Metaphysical Reflections

It's not a giant secret to those closest to me that I've spent most of my adult life away from organized religion, and almost as much time away from "unorganized" religion. I grew up in a religious home, but we went to a pretty awful church when I was a teenager. They basically asked us to put our blinders on and go through life without questioning, doubting, or doing anything even remotely fun. I mean, even the Waltons were scandalous sinners by comparison to these people.

When I got to college, in a fit of uncharacteristically optimistic "maybe this time will be better" philosophizing, I went to a church with a family member. It was okay at first. Seemed more open, people seemed nicer. But, alas, in the end, it turned out to be as much a product of rigid conservatism and unquestioning/unquestionable legalism. I remember one day at lunch with one of the pastors, I asked for an answer to a tough question and got the textbook diversionary answer. Tried again. Same answer. Tried one more time. Same answer. That was the final straw in a long series of frustrations.

So by the time I graduated, I was done. Religion was not for me. I still respected my parents and others who managed to be religious without being close-minded, but I just couldn't participate. A friend/neighbor and I spent lots of time talking about religious issues, but I found myself increasingly alienated from it. By my mid-20s, being in church became truly uncomfortable. I felt like I didn't belong there, and not just philosophically. Whenever I went, I felt a vague physical uneasiness in my chest and stomach. I felt no connection to the messages, to the songs, to the imagery. In fact, it was more the opposite. I felt like crying when I was there. Not because of a longing to fit in but from a feeling of an increasing, gaping (and angry) separation from all that had felt normal as a kid.

Hearing people talk about their faith felt frustrating and alienating. It felt false, like empty rhetoric, even when I knew it to be otherwise. All I could focus on when hearing religious talk was the hypocrisy--the hateful antigay rhetoric from divorced people and adulterers; the anti-immigrant spitefulness from those who spouted "love thy neighbor;" the sexist drivel against female church leadership from people who claimed we are all created in God's image. Et cetera.

I have been purposefully using the past tense in this post, not necessarily because things have changed in any meaningful way. My bullshit detector still flares up when I hear religious talk. But I will confess to experiencing some alterations in how I think. I don't know what it means, what I'm meant to do with it, or what I will choose to do about it once I figure what I'm meant to do about it. I'm nowhere near ready to walk through the doors of a church.

But a few things have been happening. First, I have been having random flashbacks to childhood the past few weeks, and the first image that always hits me as I go through the wave of memories is of me, about age 4-6, running around outside the doors of the (normal, happy) church we went to until I was 11 and we moved. It's not something I actively try to bring up. These flashes just pop into my head at unexpected moments. It took quite a few times before I even noticed that it was the same image that started it. I'm never inside the church. I'm always just running around in front of the doors. That inevitably leads to images of my dad from around the same era. Those differ each time in terms of what he's doing and/or how I'm interacting with him. Even now that I've noticed the pattern, it comes to me unexpectedly but in the same pattern before I even really realize I'm thinking about it.

Then, this summer I read a book by C.S. Lewis. While he wrote many books on religion, the one I read this summer is one of his academic works as a literature scholar/professor. As I read it, I thought back to Mere Christianity, one of the books I read with my friend/neighbor nearly 10 years ago. I got an urge to read that again, but was distracted by being included in a new book club with a book to read by October. I finished that early, and the idea kept nagging at me to read the Lewis book. I ignored it because I wanted to read another new book I had recently bought. But the feeling would not go away. I kept thinking about Lewis and his book. So I got it off the shelf.

What's particularly interesting to me about that is that it also connects in a fairly abstract but notable way to the topic of one of the classes I'm teaching this semester. The topic is social constructionism, which basically argues that all we are as people is a product of the social interactions and relationships--basically our communication and how we're communicated to. (It's more than that, but that's the two-cent summary.) Lewis, unsurprisingly, takes a different view of human nature, but that has made his argument all the more interesting, and the book all the more useful to me in a broad way through multiple aspects of my life. All that does, then, is to force me to really dig into my vision of my self and how a metaphysical entity fits into that...how god/God fits into that.

I have no idea what any of this will lead to. I'm still quite adamantly resistant to a return to being religious in a Christian/organized sense. But I feel like these two things are telling me that this is a time in my life when I'm meant to do some intense and meaningful reflection on my relationship to god/God in some sense that's useful, relevant, and realistic to me. The flashbacks are too intense, and the call to that book to persistent, to ignore. Given my recent shift toward more optimism and openness to whatever positive energy wants to find its way to my door, maybe this is the next logical area of development.

Maybe by the time I'm 40, I'll know who the heck I'm supposed to be.

Nothing to Report

After a rough start to the semester with a difficult situation (ambiguity alert), things are going well for me. I've been able to successfully divert a few incoming self-loathing crises with very little effort, which I take to be a good thing. I have managed to keep up relatively well with my schedule. I have not veered too far off my diet, beyond the occasional splurge. But even with the splurges, I chose to learn some lessons about my body rather than beat myself up for them or run screaming from the possibility of enjoying a little too much.

What is this? Is this equilibrium? Is this...thing...this...contentment...is this what people feel? Is this what it's like to be a balanced, sane, or (dare I say) a happy person?

Is it possible I've turned some kind of corner? Is it possible this corner is a full 90 degree one rather than a moderate, slight, itty bitty curve?

Great googly moogly. Am I going to be okay?

What the crap am I supposed to do with this development? I'm so confused.

It's all gonna be okay

Oof. It's been an interesting few days. I read that book that had me all freaked out about everything in my little universe. I tend to go a little overboard at times, and this was one of those times. But sometimes going overboard is okay. Maybe because when you call for help (even if not to a real person but just to the world more generally), you get responses that serve as little life preservers. It's all simply a matter of asking.

While freaking out, things started happening. I spent Saturday night just meditating. Not in a new-age Buddhist way, necessarily (though that would have been okay, too) but just in a sitting back and letting go kind of way. I decided to pay more attention to my own self-negativity and counteract it when I found myself thinking this way. Then things got interesting.

1) A friend had called on Friday, and I hadn't heard the phone. I noticed the call later on, but didn't notice the voice mail. She called again when I was out on Monday, and that time I noticed a voice mail, so I heard both back to back. The first one was just a sweet simple message that she had thought of me and found something I had given her a long time ago when she was struggling. She wanted me to know how much that meant to her and that she was glad to have me for a friend (um, one who hasn't yet called her back, but I digress). I cried a little at that. The other message was an offer to give me something she had from her mom who recently passed. Very sweet.

2) Then I had another voice mail (I have a habit of not leaving my cell phone where I can hear it--so sue me). It was one of my cousins who just wanted to say that he thought it was great that I had lost weight and that he and his spouse are trying, too. It was just a spontaneous call from a cousin I don't normally hear from, and it was so very sweet and thoughtful. And made me feel really good, too.

3) I was talking to some friends about my prior post topic of anxiety, and they both completely related. They understood and could provide similar stories, so now I don't feel so unusual or crazy. We're all highly functioning adults, so maybe the anxiety doesn't really rule us after all. Maybe I can let that go now.

4) The author of the book that had me freaked out quoted a poet named Mary Oliver, and the quote was really meaningful to me. I had been given a book of her poems from a friend awhile back. I struggle with really understanding poetry, for some reason, so I had started it but not finished. After reading this quote in the food book on Sunday, I went to my shelf to look for the Oliver collection. I couldn't find it anywhere. I figured it would turn up eventually and forgot about it. Then on Monday, I went to my nightstand cupboard to look for a pencil (I'm always losing them). I had cleaned the nightstand out a couple of weeks ago, so I knew there was one in there. I found it, but then I noticed a book in there, which I hadn't recalled putting there; I thought I'd put all the books back on my shelf. I pulled it out...it was the Mary Oliver poem book. I opened it up, and the only poem that was dog-eared (I do that for ones that I particularly like) was the poem that was quoted in the food book.

5) I got an email from a childhood friend who has been very ill, and things are really starting to look up for her. Tests are coming back in her favor, she's feeling great, and her kids are adjusting to school...her daughter even wants to play the flute like I did! Yeah! I was hoping for good news, but the email radiated it from every letter. I just really needed to see that well-deserved peace from her to remind me that all those angst-ridden teen years, those years of anxiety, also produced some of the most joyful and meaningful experiences of my life, and that they will continue to do so for many many many years.

So, from moderate despair came a series of messages of hope. It shows that my attempts to start afresh and be the happy person I deserve as much as anyone to be are not going unheeded or unnoticed by god or the universe or whatever label you want to put on it. Now I just have to keep it up...that's the hard part.

This can't be good.

I'm reading a book called Women Food and God about how women use food and diets to mask the bigger emotional problems in our lives. So far, it's more geared toward binge eaters, which I have never truly been. I've eaten way too much on way too many occasions, and I've used food as comfort plenty 'o times, but I don't think I qualify as a true binge eater. Anyway. Beside the point.

There was a bit early on in the book where the author talks about how we need to go back to that time when we were children when we remember being free from anxiety and worry and were able to cry and get over it without it being a big deal. Before life became filled with emotional instability and constant worry. Then we will be able to start rethinking ourselves and our relationship to food. She said, "Do you remember when..." and listed all of that, and after thinking for a minute, I realized, "No. I really can't remember then."

Now, I suppose it may partly be because that was quite some time ago, and I was little and little memories are often a little fuzzy. But the times I remember quite clearly from when I was four and five years old are filled with anxiety, doubt, and fear. Fear of school. Anxiety about getting in trouble. Worry about doing something wrong or badly. Anxiety that something would happen to me or my family. That God would be mad at us for tearing up our sidewalk, which he specifically put there when he created the world. Anxiety about being grabbed and stolen by the people lurking under the bed (okay, that one's pretty common, right?). I was terrified to spend the night at other people's houses without mom and dad, even when it was a house I knew well and with people I trusted (which turned out not always to be true, but that's another story).

I'm sure I must have felt secure some of the time, and I certainly had reason to feel so. I had a safe and loving home and family life. My teachers (with the exception of my 2nd grade one) were compassionate. I was never told I was bad or dumb or expendable. But truth be told, it's all kind of overlaid with this feeling of the need to tread lightly because things weren't right or safe.

It certainly explains why I spent so much time bursting into tears for no darn good reason until I was about 11. By that point, I had finally learned the art of keeping it in because it was hard to make friends with people who knew you were a nervous freak all the time. Looking back, even the kids across the street, who were my only real friends as a young child, made fun of me. One night after dinner I was waiting for them to finish up dinner so we could play. They were at their kitchen window facing the street and my front yard, where I waited. They started taunting me for reasons I couldn't fathom, and I started to cry. I went in to tell Mom, who by this point was understandably exasperated with my constant crying, and she told me to go up and tell them to knock it off if it bothered me. Instead I just stayed in my room and cried and played alone. Perhaps that was when I began my path of hiding my tears to keep people from knowing--and therefore disliking--me.

So here I sit. I'm 33. I live in fairly constant paranoia and anxiety. Just like I did then. Maybe I just never had a period in my life where that wasn't normal, which is why it's so hard now, despite my best efforts over the past few years to change it, to be the person I know on some level that I deserve to be. Maybe that's why even after all this weight loss, I still feel the anxiety of being overweight, unattractive, and socially stupid. Maybe my posting this on the web is a step toward not hiding it...maybe that's a good thing. But maybe not.

Why I still shop at Target

I know a lot of people who are currently boycotting Target because the corporation donated a chunk of money to a conservative PAC that supports a governor candidate in MN who holds strong anti-gay views. It's come up a few times in conversation, so I decided to write down my thoughts on it.

Before I begin, though, I want to stress that I vehemently disagree with the MN candidate's views on gay rights. I'm an ardent supporter of marriage and other civil rights for gay and lesbian people, some of whom are my friends and students. I will fight for the rights of all of them to have the same rights I do as a straight person.

That said, here are the reasons why I am not boycotting Target, in no particular order:

1) Target has a history of treating employees with dignity, including gay and lesbian employees who are eligible for partner benefits. That doesn't erase the current problem, but at least it indicates an interest in basic equality as a company-wide policy. WalMart, the most likely alternative to those boycotting Target, barely gives their employees benefits, let alone domestic partner benefits. The big picture still leaves me leaning toward Target, albeit with a skeptical eye.

2) Speaking of WalMart, where I live, I pretty much have the choice of it or Target for the basic stuff that gets me through (e.g., health and beauty stuff, cleaners, etc). So...am I to shop at WalMart, which often treats employees like crap, that has a history of class-action lawsuits based on racial discrimination, gender discrimination, AND sexuality discrimination? That has a history of union-busting in order to keep employees suppressed and unorganized? I don't think so. And neither should these people boycotting Target. The old cliché rings true: it's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

3) Further, unlike Wal-Mart, Target has a strong record of supporting the community through donations to education systems in their communities as well as charitable organizations. My dad works for the Salvation Army, and Target frequently donates money and products for poverty relief in the local community. I personally disagree with the SA's stance on homosexuality as well, but at least they are a private, religious organization, not a public one. What this means, then, is that Target does a lot of good in the community that is being erased by the over-hyped boycott.

4) Then there's the issue of making Target the...target...instead of the larger issue of the Supreme Court's recent ruling that corporations can donate like people. That ruling will have huge repercussions in our society. Corporations often don't have the best interest of people in mind, unless you count their shareholders (if they are publicly traded) and/or their corporate leaders. Target's reputation for being reasonably responsible in their communities and to their employees doesn't erase that they are a giant corporation. Corporations are most likely to push for candidates who will help their bottom line first (not to mention the pocketbooks of their leaders). Most of those candidates will be Republicans, who tend to have more pro-corporate policies. They are also more likely to have anti-gay stances, as well as similar stances on other social issues. That means Target is one of about a bajillion companies in this country that will be pushing for candidates whom I won't like. Am I to boycott all of them? Or just Target? Why one and not the others?

Shouldn't we instead be spending our time fighting the Supreme Court ruling and the political process that now heavily favors corporate interests over our own? Shouldn't Target be an example of the problem, not the be-all-end-all of the problem? Shouldn't we be focusing more broadly on the corporations who actively resist treating gay and lesbian employees and customers with respect? In short, fighting the larger problem rather than the symptom of the larger problem?

5) This whole thing smacks of a left-wing reactionary response rather than measured response to social problems. This is reason number one why I resist every day the urge to find myself on a political fringe. People on the fringes of the right and left are guilty of emotionally lashing out rather than intellectually reasoning. This one happens to be on the left side, but if Target responds too much in favor of the gay and lesbian rights side, you know full well the stupid fringe right folks will do the exact same damn thing the left is doing now. And we're all the poorer for this behavior. We all become blind to the real issue in the mud-slinging.

So there you go. I am working hard not to spend more money than I need to in general, but when I need to buy, I don't feel guilty shopping at Target. I will continue to advocate for full and equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans, but in a holistic, realistic way...not through emotional protests and boycotts.

Customer Service with a Stare

Tomorrow night I am cooking dinner for the poker group I go to. I had a majority of the stuff in my cupboard, but I needed enough that I decided to head over to Woodman's, the local budget grocery store. I had planned to go Friday, but just got a bug up my butt and went tonight instead. It's less busy at night, and I was bored.

I went through the store and gathered all I needed (plus some). By the time I got to the checkout, I figured I had about $25-$30 in my cart. The guy started ringing it all up with that vacant-scanner-swipe-glazed-over look they all usually have. When it was all through, he said (vacantly), "That'll be $115.##." I about crapped myself. I said, "That can't be right! I didn't get $115 in groceries!" Which, frankly, should have been obvious. Who buys some cheese/dairy, some fruit, and some disposable utensils and spends $115? It was three re-usable bags not terribly full! Vacancy, my friends. The checkers are glorified cows who have no clue what they are doing.

The guy looked at me--you guessed it--vacantly. I just looked back at him while he slowly processed this. I was clearly an obstacle between him and going home. He finally looked at the receipt. I, being intelligent, quickly found the error. The top half of the receipt was stuff the guy in front of me bought and I had $87 in "prior balance" from his stuff. The cow-man brought over a manager to look at it. She, too, had the vacant look, so I explained the situation.

The guy protested that the prior customer had taken a receipt, so it must not be his mistake (uhhhh....right). The manager finally said to the bagger, "Sorry, Megan, you'll have to unload her bags so he can scan it all again and start over."

That's right, my friends. She did not apologize to me for the error or the delay. She did not even further acknowledge my presence. She simply apologized to her employee for having to do more work because of her colleague's vacancy and walked away.

I couldn't believe it. I have a low opinion of people, but that one got even me. I don't expect to have my ass kissed, and I didn't expect any kind of compensation, but a simple apology to a customer seems reasonable, right?

Optimism is futile.

Dena, The Blogger, Part Deux

Hello, my millions of readers. :P Just thought I'd mention that I'm starting a second blog because I need more things to distract me from working.

Since I've lost weight, I've had lovely friends and family ask me how I've done it. I decided that, instead of writing each person individually, I'd start a blog to gather information and have fun. With any luck, it will help keep me honest and healthy myself as well as helping other people. Feel free to follow both blogs, as I'll be writing on both. They'll just have different foci.

If you're interested in the new blog, you can find it here: Newly Thin Dena