I'm Dreaming of a Write Christmas

My brothers and I have decided to give each other only writing for Christmas, our own that is: stories, jokes, poetry, liner notes, whatever.

So today, I spent about two hours writing a story.  The time just sped by.  I didn't even notice it passing.    in the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, the definition of operating in your zone of genius is time speeding by like that but when I looked at the clock and realized what time and what date it was, I thought, reflexively, "oh, I should out be Christmas shopping!"

And then I realize, I WAS Christmas shopping.  I was getting to make my Christmas presents out of my mind.

Judge not, lest ye end up having the best meal of your trip in McDonald's

Except for a brief interval where I took my toddlers to the ball pit at the McD's on Capitol Hill every day, I have spent a lifetime scorning and avoiding McDonald's.  I once barely spoke to a friend again who insisted on eating McDonald's on the Champs Elysees in Paris (that friend later went on to be the toast of the town in New York).

Then I spent a week in Italy trying to eat wheat free, dairy free, low carbohydrate, no red meat.  What else could drive me into the arms of a branch of this despised corporation in the Florentine train depot?  

O.M.G. their chicken "Caesar" salad (no caesar dressing or cheese or croutons which actually made it perfect for me) was the most satisfying culinary experience I've had in Italy--is that sad?!  Or am I just incredibly grateful?  I guess both.  They made it fresh (I don't think anyone had ever ordered it before and they had to kill and roast the chicken for me in the back--it took 20 minutes to come out).  The greens were varied, fresh tasting and flavorful.  The chicken was delicious.  The dressing was a lovely little individual glass bottle of olive oil and balsamic.

I was a very happysadgrateful tourist.

Visit to a Worldly Vatican

While our writhing, dripping scorched flesh trip through the Vatican Museum this week may have presaged Michelangelo’s vision of hell on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, it did nothing to prepare me for the almost complete lack of Biblical references in the rest of Museum’s collection. 

It’s fascinating.  Most of pre 20^th century western European museum collections are devoted to Christian art—I can’t count the wonderful paintings, tapestries, frescoes and triptychs I’ve seen representing the crucifixion, the beheading of John the Baptist, the expulsion of the merchants from the Temple and the Annunciation.

Yet, here you might think rather than the heart of Christendom, you were visiting the palace of an atheistic monarch—the collection displays vast troves of Egyptian statues, pagan Gods, detailed wall-sized maps including an incredible assemblage of contemporary art. 

Even in the few gorgeous Raphael-created walls of the Papal apartments just before you finally enter the Sistine Chapel, the floor to ceiling art depicts battles, political scenes, and particularly telling, important moments in papal history.  My favorite? The creation of the concept of “Immaculate Conception.”  I don’t know if anyone but me finds this fascinating:  in the privacy of their home, the popes appear less interested in the birth of the son of God than they are in the birth of their story about the birth of the mother of the son of God—tell-ing (did you know that, by the way?  Most people assume that the Immaculate Conception was the conception of Jesus but it's actually the conception of Mary so that Mary can be without sin).

So there it is.  

When in Rome...do what I usually do

I could have written the Control Freak's Guide to European Travel.  I was brought up to travel like the "anti Ugly American."  That is to say, to do everything to be respectful of the local culture, make a solid attempt to speak the language, try all the foods, speak in hushed voices, blend in as much as possible.  Needless to say, this opportunity alone was highly privileged.  It meant that I traveled a lot from a young age (I spent the first 2 1/2 years of my life in Greece and a half a year in Paris at the age of 14).

This basis, coupled with some control freak tendencies, caused to me to sharply condemn other approaches to travel along the way.  Some 35 years ago I can remember sending a friend packing back to London from Paris because he wanted to eat at McDonald's and wouldn't attempt to speak French.  About 20 years ago I ruined the better part of a day in Montreal because I was so upset that my travel companions ordered modest pasta dishes in a French restaurant (rather than what I judged to be French food).

Both times I knew that I was in the right and they were wrong.  It was as simple as that.  They ruined my time, not the other way around.  And it certainly wasn't me who ruined my own time.  I also always kept up a punishing schedule on travel.  Every day, get up go to a morning sight, then an afternoon sight, then an evening sight.  None of this lallygagging around.


Today, as I visit Europe at 53, I find that I am a different kind of traveler and need a different guide book than the one I brought myself up with--maybe The Spoiled Brat Guide to Europe?  Not sure what to call it.  These days, I am less concerned with what locals think of me.  I try to be respectful, but I also work harder at getting my needs met.  Italian food, much as I'd like to eat it, just does not work for me.  I really don't seem to be able to stay healthy and eat dairy, wheat, sugar or meat.  (Try getting a low carbohydrate vegan entree with any protein at one of these places and you could be waiting a long time for your meal)

Also, I need a lot more down time.  Because I've had the extreme luxury of traveling to Europe several times in my life, I am free from the "this is the only time I'll be here" stress.  If I need to skip seeing a world class museum to write a silly blogpost like this, I am free to do that.  I meditate and I check-in with myself and I see what rhythm is right for me.   Sometimes my happiest time traveling is to go to the exact same cafe every day with a notebook and sit and people watch, rather than running around the city chasing Michelangelo (who can be very hard to catch).

And, thank God, I don't care as much, or barely at all what the people I'm traveling with do.  If they want a frantic pace, let them have it.  If they want to eat in McDonald's--fine!  I can let them be the way they want to be, and skip swearing at the them in the streets.

4 Snouts up for Boyhood in theaters now

(:)(:)(:)(:) 4 enthusiastic snouts up for Boyhood in theaters now.  Directed, written and conceived by Richard Linklater (of Before Sunset fame), this extraordinary fictional piece chronicles the life of a young man, Mason, from age 5 to age 18--using the same actor  (Ellar Coltrane) as he himself grows up.

For this viewer long accustomed to different actors playing the same person as they grow (and to watch actors who are much older than the child they are playing), it was almost overly intimate to watch the same actor play his own age over a 12 year period.  It gave the film a quality of a documentary, even when it was clearly not one and was confusing to my senses.

As riveting as it was to watch Mason age, it was also interesting to watch the people who played his parents (Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke) age 12 years.

The story itself: absentee dad, single mom doing her best with alcoholic jerks for husbands, held my attention and made me care about the characters.  But the central conceit is what actually kept me hooked throughout.

Not to be missed.

Small is the new big--How Orange is the New Black tells the truth

After the first episode I watched of Orange is the New Black I dismissed it as soft core lesbian porn (if I had readers, several of them would have just made a note to watch it) and decided it was not for me.  Then I hit a hot day with no one home, no energy to do anything else (and my husband far ahead of me in the series) and I watched a couple of episodes and realized there was more to it (and really almost no porn) than I had initially thought.

I've read a lot of about this popular show and learned about the true story that spawned it, the transexual character, etc but the episode I watched last night--the chickening--awakened me to an important truth that the show illustrates in every moment:  the small is big for all of us.

When Piper (the incarcerated upper middle class Smith grad protagonist of the show) talks to her fiancee and her business partner on the outside, they are constantly trying to get her to pay attention to "the real world" instead of the petty dramas of the prison.  In the Chickening, Piper drops the hallway pay phone while on hold to talk a key buyer into stocking her artisanal soap to follow a chicken she glimpses outside in the prison yard.  For Piper it represents the ultimate in wandering away from the "real world" to the "fish bowl" of the prison.

Yet, the episode begs larger questions.  Who amongst us hasn't been more interested in a petty drama close at hand than our larger good?  And yet who is to say that the discovery of the chicken (and what it says about her "rep" inside) isn't on some level more or as important as whether a department store stocks soaps with jalapeño peppers in them?  Is the world outside really more "real" than the world inside?  And which outside is the most real:  The department store? the conflict in Ukraine or Gaza?  Climate change? the shrinking of the universe?  the idea of parallel universes?

And which inside is the real inside:  the chicken? or Piper's fears of being thought a lunatic for saying she saw one? or some part of Piper perhaps that knows she's okay whether she saw a chicken or sells artisanal soaps on a large scale?

The invitation is to pay attention to the small but look for what is most real and most true.  To stay grounded in spiritual practice to be connected to all things so that at some point the chicken is everything.

The New Kosher

Kosher food is prepared in a certain way and it's blessed a certain way and all of this needs to be certified for us to know that it's Kosher.  The people who keep Kosher are serious about it, and when they're away from home, they need to carefully examine their food to know if it's okay for them to eat.  They are being obedient to their religion's interpretation of God's laws.

Lately it has been striking me that a larger and larger number of people have a new Kosher, only they call it organic, non GMO, local, vegan, raw, paleo, gluten free, whatever it is. ( I myself avoid wheat, dairy, meat and sugar so I'm part of this trend).

I live in a community of 25 households where we occasionally share meals.  Some of the people who cook here are happy to accommodate all sorts of diets.  Some are less happy.  In general, the people who eat mainstream appear less happy to accommodate than the people who eat in these newer ways.

But what is mainstream?  Increasingly, there have been so many vegetarian meals served in our community that some are feeling that their diets of needing more meat or protein and less raw vegetables, are being marginalized.  And sometimes the vegetarian cooks draw the line at providing meat. Where does it stop?

Whether or not we want to take the time to accommodate all diets, it is now indisputable that what we believe about the properties of what we eat affects us.  As I posted in Mind Over Milkshake, it is now scientifically verifiable that the body physically reacts to labels on food differently depending on what's on the label not just what's in the food.

So when my neighbor says, "I don't believe in gluten free," that's highly relevant--for them, but maybe not for me.  I do believe that when I eat less wheat gluten, I feel better.  The fact that I believer this, means it will be true.    The fact that they don't, means they probably shouldn't bother.

There seem to be so many people that like to complain about and belittle gluten free, or organic or paleo, many of them in the mainstream American media.

Meanwhile, The New York Times recently reported that not only is gluten free dining prevalent in pasta-laden Italy, but specialized products for people with gluten intolerance are subsidized by the government! -- see Gluten Free Dining in Italy.

Even if we're not ready to subsidize it, maybe it's time for all the backlashes and the backlashes against the backlashes (is there a nonviolent way to say "backlash"?) where we all pooh pooh each other's choice to stop and for us to move towards a genuinely tolerant society where we respect each other's beliefs about food, much as we might at least try to respect each other's beliefs about religion.

More about Einstein Time

For months I have been praying to be shown how the principle of abundance applies to time.  I know it must, because I know that it works with money and love and all things, but I just haven't experienced this, so I needed help.

I also spent the past 5 1/2 years studying, among other things, how the principles of quantum physics apply to spirituality.  I learned that at the quantum level, there is no time.   You've heard of quantum leaps?  Well a quantum leap is what happens when photon (smallest known unit of light and energy) communicates with another photon across space and time, instantaneously.  Or maybe something just happens to both of them at once because they're really the same object only they're in two different places.  Or maybe Schrodinger's cat eats one of them and someone else's cat swallows the other--as you can see, the possibilities are endless.

The point is that an answer to prayer came the other day in the form of a chapter called "Living in Einstein Time" in The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.  Hendricks reminded me that quite literally, we can make time.  Our entire experience of time is in our head.

He cites Einstein's explanation of relativity, where 2 hours with your beloved feels like 1 minute and 1 minute on a hot stove feels like 2 hours (and in Einstein's day, hot stoves were HOT STOVES!).  How can this be?

The idea of time marching on and moving in measurable fixed increments is actually not scientific.  It's a convenient fiction more compatible with debunked Newtonian principles than quantum principles.

Hendricks says that we are quite literally in control of our experience of time.  He says that now that he lives in Einstein time, he gets twice as much done in half the time.  My main experience of this difference is when sometimes I'm sitting at my desk and it seems like I've gotten tons done and only 30 minutes has passed and another day, I look up and it's lunch time and I've gotten nothing done.

I told you one trick for living in Einstein time yesterday (you'll have to go back and read that post, it's a doozy).  Today's hint is simply to focus on making time.  When you are rushing, slow down and say to yourself, "I have time.  I can make time.  I have plenty of time" and see what happens.

More to come, I'm digging this!

Living in "Einstein Time"

I'm finally reading The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks about how people can make the leap out of the their zone of competence or zone of excellence into their zone of genius.  Everyone in my church has been reading it for the past year and now that I have time to read it, it's completely turned me upside down.

I'll talk more about that another time, but one of the many many useful tools that Hendricks has for getting us out of the zone of excellence and into the zone of genius, is living in "Einstein time."  "Einstein time" for the uninitiated is unlimited, quantum time abundance rather than Newtonian limited time thinking.

One of the ways to live in Einstein time is to immediately cease being a victim of time.  To stop using time as an excuse, stop saying "I don't have time for that"  "I'm out of time," "I ran out of time."  Any reference to time as a limiting factor is banned.  If I'm going to limit myself, I have to admit to them, own up to them.

For example, today, someone wanted me to go to a store with them, when I wanted to go home and get some other things done before another appointment.  Before Einstein time, I might have said, "I'd love to, but I don't have time."  Today, I told the truth, "thanks for asking, but there are some other things I really want to do today before my next appointment."

The truth is, I always do have time, I just don't always choose to use my time a certain way and when I blame time, make time the bad guy, I'm both lying and I'm using time as a limiting factor.  If I can be honest about what I want to do with the time I have, it's a start towards making friends with time.

Stay tuned for more on Einstein time and The Big Leap.

The power of coincidences

One of my favorite books by Deepak Choprah (I really love them all but…) is The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: harnessing the infinite power of coincidence. 

In it, he tells his life story and some other people's stories and walks through how paying attention to coincidence has greatly enhanced how quickly he and others get to where they most want to go in life.

My main takeaway from that book is this:  what is important about a coincidence is that YOU noticed it.  A coincidence is not about an unseen hand arranging events for your benefit.  At any given moment, there are literally 100s if not thousands of things that I could pay attention to in my field of vision.  Many of them, could coincide with something else that I'm thinking or feeling.  What makes a coincidence is important is that it is a clue to what my "nonlocal intelligence" is paying attention to.

If I  think it's important, it's important because it's only about what is mine.  You see there is a part of me that has access to more information than my normal mind does.  That part of me is what is attaching significance to an event.

For example, I have been thinking about irreverence lately, and pondering whether i could be an irreverent minister.  On Friday, I happened to run into two of the most irreverent ministers I know walking out together in the Oakland airport.

I don't live in Oakland and I've never been to the Oakland airport before.  Not only are they there, but their ride is not and the person I'm waiting for did not get off the plane.  This gave us an opportunity to chat for a while.

Choprah would say "that breaks the probability amplitude."  If a coincidence is improbable, that means we need to pay special attention to it.  We write it down in our journal and circle it and put exclamation points.  And then we wait and we remember.  More will be revealed.

A Voice of Irreverence

Many years ago, in close succession, more than one person told me that I had a unique writer’s “voice.”  Two of those people I strongly respected as writers.  One was a fellow legislative worker bee who dabbled in the occasional op ed or glorious rant to an editor—he was no slouch himself in the writing department.  The other was the editor of a major daily newspaper, the winner of journalistic awards.

In both cases, their pronouncements terrified me.   What did they mean, “voice”?  I asked.  Both said by way of explanation something like, “you know, a voice.  You have a distinctive way of writing that is you. It is recognizable.  If I didn’t know it was you, I’d know it was you.  [Note to JK Rawling, you might not want to bother with the pseudonyms any more].

“Well, what is my voice, I whined?”  I particularly whined when one of them reviewed some prospective op eds I wrote and said, “where’d you go?  Your voice is gone.”  How was I supposed to find my voice again if I didn’t know what it was was?

Finally, they both came out with the same adjective to describe my voice..."snarky."

Fast forward six years, long enough for our kids to grow up and for me to graduate from ministerial school.  In that interval, I have written very little.  I'm afraid to be snarky and afraid to be snarkless (and therefore voiceless).  Both options seemed impossible. Now I return to writing.  It seems to be something Spirit wants of me, therefore, what can I do but comply?

Websters defines “snarky” as “crotchety, snappish, sarcastic, impertinent, irreverent, in tone or manner.”  How on earth can a reverend be irreverent, isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Yet, a few years ago, in a ministerial school retreat, the adjective I used to describe myself was "irreverent."

The truth is that I belong to an order that is inherently irreverent--we teach people how to change their thinking to change their life.  In order to change my thinking, I need to challenge every belief that I think I have.  I need to be willing to play with my thoughts, rock them back and forth like a car stuck in the mud to see if they'll suddenly break free.  

And I teach everyone that they have their own authentic voice and that when they find it, they should celebrate.  So when I put it that way, if I have a snarky voice, so be it.  Spirit has made me snarky and Spirit has made a minister.  There must be some way for the two to coexist.

There's tribute bands and then there's tribute bands at Swabbie's On the River

Last night I celebrated a friend's birthday by going to one of Swabbie's infamous "fish taco" tribute band friday nights.  If you haven't ever experienced the Swabbie-ness, it's a pretty fabulous summer scene--people of all ages, dancing and dining outdoors right on the Sacramento river.  The calendar of events is here:  Swabbies On the River.

The only thing to be careful of is the tribute bands.  The third Friday of the month is reggae night, and I think that's pretty reliably good but the other Friday night bands tend to be "tribute" bands which choose to play only covers of one particular band.  So it goes without saying that you have to like that band.

A couple of summers ago, I experienced a pretty unfortunate swamp rock tribute band ("Creedence Saltwater Revival?"  -- or is that all seal band at Sea World, I may be getting them mixed up.

Anyway, the music was WORSE than the sea lion band--and I LOVE CCR.  So that put me off tribute bands for a while.

Last night was "Stealin' Dan" (if you can't figure out who they're tributizing, God help you) and it was a whole different matter.  I guess if you're into Steely Dan you really need to be real musicians--these guys had a phenomenal  sound and fabulous backup singers and a brass section and the whole bit.  Now I'm re-in love with Swabbie's and tribute bands.

3 Enthusiastic Snouts up for "Tammy"

(:)(:)(:) for Tammy starring Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates and Mark Duplass (with small parts for Allison Janey and Dan Akroyd), Directed by Ben Falcone (Bridesmaid) and written by Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy.

From the reviews, I was expecting this movie to be terrible, just awful.  25% on Rotten Tomatoes?  Come on!  Pigs in the Attic 5 woudn't get 25% on Rotten Tomatoes!

Nonetheless, three of us women who maybe identify a little bit with some aspects of Melissa McCarthy, reluctantly chose it as our desperate mid summer chick flick and as my friend said, apparently we are in the 25 percent.

While no one could call this a great movie, it is fun, and it ventures into some seldom plowed territory--this is Thelma and Louise meets Bridesmaid--Melissa McCarthy and her (vaguely credible as a) alcoholic grandma Susan Sarandon head off on a road trip and get into misadventures.  How often do we see a 70 plus woman (Sarandon) engaging in inappropriate sex?  how often has armed robbery involved cocked fingers and warm apple pies?  How often has gay CEO (Kathy Bates) entertained us and all her lesbian friends (and these more real lesbians than Orange is the New Black, I'm completely playing for heterosexual salacious males lesbians) at a 4th of July bash and her magnificent Louisville spread? How often is the lead female of a movie obese, without a) us having to hear about how she is obese? b) watching her eat a lot? (she eats some, but not enough to get fat) or c) having Jack Black think she really looks like Gwyneth Paltrow?

All and all, it's predictable in a sort of is buddy road movie type of way, but its laugh out loud funny and all of the above.

Rick Steves, the unwelcome guest in our household

Rick Steves, the international travel pro, has been living in our household for the past few weeks disguised as a guidebook to Italy.

We love him and our kids hate him.  We love him because he tells us what we need to know, suggests great hotels and restaurants, gives us handy phrases, negotiates discounts on our behalf, gives us tips on how to get the best, the cheapest, the easiest.

Our 17 and 19 year olds hate him because he's in a book, not the web.  We've pointed out that actually he exists in many media, web, tv, radio, thinking that make make him more appealing.  They roll their eyes and say, "he's named Rick Steves.  Come on, the guy should get a last name if he wants us to take him seriously."

They are leaving for Italy Saturday (their high school graduation gift).  They haven't researched the trip the way I would.  They haven't consulted Rick.  They don't even want to meet him.  As a result, they might go into a cathedral in shorts, pay 5 euros for a cup of coffee or stand in the wrong line.  And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I can do about it.

Rick, if you're reading this, I'm sorry.  I know you've tried your best.  I invited you into our home for a reason.  But, if there's one thing I've learned over the years, you can lead a horse to Rick Steves, but you can't make it know the difference between primo and secondi plati.

"Mind Over Milkshake" -- Scientifically, our thoughts literally, demonstrably alter our physiology

I'm a religious scientist.  In 1927, Ernest Holmes, our founder, established this philosophy (now called a religion) which has as its principle belief, "change your thinking, change your life."  He taught and wrote (and wrote) that we could use our thoughts and our mind to create health, wealth, change anything about our lives.  Today the centers that practice this religion are collectively called the Centers for Spiritual Living--you can find a center near you here: Centers for Spiritual Living Website

Over the course of the 87 years since Holmes started talking about this, the science has more and more caught up with the theory.  I have come to the conclusion that as a burgeoning religious science minister, it will be part of my job to keep up with and be somewhat conversant with some of the many places that science proves our philosophy right.

Recently, NPR presented an example of this in a story called "Mind Over Milkshake"--here is a video (not just audio) of an amazing, and very vivid must watch story showing that quite literally, what we believe about food affects how our body digests it.

What is my next meditation?

For years I have meditated pretty much every day, sometimes more than once a day, but I tend to switch it up over the years.  Usually, the process of switching from one meditation style to another is very organic.  I am doing one style for a while (30 days, 6 months, whatever) and another presents itself to me and is so obviously my next meditation.

For a long while, it was listening to and chanting om nema shivaya.

After a weekend long Zen Buddhist retreat, for years it was sitting Zazen.

Then it was running energy and connecting with the earth.

Sometimes it is the John Randolph Pierce 40 day abundance series.

One year it was the Course in Miracles every day.

Then it was another chant and lying on an exercise ball.

For a while it was the Abraham Hicks into the Vortex meditations (which come on a handy app).

Lately, I seem to do a different style every day.  Zazen, then running energy, then Hicks.  This is weird for me.  I usually like to have a goal or a number of days, now I'm just feeling it.  What type of meditation does my body want today?

A friend gave me a Deepak Choprah/Oprah meditation series recently.  I should probably do that, but it needs to make itself known to me.  It needs to declare its interest in my meditating on it.

Show me, Lord, my next meditation.

How I'm voting in the June 3rd election (and in some cases, why):

How I'm voting in the June 3rd election (and in some cases, why):
Contested statewide:
Secretary of State: Derek Cressman -- he is a longshot but he's running a real campaign and he's the only serious candidate who is a good government expert, worked for Common Cause for years and we know him personally.
Controller: Betty Yee--she's an experienced board of equalization member and a proven good person for the job.
Treasurer: John Chiang (currently doing a bang up job as Controller)

Statewide measures:
State Proposition 41 -- Yes. Authorizes $600 million in general obligation bonds to pay for affordable housing for veterans and other homeless.
State Proposition 42 -- Yes. To require local governments to comply with open government public meetings laws--more transparency in government is a good thing.

Local--Sacramento Contested:
Assembly District 7: Kevin McCarty and Steve Cohn are both long time good city council members running. Kevin is the more courageous and progressive choice. A solid progressive vote. Only candidate to ask hard questions and stand up to the arena. He has the kind of backbone we need in the Assembly. Cohn is backed by Mayor Kevin Johnson.

Senate District 6: Assemblymembers Roger Dickinson and Richard Pan are running. Roger Dickinson is the clear choice for progressives. Richard Pan's vaunted "independence" leads him to take such votes as voting against a bill to limit fracking for oil and against a bill to ban dangerous bisphenyl A chemical in baby bottles.

District Attorney: Conservative law enforcement backed Jan Scully has finally retired, and is trying to annoint her successor. The Democratic consensus candidate is Maggie Krell.

Local Measure B-- Yes. to assess a $12 a year property owner tax to pay to keep libraries funded.

Other races are pretty much non contested but I'll give a shout out to re-electing Sacramento's own Dave Jones as Insurance Commissioner. He's doing a great job.