![[Valid Atom 1.0]](images/valid-atom.png "Valid Atom 1.0")
This is a valid Atom 1.0 feed.
This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.
... r.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2 ...
^
... r.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2 ...
^
... 17251610/posts/default?redirect=false'/><link rel='alternate' type='text ...
^
line 517, column 0: (3 occurrences) [help]
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsE ...
line 517, column 0: (189 occurrences) [help]
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsE ...
</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.m ...
line 559, column 73884: (4 occurrences) [help]
... how I am &quot;Pro-Choice&quot;</title><content type='html'>< ...
^
line 559, column 83477: (4 occurrences) [help]
... w I am &quot;Pro-Choice&quot;'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</na ...
^
I plan to use this blog to write about other people that interest me, and th ...
I plan to use this blog to write about other people that interest me, and th ...
I plan to use this blog to write about other people that interest me, and th ...
line 607, column 0: (12 occurrences) [help]
<li>Todi Adu – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/todi-ad ...
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:blogger='http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610</id><updated>2024-09-06T19:38:02.866-07:00</updated><category term="#HealthyLiving"/><category term="#Hope"/><category term="#Imagination"/><category term="#SafePeople"/><category term="#TheExaminedLife"/><category term="#TheUnexaminedLife"/><category term="Life Lessons"/><category term="Politics"/><category term="Black Hawk"/><category term="Christianity"/><category term="Faith"/><category term="Forgiveness"/><category term="Illinois"/><category term="Iowa"/><category term="Native American"/><category term="PTSD"/><category term="Peace"/><category term="Social Justice"/><category term="War"/><category term="history"/><title type='text'>The Real Journey</title><subtitle type='html'>A view of Life!</subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default?redirect=false'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><link rel='next' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default?start-index=26&max-results=25&redirect=false'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>230</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-3804885433570865687</id><published>2020-02-06T13:51:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2020-02-06T15:25:42.010-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#HealthyLiving"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Hope"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Imagination"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#SafePeople"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheExaminedLife"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheUnexaminedLife"/><title type='text'>The Examined Life in Practice, Step 5: Let Yourself Imagine a Better Tomorrow</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;">So what if one starts to "question everything" and to "think for yourself"?</span></div><div><br /></div><div>How do you stay mentally healthy and keep effectively pursuing joy?</div><div><br /></div><div>I am looking at these steps:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) look at the way the individuals and groups that form your intimate and social circles affect you.</div><div>2) begin the process of deliberately building healthy, safe relationships.</div><div>3) start from where you are and who you are.</div><div>4) build healthy daily habits.</div><div>5) let yourself imagine a better tomorrow.</div><div>6) walk forward with continuity and kindness toward that better tomorrow.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">Step Five: Let Yourself Imagine a Better Tomorrow</span></b></div><div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">In this step, I am not primarily addressing your ability to articulate a description of what you hope a happy future will look like for you, but rather addressing your ability to feel hope and enthusiasm about the rest of your life.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">We are not motivated by our analysis or even by our goals and plans.&nbsp; Those things give the front part of our brain something to think about, but they do not make us wake up with joy or wake up with fear or depression.&nbsp; Our motivations (and procrastinations and fears) are based on neurochemistry that we cannot control with our cognitive processes alone.&nbsp; For instance, you cannot make yourself snap out of depression by telling yourself that depression is unwarranted in your current circumstances.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">The reason that this step follows the steps about your social life and your inner perceptions of your current reality and your daily habits is because those things are the primary shapers of your ability to imagine a better tomorrow with your heart rather than with your head.&nbsp; They will not necessarily heal PTSD or your genetically-driven mood disorders; but without them, you are unlikely to make any progress on those anxieties and struggles.&nbsp; So start by reading those earlier posts, if you have not yet, or if you cannot recall their content.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">After you have a foundation of some healthy relationships and some real understanding of who you are now and some progress in healthy daily habits, there are 6 main tools I use and recommend that you use to allow you to live in a space where you have an increasing measure of peace and hope and enthusiasm about your future:</span><br /><ol><li><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">Wake up without an alarm and early enough to lie bed and consider the way you feel and what the day ahead of you holds.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">Fill your life with the music and art that bring you joy.&nbsp;</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">Plan the solitude that you want to have.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">Give yourself permission to get to know God.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">Plan the time you want with people who energize you.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">Pay attention to your emotional reactions all the time, as if you are someone else watching you to see what brings you joy and pain -- and plan small changes in response to what you see so that you experience increasing joy and peace and decreasing pain, to the extent it is within your control.</span></li></ol><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">You are probably wondering why this list is not in my last post about daily habits -- and indeed, they are habits that you can consider as you work that aspect of your life.&nbsp; &nbsp;The reason they are in this post is because my point is not about habits but rather about paying attention to your mood and giving yourself permission to grow in peace and hope and to let depression and pain fade to the past.&nbsp; That is something that it is hard to do before you have mastered the other habits around work and family and housework and personal health.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;tahoma&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;freesans&quot; , sans-serif;">So, after you have been practicing daily habits that are conscious rather than either just a repetition of what your were taught or what you rebelled against doing, you can add to them these ways to allow yourself to imagine a better tomorrow:</span></div><div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;"><br /></div><div><div><ul><li>Wake up without an alarm and early enough to lie bed and consider the way you feel and what the day ahead of you holds.&nbsp; &nbsp;This requires going to bed early enough that you can sleep until you wake up naturally and long enough ahead of an alarm that you can luxuriate in bed and consider your life for as long as you want.&nbsp; (If you doubt the power of this practice, I recommend the book <i>Why We Sleep</i> by Matthew Walker PhD.)</li></ul><ul><li>Fill your life with the music and art that bring you joy. As you spend time driving or sitting at the computer or walking or sitting on your sofa in the evening, stop giving your time to websites or programming that sucks you in but gives you no energy to walk away and do something that matters to your vision of tomorrow.&nbsp; Give yourself permission to go sleep 2 hours early or go for a walk as you listen to music or an encouraging or important book or podcast, rather than to sit and watch 3 hours of news or sitcoms that are fine but not as good as you deserve emotionally and intellectually and spiritually.</li></ul></div></div><div><div><div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;"><ul><li>Plan the solitude that you want to have.&nbsp; If you are energized by 8 hours of solitude a day and several days of solitude a month, then find ways to change your life to allow for that solitude.&nbsp; On the other hand, if you are an extrovert and you only need and want tiny tastes of solitude in your life, still pay attention to your need for that much solitude, and make sure you schedule it and get it.&nbsp; We all need to periodically detach from all the voices around us in order to hear our own voice in silence, let alone the voice of God.</li></ul><ul><li>Give yourself permission to get to know God.&nbsp; I am a Christian and so my practices and beliefs let me dance with the 3-fold God who is creator and who became human and who inhabits me now, but I believe that all of our practices and beliefs will be used by the God-Who-Is-Reality to pull each one of us out of our ideologies and religions and into communion with TRUTH itself.&nbsp; Spend time pursuing the God Who is pursuing you!&nbsp; Healthy faith gives us greater peace and hope and joy.</li></ul><ul><li>Plan the time you want with people who energize you. Find ways to schedule time where you are present to the key people in your life who bring you peace and joy and hope.&nbsp; Find ways to bring that presence to them as well, and give them back a store of energy.&nbsp; As I said in Step Two - community: make small changes in your workplace and relationships that move them toward something healthier, and give yourself permission to honor your own desires in your plans for your career and your family commitments. When you have committed yourself to hard situations (with sick parents, demanding children, or a difficult spouse, for instance), make sure you do all you can to balance that time with tastes of healthy friendships or family relationships that feed you emotionally and spiritually.</li></ul><ul><li>Pay attention to your emotional reactions all the time, as if you are someone else watching you to see what brings you joy and pain -- and plan small changes in response to what you see so that you experience increasing joy and peace and decreasing pain, to the extent it is within your control.&nbsp; Parents learn to take care of their children in this way, and friends and partners learn to care for their companions in this way.&nbsp; We each deserve that same kind of patient care from ourselves that we believe parents should extend to their children.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div>All of these practices, as well as many others that you are conscious of and that I neglect to mention here, will allow you to grow in your ability to imagine a better tomorrow.&nbsp; If you are striving to live an examined life rather than simply being herded forward with the rest of your generation, you need the sustained will and perspective that will allow you to know the difference.&nbsp; Resolve to deliberately prioritize your peace and hope and joy so that you can sustain a deliberate walk forward day by day and moment by moment.</div></div><div style="color: black; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;"><br /></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/3804885433570865687/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=3804885433570865687&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3804885433570865687'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3804885433570865687'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2020/02/the-examined-life-in-practice-step-5.html' title='The Examined Life in Practice, Step 5: Let Yourself Imagine a Better Tomorrow'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-2062861241517856473</id><published>2019-02-11T15:58:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2019-02-11T16:04:37.525-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#HealthyLiving"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Hope"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Imagination"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#SafePeople"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheExaminedLife"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheUnexaminedLife"/><title type='text'>The Examined Life in Practice, Step 4: Build Healthy Daily Habits</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;">So what if one starts to "question everything" and to "think for yourself"?</span></div><div><br /></div><div>How do you stay mentally healthy and keep effectively pursuing joy?</div><div><br /></div><div>I am looking at these steps:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) look at the way the individuals and groups that form your intimate and social circles affect you.</div><div>2) begin the process of deliberately building healthy, safe relationships.</div><div>3) start from where you are and who you are.</div><div>4) build healthy daily habits.</div><div>5) let yourself imagine a better tomorrow.</div><div>6) walk forward with continuity and kindness toward that better tomorrow.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">Step Four:&nbsp;</span></b></div><div>Our daily habits are like the fixed recurring expenses in a balanced (or unbalanced) budget.&nbsp; They are the ways that we take care of the basics of life in ways that form the foundation for the extras of life, and when our habits do not cover some aspect of living that requires regular attention, we end up with problems.<br /><br />I am addressing this part of living as my fourth step (instead of as an earlier step) because we learn and reinforce habits from and through our community, and because adjusting those habits requires a growing knowledge of who you are and where you are.&nbsp; When we see that our personal resources of time, energy, and circumstances do not lead us to good daily and weekly habits, we need to be able to figure out WHY before we figure out what to do about that.</div><div><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Values and Habits of Your Community of Origin</span></b></div><div><div><ol></ol><div>Before you can remember your daily life, you lived in an environment and routine created for you by your parents and/or caregivers.&nbsp; You internalized their rhythms of sleep and activity, their times and rituals in preparing and eating food, their ways of interacting with each other and with you, their times of personal grooming and housework, and every other observable aspect to you of their daily lives.&nbsp; You absorbed their real values as they demonstrated them to you through years of these routines.<br /><br />Not far along the way, they worked to incorporate you into this small society in which they lived.&nbsp; They tried to get you to sleep when they needed to sleep and eat at times that worked to not disrupt the rest of their habits.&nbsp; They tried to groom you and dress you in ways that fit their culture's values.&nbsp; They tried to teach you to interact in ways that fit into their own community.<br /><br />Morality, for many of us, never goes beyond what we internalized at that young age: good people adapt to the community around them, learn to do what is requested of them, and learn eventually to teach others to do the same.&nbsp; Bad people question those routines and interactions and get in the way of a smoothly-functioning life.&nbsp; &nbsp;For a small child who is just learning to walk and eat and play and form friendships, this is a good and healthy place to start.<br /><br />For those of us who are adults, morality must go beyond this construct if we are to actually build healthy daily habits, because our world is never the same as the world that we were born into, and because it is not possible to build effective daily habits for ones adult self unless one has a morality that considers whether ones daily habits are contributing to the life one wants for oneself and ones community.&nbsp; To consider this, we continue the habits we were taught until we have reason to believe that they are broken.<br /><br />The habits we were taught are broken if the life or community they produce is chaotic in some way or leaves basic needs unmet in some way.&nbsp; If there is some large gap in a needed resource because of our habits, or if there is some obvious task that needs to be done but is neglected because of habits that were never previously needed, then it is obvious that habits need adjusting.<br /><br />The habits we were taught are broken if we find ourselves unable or unwilling to continue certain habits in the same way that we were taught.&nbsp; &nbsp;This may not&nbsp; be evidence of changed circumstances or resources, but rather evidence of shifting values or different personalities.&nbsp; This requires discernment and is why healthy community and healthy self-knowledge are so important.<br /><br /><b style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></b><b style="font-size: x-large;">Creating and Tweaking&nbsp;Health Habits</b></div></div><div><br />We begin with the habits we have today, which either mimic what we were taught to do, or show our rebellion against what we were taught to do, or reflect our best attempts to develop habits to this point that would take us where we want to go and make us who we want to be.&nbsp; If they mostly work, awesome!&nbsp; If not, put down the 20 objects you are juggling and pick up just one, in this moment.&nbsp; Leave the others.<br /><br />You are allowed to let things deliberately "fall apart" for a few hours or days as long as you feed the baby or dog and do nothing criminal.&nbsp; Your goal is to quickly get up to speed in meeting the responsibilities that only you can meet.<br /><br />So consider your basic responsibilities.&nbsp; You need to to care for your own body and health.&nbsp; You need to groom yourself and dress yourself.&nbsp; You need to pay your bills.&nbsp; You need to do your share of housework and care for any vehicle you use.&nbsp; You need to maintain basic relationships and care for any persons or animals or plants that are dependent upon you.&nbsp; And you have other basic responsibilities you can add to this list.<br /><br />Then consider your daily and weekly habits, and how well they address your basic responsibilities.&nbsp; What does not work?&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; What can be changed?<br /><br />Next, ask for any help you may need in making changes that will be effective, and ask for permission to neglect any responsibility that you really cannot fulfill and that someone else could take over.&nbsp; Keep doing the daily things that work, and stop doing the daily things that get in the way of it all.&nbsp; Remember, it is a budget, and if you have more responsibility than time and energy, something is going to be neglected.&nbsp; Choose deliberately what to neglect so that you do not let life or others cause you to neglect the things you personally most value.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Daily practice:</span></b><br /><div><b><br /></b>Each day is an opportunity to spend your time and energy on the things that will create the life and world that you want to experience during your life and that you want to help leave for those who come after you.&nbsp; Your daily habits will either help you accomplish that, or will keep you enmeshed in someone else's vision at the expense of a shared vision -- or worse, will be a reflection of your inner rebellion against following their vision without doing the work to create and live your own vision.<br /><br />Each day will be a give and take between the habits you create that allow you to be in the moment and grow wise and strong, and the unexpected daily circumstances and interruptions that force you out of your plan and habits and into reality.&nbsp; &nbsp;You get to juggle your plan, your reflection, and your responses.&nbsp; You get to decide when to lower your expectations of yourself or change your view of reality.&nbsp; You get to acknowledge new information about what brings you joy and new information about what exhausts you.&nbsp; You get to do a daily accounting for your resources and time and energy and what you spent them on and how you grew them and how you shared them.&nbsp; Or you get to put your head in the sand and let it all go away, unexamined.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Conclusion:</span></b></div><div><br />The steps toward the Examined Life in Practice begin with our community, but ultimately belong to each one of us individually.&nbsp; We are taught daily habits by our community before we even know what it is to learn.&nbsp; There are societal pressures and internal pressures on each of us throughout our lives to simply conform to societal norms, and to show that primarily by our daily habits.&nbsp; &nbsp;And in our daily habits we determine whether we are actually living an Examined Life in Practice, or whether we have just enjoyed the mental exercise of analyzing the life we share.<br /><br />Paint the life and world you want to see, one brush-stroke at a time.&nbsp; Your habits are those brush-strokes.<br /><br />Step back and look at what you are painting each day.<br /><br />Then pick up the same brushes, mix the paints for the next layer, and add the next layer -- stroke by stroke.</div></div><div><br /></div><div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/2062861241517856473/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=2062861241517856473&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/2062861241517856473'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/2062861241517856473'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2019/02/the-examined-life-in-practice-step-4.html' title='The Examined Life in Practice, Step 4: Build Healthy Daily Habits'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-3231749866476654881</id><published>2019-02-07T08:53:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2019-02-11T13:56:07.739-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#HealthyLiving"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Hope"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Imagination"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#SafePeople"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheExaminedLife"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheUnexaminedLife"/><title type='text'>The Examined Life in Practice, Step 3: Start from Where You Are and Who You Are</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;">So what if one starts to "question everything" and to "think for yourself"?</span></div><div><br /></div><div>How do you stay mentally healthy and keep effectively pursuing joy?</div><div><br /></div><div>I am looking at these steps:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) look at the way the individuals and groups that form your intimate and social circles affect you.</div><div>2) begin the process of deliberately building healthy, safe relationships.</div><div>3) start from where you are and who you are.</div><div>4) build healthy daily habits.</div><div>5) let yourself imagine a better tomorrow.</div><div>6) walk forward with continuity and kindness toward that better tomorrow.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">Step Three:&nbsp;</span></b></div><div>There are a million articles, books, blog posts, and sermons out there about starting from where you are.&nbsp; They are worth looking at!&nbsp; But my perspective is just a little narrower than that, probably because of my evangelical daily practice of prayer over the course of my life, and my love of the Bible.&nbsp; So my "texts" for this post are The Serenity Prayer and the first chapter of the book of James.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Serenity Prayer:</span></b><br />The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr has an interesting history and many versions.&nbsp; I invite you to take a look at&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer">the Wikipedia page on the Serenity Prayer</a>, because it it interesting!&nbsp; However, I am referencing the version popularized by 12-step programs:</div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Courage to change the things I can,</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; and the Wisdom to know the difference.</b></span><br /><div><div><br />We all get a lifetime course in this particular prayer, whether we sign up for one or not, and whether we actually ever pray or not.&nbsp; This prayer is not only a prayer, but a description of maturity and of understanding life and our personal relationship with life as a whole.&nbsp; We can make that course easier and more rewarding if we choose to pay attention to the lessons and prepare for the quizzes and tests along the way.<br /><br /></div><div>This is a simple prayer with simple concepts, but truly learning patience with life is not simple, and many of us spend an awful amount of time refusing the lessons of patience by investing great energy into fighting to change the things that truly cannot be changed, rather than investing that same effort into learning to recognize reality for what it is.&nbsp; &nbsp;If we do allow ourselves to be trained in wisdom, patience, and courage, we do learn to put all that fighting energy into moving the mountains that can be moved rather than into trying to use a hairdryer to dry up the oceans.<br /><br /></div><div><div>In order to know "where you are and who you are", you do need to deliberately engage in this lifetime exercise in reality.&nbsp; You will never know the full picture, but each day and each emotional reaction give you a clearer picture of the things that only you can really know:&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div><ol><li>what brings you joy</li><li>what motivates you</li><li>what makes you want to chase a friendship</li><li>what makes you want to avoid a person indefinitely</li><li>what makes you wake up with energy for the day</li><li>what makes you want to curl up in bed and hide</li><li>what feels like freedom and hope to you</li><li>what feels like prison and death to you</li></ol><div>Your emotions can and will change as your circumstances, skills, and maturity change, but all you get to work with for now is today's real emotions.</div><div><br /></div><div>Your emotions do not need to dictate your actions or words, but they do need to be honored in the same way you would honor the emotions of a toddler or infant: identify them, empathize with them, and then figure out the best way to respond to them and comfort them and perhaps redirect them.</div><div><br /></div><div>The single biggest part of "the things I cannot change" is YOU, and it honestly cannot and should not be changed,&nbsp; Trying to change genetics, emotions, personality, age, and many other elements of yourself is like spending time trying to change the properties of diamonds -- not only an exercise in futility, but missing the point of the excellence of the properties that are there!</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand, it is also true that the biggest part of "the things I can" have courage to change is YOU, in the choices you can legitimately make each moment, in the habits you can break and in the new habits you can build, in the skills you can deliberately acquire, and in all the other ways you can manage yourself and your daily life.</div><div><br /></div><div>Obviously, it is here that daily wisdom comes into play, and it is here that all my other 5 steps in living the Examined Life interweave with this step.&nbsp; Wisdom requires community, solitude, reflection, fine-tuning daily habits, cultivated imagination, and daily walking forward in kindness and openness toward something better.</div><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Book of James, chapter 1</span></b></div><div>The writer of the New Testament letter that we know as James starts his letter this way:<br /><br />"I, James, am a slave of God and the Master Jesus, writing to the twelve tribes scattered to Kingdom Come: Hello!<br /><br />Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.<br /><br />If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.<br /><br />When down-and-outers get a break, cheer! And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don’t ever count on it. You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that’s a picture of the “prosperous life.” At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.<br /><br />Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.<br /><br />Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.So, my very dear friends, don’t get thrown off course.<br /><br />Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.<br /><br />Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage.<br /><br />In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.<br /><br />Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.<br /><br />Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world." (from The Message, James chapter 1)<br /><br />I will not go through all of the writer's points in his opening to his letter.&nbsp; &nbsp;My point in using it as a text in this step of the Examined Life in Practice is to show his focus on perseverance in the face of reality, and his focus on your relationship with reality itself.<br /><br />In starting, each day, from where you are and from who you are, you need to come face to face with the larger reality in order to come face to face with yourself and your real place in that reality.<br /><br /><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">Daily practice:</span></b><br /><b><br /></b>When you first wake up each morning, what is your first thought?&nbsp; What is your first feeling?<br />When you get into bed each evening and turn off the lights and set your devices aside, intending to sleep, what is your last thought?&nbsp; What are your emotions?<br /><br />Take time each day to consider yourself with kindness, and to learn the things about you that you do not yet know, and that no one else can know until you know them.<br /><br />Our parents may have modeled this for us, but often that is not the case.&nbsp; The generations of the 20th and 21st centuries have been heavy on action and light on simple observation.&nbsp; &nbsp;Yet that is what must be the starting point for all meaningful interaction with the rest of the world: who am I, how do I feel about my life right now, and how do I hold on to the things I value in my current life while making legitimate changes in things I actually can change in my relationships, habits, and circumstances.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Conclusion:</span></b></div><div><br />The steps toward the Examined Life in Practice begin with our community, because we do not learn to know ourselves or to examine reality without an "operating system" for those "applications" to run on, but a great deal of the Examined Life in Practice depends upon self-knowledge that cannot come from your community or from anywhere outside your own body and mind.&nbsp; Only YOU know your own inner reality, and if you do not take time to understand that reality as it is today, you are not equipped to live fully.&nbsp; Look at yourself.&nbsp; Listen to yourself.&nbsp; Learn the properties of YOU.&nbsp; &nbsp;This is foundational to God's call to love others as we love ourselves.</div></div><div><br /></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/3231749866476654881/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=3231749866476654881&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3231749866476654881'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3231749866476654881'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2019/02/the-examined-life-in-practice-step-3.html' title='The Examined Life in Practice, Step 3: Start from Where You Are and Who You Are'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-4964230845044305777</id><published>2018-03-26T11:14:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2019-02-11T13:55:55.481-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#HealthyLiving"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Hope"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Imagination"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#SafePeople"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheExaminedLife"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheUnexaminedLife"/><title type='text'>The Examined Life in Practice, Step 2: Building Healthy Community</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;">So what if one starts to "question everything" and to "think for yourself"?</span></div><div><br /></div><div>How do you stay mentally healthy and keep effectively pursuing joy?</div><div><br /></div><div>I am looking at these steps:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) look at the way the individuals and groups that form your intimate and social circles affect you.</div><div>2) begin the process of deliberately building healthy, safe relationships.</div><div>3) start from where you are and who you are.</div><div>4) build healthy daily habits.</div><div>5) let yourself imagine a better tomorrow.</div><div>6) walk forward with continuity and kindness toward that better tomorrow.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">Step Two:&nbsp;</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>As my last post began, we are social creatures and creatures of habit -- and these characteristics are both the characteristics that allow us to fall so easily into the unexamined life and the characteristics that allow us to escape it permanently and with an effective impact on a healthier today and tomorrow.<br /><br />If you read my last two posts, you have the overview of your goal in community and have begun the process of considering your current community and how it impacts your identity and your habits and your life.<br /><br />At this point, you are ready to begin the process of owning your own relationships and of choosing to shape them and to add to them with new relationships.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-size: large;">Evolution, not revolution:</span></b></div><div><br />The process of changing our community does not need to be a revolution, but can instead be an evolution, and, in my opinion, usually should be slow and reflective rather than abrupt and disruptive.&nbsp; However, there are times when we have no choice except to rebuild big pieces of our community around us -- for instance, after a cross-country move or after a career change or divorce -- and there are times when you may be the one who chooses to make hugely disruptive changes.&nbsp; I would urge you to get support for grief and trauma in these situations, or at least to prepare for grief and trauma.&nbsp; I would also urge you to avoid plunging yourself into situations like this unless there is truly no other option.<br /><br />I took a whole year off from my blog primarily because of the impact of that kind of change on my family in moving from California to Minnesota when my husband and I are past the years of forming our adult communities and when my youngest two children are teenagers.&nbsp; It has been a very difficulty year in terms of community and adjustments, but most of the stories are not mine to tell.<br /><br />However, the issues of this series that I was writing are exactly the issues of my life right now; so this is a perfect place to pick up the reality of how to build the healthy community that drives and shapes each of us.<br /><br />We each need to keep tabs on our own disappointments and our own drives, and examine them for evidences of the ways we need both to grow in our self-management and to grow our communities.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">The dance of connection, attention, and detachment:</span></b><br /><br />Our movies and our faith communities and our cultural values have indoctrinated us with the idea that we only need to find the right church or the right spouse or the right small group of best friends.&nbsp; Even if we consciously reject the idea of our emotional and practical needs being met by a single person or small group of people, we often have internalized that hope to such an extent that we keep being drawn to spend too much time in a limited number of relationships.<br /><br />There is no way to make extra time, energy, or motivation for healthy relationships when we are consumed with fixing (or just enduring) unhealthy relationships.&nbsp; The solution to this is probably not in the unhealthy relationship or in ending the unhealthy relationship, however.&nbsp; The solution is is a practice of detachment from those relationships that does not sever the unhealthy relationship but rather helps you to internalize a shift in your expectations for that relationship.<br /><br />I find this practice to be largely untaught and unpracticed in our culture.&nbsp; We are taught either to redouble our efforts to make our marriage or church or friendship all that it could be, or we are urged to end imperfect relationships in search of better ones.&nbsp; We are not taught how to maintain our imperfect relationships in a healthy way while broadening our sources of input and connection.<br /><br />To restate my point: we do not build healthy community by looking for healthy people and discarding the unhealthy ones.&nbsp; We build healthy community by learning the dance of connection, attention, and detachment that allows a bigger set of connections to get time and attention.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Finding healthier people to form your community:</span></b><br /><b><br /></b>So then, if we are not to discard people and chase healthier people and healthier relationships, do we just trust God or life with bringing the right people our way?&nbsp; No, we assume a proactive stance that really SEES the people who cross our path and considers who they appear to be and how we feel about them and how they seem to feel about us.<br /><br />To repeat the questions I listed in the last post:<br /><div><br /></div><div>1) do they only seek to teach me and train me, or are they open to being taught by me?</div><div><br /></div><div>2) do they use shame to punish me when I do things differently than they think is best?</div><div><br /></div><div>3) what shared values connect me to these people?</div><div><br /></div><div>4) how do they support me in those shared values?</div><div><br /></div><div>5) how do they treat people who have different values?</div><div><br /></div><div>6) are they actually after our stated goals, or do they care more about ego gratification, control, maintaining the status quo, or their own sense of safety?<br /><br />We find healthier people by choosing each day to be reflective about where we go and who we encounter, and then by considering our emotional response to them and their apparent response to us, as well as the answers to reflective questions.&nbsp; Then we spend more of our attention and time on those who bring us joy and peace and encouragement toward the values we have and the life we want, and we spend less of our time on those who leave us depressed or angry or distracted from the things that really matter.<br /><br />Does this mean we should never use a dating site or visit new churches or seek out new groups to join?&nbsp; No, of course that is not what I am saying.<br /><br />What I am saying is that the groups we join and the churches we attend and the places where we center our lives should fit the life we want in the long run, rather than being just a way to look for new friends, and that the process of building a good strong long-term network of healthy people around each of us is a lifetime building project for which their are few legitimate shortcuts.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Legitimate Shortcuts:</span></b><br /><b><br /></b>There are a few legitimate shortcuts, however.&nbsp; They are the practices of healthy people, and will get you to the goal of healthy community faster than if you do not practice them.<br /><br />They are:<br /><br />1) Have reflective time alone each day to reflect on your life and your relationships, both analytically and intuitively (ie your thoughts and your emotions about them);<br />2) Pray for and about the people in your life, individually and as groups;<br />3) Give yourself permission to decrease your time with people that your emotions and analysis show as a current drain on your ability to be consciously moving toward an examined and chosen life;<br />4) Make slow movements toward growing relationships that you choose to grow;<br />and<br />5) be part of groups and churches and workplaces that are good fits for your values and choices.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Conclusion:</span></b></div><div><br />When we understand how thoroughly we are shaped by the people who have daily influence on our perceptions of ourselves and of the world, we must take steps toward building healthy community around us that will shape our future in the ways we desire.&nbsp; Those steps are slow, daily, deliberative steps, and do not usually involve ending other relationships abruptly.&nbsp; Rather, they involve daily self-management and daily responses that move us, over time, to a place where we have chosen the major players in our emotional lives and where we have cultivated a whole set of habits that allows us to continue to shape our communities over time.<br /><br /></div><div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/4964230845044305777/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=4964230845044305777&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/4964230845044305777'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/4964230845044305777'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2018/03/the-examined-life-in-practice-step-2.html' title='The Examined Life in Practice, Step 2: Building Healthy Community'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-7925211745244565573</id><published>2017-03-12T13:26:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2019-02-11T13:55:37.770-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#HealthyLiving"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Hope"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Imagination"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#SafePeople"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheExaminedLife"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheUnexaminedLife"/><title type='text'>The Examined Life in Practice, Step 1: Examine Your Community</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;">So what if one starts to "question everything" and to "think for yourself"?</span></div><div><br /></div><div>How do you stay mentally healthy and keep effectively pursuing joy?</div><div><br /></div><div>I will look at these steps:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) look at the way the individuals and groups that form your intimate and social circles affect you.</div><div>2) begin the process of deliberately building healthy, safe relationships.</div><div>3) start from where you are and who you are.</div><div>4) build healthy daily habits.</div><div>5) let yourself imagine a better tomorrow.</div><div>6) walk forward with continuity and kindness toward that better tomorrow.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Step One:&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>We are social creatures and creatures of habit -- and these characteristics are both the characteristics that allow us to fall so easily into the unexamined life and that allow us to escape it permanently and with an effective impact on a healthier today and tomorrow.</div><div><br /></div><div>We are manipulated by our connections with others and by our need for approval and by the pain rejection causes. &nbsp;We can allow those characteristics to push us into choices and habits that play out poorly, or we can choose to focus on the people in our lives who support us both in questioning everything and in making active choices to set a course away from the crowd.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>It is easy to make the mistake of thinking that changing from one ideology to another (in faith, politics, culture, etc.) will accomplish the changes we are after. &nbsp;This is only true to the extent that the people around you in your new community are healthy people themselves, rather than just enforcers of a new ideology by the same old social norming techniques. &nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>It is not nearly as important that you agree with the people you allow to surround you and build you as it is that they are capable of allowing you to grow and change even when they disagree wth you.</div><div><br /></div><div>So how can you tell if the people around you are helping you to question everything, think for yourself, and build the kind of world you want for future generations?</div><div><br /></div><div>Ask these questions about individuals and groups in your world:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) do they only seek to teach me and train me, or are they open to being taught by me?</div><div><br /></div><div>2) do they use shame to punish me when I do things differently than they think is best?</div><div><br /></div><div>3) what shared values connect me to these people?</div><div><br /></div><div>4) how do they support me in those shared values?</div><div><br /></div><div>5) how do they treat people who have different values?</div><div><br /></div><div>6) are they actually after our stated goals, or do they care more about ego gratification, control, maintaining the status quo, or their own sense of safety?</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;">If you conclude that they are not as healthy as you want to be, it is not necessary to change them or confront them or lose them. &nbsp;You can be kind and supportive while you look for ways to build a community that includes healthier people too.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div>My next post in this series will consider how to build that new network of safe, healthy people and groups.</div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLKPS_gsWJnfYzW047TCehkTuxdFtNr3nOdl4dBDmCUiqezdOj5p1uNf6jSQIcEc0DW8PHeNUVBtICg-GoJmSQOKtGArKbw9z7DB60SXTDSfVZYGiFMT1-QrqRjNaha9Tdqrd6g/s640/blogger-image-1071991028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLKPS_gsWJnfYzW047TCehkTuxdFtNr3nOdl4dBDmCUiqezdOj5p1uNf6jSQIcEc0DW8PHeNUVBtICg-GoJmSQOKtGArKbw9z7DB60SXTDSfVZYGiFMT1-QrqRjNaha9Tdqrd6g/s640/blogger-image-1071991028.jpg" /></span></a></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/7925211745244565573/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=7925211745244565573&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/7925211745244565573'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/7925211745244565573'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2017/03/the-examined-life-in-practice-step-one.html' title='The Examined Life in Practice, Step 1: Examine Your Community'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLKPS_gsWJnfYzW047TCehkTuxdFtNr3nOdl4dBDmCUiqezdOj5p1uNf6jSQIcEc0DW8PHeNUVBtICg-GoJmSQOKtGArKbw9z7DB60SXTDSfVZYGiFMT1-QrqRjNaha9Tdqrd6g/s72-c/blogger-image-1071991028.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-3060752288680624606</id><published>2017-03-10T11:20:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2019-02-11T13:55:14.713-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#HealthyLiving"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Hope"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#Imagination"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#SafePeople"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheExaminedLife"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="#TheUnexaminedLife"/><title type='text'>The Unexamined Life is not worth living</title><content type='html'>If the unexamined life is not worth living, why not?<br /><div><br /></div><div>The unexamined life is a life where a person is carried along by their appetites and their caregivers, internalizing the values others teach that person through their need for food, shelter, safety, a sense of purpose, and a sense of social connection.</div><div><br /></div><div>The unexamined life is not worth living because it ignores the deeper-but-less-immediate human needs:&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>1) to examine reality as perceived by that particular individual,&nbsp;</div><div>2) to examine an individual's own ability to make a valuable contribution based on the individual's own perception of self and of the rest of reality,</div><div>3) to examine dissonance between one's own perceptions and the perceptions of others,</div><div>4) to adjust course and adjust world view based on ongoing perceptions,</div><div>5) to build and affect a shared sense of reality (a social construct) with the circles of friends, family, acquaintances, and larger society around an individual,</div><div>And</div><div>6) to imagine the best world possible and to take steps to leave the world more like that for future generations.</div><div><br /></div><div>The funny thing about those who do a good job at meeting those needs individually is that they often leave a culture that teaches the group to suppress and penalize those who question the latest social construct.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, to build a healthy social construct, a person must deliberately teach oneself and those impacted by oneself to think for themselves and to question everything.</div><div><br /></div><div>Think for yourself.</div><div><br /></div><div>Question everything.</div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/3060752288680624606/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=3060752288680624606&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3060752288680624606'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3060752288680624606'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2017/03/the-unexamined-life-is-not-worth-living.html' title='The Unexamined Life is not worth living'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-6549576975647510969</id><published>2017-03-07T08:10:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2017-03-07T11:55:14.431-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Pursuing Peace</title><content type='html'>Two white middle-class girls -- around eight or nine years old -- were walking home from school one day in the early 1970s in Omaha, Nebraska. They lived just around the corner from each other and were best friends. &nbsp;It was a beautiful day and only a half-mile walk in a safe neighborhood. &nbsp;<div><br></div><div>They heard a voice and turned to see a little black girl rushing to join them. &nbsp;Amy was five or six and very bright and very friendly. &nbsp;She assumed she would be welcomed to walk with the older girls, as she had been other days.</div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This was Missy's and Sally's time to chat and have fun. &nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">They tried to be friendly but then hint that Amy should let them walk on without her.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Amy just kept on walking with them and chatting at them. &nbsp;No hint could break through her enthusiasm to be part of their little circle.</span></div><div><br></div><div>The walk was short and they had almost reached Missy's&nbsp;<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">house; the older girls were frustrated. &nbsp;Were they going to have to give up their daily talk to accommodate this annoying little chatterbox every single day?</span></div><div><br></div><div>As they reached her house, Missy told the little girl that she couldn't walk home with them anymore.</div><div><br></div><div>Sally walked a few houses further and went into her house too, and Amy went home and cried. &nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>A few minutes later, Missy's mom answered the phone.</div><div><br></div><div>"Really? &nbsp;I am so sorry! &nbsp;Just a minute."</div><div>"Missy, come here."</div><div><i>"Yes, Mom?"</i></div><div>"We're you and Sally rude to Amy Williams just now? &nbsp;Her mom is on the phone, and she says Amy is crying."</div><div>"<i>Well, no ... not really."</i></div><div>"So why is she crying?"</div><div>"<i>She was bugging us; so we told her we don't want her to walk with us."</i></div><div>"You can't not walk with her; that's not nice!"</div><div><i>"But, Mom, she uses bad words!"</i></div><div>"Like what?!"</div><div><i>"She said f@&lt;%!</i></div><div>"Really?"</div><div><br></div><div>Then, into the phone,</div><div>"She says Amy said f<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">@&lt;% so they told her they don't want to walk with her anymore."</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Yes, I'm sorry. &nbsp;Yes. Goodbye."</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Missy went back to the book she had been reading, and forgot all about Amy. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The next months were Amy-free, and Missy enjoyed her walks home each day. &nbsp;She doesn't remember if she ever told Sally the whole story.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Missy's family was Christian, and she had been raised to pray to Jesus as she went to bed each night, and had prayed to ask Jesus into her heart when she was younger. &nbsp;Just a year or so earlier, Missy had had her first real personal experience of faith, praying alone to Jesus to try to "do the things he said to do and not do the things he said not to do" after her first time of opening a Bible to the gospels all by herself and reading the words and story of Jesus all by herself. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It had been an emotional experience for her, and she believed it was real and important. &nbsp;It made her feel happy and safe to read the Bible and pray at bedtime most nights.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But the little lie she had told about Amy gradually snuffed out her sense of connection to Jesus. &nbsp;She tried to pray at bedtime, but it stopped feeling like anyone was really listening. &nbsp;It felt like the sun had gone out, and left her cold and alone.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Finally, many months later, Missy tried to pray in a bed in her grandmother's house at Christmastime. &nbsp;She knew what she had to do in the morning. &nbsp;Maybe that would fix the coldness inside her and let her feel Jesus again.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The next day Missy told her mom the truth, and asked her to tell Amy's mom for her. &nbsp;When they got back to Omaha, Missy's mom did call Amy's mom and tell her. Missy&nbsp;was not punished, and her mom thanked her for telling her the truth, and said that Amy's mom was extremely appreciative of the phone call.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Missy felt happy again, and she could talk to Jesus again. &nbsp;And she kept talking to Jesus -- all the way to now.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I do not tell this story to sell Jesus. &nbsp;You may be turned off by her faith, or identify with it, or just explain it away. &nbsp;None of that is my point here.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">My point here is that even children can learn a way of living that keeps joy and hope going, even after joy and hope get squashed.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Missy's actions taught her four things: &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">1) when she hurt someone else, it hurt her, too;</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">2) she couldn't feel okay again until she did something to try to fix what she did to hurt someone else;</span></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">3) all of her reasons for keeping silent so long were unreasonable in light of her pain;</span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">and</span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">4) telling the truth and asking for help to fix things <i>did</i> fix things.</span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">I believe this story is also a story of racism. &nbsp;If Missy was being racist, it was not conscious; she was just annoyed by a little girl intruding on her routine and on her friendship. &nbsp;But to Amy, it had to add another layer to the layer-upon-layer experience of being left out. &nbsp;And to Missy's mom and to Amy's mom, the lie about language likely had a whole different meaning than it would have had if Amy had been a little white girl.</span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">And so I believe this story goes beyond personal life skills to cultural life skills. Tiny stories add up to mountains of injustice, and although we do need to respond to the mountains of injustice with big systematic changes, we also need to address each tiny layer, one by one.</span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">This starts with telling the truth about each instance in our personal stories and in our history, and understanding that an <i>intent</i> to be racist is not the point. &nbsp;</span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">A better tomorrow starts today, by tasting it -- at least in our imaginations -- and then by teaching ourselves and our kids that we can tell the truth and endure pain to get something better than we have now.</span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue Light, HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">As you go through your day, take time to imagine a world that offers peace and joy and hope to everyone. &nbsp;Take time to feel the places that you hurt and to see where others have been hurt. &nbsp;Let yourself come to a resolve to tell the truth and to ask for help to fix one broken thing. &nbsp;Then do it again, tomorrow.</span></font></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/6549576975647510969/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=6549576975647510969&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/6549576975647510969'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/6549576975647510969'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2017/03/missy-and-sally-and-amy.html' title='Pursuing Peace'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-571113378802684568</id><published>2017-03-05T05:42:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2017-03-05T08:57:03.373-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Black Hawk"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Christianity"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="history"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Illinois"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Iowa"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Native American"/><title type='text'>The Native American Christian</title><content type='html'>In the very early 1800s, when Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa were still the wild west, a young Native American maiden named Maw&nbsp;<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Waiquoi woke up from her sleep having dreamt of the handsome white man she had encountered near the trappers' settlement near her village. &nbsp;The men there were mostly Frenchmen, but this man was Scottish. &nbsp;From her dream, she knew he would be her husband; so she went to him and a few days later they were married.</span><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Her husband was a surgeon, trained at the medical college in Edinburgh, Scotland before emigrating to America. &nbsp;He was still in his mid-twenties, and fearless. &nbsp;Maw Waiquoi was in her mid-teens, and her dream had made her fearless too, even though she knew that marrying a white man meant, to her people, she was no longer a member of the tribe. &nbsp;Now she was one of the white settlers, as far as the Sak and Fox were concerned.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Maw Waiquoi adopted the name "Sophia Muir", and she bore two children to Dr. Samuel Muir before he was conscripted by the American army and taken south to fight in the Americans' war. &nbsp;Although Sophia was no longer a member of her tribe, she also was not considered by American law or American society to be a member of their tribe. &nbsp;She and her children not only had no legal rights; they were considered a reason for treason by the military, who had ordered all soldiers to abandon their Native American families and have no further contact. &nbsp;So Sophia was alone with two little ones, with no way to feed them and with no tribe to care for her.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sophia had a canoe, and she was not ready to let her children die. &nbsp;She could scavenge berries, and she could fish. &nbsp;She took supplies, the children, and her canoe, and she pursued her husband. &nbsp;She traveled 800 miles over many months, and she reached him. &nbsp;Her children were strong and healthy, but she was a walking skeleton. &nbsp;She had fed her children well, but had not been able to feed herself more than enough to survive.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Dr. Samuel Muir vowed never again to be separated from Sophia and his children. &nbsp;He left the army, and he was one of the founding community of Galena, Illinois, and built a home and life near Keokuk, Iowa. &nbsp;They had two or three more children, and they were happy. &nbsp;The women of Galena respected Sophia and did their best to be welcoming, although she never really fit in. &nbsp;Sophia embraced Christianity, and raised her children to follow Jesus.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In 1832, Dr Samuel Muir took ill and died. &nbsp;Their home of many years was taken away from Sophia and their children. &nbsp;Sophia appealed to the governor of Illinois for the lives of her two youngest children who were still dependent upon her, and he granted her the relief of turning them over to the custody of one of the leading women in Galena, who would care for them. &nbsp;Sophia took the children to the meeting place, but was late, and found the woman had left Galena without the children.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Sophia had no resources and no welcome in American society without her husband, and the Black Hawk War had destroyed her people. &nbsp;Desperate to save her children, she again gathered what she could to provide for her children on a journey, and pursued the remaining Sac and Fox tribes. &nbsp;She had Jesus, and she had hope and love and survival skills.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Sometime that cold winter, American settlers found the bodies of Sophia and her youngest two children, in the snow of what is now the upper MidWest.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Sophia is my hero. &nbsp;She did what the best of us do: &nbsp;she made her path through the realities she encountered as best as she could, with perseverance, grace, and hope.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">In my imagination, Sophia calls me to do the same, but also to widen the path for others, and to heal the broken places in our world that make survival so difficult for those who are not fortunate enough to be born into the right family.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">She missed being killed by American soldiers at the Battle of Bad Ax on August 2nd the year her husband died of cholera at their home on the banks of the Mississippi. &nbsp;She successfully raised her two older children who grew up remembering her mad dash to save them and reunite with their father. &nbsp;And she held her youngest two children as they froze to death in her arms over a decade later.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div>Our big question is not "Does God exist?", nor is it "Is Jesus my Savior and Lord?". &nbsp;I personally answer both of those questions affirmatively, as did Sophia; I believe Sophia is present with Jesus now, and I believe I will be too, once I reach my end. &nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>I believe Jesus was with Sophia in her most terrifying and final moments; it was Christians who were not. &nbsp;And so, to me, THAT is our big question: "How do I respond to real needs around me today, both to help individuals and to fix broken systems that oppress or abandon the people of today."</div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">In all of Jesus' teaching, He called us to meet real needs of real people: our brethren, or enemies, and the strangers and outcasts.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Sophia echoes the teaching of her Savior: &nbsp; Do not just teach what is true. &nbsp;Live it.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/571113378802684568/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=571113378802684568&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/571113378802684568'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/571113378802684568'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2017/03/the-native-american-christian.html' title='The Native American Christian'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-3529032524208058872</id><published>2017-03-03T07:38:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2017-03-03T07:38:15.150-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Life Lessons"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Peace"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Politics"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="PTSD"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="War"/><title type='text'>On Massacres And Victories</title><content type='html'>On August 1st and 2nd, 1832, we killed babies and women and children and weak old men, after the Sac Indian leaders (Black Hawk and a few remaining warriors) commanded his people to surrender to the US army while he and his few living men fled to the north. &nbsp;He thought the army would spare the women and children, but that they would have killed the Sac warriors. &nbsp;He thought wrong, because the US army massacred his people, lied about it (even to this day, although history has plenty of truth-tellers that have carried the real news report forward from that day to this), and then captured the warriors and kept them alive as trophies of victory.<div><br></div><div>I first became aware of this story when I was reading an early history of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa as part of my interest in my own family history, and read the author's horrified contemporary account of the whole Black Hawk war from her perspective as a founding settler of Galena, Illinois. &nbsp;She told a compelling story, and it caused me to look up the Black Hawk War and the Battle of Bad Ax on Google. &nbsp;What I read did not match her account; so I have been digging deeper ever since. &nbsp;I even visited some of the battle sites, and drove to "Victory, Wisconsin" where the final massacre occurred.</div><div><br></div><div>I found it fascinating that two opposing stories of the war have carried down through all these years: &nbsp;the official army version and the truth as relayed by early settlers and discovered by later settlers (they found mass graves with babies and little children) and memorialized by honorable writers who felt it was a tale that had to be told.</div><div><br></div><div>One of the most interesting recent books goes even further, and digs into the written record from the soldiers who committed this massacre. &nbsp;It finds that the army had been brainwashed quite deliberately into seeing the world through a certain macho and racist filter that glorified the honor in exterminating these "savages" who stood in the way of white people settling safely into these new areas. &nbsp;They very clearly saw the Sac as something other than real people like them, and very clearly valued male humans over female ones. &nbsp;They did not see that they were inhumane savages themselves by murdering women and children and lying about the circumstances in which it happened; they were truly the heroes in the events that transpired, as they saw things.</div><div><br></div><div>This split view of history is echoed in so many other pieces of our past, from the civil war to other conflicts with Native Americans to Vietnam and Afganistan and Iraq. &nbsp;It is emotionally important, when you are the aggressor, to have brainwashed yourself into seeing your actions as honorable and right; and in the aftermath it makes no sense emotionally to process guilt and horror if you have the option of maintaining a view where you were the hero in all that happened. &nbsp;Even so, PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) has stolen as much productivity, peace, and joy from our nation over these centuries as actual deaths, injuries, and monetary costs have stolen.</div><div><br></div><div>And here we are. &nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>If we want our present and future to be as free of the impact of PTSD as possible, and if we want to move forward in peace and joy and creative engagement with each other and with reality, we need to come to grips with "Victory, Wisconsin" and with all the other horrors of our past. &nbsp;We need to understand the cognitive dissonance between a valuing of life and peace and a calling to be part of an ideology. &nbsp;We need to understand our need to be part of a compelling ideological group and how motivating that can be. &nbsp;We need to understand propaganda and social norming techniques that sell both healthy and abhorrent belief systems. &nbsp;And, above all, we need to understand our individual responsibility and ability to evaluate ideologies and propaganda and the cultural norming techniques being used by us and on us.</div><div><br></div><div>You need to become mindful and informed, and start being the leader in your own story. &nbsp;Your only alternative is to be led to believe and do things that history will show as the brainwashing of good people to accomplish the wrong things in the wrong way. &nbsp;You may still make wrong choices and believe lies; but at least you will have attempted to push past that. &nbsp;And in the end we will have raised kids and created a culture that is harder to fool and that has the skills to do better than the Battle of Bad Ax.</div><div><br></div><div>Figure out what matters. &nbsp;Figure out what is true. &nbsp;Figure out where you stand and what you should do with your time, energy, and money. &nbsp;Figure out who you love. &nbsp;And figure out what you want history to show about what you do today, tomorrow, and to your end.</div><div><br></div><div>Amen.</div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/3529032524208058872/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=3529032524208058872&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3529032524208058872'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3529032524208058872'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2017/03/on-massacres-and-victories.html' title='On Massacres And Victories'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-5012011712697104812</id><published>2017-03-02T09:12:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2017-03-02T10:22:15.518-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Faith"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Forgiveness"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Life Lessons"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Politics"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Social Justice"/><title type='text'>My answer to all private and public battles</title><content type='html'><p name="1f46" id="1f46" class="graf graf--p graf--leading" style="margin: 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58; --margin-top-multiplier: 0;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I finally figured out my answer to all our political and cultural battles, and to the interpersonal conflicts in my own life. It came to me out of a distressing but normal conflict with my seventeen-year-old son. And, of course, I did not think it up. Rather, everything wise women and men and wise faith have been teaching me all my life finally won out in my head and heart, and put to rest my silly notions of “winning” and “losing”.</span></p><p name="eafd" id="eafd" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I will let you see my epiphany as most of you see so much interaction these days: as&nbsp;<span class="markup--quote markup--p-quote is-other" name="b7cedd340727" data-creator-ids="356de5b73480" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s; transition: background-color 0.2s; cursor: pointer; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(39, 243, 106, 0.0980392), rgba(39, 243, 106, 0.0980392));">a series of text messages, written by me to my son after he had treated me poorly because he felt I was “on him” unreasonably, but then he needed a favor some hours later and so acted as if none of it even happened.</span>Here is my response, which was also the written expression of my own eyes opening to my own struggle to communicate my reality in ways that made him (and the world) take it as seriously as his own perspective:</span></p><p name="fe32" id="fe32" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Him</span>:&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">I need to&nbsp;… (his words are not mine to share)… so will you&nbsp;… (not mine to share)</em></span></p><p name="4081" id="4081" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me</span>:&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">I love you. My answer is going to be “yes” if you will bear with me and hear me out about this morning.</em></span></p><p name="d996" id="d996" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">When we are in community (ie family, coworkers/bosses/employees, students&amp;teachers&amp;staff, members of the same club or church, etc) we are committed together toward accomplishing certain goals and with efficiency and kindness to one another.</em></span></p><p name="6cf7" id="6cf7" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">In the community of our family, we are committed together toward&nbsp;: 1) providing daily routines that allow us all to be where we need to be when we need to be there with everything we need for our day; 2) planning together how we can each and all best move toward a future that brings us peace and joy; 3) using available resources to do a better job toward the above two things than we did yesterday; AND 4) growing, together and individually, into peacable and passionate (joy-filled) creatures.</em></span></p><p name="2e62" id="2e62" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">If you are not committed to those goals, but instead allow your anger to put you in a place where you work to destroy our ability (and your own ability) to achieve those goals, you do not win</em></span></p><p name="e5c0" id="e5c0" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">Nor do my goals change.</em></span></p><p name="2191" id="2191" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">I still love you.</em></span></p><p name="a1f3" id="a1f3" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">I still am after the same goals.</em></span></p><p name="1de9" id="1de9" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">I still know you can achieve those goals too, if you decide to do so, once you decide to do so,</em></span></p><p name="4020" id="4020" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">But right now you think anger makes destroying progress toward those goals a “win”,</em></span></p><p name="c1d8" id="c1d8" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">as if you are punishing me.</em></span></p><p name="3ef3" id="3ef3" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">I do not believe in punishment — not in the sense of retribution anyway. I do believe there are consequences to our choices, but I think life and society impose those consequences, not me.</em></span></p><p name="a4bd" id="a4bd" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">I think my role (not just as your mom, but as a fellow human being) is to keep my eye on the bigger goals and just keep trying to move toward them.</em></span></p><p name="a0ae" id="a0ae" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">That is the role of forgiveness:</em></span></p><p name="22aa" id="22aa" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">not some sickly-sweet useless caving in to an angry teenager,</em></span></p><p name="8302" id="8302" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">but a choosing to keep my eye on real goals that will bring joy and peace rather than to get pulled into a win/lose game where even the winner loses.</em></span></p><p name="2eb0" id="2eb0" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">So my answer is “yes”,</em></span></p><p name="1c05" id="1c05" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">But until you learn to use your anger to point you toward all that you actually long for,</em></span></p><p name="6967" id="6967" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">&nbsp;you lose.</em></span></p><p name="f4f8" id="f4f8" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">Because joy and peace and love ARE real</em></span></p><p name="fcac" id="fcac" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">and you are missing out.</em></span></p><p name="740a" id="740a" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">So each time one of us frustrates or angers the other, it is not a fight where there will be a winner and a loser.</em></span></p><p name="8c8b" id="8c8b" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">You&nbsp;</em><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">ARE</em></span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">&nbsp;growing up. Neither of us can speed that up or slow that down.</em></span></p><p name="282c" id="282c" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">Each time we have conflict, it is an opportunity for each of us and for us together</em></span></p><p name="8f20" id="8f20" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">&nbsp;To grow in our ability to stay fixed on peace and joy</em></span></p><p name="1a59" id="1a59" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">and to get there</em></span></p><p name="862f" id="862f" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">together or not.</em></span></p><p name="f10b" id="f10b" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="font-weight: 700;">Me:</span>&nbsp;<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">That is all.</em></span></p><p name="9442" id="9442" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We each have our own perspectives and goals, and we cannot control others, and we cannot even set the goals we think those with us in community should be pursuing. They may pursue winning at the expense of everything that lasts.</span></p><p name="7795" id="7795" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">However, we can choose to pursue peace and joy and love in the context of reality, and practice the forgiveness over and over and over that frees us up to KEEP pursuing peace and joy and love even if it is a lone pursuit.</span></p><p name="ff1e" id="ff1e" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We cannot avoid the conflict and tragedy that are outside our control, but we CAN each let all that conflict and tragedy direct us back to our ever-stronger pursuit of peace and joy and love.</span></p><p name="c4ed" id="c4ed" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And in our personal lives we will become amazing and experience full life.</span></p><p name="c7ef" id="c7ef" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And in our political and cultural conflicts, we will learn to listen and learn to value real progress over time, rather than just valuing the temporary triumph of our own current ideologies or the power to impose our own perspectives on others.</span></p><p name="69e9" id="69e9" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p graf--trailing" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; --baseline-multiplier: 0.179; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And in our collective life and history, over time, we will become whole and free, with real diversity and with real unity.</span></p></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/5012011712697104812/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=5012011712697104812&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5012011712697104812'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5012011712697104812'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2017/03/my-answer-to-all-private-and-public.html' title='My answer to all private and public battles'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-5397087094282334504</id><published>2017-02-18T06:57:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2017-02-18T06:57:32.744-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Step One</title><content type='html'><div>Before I was out of bed this morning, I woke up feeling empathy for the 19-year-old young man in San Diego who was deported by INS this week. &nbsp;He doesn't ever remember living in Mexico; he was brought up just like my boys in So Cal. &nbsp;He was a DACA kid, and graduated from a CA high school and went on to study arts at a local school. &nbsp;But, just like most of his safe white classmates, he had a tiny bit of weed in his pocket when he was stopped ... so now that kid is in Mexico with no resources.</div><div><br></div><div>I got up and googled to see more details, and saw something similar happened to a 23-year-old DACA student in Washington. &nbsp;And the list of stories go on.</div><div><br></div><div>So we have become a country that does violence to the innocent and terrorizes all of us but particularly ethnic minorities. &nbsp;I hear voices saying "but they broke the law", but if my white kids break the law they get a proportionate reaction -- not shipped to another country with no resources. &nbsp;So I am sickened.</div><div><br></div><div>The best I can figure, as I consider the apathy or antipathy of voters, senators, congressmen &amp; congresswomen, FOXnews, and many of my friends, is that we really see the world in "us vs them" terms and have no problem letting "them" "lose" when "we" were the ones who "won". &nbsp;And then for those like me, who "voted right" and have empathy, there is a feeling of helplessness to help but then also a feeling of fear of helping and having that heartlessness directed toward us as "they" perceive us as "on the other side" and thus fair game for this national purge of people that didn't "play by the rules" in this current life-altering cruel game. &nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>My amazement is doubled by the economic facts, which make it clear that we will all be hurt by this purge, which is of good tax-paying social-security-paying workers and consumers, almost all of whom have state-side citizen nuclear-family members. &nbsp;There will be fewer dollars spent at Costco, fewer dollars spent at Target, fewer dollars to every business in our economy. &nbsp;And the jobs they leave empty are not the ones our unemployed college grads or unemployed 50-somethings or unemployed coal miners can fill.</div><div><br></div><div>And FOXnews is not covering it, and my FB and Twitter feeds only touch on it.</div><div><br></div><div>My first step in responding will be prayer and fasting. &nbsp;Fasting is a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition designed not to make God hear me better, but purposed to help me hear God better. &nbsp;It involves abstaining from some part of life that I will miss enough to remind me to pray. &nbsp;I will be praying both for God to intervene on behalf of those living in fear of the INS and for God to show me how I personally should respond.</div><div><br></div><div>I invite you to join me.</div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/5397087094282334504/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=5397087094282334504&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5397087094282334504'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5397087094282334504'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2017/02/step-one.html' title='Step One'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-1616893517770831035</id><published>2017-02-02T10:33:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2017-02-02T11:14:37.186-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Practicing Relational Engagement Across the Political Divide</title><content type='html'><div><div><div>No one can deny that conservatives and progressives find each other's perspectives troubling and perplexing, and that good people on both sides are committed to doing all they can to advance their ideological and political agenda. &nbsp;This post is not intended to oppose political activism, which is a good and protected American tradition.</div><div><br></div><div>However, in the midst of our peaceful activism, we do not want to lose unnecessary ground in our mutual respect and kindness and understanding.</div><div><br></div><div>If you are after a United States of America and after a world that is kind and wise and secure, I invite you to commit yourself to these disciplines:</div><div><br></div><div>1) Maintain several daily friendships (with real face-to-face interaction several times a month or more) that are with people who have a political perspective that you personally oppose. &nbsp;Engage with them in the things you hold in common, and do not let your engagement be focused on changing their political perspective.</div><div><br></div><div>2) Deliberately allocate a portion of the time and attention you spend on news and information to perspectives that trouble you. &nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>If you spend hours watching FOXNEWS or MSNBC, record and watch an hour of coverage from the other channel, even if it makes you angry. &nbsp;Add in a third perspective, too, by watching an hour of a more neutral news program or by reading down the stories on news.google.com each day.</div><div><br></div><div>If you read the Wall Street Journal each morning, spend time skimming the stories on a less conservative or truly progressive paper like the New York Times, and vice versa. &nbsp;And again, add a more moderate mix like CBS news.</div><div><br></div><div>3) Practice empathy with those on "the other side", and understand that you would have their perspective and make their choices if you were in their situation and had been formed by the forces that formed them.</div><div><br></div><div>That is not to say that you should not fight for the things you passionately defend and promote. &nbsp;It is to say you should do it without violence or hatred, but with respect for even people that you rightly see as the enemy.</div></div><div><br></div><div>So:&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>1) Maintain several warm face-to-face friendships that are with people who have a political perspective that you personally oppose. &nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>2) Deliberately allocate a portion of the daily time and attention that you spend on news and information to perspectives that trouble you, to be informed fully.</div><div><br></div><div>3) Practice respect and empathy for those “on the other side” &nbsp;without sacrificing your own beliefs.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">For support and accountability in promoting and practicing these commitments, join me here:</span></div></div><div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">https://www.facebook.com/groups/1262618443804657/</span></div></div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShVNb2k8jgXPKgMADn2LxcM5_QVZ2X4deJnrDCvHWdr6Wm3QV6nInUZ57I9ozRFjLFS-Q0lXclk13r7U1kCDe8jv65SbHF4PCqgqjaoJDv5Arp8-277pBvtXxvGcH5tDN91ZtSQ/s640/blogger-image--1441200638.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShVNb2k8jgXPKgMADn2LxcM5_QVZ2X4deJnrDCvHWdr6Wm3QV6nInUZ57I9ozRFjLFS-Q0lXclk13r7U1kCDe8jv65SbHF4PCqgqjaoJDv5Arp8-277pBvtXxvGcH5tDN91ZtSQ/s640/blogger-image--1441200638.jpg"></a></div><br></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/1616893517770831035/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=1616893517770831035&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/1616893517770831035'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/1616893517770831035'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2017/02/practicing-relational-engagement-across.html' title='Practicing Relational Engagement Across the Political Divide'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShVNb2k8jgXPKgMADn2LxcM5_QVZ2X4deJnrDCvHWdr6Wm3QV6nInUZ57I9ozRFjLFS-Q0lXclk13r7U1kCDe8jv65SbHF4PCqgqjaoJDv5Arp8-277pBvtXxvGcH5tDN91ZtSQ/s72-c/blogger-image--1441200638.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-6601264504809513848</id><published>2017-01-29T11:25:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2017-01-29T11:33:20.125-08:00</updated><title type='text'>How I am &quot;Pro-Life&quot; and how I am &quot;Pro-Choice&quot;</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">About being Pro-Life:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ I believe human life, at every stage, in every circumstance, is worth as much as my own life:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ This is why I want good nursing home care for the elderly and infirm</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ This is why I want poor mothers to be able to take their feverish babies to a doctor today, now</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ This is why I want to make sure all world citizens who are in danger have access to a safe place, and then access to resources to rebuild lives that are not lived in crisis</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ This is why I want to protect all groups of people who are marginalized and face either legal or illegal discrimination; our marginalized minorities die earlier than our majority and live much harder lives; we need to change that so that it changes our understanding about their right to life! #blacklivesmatter #lgbtqaxlivesmatter #syrianlivesmatter #allLivesMatterIsaCopoutWhenTheyClearlyDoNot</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ This is why I want to teach and protect freedom of religion and freedom of conscience</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ This is why I want to provide value-infused sex education to young teens:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">&nbsp; *️⃣ infused with the belief that they deserve to cherish their own bodies and their own hearts and their own futures, and to take care not to injure the bodies, hearts, or futures of potential or actual sexual partners</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">&nbsp; *️⃣ infused with the belief that babies are so important that they should not be conceived until there is a loving home to bring them into</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">&nbsp; *️⃣ infused with the belief that they are capable of making healthy choices and that their elders will stand with them as they learn all they need to learn in becoming responsible adults</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I know we have differences of opinion about the things we believe and the things we should have as mutual goals. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I know we have differences of opinion about how we can best achieve our mutual goals.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I know we have difference of opinion about what we decide together and what each person decides.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">These differences are why I am glad to be a citizen of the USA, and why I am Pro-Choice in these ways:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ I believe there is a difference between “ethical” and “legal”, and I believe there are many personal ethical choices that are devastatingly wrong but nevertheless must be allowed legally&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ I believe an unborn baby deserves its mother’s protection, but that the mother’s rights deserve legal protection</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ I believe women who have been groomed culturally to see themselves as primarily sexual objects (and as morally bound to be mothers before they are real and free humans) deserve to know they are free moral agents, not the property of the men in their life, and certainly not the property of any government</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ I believe women must, individually and collectively, assume their individual and collective responsibility to grow up and become the free moral agents that have the wisdom to see how every choice – big and little – impacts the well-being of themselves and of all people</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ I believe the best way any local, state, or federal government can foster a pro-life world is to protect the right of each woman to own her own body and her own moral choices and her own responsibility to own her impact on others</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">To those who feel compelled to step in, guns blazing, to defend all the unborn babies being murdered:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ Step back and look at all the innocent people around the world that are being starved, murdered, and oppressed, and consider how easily you dismiss your own personal responsibility to do anything – guns blazing – to protect them</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">▶️ Take your impulse to save babies and use it well:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">&nbsp; *️⃣ Educate yourselves about how our economy, health care systems, educational systems, and culture create the need to choose abortion over birth</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">&nbsp; *️⃣ Create and rebuild systems and laws that provide all that single and poor women need to avoid pregnancy and to care for their children and for themselves well</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">&nbsp; *️⃣ Commit yourself to providing for the babies that are born from the cradle to the grave</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">We all deserve to take a step back from battle and not just load up our guns one more time.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Our lives can be spent building together a saner world for our grandkids and for their grandkids – one where they can look back and see how pro-choice and pro-life ancestors made sure they were born and also made sure they had no reason to abort their own children as a means of birth control.</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkzhnxvmBLeNO1StGcyfQqxM3LayCC3P-Hl5wUztZiGK1SdXhJtMCC-QNSkUiIt4A-XTSukC3qx22kyqzKp_LD4_yYE7ZKmWWBgGXB-79CzZujHNd8p9hvrn82TL5iZQUP1ZJKA/s640/blogger-image--547520631.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkzhnxvmBLeNO1StGcyfQqxM3LayCC3P-Hl5wUztZiGK1SdXhJtMCC-QNSkUiIt4A-XTSukC3qx22kyqzKp_LD4_yYE7ZKmWWBgGXB-79CzZujHNd8p9hvrn82TL5iZQUP1ZJKA/s640/blogger-image--547520631.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/6601264504809513848/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=6601264504809513848&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/6601264504809513848'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/6601264504809513848'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2017/01/how-i-am-and-how-i-am.html' title='How I am &quot;Pro-Life&quot; and how I am &quot;Pro-Choice&quot;'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkzhnxvmBLeNO1StGcyfQqxM3LayCC3P-Hl5wUztZiGK1SdXhJtMCC-QNSkUiIt4A-XTSukC3qx22kyqzKp_LD4_yYE7ZKmWWBgGXB-79CzZujHNd8p9hvrn82TL5iZQUP1ZJKA/s72-c/blogger-image--547520631.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-5049000359432343302</id><published>2016-11-09T08:51:00.002-08:00</published><updated>2016-11-09T08:51:18.847-08:00</updated><title type='text'>The Morning After</title><content type='html'>I have deep empathy for those who are deeply afraid of what a Trump win says about our country, and of what it will mean in policies that will hurt many. &nbsp; I do not post this to disrespect your emotions of fear and grief. &nbsp;Nor do I post this to disrespect the elation and relief that Trump supporters are feeling. &nbsp;I voted for Hillary whole-heartedly (an easy and obvious choice in my mind and heart and spirit), but I had and have grappled with the larger dynamics that grip our nation and world: &nbsp;We (on both sides) have allowed ourselves to value "winning" over valuing the people who hold the beliefs that we fear and reject.<br /><br />My emotional world today is largely unchanged from my world yesterday. &nbsp;I woke the boys up yesterday morning and then joked in the kitchen "it's the end of the world as we know it" but then went on to have the conversation with them that said that one side or the other "winning" did not change the fact that we all still wake up together in the same country the next day.<br /><br />I love deeply people on both "sides". &nbsp;I hold in common with many of them memories, deeply-held-and-lived values, and hopes for the future. &nbsp;I intended yesterday -- and intend today -- to remind us all, every day, that we are in this together, and that "winning" or "losing", now or in the future, cannot be the goal.<br /><br />“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."<br /><br />No "cowboys and Indians" games for anyone in 2016, please? &nbsp;We share a planet. &nbsp;We need to stop being willing to ride over the other side on our way to "greatness", and realize that we are all real people and that "the kingdom of God" is right here, right now. (Karen Kettleson, (Mom), this is what I was trying to say about history: we know from history that good people justify atrocities because they allow themselves to view "the other side" as less than human and necessary casualties in their quest for righteousness. &nbsp;(That is a lesson for ME, and not just you: "the other side" is beloved by God too, and I am not permitted to sacrifice them on an altar to God. &nbsp;God provides/provided another way.))<br /><br />None of that is to say that there are not big issues at stake. &nbsp;There were and are. &nbsp;It is to say that we can work through them together if we can learn to love the people who believe things that we think are dispicable. &nbsp;All of us.<br /><br />I don't need to concede what I believe to be true. &nbsp;In fact, I can't -- because I was raised by people who taught me that God's truth matters more than my own life. &nbsp;But they also taught me that courtesy and kindness and personhood can be extended to those I believe to be wrong. &nbsp;And so we have all been learning to practice that: showing kindness and respect to the other, even though we believe the other to be wrong and cannot understand how they can't see their error.<br /><br />So today, for me, is like yesterday:<br /><br />1) I question everything<br />2) I tell my story and affirm what I believe to be right and true<br />3) I work on my habits and in my choices to not be a hypocrite<br />4) I honor your commitment and your right to do the same<br /><br />Last night was not the end of the story; but may the next chapter NOT be the story of how my side eventually "wins". &nbsp;May the next chapter be the story of a changed culture and a changed polity, where we stop setting aside daily life to "win", and start respecting our need to build a single diverse community through daily kindnesses to the "other side".</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/5049000359432343302/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=5049000359432343302&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5049000359432343302'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5049000359432343302'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2016/11/the-morning-after.html' title='The Morning After'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-6526730173507017723</id><published>2015-12-30T14:29:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2015-12-30T14:29:07.480-08:00</updated><title type='text'>An Update</title><content type='html'>Well, 2015 is almost over!<br /><br /><br />Brooks said to me this afternoon that it seemed like 2015 hadn't even happened, but that he just woke up today and he was here -- living in Northern Minnesota, away from the life he loved in Southern California, and not sure what to expect next.<br /><br /><br />We survived the end of Anderson Bat Company LLC and the sale of our home in Yorba Linda CA and our move to the north woods where my parents live with optimism but without really landing yet.&nbsp; We dissolved my I.T. business after deciding it wasn't the best way to support or even partially support us up here.&nbsp; Steven hasn't gotten very far with funding his new bat, despite many near misses, but is open to discussing the possibilities with interested investors.&nbsp;<br /><br /><br />I am finding my own journey comfortable and not terribly interesting these days -- that is, not interesting to write about here.&nbsp; I am finding life fascinating though -- especially the stories of real people, both now and in the past.<br /><br /><br />I plan to use this blog to write about other people that interest me, and that I think might interest you.&nbsp; </content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/6526730173507017723/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=6526730173507017723&isPopup=true' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/6526730173507017723'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/6526730173507017723'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2015/12/an-update.html' title='An Update'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-2018254597459521866</id><published>2014-10-11T14:11:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2014-10-12T12:43:00.739-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Higher Standards for Leaders? (And a request for help.)</title><content type='html'>Part 1: &nbsp;the big picture<div><br></div><div>One part of our current Christianity -- all the way from the conservative extreme to the progressive extreme -- is our divide between "professional Christian" and "layperson". &nbsp;We use a few chosen scripture passages to justify our expectations of "leaders", and then ignore the weight of the whole of scripture that calls ALL of us to a life wholly centered on following Jesus.<div><br></div><div>I believe that we scapegoat our leaders: &nbsp;we sublimate our own guilt (about the ways we ignore what really matters for things that don't really matter in the long run) by fixating on the example they live out in front of us, whether good or bad. &nbsp; This creates strong emotional and social pressures for a perfect act on the part of our leaders and their families, and they are trapped (in their need to act like they are already perfected in their maturity in every area of living) by the threat of their 200 to 5000 bosses firing them if the truth of their humanity slips out.</div><div><br></div><div>Imagine if we did this to our kids as they grew: &nbsp;instead of cheering the toddler who takes two steps and tumbles, we lectured him on his failure in continuing to balance. &nbsp;Instead of praising the second-grader who stands at the plate and hits a foul ball after her first two misses at coach pitch, we rant about how bad she is. &nbsp;Instead of praising the 15 year old who finds the guts to ask his first crush to walk with him to the park, we critique his approach and give him pointers on the right way to do it?</div><div><br></div><div>The truth is that we are all learning and growing in our ability to manage life at every stage. &nbsp;We get past college age and learn how to manage work and relationships and money without parental supervision. &nbsp;We keep growing in our abilities to discern and make choices that play out well for ourselves and others. &nbsp;We fine-tune our map of reality, and we fine-tune the skills to respond in the best way to reality. &nbsp;This is as true for pastors as for carpenters, and as true for writers and speakers and administrators as for accountants and engineers and lawyers.</div><div><br></div><div>If we can give grace to pastors and allow them to be human -- that is, to be seeking to practice what they preach in ways that get closer and closer to the mark, rather than requiring them to pretend to have been reborn fully matured -- we can learn to extend that same grace to ourselves, and be able to encourage ourselves and each other to keep up that "long obedience in the same direction".</div><div><br></div><div>The emotional, religious, financial, and social systems that we perpetuate create chaos for us all, as they lock pastors and their families in a space where they can't grow in the ways God intended, and lock us in a space where we have an excuse to lose faith as we see their stunted examples.<br><div><br></div><div>Part 2: &nbsp;Money</div></div></div><div><br></div><div>Our current economy has divided us into entrenched Tea Party and Progressive stances, and we see those divisions play out in our churches in ways that add to the pressures on pastors and their families. &nbsp;The elderly conservative trustees know how they made ends meet as they went through various life stages, and project that truth onto a screen that covers up the differences in the economy from the realities of the decades of their lives. &nbsp;Pastors are saddled with expectations that don't match the reality of their costs of living, and compensation that doesn't allow them to cover necessities, let alone plan well or avoid consumer debt. Attempting to explain the reality of their situation simply pits against them those who are convinced that there is a way to live in the past.</div><div><br></div><div>We most frequently hear stories of "fallen pastors" who have stumbled into sexual or romantic improprieties, but the reality is that financial "bad stewardship" is even more prevalent, because of the dynamics I've outlined above. &nbsp;Financial problems are common in our economy, and we create financial problems for our pastors, and we put them in situations were they cannot be honest about their situations without fear of falling off their required pedestals and losing not only their job but also their ability to get the next job in the only thing they are educated to do.</div><div><br></div><div>Part 3: &nbsp;My Friend</div><div><br></div><div>I have a friend who is a pastor and who needs to remain publicly anonymous. &nbsp;He can receive direct donations, though -- so if you are able and inclined to give toward his need, please contact me and I will give you his contact information. &nbsp;Here is his story, in his own words:</div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We are a ministry family in danger of losing our home. We fell behind on the payments this summer but received a forbearance that is about to end.&nbsp;The forbearance stated that the arrearage had to be cleared up by&nbsp;<a href="x-apple-data-detectors://3" x-apple-data-detectors="true" x-apple-data-detectors-type="calendar-event" x-apple-data-detectors-result="3">September 30</a>. After that, they will not accept a partial</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">payment. The entire arrearage must be paid in full, and foreclosure proceedings could start at any time. We truly believe God led us to this pastorate and to this house. It is well-suited to our child's special needs as well as those of the rest of our family. We pray that your compassion will help to save it.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br>We started falling behind last spring. One of our children&nbsp;is disabled and much of this child's care is&nbsp;not covered under insurance.&nbsp;We arrived at this current pastorate&nbsp;in the hole already due to the care associated with our child's disability. Each payday, I chase the overdrafts: much of each paycheck just goes to fill the "hole" created by starting the previous pay period in the hole. I am very ashamed to say I have turned to high-interest finance companies and even payday loans to try to fill that hole, which&nbsp;only means less money each paycheck to live on.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br>If a number of compassionate people can help just a little bit each,&nbsp;I can pay off the arrearage on the house and fill in the "negative" in the bank account so that I could start each month with a clean slate instead of trying to "fill the hole" each time.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br>Why have I waited so long? Shame. And I've been hoping and praying that something would come along. My family does not have the means to help,&nbsp;or I would go there first. If you can help us, I would be most appreciative."</span></div></blockquote><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Again, these words are from a friend who is a pastor and who needs to remain publicly anonymous. &nbsp;He can receive direct donations, though -- so if you are able and inclined to give toward his need, please contact me and I will give you his contact information.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">The total he needs to be brought current is $5K; so many small gifts really could do it!<br></span><blockquote type="cite"><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div></blockquote></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/2018254597459521866/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=2018254597459521866&isPopup=true' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/2018254597459521866'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/2018254597459521866'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2014/10/higher-standards-for-leaders-and.html' title='Higher Standards for Leaders? (And a request for help.)'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-3464107924496227474</id><published>2014-02-18T13:53:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2014-02-18T23:46:50.514-08:00</updated><title type='text'>On Loving While Angry</title><content type='html'>The Synchroblog topic this month is&nbsp;<a href="http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/february-2014-synchroblog-loving-our-enemies/"> on loving our enemies</a>. &nbsp;I look forward to the reflections and stories on such a key part of our calling as follower's of Jesus!&nbsp;&nbsp;Join me in reading through the list of posts this month, which I have included at the bottom of this post, my own contribution.<br /><br />If you backtrack through my blog posts, you will find many posts about Jesus' commands and parables instructing us to <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15%3A12-17&amp;version=CEV">love each other</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A25-37">the stranger</a>, and <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205:43-48">our enemies</a>.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25:31-46">He instructs us to do this through actual actions that meet the specific needs of the people we encounter, and not just through expressing an ideology that talks about doing that.&nbsp; He says that we have eternal consequences based on how effectively we actually do what we claim we do, rather than just saying the right things about it</a>.<br /><br />Unfortunately, we all build up our own ideas about the best way to live so that we feel safe and righteous or at least self-justified in our selfishness, and withdraw into that ideology and feel kinship with those who show in their words and actions that they are "with us" in that. &nbsp;This is as true for progressives as it is for conservatives. &nbsp;It is as true for the politically disengaged as it is for political activists. &nbsp;And it is especially true for those who have found loving groups of friends, family, and members of a faith community. &nbsp;We take comfort in knowing that we believe the right things and have aligned ourselves with the right people for our own spiritual well-being and for the future of humanity as God brings God's kingdom ... although we may express that in much more secular terms.<br /><br />The deliberate practice of &nbsp;"loving while angry" is an antidote to the ways our different ideological and sociological alliances can blind us to real love of our enemies. &nbsp;If I watch my own emotions and actions for signs of anger, hurt, contempt, or even just the tendency to see people as their role rather than as real persons (whether "the grocery clerk "or "my mom"), I can use those signs as a spur to find a way to both really listen and to take real action on behalf of that person's well-being.<br /><br />In practice for me this involves less introspection than it sounds like it might, and more awareness of others than "random acts of kindness" encourages. &nbsp;It is a cultivation of the habit of responding to each twinge of dislike or pain or anger or frustration with the question "What might that person need from me?" &nbsp;It is the cultivation of prayer in asking God what that person needs from me. &nbsp;It is the cultivation of margins in my own time and attention and money so that I can afford to pay attention and give time or other resources. &nbsp;And it is the practice of actual empathetic conversation, in which I let my own dislike or pain or disagreement be the very trigger that let's me remember to bracket that reaction, pray for understanding of both my reaction and of &nbsp;that of the other, and then reach out to converse and listen and maybe even be changed.<br /><br />This practice is not comforting. &nbsp;It pushes me out of safety into war zones regularly, and it breaks the artificial bonds of alignment with others through relationship or sociological circumstance or ideology. &nbsp;Much of our shared life is built on the unwritten rules of any subculture.<br /><br />But this practice does give me the spiritual workout I need to grow strong and to stay strong, and it does allow me to cultivate a practice of the presence of God.<br /><br />My exhortation to you is this: &nbsp;resolve to practice "loving while angry", and start developing the habit of approaching all your negative emotions head-on as opportunities for prayer and service and healing. You will be amazed at the way you also learn to love and care for the real person God created in YOU as you become an agent of love to your enemies and your friends and to the stranger.<br /><br />**********************************************************************************<br />This month's posts in &nbsp;<a href="http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/february-2014-synchroblog-loving-our-enemies/">the February Synchroblog</a> are:<br /><br /><li>Todi Adu – <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/todi-adu/love-is-war-war-in-love/10152199263183771" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Love is War; War in Love">Love is War, War in Love</a></li><li>Todi Adu – <a href="http://visionhub.org/love-is-your-weapon-fight-for-love.html" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Love is Your Weapon">Love is Your Weapon; Fight for Love</a></li><li>Carol Kuniholm – <a href="http://wordshalfheard.blogspot.com/2014/02/circles-of-love.html" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Circles of Love">Circles of Love</a></li><li>K. W. Leslie – <a href="http://morechrist.blogspot.com/2013/02/love-your-enemies.html" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Love Your Enemies">Love Your Enemies</a></li><li>Doreen A Mannion – <a href="http://religousrefuse.com/2014/02/17/easy-to-love/" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Easy to Love">Easy to Love</a></li><li>Liz Dyer – <a href="http://gracerules.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/uncomfortable-love/" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Uncomfortable Love">Uncomfortable Love</a></li><li>Mike Donahoe – <a href="http://donewithreligion.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/love-your-enemies-really/" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Love Your Enemies Really">Love Your Enemies Really</a></li><li>EmKay Anderson – <a href="http://www.myrealjourney.com/2014/02/on-loving-while-angry.html" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Loving While Angry">On Loving While Angry</a></li><li>Glenn Hager – <a href="http://www.glennhager.com/2014/02/the-opposite-of-love-is-not-hate/" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="The Opposite of Love is Not Hate">The Opposite of Love is Not Hate</a></li><li>Josie Anna – <a href="http://josieanna.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/on-love-because-i-am-loved/" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="On Love Because I am Loved">On Love Because I am Loved</a></li><li>Edwin Aldrich – <a href="http://urbanpresence.blogspot.com/2014/02/loving-all-of-our-neighbors-february.html" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Loving Our Neighbors">Loving All of Our Neighbors</a></li><li>Jeremy Myers – <a href="http://www.tillhecomes.org/heap-burning-coals-on-your-enemies/" sl-processed="1" target="_blank" title="Heap burning coals on the heads of your enemies">How do you heap burning coals on the heads of your enemies?</a></li><br /></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/3464107924496227474/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=3464107924496227474&isPopup=true' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3464107924496227474'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3464107924496227474'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2014/02/on-loving-while-angry.html' title='On Loving While Angry'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-1651302196804187322</id><published>2013-12-17T16:32:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2014-02-16T20:55:57.154-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Homemaking</title><content type='html'>This month's list of posts submitted for <a href="http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/">this month's synchroblog</a> is out! I have added it to the end of this post. Please take time to read the other posts listed below?<br /><br />And here's mine:<br /><br />*******************************************************************************<br /><br />Earlier today I typed out a very long post about my last few years, and where I disappeared to.&nbsp; The main thing that drove my timing in that was my desire to participate in <a href="http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/">this month's synchroblog</a>, and a sense that I had to bring my friends up to date for them to fully get what I have to say next.<br /><br />There has always has been that essential human longing that drives me, as it drives you, and drove our parents ... and that is why I am joining the voices this&nbsp; month writing about HOME and HOMECOMING in <a href="http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/">this month's synchroblog</a>.&nbsp; <br /><br />Freud wrote that all other energies are really sexual energy that we "sublimate" to fuel nonsexual passions.&nbsp; My belief is perpendicular to his:&nbsp; I think we all long for HOME, and that all of our other passions - including our sexual passions - are either a sublimation of that longing or a means to anesthetize our pain at no longer believing we can meet that longing.&nbsp; Our deepest longings point to a desire for home that lets us rest and rejoice and dream, and that gives us the strength and resources to push out into wider territory.<br /><br />We see the longing for home from early in the Bible, for instance.&nbsp; Adam and Eve are cast out of their home, and long to return, but the return is forbidden and the boundaries are patrolled.&nbsp; Abraham leaves home for a better home, and that drives much of his story and the story of his children.&nbsp;Later we see Naomi -&nbsp;a Hebrew woman in a foreign&nbsp;land -&nbsp;has done such a good job of making a home for herself, her husband, and her sons and their wives that when her husband and sons die and she tries to send away her daughters-in-law to their father's houses, she cannot talk Ruth into leaving her.&nbsp; Ruth's words of loyalty to Naomi in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ruth+1%3A16-17&amp;version=NLT">Ruth 1:16-17 </a>&nbsp;show just how well her mother-in-law made a home for Ruth.<br /><br />We see the same theme in the exile and return from exile, and in the Zealots' desire to wrest political power back from Rome at the time Jesus was born and lived.&nbsp; Jesus recognized this so-basic desire when he responded to would-be followers by saying: <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%208&amp;version=NLT">"Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.”</a><br /><br />Jesus understood how easy it is for us to make the passionate profession of life-long loyalty to the person or religion or community or calling that we think will give us that true home that will soothe us and equip us for the life we want, and also how easy it is to find that even the right person or right faith or right calling is unable to provide us with that home that we need and so deeply long after.<br /><br />Christmas stirs up intense emotions in this drama for people at every stage of life and in every position (in terms of their feeling as to whether they have created home where they are,&nbsp;or whether they can ever return home, or whether the whole concept of home is a sick joke).&nbsp; That is why suicide rates are so high at that time of the year, and it is also why we put so much energy into our traditions and gift-giving.&nbsp; We want to create home or go home or at least remember home and believe that home is possible.<br /><br />If you take the time to read through my last post, you will see the way I served my own desire to create home in the last 3 years, and if you read my blog up to that point you will see much of my own journey in seeking home and in seeking to create home.&nbsp; If you know my story prior to starting this blog you know the ways I chased after my desire for home, and the ways I destroyed my homes myself because of that drive.<br /><br />(Please read the&nbsp;following knowing that I am still a Christian who adheres to the tenets of the <a href="http://www.creeds.net/ancient/apostles.htm">Apostle's Creed</a>&nbsp;as literally true, and that that sets the context for all the rest of what I say.) What I have learned is this:&nbsp; good religion give us a map of reality that lets us plot a way home, and also gives us legs to walk there, and arms to carry others there with us for a ways.&nbsp; Good faith lets us forgive ourselves and others for the ways we have destroyed our own homes and have blocked access to home for both those we love and those we do not.&nbsp; And God is the teacher who helps us internalize a map that is true and cultivate the skills we need to walk and to build, and also the parent who quenches our deepest needs for connection and for understanding and approval so that we will be free to offer and accept that kind of connection and approval and understanding to others.<br /><br />I have become a feminist and a progressive mainly because I no longer believe that I can enjoy my own ability to create home for myself and for those I love within a bubble.&nbsp; Oppression and poverty hurts&nbsp;my home whether I can ignore it successfully or not, and will invade my world eventually if I don't keep the whole of reality in view.<br /><br />I cannot change poverty or inequality myself, of course, or right the many injustices of the world.&nbsp; But I can be a voice that speaks to the reality of the whole and of my own little view of that reality, and my own experience of that ... and in so doing can have an impact hand-in-hand with others.&nbsp; <br /><br />I have had many conversations over the past few years about culture wars and about the divisions within the world-wide church and within my own denomination, and I really think that the issue of homemaking is at the root of all the issues we have discussed.&nbsp; We are in a finite world within the bounds of the present moment and within the bounds of our present resources and emotional and spiritual and physical energy . . . and we must make a home for ourselves here and now, together.&nbsp; <br /><br />Those who are driven by fear think they can preserve their own worldview and their own control of their own resources at the expense of the evil masses outside their doors, and that that is righteous.<br /><br />The Bible tells me that that is a lie.&nbsp; We are called to&nbsp;lay down&nbsp;our safety, and&nbsp;lay down&nbsp;our worldview, and&nbsp;lay down&nbsp;our control of our own resources, all in service to the HOME we are called to inhabit together.<br /><br />Jesus said&nbsp; <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2014&amp;version=NLT">"There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.”</a><br /><br />In <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28:16-20">His great commission</a>, Jesus commanded us to be about this business exactly:&nbsp; bringing&nbsp;HOME to the masses by teaching them to live as Jesus taught His disciples to live, which was to <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+13%3A34-35">love each other</a>, and <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A25-37">love the stranger</a>, and <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%206:27-35">love our enemies</a>, and above all <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010:21-28&amp;version=NLT">to love God and the reality of the world God created</a>.<br /><br />When pastors or writers or mothers or politicians or lovers or marketers or investors invest themselves in any little aspect of life as though they can amass points there (in members or dollars or distribution records or votes or donations or orgasms or hits or any other kind of number) they are just playing a game of sorts.&nbsp; That game can be good or neutral if it does not detract from homebuilding for themselves and for all of us.&nbsp; But when it is done at the expense of&nbsp; God's goals for all in view of God's kingdom, it is an evil game.<br /><br />Just as we must pour out our lives in service to the Triune God in order to&nbsp;live in&nbsp;the salvation and healing that Jesus was born to bring to us through His life, death, and resurrection, we must not pour our lives out in service to any job or calling or lover or ideology at the expense of home for all those whom the Triune God calls "Beloved".&nbsp; To do so is to step over to "the other team".<br /><br />Jesus' best illustration of what we need to do to live in His kingdom instead of being on "the other team" is found in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25:31-46">His parable of the division of the sheep from the goats.</a><br /><br />Whether female or male, whether clergy or laity or disenfranchised from any faith community, whether old or young, your primary objective should be to become a homemaker in the context of real life, not leaving out anyone or anything.&nbsp; There is room for disagreement over what is loving and what is effective, and what is true (as real <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+4%3A8">"love covers a multitude of sins"</a>) but there is not room to make life into a competition with "winners" and "losers" for points that feed nothing but your ego or your bank account or your balance sheet or your resume.<br /><br />Repentance has a bad rep among most circles these days, but sometimes the only way to go home for Christmas is to turn around and go home.<br /><br />Are you making a home, or are you trying hard to be one of the "winners" instead of one of the "losers"?<br /><br />Right here, right now . . .&nbsp; that's all any of us ever have, even in eternity.&nbsp; Use this minute to build a home instead of to "win".<br /><br />********************************************************************************<br /><div dir="ltr">other bloggers writing so far about “coming home” this advent:</div><ul><li>Christine Sine – <a href="http://godspace-msa.com/2013/12/08/is-there-room-for-jesus-to-find-a-home-in-your-heart/"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Is There Room for Jesus to Find a Home In Your Heart?</span></a></li><li>Jeremy Myers – <a href="http://www.tillhecomes.org/it-sounds-like-christmas/"><span style="color: #ffa300;">It Sounds Like Christmas</span></a></li><li>Nathan Kitchen – <a href="http://biblesnippets.com/coming-home/"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Coming Home</span></a></li><li>Michelle at Moments with Michelle – <a href="http://momentswithmichellem.blogspot.com/2013/12/home.html"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Home&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Mallory Pickering – <a href="http://thepalancalife.blogspot.com/2013/12/coming-home.html"><span style="color: #ffa300;">I’m Kind of Homesick&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Bobi Ann Allen – <a href="http://bobiann.com/?p=559"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Coming Home&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>J.A. Carter – <a href="http://www.authenticlight.org/2013/12/going-home.html"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Going Home&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Glenn Hager -<a href="http://www.glennhager.com/2013/12/where-the-adventure-begins/"><span style="color: #ffa300;"> Where the Adventure Begins&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Marta Layton – <a href="http://www.fidesquaerens.org/blog/?p=2742"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Can You Ever Come Home Again?&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Peggy at Abisomeone – <a href="http://abisomeone.blogspot.com/2013/12/abi-has-finally-come-home-for-christmas.html"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Abi Has Finally Come Home For Christmas&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Amy Hetland – <a href="ttp://amyjeanwritingqueen.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Coming Home&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Coffeesnob – <a href="http://coffeesnob318.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/home/"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Home&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Carol Kuniholm – <a href="http://wordshalfheard.blogspot.com/2013/12/advent-three-redefining-home.html"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Advent Three: Redefining Home&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Liz Dyer – <a href="http://gracerules.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/advent-2013-the-way-home/"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Advent 2013 The Way Home&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Harriet Long – <a href="http://harrietlong.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/the-body-the-sacred-for-advent-coming-home/"><span style="color: #ffa300;">The Body and the Sacred: Coming Home&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Edwin Pastor Fedex Aldrich – <a href="http://urbanpresence.blogspot.com/2013/12/who-i-was-made-to-be-december.html"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Who I Was Made to Be&nbsp;</span></a></li><li>Emkay Anderson – <a href="http://www.myrealjourney.com/2013/12/homemaking.html"><span style="color: #ffa300;">Homemaking</span></a></li><li>Anita Coleman<a href="http://myeyesonchrist.blogspot.com/2013/12/at-home-in-kingdom-of-god.html"><span style="color: #ffa300;">&nbsp;-</span></a> <a href="http://myeyesonchrist.blogspot.com/2013/12/at-home-in-kingdom-of-god.html"><span style="color: #ffa300;">At Home in the Kingdom of God</span></a></li></ul></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/1651302196804187322/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=1651302196804187322&isPopup=true' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/1651302196804187322'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/1651302196804187322'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2013/12/homemaking.html' title='Homemaking'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-9012075972014260067</id><published>2013-12-17T13:22:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2014-02-16T20:54:23.232-08:00</updated><title type='text'>My Last 26 Months: Anderson Bat Company LLC</title><content type='html'>In the "all about me" theme of this blog of mine, let me bring you up to date finally, after having been very vague about the last few years.&nbsp;&nbsp;This, of course, is my version of events, and not necessarily the way Steven or any other person perceived things ... but it is accurate and complete to the best of my ability.&nbsp; Steven did not read this before I published it (and has not yet, to my knowledge) and did not give me his permission to do so.&nbsp; Nevertheless, I disappeared from my own life into an abyss in October of 2011, and I finally give myself permission to tell my own story here:<br /><br />Steven, my husband, had a bat company with a group of friends.&nbsp; He brought the bat company experience in engineering aluminum bats (Louisville Slugger and more) and they brought many other skills and enthusiasm.&nbsp; They made the first Nike bats, and moved from a tiny industrial rental to a very large facility and bought new equipment and materials to fulfill a huge PO from Nike.&nbsp; Nike pulled the order after they already had made their commitments, and so that enterprise went bankrupt in 1999.<br /><br />Out of the ashes of Paragon Sports Products, LLC&nbsp;(the name of the above business) the primary investor suggested to Steven that he would back him in a new enterprise if Steven put his name on it.&nbsp; They used the same lawyer to represent them in their new LLC and gave birth to Anderson Bat Company LLC.&nbsp; Steven and his employees grew it exponentially, and that partner was able to make a good profit until 2007, although&nbsp;the partner&nbsp;felt it could do much better.&nbsp; <br /><br />Meanwhile, Steven discovered that what was advantageous to that partner was disastrous to him:&nbsp; the LLC was flow-through for taxes, there was no way to grow the business without leaving the huge profits undispersed, and taxes were due on those profits from Steven as well as his partner whether the monies were dispersed or not.&nbsp; What that looks like for a growing manufacturing business is this:&nbsp; If this year's profit was $500K and next year's could be $1 million if there was enough inventory on hand, but it would cost $500K to build that inventory, then all that profit would be invested in building such inventory, and the money to pay the taxes on the $500K would be taken from the personal resources of the partners to the LLC and paid with their own tax returns.&nbsp; That works for millionaires, but Steven started Anderson Bat Company LLC on a salary that was less than half of what he previously made as a tooling engineer in an aerospace company, and had used all of his personal savings in his attempt to fund Paragon Sports Products prior to finding an investor.&nbsp; Steven had no personal resources to pay taxes on booked-but-not-disbursed-profit on&nbsp;a multimillion-dollar company.<br /><br />Steven found himself in a position of owing taxes for several years that nearly equaled the money he actually took home, and potentially owing taxes if things kept growing that were many times what his partner would permit him to take home.&nbsp; And his partner was amused that Steven had been ignorant enough to enter into a situation in that catch-22.&nbsp; (I think he thought Steven was irresponsible to not know what he didn't know and take steps to cover an obligation he didn't know he would have, and that he couldn't conceive of someone not having the ability to at least borrow the money to cover such taxes.&nbsp; I also think he thought Steven was getting the lesson his "irresponsibility" deserved. But that is all just speculation.&nbsp; The bottom line is that Steven found himself trapped financially, and short of a willingness to change the LLC structure to one that was taxed as a C-corp or a willingness/ability to always keep on hand the funds to disperse to cover taxes due, there was no way for the financial partner to be kind in the long run.&nbsp; Steven didn't have the financial control&nbsp;to be able to protect part of the cash-flow from being reinvested rather than dispersed to pay taxes due; so he borrowed money personally from his partner to cover taxes on profits that were never dispersed to him and that disappeared into the losses of the following years.&nbsp; So, despite&nbsp;Steven's talent displayed in growing&nbsp;a multimillion dollar company from nothing in just 4 years, even the profitable years of Anderson Bat Company LLC left Steven financially and emotionally spent.)<br /><br />Meanwhile, enter recession and internal problems to both the industry and the company:&nbsp; the partner wanted ever-increasing sales and was unhappy with the sales management, and&nbsp;so forced changes there.&nbsp; Sales fell.&nbsp; In-fighting ensued over several years.&nbsp; Changes in the industry forced expensive&nbsp;research and development&nbsp;work just as the financial partner called for layoffs, forcing long hours on unhappy engineers.&nbsp; Changes in the industry and increasing costs for aluminum caused increasingly high cost of goods sold, and movement offshore of the manufacturing efforts of competitors forced the sellable price lower, killing gross margin.&nbsp; Turnover in engineers caused big issues. The investor put increasing capital into the company in hopes of bringing it back to its former profitability, and became angry when Steven resisted doing things the way the investor wanted him to do them.&nbsp; Steven's initial posture of compliance changed to a resolve to do things the way he thought would save his company, which was very at odds with the investor's convictions.&nbsp; The investor shored up his claim on the company with a lien on the assets of the company, in effect making it 100% his even though Steven would still have to personally pay 50% of any taxes due on theoretical profit.&nbsp; The investor, however, was due 100% of the loss; leaving Steven really just an employee at this point ... an employee who was trapped by a non-compete agreement that made it impossible to quit.&nbsp; The investor made this impossible to not acknowledge by forcing Steven to sign over the managing member role to the investor.&nbsp; <br /><br />All this came to a climax in October of 2011.&nbsp; The investor stopped funding his own strategy, and walked away in anger.&nbsp; This left Steven with a huge staff that sales did not provide cash flow to cover, purchase agreements that he also did not have cash flow to cover, payables that were huge, nonexistent cash reserves, paltry receivables with terms that were as much as 180 days, and no ability to borrow money because of the lien on the assets of the business.<br /><br />Steven asked me to help, and so that is why I stopped my involvement at that time in all my other endeavors.&nbsp; We laid off virtually everyone, grateful that the financial partner had covered one last payroll before he walked away and so we only had to cover&nbsp;4 days of that huge payroll from the limited receivables.&nbsp; We kept a tiny core of employees (Russell&nbsp;Wagers and&nbsp;Danny&nbsp;Gutierrez never left, and Juan and Aaron Rodriguez and Skyler Hardegree were gone only a&nbsp;few days)&nbsp;&nbsp;-- mostly long-term employees who had shown themselves loyal to Steven rather than others in the infighting of the 3 years prior to October 2011, and the engineer (Warren Faber)&nbsp;who was crucial to Steven in his hopes of future success.&nbsp; Steven's former sales manager, Ed McIntosh, donated his time, and his wife, Natalie, worked as a consultant to help us wrap our heads around the portions of customer contact that had developed outside Steven's purview.&nbsp; We worked out deals with vendors for repayment schedules.&nbsp; We collected receivables.&nbsp; We paid back-royalties to the certifying bodies.&nbsp; We did short- and long-term planning based on the current economic realities.&nbsp; And we called back a few employees who Steven saw as key to his attempt to save the company:&nbsp; Dan Blick, Dave Anderson, Cindy Hardegree, and Edward Garcia.<br /><br />My goal had been to pay off the vendors and close it down at the end of the sales season of 2012, and we did indeed pay off almost&nbsp;all the vendors by June of 2012, and could have made final payments to the two we did not pay off if we had shut things down at that point instead of continuing production.&nbsp; (We SO should have just shut it down and walked away at that point, but hindsight is 20-20.)&nbsp; I had not been involved enough previously to understand the sales cycle, and that we would see no real revenue again until January of 2013.&nbsp; We had a plan on paper that looked workable, but it assumed sales through the next half-year that should never have been assumed if history and inventory on hand were weighed properly in the plan.&nbsp; As I struggled with cash-flow over the next few months, I realized my mistake and mourned the loss of the opportunity to shut things down without hurting vendors or employees.&nbsp; I tried to convince everyone else to just shut it down and walk away, convinced myself that there was no way forward that gave long-term profit to any of us.&nbsp; <br /><br />But Steven had invested himself into a new strategy:&nbsp; sell our bats through our own website using a company called "Shopatron", which would allow our retailers who had the item in stock to fulfill the orders themselves but allow us to fulfill orders left by them . . . giving us more sales to our retailers and giving us the retail margin ourselves if our retailers were not active.&nbsp; This gave him the confidence to approach his vendors once again and ask for terms through the next year that were a real stretch for many of them.&nbsp; He sold them, and he sold me enough to be willing to approach the investor again as well.<br /><br />The investor said he was willing to subjugate his lien to another lender if we could find anyone willing to put in the cash we needed to make it through the non-sales period while building enough inventory so that our sales in the coming sales season would make borrowing the following year unnecessary to continued growth.&nbsp; So we found a company willing to do that.&nbsp; And that was the undoing of it all.&nbsp; <br /><br />The company that took on the position of primary lienholder put in a portion of the money necessary for the plan to work, but then made money by serving as the agent for high-dollar leaseback deals that took too long to fund to actually allow us to build what we needed on the schedule we needed it.&nbsp; Then they worked to formalize a deal between themselves and the original investor and Steven&nbsp;that was not part of the deal we thought we were making -- and all this&nbsp;after their delays in funding had already made our ability to work the plan we had made not only tenuous but unlikely, particularly with high-dollar interest on the leaseback deals that was not part of the original plan.<br /><br />The final straw for me personally&nbsp;was while I was away for Christmas at my parents' home in late December 2012 and I had responded to the new and old investors by asking for the plan that they had to compensate for the unworkable portions of our plan because of the delay and the increased interest cost.&nbsp; Instead of responding with something I saw as workable, they worked to cut me from the picture and reduce compensation to Steven, all other employees, and our vendors.&nbsp; Since I knew the work that I did (and that they were not providing new people who would do those particular tasks&nbsp;in this company that had been cut from a high of 60+ employees to one that had only a handful to handle&nbsp;a still-big-company workload)&nbsp;and since I knew we had already cut things for our employees and vendors to the point where they could not sustain it for even a year without economic hardship of their own . . . there was no point in arguing.&nbsp; I was out.&nbsp; I couldn't save it, and they would sink it with or without me.&nbsp; It was a mercy that they didn't realize that I'd been the one doing so many jobs but thought that I was just one more way that Steven was mismanaging his business.&nbsp; It saved me from more months of the responsibility I'd taken on at Steven's request the previous year.<br /><br />Over this year, things played out as I had known they would.&nbsp; There was not enough inventory on hand during the times it would have sold to sustain another year . . . not even enough to sustain things for the few months past the spring sales season.&nbsp; Steven and the financial partner fought.&nbsp; Steven and the new investor fought.&nbsp; Steven did his best to satisfy his ethical obligations to his employees and vendors and customers, but there was not a&nbsp;way forward that saved things.&nbsp; In the end, he was able to pay off most of the vendors, and he never failed to pay his employees even when he laid them off permanently; so I think he succeeded in what really mattered.&nbsp; But the new investor foreclosed on the primary lien and took all assets in early September, and negotiated a deal with a man named Vern Hildebrandt to sell him the assets of Anderson Bat Company LLC.&nbsp; The new investor got his money back, the&nbsp;financial partner&nbsp;got pennies on the dollar for what he was owed, and Steven got zip.&nbsp; (Well . . . he got no money, nothing of financial value, and no ownership interest or employment.&nbsp;&nbsp; But he did get freedom from the original LLC's non-compete requirement, which was dissolved since it had no assets after the foreclosure.&nbsp; And by then, freedom to go on and make a living elsewhere was sweeter than millions would have been.)&nbsp; The new owner registered "Anderson Bat Company" as a dba under his existing businesses, and is continuing the business as if it were the dissolved LLC, with many of the old employees, old products, and in the same location using the same equipment.&nbsp; Steven is not involved in any way in that business.<br /><br />In my own life&nbsp;in 2013,&nbsp;I had been trying to build a clientele for my own little 4-year-old IT company when it became obvious that I needed to shift focus so that our family could survive once we were post-Anderson-Bat-Company-LLC.&nbsp; I virtually shut down my business and looked for a job and worked on our family's budget to figure out what our best life could look like as we moved forward.&nbsp; We took the two youngest&nbsp;kids out of the private school they had been in since preschool.&nbsp; Steven stopped paying for most expenses for his 21-year-old and 23-year-old.&nbsp; We made all the other cuts that we could make.&nbsp; Steven started looking for a job too.<br /><br />We now have our house for sale and will move to Minnesota when it sells, building new businesses there on the foundations of our old ones.&nbsp; My parents are older and are 3 hours away from my brother; and my sister lives in the Atlanta Georgia area.&nbsp; I have wanted to relocate near them for some time, and that urgency has increased as my parents have gone through the events of their lives these last 3 years.&nbsp; The high cost of living in urban areas world-wide is counterbalanced by an availability of jobs and infrastructure that doesn't exist where houses cost less, but at this point I believe that Steven has the equivalent of an MBA from his entrepreneurial experience, and that I do as well . . . and the idea of starting over on a shoestring doesn't scare me.&nbsp; The idea of working long hours for people who know less than we know in order to sustain a budget for a life that&nbsp;I really don't want anymore . . . yeah, that scares me.&nbsp; Life is wasted moment by moment and not in one fell swoop, usually . . . and&nbsp;I know too much to volunteer to pour&nbsp;my moments down someone else's toilet at this point.&nbsp; <br /><br />(We all do "lose our lives", of course . . . and if we are wise, we can choose to save the part of us that matters in the long run by deliberately choosing to pour our lives out to fertilize stuff we value.&nbsp; My whole blog muses on what I value.)<br /><br />So that is the story to now.&nbsp; But The Real Journey of my life is not over, and more than ever before, I feel energized at the blank slate in front of me, even with a bigger knowledge than ever before of all that is outside my own control.&nbsp; God was in control, is in control, and will be in control . . . and God has been making me&nbsp;richer fertilizer for the stuff I hope forms the lives of people centuries from now.<br /><br />So now onto my next post, directly about THAT.<br /><br /></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/9012075972014260067/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=9012075972014260067&isPopup=true' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/9012075972014260067'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/9012075972014260067'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2013/12/my-last-26-months-anderson-bat-company.html' title='My Last 26 Months: Anderson Bat Company LLC'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-3235439892685272554</id><published>2013-08-15T20:55:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2013-08-15T21:00:25.049-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Blessed!</title><content type='html'>There is much in my life that I can't share with the world yet, but it's just the same old stuff that my friends could predict from what they've known of our lives for years. &nbsp;When one sets out on a certain trajectory, one ends up that direction and not some other. &nbsp;Same old, same old.<br /><br />But some of that is really really satisfying! &nbsp;My boys - Mike, Josh, Noah &amp; Brooks - are SO precious to me! &nbsp;There is all the "bragging" stuff we moms do to each other, but that's not what I mean here. &nbsp;I mean that my main goals in parenting are accomplished now, and much of what remains is just to enjoy the relationships and to enjoy the show. &nbsp;Whether anyone else approves of them or not, I DO approve of each of my boys, and I'm grateful to God and to them and to the others who cared for them and shaped them to here.<br /><br />So I'm in my 50th year on this planet, and life is good! &nbsp;I have been given the things I wanted the most: &nbsp;responsible, generous, and kind children; daughters-in-law who add real beauty to being equally responsible, generous, and kind; parents who are great role models for "doing life" with joy and motivation; a growing sense of actually seeing Jesus' face next to me whether in contemplative prayer or on the phone with someone who is angry at me; and a growing sense of genuine shalom and joy and real attachment to community even as I have backed away from many of my old ideas about community involvement.<br /><br />Tomorrow I fly to see Josh &amp; Julie. &nbsp;I know Steven and Brooks and Noah will be fine here while I'm gone. &nbsp;I know my responsibilities will be here waiting for me when I get back. &nbsp;And I know I'm at a stage where I can trust God with all the possibilities of healing or of unhealed brokenness and sorrow in all the dramas of our lives.<br /><br />I am acutely aware of the relationships that encircle me these days ... from those I've already mentioned in the little community of my own children and parents, to the wider circle that includes Dan &amp; Laura and their families, to each precious member of my extended family, to childhood friends, to college friends, to coworkers who accepted and helped me, to church friends and twitter friends and Second-Life friends, to even my neighbors who continue to be friendly despite our years of failure to give them any real time or attention.<br /><br />We focus so much on our limits and our problems, but today I'm focusing very squarely upon all that's right and all that satisfies ...<br /><br />Whether we talk about Jesus or the Triune God, God's best gift to any of us (which salvation &amp; sanctification made once again possible when we were enmeshed in all that kept us separated from the things we were made to be and to enjoy) is to bring us to a place where we can actually SEE and enjoy what we have.<br /><br />Today I see it all in a way that makes me feel like I've had what I most wanted whether life ends tomorrow or in 70 years.<br /><br />May you feel that deep Shalom as well, even if your life doesn't look that way on the surface.</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/3235439892685272554/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=3235439892685272554&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3235439892685272554'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3235439892685272554'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2013/08/blessed.html' title='Blessed!'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-9040217705175012383</id><published>2013-05-01T12:25:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2013-05-01T12:28:59.111-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Call me "MK" (pronounced "EmKay") please?</title><content type='html'>As my family knows, the name on my birth certificate is "Maria Karen Kettleson", which my parents chose because "Maria" was a name they liked in the musical West Side Story and also a name with familial connections in Sweden, "Karen" is my mom's first name, and "Kettleson" is my dad's surname which my mom also took when they married.&nbsp; It is a pretty name that I like objectively, but it just isn't the name that fits me at 49, and I finally have the courage to ask people to please STOP CALLING ME "MARIA".&nbsp; Please call me "MK"?&nbsp; (And thanks SO MUCH to those of you who actually listened to me as I've explained this to you, and who have been calling me "MK" for years now!)<br /><br />One of my favorite stories about C.S. Lewis is how, at the wise old age of 4 years old, he announced "I Jack!" and was from then on called "Jack" by family and friends, despite his legal name being "Clyde Staples Lewis" and his pen name being "CS Lewis".&nbsp; He knew who he WAS, and I love that his family and friends didn't question it, but simply complied.<br /><br />My youngest son's legal name is "Parker Brooks Anderson", but you all know him as "Brooks".&nbsp; It fits, doesn't it?<br /><br />My husband, Steven, was called "Steve" by his family and friends growing up, but by the time I met him he was called "Steven" by anyone who had regular contact with him.&nbsp; This didn't just happen and doesn't just happen, of course . . . He had to decide both that he preferred "Steven" to "Steve" and that he preferred it enough to ask for the change and then to keep making it an issue with people who chose to keep calling him "Steve".&nbsp; This is still a regular part of his life, and of mine as well, because many people think it is just nicer to call him "Steve" than "Steven", and it takes a while to have them actually hear and remember that it is nicer to call someone the name he prefers than the name that they prefer, for whatever reason.<br /><br />In my case, my reason is this:&nbsp; "Maria" is who I was as a child, when I believed things I no longer believe and therefore acted in ways I no longer choose to act and made choices that no longer have any logic to me.&nbsp; "MK" is the person who lives in this 49-year-old body and mind and who is trying to live out the remainder of my life in a way that witnesses to the things that I hope will inform and direct my children and grandchildren and anyone else who considers my life.<br /><br />None of that is a rejection of my family or of the friends I had in childhood!&nbsp; And none of that is a rejection of the values or beliefs of my family or of the friends I had in childhood.&nbsp; If anything, it is finally growing into the legacy I have been given, and for which I am grateful.<br /><br />A name change is very Biblical, of course:&nbsp; Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Jacob became Israel, Simon became Peter, Saul became Paul, and many other biblical characters where given or took new names as an illustration of something profound.&nbsp; In my case, I am not illustrating anything nearly that profound.&nbsp; I think my choice is more like that of CS Lewis preferring "Jack" or like Steven preferring "Steven".<br /><br />Still, the bottom line in our culture is this:&nbsp; We let people choose what they want to be called.&nbsp; The name on their birth certificate can be legally changed if they desire, or they can still use it as their legal name and socially use a nickname.&nbsp; We should understand that when we insist on calling someone a name that is different from the name they have requested, we are being rude.&nbsp; It is as if we reject their right to define themselves in even something as basic as the name they go by.<br /><br />So, please, call me "MK".<br /><br /><br /><br /></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/9040217705175012383/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=9040217705175012383&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/9040217705175012383'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/9040217705175012383'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2013/05/call-me-mk-please.html' title='Call me "MK" (pronounced "EmKay") please?'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-11228956663618543</id><published>2013-04-29T14:32:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2013-04-29T14:24:54.452-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Friendships</title><content type='html'>I was really surprised by all the feedback I got on my last post.&nbsp; It was actually such a surprise that it took me this long to be willing to write a follow-up post.&nbsp; When I was writing about lgbtq ordination, I stopped writing because I concluded that those who were open to what I was saying could find the same information elsewhere and those who were not didn't need more of an excuse to "x" me out of their lives; but in this case my writing was shut down because I was honestly surprised by the huge emotion in responses to the post from women friends and also by the many men friends who were moved to try to pick up a friendship again.<br /><br />I don't have a lot to say here, I guess . . . really just one main point:&nbsp; The kind of friendship I was talking about is the main kind I value, which is NOT "let's go to coffee and chat for hours" nor "let's go hiking or work out together" nor "let's go to a movie" nor "let's chat online about our lives".&nbsp; The kind of friendship I was talking about is what I consider "real" friendship:&nbsp; two or more people who are working toward a goal&nbsp;which they&nbsp;mutually consider worth working toward, and&nbsp;in which&nbsp;they&nbsp;mutually have resources and time invested.<br /><br />So I was surprised by the idea that my "cross-gender friendship" post would be taken by my women friends as if I wanted to do dating activities alone with men who are not my husband, and was surprised by the idea that my "cross-gender friendship" post would be taken by male friends as an invitation to spend time talking one-on-one in FaceBook chat or on the phone or in person.&nbsp; I have more people in my life to chat with than I can keep up with, honestly . . . and I'm a relatively introverted kind of person.&nbsp;(That doesn't mean that I don't miss lunches with Trevecca Okholm and Alix Riley and Leah Stout and Lydia Sarandan and Barb Church and Heather Best and other women friends, and wouldn't try to make time for those again if I were invited by them or by other dear friends like Elizabeth Steele and Anita Coleman&nbsp;. . .&nbsp;but it does mean that I do not have a felt need for THAT kind of intimacy.&nbsp; I have a husband and two kids at home still, and am still closely connected to my mom and dad, and my sister and brother and their families, and my two adult sons and their wives . . . and have&nbsp;many many cousins and uncles and aunts . . . who fill me up to overflowing as far as my need for human intimacy, and for whom I never have the time that I wish I had.)<br /><br />(Social media is a wonderful way to keep up with the lives and activities of all the circles of people I know from so many times of my life, and I truly DO love seeing the pictures and hearing the views of all those individuals, for whom I genuinely DO feel affection and love.&nbsp; In a life where I never get everything done, it allows me to remain connected despite my limited time and attention, and I am very grateful for that!&nbsp; I feel that way toward childhood friends, college friends, friends from each job I've had, friends from each church I've been at, and many current friends who I do see in person but not for long enough to really know the details of their lives these days.&nbsp; It is a blessing to live today!)<br /><br />But the kind of friendship that I was arguing FOR in my post about cross-gender friendship is the kind of friendship that my small group of world-christian-fellowship friends had at Wheaton as we met at lunch to pray.&nbsp; It is a friendship based in DOING TOGETHER the things to which WE ARE CALLED, and it has nothing to do with gender or sexuality except to the extent it has to do with recognizing each other as the particular people God has created each person to be and to rejoice in those characteristics as we rejoice in our varied talents and perspectives.<br /><br />So I want to be "one of the guys" not in that I deny anything about our differences, but in that I have no barriers to full inclusion in the roles&nbsp;in which&nbsp;I am gifted to help the group move forward toward our mutual goals.&nbsp; This is something I want to see for each one of us . . . that each of us can become passionate about our individual and mutual callings and that gender roles and sexuality are not barriers or even speed bumps as we push forward steadily under the leadership of God.<br /><br />If in Christ <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+3%3A28&amp;version=NIV">there is no Jew or gentile, no male or female, no slave or freeman</a>&nbsp;. . . If in Christ <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+3%3A7-12&amp;version=NIV;AMP">we are called to "consider it all rubbish" in light of the high call of Christ</a>&nbsp;. . . If in Christ <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%209:19-23&amp;version=NIV">we are to, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, that I might by all means save some</a>&nbsp;. . .<br /><br />then for God's sake let's recognize all our rules about friendship between genders as NOT in the interest of actual purity, because purity in our new lives is not about keeping safe from sin (sin is already dealt with!) but about actually LIVING the lives for which we were saved from sin.&nbsp; <br /><br />(I'm NOT arguing for "freedom" to live lives of sexual sin or screwed up marriages or time wasted on emotional entanglements that also do not accomplish FULL LIFE in Christ. <br /><br />I am arguing for real freedom, to live passionately with that passion mutually focused on the values and priorities of the kingdom, and everything else (including our rules about cross-gender friendships) put in submission to that pursuit of all that will actually satisfy.<br /><br />And all I can conclude from the many responses I got to that post is that most people never have even conceived of that kind of freedom, or of that kind of satisfaction.&nbsp; All I can conclude is that most of those who reacted are hungry for intimacy and so assume that my plea was to allow me to satisfy those hungers of my own in ways that would invade the real needs of others.)<br /><br />May the Church be a place where we experience actual friendship, where we value what actually satisfies, and where we pursue that together in ways that allow for the full utilization of the talents and passions of every individual regardless of gender or other defining attributes.<br /><br />If that is beyond us now, may it not be beyond the church of my grandchildren's generation.</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/11228956663618543/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=11228956663618543&isPopup=true' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/11228956663618543'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/11228956663618543'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2013/04/friendships.html' title='Friendships'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-3248963064901810330</id><published>2013-02-12T09:47:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2013-02-13T08:49:42.177-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Myth and Reality: Cross-Gender Friendships</title><content type='html'><strong>This post is part of the February Synchroblog “Cross Gender Friendships”.&nbsp; The other contributions to this Synchroblog are listed at the bottom of this post, and some of them are amazing!&nbsp; I invite you to read through the whole list!</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>**********************************************************************************</strong><br /><br />I find that my posts over time have mostly served the purpose of allowing ME to process my analysis of whatever I was working through at the time, and then find I don't have a lot to say about the subject once I have worked through my own cognitive dissonance to a place where I can live.&nbsp; Then the issue is a non-issue to me, and I am content to listen and love as others do the same processing.&nbsp; So I didn't plan to post in <a href="http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/february-2013-synchroblog-cross-gender-friendships/">this month's Synchroblog</a>,&nbsp;but here I am, because I found myself preaching in my head this morning&nbsp;to all those who were finishing up their own posts.<br /><br />To quote from one of my favorite movies <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Cousin_Vinny">My Cousin Vinny</a>: "It's a bullshit question!"<br /><br />A few years ago I put a lot of energy into this question, because -- like most of you -- I was coming from the perspective of a deeply patriarchal culture, and from the perspective of a culture that sees sexual purity as the primary evidence of a faith that works.<br /><br />Today I understand this question to reflect a culture and not the deeper realities.&nbsp; So I will answer the question first, and then I will speak to the deeper realities.<br /><br />Answer 1:&nbsp; Are cross-gender friendships possible for adults when one or both are married and when one or both are part of the old cultural paradigms of evangelicalism?&nbsp; No, not without deep problems.<br /><br />Answer 2: Are cross-gender friendships possible for adults when one or both are married and when both have adopted a worldview that explicitly&nbsp;rejects patriarchy and explicitly accepts as its primary evidence of faith that works the commands of Jesus?&nbsp; Yes, most definitely.<br /><br />I guess here is the place that it will show up that I have already internalized my own resolution:&nbsp; I am not going to try to walk you through this step by step.&nbsp; You'll have to do that work yourself.<br /><br />But I am here to testify that it does not matter if two friends are mutually attracted if they are also mutually committed to agape toward each other and toward their spouses and if they are mutually committed to living lives that are wrapped around chasing Jesus, as long as they have both truly gotten over the myth that women exist to please men and men exist to care for women, as we were taught in our patriarchal upbringing.<br /><br />The&nbsp;spouse who clings jealously to his/her spouse is not really that different from the "homewrecker" who seeks to enter into a committed relationship with someone who already made those commitments to another.&nbsp; Both have missed the point about where their security comes from, and both have believed cultural myths that don't hold the weight of real life.<br /><br />So what does this mean for me?<br /><br />1) I can be friends with men who treat me like their equal, and not like a potential sexual partner or like a maiden in distress who needs saving or like a "helpmeet" who will potentially be the wife who helps them or some other man achieve all he was called to achieve.<br /><br />2) I cannot be friends with men who say that they believe I am their equal and not a potential sexual partner or "helpmeet" but then give out all kinds of clues that show that their true underlying belief is different than what is healthy and true.&nbsp; Whether that comes across as "sexual vibes" or "sweet condescension", both are sad indicators that that man isn't friendship material for me.&nbsp; (In the past I tried to "convert" some of those "friends" to friendship material, but I have since then accepted that only life can do that; I must wait until they reapproach me and share that that has happened.)<br /><br />3) I cannot actively&nbsp;be friends with men who could otherwise be my friends but who have wives who are threatened by the friendship of their husband with me.&nbsp; This is part of real friendship, by the way: We honor the ethical responsibilities and real situations of those we love.<br /><br />And what does this mean for some of my female friends who are processing this question?<br /><br />1) If your husband is friends with other women and you think it isn't healthy, try to discipline yourself to let it be whatever it IS and to let your own emotional energy go toward your own healthy community of many healthy friendships of your own (of all ages and genders and roles in your life) and toward your own walk with God in pursuing all God is calling YOU to be.&nbsp; Your husband will bear the consequences of his own choices, and you will wean yourself from your own dependency that is unhealthy.&nbsp; (You will find yourself more satisfied with life than if you were able control his actions, because what you are really after won't be found in his faithfulness to you and won't be lost in his lack thereof.)<br /><br />2)&nbsp; If your friend that you thought was platonic gives you vibes that you don't think are healthy, respond appropriately to the relationship and situation.&nbsp; Sometimes that means anger and boundaries as you realize that you are being manipulated or used; sometimes it means an affirming reassurance that they don't need to be embarrassed or worried that they hurt your friendship because you love them as a friend and you understand that you both can just "forget he ever said that" and be fine; and sometimes it means detachment and space that is fueled by wisdom rather than anger.<br /><br />3) If you find that you are "falling in love" when it isn't appropriate for you to do so, you need to do the interior and exterior work on your person and your life to know your deep desires and to know how to chase them in a way that will actually get them met.&nbsp; It is a myth that any single relationship can do that for you or for anyone else, but there is much that you can learn as you examine your own emotions and conflicts.&nbsp; They can be the key to the life you want, but not&nbsp;through getting&nbsp;the unhealthy relationship you crave.&nbsp; They can point you toward the traits you need to develop, the lifestyle that you need to cultivate, the career that you may be satisfied in doing, and the kind of friendships you need to build into a healthy network of friends.<br /><br />That's all a lot of answer to a "bullshit question", isn't it?<br /><br />The deeper answer to the deeper question is this:<br /><br />We do have gender identities and sexual identities, and they matter.&nbsp; They are part of the fabric of the life we each must build, for ourselves and our families and our communities and our world.&nbsp; The ethical questions we ask "on top" of a culture that has deeply embedded flaws in its ways of assigning identities and establishing security for individuals and groups can often only have answers that miss the point.<br /><br />The bottom-line point that we need to get at is this:&nbsp; If we acknowledge that security and love and righteousness come from building a culture together that works in the context of reality lived out, and not just in theory, then we can't discuss cross-gender friendships without working out a better understanding of gender and a better understanding of sexuality and a better understanding of friendships than we currently possess . . . and that all requires diving down even deeper and working out a better understanding of security and a better understanding of identity and a better understanding of health/purity/righteousness/the goal.&nbsp; (For those of us that love the Bible, we actually have a lot of help in that already, if we will apply a consistent method of exegesis and hermeneutics there rather than worshipping recent early-20th-century evangelicalism.)<br /><br />Who's in for that ride?!!<br /><br />*********************************************************************************<br />Chris Jefferies – <a href="http://jesus.scilla.org.uk/2013/02/best-of-both.html" target="_blank">Best of both</a><br />Jeremy Myers – <a href="http://www.tillhecomes.org/cross-gender-friendships/" target="_blank">Are Cross-Gender Friendships Possible</a><br />Lynne Tait – <a href="http://blestpickle.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/little-boxes.html" target="_blank">Little Boxes</a><br />Dan Brennan – <a href="http://www.danjbrennan.com/2013/02/cross-gender-friendship-jesus-and-the-post-romantic-age.html" target="_blank">Cross-Gender Friendship: Jesus and the Post-Romantic Age</a><br />Glenn Hager – <a href="http://www.glennhager.com/2013/02/sluts-and-horndogs/" target="_blank">Sluts and Horndogs</a><br />Jennifer Ellen – <a href="http://keepingsouthern.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-different-kind-of-valentine.html" target="_blank">A Different Kind of Valentine</a><br />Alise Wright -<a href="http://alise-write.com/what-i-get-from-my-cross-gender-friend/" target="_blank"> What I get from my cross-gender friend</a><br />Liz Dyer – <a href="http://gracerules.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/cross-gender-friendships-and-the-church/" target="_blank">Cross-Gender Friendships and the Church</a><br />Paul Sims – <a href="http://thepaulsims.posterous.com/navigating-the-murky-water-of-cross-gender-fr" target="_blank">Navigating the murky water of cross-gender friendships</a><br />Jonalyn Fincher – <a href="http://soulation.org/jonalynblog/2013/02/why-i-dont-give-out-sex-like-gold-star-stickers.html" target="_blank">Why I Don’t Give out Sex like Gold Star Stickers</a><br />Amy Martin – <a href="http://amydmartin.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/friendship-the-most-powerful-force-against-patriarchy-sexism-and-other-misunderstandings-between-people-who-happen-to-not-be-us-in-this-case-between-men-women/" target="_blank">Friendship: The most powerful force against patriarchy, sexism, and other misunderstands about people who happen to not be us, in this case, between men &amp; women</a><br />Bram Cools -<a href="http://bramboniusinenglish.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/nothing-more-natural-than-cross-gender-friendships/" target="_blank"> Nothing More Natural Than Cross-Gender Friendships?</a><br />Hugo Schwyzer – <a href="http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2013/02/12/feelings-arent-facts-living-out-friendship-between-men-and-women/" target="_blank">Feelings Aren’t Facts: Living Out Friendship Between Men and Women</a><br />Marta Layton – <a href="http://www.fidesquaerens.org/blog/?p=1151" target="_blank">True Friendship: Two Bodies, One Soul</a><br />Kathy Escobar – <a href="http://kathyescobar.com/2013/02/12/the-road-to-equality-is-paved-with-friendship/" target="_blank">The Road To Equality Is Paved With Friendship</a><br />Karl Wheeler – <a href="http://karlwheeler.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/friends-at-first-sight/" target="_blank">Friends at First Sight</a><br />Doreen Mannion - <a href="http://religousrefuse.com/2013/02/13/heterosexual-platonic-cross-gender-friendships-learning-from-gay-lesbian-christians/#comments" target="_blank">Hetereosexual, Platonic Cross-Gender Friendships–Learning from Gay &amp; Lesbian Christians</a><br />Jim Henderson – <a href="http://jimhendersonpresents.com/jesus-had-a-thing-for-women-and-so-do-i/" target="_blank">Jesus Had A Thing for Women and So Do I</a><br />Elizabeth Chapin – <a href="http://elizabethchapin.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/50-shades-of-friendship/" target="_blank">50 Shades of Friendship</a></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/3248963064901810330/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=3248963064901810330&isPopup=true' title='5 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3248963064901810330'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/3248963064901810330'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2013/02/myth-and-reality-cross-gender.html' title='Myth and Reality: Cross-Gender Friendships'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>5</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-5845986375994350652</id><published>2013-02-01T14:36:00.003-08:00</published><updated>2013-02-01T14:36:55.820-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Journaling My Journey Once More . . .</title><content type='html'>Today marks a new stage of my journey for me . . . and it is my intention to go back to using this blog to journal my journey again.<br /><br />From October 13, 2011 to December 28, 2012 big pieces of my story are not just MY story, and I cannot really tell the part that is my own without giving up pieces that truly aren't mine to make available to strangers via a weblog.&nbsp; So bear with me as I jump from the summer of 2011 to now without really giving all the details.&nbsp; I do think an overview of my faith journey is in order though, since it is THAT that this blog records.<br /><br />As I review all I wrote from the beginning of this blog, almost every post still rings true.&nbsp; I am still a follower of Jesus who believes in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus, and affirms the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and most of the tenets of a reformed evangelical Christianity, as affirmed by the churches who are leaving the PCUSA to form their new denomination.&nbsp;&nbsp; I am also still a daily practitioner of prayer and meditation and regular practitioner of&nbsp;the other spiritual disciplines a la Foster and Willard (and Ignatius of Loyola), and also still surround myself with a community that affirms the same beliefs and practices the same practices as I do.&nbsp; (In as much as our faith is not JUST a social construct, it is indeed a social construct which is why the Bible gives so much instruction on how we live it out together.)<br /><br />I am also a Christian who is not willing to build walls around my own narrow community in order to protect its sanctity or purity.&nbsp; On the contrary, I believe that REALITY trumps any map of reality, and if our map works and we follow it, our light will invade everything we touch, and the darkness has no equivalent power.&nbsp; So I'm not worried about stamping out heresy or about protecting my children from ideas that won't bear the weight of real life.&nbsp; I'm much more&nbsp;afraid of&nbsp;being that Christian who stands at a dry-erase board and teaches truth, and then goes away and lives like it doesn't really matter.&nbsp; (As Jesus said, if our salt loses its saltiness, we're &amp;^%$'d.)<br /><br />I also still affirm that it is a lot easier to center your life around an authentic chase after the Triune God if you don't pay your bills through a job about that chase.&nbsp; It is tough to worship the real "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" if you are paid to give lip service to the little icons of each printed in the corner of the official map of the group that pays you to reassure them that they can avoid the hard work of changing their map by just learning a better logical and political strategy to protect it.&nbsp; And it is hard to form the community of faith that we are called to form if we don't have fully-committed followers modeling how to be a fully-committed fully-educated follower of Jesus from the position of "the normal Christian life."<br /><br />(None of that is to say that all of you who are my friends and who are paid to lead congregations or denominations in a way that is faithful and true are not just as sincere and much more educated than am I!&nbsp; But each of you know the reality about your own process, and it is many of those conversations with many of you that led me to choose a different path.)<br /><br />We need each other, whether we think alike or whether we see things very differently.&nbsp; I need you to challenge the places that I project my expectations or analysis even though I have never actually walked on that part of the landscape but have only seen maps and pictures.&nbsp; And I need to do the same to you when you speak to what the land under my feet is actually like even though you are sadly mistaken and I know it.<br /><br />But we need to challenge each other out of joy and peace and love, and not out of contentiousness.&nbsp; You need me to tell you that you are AMAZING (and each of you IS amazing, truly!!) and that it would be a tragedy to not give all you can give to our generation and to future generations, and that you bring me JOY just in observing you and knowing you (and each of you DO!).&nbsp; And I need you to keep creating me as you have been, through our friendships and through your prayers, for I am a social creature.&nbsp; We are social creatures.&nbsp; We were meant to be social creatures.<br /><br />Most of all, I affirm that the mystery of our lives is the reality of our lives, more than is our definition or our analysis the reality of our lives.&nbsp; We come together in the woods between the worlds and each of us is one of the pools that leads to a whole world of its own . . . and we were made to explore world after world after world, even as we homestead in just a single world and nurture all those given to us in that intimacy.<br /><br />And it is THAT journey that I am back to journaling here.<br /></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/5845986375994350652/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=5845986375994350652&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5845986375994350652'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5845986375994350652'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2013/02/journaling-my-journey-once-more.html' title='Journaling My Journey Once More . . .'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17251610.post-5362784340986943868</id><published>2012-08-20T10:13:00.002-07:00</published><updated>2012-08-20T10:13:18.068-07:00</updated><title type='text'>My Political Stances</title><content type='html'><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">1) I will not take unemployment payments unless I truly am actively looking for a new job.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br />2) I will pay my taxes.<br /><br />3) I will vote after considering carefully the issues and candidates.<br /><br />4) I will realize my actions in how I live my life and impact others have a bigger impact than my vote, and that our shared actions have the ability to "save" us or "destroy us", and that the President and House and Senate are not a big enough rudder to change our course much in the long run.<br /><br />5) I will feed and educate my own children, and will not object to contributing toward doing the same for all other children even after my own are grown, for some of them will change my diapers when I am old, and all of them will create the world we must inhabit.<br /><br />6) I will care for those who cannot care for themselves properly -- through existing private, State, and Federal programs and through new efforts -- rather than expecting others to do the work &amp; pay the bills.<br /><br />6) I will provide incentive for those who can care for themselves but feel entitled not to do so to learn how wonderful it feels to live into a calling and contribute to us all, rather than being leeches. I will not do this by being nasty and hurtful, but rather by rewarding work and making laziness obviously less joyful. Personally I can do this in my own family and workplaces, and nationally I can do this in how I communicate and in how I vote.<br /><br />7) I will now shut up and work. :)</span></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/5362784340986943868/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17251610&postID=5362784340986943868&isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5362784340986943868'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17251610/posts/default/5362784340986943868'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.myrealjourney.com/2012/08/my-political-stances.html' title='My Political Stances'/><author><name>EmKay Anderson</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06993376259173103142</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='//2.bp.blogspot.com/-xWydabmgGZc/W4R_gULu7II/AAAAAAAAGzo/Bgm7UP-Z0sALyTCRLRzKFuprksKP84JawCK4BGAYYCw/s113/image.jpeg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry></feed>If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
Download the "valid Atom 1.0" banner.
Upload the image to your own server. (This step is important. Please do not link directly to the image on this server.)
Add this HTML to your page (change the image src attribute if necessary):
If you would like to create a text link instead, here is the URL you can use:
http://www.feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A//www.myrealjourney.com/feeds/posts/default
