Hanukkah!

Beginning at sundown today (Saturday December 8th) is the first day of Hanukkah! I'm not Jewish, but I know a lot of Jewish families, and a lot of my friends growing up were Cashews (Catholic-Jews).

I was just talking to a mom about how her kids are never excited about Hanukkah. "It's hard to compete with Christmas," she explained. From a little kid's point of view, I don't understand. Eight Days of Presents! How is this not better than Christmas? Also, all the food! Donuts and puff pastry and oodles and oodles of good food.

I guess it's the reciting of the blessings that they're not all that excited about. They want the big tree with big presents, Christmas music, and classic cool/creepy stop motion movies with no religious attachment. (Not many people really talk about Christianity on Christmas, really.) But it's one day vs. eight. And all that planning and shopping and set up for one day! I'd rather celebrate Hanukkah. Also, I think the ritual of lighting the menorah would be very soothing and bring the family together.

I remember when there were huge storms and my brothers and sisters and I would sit under the candles and oil lamps and play cards, backgammon, and dominoes and our dad would yell "close the damn refrigerator!" when we took more than 15 seconds to get what we wanted. We slept in the living room in sleeping bags because it got too cold on our own. We had to go outside in our bathing suits with trash bag jackets, and use brooms and hockey sticks to clear the flooding water away from our house and into the street. Those times were always a lot of fun. So, I think the menorah tradition would be awesome, but, that's just my opinion.

Anyway, I just wanted to wish you all a Happy Hanukkah! Be safe and joyous and loving and compassionate this holiday season!

Also, bonappetit has a menu for each day of Hanukkah and the first one is up! Looks delicious! Especially the lamb entree and the doughnuts with grapefruit-vanilla jelly!

Family Love/Hate

I love my family. I write about them a lot. I have fond memories of them and enjoy spending time with them. But sometimes I just want to smack them. Some of my family is desert redneck, and that's okay. They're good people, funny, know how to have a good time with a piece of plywood, some rope, and an ATV, and can make one hell of a mudslide (the drink). But, they also say some things I just can't handle - it comes with the territory.

My mom's cousin is one of those people who says a lot of things I disagree with. She's had it rough, fighting cancer and then later her daughter was born with Cystic Fibrosis. C was pretty cool - I have a lot of her art. She was fascinated with death and dying, big on the punk scene and Tim Burton movies. But she didn't make it past 16, and that was hard on her mom - on the whole family. After C died, my mom's cousin took a trip to Israel with her other daughter.

So here's the post I saw on Facebook today: The most amazing, spiritual & emotional 10 days of my life were spent in Israel. Hanging out in Downtown old Jerusalem. Being baptized in the Jordan. Actually touching the pavement where they forced Jesus to walk with his cross. The saddest pictures are of Ron and I on the beach in tel aviv, which is now empty because of the bombing. And lastly the empty tomb. Please pray for Israel and the Jewish people, "CHRISTIANS STAND BEHIND ISRAEL"

Blah, blah, blah, (Jesus didn't walk on pavement) blah, blah - "Christians stand behind Israel."  38 likes. I'm sorry, what? I'm not Christian, but I was raised Catholic so I should have a pretty fair idea of what this means and why people are getting behind it. But aren't Christians all for brokering peace? Didn't Jesus say he who is without sin, cast the first stone? Israel is bombing the hell out of Gaza and Hamas is trying like crazy to send out rockets, but their attempts are feeble in comparison. 

So what I'm hearing is that she's all for a religious and territorial war that she has no business being a part of or cheering for. If you want to pray for something, pray for peace, pray for resolution. Pray for both sides and the lives that have been lost in the names of gods which are all ultimately the same.

If you haven't read the Gazan Youth Manifesto for Change, read it now. It's halfway down the page, marked in bold with Manifesto.

Also, if you're interested, this is a NYT article focusing on the three generations of a family living in Gaza that were killed during an Israeli airstrike, as well as the emotional climate of the area right now.

Day 19 Family

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 19 — Someone that pesters your mind—good or bad

I'm going to ignore the word "pester" because it has a negative connotation and declares the "good or bad" irrelevant.

My family has been on my mind recently. My very vast, extensive family, and whenever I talk about them people always ask "Are you Mormon?" No, friends, my family is not Mormon - they're Catholics and Mennonites. If you're not real knowledgeable on the Christian scene, you'd say they are pretty much the same thing. They're not, but they do like to have lots of kids.

My family has had strange encounters with Christianity - my uncle was studying to be priest but left and refuses to go to church or talk about the faith, and my aunt used to be a nun, but is now married with lots of grandchildren and is still involved in her local church. When I came out, I had some people react well and some react poorly. A distant aunt or second cousin or something is also gay, but she was disowned, though I still get a Christmas letter from her and her partner.

Lately I've been having dreams of my extended family in the forms of videotapes. Like, I'm watching a home movie (that I've never seen in waking life) with scenes of me as a baby surrounded by this huge family, all laughing and talking and drinking and playing The Beatles and Johnny Cash on guitar. It's this din of tons of voices all mixing together, bottles clinking and children giggling, and the sleepy look everyone gets when a few guys take center stage, and their melodious voices and strings of angels lull the children into golden slumber on the notes of Gordon Lightfoot.

I think I miss them, I know I miss them, and the joy of being immersed in so many people. You don't have to talk much when 70 people all have something to say. You can just relax and enjoy it, feel the embrace of all these people who accept you, no matter what. We're not all blood, but we're all family, and the feeling of being connected to all of them, of standing in a room full of people and seeing a glowing thread from your heart to the hearts all around you, is so rare, something to be cherished.

Sometimes I talk too much, and I miss when I'm around them and can be silent.

Day 9 Redux Nefertiti

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 9 — Someone you wish you could meet

There are a lot of someones I wish I could meet. Everyone from Michelle Obama to Tina Fey to Charles Xavier or Albus Dumbledore (yeah, I'm a nerd, leave me alone).

I wish I could meet Nefertiti. She still reigns as the most beautiful woman of all time and she lived thousands of years ago. Aphrodite's statues have worn and don't hold the same power and sway as they used to among the world population. But the bust of Nefertiti is still as regal and mysterious as ever, as famous or more as Mona Lisa's smile.

She raised herself up as a goddess among her people, she took unprecedented power, ruling as the Great Royal Wife but with status almost as a co-regent. She helped cause a religious uprising, shifting Egypt from a polytheistic religion to the worship of one deity, Aten, the sun god. She built a new city from the ground up and plastered herself across it. These images lasted thousands of years, and we know her history easily from all inscriptions she had of herself and her family carved into the walls.

About her reign there is little mystery. Before she became a royal wife and after her husband died is not as well documented, but we know much about the time between. The only things unknown are her motives. What could possibly have caused her to uproot her people and move them into a new city in the desert? Why would she have gone against the laws of Ma'at and destroyed her own religion? What was in it for her?

She intrigues me, delights me, terrifies me. I wish I could meet her if only to figure out what was going on in her mind.

-T

Interesting note: Of the 42 principles of Ma'at, my favorite is I have made none to weep.

Other translations have it written as "I will not cause the shedding of tears" but I don't think the wording is as cool. Can you imagine if we lived in a world where one of the religious promises was "I have made none to weep?"