I forgot to mention this in my update post.

( I wanted to complain about destruction and grief being a normative part of news footage. )

The longer I'm up, the more certain I am that I want to go to Temple Shalom in the morning, so I should really peel myself away from the computer and move myself into some sort of restful state.

"Islam & Christianity: supper and evening forum" [2009-02-11]

Islam & Christianity: supper and evening forum

Date: Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Time: 6:45pm - 9:00pm
Location: University Lutheran Church
Street: 66 Winthrop Street
City/Town: Cambridge, MA

Dr. Jane Smith of Harvard Divinity School will present on Islam at an evening forum in UniLu's Fireside Room. With the photographs of Jerusalem in the background, we will consider questions of intersection between Islam and Christianity. A light supper begins at 6:45, the program is at 7:30pm.

( Read more... )

[The Crossing] Community Forum: Sexuality and Relationships, Keeping it Real [2009-02-12]

Community Forum: Sexuality and Relationships, Keeping it Real
When: Thu, February 12, 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Where: St. Paul's Cathedral, 138 Tremont St, Boston, MA (map)
Description: Using a format that includes panel discussions and small groups, we'll create space for stories, questions and an honest exploration of how we integrate the gift of our sexuality with the gift of our faith.

( Read more... )

Temple Shalom Medford [2009-02-14]

Yes, I feel really weird tagging this "church," but apparently my organizational aesthetics trump my white liberal Protestant guilt for the moment.

Back in late November, I gave blood at Temple Shalom Medford.  A woman (talking to someone else) mentioned that this Temple has a Torah study from 9:30-10am on Saturday morning before service, and obviously I perk up at religious textual study.  Due to being out of town or wanting to sleep in, this is the first Saturday I've actually made it up there.  ( Read more... )

// what keeps you going, makes you warm, makes you hard, makes you other than dead //

I'm kind of indifferent to Valentine's Day.  I'm not big on institutionalized obligation days, but I don't have particular bitterness around Valentine's Day (though I do think it's problematic that it's become an All About Couples occasion).

yuki_onna has an interesting post reacting to various criticisms of the holiday, focusing particularly on the positive power of ritual, which is something I don't think of all that much.  Excerpt:

But here's the thing. This world is a beautiful place, but it is also often dark, and cold, and unfeeling, and life slips by, not because it is short, but because it is so difficult to hold onto. Holidays, rituals, these things demarcate the time. They remind us of the sharpness of pleasure and the nearness of death. They tell us when the sun leaves, and when it comes back. They tell us to dance and they tell us to sleep. They tell us who we are, who we have been since we lived on the savannah and hoped to taste cheetah before we died. I know we're all punk rock rebels, but the paleolithic joy of fucking in the fields and dancing around a fire doesn't go away just because certain of us would like to think we're beyond that. This world needs more holidays, not less. More ritual, the gorgeous, flexible, non-dogmatic kind that isn't about religion but about ecstasy in the sheer humanness of our bodies and souls. More chances to reach out, to sing, to love, to bedeck ourselves in ritual colors and become splendid as the year turns around.

( ... )

This is a great holiday. It's pure physical, sensual pleasure, divorced from any dogma at this point. Saint whatever. Pass the sex and food.

[...]

And more than Geoff--think about it for a second. In the midst of winter, we are encouraged to come together and have sex (let's not be coy.) To escape the snow and ice in each others' bodies. The colors are red and rose and white--the colors of fire in the winter, of blood, of survival even in the barren times. We exchange hearts, the very vital core of our bodies. It is the last holiday before spring, to remind us that the fertile world will come again, with flowers and sweetness and love. Even surrounded by death, by blood on the snow, be it St. Valentine's blood or your own, life will win out. The traditional food is chocolate--which can be preserved through the winter and does not rot, full of sugar and fat which keep our bodies going through lean times. This holiday is as old as time: o world, even in the freezing storm, come together, make love, make children, feast, smile, and know the sun is coming soon.

How did it get to be bedtime?

I was gonna go out dancing tonight, but I got home around 3pm and puttered and ended up taking a nap (hi, I got like six and a half hours of sleep last night) and I was already feeling kinda done with going out and being social after Temple and I wasn't particularly in a mood to go out dancing anyway.  (I spent much of the afternoon going back and forth as to whether the response email I sent last night was a bad one or not, and while I wholeheartedly agree that what I need is distraction, I think that situations that I find inherently stressful would not work well.)

(In other news, where is my Catie Curtis Dreaming in Romance Languages CD?  Though "Saint Lucy" -- which is what I had running through my head earlier today -- and "The Trouble You Bring" are on one of the mixes I have on my computer, which I'd forgotten.)

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]

Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine
     -"You Are Mine" (David Haas)

Five good things about today:
1. I was totally awake the whole time I was at Temple.
2. People at Temple were nice.
3. Interesting stuff in the commentaries at Temple.
4. I got my hair cut.  $20 walk-in at Michael Anthony's on College Ave. right in Davis Square.  I felt kind of awkward with the hairdresser (Louise), but she did a decent job.  I'm not sure if it's uneven in the front because the part got shifted in all the wind or if she just did it wrong, but I can always change the part if it really bothers me.
5. mjules, your comment to me about rest has been a really good thing to return to throughout the afternoon today.  Thank you.

Three things I did well today:
1. I got up and went to Temple.
2. I did laundry.
3. I washed dishes.

Two things I am looking forward to (doing [better]) tomorrow:
["anything that you're looking forward to, that means you're facing tomorrow with joy, not trepidation," as Ari says]
1. CWM
2. phone call with Ari