Sacrament
God, I have sought you as a fox seeks chickens,
curbing my hunger with cunning.
The times I have tasted your flesh
there was no bread and wine between us,
only night and the wind beating the grass.
-Alden Nowlan
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
My brother, my captain, my king
I have finally reached a very satisfactory end to a relatively shitty day, shitty in both the literal and figurative sense. I went to two doctors today, one of whom gave me no real advice on my stomach ("Try eating no food except popcicles for a day and see if that makes it better." "Alas, you seem to have forgotten that I JUST TOLD YOU that I have eaten nothing but nothing since FOUR WEEKS AGO, and I have to go to work tomorrow without fainting, but whatever.") and the other of whom advised me that I might have a yeast infection as a follow-up to my other mysterious infection, contrary to the opinion of a different doctor. Good times abounded. I came home and ate some crackers, and felt quite nauseous.And then.
LORD OF THE RINGS. HOLY EFF.
Here is the only thing nerdier than going to see The Fellowship of the Ring remastered in theaters for one night only with your younger brother:
Composing an essay on the environmentalism of Jackson's interpretation of Tolkien's fantasy world in your heard during the entire movie.
While composing your own answer, should you choose to do so, you might want to reflect on certain scenes, which might help if you're seeing the whole thing remastered and on a gigantic screen, so you can drool at the awesomeness of the gigantic landscape shots and the BEAUTIFUL landscape contained therein.
Things to consider would include:
-The Shire's/the Hobbits' obvious connection to nature
-Saruman = evil = a symbol of industrialization and the destruction of nature (cf "a wizard should know better")
-The GORGEOUS landscape shots throughout, as previously mentioned
HOWEVER, you should also consider that:
-Even though the Ringwraiths are destroyed by natural elements--fire, water--they still ride horses, who seem down with that even though all the other animals are afraid of them, like that one cute dog, who backs away while wagging her tail frantically. Good dog. Good acting skillz.
-The Ringwraiths have a weird affinity with nature too--see the Nazgul and also that super weird time when the little hobbits are hiding under a log and all these bugs come out and Elijah Wood's face gets all fat, so that's weird
-The Crebain! From Dunland! They are aminals/nature, but they are EVIL AND MEAN
-Also, why do Jackson's Uruk Hai get borned out of mud? Because that suggests a connection to nature too, albeit a kind of gross one, which messes up my whole nature is good/industry is evil paradigm.
My conclusion is that like good and evil in the film, nature is polarized too, suggesting that EVERYTHING has free will and agency but also that good and evil are fairly black and white. But since it's Tolkien and since we're a Western audience, the evil things are crows and wolves, things Westerners have typically vilified, so there's that too and it's kind of unfair. Typically, though, nature is good (cf the Ents) and industry/mining is evil, which makes perfect sense to me.
OTHER THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE BEAUTY THAT IS THE LORD OF THE RINGS:
-I have SO DESPERATELY missed the sound of a theater full of people sobbing quietly while Gandalf and later Boromir die tragically.
-I myself was tempted to cry at these scenes for the first time in my life, but the best I could do was make weird sobbing noises which just made me want to throw up rather than cry. Probably I'm too dehydrated for tears.
-I feel like I FINALLY GET IT. Because when I saw these movies ten years ago and I was all little, I loved the ANGST and the VIOLENCE and the EMO PARTS OF IT, but I feel like it just clicked in my head that this movie/these books are a reflection of the world as it is. Just like The Road. They're fictional places and characters and worlds, but the things the characters go through--the confusion, doubt, fear, despair, whatever--are just reflections of our own lives.
-I tried to make a list of all the things the Ring could symbolize, but mostly (and predictably) I just settled on how having it is like having depression.
-Why does Aragorn son of Arathorn wear a black glove on his RIGHT HAND ONLY. By the end of his awesome battle, though, his left hand is so grimy that it's black, so maybe that counts.
-I spent the entire troll battle scene trying to figure out if it was wearing a loincloth like I'd always thought or if I had just seen these giant dangling troll balls. Turns out it's a loincloth--but a rather diaper-ish and therefore quite bulging loincloth, so it almost doesn't count, maybe.
-Also, the first time I saw these in theaters, the characters weren't my bros yet. Now, after we all successfully got through high school together, we really are bros. I want to reach through the screen and give my bros a hug and tell them it's going to be okay and sit there and cry and cry and cry. Or at least make weird little sobbing/vomiting noises with my poor kidnapped/ring-carrying/arrowed/Heir of Gondor-esque babies.
In conclusion, Lord of the Rings once again saves both my life and my testimony. Aww.
AND I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAITED A YEAR IN BETWEEN EACH ONE no wonder I saw the first one nine times in theaters HOW AM I GOING TO WAIT A WEEK EVEN THOUGH I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS GAH.
The end.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Africa pics + apologies for this post being so long
Once upon a time, I went to Africa. I put a bunch of boring pictures on my facebooks, but here are some pretentious artsy pictures that aren't very good because my darkness compensation setting was waaaaay too high. Or low. Whichever one means that most of them are too dark. Also, JUDGE ME I'M SO SORRY THIS POST IS SO LONG but it's just pictures and not words so try not to be too overwhelmed. MY HEARTFELT APOLOGIES NONETHELESS.
First of all, pictures from the kids' schools at Touba, the Mouride holy city:
Now pictures of the giant super old mosque at Touba.
First, Flor, a girl who worked for/was related to the Senegalese author who set this all up for us, being super hot:
Now some dude sleeping by one of the entrances, because mosques are cool because people just go there to sleep and hang out and be generally awesome:
Peeps from our group:
Beggar kids outside the mosque:
And now for ten thousand pictures of the cutest kids in the world, i.e. the kids in the Peul village that we visited while we were in Saint Louis. On our first night there, they had a huge celebration and all the kids dressed up in traditional clothes and had a huge dance party, so here are the pictures of that.
Kids looking at Mme Thompson in her new boubou, probably because white people don't usually wear boubous, which is the traditional and super awesome clothes that people wear all the time. Boubous are GORGEOUS.
OH HEY ARE YOU STILL THERE KEEP HANGING IN THERE THE END IS ALMOST NIGH
By which I mean there are still like fifteen more deal with it.
Here is a woman at the dying tiny village on top of a mountain where it was pretty and windy:
And Charles, a little boy who followed us around the whole time we were there and balanced this lumpy thing on his head perfectly, while scrambling up and down the rocky mountain:
In Saly, at poet/president/incredibly crazy person Leopold Senghor's house:
At seashell island, aka the island made entirely of seashells, even though I don't know that you can tell how seashelly it was in these pictures:
Pretty flowers by the hotel pool:
And some final pictures of Dakar:
The end! Congrats if you made it to the bottom of the page.
First of all, pictures from the kids' schools at Touba, the Mouride holy city:
Now pictures of the giant super old mosque at Touba.
First, Flor, a girl who worked for/was related to the Senegalese author who set this all up for us, being super hot:
Now some dude sleeping by one of the entrances, because mosques are cool because people just go there to sleep and hang out and be generally awesome:
Peeps from our group:
Beggar kids outside the mosque:
And now for ten thousand pictures of the cutest kids in the world, i.e. the kids in the Peul village that we visited while we were in Saint Louis. On our first night there, they had a huge celebration and all the kids dressed up in traditional clothes and had a huge dance party, so here are the pictures of that.
Kids looking at Mme Thompson in her new boubou, probably because white people don't usually wear boubous, which is the traditional and super awesome clothes that people wear all the time. Boubous are GORGEOUS.
OH HEY ARE YOU STILL THERE KEEP HANGING IN THERE THE END IS ALMOST NIGH
By which I mean there are still like fifteen more deal with it.
Here is a woman at the dying tiny village on top of a mountain where it was pretty and windy:
And Charles, a little boy who followed us around the whole time we were there and balanced this lumpy thing on his head perfectly, while scrambling up and down the rocky mountain:
In Saly, at poet/president/incredibly crazy person Leopold Senghor's house:
At seashell island, aka the island made entirely of seashells, even though I don't know that you can tell how seashelly it was in these pictures:
Pretty flowers by the hotel pool:
And some final pictures of Dakar:
The end! Congrats if you made it to the bottom of the page.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
This is cool. Check it out.
I got this link from Riley, and I think I actually agreed with it 100%. It completely tallied with my young women's experience, and I think these suggestions here are useful. I wish there were a way to move along the process of revamping the manuals used for the young men and young women: they're (we're) going to be in charge of the church soon, and I really, honestly think this should be a top, top priority.
In other news, I am watching How to Train Your Dragon, am reading Speaker for the Dead, and am about to watch Sherlock. So far I have done 5 minutes worth of homework. BEST WEEKEND EVER YEAH but tomorrow might be a little crappy.
The rest of this is a quote from the article, and something we should probably think about and live by:
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=3354
I would like to end with a list of Thirteen suggestions for helping Mormon women have more sex-positive experiences:
1. Overhaul the YW manuals, specifically emphasize chastity, virtue, and modesty as positive powerful choices, affirm the sacred nature of our bodies and our respect for God.
2. Remove the defensive fear-based vignettes, change emphasis from ‘camel-nose-rape-one-slip-n-you’re-toast to the healing power of the Atonement.
3. Ask Youth leaders/teachers specifically to avoid object lessons that demean our divine nature or compare young women to objects (wilted flowers, tainted food, chewed up gum, battered wood, cabbages or licked cake).
4. Stop talking about modestly as anything other than a sign of self respect. Make boys guardians of their own virtue, girls have no stewardship over boys thoughts or actions.
5. Ask teachers not to have activities emphasizing outward appearance (like make overs and fashion shows) because teaching girls they must always be “modestly hot” in order to attract a husband is still teaching the false illusory power of attracting male attention with our bodies.
6. Root out references to the myth of male weakness. Emphasize that men can control themselves.
7. Include nuance in discussions about sex thoughts, sex discussions, sexual desire, and porn. Our Young Women will think about sex, they will see porn, they will feel desire, they need to talk about sex with reliable adults, they need tools, not blanket prohibitions and condemnation.
8. Include lessons on physical sexual and emotional abuse, and unrighteous dominion.
9. Empower girls to listen to personal revelation.
10. Emphasize that girls who are raped and abused are not responsible for their abuse. That there is no loss of chastity or virtue.
11. Train bishops on what date/acquaintance rape looks like. On my small blog alone, I can think of dozens of women who were called to repentance after being raped.
12. Encourage parents to have ongoing explicit age-appropriate discussions with their children about sex. It is vital that we lift the veil of silence and discomfort. Many Mormon parents are naively worried that they will give their children ideas, or somehow corrupt them with facts. The fact is that children are surrounded by sex, lots of bad information, and tons of sexually explicit materials. But it is a proven fact that the more reliable factual knowledge kids have about sex, the more they talk to their parents about sex, the less likely they are to engage in it. It may be too much to ask, but I dream of a day when the church provides parents with age appropriate manuals for a comprehensive factual approach to sex-education that uses words like penis and vagina and sex.
13. I am going to introduce my final and perhaps most pressing suggestion with another comment from fMh by AJ:
Sexual abuse in my childhood had spurred in me an odd fascination with sex, leading to experimentation with masturbation and pornography. These issues were never addressed directly in YW. Everything I knew about the church’s stance on these issues came from reading the priesthood session talks in the conference ensigns. I felt such deep shame–not only was I a sinner, I was sinning in a way only boys were supposed to sin.
Talking to bishops was awkward at best, harmful at worst. I was asked such inappropriate questions as “did you orgasm?” and was even manipulated and seduced into a physical relationship with one of my bishops. More often the issues I faced when trying to confess these transgressions was embarrassment–more on the part of the bishop than myself.
These men intended to help me would turn bright red and stutter that I should just stop these behaviors. They were too embarrassed to provide real support.
Now–I think bishops are in general very good men trying hard to do God’s work. But I was very, very deeply hurt by the actions of some of the bishops I worked with as a teen.
The amount of pain and confusion caused by the bishop who developed a physically romantic relationship with me is immeasurable and ongoing. I believe he was essentially a good man who just made some very, very bad mistakes. He’s received his punishment and forgiveness and he continues to takes steps to ensure that he never hurts anyone that way again.
But after what I endured at his hands I feel it is absolutely 100% inappropriate for YW to be taught that they must discuss sexual transgressions with an untrained older man in order to obtain the Lord’s forgiveness. I won’t pass on that teaching to my daughters, and you can bet I’ll never be turning to a priesthood leader for counsel regarding my sexuality again.
AJ’s life unfortunately encapsulates all the problems that exist in the current system of women confessing to men. Even in the best case scenario, it is deeply inorganic, brutally awkward, and let’s be frank, it’s just plain old’ creepy. Young women should not be locked in a small office with a middle aged man who has not been trained in any way to counsel young people about sex, and then asked explicit questions about her sex life. Even if he is the most spiritual kindly man in the world, the situation is just wrong. And when he is not that man, when he is a weaker man, the situation is ripe for abuse, and it is abused, far too frequently.
I can see two possible solutions to this problem, the first is to require that young women have a parent or YW leader present in her interviews with the bishop. I still see this as an imperfect solution, because while it does protect her, it also intrudes further on a her privacy.
My preferred solution would be to turn the stewardship of women’s sexuality over to women. Just as in the temple there are certain settings where it is inappropriate for a man to interact with women, and in those situations women are given stewardship. So too is it inappropriate for men to be taking sexual confessions from women and to be asking sexually explicit questions of women. Relief Society presidents and Young Women’s presidents could be given this stewardship as part of their calling, to exercise those keys in a limited way, just as matrons do in the temple.
We Mormon’s have a well-deserved reputation as some of the most innocent/uptight people on the planet. Which is ironic considering our beliefs about sex and marriage. unlike many other faiths we believe that sex should be enjoyed and even celebrated between a wife and her husband. And given that Mormonism is a religion of embodied parent Gods, and we believe our bodies are a sacred gift and that sex may just be an eternal part of our celestial existence (rather than a Catholic-style sin encrusted burden to be cast off with this mortal coil), I think we need to look at this problem with profound seriousness. And make the changes necessary for Mormon women to feel empowered by their positive sex choices and celebrate their bodies as divine sexual beings.
In other news, I am watching How to Train Your Dragon, am reading Speaker for the Dead, and am about to watch Sherlock. So far I have done 5 minutes worth of homework. BEST WEEKEND EVER YEAH but tomorrow might be a little crappy.
The rest of this is a quote from the article, and something we should probably think about and live by:
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=3354
I would like to end with a list of Thirteen suggestions for helping Mormon women have more sex-positive experiences:
1. Overhaul the YW manuals, specifically emphasize chastity, virtue, and modesty as positive powerful choices, affirm the sacred nature of our bodies and our respect for God.
2. Remove the defensive fear-based vignettes, change emphasis from ‘camel-nose-rape-one-slip-n-you’re-toast to the healing power of the Atonement.
3. Ask Youth leaders/teachers specifically to avoid object lessons that demean our divine nature or compare young women to objects (wilted flowers, tainted food, chewed up gum, battered wood, cabbages or licked cake).
4. Stop talking about modestly as anything other than a sign of self respect. Make boys guardians of their own virtue, girls have no stewardship over boys thoughts or actions.
5. Ask teachers not to have activities emphasizing outward appearance (like make overs and fashion shows) because teaching girls they must always be “modestly hot” in order to attract a husband is still teaching the false illusory power of attracting male attention with our bodies.
6. Root out references to the myth of male weakness. Emphasize that men can control themselves.
7. Include nuance in discussions about sex thoughts, sex discussions, sexual desire, and porn. Our Young Women will think about sex, they will see porn, they will feel desire, they need to talk about sex with reliable adults, they need tools, not blanket prohibitions and condemnation.
8. Include lessons on physical sexual and emotional abuse, and unrighteous dominion.
9. Empower girls to listen to personal revelation.
10. Emphasize that girls who are raped and abused are not responsible for their abuse. That there is no loss of chastity or virtue.
11. Train bishops on what date/acquaintance rape looks like. On my small blog alone, I can think of dozens of women who were called to repentance after being raped.
12. Encourage parents to have ongoing explicit age-appropriate discussions with their children about sex. It is vital that we lift the veil of silence and discomfort. Many Mormon parents are naively worried that they will give their children ideas, or somehow corrupt them with facts. The fact is that children are surrounded by sex, lots of bad information, and tons of sexually explicit materials. But it is a proven fact that the more reliable factual knowledge kids have about sex, the more they talk to their parents about sex, the less likely they are to engage in it. It may be too much to ask, but I dream of a day when the church provides parents with age appropriate manuals for a comprehensive factual approach to sex-education that uses words like penis and vagina and sex.
13. I am going to introduce my final and perhaps most pressing suggestion with another comment from fMh by AJ:
Sexual abuse in my childhood had spurred in me an odd fascination with sex, leading to experimentation with masturbation and pornography. These issues were never addressed directly in YW. Everything I knew about the church’s stance on these issues came from reading the priesthood session talks in the conference ensigns. I felt such deep shame–not only was I a sinner, I was sinning in a way only boys were supposed to sin.
Talking to bishops was awkward at best, harmful at worst. I was asked such inappropriate questions as “did you orgasm?” and was even manipulated and seduced into a physical relationship with one of my bishops. More often the issues I faced when trying to confess these transgressions was embarrassment–more on the part of the bishop than myself.
These men intended to help me would turn bright red and stutter that I should just stop these behaviors. They were too embarrassed to provide real support.
Now–I think bishops are in general very good men trying hard to do God’s work. But I was very, very deeply hurt by the actions of some of the bishops I worked with as a teen.
The amount of pain and confusion caused by the bishop who developed a physically romantic relationship with me is immeasurable and ongoing. I believe he was essentially a good man who just made some very, very bad mistakes. He’s received his punishment and forgiveness and he continues to takes steps to ensure that he never hurts anyone that way again.
But after what I endured at his hands I feel it is absolutely 100% inappropriate for YW to be taught that they must discuss sexual transgressions with an untrained older man in order to obtain the Lord’s forgiveness. I won’t pass on that teaching to my daughters, and you can bet I’ll never be turning to a priesthood leader for counsel regarding my sexuality again.
AJ’s life unfortunately encapsulates all the problems that exist in the current system of women confessing to men. Even in the best case scenario, it is deeply inorganic, brutally awkward, and let’s be frank, it’s just plain old’ creepy. Young women should not be locked in a small office with a middle aged man who has not been trained in any way to counsel young people about sex, and then asked explicit questions about her sex life. Even if he is the most spiritual kindly man in the world, the situation is just wrong. And when he is not that man, when he is a weaker man, the situation is ripe for abuse, and it is abused, far too frequently.
I can see two possible solutions to this problem, the first is to require that young women have a parent or YW leader present in her interviews with the bishop. I still see this as an imperfect solution, because while it does protect her, it also intrudes further on a her privacy.
My preferred solution would be to turn the stewardship of women’s sexuality over to women. Just as in the temple there are certain settings where it is inappropriate for a man to interact with women, and in those situations women are given stewardship. So too is it inappropriate for men to be taking sexual confessions from women and to be asking sexually explicit questions of women. Relief Society presidents and Young Women’s presidents could be given this stewardship as part of their calling, to exercise those keys in a limited way, just as matrons do in the temple.
We Mormon’s have a well-deserved reputation as some of the most innocent/uptight people on the planet. Which is ironic considering our beliefs about sex and marriage. unlike many other faiths we believe that sex should be enjoyed and even celebrated between a wife and her husband. And given that Mormonism is a religion of embodied parent Gods, and we believe our bodies are a sacred gift and that sex may just be an eternal part of our celestial existence (rather than a Catholic-style sin encrusted burden to be cast off with this mortal coil), I think we need to look at this problem with profound seriousness. And make the changes necessary for Mormon women to feel empowered by their positive sex choices and celebrate their bodies as divine sexual beings.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Anagrams
So I was having a good time with this website trying to decide what I would do if I needed to suddenly anagram my name to, say, take over the known world while using a catchy made-up name that resembled my real name in that it used the same letters. Like Voldemort. The best options I have found are:
Miracle Ye Quirk
Acquire Rye Milk
Lace Rime Quirky
Creamy Lie Quirk
Clam Eyrie Quirk
Email Rick Query
Lea Quicker Miry
Air Quick Merely
La Quickie Merry
A Mercy Lie Quirk
Eclair Key Qi Rum
Camel Rye I Quirk
Uremia Cry Elk Qi
Lake Cry Quire Mi
Make Icy Ruler Qi
All in all there were 4207 anagrams for my name. No news on if some of them featured words like Qi, which, according to wikipedia, is a Chinese principle referring to an active principle forming part of any living thing. Chi, I guess? Just spelled different?
BEWARE THE DARK LORD EMAIL RICK QUERY. ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR.
Also I am so amused that my last name could be Rum or Quirky or Quirk and that my first name could be Camel. Hee.
Miracle Ye Quirk
Acquire Rye Milk
Lace Rime Quirky
Creamy Lie Quirk
Clam Eyrie Quirk
Email Rick Query
Lea Quicker Miry
Air Quick Merely
La Quickie Merry
A Mercy Lie Quirk
Eclair Key Qi Rum
Camel Rye I Quirk
Uremia Cry Elk Qi
Lake Cry Quire Mi
Make Icy Ruler Qi
All in all there were 4207 anagrams for my name. No news on if some of them featured words like Qi, which, according to wikipedia, is a Chinese principle referring to an active principle forming part of any living thing. Chi, I guess? Just spelled different?
BEWARE THE DARK LORD EMAIL RICK QUERY. ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR.
Also I am so amused that my last name could be Rum or Quirky or Quirk and that my first name could be Camel. Hee.
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