music and memories

I. When I was in high school, my dad was briefly a silent partner in a used car dealership. That might seem wildly out-of-character if you didn't know him well, but before he was any kind of Bible teacher, he was a farm kid who had to keep tractors and trucks running, and he was always a motorhead. I don't think he got any money out of the dealership, he just had an agreement that he would help fund their startup and in return, they would provide him with a car to drive. 

My senior year, for about a month, that car was a (used) white Firebird or Camaro or something (I am not a motorhead), which were the hot cars at my high school, and which I had never even ridden in let alone had a chance to drive. He passed it to me to drive for a week or two, and my main memory of that car is driving around at night with the soundtrack to the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie blasting out of the 8-track tape deck, pretending I was in an X-wing-- my own private 70s movie mashup. 

So the other night when we were scrolling around trying to find something to watch, and we ran across a John Williams documentary on Disney+, of course we watched. If you're even a marginal John Williams fan, we both recommend it highly. He wrote the soundtracks to both Superman and Star Wars, of course, as well as Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park, but he also wrote a bunch of stuff we didn't know about (the Olympic theme, for example). His music brings back an avalanche of memories, and his history is more complex than I might have expected. The documentary mostly concentrates on his collaborations with Spielberg, but there are plenty of other directors and musicians who contribute.

II. A couple of months ago, I realized I had stopped listening to music. I've never been one to always have music on in the background, but I used to turn it on when I was driving or if I needed to amp up my energy for a cooking or cleaning project. I've spent quite a bit of time and effort putting together playlists in our iTunes account over the years, and I had a couple of Pandora channels that I loved. And suddenly I was listening to none of it. It was as if I couldn't deal with anything but silence. I didn't have enough bandwidth for all the things I was worried about, all the things I felt responsible for, and listening to music. 

In other news, our son and I have shared a Spotify account for years because originally when he was in high school, I was paying for it. He pays for it now, so it's really his account, but I still have the app on my phone and I would --maybe 3-4 times a year-- pull it up to listen to something and he would be met with Carole King or Stevie Wonder the next time he opened the app. So when I decided I needed to get back into listening to music as part of my drop-the-weight-of-the-universe-off-my-shoulders plan, I found out that Spotify was offering three months free, and I signed up for my own account. When I texted Sam and told him, he replied, look at you all grown up and savin' China. Love that kid.

So all of that was just to tell you that I have recently been reminded that there is a part of joy that is located in my body, my physical self, in movement. And if you want a recommendation, can I just say that you should try swanning around the house to Pink Pony Club. Those youngsters are really on to something, ha. I've been surprised to discover that when my arms are thrown into the air, something wakes inside me that has been asleep. 

A thing I still hold dear, have always cherished since I realized it in college, is that we are all better and stronger when we support each other's individual selves, when we celebrate diversity ("Celebrate Diversity" was even the sign I carried in the Montana Women's March in Helena on January 21, 2017)(I just wasted about 20 minutes trying --unsuccessfully-- to find a picture). And if there was ever a song that joyfully celebrated diversity, it is Pink Pony Club. 

III. In case you didn't notice, I've been clearing out all my half-written posts so I can shut this thing down. It's possible this will be my last post. Wow, that sounds so.... final. Maybe not. Maybe I will be back next week. But (see this post) I've been praying about it, and it feels right. I do have some more things to add to that post, but I will put them in a comment so check back if it's a topic that interests you. Love y'all.

Late Night Thoughts of an Unfeminine Female

I am not a very feminine female. Even as a child, I was never a girly girl. I never played with baby dolls or had any desire to wear frilly pink dresses and sit quietly. Later, I never really got the fascination with clothes and makeup. I spent plenty of time trying out makeup and getting perms and longing for clothes we couldn't afford-- but it was never because I cared about that stuff. It was because I cared (desperately) about fitting in, and that was how I thought you did it.  

I had a few moments of proto-feminism while growing up, but it wasn't until I went off to the second half of undergrad on the west coast and fell under the sway of a bunch of second wave feminists that I was all in. It made perfect and complete sense to me. There were a lot of problems with second wave feminism, and it's easy to criticize forty-five years later. But at the time, when feminism was still new, it was a like a life raft for those of us who didn't fit the female mold, a promise of a better future. 

I understood at a gut level what those feminists were telling me about the patriarchy, and the suffocating box that was the role a middle-class white female could expect in adulthood. But 45 years later, I can tell you something that is equally clear, the mistake we newly liberated women made: we thought that was how all women felt. 

We were out there pushing boundaries, taking jobs and demanding careers, being competent and professional, proving that we were capable of doing anything that men could do, and loving every minute of it. Every single little advance that inched us "forward," that took us away from diapers and vacuuming and cooking three meals a day and sewing your own prom dress and downing a couple of valium to get through the day. We were so into it that we were sure all women felt that way. The ones who said they didn't just hadn't realized it yet, we assured ourselves. We thought all those poor deluded females were looking to us to lead the way into a new future.

You know what we missed? We missed the women who loved the traditional feminine life. Who loved every minute of cuddling up with an infant, even if it meant sleepless nights and endless inexplicable crying. (I love my kids, but to me, the infant stage was just something you had to get through in order to have kids who could walk and talk.) The women who found fulfillment in cooking delicious meals for their family. The ones who were expert seamstresses and knitters and weavers, who had more expertise in their craft than I've ever had in any of my professional skills. The women who took great pride in creating a comfortable, beautiful home where their family felt cared for and they could host their friends and relatives. 

I still can't do any of that, and the things I have to do (like cooking), I don't do particularly well. It gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about a world where that's all a woman is allowed to do. But I understand now what I didn't understand then, because I've seen it in women of all ages and all backgrounds-- there are millions of women out there who would be perfectly happy and content to be married and spend their lives taking care of their kids and their house and their extended family and their entire neighborhood. (There are a probably a bunch of men who would like that, too.) There's nothing wrong with them. They don't need to be enlightened or have their consciousness raised. They are just wired differently than me. The same way I felt that I didn't fit in the mid-century housewife mold, they felt they didn't fit in the 80s career woman mold.

I can make all the standard arguments that my feminist mentors have made before me-- the traditional model only works if the husband wants the same thing, has a good job, doesn't gamble or drink or drug the money away, and doesn't run off with his 24-year-old secretary when he hits forty. It only works if the husband doesn't die in a car accident while the kids are still in diapers. Because in those scenarios, you've got a woman with a family to support and no job skills. And there's no question, all of that is true. 

But it still doesn't mean that all women want the same thing, and we were wrong to think they did. But you know what? We had good intentions. We were trying to help, and I genuinely thought we were. I thought we were making the world a better place for all women. The newfound excitement of our exit from the homefront was so fresh, I couldn't imagine that other women wouldn't want the same. It would be a dozen years before I figured out that not only did I not understand the women who loved the traditional roles, I knew nothing about how black women felt, or lesbians, or second generation immigrant women, or any number of other women.

Why is this so hard for us? Why do we so deeply, deeply believe that what is best for me is what is best for you? It happens all around us, in different ways. Parents who think since I loved college, it's the right thing for my children, too. Exvangelicals like me who think, since I found freedom and fulfillment in leaving the faith I was raised in, everyone should leave their native faith. Men whose greatest joy in life is a friendly, competitive game of golf or basketball with their buddies, and assume their children just need a little push to find the same joy in athletics. How do we curb that first, almost unconscious impulse to assume that what works for me is what’s best for you, too?

There's no easy way. but I guess it starts with just seeing the people around you, really seeing them, and trusting them to know what they want, or if they don't, to be able to figure it out. Which sounds pretty obvious now that I've typed that out, but it's also hard. Sometimes really hard.

There are some obvious directions I could go from here, but I would very quickly be out of my depth. I guess I just wanted to make the point that sometimes when you think you're being supportive, if you're telling someone else what they should want or how they should act, really you're being coercive--even if your intentions are good. Even if you think you're making the world a better place. And that's not good for anyone. (And also, eventually it will backfire.) 

And that's enough about that from me. 

Why I am Still Christian

After some of the posts I've written in the past six weeks, you might be wondering if I'm still Christian, and if so, why. It's very late, so this will probably not be as well thought out as it should be. But here you go. 

First of all, please read this post, that I first wrote years ago, and that I edited and re-posted in 2015, and that I could re-post again today with only a few minor changes. 

Then the next thing to say is that I still find Jesus to be one of the most interesting, compelling characters in any religion. I've spent a fair amount of time reading about the search for the historical Jesus and I've studied scholars who deconstruct Jesus' cultural presence and etc etc. But I've finally come back around to accepting that what we have in the four gospels is what we have, and the person of Jesus may not be exactly, accurately portrayed there. But the person that exists in the New Testament is still a phenomenal teacher, and always has been. The sermon on the mount is one of the great spiritual texts of any time or place. 

And he still resonates. Here is just one example. I can't tell you how many times over the past eight years I've been reminded of the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17-22. A young man comes up to Jesus and asks him what he (the young man) must do to be saved. Jesus tells him to keep the commandments, and the man says he has done this all his life. There's not much detail, but reading between the lines, it seems pretty clear that the young man is expecting Jesus to pat him on the head and tell him he's in good shape, no worries. But instead, Jesus looked at him and loved him, and told him to go and sell all his possessions to give to the poor, "then come and follow me." The young man is shocked, because it's not the answer he expected, and he goes away very sad, because he can't bear to part with all his things. 

There's so much here to think about. If this young man had been really listening to Jesus before he came to ask his question--and we don't know if he had-- he would already know that he was asking the wrong question. If he hadn't been listening, it means he just strode up and sort of barged in with his demand for approval. Either way, he's misinformed and doesn't really get what's going on. 

But Jesus looked at him and loved him. When I think someone is misinformed and doesn't gets what's happening, I look at him and judge him. Roll my eyes. Silently mock him, even if I'm not saying it out loud. But Jesus loves him, and gives him a real answer, a true answer, but not the answer the man wants to hear. I heard a wise teacher, talking about this story once a few years ago, say that the man's mistake at this point was that he walked away. The point wasn't necessarily to sell all his goods, the point was following Jesus, listening to him, learning a new way to think, a new set of values. 

I think about that story all the time. And there are moments like that buried all over in the Jesus stories. I'm not the best at finding them-- I have so much hurt and heartache around the way the New Testament was shoved down my throat long ago that I find it difficult to open my bible without a nagging sense of dread that I will be pulled back down under. But I have been gifted in my life with many wise teachers, and they have helped me re-interpret the old stories so that I can see new life in them. I'll never be Evangelical again, but I'm still a follower of Jesus. I still believe in his radical ideas. 

One other thing that I'll add on here, and if it weren't very late at night and I weren't trying to get everything I want to say out on the page so that I can close down this blog, I probably would not say this. But a a bunch of years ago I wrote a post about how disappointed I was in how my life had turned out. I knew it was whining when I wrote it, because who is more privileged or luckier than me? But it was how I felt at that moment, and sometimes you have to go with what you feel in order to get over it. And I have to admit that sometimes I'm over that feeling of disppointment, and sometimes I'm not. But about six months ago, it occurred to me that one of the things, maybe the thing, that has disappointed me most is that God did not turn out to be who I thought God was, the way I was raised to believe God was. I know intellectually that's because I was badly taught, I was handed a bunch of worn-out cultural assumptions about God, and about the way we teach our children about God. It was the way I was taught that was the problem, not actually God. And right on the heels of realizing that most deep disappointment, a little voice said, but wait, what if God is true? what if God does exist, not the cardboard cutout I was raised with, but real God? Those of us who are highly educated have been handed a bunch of science to make it so we don't need to believe God exists anymore, but WHAT IF SHE DOES? (I phrase it like that not because I think God is female to the exclusion of being male but, well, partly because there's no way in english to describe a living, vibrant entity that is beyond gender, but also to emphasize that this tiny bit of hope that burst forth is different than what I previously believed). And just that little bit of breakthrough, the crack in my cynicism that lets the light come in, has made all the difference. A deep part of me is (slowly) coming back to life. I can't prove God exists, but I feel it. I'm not re-writing this or editing it, because if I do, I won't post it.

Letter to an Evangelical with Questions, part 2

When I finished editing part one of this post, it was about 12:30am and I was so tired I just wanted to roll into bed without even brushing my teeth. (I didn't of course, because that would be gross.) But I had what felt like a zillion ideas running through my head about more things that I would say in part two. 

But after a couple of days, I could only remember two of them, and the first is to tell you that if you were raised Evangelical, you may not realize that there are dozens, hundreds, of different kinds of churches and religious practices out there that offer perfectly legitimate ways to worship. I was raised with those Evangelical blinders on, and I didn't think you could be a "real" Christian if you didn't go to a Bible church, or maybe a Baptist church in a pinch if there was no Bible church available.

But I discovered that there are plenty of faithful people in other traditions. I am embarrassed now to admit that I was surprised to find that there were people who knew the Bible better than me at the first non-Evangelical church I tried (and to be fair, also a bunch who didn't). There were people who were doing more vital outreach in the community, and doing more to help the poor, than had ever happened in my previous church. It doesn't hurt to look around. You can visit other churches without having to commit, and see if you find a place that is a better fit.

And the other thing is that although it took a few years, eventually I realized that to treat the Bible as a collection of historical texts with a historical context is actually to show it greater respect than to claim that it was written to you and me today. It wasn't. It was written to specific people in a specific time and place, and you can read it for guidance and inspiration without having to believe that Jonah really lived inside a whale for three days. If you can't imagine how the story of Jonah and the big fish would have played around the campfire to an audience of desert-dwelling nomads, I think you're missing part of the point.

And that's really all the advice I can give you. Unfortunately, you have to figure this out for yourself-- do you want to continue to be Christian, but find a different way to practice? Try an Episcopal church (especially if you love liturgy, ritual, and formal church music), or a PC-USA Presbyterian church, or a UMC Methodist church. If you really can't deal with Christianity at all anymore, try UCC or reformed Jewish. If you can't deal with religion in general, you can try Buddhism, which is non-theistic, or jettison the whole thing and be agnostic or atheist. But you lose something, something you'll probably not find anywhere else. I wish you well.

Feeding the Soul: things that are helping me

This was originally going to be a long (probably boring) series of posts with a full post for each topic, but the more I tried to sit down and type them out, the more resistance I encountered within myself. So in the long tradition of solving writer's block by making lists, here are the things that are working for me right now-- not intended to be your list, or even really advice, but just to get you thinking about ways you can deepen your experience, slow down a bit, and treasure the texture of right now. 

Sorry, that sounds a bit twee, but that's part of the problem, isn't it? Our culture defines anything that takes spirituality seriously as a bit twee and ridiculous. Don't let that deter you: keep working on it when you can, and make your own list.

1. In the brief periods of my experience when I have tried to reject spirituality entirely, the losses I have felt most keenly are the experiences of reverence, awe, mystery, and community. Those don't all mean the same thing, obviously, but they can be connected. Reverence and awe can be magnified when you experience them in a communal setting. When you find a healthy community, it is a mystery and a miracle. and so on. 
- those feelings are either rooted in, or result in, humility. Or maybe both. Learning humility is the life lesson that keeps on happening. at least for me.
- genuine reverence, awe, and mystery are the antithesis of cynicism. If you're still feeling jaded and smug, it's not awe.
- part of reverence is valuing other people, other individuals, acknowledging the unique, worthy person that each of us are. Including yourself.

So anyway, figure out what leads you to those feelings, or inspires those feelings, because a life without them is not a fully experienced life. For me, it's sometimes spectacular scenery, or being in the presense of something huge, like the ocean, or mountains. Or when we stood on the edge of Canyon de Chelly last March. Being inside a sacred space can work for me, and that's something I know doesn't work for everyone because I've had (very gentle) arguments about it. Certain types of music, or the experience of being in a group that is creating music, especially singing songs of praise in a group in a sacred space. Sometimes reading a really good book.

2. Try praying, and don't give up too soon. Even if you don't understand how it works, even if you're sure it shouldn't work, even if you hate the idea of it working. Because whether or not it "works," which presumably means your prayer is answered, the mental posture of asking for help and offering your cares and concerns to a larger entity is powerful-- not powerful in terms of getting your own way, but powerful in terms of your own growth. See #1, humility. Mary Karr deals with this in her book about getting sober, Lit.

3. Also, try to find a group of like-minded souls, and don't give up too soon. It doesn't have to be church, although church can surprise you sometimes, especially if you visit around and find the one that fits.

4. Meditation. Books and books have been written. I've even written posts about it before--wow, more than I realized (I just went and searched). I'll put some links at the end. I don't have anything all that useful to add, except maybe that the thing that's helping me the most right now is to think about connecting with something that blooms or bubbles up from underneath-- feels like hope and lightness-- as opposed to trying to top-down control my brain, which feels like clenched teeth and white knuckles. Apologies if that doesn't make any sense, but I don't know how else to say it. 

Thinking about Meditation (again) Nov 2018
How Not to Meditate June 2015
How Not to Meditate part 2 June 2015
Meditate Me Home - June 2015

5. Find the thing that you create, that only exists in the universe because you do it, that feels like genuine self-expression (even if no one else ever sees it). The process of doing it can clear out some mental space to sort through your experience. It's writing for me, and sometimes making music. For some people maybe it's dance or creative movement, or maybe you cook. Maybe exercise could do this, or maybe creating a group for communal experience would be it. 

The point is: figure out what you need to feed your soul, the care and feeding of your own soul. And then figure out how often you need to do it. Maybe once a week is plenty, while others need something every day. Don't try too hard to create a rigid schedule. If I decide I'm going to get up early every morning and meditate, it never lasts more than a week or ten days. But if I just keep working on inserting a few moments of a meditative mindset whenever I can, it's much more successful, and I actually end up meditating more often. Don't let anyone else tell you what your spiritual life has to look like, because only you know what is going on inside you. 

That's all I can think of right now. I greet and acknowledge the light in you.

blue dot in a red state

As a Democrat who lives in the middle of one of the reddest counties in the country, a county that has only become more conservative as its reputation as a safe harbor for the right wing has become known, I have to say that I get so disgusted with how tone deaf liberals can be. It's just unbelievable to me how arrogant and smug my fellow liberals sound. Even when I agree with them (which I do on most issues, nothing has happened in the past ten years that has convinced me I should start voting Republican), I cannot believe how rude, disdainful, and disrespectful my fellow Democrats can be of our conservative neighbors. 

I'm pretty sure it only happens because they've so thoroughly isolated themselves in their liberal social media feeds and their favorite liberal commentators and their liberal friends that they no longer have any contact with every day normal conservatives, and they think all conservatives must be racist, homophobic nut jobs who don't deserve to be heard or respected. 

Freedom of religion is bedrock in this country, but right now no one (on either side) is paying any attention to it. Conservatives want to believe that we are a Christian nation and thus it's OK to discriminate against anyone who isn't. Liberals want to believe that every religion deserves respect except conservative Christianity. When I first decided back in 2016 that I needed to do a better job of listening to my conservative friends and neighbors, I was surprised how often this came up: there is a build-up of decades of bitterness and resentment about how liberals will go to the mat for pretty much any religion in the world, but they have nothing but sneering disdain for conservative Christians. 

I understand about punching down vs. punching up, and that's the way I used to feel, too. Until I started actually listening. So many of us who are over-educated liberals see Christianity as optional, maybe because so many of us who were raised Christian have left it behind. It seems like something you grow out of, something that no intelligent person could believe. I've ended up becoming deeply re-committed to a more progressive version of Christianity as I've aged, but that was how I felt 15 or 20 years ago. But I've learned, and I was wrong. 

Let me assure you, there are millions of people who feel differently. Their faith is not optional to them, it is deeply embedded in their hearts; it is fundamental to their identity. And when you sneer at them, or say dismissive things about their beliefs, or ignore their legitimate concerns about things that are happening in our country, you don't help your position. You are not convincing them that you are right. You are not changing minds. You're just pissing people off.

Over time I've come to see our reaction to faith as something that is wired into us. Some of us never felt like we fit in with the faith we were raised in and left as soon as we were old enough to get away. Some of us (me) wanted to believe it, but for various reasons were unable to make it work and left it behind. 

But I think some other people are just wired into their status quo. They are not going to question it, they are not going to appreciate your ability to make mincemeat of their theology, and they are not going to change their minds. In fact, the louder you get, the more critical you get, the more you mock and bluster and shout about your outrage at conservative Christians, the more you blame them for all our social ills, the more resentful and bitter and angry they will become. 

Until eventually, maybe because of the accumulation of years of bitterness, maybe because you've finally hit the one issue they will not compromise on, or maybe because you've just become so unbearably smug that they can't stand to listen anymore, eventually they feel that they will follow anyone who is willing to support them in what they should have been supported in all along-- the right to practice their faith in a country that promises them just that.

I write these posts fairly often, but then they just sit in my drafts folder for weeks or months because I can't believe I'm defending conservatives. Some of the things they've done this year make me sick to my stomach--but that's the power mongers in Washington. The conservatives I know personally are people who are volunteering at the food bank, or visiting sick people at the hospital, or knitting afghans for folks in nursing homes. They're not perfect, and we disagree on local politics about as often as we do national politics. But at least I can see them as people, people who love their families and work hard to make ends meet. Sometimes you just have to bite your tongue, not say what you're thinking, and listen.

I become more thoroughly convinced every day that the kind of intellectualism that I have admired and loved and practiced for my entire adult life is not going to solve this problem. We've argued our differences, and argued and argued, and if we could convince each other through arguing, it would have happened by now. Instead, we just get further and further apart. 

I've told you before that Doug and I were separated for almost a year back in the 90s. We spent a lot of time finding the right marriage counselor, and then we spent a lot of time talking to her, and then we had to figure out what we were going to do. And finally one time she told us, you can talk yourselves to death trying to agree on what's wrong and who is responsible for what. but if you want to stay together, at some point, you've just got to let all that go and move on. 

To apply that to our national situation would be a vast oversimplification, but it also is kind of true.

2024 year-end reading roundup

The last few months have not been a good time for me, reading-wise. I was scrolling through my Goodreads reviews yesterday and realized that some of the books that I was thinking were my 2024 favorites were actually books that I read in 2023. I think my lack of enthusiasm says more about me and my state of mind than anything else. Hoping for better reading in 2025.

But if you made me do a 2024 top ten list (I know, you didn't), here it is. They are loosely in order of how much I still think about them-- order of impact? And probably only the first three or four would have made my 2023 list (she says grumpily).

Lit by Mary Karr
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
All My Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore
Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta
Trust by Hernan Diaz
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong

Also there were two books I liked-but-didn't-love when I read them, but I think about them more often than some books I rated more highly: Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang, and Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters.

And some genre fiction, for fun: The Goblin Emperor, The Magician's Daughter, A Memory Called Empire, Ten Things that Never Happened.

Here are a few reviews (edited for length) that I wrote in the last couple of months. I did quarterly reading roundups this year here, here, here, and #5 and #6 in this one, so I've already done this for earlier books. 

The Book of Love by Kelly Link:  Three teenagers emerge from a nightmare that went on for months to find that they had died under mysterious circumstances and had been held in some kind of limbo ruled by a man named Bogomil. Their music teacher Mr Anabin recreates their previous bodies and gives them a week to figure out what happened. I've read and loved many of Link’s short stories so I knew what to expect in terms of style, and the writing is frequently excellent. But this is Link’s first novel and I kept wondering why her editors didn’t provide more help. Somewhere in this 630-page doorstop is a stellar 450-page novel. When it’s good, it’s really good, but unfortunately it is often tedious.

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult: I’ve had two semesters of college-level Shakespeare, which is far from making me an expert, I know. Both Shakespeare professors I had acknowledged the difficulties surrounding the authorship of the plays, but believed that the various theories didn’t explain the facts any better than just accepting that Shakespeare wrote the plays.  ... But the main thing I wanted to say is that in those Shakespeare classes, we spent maybe half of one class period talking about this, acknowledged that there was very little evidence to prove anything, and then MOVED ON. The class was about the plays, not about the authorship. When someone gets obsessed about who wrote the plays, I have to think it says more about them and what they need to believe than it does anything real about Shakespeare or literature in renaissance England. Picoult's version makes an interesting story, but is it what actually happened? Who knows?

Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliott: I have mixed feelings about this book. What worked really, really well is the story of a woman who reconnects with her people and her heritage after giving them up several years before to escape her awful parents. What also works well is the exploration of how difficult it is to be Jewish in a Christmas-obsessed world. And it was fun to read a grumpy-sunshine romance where the woman is the grump.

But what didn’t work so well was everything else. The mystifying way Abby lectures Seth about his problems with confrontation even as she is failing to confront any number of issues of her own. The way she is suddenly best friends with Seth’s ex after two conversations. Not to mention the way she totally throws him under the bus to said ex. The way she runs out of the room when she finally sees her parents again and then has Seth go back to confront them. (Wtf?) Things just quit making sense after awhile.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt: You know from the start that everything is going to turn out ok for the lonely, lovable people in this novel— it just has that kind of vibe. And normally I love that. But the number of coincidences and deus ex machina moments that occur to pull everything together are a bit much. Still, it was fun. And how am I going to resist a book that has an octopus narrator? 

The Searcher by Tana French:  French is always a good writer so I was really looking forward to this. I was surprised that such a meticulous writer created such obviously stereotyped characters— the jaded retired police officer, the strong country woman who takes no prisoners, the neglected kid who just needs a mentor, the gossipy storekeeper, the quirky next door neighbor. But although it takes awhile—quite a while— French does eventually make the characters her own. Good book.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine:  Mahit lives on an independent space station that is home to about thirty thousand people. The station exists on the edge of a sprawling multi-system empire and only tenuously maintains its independence. Mahit has been through extensive language and cultural training so she can become a liaison to the empire, but still it is a surprise when the empire suddenly demands a new ambassador. Mahit is chosen, and is given a neurological implant that contains the memories of Yskander, the previous ambassador, harvested fifteen years before-- the last time he was home from his post. Her assignment is to figure out what happened to him, and above all else, to maintain the independence of her home station. The whole thing is fascinating. It was considerably more political than I usually enjoy, but still, this was a great read. Highly recommended to any science fiction fan.

Happy reading in 2025 and to all a good night.

MoM: Migraines on Monday

I'm starting a series called "Migraines on Monday" to corral the migraine talk in one place so you can find it if you're interested and skip it if you're not. Also, apologies for disappearing for so long-- the first week I missed I knew I would because I was hosting our family Thanksgiving, then the next week I was down with a nasty virus left behind by my adorable, much loved granddaughter that included pink eye and three days of not getting out of bed. 

Last week I felt a bit better-- still not 100% -- but I was involved in other things that I will save for another time since I promised this would only be about migraines. And being sick is about migraines, of course, because if you're migraine-prone, any time you get a head cold, you get migraines. So much fun. 

But the main thing I wanted to report on is the food trigger issue that I've been trying to sort out for the past several months. I already knew I had one trigger (wine), but I’ve never been able to identify any other foods/beverages that were for-sure migraine triggers. 

As I told you in this post, I've been avoiding common migraine trigger foods: citrus, nuts, onions, raspberries, gluten, chocolate, most sugar, all alcohol. I already don't drink milk, but that's not migraine-related, even as a child, I never liked the taste/texture. So the only dairy products I needed to avoid were yogurt and cheese. 

Honestly, I couldn't tell any difference. As a monthly average, I had the same number of migraines during the past four months that I had over the past four years (since I had covid in Nov 2020, which is when my frequency went way up). So three weeks ago, with Thanksgiving and Christmas foods everywhere abounding, I stopped worrying about it. I had a bad stretch recently, but on average, the numbers were still the same. 

And do you know when that bad stretch ended? After a week and a half of eating anything and everything for Thanksgiving and some Christmas events. I am just not convinced that my migraines have anything to do with food. Even two foods that I had previously wondered about I've eaten recently with no problem (parmesan cheese, a common trigger, and masa, since I had the worst migraine of the past couple of years after eating tamales the night before).

So, probably not any food triggers for me. But I have refined my list of things that do seem to be triggers. Here you go: wine, stress, motion sickness/flying, smoke, barometric pressure changes, and any illness/allergy that gets up into my sinuses. 

You know what has seemed to help over the past few weeks? Meditation, but not zen-type meditation, it's my own version of it-- which I think I will save for another time. 

One more thing: the book I referred to in the first of the recent migraine posts was an entire fairly strict system that you were supposed to follow 100%. I did learn some things (as detailed in that post), but his system ultimately didn't work for me. 

I've recently been reading a book that is the opposite-- it's written by a neurologist, but instead of having a strictly-defined program, he tells you everything he's ever heard of that has helped his patients, with an explanation of why it might work and a rating of how likely it is to work. It's called  The End of Migraines by Alexander Mauskop, M.D. It's exactly the opposite approach, and since headaches are so highly individual, it's an approach that makes sense to me. If I learn anything especially effective, I'll report back.

I had my six-month check-in with my neurologist this past Thursday, and even though my average monthly number of headaches has been unchanged, he wants me to stay on Ajovy, a monthly injection that I've been getting since the beginning of the year. Even though it hasn't reduced my frequency, I haven't had a really bad, stay-in-bed all day migraine since I started on it. My migraine meds have me up and about again in 1-2 hours (maxalt and half a percocet, and before you freak out about me taking percocet, read this post), which is a lot better than some migraineurs have, so I am grateful for that. 

That's all. Ha. I thought this was going to be a quick check-in. I am incapable of quick.

Letter to an Evangelical with Questions, part 1

Dear Friend, 

Many years ago, when I was a questioning evangelical myself, I spent a lot of time online looking for people who were going through the same search I was-- to no avail. I don't think that's true any more. Now there are many sources for intelligent, open-ended conversations about faith and religion. But out of some sort of kinship I still feel with my younger self, I'm going to try to write the post I would have wanted to read at that age. Maybe I still need to read it sometimes.

The first thing to say is that if you are an Evangelical who is not questioning, and you've found a vibrant church where you can learn and grow and the people around you are learning and growing, and the conversation is about grace and not judgment, and the teaching is about following Jesus and not earthly politicians-- if you've found a church like that and you're happy, then you don't need this. Evangelicalism wasn't working for me, and in the 40 years since I left it, I've never had any desire to return. But it does work for many-- there wouldn't be millions of Evangelicals if it didn't. Stay faithful and be curious and non-judgmental and don't be afraid to ask questions, but you don't necessarily need to leave. 

(If you're not an Evangelical and you're just reading this out of curiosity, you may think that Evangelicals like that don't exist, because the news is often dominated by extremists--but they're out there, and they're doing good things in the world, and they are as frustrated with the extremists as you are. Maybe more so, because they're being mis-represented every day.)

But if, like me, you can no longer bear the judgmentalism, the biased, circular reading of scripture, the near-idolatry of desiring earthly power and influence, and the closed-minded insistence on things that are patently untrue (six day creation? really?), then the next thing to say is be careful who you confide in. You don't need to tell everyone, or speak up in meetings, or bare your heart (and your mind) to your pastor-- not until you're ready, which is probably not yet. 

Start paying attention and observing how your church functions and how you function within your church. Watch and learn. How does your church handle people with questions? Are you encouraged to use the mind God gave you? God is big enough and strong enough to survive your questions (and has heard it all before), but often other believers are not that strong. If you do decide to confront someone who is a traditional believer, go into it with the goal of learning, not changing their mind, because it probably won't happen.

Leaving behind a deeply held religious faith-- especially if it is the faith of your family, the faith of your childhood-- is a lonely business, and I was not expecting that. My path had plenty of moments of muddled confusion, but overall, it was so clear to me that I could not continue as an Evangelical that it has always surprised me, sometimes even stunned me, that other Evangelicals I know and love haven't been on a similar journey. My mom and both of my siblings are still deeply Evangelical, as was my dad until his death. I'm fortunate that they still love and accept me and my weird beliefs, because not all "ex-vangelicals" are so lucky. Don't burn any bridges you don't need to (and sadly, you may need to. But don't do it carelessly). That's not being cowardly or weak, it's being loving and smart. 

I could have some stronger things to say about church leaders, but if you're a layperson as I am, the whole thing hinges on how you read Scripture. Evangelicals are insistent that the Bible is the "inerrant" (without error) Word of God, as relevant today as it was when it was written. They will you tell you that they believe whole-heartedly that every word of the Bible is factually true. But there are some inconsistencies in their story, and if you start watching carefully, you begin to realize that they tend to land on certain verses more than others, and those verses tend to be the ones that reinforce their biases. 

For example, 1 Timothy 2:12 (I do not suffer a woman to teach a man) is a single verse that has been used as the basis for an entire theology of women's roles in the church, ignoring the examples of women named in the text who were leaders and teachers in the early church. Not to mention Galatians 3:28 (In Christ there is no male or female). You don't have to see that as a contradiction in order to realize that the situation might be a little more complex than the traditionalists want you to believe. 

Be wary of anyone who is going to give you a verse to prove a point-- because this is a situation that Jesus runs into again and again, and he never falls for it. A Pharisee or a church leader would come up to him with a quotation or a bit of Jewish law (from what we call the Old Testament), and they weren't wrong. They could quote the "verse" (although it wouldn't have been called a verse at that time). But Jesus refused to be trapped into a cramped, limited interpretation of scripture. Even the Tempter himself used scripture to try and trap him. Just the fact that someone can quote a verse doesn't mean they're right. 

Oh, it's like opening the proverbial can of worms. Any Evangelical apologist worth their salt can argue about that argument. And that's another good reason not to confront someone you know will not agree-- because they're going to want to prove that you're capital-W Wrong, and that's an argument you're unlikely to win. I'm not an expert, and I can't hand you a winning argument. But I don't need to be an expert, or prove anything to anyone else. All I needed to do was realize that I was no longer going to be trapped into beliefs that were bounded by dry, lifeless interpretations of scripture, interpretations that were intended to put me in my place and keep me there, not allow me to bloom and grow.

.... and it's after midnight. That's why this is part one. More soon.

I don't seem to be able to stop updating you about migraines, and also a few other things

Apologies for disappearing last week. It is true that I was not happy about the election outcome (more about that in a minute), but that wasn't why I didn't post. I had an unusually busy week, and I just didn't have time to write something without staying up way past midnight-- which I'm trying to do less often these days. Partly because I'm old and I can't stay up that late anymore, but also partly because keeping regular hours, including having my morning caffeine at more-or-less the same time every day, might be a way to manage my headaches. 

A couple of months ago, I told you that I was learning about rebound headaches (here and here)-- the headaches you get when you take too many medications. They are also known as "medication overuse" headaches. The only way to stop them is to stop taking meds. As expected, that turned out to be a disaster in the short term-- I spent several weeks feeling miserable. 

But it has been a good thing in the long term. I didn't realize how often I was taking over-the-counter medications like Advil, Excedrin Migraine, Tylenol, and aspirin until I stopped doing it. I'd wake up with a headache and take an advil and two excedrin migraine. Three or four hours later, I might take more tylenol. Mid-afternoon, I'd take two or three advil. Somewhere in mid-August, I stopped all of that. I take prescription migraine meds if my pain level gets up over 7 or so, but other than that, I don't take anything. 

It's the opposite of what I used to do. I used to go through all kinds of mental games and med-taking "strategies" to put off taking my prescription meds. Try this combo, try three more of that, maybe if I take two aleve before bed, maybe if I take advil every six hours so it never wears off. I would get a few hours of relief, but I was still having way too many headaches. 

Now I do the opposite. When I have a migraine (which I define as a headache that gets up to 7 on a 1-10 pain scale), I take my prescription meds. Otherwise, I don't take anything. The good news is that even though it took 6-8 weeks, now when I don't have a migraine, I feel much better, and the low-level headache that I had pretty much all the time has stopped. I hardly ever take over-the-counter pain killers anymore. So that was definitely worthwhile.

But I'm still having migraines. I just feel better in between. So I don't know what to tell you. I'm still figuring this out and probably will be for awhile. I've been pretty consistent with the food things I was avoiding before, but so far that hasn't seemed to make a difference. In the grand scheme of things, two and a half months isn't that long, so it's probably too soon to say. 

I even bore myself when I type these, so I've decided if I want to talk about migraines more in the future, I'm starting a series called "Migraines on Monday" (love a good alliteration). That way they will be easy to find if you're interested, and easy to skip if you're not.

So about the election. There is a lot of triumph and even jubilation in the air around here. But I think all they've proved so far is that they were able to convince 75 million people that electing Trump would make their lives better. Now they've got to actually do it. I have no patience with the people who think that winning the election was the end game. It's not a game, it's our country.

Anyway. If I avoid the news, I can hope it won't make much difference in my everyday life, and I can keep reading too much for escape. For me the key seems to be to narrow down my focus to the situations and people that are right here in front of me. 

And really, that's all we can ever do. We don't know what's going to happen, but some of what happens might be good, maybe even amazing. A very petty part of me wants him to fail so I can say I told you so, but my better self would be so happy if he proves me wrong. It would be better for everyone if he steps up and does a good job. And anyway, as important as the President is, he is not everything. There is room for making a difference. ..... That's what I keep telling myself. 

That's probably more than you wanted from me. Have a good weekend. We're off to Houston of all places, for the wedding of one of my nieces, but it's only a 4-day trip. I just remembered I have a good Houston story from twenty years ago but it will have to wait till another time because our plane leaves at 6am and it's already late.