Chasing elusive victories

Last night’s announcement was as unexpected as it was momentous.  After a lazy Sunday spent watching movies and eating Chipotle and chocolate chip cookies, I was sitting in bed, minutes away from going to sleep, when Sarah sent me a gchat message: “something ridiculous is about to go down, I think.”  Turning on the TV around 10:30, I soon became aware of two things, only one of which was a new revelation: Osama bin Laden was rumored to be dead and Wolf Blitzer is best viewed on mute.

Leading up to and immediately following Obama’s brief, confident speech, many – both on TV and among my friends – began to speculate about the implications of the strike, for al Qaeda, for national security, and for the 2012 presidential election.  The latter, to me, seems particularly silly to contemplate, since that circus is more than a year and a half away.  All of the rest will become clearer with time.

Also interesting to me has been the joyous reaction to this news.  I remarked to Maggie last night, after seeing video footage of the giddy mob gathering outside the White House, that I thought it would be fun to be down there.  She thought it might be kind of strange to be celebrating someone’s death, which I agree with, to an extent.  Andrew Sullivan pointed me toward a nice piece by Russell Arben Fox, capturing pointedly the moral dilemma that bin Laden’s death presents.

The moral plane of the universe is not somehow improved by the killing of a man. “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he is overthrown”–the author of Proverbs had it right.

I believe all that….but I still think he deserved it.

I agree wholeheartedly.  Osama bin Laden was a malevolent mass murderer.  He directly and brutally attacked our country on 9/11 and has continued to orchestrate appalling acts of terrorism all around the world.  Aside from callously ripping apart thousands of families, his actions have baited our country into two quagmire wars, provoked reprehensible and inexcusable backlashes against Muslims, and severely battered our national psyche.  That that monster is dead should be a cause for celebration, if only of the fact that he can no longer wreak such suffering on the world.

Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post powerfully evokes his memories from 9/11, and makes a similar argument.

Triumphalism and unapologetic patriotism are in order….

In the days to come, there will be time to consider the nuanced implications of Osama bin Laden’s demise at the hands of the CIA. Will anti-American anger threaten to send unstable Pakistan out of control? Will al-Qaeda’s younger, more decentralized leadership feel not bereft but empowered? In a few days or weeks, I might care. But not now….

We got the son of a bitch.  Well done.

In these times of unconventional warfare, we have few signature battles with which to define our progress.  We always win, because no group or nation can match our military power, yet we also perpetually lose, because it is close to impossible to defeat an ideology, embodied by a shadowy, decentralized network of radical extremists.  Iraq and Afghanistan have featured a decade of murky skirmishes and offensives, and neither conflict will end cleanly with the surrender of a rival, as in World War II.  True victory is elusive.

This is why yesterday’s raid was so important.  In a way, Osama bin Laden was the sole-remaining, widely recognized face of our enemy.  Killing him may or may not ultimately make our country safer, but it has been enormously cathartic for the American people.  Crowds in DC and New York and around the nation took to the streets last night because we are not going to get the euphoria of a VJ Day, and everyone knows it.  So if shooting a diabolical terrorist brings even a small sense of closure to some of the cruel injustices of the past decade, I consider that a worthy cause.

Two notable anniversaries

Today marks a pair of momentous anniversaries, each recalling a very different period of history, yet both, in a way, reinforcing the power of human spirit and innovation.

On this day in 1861, 150 years ago, Confederate soldiers in South Carolina fired the first shots of the Civil War.  After the state seceded, Union troops barricaded themselves in Fort Sumter, on an island in the mouth of Charleston’s harbor, and Confederate forces attacked.  What followed was a bloody, protracted, four year slog over slavery and the intersecting authority of the states and the federal government.  Over 620,000 Americans died in this conflict – roughly the same number of casualties as in all other wars combined – and they were fighting over the preservation of both our country and, indirectly, our brand of representative democracy.

Abraham Lincoln expressed the gravity of the stakes most famously in his Gettysburg Address:

...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Another eloquent paean to the triumph of American democracy comes from Sullivan Ballou’s well-known letter to his wife, Sarah.  Ballou, a major of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers in the Union army, expresses the emotions he is feeling on the eve of a major battle, and captures heartrendingly his conflicting loves of family and country.  The version below comes from Ken Burns’ seminal documentary, The Civil War, and is set to Jay Ungar's beautiful musical piece "Ashokan Farewell."  Its poignancy drives me to tears.

Both Ballou and Lincoln would likely be saddened by some of the anti-government rhetoric saturating the nation these days.  I have no issue with people who believe in the efficacy of conservative, market-based solutions to our country’s problems, but we must never cast our government itself as an antagonist.  So much has been sacrificed in the building of this institution and every American should live with an abiding sense of reverence for the system – this nation that we have struggled to develop and maintain - even when we may disagree over specific actions and policies.

Exactly a century after Fort Sumter, 50 years ago, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.  Until seeing Google’s “doodle” banner today, I had no idea these dates coincided.  A very cool side-note, this website tells you when satellites will be passing overhead in the night sky wherever you live – apparently this week is an excellent time to spot the International Space Station.  Where the Civil War was, in some ways, a test of the durability of one of humanity’s most important developments in civil and political philosophy, Gagarin’s spaceflight was a showcase of ingenuity and innovation.  Though set, at the time, against the grim backdrop of the Cold War, we can now celebrate this milestone for what it was – our first breach of the final frontier of human exploration.

That both of these important events came at times of great tension and conflict is, perhaps, no coincidence.  For better or for worse, it seems that much of our greatest progress has been born out of necessity, during times of danger.  With that in mind, when confronted by tough situations, we can, I suppose, only aspire to do right by our forebears and hope that the lens of history views us kindly.

Our world is cruel and beautiful

If I pay attention, I find that I am reminded on an almost daily basis of just how fortunate I am.  Just the other morning, I read an article about the record number of families that are now facing “food insecurity” (many of them very recently middle class), and how that is stretching resources at area food pantries very, very thin.  Our world is stricken with quite a bit of heartache, and, to date, I’ve been blissfully shielded from much of it.

Though I always attempt to maintain a sense of humility about my place on this Earth, it is shamefully easy to lose perspective.  But stories, like the one I read earlier today, and firsthand experiences both have a uniquely illustrative power to lend context and poignancy to life’s many abstractions.  Particularly with the approach of Thanksgiving, this helps to bring what is often otherwise latent gratitude into sharper relief.

In this sense (and many others), one of the more meaningful things I’ve done over the past year is travel to South Africa.  Though my two weeks of volunteering were, in all likelihood, far more impactful on a personal level than on a practical one, it was an experience that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.  I have been meaning to write more fully about my time there since June.  With the hope of sharing even a fraction of all that I took away, Thanksgiving seems as good a time as any.

 After zooming around the country for a little over a week on the left side of the road (literally – I’ve received two separate email notifications from Thrifty that my credit card would be charged for speed camera violations), Dave and I arrived in the township of Zonkizizwe, about 45 minutes southeast of Johannesburg.  We slept there for a week, volunteering for Vumundzuku-bya vana (VVOCF), which means “Our Children’s Future” in Zulu, and spent a second week commuting to Zonki every day from Johannesburg.

VVOCF: Shipping containers, a dirt yard, and love

Some background: VVOCF is a resource and support center dedicated to children who have been made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS.  Though this disease has orphaned most of the kids who attend, the center itself is not an orphanage.  The kids live primarily with some combination of aunts, uncles, and grandparents, or, most heartbreakingly, in child-headed households.

Dinner time!

Three days per week feature formal programming, intended to nurture, educate, and entertain the youth, helping them to reach their full potential.  There is also a free (and delicious) hot meal – often the only one these kids get all day.  The center helps obtain school uniforms and distributes donated clothes. Overarchingly, it works tirelessly to destigmatize and raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, and helps ensure that HIV positive children receive the care they need to survive and thrive.  Even on the off days, when the center is not technically open, many children congregate and play there, which, to me, speaks volumes about VVOCF’s important place in the community.

Dave and I helped with all of this, splitting our time between having fun with the kids and doing behind-the-scenes administrative stuff to support the center - organizing for grant proposals and setting up a more efficient accounting spreadsheet, for example.  With several months in Zonki, I think we could have made measurable progress on some of these initiatives, particularly a large scale study of VVOCF’s efficacy.  However, with only two weeks, we faced many limitations (complicated further by the lack of available resources, such as a reliable computer). 

The children themselves are wonderful.  Particularly with the younger ones, it's so easy to forget what dire circumstances all of them face. They are so loving and happy, and were genuinely excited to do anything with us - reading, arts and crafts, beating us at soccer, etc. Reality begins to set in, though, when you have conversations with some of the older kids about their aspirations. Growing up as they have, these kids have not had chance or reason to think about their future. Self-empowerment is one of the goals of VVOCF, but all of the good work at the center cannot overcome a lackluster education system in the townships and the 40% national unemployment rate (higher in places like Zonki). It is depressing to observe that, no matter what they do, as these kids grow up, they have very few options to make a living. Even more heartbreaking is the fact that the older kids seem to recognize this.

I thought quite a bit about the most effective way to convey the many nuances of our time at the center and decided, ultimately, to introduce you to some of the characters that we came to know.

Nomusa and Sne

Nomusa co-founded VVOCF in 2006 and now runs the center’s day-to-day operations.  Though she only has a few years of formal education, she is bright and passionate about caring for the kids, and has a great sense for how to get things done.  It is the organizational aspects of running a non-profit center where she needs assistance, which is why we tried to help her with the filing and record keeping systems.  Nomusa speaks English fluently, and often focused on teaching the children to read.  Her son, Snetemba, was a real terror, in a good way.  One time, Nomusa saw streaks of mud running across the side of our parked car.  Shaking her head, she mused, “Only Snetemba could have done this.”  He liked to shout out vowel sounds: "ah, eh, iii, uh, oo!"

Spe and Nlanthla

Once the sun set on our first evening in Zonki, all of the kids had left.  We had chatted briefly with Nomusa and Vumile over tea and decided to sort the clothes the next morning.  Feeling a little out of place, Dave and I were somewhat awkwardly taking in our surroundings.  Up strode Spe, Nomusa’s older son, and Nlanthla, his best friend.  “My troublemakers,” she called them.

They sat for awhile and taught us words and phrases in Zulu (indiza is plane, inyanga is moon), laughing at our struggles to pronounce the unfamiliar sounds.  Nlanthla asked us to sing our national anthem, and he sang theirs in return: “Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika,” an old resistance song that translates to “God bless Africa” and was later combined with songs of several languages to form the modern South African anthem.  We played the first of many games of soccer in the dark yard, and I took the first of many tumbles on the rocky, packed dirt, luckily avoiding the shards of broken glass and popping up laughing.  Later that evening, they took turns reading “Danny and the Dinosaur.”  Every night thereafter, they would come and read with us, sometimes after soccer, sometimes after chess.  Spe and Nlanthla were key to us feeling welcome in Zonki.

Phakamani

 We were specifically tasked with bonding with the older teen boys, since they have very few male role models in their lives.  Phakamani was one of my favorites – he challenged us, along with one of his friends, to a two on two USA v. South Africa soccer match (sadly, the USA did not prevail – it was not even close).  He and the other teens also kept asking if they could wash our car.  Having only been in Zonki for a day or two, we were still getting acclimated and felt vaguely suspicious. But they really did just want to wash the road dirt off of our car.  A few times, Phakamani borrowed my camera and ran around taking pictures.  Photography is one of my favorite hobbies, and I take the fact that I can practice, more or less at will, for granted.

One of the most lasting memories that I’ll keep of Phakamani was a conversation that he had with Kristi and me about his future.  As a 17 year old, he is getting ready to graduate from school.  We asked him what he wanted to do afterwards and he kind of shrugged, saying that the only thing he does well is play sports.  When we followed that by asking if he wanted to stay in Zonki or move away, he responded that he would stay, because “[he has] no choice.”  It floored me to realize that, having grown up as he did, in a country with 40% unemployment and still-blatant stratification, Phakamani had never had reason to give much thought to his ideal future.  Even poor kids in America grow up with big dreams.  It’s cruel and unfair that these kids do not.

Specihle

Specihle, another of the teen boys, is 16 and lives in a child-headed household with his twin brother, who no longer comes to VVOCF, and several younger siblings.  He told me one time while we were gardening that when he is able to get online, his chat name is “Cool Zulu Boy.”  Specihle also expressed disappointment that one of the previous volunteers had forgotten his birthday (July 3), even though he remembered hers.  It struck me that, to us, visiting VVOCF is the experience of a lifetime, but that to these kids, our presence is likely depressingly fleeting.  After returning home, I made sure to ask Kristi to wish Specihle a happy birthday from me.  I want the kids to know that, even half a world away, I think of them often, and that I care about them.

Wiseman, in the middle

M'Longisi

M’Longisi took an instant liking to us.  I’m not entirely sure that that is actually his name, since he doesn’t speak a word of English.  He would follow us around like a little shadow, tugging at our hands, wanting to be picked up and spun around, or asking to play soccer, or just gesturing to show us something. 

Wiseman wins the award for best name, yet, for some odd reason, his was one of the names it took me the longest to remember.  He was always eager to say hello and one of the first to volunteer to help clean up at the end of the day.

Chlanchla, Vumile, and Hilda in the kitchen

Aside from Nomusa, VVOCF relies on the hard work of several adult volunteers. They would gather each morning for a moving, musical prayer. Vumile always seemed particularly tickled when we would ask her “how are you?” in Zulu (unjani).  Chlanchla, who actually spoke great English, would only speak to us in Zulu and would often lead the kids in song or dance.  Susvina usually cooked the delicious meals, like samp (curried beans and hominy) and lentils over rice.  Hilda invited us over to her home to watch the opening game of the World Cup on TV, with her husband Alfred.  Because Alfred has a job, they live in a nice house, have a small flat screen TV, opened a bottle of wine to share with us, and own a car.  The fact that they still live in Zonki illustrates the fact that today’s townships are home to people of varying means – there are even some mansions in Soweto. 

Weeding in the vegetable garden

There are so many others that we came to know – Pulile, the sweet girl with the shy smile whose face I painted with the South African flag for the World Cup, Sfizso, the teen boy who ran across a field to help us find the center on our first afternoon and later showed me the addition he was building to his family’s home, the grinning boy in the red snow jacket who, despite the fact that I never was too clear on his name, was one of my favorites, the other Nlanthla, who played soccer barefoot.

Zonkizizwe

VVOCF is a place of exceptional hope and love, but also depressing realities.  Knowing that the world is full of M’Longisi-s, eager to give hugs, and Phakamani-s, struggling with a lack of opportunity, is utterly heartbreaking.  Despite these harsh realities, the inherent goodness of these kids gives me hope for the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity.  And, more than anything, it makes me acutely aware of my great fortune.  We are all graced with considerable blessings.  Happy Thanksgiving.

To learn more about VVOCF, or to donate to the U.S.-based non-profit organization that directly supports it, click here.

Lives I'm not living

In the three years that have elapsed since graduating college, I've grown up quite a bit.  Much of this can be attributed to natural maturation, as well as to the demanding responsibilities and earlier bedtimes associated with a full-time job.

Another, somewhat inevitable, part of getting older is reflection, frequently accompanied by mock despair.  Though a often the subject of reminiscence and joking among friends, the cold reality of passing time also lends an element of existential angst to these musings: Have I chosen the right career?  Should I be concerned with getting married and starting a family?  Am I happy with the direction of my life? 

Mostly I can dismiss this worrying as silliness, brought on by thinking about the future as something increasingly immediate and less theoretical.  I recognize and am endlessly grateful for the fact that I lead a fantastic life.  Yet I find myself wondering if, while cheapened somewhat by their melodramatic tone, these are real, valuable questions that I should be pondering at this point in time.

I work as a marketing and business development coordinator for a local architecture firm.  Although I've learned a lot in my three years on the job, and, through my participation in the professional organization SMPS, am frequently exposed to peers with admirable bodies of accomplishments, there is nothing about my work that inherently moves me.

While I get a degree of measured pleasure from completing a proposal or receiving a compliment on my performance, it is mostly fleeting rather than personally fulfilling in any kind of meaningful way.  And though I look up to many of the more experienced marketers that I've met through SMPS, it's difficult to try to emulate their success without wondering whether or not "Marketing Manager of a D.C.-based architecture/engineering/construction industry firm" is really what I want to be in ten years.

Although this is something I ponder occasionally, the reason I've been focused on it so acutely the past few nights is Dr. Marsha Guenzler-Stevens.  As anyone who has ever attended a formal reception at Maryland knows, she is an unbelievably talented speaker.  Beyond her inspirational rhetoric, I also have an enormous amount of respect for her ability to remember seemingly small things about everyone she meets, no matter how briefly.

Marsha delivered the keynote address, as she's done for the previous two years, at last Sunday night's O.N.E. UMD conference, a networking dinner with current and former student leaders that I attended as a recent graduate.  She structured her speech around the principles of the Leadership Challenge, a model that identifies five crucial attributes of great leaders, and spoke glowingly about former students who, through their time on campus and their achievements after graduation, embody each of these concepts.

Maybe it's the fact that I actually know one of the people that Marsha mentioned, or maybe I'm just a sucker for an inspirational speech (I am), but hearing about all of these impressive feats struck a chord within me.  It's not that I necessarily feel a need to save the world, and I have no illusions about finding a perfect job at which every day is fun.  But the idea of dedicating my life to something about which I am incredibly passionate is appealing on a very deep level.  I want to feel driven to do work that makes me, and other people, proud.

The problem I've always had, from choosing a major to trying to apply for jobs, is that I have trouble envisioning exactly what would motivate me to such a great degree.  I'm reasonably sure that anything that would truly excite me, at least initially, would involve living in a foregin country for a period of time.  But aside from that, I'm just not sure.

Steve suggests that I explore new opportunities gradually, in the hope that something will stand out.  Though I certainly don't disagree with this approach, and try hard to take steps to expose myself to exciting, new experiences through traveling and volunteering, for example, I worry that this is not enough.

Maggie has a thought-provoking quotation splashed across the bottom of her blog from Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close:

Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.

If I were ever going to make a dramatic change in my life, ever going to pick up and move to some exotic locale to pursue a new passion, the time would be now.  As the years pass, I'll likely develop increasingly more connections and responsibilities at work and in my personal life.  Any combination of an advanced career, a house, or a family would make it difficult to justify taking such a drastic step.

There are times that I can picture my potential future, as an experienced and reasonably successful marketing professional, volunteering on the board of SMPS.  This path could certainly be rewarding, in a lot of ways, and the longer I stay in my current position, the more powerful the inertia that holds me in place.  But, by the same token, each day that I spend here, commuting through traffic to do work that I don't think I love, the more convinced I become that I need to seek out something more fulfilling. 

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.

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.

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.

Skip 'em

Several months ago, I wrote at length about my confusion surrounding the place of spirituality in my life. Without a definitive upbringing to serve as framework, I argued, it has always been exceptionally difficult to feel at ease with religion. I traced this discomfort to a lack of knowledge on my part. Indeed, save one visit to my neighbor’s youth group, a couple of weddings, and touring a number of magnificent cathedrals abroad, I had never really even been inside a church before, let alone experienced a worship service.

This changed, however, in early January. Joe accepted an invitation to sing with a local church’s choir around Christmastime. Though he didn’t at first intend to join the choir permanently, he liked it so much that he decided to continue. Considering our typical Saturday night activities, committing to waking up at 8:00 every Sunday morning is a pretty big deal. We spoke a bit about it and, despite not knowing what to expect (or even what denomination the church was), I was curious enough to join him one weekend.

Since Joe had to don his robe and prepare to sing, I stood alone for awhile in the front entryway (what I would later learn is called the narthex). Unsure what to do, I feigned intense interest in studying the bulletin boards and artwork on the walls. Fortunately, Maryn and Janet, two older women, approached me to say hello. They were exceptionally welcoming, as was everyone else I met that first day – John, the retired Foreign Service employee, Shirley, the perky member of one of the church’s many committees, and Leon, choir stalwart and husband of Maryn. I observed at least four separate people come up and welcome a very old man back, presumably from an extended illness that had prevented him from coming to church. Even at first glance, the community seemed so closely knit – it says a lot that people know each other well enough to have immediately recognized a stranger in their midst. It says even more, I’d contend, that they actively sought to welcome that stranger with open arms.

For that reason alone, I think, I would’ve come back. But the rest of the service was great too, though a little bewildering to my uninitiated senses. During the passing of the peace, for instance, people rise from their seats and warmly greet just about everyone within handshaking distance. “Children’s time” dumbs down the preceding scripture reading to help all of the young kids (and me) better understand it and relate it to their lives. The hymns are kind of fun to sing and the wide variety of music is beautiful. And Rich Smith, the reverend, delivers a great sermon. He’s not overly preachy and is able to realistically relate the scripture to current events and modern, daily life. In fact, on that first Sunday (days before Inauguration), he titled his sermon “An Open Letter to President Barack Obama.”

Over the following few months, I’ve attended services regularly and come to know much more about Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ. The UCC has evolved over time from the merger of several Protestant denominations. It is run from the bottom-up, with individual congregations suggesting changes in policy, which are then voted on by an annual conference of representatives. Subsequently, each local congregation is independently able to vote on whether or not to accept these changes. For example, several years ago the UCC voted to recognize same-sex marriages. Westmoreland, in turn, democratically decided to embrace this and become an “open and affirming congregation.” There are surely other local branches of the UCC that chose not to take this step.

I greatly respect this emphasis on individuality. One of the things that has always bothered me about organized religion is the perception that many church-going people are like parrots, repeating verbatim what is written in the Bible. Rather than apply religious teachings to their lives, they allow the church to dictate their views, seemingly without room for dissenting thought.

This is not the case at Westmoreland. Rev. Bob Maddox, who treated me to dinner a few weeks ago, helped me to understand this better. He told me that there are plenty of old traditions at the church, but that the congregation has kept them alive because people enjoy them, not because anyone from the national UCC has declared that it should be so. We were discussing the possibility of me formally joining the church, and being baptized. (Having come from a background as a Baptist minister, Bob was quite excited by this). I was concerned that I might be acting hypocritically – that my enthusiasm for the church community would be somehow cheapened by my uncertainty regarding my internal beliefs about religion.

Bob was quick to reassure me. Westmoreland, he explained, has no creed that its members are required to recite. The Bible, to him, is much more a book about ancient interpretations of God’s teachings than an inflexible doctrine, passed down directly from God Himself. To lack certainty and understanding is natural. Bob promised me that I was not alone in this. Further, he suggested that I use aspects of religion that baffle me as the impetus for greater personal exploration. And his advice regarding parts of the Bible that seem outmoded or don’t sit well with me? “Skip ‘em.”

In a lot of ways, that is all I’m looking for in religion – a supportive source of grounding and stability that makes no judgments about my past or future beliefs. This experience shouldn’t be unpleasant or exclusive – without growing up with a religious background, why would I choose to join a church that made me feel uncomfortable? At Westmoreland, the sense of inclusiveness is profound. And the church’s progressive and active stance on social issues helps to minimize any disconnect I might feel between religion on a theological level and its relevance to everyday life.

Even without having read more than a few passages of the Bible and without fully sorting out my internal confusion, I’m considering joining Westmoreland in the next month or two. And I’m confident I’ll be warmly welcomed, because despite not being a formal member, I already feel like a part of the community.

On confusion and inclusion

I grew up in a spiritual bubble, of sorts. My parents disagree rather drastically about religion, and decided to raise their children in a neutral way. In other words, the topic was never mentioned. I had no learned answer when my six year old friends would ask, “Do you believe in God?” Puzzled, I would come home and ask my parents for clarification, with no success. Though my mom would’ve loved to talk to me about God, her response was typically to be evasive, and turn the question around on me. “What do YOU believe?” My dad’s attempt to balance atheism and neutrality was characteristically cryptic and went something like this: “Life is so complicated, the world is so complex, that I do think some higher power could very well be at play. But then I think, if there’s a God, why are there terrible things, like war?”

This philosophical musing could be, to me today, an interesting source of adult conversation. But to a second-grader, it was simply confusing. I appreciate that my parents wanted me to have the ability to make my own decisions about religion, but I often wish that spirituality had been taught to me in a more black and white way. It’s difficult to craft an educated opinion, let alone an entire belief system, without even a basic starting framework.

Growing up, I continued to have a strange relationship with religion. I did not know what it meant when my friends couldn’t come over to play on Wednesday afternoons because of CCD and began to imagine God as a Zeus-like figure, living in the clouds. Later, in high school, I became somewhat dismissive of organized religion. My derisive attitude was born, at least partially, of an utter lack of understanding. It was much easier to treat religion as something that was not worth my time than to view it as an area where my knowledge was lacking.

College transformed this attitude, as it tends to do with so many different aspects of our self concept and our understanding of the world. Meeting people from diverse backgrounds forces you to grow, and by random chance, a lot of my earliest and most enduring friends at Maryland were Catholic. Just being around them taught me a little about religion – the meaning of communion, what one does (or rather, does not do) during Lent, that Ash Wednesday is more than just a funny sounding date on my calendar. As I learned passively from my experiences, I no longer felt dismissive of religion. Instead, I became increasingly aware of just how limited my knowledge was. This has been an unending source of discomfort ever since.

One of my friends used to invite me to a free weekly dinner, hosted by the university’s Catholic Student Center. Feeling uneasy in a way that is impossible to articulate, I always declined, but she doggedly mistook my discomfort for timidity. “Father Bill encourages non-Catholics to attend.”

Another friend and I once met someone at a housewarming party who, for some reason, brought up that he was “Christian in name, but didn’t really believe in any of that stuff.” My friend turned and said, “Oh, that’s the same as Jason.” I shook my head, tried weakly to succinctly express the complexity of my beliefs, and ultimately settled for “it’s more complicated than that.” He gave me a blank look, and bluntly asked, “Ok yeah, but do you celebrate Easter, like for the real reasons?” Unable to claim any childhood memories of Easter that did not involve dyed eggs or rabbits, the unspoken conclusion of the exchange was, “So you’re not really a Christian.”

I have many uncomfortable memories like this, from being slapped with the flat response of “it’s Friday” when talking about ordering wings at happy hour during the month of March to exploring cathedrals abroad, including the Vatican itself. All are born not just out of a lack of knowledge on my part, but out of the paranoia, justified or not, that others somehow judge me harshly for my ignorance.

An episode of public radio’s This American Life is what inspired me to write about this topic in the first place. The story focuses on Reverend Carlton Pearson, formerly a rising star in the Pentecostal church. He alienated the evangelical world and drove away most of his 5,000 member congregation when he decided he no longer believed in Hell – that it made more sense to preach about God’s love than fear of His wrath. One of the most striking segments, to me, is an interview with Theresa Reid, a member of Pearson’s congregation who stuck with him through the controversy. She describes a time when she was confronted while on a walk by some neighbors who told her they thought that her beliefs were dangerous.

They felt no inhibition about letting us know that we were going down the wrong path. I’ve had that experience in the grocery store. It makes it seem even more ridiculous to me, the whole mindset that I grew up with, when I look at it and I experience it from the other side, as the target of the proselytizing. It makes it that much more clear to me that what we have done… to people of other faiths has been really pretty insensitive, and pretty mean, even though we did it in the name of God and even though we meant well.

When someone comes up to me and tries to tells me that I should change or I’m going to Hell, I kind of have compassion on that person because they don’t really know how that sounds. They don’t realize how mean-spirited that sounds.

I’ve never really been accosted by glassy-eyed proselytizers, and I certainly don’t think that my friends are trying to be rude to me. Still, Reid’s message resonates with me. It speaks, I think, to the subtle, macro-level challenge that I face. Why should not growing up with religion preclude me from having a relationship with God? I pray every night before I get in bed and once, while asleep, had what I believe was a deeply spiritual conversation with my cousin Melanie, weeks after she passed away. But without a background in organized religion, there is a part of me that may always feel inadequate.

Maybe I’m just being naïve, but I don’t believe that religion should be an uncomfortable experience. Because of my upbringing, I can’t just jump into a chosen faith – like my father, there’s too much that I disagree with, too much that I question. But I’m not willing to accept that this makes me ineligible for salvation. There’s something comforting about going to church, something about having another source of grounding and support that greatly appeals to me.

This is, to date, the conclusion I’ve reached. That I value God, but don’t quite agree with or understand everything about organized religion. I realize that this is in no way unique. Most people, I’m sure, go through periods of self-examination when they question assumptions they’ve been raised to hold as truths. And maybe that’s what bothers me the most – that everyone must ultimately find their own way, but that without an existing framework, I’ve had an awfully hard time getting started.

In a Christian nation...

The misguided prejudice of many people in this country astounds me. I have already made my case against Proposition 8's ban on gay marriage. But after reading this article, which presents gay marriage as a microcosm of a larger schism within the Republican party, I browsed some of its hundreds of reader comments. The article casts the fight over Prop 8 as reflecting a brewing contest between moderates and the religious right.

There certainly were several fundamentalist-sounding comments, quoting Bible passages to argue the uncouthness of homosexuality. But these people are not swayable. It is useless to tell them, as many have tried, that the Bible also teaches fierce opposition to many other things that are widely practiced today (and are overlooked or even accepted by society). More troubling are comments like this:

If i were gay I would push for civil unions and be happy with that. As long as we are a Christian nation the gay lifestyle is never going to be socially acceptable but that doesn't mean they should be mistreated either. Remember gays are treated much worse in Islamic and Hindu countries. And everyone can't always have everything that we want.

This is not a particularly hard-line stance, but it does reflect several unfortunate sentiments. First, it assumes that Christianity and homosexuality are mutually exclusive. Gay people can have religious beliefs too. Sure they don't necessarily spend their lives advocating for discrimination against their peers (which, sadly, many do). But actively working to worsen the lives of others is not a central tenet of any religion I've ever heard of.

Second, the idea that the United States is "a Christian nation" is misguided. The founders were, in fact, quite explicit about the separation of church and state. Religious freedom is written into the Bill of Rights. Yes, the large majority of people in America are Christians. But this should not have any influence on policy. On a related note, referencing mistreatment in "Islamic and Hindu countries" is also misleading. Many countries are run by theocratic principles, but their policies do not speak for entire faiths. The problems in these countries are often rooted in their fundamentalist dictators, whose human rights violations are abhorrent by any standard. Anti-gay sentiment is not an inherent reflection of strong religious beliefs; it is a result of bigotry.

Finally, I take issue with the statement "everyone can't always have everything that we want." I have always kind of hated this sentiment, ever since my dad used to play the Rolling Stones to "teach me and my siblings a lesson" about greed and humility. But this line implies that the asker is seeking something unreasonable. Gay people are not looking to change anyone's life but their own. They want the same privileges enjoyed by every other U.S. citizen. This is not the nagging request of a petulant child. It is the longing of a repressed minority for an equal shot at the American Dream - the same desire that has motivated civil rights movements throughout our history. That there are legitimate channels for this equality to be achieved speaks to the wonder of our country. That it has not yet been granted demonstrates just how far we have yet to go.

Legalized discrimination

In the past week, I’ve been eager to soak up news coverage of the aftermath of the election- Obama’s transition process, possible candidates for the cabinet, and D.C. gearing up for inauguration day. This is an exciting time for the country and I’m looking forward to being a part of it. I am bothered, however, by the passage of Proposition 8 in California, which reverses a ruling by the state Supreme Court and bans gay marriage in the state’s constitution. This casts a pall over what has otherwise been an exhilarating several days.

It is a shame that gay marriage is an issue at all, but doubly upsetting that it’s now been banned in liberal, open-minded California. Barack Obama carried the state by a wide margin, so this cannot be blamed on right-wing fundamentalism. Instead, it reflects a troubling mainstream opposition to equality.

At root, perhaps, is the religious connotation that many people assign to marriage. Indeed, many couples get married in churches and view their union as a commitment before God. Should religious bodies wish to regulate for whom they will perform marital ceremonies, they certainly have this prerogative. But permitting gay marriage is not about forcing unwilling faiths to conduct weddings for homosexual couples in their churches. It is not about altering the curriculum of schools, or forcing a new ideology on straight people. Plain and simple, it is about allowing two people who are in love to solidify their relationship in a way that grants them joint legal rights and, culturally, implies a lifetime commitment to each other - same as marriage for a heterosexual couple.

Some sanctimoniously argue that gays should be allowed equal rights under the law, but that the idea of marriage between a man and a woman is sacred. But this ignores a big part of the issue by dehumanizing the discussion. People do not get married because they want visitation rights in the hospital or to fill out their taxes in a different way. These are necessary benefits of being in a long-term, committed relationship, but they do not spark the relationship itself. Couples get married because they are in love. They marry because they want to become a family and because they recognize how much fuller life is with a companion than it is alone. It should not matter if the people in question happen to be gay. How is it fair to deny anyone this happiness?

It is particularly heartbreaking to consider Proposition 8 in the context of the national election. The sense of hope and opportunity that Barack Obama represents rings quite hollow when juxtaposed with what happened in California. To favor a constitutional ban of gay marriage is to favor legalized discrimination. This position inherently casts a group of people as second-class citizens and legitimizes a sense of bigotry that this country has long struggled to overcome.

Still, caught up in the spirit of Obama’s victory, I am confident that this ban will eventually be overturned. A younger, more tolerant generation is coming of age, and I cannot believe that such blatant discrimination will persist in America, purportedly the Land of the Free, forever. So while there is reason to be hopeful, for now I am just very, very sad.