There are so many things I hate about Christmas, that I struggle to list them in order of hatedness. Granted, I can name three or four things I hate about Christmas at a moment's notice, any day of the year, but when I really sit down to focus my un-charitability toward the holiday? Hoo boy. Look out. Consider: I hate Late-October Christmas, in which jacks-o-lantern are chased away by (or in...
Today at UUCV we'll be commemorating National Transgender Day of Remembrance. (What's that? Take a look, but not if you need to put on your happy face any time in the next few hours.) I am pleased about one thing: I've used Namoli Brennet's music in worship enough over the last year that I feel okay about using more of it today. (I try not to fall into the trap of using Jewish music only on...
Sometimes someone crosses your path and you connect for reasons you can't explain. So... there's this guy. Gabe. I'll write more about him someday, I'm sure, but now isn't the time. (We have a class to prepare for.) For today, on his 16th birthday, here's our relationship boiled down into one 6-minute song. Happy birthday, Gabe. For what it's worth, I consider you to be the son I never...
There must be something in the air. Several times this week I've paused in the middle of teaching to interrupt a student's spiral of self-deprecation and frustration. The spiral is easy to recognize, either by the words that accompany it— "This doesn't sound right." … "That note is so high!" … "Why can't I get this?" —or, once you know what to look for, by the slow-blinking, eyes-downcast head...
I should start by saying, I totally get it. When comfortable white liberals say that Trump voters are not welcome in their homes, or issue self-righteous screeds about how their outrage isn't about politics—and perhaps especially when dudes who remind me of me in a lot of important ways demand the right to insist other people unfriend them—it's a struggle for me not to nod my head and click...
I can't. I'm sorry. Basta. I've tried, but I can't. I just can't keep the brave face on all the time. I can't have the right words at the ready all the time. Sometimes I can't keep the wrong words from spewing out of my mouth (or, more likely, my fingers) in a moment of anger. I don't always remember to check my sources, and I'm actually pretty lousy at assuming positive intent in...