PeaceBang

Forty

Two of my favorite people are turning 40 today and tomorrow.

One is my oldest friend in the world, and the other is a very new friend.

They are both eminently sane but accept me anyway, adorable, loving, smart, supportive and wickedly talented. Both are loyal and easy to be with. Both have steely organizational inner wizards beneath a bubbly, easy-going exteriors. You don’t mess with Virgos; most of my best friends in life are Virgos. My first college roommate — who just turned 40– was a Virgo, and I am convinced that I would have flunked out with a nervous breakdown if it hadn’t been for her groundedness and goodness. Also, Virgos don’t coddle you. They say, “I have your schedule in my hand, and here’s what you have to do today. Get it together, girl. I know you can.” And when they tell you you can, you can. LOVE ‘em.

(I’m a Capricorn — grounded, ambitious — but with a SCORPIO MOON, which makes me psycho, if you believe such things, and on many days, I do.)

Virgos rock. Happy, happy birthday Mary, Jasmine, Dan H., Julie B., Hafhida.
And happy 40th to Melissa and Michael. Glad you’ll be joining me in this great new decade.

xoxo PB

Thank Boy In The Bands

Can I just earnestly and truly throw Scott Wells a thousand kisses for putting the Universalist prayerbook online?

Consider it done. Folks, acquaint yourselves with these beautiful liturgies.

www.universalistchurch.net

random

Just got in from a funeral.
Wrung out.
Sitting reading a catalogue, notice that I am breathing through my open mouth. I only do that when extremely knackered.
Must nap.

Dreamed last night that I bought a little dog in Paris and named him “Jean Lafitte” after the famous pirate. My sister was in the dream. We were running all over Paris.
I love Paris.

I read some NY Times articles and got caught up on the news about the senate struggle against Bush’s treatment of detainees. Notice that the Republicans who oppose him are MILITARY VETERANS. Put on my make-up this morning hooting and cussing over the NPR report. Find myself in a mounting fury about this.

Found out that pretzels are 100 calories EACH.
Also discovered that yellow split peas do not take 1.5 hours to cook, no matter what the Naked Chef tells you. They take like 3 hours. And they taste magnificent with lots of sage from the garden cooked in.

Okay. Nap.

Can You Explain This Torture News To Me?

The cat, who has never shown any interest in vegetables before, likes organic celery. She can’t stop licking my hands, and she’s cracking me up.

Too busy to write for awhile, very sorry. Not even caught up on the news, but correct me if I’m wrong: it sounds to me like there’s something going on where Bush is basically saying, “If we feel like torturing people and allowing information obtained under that brutal interrogation as evidence, we just will.”

Am I getting this right? Are we just skipping gaily past the Geneva Conventions outright, now? Comments? Wanna talk about it? Or would you rather do that on a real political blog and leave me to my funeral services, newsletter column, sermon and assignments for class?

Children’s Books For Today

The little engine
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

Lean Cuisine, And I Use The Word Loosely

I’ve been trying to eat vegetarian and organic lately, but not for so long that my innards are all pristine or anything. I mean, I’m sure I still have some carne asada working its way through my gizzards from a few days ago. But basically, you know, meat just isn’t part of my day anymore the way it used to be.

This afternoon, though, I came home in a rush and needed some lunch pronto. I checked the freezer and found some Lean Cuisine noodles and Swedish meatballs entrees (like one is enough!?) which I nuked in the microwave and snarfed down. Within a half an hour I was so deadly sick it was like I had been poisoned. Wow! My body knew it did NOT want that stuff in my digestive system.

So that’s the end of that kind of fooling around. Tonight it’s yellow split peas and and some kind of pesto thing (my garden is lousy with basil). The thing about cooking vegetarian is that you wind up getting pretty creative.

That’s all for now. I’m so busy that my hairdresser came in an hour early to accomodate me since I had to cancel my scheduled appointment for the THIRD TIME this month. She took pity on me and my scraggly locks. What a great gal.

Islam

Some questions for you, five years after 9/11:

Have you personally made an effort to learn about the religion of Islam, if you did not know much about it prior to 2001?
If so, what have been the best resources you’ve found in your effort?
Has your congregation helped you in this effort?

When people you know discuss the religion of Islam, do they seem to know what they’re talking about, or do they rely wholly on information they receive from the popular media?

How many people do you know express the belief that the secularization of Muslim community is the best hope for the future?

No judgment, just genuinely wondering.

9/11 Five Years Later

[I published this commentary in the local newspaper. Thought I’d share it with you. — PB]

In a perfect state of blissful ignorance, I was in my study reading on the morning of September 11, 2001, when my mother called from her car. Before I could say hello, she began speaking in the tone she uses when something terrible has occurred and she’s maintaining maternal calm and sanity. “I haven’t heard from Chip yet,” she said, “But I think he’s far enough away from it all that I’m sure he’s fine. Let’s not worry until we know more. Please don’t worry about me. I’m not driving into Manhattan, I’m going to stop in Connecticut and stay with your sister.”

I interrupted her. “What are you talking about?” I asked what was going on. Was she okay? And then I heard her take a very deep breath and she said, “Honey, go turn on the television. Stay on the phone with me and go turn on the television.”

And so we watched the mayhem together, or rather I watched while she stayed on the phone with me. My younger brother Chip worked in Manhattan, as did his wife at the time. We would not know for many hours where they were, whether or not they were trapped in the subway, or how harrowing a day they would have slowly walking home among other stunned, soot and ash-covered New Yorkers. I was living in Maryland then, just an hour from Washington, DC, and I froze with horror when I heard about the plane that had smashed into the side of the Pentagon, and the fourth flight that had gone down in a field in nearby Pennsylvania. Were there more planes? Where were they headed? Should I prepare to die? Should we all prepare to die?

Life in ministry had certainly acquainted me with the shadow side of human nature, but nothing in my experience or seminary training had ever prepared me for an encounter with this kind of malevolence. It felt apocalyptic. It felt demonic. I knew, however, that as soon as I could manage it, I would have to reach out to my congregation that didn’t have a building of its own and therefore had no central place to gather, and that most intimidating and overwhelming of all, that I would have to have something to say about the events of this day. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t be able to say anything at all if I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering.

What could I say? What could I possibly say? I wanted nothing more than to hide in my room and lock the door. I pulled down my Bible and opened to the Psalms, that ancient hymn book that contains not only praise, hope and faith but human rage, despair, destruction, fear, vengeance, and fist-shaking at God. I did not know that morning that Muslim fanatics were responsible for the attacks, or that religion in general would take such a central role in the global response to this day. I just knew that I needed to hear the voices of other struggling, faithful human beings who had experienced their own horrific destructions. I needed their company in prayer, and I needed to ground myself with the Psalmist in the reality that although human beings may choose to commit atrocious acts with their God-given existential freedom, the world was still a sacred place where love could, and would, abide and triumph over fear.

By the time I walked out the door for our evening community vigil, I was still shaky and terrified (and would remain so for some time afterward), but I had one clear thought in my head and in my heart: either love is stronger than fear, or it isn’t. Either we believe that love is stronger than fear, or we don’t.

Whatever we did from this day forward, as individuals, as communities, and as a nation would illustrate where we stand on this ultimate question. I knew where I wanted to stand.

IAMS Tortures Animals

You’re not feeding your animal companion IAMS, I hope??

http://www.iamscruelty.com/investigation.asp

Community Organic Garden

I have this fresh new fantasy of organizing an organic community vegetable and flower garden with my church.

Just wondering if any of you has been involved in such an enterprise at your own congregations, and if so, how is it going?

I’ve been googling around and see that the idea is taking hold all over the country, and even in some Unitarian Universalist communities.

Thrilling! Bring on the compost!