The Weekend

We're watching the Super Bowl, though we have misgivings about the NFL.  And about the Patriots, even if they are widely loved up here.  The kids wanted to understand football and what all the other kids are excited about, so it's on and we're sorta watching.  I've explained the mechanics of the game. And we're evaluating the ads.  Liked Toyota's ad on the Paralympics. And Chris Hemsworth promoting Australia.  Not impressed with Dodge Ram using MLK's words to sell trucks, a focus on "service" or not.  The meanness of the Cure ads were funny, just barely.  And we're ready to see Solo. We liked Justin Timberlake at the half, though we didn't know most of his songs.  Bud liked his dancing, which is like the moves of the K-Pop band BTS that he likes so much.  We liked the tribute to Prince and the Trolls song.

Otherwise, it's been a busy weekend.  Mama worked from home Friday and we were able to have lunch together at a local Indian buffet.  As we were driving to the restaurant, I spotted a lump on a branch in a tree by the river.  An adult bald eagle!  Mama turned around and we were able to cross the road to see the beautiful bird, still at a safe distance from us.  I even got a few pictures.  You could see its head moving back and forth, presumably as it scanned for lunch, because several minutes later, it took off.  Gorgeous.  In fact, now we've seen eagles in pretty much the same area three days in a row--one on Friday (twice--before and after lunch!), two on one branch--one adult (with the telltale white head and dark body) and one juvie (splotchy brown but still really big) on Saturday, and then one adult today.

And of course we're rooting for the Eagles!  Friends think it's a sign that there are Eagles in New England territory!

Friday night, the kids had a birthday party dance to attend--one of the first kids to turn 13 in their group.  Mama enjoyed our second "date" of the day by eating pizza and watching Wings of the Dove, featuring lovely Venice.  Saturday had Sis helping with pony rides and Bud performing in a kung fu show for Lunar New Year.  Today we were similarly split, with Bud off for another performance.  Sis was supposed to go to speedskating, but her tummy was upset so she stayed home.

Ponies and horses are a bittersweet topic around our house these days.  We learned a week or so ago that the farm where Sis rides is going to send her beloved leased pony Murphy back to his owners in Vermont because he's too old to be ridden often and is having some leg troubles.  Sis is heartbroken.  We are heartbroken.  He was her first pony, pretty much, and can't ever be replaced in her heart.  And so she wants to see him as much as possible but knows that time is limited.  He'll probably leave in March.  Her coach has invited Sis to go to Vermont to help choose the next horse to come back to Connecticut.  And while she's sure she still wants to lease and loves horses, she's just so sad when she thinks of them right now.  It's going to be a tough month.

Okay, confession:  this is going to be long because I already wrote it as one of my papers for my CPE.

I had a wonderful experience in the religious education (RE) class I co-teach.  As I think I've explained, this year the focus is on the “Neighboring Faiths” curriculum, which requires participants to learn about various religions in our area, speak with their practitioners, and, when possible, attend a service.  Thus far, the class—with our kiddos included—has visited a rabbi from a conservative Jewish synagogue, a Roman Catholic mass, and a Presbyterian service.   This class is particularly important for Unitarian Universalists (UU) because we value the voices of prophetic men and women from many faiths.  We also recognize that we live in a global community and believe that multicultural competence, including interfaith dialogue, is an important part of being a citizen of the world. 

We have been preparing to visit a mosque and so met last week with a Muslim woman (NOTE:  Islam is the religion; Muslim is the practitioner) who travels the area teaching “Islam 101.”  She gave a wonderful presentation to our students, explaining core beliefs, the Five Pillars (belief, prayer, fasting, charity, pilgrimage), the reasons behind and techniques for the wearing of hijab, the timing and format of five prayers a day, the gestures and verses that comprise those prayers, and more.  She taught the children how to sing a song about the months of the Islamic calendar, recited many of the 99 names of Allah, and shared with us some sweet bean pie, a traditional African-American Muslim dish.  She spoke of her love of scarves and different editions of the Quran.  She even showed us her special app that alerts her to the time for prayers each day and also orients her towards Mecca for those prayers.  The kids were fascinated by the niqab she passed around so that we could look through the sheer material that would cover a woman's face and intrigued by the bowing and kneeling and rituals of her prayers.  As she had hoped, she made Muslims seem just like everyone else—not weird or scary or dangerous.  And she thanked us for inviting us because she believes it will help our world if we all understand and respect each other. 

On Sunday, we visited a local mosque and met their Imam, youth director, and young members of their community.  We were welcomed heartily into the mosque, removed our shoes as a sign of respect, and then sat in chairs in the main room.  The Imam talked to our group about the basis of Islam, focusing on the Six Pillars of Belief (as opposed to the practices of the pious that we learned about the week before):  1.) God (the Oneness of God, as opposed to the Trinity) 2.) Angels (“The Unseen,” like Gabriel 3.) Sacred Books (The Quran, but also the Torah, Psalms, and Gospels--aka Bible) 4.) Prophets (The Quran names 25, including Abraham, Noah, Moses, John the Baptist, Jesus, Mohammed is the last.  Jesus is not meant to be worshipped, only a messenger) 5.) Judgment Day (there are three lives—spiritual life before birth, terrestrial life, and then resurrected life after Judgment) 6.) Free will (God knows everything, but we choose.)  The students in our class were overwhelmed by all the teachings—especially when one of the adults tried to ask about jihad and Sunnis and Shi’ites. The Imam was very careful and clear in his disavowal of violence and hatred between faiths and races.  But he was talking to such a young group that many of them didn’t understand his words in quite the same vein as the adults.  Soon we shared doughnuts and the kids from both youth groups were smiling!   The Imam also based out thematic translations of the Quran in English to each student and adult present.  (We were all surprised to hear the telling of Jesus’s birth, when he spoke out as an infant, which appears in the Quranic book of Mary.)

We also witnessed the afternoon prayer, starting with the Athan called by the youth director.  I remembered my college summer in Tunisia when I was on an archaeological dig in Carthage and we could hear the calls to prayer resonate across the city from its many minarets five times a day.  Then, with the Imam going first, the long row of men and a shorter row of young women further behind, bowed and knelt repeatedly to pray.  In all, it lasted about 15 minutes.  Though, the Imam didn’t point it out, I could see the door to the area for ritual cleansing that many of the men who had stopped by for the afternoon prayer entered.  Apparently, there is a separate room for women—for their privacy, the Imam said—but they do not have to pray in there but can pray in the large room.  Still, the rows in front are for men, to protect the modesty of the women, who are behind.  (We had noticed separate entrances for “Brothers” and “Sisters” but they did not insist on their use today and had us all come through the Brothers’ door.  Also, one of our female teachers went to shake hands with the youth director who politely declined touching her.)  We were told later that it is important to pray close together—even touching feet—because it consolidates the spirit of the prayer.  I wondered why the men were so close together (even the carpet, with its decoration demarcating separate but small spaces, like individual prayer rugs.)  At our UU church people would never sit that close to anyone but spread out as a form of politeness and personal space.

I'm really loving this RE class, especially when we're looking at religions I don't know as well, like Islam.  It was all really interesting and great for the kids, and for me in my work as a hospice chaplain.  Soon, we'll study Buddhism, visit a Hindu temple, meet with some Quakers, and go to an AME church.

Of Super Bowls and Sanitation Workers

We have boycotted the Super Bowl this year, the culmination of boycotting all NFL games on television this year.

We discussed it as a family and voted not to support professional football.

Because of concussions.

Because of indifference to domestic abuse.

Because of cheating.

Because of greed.

And so, over lunch today after church (at the fish restaurant, Gommie!  And your char was on the menu.  You can go again in less than 2 weeks!!), we discussed the Super Bowl.  The kids had discussed in RE (religious education) how some jobs get overlooked, the workers ignored--like sanitation workers and postal workers.

And so I asked them, which job is more important to us on a daily basis:  Super Bowl quarterback or garbage man?  Which would we notice more if they quit working tomorrow?  Who helps society more?

And what do they get paid?

Making up numbers, for perspective, we averaged sanitation workers got $15/hour while the quarterback could make $50 million via contract.

Why?

Because in reality, the quarterback makes so much money for so many other people, namely the owners and the NFL and the merchandisers, who then don't care much about the players except to exploit them as money-makers.  Who does the garbage man make money for?  Nobody.  And so, who is "worth" more?

What is worth?  What is value?  What is important?

We acknowledged that nothing we could do would ever change the relationship of NFL salaries to sanitation workers, pop stars to teachers, movie stars to physical therapists.  But we wanted the kiddos to be aware of the discrepancies, to look where the money is, to see through the consumerism and the merchandising and the capitalism, to examine the dominant or majority or popular opinion.  To question it.

To not watch the Super Bowl when tens of millions of people were.

And so Bud rearranged his Lego Lord of the Rings dioramas and put together a new one of Lake Town.  And Sis and I made candles, one of the projects of my Hibernate workshop (we made two rose-scented candles and two "medieval" blend ones, with rosemary, thyme, orange, etc.)

And then, later this evening, we turned on the tv.

I had agreed to watching Katy Perry's halftime performance.  We like her music and the kids wanted to see it.  It was our nod to the occasion.  (When Bud was asking questions earlier about the game, we asked if he wanted to change his mind and watch. I didn't want to be the mom who wouldn't let them watch; I wanted it to be a group decision. "No," he said, "but it was hard not to do what everyone was doing."  So true. Don't get me wrong:  I like football.  I remember my paternal grandparents watching the Cowboys; I went to almost every football game while I was in high school.  I'm from Texas--football is our sport.   So, standing up for beliefs can be so hard, especially when they are unusual or unpopular.  Or have difficult consequences. Or just aren't as fun. But you stick to your decision anyway.  There's a great essay on that somewhere; I'll link back if I find it.)

And that's when we saw the ad about domestic abuse, using that real 9-1-1 call when the woman orders a pizza as a hint to the 9-1-1 operator that she is in danger.  I had heard about the call on FB and so could explain to the kids what was going on.  They had never heard of domestic abuse.  They couldn't fathom why someone would beat another person, or why someone might stay with a person who beat them.  It was delicate territory.  Especially when I explained why the NFL was showing the ad, as a way to make amends for their reluctance to take a stand on domestic abuse.    And even more especially when I explained that the woman down the street was beaten by her boyfriend so badly on Christmas day that the ambulance was called  . . . but that the boyfriend is back in the house (and to stay away from him and to come get us if they hear anything.  And yes we mentioned that the authorities are trying to help her and her kids, but that these situations are hard to understand and are very delicate.)  We even talked about how my maternal grandmother was abused by her first husband but was saved by her brother, divorced the man, and married again (even though she was kicked out of her Catholic church, divorce being quite unpopular in small-town Texas in the late 1930s.)  We talked about our zero-tolerance policy for hitting or violence because we don't want them to hurt others and because we don't want them to think it's okay for people to hurt them.

Fun, no?

Thank goodness Katy Perry roared on the field with that origami tiger right around then and we could cheer to all of her songs.  (And thankfully there wasn't too much in the way of exploitation of women that I had to address, nor cultural appropriation aka Miley Cyrus.  There was even Missy Elliott, always good for shifting paradigms!)   We liked it so much that we rewound it and watched it again.  And then, for good measure, we watched the video of Katy Perry singing with a young woman with autism (and spent some time talking about autism!  Whew.  It was our "inherent worth and dignity" of all people night.)

(We did have to discuss why there was "Pepsi" everywhere, how Pepsi had paid for the concert so that we would like their soda.  But really, what was a bubbly beverage have to do with music anyway?  Really?  Look for the money.)

And then we turned the Super Bowl off so that we could pet our NYcat Mojito, who had been sitting on the couch with me through the whole thing.

(And I'm so glad I didn't have to explain the end of the game, which apparently included a brawl.)

All in all, it was a good game(-less) day.

Live Blogging the Super Bowl: Winding Down

Still watching, with 3:39 to go, but losing interest.  I guess that's what comes with not really favoring either team.  I could be happy either way.

Live Blogging the Super Bowl: There is Crying in Football

Oh, hell.  How come I can't watch a championship game without crying?  The teams coming out, the roll call of the players (lots of Texas players--UT, UNT, SMU, etc.--this year), the pictures of the troops watching the game, the National Anthem, kids choirs, the flyover (not this time, though, with the closed stadium).  Sniff.

Double sniff:  for the kid-with-cancer McDonald ad that followed.

Live Blogging Super Bowl XLVI: Sorta

We are setting up our Super Bowl party as I type.  We made Dutch Oven Roast to eat on rolls like French dip sandwiches, purple Sumi slaw from the "new" church's new cookbook, and reheated a great batch of black-eyed peas.  There's even ice cream and root beer floats for later.  All to be eaten on tablecloths spread on our bed in front of our only tv.

The kids are so excited.  Even if they're relatively clueless--"Why do they even have a Super Bowl, Mom?"   They're rooting for the Giants because a good school friend, S., is a Giants fan and because we like New York more than Boston (at least in baseball).  Otherwise, they (and we) didn't really care.  In fact, a visiting minister at church asked who Connecticut roots for.  Half yelled out for the Giants, the other for the Patriots.  And some for the Jets and Packers (the visitor's home team)!  We're nothing if not divided up here (and it's the same with  baseball).

And so we're ready to watch the pregame and as much of the game as they can before bedtime at 7:30, explaining the rules and the commercials the whole time.  We'll tape Madonna to show them tomorrow.  And they've made sure we'll stay up to find out who wins.  And I'm sure we will, even if I always say I could miss the end.  I do like any kind of championship game, almost regardless of who plays.

Enjoy your party!  I'll be back soon with our updates . . . .

YAY PACKERS!

We had a picnic, literally in the bed with grilled cheeses and cookies, watching the first half altogether, celebrating all those touchdowns while I explained football and we rooted for Green Bay. Why Green Bay? Because the Steelers beat the Oilers back in the 70s? Because we like Mama Teacher and the Steelers beat the Jets, her family's team? (I won't say it was just because of Roethlisberger because there's more to the Steelers than him; but I don't like what I've heard about him.) Who knows. Anyway, the game was a lot less enjoyable once the kids went to bed, even though I liked the Black Eyed Peas' show, mostly because the Steelers almost came from behind.

But they didn't.

Congratulations, Cheeseheads!

(And I bet that made for a great party, Granny Q!)

I Can't Watch

Oh, the Saints.

I just can't watch, even though they've gotten ahead, am only refreshing the NYTimes live analysis of the game every now and again.

I want them to win, much like I wanted the Yankees to win this year and in 2001.

And so the kids and I watched some of the pregame, then spread out extra blankets on the bed and had our own special Super Bowl dinner party upstairs. I think the only thing they understood was that we were rooting for the Saints (which are the team, most importantly for them, from the Imagination Movers' hometown!)

And then Sis said, "When I do football, I don't want to be on the field getting squished. I'm going to be the coach."

Bud just decided he wants to go to watch the Super Bowl in person someday.

And I just want the Saints to win.

Plus, wouldn't it be great if the IMA's Turner painting were to travel to NOLA? Read all about that here.

Vacation Blogging Backlog: Football Finale (Day 8--Saturday)

"Saturday Night Lights."

Well, sort of, but it was a Saturday afternoon and a hometown football game, with my alma mater, in Texas.

We didn't get there for kick-off, mainly because Bud was just getting home from the ER and wanted a homecooked spaghetti-and-meatball dinner. But we were there for the 2nd quarter and, most importantly for Bud (I thought), halftime.

The funniest thing was listening to us all trying to explain football to two Yankee baseball fans. Gommie was the most avid in this. And I am my mother's daughter: at least once, we both turned to the kids and started to explain, in the exact same words, "that the man in the black and white shirt is in charge." Mama got into the act, too: as the marching bands came out, we both turned to the kids and said, "Just like in the 'Imagination Movers' show!"

Football is, of course, a huge deal in Texas (I went almost every weekend, home or away game, in high school. And Aunt Banana went to them all, as a member of the drill team), but halftime, with its marching bands, flag corps, and drill teams is also very important. Both schools present a halftime show, with the visiting team usually going first, both shows facing the home stands. And these are elaborate, 15+ minute shows with props and complex choreography, even narratives. Bud and Sis were mesmerized, especially by all the drums, xylophones, even electric guitar used in the performances.

While I had expected Bud to be fascinated by the performing bands, I was surprised at how much he liked the actual game, cheering enthusiastically for every play (luckily, most of the plays went our way and so it wasn't odd that he was cheering all the time! Our team scored several touchdowns in the quarter and a half that we saw). But it was Sis who, when asked during half-time what she would like to do (play an instrument, dance, cheer), answered that she wanted to be in the football game. You go, girl!