zoned out

In preparation for washing the dinner dishes, I started to put away the breakfast dishes. And they struck me as completely foreign. Like, huh, that was this morning? And not, say, days ago??

Yep, definitely this morning. Which seems like days ago. Although absolutely nothing of note happened in between.

Strange. I am very sleepy.

On an unrelated note, here's a picture of Christopher with a terribly cute hedgehog cookie he made at school. He wanted to make sure we took a picture "before it dies." The end came swiftly.

advent

We're doing a kids' service on Sunday, and since it's December 1st the theme has to be Advent, but my partner-in-this-particular-crime and I have decided that this year we are not going to talk about waiting and counting down the days until Christmas. Instead, we're going to ask "what's the biggest gift of all?"

My partner scoured the library and found this sweet story about a girl who brings a box to a new school and tries to use it to make friends. On the first day she puts her teddy in the box, and the kids laugh at her. The next day she puts cupcakes in the box, and the kids go wild, but then wander off and no one even says thank you. Then she puts a puppy in the box, and everybody is excited to play with it, but the caretaker says that the puppy can't stay at school. On the last day, dejected, she crawls into the box herself and just wants to hide. But one kid "finds" her and starts a game of hide and seek. She goes home that night and announces that she has found a friend. "Oh," says Grandpa, "you must have really had something special in that box!"

So that's it. The special thing in the box was her. The biggest gift of all is love, and we ourselves are the lovers and the beloved, participants in the cosmic miracle we're going to celebrate again at Christmas, already here.

Will we manage to communicate this? I hope so? We are often accused of aiming our messages way over the kids' heads. My defense is that these are preschool kids and they're not going to be taking away much anyway, so we might as well say something meaningful to their parents. Also "at kids' level" often feels very much like code for "in Swiss German," which is beyond me in any case, so I do what I can.

Marginally-related aside: well, this is an interesting little corner of Wikipedia.

kingship

Yesterday was the solemnity of Christ the King, a holy day instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and moved in 1969 to the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Looking at the devastation of World War I and a still-uncertain future, Pope Pius XI wrote of his vision for a world at peace (?!):

...No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

46. There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail. [Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922]

I have to admire this. I have trouble believing in any God at all, and here is someone with great faith not only in a God, but in one who has unambiguously commissioned the institution of the Roman Catholic Church to provide moral leadership, to be an authority "above all nations," to bring God's peace to the world. Christ as King! If only it were true!

But it isn't.

Christ the King always reminds me of my junior year in college, when the position of Catholic priest/theologian at the campus ministry was vacant for a whole year and we had to improvise. My friend Rachel and I would get there early on Sunday morning, wheel the little Catholic cart out of the closet, and set things up. Some random priest from the parish in Claremont would show up, say Mass, and leave; then we'd put everything neatly away. Nobody told us we had to train as sacristans, we just did it. And nobody told us we had to have a theology degree to write the prayers of the faithful, we just did that too - drawing from the gospel reading or whatever was in the news or on our minds that week. On the Feast of Christ the King, we decided that the end of the liturgical year was kind of like a birthday, so we celebrated by decorating the chapel with balloons and streamers. I think we may have even baked cupcakes. (Any excuse to bake, was our motto in college.)

This, admittedly, was less than entirely theologically sound. And yet. In the ragtag little community of college kids who were willing to be awake at 9 am on a Sunday morning (so. early.), I had a home and a purpose and a voice. I didn't ever think that anyone else should to do this, I was just happy that there were a few others who did.

For me, the Kingdom of God is that still small voice of friendship and community. Not Christ over us, Christ in us and among us. The Feast of Christ, the cupcake baker?

truth

Tonight I went to the English service in Winterthur again, and here is a thing I learned that I think is cool. Apparently this comes from Heidegger, but my fact-checking has only gotten me as far as this random website, which I quote:

alétheia and truth: Alétheia is Greek for 'truth; truthfulness, frankness, sincerity'. Aléthés is 'true; sincere, frank; real, actual'. There is also a verb, alétheuein, 'to speak truly, etc' (cf. GA XIX, 21ff.). The words are related to lanthanein, with an older form léthein, 'to escape notice, be unseen, unnoticed', and lithe, 'forgetting, forgetfulness'. An initial a- in Greek is often privative, like the Latin in- or the Germanic un-. (The 'privative alpha' occurs in many Greek-derived words: 'anonymous', 'atheism', etc.) Aléthés, alétheia are generally accepted to be a-léthes, a-létheia, that which is 'not hidden or forgotten', or he who 'does not hide or forget'.

So truth, in this sense, is not a statement measured against some gold standard of reality, but instead means "the things we don't forget."

Which explains quite nicely why my truth can easily be different from your truth. Is in all probability different from your truth - and the more different our backgrounds, the more different our truths. Which isn't something we need to be upset about or educate each other out of (which won't work anyway, because what I remember from that education won't be what you remember!); it's something we need to be aware of. Less judgement, less condescension; more humility, more curiosity. Truth.

British

The thing about St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Zurich is, I'd like to like to go there: I think the Anglicans have their priorities a lot straighter than the Catholics and it would be nice to go to services in English. But, oh, they are sooooo British. You know how when immigrants carry their culture to a new place, that culture gets frozen in time? The ladies of St. Andrew's remind me very much of the ladies of the League of Friends at the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital, Surrey, where I did my PhD. The Friends, a group of elderly ladies seemingly time-machined direct from the 1960s, ran a little café that served simple sandwiches at lunchtime and currant buns with lashings of butter in the afternoon. And tea, of course. Oh, those buns were delicious. But I digress. In any case, we don't go to church at St. Andrew's. But I stalk them on Facebook and try to go to events that sound interesting.

Which is to say that last Saturday I bribed the kids and Dan with the prospect of real scones and dragged them to the St. Andrew's Christmas Bazaar. Which was? Sooooo British. Right inside the door was a kindly-looking older man selling Remembrance Day poppies; across from him was a stand of ladies selling homemade Christmas crackers (!). There were cakes and scones for sale, and a whole stand of British foodstuffs like Branston Pickle and lemon curd. And a café serving tea (what else?) and some kind of open-faced egg salad sandwich things (ooh, more flashbacks to my studentship days). And a kids' corner and a white elephant sale and two whole rooms full of English books. It was the books, of course, that were my real motivation for coming, and sure enough an hour or so later we were leaving with one (1) new lunch thermos for Caroline, a package of Christmas crackers, a bag of scones, a sugar cookie hand-decorated by Christopher, and three (3) new books. So we (and they) did pretty well.

Cracking!

My book is "Religion for Atheists" by Alain de Botton, which I'm enjoying. It's not great - I don't get the impression that he bothered to do a ton of research before writing it, and the number of women mentioned in the book is alarmingly low - but his thesis that religions perform important social functions that are lacking in secular society is one I'm interested in. He tries to imagine new practices entirely divorced from the world of religion; I'm more interested in adapting the practices we already have - and particularly our language around them - to make them accessible to people who aren't willing to surrender their intellects at the door. Which is most people, these days? But contrary to what I often hear in churchy circles, I don't think that these people are superficial or that they don't want or need spiritual support; it's just that they don't want or need to associate with institutions who refuse to accept them as they are. I think we can do better.

Fried-day

These things are true about playgroup:
(1) I dread it.
(2) I get through it.
(3) And then I am a bundle of raw nerves for the rest of the day.

I thought at the beginning that the question was, can I even do this? And the answer to that is yes, I can do it. Sure, in some areas (ooh let's name a random one, SMALL TALK?) I suck, and it seems like literally anyone else on the planet could do a better job, but I do show up every week and I prepare a welcoming and non-judgemental space, and the parents who come seem to value it, and a remarkable number of the little kids get really excited about going to up to the church to sing and light candles, which I feel good about (though let's face it, who doesn't get excited about singing and lighting candles?).

But there's that other question, do I want to do this? The answer to that is yes, in that I want to do something worthwhile and I think this is worthwhile. And yes, in that having a key to church means a great deal to me and my foolhardy Swiss integration project, and at the moment neither I nor anyone else can see another job at church that fits me. And no, in that surely I have other talents that aren't being efficiently used here. Also no, in that maybe (1) and (3) above are telling me something?

Feels like round and round with the same old issues, must try to remember that life is a labyrinth and trust the Spaghetti Monster that somehow, somewhere, progress is being made.

enlightenment

Tonight marked the first night of the Christmas lights in Zurich, which means it's now officially the season for Christmas market stalls and Glühwein stands.

I had class, but I had time to get off the the tram a couple of stops early and soak up a little atmosphere, and afterwards I took advantage of the late shopping hours to buy some yogurt at Migros. That reminded me of my early-motherhood days in Seattle, when we'd finally get the kid or kids to sleep and I'd go out to Target just because I could. After we moved here I had to adjust to nothing at all being open past bedtime, so I'd just go wander the streets, which was undoubtedly healthier and better for the environment, but somewhat less entertaining. Ooh look, chestnut-flavored yogurt!

The lights are not actually that impressive, to be honest. It's the atmosphere that counts. And/or the glühwein.

The Oracle of Zurich. I've never seen two different words on two different sides before, what could this mean?

Class gave me high blood pressure. The trouble is, the more of these classes I take, the more of an opinion I form, and the less tolerance I have for (what I see as) flimsy, misguided, and arrogant claims about God. And false dichotomies. And straw men. Argue your corner, by all means, but have the humility to admit that you might be just as misguided as the next guy. Please?

the chickpea incident

On Sunday, Christopher and I went to visit my friend who has a son Christopher's age, one of the few people on earth who can give Christopher a run for his money in the talking department. The plan was to go in the afternoon and come back in time for dinner, so we could have a relatively normal bedtime routine before school on Monday. I'd left Dan with the kids on Saturday night, and felt a bit bad about making him cook two nights in a row, so before we left I roasted some vegetables and gave him dinner instructions.

Open a can of chickpeas and throw them in with the vegetables, I said.
Put some rice in the rice cooker, I said.
Take out a box of Golden Curry and make the sauce, but don't mix it in with the veggies because then Caroline won't touch any of it, I said.
Should I add onions to the sauce? he asked. Oh sure, that's a good idea, I said.
I'm not putting potatoes into this veg mix because I feel like the rice and the chickpeas are enough starch, I said.

So we got home and dinner was on the table. The vegetables I'd roasted, mostly warmed up. Rice in the rice cooker. And curry sauce with chickpeas and potatoes in it.

WHY??????

I KNOW I should be grateful that I have a husband who is capable of getting that far. Goodness knows my father could never have managed even that much, and I have female friends whose husbands are equally domestically useless.

But WHY????????

It was just...the chickpea that broke Susannah's back. I completely lost it and screamed. A lot.

Yes my daughter is a ridiculously picky eater, but she's also a growing kid and I need to get all the halfway-nutritious foods down her that I can. I think it's important for kids - for girls especially - to be in control of their own bodies. It's my job to cook nutritious food, as best I can; it's her job to decide what to eat. And when I can adjust the meal, especially with no extra effort at all, so that she can eat some of it, I'm going to do it. I'm trying to cut down on the amount of meat we eat; the chickpeas were supposed to pass for a protein. And he effectively took that off her menu.

He thinks she should just eat what's put in front of her.

He thinks that I'm too permissive and that our kids are uncultured heathens who really just need more discipline in their lives.

I think if he thinks he can do better he can very well quit his fucking well-paid job with free food, and come try mine for a while. See how it feels to take on most of the housework, most of the cooking, and the entire emotional burden of four people - for no money, no retirement savings, and career prospects of "ooh if you work really hard on the language front you might someday be able to teach Sunday School to obnoxious Swiss kids."

Screaming doesn't help. I scream, he just sits there and stares back at me like a recalcitrant teenager.

Why did you do that?
     I thought the sauce needed some fat in it.
The curry cubes ARE fat, why would they need more?
     I just thought there had to be something in the sauce.
It's a SAUCE. And anyway why did you put the potatoes in when I explicitly said I was leaving them out?
     I like potatoes in my curry.
Fucking hell Dan, do you know why I cooked the vegetables ahead of time? Because I wanted to save you the work, but also because I can't trust you to do it. You would undoubtedly have "forgotten" to put in the fennel.
    Yeah probably, I don't really like fennel.

Fuck. I'm not a huge fan of fennel either. But it came in the vegetable box, which gets delivered to our doorstep every week so that I have to come up with things to cook and don't feed the family hot dogs and cereal every night. He benefits from this arrangement. But does that mean he has to participate in it? Apparently not.

And does he have any better ideas? Of course not. As soon as I stop screaming our argument will float out of his head like a fluffy cloud on a sunny day. The man is a born fucking Buddhist.

Communicate better, the experts say. But you can't communicate when only one party is willing to engage. And we've been through *that* argument so. many. times.

I thought the compromise we'd come to is okay, I won't attempt to talk these things through with you any more, and I won't expect you to think through them for yourself, but when I ask you to do something you'll do it.

Except time and again he does some, but not all, of "it."

Because I'm too bossy? His precious male ego is bothered by the concept of taking direction? He is incapable of communicating his opinions using words, so he shows me with his actions that he doesn't agree with my approach?

Who knows? It doesn't matter. Once again I am the one screaming (screaming at your spouse causes irreparable damage to your kids, the experts say) and the kids have long ago left the table and I think maybe Caroline ate four chunks of carrot and three helpings of white rice for dinner and it is all my fault.

Once again, I KNOW I should be more grateful. Daniel has many good qualities. We are very lucky. No relationship is perfect. And it doesn't do me any good to bang my head against the wall of how-things-should-be.

But sometimes I do it anyway.

practice

Today we were having a "training" about a new document camera at church (read: how to plug the thing in), and towards the end of it one of my colleagues - with whom I have had reasonably long conversations - walked up to me, got her face about six inches from mine, and said in slow, clear German, "DID YOU UNDERSTAND THAT SUSANNAH?"

Ah, the joys of being a foreigner.

Ok I'm being too negative. What am I grateful for today? Bullet points coming up!

• Dan made me breakfast and I lounged in bed until well past 7.
• I managed to check a couple of things off my to-do list at work.
• In the afternoon I had a nice coffee (actually, golden milk, which is totally my new thing) and talk with my friend Mike.
• Christopher did his homework more or less correctly and more or less without a fight.
• I made a yummy squash risotto for dinner and Caroline declared it "edible." 
• Tonight I wrote an email I've been mulling over for a long time. And sent it off.

Ooh and now it's 00:00. Bedtime.

prophetic (2)

I don't generally like to throw around the term misogyny, because my own experience with gender discrimination was much more about men not understanding and not valuing women's experiences, usually unconsciously and usually a result of ignorance. It felt like...an uphill battle, to be sure, but not an impossible one.  But in the Bible, it does not seem like an understatement to talk about hatred of women.

The word of the Lord came to me:
“Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity.
So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it...." Ezekiel 36,16-18

The metaphor continues, it's lovely. Ezekiel, dude, the most offensive thing you can think of is a woman menstruating?? It's a natural bodily function! She can't do anything about it!

Our book takes a moment to note that this is, indeed, sexist, and further, that this isn't the only place where Ezekiel shows himself to be a raging misogynist. The author theorizes that as part the Babylonian exile, the traditional male-dominated power structures had been dismantled, and women may have held positions of more-than-usual power in the exiled communities, "which then in turn led to overreactions like these on the male side." Um...I suppose this is the same argument that says white anxiety about Obama led to the election of Trump. Maybe true but also NOT OKAY.

The trouble is, if this was the reigning view of women, then I think we can be pretty sure that women's opinions and perspectives did not make it into the Bible. What would it look like if they had? What are we going to use as a corrective?