Finding My Story

In the world we live in there are a thousand messages, microstories that pummel the mind day and night. Movies, sitcoms, youtube videos, blog posts, books, conversations, billboard advertisements, newscasts, magazine articles, Sunday sermons, music, education...on and on the list goes, a cacophony of  voices shaping  our thinking whether we like it or not.

I am taking a media class at Marylhurst this term. It has been a fascinating exploration of the theories surrounding media and society. Did you know that it is a mistaken notion that violence in the media is a cause of more violence in our communities? It has been shown that media violence does not cause more violence. What it does cause is the perception that we are under constant threat of violence. If the news reports primarily the violence happening in the city we live in and if the movies we watch and series we enjoy revolve around murder and mayhem, than it is not a far-fetched idea to understand that we perceive violence as an epidemic. (Obviously in some cultures and nations violence is a daily threat, but for the                                                                       average American it is not.)

Perception is reality, goes the saying. The messaging we allow to filter our experiences will rule the way we think and thus, the way we behave.

It gets even more interesting when we consider the source of the messaging. If a society or institution promotes an idea as a norm and if the general consensus of the masses is to accept it as the norm, than whether it's fair or just or even common sense, The Idea becomes normative and unchallenged.

Black Dog Shame

 As a lover of all things certain, I wanted faith to work like an epidural; to numb the pain of vulnerability. As it turned out, my faith ended up being more like a midwife - a nurturing partner who leans into the discomfort with me and whispers "push" and "breathe."  Faith didn't make my life less vulnerable or comfortable, it simply offered to travel with me through the uncertainty.  Brene Brown, Ordinary Courage

For much of my Xtian life I have chased after the magic prayer that would make my broken soul right as rain. There was inside of me an insistence that if I just believed the right things in the right way and with just the right amount of passion and fervor there would come a breakthrough from the pain of Being Me.

Taking Back God: American Women Rising Up for Religious Equality (A Book Review)

One of the things I love about finally being a university student is visiting the campus library. OMG. Non-fiction books galore. My favorite genre, books on religion, philosophy, anthropology, all kinds of fascinating subject matters with barely a fluff title in sight. I actually try not to browse when I'm there as I have enough assigned reading to keep me occupied, plus the other titles that tend to find their way home to me. I usually go to the library to study before class. So it was unusual that this book caught my eye. The title alone hooked me, or rather, the sub-title,  

American Women Rising Up for Religious Equality

Written by author Leora Tanenbaum, this book provides an examination of religious inequities that goes beyond the borders of evangelicalism in 21st century America. Tanenbaum gives us a view of what women negotiate within the men's world of power in Western Islamic circles, American Catholic women, and Jewish women. In other words, she takes a look at the lives of women within the monotheistic spiritual traditions found in the United States. In other words, the women of The Book.

Thank You Miss Rosa

 When I was in Montgomery, AL recently for my grandmother's funeral, I had a chance to visit the Rosa Parks Museum with my daughter, mother and my sister. It was a rich two-hour history lesson as we watched a video and viewed artifacts, photos and documents from that time.

Rosa Parks was not the first Black woman to act up on a bus during the years of segregation, but she was timely and she was connected. Rosa, aged 42, was a civil rights activist and was the secretary of a civil rights organization in Montgomery. When she was arrested they were the first folks she called. With her willingness to go all the way to challenging the unjust law of Blacks having to yield their seat to a standing White passenger, Rosa Parks became like a breath of breeze fanning a smoldering flame into a roaring fire.

Well-behaved women rarely make history, goes the oft-quoted axiom. Rosa Parks acted up in that she wasn't willing to peacefully acquiescent to an unjust system any longer. Realizing that her action would speak much louder than complaining around the kitchen table, Rosa firmly said No when told to yield her seat to a White passenger on the crowded bus. It was her moment of truth, her moment of living out her story, uncertain what the ending would be. It could have gone out, the flickering flame glowing on the hearth of possibility. But it was the time, it was the moment, and her's was the No that all of America heard.

In honor of Black History Month here in America, I pay honor to the mother of the Civil Rights Movement. May we each find our moment to own our story and speak our truth to the systems that would tell us to be quiet and move to the back of the bus.

Saying Good-bye to Mimi

 

When someone in the South passes away family members from far and near gather 

around dinner tables and crowded kitchens. Eating together becomes

a way of remembering, of celebrating the one who's missing.

 

There's a whole lot of remembering going on. It's in all of the remembering that

families preserve their history. Photos, stories, and laughter and tears merge together

into a collage of ancestry.

Weddings, babies and death are rites of passage for families to leave  signs 

for future generations on the roadway of remembrance.

 

 

On the day of Mimi's funeral service, a procession of cars passed through

the city of Montgomery.

In traditional Southern fashion, there was a police escort that allowed for 

the funeral motorcade to safely cross red light intersections.

  

     

Weathered buildings of an era gone past stood in

silent respect as Mimi and her family 

passed them by.

                              

One building, though, couldn't stay quiet and spoke up 

with a soft farewell.

Other buildings, like my mother's high school, reminded us that 

there is a legacy of history deep in this city where Mimi raised her family.

And so, on a gray day under a melancholy Alabama sky,

we laid our sweet Mimi to rest.

A  blanket of flowers surrounded her...

And so we said our good-byes, 

four generations of firstborn daughters 

now one daughter less...

Thanks Mimi for the strong heritage you have left behind.....we'll see you on the other side!

                                 Mrs Sue Presley, aka Mimi

                                  Feb 1, 1914 - January 27,  2011