, if only because I've been neglecting it in recent years) about saying that Muslims are not the enemy: hate and fear are.

But let's get one thing straight here: I would still care about what's happening if I had never met these people.  I suspect that there's a lot of that behind other people saying, "Of course I care!  I know someone who's [insert marginalized identity here]!" as well.

I must admit, it annoys me a little when people accuse others of not caring enough because they've stated that they care about any given issue because they personally know someone who's affected by it.  Or saying that these people's caring is selfish or superficial or just an attempt to avoid examining privilege by hiding behind a marginalized friend, acquaintance, or family member.  And maybe sometimes it is.  I won't pretend that I think everyone's motivations are always perfectly progressive or altruistic all the time.  That would just be hopelessly naïve.  But I am willing to entertain the idea that knowing people who are marginalized in some way gives people who do not share that experience an extra reason to care, or maybe that initial impulse to do so in the first place.

It's a very human thing, I think, to be more engaged in a cause, or to be more open to certain ideas, when you know someone who's personally affected by it if you aren't part of that population yourself.  People need connections.  And that's not purely selfish; it helps with understanding to be able to put a human face on something that, to you, might have once been a far more abstract concept than it is to someone who has to live it.

So when I hear about discrimination against Muslims, I think of V.  And because she was one of the first Muslims I ever got to know particularly well, she is one of the reasons I care.  But she's not the only one, and I don't believe that the personal connection makes my caring less valid.  As long as I don't try to pass myself off as some kind of expert or authority just because I know people who answer a particular description, how is that personal connection a bad thing?

Please don't be THAT Vegetarian.

Before I get to the rest of the post, I want to make something clear.  I like vegetarianism.  I tend to lean that way myself, but for various reasons, going vegetarian full-time is not currently a good idea for me.  Yes, I've thought seriously about it (and tried it, which did not go well for my health, mental or otherwise).  No, I have not closed my mind to the possibility that I might do so in the future.  Yes, I agree with most of the ideological reasons for becoming a vegetarian.  No, I really, really don't think that all vegetarians are like this.  Most of THOSE Vegetarians I've met are ones who have recently adopted this eating style and I think it's profoundly unfair that the people who exemplify the idea of THAT Vegetarian are able to give other vegetarians, and those of us who are predominantly vegetarian, a bad name.

This post is the product of a fair amount of frustration caused by a few too many recent encounters with people who have been, often in more than one way, THAT Vegetarian.  I repeat: I do NOT think that all vegetarians are like this.

THAT Vegetarian is the one who never misses a chance to educate people about the benefits of vegetarianism, regardless of whether such education is necessary or welcome.

THAT Vegetarian is the one who dismisses as mere excuses the reasons why a vegetarian diet is not always ideal or even suitable for all people.

THAT Vegetarian is the one who ignores the psychology of eating disorders when pointedly saying, in a conversation in which a person has made note of their own eating disorder and stated that putting that kind of limit on their eating habits did indeed make it worse, that there is never any good reason to be willing to consume animal-based foods. 

THAT Vegetarian is the one who believes that omnivorous diets are a sign of a less-evolved and enlightened mind and never lets anybody forget it.

THAT Vegetarian is the one who won't rest until they've converted the entire omnivorous world to their way of eating.  (I've said it before and I'll say it again: you can't annoy people into believing that you're right.)

THAT Vegetarian is the one who claims that going vegetarian is a great way to lose weight and that there's no such thing as a fat vegetarian.  (Hint: this is not true.)

THAT Vegetarian believes that being vegetarian makes them superior to the rest of us, and won't let anyone forget it.

Please don't be THAT Vegetarian. 

I've heard this before. That doesn't make it any nicer.

There's so much that I'd like to write—I've been working on posts about the gathering I went to at the end of July, actually—but right now, I've got something on my mind that's been bothering me a bit.

You see, a couple of weeks ago, my best friend confessed to me that although he loves me, he can never find me attractive because I'm fat.

I'm not in love with him, but it hurt almost as much (as I can say from bitter experience) as it would have if I had been.  My emotions, when I've thought of what he said, have run from sad to indifferent to angry and back to a sort of tired neutrality.  I've heard it before, after all—minus the "I love you," which somehow made it worse this time in some ways—and I'm kind of tired of it.

I believe him when he says he loves me.  He's not the sort to say this kind of thing lightly or without sincerity; even if he really doesn't love me, it's safe to say that he believes that he does.  And I believe him when he says that he doesn't actually see me as ugly and that he finds his reaction to my fatness to be somewhat difficult to understand.

But the fact remains that on some level, he agrees with the people who have called me any number of horrible things because of my weight.  And it hurt to hear him say that what he would want in a partner is basically me, but not fat.  I was surprised at how much it hurt, actually.  He's tried to figure out whether this is something caused by current societal attitudes towards those of us who possess ample figures, but it's so deeply ingrained in him now that he doesn't think he'll ever be able to get rid of it, no matter how much he wishes he could. 

I have to admit that I wonder whether he's actually tried.

Chief among the things that I've been thinking since we had that conversation is that I'm deeply afraid that if I could click with somebody this well—we are totally comfortable with each other, and we know each other so well that we've been at the point where we can practically read each other's minds for quite some time now—and yet still be very unattractive to him, then there really is nobody in the world who's capable of really loving me, through and through, as I am, and not as they would rather I could be.  Not for my fat, as people who only find themselves attracted to fat women might, and not in spite of it, as my best friend does.  Just me, as the Gods and my genetics made me, and as the person I am coming to be.

Because I don't want to be defined by my fatness.  I want it to be just another of my many descriptors, physical or otherwise, and no more or less attractive than my hair (long, wavy, and red-brown), my height (about five feet, seven inches) or my eye colour (a weird shade that's a mix of green, grey, and blue).  If I wear it as a badge of honour, it's because I've earned that by surviving the countless hurts that have been inflicted on me because of social standards relating to it even by well-meaning family and friends.  But at heart, I just want it to be part of me, not my most significant characteristic.

I want it to be neutral.

And as unlikely as I know it is, I want to be loved by someone who's up to the task as my best friend, however fond of me he is, apparently never will be.  I want to be seen as a woman, a person—not just a fat one.  I don't want my body, such a basic part of what I am, to be seen as a disgusting flaw.  If I'm difficult to love, I don't want it to be because of my clothing size—I'd rather that it was because of my personality flaws, because at least they aren't superficial reasons as anything related to my appearance is.  And I want to be found attractive by someone I find attractive, too.

This seems to be too much to ask, though.  And as much as I'm content with our relationship, I must say that it would have been lovely if he had been able to love my body along with the rest of me.  But he can't.

The hurt that I feel over this will be with me for a while yet.  It'll pass, though.  It always does. 

Here Come the Food Police

One of the things that I like the least about teaching Primary-level students is the fact that we're expected to police their food choices, right down to the order in which the students eat what's in their packed lunch—sandwich first, maybe the beverage if it can't be put off until after the fruit or vegetables have been consumed, and only then, if there was time and the kid was still hungry, might they be permitted to contemplate the sugar-laden dessert item.

I hate this. It's not teaching them to have a healthy attitude towards food. It's teaching them that Food Has Rules, that some foods are intrinsically Good, that other foods are intrinsically Bad, and that the Bad foods have to be carefully regulated because they taste too good. Kids like sugar, without a doubt. And too much sugar isn't good for anyone. But there's a finite amount of anything involved when a parent packs their kid's lunch—it's not like there's an infinite supply of candy, cookies, and cake in a lunchbox that suddenly appears if the kid eats their pudding before they eat their sandwich! If it were up to me, I would let them choose the order in which they eat their lunch, and only ask that unless they're full, they at least nibble on everything that they've brought that day. But unfortunately, it's not up to me, and I have to watch (and help) as the same old counterproductive messages get passed on to a new generation.

You know, when I was a kid, I didn't like that we were given no real choice regarding the order in which we consumed our food. Sometimes I wanted to leave the sandwich for last because it was what I liked best (especially if it was corned beef with lettuce and mustard—or good old peanut butter and jelly, of course). And being forced to eat things when I didn't want to eat them yet actually turned me off of a lot of the healthy foods (especially fruits and vegetables) that I now really like—particularly celery, tomatoes, oranges, grapefruit, broccoli, asparagus, apples, carrots, cauliflower, and potatoes. It took years for me to get over that whole "I'm eating this because I have to" mentality and replace it with "this actually tastes pretty good, and I'm eating it because I want to." And I never quite managed to overcome that problem with bananas; when I was in Kindergarten and only going to school for half-days, I couldn't get enough of them. By the end of Grade One, after a full school year of being told "no, you have to eat this before you can eat something else," I couldn't stand them. And I still don't like them. (Well, maybe banana muffins aren't that bad.)

And it seems to me that at this time of the year, when even at the secular level we have (in Canada, at least) recently celebrated the harvest, it seems like a particularly bad idea to teach kids—even inadvertently—to hate food, especially when so many in our own country and around the world do not have access to enough food of any kind. If it were possible, I'd teach them to appreciate food, to share it when they know that someone hasn't got enough, and that eating what they're hungry for, when they're hungry for it, isn't a bad thing. (Students who, for known health reasons, have to carefully regulate their diets—such as students with diabetes—might be a possible exception, but ideally, there'd be a way to get them to enjoy a healthy variety of foods without reinforcing that Good and Awful-Tasting Food/Bad And Delicious Food dichotomy as well.) Making such a big deal about the order in which the students eat what's in their lunch just seems so damn counterproductive.

And I must add that it's a huge privilege to even have this much food that we're told that we have to food-police the students in our care. That we live in a society that currently holds a lot of messed-up ideas and attitudes regarding food and eating is not news. I just hate that the same old harmful ideas, especially in response to the current panic over childhood obesity (which is a whole other rant in and of itself), are being reinforced and even elaborated upon. (There's even one school in Toronto, in fact, to which students are not permitted to bring any junk food to school—not even granola bars.) We should be teaching kids to love good food, not hate it. And teaching them that their own preferences for the order in which they eat their food are wrong, and that they don't get a choice about whether they eat the sandwich or the cookie first, isn't a great way to do that.

You think we live in a post-racist society? Think again.

I've been hearing and reading things about George Zimmerman's murder trial that are, quite frankly, still pissing me off.  ESPECIALLY the verdict.

Here's the case as I understand it.  Last year, Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old kid, was walking through the gated community where his father lived.  He'd just been to the corner store to buy iced tea and some Skittles.  He was wearing a hoodie, and because it was raining out, the hood was up, and he was talking with his girlfriend on his cell phone.

And then George Zimmerman, who was driving through the neighbourhood, saw him walking.  He called the police, claiming that the kid was obviously up to no good and was probably on drugs.  He also said that Martin seemed to be looking at all of the houses.  (Oh, the shock!  Oh, the horror!  A kid who's taking a walk in a neighbourhood where he's just recently arrived to visit his dad is looking at the houses!)  Zimmerman left his vehicle, pursued Martin, confronted him, and shot him to death.  Later, he used the excuse that he thought that Martin was armed and dangerous and claimed that Martin had threatened and attacked him.

Funny.  Just because the kid was black, he was a threat to people's safety simply by taking a walk in the rain.  And the threat he posed was so dire that it warranted a pursuit (which the police dispatcher told Zimmerman not to engage in) and, ultimately, a physical confrontation that ended in Martin being shot to death.  Zimmerman, of course, claimed that he shot this kid in self-defence.

I don't buy it.  From what I've read—and I've been keeping an eye on this case since Zimmerman killed Martin last year—the most dangerous thing about the kid was the sugar content of the junk food he'd bought.

And yet, Zimmerman's lawyers were given permission to pry into Martin's school records and social media accounts, like anything that he'd said or done in the past could be used to justify Zimmerman's attack on him.  At times, it looked like Trayvon Martin himself was being put on trial, not the man who killed him.  And the result was all too predictable: Zimmerman was acquitted.

I was, needless to say, heartbroken.  But I wasn't surprised or shocked, just sad and angry.

I hate that black people's lives are evidently considered to be worth less than white people's.  I hate that Marissa Alexander is serving 20 years in prison for firing a single warning shot when her life was actually in danger (anyone who thinks that spousal abuse isn't life-threatening is not only tragically wrong, but also potentially a horrible human being), but George Zimmerman walked out of that courtroom a free man after having caused a confrontation that didn't need to happen and killing the kid who he profiled, stalked, and fought.  And I hate that there are so many more cases that are similar to the killing of Trayvon Martin that we just don't hear about because the same system that creates and maintains white privilege also makes it so easy to ignore—or never even learn about—black people (especially unarmed black people) who have been killed, often as a direct result of racism.  In far too many cases, their killers walked free, or were never even charged in the first place.

And there are a lot of them.

This shouldn't be allowed to continue.  Trayvon Martin may be one of the more famous victims, but he was hardly the first, or the last, black person of any age to whom this sort of thing has happened.  But I think that in many ways, what happened after his death is a tragically excellent example of the harm that systemic racism does.  Consider: his killer wasn't even arrested until after an international outcry arose, his killer was released on parole soon afterwards anyway and was able to raise huge amounts of money for his legal defence (and ended up using some of it for living expenses), and despite the fact that pretty much everything that Zimmerman did that night was wrong, and despite the fact that the horrific wrongness of his actions resulted in a seventeen-year-old boy's death, the jury chose to free him.

That's the power of systemic racism.  A boy gets murdered while walking down the street.  There are witnesses.  His killer is told by the police dispatcher to whom he's talking to not follow the kid, but the man with the gun, the man who has a history of violent and abusive behaviour, disregards this.  And still the mostly-white jury decides that the killer didn't do anything wrong.  He's even got his gun back.

Tell me that's not fucked up—and if you believe it, prove it to me.  Come on.  I dare you.

This Is Fat Privilege

I know that most of my recent posts haven't been particularly spiritual, but please bear with me.  I've been working on a few posts with a more "on-topic" bent to them lately, but right now, after having encountered several of the things that usually trigger my difficulties with eating in the last several days, I feel the need to rant, especially because I've been stumbling upon a lot of opinionated comments talking bullshit about the ridiculous concept of "fat privilege."

I'll tell you what "fat privilege" is.

"Fat privilege" is never needing to go to the doctor because you know that regardless of whether something's actually wrong with you, you'll be diagnosed as fat and prescribed a diet, and sometimes told not to come back until you've lost 50 pounds.  "Fat privilege" is the absolute certainty that whatever might be wrong with you can be cured by starving yourself, overexercising, having someone mutilate your stomach and/or intestines, or taking medications that can cause fecal incontinence or cause fatal damage to your heart.

"Fat privilege" is being treated to absolutely charming remarks made in a disdainful tone of voice about people who are about the same size and shape as you are as part of what was supposed to be a funny story about a friend's childhood.  (And yes, I'm the author of that submission.)

"Fat privilege" is the fun of never really being able to be sure whether the person who's just asked you out is serious unless you know them well enough to know they're being sincere.  Otherwise, there's always the chance that they're just playing a prank on you, engaging in a bit of sweat-hogging, or playing some variation of "Nail the Whale".

"Fat privilege" is the thrill of experiencing verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse for simply existing in public at your current size.

"Fat privilege" is the knowledge that a word that accurately describes your body has gradually picked up connotations of laziness, stupidity, ugliness, and worthlessness and is regularly used by people who want to describe themselves in those terms.

"Fat privilege" is the great honour of knowing that people who look like you are often used as visual shorthand for greed, overconsumption, wastefulness, thoughtlessness, sloppiness, gluttony, disease, aggression, laziness, stupidity, and carelessness.

"Fat privilege" is the joy of knowing that when employers write that prospective employees of theirs must be "neat and well-groomed" it's often code for "fatties need not apply".  Furthermore, "fat privilege" is having an increased difficulty in finding work and earning significantly lower wages than our thin counterparts once we do get hired.

"Fat privilege" is not getting as good an employee discount as some other people because your employer has chosen to give a special reward to people with low BMI scores.

"Fat privilege" is being laughed at if you're walking, sitting, or leaning on something that breaks—perhaps especially if you're injured as a result.  Hey, it's always nice to bring a bit of laughter into somebody else's day, isn't it?

"Fat privilege" is having a choice between precisely two options for clothing: the do-it-yourself option or the cheaply-made but expensively-sold option that's hideous, badly designed, and made of some horrible synthetic fibre fabric that will start falling apart after a single washing.

"Fat privilege" is the fact that so many people think that the contents of your cart or basket at the grocery store are somehow fair game for them to comment on or, in extreme cases, actually start removing while they admonish us that "You don't need to eat that!"  And "fat privilege" is seeing the smirks on other customers' faces when they see that no matter what else you've decided to buy that day, you've also got some kind of junk food in the day's shopping.

"Fat privilege" is the ability to attract negative attention regardless of where we are or what we're doing.

"Fat privilege" is being told that all that we have to do to become human permanently change our size and shape is eat less and move more.

"Fat privilege" is never being sure whether you'll have to purchase two airplane tickets for yourself—and knowing that if you do, there's no guarantee that you'll actually get to use the other seat, because it's likely that either the second seat won't be beside the first one or, because airlines routinely overbook their flights, they'll decide to put someone else in your second seat anyway.

(Note: Southwest is evidently not as horrible to fly with these days, and it's against the law to have a fat-people-must-buy-two-seats policy in Canada, but other airlines in the States still have, and enforce, a policy that's similarly horrible to what Southwest was originally doing.)

"Fat privilege" is the ability to easily unlock other adults' inner children—if we accidentally brush against someone, and especially if our skin actually touches them when this happens, some people will actually react as if we have cooties and have therefore just infected them, just like we used to on the playground when we were kids.

Yes, fat people really are just swimming in privilege.

Fat

I recently went with a friend to see "Weird Al" Yankovic perform a concert.  It was a great evening—we ran a couple of errands, had dinner together, and then attended the concert.  Aside from the fact that I forgot to bring earplugs (I have sensitive hearing, so the volume level that night was not comfortable), I really enjoyed myself; he has a tremendous amount of energy for performing, and he really seemed to be having fun up there on the stage.  It helped, too, that I've loved his music since I was a kid—twenty years ago, one of my friends introduced me to his music, and he's been one of my favourite singers ever since.  My friend really enjoyed the concert, too; he's been a fan for longer than I have.  (Of course, it helps that he's about thirteen years older than I am; I wasn't born until 1982, so if I was even alive when Weird Al's music really started to become popular, I was probably still listening to Fred Penner, Raffi, and Sharon, Lois & Bram at the time.)

The last song before the encore, though, was one that I was hoping that he would not perform, and I was rather disappointed when he did.  Given the title of this post, you can probably guess which song I mean.  While I'm not as easily triggered as I used to be, I was distinctly uncomfortable—not least because the intro to the music video was played on an onstage screen just before they started the song.  I also saw and heard a lot of people singing along with him, as some people had been doing throughout the whole evening.  I was certainly grateful that my friend and I had opted to have dinner before we went to the show; even if I'd been in a state of feeling-dizzy-because-I-haven't-had-anything-but-water-in-over-sixteen-hours hungry (and yes, I still do that to myself from time to time, though not as frequently as I once did), I couldn't have eaten a bite.  I was feeling better by the time the encore was over with, but I was also still feeling incredibly self-conscious and uncomfortable.

It was the only song that Weird Al and his band had performed during the whole concert that I didn't applaud.  Convention aside, I just couldn't bring myself to do so.  The lyrics consist of little but a combination of derogatory stereotypes and some of the most horribly vicious and excessively mean-spirited insults I've ever heard directed against fat people.  (And on an unrelated, but perhaps even more important, note, the line "I've got more chins than Chinatown" strikes me as being more than a little racist.)  And regardless of whether the song is meant as a bit of harmless fun, I've experienced serious insults, and even a few episodes of physical violence, as a result of other people's hatred for fat bodies for as long as I can remember.  This stuff is not harmless.  Joking that fat people take up seven rows when we go out to see movies, cause enough impact on the Earth that it measures on the Richter scale when we walk to the mailbox, are the only ones who get a tan when we visit the beach, are having twenty-thirds when normal people are having seconds at mealtime, or really sit around the house when we sit around the house—those are real insults that really get used to hurt people IN REAL LIFE.  And they're not automatically harmless, innocent, or funny just because it's Weird Al who's still singing them in this song after twenty-five years.  I doubt that I was the only member of the audience who felt that way; I noticed that there were a number of other fat people in the audience that night, and more than a few were larger than I am.

As for my friend—who is tall and very thin—I have no idea what he was thinking, as the matter never came up in conversation afterward, but I noticed that he didn't applaud after that song either.  I'm not automatically interpreting this as a show of support, but it's worth noting that he does know about the issues that I have that cause me to starve myself, and he knows that I can be triggered when I unexpectedly encounter this level of hate for fat people.  It's entirely possible that he found the song distasteful for his own reasons.  Nonetheless, I appreciated it.

So.  Recap: even fat jokes sung by Weird Al are hurtful and unfunny, and although it didn't even come close to ruining my evening (it would've taken a lot more than that to do so), it made me very uncomfortable and self-conscious—and while I could possibly have been the only one who felt that way, I consider it to be unlikely.

You Can't Steal A Person!

A few days ago, I watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World with a close friend.  He'd seen it before, and he knew that it was on my list of movies that I wanted to see but hadn't got around to seeing yet.  Because he knows my sense of humour very well (not least because his own sense of humour is every bit as warped as mine), he thought that the movie would probably amuse me.  He was right.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and would happily see it again someday.

But there was something that really, really bugged me about it.  Knives Chau, who is Scott's girlfriend at the beginning of the movie, at one point physically attacks Ramona, Scott's new love interest (admittedly, with whom he cheated on Knives before he broke up with her), and shouts that Ramona "stole him with [her] advanced American slut technology!"

There is just so much wrong with that statement.

Perhaps Knives can be forgiven for that particular outburst, and for accusing Ramona of stealing Scott again a few minutes later; she's seventeen years old, after all, and I don't know about you, but when I was seventeen years old, my level of emotional maturity wasn't, er, quite what it is now.  And there's quite a powerful stereotype out there which paints boys and men as all but helpless in the face of exceptional feminine beauty.  It's the same mentality that accuses victims of rape of secretly wanting it or asking for it because they were drunk/scantily dressed/walking alone/previously sexually active.  According to this pattern of thought, guys are helpless in the face of their own desires, and those desires can be easily swayed by unscrupulous females who use their bodies to get their attention.  I'm not sure that I ever really believed the whole story, but, though the fact embarrasses me now, I must admit that in my teens I did at one time believe that it was possible for some exceptionally pretty girls to "steal" other girls' boyfriends.

But you know what?  As I indignantly remarked (to my friend's slight amusement) at this point, "You can't steal a person!"  And you can't.  You really can't.  They make the decision themselves.  Hormones may deliver a good part of the inspiration for that decision, but the fact remains that they decide that they will cheat on, or even abandon, the partner they already have for somebody else.  And they make the decision quite willingly.  There's no theft involved.

To say that one person "steals" another implies that the person whose partner they "stole" actually owned their partner at some point.  But we don't own other people.  When we do, that's called slavery.  And I don't think I have to tell you what an evil thing that is.

I'm just glad that in the same scene, Scott rebuts that accusation with the simple fact that he cheated on her with Ramona, who had no idea that Scott wasn't single when they first met.  But the idea of one person stealing another person's partner is so absolutely ridiculous that it's past time for us to abandon it.

"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

I've run into this terrible saying so many times in the past few days that I just have to say something about it.

First of all, it's a lie.  I'm not saying that there are no incompetent teachers, of course.  That would also be a lie.  But I am saying that we do not have so many incompetent people in our profession that it justifies saying that we are all incompetent.  When I walk into a room full of teachers, which happens more often than you might think (my life is kind of weird that way), I always see within a few minutes that I am walking into a room full of caring, professional, and exceptionally intelligent people who are always looking for better ways to teach the students in their classrooms.  Some are better at it than others, of course, but there's a baseline standard to which we are all held, and it is a strict one.  We are constantly evaluated for our effectiveness, and if we fall short of the standard, there are consequences.

Teaching is not the easy job that so many non-teachers assume that it is.  When school is in session, we spend more hours in a day with our students than many of their parents are able to unless it's a weekend or a holiday.  Thus we are not only expected to teach our students; we are also expected to raise them.  We take our work home with us; lessons don't plan themselves, and the work that we collect from our students does not mark itself.  We take courses to learn new things about teaching and learning so as to be better and more interesting teachers for our students.  We deal with irate parents who don't like it when their perfect little angel is disciplined for beating up a classmate or who are upset because their child failed an assignment.  We are often the first to notice when a student has a mental health issue or a learning disability, and when the problem is found and understood, we spend extra time on our lesson plans to make sure that we put the necessary modifications and accommodations into place so that these students (and frequently, there is more than one student in a classroom who needs such modifications and accommodations) have as fair a chance at success as their peers.  To be a teacher is to be a diplomat, a temporary substitute parent, a record-keeper, an actor, a researcher, and a perpetual student all at once.  It is a challenging profession, and one that is as important as any other.

And yet the general public is consistently encouraged to think poorly of us, to blame us for everything that goes wrong, and to de-value what we do.  "They're just lazy," they're told.  "Look at all the vacation time they get.  Look at how well they get paid.  If they want any respect, they should get a real job.  Teaching is so easy, anyone can do it.  They don't need sick leave.  They don't need a better salary, not even the newer ones who are just starting out.  They don't need preparation and planning time.  And if they complain, don't listen.  They're just whining because they don't understand the real world.  They need to shut up and do their easy jobs.  Those who can, do.  Those who can't, teach."  It's a lie, and, as lies go, it's a particularly dangerous one.

Put simply, those who can, do.  Those who can, and who are dedicated to making sure that others can as well, teach.  Those who can't are not teachers.

And people who sling this thoroughly false and terrible statement, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" at teachers are acting maliciously and are often wilfully ignorant.

On Liking Christ But Not Christians

There's a quote that I've seen several times recently, some with slightly different wording, that's frequently attributed to a certain Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who is of course better known as Mahatma Gandhi.  A little bit of research has informed me that there's not a lot of evidence that he actually did say it, but nonetheless, Gandhi the historical figure and Gandhi the archetype do seem to be a bit different at times.  In any case, the quote in question is "I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians; your Christians are so unlike your Christ."  And frequently, I've been encountering it in contexts that make me feel extremely uncomfortable and even a little bit insulted.

I know.  I'm a Christo-Pagan; to a good many people whose Paganism is, as some would say, more "pure" (ugh) than mine is, I'm effectively a member of the enemy camp.  They would say that I've sided with the oppressors, the megalomaniacs, the ones who want to Do All The Bad Things to women, children, LGBTQI (etc.) people, poor people, people in overpopulated areas or areas in which diseases, especially sexually-transmitted diseases, are still a huge health threat, and the rest.  They would say that I am a tool of the patriarchy, a tool of the Christian supremacists, a tool of anybody who hopes to make Christian theocracies out of countries in which people are currently free to choose what they will and will not believe, and all that.  In short, they'd say that because of the Christian aspects of my personal spiritual practices, I am not to be trusted and my opinion doesn't matter.  And I would even hesitate to express this sentiment to close friends of mine who happen to be Pagans of various stripes because I do have a certain amount of Christian privilege, and I do my best to keep from hurting anyone with it, and I would especially hate for it to hurt those who number among my nearest and dearest.  So there are things that I keep quiet about, no matter how much they hurt me, because my hurt is, in the end, the hurt of someone who has a form of privilege that they don't, and using that privilege to silence them is bad form at best.  But damn it, this is my space, and so I feel free to say this here: I used to like this quote, regardless of who and what its actual source may be.  (I've also seen at least one version of it attributed to the Dalai Lama.)  I don't anymore.

The thing is, I know a lot of Christians who are kind, compassionate, and generous people.  They aren't perfect.  They've all done things that they regret, they all have their dark sides, and they all have their own issues, but that's because they're people, not because they're Christians.  And I've been part of a number of initiatives at my church that were aimed directly at helping people who are less fortunate than ourselves, including putting on a play that raised money for Child's Play and making warm winter clothing for children who live on a remote reserve in the far north.  One of my close friends is an Agnostic who was raised in two Protestant denominations, at least one of which is Evangelical in a thoroughly Charismatic way; I am also fond of his still-Evangelical parents, who have always treated me with great kindness.  With a few individual exceptions, most of the members of my family are Christians of one denomination or another (most frequently Anglicans or Catholics, though a few other denominations make their appearance here and there), and as much as some of them drive me nuts sometimes, they are good people and I love them.

To place all of these people in the same category as those Christians who harm others and use their religion as an excuse to do so, those Christians who oppress others because they are something of which those Christians don't approve, those Christians who kick people when they're down, and those Christians who, through self-righteousness because they believe that they are "Saved," look down on others who are less fortunate than they are or who are different from them in some way...on a bone-deep level, that strikes me as being wrong.  And I know that this whole post probably reads as a slightly more long-winded example of something from Derailing For Dummies, but nonetheless, to make such a blanket statement as "I do not like your Christians; your Christians are so unlike your Christ" does imply that the speaker believes that all of them are hateful, all of them are hypocrites, and not a single one of them is a decent human being.  I take exception to this.  It is a direct insult to me, as someone who sees Jesus as a face of the Divine, and even more so to all the genuinely good people I know who happen to be members of one Christian denomination or another and who walk considerably more traditional avenues of belief than I do.

I am every bit as insulted by that statement as I would be by anyone who disparages Paganism or insults any of my Pagan friends.  And I cannot simply understand that we are not among the people who are being pointed out as hypocrites by the originator of this quote; because of its wording, the phrasing that does not include anything like "with a few exceptions, your Christians are so unlike your Christ," it's hard to interpret this as anything but a harsh criticism of everyone who has claimed some variety of Christianity as part of their identity, particularly because the quote is frequently attributed to men who are widely acknowledged to be, or to have been, particularly wise and enlightened, and who are known to never have been Christians.

I understand Christian privilege and I certainly understand anger at Christianity.  In many ways, I still feel this anger myself.  But I am angry with the Christians who use their religion as an excuse to do harm, the Christians who use their power to cover up terrible things, and the Christians who try to impose their beliefs (regardless of whether it's through political influence or unwanted proselytizing) on other people.  Believe it or not, it is possible to make distinctions between these Christians and the ones who do not use their faith as a weapon of Mass (ha!) douchebaggery.

Quick PSA

If one's sexual orientation were a choice, it would still be wrong to condemn people for not being heterosexual.

If one's gender identity were a choice, it would still be wrong to threaten and assault people who feel that they were born with the wrong type of body.

If one's race were a choice, it would still be wrong to hate non-white people for not being white.

If having a disability were a choice, it would still be wrong to pick on people whose bodies don't work the way that we're told that they're supposed to.

If poverty were a choice, it would still be wrong to make the lives of poor people even harder than they already are by gutting the social assistance programs that make it possible for them to survive and sometimes even give them a chance to escape poverty.

If body size were a choice, it would still be wrong to bully people whose body size falls outside of the relatively narrow range of sizes that is currently considered to be "normal," whether their body is thinner or fatter than the current ideal.

Do you see the pattern here?

All of these characteristics are things that are not necessarily under the control of the people who possess them.  All of these things are things that people use as excuses to harass, bully, intimidate, and abuse other people.  None of them are good enough.  There is no justification for such behaviour.  Not even if you think that they chose these conditions.

That is all.

War Is Not Great

Once again, Remembrance Day has come and gone.  (Or Veterans Day, or Armistice Day, depending on where you live, if you live in a place where November 11 is a day to remember the end of the First World War.)  And once again, I have a few thoughts.

The Great War, the one that this day was originally set aside to remember, officially began 98 years, three months, two weeks, and three days ago.  It officially came to an end 94 years ago today.  After all this time, some of the battlefields of this war remain dangerous, thanks to unexploded shells, the possibility (still!) of being exposed to mustard gas, and other assorted remains of the ammunition used in the First World War. The Treaty of Versailles, signed the following June, set up many of the conditions that not only made the Second World War possible, but, arguably, inevitable.  And although I can't speak for anything before 1988 or so (my first school-hosted Remembrance Day celebration), as far back as I can remember observing Remembrance Day, I remember the most powerful message being "don't ever let a tragedy of this magnitude happen again."  I've read that in the aftermath of the First World War itself, the message was very similar.

But that has slowly changed, and I don't like the shape that the changes are taking.  The focus has slowly slipped from "don't let it happen again" to "worship the soldiers; they died for your FREEDOM!!!" And a day that was once anything but a glorification of war has gradually become precisely that.  Instead of "never again," it's "be proud and grateful."  And in Canada, we're told that this war, our first as a nation, was (despite all that came before and after) the defining moment in our nation's history, the time when we actually became our own country.

As if it takes a war to confer the status of nationhood upon the people who live on any of the (largely arbitrary) sections of land that we call "countries."

There's no doubt that the First World War was one of the defining events of the twentieth century.  Its effects still reach us today, nearly a century after it officially began.  And the Second World War was no less important.  But when all the wars after that aren't considered to be as notable (especially as the second one becomes more a matter of what's written in the history books rather than a matter of lived experience), and when my country is being encouraged to think of ourselves as a warrior nation instead of the peacekeepers that we had once been proud to be, I can't help but think that we're doing a great dishonour to the very people we are supposed to be remembering and honouring on Remembrance Day.

They didn't die for values like freedom or national pride or any other impressive-sounding word.  Whatever their personal reasons for going to war, they died because of politics.  Soldiers are still dying because of politics and because of politicians who would rather send women and men to their deaths than work out their differences around a conference table, where these things are ultimately decided anyway once far too many lives have been lost or irreparably damaged.

And don't forget the civilians.  They, too, make sacrifices and they, too, are directly affected by wars.  It is their homes that are destroyed, their fields that are made unsafe for growing food, and, all too often, it is their lives that are brutally ended and then brushed off as collateral damage.  Unimportant.  A minor detail.  They are never remembered at these ceremonies as the dead and wounded soldiers are, though their lives were of no less value and their sacrifices were no less complete.  And the civilians whose friends or family members are sent off to war have a significant chance of losing somebody who is profoundly important to them.

This is the year 2012 C.E., and we should know better than to glorify war, particularly after the many conflicts of the twentieth century.  But the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Syria, and the military conflicts inYemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Mexico, and Colombia, among many others, prove that we have not learned our lesson.  When it comes down to it, "they have something we want, so let's attack them for it" or "they're doing something we don't like, so let's attack them for it" or even "they aren't a democracy like us, so let's attack them for it and try to force their country to make itself over into our own image" (which of course has gone so well for everybody involved) is still a much louder message than "don't let another war happen" ever has been.  But war has no winners and although it is sometimes a necessary evil (people do, or ought to, have the right to defend themselves against aggressors, and it is a good thing to actually help nations out who have been unjustifiably attacked, after all), it is never ever a force for actual good.  In war, there is simply evil and less evil.  That's it.

This does not mean, of course, that I do not have respect for veterans or their dead comrades.  I do.  I simply choose to acknowledge that the sacrifices that they (and the civilians who were caught in the crossfire) made should not have been necessary.

I will end this rant with the following video.  It was released in 1990, and while the lyrics do not acknowledge the fact that women have taken part in military conflicts and the music itself now sounds a little dated, the message is still an important one.

Hate

Having so recently written so much about love, I now find my thoughts turning to what's commonly considered to be its opposite.

I don't understand hate, except perhaps in the most abstract of terms.  I understand anger, yes, and bitterness.  (Perhaps I understand bitterness a little too well.)  I understand frustration.  I understand jealousy up to a point, but I don't understand letting it get to the point where it causes a problem.  I understand fear.  I understand suspicion.  I understand dislike.  I understand self-loathing—depression taught me that much.  I understand pain.  And I certainly understand distrust.  I've felt all of these things, though not always to the same degree.  But I don't understand hate.

How does it work?  What sows the seed?  What makes people actively want to harm other people, or rejoice when terrible things happen to them?  What convinces them that hate is right?  How do they justify it?  Why do they embrace it?

I just can't quite get my mind around the concept of such strong negative feelings about another human being that suddenly they don't seem human anymore, or worthy of the consideration that one would give to another person.  I don't understand the willingness to kill people for being different, or for having other ideas, or for any other reason except perhaps self-defence.

Sometimes I wonder if this means that I can't really understand love, either.

Love

Wow, I hadn't realized that it had actually been so long since the last time I posted here.  (I've been working on a few posts, which probably helped preserve for me the illusion of actually having posted.)  For those who may wish such reassurance, let me say that I've been well, and even a little bit busy, between working on a cause in which I deeply believe with a few friends, writing a long-ish story for a fan fiction exchange in which I'm taking part this year, making crochet hats and scarves for various care packages to be sent out this winter, and (as of this week) doing some volunteer work in a local elementary school.

Anyway, some time ago, somebody found this blog with the search term "Pagan thoughts about love."  I can't speak for most Pagans, of course, but here's what this Christo-Pagan thinks about love.

First of all, I think that in Western culture, we've given the word a terrible reputation.  I think that we've commercialized it, made it into an excuse, cheapened it, bound it up in far too many limitations, and yet abused and overused it to such a ridiculous degree that the word itself doesn't mean much, at least in certain circumstances.  When it's not the type of love reserved for family members, which rarely enters into conversations about love anyway, we've turned the meaning of the word "love" into something that's purely hormonal, something that looks and feels mysterious but is really nothing more than the effect of various chemical compounds on the brain.  We've taken an action and turned it into a feeling that is at once sought-after and held in disdain.  We've privileged some forms of it and dismissed too many others as unimportant because they don't usually involve sexual arousal.  To love, we're told, is to burn, to feel passion and the "urge to merge," and if you really love someone, that feeling will never go away.  We're told that to really love, there has to be only one other person involved, and we have to be everything that they need, and they have to be everything that we need.  Friends (especially friends who are of the same gender and sex as your partner) and family are nice but unnecessary when you've found that ONE BIG LOVE.  And then we're surprised when, crushed by all of these expectations, what we thought was love did not stand the test of time.

All in all, I think that the word "love" has gotten a pretty raw deal.

Furthermore, I think that love itself is not a feeling (or at least, it's not only a feeling).  Affection is a feeling.  Lust is an experience.  But love is an action, something that's shown, not merely felt.  Saying "I love you" ought not to just mean "I feel a lot of affection for you" and/or "I want to have sex with you."  It should also mean something along the lines of "I trust you, and you can trust me.  I'll help you when you need my help.  Even when we're not getting along, you're important to me."  Without actions, without a solid foundation of trust and mutual support, what we often think of as "love" isn't quite it.

I've also been thinking lately (again) about the nature of what's known as unrequited love.  (For reasons that are probably made obvious by the paragraphs preceding this one, I dislike the use of the word "love" in this term, but at the moment it's the only phrase I know that describes this particular experience; I'm aware of what limerence is, but that's not what I'm talking about here.)  I admit that I have at least one personal reason for doing so; I'm kind of on the edge of it at the moment, and I'm fighting it.  So far, though I admit that there's always the possibility that I'm fooling myself, I think I'm winning.  It's difficult, though.  Late last year, I met someone who's proven to be an intelligent, funny, and compassionate person.  We hit it off more or less right away, and he and I have become fairly good friends in the course of the past year.  I knew that I was attracted to him, but I shrugged it off; I'm aware that for various reasons, I'm not exactly the type of person he'd normally consider dating.  As our friendship developed, occasionally that attraction bothered me a little, but I've long been of the opinion that unrequited attractions, and even what we call "unrequited love," do not necessarily ring out the death knell for a friendship, especially if the friendship itself is solid and both (or all, depending on the situation) parties are still invested in maintaining it.

The thing that annoys me the most about the way that people see unrequited love is that there's this automatic assumption that you have to want the feelings to be requited, and you'll be totally miserable when, time and again, it's proven that they are not.  It's as if everything goes to hell once the hormones kick in.  And although I'm not speaking from current experience, my past experiences have shown me that this doesn't necessarily have to be the case.  Even if you can't control your actual feelings, you can choose how you will react to them and how you will deal with them.

Meanwhile, practically everything I've read about unrequited love suggests that it's one of the Greatest Lifetime Disasters of Humanity, as if it's automatically a cruel and humiliating experience that absolutely destroys one's life.  Call me a heartless bitch if you like, but I don't think that unrequited love even ranks in the top ten disasters that a human being can experience.  Sure, it can be unpleasant, and I'm sure that there are people for whom the experience is worse than it's ever been for me, but it doesn't have to be the end of the world.

In any case, as I've said before, love itself is more than a feeling.  It's action.  It's compassion.  It's mutual trust and support.  Under certain circumstances, it can involve lust.  But what it never is, is selfish, jealous, possessive, or manipulative.  Anyone who acts in those ways and says it's because of love is a liar.

"...this thing of darkness I acknowledge mine."

Perhaps the title for this post wasn't the best thought-out, given that it's arguably racist (it's a quote from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Prospero's talking about his slave, Caliban, who is frequently portrayed as being non-white).  Nonetheless, it was the only title that came to mind that I didn't absolutely hate, so I hope that you'll forgive the infraction.

The thing is, a number of things that I've been seeing, reading, and experiencing have lately had me thinking about the darker side of people's personalities.  Regardless of whether we admit to having them, we all do.  All of us have thoughts and desires that, if we're basically decent human beings, disturb us or make us wonder if we're really the good people that we want to be.  (Or, if you want to be cynical or are experiencing a period of self-doubt, you might say that these things make us wonder if we're really the good people that we pretend to be.)  Nobody thinks or acts with perfect love at all times.  And yet, so many people have such a drive to be kind, to make this world a better place, despite these things we try to keep buried, to hide from others and perhaps especially ourselves.

It's such a temptation to pretend that these less-admirable qualities of ours don't exist, and it occurs to me that it is not necessarily a wise thing to do.

Wouldn't it be better if we were able to openly acknowledge these things about ourselves?  How effective is it to bury these things, knowing that they're never really all that far away from the surface?  I'm not saying that we should actually indulge these harmful aspects of ourselves, but I do think that it's far healthier to admit that they exist and try to actually live with them rather than to try to sweep them under the rug and pretend that they don't exist, despite the strange shapes that they make under the surface that we're futilely pretending is flat.  And in fact, perhaps the one positive thing that I've found has come as a result of having experienced serious, long-term depression is this: I've been forced to confront these demons of mine.  I've never had the luxury of ignoring them.  And every time I feel like I'm going to relapse, I have to confront them again, if only because I know from experience that if I try to ignore my personal demons, my mental and emotional state will only get worse.

I won't list them, but anyone who's been following this blog for a while will probably be able to figure out what at least one or two of them are.

When my character flaws come to surface as they occasionally do, I deal with the problems that result in several different ways.  Usually, my first impulse is to write out what's bothering me; if I can put what I'm feeling into words, it will almost always calm me so that I can deal with my emotions in a more productive manner.  (In the words of John Donne: "Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,/ For he tames it, who fetters it in verse."*)  The results of this tactic, of course, sometimes end up here, or in a locked post on a blog that I write on another site under another name.  Sometimes I'll resort to meditation, or if I can't concentrate on that because I'm too upset, I amuse myself by playing Vice City in order to do some stupid car tricks (I've edited a couple of the cars so that they're almost indestructible and will travel far faster than their default settings would allow for), picking up my violin and playing very fast; tunes like Catharsis or a fiddle adaptation of The Hellbound Train are particular favourites of mine for moments of intense frustration, perhaps especially because I don't play them perfectly, or, if I can be reasonably sure that nobody will hear me, singing something with a lot of high notes—or even one very cathartic high note, like "Stay" by Shakespears Sister. (That note actually is in my range, though I don't so much "hit" it as "pulverize" it, so it's not actually a sound that you ever want to hear me make.  Still, I often feel better after I've sung that song because it just feels good to produce that high note.)  And when all else fails, I take a good long walk, moving as fast as I can for as long as my feet are willing to carry me.  And then I rest for a while, think (or write) about what's been bothering me, and make my way back home.

I know that none of these things will ever solve whatever problem I'm encountering, but I still consider them to be a good start; they give me a chance to tame the negative emotions that I'm experiencing so that I can actually think clearly enough to do something about whatever is causing the problem.  It's my form of acknowledging those demons of mine without actually letting them take over, especially as most of my character flaws tend to be emotional in nature.

I'm not suggesting that everyone has to do these things, of course.  However, I do think that, rather than just ignore one's shadow side or try to pretend it doesn't exist, it's far more practical and constructive to take a good look at it—shine a bright enough light so that it can be seen, so to speak—and come up with ways to deal with it.  It's a profoundly uncomfortable processs, of course, but I would argue that it's also a necessary one.

After all, it's awfully difficult to figure out precisely what darkness and light really are unless you've taken a good, hard look at both.  Or at least, that's been my experience.

--,--'--@ --,--'--@ --,--'--@

*"The Triple Fool"

Enough Already!

Courtesy of a friend's Facebook feed: here is something that makes me very, very angry.  And courtesy of the group in whose photo album that picture is posted, here's a statement about Christianity that starts out with a fair point, though one that's a bit of a straw man in places, but which descends into little more than a slightly more eloquent version of "these people are all scum."

I realize that a group with the name "Strong Intelligent Women Choosing Equality & Freedom Instead Of Religion" is hardly going to be sympathetic to anything that even has a slight whiff of religion to it.  I understand that they have a certain interest in portraying themselves as being more intelligent than people of any kind of faith, and that they will prefer to see religion as an oppressive and evil force that holds no value in their lives and ought not to be valuable to anyone.  And in all fairness, given the fact that I left the Roman Catholic Church for some similar reasons, I admit that I can even sort of see their point.  Still, it makes me angry that people who see themselves as intelligent and strong are so adamant that anyone who hasn't embraced atheism as they have has to be stupid and malicious.

It's not just the repetition of these tired old stereotypes and attacks—and I do view the way that all Christians are routinely equated with the likes of the Westboro Baptist Church or the guy holding the sign in that first picture as a sort of attack, as by far most of the people I've known in my life who are Christians are actually pretty decent people, with (gasp!) functional brains and well-developed consciences—that makes me angry.  It's the fact that so many Christians, people with whom I share some elements of belief, are expected to be judgemental and misogynistic anti-intellectual assholes, particularly since so many vocal and/or high-profile Christians insist on being judgemental and misogynistic anti-intellectual assholes.  It's the way that it's so popular to either embrace the worst hateful, misogynistic, and destructive things (and it's a decided understatement to say that there are some absolutely awful things in the Bible) or harp on the horrible stuff as if that's all there is.

On both sides, and in very different ways, there often seems to be a willing ignorance about (or perhaps even the suppression of) the kinder, gentler things that appear in the Bible.

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.  For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.  Why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour's eye.

—Matthew 7:1-5

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'  Then the righeous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'  And the king will answer them, 'Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'
—Matthew 25:34-40

From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.
—Luke 12:48

How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
—1 John 3:17-18

These passages, and ones like them, are the reasons why I'm able to blend the basic religious framework in which I grew up with the more Earth-centred, female-friendly, and inclusive spirituality that I developed in my years as a total Pagan.  This is why I haven't totally abandoned Christianity and this is why I believe that it is, at its most basic level, compatible with my Pagan beliefs and practices.  There's love there, and compassion, too.  There are reminders that no matter how self-centred we can get, we are not the centre of the universe and we owe other people, and the world itself, our kindness and generosity.  And the more we have, the more we have a duty to share, or at least to work for a world in which those who do not have as much as we do will still have a decent quality of life.

Don't tell me that I can't believe in these things, or that I can't possibly acknowledge the importance of science (I do), or that I'm a misogynist or an anti-choicer or a person who thinks that women ought to shut up and be kept pregnant and dependent on men (I'm not) just because to me, one of the faces of the Divine is Jesus of Nazareth.  If you do, you're doing yourself no favours and you're doing me (and people like me) a lot of harm.

It's one thing to dislike Christianity because of the bad things that it's been used as an excuse for, and because of the less-than-compassionate aspects of the Bible.  That's fair game.  But to hate all of it outright, to blast it (and the people who follow one of its many paths) for the bad things and completely disregard the good without regard to the fact that many people are inspired to do good things because of it, are inspired to be better people by it (and not just because of the threat of Hell that the churches have disproportionately emphasized through the centuries for their own purposes and gain), there's no excuse for that.  The anger may well be justifiable, but the misrepresentation and disdain are not.  It's entirely possible to disagree with people of other creeds without having to stoop to insults, straw arguments, lies, and half-truths garnished with conveniently unpleasant truths.  All it does is antagonize people.  This kind of hate, as with any other kind, doesn't help anyone.

Sometimes Christians do bad things. Deal with it.

This post isn't directed to the people who object to the harm that certain Christians cause to other people and to the world in general.  This is directed to the people who don't accept that Christianity is composed of a number of different large groups of HUMAN BEINGS, and, like any other group of human beings, is going to be composed of many different types of people. Some will be good, some will be bad, some will be neither, and most will be varying degrees of both, leaning one way or the other, but nonetheless both capable of great goodness and great evil.  That's part of being human. And this post is especially directed to people who claim that anyone who does something wrong isn't really a Christian.

Newsflash: sometimes Christians do bad things.

Sometimes Christians persecute members of other faiths.  Sometimes Christians kill in the name of their God.  Sometimes Christians enact pieces of legislation that will make it next to impossible for women to access medical treatment (and no, I'm not just talking about abortion; states in which funding for Planned Parenthood has been cut or eliminated have also made it difficult, if not impossible, for low-income women to access affordable health care at all; Planned Parenthood was never just about abortion).  Sometimes Christians lie, steal, cheat.  Sometimes Christians rape.  Sometimes Christians murder.

And whether or not you like it, they're still Christians.

It doesn't matter that you don't believe that they can be real Christians.  As long as they believe in Jesus-as-aspect-of-God, and as long as the collection of writings we know as the Bible is their holy book, they're Christians.  Their ideals and models for behaviour aren't the same as yours, and their priorities are different as well, but that doesn't mean that you get to say whether or not they're part of the religion they've chosen.  Regardless of whether you approve of what they do, and certainly regardless of whether Jesus himself would have approved of their actions, they are Christians.

They're not just horrible people using Jesus' name as an excuse to do terrible things.  They are Christians.  And denying that they're Christians isn't doing anybody any favours.  True, along with the damage that they do to the people they hurt, they also give the rest of us a bad name.  But you then make that name even worse every time you assert that people can't have morality without Christianity, and that all Christians are good people.

Christianity doesn't have the stranglehold on morality that you think it has.  It doesn't necessarily make you a good person; it doesn't automatically fill people with love and light.  Christianity is a system of belief.  It doesn't remove the impulse to harm other people, and under the right (or wrong) circumstances, it can even fuel that impulse.  That doesn't make them not-Christian.  It makes them dangerous, because they believe that they can do no moral wrong, because their anger, their hate, and their harmful actions are backed up by their God.  Saying "Oh, but they're not real Christians" is neither true nor helpful.

Sometimes Christians do bad things.  Don't deny it.

Deal with it.

(By which, of course, I mean "do something about it.")

Shame on the people who thought this was a good idea.

There are no words, but I'm going to try to find them anyway.

Blackface.

Blackface on a cake, of all things, depicting the head and torso of a naked Black woman.

A terrible racist caricature of a Black woman used to protest an act of violence against women.

Red velvet cake, obviously meant to symbolize blood, carved up by White people.  Every time a slice was cut, the baker, also a performance artist, whose head was poking out from under the table, would scream.

That's just wrong.

This is a world in which Black people's lives are frequently held to be less important than White people's, and as a result, they die.

Trayvon Martin was killed for doing little more than walking through a gated community (and he had every right to be there, as he was visiting his father, who actually lives in that gated community) while talking on the phone with his girlfriend and carrying Skittles and iced tea.  His killer was only arrested a few days ago, though there was never a question of who did it.

Anna Brown was arrested for trespassing on hospital property for trying to get treatment for the condition that killed her soon afterward; she died in prison that day.  The hospital claims they thought that she was just looking for drugs; after all, not only was she a Black woman, she was a homeless Black woman.  (An autopsy was performed; no traces of any kind of drug were found in her body.  However, they did find numerous blood clots in her lungs and in her legs.)

Kenneth Chamberlain was shot to death by police in his own home when he'd accidentally triggered his medical alarm in his sleep.

These are only the stories that have gotten enough press that I've heard about them.

And now this.

Racism is evil.  It kills.  It destroys lives and families.  Even if the intentions of the people behind this racist act were good—the cake was apparently supposed to protest female genital mutilation—that doesn't erase the harm that it's done.  It doesn't matter that Makode Aj Linde, the performance artist who baked the cake and did the screaming, is Black himself; it doesn't matter that he claims that the cake, and the cutting of it, were misunderstood (his work has in the past involved putting Blackface into new contexts in order to criticise it).  Blackface is innately racist and even attempting to subvert it, considering the immense damage that racism does worldwide, results in more harm than good.  Especially since most of the people who attended this party at Moderna Museet were White.

I'd say it's even worse that Makode Aj Linde participated in this racist act because it's now given White racists an excuse to say, "Hey, this isn't so bad after all.  A Black guy did it, so why can't we?"

This cake was an act of violence, and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.

I am disgusted and heartsick.

The evils of religion?

Of all the things that one might have expected me to be contemplating on Easter Sunday, somehow I doubt that atheism would be among them.

Not that I'm thinking of becoming an atheist, mind you.  Regardless of whether the Gods exist, my mind doesn't seem to have the wiring for atheism.  As I am now, the closest thing I could probably get to total non-belief is a sort of curious agnosticism.  And despite normally being a logic-oriented person, I do not consider this to be a problem in any respect.  My belief-and-skepticism system works for me; it inspires me to be a better person.  It reminds me that it's possible to be a thoroughly flawed human being and still manage to do a bit of good in the world.  It reminds me that prayer is all very well, but you've got to help people in practical ways as well.  (I can say this no better than it's already said in my favourite passage from the first letter of John: "Little children, let us love, not in word and speech, but in truth and action.")  It even keeps me from taking myself too seriously.

The thing is, I've been noticing, and hearing about, a lot more highly vocal atheists lately.  And usually they've been the obnoxious ones.  The ones who, being so angry at the idea that anybody else dares to think something that they don't think, might fit in well with certain groups of rigid fundamentalist Christians if it weren't for the fact that atheists believe that the whole God thing is bullshit.  The ones who believe that there has never been anything good whatsoever that came from religion of any type.  The ones who believe that all the world's evils come from religion in general and Christianity in particular, and that we'd live in a perfect world if no human being had ever come up with the concept of one or more Gods.  The ones who look down their noses at people of any religious persuasion, calling us stupid and superstitious.  The ones who speak of us all as if we were somehow simultaneously childlike in our naïveté and hyper-dangerous psychopaths who are just a few social conventions away from reinstating the Spanish Inquisition and shamelessly persecuting and brutally murdering anyone who doesn't agree with us.

Believe it or not, atheism itself doesn't actually bother me.  We've all got to make up our own minds about what we will and will not believe, and I understand that there are people whose lives, and whose treatment of other people, become better once they discard any concept of religion.  We all need to have our own freedom of conscience.  And to a certain extent, I must concede that they have a point or two, even though I doubt I'll ever entirely subscribe to their point of view.  But the common assertion that religion, and especially Christianity, is the root of all evil bothers me on a level that I can't quite articulate.

The thing is, I deeply suspect that even if religion hadn't ever existed, most of the evil things that religion has been used as the excuse for would still have happened.  Religious or not, that seems to be an aspect of certain people's human nature; given great power, and the desire for something that's already possessed by someone else, some people will only need the right excuse to become genocidal.  If it wasn't religion, it might be some other custom.  It might be language or skin colour or some theme in the other group's art or music that the aggressors consider to be unwholesome.  It might be patriotism or some form of insult, imagined or otherwise.  I can't think of a single religious war, even the Crusades, that couldn't also have been fought for other reasons.  Religion made a damn convincing excuse, but as long as there was something else to be gained—valuable territory, access to certain commodities, greater political power, and similar—then religion was nonetheless still little but an excuse.  In its absence, another one would surely have been used.

I will never accept the idea that religion is itself evil; I will certainly never again accept the idea that Christianity is inherently evil.  It's been used as an excuse for evil things, and there are people who use it as a weapon even today.  That, I believe, is evil.  But not religion itself.

If there's evil in the equation at all, it's in the people who use their beliefs to harm other people.