Because I'm tired of ranting in my head...

Gay marriage. We've been talking about it at work lately, all of us agreed: Is this seriously still an issue? It's as backwards as Jim Crow laws or the need to fight for the 19th Amendment. Are human beings seriously still being denied the right to marry, make families, share the privileges and joys and (as my more bitter co-workers suggest) miseries of marriage because they want to share them with a member of their own sex? Really?

I know that in writing this I risk alienating my more conservative friends, and that is certainly not my intention. I am just absolutely dumbfounded that gay and lesbian persons do not have the full rights that I hold in the United States, a country that is supposedly founded on freedom and tolerance. This is my big, loud "Huh?"

Admittedly, only a few years ago I was on the fence about the issue. I decided to write about the legalization of gay marriage for my ethics class, but I was undecided, unsure of what I really thought about it. I ended up writing against it only because it was easier and I knew that was what the professor wanted to hear. But the arguments I used, even if they did win me a 98, were ridiculous. Gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry because they can't reproduce? Neither can the infertile or the elderly--but no one is stopping them. And what about people who don't even want children? Should they be banned from marrying?

How is granting people who genuinely love one another the right to marry going to damage my marriage, make my marriage any less special? It isn't. And the next argument is that if we let gay people marry, what's next? People wanting to marry their dogs? I won't even validate that illogical, heartless argument with a response.

I realize that I am ranting and oversimplifying the opposing arguments, but I'm just so fed up with it all. I know that some people view homosexuality as sinful and against their religious beliefs--and they have every right to do so--but how many other "sinful activities" are religious people working to ban? I haven't seen them trying to deny marriage to heterosexuals who have sex before marriage. Why should my religious beliefs determine someone else's happiness? It's disgusting.

I don't think this is just a religious issue, or even just a legal issue. It's a basic human rights issue. A ban on homosexual marriage is, simply, inhumane. So that's it: I am praying for same-sex marriage to be legalized in all 50 states.

"What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?

Nothing. You've already told her twice."

This was the ignorant joke told by a co-worker of mine at which I did not laugh, or even crack a smile.--I stared, pointedly. This, of course, prompted him to go on and on about how he wasn't a woman-abuser and his wife was the person in charge in his house, and he was just joking around for irony's sake, etc. etc. etc.

When he finished this long-winded attempt at an apology, I asked, "Would you tell a racist joke? It's the same thing." It is incredible to me how intelligent, morally concerned people can make jokes about subjects that are unquestionably not funny. I know it's because people don't realize how powerful language is--how it shapes our culture, our attitudes, our beliefs. Our entire existence is framed in language; whether we realize it or not, language constitutes our world as we know it. It is a more effective tool of oppression than any gun or tank or fist.

Someone very close and dear to me was recently abused by her child's father--I couldn't laugh at that, so I surely can't laugh at a joke about beating a woman. I tried to explain to my coworker that telling jokes about abusing women is aiding the oppression and violence that women experience every day around the world. A joke like this perpetuates the idea that it is okay to abuse women, that the abuse women undergo isn't as disgusting and horrific as other crimes--genocide, torture, child molesting...who could laugh at those?

Yet why laugh at the idea of a woman being struck by a fist? Where is the humor in that? Unfortunately, men are not the only guilty ones in the oppression of women, in their abuse and degradation. Women, too, are guilty.

I cringe when I hear women use words like bitch or pussy in reference to themselves or others--not because the language is vulgar, but because I know that it is language like that that makes woman a second-class citizen. To call a man a pussy is to calm him weak, cowardly, womanly. Less than. Women have often been as eager to align themselves with patriarchal culture as the men have wanted them to be--either by making themselves the doormat of men or by trying to become as much like men as possible. Today a woman tried to convince me that men have a more difficult time in life than women these days, that they have been "castrated" by the theft of the breadwinner role, relegated to an uncertain role of manhood. I wanted to scream at her, "Finally, the oppressive system is being broken down, the emperor removed from his tyrannical throne, and you would rebuild it, you would put him back to the place of god, and woman to the place of his slave?" It is absolutely enraging.

True, women have won significant gains in education and in many professions; we have all the same legal rights as men; we can be ministers in many churches, work in any field we choose; decide whether we want to marry or not, have children or not. But I cannot walk down the street alone by myself without feeling the need to look behind my shoulder, to keep a sharp eye out. I have to check my backseat before getting into my car after pumping gas. If I had a daughter I would live in terror at the thought of her molestation, her rape. So are the sexes equal? No. The poet and feminist critic Adrienne Rich said famously, "I am a feminist because I feel endangered, psychically and physically, by this society and because I believe that the women's movement is saying that we have come to an edge of history when men - insofar as they are embodiments of the patriarchal idea - have become dangerous to children and other living things, themselves included."

After I pulled out the best of my literary and feminist theory thought for the education of my ignorant co-worker, he (to his credit) responded with a sincere, "I've never thought about that before. I never realized it was that way." And my heart was glad. Surely my education has not gone to waste, my passions are not for naught; you really can change the world, even with a head full of literary theory.

Sproutings

You know the $1 aisle in Target, full of generally useless but occasionally surprisingly cool things? Well, John and I bought a tiny little basil growing kit from the dollar aisle, brought it home, and started our tiny sprout pot over the weekend. And to my amazement and delight, it is actually growing! The tender little green sprouts quickly appeared and are growing fast, pushing their brave little heads up and up toward the sunlight. This tiny miracle has placed more genuine, child-like wonderment in my heart than I can possibly explain. (And I already have the amazement capacity of a five-year-old.)

Spring hit Nashville a few weeks ago in dazzling parades of blossoming trees and flowers: bright white, then pink, then purple, pear trees and dogwoods, tulips, tulips, and more tulips; and already spring is expanding into summer lushness--everything has turned green and sprawled out to reclaim all that barren space that winter stole. It is striking to watch it happen--life just appearing as if from no where and taking up all the space that we'll give it. I can't get over how green everything is after that long, dead winter.

As if in parallel, I am finally beginning to open up to Nashville, perhaps even to like it. Sometimes I don't even mind the traffic.

A Full-Time April Fool

In lieu of April Fool's Day...A Tribute

I spent the majority of my college years sharing a room with a prankster. I am gullible, absent minded, and slow to learn my lessons. You can imagine how much fun she had with me. My personal favorite (and obviously hers since she pulled it on me numerous times): the elevator prank. We lived on the third floor, and on our lazy days we would take the elevator up. Stephanie would swiftly engage me in conversation, distracting my attention while she pressed the 2nd floor button. The elevator stopped at the 2nd floor, I got out (still talking), and Steph closed the door and continued up to the 3rd floor while laughing her head off. I continued up the stairs shaking my head. I think she even pulled this prank twice in one day.

There were also fake roaches in my bed, the anger management book she gave me for Christmas, a creepy China doll that would appear next to me in bed, my underwear thrown at me in the shower, being locked out of the dorm room, phone calls in foreign accents....and so, so many more.

Oh, the good old days. Today I only got pranked by gmail.

Eulogy for a Squirrel

I ran over a squirrel with my car today. I cried all the way to work and then came home this afternoon and cried over it some more. This may seem a bit over the top to some people, but I feel absolutely terrible. For a vegetarian to find herself immediately responsible for the death of an animal...it is horrifying. All day I thought of the bump under my wheel and the little life that ended with it. Animals are just as alive as we are after all, if not more so--they want to play and eat and sleep and mate and sing and love and bask in the magnificence of spring every bit as much as we do. And that little squirrel won't get to anymore.

Death still seems so unnatural to me--I can't help but feel that we should all live forever, that everything should live for ever: trees, flowers, squirrels, husbands, children, grandmothers. That no one should ever die--no one should ever be separated. No one should ever have the sweetness of living taken away.

I suppose that in this world death is often a mercy, but I struggle to see any beauty in it. I suppose that in death the soul is unfettered, the spirit free--but heaven seems so foreign to me and I love this world so much. I love living in this world, despite its uglinesses, its tragedies. I love its blue skies, its grey skies, its falls and springs and summers, its lakes and rivers and oceans, its trees, snails, grasshoppers, manatees, fireflies, and lady bugs. It is a beautiful place and I'm grateful to belong to it.

I guess the only thing I could love more than life in this world is the God who made it. That we leave earth and return to God...it is the only consolation for so great a loss.

A Sweet Returning

Today, of course, is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. We have just returned from church with its softly-lit and quiet nave, solemn recitations, and liturgy for the day we are bid to remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. I still have the ash cross on my forehead and the words of our Old Testament reading ringing in my ears: return to the Lord. These are actually the same words that I have been consciously and unconsciously saying to myself for days now: return to the Lord.

It started a few nights ago as I was saying my rosary: this sense of returning just came over me. A sweet returning. A re-focusing of my attention, a drawing inward and towards. A return to myself and to God, both of whom I have been terribly distant from without even fully realizing it.

So Lent. This is my second time observing it, and my first time doing it with any real intentionality or expectation. This time I really want to prepare myself for the miracle of Easter and what it means for us. Lent is solemn, a time to take stock of one's life, to pare down, to pray and repent--but it is rooted in joy, the joy of the Christ's resurrection, the joy of our own resurrection.

This is a prayer I say a lot and the one that is foremost in my heart during this season of prayer, fasting, and preparation: Come, Lord Jesus. Draw us to yourself. Come, Lord Jesus. Draw all things to yourself.

A Summer Time Poem

I've just found this poem that I wrote in October and never looked at again (which is what happens to most of my poems). It's just a rough, unedited flow of thoughts, but it made me smile to remember its inspiration. (Charlotte, you should remember it well, too, since you shared in it.)It's one of my best Nashville memories.


Cheekwood Deer

In the summer woods,
Our eyes feasting on
The deep green, the
Glowing leaves,
The rotting logs,
The flitting birds,
The tiny purple flowers
Strewn at our feet
We stopped short, held our breath,
Motionless and staring:
Five young brown newly-antlered
Bearers of quiet
Watching us calmly
Only feet away

They didn't bother to get up;
They are used to the sight of us--
Gangly awkward things
But we are full of wonder:
Transfixed by
The supple bodies
The deep sweet eyes
The sculpted, ivory headdresses
The regal indifference

***

I pull myself away,
Reluctant, the light is
Dimming now--to the water
Garden to watch the day end;
I look back once,

But they have followed us to the water,
Where we sit watching the
Sunset melt into the floating leaves
We count, our breath catching
With each addition:
One, two, four, five!
Sweet, prancing, light bodies
Floating across the field,
Do their hooves touch the ground?
They are like memories

They pause one last moment--their silhouettes
Against the summer skyline
My heart a well of
Gratitude--

I am still dipping into
The sweetness