Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/culture/page/122/)
Posts about culture, the arts, the media, book reviews, movies etc.
Harriet Fraad’s illuminating piece here last week about marriage has got me thinking about men. We men are still not getting what the women’s revolution can give us. At least, many are but way more are not. We’re not getting it en masse. The evidence for this is that women are turning their backs increasingly on marriage.
My gratitude to mainstream institutional religion is ironic. I have always been on the side of those the church persecuted: mystics, heretics, and other nonconformists.
On Monday night I saw the movie I Am by Tom Shadyac. In case you don’t know – Tom has been a writer and director of numerous comedy films which have netted him millions of dollars. In the course of the last number of years he has been on an incredible journey of shifting his values from success and consumption to simplicity, love, and compassion. He sold his mansion and established a foundation with the money. Here’s what his website says: “Ultimately, the goal of The Foundation for I AM is to help usher in a more loving, kind, compassionate, and equitable world for all.”
On Thursday, February 17, I received one of the best phone calls of my life. I wondered who was calling me from the (306) area code. Where was that anyway? “It’s mrghhtbfxr,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “Who?”
I have never been successful at mastering obedience. As a child, often enough it was my attitude toward my father rather than something in particular that I did which was the cause of punishment and criticism. Obedience is highly prized in authority-based systems. No surprise, then, that my father was attempting to control my defiant spirit more than my specific actions. Obedience is a form of submission, of giving our will to another out of fear of consequences. It is almost essential to obedience that there be no specific rationale for the action demanded by the authority.
Watching NYC’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Center succumb to pressure to cancel a kick-off party for Israeli Apartheid Week, I feel compelled to write an epilogue to my recent post on Pinkwashing. I am reminded once again that we must be vigilant in refusing to allow queer liberation to be pitted against Palestinian liberation because as we know from our queer Palestinian colleagues, the two struggles are intertwined. On February 22nd, Michael Lucas, a right wing Advocate columnist and gay porn entrepreneur, issued a press release calling on the LGBT center to cancel the scheduled “Party to End Apartheid,” which he called anti-Semitic. He threatened to “organize a boycott that would certainly involve some of the Center’s most generous donors.” Infamous for his attacks against Islam, Lucas argued that “Israel is the only country in the Middle East that supports gay rights while its enemies round up, torture, and condemn gay people to death…”
This week’s spiritual wisdom on unconditional love comes from Joyce Rupp’s “Fragments of your Ancient Name: 365 Glimpses of the Divine for Daily Meditation.” Rupp is an author, retreat leader, and spiritual midwife. For more information on Rupp, visit her website. Captain of My Heart
Rabia al-Adawiyya
Do I consent to your being in charge,
Leading the daily dealings of my heart? Am I able to yield my comfortable control
Even if I prefer to do things my own way?
My sister in London, Hilary, who is much more of a fiction reader than I am and gives me wonderful tips as to what I would enjoy reading, just sent me this video of the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie speaking about stories. It’s 19 minutes but worth it. Here’s the link if the embedded video above fails, as it has done on me several times while writing this post. Adichie talks about how, raised in Nigeria, she went to college in the United States, and found that her roommate was surprised that she could speak English and use a stove, and liked to listen to American music. This may sound like a straightforward aggrieved litany against white racism and ignorance, but Adichie had already told a story about how she, raised middle class, had once visited a poor family in Nigeria and been surprised that they created beautiful craft objects.
Tonight we’ll celebrate President Obama and Attorney General Holder’s decision to NOT defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court. Following in the footsteps of former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and then California Attorney General Jerry Brown, the White House announced that the Justice Department could not defend DOMA, in part because “congressional debate during passage of the Defense of Marriage Act contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships – precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the (Constitution’s) Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.” Could this be the beginning of the end of DOMA? My husband, Derrick and I were married at First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto on April 8th, 1990. As we approach our 21st anniversary, it is stunning to have been witness to the evolution in America on people’s opinions on gay marriage.
Today is exactly the anniversary of starting this blog. I looked at the first piece I wrote, and have been reflecting for a few days on this past year through the lens of writing the blog. What stands out to me is that writing this blog marked the beginning of an amazing journey of freedom and finding room for myself in this world. The very act of writing a blog has been liberating. I remember even when I started the blog I was still struggling with wondering why anyone would want to read my thoughts.