232. degust

I hate Christmas music—but not the for reasons you might think.

Sure, I hate going into a store in December (sooner in some places) and hearing dodgy lyrics written about a mythological baby god-king.

• “Worship Christ, the newborn King”
• “Go, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.”
• “Jesus Christ was born to save!”
• “Hark! the herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!”

Unless you’re someone who left behind a religious community saturated with language like this, you’re probably not going to notice this very much. Most people don’t. To most, Christmas music is often infused with rich and fragrant memories of childhood, of time spent with family and friends, and of the beauty of winter (if you’re into that sort of thing).

And most people have likely never stopped to question the logic of the whole Christmas story. A teenage girl in Iron Age Palestine suddenly becomes pregnant with the son of the Hebrew God, who himself is the Hebrew God in human form? As David Hume (via Christopher Hitchens) once quipped, “Which is more likely, that the whole natural order is suspended or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?”

And why did Jesus have to temporarily suspend his divinity and come down to Earth as a dirty, squalling, snot-nosed infant? Because four thousand years earlier, two presumably immortal humans who lived in a mythical garden ate a piece of fruit that they were warned not to after a talking snake (just think about that for a second—a talking snake) told them to go ahead and do it anyway.

Because of this, God got royally pissed off; threw them out of this garden and put an angel with a flaming sword to guard the entrance; cursed them both with mortality, with work (for the man), and with painful childbirth (for the woman). So now every human born since then was also cursed with this “original sin” and is doomed to burn in the eternal fires of Hell.

(Brief side note: Hell is actually a Greek invention and wasn’t included in Christian theology until a bit later as a means of capitalizing on fear of death to control behavior (especially sexual behavior). Just in case you hadn’t figured out yet what a ludicrous invention this story is.)

As if that wasn’t overreaction enough, now all of creation—every tree, rock, animal, star, planet, galaxy—is cursed and spoiled because of the presumed disobedience of two humans on an insignificant piece of rock orbiting a small unregarded yellow sun (as Douglas Adams once wrote) “far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy.”

Anyway, that’s the fundamentalist Christian take on the story.

And let’s not even get into the fact that early Christians didn’t observe the birth of the their Lord and Savior. According to the website Biblical Archaeology, “Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices.” It wasn’t until late in the 4th century CE that the date of Jesus’ birth was moved to December 25th and celebrated, mainly as a way of appropriating pagan holidays. December 25th has been the date of several Roman holidays, including Saturnalia and Sol Invictus.

Sorry, guys, Jesus was not a Capricorn.

And what are the chances that other gods like Krishna, Mithras, Horus, and Buddha were also born on December 25th? What a crazy coincidence!

For me, the atonement theology underpinnings of Christmas were impossible to miss growing up. It was drilled into us virtually every day that humans are sinful, and the reason that Jesus had to come to earth to be murdered was because of how sinful we are. The whole Advent calendar was essentially a daily theological lesson in how awful humans are, and how the only redeemable thing about us is Jesus dying for our sins to make up for the fact that God loves us so much that he wants to torture us forever to show us how much he loves us.

So you’ll excuse me if I don’t find Christmas carols particularly heartwarming. In those lyrics I hear the self-hatred and self-loathing buried deep in the heart of Christianity, that tells us that not only are we not good enough—we’re fundamentally flawed and broken.

You know, the language of an emotional abuser.

But that is not the reason why I hate Christmas music.

And it’s not necessarily that I hate Christmas music. Some of the melodies to the songs are quite nice. And I do have some warm and fragrant memories of Christmas from my childhood. It was a magical time of year. Everything was transformed, by the cold and snow, and by decorations around town and around the house. We used to put cloves in pomegranates and oranges and hang them around the house, so the house smelled like spices.

When I became an atheist, it was as if twenty-eight years of my life no longer belonged to me. All of those memories, all of the enjoyment that I’d found in singing songs at Christmas, in the celebrations, in the community, were all part of someone else’s life.

You must not seek to add
To what you have, what you once had;
You have no right to share
What you are with what you were.
– C. F. Ramuz, Histoire du Soldat, trans. by Michael Flanders

So that’s why it’s hard for me to listen to Christmas music. It’s not so much the lyrics that bother me anymore. I’ve developed enough coping strategies to walk into a store without asking to yell at a manager to “turn that shit off!”

Christmas music is a reminder of everything that I lost when I jettisoned my faith. Further, it speaks to the fear I have of what I may never have—a family of my own to make new memories with, to banish the sadness of the old ones.

But who knows. Anything’s possible.

214. coterie

Goodness, so much has been happening the last couple of weeks. It’s been hard enough keeping up with my own personal writing, so I haven’t had as much time to blog. I’ve started a new job in document control with a construction company, and the learning curve of both a new environment and a new industry has been challenging.

In case you missed it, yesterday morning the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling on Town of Greece v. Galloway. Spoilers: it didn’t go very well for religious liberty.

Brief summary on the case: From time immemorial, city council meetings in the town of Greece, NY, have opened with prayer. Specifically, Christian prayer. Then Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens sued the town, arguing that the prayers violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against the town, so the issue that came before the Supreme Court last year, and that they ruled on yesterday, was whether the prayers were constitutional.

And yesterday, the Court decided that the Town of Greece may open each legislative session with a Christian prayer, so long as they make a reasonable effort to reach out to all religious groups within city limits and invite their leaders to open sessions as well.

Justice Elena Kagen wrote the dissenting opinion, beginning with an acknowledgment that our country has a tradition of opening legislative sessions with prayer, and that we also have a diverse religious landscape. “I believe that pluralism and inclusion in a town hall can satisfy the constitutional requirement of neutrality,” she wrote. “Such a forum need not become a religion-free zone… when a citizen stands before her government, whether to perform a service or request a benefit, her religious beliefs do not enter into the picture.”

However, she notes on page 57 that

Greece’s Board did nothing to recognize reli­gious diversity: In arranging for clergy members to open each meeting, the Town never sought (except briefly when this suit was filed) to involve, accommodate, or in any way reach out to adherents of non-Christian religions. So month in and month out for over a decade, prayers steeped in only one faith, addressed toward members of the public, commenced meetings to discuss local affairs and distribute government benefits. In my view, that practice does not square with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share in her government.

By intentionally or unintentionally favoring one religion over all others and forcing a citizen to “make her dissent from the common religious view, and place herself apart from other citizens, as well as from the officials responsible for the invocations,” religion becomes a dividing rather than unifying element.

Kagen again: “When a person goes to court, a polling place, or an immigration proceeding… government officials do not engage in sectarian worship, nor do they ask her to do likewise. They all participate in the business of government not as Christians, Jews, Muslims (and more), but only as Americans.”

Justice Breyer also dissented from the ruling, noteing that “Greece is a predominantly Christian town, but it is not exclusively so,” and that a map of the town “shows a Buddhist temple… and several Jewish synagogues just outside its borders.”

He also noted on page 51 that “during the more than 120 monthly meetings at which prayers were delivered during the record period (from 1999 to 2010), only four prayers were delivered by non-Christians. And all of these occurred in 2008, shortly after the plaintiffs began complaining about the town’s Christian prayer practice and nearly a decade after that practice had commenced.”

Those actions and inactions included (1) a selection process that led to the selection of “clergy almost exclusively from places of worship located within the town’s borders,”  despite the likelihood that significant numbers of town residents were members of congregations that gather just outside those borders; (2) a failure to “infor[m] members of the general public that volunteers” would be acceptable prayer givers; and (3) a failure to “infor[m] prayer-givers that invocations were not to be exploited as an effort to convert others to the particular faith of the invocational speaker, nor to disparage any faith or belief different than that of the invocational speaker.”

The decision handed down yesterday by the Court seems to assume that the vast majority of Americans will treat each other with fairness and without prejudice. It assumes that, given a plurality of religious views in a given setting, leadership will take the high ground in making sure that all views are represented.

Which is why, I suppose, in 2007, when Rajan Zed, the first Hindu priest to open a session of the U.S. Senate, began his invocation, three protesters immediately interrupted him.

Lord Jesus, forgive us for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight. This is an abomination. We shall have no other gods before You. Lord Jesus, have mercy on our nation for allowing this abomination, this idolatry, for violating the First Commandment, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ God forgive our nation!

The first man was taken out, loudly quoting Bible verses as he was dragged from the chamber. Another shouted, “Father, forgive us for betraying your Son Jesus!” before she, too, was escorted out. As they left, they shouted directly at Zed, “No Lord but Jesus Christ!” and “There’s only one true God!”

According to the Wikipedia page on the incident, the protesters were there “to lobby against a hate-crimes bill that would extend certain protections to gay people.”

The fact is, religion isn’t going anywhere for a long time. I’m willing to work with religious people to find ways to live together peaceably. And a vast number of religious people are happy to do the same.

It’s a vocal minority (fundamentalist Christians, mostly), however, who refuses to come to the table and is resisting change and stirring things up. How are we supposed to work together when they won’t even budge?

211. plash

This week and next I am working at a risk management and reinsurance company in Minneapolis through a temp agency. It’s been a bit of an adventure figuring out what exactly I’ll be doing, because at first it seemed that they thought I was an idiot or something. Then they discovered that I had print experience, scanning, proficiency in Microsoft Office, mail room, etc.

Essentially, I’m working with a four-person temp team that the company I’m working for has outsourced a lot of their office support needs to.

Mostly, it’s a lot of waiting around for a project to come up. On my first day, the girl I’m filling in for basically told me to bring a book. Thankfully, today I was doing mail runs (and scoping out cute males around the office–I’ve a crush on the cute guy who sits around the corner), which mostly involves doing a walk-around of both floors to check designated drop trays for any out-going mail.

For my first two days there while I was “training” (i.e., they were figuring out what I was going to be doing), I basically hung out at the front desk with the receptionist. She’s an early-middle-aged Latina with, as I soon discovered, a pretty massive inferiority complex. In the few days I’ve known her, it’s made me wonder how irritating I come across when I give in to negative thinking. She’s also one of those individuals of a certain age where you keep your head down, do your job, watch the clock, and check off the days until retirement.

Let’s call her “Paulita.”

To her credit, Paulita has been working on expanding her mind through reading and exploration of history (she calls it “research”); and she is curious about many things. However, we had a conversation yesterday morning that tested the limits of my tact and incredulity.

Even though it’s technically not allowed, she goes on the Internet to read articles and look things up. For example, yesterday afternoon we were talking about the Civil War and a visit she had to the birthplace of Robert E. Lee. In that conversation, we learned that Lee married the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, George Washington’s wife. The relation is through her son from her first marriage to Daniel Custis, who died in 1757.

Ah, Wikipedia.

Yesterday morning, while Paulita was on break, I found an article from LiveScience.com on Google News: 3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt. She’d mentioned a fascination with ancient Egypt the day before, so I showed it to her when she got back. She mentioned something about wondering if the pyramids were built before or after Stonehenge, and I recalled learning that the very earliest of the Egyptian pyramids (c. 2,670 BCE) were built around the same time as construction on the Salisbury plain began. The circular bank and ditch enclosure of Stonehenge were first excavated around 3,100 BCE, whereas the stone rings weren’t erected until around 2,600 BCE. The Pyramids of Giza were built during the Egyptian 4th Dynasty (c. 2613 to 2494 BCE).

(I looked up all these dates just now. Don’t worry, memory usually prevents me from going full-scale nerd most of the time.)

During all this, Paulita mentioned “Biblical times” at several points, most confusingly in reference to Stonehenge. I’m assuming she was using this phrase to mean “ancient,” but at this point my brain started going into damage control mode. When I mentioned that this kind of building was going on all over Europe around this time in the Neolithic period, that it wasn’t just Egypt, she seemed slightly perplexed.

“But, how is that possible?” she asked. “When God confused the languages and spread everyone out to different parts of the world, how could there have been time for them to have built Stonehenge?”

… big eyes.

“Um… what was that?” I asked, trying to sound as if she’d used a Spanish phrase that I hadn’t caught.

“In Genesis,” she replied. “Have you read the Bible? The Tower of Babel? Men wanted to build a tower to reach to the heavens so they could become like God, and God confused their language so that they couldn’t understand each other and finish building it?”

It was at this point that a sort of United Nations general assembly popped up in my mind. On the one hand, I didn’t want to be “that” kind of atheist and tell her outright that the Bible is a book of myths that never actually happened. On the other hand, I totally wanted to be “that” kind of atheist who tells a well-meaning Christian lady that her holy book is a collection of myths that never actually happened.

Finally, I said, “Oh, yes. That. I was raised Christian” (here she made a gesture as if to say, Then you know all about it!) “… but, you know, there’s nothing in the historical record that I know of that mentions anything like that.”

Her eyes widened a little. “Oh,” she said, sounding dubious but intrigued.

I tried to steer the conversation towards some of the reading I’ve been doing lately about human evolution; about evolutionary differences between Europeans and Africans; how one group of Homo sapiens went south and developed darker skin to cope with the sun, and another went north and developed lighter skin to cope with lack of sun. Their languages evolved differently with them, depending on where they went and how cut off they were from other tribes. And during the Neolithic period, humans started settling down, building huge stone monuments like the Pyramids and Stonehenge as community gathering places to mark transitions in life– birth to death.

This is obviously a condensed version of a lightly meandering conversation that was interrupted by co-worker and the phone ringing. But hearing Paulita attempting to cross-reference history with events in the Bible was… jarring.

It was a stark reminder to me that almost half of Americans still believe that the Bible is real history, and actually happened.

I just…

… can’t…

… mind…

… stuck…

… snrgsflmsnojrssss…

207. congnisance

A few weeks ago at the Former Fundamentalists retreat that some friends of mine put together for our group, I made a troubling observation that I’ve been pondering.

The day was made up of a number of talks and workshops put on by members of the group. It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday, in the company of like-minded people who are engaged in critical thinking and wondering about our world and our universe.

What troubled me though was how many women spoke up during discussion times — not many. Even during our bi-weekly meetings, the majority of the talking is done by the guys.

Gender variance among atheists is certainly male-leaning. Salon published a piece last year titled “5 reasons there aren’t more women in atheism,” citing things like:

• “… women are more devout because they have to be. Women’s religiosity is directly related to economic security.”
• “… sexism is real and has an effect on women’s participation and leadership within the atheist community.”
• “… it’s no exaggeration to say that managing sexism is exhausting, depressing and distracts from work women could be doing as visible spokespeople of fighting for higher and equal pay, or immigration policies that include uneducated women, or ending sexual predation, or advocating for the right to control our own reproduction.”

One place I’ve noticed this tend is Bill Maher’s show, where he’ll sit a woman guest between two guys who will then proceed to talk over or even around her. The woman may be knowledgeable about her subject area but can’t get a word in before someone else starts jabbering.

Our little tribe is a microcosm of an ongoing conversation concerning women in atheism. Because atheism is still largely a boys’ club. It was born out of the male-dominated academies of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and largely retains the same mindset. It raises concerns for me that women are still being socialized to not voice their thoughts and beliefs. And if I’ve learned anything from the LGBT movement, it’s an appreciation for diversity and the uniqueness of others.

Part of it is, I think, the dynamics of male relationships. When a bunch of guys get together, posturing and competition begin almost immediately to establish a hierarchy. We love to spar, whether physically or intellectually, and learn from an early age that if you’re going to make it in any group of guys then you have to prove that you deserve to be there.

This once meant literal life or death for humans on the African plains. Each male had to contribute to the group, whether through hunting or fighting, or the tribe could perish. This is why you’ll see many boys do ridiculously dangerous stunts to impress each other. We’re still running that same evolutionary program.

Men constantly have their masculinity challenged, especially if you don’t fit into a “masculine” stereotype. If you don’t look, talk, and walk like a dude, you’re not a “real man.” Whatever that means. This is perpetuated in Evangelical Christian culture, with the notion that there’s a Divine ideal each sex should live by. If you grew up in that world or are familiar with the books “Wild At Heart” and “The Heart of a Woman,” you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The blog What Women Never Hear had about a post a year ago about ten ways that men and women differ. (It’s full of Evangelical, heteronormative generalizations, but how can a piece written by a heterosexual guy about gender differences not be?)

• Girls ease smoothly into family life by anticipating what’s needed and what’s coming. Boys have to be taught to respect others’ interests by honoring their standards and expectations.
• Girls unconditionally respect others regardless of sex. Boys respect males much more readily than females. They usually must be taught to respect authority-figure females such as mothers, grannies, and teachers.
• Girls can easily respect others before others earn it. Boys tend to challenge others first and then respect them after they earn it.

There are massive generalizations here, along with the pathologizing of males, but there’s truth to be found here — as there is in all generalizations. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we live in the shadow of the Industrial Revolution, when gender roles and expectations experienced massive upheaval after people started migrating to cities. We’re still working out the details of mixed gender spaces that resulted from that shift.

For much of human history, the sexes inhabited different spheres—men, the field; women, the home. During the Industrial Revolution, centuries-old community structures dissolved almost overnight. The Victorian “Cult of Domesticity” called for the abolishing of traditional men’s spaces as the Powers That Be willed that men belonged at home with the family, and not in the company of other men. The decline of male friendship coincides with this as men started seeing each other not as brothers but as competitors.

… okay, this is getting too broad for a thousand words, so to bring it back to the former fundie retreat, I don’t think there was an intent to crowd out women in discussions because I don’t think anyone noticed it was happening. We guys tend to assume that if someone wants to say something that they’ll speak up, not knowing how intimidating it can be at times to enter into the discussion circle. There are some strong opinions in our group!

And I do think there is something to the claim that men respect other men more than they do women. This is not so much a criticism or indictment as it is an apparent inheritance of our bioevolutionary past. But so is tribalism, xenophobia, and aggression. Awareness is the first step towards changing any behavior. And part of the reason we all became atheists in the first place is we refused to ignore evidence that required action and change.

We’re (slowly) evolving as a species. These are the growing pains of leaving behind the African plains and graduating to something more than merely human.

199. Le Pape

It’s worth mentioning again in going through this Tarot series that I do not approach the cards from the standpoint of divination (i.e., fortune telling). As an atheist, I do not believe in divine or supernatural forces, especially those that may guide our fates. That some force or thing created the universe with us in mind, and that arbitrary positions of cards, stars or planets can somehow foretell a future or course of action to take is silly, at best—narcissism, at worst.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about life goals and directions, as what I’ve been doing job and living-wise has not been bringing me joy or satisfaction. Quite the opposite. This summer, during a moment of particular distress and depression, a friend of mine offered to do a Tarot reading for me. He is also an atheist, and approaches Tarot from a similar analytical perspective. It was he who first suggested that Tarot was really collaborative storytelling; that the cards themselves describe general but universal aspects of the human experience around which a codified “school” of reading and interpretation was defined.

I’ve always been deeply fascinated by Jungian psychology, and in particular the archetypal. As a storyteller, I find myself drawing on these images myself—the wise old man or woman, the cunning trickster, the child, the hero, the dark shadow lurking just out of sight.

The thoughts and questions that I’ve been contemplating lately are on the epic (albeit personal, so not huge in the grand scheme) scale. I’m in the process of doing in a couple of years what most people do over the course of their lifetime—or at least in the process of growing up. A few years ago, I realized that the foundations of my life were fictions. Though there are some mythic truths to be found, the stories my parents and teachers told about a holy and supreme god who made me and the entire universe; who has a divine purpose and plan for my life; who is keeping notes on every thought, word, and deed to determine which afterlife I’ll enjoy or suffer for all eternity—none of it’s true. And now I’m faced with probably the most important question asked by any human being: Who am I?

It’s an insignificant question compared to most of the problems we face. And most people never really give it a second thought. But when you realize that every premise you’ve based your life on (and experience you’ve denied yourself) isn’t true, you start to wonder: What do I believe?

All that to say, Tarot has been helpful the past couple of weeks in bringing up and beginning to confront some of these issues and questions of purpose. What do I care about? What do I want to do? The cards can’t tell me the answers, but they introduce a certain level of randomness to get me mentally unstuck.

One of the big questions right now is that of career. Because I don’t really have one. I’ve been doing office admin work since college, but that’s a job. I don’t care about data entry, filing, document formatting, or any of the pointless shit I’ve done for other people over the years.

What I care about is storytelling. And art—specifically, music and writing.

Late this past summer, I decided to finally explore pursuing a master’s degree in one of those areas: music composition. I somewhat hurriedly (and haphazardly) put together three applications and submitted them this past fall. And they were rejected. These rejections made me question whether this was even the right path I should be taking.

The cards told me what I’ve always known at the core of my being, but have been afraid to acknowledge. Follow your passion.

The Hierophant is an interesting card. It’s also referred to as The Pope. It typically represents tradition, conservatism, discipline, heeding the status quo or social convention, and education. Wikipedia suggests that “it is a warning to the Querant to reexamine his or her understanding of the meaning of things; of the structure of the world; of the powers that be.”

Another interpretation of the reversed card (which is how I laid it out):

The Hierophant reversed is about breaking the rules and challenging the status quo. You no longer accept the rigid structures, tradition and dogma surrounding you, and now seek out opportunities to rebel and retaliate. You want to challenge ideas and concepts that you once thought of as written in stone. (BiddyTarot)

A friend of mine posted a comment yesterday on my previous entry: You didn’t get into grad school because that’s not really your best choice; you’re comfortable in music, and so you pursue it. You have great eloquence as a writer, but you didn’t pursue a master’s degree in writing. Why?

Frankly, I still wonder if I did the right thing in doing my undergrad in composition. Deciding on it was almost a last-minute decision. My original plan was majoring in creative writing, but my father suggested that I had real talent in music. But was that reason enough? Music was always easy for me; and while one’s natural talents should be considered, no field will successfully hold one’s interest without passion.

The ideal would be finding a program where I could somehow combine my love for creating music with my love for writing. This is why opera always felt like such a good fit. In addition to providing the music, I also provided the text and the story, although I’ve always felt like more of a musical playwright than a composer when it came to it.

So that’s where things currently stand, stuck between a hard and a rock place and unsure which direction to go. What comes to mind is (yet another) lyric from Sunday in the Park with George:

“I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken. The choosing was not. You have to move on.”

181. dilly

This afternoon a friend of mine posted an article from the Guardian about the top five regrets people have as they come to die. As an atheist who doesn’t believe in any kind of afterlife and that each of us only gets one shot at life, being intentional about avoiding regrets has been a major motif for me in the past few years. I don’t want to arrive at the inevitable end of my mortal coil with the taste of an unlived life in my mouth.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This is the principle reason why I finally came out gay almost five years ago, and as an atheist almost two and a half years ago. As a self-identified Christian, I wasn’t being honest with anyone (including myself) about the fact that I didn’t really believe in God, and that church was basically about socializing for me. And after coming to the realization that my sexual orientation wasn’t something that was ever likely to change, and that I didn’t even want it to change, I decided that living in fear of what my parents and community thought wasn’t worth wasting the opportunity to express who I truly am. Worse, it’s not worth the opportunity to experience life through the lens of marriage and intimate relationship, and to learn to love and be loved by another human being — in my case, another man.

I didn’t want to get to the end of my life with the knowledge that I’d missed the chance to find someone who I couldn’t live without.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

For me, this has less to do with working long hours and more to do with the nature of work that I do. For most of my working life I’ve taken the safer path and accepted jobs that paid the bills or didn’t provide much challenge. Even my degree I chose in college was something I knew wouldn’t carry much risk in terms of accomplishment. But ultimately, I’m most happy when creating, whether musically or with words. The best times in my life, when I felt most alive, were when I was working on a show, or writing an opera or novel, and so on. And life is too short to not be remarkable and do what brings you.

“It’s not so much do as you like as it is that you like what you do.”
– Dot, Sunday in the Park with George

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Heh, as anyone who reads this blog or follows my Facebook posts knows, this is not an area where I often hold back. Even my face frequently betrays what I’m thinking and feeling. I was a very outgoing and exuberant child, but there was a span of years during my childhood where I was shut-down and self-repressed. I’m not entirely sure why that happened. There were troubles with my parents, as many boys experience, but few photos from those years show me smiling. I’d become very self-critical, a trait that has survived well into adulthood, and remember being very dissatisfied with myself, particularly how I looked when smiling.

Thanks to one drama teacher in junior high, however, I rediscovered my ability to express myself, to smile and to laugh again. It wasn’t until after I came out as an atheist that I was really able to start expressing the pain and hurt that I experienced growing up. And once I’d given voice to the hurt, and truly grappled with the concept of the finality of existence, start expressing to people in my life how much they truly mean to me.

Words from the Bible that I grew up hearing and reading now take on a new, ironical meaning: “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25). Only that “me” ended up not being some religious figure.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

I’m trying to do better about this, but as an introvert with some hard-to-shake social anxiety and hermit tendencies, it’s a daily struggle. To that end, and thanks to the influence of a friend of mine, I’ve started maintaining a spreadsheet to track who I spend time with, and how often. It was partly in response to wanting to be more intentional about my social life, but also getting tired of saying, “It’s been a while!”

Quite a few friendships were burned in the process of coming out twice, some on my part and some on the part of others. You do learn who your true friends are when you show them your true self, and they can either live with that identity or reject you because you’re not who they wanted you to be. And it made me realize the importance of choosing your friends wisely, and spending time with truly good people whose company I covet and value.

One of the bedroom decorating tips in feng shui is to “choose images that you want to see happening in your life.” That’s how I’m approaching friendships now. Quality over quantity.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is probably the hardest one of all. As Aslan says in C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew,

“… he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh, Adam’s son, how cleverly you defend yourself against all that might do you good!”

Part of the impetus in starting therapy last September was to find a trained, impartial third-party observer to help me identify the ways I’ve tied myself in knots over the years. As Bob Wiley realized, “If I don’t untie myself, inside the emotional knots, I’m going to explode.”

Baby step: untie your knots. Life’s too damned short not to let yourself be happy.

180. genethliac

This weekend was my nephew’s third birthday party. I’m still unsure how to feel about being an uncle since I’m not really that excited about kids. Even as a child, I had no idea what to do with other kids, especially other boys, whose interest in intellectual pursuits was about as pronounced as their desire to have teeth pulled.

(Granted, this was in central Kansas in the 1990s, where my family was until we moved to Minnesota when I was 10 years old.)

At the recommendation of a friend, I paid a visit to Creative Kidstuff in Saint Paul. At age three, most kids have an attention span limited to anything colorful or dynamic. My nephew likes running around, being active, and doing things with his hands, and my sister informed me that he does like crafts, but also likes books.

After being pointed in the direction where I’d likely find presents for active, creative three-year-olds, I spoke with an adorable young guy who gave me several ideas for things that would be age-appropriate, aid in tactile development and hand-eye coordination, and fun. (I tried not to think about all the fun things I wanted to do with him, but that’s another story.) One was a paper bag hand puppet craft kit that I thought both my nephew and his mom would have fun with.

Crafty, fun present – check!

Then it was over to the book section where I saw a collection of the Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit stories. These were stories that my sisters and I grew up reading and hearing, and I especially remember the vivid illustrations. It was one of the first books I can remember reading out loud by sounding out the syllables, much like the scene in the play Wit where a young Vivian makes the association between the word “soporific” and the picture of the sleepy bunny.

Then I saw another book that also occupied many happy hours of my childhood – Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. My parents had a copy from what must’ve been the 1950s that looked very much like this one. As I leafed through the book, memories came flooding back, of poems like “The Land of Counterpane” and “Foreign Lands.”

“Up into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.”

I had the thought that even if he didn’t appreciate books as presents now, he might someday find himself in search of a present for his own nephew, and nearly break down in tears while remembering the stories he read as a child. And those books will be around long after I’m gone, which is more than can be said for the flashy toy cars and games other people gave him. Toys are played with and forgotten. Books endure.

So I may not be the “fun” uncle who plays jokes and steals noses, but I can be the uncle who takes an interest in my nephew’s intellectual development. And for whatever the reason, my sister tells me that he was asking if I was going to come to the party. So apparently I’ve done enough to warrant being memorable!

I was surprised to see that a classmate of mine from college who had roomed with my sister years ago was also there. We’d fallen out of touch over the years as we graduated, and even before as we went our separate educational ways – me on the music performance track, she on music education. We were close our first three years of college, having most of our core music classes together, but she and the other music education majors had an extra year of courses to complete so I didn’t see much of her or them after junior year.

We chatted for a little bit, and of course one of the first questions she asked was whether I was doing much composition! I always feel guilty when saying no, that I’m squandering the talent that I invested so many years in developing, or that I’m not living up to my potential or expectations that everyone had for me.

In an unexpected turn, she disclosed that the previous year she and her (smoking hot) husband (who was swimming just outside the party room and walking around shirtless and in swim trunks, showing off his washboard abs and sexy pecs) had lost a child due to a rare genetic disorder. They’d been advised that the child likely wouldn’t survive, and that if he did it would be with significant disability, but they brought him to full term anyway, like the Evangelicals they are.

Even though the baby lived for only five minutes after being born, she talked about the peace she was able to find in God, in her church, and “in the Word.”

Given how long it’s been since we last spoke, I’m not sure if she knew that she was talking to an atheist, but in a moment where a mother was describing her experience of losing a child, it didn’t seem appropriate to bring up the fact I don’t believe in God anymore. I’m glad that she as able to find comfort and solace in her religious beliefs, but it’s one of those moments as an atheist when you realize how much privilege Christians still enjoy in this society.

Of course, my atheism isn’t really that big of a deal in my own life. Frankly, I don’t identify as an atheist except when dealing with fundamentalists pushing their Christofascist agenda on the rest of the population. I don’t hide the fact that I don’t believe in God, but there are more important things to care about – guys, music, literature, philanthropy, current events, friends, science, etc.

I do wish, however, that I could bring up my non-belief with old friends without being interrogated and politely judged. It is a significant life event, after all…

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165. algid

“We know that no matter how good our intentions, we will all stumble sometimes, in some way. We will make mistakes, we will experience hardships. And even when we’re trying to do the right thing, we know that much of our time will be spent groping through the darkness, so often unable to discern God’s heavenly plans.”

This was how President Obama addressed the people of Newtown, CT this past Sunday at an interfaith service for the victims of the shooting at Sandy Hook school. I’ll get to the appropriateness in a minute. (Hint: I’m not thrilled.)

As expected, the Christian pundits have been plying their trade, trying to remind people why they still matter. As Adam Sutler screams at his peons in the movie V for Vendetta: “I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion. I want everyone to remember why they need us!” If you listen closely, you can hear the growing note of desperation in their voices.

Bryan Fischer of the Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate group American Family Association was one of the first to sound off, going on his radio show to say that the shooting happened because we kicked God out of schools — meaning that the U.S. still isn’t a theocracy.

Mike Huckabee posted a diatribe on his website, blaming Liberals, gays, atheists, and feminists.

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson gave us his “honest opinion” on Monday: “Millions of people have decided that God doesn’t exist, or he’s irrelevant to me and we have killed fifty-four million babies and the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition. . . we have turned our back on the Scripture and God Almighty . . . has allowed judgment to fall upon us.”

Yes, Dobson just blamed me for the deaths of 26 innocent people. Classy guy.

But it was Obama’s speech on Sunday that caught my notice. He was the first President to ever acknowledge nonbelievers in a way that didn’t amount to, “Atheist scum!” and I was impressed that he met privately with each of the families of the victims before giving the address. He spoke honestly to parents, not just as the leader of our country but as a parent.

Yet the text of the speech itself was disappointing, and even a little disturbing. Whether he was quoting from 2 Corinthians, talking about the grace of [the Christian] God, or referencing the ineffability of the Divine plan, it was entirely too religiously partisan for many.

Everyone’s favorite atheist PZ Myers thought the speech was a “slap in the face” to the parents of the murdered children. Atheist blogger Vjack of Atheist Revolution wondered if it even occurred to Obama “how [the Christianspeak in his speech] might be perceived by those who do not share his particular superstitions.” Blogger Staks Rosch was also offended, writing that “twenty kids and six adults were just murdered and the President is talking about how God is lonely and wants some company.” Of course, that’s not what Obama meant, but still, that ought to have occurred to him.

Sarah Vowell wrote: “… in September [of 2001], atheism was a lonely creed. Not because atheists have no god to turn to, but because everyone else forgot about us.” It felt like that on Sunday. Just because atheists don’t believe in life after death doesn’t mean we have nothing to contribute to the nation’s grieving process. Ron Lindsay of the Center For Inquiry wrote on their blog:

Losing a child is tragic, but that tragic loss should be recognized and not obscured. In recognizing the depth of this loss we also recognize the inestimable worth and value of the child, his or her uniqueness as an individual — not as a small part of some vast, cosmic, incomprehensible plan.

Maybe instead of giving us a mini-sermon, the President could have left religion out of his remarks and addressed the community and the nation as a parent, and as a human being. In fact, I wish he could have said something like this, which is the most moving statement I’ve read concerning the shooting. It comes from a Buddhist, Susan Piver:

Nothing can make this okay. There is no explanation that helps. Blaming lack of gun control, insufficient guns, or inadequate mental health care may be entirely reasonable and valid, but it doesn’t matter. No matter how right you are (or aren’t), it doesn’t change the grief, rage, or numbness. Using ideas to treat or metabolize feelings doesn’t work. Then what? I’m afraid that there is not much we can do other than to be absolutely, irredeemably heartbroken. It turns out that this is helpful.

The normal human response to tragedy like this is to try to fix it and make everything as it was. I think this stems from childhood, when we look to Mommy or Daddy to put things right. Our parents are our first gods and goddesses, all-powerful and capable of no wrong. We adore them. But at some point we grow up and see them for who and what they are: ordinary human beings, just like us. And that scares us. It scares some people so much they they go out and do horrible things.

Piver got it right. More gun control laws won’t bring anyone back, nor will it stop some lunatic from getting their hands on more guns, or a different weapon entirely, and killing more people. Until we understand that peace doesn’t come from legislation but from learning to let go, there will be no peace.

So maybe the answer to Newtown isn’t to rush out and try to find an answer – because in these cases there usually isn’t one, especially when the gunman robs us of a rationale – or to demand more laws before the bodies are even in the ground. Maybe it’s to do the counter-intuitive thing, to stop trying to find someone to blame, and just be sad. Because, ironically, that’s how the healing begins.

164. pontificate

Just so everyone knows, I haven’t forgotten about the shootings in Newtown, CT. My thoughts are definitely with the families and friends of the victims. However, I wanted to share a somewhat related email I sent this morning to Sue Seul, assistant to the superintendent of the Anoka-Hennepin school district.

There’s been a petition going around on Change.org to Tom Heidemann and the Anoka County School Board to have Bryan Lindquist of the Parents Action League removed from his appointment to the district’s anti-bullying task force.

In March of 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center put the Parents Action League on their list of active anti-gay hate groups in the United States for promoting “damaging propaganda about the gay community” (see below). Incidentally, the PAL is affiliated with the Minnesota Family Council, the group that formed Minnesota for Marriage to campaign for the failed 2012 Minnesota Marriage Amendment.

ABC Newspapers, the local paper for that area, reported that Lindquist “has come under fire due to statements he’s made that indicate a belief that homosexuals can change their sexual orientation and that the district should distribute information about gay conversion or “reparative” therapy.”

On December 10, the nearly 2,500-signature petition was delivered to the District 11 school board. As recounted in an email sent last night by the petition organizer, Melissa Thompson, the board’s response was not only to reject the petition but also to “[remove] the public comment portion of the video and recorded agenda.” She also urged signers to write to Ms. Seul, which I did:

To: Sue Seul <sue.seul@anoka.k12.mn.us>
From: David Philip Norris

Ms. Suel,

I am writing to express my extreme displeasure at the decision of the Anoka-Hennepin school board to not remove Mr. Lindquist from the anti-bullying task force, and to censor the public comment portion of the meeting where supporters of his removal voiced their concerns and opinions.

As a member of the Parents Action League, a group classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of 27 active anti-gay hate groups in the United States, Bryan Lindquist is no ally to LGBT students in the Anoka-Hennepin district. This is a man who has been quoted calling homosexuality a “lifestyle choice” and a “sexual disorder” — a man tasked with protecting students (particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students) from bullying. This is also a school district with an unusually high number of suicides and suicide attempts, the majority of which are committed by LGBT students and students merely perceived as being gay or lesbian.

Mr. Lindquist was recently quoted as saying that “discussion of sexual orientation [should] take place in the homes with parents and not with a teacher in a classroom full of impressionable kids.” There is a difference between avoiding discussion of sexual orientation in the classroom and pretending like LGBT students don’t exist and therefore aren’t being bullied for being gay or lesbian. The school board should be enacting policies to protect ALL students, not just students Mr. Lindquist believes deserve not to be bullied.

Yours,
David Philip Norris

School Boardmember Mike Sullivan stated that “it’s critical to have opposing points of view.” Yet as Thompson was quoted in a KSTP News story, appointing Lindquist to this task force “would be like asking somebody from the [Klu Klux Klan] to sit on the committee that plans black history month.”

She has a good point. While it’s not right to exclude someone because of their religious beliefs, neither does it make sense to put a man who belongs to a group that actively promotes the idea that homosexuality results from “dysfunctional family relationships, experimentation with men or boys, incest, negative body image, peer labeling and harassment, temperament, exposure to pornography, not bonding correctly with your own gender parental figure, abandonment, early trauma such as sexual victimization, and media influences” in a position to protect those very students.

The implication here is the same made by opponents of same-sex marriage and LGBT rights: Why should we give them special rights when they choose to live a perverted lifestyle? The FAQ on PAL’s website states that “to date there is no genetic link to prove they are born that way.” Ironically, on the day that the Anoka school board rejected the petition to have Lindquist removed, results of a study by international researchers were published, who found that homosexuality seems to have epigenetic (rather than genetic) causes, suggesting that we really were born this way.

The only special rights here are the ones being demanded by bigots like Lindquist, the PAL, the Minnesota Family Council and its national affiliate Focus on the Family: to abuse LGBT people under the auspices of “freedom of religion.” These groups all have close ties with the Family Research Council, which has promoted and supported the passage of Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill, further reinforcing the notion that groups like PAL and people like Lindquist are in fundamental opposition to the human rights of LGBT people.

As we put the events in Newtown in perspective and try to learn from it, we must remember that making schools safer doesn’t just mean protecting students from outside threats. It means taking a look at internal threats as well.

160. pidgeonhole

A few days ago in the New York Times there was a 5,700-word piece about Ashlyn Blocker, a.k.a. “the girl who feels no pain.” She was born with a rare condition called congenital analgesia, better known as “congenital insensitivity to pain.” It never occurred to me how important pain really is to social animals like ourselves, who are in almost constant danger from even the moment we are conceived.

These kids walk barefoot over broken glass, touch hot stoves, break bones, chew off parts of their tongues, all without feeling pain. When Ashlyn was very young, her parents brought her to bed with them, with her mother holding her hands “so [Ashlyn] wouldn’t chew on her skin or rub her eyes during the night.” The article begins with a story of her reaching into boiling water to retrieve a spoon. These children can lose limbs but only experience the fear of seeing that part of their body gone — but not feel a thing.

Last night I had a heated argument with my boyfriend, Jason. As most fights go, it was over something relatively minor. While cleaning his room he’d found a necklace that his grandmother had given him. This necklace has a cross dangling from it. When I saw that he had hung it up in his bedroom, I asked him if he had to have it there. He said that he did, as it carries importance to him as an artifact of his grandmother’s, who is still alive and very close to him. He’s had close calls with death, having survived a brain tumor and related medical complications, so I understand its significance to him.

However, I objected to the cross since for me it’s a symbol of oppression and torture, both in the historical and personal sense. Virtually since it was adopted by the Church as its emblem about 600 years after Jesus was supposedly nailed to it, it has gone before Crusader armies and presided over Inquisitions, both Catholic and Protestant. Ignoring the fact that the common form of the crux romanus was in the shape of a letter T, with a cross-piece attached to a stake, countless saviors have been crucified in myths throughout history: Krishna, Wittoba, the Celtic god Hesus, the Mexican god Quetzalcoatl, and the Persian god Mithras — to name a few.

Moreover, it’s a hideous torture and execution device. For those who say that it represents the love of God (John 3:16), it’s curious to me that it was so necessary for God to have himself murdered by the imperfect people he created as a sacrifice to himself to make up for how imperfect the people he made were — and are. Why not just forgive sins instead of literally making a martyr of yourself?

Of course, that presumes a major assumption that there are any sins to forgive. The so-called “original sin” committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden never took place because the Garden of Eden is fictional, just as Adam and Eve are mythical. According to Christian teachings, that first sin was imputed to the entire human race, therefore precipitating the need for Jesus’ supposed sacrifice. However, if there was no original sin to forgive, what was the need, exactly?

The real reason I find the cross so offensive though is that it represents for me 25 years of agonizing over my sexuality, and 28 years of desperately trying to believe what I believed the Bible, my church and my family told me I needed to believe. There were so many nights I was kept awake by the anguish I felt over my doubts and my perceived lack of belief, and as I got older the abhorrent sexual feelings for other men that were stirring within me. For Jason that cross represents his loved ones and his connection to his family. For me, it represents everything I’ve lost, and all of the time that I wasted trying to be a good Christian — time I’ll never get back.

I had a long talk last night at home with my friend Emily about the fight, and what it was really over. She asked a question that both Jason and my therapist Sarah have asked: do you blame yourself for not leaving sooner? Yes, I do blame myself for lacking the courage to come out earlier. But this is how Richard Dawkins opens The God Delusion, with a story about his wife:

As a child, my wife hated her school and wished she could leave. Years later, when she was in her twenties, she disclosed this unhappy fact to her parents, and her mother was aghast: ‘But darling, why didn’t you come to us and tell us?’ Lalla’s reply is my text for today: ‘But I didn’t know I could.’

Here’s the crux: I didn’t know that I could have left Christianity, or come out as a gay man. Yes, I had doubts and there were numerous red flags raised over the years that I learned to think my way around or ignore; but it was either follow the Bible, or go to Hell. More than eternal damnation, I was terrified of my parents’ rejection and the reprisal of my church community. It wasn’t until I’d drifted away from those relationships and the fear of losing them and God had faded sufficiently that I was able to speak my mind and admit that I didn’t believe in God.

Yes, religion is a tool that can be used for good or evil. Trouble is, there’s no one to be angry at. My parents were brainwashed, just as were the other adults in my life growing up were. Their only concern is for my soul, not my feelings.

Just as Ashlyn Blocker has no idea what pain feels like, those who haven’t suffered abuse at the hands of religious people can’t understand what the cross looks like to those who have. It’s beautiful to them, but a putrid symbol of hatred to me.