Objectivity

In my Literary Analysis class my professor asked in his cute British accent, “What are some of the stereotypes about English majors?” No one raised their hands. He then asked, “Who is not an English major in here?” and three people raised their hands. He asked them the stereotypes, and their answers were things like, “pompous, nerdy, bookworms, slackers.” This made me laugh, because when he first asked the question my initial thought was, “English majors don’t have stereotypes. That’s just the engineering and Bio students.”

In my Religion and Psychology class, my professor was giving theories for the existence of religion and its origin. He gave many educated theories and then gave a fourth one, “religion exists because it’s true.” My first reaction was anger. I felt like adding that to our notes discredited everything we just learned. Sure, there were holes in each theory, but this didn’t explain anything. He then explained, “This theory is not treated as a valid theory, but a majority of people believe this. 97.5% of the world believes in some sort of divinity. Does that make 97.5% of the population crazy and the other small percentage sane?” He wants the course to be all about objectivity, which I suppose means hearing things that I don’t want to about close-minded ideas of religion. He also said a lot of religious people think he is the antichrist so he gets hell from both sides. I like that about him.

These two scenarios got me thinking about how no one is ever objective. I think people are close-minded who do not listen to my ideas, but what about when I don’t listen to theirs? It takes a great deal of patience and comfort with ones beliefs to truly listen without anger to other people’s beliefs. I have had a lot of anger at belief systems in the past year. The more I learn about religion in general the more I realize I don’t believe in one religion. They are just different forms of expressing the same spirituality that exists in everyone. I also am beginning to realize I can’t discredit people’s spiritual experiences as much as I want to. I almost want to delete this paragraph, because it is so hard to do this stuff that I don’t even want to acknowledge that I have to do it let alone that I am not good at it. When I had to listen to the crazy, shouting, Christian outside the academic buildings today, and he was calling everyone fools and using the Bible to support him, I so desperately wanted to flip him off or roll my eyes. Then I realized that he feeds off of that kind of thing. The best thing to do is let those people say what they want to, because they will do it anyway. Let them pray for you or condemn you (whatever it is they do) because it makes them feel better and in reality it doesn’t do shit to me. I just let my pride get hurt by that kind of thing, but if I were stronger in my beliefs I wouldn’t be phased by it. I think I am slowly acquiring that strength. I attribute that to the healing and maturing that took place this summer as a result of having such a variety of loving people in my life.

We also talked about a theory that gods are just idealized versions of an actual human being, especially in Greek mythology. Then he said, but it happens in every religion. The Buddha was just a man, Siddhārtha Gautama, but many Buddhist believe he was more than an ordinary man, even somewhat divine. Then as all of the self-righteous Christians thought they were free from ridicule, he brought up the Virgin Mary. He was like, “Mary was just a woman, but the church decided one day that they had a problem and Jesus’ birth needed to be “sinless” so they decided he was immaculately concepted. Many people are very offended by the thought of that, but does that discredit any of the peaceful things Jesus did because his Mom had sex to conceive him?

I was especially interested in this idealizing people, because Adam (The Atheist) and I were recently discussing his post that claimed Mother Theresa was using the poor for her own personal gain. I talked about how Mother Theresa was human. Humans do bad things sometimes. It sucks. I wish I didn’t. I wish the people I love didn’t, but everyone does. Regardless of her motives she did great things. I think she is just as worthy as any of the other Saints. Saints were all human at one point, but their lives have been idealized to make them seem unreachable for anyone. Mother Theresa’s flaws will soon be forgotten and she will be another Saint that we will never be able to be like. I blame a lot of my self-hate on the Saints. I loved learning about the Saints and it was my dream to be like them, but it is impossible because as Saints they are not human. The more I realize that I don’t really know the saints, the more I understand that I could be like them if I really knew them, but now there is nothing real to be like. Trying to be a Saint is like trying to be Jesus or some idea of God. The Saints all did good things and stood up against the church or people that had power, and that is commendable. It takes guts and not everyone can do it, but it is possible for anyone unlike the church teaches. I think exposing Mother Theresa’s flaws is a great reminder for the world to reevaluate the image of a Saint. We should all admire their courage, but not deny their faults. Let’s celebrate their life not some made-up fantasy.

blah.

This year is going to be better. I can tell for many reasons. I am not depressed, I know more people, I know my way around, and I am used to being away from home. I am still feeling lonely though, because I was so fortunate this summer. I had so many friends old and new around every day. It’s not a depressing loneliness, because it is more of me sitting alone and reflecting on what great memories I have from this summer. I miss everyone tremendously. I really got used to being in a group after my week with the people from Pine Ridge and here. It’s strange not being in an environment where I am surrounded by people. I have actually had a lot of great reflection time alone, which I was in need of with it being so hard to come by at home.

Classes started up today and I am especially looking forward to my Religion and Psychology class. My professor has written a book called, “Minds and Gods,” he studies cognitive science and from what I have read thus far he is brilliant. I knew he was a great professor, because I had him last semester, but this book is fantastic and I am excited to learn about it from him in person. In his book he talks about how religion is taken as some “special form of thinking” that is different from any other thought processes. He makes it clear that the mind is amazing in every sense and that religion is no different than any of the other amazing things the minds does, so in that case he asks why can’t we study why our minds think about religion and deities. He warned it is a secular view, but that even if one disagrees he says you will learn so much about yourself, because it is all about our minds and how they work. I think it will be a fantastic class that I can apply to my everyday life.

I don’t have a particular topic to blog about, but I do want to let everyone from the Omega group who has started reading this (or been reading it in Ryan’s case) how much I miss our group and the feeling of love from everyone. I knew it was special when I was in the moment, but the whole overused expression of “you don’t know what you got until it’s gone,” has once again proved itself true, because I didn’t realize just how special and amazing it was until I have had all of this time to myself to realize how much I miss everyone.

I am hoping to bring all of the ways I grew over the summer up to school with me, which is pretty hard considering the few friends I do have up here are not very interested in my growth. I am excited to meet with a couple of different people up here that I know will appreciate my growth and encourage it. They are both older though so I guess they aren’t threatened by change and can encourage me to keep evolving, while it might scare people who rely on me for security if I am not so sturdy and rocking the boat a bit myself.

I feel like this is a boring blog entry, so I guess I will stop and try to do a better one soon. I should put more thought into it, but I am tired and my computer is hot, which is making me sweat.

Miracles Happen.

I almost don’t want to blog honestly about what I experienced the past five days, because I worry people will discredit or not understand such a powerful experience. I have to share the goodness though, even if it hurts for people to put it down. Twelve people from Pine Ridge (The reservation I have traveled to three times to do service work) came to Michigan to learn what it is like off of the reservation. The reservation is like a third-world country right in the middle of the U.S. There are homes without running water. The water is not always safe to drink. Unemployment AND alcoholism are both above a crazy 80% of the population there. Two of the poorest counties in the nation are on the reservation. Gang violence is a serious problem and domestic violence is most prevalent there. I have been touched every time I went and met more kids there. Each time I met innocent kids thrown into terrible circumstances. This week was a totally new experience that was more powerful than any of my trips there (which is saying a lot!).

I met the kids Thursday evening at a barbeque. I had no idea that I would love these kids just as much as anyone else I love in my life before they left, just five days later. We did and experienced far too many things to write about, but I will write some of the most important ones. Sunday night we spent the night all sleeping on a gym floor in a church. We stayed up until 2:30 (at least) having one of the most powerful spiritual experiences of my life. I don’t even know if I believe in prayer to a deity, but this prayer turned into such an intense experience of human connection. Jon said he felt there was someone in the group that really needed us to “lift them up in prayer.” We all seemed pretty collected, because we do that so often. Then Jon said, “I mean we are going to literally, physically lift them up in prayer.” I honestly thought Jon was being ridiculous, because there were some people much bigger than most of us. I also was thinking, “who is going to admit so desperately needing help?” I thought there would be all of this awkward standing until someone came forward, but instantly JoDon, one of the 17-year-old guys from the reservation stepped forward and laid on his stomach with his face in his arm, clearly upset about something. Jon asked him if he wanted to talk about it or just be lifted, and he said lifted. We lifted him over our heads as a group. Enoch whispered a prayer aloud in his native tongue, which seemed much more powerful than any prayer I have ever heard. The rest of us thought or prayed positive things for this boy. JoDon became shaken up and began crying and praying in his native tongue from above us. When we set him down slowly, he lay on the ground sobbing and the rest of us lent him a hand or gave him a hug. One of the group members held him in her arms. Jon asked if there was anyone else…and then anyone else… and eventually almost everyone was lifted up above the group, despite our arms shaking from exhaustion, and every single person wept in the arms of people from the group. I will never forget the chills I got when one of the boys, Chris, was up there. He is thirteen and victim of abuse, self-destructive, and done many drugs. He has no one to really take care of him. He has such a “hard” protective image. Up above us he kept fighting himself and tears, but Jon told him we were there for him and we didn’t want him to have to hurt anymore. He sobbed up above us until we set him gently on the ground. He rolled over to his stomach and sobbed in his arms. The group extended hands and kisses. It was the most incredible bonding experience I have ever had with people, and the weird thing is that we didn’t tell each other at all what we were crying about or what we were struggling with. It was just the connection of pain and healing together.

The next day at the dunes and Lake MI, I had a great bonding time with my friend Drew and a woman I just met, named Jenn. We climbed the sand dune together and talked honestly about beliefs. J.J (one of the smaller boys) came to the top with Chris, because Chris had been hiding food up there for himself. Jenn invited Chris over and began to talk with him about his life on the Reservation. She asked him about his recent move to escape his abusive grandfather and how good his new school was. She asked him about gangs and drugs. He said he tried every drug once, but didn’t want to do that anymore. He said he used to drink a lot, but was sick of seeing so many drunks around. He said now he just smokes cigarettes. He then told us about the scars two of the other boys had, and how they were from their gangs. One of them had a cross-type symbol burned into his arm for his gang and the other one had a strange “A” looking thing cut onto his back as well as a circular scar on his arm that I cannot describe. This boy then told us that everyone is in a gang. Jenn asked him how he stays away from it, and he said he stays inside all of the time. She asked, “Don’t you get lonely?” and he answered, “Yeah, it’s real lonely, but I don’t wanna be in no gang.” Drew and I sat in complete silence burying things in the sand. Chris randomly left us and walked down the dune without saying goodbye. After he left Drew, Jenn, and I sat in silence for over a minute until Jen said while throwing a twig, “What are you supposed to do with that?” Drew and I shrugged silently and Jenn had tears in her eyes. J.J. was still up there digging away insanely like a dog. Drew and I got out our cameras to take a picture of him and Jenn said, “That is pure innocence,” because the kid was oblivious to what has just gone on. We all laughed. The picture I took of that moment has Elise (who walked up in the middle of Jenn and Chris’ conversation) crying off to the side and J.J. looking like Tarzan digging away crazily. It is such a beautiful picture.

That night we got home and were all so exhausted so we were supposed to have a short night reflection. It started at 10:45 and we wanted to be done by 11:30. We didn’t get done until 1:30, because we did an activity where we rotated around and held hands with each person and looked into their eyes for a minute before saying something deep and nice about them. It meant that each person said something nice to everyone. Everyone was crying, because we realized how much we loved each other. We all said, “I love you” to each other, which may sound cheesy or overdone, but it was real. I have never loved anyone more than I love these kids. I love them like family and it was mutual. We also did a talking circle where we passed an object around and when a person was passed the object they spoke to the group. The confessions and thanks that everyone said were life changing.

I loved everyone and was touched by everyone, but three of the boys, Chris, Enoch, and JoDon really broke my heart when they left. JoDon is the one that especially got to me. He is returning only to leave his home to escape the gang he is in. He told me I was now his big sister and he loved me. He is such a beautiful person. He is so strong and smart. He has sun danced more than once, which is dancing while connected to a tree by something that is pierced through him. They dance for four days without food or water until the pierced object is ripped out. He stayed up until 5am the last night writing a poem that he showed Elise and me before he left. It was about how he had found love for the first time in his life with our group and had to leave it. That last morning at breakfast, he and I sat next to each other drinking tea in silence. We were both clearly upset, but unable to say much besides small talk. I finally said, “I feel like there is so much I want to say, but I can’t say anything.” He smiled with sad eyes in agreement. I then said, “Maybe saying nothing can mean just as much as words sometimes.” He said, “Exactly, but I wish I knew how to say it all.” We smiled and then looked down and sipped our tea. It was one of the most bittersweet moments of my life. Enoch is returning to go to court and most likely-jail for a DUI that he didn’t pull over very quickly for. He is the sweetest kid. He just doesn’t have a support system. Jenn told him if he couldn’t stay out of trouble he could come live with her. He seemed so relieved to know he had a way to get away from it all. Saying goodbye to them in the airport was like the end of some sad Disney movie. We all waved and waved until we couldn’t see each other anymore. JoDon pointed to his heart and then to me while walking away. I returned the gesture. Jenn, Drew, and I blew kisses at Kimmy before she walked through the metal detector. Chris prepared to walk through the metal detector when Jenn shouted, “Iron Hawk!” he turned, and she pointed to him and said, “Don’t forget!” He laughed and then walked through security away from our sight. Jenn, Drew, and Elise were crying while I stood with that depressing rock feeling in my stomach. Drew then laughed and said, “Jenn, that sounded like the ending to a movie. ‘IronHawk, don’t forget!” We all giggled and agreed it was one of the coolest quotes ever and that we had to write a movie that had that for an ending.

Today Drew, Elise, and I went together to develop pictures. We scrap booked while listening to depressing songs that reminded us of all of this past week. Elise told us that Jon told her when the kids arrived back in S. Dakota only one of the girl’s dad’s was there. No one came to pick up the rest of the kids. What a terrible slap in the face of a cold-world. I mourn for them, but am so thankful that these kids know they are loved. I will do whatever it takes to go back to S. Dakota to see them. It is like Jon told me, “These kids do not trust, and they trust us! They do not know love like this, and they love us! We cannot let them down. We must do everything in our power to make sure we keep this love, because we owe that to them.” He is so right. These kids are so beautiful and bright. They can change the world if given the tools and support. I will never forget my love for them. Many people will argue that it will fade and this was some crazy love high, but they are wrong. I was not lying when I told JoDon that he will be in my heart until I die. I was not lying when I told Enoch I love him just as much as any of my friends or family that has been with me my whole life, and I was not lying when I told any of them that I love them and will do anything I have to in order to see them again. In Lakota there is no word for goodbye, because they always say, “Until I see you again.” I will see them again. That night we spent at the church we did a “get to know each other activity” that had us ask our partners if we believed in miracles. I said no and so did many others, but we all agreed before we left that this experience was nothing but a miracle. Miracles do happen. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s not even an argument about the existence of divinity, but it is the miracle of love. Take from that whatever you want. Mitakuye Oyasin (All my relations, meaning we are all related).

Seeking Truth in Writing

This morning I went to lisa’s to get some help on writing. I have some great ideas for poems and stories, but I am having trouble writing much lately. She said I am telling how I feel instead of making the readers feel what I want them to. We agreed that my problem is that I am afraid to write what I see as truth. She explained the truth is not some flattering poem about how perfect everything is, but instead it is messy and it can hurt me or other people. I expressed my concern of hurting people I love or feeling like I am not appreciating people. We discussed what loving someone means. I have many friends and family that I love, but that does not mean they are perfect. I can’t write about all of the people I love and make them like saints. Real writers have to get beyond the idea that someone will read what they say and be hurt. The truth hurts, but it is always only one writers truth, and what else is there besides truth? Today I walked with my friend Adam on some woodsy trails. We sat in a clearing and talked for hours. He was concerned of offending me, but said, “I think you are a good writer, but I worry that you are too nice to be a great one.” I respect that kind of truth. I agreed he was right in the sense that I care too much what people think, and instead of writing what I want to I sugar-coat things. All of the authors that I love are incredibly blunt and spare no one, especially not themselves. That is what makes them so brilliant. Anne Lamott does not allow for anyone to think she is some Saintly prophet for even a minute. I will never forget my reaction to the first book of hers that I read. There was a part where she said something about how she loses her cool. She talked about getting frustrated with her son when he was younger for not listening to her over the TV after several times of her repeating himself. She then says, “I told him to turn that TV off, as in ‘turn that goddamn fucking tv off’.” She then talks about feeling bad about her loss of control and then taking a walk to really think things through. When I was talking to a friend about Anne Lamott we talked about her amazing ability to write about all of the messy truth that is out there. We joked that she would have nothing to write about soon, because she has already revealed so much of herself and the people she loves. Humans are so complex, yet similar that there will always be new truth and stories to be written.

I thought that I had reached a point of honesty in my writing as I began writing about things that I considered to be personal, but it was always at my own risk. I still have not conquered the ability to write truth about loved ones. I was able to write stories about my roommates, because although I cared about them as people, I never loved them. It is hard to write all of the truth about people I love, because I don’t want other people to judge them. I have to leave it up to my readers on how to judge them. A good writer can make the reader feel a particular way about everyone, even after they include all of their good and bad truths.

In order to finish this short poem I am working on, lisa suggested I do all of this journaling and writing about what exact events I am trying to capture, instead of just telling people how to feel. It blows my mind how people do not realize the work that is involved in all types of writing. For one short poem, I will probably have to write pages and pages to get to the truth and underlying point I want to make. When I went to coffee with a friend that writes songs yesterday, we talked about how writing is similar to meditation. Both take a tremendous amount of discipline and are spiritual things that involve trying to focus and control the mind.