JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

SYLLABICATION: re·li·gion
PRONUNCIATION: r-ljn

NOUN: 1a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

During the time for questions and discussion at the end of my Northern Voice talk, someone shared a detailed observation, describing blogging as a religion. The clock was ticking, we were ending my session and I didn’t know how to succinctly and quickly respond to this complicated statement. Since then, I have heard and seen others repeating this comparison of blogging and religion.

I agree that blogging could be seen as a religion: it depends on the definition of religion. If religion is defined as adherence to a set of rituals, then perhaps my daily routine of publishing posts and reading feeds would fit. If religion is defined as an identifying lifestyle practice, such as the fact that I now carry my camera with me everywhere, then blogging might be considered a religion. If religion brings people together and creates community, certainly meetups and conferences could be classified as religious experiences in that sense. We bloggers may share common values including the often-cited ones of transparency, authenticity and truth. And, as the conference attendee pointed out to me, we are perhaps indoctrinating our children into blogging by starting them at an early age.

However here are some key questions that demonstrate how blogging fails to fulfill my definition – and the dictionary’s definition – of religion:

Does blogging provide a purpose for my life or explain my existence on Earth?
No.

Does blogging involve a belief in supernatural beings or require reverence for any gods?
No.

Does blogging explain what happens when I die or where I was before birth?
No.

Does blogging interpret humanity, community and current events into a holistic picture?
No.

Does blogging fulfill spiritual needs for my family and me?
No.

Blogging is a container. It’s a tool. it can be a way to share and express religion. But blogging is not a purpose in itself. Bloggers might be zealous. Bloggers might be devoted. However I hope we all find more purpose to life than the act of publishing posts.

As Derek Miller observed, there are a number of activities that could be described as religion, with the same qualifications as blogging. Some families raise their children playing tennis. Some families raise their children immersed in art or business. And some families are devoted to NASCAR. There are plenty of these types of indoctrinations.

I don’t like the word religion. I feel it has come to mean a pile of routines and rituals, a list of laws lacking love, hypocrites who hurt others. I don’t describe myself as religious.

Here is a better question:

Is blogging spiritual?

If a blog is a container, then a blog can be spiritual. A blog can be filled with whatever we want to put inside it. I believe the best posts are those that connect us to each other on the deep levels of who we are as humans, what we feel, how we hurt, whom we love. In a face to face conversation we might talk about traffic, cars or coffee. We may or may not dive into the depths. We often hide our souls.

But a blog gives us a voice for these secret sides of our selves, the tender places, the fears and faults, the dreams and desires, the likes and loves. We can show our scars and wash our wounds. We can describe our doubts. We can be desperate. We can be excited. We ask. We give. We rejoice. We sing. We dance. We listen.

We share life. We share death. We share love.

We can become more of who we were meant to be, both as individuals and community. Blogging can remind us who we are and what it’s all about.

A blog is a bowl and we can pour pieces of our souls into it, as an offering to others, for whomever will hear.

Spiritual blogging doesn’t require rituals or routines: indoctrination makes it dull. But blogging of the soul does ask for devotion, zeal and courage.

I found myself caught up in these swirling currents in the early 1980s when the faculty of Harvard College asked me to teach a course on Jesus in the newly introduced Moral Reasoning division of the undergraduate curriculum. The faculty had created this program after deciding that the university could no longer ignore a growing embarrassment. Why were we hearing so much about insider trading, sleazy legal practices, doctors more interested in profts than patients, and scientist who fudged the data? Worse, still, why were some of these culprits our own undergraduates? Why were so many well-educated people doing bad things? Was something missing from the education we were giving our students?

We knew we were equipping them with a good command of the humanities and the sciences […] But we began to see that we were giving them virtually no preparation for how to apply their educations in a morally responsible manner. They were becoming experts on facts but novices on values. So the faculty decided that henceforth every student would be required to take at least one course in moral reasoning in order to graduate…[…]

I had my doubts about the idea. I wasn’t sure that morality was something one could teach in a classroom.

– from the Introduction, When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today by Harvey Cox

After seeing a review in the Seattle Times (which I can’t find now to link!), I reserved Harvey Cox’s book When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today at the local library. I was curious. As an Ivy League graduate and as someone who wrestled with her faith both in college and through the years since then, I wanted to know what had been happening at Harvard.

Within the first few chapters, I discovered that Harvey Cox and I are not on the same page spiritually. My first reaction to these differences was to think that I would be uncomfortable as a student in his class. He and I would disagree.

However, as Harvey Cox described the class he created, the students who came and the syllabus they discussed, I liked the man more and more. I liked Harvey Cox. And I found I liked Jesus more after getting a glimpse of him through the professor’s eyes.

This book had the potential to become an academic thesis crafted with abstraction and criticism. Instead Harvey Cox chose to share his own personal spiritual journey as he taught students at Harvard about Jesus. He shared his fears and doubts as a person and as a professor. He shared his own experiments of his soul, such as using his imagination in meditation. The stories he put on the page, as well as the pieces of himself, made the book an easy read and drew me into the classroom and into the mind and soul of Cox himself.

Chapters cover topics such as what it means for human beings to inhabit a body and Jesus and his family as refugees. One of my favorite illustrations was the trial of Jesus with Alan Derschowitz as defense, Professor Cox as Pontius Pilate, and the students acting as his advisory council. Even with Derschowitz as his defense, Jesus was still condemned to death.

The author often said he was afraid to introduce certain issues from the life of Jesus, for example healing, money and resurrection, but again and again it seemed he found himself surprised by his students’ reactions and even eagerness to discuss these highly-charged but applicable aspects of the gospel story. What I gained most from the book was a view of Jesus as a rabbi, in the context of his time, with the Bible and history of his day, also contrasted to Muslim beliefs and modern beliefs. The Jesus Harvey Cox saw in the Bible was a radical political Jesus, a rabbi, a storyteller, someone challenging the status quo but allowing people to choose their response to him. Another powerful and timely chapter centered on the trio of reason, emotion and torture.

Reading Harvey Cox’s book about Jesus made me think what it would be like to read books others had written about someone I loved. For example what if I read a pile of books describing Ted, written by everyone from his parents to his first grade teacher to his college roommate. How much another’s perspective adds to our own and how precious the difference can be. How all the portraits combined create a rich composite. When I read Harvey Cox’s portrait of Jesus, I loved Jesus more for who he is in Cox’s eyes and in my own. And I began to love Harvey Cox too, for who he is.

Below I’ve typed a collection of favorite quotes from the book. A particular aspect I appreciated was the role of Jesus as storyteller. I believe stories have power and so does Cox.

We need a present day equivalent for the ritual settings in which the classical narratives were once sung, enacted, and interpreted. But given the altered cultural context, today’s equivalents must welcome a degree of sorting and selectivity rarely found in the older ones, and encourage people to exchange their personal accounts in the light of the larger narrative. p. 44

With this kind of scandalous stuff inside the covers of the Good Book, who needs to waste money on true romance magazines? p. 54

Now years later I still carry on imaginary conversations with the rabbi from Nazareth. It has become my principal form of meditation. p. 99

We mistakenly sever the question of “Who am I” from the question of “What must I do?” The two belong together. p. 101

No one hearing Jesus’ message could have thought that he meant you could do nothing and just wait for it to happen. The need to respond, one way or another, was integral to everything he said and did. p. 160

Like the parables he told, the healing stories told about Jesus not only defied the ideas about health and healing that circulated in his day, they defy ours as well. p. 184

One of the most powerful elements of the Jesus story is that even after two millenia, retelling it plunges any honest hearer into confronting some issues we normally avoid. p. 219 (palm Sunday)

All in all, I have come to share Bonhoeffer’s suggestion that Jesus’ agonized cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is the most important verse in the Bible and the most decisive moment in Jesus’ life.
[…]
How can God feel abandoned by himself? But the fact we cannot fully grasp such an idea does not make it any less powerful. It merely deepens the mystery of just how God was present in Jesus, and how God continues to suffer the grief and heartache of human existence. p. 266

Postscript

After decades of writing, thinking and teaching about him, I can honestly report that I still think of Jesus as a friend, but I find him ever more elusive and impossible to pin down. Every so often he takes me by surprise. I catch a glimpse of him sometimes on wintry afternoons strolling through Harvard Yard; chatting with sophomores, Ph.D. candidates, and faculty members, dunking doughnuts in coffee with the maids and janitors; helping the students who run the homeless shelters in the church basements to make up the beds for another cold night. Sometimes I see him as one of the shivering homeless men or women who wander into those shelters. But why should I be surprised? He is where he always was, doing what he was always doing: teaching, chatting, eating and drinking without regard to rank. Today, like then, he meets the same mixture of welcome and hesitation, skepticism and rejection. He runs the constant risk of real trouble with both the religious and political establishments. But he gently forces people to look at life differently and maybe live it differently. p. 302

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

– Serenity Prayer

As a child I would see this serenity prayer engraved on plaques and hung in homes, not at ours, but at others. It seemed a strange prayer to me, a weak one, one that didn’t fit with the way I thought the world or God worked. Accept the things I cannot change? Wasn’t that wimping out on trying to change things? Why can’t everything be fixed or healed? Accept that things can’t be changed?! Courage? Who needs courage? Only those who are afraid. Not me. Difference? What difference?

I didn’t believe in a world where there was a difference, where there were things I could change and things I couldn’t. What couldn’t be accomplished, given truth, zeal and passionate people: so read the summary of my college years philosophy. Even in my childhood, I believed that if I prayed or served God or was good enough, I could help change things. If I prayed enough times and in the right way God listen and change it. He doesn’t have a difference; there’s nothing he can’t do. This was the way I thought the world worked.

In the past year I’ve been forced to face what I can’t change. I’ve grieved what has gone from my life. This heaviness manifested itself in many tears and sleepless nights. It became my inner iron maiden.

Inside I’ve blamed myself. I must not have prayed the right way or the right times, said what I should have said. I believed I must be responsible for these losses in my life. It was my fault things had broken and it was up to me somehow to try to fix it again. Movies from my memories played in my mind, as I analyzed the scenes, wondering what words should have been spoken, scrambling to re-write the script.

However I also felt as I were running a marathon race and hitting a brick wall. Or falling off a brick wall. I had tried everything I could but like Humpty Dumpty’s physicians the broken pieces remained. What else could I do?

I am realizing I am powerless to change these situations. And to some extent perhaps God is too, subject to the laws he has made for his people. We humans have choice and no one can take that choice from us.

This spring, as I have come to accept the things I cannot change, I’ve discovered peace. Serenity. Sweet and bright, light and hopeful, like the crocus and the sunshine I can see.

Perhaps it does take courage and wisdom to know our own limits. Perhaps we have to be brave to accept our inabilities. Perhaps it takes maturity to find serenity.

This week The Seattle Times has run a series describing Dot-con job: How InfoSpace took its investors for a ride

At its peak, InfoSpace was the Northwest’s biggest Internet business, worth more than $31 billion. Jain, a man obsessed with being more successful than Bill Gates, was himself worth $8 billion. He bought a palatial waterfront home in Medina down the street from his idol and another nearby on Mercer Island, along with two yachts and a piece of the Seattle SuperSonics.

What Paul Allen, Bev Hess and hundreds of other shareholders didn’t know was this: InfoSpace’s success was an illusion, created by lies and deception.

Sunday morning, after I read the Seattle Times article, through Euan Semple I discovered this insight, excerpted calling all spiritual nomads by amba

In the affluent, manic late ‘60s and late ‘90s, we really believed we had the power to reinvent ourselves. New ideas, new freedoms, or new technologies were going to bring forth the new, improved human at last. Then we woke up from that dream on recession’s morning after and found ourselves stuck with the same old, same old: greed, lust, wrath, envy, pride, gluttony and sloth.

How could I forget the frenzy: the years Ted and I survived in Silicon Valley amidst the highways and hype, the excitement and enticements, the dreams and delusions. I know that there are many business and technology lessons to be learned from the dot com bust. However, I suspect the ultimate lessons are what we learned about ourselves.

I don’t ride the ferry often and after living here for five years, I don’t think twice about it. Familiarity may breed contempt or at least a casual attitude. However David Weinberger’s kind comments regarding this blog and its ferry coverage helped me realize what I take for granted. I thought that perhaps I should describe what it is like to live on Bainbridge and take the boat to Seattle. I hesitated to write this post, knowing that others who read this blog are more familiar with the ferry than I am, riding daily, but here is my perspective as a mom and occasional commuter…

At first I had planned to use photos from one trip on the boat but later I decided to create a collage, adding pictures from various sailings we’ve enjoyed as a family.

_______________________________

“Time to get up and get on the boat,” I tell my daughters as I wake them in the morning. Riding the ferry to Seattle is unusual for us and it requires changes to our routines.

“Time to get up and get on the boat,” my girls parrot me as they change from pajamas into the clothes we selected the previous day, left in piles on the carpet overnight. I flip my wrist to see my watch as I help my children brush teeth and dress.

Riding the boat to Seattle for a doctor appointment requires careful calculations. Although Washington State Ferries recommends arriving 20 to 30 minutes before sailing, I often try to be at the dock earlier, 45 minutes to an hour in advance, depending on the time of day, to ensure that our car gets on the boat.

I learned this lesson the hard way. When we moved to the island, I was pregnant with Michaela. To go to my ultrasound appointment, scheduled early on a Monday morning, we arrived at the dock and squeezed into the last lane of the parking lot. Ferry workers told us we might not make it onto the boat. Since I needed to appear at my appointment I prepared myself to get out and run onto the boat if we didn’t make it. We did fit, one of the last cars. I can still see the scene and feel the adrenaline as we pulled onto the boat. A crew member told us that Monday mornings are the most difficult morning for ferry traffic. Also in retrospect, I realized that it was also the first Monday after Easter Sunday and spring vacation…now I try to avoid Mondays and consider holidays when planning to ride the boat.

Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island

Wednesday we needed to be in Seattle for a doctor appointment at 11 am. So the boat we needed to catch was the 9:40 am. Therefore we needed to be ready to go to the appointment and Seattle at 9 am.

Often I will schedule breakfast on the boat, especially if the appointment is early enough. Eating requires extra time and often isn’t worth waking the girls up for it, when they can easily munch on the ferry.

However, since the ferries no longer offer food services, anything we want to eat needs to be prepared and packed. I put scones in ziploc bags and grab granola bars. Before the girls woke up, I sliced apples and took juice and water from my stash in the fridge. This time we eat breakfast at home, a treat of toast spread with nutella, to make the meal fast and delectable.

the island ferry dock

Around 9 am we pulled out of the driveway. Ted came with us this time, since he had appointments in Seattle that day.

Commuting on foot is easier than taking the van. Unlike drivers, pedestrians only pay one way so it is more affordable. It also saves gas and is less headache when I don’t have to park the van in Seattle. Once in a while the girls and I have taken the bus to the boat, although this requires traveling during the early commute hours when the buses are running.

Sometimes we pay $10 to park at the ferry dock instead of driving onto the boat, especially if we are planning to visit somewhere on the waterfront or if we can take the Seattle bus. Pedestrians enter the ferry through an elevated walkway that takes a few turns before ending on the boat.

glass mural made by island schoolchildren

Say “ferry” to Elisabeth and she says “Run! Run!” and starts jogging. I credit this reaction to the last time we went to Seattle with our friends. Overambitious, I tried to run an errand before arriving at the terminal. As the girls and I began on the walkway, I heard we had three minutes to make it to the boat. Three minutes with three young children can be tight. So we started running…we made it onto the boat, hyperventiliating and a bit embarrassed…”Run! run!” Elisabeth remembers…

The Washington State Ferry website provides a camera showing the parking lot and also estimated waiting times.

the empty Eagle Harbor parking lot – my picture

Another aspect of riding the ferry is the fare. Cars are charged $10 each way in the off-season. Prices are raised on Mother’s Day and stay increased through October, during the tourist season. A yearly hike in the ferry rates also occurs each spring.

Children under 5 ride free, whether in a van or on foot. By the end of 2005 we will be paying for both Abigail and Michaela when we commute to Seattle. The cost of traveling to Seattle is becoming considerable for our family.

If we ride often enough, for example during my pregnancies, we buy a ticket book which saves some money, purchasing 20 rides at a slightly lower price per ticket. However, the book only benefits us if we are going to use all the tickets within the three month time period of validity. Otherwise money is wasted.

The time it takes to pay the fare can be the time it takes to miss the boat. So Ted and I like to keep exact change, in case we need to speed through the booth and into the parking lot. Missing the boat can be painful.

seeing a rainbow in the rain as we wait for the boat

On Wednesday we arrived in the parking lot with plenty of room to spare. While we waited, the Washington State Patrol K-9 crew walked up and down the aisle inspecting the cars, one of the few visible reminders of the increased security.

We usually watch the boat pull into the dock and unload. Then it is our turn to get on the boat, a few minutes before the scheduled sailing time.

Ferry crew, in flourscent orange and yellow safety vests, direct the traffic. Depending on emergency vehicles (ambulances and ladies in labor go on the boat first – it happened to us once!) and vanpools, the ferry is usually loaded in the front first and then the side wings are filled. Bicycles and motorcyles board before cars.

after the motocycles (picture taken from the Seattle dock)

My favorite place to park is on the upper level wings. From there the kids and I have (one flight) fewer stairs to climb to get to the cabin. I always wait until the cars around me have been parked before trying to unload the girls.

parking on the boat

As the ferry ride begins, safety announcements are made, simliar to those made during an airplane ride. Riders are told what to do in the event of an emergency (seat cushions). We are also warned not to leave any personal belongings unattended. It is serious: once I was questioned after leaving coats on a bench during a visit to the restroom.

saying goodbye to Bainbridge: Wing Point

The 7:05 ferry is the largest commute west of the Mississippi [fact read from the Seattle Times years ago]. This large number of passengers was why Al Gore decided to campaign on the boat in 2000 (Ted has stories and pictures!). It is also one of the reasons why the ferries have been subject to intensified security measures.

watching out the window

During the sailing, we often go upstairs although lately the girls have enjoyed staying in the van. Sitting in the car means less work and more reading time for me although it can be tricky to keep them entertained in a small space. If we want a table and bench we need to head upstairs soon after boarding, especially on a sailing during commuting hours.

Walking around the boat can be good exercise. Decks at either end are fun to explore although often windy in winter. “Too cold!” the girls told me on Wednesday.

waves of the wake

On summer days the sun deck can make the commute too good to be true. Strolling around the cars on the base of the boat provides glimpses of the water. A chain stretched across the end prevents people and cars from taking a dip.

looking towards Bainbridge from the base of the boat

It’s always fun to see who I know on the boat. It’s a small enough island that sometimes I do see friends on the ferry. Plus the ferry is the great equalizer. It creates community. Everyone has to take the boat home.

If commuting to Seattle is a necessity, it’s difficult to find a route that offers more beauty than the boat on a sunny day. Both mountain ranges, including Mt. Rainier are often visible. The beauty, community and convenience of ferry commuting remind us why we live on Bainbridge.

Mount Rainier and the Port of Seattle

as well as freighters, tug boats and sailboats, triangles of white on blue.

When I can start to see the Port of Seattle and the skyscrapers I like to get the girls back into their seats. Ted likes to stay longer than I do upstairs but traveling alone has meant I’ve needed more time to help the three girls back into the car and into the seat belts. If I wait longer I can listen for the sound of the engine slowing and often the sight of the other boat in the dock. Two boats on the Bainbridge run and other boats on the Bremerton run all share the same port.

seeing the city

The boat docks. I’m often ferrying kids out of the bathroom or tidying the car at this time. However the other day I was able to watch part of the docking process. Amazing. A friend pointed out to me the water pipes that are connected as the ramp is settled, the chain removed.

docking

We disembark in the order we got on, subject to direction of the crew. If we are trying to be strategic, we usually try to choose which side of the ferry is closer to the road we want to take. Once off the boat, we are in downtown.

Bikes and motorcyles get off first – another incentive to travel with a smaller vehicle. Then the car in front of us. As the red lights disappear and the vehicle moves ahead, I shift gears and pull the brake. With a light tap on the gas we turn the curve and over the dock. I hear the rattle of the ramp and see the skyscrapers. We have arrived.