I couldn't sleep because I had this idea. Maybe now that I've gotten it out of my head I can try again.
I've been working on this one forever. I wanted there to be several figures, but it never worked. I finally gave up and took out all but the one that made me want to do this in the first place and it looked much better. I think it's done. Probably.
My tribute to Zora Neale Hurston, as inspired by the death of Dua Khalil, or maybe I mean that the other way around. I'm not sure yet.
Copyright 2007, Deena Fisher. All rights reserved.
It's called Wish you were Here.
Kara: What's for dinner?
Me: Spaghetti
Kara: I don't want spaghetti.
Me: Okay, we'll have rigatoni with meat sauce.
Kara: What?... What is that? I've never had that.
Me: Yes you have. You like it.
Kara: Are you INSAME? I said I've never had it... for at least a week.
Greg: KARA!
Kara: What?
Greg: What did you say?!
Kara: I've never had it?
Greg: No.....
Kara: For at least a week?
Greg:...sigh.... That is NOT what you're in trouble for.
Kara: ....Sorry Mommy.
Kara: I ate all my lunch, and I had chocolate milk.
Me: But I sent juice. I didn't give you any milk money.
Kara: Oh, don't worry about it. I just signed my name.
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Me: Have you made any friends yet?
Kara: Yes. The girl in the blue shirt. We played together at recess.
Me: What's her name?
Kara: I don't remember it. I only remember Michael's name.
Me: Is that the boy who sits at your table?
Kara: Yes. I told him I'm his best friend now, but I don't know if he listened to me or not.
Show us something interesting in the sky.
There's not much interesting in the sky near here today, so I fudged a bit. This first is the big beech tree. Its branches are in the sky, aren't they?
The flowers are even more fudge. If I were a bug underneath them, that would be my view of the sky.
Take a photo of something striped.
I couldn't resist one more time. Greg is teasing Aidan with a striped tiger, Kara, in her stripey dress is leaning on her daddy, the chair they're in (barely visible over Greg's right shoulder) is striped, and the wallpaper is striped of ribbons and flower garlands. It's a regular stripe-fest here today!
I seriously love vox hunt.
Take a photo of something striped.
Kara loves to mug for the camera. That she chose to wear stripes today (the third outfit of the day, actually) made us both happy.
I wrote this the day after the presidential election, and posted it to my LJ account, but I want to keep track of it, so I am reposting it here.
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I am a registered Republican
I am a born-again Christian, and I use that term deliberately.
If you're not in the know, you think it means crazy. If you're raised with it, it simply means you've done the particular act required. A lot of people really don't know what it means, even those who profess it. Basically, it means that you have accepted that there is no way for you to be in a relationship with God unless you accept that you can't, and that Christ's sacrifice was required. Grace is required.
It's not about getting into heaven.
It's not about having the best toys.
It's about living a life of strength, love and compassion. It's about knowing that life is hard and we need to give to make it. That's not a contradiction.
It does not gather all moral fiber, courageous conviction or quality of individual under an umbrella and deny it to all but its proponents.
It does not legislate.
I voted for Kerry* because I want a change, and I hoped he would be able to encourage it, nurture it, give me, personally, an atmosphere more conducive to living a Christian life. Banning abortion, mishandling war, losing family to poverty and disease, acting with arrogance on the world's stage, forgetting to nurture the lives placed in our care to win some chess move on the big checkerboard, denying rights to people because they're not Just Like Me, those aren't Christian values. Those are the values of the bigot.
I'm not excluding anyone who doesn't believe as I do. I'm including them. My Christianity doesn't care what skin color you have, what god you worship, or who you love. It doesn't protect itself to the detriment of others, and it's only political in that, when people live the way they ought, then good things for the society result.
Paul is pretty well vilified
amongst my non-christian friends, but he had something to say that is
apropos in this situation. "Be followers of me as I am a follower of
Christ." In other words, he was an example. My interpretation, for my
life: Keep your religious to the religious and don't muddy the waters.
Work hard and give to others. Be a good citizen of your country and of
the world. Don't try to impose your morals on others, especially when
you don't (and you can't, for the most part) know if yours are better
than theirs.
My brand of Christianity celebrates the strengths of others, no matter where they're found, and nurtures the weaknesses of others, without recourse to politics or religion. It seems, with every decade that passes, the guidelines that we, Christians, sought to live by have become hidebound rules separating Us from Them instead of ways we can bridge the gap, support our human family, give to the next generation.
If we don't believe abortion is right, then don't legislate it. Legislation creates criminals.* Instead:
1. Make sure that everyone who is capable of having sexual intercourse knows how not to get pregnant.
2. Make sure that birth control use is second nature.
3.
Wipe out birth defects. I don't mean wipe out people with birth
defects. I mean give us the medical means to bear healthy children who
are not endangered in the womb.*
4. End rape, intimidation, spousal abuse and child abuse.
5. End poverty.
6.
Provide support, education, good food, meals, acceptance and love to
women who want to bear the child they didn't mean to conceive, and give
them choices afterwards.
7. Wipe out the attitude that single
parents are second class citizens, and give them opportunities to be
useful, productive citizens.
8. Provide parenting classes,
nurturing to new parents, support, access to reasonably priced
education and health care. Give us opportunity.
9. Provide good
adoptive parents, whatever their gender, orientation, race or religion,
and give them incentives to adopt--not so they'll take a child to get
the incentives, but so that having a child doesn't strain them beyond
what they can bear.
10. Teach women that we are more important than
our productive organs. That we do not have to replicate ourselves in
order to justify the time, expense and space we require to live.
If we believe that homosexuality is a sin, then I have to question our responses to it. Is it a sin on a par with the cigarette I'm smoking now? Does it hurt me? Does it kill others? Sin is sin, we cry. So, okay. Then free will is the issue. Do I have the right to impose my morals on you? Not even Christ himself would say yes to that. He says make a choice. He leaves every choice to the individual. The choice he asks people to make is to choose God, not "choose" not to sin. Even Paul didn't think we could choose not to sin.
So, for those who think that homosexuality is a "sin of choice", do they believe that, to encourage the right choice, Christ alienated, abused, mistreated or murdered sinners? If you count his rage in the temple, the only ones he abused were those who profited from religion, acted as barriers between people and God.
Who are the barriers now?
My youngest son is albino. He's visibly different and he can't hide it. What would people think of him 100, 200, 300 years ago? Would they see his difference as a sign that I'm evil? That he was demon-bound? Maybe. How then can I say things like that about someone else? Who are our brothers and sisters? Do we turn family into "them" for lack of enemies to fight? Our enemies are within, but those are so difficult to pin, and no one really wants to anyway.
How can I deny someone or that person's loved ones benefits? I, who think the whole of humanity is family, cannot define family for someone else. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and too many of us know that the family we construct is far better than the one into which we were born. How can I treat anyone any differently than I would like to be treated?
Christ said to love my neighbor as myself. Imperfectly, I do. I love my neighbors, every one...even the ones who are harder to love than the others.
Maybe this is all drivel and worth nothing, but I wanted a record of my thoughts this morning, and this is it.
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*Note: 8/21/2006: I realize this is a gross generalization, but I stand by it as I meant it. Of course legislation creates criminals, in that, if there are no crimes on the books, it's not a crime to do the thing you do whatever it is. I am not saying we should not have sane, reasonable legislation. However, there are things that people will do, whether they're considered illegal, immoral or insane, if they're doing those things in order to protect themselves, feed their children or live with something approaching dignity, then there's a problem with the law. Those things we need to work to understand, and to find solutions for, rather than legislating them to a standstill and locking up everyone who doesn't obey.
*It has been pointed out to me that my #3 solution to abortion is problematic.
I do not think Aidan is in any way lessened by his problems. He's not just albino but also developmentally delayed, with a mild case of cerebral palsy he's expected to, eventually, outgrow. He can't handle milk or soy or a goodly number of other foods. He's almost two and he's just now learning to walk. He's just now learning to talk. Still, I wouldn't trade him for a child without those problems for anything. I wouldn't trade him for anything, period. /Note: 8/21/2006. The mild case of cerebral palsy is now considered unlikely, or managed or something. No one talks about it anymore. He has been diagnosed with autism of unknown severity. He drinks and eats pretty normally, though like a child younger than his physical age. He runs now! He talks, though most of it is rote.
Still, my #3 came from the heart. When I was pregnant with Aidan, all the blood tests indicated that he had Downs. We went, with trepidation, for an amnio. I wasn't sure I could deal with the challenges that such a child would bring, and I was afraid. I wasn't sure if I should be prepared or if I'd rather just deal with things as they came. My mother, who has taught me all my life that abortion is murder, counseled me to have an abortion if the amnio results came back positive. I cannot begin to express how I felt about that then, or how I feel about it now. I don't want anyone, ever again, to be faced with such a decision.
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