Peace At What Price?

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. - Luke 2:8-11 (KJV)

So, there was this hideous shooting this past Friday. You all know about it, so I don't have to tell you about it, but if you don't, go to CNN or something and it will tell you everything you need to know right down to what Wolf Blitzer had for breakfast that morning.

One of the worst things to come out of this I saw as I was sifting through the ever-changing news accounts. It was a T-shirt that I won't justify by linking an image to that reads:

"Dear God, why do You allow so much violence in our schools? -Signed, a Concerned Student
 Dear Concerned Student, I'm not allowed in schools. -God"

I was truly jaw-droppingly shocked. And sure, it bothers me on a political level, because, y'know, get over yourselves, Christians. You're not the only ones who have morals, ethics and laws to live by. It's also really not fair to the other children of a multitude of different faiths who attend public schools all over this great nation to say that yours are the best ones of all, so little Moishe Ratzenberger and Sanjay Patel have to either pray to your ideation of Deity or remain silent. You want your kids to pray to your version of Deity, send them to a private school that caters to your beliefs. Public school's for everyone. This shirt's a disgustingly snide way to take advantage of a deeply tragic event, and I'd be happy to take the person who came up with it to task for it.

That aside, however, I'm far more upset by this on a more foundational level: faith.

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. -Matthew 1:23 (KJV)

"God with us." Highly powerful imagery, when you stop to think about it, and truly beautiful if you truly believe it. There is no place where you can go that God is not with you, and thus you need never be afraid (it even says so in at least one song!). When I was taught this as a child, I was alternately comforted and terrified by the notion depending on what I was doing in the course of the day -- but the idea was still there.

Note, however, that it doesn't say "God is with you, and Billy, and Sara, and Timmy, and everyone else is on their own". Granted, there are different translations of the Bible that have twisted "Divine Inspiration" to say as much; that the whole peace and goodwill thing only applies to those who believe and everyone else is fucked. But -- if you are among the believers in the Christ -- it is "God with us".

Not "God is only with you when you're in Church".

Not "God doesn't go to Kohl's, He only likes Macy's".

Not "God doesn't accompany you to school unless you go to one where you can pray".

Props to the person on Memebase.com who came up with this beauty, which demonstrates perfectly the kind of flawed thinking that's come to permeate many believers' (of any persuasion, I fear) way of imagining their relationship with Deity:  Bless This Area in Particular!

If you, as a Christian (and I'm honestly, desperately not trying to pick on Christians, it's just that that's where the screaming is coming from these days since some branches feel oh so persecuted), believe that violence happens in schools -- or anyplace else for that matter -- because people are not allowed to pray there, then I'm deeply sorry for the emptiness of your faith. If you can believe at this time of year that the Child who was born to all the world (ALL the world!) is named "Emmanuel ... God with us" but bitch about how God doesn't cross the threshold of a damn brick-and-mortar building, you've got some serious issues. He's either with you, or He isn't; this isn't one of those things you get to pick and choose.

If you believe that that child whose birth you celebrate with cards, a tree, a pretty manger and a fat guy in a chimney (wait, what?) is named Emmanuel, that He is God With Us, Wonder-Counsellor, Prince of Peace, I challenge you to LIVE THAT BELIEF. Stop pretending to be persecuted, stop playing at being offended because I wear a pentacle or Awen instead of a cross, and stop pointing the finger at your God for "failing" you because some nutbar did something utterly hideous and start looking at the way that you can improve this world by living your faith always instead of arguing about why it's right. I issue this challenge to all faiths, really, and not just the ones who are yelling at this moment.

Then, and only then, will we truly have peace on Earth. The question is: is this too high a price for you to pay for it?

Essential Personnel

So, I've been thinking about this for a while, and then along came the Superstorm and all the devastation that went with it.  It's been bad, and I'm not going to harp on that aspect of it because most of you have put up with my harping on it already.  Nope, I'm going to actually talk about something else entirely, because I'm sick to death of this storm and really need to return to some sense of normalcy.

Driving restrictions instated during a disaster like the one we've been through confine allowable driving to "Essential Personnel" -- that is, mainly, first responders and ops crews.  I am not part of either of these categories, and on any given day that's generally fine with me, because while I'd like to think I have nerves of steel and an honorary set of brass balls, this situation has taught me that I'm not really sure how I am under that kind of pressure.  That's a valuable lesson in and of itself.

Once it's all over but the crying, I'm back to work.  A little too soon, if you ask me, as I would prefer to see the roads open only to utilities, first responders and the like to get the State up and running more quickly and safely, but the Governor didn't ask me for counsel.  He probably shouldn't, either.  Nevertheless, I'm back to work.  All of the objects I care for are fine, and all of the people I care for here are fine.  Yay.

Not that I wasn't worried about the people, but it's the things I was concerned about, and it's the things that my brain immediately jumps to whenever we have something like this happen.  That brings me to why I do what I do as a professional.  I won't profess to speak for all of those in my chosen line of work, because I have neither the stature nor the right to do so.  This is strictly my take.

See, the stuff that y'all go to see in museums -- even that contemporary art stuff that you think a chimp on crack could do, and do better -- is all part of Something Greater than us.  It's history.  It is as close to a permanent record as you can get of who and what we as a society are right now.  Just as we make educated judgments about what life was like a hundred, a thousand, even ten thousand years ago based on the material things that were left behind, people will be judging us a hundred, a thousand, even ten thousand years from now based on what we leave.  It will be interesting to see how that process changes as museums come to be abandoned through various means, as they weren't around back in the days that we're collecting artifacts from now; but suffice it to say, at least one museum will likely be left behind and abandoned when (notice I didn't say "if") some great disaster befalls us.  Even if that weren't to happen, and our institutions go on (as is my fondest hope) for centuries, the objects that we work to preserve will still tell our story long after we ourselves have perished, and not only by their simple existence but also by their association with the other objects in our collections.  Fortunately, we have the written word now to go with these ... but, as we have seen, so little of the written word is as permanent as we might think it to be.

And so, we work to preserve these objects, fighting an endless (and, likely at the end of the day, unwinnable) battle against the environment and the inevitabilities of time.  We deal with things that seem incredibly elementary and trivial -- let's face it, climate control, pest control, security, chains of custody are not the stuff of epic sagas.  Still in all, these are the things that will tell our descendants -- and, possibly, friends from beyond our star -- who we were.  Who we are now.  The objects we choose to preserve are the things future generations will define us by.

So, who are we?  Based on the objects I deal with, we are a people who appreciate beauty and artistry.  We admire careful and detailed craftsmanship.  We honor and learn from our history.  We draw from the intelligence of our forebears, and we expand upon their knowledge.  We enjoy and appreciate humor, wit, parody, and the exploration of human nature.  We respect tradition, religion and ritual.  We have a warrior spirit.  We love the animals we share our world with.  We are a people continuing to explore ourselves, growing, learning and recording the discoveries that we make in a multitude of creative ways.

That's all pretty respectable, at least in my book.

It's important to me that we be remembered this way, because I don't really like what I'm seeing us become: sniping, selfish, and small.  There's a reason I'm something of a misanthrope: because I know we are better than that.  I see it every day, sometimes in people but more in the objects I'm honored to protect and keep.  I take very seriously my role in keeping these things first and foremost for the public trust -- something all museums are implicitly charged with doing -- and come across in my daily life as something of a hard-ass at work because of it.  I wish I could recall where I heard it recently (memory issues, you know) -- it was probably Star Trek -- but eternal vigilance is the price we pay for our future.

So, next time I bitch about people touching things, or not watching their kids (who are usually touching things), or about how it's too damned hot or cold, or whathaveyou, remember these things.  Likewise, the next time you're in a museum, and you're tempted to do something you're not supposed to (you know, like touch things!), try to keep them in mind.  After all, we're not here for ourselves -- we're here for you.

And your children.

And your children's children.

And you're children's children's children's alien friends.

And so on, and so on, and so on.  Because we love humanity.  We love who we are and we want to love who we're going to become.

And, gods willing, through continued self-examination, we will become great.

"Depression Lies"

I didn't intend to start off this thing with such an intensely personal post, in all honesty, even though that's what blogs are about: we shout our thoughts into the vastness of cyberspace figuring someone, somewhere might give a flying monkey's ass about what we have to say.  Usually those thoughts are triggered by something, whether it's something as mundane as "GO LOCAL SPORTS TEAM!"/"I had a great poop this morning"/"Hey lookit what I just read", or something more substantive such as an unexpected spiritual occurrence, epiphany, or massively important life event.

For me, it was the realization that I have, in fact, fallen into a depression.

This is not an uncommon occurrence for me.  I was diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) after the death of my father some six years ago, and the consensus is that his extended illness and death are what finally kicked the depression into gear for me.  It really was no surprise given that he suffered severely for many, many years with bipolar depression that he self-medicated but allowed to go untreated nearly until it was too late.  Dad was majorly suicidal.  He wasn't truly happy for a very long time, and suicide was his go-to plan.  Toward the end of his life, when his illnesses had finally gotten the best of him, he would try again ... but he was surrounded by a number of loving people, and, quite frankly, his "attempts" were, well, pretty hilarious because his grip on reality was nowhere to be found.

I digress.  This is about me, not Dad.

Since I was diagnosed and began treatment, my mental health overall has gotten better -- the fact that I'd been working on a lot of the underlying issues for a long time prior to therapy helped -- but I still fall into these pits periodically.  Sometimes I see it on my own and try to make changes; but more often than not, it takes someone or something else to point out to me that my behavior is off.  This time, it was Marc noting that I've been seeming distant, for lack of better shorthand.  Disengaged.  When he said it, there went the lightbulb, because that was how I've been feeling for the last week and a half or so: disengaged from everything.  Separate.  Angry.  Sad.  Like nothing I did really truly mattered, and no one I knew really truly cared about my welfare and that I was all alone.  My dreams have been angry.  In waking life, I've allowed myself to withdraw into Tony Stark mode: snarky, argumentative and fully immersed in what's going on in my own head to the detriment of everyone around me, and to myself. In dreams, I'm struggling to come to grips with a need for a deeper connection to family that will never really be able to be fulfilled, as well as to the people I love.

This morning, I'm still feeling sad and disengaged and angry, but two words are lodged in my brain that weren't there before: "Depression Lies."  I have WHil WHeaton to thank for that, as I'd gone back and read this post of his from a couple weeks ago: http://wilwheaton.net/2012/09/depression-lies/.  My depression tells me that no one really wants me to be integrated into their lives, and that I'm supposed to go it alone as much as I can.  I need look no further than my left hand to find evidence to the contrary, let alone photos and kind words and good memories, but depression has a way of twisting even the most positive things into something other than what they are.  It whispers, coldly, that the evidence is false, always has been too, and puts a chill on my soul.  It suggests that maybe everyone would be better off if they didn't have me around, that maybe I should "go somewhere else".  It seduces with the comfortableness of anger, martyrdom and self-pity.  But it's a big, fat, stinking liar from Liarsburg that slips into my heart when I'm not looking, and the gods know I haven't been looking.

What does depression offer, really?  It is comfortable, I will say that.  I guess I've gotten used to it over the years.  I spent a lot of time isolated and alone when I was coming up for a lot of reasons, so I know what that feels like.  It's much, much easier to stay in my shell and listen to what it says.  I don't have to make any effort that way, I can just be pissed off because no one else is saving me from myself.  It's the warm, calm, soothing Lethe, drifting through my heart and slowly taking me with it into the convenient complacency of forgetfulness.  The problem comes in when the water starts to get cold, and I'm suddenly very far away from what my heart still vaguely remembers: love, friendship, serenity, the truths of my life.

The water's gotten cold, and once again Mnemosyne calls.  My heart is still confused by it all, because it's hard to hear Her over the believable lies.  At least I know they're lies now, and that's something.

One of the wonderful things about the Intarwebs is that there are lots of folks out there who feel more comfortable sharing their experiences and telling their stories.  It's one of the things I've always appreciated about the Rooms, but the global nature of the 'net takes the experience from limited face-to-face contact to the connection of many like-minded individuals saying, "Here's what happened to me.  Here's what I'm going through.  Here's what helps."  It's a lot easier to find something to connect to and hold on.

So, here's what happened to me.  Here's what I'm going through.  Here's what helps: remembering that depression does, in fact, lie, and lie loudly and strongly.

Requisite Introductory Post, Nuts and Bolts

Well, it's a good question, really.  Why the hell are you reading this?

Probably because you're a friend of mine, and, for some reason, a glutton for punishment.  Or, you stumbled onto this somehow, and, well, same thing.  In any case, here we are.

I'll be tinkering with this off and on for a while, I expect, as I've found that sometimes FB is too limiting for the stream-of-consciousness rants/questions/existential explorations that surface in the turbulent stream (well, some days, admittedly, it's more like a sewer runoff) that is my mind -- and that, for whatever reason, people find these things interesting, or at least a way to pass the time.

If you know me, but don't know me well, or if you don't really know me at all, you're in for -- gods, how do I say this without sounding like everyone and their dog when they start a blog? Well, you're in for something.  I don't know what, for two reasons: a) I don't know how you perceive things and b) I don't know what this is going to turn out to be yet, if anything.

If you know me at all, though, you probably know that I've got an opinion on a lot of things, and that I can be kind of a mouthy broad.  I'm bitchy, self-deprecating, seeking and sad by turns, like the rest of you.  What you may not understand about me is that when I'm bitchy, particularly about some sort of major issue, it's generally because I'm sad about said issue.  We'll talk more about that, I'm sure.

In a nutshell, though: I'm a mid-to-late-thirtysomething (today), happily married to my best friend (who understands me better than I understand myself), with a career that I love and that I take very seriously.  I have been described as well-educated, which I suppose is true since I have a piece of paper telling me I'm a Master of Arts, well-read, and well-spoken.  As far as I'm concerned, most of what I know is a list of what I don't know but would probably like to at some point; I've read a lot of things about a lot of things; and I'm lucky if I can tell a story or answer a simple question without turning into Grandpa Simpson.  Look at how long this post is, for pity's sake.

I live with -- I refuse, since I'm having a decent day so far, to say "suffer with," but talk to me later -- a number of autoimmune disorders and the dubious gifts of my forebears.  My primary demon at the moment is how I accept the limits these place on me without giving in completely: I'm a woman, after all, raised in an "empowering" environment; I was a very bright kid, to boot, so this precocious girl-child was taught from an early age that there are no limits as to what she can do.  Reality has taught me that, well, when your legs forget how to work stairs and your fingers forget how to hold an object, that can be kind of limiting.  Letting these limits define me is right out, as this vessel is but temporary, but allowing them to somehow circumscribe my world is a necessity.

My mental, emotional and spiritual journeys have taken me to some terribly interesting places, and have proven to me that I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what self-excavation and the exploration of the Other will reveal.  I'm some flavor of polytheist, though I can't quite tell you whether it's vanilla or rocky road.  I just know that there's Something Bigger Than Us out there, that It takes interest in us on occasion, and presents Itself to us in a wide variety of, ah, interesting ways.  I most vehemently do not, however, believe that Deity tells us that one form of Itself is the "correct" one to believe in; that Deity would have us killing, maiming, or torturing each other (physically, emotionally or mentally) over how It presents Itself; and that we are all of us, everywhere in the Universe, children of Deity.  We are, as so aptly stated by the Minbari and many other fictional and non-fictional entities, made of the stuff of stars.

Seriously, go look it up: there's a pretty finite amount of "stuff" in the Universe from which to draw.  Some of it's in pretty much everything, which leads to a logical, if elemental (ha) conclusion: everything is connected.

So, ah, I suppose those are the main things about me to get out of the way.  You're welcome to ask about anything else, if you're so inclined.  You should know that I'm highly opinionated, if you don't already know that; and that, while I try to be diplomatic, I'm often too tired to bother and wind up being, well, blunt.  I also like commas.  And semicolons.  Oh, and coffee.  I like coffee a lot.

Actually, let me clarify something: I take life very seriously, which is why I often seem to not take anything seriously at all.