I ran errands today, a seemingly odious task, or would be if a) it was sometime other than winter, b) was actually winter but it felt like august, or c) I didn’t live in Fallbrook. I absolutely adore Fallbrook. I lived through the awkward years of people in Carlsbad having no idea where Fallbrook was (15 minutes away) and of going to school in Temecula and hearing the shoe joke [“So I was driving in Fallbrook last weekend, and I saw a guy with one shoe on standing on the side of the road. I pulled over and asked him if he lost a shoe, he said, ‘Nope, I found one.’”] almost every week. But Fallbrook is a damn nice place to live.
As I ran errands today bundled in a scarf and gloves because the weather is actually very very blustery, and the sky looks like its bulging with rain and going to rip open like a cheap paper towel, soaking the proverbial kitchen counter. On a side note, weather in San Diego is fantastic. You would think the world is ending. You turn on the news here, and there’s a huge red flashing banner with “Storm Watch: 2006” blazoned across it. Lots of reporters, everywhere. For rain. It’s great. Businesses are actually closing.
But really, California has 4 seasons. While they may not be as extreme as say, Vermont, they are still there. Beautiful blooming springs, hot unbearable summers, crisp autumns, blustery winters. I wore a scarf today, and not out of defiance or “oh but it looks so cute.”
So Fallbrook. I’m driving down Mission Road with my mom and brother. We are off to grocery shop at Major Market. And Fallbrook just looks beautiful. There are people with shopping bags everywhere, and those ghetto tinsel candles are on every street lamp, and there’s lights in the bank windows, and the Boy Scout Christmas tree lot is up. We drive by all these places I grew up around, Wayside Café, The Mission Theater, The Lace Apron, La Caseta, ect…so we’re driving, and I let out a cry. Where Hank’s Hardware used to be is now…Joe’s Hardware. I make my mom pull over and I run in and ask what happened to Hank. Apparently he retired. I didn’t know what to say, so I told “call me Joe” that his inflatable Santa outside looked like he had drank too much gin and passed out, and that he wasn’t really promoting family values like Hank did, and that he should probably put him back up. And with that I left.
We went to Leilani’s for lunch. Right when I walked in, Leilani made a fuss and started making my favorite teriyaki chicken and made me sit down and tell her about college, in which she tried to get me to try her new coconut crème cake. Everyone who walked in said “Merry Christmas!” in a way that came from their belly, full-hearted and rich with feeling. When people say “Merry Christmas” in Fallbrook, they mean it, just like they mean “Have a nice day!” And there is something to be said for Leilani’s teriyaki chicken. No, no. There is a lot to be said for Leilani’s teriyaki chicken. After placing an order to be catered for a party this weekend, I ran into a very large man’s belly, and after bouncing off, he said exuberantly, “Merry Christmas!”
We spent two hours in Major Market, getting everything for baking and cooking for the season. It was amazingly fun. Every aisle we ran into someone from the church, someone from the school, someone from an old soccer or basketball team. And each time we bump into someone…”Merry Christmas!” Cheese aisle…”Merry Christmas!” Meat counter…”Merry Christmas!” Produce area…”Merry Christmas!” Standing in line…”Merry Christmas!” ”Merry Christmas!” ”Merry Christmas!” We may not have a movie theater or a mall, but we’ve certainly got cheer. Avocado crates of it. Take that, LA. And…everywhere else. That’s all.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Putting the ass kicking back in Douglass
Being that I am an English major and a firm supporter of American Literature, especially minority and women's lit, i feel the need to educate. This passage is from Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life, a truely trmendous autobiography, if you ever get around to reading it. This is his take on Christianity. i found the logistics of it to be so startlingly similar to mine that I had to share.
I find, since reading over the foregoing Narrative, that I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation. What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the "slave holding religion" of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference--so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.
I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slave holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of "stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in." I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members.
The man who wields the blood clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,--sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,--leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the POOR HEATHEN! ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE GOOD OF SOULS!
The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other --devils dressed in angels' robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise. "Just God! and these are they,Who minister at thine altar, God of right!Men who their hands, with prayer and blessing, layOn Israel's ark of light. "What! preach, and kidnap men?Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor?Talk of thy glorious liberty, and thenBolt hard the captive's door? "What! servants of thy own Merciful Son, who came to seek and saveThe homeless and the outcast, fettering downThe tasked and plundered slave! "Pilate and Herod friends!Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine!Just God and holy! is that church which lendsStrength to the spoiler thine?"
The Christianity of America is a Christianity, of whose votaries it may be as truly said, as it was of the ancient scribes and Pharisees, "They bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. All their works they do for to be seen of men.--They love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues . . . and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.--But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers; therefore ye shall receive the greater dam- nation. Ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.--Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Ye blind guides! Which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but within, they are full of extortion and excess.-- Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."
Dark and terrible as is this picture, I hold it to be strictly true of the overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America. They strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Could any thing be more true of our churches? They would be shocked at the proposition of fellowshipping a SHEEP-stealer; and at the same time they hug to their communion a MAN- stealer, and brand me with being an infidel, if I find fault with them for it. They attend with Pharisaical strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. They are al- ways ready to sacrifice, but seldom to show mercy. They are they who are represented as professing to love God whom they have not seen, whilst they hate their brother whom they have seen. They love the heathen on the other side of the globe. They can pray for him, pay money to have the Bible put into his hand, and missionaries to instruct him; while they despise and totally neglect the heathen at their own doors.
Such is, very briefly, my view of the religion of this land; and to avoid any misunderstanding, growing out of the use of general terms, I mean by the religion of this land, that which is revealed in the words, deeds, and actions, of those bodies, north and south, calling themselves Christian churches, and yet in union with slave holders. It is against religion, as presented by these bodies, that I have felt it my duty to testify.
I conclude these remarks by copying the following portrait of the religion of the south, (which is, by communion and fellowship, the religion of the north,) which I soberly affirm is "true to the life," and without caricature or the slightest exaggeration. It is said to have been drawn, several years before the present anti-slavery agitation began, by a northern Methodist preacher, who, while residing at the south, had an opportunity to see slave holding morals, manners, and piety, with his own eyes. "Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?"
I find, since reading over the foregoing Narrative, that I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation. What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the "slave holding religion" of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference--so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.
I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slave holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of "stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in." I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members.
The man who wields the blood clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,--sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,--leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the POOR HEATHEN! ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE GOOD OF SOULS!
The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other --devils dressed in angels' robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise. "Just God! and these are they,Who minister at thine altar, God of right!Men who their hands, with prayer and blessing, layOn Israel's ark of light. "What! preach, and kidnap men?Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor?Talk of thy glorious liberty, and thenBolt hard the captive's door? "What! servants of thy own Merciful Son, who came to seek and saveThe homeless and the outcast, fettering downThe tasked and plundered slave! "Pilate and Herod friends!Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine!Just God and holy! is that church which lendsStrength to the spoiler thine?"
The Christianity of America is a Christianity, of whose votaries it may be as truly said, as it was of the ancient scribes and Pharisees, "They bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. All their works they do for to be seen of men.--They love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues . . . and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.--But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers; therefore ye shall receive the greater dam- nation. Ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.--Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Ye blind guides! Which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but within, they are full of extortion and excess.-- Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."
Dark and terrible as is this picture, I hold it to be strictly true of the overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America. They strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Could any thing be more true of our churches? They would be shocked at the proposition of fellowshipping a SHEEP-stealer; and at the same time they hug to their communion a MAN- stealer, and brand me with being an infidel, if I find fault with them for it. They attend with Pharisaical strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. They are al- ways ready to sacrifice, but seldom to show mercy. They are they who are represented as professing to love God whom they have not seen, whilst they hate their brother whom they have seen. They love the heathen on the other side of the globe. They can pray for him, pay money to have the Bible put into his hand, and missionaries to instruct him; while they despise and totally neglect the heathen at their own doors.
Such is, very briefly, my view of the religion of this land; and to avoid any misunderstanding, growing out of the use of general terms, I mean by the religion of this land, that which is revealed in the words, deeds, and actions, of those bodies, north and south, calling themselves Christian churches, and yet in union with slave holders. It is against religion, as presented by these bodies, that I have felt it my duty to testify.
I conclude these remarks by copying the following portrait of the religion of the south, (which is, by communion and fellowship, the religion of the north,) which I soberly affirm is "true to the life," and without caricature or the slightest exaggeration. It is said to have been drawn, several years before the present anti-slavery agitation began, by a northern Methodist preacher, who, while residing at the south, had an opportunity to see slave holding morals, manners, and piety, with his own eyes. "Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?"
Monday, December 04, 2006
My Christmas Playlist
Because there is really nothing festive about a second story library study room, except for the stylish leaf-and-triangle motif on one of the chairs.
1. "Step Into Christmas," Elton John
2. "Santa Clause is Comin' to Town," Bruce Springsteen
3. "Christmas Time is Here," Vince Guaraldi Trio
4. "A Holly, Jolly Christmas," Burl Ives
5. "Merry Christmas Darling," The Carpenters
6. "(It Must Have Been Ol') Santa Clause," Harry Connick Jr.
7. "River," Joni Mitchell
8. "Spotlight on Christmas," Rufus Wainwright
9. "All I Want For Christmas Is You," Olivia Olson
10. "Little Saint Nick," The Beach Boys
11. "Happy Christmas (The War Is Over)" John Lennon and Yoko Ono
12. "Deck the Halls," Mannheim Steamroller
13. "December Will Be Magic Again," Kate Bush
14. "Feliz Navidad," El Vez
15. "Celebrate Me Home," Kenny Loggins (shut up, it's good)
16. "I'm Beginning to See the Light," Count Baise & Joe Williams
17. "O Holy Night," Jewel
18. "Baby, It's Cold Outside," Johnny Mercer & Margaret Whiting
19. "Ave Maria," Celine Dion (again, shut it)
20. "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm," Billie Holiday
21. "The Christmas Song," Nat King Cole
1. "Step Into Christmas," Elton John
2. "Santa Clause is Comin' to Town," Bruce Springsteen
3. "Christmas Time is Here," Vince Guaraldi Trio
4. "A Holly, Jolly Christmas," Burl Ives
5. "Merry Christmas Darling," The Carpenters
6. "(It Must Have Been Ol') Santa Clause," Harry Connick Jr.
7. "River," Joni Mitchell
8. "Spotlight on Christmas," Rufus Wainwright
9. "All I Want For Christmas Is You," Olivia Olson
10. "Little Saint Nick," The Beach Boys
11. "Happy Christmas (The War Is Over)" John Lennon and Yoko Ono
12. "Deck the Halls," Mannheim Steamroller
13. "December Will Be Magic Again," Kate Bush
14. "Feliz Navidad," El Vez
15. "Celebrate Me Home," Kenny Loggins (shut up, it's good)
16. "I'm Beginning to See the Light," Count Baise & Joe Williams
17. "O Holy Night," Jewel
18. "Baby, It's Cold Outside," Johnny Mercer & Margaret Whiting
19. "Ave Maria," Celine Dion (again, shut it)
20. "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm," Billie Holiday
21. "The Christmas Song," Nat King Cole
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