on graduate school, clifford geertz, and the process of finding peace.

Earlier this semester I swore off the academic study of religion.  It was an abrupt conclusion I came to as I realized that it put needless constraints on what topics I approached and how I approached them, so for the time being I decided to set it aside.  It’s been freeing to just hunker down and get to know the methods and possibilities of the field of political culture, especially in this odd moment when I don’t have any kind of major research going on. 

Of course, I got my start as a historian studying religion- going to a Lutheran school as a devout Mormon can have that effect on a person- and they say you can leave home but it never really leaves you.   (Now that I think about it, though, my efforts to swear off religious studies were in vain because I’m in a religion class right now- ok, so I’m around the study of religion but it’s so steeped in ethnic terms that I’m not noticing it.  Which probably gets to this whole other notion of “being present” in my life that I’m working on, for obvious reasons that include my forgetting that I just spent 3 hours of my day talking about Catholicism.)

At any rate, I don’t think a lot about religion as it relates to myself any more, that is perhaps the real change here. I am happy with my relatively unexamined life (which it turns out IS worth living).  I lack a religious identity rooted in present practice- the best I can usually muster is an oblique "I used to be Mormon." As the flat on the ODT remains unfixed and I find myself worshipping at the Church of the Folding Bike—a sacred space I tend to plow through so relentlessly that I do very little actual reflection—I just don’t have much of a spiritual focus anymore.  That realization, somewhat ironically, gave me  pause this evening.

I didn't come to it in overtly spiritual consideration, but more in pondering the question of what I might take from my experience in graduate school if I were to quit now and go to work full time.  I’m not necessarily contemplating dropping out as much as I am trying to extrapolate some meaning from this life that I chose a year ago—a life in Philadelphia that is intensely fulfilling and abundant, and simultaneously wrought with deprivation and uncertainty.  The best answer I could come up with was that my time in graduate school has given me a framework to help me understand and appreciate my world.  I felt that as an undergraduate, but there is something deeper and richer about that awareness in the midst of year three of graduate school and year twenty-five of life.  It is a feeling that is difficult to express.

So I was happy tonight, reading an essay to prepare me to start grading a stack of midterms tomorrow, to find an eloquent articulation of what I felt.  It was, perhaps not unsurprisingly, in an essay about religion.  Clifford Geertz writes:

"There are at least three points where chaos—a tumult of events which lack not just interpretations but interpretability—threatens to break in upon man: at the limits of his analytic capacities, at the limits of his powers of endurance, and at the limits of his moral insight.  Bafflement, suffering, and a sense of intractable ethical paradox are all, if they become intense enough or are sustained long enough, radical challenges to the proposition that life is comprehensible and that we can, but taking though, orient ourselves effectively within it—challenges with which any religion, however “primitive,” which hopes to persist must attempt somehow to cope."

(Here's the link for Geertz’s essay “Religion As a Cultural System”)

To some degree, as a historian, my supreme confidence in the interpretability of everything has made me somewhat impervious to chaos.  It’s a post-modern sense of confidence- there is so much gray area and there are so many possible right answers and explanations- but yet it''s a confidence that imposes a fair amount of order on my world.  The intensity of “bafflement, suffering, and a sense of intractable ethical paradox” is tempered both by the overwhelming scope of history and the inherent mysteries imposed by silences and forgetting and losses and suppressions.  To “do” history is to dedicate myself to the possibility that I am capable of understanding in spite of my limits, and maybe even because of my limits.  It is a simple, stark, and seldom acknowledged sense of hope that has relieved me of the constraints of what in the present seems possible, necessary, or planned.  Even adrift, I am oriented.

I would have never imagined finding the infinite and spiritual and plain in the secular realm of my work, but it is one of many unexpected encounters that has made this process  worth the effort. And for me, right now, that's the answer I need.

milking mormon masculinity for all its worth.

I saw this on facebook today. Maybe it's because my blood pressure is a little high right now because people are DUMB but I saw it and was just like, "great, as if they need to be even bigger douchebags when they get home."


It's like you think you've gotten over things and then you realize that you haven't. I mean really, I have gotten over things... but REALLY? Yesterday my friend was just talking about how weddings are such big business in Utah, and this was like icing on the cake-- exploiting things that should be valuable and emotional and special for business! ARGH! I am going to go live in a cabin in the woods ALONE. Good thing nobody clicks on facebook ads anyways.

p.s. isn't screen grab useful?

greetings from the sick den.

Well here I am, back from a miserly two day and night slog through a personally unprecedented bout of fevers. Today I've been on the mend, doing exciting things like consuming foods other than juice! Who knew half a can of clam chowder could have such restoring effects? Meaning of course, I only watched one movie today and only spent seven hours in bed after waking up. But hey, that's progress.

Ok, enough self pity, here's a bit of a round up of the things I missed the past few days (is being sick like being on another planet or what?):

I think this is badass. A map of the US featuring each state's motto. I love this because well, I love America and me and BB were just talking about state mottos last week.Cheers to the artist Emily Wick. I really hope she does a print of this piece.

Here's a fascinating story entitled "Who Would Jesus Smack Down?" I am still baffled as to:
A) Why anyone would need to tell hipsters they are God's chosen people. Don't they already think that?
B) What this guy's wife thinks of her submissive role.
C) Jesus isn't man enough?! (or as my bff put it, "[he] thinks Jesus was Rambo?!?!?") Oh Diety, I think my gender historian head just exploded! Deliverance, por favor!

A childhood friend posted this article on facebook and one of his friends posted links to related articles from The Stranger (Seattle's alt weekly) here and here. The comments are worth reading; The Times article begs for supplementary materials. Calvinists in Seattle, the ultimate oxymoron. Consider my mind blown.

And speaking of blow, I would be remiss if I didn't link to this article on teen cocaine use by Charles M. Blow. Obligatory chortle at the inadvertant pun.

Whew, that was exhausting.

never say never.

I have to admit, I wrote this out and felt a little worried about posting it. Granted, COTGB grew out of a desire to chronicle my spiritual journey and I feel like in this and other circumstances I am pretty upfront about how I feel about things. Anyways what I'm saying is: it took a lot out of me to take the step I took today and it takes even more for me to put it out there. I feel good about sharing, but it's just one of those personal things that standing in contrast to the other stuff I usually post. That said:

I went to a Lutheran church this morning.

I've been thinking about going since August. It's hard to explain but I just got this hankering to be apart of a faith community again. Going back to the LDS church isn't an option I would deign to entertain, but I couldn't deny that I missed the ritual and the singing and the people. My selection of the church I went to this morning was, like many decisions I make, pretty arbitrary--it's close to where I live, appeared to have some cool midcentury architecture goin' on*, and like my alma mater, it's E.L.C.A. The latter gave me a pretty positive feeling about what I would find there, but I still waited a while to make sure it was something that I really wanted to do.

It was nice. I can't say there were fireworks or that I was deeply, powerfully moved but then, that wasn't really why I went in the first place. Today was apparently the Feast of the Reformation and the pastor talked about how since the Lutherans and the Catholics have reconciled, the focus is more on personal reformation in a context of grace and the belief that the church can grow with its people through continued reform. I liked the simplicity of it, and I liked the people I met. Fortuitously I found myself sitting next to the Utah Commissioner of Higher Education and his wife and the Dean of Students at Winminister College (additionally, a professor from my department and a librarian from Special Collections sang in the choir). It was nice to feel like I was in a place that academians find conducive to their spiritual growth-- that says a lot to me about the congregation and what goes on there week to week. It was a very pleasant experience over all.

I guess I write about this with a sense of mild surprise because I have at times in the past year professed that I would never go back to any church. It's been exactly that, a year, a whole year. After giving so much of myself over to the LDS church, the sense of loss and hurt never really goes away and the anger becomes inflammed periodically. Leaving the church never really impacted my feelings towards God or Jesus (or is it God/Jesus?) (I don't even think the specifics of that question matter any more) or my desire to be a decent human being but I have felt a little scared about diving back in to the regularized patterns of worship or accepting any kind of systematic belief system. It's like dating after being burned by a bad breakup-- you know that all of humanity isn't out to rip your heart out but they are still suspect. Getting back out there has to occur on your own terms.

Having realized more fully the spectrum of opportunities available to me, the many directions that my agency can take and the ultimate simplicity and potentcy of God's love, I knew exactly what my terms were. So today I allowed myself to wade in. I let myself appear at a church to indulge the very personal desire to worship and to be with people. I gave myself permission to be myself--a young aspiring lady historian (yes, back on that track again)-- and to let others accept me for who I am. I gave myself the opportunity to quietly evaluate where my life is in a setting that emphasizes goodness, gentle encouragement and personal variances in belief. I was there because I wanted to be there and what I wanted to get was exactly what I got. It felt great.



*the light fixtures really made my day, too.

yawn.

The Paper endorses The Barack.

The Church destroys The Testimonies of its members by hating on The Gays.

The Daily Beast features The Home of Marie Antoinette in The Most Loveliest Photo Essay.

Bonus: a satirical electoral map. The Depiction of Utah is spot on.

in defense of carol lynn pearson.

So I woke up in Cranky Town this morning. Today is of course the big deadline, which of course as I told my editor, I would probably not be able to meet and of course that is actually what is happening. So I'm feeling a touch down because I know that some time this afternoon my peer review drafts will start rolling into my inbox and I will still be fucking around on page six. I'm not in entirely bad shape-- I have another interview scheduled for this afternoon and interviews breed more interviews. And Starbuck's sent me a free drink card, which I think will really make everything all better after my afternoon in South Jordan.

But anyways, I was extra cranky and hit up the blogs as I tried to wake up and feel some cheer. I was reading this local blog (which I will not even bother linking to) and some assclown had the tenacity to knock Carol Lynn Pearson. Obviously I'm still not over it. As you may know, the Church has come out against the gay marriage gig in Cali (as they have done before) and naturally a good many people are using the "moral issue" as an excuse to be bigots. I am angry that the Church has their hands in it but am also not surprised-- I mean come on, I do ERA history. I expect no less.

Anyways, somebody knocked Carol Lynn Pearson because apparently she's not sufficiently Mormon for them. Pearson married a man who had been "rehabilitated" by the Church for homosexuality who later came out, ending their marriage. Pearson then cared for him as he died of AIDS in the mid-80's. She is a poet and has counseled many people who have struggled to except their own homosexuality or that of a family member. I really, really respect her work.

Anyways, I read her book No More Goodbyes: Circling the Wagons Around Our Gay Loved Ones last year. I have a friend who's been through the fires with the issue of homosexuality and Mormonism and put Pearson's book in my hands because it had been meaningful to her and her family. The afternoon I spent reading it was part of a larger awakening in myself-- that I could no longer willingly shut people out, not from the Church, not from God's love and certainly not from my own life. What kills me is that I felt like such a rebel for feeling that way, for even having Pearson's book on my coffee table. I felt pretty sure at the time that she had a better understanding of what Mormonism was supposed to be about than most General Authorities.

I didn't really think of that whole experience factoring into my paradigm shift until this morning when I realized how angry I was that anybody dared speak ill of a woman who did so much to change my thinking. It's crazy how that stuff comes from left field sometimes.

it's hip, it's fresh, it's noah's arcade.

I never really believed that any church could come as close to the Buddy Jesus scheme from that movie Dogma (it's the only part I remember from that movie; it really, really stuck) that I can hardly believe that this ad from the Catholic Church is true. I mean sure, it's theologically sound... kinda... but just not something one expects to see. It's an advertisement for Catholic World Youth day... see link here.


Also, the mega-interview went well. Too bad I'm too tired to write about it.