Falling Behind

[qos]

My friends are quite prolific -- and there are a few more of you than there used to be. I didn't even have the chance to read and respond to yesterday's posts.

Last night was Women In Transition, which was a good time. I've committed to developing my class "The Lamp and the Mirror: Illuminating and Reflecting On Spiritual Life" before summer. This is *after* I finish my final papers for my two classes, but it's my turn to step up and start teaching. My assignments are to gather information on likely venues and develop my course outline into more detailed lesson plans.

I have "Christian Ethics" class tonight, and won't be home until after 9pm. We have to present a one-paragraph description of our final paper topic. I was going to look at assisted suicide (which I think should be legal) - but I may instead examine plural marriage. Our thoughts about marriage seem to form out of a whole series of assumptions about the "natural" qualities and roles of males and females, religious codes, ideas about power and body ownership. . . I was doing some online research yetserday. One site that advocates polygamy because it is biblically-based reject polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands) because it violates nature and the Bible. (To quote The King and I: "Flower must not go from bee to bee to bee!") Where do our ethics depend on our assumptions about nature?
Feel free to weigh in on the topic if you have thoughts, opinions or questions.

Finally: perhaps this will become a meme?
I love the beauty, creativity and self-expression of LJ icons. I also enjoy the masking effect. I only know what a couple of you look like. A few of you I know from everyday life. Two or three of you have icons with your photos. But the rest of you are mysteries to me -- as I am to you.
So, without looking at my Info Page, I'd like those of you who don't know what I look like: How old am I? What do I look like? What is my personal style of dress? What do you imagine when (if) you picture me?
Those of you who know me can do this too if my verbal image doesn't quite match with my actual appearance.

And meanwhile, I'll do my best to get caught up with all your entries as best I can. But please understand if I fall behind in conversations!

Dad's surgery is tomorrow morning. I'll be at the hospital all day. More on that this evening.

Comments

[amqu.livejournal.com]

Late 30s/40. A bit plump, but not too much. Dress for comfort and not for speed. Dark to medium brown hair. Dark eyes. You seem very tall on LJ, but you're probably only average height (5'4"). I also picture you carrying a sword around at all times, but I know this is probably not correct. ;)

[qos.livejournal.com]

Dress for comfort and not for speed.
So right! I come home every day and put on sweats and my fleece-lined moccasins!

Dark brown hair. Green eyes. 5'2" -- a little shorter than average, but I feel taller.

No sword, but always at least one pen -- which is, of course, mightier than a sword! ;-)

[lexicat.livejournal.com]

I'd answer, since I love first impressions games, but since I've only been reading your journal for a day, I haven't any impressions built up. 30-something is all I think.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I'm 39.

Thanks for dropping by, by the way. I don't know if queenofhalves mentioned it, but I'm in Seattle. I friended you after she mentioned you were moving here later this year.

I don't know what friends you have out here, but if there's something I can do to help smooth the move, or show you around once you're here, I'll be happy to help.

[lexicat.livejournal.com]

She totally failed to mention that! Or maybe I'm a boob and forgot. I only know elphie and one other person in Seattle, so meeting people outside my grad program will be a priority once I'm settled in some.

[queenofhalves]

i did forget! my fault!

well, i'm sure i would have remembered before august. ;>

[qos.livejournal.com]

Which grad program? Which school?

I have an MA from UW's school of international studies (comparative religion) and am currently working on an M.Div. (probably switching to MATS) at Seattle U.

[lexicat.livejournal.com]

UW - Biochemistry. This is exciting/amusing because I have BSs in Math and CS, so it's a brand new field to me. Well, technically I've been working in a biology lab for a year now, but we do completely different stuff, and biology is a big field.

Why are you moving from MDiv to MATS? That's kind of a big question, but I couldn't find any commentary on it skimming the last month of your journal.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I'm switching to the Master of Arts in Transforming Spirituality for a couple of reasons.

One of the most important is that I feel that if I become an ordained minister (my original goal in starting the program), I would feel an obligation to keep my ministry within the doctrinal bounds of the denomination which ordained me. I'm currently affiliated with the Swedenborgian church, which I find is an excellent place to be as someone who has a pluralistic spirituality with Christianity as my foundation. But even within the Swedenborgian church I disagree with some of the doctrines. I realize that there are ministers in every church who have doubts or disagreements with certain doctrines, but I feel a very deep sense of distress when I imagine those I meet identifying me with a particular set of beliefs, or when I imagine moving beyond the orthodoxy of a path to which I have sworn myself. My own spirituality is far more fluid than that.

Second, I've come to realize that I really am not tempermentally suited to being a person who functions at the center of a community and who is deeply involved in all the issues. I go nuts when I feel obligated to do group work over a long term.

I've been realizing my gifts are more in teaching than exhortation, and I function better in small temporary groups (like classes and workshops) or in one-on-one relationships. So I'm shifting my focus to spiritual direction.

Finally, on the level of sheer practicality, doing spiritual direction work means that I can be self-employed rather than have to find a congregation to hire me and perhaps having to move to in order to get a paycheck. I have some powerful motivations to stay in Seattle and no guarantee of a paid ministerial position if I remain. The next closest Swedenborgian congregations are in the Bay area or the midwest. I can continue my dayjob and build my practice gradually. Hopefully one day I'll be able to support myself as a freelance teacher, writer and spiritual director, but if not, I still have a day job with a decent paycheck.

What led to your switch? How did you get into biochemistry? What is it you've been doing?

[lexicat.livejournal.com]

What led to your switch? How did you get into biochemistry? What is it you've been doing?

I switched because I was unemployed and needed a job. I happened to know the right people, and BAM, here I am.

I stayed because biology is so interesting. I'm not really a mathematician or a computer guy, I'm a scientist. I like solving problems. I like learning things no one else knows.

I am going into biochemistry sort of by default, because they're the university that isn't UT that accepted me. Which is fine, because their program is really good and their people are neat. Biochem is more my kind of task anyway, as compared to what I would be doing here, which is managine hoards of data, and then analyzing it. But this data has so many dimensions it's hard to even make, much less keep track of and make meaningful.

Before this I mostly had experience doing web development, but also a variety of other things.

[queenofhalves]

are you going to write about polyamory? all the societies described in those feminist matriarchy novels i've been reading are polyamorous. the authors clearly think of polyamory and the ethics of goddess worship as going hand in hand.

obviously i think plural marriage is more interesting than assisted suicide. :>

let me see. i know you're just under forty and wear glasses. i've been picturing you as average height, slightly plump, either short hair or long and constantly up in a bun or barette. hair brown, eyes blue. clothes simple and comfy.

in other words, approximately me in 15 years. ;>

prayers for you, your dad, and your family.

[qos.livejournal.com]

Actually, one of the things I'm going to have to do in my paper is clarify the difference between polyamoury (multiple openly-acknowledged sexual partners) and polygamy (multiple *spouses*). I think the model is only going to be valid - for my purposes anyway - if the discussion is specifically about marriage.

But yes, it looks like that's the way I'm going to be going. I emailed an inquiry to my prof on Thursday morning, and Thursday night before class she told me briefly that it was a good topic and I had good questions, and she had some suggestions. I haven't seen them yet. Maybe they'll be in my work email on Monday.

in other words, approximately me in 15 years.

I keep chuckling about this. You're very close -- not surprisingly. And I think it's funny that both you and amqu mentioned the comfy clothing. Have I talked about that? Or does it just come across somehow in my entries?

Green eyes. Long brown hair that I've been wearing down but with a headband. I wear a ponytail when it gets hot. 5'2" How tall are you?

[queenofhalves]

i don't think you've talked about the comfy clothing, but it just seems reasonable to me. when you're working and in grad school and have a child, you don't want to be bothered with clothing that you have to worry about.

i am 5'6".

[qos.livejournal.com]

when you're working and in grad school and have a child, you don't want to be bothered with clothing that you have to worry about.

You are a wise and perceptive woman.
Of course, I've *never* wanted to worry about clothes. Or hair. Or make-up. Except on special occasions.

I am still a bit boggled by the fact that you are so much younger than I am. I feel like we should be the same age -- maybe both of us 31 or so. Your writing and thinking come across as older than you are, and I feel younger than my calendar age.

[queenofhalves]

mental age is a funny thing! i've been thinking about it a lot lately... i'd like to learn to swing more freely between being young -- because i don't think i ever properly let myself be about 21 -- and making the kind of good decisions that i'd like to think people who are in their 30s and 40s are better at making.

as my therapist pointed out, i'm too young to get all the privileges of being older (even if i get some of them by being so responsible and mature), but if i try to be 35 all the time, i miss out on the privileges of youth (which include "getting away with things," as she put it). :>

my summer is definitely going to involve a little experimental risk-taking.

oh, also, my eyes are green too! well, more or less. they're that green-grey-blue color that changes depending on what i'm wearing, but most often they're green.

[queenofhalves]

multiple openly-acknowledged sexual partners

i've heard a lot of different definitions for polyamory, though. i think in practice your definition is most correct -- what most people call "polyamory" is more about sex than love. but there are definitely people in the polyamory community who insist on a definition more like "multiple openly-acknowledged romantic relationships," and i've even read some people who were willing to include intimate friendships under the definition. (i think this only works because so many people in our society still think it's inappropriate for heterosexual married people to have close friendships with people of the opposite sex.) you might be able to talk about "polyfidelity" as a form of plural marriage. there are definitely people in the poly community who are interested in group marriage and chain marriage, too.

in the beginning, though, i think whoever coined the term "polyamory" (lit. "multiple loves") did so in order to contrast the practice with swinging... resulting some decades later in a community that uses a rhetoric of open, honest communication to talk about a practice that's not very much different from swinging.

heehee. subcultural semantic politics. ;>

[toesontheground.livejournal.com]

*Hoping the surgery goes well*

I have no real visual image of you! Whatever you look like, it would be a surprise :)