state of the union :O)

so i didn't watch the state of the union, i was busy getting stressed out about taking the day off of work and figuring out if i need to take dad to the hosptial--wonky blood numbers. but this guy, jeff fecke, live blogged the state of the union. full disclaimer: jeff hates bush. and his is most assuredly an amusing, mocking take on the state of the union. i found it hilarious, so i thought i'd share the link here. the author guy also blogs at shakesville, one of my favorite blogs. happy last bush state of the union everyone!

click me!

wahoo!

i made my flight arrangements for st louis! and i emailed to set up a time to visit lancaster. i'm so excited! i think i'm really ready to go and i'm jazzed to get to check places out and decide if i can see myself there. i'm a bit scared, but 99% excited. wahooooooooooo

still alive :O)

hey everyone! got back from the retreat a few hours ago. we had a great time and the kids liked what i had to say, and i don't think anyone hates me. the little brother told me that all the kids were surprised,but thought it was awesome that i spoke and he told me that 'it took major balls'. i think that's a good thing :O)

anyway. i'm exhausted and i have to work a 10 hour day monday so i'm off to bed. hope you all had fantastic weekends!

love love
r

peace out yo

i'm off for a weekend in the woods to talk about sex with teenagers. i know you're all jealous :O)

thanks for reading things and commenting. i'll report back sunday night when i get home.

love you all!
r

ps nate...i'm just afraid people will decide to not like me because of what i say/who i am. and i know i should just get over that, but it's hard.

ok kids

so i volunteer with the high school youth group at my church. and we go on 2 retreats a year and this coming weekend we are going on the sex retreat. sigh. we take the kids out, talk about relationships and commitment and rah rah rah it's great. so part of the weekend is some adults talking about themselves and their sexual experience. so the post below this one is what i've written. i need to expand it, and i've gotten some comments from some fantastic friends :O) but i totally need more!!! tell me what you like, what you don't like, where you think i need to expand, that sort of thing.

i also for the record want to say that i already want to throw up and i'm not even speaking until a week from today. sigh.

i really wanted to say no, but i talked myself into doing it. a;foim;awiofmaiea inability to say no!

thanks dudes!

super super long post

I have been a part of our church since my family moved to state college when I was about 4. I have attended services, ushered, taught, sang, had my cell phone go off, been supported, supported others, learned and grew. I have also been challenged in my faith in ways I never thought I should have to be. When I was in high school I was part of FISH, it was the most amazing, supportive, open place to be; a place where you could be in the process of figuring out who you were and that was perfectly fine. I'm speaking today out of the firm belief that it's still the same sort of accepting, inclusive environment.

So, you're all thinking, this is the sex retreat, she must have something else to say? I'll get there. Give me time.

I have worn many labels in my life, daughter, sister, friend, student, employee, cousin, granddaughter, counselor, teacher, and the three that apply today, straight, lesbian, and bisexual. I want to make a disclaimer here and say that I abhor labels. When you label someone other than what you label yourself you make a clear definition between yourself and the other person, usually this also includes a value judgment. I am x and you are y, and since x is better than y, I am better than you. I really try to not label anyone, and I try to keep from labeling myself. Just something I believe helps us all identify with each other as humans, as SARK says, "we are all in the soup together."

So let me go back to the first of three sex-retreat related labels. Straight or heterosexual, I prefer straight. In our society we have something called heterosexual privilege. This means that the default sexual orientation is heterosexual. If you don't correct someone, they will always assume you are straight. And in most cases they will be right. I identified as straight as a default orientation until my junior-ish year of high school. I think I was always questioning, but never really made any grand proclamations or anything. I started dating a woman the summer before my senior year of high school I think.

At this point I want to make a few things clear, first, FISH was always somewhere I felt comfortable, there was some pretty awful stuff being said in the community when I was in high school. The school district was proposing putting the words 'sexual orientation' into the non discrimination policy. There were several members of the community who didn't agree with that. They felt that their civil rights were being infringed upon. There were, if I remember correctly even some local clergy who spoke out against the inclusion. I still have a letter to the editor that someone wrote calling all "homosexuals..vile and disgusting people." I remember this letter well because I read it in large group circle, I was so distraught that someone could not know me and have such hatred. When you hear this sort of thing over and over, and you do in our society, you internalize a lot of it. You think you are vile, disgusting, worthless, and, my personal favorite 'against God's plan.'

When I was in college I proudly self identified as a lesbian. I had a few long term relationships and found a home in the gay community at Shippensburg. I attended a gay pride parade in Washington, DC. There I actually saw signs that said things like "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" and "God hates Fags." I had seen these signs on tv, Matthew Sheppard was killed when I was in high school, and I remember the night they had a vigil at Penn State, I didn't go because I was afraid that just going would let people know I wasn't straight, but I felt so deeply touched by his story that I sat in my room and lit a candle and cried for him and his family. So here I was, 19 years old at a gay pride parade in DC, looking at all those signs and knowing they couldn't be true. I had grown up in a church that told me I was loved. From before I was born I was loved. I grew up thinking, believing, knowing, that God made me exactly as I am, and that he loves me. So you see, I knew the signs couldn't be true. The God that I believe in is a loving, merciful, beautiful God.

No matter how involved I was, I always knew that I didn't quite fit in the gay community, just like I had known that I didn't quite fit in the straight community. Bisexuals are kind of the black sheep of either community. They are stereotyped and not fully accepted into either place. Some people say if you are bisexual you just can't make up your mind, or you want to have your cake and eat it too, or you're extremely promiscuous. There was just a new study released that found that bisexuality wasn't just "a phase." That it was an actual orientation. I do believe there is a continuum. That heterosexuality is on one end and homosexuality is on there other. I believe that we all fall somewhere on that continuum. This is part of why I'm so resistant to labels. I do believe I'll end up married to a man and have kids, but I'm not willing to lie to myself or anyone else and say that I'm completely straight. I have been attracted to women; I may continue to be attracted to women. I don't see a problem with it. I find that I fall in love with the person, not the gender.

Joel asked me to talk about my sexuality and my faith and how I reconciled the two. When I looked up reconciled in the dictionary the first definition was To reestablish a close relationship between. The only part of my faith that I had a problem with was the big huge Presbyterian church. They believe things that I don’t agree with. It’s something I’ve struggled with, but that I have decided isn’t enough to push me from our denomination to another. So in a way I have to work all the time to reconcile that. To decide that it’s worth it to stay in a denomination that potentially, won’t always support me. As far as reconciling my faith and my sexuality on a personal level, I don't think it's hard. I believe I am living my life just as God intended me to be living it, and therefore I don't find much to reconcile between the two. I know that there are some of you listening who disagree with me, all I ask is that you give me the respect that you would give anyone you agree with.

I don’t frequently talk about my sexuality, I honestly just don’t feel like it’s really any of your business and I think it puts up a barrier between people. I want to be clear and say I don’t think it should put a barrier up, but because of our society’s prejudices and stereotypes I think that it does. It goes along with that whole labeling thing that I’m not a fan of. I want to thank you all for listening to me and hopefully for really hearing what I had to say.

holy cow

so i was home sick monday and tuesday. sleeping and trying to consume as many liquids as possible, so i did not blog. i'm sorry. and then work has been insaaaaaaaanely busy. i started my yoga class this week. sooo freaking excited! it was fantastic! and i've been trying to round up people to write recommendations for seminary and trying to figure out how to say no to something my pastor asked me to do, but that i really really don't want to do. and yes. the easy way is to just say 'no' but i'm really not good at saying no. sigh. it makes me feel like i'm failing somehow. the other thing i've been stressing over is my entry in our lent devotional. which was due today. and i just emailed, with 55 minutes to spare :O) so i'll post it below. read if you want, you don't have to, just thought i'd throw it out there. hope you're all having fantastic weeks! love and hugs

Bible verse :Philippians 2:1-4
Imitating Christ's Humility : 1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

There are two things that I learned quickly after starting my work at the Women's Resource Center. One was that no matter how many times I had heard that domestic violence affects everyone, and no matter how many times I had repeated that, it was completely true. We all know that Centre County has a wide variety of people; college students and long time residents, young kids and great grandparents, rich and poor and everything in between. At the Women's Resource Center we work with all of them. No one who steps into my office ever thinks they will need to. I am blessed to be able to help them understand what is going on and hopefully provide some options and information that make it easier for them to make whatever decision they need to make with confidence and support. Which brings me to point number two, hope.

One of the first things that people say to me after learning where I work is, "that must be depressing." I'm not lying when I tell you that it really is one of the most hopeful places I've ever worked. I get to be part of a process of discernment that will lead the client to a healthier and safer life. To be involved at the point of change is really quite inspiring, it's definitely a difficult process, but it is one of infinite hope. Hope for a safer home, hope for a life free of violence, hope for new nurturing relationships, hope for change.

As you interact with people today,I challenge you to treat them with love, you never know where in their journey they are, and that compassion could be just what they need to get through the day. I leave you with this prayer and charge by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn:

Waking up this morning, I smile
Twenty four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.

oh hello

hello long lost blogging world. i've been busy with work and life and trying to pound out essay questions for 4 different seminaries. it's been super fun and it makes me excited to get out of here, but a little anxious about distance i go away and about actually getting in to seminary. i don't have any college prof's who i think will remember me, so i'm not sure what to do about that. i'll need to start asking people pretty damn soon. i better figure that out by the end of this week. sigh. things are also starting back up with the high school and college kids that i work with, so i'm getting ready to get busy. i think it will be a great distraction :O) i've tried to make sure that i am either going for a walk or doing my yoga dvd every day. something to help keep me sane. i think i'm also getting a cold. that's no good. so i'm off to bed super early to try and kick the cold germ out of my system. oh! for those of you who are of the commenting persuasion, who are you thinking about voting for in your state's primary? i have no clue (well, it will be a democrat), but ours isn't until march or april, so i have some time to research it. let me know!

hope you're all having a fantastic 2008 :O)

r

it's 2008! when did that happen?

I’ve finished the book. And I’ll review it in sections. There will be some spoilers with regards to the very end, but they were things I knew before I read the book and it didn’t really change the way I felt about it. So, on to India. When the author is in America she discovers yoga, she went to a yoga place in the states and her brand of yoga (sidda) has an ashram (the term ashram is usually used to refer to an intentional community formed primarily for spiritual upliftment of its members, often headed by a religious leader or mystic.) somewhere in rural India. She spends 4 months in the ashram, doing yoga, meditating, chanting things in Sanskrit, meeting really cool people, and finding God. I’ve never been more jealous of anyone in my life. I mean come on, 4 months to do nothing but eat fantastic food (Bread! Pasta! Pizza!!) and then 4 months to do nothing but meditate. Does it get any better than that? I don’t think so. The only drawback I could see is the fact that it was frequently 100 degrees by like 10 in the morning. That doesn’t sound like fun to me. She says some really interesting things, and it’s really quite interesting to be on her journey with her. She’s honest about it being hard and about not feeling like she’s any good at meditating. And then when she talks about her breakthrough’s you really are happy for her, and, again, a bit jealous. There is one quick part at the end of the section where she says “Your job, then, should you choose to accept it, is to keep searching for the metaphors, rituals and teachers that will help you move ever closer to divinity. The yogic scriptures say that God responds to the sacred prayrs and efforts of human beings in any way whatsoever that mortals choose to worship-just so long as those prayers are sincere”. I mean, hello!! The best challenge EVER. Ok, so then the author goes to Bali. She is on the hunt for a medicine man that she had met years earlier. I think I could have stopped reading this book after the India section and been happy. The Bali section didn’t do much for me. She falls in love and blah blah blah. There really was no point to this third part of the book I didn’t think, so I have nothing much to say about it. She meets some nice people, does some nice things, lays around. I felt like this part of the book just didn’t really have a point. Maybe if I wasn’t single I’d like it, but being that I am, it annoyed the shit out of me. Kinda like that freaking ‘bubbly’ song. Uuuuuggggggghhhhh. Makes me want to kick her. Not crinkle my nose.
Anyway. That’s all for now folks. I really do recommend the book, it was a fantastically fun read and the good part outweighed the irritating part. Happy 2008!