A Blessed Circle, A Blessed Evening (Part I)

Yesterday was my friend, Rose Pulliam's birthday.  [Happy Birthday, again, Rose!]  If you don't know Rose, she is a beautiful woman, in every sense imaginable.  Hers is a gathering and nurturing soul; the kind that keeps communities together.  She totally dispels the notion that activists, of which she is one of the finest, only throw bricks and don't build anything.  Rose can throw a brick, but through her stories, comedy, outreach, and just force of personality, she constantly edifies individuals and communities in the deepest, most profound and elemental ways.  

So, we gathered to celebrate her birthday.  Overtime, as the crowd ebbed and flowed, about of dozen of us--all queer people of color, mostly activists, many with Bible-based religious backgrounds of various denominations--formed a large circle and began to talk about religion and faith.  In the circle were 4 men and 8 or so women, people in their 20s through 50s, including African Americans, Latin@s, and women from the Caribbean.  We covered a lot of ground as the conversation flowed from an academic look at religion and politics to how religion played in people's coming out stories and a host of other angles.  Eventually, one of the sisters in the group asked the pivotal question that launched us into the meat of the night.  She asked, "what happens to the soul when we die?  Where does the soul go?"   

I cannot do justice to the following events, nor can I completely recount every word (or even highlight) of the blessed conversation that followed.  There was too much wisdom in the group to even imagine capturing it in words.  We simply vibed together.  As the Bible says, "deep calls to deep," and that's where and how we met each other.  The energy in the space was so holy (for lack of a less loaded word), built on the trust and safety we recognized and built in each other.  And it was as much recognized as created.  The secret price of entry to the circle, demanded by the Spirit that brought us, was years of deep and intense personal reflection on who we are in the world and how our religious histories had both revealed and hidden aspects of the spiritual realities we are called to share.  It was the evidence of that pursuit of truth beyond dogma--an uncommon spiritual maturation--that we silently recognized in one another.  Everyone brought some truly spiritual gift to the collective, and we recognized that gifting in each other as well.  Upon those spiritual recognitions and connections, we experienced our circle.  

Like I said, there was far too much wisdom in the circle for me to recount it here.  Truthfully, so much happened beyond the aural that even a perfect transcription of the night would give but a fraction of the experience.  So let me touch on just a few things to give a sense of the conversation.  In the next post, I want to talk about my experience in the circle.  

So, the pivotal question was, "Where does the soul go when we die?" People offered a range of answers, generally speaking of our souls and essences as collections of energy that may or may not (or may also) remain as a self-identified unit after bodily death (as opposed to breaking up into fragments, given away in life and/or recycled in death back in to the whole).  We related stories of speaking to people who had passed, whether directly or through mediums.  [[I'll note here that even the Bible says this is possible; remember Saul speaking to Samuel through the Witch of Endor and Abraham's acknowledgement that it is possible for the dead rich man go back and talk to his brothers though it would be useless.]]  We spoke of dreaming other people's dreams and receiving and conveying supernatural messages...and the awesome responsibility that entails.  We spoke of visions; some viewed alone, others shared.  We wondered how all this is possible.  What truths about now and the next epoch do our experiences reveal?  Conversely, we did not try to fit our experiences into the orthodoxy boxes of our various traditions.  Nor did we doubt one another.  We did not all have identical experiences, but we've all had experiences that were similar enough and far enough beyond the fringes of orthodoxy to know that everyone was speaking of "reality."  Every story was more than sincere; it was accurate.  

We wondered.  We spoke of the power of this wonder and of faith and doubt and fear.  One sister shared a valuable lesson.  She said, "fear haunts.  Truth does not haunt.  Truth always manifests itself."  And she is right, truth comes to pass.  Fear dogs people, but the fearful possibilities cannot and do not all come into being.  In another exchange, a brother spoke of doubt and faith.  Relating his coming out story, he said he learned to have as much faith that God created him as gay as others have that being gay is sin.  We spoke of how doubt creates much opportunity--to expand beyond dogma, to receive others, to experience spirit.  

We spoke of how death is a simultaneously individual and collective experience.  Even birth is a collective experience (just ask your mother), as is every subsequent experience until death.  No one experiences death per se with you; we all face it individually.  Yet, we can experience it collectively.  Several sisters recalled being together when a loved one passed, in the very house where we were talking.  Everyone recounted the different experiences, in at least three locations, that marked the instant of the person's passing.  A sleeping baby sat up to witness the moment, people pulled close in immediate anticipation, one woman spoke in words and a voice unrecognizable to herself.  

We spoke of shared energies.  How we miss the experience of collective worship, especially the songs.  We hummed the Old 100; that classic set of moans and ancestral hymns that welcome the Spirit and make the Black church so powerful and comforting.  We spoke of how the songs put us on the same wave length and how our bodies and essences feel that.  How that collective energy is so strong it can become visible.  

We laughed.  Uninhibited, joyful laughs.  We truly enjoyed each other and all the people, present and past, whose spirits and other remnants, were in the place.  It was a blessing.  It was healing.  We all held hands, felt a powerful warmth, and gave thanks.  

Death

I have recently grown to despise death.  Since you all know me well, you know that I have oscillated between being very emotionally expressive in my youth to increasingly emotionally stilted only to return to a much healthier place lately.  The catalyst for the recent change was my grandfather, Leslie Durant, passing December 14, 2004.  I simply cannot get over it.  I miss him all the time.  There appears to be no honor great enough to offer him, so I continue my Sisyphus-esque task, heaping small tribute upon small tribute, trying to create something worthy of him.

In the process, I have become profoundly sensitive to others' pain concerning death.  I cried for nearly half an hour listening to Dan Savage tell the story of his mother's passing on This American Life.  Only this morning, a NPR correspondent's tribute to her late father had me in tears getting out of the car.  The pain of losing someone to death is incomparable and universal.

And it's not so much the loss of immediate, corporeal access to loved-ones that is so gut-wrenchingly agonizing about death.  It is how pathetically most of us die.   Most of us don't go out in a blaze of glory.  We slowly slip away.  Actually, our faculties slowly abandon us.  We return to dust while we are yet living.  We have to sit patiently and watch it happen to ourselves.  The commentator this morning spoke of congratulating her father during his final years for attempting the herculean tasks of getting out of bed each morning, after he had slowly lost first the ability to speak, then hear, then walk over the previous several years.

God have mercy.  Lord have mercy.  Selah.

Gay Men and Blood Donation

So, you may not know (as I didn't until a few years ago), but the government forbids accepting blood donations from gay men.  See a background story here.  Actually, if you've ever read the questions before giving blood, you know that the restriction is on any man who has had sex with another man at any point in life.  Compare that restriction to the fact that heterosexuals who are knowingly having sex with HIV/AIDS positive people are allowed donate a year after their last sexual intercourse with the HIV positive partner.

This blood donation restriction makes no sense!  It's just a way to stigmatize the gay community.  It's biggotry, plain and simple.  Obviously, if preventing HIV/AIDS contamination in the blood supply was the issue, heterosexuals would also face lifetime bans if they slept with an HIV positive person at any point in their lives.

The obvious, and utterly ridiculous, basis for this anti-gay restriction is the outrageous and totally outdated idea that all gay people have AIDS.  I'm old enough to remember when people thought AIDS was exclusively a gay disease.  (Actually, my evangelical friends, we're all old enough as the Rev. Jerry Faldwell and his bretheren continued to espouse that view until his death, if memory serves.)  But that thinking has been completely disproved in every way imaginable!  At this point, believing gays are diseased--with HIV/AIDS or  homosexuality itself--is silly, and more indicative of personal prejudice than anything else.

Like all forms of bigotry, this ban injures the people who support it.  Just as whites are damaged by racism (via limited social relationships, deep seated fears, subjugation to laws designed primarily to control people of color, etc), so anti-gay heterosexuals are willing to risk their own lives by decreasing the emergency blood supply just to stigmatize gays.

I used to donate blood regularly on campus during college.  But it's been more than 4 years since I last did that.  I am unwilling to participate in the national lie that 1) gays don't exist -- thus all male donors certifying they haven't had gay sex, and 2) gays are universally HIV/AIDS carriers.  Recently, I wanted to donate bone marrow.  If you don't know, there is a desperate need for African Americans to donate bone marrow.  I don't know the science, but for some reason, having racially similar donors reduces rejection rates in marrow transfusions.  Again, I volunteered to help meet the desperate need, but the center rejected me because of the anti-gay ban.  I seriously doubt the potential beneficiary of my marrow donation would have made the same decision.  

Please Disregard the Craziness

Recently I wrote two embarrassingly sad posts.  Posts like that are why I hesitated for a long time before making a blog at all.  Please disregard the craziness.  Despite all evidence to the contrary, I will forever insist those posts never happened.

Thanks,
Management

Recovered

So, I feel pretty well recovered now.  After a week of absence, my appetite is slowly returning.  I've decided to make today a day about closing loose ends.  Number one was finishing off the situation that has inspired the last two posts.  All is well on that front now.  Basically, I am content with the suboptimal outcome.  The second is finishing a book review I am writing for a journal.  I have one sentence to go.  I've decided not to leave the table (which functions as my desk) until it is done.  After that, I am going to a boat/pool party tonight.  Gotta go buy some shorts!

Capitalism Run Amuck: The Ben Rothlisberger Suspension and the Need for Big Labor

[I began this over a month ago.  Sorry for the dated info.]

Capitalism has run amuck.  There are many, many, many examples that make my point.  (Just look at how brash the oil industry is right now.  They're publicizing multi-billion dollar profits and defending "drill-baby-drill" while spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico daily and ruining the coastal economy.  You might also notice how hesitant most politicians are to upset Big Oil and cancel offshore drilling projects; President Obama is promising only a fuller review.  Big capital knows neither shame nor limits.)

In this post, I want to focus on an over-looked example.  If you're not a sports fan, you may not have seen the news about NFL star quarterback, Ben Rothlisberger.  Rothlisberger has been accused of rape and sexual assault by two young women in separate incidents.  The first incident is the subject of an on-going civil suit.  Prosecutors recently announced that although "something happened," they are unable to prove a criminal case.  Last week, NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, announced a conditional six-game suspension of Rothlisberger.  The Commissioner may reduce the suspension to four games if Rothlisberger completes a "comprehensive behavioral evaluation."

Let me say off the top, I believe the young women.  Statements to police by witnesses to the second incident are consistent and very credible.  As a feminist, I recognize how difficult it is for women to make accusations of rape/sexual assault--all the more difficult when very powerful men are the assailants.  Relatively underpowered accusers (e.g. women, racial and sexual minorities, poor, children and elderly) deserve the benefit of the doubt, even if we must request supplemental evidence in court proceedings.  Specific to the second accusation against Rothlisberger, the combination of testimonies from multiple sources is compelling on its own.  That being said, Rothlisberger deserves much more than a six-game suspension and probably substantial jail time.

The problem is not that Rothlisberger is being punished, but that the punishment is coming from his employer. There are several potential sanctioning entities here: government/police, NFL, NFLPA (the players' union).  Unfortunately, though they believe Rothlisberger committed a crime, the government cannot successfully prosecute for lack of an airtight case.  In my view, the NFLPA should step in and discipline their fellow worker.  His actions embarrass and endanger the reputations and livelihoods of all NFL players.  Instead, the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, issued the punishment.  Goodell went so far as to mandate personal behavioral counseling for Rothlisberger because he (Goodell) felt it was necessary for Rothlisberger conducting his life properly.

The whole thing illustrates the severe problem we have as laborers in the United States.  When we enter the job market (i.e. labor market/force), we sell our labor power in the form of time, skills, and production to a capitalist/employer in exchange for wages.  The capitalist is buying our labor, for a limited period of time.  That is all.  The capitalist/employer is NOT purchasing control of my life.  The employer cannot punish me because s/he does not like my extra-office activities.  An employer should not be able to punish workers for their political activities away from the job.  Nor should employers be allowed to comment on or sanction workers for their sexual activities away from the job.  Again, employers buy our labor and production.  They do not buy us!  The employer/laborer relationship is simply transactional.  Giving employers the power to control our lives beyond work, especially to the point of mandating behavior counseling, is outrageous and dangerous.  It is as ridiculous as giving the grocery store cashier control over how you raise your children!  The cashier is a party in a transaction.  So is your employer.

That so much talk around this incident has been around "protecting the shield" (i.e. the reputation of the NFL) illustrates just how far we've gone toward thinking that capitalists somehow own us; that capitalists' willingness to exchange money for our labor means they have a vested interest in every part of our lives, that which is part of labor production (e.g. activities at work) and that which is not (e.g. how I spend every other part of my day).

There is so much more to say, but I must stop here so that I don't end up writing a permanently unfinished eternal treatise.  Thank God, Karl Marx already did that for us.  :)