[The Book] I'm a nerd.

So, I've been sporadically doing tiny amounts of work on The Book.

I was working on the Psalms of lament section, and I ended up re-requesting 2 books I read back in 2015 but hadn't taken notes on -- Living Through Pain: Psalms and the Search for Wholeness by Kristin M. Swenson, 2005 (for the Psalms) and The Mystery We Celebrate, the Song We Sing: A Theology of Liturgical Music by Kathleen Harmon, 2008 (for the use of music in worship).

My chapter on psalms of lament also discusses African-American spirituals (Monica Coleman has commented that when Jesus on the cross cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" from Psalm 22, he was singing a lament song of his people -- the Psalms were the songbook of his people, just like the spirituals were the songbook of African-American slaves) and I realized that I don't have much to work with about the usage of Psalms of lament as part of the songbook of a people like spirituals, so I ended up going through the library catalog tag on the Psalms, and I'm bummed that it's all white dudes (I've been on a pretty intent break from books by white dudes for about 2 years now), but I'm so excited to dive into these books:

• Finding lost words : the church's right to lament edited by G. Geoffrey Harper and Kit Barker (2017)
• The Psalms as Christian lament : a historical commentary by Bruce K. Waltke, James M. Houston, and Erica Moore (2014)
• In the house of the Lord : inhabiting the psalms of lament by Michael Jinkins (1998)
• The spirituality of the Psalms -- Carroll Stuhlmueller (2002)
• Spirituality of the Psalms by Walter Brueggemann (2001)

[unrelenting War on Advent] playlist

At the gym this morning, a trainer and her client were like, "Yay, Christmas music!" and my first response was "Unrelenting War on Advent!" and then I realized the song playing on the radio was "Let It Snow," which isn't actually a Christmas song. (In contrast, at Trader Joe's on Sunday I heard "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and cringed for multiple reasons.)

The trainer said that one year it was like the last day before Break and barely anyone was in and she had Christmas music on and someone asked her to turn it off and she did but she thought, "Grinch." I did not say, "Unrelenting War on Advent!"

She talked about some class she does where she plays holiday music and she really does try to be inclusive -- e.g., including the Chanukah song. (On reflection, I assume she means the Adam Sandler song -- which is trufax an amusing song, though, hi, I bet Jews have lots of songs they sing at Chanukah, because they're Jews and thus have lots of songs for every occasion.)

Somewhere in here the client commented that there aren't really a lot of "Advent-y" songs, and in my head I was like: THANK YOU for acknowledging that the season of Advent even exists! -- Advent songs aren't peppy upbeat radio songs (like "Let It Snow") because they're about expectant waiting, and also they're explicitly religious so they're not radio songs and ugh, we mostly don't play explicitly religious songs on the radio period for obvious reasons (though, okay, I have a Josh Groban album (no, I don't remember why -- possibly a gift from Singspiration) which has actualfax Jesus songs on it, so probably so does every other album, of which there are many since apparently everyone needs to make a Christmas/holiday album [Edit: And on that subject, on Thursday night, someone I know from high school posted to fb: "How was I completely unaware that Sufjan Stevens released another amazing 58 song, 5 album Christmas extravaganza? So ridiculously excited right now! http://www.npr.org/2012/11/19/165470944/first-listen-sufjan-stevens-silver-gold " /edit ] -- because people need 87 different renditions of the same few dozen songs for their parties? idek.), so when we talk about "Christmas music" we probably mostly mean either generic winter stuff (which varies in quality, and obviously elides the entire Southern Hemisphere) or songs about "Santa" -- which I want to burn in a fire because, ugh, lying to your children.

I am not trying to take away anyone's holiday joy* but seriously, if you want joyful music in the darkness, go for it. If you want it to explicitly reference the cold/snow/dark of the season, go for it. Please don't subject me to crappy music, and please respect my desire to observe my personal spiritual/religious practice of expectant waiting during the ~4 weeks of Advent and then celebration during the 12 Days of Christmas (see also: Lent and Eastertide); see also: my desire to not have "Christmas" cantatas or carol sings during Advent.

[Later today, someone on facebook linked to: The Daily Show with John Stewart: "The War on Christmas: Friendly Fire Edition" (it gets good about 4 minutes in -- "Christmas is so big now it's eating other holidays").]

* posts I have read recently include:

• Mary Luti's "A Good Word for the World in Advent" [via Pr. Molly]
• "Grace as: Permission to Celebrate" [via MagpieGirl]
• "A few ways in which the church cultivates irrelevance" on Episcopal Cafe [via OccupyAdvent]
• "Top 10 Reasons Christians Should Stop Whining About Secular Xmas" [via a UMC acquaintance]

When I was thinking about secular radio not playing Advent songs I remembered that on Sunday, @OccupyAdvent shared their #adventplaylist:

• Depeche Mode, "Enjoy the Silence"
• Blind Boys of Alabama, "People Get Ready"
• Bob Marley, "Stir it Up"
• Colin Hay, "Waiting for my Real Life to Begin"
• Mumford & Sons, "I Will Wait"
• Simon & Garfunkel, "Sound of Silence"
• Bear with us on this one: They Might Be Giants, "Birdhouse in Your Soul"
• Tom Waits, "Jesus Gonna Be Here"
• Over the Rhine, "Only God Can Save Us Now"
• Johnny Cash, "The Man Comes Around"

and then today they Tweeted the YouTube playlist link.

I am debating including Ani DiFranco, "The Waiting Song" (or "Second Intermission" -- yes, I ran a lyrics search for "wait").

Edit: @OccupyAdvent added:

• Beatles, "Let it be"
• Sam Cooke, "A Change Gonna Come"

And friends of mine suggested:

• Joni Mitchell, "River" (Coming on Christmas, waiting)
• Avril Lavigne, "I'm with You" (I tend think of Avril Lavigne's "I'm with You" as describing my relationship with God in general, but it strikes me as pretty darn Advent-y)

Plus, obvs., given my joy sadhana this season: Bob Franke, "Say Yes"

And after Wednesday's concert, possibly: Jenna Lindbo, "Angels on the Subway"

[Advent] "Do not be afraid."

Sunday, I decided that my joy sadhana verse for Advent would be this from the Bob Franke concert I went to on Friday:

Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you
Worlds without end depend on you
Bless'd is the one whom you bring forth
Whom no one else can bring
-"Say Yes," Bob Franke

and then Monday afternoon this came up on my GoogleReader:

The Angels of Advent are saying, "Do not be afraid" -- we bring good news of immigration reform.

And what does fear do to us?

Although I vaguely registered the post title ("Been There, Bordered That. So Why Are We Still So Afraid?") when I first glanced at it on my GoogleReader, but my eyes didn't actually register the "we bring good news of immigration reform" portion when I glanced at the screen, so my entire takeaway was the reminder that the angels of Advent tell us "Do not be afraid."

Yes, on reflection I remember that arguably one reason the angels routinely open with this declaration is that people were likely to be scared of the angels -- God often asks scary things of us, plus angels themselves are creatures of wind and fire

Seraphs were in attendance above G!d; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. -Isaiah 6:2

Things I learned on Monday: "seraphim" literally means "burning ones."

BUT.

I still think the general message of, "Do not be afraid," is powerful and relevant. Or rather, "Feel the fear and do it anyway" (and now I can't find the Felix Baumgartner article I saw linked a while ago, alas). Insert DBT evangelism here or something. Which, yes, obvious caveats about legit danger &c.

I'm actually not interested in the framing of being not afraid of what God Wills for us -- "I know God won't give me more than I can handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much." -- but rather the general idea of actively moving through our lives less caged in by fear. Breathing through the fear. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

"Beautiful Jesus"

At morning prayer this morning, we sang "Beautiful Jesus" (TNCH #44). I told Ian T. that I wasn't a big fan -- that it's a "Jesus is my boyfriend" sort of a hymn. Afterward, Ian said he'd never heard the term "Jesus is my boyfriend" but that it certainly fit, that this song sounds a lot like something you would say to your lover. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it's true.

I said that (and that this is because/indicative that I'm a Unitarian at heart) the word that primarily comes to mind for me for this hymn is "idolatrous." I said that the phrase "Jesus is my boyfriend" usually gets used to refer to contemporary praise music, but that I thought of it in this hymn because there's stuff about the beauty of Creation, and I'm into that, but then it's, "But Jesus is better -- he's prettier and he smells better." Ian laughed and said, "You're paraphrasing, but not by much."

I said I am pro-Jesus, but because of the work Jesus did in the world... Ian concurred.

Ian said the hymn is often titled "Fairest Lord Jesus" [warning for auto-play in that link] and that makes him think White and he was glad that at least we weren't singing something with the undertones of, "Jesus is the best because he's pretty -- and he's pretty mostly because he's White."

In thinking about the "Jesus is my boyfriend" trope, I thought of my best friend's love for Jesus and Her Church -- something I very much don't have.

When my best friend says, "Jesus is my Girlfriend," there's a lot going on with Incarnation and queer theology and body theology there.

So/and I'm hesitant to totally dismiss "I personally adore the person [pun intended] of Jesus."

Though I'm still uncomfortable with the adoration/worship of Jesus.

I'm not all that interested in worship/adoration of God of the, "Here, I will tell You how awesome You are," variety, period, because I don't think God needs ego-boosts (though I do think reminding ourselves of the goodness of God can be a valuable spiritual practice).

And -- perhaps ironically for someone who professes to be really uninterested in most social justice work -- I think God is happier when we are working to do God's Will in the world, to help embody the truth that "The kin-dom of God is at hand," than when we are just singing God's praises. (When you are in love with someone, you want to love what they love, right? You want to be passionate about the things they're passionate about. You want to work with them. You don't want to spend ALL of your time gushing at/about them. At least not once you're past the NRE stage.)

[vulnerability] on forgiveness and grace

I've been feeling really worn out in recent weeks and unsure what to do about (e.g, another staycation? -- I just took a weeklong one a month ago). I'm starting to feel more enlivened.

On Monday, I listened to the audio recording of Liz Walker's sermon at the 2011 Boston Pride Interfaith service.

She quoted Fromm: "love is the solution to the problem of human existence."
She said that love is something you work at and that we have to learn to let go -- she talked about forgiveness and mercy.
She cited Nouwen on voluntary displacement -- "if love does not carry us beyond ourselves, it is not love [...] love is total abandonment to the divine," "the opposite of love is not hate, [... it is] fear."

Someone linked me to "If Grace is Received, It Must be Given". I don't love all of this essay, but I do really appreciate its challenge to us to love others as Deity loves us:

1. You won’t be shocked, disappointed, disillusioned, or angry when others mess up. You will accept them for who they are: sinners, like you, desperately in need of God’s grace and your love.

2. As a result, you will have no other choice but to love them unconditionally. You won’t love them for who they are, what they do for you, or what you hope they might become. You won’t reject them if they don’t measure up.

3. You will love them with specific grace. It is easy to love all Christians in a general way. It is quite another thing to love specific people for what they specifically are, in spite of their particular weaknesses, eccentricities, and shortcomings.

4. Your love will demonstrate irresistible grace. Such unconditional love will draw them irresistibly to the Christ who has filled you with such irresistible love. It will have an irresistible force drawing others who witness this love to the same Christ.

5. And this grace turned horizontal will persevere to the end. It will never forsake or abandon its commitments or covenants. It won’t run from those who frustrate, reject those who irritate, or wall off those who disappoint.

I listened to a bunch of Ani DiFranco -- but not the angry stuff; I started with her cover of "Amazing Grace" and then "sorry i am" and "not angry anymore" came up.

night falls like people into love
we generate our own light to compensate
for the lack of light from above.
every time we fight a cold wind blows our way,
we can learn like the trees, how to bend,
...how to sway and say

i, i think i understand
what all this fighting is for,
and baby i just want you to understand
i'm not angry anymore.
no, i'm not angry anymore.

-ani difranco

I'm in the midst of arguably 3 separate fraught relationships, and yesterday I was really pleased that I could respond dispassionately to one of my friends being really upset at me -- I lived into my knowledge that responding in the moment wouldn't help, I curbed my defensive impulses, I didn't internalize his negative emotion ... I don't know (since we haven't spoken since) how successful my eventual reply was in being appropriate, effective, etc., but I stand by the choices I made re: when and how I responded, and I'm not obsessing about whether/how I could have responded better and/or where things are at now.

Much of this emotional (non)response isn't stuff I can cause myself, so I'm grateful to the Divine for that grace. Similarly, I'm grateful for the grace of peace and letting-go re: the other 2 relationships -- i feel like I've said what I need to say, and I'm waiting on the other person's response but I'm not feeling anxious or obsessive about it, am not doing much in the way of pre-emptive defensive crafting of responses to things they might say.

At faith sharing this Tuesday, we didn't so much talk about creativity as we DID creativity.

Hilary led, and afterward she emailed the list 3 TED talks.

I wasn't impressed by the first one, but the second one, Sarah Kay: "If I should have a daughter..." I really loved the spoken word poem that opened the talk (sidebar: TED has both subtitles and an "interactive transcript" option -- though it took me a while to realize that one can in fact c&p from the latter), and the whole thing is quite good.

The 3rd one was Brené Brown ("Maybe stories are just data with a soul.") "The power of vulnerability", and I like that one a lot.

Excerpt:

And shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection. Is there something about me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection. The things I can tell you about it: it's universal; we all have it. The only people who don't experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection. No one wants to talk about it, and the less you talk about it the more you have it. What underpinned this shame, this "I'm not good enough," -- which we all know that feeling: "I'm not blank enough. I'm not thin enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, promoted enough." The thing that underpinned this was excruciating vulnerability, this idea of, in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen.

[...] if I roughly took the people I interviewed and divided them into people who really have a sense of worthiness -- that's what this comes down to, a sense of worthiness -- they have a strong sense of love and belonging -- and folks who struggle for it, and folks who are always wondering if their good enough. There was only one variable that separated the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging and the people who really struggle for it. And that was, the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe that they're worthy of love and belonging. That's it. They believe they're worthy. And to me, the hard part of the one thing that keeps us out of connection is our fear that we're not worthy of connection, was something that, personally and professionally, I felt like I needed to understand better. So what I did is I took all of the interviews where I saw worthiness, where I saw people living that way, and just looked at those.

[...] And so here's what I found. What they had in common was a sense of courage. And I want to separate courage and bravery for you for a minute. Courage, the original definition of courage when it first came into the English language -- it's from the Latin word cor, meaning heart -- and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. And so these folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can't practice compassion with other people if we can't treat ourselves kindly. And the last was that they had connection, and -- this was the hard part -- as a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection.

The other thing that they had in common was this. They fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerability made them beautiful. They didn't talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor did they talk about it being excruciating -- as I had heard it earlier in the shame interviewing. They just talked about it being necessary. They talked about the willingness to say "I love you" first, the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees, the willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram. They're willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. They thought this was fundamental.

There's also a piece near the end that made me think of an Atlantic article that's been going around -- "How to Land Your Kid in Therapy: Why the obsession with our kids’ happiness may be dooming them to unhappy adulthoods."

Brown says:

And we perfect, most dangerously, our children. Let me tell you what we think about children. They're hardwired for struggle when they get here. And when you hold those perfect little babies in your hand, our job is not so say, "Look at her, she's perfect. My job is just to keep her perfect -- make sure she makes the tennis team by fifth grade and Yale by seventh grade." That's not our job. Our job is to look and say, "You know what? You're imperfect, and you're wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging." That's our job. Show me a generation of kids raised like that, and we'll end the problems I think that we see today. We pretend that what we do doesn't have an effect on people. We do that in our personal lives. We do that corporate -- whether it's a bailout, an oil spill, a recall -- we pretend like what we're doing doesn't have a huge impact on other people. I would say to companies, this is not our first rodeo people. We just need you to be authentic and real and say, "We're sorry. We'll fix it."
(emphasis mine)

"comfort and joy..."

me: [catches up on some blog reading]
me: [enjoys Loreena McKennitt's "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" {found here} {lyrics here} ]

Later...
Housemate: "I'm amused that this is the first time I've heard you playing Christmas music."
me: "You can't play Christmas carols before Christmas."
Housemate: "But Christmas was 2 days ago."
me: "The season of Christmas lasts for 12 days."
Housemate: "So you're going to play this on repeat for 12 days?"
me: "... No."

"all the past blot­ted out in the pre­sence of the Liv­ing Pre­sent and the Eter­nal Fu­ture."

I am not surprised that "In The Garden" is one of people's favorite hymns -- it gets requested at Singspiration all the time -- but I still kind of go, "bzuh?" because in my head it is a funeral song (my immediate thought is of my mom telling me that it makes her cry because it makes her think of the fact that it'll be played at her mom's funeral).  Ari loves it because it is a Mary Magdalene/Jesus hymn.  While I have heard the "Mary Magdalene at the tomb" inspiration story in preface to singing the hymn before, I didn't actually really read the words thoughtfully in light of that until tonight.  It definitely makes the "Jesus sends me away" ending to the hymn make a sense that it doesn't if it's a story about going to Heaven.  I guess most people's sense of the song is that it's a happy dream that you've had about Jesus?  I don't really know.  Mostly I just get cranky about the "And the joy we share [...] none other has ever known" -- 'cause yes, each individual's experience is unique and non-replicable, but aren't we singing/loving the hymn because the narrator's experience resonates with our own?

Edit: It also occurs to me that this being a facebook survey means the respondents are likelier to skew younger than if it were, for example, a print survey distributed through the institutional church.

I don't actually have a point here.

So, there's "Women's Work" -- which points out a troubling theme(s?) about how women are portrayed on Supernatural.

And then there's "On the Prowl" -- whose subject is eroticized violence enacted on men. I am so not the target audience for this vid 'cause I'm like, "Ew! These scenes I have seen already? Squicked me the first time. These scenes I have not seen before? Squicking me now." And it keeps escalating (I started having to look away from the screen). People in the comments talk about how it problematizes the hurt/comfort trope and I'm like, "Oh, yeah, that trope which has always held -- and continues to hold -- zero interest for me." [This is an interesting meta post on the two vids, though.]

This morning at the gym, I watched the CNN segment on "Love The Way You Lie" -- the Eminem & Rihanna & Megan Fox & Dominic Monaghan music video -- and then YouTubed it at the office. It's beautiful, both aurally (okay, Rihanna's voice, I mean -- I would gladly skip all the Eminem bits) and visually ... it's really compelling ... but yeah, the message it sends about domestic violence is really troubling.

Yes, I have become this person.

FCS-Ian added a whole bunch of hymns to the rotation for Lenten morning prayer service, which I was stoked about. Peter (husband of Rev.Molly, so has been at First Church UCC for over 7 years and probably in the UCC for longer, but grew up Episcopalian) mentioned that he didn't know some of the ones that had been added. I was surprised because I'd thumbed through and had been stoked that I knew all of them (in contrast to hymn selections there often). So FCS-Ian and I sang through the ones that Peter (and/or Althea) didn't know. "Oh Sacred Head Now Wounded" I realized I was sight-reading, but I "knew" it sufficient that when I saw it in the folder I was like, "Seriously?!"

So we got to talking about Good Friday hymns/theology. (Yes, I was ~10 minutes late to work because I was in the church kitchen consuming !Communion bread and grape juice and arguing discussing theology.)

As we wrapped up the conversation so that we could all get to work, Peter said to me: "You have a very full Protestant theology, is what it boils down to." (Whereas I had been thinking that I was so echoing CWM/Borg&co. when I was talking about an emphasis on Easter rather than an emphasis on Good Friday, and Jesus' death being as a result of undermining the domination system rather than a requirement for us to be reconciled to God, etc. -- but on later reflection, I think part of what he was reacting to was what I said I hear when I hear hymns like "The Old Rugged Cross.")

During lunchtime phonecall today, I told Ari briefly about my morning, and of course I mentioned "The Old Rugged Cross," because even though I block it out such that I couldn't actually sing it for you from memory if I tried, it's totally my go-to example for classic blood atonement theology hymn (which is maybe unfair of me). She has a lot of positive associations with the hymn, but she has problems with the parts like "exchange it some day for a crown," and so we got talking about kingdom language/theology.

I've recently started reading Borg and Crossan's The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem (for CHPC adult ed), and so I talked some about what I learned from the first chapter of that book about Jerusalem and the Temple in Jesus' time and the peasants who were Jesus' audience.

I knew from other books that Borg purposely uses "kingdom," knowing that many of his progressive compatriots dislike it. In one paragraph in The Last Week, the authors pointedly state that Jesus used the term "kingdom of God" on purpose -- that "Jesus could have spoken of the family of God, the community of God, or the people of God, but, according to Mark, [Jesus] spoke of the kingdom of God" (p. 25, emphasis in original) specifically because it was a political as well as a religious metaphor: "To [Jesus'] hearers, it would have suggested a kingdom very different from the kingdoms they knew, very different from the domination systems that ruled their lives" (p. 25).

I said that I understand this but that I don't think it necessarily makes a strong case for us continuing to use kingdom language, because we don't hear that tension when we hear "kingdom." I said that we (middle-class white folks) hear "kingdom" and think happy shiny King Arthur.

Ari recommended that I read Horsley's Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder.

After she got back to her desk, she emailed me: "We should do a book study together. You know, since we have so many silent hours together that we need to fill." ♥

not okay, Amanda Palmer, not okay

I've never had any real involvement with Amanda Palmer, but I have friends who were fans. I first heard about the Evelyn Evelyn project I have no idea where, but I heard about it in a way that made me think it was Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley pretending to be conjoined twins. How this was "edgy" or "artsy" or whatever was totally lost on me, but I didn't really engage with it. Then the Evelyn Evelyn thing blew up on the Internet a couple of weeks ago. I read AFP's big blogpost telling the Evelyn Evelyn backstory [before it got edited], and reading it I took it totally at face value -- apparently missed whatever cues were supposed to tell me it was performance art. (I've read that the promo vid and such are pretty transparent, and I don't doubt that.) I read a whole bunch of critiques of the project [e.g., this and this, if you're unfamiliar and want a place to start] and of Amanda's (and Jason's) responses to the critiques. I agree with the people who think the Evelyn Evelyn project is problematic and that Amanda and Jason should have been more thoughtful. I'm skeptical of Amanda and Jason's "oh, if you'd learned EE's tragic backstory through the beautiful art that is the album, instead of this blogpost, you wouldn't be so offended," and am not really interested in withholding judgment until the album comes out. I've not been entirely unsympathetic to Amanda and Jason, though.

Then Mary Borsellino linked to this. I am officially repulsed by Amanda Palmer.

Addendum from Mary Borsellino:

I have put all my Dresden Dolls and Amanda Palmer stuff up for auction.

I will be donating the high bid to a charity which supports disabled women; I'm happy to work out the specifics of which organisation and what name the donation is given under with the winner of the auction.

Please pass on the link and spread the word. Let's make something beautiful grow out of this dirt.

in which i continue to have a heart made of stone (or something)

In anticipation of my preaching next Sunday, Tiffany asked me, "please let me know which texts you want read (knowing you, I suspect all 4) and if you have any hymns or other pieces of liturgy (call to worship, prayers, etc) that you want included. The whole bulletin is open for you to write. Just let me know how much or how little you want to do."

My instinctual first choice was "I was there to hear your borning cry," except I looked up the words and really I only want the first verse. ("In a blaze of light you wandered off to find where demons dwell" is BRILLIANT -- especially for Baptism of Jesus Sunday. The Temptation in the Wilderness immediately follows the Baptism.) The rest of the song is very meh (and wow have I become That Person -- I read "If you find someone to share your time and you join your hearts as one," and thought, "That excludes polyamorous people").

Anyway, my heart is made of stone because apparently lots of people just sob through this hymn -- because it evokes for them their earthly parent/child relationship. Which is a totally sensible reading of the beginning of the hymn -- even though I think I consistently hear the speaker as the Divine Parent. And it is a moving hymn (even though I wish the poetry were better). But yeah.

I reread "She Comes Sailing on the Wind" (and actually didn't register the male pronouns for Jesus on the first read-through -- I mean, I understood the implied referent, but I didn't have a negative reaction to Jesus being gendered as male as I am more and more these days) and like it. Though I feel a little bit weird using it for Baptism of Jesus Sunday.

"Welcome, Yule."

Friday night, I went to Revels with my mom.  I had basically zero expectation, but I actually enjoyed it a lot.

It opens with an excerpt from "Black Elk Speaks" -- "Black Elk's Vision," about Black Elk's vision of the Tree of Life (I thought of Revelation, of course).  At one point he's tending the [invisible] tree and a little white boy asks him what he's doing and he tells him and asks the boy, "Do you see the tree?" and the little white boy says no, and Black Elk says something like, "Well I guess I'll have to try harder," which I found so powerful (hi, I am a child of CWM, where we are so about embodying God's Kindom here on Earth).

At one point, a little girls asks him what his people do in the winter, and he tells her that they gather together inside and tell stories.  She says something like, "We do that, too.  I like stories," and I almost cried.  Though I almost-cry like all the freaking time these days.

I was a little disturbed by the representation of Native people/culture.  In part because when they were in groups they were usually (a) in full-body costumes that hide their faces, which felt a little dehumanizing/Othering to me (though it also meant I didn't have the visual squick of White people playing Native Americans) and (b) felt like an interlude passing through, without real connection either to the other characters on the stage or to the narrative as a whole.

And after a point at which Black Elk is lamenting that the Tree is withering, he sees white kids finishing a Tree of Life quilt and asks them the story of it, and they tell a weird folk tale about pregnant!Mary and a cherry tree, and most of the rest of the Second Act is Christmas music. I mean, I know it's called "The Christmas Revels" (the "In Celebration of the Winter Solstice" subtitle notwithstanding) but I felt a little bit like the subtext was, "The Tree of Life is Jesus Christ -- Native Americans couldn't keep that Tree alive; it takes Christ[ianity] to make that happen."  I mean, I do think in some ways that the story of Jesus Christ is The Greatest Story Ever Told -- that God incarnated, enfleshed God's self, dwelt among us amidst the marginalized people, proclaimed an open and abundant table to all, endured death and triumphed over IT, resurrecting in body and spirit, promising the same (present and future) hope for us -- Christ stands between us and the powers of darkness, assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  But at the same time, it feels problematic to me to imply "our story is the culmination of your story."

There were a bunch of parts where we sang along (the last song before Intermission was "Lord of the Dance," and we sang the chorus, and as they exited into the atrium, they brought the people sitting in the front rows with them, dancing).  The guy leading us in that, as he had us practice, said: "I love harmony.  There are no wrong notes, just poor choices in the moment.  And then we move on to the next moment, with new choices."

"folding sheets like folding hands / to pray as only laundry can"

I have mixed feelings about the whole ExpediaFail 'cause I mean, the agent tells you you don't need a visa and you're skeptical and the agent assures you and you don't do a quick Google search to double-check? That said, I can't help but be impressed by the power of the Internet.

Thanks to when love comes to town, I am listening to Carrie Newcomer's "Holy as a Day is Spent" over and over (from her album The Gathering of Spirits).

Apparently it's Advent already in my head?

[First Sunday of Advent is actually November 29.]

At Harvard T last night, a busker was playing "God of Grace and God of Glory" ("cure thy children's warring madness...").

Later, I also had "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" in my head ("Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die.").

This morning, I had "O Come, All Ye Faithful" ("Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning...") and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" ("Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.") in my head.

Is it bad that most all these songs blur together when I'm singing them in my head? (Not so much "O Little Town of Bethlehem," but...)

++

Yesterday I read a Magpie Girl post on The Imposter Syndrome, and one thing that struck me from the "Treatment Plan" was:

Trust the fear. I know this seems contradictory, but here’s what I mean: The more persistent that nagging voice is that’s calling you a con-artist, the more likely it is that you are actually doing exactly what you are meant to be doing. Know that the voice will get louder before it dies down, especially if you start ignoring it, but it will, in time, begin to give up the fight and let you do your work in this world fully and without doubt, second-guessing, and insecurity. Marianne Williamson said it most famously: “We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?…Your playing small does not serve the world.”

(1) "The more persistent that nagging voice is that’s calling you a con-artist, the more likely it is that you are actually doing exactly what you are meant to be doing."

I push back against this to some extent -- in so far as I think there are voices inside us that tell us not to do things which we should listen to. Sometimes we're not as [smart, talented, whatever] as people think we are AND THAT'S OKAY. We shouldn't push ourselves just because other people want us to.

But that's my own bias speaking, because really she's talking about something else, and yes, the voices that say "You're not good enough to do this thing you want to do" is usually a gremlin voice and should not be heeded.

(2) "We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?…Your playing small does not serve the world."

Your playing small does not serve the world.

+++

Last night I was thinking of a Velveteen Rabbi post I'd read ("The View from Week 35"):

Being pregnant has been endlessly fascinating. Already it's has shifted my spiritual practices. My weekday prayer practice has morphed: I'm less likely to get out of bed and daven a full shacharit these days, but much more likely to make brachot at random moments of the day. I say a blessing every morning when I give myself an injection of blood thinner, and when I feel my son moving inside me. I wonder what bracha I'll make over breastfeeding, and whether I'll be able to sustain gratitude when I'm changing his diaper at 2am.

I talk with him constantly when I'm alone in the car -- I tell him about my day, about how I'm feeling, about the world we're bringing him into. In that sense, being pregnant feels a bit like I'm praying all the time, because the other figure I talk to when I'm alone in the car is God. Lately I find that I shift back and forth between words intended for the baby and words intended for the Holy Blessed One without making much distinction between the two.

Being pregnant has shifted my relationship with the liturgy. I've known intellectually for years that we call God ha-rachaman, The Merciful, but I hadn't considered what it means that the root of that word for merciful is the root of rechem, womb. I get distracted while davening prayers I've known by heart for years: one mention of God's mercy and I'm liable to be caught in contemplation of what it means that God is the womb in which creation is nurtured. It takes conscious effort to set aside those meditations and move on with the service sometimes.

I'm less likely to get out of bed and daven a full shacharit these days, but much more likely to make brachot at random moments of the day.

I think this particularly jumped out at me because I'm trying to develop a practice of saying grace* before each meal (which then begs the question of what constitutes a "meal" -- do I count snacks? obviously the answer is to adopt a more Jewish approach and say a blessing before I put anything in my mouth ... yes, I went to a gutter place when I wrote that -- but I will be disappointed in contemporary Judaism if no one's composed a blessing for that).

I'm somewhat hesitant about automatic rote things -- because I worry that they lose meaning that way; that we say them without thinking. But I am a really big fan of acknowledging God's presence and grace in all things -- and having prepared language for that really helps.

* "Dear God, we thank you for this food, may it bless us and nourish us. We ask your blessing on all those responsible for bringing this food to our table -- from the first farmers through to [the grocery store employees, the restaurant staff, these people who are hosting me, etc.]. We also ask your particular blessing on those who have no food and those for whom food is a difficult issue. (We ask all this for love's sake. Amen.)"

Yes, apparently my default language for this kind of prayer is plural even though I'm the only one asking (and am always doing it silently at that).

And "for love's sake" is totally taken from Laura Ruth.

ris'n with healing in his wings

I was catching up on Saint Nicholas Is In Hull on my GoogleReader the other day, and a section of one entry jumped out at me:

Then she asked me, "I am... have you ever even healed anyone?"

[...]

My response was, "Well... I can't say that I have."

I kind of blinked.

I feel like my response would be, "Well not in the sense that a doctor does... but I have sat with people in pain, I have provided a safe place for people in crisis..."

I believe I have mentioned before that I love Julia Kasdorf's poem "What I Learned from My Mother."

Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

***

Today, I was catching up on sermons at First Church.

In her July 5 sermon "Healing...on One Foot" (Mark 6:1-13), Kerrie Harthan posited that we are all healers, and I was so glad to hear that after reading that blog entry.

She also said, "our gospel message isn't about escaping, it's about being liberated -- it's about engaging."

She also shared an interesting thought from her spouse, Gloria, about being inspired by movements rather than individuals -- at least not until they are dead, so we can be sure they will not betray us. And also, "sometimes when a leader goes away, so does the teaching."

***

How To Practice
(Mark 6:30-34) Rev Laura Ruth Jarrett preaching, July 19, 2009

There's some stuff here I want to come back to again and again.

I wonder, how did Jesus came to belief. Did he believe in God, or Judaism out of the shoot because, well, he was God? Did he believe in himself? But how did he learn how to marshall his energies, when to rest and retreat? When he was healing folks, how did he learn to let out the right amout of power so that folks were healed but not raptured or slain? How did he know when to raise someone from the dead (if we believe he did) and when to let folks lie moldering. How did he know or handle the fact that folks thought he was the Messiah? How do you learn how to do that, be the Messiah?

[...]

Another practice that maybe you thought was a commandment: you shall not commit adultery. Not committing adultery is hard! It takes spiritual practice not to step out on your partner! Some of us prefer the thrill of indiscretion to the centered, patient, kind, sometimes painful, sometimes dull, working out of relationship, or the careful dissolution of relationship that no longer works. What we learn from relationships, we learn about ourselves and about our relationship with God. So, practice fidelity in relationships, a kind of fidelity you and your partner work out. It takes practice.

[...]

Don’t lie. Figuring out how to tell the truth takes a lot of practice, telling truth not as a weapon, but as a means of being in relationship – letting your yes be yes and your no be no. Hard, work! Not a thing done perfectly, or instantly. It takes a lot of practicing. Once we stop being attached to telling what we wish were true, we can become free. This is what Jesus teaches, the truth will set us free.

[...]

But also spiritual practice leads us into belief, belief that little by little, or maybe very quickly, causes us to understand truths too large to be contained by our puny, valiant, striving, resilient, market saturated spirits, truths that attempt to be explained by the metaphor of Trinity, or virgin birth, life that does not end. Here is a spiritual practice. Try not to limit the work of God. Try not to make the vast mystery of God small. Try not to get tripped up by other people’s metaphors. Have patience and let God be revealed to you, allow yourselves to be opened. This is my prayer for you.

***

Catching up on TransEpiscopal blog, I read (emphasis mine)

And obviously, if you have been following this blog, by now you know that at this Convention we made stunning progress on transgender issues. As we look back on the work of this Convention, I think it will be important to see this progress in the larger context of the forward movement via D025 and C056. But I also think our progress was part of the spirit of openness and relationality, and indeed of intentional, focused storytelling that were themes of this Convention (not to mention humor, as several bishops displayed during their session Friday). The spirit of the indaba groups that were featured at last summer’s Lambeth Conference also feels connected to this trend. People were careful not to demonize one another in their disagreements. People attended to one another’s humanity. Those of us who testified on the transgender related resolutions benefited from and, I hope and believe, contributed to that spirit.

And that is as it should be. That kind of attentiveness to one another’s humanity is at the heart of the Baptismal Covenant of the Episcopal Church, which asks, “will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” and “will you strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being?” The answer to these questions may seem easy, but sometimes they are not — which is why the response given in the Book of Common Prayer is “I will, with God’s help.” This Christian life we are about is a spiritual discipline that we all pledge to take up upon entry into this beloved community. And I know in my very gut that when we live into that discipline, when we do, with God’s help, we grow. Advent approaches indeed.

I've encountered a bunch of baptismal/membership covenants recently (attending ordinations and such), and my reaction is often, "I cannot vow that," but that one I could, that one I want to.

***

A "when loves come to town" blog entry I read recently (the first in an "Everything belongs..." series) included a YouTube embed of Bob Franke singing "For Real," and I pulled it up and listened to it this afternoon.

"let's be kind to each other -- not forever but for real"

I was struck by this as I had spent much of this afternoon sitting (metaphorically) with a beloved, praying "God have mercy."

There's a hole in the middle of the prettiest life
So the lawyers and the prophets say
Not your father nor your mother
Nor you lover's gonna ever make it go away
And there's too much darkness in an endless night
To be afraid of the way we feel
Let's be kind to each other
Not forever but for real

I forgot about the ending verse:

Some say that God is a lover
Some say it's an endless void
Some say both, some say she's angry
Some say he's just annoyed
But if God felt a hammer in the palm of his hand
Then God knows the way we feel
And love lasts forever
Forever and for real

Love lasts forever

I thought first of recent discussions about what religion means to different people and second of Catie Curtis' song "The Big Reprise."

The previous entry on "when loves comes to town" included an embed of Alison Krauss And Robert Plant performing "Down to the River to Pray."

---

Rest and Bread

Dear Beloved,

We gather this evening for at 6:15 for communion and prayer. We're reflecting on sheep tonight, how we are like sheep, and Jesus the shepherd. Come be gathered in.

We have music for meditation at 6. You may come at 6 to pray.If you'd prefer to come at 6:10 or 6:14, and even if you're late, don't worry about disturbing us. We don't mind you coming in when you're ready, because we're glad to see you.

***

[FirstChurch Mailing List] an act of vandalism in Watertown, a call for witness

Dear Beloved,

The Watertown UU Congregation's rainbow flag was torched. I don't know more details than that, other than to say, that no physical bodies were hurt.

The Watertown congregation has asked for a gathering in Watertown Sq. on Saturday, July 25th at 6 PM. After gathering, we will march to the church, about three blocks away, and reinstall the flag.

The FCS Marching Band will go to lend a hand and to bear witness. Will you come, also?

Between now and then, please will you remember and pray for those who, everyday, must decide how to react in a world that cannot behold their entire humanity. While this prayer may include each of us sometime, I particularly think of Professor Henry Louis Gates, and all who have been taken out of their homes in handcuffs.

May we share the solidarity we crave.

Although we don't know the circumstances of those who burned the rainbow flag or the circumstances of Officer Crowley who arrested Professor Gates, please, may we pray for them, also?

May we share the compassion we crave.

Yours, in solidarity and compassion,
Laura Ruth

***

Psalm 61 ("Lead me to the rock that is higher than I")
Luke 15:1-7

I loved how she talked, really lovingly, both in our pre-service prayer (I was helping her lead worship, as Keith was away) and in her Reflection, about the incident with Prof. Gates and about calling us to be our best selves. In her Reflection, she talked about how God seeks us, picks up and puts us on his shoulders -- "or embraces you in a way that would be more comfortable to you."

[UMC] New England Annual Conference 2009 [Saturday, June 20]

As I walked up the steps of the chapel, I saw Barbara at the rainbow stoles table. I'd been given one at Convo 2007, but it was a bit too fluorescent for my taste, plus I just felt weird, so I didn't wear it (yes, I'm the only person in the CWM photo not wearing one), but here there were a multitude of options on this table, and one pattern reminded me of a facebook quiz my best friend took, so I bought one for me and one for her. (If anyone wants one of their own, just let me know, since I know the folk storing the leftovers. There were beautiful ones reminiscent of stained glass windows, but since I am never going to wear one it seemed extra foolish to wear two. Though I found myself really appreciating seeing all these people wearing stoles and knowing they were Reconciling, and I was actually still wearing my stole when I was getting ready for bed around midnight that night.)

I finally found a good description of the rainbow stoles project in the the Winter 2009 Kindred Connection (pages 3-4). Excerpt:

"A Brief History of PRN's Reconciling Stoles"
By Helen Andrews, PRN Steering Committee & RMN

Prior to General Conference 2004, the Parents' Reconciling Network Steering Committee selected a short, symbolic stole of rainbow colors to be the identifier for reconciling persons at GC in Pittsburgh. Those wearing the stole would identify themselves to be committed to the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons in the life and policy of the United Methodist Church. The stole motif was chosen to signify that we are all ordained in God's kin-dom. The rainbow colors represent the wondrous diversity of God's creation.

(Also in Googling I learned that apparently the Lutherans do it, too?)

I had lunch with the Reconciling folks (apparently you couldn't buy a lunch ticket, had to have pre-registered, so I was glad I brought second breakfast and trail mix). Someone said that 12 or 13 retired Reconciling clergy (I wasn't clear if this was just in the New England Annual Conference or nationally) have presided over same-sex marriages and holy unions -- because the Church can't do much to punish retired clergy, whereas it can punish those who are not yet retired. Hi, I think this is awesome. He also said they're gonna be making a public declaration of this fact, signing their names, as a show of support.

***

I had come primarily because Tiffany had raved about Violet Fisher's preaching. And really, coming for lunch + church service was probably a good plan (though next year maybe I will go for some of the discussion/voting). The service lasted literally from ~2:00-4:50pm. I knew almost all of the hymns, and I found myself really conscious of the language of submission and Lordship and blood atonement and so forth.

Scripture Readings:
Amos 8:10-12
Psalm 119:97-105
II Timothy 2:8-16

Bishop Violet Fisher preached on "Being the Word." Her sermon was very much slanted toward the confirmands etc., which made sense [the booklet we got said on its cover, "Order of Worship for: Recognition of Local Pastors, Commissioning of Provisional Deacons & Elders, Ordination of Deacons and Elders, Reception Into Full Connection"] but which still felt a little weird to me.
I wasn't a fan of the sermon for a while [At CWM the next evening, Tiffany said to me, "Every time I tell Elizabeth a worship experience is going to be amazing, it disappoints."] but it got better maybe a third to halfway through.
* She said that there is a famine of the Word and we are called to be the Internet. (Near the end of the sermon, she repeated that with lots of specific examples and after listing Facebook and MySpace, she had a slip of the tongue and said SpaceBook :) )
* She quoted Gandhi as saying the Bible "has enough dynamite in it to blow the whole of civilization to bits; to turn society upside down; to bring peace to this war-torn world. But you read it as if it were just good literature, and nothing else."
* She exhorted us: "Don't get so wrapped up in church-work [e.g., what color a room should be painted] that you lose sight of the work of the church [saving people, healing people, loving people, blessing people]."
* Don't lose your joy -- "Dragging to the pulpit -- just as I am, without one plea," she deadpanned.
* She said, "Don't let the folk in the church wipe you out," and in part because I was sitting with CWM folk, I automatically heard that as a word of encouragement to queer folk (and anyone else the institutionalized church would be happy to not have to deal with ... though I know that in the context, what she had meant was in the sense of "worn out and worn down" rather than "eliminated").
* She exhorted us to be excited, said "our excitement is contagious ... that others will hunger and thirst for righteousness."
* She reminded us to "stay in the Word, find yourself in the Word."
* She said that people outside of the church ask, "What is the lifeline of that church? Where is the transforming hope?"

It was really unclear when we were supposed to go up to get communed (P.S. It still irritates me that the official UMC Communion liturgy says "wine" when one of the defining characteristics of Methodists is that WE DON'T CONSUME ALCOHOL.) so eventually when we saw Will really near us, we just went and got communed. Will said, "The Cup of the Holy Spirit, poured out for you." Yes, I am glad the CWM balcony contingent were able to get non-traditionally communed. [At LizL's ordination, the people communing me just said "The Body of Christ" and "The Blood of Christ," and I almost said "The Bread of Life" and "The Cup of Blessing" or something as a response instead of "Amen" because I was so thrown. I am used to there being metaphors, both because straight-up blood atonement is uncomfortable and problematic and also to make it more meaningful and relevant and resonant.]

Tallessyn and Michele went down at the not-an-altar-call and the congregation was singing "Here I Am, Lord," and I didn't go down to pray with them because I didn't really understand this unfamiliar-to-me process and didn't feel like I was in the right [soul/head/heart/something]space to pray with them, but I actually cried as I watched their family [for various definitions] gather around them, which surprised me.

RaceFail (boosting the signal)

oyceter posted: 2nd Asian Women Carnival: Intra/inter/transnationalities

***

The Willow posted about the impending The Princess & The Frog movie and etc.

***

gloss linked to something The Willow had said complaining about white people posting with RaceFail or Racism in the Subject Line but then going on to merely navel-gaze and self-congratulate.

mona commented:

Uh-huh. I've come to realize, after following and participating in many an internet or IRL argument, that the ego is hands down the most exhausting, obstructive entity in existence. How curious that it's so very preponderant among privileged POVs, but so rarely the reverse! It's almost as if some people are taught their voices are more important than others'! :O

I just wish, when playing at allyship, people's FIRST act was to sit and listen (and think! and deconstruct themselves! BASICALLY: What bell hooks said), before they tried to yell and scream and maintain their socially enforced positions as Most Important and Listened to Speaker at all costs. Trying to maintain privilege in this area truly obstructs even approaching unpacking it everywhere else, and yet somehow there's this privileged assumption that talking and posting and dripping privilege and ignorance all over the world is a great form of allyship, something that's going to help you, and the people around you, learn and grow and change! It all comes back to ego, I guess: I'll get more out of basically talking to myself, of talking over you and convincing myself that I'm saying something new and changing slowly but surely, than I will out of listening to you.

***

coffeeandink pointed out that "science fiction fandom is not a special snowflake and media fandom is not the greatest place ever for racial discourse."

***

delux_vivens wrote:

something i've seen repeatedly brought up on lj over the years are objections to the concept of 'safe space'.

and particuarly, the objections that somehow if there is a 'safe space' the people in it are somehow depriving themselves; of a commitment to intellectual rigor, of any opportunity for mental growth and development, of any sort of opportunity to learn from people that are different from them because, of course, safe space means that you squelch any and all dissenting opinions, about, well, everything.

I was under the impression people within a particular community can be a part of that community and have extreme disagreement, but also agree to disagree. Case in point: sex_and_race and interracial dating. I'm just sayin'. There's folks there who are married to white people, and those who refuse to ever even consider the possibility of ever letting a white person see them nekkid and most likely cut someone for suggesting it. Yet and still they manage to understand each other's position, no matter how much extremity people may feel about it.*

This is fascinating to me. because, really, participation in an online (or offline) community somehow means that I and others am devoting my life to the pursuit of avoidance of aaaaaaaaany exposure to anything else *but* that community? Somehow by doing that I can insulate myself from the larger world that as Hanifa Walidah** put it 'dont wish me right' and make it all just go away.

Uh huh.

This sure as hell doesn't make any sense to me, so i'm starting to wonder if this means something else.

So when brownfemipower asks this question: But isn’t that interesting how when women of color control the space, racist ignorance is not rewarded? I'm starting to think its about safe space as a challenge to power imbalance. I'm just saying.

***

I was on sparkymonster's LJ the other day, and in a WisCon writeup, she wrote, "I discovered Shapely Prose thinks rolling around in straight white cis privilege is AWESOME and was not amused."

isilya commented:

I would not have felt this fear if Kate had not set herself up as a platform, if she had simply admitted that Shapely Prose is a bunch of white girl friends with white girl voices, and that is how she likes it.

But it terrifies me that someone can be "committed to diversity" and yet choose someone who "feels like part of the family" or "someone who feels like they just fit in" or "someone they click with" instead.

A) I am going to make a hell of a lot of potential employers feel uncomfortable. I challenge the status quo, I am not what they are expecting. I am everything a white male doctor is not. It scares the fuck out of me that even white people who are educated about white privilege can still decide to rely on their "gut feeling" that they "click" with other white people and not even look any further.

B) What the fuck does diversity even mean if your primary criterion is "someone who feels like they are already part of the family". Does that mean someone who feels white?

'cause taxi drivers are always funny (eyeroll)

I have read ... not nearly enough, of the posts around RaceFail, PseudonymGate, AmazonFail, and MammothFail -- though I can do a not wholly incompetent job of summarizing them.

Someone recently commented, "I also can't work out why the song ["Everyone's A Little Bit Racist"] was so referenced in RaceFail rounds one and two, given that what is said in the song was patently *not* what was being said by those same people, but anyway."

I had a total "Bzuh?" moment. I had heard the song title batted around for years, and the first time I actually read the lyrics of the song was like, "What? I am not okay with some of this. This is not actually helpful toward understanding the pervasiveness of racism." (Though I suppose I do have to give the song credit for pointing out that being racist does not consist solely of committing hate crimes. But the song seems to basically be about racial prejudice, which it's calling "racism," which I find problematic, since I find the definition of racism as prejudice+power to be really useful. Plus, "don't be so PC" as a moral is WAY problematic.)

The only time I saw it in connection with RaceFail was a post by nojojojo about the problematics of the song.

I was just rereading the lyrics to "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist," and I must have only skimmed them the first time, 'cause I kind of wanted to vomit this time.