Thursday, August 27, 2009
Summer in the capital
The months of July and August are not typically very pleasant in D.C. Humidity sets in and makes hot weather feel hotter. Maybe it's because this summer has been relatively mild, or maybe I'm just more tolerant than before, but this year has not bothered me too much. And even when it's miserable outside, there's something distinctly nostalgic about summertime - long days, bright green leaves, delicious tomatoes, and frequent barbecues. Also, the end of August means that fall, my favorite season, is not far away. (And doesn't Tyser Tower look awesome??)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The hope still lives...
I woke up this morning as I do most mornings: sometime around 5:58 am, when NPR begins to emit softly from my radio. Typically I hear the closing lines of the Marketplace Morning Report, and maybe a few bars of the Morning Edition theme song, before being overtaken by sleepiness and spending the next 45 minutes lapsing between dozing and vague snippets on the economy or Iran. Every once in awhile, something catches my attention and piques my interest enough to interrupt this daily snooze button-esque ritual (a recent story on college team colored Bud Light cans comes to mind).
This morning, around 6:17, I caught a segment on the accomplishments of Senator Ted Kennedy. Knowing, on some level of my sleepy consciousness, what this probably meant, I quickly woke up. A few minutes later, Steve Inskeep confirmed my assumptions – the senator passed away last night after a long battle with brain cancer.
To say I feel remorse is an understatement - Ted Kennedy was the third longest serving senator in history. The last scion of America’s most iconic political dynasty, he labored tirelessly for liberal causes like education and healthcare, while simultaneously maintaining strong personal friendships with his colleagues across the aisle and committing himself to the bipartisan pragmatism necessary to get bills passed. Though I did not personally live through the Kennedy tragedies of the ‘60’s or Teddy’s 1980 presidential primary campaign, the story of this family is tied inextricably to modern American history. I could write at length about my respect for the career of Sen. Kennedy, but I will leave that to those far more qualified than I. The news coverage is sure to be extensive. Instead, I’ll reflect briefly on my one personal experience with the venerable senator.
On January 28, 2008, coming off a busy period at work, I decided to take a large swath of the afternoon off to metro downtown and meet Jimmy at American University. Though the presidential campaign had been dragging on for months, the actual primaries had only recently begun. Maryland’s – where I was still living – was scheduled for February 12th and no one really had any idea, at that point, how long the primary battle would stretch. I had struggled for awhile with supporting Barack Obama’s candidacy – though I had read both of his books and very much wanted him to be president someday, I was worried that his effectiveness would be limited by the inherited quagmire from Bush. Regardless, I had decided that I preferred Obama to Hillary (and either of them to McCain).
So on that bright, chilly winter day, I was playing hooky from work to watch Barack Obama speak at AU. He was to receive a formal endorsement from Sen. Ted Kennedy – a big deal because the assumption, at the time, was still that Hillary was probably going to win the nomination. The support of the embodiment of the Democratic establishment was symbolically very important, to say nothing of the tangible benefits of having the backing of a Kennedy. Introduced by his niece, Caroline, Teddy Kennedy stepped up to the podium and blew me away.
The event was so crowded that Jimmy and I ended up crammed into a room in the student union, watching raptly on TV with a crowd of hundreds of others. It wasn’t so much that his speech was inherently great, but, to me, the sense that his booming baritones seemed heavy with gravitas. Indeed, Sen. Kennedy spoke with the weight of history – the stolen potential of his murdered brothers, his own derailed national ambitions, the wisdom gained from his decades of leadership in the U.S. Senate, and, at the forefront, the momentous significance of the presidential candidacy of the man standing next to him on the platform.
That day re-awoke within me a long-held certainty of the importance of the ‘08 campaign. It helped me to view the possibility of a President Obama as more than just a pipe dream, ruefully expressed every time I watched the 2004 DNC speech or picked up Dreams from my Father. Many people speculate that Sen. Kennedy saw Barack Obama as a contemporary torchbearer, driven to carry on the family legacy of inspired hope and dogged public service. His unwavering belief helped me to rediscover mine.
Because of my youth, this is what I expect I will remember most intimately about the late senator. In his own famous DNC speech, in 1980, Kennedy reassured his supporters that, despite his concession to Jimmy Carter, “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” These often repeated words embody the spirit not only of this dignified politician, but of the remarkable nation to which he dedicated his life.
This morning, around 6:17, I caught a segment on the accomplishments of Senator Ted Kennedy. Knowing, on some level of my sleepy consciousness, what this probably meant, I quickly woke up. A few minutes later, Steve Inskeep confirmed my assumptions – the senator passed away last night after a long battle with brain cancer.
To say I feel remorse is an understatement - Ted Kennedy was the third longest serving senator in history. The last scion of America’s most iconic political dynasty, he labored tirelessly for liberal causes like education and healthcare, while simultaneously maintaining strong personal friendships with his colleagues across the aisle and committing himself to the bipartisan pragmatism necessary to get bills passed. Though I did not personally live through the Kennedy tragedies of the ‘60’s or Teddy’s 1980 presidential primary campaign, the story of this family is tied inextricably to modern American history. I could write at length about my respect for the career of Sen. Kennedy, but I will leave that to those far more qualified than I. The news coverage is sure to be extensive. Instead, I’ll reflect briefly on my one personal experience with the venerable senator.
On January 28, 2008, coming off a busy period at work, I decided to take a large swath of the afternoon off to metro downtown and meet Jimmy at American University. Though the presidential campaign had been dragging on for months, the actual primaries had only recently begun. Maryland’s – where I was still living – was scheduled for February 12th and no one really had any idea, at that point, how long the primary battle would stretch. I had struggled for awhile with supporting Barack Obama’s candidacy – though I had read both of his books and very much wanted him to be president someday, I was worried that his effectiveness would be limited by the inherited quagmire from Bush. Regardless, I had decided that I preferred Obama to Hillary (and either of them to McCain).
So on that bright, chilly winter day, I was playing hooky from work to watch Barack Obama speak at AU. He was to receive a formal endorsement from Sen. Ted Kennedy – a big deal because the assumption, at the time, was still that Hillary was probably going to win the nomination. The support of the embodiment of the Democratic establishment was symbolically very important, to say nothing of the tangible benefits of having the backing of a Kennedy. Introduced by his niece, Caroline, Teddy Kennedy stepped up to the podium and blew me away.
The event was so crowded that Jimmy and I ended up crammed into a room in the student union, watching raptly on TV with a crowd of hundreds of others. It wasn’t so much that his speech was inherently great, but, to me, the sense that his booming baritones seemed heavy with gravitas. Indeed, Sen. Kennedy spoke with the weight of history – the stolen potential of his murdered brothers, his own derailed national ambitions, the wisdom gained from his decades of leadership in the U.S. Senate, and, at the forefront, the momentous significance of the presidential candidacy of the man standing next to him on the platform.
That day re-awoke within me a long-held certainty of the importance of the ‘08 campaign. It helped me to view the possibility of a President Obama as more than just a pipe dream, ruefully expressed every time I watched the 2004 DNC speech or picked up Dreams from my Father. Many people speculate that Sen. Kennedy saw Barack Obama as a contemporary torchbearer, driven to carry on the family legacy of inspired hope and dogged public service. His unwavering belief helped me to rediscover mine.
Because of my youth, this is what I expect I will remember most intimately about the late senator. In his own famous DNC speech, in 1980, Kennedy reassured his supporters that, despite his concession to Jimmy Carter, “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” These often repeated words embody the spirit not only of this dignified politician, but of the remarkable nation to which he dedicated his life.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Brown thumb
From a young age, I’ve been rather fascinated by raising plants. A plant is, in some ways, like an inanimate pet. Properly nurtured, it grows and thrives.
Despite this enthusiasm, I have never really been very good at keeping my plants alive. My first potted plant - a unique looking combination of rounded, waxy looking leaves, soft, cactus-y growth, and little red flowers – sat atop the bookshelf in my north-facing bedroom. Without sufficient sunlight, the cactus-looking part of it immediately died and the rest of it remained a dull shade of olive for years, cascading over the lip of the pot and shedding dried leaves onto my unvacuumed floor.
The next plant in my life, an evergreen sapling brought home from school on Earth Day in 4th grade, swiftly succumbed to the lawn mower. In college, I had to send two successive Ikea plants home due to lack of sunlight – Akimbo and Charlie. Luckily both recovered, and Charlie now adorns my sun-drenched bookshelf.
Recovery at the hands of my dad is a common theme for my plants. Growing up, I germinated a lemon seed in a plastic cup lined with a wet paper towel (a trick I have attempted to recreate, unsuccessfully, many times since). It has since grown into a tall, skinny lemon tree, kept indoors and incapable of bearing fruit because of the Maryland climate. But, if you rub your fingers against its leaves, it smells like lemons!
Ignoring past failures, I decided this spring that I very much wanted to grow a basil plant. Dreams of a summer filled with homemade pesto and caprese salad spurred me to buy a packet of seeds. In early May, I filled a pot with soil, stuck in the seeds (ignoring instructions on proper spacing), added some water and set it in front of a window to grow.
At first, my basil seemed to be doing quite well. Dozens of little green sproutlets sprung out of the dirt, growing taller every day. I went to Germany feeling quite satisfied with myself, sure of the fact that we would be enjoying freshly picked basil by June. But the plant stopped growing. The shoots began to wither and die, and continued to do so all summer. Now, a whopping four and a half months after planting, only one sprig of basil remains. It is about two inches tall, and has maybe three small leaves. On the bright side, it seems to be growing, which leads me to believe that maybe the packet was right about needing several inches in between each plant. In the meantime, however, we’ve still been buying $4 packets of basil at the store.
Uncowed, Steve and I have already begun to discuss plans for next spring. We have a couple planter boxes for our deck’s railing at home, and I’ve been thinking that they would look awfully good adorned with a host of fresh herbs. Why stop at basil when you could have mint and dill too? To solve the pesky problem of my brown thumb, we’ll buy pre-grown baby plants from the farmers’ market in early spring. And give them plenty of space to expand. And lots of sunshine and water. And maybe, just maybe, next summer I’ll have a success story to share.
Despite this enthusiasm, I have never really been very good at keeping my plants alive. My first potted plant - a unique looking combination of rounded, waxy looking leaves, soft, cactus-y growth, and little red flowers – sat atop the bookshelf in my north-facing bedroom. Without sufficient sunlight, the cactus-looking part of it immediately died and the rest of it remained a dull shade of olive for years, cascading over the lip of the pot and shedding dried leaves onto my unvacuumed floor.
The next plant in my life, an evergreen sapling brought home from school on Earth Day in 4th grade, swiftly succumbed to the lawn mower. In college, I had to send two successive Ikea plants home due to lack of sunlight – Akimbo and Charlie. Luckily both recovered, and Charlie now adorns my sun-drenched bookshelf.
Recovery at the hands of my dad is a common theme for my plants. Growing up, I germinated a lemon seed in a plastic cup lined with a wet paper towel (a trick I have attempted to recreate, unsuccessfully, many times since). It has since grown into a tall, skinny lemon tree, kept indoors and incapable of bearing fruit because of the Maryland climate. But, if you rub your fingers against its leaves, it smells like lemons!
Ignoring past failures, I decided this spring that I very much wanted to grow a basil plant. Dreams of a summer filled with homemade pesto and caprese salad spurred me to buy a packet of seeds. In early May, I filled a pot with soil, stuck in the seeds (ignoring instructions on proper spacing), added some water and set it in front of a window to grow.
At first, my basil seemed to be doing quite well. Dozens of little green sproutlets sprung out of the dirt, growing taller every day. I went to Germany feeling quite satisfied with myself, sure of the fact that we would be enjoying freshly picked basil by June. But the plant stopped growing. The shoots began to wither and die, and continued to do so all summer. Now, a whopping four and a half months after planting, only one sprig of basil remains. It is about two inches tall, and has maybe three small leaves. On the bright side, it seems to be growing, which leads me to believe that maybe the packet was right about needing several inches in between each plant. In the meantime, however, we’ve still been buying $4 packets of basil at the store.
Uncowed, Steve and I have already begun to discuss plans for next spring. We have a couple planter boxes for our deck’s railing at home, and I’ve been thinking that they would look awfully good adorned with a host of fresh herbs. Why stop at basil when you could have mint and dill too? To solve the pesky problem of my brown thumb, we’ll buy pre-grown baby plants from the farmers’ market in early spring. And give them plenty of space to expand. And lots of sunshine and water. And maybe, just maybe, next summer I’ll have a success story to share.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Is that an airplane?
My rate of blogging has been rather tepid this summer, but I'm making a concerted effort to post more frequently. By recently re-examining the reasons I enjoy keeping a blog, I hoped to reawaken some of the novelty that inspired me to post almost every day last fall. Another tactic: fresh design.
I've been toying with the idea of freshening the look of my blog for awhile. Aside from a couple minor changes, it has featured the most basic, pre-packaged default color scheme available. Though this means the page can look somewhat bland, particularly when compared to the many other blogs that look the same, the simplicity of the colors is also what appeals to me. So, for now, rather than dramatically alter the design of the blog, I've added a new title block. I like it so far, but maybe I'll make more changes later.
I have a lot of topics that I'd like to write about in the coming weeks - healthcare reform, being two (plus) years out of college, summer in the D.C., the nagging desire to travel this October, the impact of seemingly small decisions on our lives... Unfortunately, several of these ideas have been lingering in the back of my mind for months, prevented by laziness from taking shape. But I'm going to try!
I've been toying with the idea of freshening the look of my blog for awhile. Aside from a couple minor changes, it has featured the most basic, pre-packaged default color scheme available. Though this means the page can look somewhat bland, particularly when compared to the many other blogs that look the same, the simplicity of the colors is also what appeals to me. So, for now, rather than dramatically alter the design of the blog, I've added a new title block. I like it so far, but maybe I'll make more changes later.
I have a lot of topics that I'd like to write about in the coming weeks - healthcare reform, being two (plus) years out of college, summer in the D.C., the nagging desire to travel this October, the impact of seemingly small decisions on our lives... Unfortunately, several of these ideas have been lingering in the back of my mind for months, prevented by laziness from taking shape. But I'm going to try!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Twist on a personal favorite
Growing up, some of my favorite dinners were when my mom would make a roast. Though this was partially because I liked the steak, it was also largely due to the side dishes. In addition to salad, we would often get to enjoy double starches - baked potatoes and mushroom rice. I love mushroom rice. Last night, when Dave decided to grill up some steak, I began to fixate on it. Unfortunately, we had no mushrooms and I was not craving it quite enough to justify a trip to Safeway. So, I improvised and created a Toasted Pine Nut Rice dish.
- Using a toaster oven or maybe the broiler, toast some pine nuts until they just begin to turn golden brown.
- Melt about 1 T butter in a deep skillet with a lid and saute a few cloves of minced garlic and salt.
- Meanwhile, heat 4 c. chicken stock (or water with bouillon, or just water with extra salt) in the microwave til hot, about 5-6 mins.
- Add 2 c. uncooked rice to the pan and warm a couple minutes until it begins to lightly crackle.
- Pour the warm stock into the skillet. Stir, let it come to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover the skillet, letting it simmer for about 15 mins.
- Uncover and stir, adding in the toasted pine nuts and finely chopped green onions.
- Place a paper towel across the top of the skillet (not touching the rice) and replace the cover. Simmer for about 10 mins.
- Stir and serve hot.
In case you can't tell, I was pretty impressed with the way this dish turned out. The pine nuts added delicious flavor and the green onions gave it some inviting flecks of color. To make the mushroom version instead, all you need to do is omit the pine nuts, green onions, and garlic (though I don't see how garlic could hurt), and add in slivered mushrooms with the butter in step 2. I haven't been cooking dinner as much this year as I did last year (due in large part to living with roommates who enjoy cooking), but I'm in the mood to challenge myself and try some new things. On the horizon, perhaps: an Indian food feast?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Why I (continue to) blog
This fall will mark a year that I’ve been writing this blog. Although I’ve been neglecting it lately, that’s been more a function of a lack of time at work than any lessening of interest. In fact, this blog has been far more successful than I ever imagined it would be. Not because I’ve accrued vast numbers of readers (I have not, though I find it somewhat flattering that people look at it once in awhile), but rather because I strongly doubted my ability to keep this up.
Looking back at some of my earliest posts, this blog was very, very political. I think I knew at the time that one of the primary drivers behind starting a blog was my desire to have a place to sound off about the election campaign without risking arguments with my Republican friends. After the election frenzy faded, I struggled a bit to find topics about which I felt like writing. I still have this problem. It’s helped, though, that I’ve gradually added quite a few semi-regular “features” – traveling photos, recipes, and music – that I can post with minimal effort when lacking time or inspiration to write something thoughtful.
A happy, albeit unintended, consequence of blogging has been my ability to keep in touch with other friends. When separated by distance, it can be easy to fall out of regular contact with people that I care about. Though reading a blog is no substitute for an actual conversation, it helps me feel that I’m connected to my far-flung friends. Each of their blogs provides a window into their lives. It sounds voyeuristic, but reading about my friends’ thoughts (and knowing they occasionally read mine) mitigates their absence from my day to day life.
Best of all, I’m pleased with my blog’s ability to reflect various aspects of my personality – love of food, music, and travel; stubborn yet (I hope) reasonable political liberalism; fascination with outer space; and a strong, yearning desire to experience and celebrate the sense of possibility engendered by the American Dream, filled as it is with patriotism, inspiration, disappointments, and hope. There are parts of my life that do not make it onto this blog. Indeed, I almost never write in detail about work, or my roommates and family, or my weekend social life. But these are things that are immortalized elsewhere – on facebook, in family photo albums, and in the collective memories of the people I know well.
I started this blog with the stated intent to use it as a snapshot of my life, a recording of thoughts, feelings, and impressions that might otherwise be lost to the forgetful passage of time. With more time and a computer at home, I could do a much better job of this. But, almost a year in, I’m fairly happy with where things stand.
Looking back at some of my earliest posts, this blog was very, very political. I think I knew at the time that one of the primary drivers behind starting a blog was my desire to have a place to sound off about the election campaign without risking arguments with my Republican friends. After the election frenzy faded, I struggled a bit to find topics about which I felt like writing. I still have this problem. It’s helped, though, that I’ve gradually added quite a few semi-regular “features” – traveling photos, recipes, and music – that I can post with minimal effort when lacking time or inspiration to write something thoughtful.
A happy, albeit unintended, consequence of blogging has been my ability to keep in touch with other friends. When separated by distance, it can be easy to fall out of regular contact with people that I care about. Though reading a blog is no substitute for an actual conversation, it helps me feel that I’m connected to my far-flung friends. Each of their blogs provides a window into their lives. It sounds voyeuristic, but reading about my friends’ thoughts (and knowing they occasionally read mine) mitigates their absence from my day to day life.
Best of all, I’m pleased with my blog’s ability to reflect various aspects of my personality – love of food, music, and travel; stubborn yet (I hope) reasonable political liberalism; fascination with outer space; and a strong, yearning desire to experience and celebrate the sense of possibility engendered by the American Dream, filled as it is with patriotism, inspiration, disappointments, and hope. There are parts of my life that do not make it onto this blog. Indeed, I almost never write in detail about work, or my roommates and family, or my weekend social life. But these are things that are immortalized elsewhere – on facebook, in family photo albums, and in the collective memories of the people I know well.
I started this blog with the stated intent to use it as a snapshot of my life, a recording of thoughts, feelings, and impressions that might otherwise be lost to the forgetful passage of time. With more time and a computer at home, I could do a much better job of this. But, almost a year in, I’m fairly happy with where things stand.
Street art
Anyone who has ever traveled with me knows that I like to take a lot of pictures. I'm not too discriminating - my albums are filled with shots of landscapes, buildings, and people alike. Something slightly more offbeat that I am somewhat drawn to: manhole covers. They almost always feature the name of the city and sometimes have a cool looking crest or scene etched onto them. Consider it street art, of sorts.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Amen? Amen.
I haven’t been to church in more than a month. It’s not that I’ve been actively avoiding it – aside from one arbitrarily skipped Sunday, vacation and other commitments have conspired to keep me away. What I’m conflicted about is my attitude towards religion, which, lately, has been fairly apathetic.
Nothing about Westmoreland has changed – the people there are still exceptionally welcoming, admirably involved in the community, and dedicated to pursuing social justice with a progressive bent that closely mirrors my own views – yet I still find myself growing increasingly distant. Forgive me if it seems like my feelings are a little schizophrenic, but I suspect that this latest bout of uncertainty has little to do with Westmoreland itself. I still believe that I’ve found, in that church, a wonderful community well worth joining. It is the larger issue of God and religion that is currently vexing me.
When I first wrote on this topic, I expressed confusion over the role of religion in my life. Though I’ve attended services for more than seven months now, none of that root uneasiness has really vanished. I’ve learned quite a bit about theology and I feel more comfortable now with the idea of church than I ever have in the past. Yet as the novelty of being a part of this new community has faded, I’m reminded more and more of many of the things that made me skeptical of religion in the first place.
My thoughts on this are illustrated quite well by a recent episode of This American Life, in which Dan Savage lambasts the Catholic Church for driving him away from religion with its seemingly backwards stance on many issues, despite a strong desire on his part to believe. To me, the most moving passage follows Savage’s revelation that, since his mother’s death, he’s been tempted to put aside his reservations and return to the church after decades away.
This borderline closed-mindedness leads me to snicker at things like little red pew pencils emblazoned in gold with the phrase “Jesus Never Fails” and roll my eyes at overly long prayers. Perhaps worst of all, however, this immaturity is not restricted to unfamiliar settings. Once, at Westmoreland, I had to fight down laughter when a member of the choir sang a solo titled “He Touched Me.” I realize that, to most churchgoers, this absolutely reeks of blasphemy, but that’s certainly not my intent. It would be one thing if I were a stereotypical, self-assured liberal atheist, confident in my views and content to engage in occasional Bible-mocking. But instead I’m struggling to fit God into my life – a confused 23 year old who happens to find some aspects of organized religion in modern society both anathema and irrepressibly humorous.
This contradiction is a problem, and I don’t know how to make it go away. I can accept that I will never agree with the Pope’s beliefs on social issues. The United Church of Christ is extraordinarily progressive, and reasonable people across all faiths are able to look past the very literal interpretations of religion favored by many extreme right wingers. But I don’t know how to change what’s inside me, or even whether or not I should be trying.
The last time I had dinner with Rev. Bob Maddox, he tried to reassure me, explaining that many members of the church community have unanswered questions about God and that my uncertainty was not at all unusual. This is, of course, somewhat comforting and one of the reasons I’m so grateful for my time at Westmoreland to date. But I cannot shake the sense that I’m acting disingenuously, going to church, reciting the Lord’s prayer, taking Communion. Though I feel strongly that religion should not be an exclusive experience, this does not shield me from the fear that I do not belong. Who am I to sit in church every week, if I cannot definitively answer whether or not I believe in God? I want to, but is that enough? I don’t know the answer to these questions.
Nothing about Westmoreland has changed – the people there are still exceptionally welcoming, admirably involved in the community, and dedicated to pursuing social justice with a progressive bent that closely mirrors my own views – yet I still find myself growing increasingly distant. Forgive me if it seems like my feelings are a little schizophrenic, but I suspect that this latest bout of uncertainty has little to do with Westmoreland itself. I still believe that I’ve found, in that church, a wonderful community well worth joining. It is the larger issue of God and religion that is currently vexing me.
When I first wrote on this topic, I expressed confusion over the role of religion in my life. Though I’ve attended services for more than seven months now, none of that root uneasiness has really vanished. I’ve learned quite a bit about theology and I feel more comfortable now with the idea of church than I ever have in the past. Yet as the novelty of being a part of this new community has faded, I’m reminded more and more of many of the things that made me skeptical of religion in the first place.
My thoughts on this are illustrated quite well by a recent episode of This American Life, in which Dan Savage lambasts the Catholic Church for driving him away from religion with its seemingly backwards stance on many issues, despite a strong desire on his part to believe. To me, the most moving passage follows Savage’s revelation that, since his mother’s death, he’s been tempted to put aside his reservations and return to the church after decades away.
But when I am tempted, when I feel like maybe I could go through the motions, return to the sacraments, take what comfort I can, the pope goes to Africa and says that condoms spread AIDS. Or an archbishop in Brazil excommunicates a Catholic woman for getting her nine year old daughter an abortion, but not the Catholic man that raped the nine year old girl. Or I contemplate how the church views me and the two people I love most in the world: my boyfriend of 14 years and our 11 year old son, and I think “I can’t even think this.”Though, like Savage, organized religion sometimes offends me, I am as much to blame for my conflicted feelings as the church. Just this past weekend, I attended a beautiful wedding ceremony in the rural mountains of Pennsylvania. The minister’s televangelist-style sermon was, objectively speaking, a little ridiculous. But even without the corny delivery, exaggerated “Amen? Amen”s, and the repeated emphasis on marriage being between a man and a woman, there is little chance I would’ve taken him seriously. I have this problem nearly every time I encounter a church official, be it at weddings, funerals, or on TV. For some reason, I involuntarily recoil from these people, assuming (often incorrectly) that their views are irreconcilably different from my own.
This borderline closed-mindedness leads me to snicker at things like little red pew pencils emblazoned in gold with the phrase “Jesus Never Fails” and roll my eyes at overly long prayers. Perhaps worst of all, however, this immaturity is not restricted to unfamiliar settings. Once, at Westmoreland, I had to fight down laughter when a member of the choir sang a solo titled “He Touched Me.” I realize that, to most churchgoers, this absolutely reeks of blasphemy, but that’s certainly not my intent. It would be one thing if I were a stereotypical, self-assured liberal atheist, confident in my views and content to engage in occasional Bible-mocking. But instead I’m struggling to fit God into my life – a confused 23 year old who happens to find some aspects of organized religion in modern society both anathema and irrepressibly humorous.
This contradiction is a problem, and I don’t know how to make it go away. I can accept that I will never agree with the Pope’s beliefs on social issues. The United Church of Christ is extraordinarily progressive, and reasonable people across all faiths are able to look past the very literal interpretations of religion favored by many extreme right wingers. But I don’t know how to change what’s inside me, or even whether or not I should be trying.
The last time I had dinner with Rev. Bob Maddox, he tried to reassure me, explaining that many members of the church community have unanswered questions about God and that my uncertainty was not at all unusual. This is, of course, somewhat comforting and one of the reasons I’m so grateful for my time at Westmoreland to date. But I cannot shake the sense that I’m acting disingenuously, going to church, reciting the Lord’s prayer, taking Communion. Though I feel strongly that religion should not be an exclusive experience, this does not shield me from the fear that I do not belong. Who am I to sit in church every week, if I cannot definitively answer whether or not I believe in God? I want to, but is that enough? I don’t know the answer to these questions.
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