Light and Darkness

My primary school library had a set of books, perhaps a trilogy, in the fantasy genre, which I very naturally read. I've looked for the books in adulthood, but have not found them yet.

The story is about a family that inherits this amulet, passed down from generation to generation. The amulet has an image of a black dog on it, and of course it is magical.  If I remember correctly, under certain conditions the black dog will jump out of the amulet to protect the children.

But there's also a way that the child(ren) in the stories can travel to another world... a world in which the bad guys are a priesthood, dressed up in white robes, and actually rather frightening.

The stories fascinated me, the way they reversed the imagery I was accustomed to. For a time, I contemplated working on another reversal, a world where left-handedness was considered normal. I still haven't written that story... it seems too hard to do well, without wielding it like a blunt hammer.

Of course, the stories got me to thinking.

Music Monday: Voices that Challenge

This is a song that I learned at Purdue, at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center. It's been 17 years since we sang it, but it still comes to my mind often.

15 years ago, I did the first set of short-term travel from Houston; 5-6 weeks here in Huntsville, Alabama to ensure the ISS Lab and Airlock would be ready to fly.

One weekend driving in downtown Huntsville, I passed the traveling Vietnam Memorial, and I stopped to walk it.

It was solemn, and massive even at 1/2 scale.

Near the Wall in the area was a cart, part of the traveling display, which showed photographs of rallies and activists from that era. I was intrigued to see, in close proximity, signs from Catholics and Unitarian Universalists, protesting Vietnam together.

Four of the faith traditions that inform my personal path (Catholic Liberation Theology, Unitarian Universalism, Egalitarian-Feminist Wicca, and the United Church of Christ), connect our faith and spiritual beliefs to our actions in this world. They seek to drive some level of alignment between our faith and our actions.

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

I know I can't do everything. As Stephen Covey describes, my circle of concern is larger than my circle of influence, and my circle of control is pretty much just myself. But I can do something.

A small group of committed people can change the world, for the better. If the influence of what I share inspires you to be one of those active and committed people, then my posts have done some good.

And if the articles are not convincing, then no harm is done.

I do my best to avoid the partisan mocking and biting in most of what I share, especially to the bigger "friends" group. That aspect of politics, I'd just as soon do without. I know that I have friends and family who are conservative, Republican, and/or Libertarian. Those things alone don't offend me.

What does offend me is intolerance, the -isms and -phobias that come from fear and lead to violence.

Thirty-Meter Telescope on Hawai'i

What I've been trying to work my way up to, this week, is discussion of the Thirty-Meter Telescope. It's... complicated, to say the least.

One of the first principles of intersectional work, is that anti-oppression should be led / centered by the voices that are directly affected by it. That being said, this is my blog / my space. So I'm going to begin with this great list of links: http://www.aoletmt.com/

And this Storify that Janet Stemwedel (@docfreeride) put together. My own analysis / processing will be below the cut.

Pay attention, in this Storify, to who are the kanaka maoli, the pre-European Hawaiian voices:

My own processing is below the cut, in two parts: 1) Who I am / Why I care, and 2) What I think.

This is a long post.

My Story of Mom's Cancer.

This post has taken me a long time to write.  I picked out the photos first.  Wrote up the story, and then let it sit for a while.

June, 2007.  I returned from several weeks overseas to find 5, 6, maybe 7 voice mail messages from my family.  While I had been in Europe, Mom came down with a severe case of jaundice and digestive problems that landed her in the Emergency Room.  An exam found two tumors on her liver, and she had surgery to remove them for biopsy.

I only had about 3-5 weeks to decide if I was going to visit before my Obsterician grounded me... but Mom hadn't cleared me for her HIPAA yet, so I couldn't get very good information to make the decision.  We had so much going on that I ended up not travelling.  During that time, the tests came back with a diagnosis of Biliary Cancer, cancer of the bile ducts, also known as cholangiocarcinoma.