I would like to be able to tell you that I am one of those perpetually peaceful people who seem to radiate a slightly smug contentedness from deep within their soul. I would like to be able to tell you that I write in a gratitude diary every day, right after my 6am Yogalates session and bowl of organic muesli. I would like to be able to tell you that I am able to handle anything my children throw at me – figuratively speaking – because I am inherently calm and happy and balanced. I would like to be able to tell you I’m like that because I would like to be like that but the thing is, I’m not. Maybe in a parallel universe, but not this one. I’m just not good at relaxing. During the birth of my second daughter, I tried very hard to breathe deeply through the contractions, to focus my energies inward and breathe the pain out. My husband later told me that I sounded like a horse.

In this universe, I’m just your average, garden-variety ineffective parent whose favourite method for calming down involves a large glass of shiraz and an even larger block of chocolate, and whose body would simply snap in half if made to do the downward dog.

When my mother was a stay-at-home-mother of four she went to yoga classes once a week – we used to say she was going to Yoghurt Classes – and she once told me that yoga saved her sanity in those days. So one day I went to a yoga class for new mothers and stretched for about 50 minutes before being told to lie down and listen to the lovely music and breathe deeply and just as I felt the tension melt away and the thoughts leave my troubled mind and just as I reached that state of blissful contentment… I fell asleep. I might have snored. Well, at least I didn’t neigh.

I really love the idea of meditation, but although I have tried I just can’t do it without the snoring. So, like all good mothers, I am living the life of a calm and contented human being vicariously through my children. My kids are learning to meditate. In our house, every day ends with reading from a book called The Wishing Star: Meditations for Children by Marneta Viegas. There’s a good reason why this is a good thing.

continue reading…

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If you haven’t heard the appalling news about 11-year-old Madeline Neumann’s tragic death of diabetic ketoacidosis last week, you can read about it here in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  The gist of it was that her parents decided to pray over her body instead of take her to a fucking doctor after she had been sick for two weeks and, at ten or so days in, COULD NO LONGER WALK OR TALK.  Madeline was healthy before her episode.  At her death, she was emaciated, as the body eats it own fat to raise insulin levels during diabetic ketoacidosis.

Around the same time, the idiot parents of poor little 15-month-old Ava Worthington of Oregon were indicted in Ava’s death for their attempts to ”faith-heal” the baby of her bronchial pneumonia–which led to a blood infection that could have been treated with antibiotics. 

As the article about Ava notes, laws were passed in the 1990s that struck down legal shields for faith-healers after the deaths of several children whose parents were members of the fundamentalist church.  The Worthingtons were indicted on Friday on manslaughter and criminal mistreatment charges, but it is unclear whether the Neumanns will be charged.  According to a Chicago Tribune report, Wisconsin law says that a parent cannot be accused of abuse or neglect of a child if “in good faith” they selected prayer as a basis of treatment for a disease.  An investigation has begun into whether the Neumanns had a “a good faith belief” that their daughter could be cured through prayer.  

My thought is that if Madeline was FUCKING BEDRIDDEN, there’s no way in hell the parents could have had a good faith belief she would be fine if they lit some candles and said a few Hail Marys.  Fucking assholes.

I believe in God, and I pray.  I pray more when I need or want more, which sucks, but you can bet your sweet ass that I’d be praying to my God, everyone else’s God, the real doctors and the people that play them on TV if my babies were that ill.  If my babies were lethargic and wanted to stay in bed for a few days, and they appeared to be getting thinner, and they just wanted me to hold them, I would probably have a Civil Protection Order against me to stay AWAY from the doctor’s office because I’d been there too many times.  

My son had a five-day fever last year and the doctor’s office staff was probably referring to me as “Norm” from Cheers I had been there so many times.  I’m not saying I drugged him up with everything under the sun, but I wanted a professional medical person overseeing my child and informing me thoroughly so that I could make proper decisions about his care.

My son ended up losing five pounds with that fever and looked so thin that I burst into tears when I put him in the bath at the end of that week.  I called in my husband so I could run out and buy milkshakes. 

What about the Worthingtons and the Neumanns?  I wonder what they’re feeling now.  Milkshakes aren’t going to bring back their beautiful daughters, and I hope all their asses get locked up for so long they forget what ice cream tastes like.  

 

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I was raised as a lazy Catholic. Sure, I went to a preschool that was on Church property, and yes I went to Sunday school (until I was old enough to realize smoking pot and sneaking off to breakfast at Friendly’s was a better way to spend my time than learning about Jesus) and my family went to church…well, sometimes. I hated church because my mom would make me dress up…”GOD doesn’t care if I’m wearing jeans…” happened to me one of my favorite lines on Sunday mornings.

My fathers not religious and over the years God, Jesus, and Catholicism was never discussed in my family. Christmas, check. Precious Moments bible sold at family garage sale, check. I’m not sure what I believe; some days I like the idea of a big guy in the sky, some days I want to rub my little turquoise Buddha, and sometimes it’s a woman in the sky complete with sheer tunics and lavender essential oils. The bottom line: I believe in something, cause I wanna. Since having a daughter at least fourteen people have asked me if I’m going to baptize her and each time I just sort of glance wearily at my husband and go uh, no. As in, uh no I’m not going to pretend to be Catholic even if you want me to “do it for Great Gram…” No WAY.

But last night I found myself whispering to Paige my childhood mantra:

Now I lay me down to sleep, Pray the lord my soul to keep, Love stay with me Through the Night and Wake me By the Morning Light..

It sounds nice. It’s comforting, kinda. I might replace the Pray the Lord part with “Mommy Prays you sleep through the night…” Which has yet to happen, mother fuck! But seriously. I want Christmas and Easter but no bible. And I want spirituality but not Sunday school, and I want heaven but no sins that prevent you from getting in.
I’m confused. I’m confused about religion and spirituality and I don’t want to confuse Paige. Does she need to grow up with “something..” like the Grandparents are convinced or can we just enjoy comforting prayers before bed and presents on December 25th?

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Which is worse — that funding at an esteemed university went to this study, or that an editor found it newsworthy? As being reported in the Chicago Sun Times, researchers at the University of Chicago and Yale New Haven Hospital conducted a survey and found that many doctors out there will care for poor patients, despite the doctor’s religious leanings:

“We can say a lot of doctors are doing a lot of good, whether religious or not,” said Dr. Farr Curlin, one of the authors of the study, published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

The study is based on a survey of 2,000 doctors with a 63 percent response rate. Thirty-five percent of non-religious doctors, compared with 31 percent of religious doctors, said they were likely to care for people with little or no health insurance.

Possible headlines for tomorrow’s edition:

“Atheist Fireman Rescues Child From Building”

“Atheist Police Officer Doesn’t Kick Puppies”

“Atheist Target Cashier Gives Service With a Smile”

“Atheist Parent Raises Happy, Kind Children”

It’s that last one that troubles, because for me, a “devout” atheist, it doesn’t read as a joke. If the pervading thought is that doctors, who have taken the Hippocratic oath, will not be altruistic merely because they shun religion, what must people think of how I raise my children? It’s the same, tired argument that if one doesn’t have religion in their life, then there’s no “moral compass” to dictate what’s right and wrong. That raising children without religion will simply turn them into selfish relativists, apt to do whatever they want, whenever they want.

I won’t rehash that debate and how incredibly insulting it is, because quite frankly I’m tired of it. But I will say this — try and reflect on people that have treated you with kind acts in your lifetime. Take notice of the warm smiles and friendly gestures you encounter in your everyday life. Now be really honest and ask yourself if any of those people would have treated you any differently if they were atheists. Because maybe they were. Your neighbor, your kid’s teacher, the corner grocer — any one of them might hold a humanistic view of our life here on Earth. Even your doctor.

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Well, the literal answer to that question comes from Wikipedia:

It is likely that the name “Good Friday” came from the earlier English name, “Godes Friday,” meaning “God’s Friday.” In much the same way as “God be with ye” was shortened to “goodbye,” so did “Godes Friday” become “Good Friday.”

But as my kids are running around all crazy, plummeting my efficiency rate into negative digits, I ask it in the sense of, “why, exactly, are the schools closed today?” Good Friday is not a federal holiday in the United States. In Illinois, where I live, it’s not a state holiday. So why, then, is it a district one?

Sure, it can be said that Easter and Christmas Day are also recognized by the district and are religious holidays, but with them being on a Sunday and during winter break, respectively, it’s not implicit that there’s a religious purpose behind the days off. And while those holidays have pagan ties and huge secular festivities outside of the church, Good Friday is the commemoration of that young hippie with crazy ideas being nailed to a couple pieces of timber. So again, why is our public school celebrating a purely Christian event?

Or, more importantly, why do I now have to explain to my children why they are the freaks that aren’t a part of the big school sanctioned celebration?

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When atheists and Christians raise children together, the result is often times competitive and humorous when the atheist tries to squelch the faith that the Christian tries to nurture. My mother, an Evangelical Christian, uses every opportunity to influence our children to the disgrace of their atheist father. Knowing that her Christian-in-theory-and-not-practice daughter and her heathen son-in-law aren’t going to properly “church” her grandchildren, Grandma has taken it upon herself to save them from the wrath of darkness, evil and hell. She does this, oh-so-subtly, by mailing us Christian inspired merchandise tucked in between other gifts like a t-shirt or toy. One of the recent offerings was a CD of Christian songs sung by a group of children.

My children love this CD, bestowing upon my husband a feeling of helplessness and pure annoyance. Not only does our 3-year-old love to turn it up like it’s Freedom Rock, both our kids sing along with robust glory and without inhibition.

As I said before, I’m a pseudo-Christian (I believe from afar — Sundays are for laying on the couch until noon) so I find this incredibly amusing. Prescott — not-so-much.

One of their favorite songs is Who built the Ark?, a ditty about Noah and his wacky adventures. The chorus is supposed to be, “Who built the Ark? Noah, Noah! Who built the Ark? Brother Noah built the Ark!” Prescott, however, has bastardized the song and worked his influence into an innocent and spiritual moment by teaching the kids new words to the song. We now have kids that, while in public, have no problem belting out, “Who built the Ark? No one! No one! Who built the Ark? No one really built the Ark!”

So, it’s gonna be like that, huh? Wait until I sell Holden on God-camp this summer. We will see who’s able to influence these young minds more.

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From Full Metal Jacket:

DI Hartman:?‚? You goddam communist heathen, you had best sound off that you love the Virgin Mary . . . or I’m gonna stomp your guts out! Now you do love the Virgin Mary, don’t you?!

Private Joker: Sir, negative, sir!

(additional dialogue)

DI Hartman:?‚? Private Joker is silly and he’s ignorant, but he’s got guts, and guts is enough.

This weekend, an old friend (with whom I no longer routinely correspond) forwarded an e-mail to several addressees, adding her own subject line: “Food for thought”.?‚? The content included a monologue from Ben Stein, most of which I enjoyed, and an addendum that verged on fundamentalist propaganda.

My only argument with Mr. Stein’s monologue was with his statement that “I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution, and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.”

Frankly, I find that statement to be a bit melodramatic as well as inaccurate.?‚? Apart from the holiday season and the melting pot of celebrations - some based in religion, some not -?‚? that take place, separation of church and state is specified in the Constitution.?‚? ?‚? People may?‚? worship as they please - assuming they don’t infringe upon the rights of others who may choose NOT to worship.

But it’s the addendum - the part which was not written by Ben Stein - that made me want to hit reply-all and launch into a diatribe.

There’s a lot of inaccurate information and ridiculous speculation contained therein - such as that God stepped back and allowed Hurricane Katrina to devastate the Gulf Coast because we as a country have made it clear that we don’t want God in our lives - but the part to which I objected most strongly was the end:

“Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it… no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.”

WHAT thought process??‚? Swallowing propaganda without considering its accuracy?

And do you mean to tell me that if I hit “delete” that I’m a Communist heathen like Private Joker?

The world has been in bad shape (and “bad” is a relative term) for thousands of years.?‚? There will always be disagreement and discord.?‚? There will always be death and destruction.?‚? Much of it is under our control as humans, but some of it is not.?‚? And no, I don’t mean that it’s under the control of a deity.?‚? Nature takes its course as well, such as in Hurricane Katrina (where we as humans contributed to the destruction too).

Believing in a deity will not right the wrongs of the world.?‚? And non-believers are not to blame for those wrongs simply because they do not believe.

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Everything that follows is solely my own opinion. Even moreso than with most religious discussions, because wicca is so new and so varied that you could ask ten witches (if you could find ten witches) what their beliefs are, and you would get ten different answers.

What follows is the basic stuff that most of us agree on. ?‚? I thought about including my own beliefs and the tradition I’m part of–but that would take years. But if anyone has any specific questions, I’ll try to answer them.

Most witches (I’ll use the term interchangeably with wiccan for this, though for some folks they’re separate) are panentheists, which means that deity is in the world. Everything material is a manifestation of the divine, from the smallest microbe to the universe itself. The wiccan concept of deity holds that god/dess is destructive and creative, good and bad. Death is considered part of life, and destruction the necessary precursor to creation.

The divine is personalized as both a god and a goddess, who are two manifestations of a single nameless deity. The names of the god and the goddess vary by tradition; and in many traditions, they are also considered to have a thousand faces–the minor gods and goddesses.

There are two basic sets of beliefs regarding the god and the goddess. In one, they are equals; in the other, the goddess is primary. The latter is also sometimes referred to as goddess worship or Dianic witchcraft/wicca. It is more common so far as I know to regard them as equals. Because there is a god and a goddess and they are considered equal, witchcraft believes in sex equality (though perspectives on the differences between the sexes can vary greatly).

It is also an earth religion, which means that practice is based on where you live. Religious observations depend on the phase of the moon and the season. So, for instance, on Ostara or Eostre (the spring equinox), observations include fertility symbols that reflect spring and burgeoning life, such as eggs, rabbits, flowers, etc. If that sounds familiar, it should; when the evangelists say that Easter is based on a pagan holiday, they’re right. Yule, celebrated on the winter solstice, celebrates life in the midst of death, because while it is the darkest day of the year, it is also the day when the light starts to return; evergreens, holly berries, gifts, bonfires are all features of the holiday. Again, this may sound familiar.

Because wicca/witchcraft is an earth religion, and because it’s panentheistic, environmentalism is very strong. Other living things and their habitats are considered sacred. Which isn’t to say that nothing must ever be cut down or destroyed, but that if it’s going to be, you have to have a very good reason.

The stickiest issue is magic and spells. It’s true that witches cast spells; but it’s not a solitary person with a vendetta twisting the arm of reality to make a dishonest buck. The definition of magic most often used is “the art of changing consciousness at will”–not reality, consciousness. The focus of change is explicitly on the self. And spells are most like prayers, only instead of words, you use objects–candles, or paper, or plants, or whatever. You are asking the universe or god/dess for what you want; but that doesn’t mean you’ll get it.

I know the bookstores are full of crap in the wicca sections with bright pink covers and titles like “how to turn your boyfriend into a frog,” but this drivel has as much in common with wicca and witchcraft as books about how to use your guardian angel to become wealthy have to do with christianity–which is to say, not much.

The last thing worth pointing out is that witchcraft is not evangelical. We don’t believe that there is one True religion; all of them are equally true, so to us/me, it really doesn’t matter what faith you believe in so long as you’re not trying to interfere with my rights to practice my own. Every once in a while, someone goes nuts over the perceived subliminal intentions of books like The Wizard of Oz or Harry Potter, believing that they are a sneaky way of getting young people to adopt wicca. Trust me when I say, first of all, that they have nothing in common with our beilefs, and secondly, we have absolutely no interest in doing so.

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Recently on my personal site, I’ve been embroiled in a discussion of feminism - specifically, why I choose not to “self-identify” as a feminist.?‚? In the ensuing discussion, others have suggested that perhaps the term “feminist” is too limiting - that perhaps “humanist” would be more accurate and complete.

While I agree that humanist is a more accurate and complete description, I recently read an essay by Michael Shermer in his book “Science Friction” about a similar struggle for an acceptable label among humanists and their ilk.?‚? Yes, ironically enough, although many are starting to adopt the label “humanist”, others are already seeking to shed it.

The essay presented an overview of the discussion of existing descriptors, such as “skeptics, nonbelievers, nontheists, atheists, agnostics, infides, heretics, free thinkers, humanists, secular humanists, and the like,” as well as a proposed new, all-encompassing descriptor - “brights” (used as a noun, not an adjective).

As with the term “feminist”, I take issue with applying a one-size-fits-all label.?‚? A humanist is not necessarily atheist, agnostic, or a skeptic.?‚? If the classical definition of feminism is extended, then humanism would be defined as political, economic, and social equality of all people, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age, or sexual orientation.

I also find the term “bright” to be fairly ridiculous and potentially - and unnecessarily - offensive.?‚? And as much as I was wryly amused by the brouhaha among fellow mommybloggers regarding feminism, I have to admit that I’m more disappointed than amused that such great minds as Shermer, James Randi, and Richard Dawkins would spend time on such minutiae.

So along with not?‚? being a feminist, I’m also not a bright.?‚? I may embody much of what these descriptors are intended to encompass, but I’m too engaged in?‚? learning and discussing ideas to worry about what I ought to call myself.

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Yesterday my sixth grade daughter told me about a “class building exercise” she did in Social Studies, her favorite class.?‚? The kids had to get into groups of three or four and find a few things they all had in common and a few things that made them each very different.

“Well, I’m Jewish!” she contributed, knowing full-well that made her different from the other kids.

One boy looked at her and said, “Jewish, Catholic…same thing.”

She said she couldn’t believe that another sixth grader didn’t know what being Jewish was.

“No,” she told him, “J e w i s h.?‚? It’s a totally different religion than being Catholic.”

“Oh really?” was his only response.

She seemed somewhat offended, although nonplussed. Not only did her classmate not know that Judaism was it’s own religion but he didn’t really care.?‚? He is eleven after all.?‚? It became one of those times she was forced to realize that and that she will grow up assumed Christian, especially with her blonde hair and striking blue eyes.?‚? ?‚?

I?‚? was struck by the innocent ignorance — not yet his fault or even his responsibility.?‚?

I grew up?‚? in a homogenous environment,?‚? so I understand. If this boy’s entire family, and all their friends and everyone they know at home is whatever religion they are (which obviously isn’t Catholic) then he would have no reason to know that Jewish is any different than Catholic, because obviously no one has taught him anything about being different or being a minority or about embracing diversity.?‚?

And he’s African American.?‚?

Which is the same as being Asian American.?‚?

Right??‚?

?‚?

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