vacation day five

Saturday, August 6

I spent the better part of this day on the train, which was delayed and ultimately cancelled due to lack of staff, but again I had a good book to read and I made it to London on the dot of two hours late so, success. Before boarding I met my grad school friend Martina for breakfast at the "The Famous Willow Tea Rooms & Gift Shop" (touristy, but lovely!). We hadn't seen each other in nearly 20 years and I was nervous about this - would I recognize her? would we have things to talk about? Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Yay for old friends!

After the train odyssey I checked into my customary hotel in London, the Premier Inn across from the British Library, and wandered off in search of dinner. It was a bustling summer evening in the shiny new developments around King's Cross and I was sorely tempted to stop frittering away my life with theology classes and budget travel and rejoin the rat race. 

Here we are, still hoping to change the world. But not, as it turns out, with diagnostic ultrasound.

upstairs at the Willow Tea Rooms

the view (if you lean over a bit) from my hotel room: that's the British Library on the left and St. Pancras on the right

For the second time in two days I ate at a restaurant by myself (!), in this case BAO King's Cross. This Melon Floatini (Midori, Toki whiskey, soda, milk foam) was delicious and I have no regrets.

Canal boats at sunset.

So many cranes, it could almost be Zurich. That's the Google "landscraper" in the background, I think.

Gas tank living

This fountain tick-tick-ticks like a time bomb until eventually all the spouts go off at once, which is delightful and also slightly disturbing?

vacation day four

Friday, August 5

In which Dana and her husband Mark and I went to St. Mungo's Cathedral, which is a conflicted place. Because: in Scotland the reformation turned the Catholic churches into Presbyterian ones and Presbyterians don't have bishops and so most emphatically don't. need. cathedrals. The cathedral in Glasgow somehow escaped outright demolition and for two centuries it was split into worship spaces for three separate congregations. In the 19th century, responsibility for the building was passed to the state and it was restored to something approximating its historical layout. Today, a congregation worships there, and it looks pretty cathedral-y in places, but do not be fooled! The term cathedral "...just refers to the building. It does not have a bishop, dean, canon, priest, or vicar," cautions the cathedral website. And continues:

In 1835, the High Kirk of Glasgow reverted to being one parish – renamed ‘St Mungo’s.’ The building became a single sanctuary again. The word ‘cathedral’ reappeared. There was also interior redesign and restoration: the typically Old Reformed central high pulpit gave way to a more balanced lay out of pulpit and Communion table. There was a turn to more ceremony. An organ was installed along with a robed choir to enhance the musical experience. The clear windows were reglazed and stained by German craftsmen, but these Victorian windows were replaced in the 20th century. Use of the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed was reintroduced as was more awareness of the ‘Christian Year.’

These developments reflected the openness of modern Scottish Reformed and Presbyterian church services to usages of other denominations in an ecumenical spirit and that of continuing reformation.

So, like, it's a church, but please don't get the idea that this is how the Scots do church. How do the Scots do church? A question for next time perhaps.

Adding to the weird vibe of the whole thing is the Necropolis, a "Victorian garden cemetery" which looms up on the hill behind the cathedral. "It is a memorial to the merchant patriarchs of the city and contains the remains of almost every eminent Glaswegian of its day," explains a sign near the entrance. Remains, sure, every cemetery has those - but the eminent Glaswegians were apparently engaged in a competition to see who could have the largest statue/monument/shrine erected on top of their remains. An appropriate way to spend the spoils of colonialism, I guess?

After the heavy dose of history, Dana and Mark were ready to drive south and meet more friends, and I was ready for some modernity. I need to pick up the pace on this trip report so here come some bullet points:

• the Glasgow subway is freaking adorable
• the Zaha-Hadid-designed Riverside Museum [of Transport] looks: awesome. Sounds: like the screams of a hundred overexcited children amplified by high-concept architectural design. EEEEEEEEEEE!
• Dough Man's Land pizza-oven-food-trailer: so. good. And friendly! Have I mentioned that I had nice little conversations-in-passing with people in Glasgow? So lovely! So different from "back home" in, as the grumpy expats say, Cheesusland!

On to photos!

The cathedral windows are a complete hodgepodge of different styles and eras. This was my very favorite. Better pictures here.

"Always returning to the same thing," says Google Translate.

"In former times none were admitted to the Sacrament unless they could produce a Communion token, evidence that in the judgement of the Kirk Session they were worthy to come to the Lord's Table." !!

looks pretty cathedral-y from here

The cathedral from the Necropolis. I wish I'd gotten a good picture from the other direction.

Tomb(s) with a view.

Obligatory science geek picture. "This commemorative stone was erected by admirers from industry and science in 2007 to mark the centenary of the death of William Thomson Lord Kelvin" (who, the next stone over informs us, is buried in Westminster Abbey. But his father and brother James are buried here.)

did I mention adorable?

That's the whole tube map. You can take the adorable trains clockwise or counterclockwise.

There are many murals in Glasgow and I got few good pictures of them. I love these colors.

The Riverside Museum, standard tourist photo with the tall ship Glenlee in reflection. It was much bigger than I'd expected.

Inside. Doesn't look like there are so many kids, does it? But lucky for you this photo doesn't have sound.

Walking back along the river, beautiful if intermittently wet.

mmmmmm pizza

vacation day three

Thursday, August 4

The idea for this trip to Glasgow had been hatched in the middle of pandemic lockdown when on a Zoom call one participant said that she was planning to take a sabbatical in Scotland in the summer of 2022 and another - Dana - said that she might be going with her husband to a conference in Glasgow at the same time. So I chimed in and said if they'd both be there, I'd come too. And amazingly, it actually happened!

So this was the day that Dana and I had arranged to meet the third member of the scheme, Liz, in the Victorian resort town of Pitlochry. We visited the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in the morning, bought some sandwiches for the train, and headed north. Liz had two groups of friends visiting from the U.S. and we all met at Hettie's Tea Room for various combinations of tea, sandwiches, soup, and treats. I had not sat at a table with so many Americans since...maybe 2015 when we went to our 20th college reunion in California? It felt Very Odd. 

The Clyde, on the way to meet Dana at her hotel in the morning.

The Kelvingrove Organ. I'm not a huge organ-in-church person but I could get used to organs in museums!

The collection labels at the Kelvingrove are written in large print and in simple language. This one reads, "The thistle is Scotland’s national emblem. It has appeared on clan badges, coats of arms, buildings and coins for hundreds of years. There are many different kinds of thistles growing in Scotland - this is just one of them." I was confused at first - was this section especially for kids? But no, it's an accessibility thing. I'm a fan.

Fields of heather (?), as seen from the train to Pitlochry.

Pitlochry Station. I believe the appropriate term is "twee."

I'm going to out myself as a snob here but Pitlochry was too touristy for me. I walked up to the next village, Moulin, and briefly tried rambling back down but lost the trail immediately (I couldn't figure out what sub-station this sign was talking about, and the sheep weren't being forthcoming with information) so had to give up and use the road.

More beautiful landscape, heading back to Glasgow.

Public service announcement: do not I repeat DO NOT ever order nachos in the UK.

vacation day two

Wednesday, August 3

It wasn't Dana's fault: she'd wanted to visit Iona, beloved place of pilgrimage and home to a saint (Columba), a holy well, and a religious community. But when I looked into visiting Iona from Glasgow it looked like a long and perilous journey, so I talked her into visiting the Holy Isle off the Isle of Arran--home of a saint (Molaise), a holy well, and a religious community--instead. So that was the plan. It was an hour-long train trip and another hour on the ferry to Arran. When we arrived we had some time to kill before we had to catch the boat to the Holy Isle, and we spotted this poster for the 184th Arran Show, featuring horses, cows, sheep, dogs, alpacas, and vintage tractors (oh my!). We puzzled our way through the bus schedule and soon we were tramping through the fairgrounds admiring the animals (Dana) and the various food carts (me). Sometime during the horse judging I got a text from the Holy Isle boat operators saying that the weather conditions weren't going to permit the crossing that day, so we got to stay at the fair long enough to see the first half of the dog show, in the pouring rain. Then we gave up and made our way back to the ferry dock, admiring the Holy Isle from afar. Back in Glasgow, we ate noodles at Wagamama...a pilgrimage of another sort.

The ferry's nose opens to let in the cars! This blew my little Washington-State-Ferries mind.

Underway. It was blowy and rainy on the way out, but we found some sheltered spots outside. Sitting inside always seems like cheating.

The Queen judges horses at the Arran Show. Probably it wasn't the Queen. But it could have been.

Vintage tractor parade.

Fresh donuts and tea. What could be better?

The clear crowd favorite in the dog show. Both of them dripping wet and perfectly behaved.

The Holy Isle: so close, and yet so far.

In which Dana's spirit animal makes an appearance, so we couldn't have been that far off track.

Primate Crew Only

Push-button faucets yes! Mixer taps? Nope.

Wagamama has a special place in my heart as the first (and for a long time only) sit-down restaurant I ever ate at alone. At the tender age of 24.

summer vacation, day one

I was going to write one long summer vacation post but it turns out that I have a lot to say on the matter, so day-by-day it is:

Day One: Tuesday, August 2

started with me giving myself a blister running to catch the train at 5:23 am and had its ups and downs after that. My flight was delayed, but only by half an hour; the Heathrow Express and the Tube ran to plan; the train to Glasgow chugged along fine until it came to a complete stop and was eventually cancelled entirely due to what I heard as a "trespassing incident in the crew area" but was in fact a "trespassing incident in the Crewe area." Two more trains later and shortly before 7 pm I finally arrived in Glasgow, found my hotel, met my friend Dana and her husband for dinner, and acquired some blister bandages and foot cream. 

All strapped in and ready to go. At this point the pilot announced that we would be sitting at the gate for another half an hour because French airspace was closed.

The approach to Heathrow. Hello, depressing yet charming British scrubbiness!

I had enough time to attempt a second visit to the chapel at Heathrow. It was closed "due to covid restrictions," which at this point (what covid restrictions? mask wearing is still recommended in the UK, but infrequently practiced) seems like a thin excuse.

..and enough time for the previously mentioned lightning trip to the Waterstones near University College London. Oh English bookstores, how I miss you.

In which I have my first ever online chat with my son and contemplate whether he is in reality a bot.

Hello, Scotland!

Made it! Glasgow Central.

The not half bad view from my budget-friendly hotel room. Thanks, Premier Inn Glasgow City Centre (St. Enoch Square) not to be confused with the 20(!!) other Premier Inns in the Glasgow area! I am a Premier Inn fan but things might be getting a bit out of hand.

bittersweet hysteria

Isn't that a great title for a blog post? But don't get too excited, it's just my two latest book reports.

Bittersweet is Susan Cain's new book, available to order online in Switzerland in what confusingly appears to be the "airport paperback" version. This book suffered from too-high expectations on my part: Quiet was life-changing for me, and I'd heard that Bittersweet was excellent too. It certainly wasn't bad, but maybe because I very much run these days in the enlightened-American-women crowd (see: Glennon Doyle, Brené Brown, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed), I felt like I was in the choir being preached to. And the nominal motivating question of the book - why do so many people like to listen to sad music? - struck me as a bit contrived, or anyway, this is not something I've ever thought to wonder about because the answer seems obvious. We listen to music that resonates with our experience, and life is often beautiful and tragic ("brutiful" says Glennon)...I'm not sure where the big mystery is? But in any case the question leads Cain to all sorts of interesting places and she often lands where I've spent a lot of time lately: life is messy, and it is in loving the messiness rather than fighting it that we're able to live calmer, more fulfilled lives. She concludes that melancholy music expresses our yearning for a more perfect world, and perhaps at its best leads us to realize what we ourselves are yearning for. In the last chapter she talks about her own yearning to become a writer, and how her now-husband reacted to her tentative self-revelation with unconditional encouragement. 

WRITE

WOMAN

WRITE

he says...and at this point in the book I was crying because this is my big question: can this "self" we are yearning for even exist without a relationship like this? I was raised on the legend of the self-made man and have spent a great deal of my life feeling fully a loser for not managing to be a self-made woman. But the more biographies I read the less I'm convinced that self-making is even possible, and I so desperately long for that person or those people in my life who say/s you can do it, or even you can't do it, not in a wishy-washy "you can do anything you set your mind to" kind of way, but as a concrete vision (or challenge) that resonates with the potential inside me and helps midwife it into the real world. 

On a related - in the sense of being about how we co-create each other's realities - note, Hysteria: the disturbing history by Andrew Scull (2009) is about the sordid history of psychosomatic disease and the doctors who attempt to treat it. It's fascinating, as long as you can maintain some emotional distance from the subject matter: paternalism, misogyny, rape, torture anyone? Scull has hoards of hysterics pinning their hopes on one cure after another, playing a leading role in the differentiation of medicine into the specialties of psychiatry, neurology, and gynecology in the process. The medical profession, for its part, alternately courts these patients (to the extent that they have money to pay for treatment) and shuns them, accusing them of inventing their maladies for attention or effect. Religious leaders fall outside the scope of the book but are undoubtedly implicated in the mess too. 

The long history of hysterical women (and a few men) and their all-too-often-predatory "healers" takes an especially grim turn in the 20th century, when literally legions of male soldiers join their ranks. I'd hoped there would be some glimmer of light at the end of all this, but no: according to Scull, while the term "hysteria" itself has disappeared into the murky depths of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, its sufferers and their mysterious symptoms are still out there, still searching for a cure. It strikes me, not for the first time, that we're not half as enlightened as we think we are.

Hector Egger, Infinity

book report catch-up

As you can see, the book report project is not going well. I'm duly impressed by everyone who writes reviews on Amazon and Goodreads because I find it enormously difficult to write about books I've read. Either it's too early and I still have Things to Work Through, or it's too late and I've forgotten what I read... BUT the reading project itself is actually going swimmingly, I've read four books and most of two more! And acquired nearly that many...but let's ignore that part. (I was on vacation in the UK, what else was going to happen?)

Trip report to follow. I've missed London so much that even this part was kinda fun!

Speed reviews:

Love and Limerence by Dorothy Tennov (1979): Limerence, for the uninitiated, is Tennov's term for the experience of being [obsessively] in love. Which I have been, with various people, for all of my adult life and a good chunk of my childhood. So tons of Things to Work Through here, which is why I started reading the book in the first place. But - surprise! - towards the end it takes an unexpected turn away from talking about limerence generally to talking about limerence very specifically between female patients and their psychoanalysts. Turns out that she wrote another book, entitled Psychotherapy: The Hazardous Cure. UH-OH. Will report back when I've made any progress here at all?!

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake (2020): Fungi. They're cool. But maybe not cool enough to make these essays about them feel like a coherent whole? The most thought-provoking parts of the book, for me, were Sheldrake's discussions of anthropomorphism and "the altruism problem." Fungal networks can solve problems, but if we say they "think" we're on thin ice. They can support other forms of life, but if we say they're "generous" we're implicitly denying Darwinism. Ugh. Get down from your pedestal and get over yourselves already, homo sapiens.

Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2003): Does everything wrong from the rationalist point of view that Sheldrake worries so much about, and is the better writer by far. Of course we humans are going to understand things through human metaphors, we're not capable of anything else (!) and to pretend otherwise is delusional. Through an accident of bedtime I've started reading this to the kids and they are loving it.

On the Move by Oliver Sacks (2015): in which a brilliant mind comes out as a writer first and a neurologist second, which I did not expect. (Here again - news flash to the scientific community: unbiased research is all well and good but ultimately we understand the world through story and metaphor, not facts and figures.) The initial chapters about Sacks finding his way as a young adult are fascinating; the end of the book kind of degenerates into name-dropping anecdotes. Spoiler alert: he was on a first-name basis with anyone who's anyone. Vanishingly few women make this list.

Sick Souls, Healthy Minds by John Kaag (2021): Between landing at Heathrow and taking the train to Glasgow I just had time to run into the amaaaazing Waterstone's bookstore near University College London (how had I never been there before?) to look for a copy of The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James...which I didn't find (I was looking in the wrong section, it turns out), but grabbed this instead. It was so good I didn't even care that the trip to Glasgow took two extra hours. John Kaag's thesis is that William James developed his philosophy of pragmatism as a way to grapple with his own dark thoughts of suicide. He says pragmatism has been misinterpreted as a philosophy of moral relativism, when in fact it's about the complex interaction between the stories we tell ourselves and the lives we lead: our stories govern our actions, the results of which become part of our stories, and so on.

These days, when I peer down from great heights, in addition to experiencing vertigo, I almost always think about Steven Rose, the young black man who threw himself off William James Hall in 2014. Perhaps James's "maybe" could have saved him - the suggestion that he was still in charge of his life, that the decision to end it all might be reasonable, even respectable, but so too was the possibility to live. The possibility was right there - still, always, even in the shit and rancor of it - for him to explore. Perhaps he thought that choosing to die was the only free decision at his disposal, but James suggested there might be other options.

For the majority of people, free will can be exercised in any number of ways, which don't have to include committing suicide, and in many of these cases one can choose to embody new habits of thought and action. This is the case, even when all is lost. If meaningful freedom seems evasive or unrealistic, most of us still have a choice about what to see and what to look past. This too can be worthwhile. "The art of being wise," James suggested, "was knowing what to overlook." Maybe these possibilities could have kept Steven Rose alive for even longer than they did. Maybe not. I refuse to presume.

I think one surefire way to send jumpers off the edge is to pretend that you know something they don't: that life has unconditional value and that they are missing something that is so patently obvious. On the ledge, I suspect they'd detect some deep insecurity or hubris in this assertion. And they might jump just to prove you wrong. Because you would, in fact, be wrong. In James's final entreaty in "On a Certain Blindness," he reminded his readers that they often don't have a clue about how other people experience the meaning of their lives. Better leave it at "maybe."

Amen. 

book report: Bossypants

I'm throwing myself softballs here but it's all in the name of habit-building! I got Tina Fey's Bossypants from the book-sharing wagon by our friendly local circus / occupied former industrial site (see pic) some months ago. I'd hoped it would be a funny quick read, but it got stuck in the literary traffic jam... "A masterpiece in comedy writing" raves the cover. Maybe not quite that? but for sure entertaining. A lot of the comedy-insider humor in the book goes over my head because I have at best a vague picture of the people involved. But "The Mother's Prayer for Its Daughter" is genius - I laughed, I cried, I read it aloud to my own female offspring, who incidentally tried to casually drop into conversation this morning that she "might do something tonight with my [boy?]friend from flute ensemble," at which point I felt like I should be giving her some sort of sage motherly advice about dating (good lord she will be 16 this year) but of course she didn't want to talk about it, and even if she had I'm not sure I have any sage motherly advice to give. We started watching the U.S. version of "Love on the Spectrum" instead. 

On Being this week was a conversation with adrienne maree brown who points us towards Audre Lorde reads Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power, which seems not at all irrelevant to a woman working her a** off to become a comic in a male-dominated world because it's what she loves. What do I love? Way back in grad school I had an article about Peg Phillips pinned to my bulletin board, which seems odd in retrospect because why would I have decided in my 20s to take as a role model a woman whose career took off in her late 60s? But there it is. Hope springs eternal.

book report: Liberating Church

WHEREAS this is the shelf of books-I-intend-to-read *after* I did a clean-out, and that's not even all of them because there's a stack of already-started books by the bed and a bunch in German on the next shelf down and this is getting a bit out of hand; and

WHEREAS the weekly screen-time report on my phone is shocking because I tend to idly scroll Facebook in the hours before bed; and 

WHEREAS I need to get back to writing here, even if it's only for me to read later;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that I put the phone away in the evening and read instead, and every time I finish a book I'll write a little book report. 

Will my latest Grand Plan last longer than one book? We'll see!

First up, because it looked like a do-able read (and it was): Liberating Church: A Twenty-First Century Hush Harbor Manifesto edited by Brandon Wrencher and Venneikia Samantha Williams. 

I can't remember where I read about this book (possibly through idly scrolling Facebook, see above) but "the future of church" is kinda My Thing these days and this looked up my alley. The conceit is that it's a study of the parallels between a group of Black-centered spiritual communities that are experimenting with new/old ways of being church, and "hush harbors" - secret religious gatherings of slaves where Christianity and African religion mixed in song, dance, and fellowship. From the project's website:

We hope to deepen kinship with the church in its riskiest and holiest incarnation, and nurture continued courageous ministry. It is also our hope that the 21st century hush harbors will inspire others to steal away from plantation church, to discover the God waiting among the wild things, bringing risky freedom still.

The authors identify eight marks of liberating church - the short descriptions here are mine:

• Ubuntu - acknowledging our interconnectedness, mutual care
• Stay Woke - ever-evolving awareness of injustice and focus on liberation
• North Star - imagining and building a better world
• All God's Children Got Shoes - collaborative, collective responsibility for the community
• Steal Away - valuing authenticity and safety over custom and authority
• Sankofa - safeguarding the wisdom and tradition of the ancestors
• Joy Unspeakable - the ecstatic, transcendent, mystical experience
• Talking Book - the Bible as a liberating, not enslaving, text

There's a short essay on each of these marks followed by descriptions of the six communities that took part in the project. It's a bit low on detail, but high on vision. I were trying to start a community I'd absolutely print this list out and stick it in a prominent location because: yes. this. 

Is it even possible to have a church that is liberative given the current container or does the container just need to be demolished? - Helms Jarrell

The crazy radical feminist theologians of Switzerland couldn't have put it better. There is lots here that translates well beyond the Black American church - trying to move away performance and towards authentic community, breaking down hierarchical structures and building up participatory leadership, thinking critically about the wisdom and traditions we want to practice and pass on, cracking open the concept of "sacred text"...

The anti-racist narrative that makes sense in an American context doesn't entirely translate into Swiss and in general I get twitchy when Europeans claim liberation theology - I feel like...well I won't involve anyone else here, *I* still have a long way to go in the area of naming who has been oppressed and how, not to mention shutting up and centering their voices. There's surely plenty of injustice to keep us all busy, though. This project isn't titled "Liberated Church," the authors say, because "no one is liberated until all the people and the planet have been set free." 

In other news, the On Being episode this week was Krista Tippet's conversation with Ocean Vuong, who talked about language as technology, and something he said connects here for me. Technology, in the ideal case, moves forward with time: I don't need to know how my toilet works in order to use it, and if toilets get better in the future my kids will be able to use the improved ones without being any wiser than me. But humans aren't technology: unlike toilets, we always start our lives at zero, no more advanced than the babies of our cave-dwelling ancestors.

As it happens, I do know how my toilet works, because I once had a job for which I built a test apparatus for a urinary flow meter that ended up looking like a computer-rack-mounted toilet. My failure at that job (not the failure of the test apparatus, which worked fine) was the nail in the coffin of my belief that technological problems were the biggest and most interesting ones out there. As we try to survive and transform our way through an existential environmental crisis of our own creation, the stories, practices, and language that we use to exchange and pass on our life-by-life-earned wisdom deserve great thought and care. Surely the work of liberating community.

dandelion

 It's hot. I'm writing poetry. I dunno.

The Dandelion’s Prayer

 

There was a time

when I thought I might live forever

next to the tracks

where even weeds find their place.

 

I grew, I bloomed,

I danced with my friends,

hosted bugs,

basked in Your light

 

and You said: it is good.

 

Things started to change:

the others turned inward

and then…gone

and one day I, too, was different;

felt your warmth no longer,

only my own fragility

and the vastness of space

 

but You said: it is good.

 

So this is faith, I guess:

the willingness to let go

to be shattered

to be carried who knows where

on Your warm, Your cold, Your soft, Your gale-force breath of life.

 

May my memory be a blessing.