Yes, I'm still planning to attend the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. No, it's not going to be Fall of '09. The economy is rough for many right now, and I seem to be among them. I have no doubt, though, that this too will pass and things will change. I have a vocation and a strong will.
I'm deferring enrollment for a year, to give us more time to gather our rosebuds while we may, before moving on to a larger garden. This is merely a delay.
Meantime, I'm looking for extra work as a freelance writer. Know of work? Please send it my way, and thanks!
If you care to follow my progress in a more relaxed, personal vein, pop on over to Musings of a Mystic Mess where you can follow (and rate!) me as this amazing journey continues. I'm also on Facebook, if you can handle both academics and web 2.0 technology.
Blessings,
Deborah
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The letters are in; it's official
I've been accepted to the GTU at Berkeley for my MDiv. I've accepted. Hurray! It's an exciting and interesting time for me, and not a little scary. I've lived in the same area for 20 years, and moving seems like a real earth-shaker. The whole process has been fascinating. The Move is slated for June/July. It's going to be one hell of a summer. That's just fine; getting here was an adventure in itself. As the line form the movie Gandhi says, "It is just a trip. I have been on many trips." I know, beyond knowing, that I will be just as held and supported in this endeavor as I have been in other endeavors associated with my call.
Care to help? Any amount is wonderful, and you'll be generating some good karma (or maybe working through some old karma). It all goes towards tuition. Ever thought about donating to a cause that would help to get another voice for peace and justice in the world? Now's your chance! You get my deep gratitude and you get to rest in the knowledge that you've done one more small thing to make the world a better place.
Thank you!
Care to help? Any amount is wonderful, and you'll be generating some good karma (or maybe working through some old karma). It all goes towards tuition. Ever thought about donating to a cause that would help to get another voice for peace and justice in the world? Now's your chance! You get my deep gratitude and you get to rest in the knowledge that you've done one more small thing to make the world a better place.
Thank you!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Religious Literacy in Virtual Worlds
Compared to more conventional, traditional approaches to the study of religion and the establishment of viable, cohesive spiritual paths, I see myself as fringe. It may be true that the sweetest fruits are often those farthest out on the limb, but it can feel isolating being out there, with no other tenants on the branch.
Then I run into things like the video I've posted below and suddenly I feel much more accompanied on my wild ride. It's easy to see how religious literacy and virtual worlds are entwined in something like this. Becoming literate about a faith tradition is the very thing that may allow one to reclaim faith and establish a faith practice that includes all of what the individual deems significant.
Virtual realities can enhance religious literacy: here's an example.
Then I run into things like the video I've posted below and suddenly I feel much more accompanied on my wild ride. It's easy to see how religious literacy and virtual worlds are entwined in something like this. Becoming literate about a faith tradition is the very thing that may allow one to reclaim faith and establish a faith practice that includes all of what the individual deems significant.
Virtual realities can enhance religious literacy: here's an example.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Butt Kickings, $1.00
I had the pleasant fortune yesterday of visiting a friend just returned from Japan studying Japanese Buddhism. Other friends were there, too, and it almost never sucks to be in a group of RS people. We all get to indulge ourselves in tasty converse. Inevitably (with me these days) the conversation turns to religious literacy. K is stronger in Easterns than I am, and A is stronger in Islam than I am, so we have an interesting conversational mix of things. Despite our strengths of interest, one thing that came up in 3 religions and two cultures we discussed was how people just don't pay one damned bit of attention to how they got where they are (religiously) and what that might actually mean in terms of the practice of a living faith or system instead of rigid, retrojected beliefs that have become concretized, external rule structures.
We have some amazing RS resources at Humboldt; we talked about using our local Newman Center for an RS salon. We talked about using Second Life in concert with other Web 2.0 resources to weave a portal to scholarly resources about religious literacy and provide information and a forum for discussion. By the end of the visit, A was thinking about changing his senior project to something on religious literacy. K, as always, was the cool, rational voice asking the questions that keep keels even.
What benefit does becoming religiously literate have for a religion's end user? Does every member of a tradition need to become literate? If so, why? And how?
Pluralism must emerge, at least in the Jungian sense of integration of the shadow, if we are to avoid the consequences of the world tearing itself apart. I'm thinking of pluralism right now as an hospitable sociocultural environment environment that neither endorses nor pedestalizes any tradition. If not tearing the world apart isn't sufficient motivation to get people interested in religious literacy, what is?
What cookie is there to offer people to make them want to become literate? We couldn't find one--not just one, at any rate. To seek literacy is to admit illiteracy. For some, the admission of illiteracy means the catastrophic downfall of their lifeframe. If they admit to illiteracy, they admit that the beliefs upon which their lives are founded are potentially inaccurate; I have seen no indication that most end users of religion are willing to have their lifeframes challenged in such ways. Their world might collapse, and in a culture of comfort junkies, hardly anyone is willing to do that work, much less invoke that kind of personal chaos deliberately in order to create a better world for everyone.
It seems obvious that without religious literacy, proponents of religion will keep doing pretty much as they please, especially to a demonized other, and find a way to cull sanctions form their primary texts to support their actions, no matter how gymnastic a process that culling becomes. But if it was so bloody obvious to everyone, wouldn't things change?
I'm as confused as Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes, not the John Calvin that the comic character is named after. I'm pretty sure he wasn't confused--after all, he did manage a theocracy in Geneva). I could only find one frame of this strip, but it opens with Hobbes walking up to Calvin's booth, asking how business is. Calvin says it's horrible, which he doesn't understand, because:
We have some amazing RS resources at Humboldt; we talked about using our local Newman Center for an RS salon. We talked about using Second Life in concert with other Web 2.0 resources to weave a portal to scholarly resources about religious literacy and provide information and a forum for discussion. By the end of the visit, A was thinking about changing his senior project to something on religious literacy. K, as always, was the cool, rational voice asking the questions that keep keels even.
What benefit does becoming religiously literate have for a religion's end user? Does every member of a tradition need to become literate? If so, why? And how?
Pluralism must emerge, at least in the Jungian sense of integration of the shadow, if we are to avoid the consequences of the world tearing itself apart. I'm thinking of pluralism right now as an hospitable sociocultural environment environment that neither endorses nor pedestalizes any tradition. If not tearing the world apart isn't sufficient motivation to get people interested in religious literacy, what is?
What cookie is there to offer people to make them want to become literate? We couldn't find one--not just one, at any rate. To seek literacy is to admit illiteracy. For some, the admission of illiteracy means the catastrophic downfall of their lifeframe. If they admit to illiteracy, they admit that the beliefs upon which their lives are founded are potentially inaccurate; I have seen no indication that most end users of religion are willing to have their lifeframes challenged in such ways. Their world might collapse, and in a culture of comfort junkies, hardly anyone is willing to do that work, much less invoke that kind of personal chaos deliberately in order to create a better world for everyone.
It seems obvious that without religious literacy, proponents of religion will keep doing pretty much as they please, especially to a demonized other, and find a way to cull sanctions form their primary texts to support their actions, no matter how gymnastic a process that culling becomes. But if it was so bloody obvious to everyone, wouldn't things change?
I'm as confused as Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes, not the John Calvin that the comic character is named after. I'm pretty sure he wasn't confused--after all, he did manage a theocracy in Geneva). I could only find one frame of this strip, but it opens with Hobbes walking up to Calvin's booth, asking how business is. Calvin says it's horrible, which he doesn't understand, because:
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Deus In Machina
It amazes me that, in a world where one can be/do anything one likes (e.g., Second Life), the first choice of some folks is to look like themselves and do exactly what they do IRL (that's webslang for 'in real life' in case you're not a netnerd like me). I suppose there's two sides to it, like everything else. I suppose, on the one hand, that it could mean that these people are so authentic, so integrated, so well-grounded in their own full beingness that it's a natural extension of themselves to take real life into a virtual world. I believe that's possible, but I'm skeptical about it being true.
On the other hand, I suppose it's also possible that people can become addicted to the sensations that come with the authority and utter assurance that one's worldview is The Absolute Best One Ever, and carry the frames of their addictions into every facet of their lives. After all, if yours is Best and True and Right then everyone else must, perforce, be wrong. That leaves one standing pretty tall and shiny in the midst of the huddled masses--a heady space indeed. Thing is, though, that when one builds on a shaky foundation, the structure is weakened and subject to collapse, especially under duress.
Virtual realities allow the human to create imaginal worlds in which to dwell. People believe stuff. They take those beliefs (and the consequences of them) wherever they go. Evangelicals and fundamentalists of all faiths find their way into these virtual worlds, still clamoring about which god can kick which other gods' butt. In a virtual world, you can mess with people's stuff, but you can't kill them. There's no "real" destruction, nor actual bloodshed. But does that make the conflict any more agreeable? Does importing God into the machine make it more okay to trash the beliefs of others or, worse yet, continue to build on faulty foundations?
Religious illiteracy hurts me. I mean it actually, physically pains me to see people using a religious tradition to bolster their worldview with an almost complete lack of understanding of the tradition they use. And this illiteracy is pandemic. I know religiously illiterate Christians, Muslims, and a Jew or two (odd, but now that I think about it, my own personal dataset has a lower number of religiously illiterate Jews than other faith groups. This could be because I know fewer Jews than I do Christians or Muslims, or it could have something to do with the Jewish practice of midrash. If you have a theory about this, I'd love to hear it).
I know a couple of illiterate Buddhists and at least one Vedic-type person, too, but somehow, they seem far less harmful than an illiterate Abrahamic. I wonder if that's true, or if that's a product of my own Western biases.
In virtual realities, I've seen all stripes of faith. Each one of them has found a way to utilize technology to reveal and propagate their message. I've seen virtual megachurches and virtual Zen retreats. Someone even built a Tibetan mountain monastery. While virtual worlds don't deliver a full 3D immersive sensory experience *yet*, there is no doubt that the experiences induced by visual stimuli carry 'real" emotional weight. And people pull God into the machine right along with them.
I want to take God into the machine, too. While pondering what it is I want to do in grad school, it occurred to me that I could set up my own little Center for Religious Literacy. I could build a structure, put up some art, make assorted texts available for people to take for free, keep office hours in case someone wanted to talk. It'd be an interesting experience, at the least. One of the things I'm trying to figure out at present is how to get people to realize their religious illiteracy without driving them away from the engagement. I'm also trying to discover how to have intelligent discussions about religious literacy without it sinking into an argument based in belief. And then how to take that discussion into a virtual world, where hundreds of thousands of people will have access to it, even when I'm asleep or blogging or meditating.
I've taken God into the machine with me. So have others. Or maybe God was there already, waiting for us to figure it out. In any case, my hope is that the sheer force of imagination and creativity inherent to virtual reality will rub off on all of us, and make it possible to discuss building our beliefs on something other than digital sand.
On the other hand, I suppose it's also possible that people can become addicted to the sensations that come with the authority and utter assurance that one's worldview is The Absolute Best One Ever, and carry the frames of their addictions into every facet of their lives. After all, if yours is Best and True and Right then everyone else must, perforce, be wrong. That leaves one standing pretty tall and shiny in the midst of the huddled masses--a heady space indeed. Thing is, though, that when one builds on a shaky foundation, the structure is weakened and subject to collapse, especially under duress.
Virtual realities allow the human to create imaginal worlds in which to dwell. People believe stuff. They take those beliefs (and the consequences of them) wherever they go. Evangelicals and fundamentalists of all faiths find their way into these virtual worlds, still clamoring about which god can kick which other gods' butt. In a virtual world, you can mess with people's stuff, but you can't kill them. There's no "real" destruction, nor actual bloodshed. But does that make the conflict any more agreeable? Does importing God into the machine make it more okay to trash the beliefs of others or, worse yet, continue to build on faulty foundations?
Religious illiteracy hurts me. I mean it actually, physically pains me to see people using a religious tradition to bolster their worldview with an almost complete lack of understanding of the tradition they use. And this illiteracy is pandemic. I know religiously illiterate Christians, Muslims, and a Jew or two (odd, but now that I think about it, my own personal dataset has a lower number of religiously illiterate Jews than other faith groups. This could be because I know fewer Jews than I do Christians or Muslims, or it could have something to do with the Jewish practice of midrash. If you have a theory about this, I'd love to hear it).
I know a couple of illiterate Buddhists and at least one Vedic-type person, too, but somehow, they seem far less harmful than an illiterate Abrahamic. I wonder if that's true, or if that's a product of my own Western biases.
In virtual realities, I've seen all stripes of faith. Each one of them has found a way to utilize technology to reveal and propagate their message. I've seen virtual megachurches and virtual Zen retreats. Someone even built a Tibetan mountain monastery. While virtual worlds don't deliver a full 3D immersive sensory experience *yet*, there is no doubt that the experiences induced by visual stimuli carry 'real" emotional weight. And people pull God into the machine right along with them.
I want to take God into the machine, too. While pondering what it is I want to do in grad school, it occurred to me that I could set up my own little Center for Religious Literacy. I could build a structure, put up some art, make assorted texts available for people to take for free, keep office hours in case someone wanted to talk. It'd be an interesting experience, at the least. One of the things I'm trying to figure out at present is how to get people to realize their religious illiteracy without driving them away from the engagement. I'm also trying to discover how to have intelligent discussions about religious literacy without it sinking into an argument based in belief. And then how to take that discussion into a virtual world, where hundreds of thousands of people will have access to it, even when I'm asleep or blogging or meditating.
I've taken God into the machine with me. So have others. Or maybe God was there already, waiting for us to figure it out. In any case, my hope is that the sheer force of imagination and creativity inherent to virtual reality will rub off on all of us, and make it possible to discuss building our beliefs on something other than digital sand.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Light in the Darktime
Ah, the holidays. Short days, cold weather. Short tempers, cold people. Christmas carols everywhere, muzaked into background noise, perhaps a subliminal message about gifts like Jesus, only somehow translated into gifts like nose hair trimmers and Chia-pets. A dead tree in the living room to symbolize the eternality of life's renewal of itself. Hey--maybe if we put some lights on it, no one will notice its dead.
To many, I seem Scroogian, a curmudgeon of bah-humbugged proportions. I'm not, really. It's not Christmas per se that I harbor such an intense dislike for; it's the religious illiteracy behind it. There's a history of myths about savior-figures who die in a season, to return in the next. Until we had some folks come along who were willing to challenge the ideas about which revolved around what, we had to find ways to explain the changing of seasons, a way to make us want to survive the dark days of winter with hope. We did that with story, with myth. Over time and via appropriations, some of those stories got a little bit twisted around, and somehow, despite their fantastic imagery, those stories got concretized into a literal truth.
Hence, the muzak, the dead tree, the compulsive purchasing of seasonal joy for friends and loved ones.
Jesus is not the reason for the season. Jesus is s symbol of the season, an extrapolation of ancient stories that helped primitive people get through the long, cold days of winter with hope that once again spring might return to the land with its attendant light, warmth, and abundance. And Jesus isn't at the Christmas party alone; there's actually several other religions and cultures who have festivals this time of year, many for similar reasons. It's dark. It's cold. There's hope, and renewal on the way in a couple of months. We're going to survive the winter, and emerge into a fresh, new, re-born world, for which we should be happy and grateful. And then it all starts again So, while it's dark and cold out, why not curl up with a good, religiously literate book and find a personal meaning for this season? Then you can go out and share some real joy--without maxxing the credit card.
To many, I seem Scroogian, a curmudgeon of bah-humbugged proportions. I'm not, really. It's not Christmas per se that I harbor such an intense dislike for; it's the religious illiteracy behind it. There's a history of myths about savior-figures who die in a season, to return in the next. Until we had some folks come along who were willing to challenge the ideas about which revolved around what, we had to find ways to explain the changing of seasons, a way to make us want to survive the dark days of winter with hope. We did that with story, with myth. Over time and via appropriations, some of those stories got a little bit twisted around, and somehow, despite their fantastic imagery, those stories got concretized into a literal truth.
Hence, the muzak, the dead tree, the compulsive purchasing of seasonal joy for friends and loved ones.
Jesus is not the reason for the season. Jesus is s symbol of the season, an extrapolation of ancient stories that helped primitive people get through the long, cold days of winter with hope that once again spring might return to the land with its attendant light, warmth, and abundance. And Jesus isn't at the Christmas party alone; there's actually several other religions and cultures who have festivals this time of year, many for similar reasons. It's dark. It's cold. There's hope, and renewal on the way in a couple of months. We're going to survive the winter, and emerge into a fresh, new, re-born world, for which we should be happy and grateful. And then it all starts again So, while it's dark and cold out, why not curl up with a good, religiously literate book and find a personal meaning for this season? Then you can go out and share some real joy--without maxxing the credit card.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
One Nation, Under What?
After everyone had spoken at the RNC last night (9.3.08), 3 musicians took the stage and performed this interesting spoken word/song version of a cross between the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance. There were also inserted lines from MLK's Dream speech, and a few other stirring bits harvested from culturally recognizable things.
But then they got to the part about "One nation/under God." My mind went straight to the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli, in which Article 11 states:
I considered that, since many of our illustrious founding fathers were either Deists or even atheistic, how could they let that phrase in? One nation, under What? Who? God? Okay, but which one? Does it mean that we’re all subject to the will of one god, or perhaps that each individual is subject to the will of a god and collectively we then become a nation under god(s)? Then I found out that the whole "under God" business wasn't added until the 1950's. Retrojection of principle onto the founding fathers, putting words in the mouths of dead men?
Let’s assume for a moment that we are, as Americans, indeed one nation under a god. Rather than rebelling against the idea of some old white guys who were trying to shove a preconceived, patriarchal god of their invention down my throat, I’ve come to a place where the phrase, “one Nation/under God” actually opens doors instead of closing them.
People have a history of selecting gods to worship on the basis of which one gives them the most of what they want. Agrarians turned to gods of rain, crops, fertility. Fighters turned to gods of war. Pacifists turn to gods of peace. Scholars turn to gods of knowledge; the disenfranchised turn to gods of mercy and provision (or turn away from them altogether). Is there really a One Size Fits All God that each and every one of us can agree on and submit ourselves to? Or did our founding fathers mean to create an environment of religious freedom that allowed for all kinds of faiths?
Can the notion of one nation under god become an accommodating place of mind in which all the gods of all the people are welcome at the discussion? Can we open our minds to the thought that each of us is entitled to our own beliefs about god—even if that’s to say that there isn’t one at all?
As much as I used to find “one Nation/under God” a distasteful sentiment, I now see it as an umbrella under which we might all be able to fit. If we can stretch ourselves around the idea that it means inclusions of faith and religion instead of exclusions, using this idea to create a religiously literate world in which each faith is acknowledged as valid (at the very least to its adherents), then maybe, just maybe, you’ll find me standing during the pledge of allegiance, with my hand over my wildly-thumping heart so as to keep it within my breast, leaping as it would be from sheer joy.
click here for more information about Article 11
But then they got to the part about "One nation/under God." My mind went straight to the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli, in which Article 11 states:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
I considered that, since many of our illustrious founding fathers were either Deists or even atheistic, how could they let that phrase in? One nation, under What? Who? God? Okay, but which one? Does it mean that we’re all subject to the will of one god, or perhaps that each individual is subject to the will of a god and collectively we then become a nation under god(s)? Then I found out that the whole "under God" business wasn't added until the 1950's. Retrojection of principle onto the founding fathers, putting words in the mouths of dead men?
Let’s assume for a moment that we are, as Americans, indeed one nation under a god. Rather than rebelling against the idea of some old white guys who were trying to shove a preconceived, patriarchal god of their invention down my throat, I’ve come to a place where the phrase, “one Nation/under God” actually opens doors instead of closing them.
People have a history of selecting gods to worship on the basis of which one gives them the most of what they want. Agrarians turned to gods of rain, crops, fertility. Fighters turned to gods of war. Pacifists turn to gods of peace. Scholars turn to gods of knowledge; the disenfranchised turn to gods of mercy and provision (or turn away from them altogether). Is there really a One Size Fits All God that each and every one of us can agree on and submit ourselves to? Or did our founding fathers mean to create an environment of religious freedom that allowed for all kinds of faiths?
Can the notion of one nation under god become an accommodating place of mind in which all the gods of all the people are welcome at the discussion? Can we open our minds to the thought that each of us is entitled to our own beliefs about god—even if that’s to say that there isn’t one at all?
As much as I used to find “one Nation/under God” a distasteful sentiment, I now see it as an umbrella under which we might all be able to fit. If we can stretch ourselves around the idea that it means inclusions of faith and religion instead of exclusions, using this idea to create a religiously literate world in which each faith is acknowledged as valid (at the very least to its adherents), then maybe, just maybe, you’ll find me standing during the pledge of allegiance, with my hand over my wildly-thumping heart so as to keep it within my breast, leaping as it would be from sheer joy.
click here for more information about Article 11
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