The Quiltmaker's Gift

To wrap up Kid's Week, which it seems I must do, much to my disappointment (What fun this has been, keeping me on my toes and keeping me mostly accountable - still a bit of slight back-dating, but I'm getting the hang of routine blogging!), I share with you one of the loveliest, gentlest, most cheering children's books in existence, The Quiltmaker's Gift!

Author Jeff Brumbeau tells one of the most gripping children's stories about giving, punctuated with gorgeous illustrations by artist Gail de Marcken.

Together with the similar themes of...

A Gift for the Christ Child, a book about a child growing up with mild depravity (After all, how much do you need to have enough? In other words, what constitutes "enough"?) in a South American country (Guatemala, I believe), who nevertheless passes what little he has to the Christ Child, perceived as having even less (which may very well be true for a congregation in South America - uy, church politics and finance!),

and

The Christmas Moccasins, Ray Buckley's illustration of the power of forgiveness, reconciliation, and a resilient giving spirit, a story which will throw you off kilter, destabilize your idea of an idyllic children's fable (Did you forget about the Brothers Grimm?), with its tale about a young boy and his aged grandmother who, on their walk home one winter's night, encounter a small band of rash, disaffected adolescents and suffer injuries from the violence of these shameless youths, which tale also serves as testament to the incredible power of unwavering love, compassion, care, and understanding (For how much introspection and insight does it take to see in another's brazen, blazing, blinded behavior a violence far deeper than that found in this individual alone, in his or her capacity for hatred and senseless impulsiveness, a violence that has slowly ignited such a one into this rage?),

...also books of sharing, the stark message of The Quiltmaker's Gift inspires gratitude and kindness. The story of generosity shines brighter with every delicate and different telling!

The Quiltmaker's Gift threw me with its social justice themes, most evident as the King explores a broader --poorer, but also fuller-- world outside his palace walls, slipping off another layer of superficiality until he has less than nothing and so has begun growing into a truer appreciation for the gift of life. A Gift for the Christ Child shook me with its simple story and stunning, devoted characters. Christmas Moccassins threw me with the extent to which the violence written into our culture did not escape the focused scope of a children's book, with its piercing telling of the realities of darkness. The accompanying illustrations to all of these stories transformed their already strong impression and mesmerizing radiance into sparkling beauties.

No doubt when you find yourself (or someone you know) lacking in vibrancy, joy, and confidence, or in overall invigoration, these giving stories will splash youthful spirit over you, like cold water solidifying a day, stunning with its spark of awareness, giving voice to the preciousness of life in a very visceral way, giving, giving, always giving, until one day, we give ourselves back, having not simply exhausted the gift but having also splintered off pieces of that gift along the way and passed them along to others by means of a quiet generosity (I find myself reminded, as often happens, of the way the father in Jostein Gaarder's The Solitaire Mystery always greets a new day, which approach I will now have to dig up for you to share the relevant passages!).

Join me tomorrow for my half-a-year-later assessment of my course on microfinance and ecovillages in Senegal, and later on, as well, for notes on the spectrum of sustainable lifestyles, the clamor for energy efficiency, recent developments on the genetic front, and the way to greet a day mentioned above.

Keep reading: The Quiltmaker's Gift...

Zen Buddhism for Kids

Kid Week, Installment #2.


I had a conversation in the recent past with a friend, about a friend, in which it came to light that this mutual friend in our friend circle had become flustered with not only Buddhism, but all organized religion in toto, because of latent gender inequality, deeply woven into the fabric of these belief systems. I am not familiar with the specific problems with gender inequality in Zen Buddhism (I recall the problem has something to do with stoicism and militarism, as well as the combination thereof, tied up in the premises of Zen practice), but it certainly doesn't surprise me it would be there (I'm - short, of course, for "I am" - so failing at E-prime right now!). And there are, of course, lots of other reasons to get flustered by organized religion, its implicated relationship to oppressive power, perpetuating and replicating inequalities of all sorts through its hierarchical interstices of power and its many un-interrogated, unexploded, underlying assumptions.

In any case, on the surface, basic Zen Buddhist ideas can be very meaningful for children growing up in the frenetic industrialized culture common to America and Japan, Thailand and India. Perhaps it does not always manifest in its industrialized iteration, but obviously, any place where Buddhism is practiced, so is our culture. Simplicity, transcendence, rebirth, compassion, calm - these virtues and notions aren't unique to Buddhism, but depicted in simple allegories and vivid images, they provide an especial balm for frantic children growing up in a super-neurotic culture.

And so, some zen stories accessible online...


Zen Stories to tell your neighbors



101 Zen Stories




And in the category of children's books, here's a collected treasury of Zen Buddhist wisdom in art-book form, perfect for introducing the novice to a whole different way of approaching the world's beauty, its wondering elements, the fantastic speed of slowness, the joys of stillness, quiet, silence, emptiness, available from both the premier bookstore of the major world religions, Soul Desires, and your local independent bookstore. Happy travels and indulgences!


Zen Shorts,












Buddhist Animal Wisdom Stories,

Samsara Dog,












Zen Ties,












Three Questions,

The Sun in My Belly,












Tibet: Through the Red Box,












Peaceful Piggy Meditation,

Journey to the Heart,












and All the Way to Lhasa.

On the theme of how Zen can and does intersect with Christianity (visible in all these books, but especially on the children's book on centering prayer) ...The labyrinth from Chartres Cathedral meets a peaceful piggy (looking initially quite disgruntled)...

May calm and stillness fill your day!

Keep reading: Zen Buddhism for Kids...

Missionaries

I met some Mormon missionaries today on the walk back down to the house from the end of the trail, where I'd finished my run. I caught sight of them down the block before they approached me, initially hoping that if I didn't make eye contact and stayed on my (opposite) side of the street, they wouldn't approach me. Well, that proved impossible, perhaps our encounter even seems inevitable, since they were missionaries after all.

I decided to speak to them cordially, acknowledging their human-ness as with any other fresh interaction with strangers. I have a hard enough time as it is curbing my mean-spirited streak, attitude-heavy. Before they spoke, I contemplated making some mention, rather unpleasant and not even accurate or deferential (to indigenous spiritual practice), that I believed in and practiced the original Native American spiritual traditions already, and in their proper form, thank you.

They went through what felt like an excruciatingly long introduction (since I had already taxonomized them) about being from a church in town, missionaries from The. Church. of. Jesus. Christ......(excruciatingly long pause).......of Latter Day Saints. Did I have time, blah blah blah.

I came up with the following response (not my best, but afterwards I considered how I might respond in the future, and nothing nearly as cordial or fitting came to mind; for instance, "I am a student of philosophy and theology and have spent plenty of time studying questions of faith. At this time, I feel perfectly comfortable and content with my own spiritual experience and so do not feel I need to hear any new message. Thank you. Good day." And perhaps even one day, I could say "Actually, I've read The Book of Mormon" and then see what happens!): "Well, I'm not really in a position to hear such a message right now [I had hoped my disheveled appearance from finishing a jog would have spoken well enough for itself, such that they wouldn't approach me, for apparently being out of place and not near a home in which they could speak to me, yet somehow they weren't dissuaded], but I've met with groups of missionaries in the past [which was perfectly true]. Sorry."

Then the guy asking said to me (it really felt as though he were about to fall apart), "Do you at least happen to know anybody around who might be willing to hear our message?"

Not a regular resident of the area, I had to deny them this, but I offered that perhaps since it was a nice summer evening, and there were plenty of people out enjoying it, they would find someone who was. And I wished them a nice evening.

Another exchange, in which they asked if there was anything they could do for me (I found this a bit odd, off-kilter), a bit of grandiose gesturing from me dismissing this strange inquiry, and another smiley, breathy, "No, no, I just hope you enjoy your evening."

Missionary work was one of the first big turn offs for me from the Baptist church in which I grew up, and in an extension of that swearing off, a dismissal of all of Christianity as a whole, for a time. I have chronicled my spiritual journey elsewhere, though perhaps it's time to bring it back to the foreground here in my blog. Anyhow, my early inklings as a history and anthropology student instilled in me much guilt for living just past an old creek bed in a house where no house used to sit and tribes used to roam freely, and it also aroused much suspicion and disdain in my being when, at Children's Sermon, a special interlude in the service where the pastor spoke to the kids, who came forward and gathered round for stories, magic tricks, puppets, and all sorts of marvelous, enticing stuff, little pieces of cardboard were produced, which could be turned into little houses or plain boxes with lots of colorful print about religiously-oriented mission work in places like India, quickly-assembled cardboard piggy banks to donate to such abomination organizations.

This bothered me to no end. Did not the people of India already have Hinduism, a perfectly valid religion, to follow reverently in their land? (At this time, nuances about the populations of Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, and other spiritual minorities or sects in India did not have especial prominence in my knowledge.) In any case, it was a step on my way to being swept up with Daniel Quinn's writing, which wove together so much of the uneasy feelings I'd already developed about the trajectory and ambitions of this culture into a coherent, acceptable (to me) whole. Missionaries rely on archaic views of the Other and what exactly that other needs in terms of assistance in physical and spiritual nourishment, and otherwise.

There was a lot of interesting material in the most recent part that I read of If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways about several common misconceptions of reality tied to Christianity, old premises that don't hold up to scrutiny, a topic I felt pleasantly surprised to find Quinn addressing, as I've spent so much of my time since Ishmael learning about logic, partly to find how Quinn fits into the intellectual precedent as a writer not officially of academic books, though heavily grounded in the findings of biology, anthropology, history, etc..

Keep reading: Missionaries...

Baobabs and Toubabs! (An Irreverant Introduction to Colonialism?)

Yoff, Senegal.

This is only the beginning of what will (I hope!) be a much longer paper or project, perhaps integral to my thesis (no, not Honors Thesis; the Rock requires 8 credits of thesis work to graduate). I so like the sound of this particular rhyme (and usually rhyme just annoys the hell out of me!)!

Actually, I'm not sure where to start, but the idea is to trace the decline of animism (hence the baobabs) and the ascent of salvivic religions in certain places in recent centuries...Here I'm trying to distinguish between so-called "Taker" culture--very useful shorthand, but that has its problems--in the Fertile Crescent for millenia and in places like "the New World" and "l'Afrique" for only a handful of centuries. As such, the decline of traditional human societies, the tribal configurations, that is, and all the beneficial aspects and elements that go with them (this clearly includes animism) can be woven in with questions of colonialism (and here the toubabs, or white people, the people known here very acutely for their ugly history as colonists and enslavers and tormenters and rulers, etc., enter the picture) and its detrimental qualities, commodifying and transforming "the Other" with that capital "o."

That's the snapshot. To be continued...

But I must say, it`s been incredibly fun having people here ask me about my religious "persuasion" and be able to answer "animist" and have people not only understand what I'm talking about but have some idea how it is lived. Of course it's weird being one of those attempting to be part of "Taker-Hohokam," but I am perfectly willing to accept and affirm the integrity of my directionality in coming to animism--counter to most people in the world moving from traditional spiritualities into the salvivics, I'm going from Christianity and spiritual tumult to clarity and substance. La!

Keep reading: Baobabs and Toubabs! (An Irreverant Introduction to Colonialism?)...

Theology For Our Time

Here's my hodge podge for April:

Today, I attended a couple of talks by a Sister of Mercy, Kathleen Erikson, who works with immigrants on the border at the Women's Intercultural Center, at the detention center, and in other settings. The Center is in Anthony, New Mexico, which isn't far from El Paso and Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua, Mexico. She gave a talk in the early afternoon entitled, "Voices from the U.S. - Mexico Border," and one in the evening called "No Human Being is Illegal: Spiritual Activism and Immigration."

This past weekend, Horizons of Faith presented four spectacular lectures by Rita Nakashima Brock, a scholar whose work focuses on the destructive nature of the crucifixion obsession to Christianity. Her lectures centered around the idea of paradise, thoroughly informed by the research she and co-writer Rebecca Ann Parker worked on for their forthcoming book, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire. Their 2001 release, Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us was a stunning exploration that blended their theology of the cross with their personal histories in connection with violence and suffering. Their cooperative endeavors and presentation style, as well as a handful of others, have already infused academia with new forms of scholarly writing, forms that I believe must become the favored approaches to academic work. An obsession with objectivity neglects the role that personal history plays in the shaping of theories and ideologies.

Throughout the weekend, Rita made mentions of the ev08 (or Envision '08) conference that she's been organizing. Though I'm still trying to figure out the distinctions in the word "evangelical" (How differently fundamentalists use is from the way ELCA Lutherans claim it! For those who don't know, perhaps many, ELCA stands for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America...) and pin down the purview of the Emergent Church movement and it's cross-sections with Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It and The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, and his contingent of Brian McLaren, Shane Claiborne, Diana Butler Bass (her? really?), and others, I think it's really cool that Rita and her people at Faith Voices for the Common Good are working to ensure that the young evangelicals with the left-leaning activist-y political sentiment don't feel silenced. The inroads they're making to connect progressive Christians with these young evangelicals, who in turn, will connect progressive impulses with conservative Christianity, are really fascinating. Keep the youth and their impulses from feeling silenced, and they won't break off into a faction and refuse to dialogue with mainstream Protestants and other progressive Christians. Sounds logical enough, right?

Also this month, I gave my "Images of God" presentation in theology class (we were all assigned this presentation). Everyone else had their paper from which they read, detailing their spiritual histories and responses to the course and the images of God examined so far. I instead went and looked for my own, as I had written plenty in my journals for the class about my spiritual journey so far--about my happenstance introduction to the American Baptist Church (distinct from the Southern Baptists as slightly less virulent conservative theology), the mild exposure throughout my childhood to Russian Orthodox icons brought by various relatives from Saint Petersburg, my break with Christianity as a young adolescent, my dabbling in Buddhism, then atheism, then agnosticism, until my experiences with the earth slowly brought me back to some sense of the "sacred," and brought me to an ecumenical bookstore, where I not only broadened my knowledge of theology but also renewed by faith in Nebraskans as a not entirely closed-minded population.

My images of god presentation (if I had any say in it, we would have been examining images of gods, but that would have only been a subject for a secular school exploring theology and religion)

• showed the feminine face of god,
• spoke to my need for silence, solitude, serenity, and simplicity,
• explored Marian images co-opted by indigenous and marginalized communities (in Japan, Korea, Australia, Indonesia, and the United States, many of which I found at this amazing repository of Marian images), especially the Black Madonna as portrayed by both black and white artists (I even found a remarkable Adam image of a contemporary black youth, holding his iPod, against Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel background),
• discussed the concept of hospitality and openness through an attitude of welcoming all (but I also discussed how viewing God as all-encompassing, of both good and bad, everything, is problematic because of the problem of evil),
• covered dance as a spiritual image and experience, before
• discussing animism in contrast to the debate about dominion versus stewardship, and
• considering earth images, earth-based spirituality, permaculture and the design of welcoming, inviting, spiritually-nourishing spaces (not to mention the appreciation of such spaces that exist without human tampering), community, and images of people embracing the planet-globe.

I covered all of the images most poignant and meaningful to me at this point in my life and detailed why they seemed to fill fill such a void, a void that had been left by Christianity up 'til now.

Keep reading: Theology For Our Time...