speak the truth in love

Here’s a word problem for you green-minded types:

I live in Brooklin. I want to go to Kennebunk (actually Arundel, to Wildfire HPV, but I would use Kennebunk as my base since my partner is there for business) to test-drive recumbent trikes as a first step toward greening my transportation. I have a regular, non-hybrid car at my disposal. If I drive it will take me about 4 hours each way, and about 17 gallons of gas round trip.

I can catch a bus in Bangor, about an hour away in the wrong direction, but not in Ellsworth, which is more like 30 or 40 minutes away. I can also catch a bus in Belfast, an hour or more away in the right direction. Neither of these buses will stop in Kennebunk. They will only stop in Portland. Portland is 30 minutes from Kennebunk. My partner is in Kennebunk with a Prius. She can come get me and return with me to Kennbunk, adding one Prius-hour of driving to the total carbon footprint of this trip.

If I do this and take the bus, I can return with her to Brooklin in the Prius. However, we then must drive to Bangor to retrieve the other car, adding two Prius-hours of driving to the two regular hours of driving to the carbon footprint of the trip. Alternatively, if I take the bus from Belfast, the car pickup will be on the way home.

“Regular driving” is about 20 mi/gal and Prius driving is about 45 mi/gal.

What is the best way for me to get to Kennebunk?

Do I (a) Drive to Kennebunk (8 hours of driving for the round trip)
(b) Drive to Belfast and take the bus from there to Portland (3 hours of regular driving, plus on extra Prius-hour, plus the bus, which is $35 and 9 hours)
(c) Drive to Bangor and take the bus from there to Portland (2 hours of regular driving plus 3 Prius-hours, plus the bus, which is $25 and 2.5 hours)
(d) wait for her to get home with the Prius and then drive to Kennebunk as a separate trip (8 Prius-hours)

Bueller? Anyone?

I’m very, very excited. We now have a choice of velomobiles in the US. In addition to the allwelder from Velomobile USA in Texas, we now have a US dealer fro the Go-One3. Prices are still high-ish (base model at 10k, and then accessories for winter and assembly bring the cost to $17k) but I’m so glad velomobiles are making inroads into the US market. Unfortunately the “financing” available is a credit card at 24% APR. Yikes! We need to get banks educated so we can get auto-type loans for these.

PS: my favorite is still the Aerorider. Anyone importing them yet?

We UUs struggle with what it means to be religious in a context where many people conflate “religious” with “theologically conservative” or “socially conservative”. I’m working to reclaim my identity as a person of faith, as a person who is devotedly religious–but not unthinking, because that’s not how my faith works. It’s not how a lot of other faiths work, either, but sometimes we forget that. In many of our congregations “Catholic” or “Baptist” are code for “foolish” or “bad” which is not only wrong, it’s unconscionable and against our professed values. I spend a lot of time drawing on religious resources from those and similar traditions–partly to make a point, but mostly because there’s an awful lot of wisdom in there. I’m proud to be religious, and proud to stand beside religious people like these Baptists in Texas. This is our heritage, too–we are descended from common ancestors and we are not the only inheritors of the strong, articulate principled activist legacy. Practicing our principles is easier in supportive community–we could gain a lot from seeing support everywhere, and not just where we think we know to expect it.

The UUA has posted information on the denominational website regarding the shootings, including a link to a new site set up for sharing messages of support for the congregations in Knoxville and an email link to which we can email images and text from vigils we have had. Please continue to check this link http://uua.org/news/newssubmissions/117156.shtml or the main http://uua.org website for updates as they arrive. President Bill Sinkford was with them tonight at their vigil, and we stood with them at ours. About 35 of us gathered on the corner of Main and High streets in Ellsworth, on the site of the old Unitarian Church, with candles and signs of memory and solidarity. Thanks to everyone who came to participate with us tonight, and everyone who honked and waved as you drove by. We are grateful for all the support even as we mourn the losses and seek hope in the tragedy. Let us continue to keep Knoxville and its UUs in our thoughts and prayers.

Someone named Sara has posted on a blog called Orcinus responding to the TVUU shootings on Sunday. Her words are powerful and proud and well worth the time to read.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/07/of-madmen-and-martyrs.html

Slam poetry is a major influence on my style–more when I immerse myself in it. Some people find it hard to understand and some people are uncomfortable with the chaos and rhythm and unpredictability in church, so I try to moderate its impact on my sermons, but it’s there and it’s important. Many poets come out of music backgrounds, looking to do more than meter and melody make space for. Ani DiFranco and Alix Olson join legions of rap artists and the old beat poets to round out the race and gender possibilities in an old tradition. Aural learning–storytelling, education, religion–is very deeply linked to our historic experience of being human. In recent generations we have tied it firmly to music and that’s why our poets tend to blend them. Spoken word CDs are harder to find and harder to market, and most people mix the disciplines because that’s who they are and because (I suspect) marketing is easier.

Taylor Mali, however, has nudged his career from classroom teaching with a side of slam poetry to slam poetry with a side of workshops and bypassed music entirely. He is very, very good at what he does. I recommend his work highly. I also recommend his “Baker’s Dozen Secrets of Slam” which he has made available in a little, bandwidth-light slideshow here. If you’re preaching this summer or teaching or leading tours or emceeing open mics take a look.

I read a lot of blogs. They keep my mind open and active. Some of them are like Real Live Preacher, personal essays and religion and things; some of them are about knitting; some are about green living. Mostly I run across them when I’m researching something. One day I was looking up how to cook dried beans and I found Such Treasures. The blogger is a highly observant Christian who homeschools and homesteads with her three children and her husband. Now there’s a lot she says that I don’t agree with, and there’s some that I don’t even understand, but there’s a lot of sweetness and strength and wisdom there, too. Recently she posted about fencing their property. In the course of the post she wrote, “I know I can’t do the work of a man…”.

She sounds so certain.
She sounds so sure.
She sounds reassured.
I wonder what it would be like. I have an underlying sense that I need to try to do everything; that I need to try to be good at everything. One of the hardest lessons of partnership or community is learning that we don’t need to be good at everything; that others can do what they are good at for the good of all concerned.

What gifts do you bring?
…and what can you just let go?

We live in a lush world. There are so many wonderful things, so many possibilities, and in the US it’s even more so, in the spring more so still.

And in ministry, yet more. There’s so much that could be done, so many options, so many joyful directions for things to go. Of course, the dilemma is the same, too–what can be done, and what paths must go unfollowed? (or unbroken. We are, after all, UUs. Breaking trails is often much more our way.)

Eunny Jang is an editor (the editor?) at Interweave Knits, a fine knitting magazine. She is a brilliant and generous knitter. Before she got the job she blogged prolifically. Her lace and cable tutorials are known among online knitters everywhere. She has been granted a blog space at IK’s website.

It was last updated in October of 2007.

Apparently we are in good company, having to choose among the wonderful things. May we all find time to enjoy the wonderful things that matter most.

I’ve mentioned before how frustrated I am with western clothing and its lack of flexibility. To that end I’ve been exploring draped clothing, starting with saris and dhotis, the draped clothes native to India. However, Chantal Boulanger’s Institute of Draped Clothing offers links to other countries’ draped clothing styles as well. I don’t know what the cultural misappropriation rules would be here–in India they’re generally happy to share the local dress and customs behind them, but not all countries have the same attitude–but I’m quite taken with the kanga, a 66″ by 40″ (approximately) piece of fabric with a border and a swahili saying, meant to make all kinds of draped clothing. Unlike most draped styles, this one is fairly recent, having (apparently) originated in the 19th century on the East African coast. More research is definitely in order. I can’t find much on the internet, except that these cloths may have been printed in India and probably have an origin connected to Portugal. According to this website, you can do all kinds of things with them, from halter tops to turbans to dresses. I am continually amazed by how much is possible without sewing. Why did we ever take up stitched clothing? One has to wonder.

update: some internet research has turned up a few websites about kanga, but none more interesting than this one which actually touches on cultural appropriation and domination. It is interesting to note that the article seems to be interested in having Westerners adopt African fashions as long as Africa and Africans benefit–that is, not African imitations created by Europeans or Americans, but real African fashions, created and marketed by African designers and manufacturers. I can see the logic in that. I do wonder how a diaspora dovetails with that kind of cultural claim. It is also becoming apparent that the saying, either a proverb or just a statement, is a key part of what makes a kanga’s function. They are a form of nonverbal communication in a culture that seems to value discretion and nonconfrontation. I’m intrigued, although I can’t imagine doing that myself. I guess bumper stickers are a similar thing here in the States. I’m still interested in the ways they can be tied, though. Like sari drapes, the more I look the more I find.

earlier I posted about Muslim and Christian dialogues, which sound well-planned and very inspiring.

Now I read that apparently the Pope, in a surprise move, baptized an Egyptian-born Italian Muslim into Catholicism…in a big spectacle on Easter. Blogger Real Live Preacher writes about it here, which is where I found out, clearly having spent Easter under a rock.

Credit where due: the gentleman was under a death threat for criticizing Islam BEFORE the baptism, and such a prominent figure may well have a legitimate claim to the attention of the pope, and of course we all have to do what we think is right. I don’t agree with the violence of RLP’s first fantasy.

But it does seem that perhaps a little less spectacle about this might have been prudent given the world climate right now and all. I worry. Sure you CAN, and you may even have a right to, but what is the most effective way to make change?