“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Frederick Douglass
Pook's Hill
being a compendium of all the things that Puck lost down the back of the sofa of Time
The Endless Knot
Wee sleekit timorous beastie
Gordon Brown is visiting an Edinburgh hospital. He enters a ward full of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness and greets one. The patient replies:
“Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin race,
Aboon them a ye take yer place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm.”
Brown is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient. The patient responds:
“Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat an we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit.”
Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the PM moves on to the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:
“Wee sleekit, cowerin, timrous beasty,
O the panic in thy breasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle.”
Now seriously troubled, Brown turns to the accompanying doctor and asks “Is this a psychiatric ward?”
“No,” replies the doctor, “this is the serious Burns unit.”
step by step by step: Being Queer in a “Straight” RelationshipSomeone asked me why, since...
An excellent blogpost by briefbutstillinfinite:
Being Queer in a “Straight” Relationship
Someone asked me why, since I’m in a relationship with a guy and intending to stay in that relationship for the rest of my life, I’m at all bothered by people assuming I’m straight and erasing my queerness. At first I couldn’t put it into words and all I…
Yes, I felt like this when I was in a monogamous relationship with a straight person - I still felt bisexual and felt the need to assert my queer identity. If I didn’t come out to people, they might think I was straight and that would contribute to bisexual erasure.
(Source: fluffyfemme)
“Many Buddhist teachers have described compassion as the ability to react freely and accurately in any situation. Being nice or feeling sorry for someone may be called for, but so may being fierce and unyielding. When sweetness is applied indiscriminately, it is seen as ‘idiot compassion.’” - Issan Dorsey
We have a blade to draw boundaries by our will. These are necessary. And for me, a strong will = an open heart. My heart can’t be open in a truly compassionate manner if my will is strong.
Everything can be brought into the “Beloved Community” and simultaneously we need to measure our own resources, and figure out what true respect and compassion in action look and feel like. If I am carrying someone all the time, is that respect and compassion? Likely not. If I have spread myself so thin that when my family needs me, I don’t have anything left to give, is that being responsible?
We need discernment and a strong center to move from. This helps us to act ethically, which for me, is the accuracy spoken of in the Dorsey quote. Morality is a big rubber stamp, that takes away my responsibility. Ethics, however, require me to be engaged and making active choices.
I don’t want to automatically exclude someone from my field of compassion. I do want to know what my limitations are, and to discern what true compassion looks like in each moment. This is difficult, but feels necessary.
This is my song, O God of all the nations
A song of peace for lands afar and mine;
This is my home, the country where my heart is,
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine
My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine;
But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.
Unitarian hymn, A song of peace, from Hymns for Living (Tune: Finlandia)
This is one of my favourite Unitarian hymns. It is often sung on Remembrance Sunday.
Recipe: Spaghetti alla puttanesca
In Rome, the prostitutes used to eat this dish between bouts with clients, hence the name. It’s nourishing and quick to prepare. The original version was with anchovies, but I substituted artichoke hearts. You can use any pasta you like; it doesn’t have to be spaghetti. Recently I have been using spelt pasta, which is gluten-free and full of fibre. This dish does not require herbs or other seasonings (except salt on the pasta).
Serves two
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 dessertspoonfuls of capers
half a jar of olives (pitted)
tin of plum tomatoes
tin of artichoke hearts
olive oil
Pasta
Start boiling your pasta in a separate pan. Drain the artichoke hearts and slice them into quarters.
Fry the garlic in the olive oil. When it’s browned, add the tomatoes, capers, olives, and artichoke hearts (or anchovies, if you’re making the non-veggie version). Stir and simmer. When the pasta has boiled, drain it and add the sauce. Eat. Enjoy.
Pictured: a letter to parents from Rev O’Grady regarding Christmas break at Kamloops Indian Residential School in 1948.
“It will be your privilege this year to have your children spend Christmas at home with you. This is a privilege which is being granted if you observe the following regulations of the Indian Department.”
A privilege. A privilege to spend Christmas with your children.
Never forget all of the privilege that we have today. That we can send our children to school and not be worried that they will be beaten, neglected, starved, raped, or killed there. That we can safely assume our children will grow up with the love and guidance of their own parents, and be allowed to speak their own language. A privilege is that we, as students, not only see school as a safe place but as somewhere we want to be.
I will never forget that my own grandmother, my own moshum and kookum where denied this privilege. I will never forget that my own loved ones were taken away from each other to be brought to this place they called a “school”; a place that our ancestors fought to provide for us during treaty negotiations, but a place that the Canadian government and the Catholic Church did not deem us worthy of having, in a true sense. Rather than to schools, my family was sent to a place, as children, that sought to “kill the Indian” within them. In a country that belongs to them, they were taught to be ashamed of who they were. To regret the colour of their skin. To fear “God”. That they were less than human.
And it was called a privilege.
I will never forget the day my dad drove me to where St. Henri Indian School used to stand.
“Jess, I know your grandpa’s pretty rough, but you have to understand…”
…and I don’t think I ever will. Not fully, but I’ll be damned if I ever forget, and I’m not sure I’ll ever have it in me to forgive.
God this fucking tears me up.
Chilocco Indian School.
That is the reason my family fled Oklahoma.
Can you imagine what it would feel like to get a letter like that? Can you imagine writing a letter like that? It’s hard to get your head round the mindset that allows someone to write a letter like that. But in some places, indigenous people are still being treated this badly. Forcibly removed from their ancestral lands, killed, beaten up, and “educated”. Check out Survival International, which advocates for the rights of tribal peoples.
(via sexgenderbody)
I forgot about the news and began to learn about how to make a sheet bend knot. The man’s name was Oscar and he started talking. About the port, about the problems people were having with osmosis on their new fibreglass shrimp boats and how the old wooden ones were better. How the new government quota system had caused two brothers to sell up and move to Rocky Mount. How the fire in the back of the café meant he had to drive five miles to buy his Cuban sandwiches for lunch. Who had gotten married and who had run off with whom and who was carrying a shotgun in his boat in case he spotted the man who cuckolded him.
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
Charles Darwin
(Now substitute “religions” for “species” and think about what that might mean…)
