Happy (Lead-filled) Christmas?

Now when you're about to deck the halls with bows of holly, you probably aren't thinking, "How delightful, my holiday lights are wrapped in lead, which is known to cause infertility, insanity and cancer." Unfortunately, this year, that's exactly what ran facetiously through my head, as my husband hauled our fake, pre-lit Christmas tree out to the dumsper -- wearing protective gloves, after reading those little paper tabs on the Christmas lights that actually say the strands of holiday cheer are chock full of lead and "other chemicals." God knows what.

David and our oldest daughter Nika trooped out to the Garden Center and bought a mini real tree and marched on CVS in search of non-lead Christmas lights.

Apparently, CVS doesn't carry any lead-free holiday lights.

"Deck the halls with bows of lead, fa la la la la la la la. Dawn we know our gay apparel, fa la la la la la la la, soon we will all be dead, fa la la la la la la la, tis the season for jolly folly, fa la la la la la la la la la!"

So our humble, scrawny little Christmas tree will have no lights. We'll stick with our one candle, which we light for advent each night. It is enough. Every night when we say what we're thankful for, Gabriel always says in his sweet, almost-two-year-old voice. "candle."

And I'll be sending a message to the EPA about what the *F&^#@* is wrong with us that we keep letting lead products infiltrate the consumer market place, putting our kids and future kids at risk. Because if they'd had lead Christmas lights in 30 BC, maybe Mary would have been infertile and a virgin birth and a fertility miracle just seems like overkill, in my opinion. Like having steak and bacon on the same night.

Happy (un-leaded) Christmas, and to all an un-leaded night.

America, Genocide and a Haunting Echo of "Once Again"

I just began a book -- which happens far more frequently than the event of actually finishing one -- called Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.

The book got a Pulitzer, and a well-earned one. This is a thick, heartbreaking, yet objective read that you cannot absorb without feeling shocked to the point of confusion. Over and over the signs are clear: large scale human slaughter based on being one kind of people and not another is about to happen, and it's not even news until everyone is dead. Yet however depressing, this book is readable and captivating, as good journalistic writing is, and I'm going to see if I can open my eyes and get a better look at the picture, however gruesome or complex.

In the preface, author Samantha Power makes the point that "It is in the realm of domestic politics that the battle to stop genocide is lost...No U.S. president has ever made genocide prevention a priority, and No U.S. president has ever suffered politically for this indifference to its occurrence."

As human beings, why on earth isn't genocide one of the top issues in the campaign climate these weeks and months? Can we make it important enough to get the matter of large scale human slaughter boosted above tax tug-of-wars and terrorism?

Can we make it important to intervene in genocide when we aren't sniffing after foreign oil?


A little piece of hope: I found this press release on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website:


Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen today announced that they will co-chair a Genocide Prevention Task Force jointly convened by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the United States Institute of Peace. The Task Force will generate practical recommendations to enhance the U.S. government's capacity to respond to emerging threats of genocide and mass atrocities."We have a duty to find the answer before the vow of 'never again' is once again betrayed," said Secretary Albright.

The "once again" buzzes in my hear, hauntingly.

Unplanned Fatherhood: Men & Abortion

Recently on the ooze, an article was written by Kimberly B. George, called TO CHRISTIAN MEN: Letter from a Feminist. The writing is precise, balanced and compassionate -- a call to engagement with the weaknesses as well as the strengths of historic feminism.
The write-ins in the comments section range from open-minded and grateful to vitriolic voices equating feminism with abortion rights. I'm not even sure why abortion is considered a women's issue. It is a couple's issue, human issue, and a social issue.

Yes, pregnancy happens within a woman's body. Look though, the critical facts related to abortion are connected with a couple, culture and society

First of all, consider how a woman finds herself with an unintended pregnancy: unless she stole sperm from the daddy bank and used a turkey baster, a man participated equally in the action. Her egg did not impregnate itself. Yet like the woman Jesus finds about to be stoned for being caught in adultery, I wonder, what of the guy's responsibility? He gets to run away while she gets stoned?

I think not.

Yet to equate feminism with abortion is pretty much a modern equivalent of stoning the woman and letting the man run off with mild encouragement to use a condom next time -- and if the guy's a Christian, perhaps his "brother" hands him a copy of Joshua Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Let me ask you a question:

What would abortion statistics look like if men took 100% responsibility for either practicing abstinence or safer sex, and for being a present, involved Dad if a pregnancy results despite safest sex practices?

Mothers, fathers and churches: Are you as hard on boys as girls when it comes to sex and unexpected parenthood? Do you equally encourage your young men to be responsible in their sexual conduct as well as to step up and be good, active Daddies if an error occurs and someone with whom your son is involved becomes pregnant? Or would you pressure your son to get the girl to give the baby up for adoption or otherwise "make it go away" so as not to ruin your son's future? A woman's ability to choose life is closely tied with her opportunity to have a partner in caring for that life.

I don't know very many women who would abort their babies if they knew they could count on their partner to be accepting, available and supportive through the pregnancy and in the ongoing raising of the baby into adulthood. I am not implying the boy and girl should rush into marriage - only that that they commit to sharing the responsibility of being good parents to the child they created together.

I want this: before a guy judges a woman about abortion, I wish he would ask himself, "If I got a girl pregnant when I was ---- age old, would I be a supportive partner-in-parenthood from conception through college and beyond?

If not, I wish this guy would shut his trap, preferably permanently -- or at least 'til he has repented and become ready to receive and offer grace, which is all we have, anyway.

All you guys out there who've been through unplanned daddyhood and been there for your kids and your partner, I give you credit.

God knows, we need Young Father mentors, just as much as we need crisis pregnancy centers and other support sources for girls and women experiencing an unintended pregnancy.

Yarmulke

I live a few miles from a place rich with Jewish culture and community centers, where the traffic is noticeably light on Friday afternoons or Yom Kippur. And driving home from picking up my daughter, I notice a father and son walking close, arm in arm, something connecting them beyond genes or little league and I see the boy is wearing a yarmulke. The tradition they share seems especially poignant because it is something that, in however small a way, sets them apart with a sense of dignity and pride, and maybe also a responsibility to carry an important torch for future generations, or even perhaps, for God.

As a child, my gentile mother was the one who introduced me to Jewish holidays and rituals. My Jewish father didn't know anything about his heritage. He remembers one time asking his mom to light Hannukah candles. She did, but her inner light was no longer lit; it had been blown out with the holocaust and the blotted history of our ancestors.

Immediately I like the father and son. I wonder what it would be like to be that son, to have that kind of relationship with my father.

I would ask him all kinds of questions about Torah. And he would ask me questions back. I would debate and quote from the Talmud, and my father would tell me a great story, wiser than my line of arguing. And we would go home and break Challah bread together over candles and sweet wine.

I do not like the Jewish megaplexes that sport banners blowing to zionist winds blazing on huge corner lots in Cherry Hill. "Support Israel."

What about Shalom? Why isn't the voice of Judaism in America predominantly, "support Shalom."

When did the victimization of the Jewish people give license to oppress yet other human beings? Did not God say in the Hebrew bible, 'Remember how I heard your cries and brought you out of slavery in Egypt? So treat the alien with kindness and welcome.'

And in an era when no one literally sacrifices lambs, can it truly be justified that the holy land is a literal Jewish entitlement, even when getting it involves the victimization of palestinian families -- and a violation of Torah ethics toward the alien among us?

And what of the Christian voice? It is becoming a voice closer to fair, closer to truthful. But it is a quiet hum compared to the Christian voice on sexual topics. Do we care more about what grownups do in their bedrooms than about Palestinian babies dying because they can't get to a hospital in time? Sex is so much more titillating. Breasts. sex. gay marriage. refugees. desperate youth. wailing. walls between us. Victim, victimizer. sex.

Shalom (where is?)

Peace

Blood Diamond

the cost of love

Blood Diamond. It's a movie (one I watched last night) and a story worn secretly on the feminine fingers of women in the supermarket, teaching Sunday school, caressing someone on a Saturday night. I thought persistently about the images of brainwashed children shooting one another in a culture of violence fed by diamond dealers in black suits accented with slick, cologne smelling skin.

I was thinking about the diamonds themselves as I strode toward my car, distracted only by the voice of my neighbor Alissa calling from her bright red pickup, "Look!" Alissa grinned, happily gesticulating her hand, which touted a huge sparkling rock easily visible from my parking spot. I went over and told her how happy I was for her, as she recounted the proposal, fanning her fingers before my wide eyes. The diamond was stunning -- a gigantic jewel in the middle, cherished between two amethysts, bracketed with smaller diamonds on each side.

A man saves his money for months to prove himself worthy of her love...to prove his love.

A diamond for her hand.

It is expected. If you are engaged and you're finger is naked, you could practically get arrested for indecent exposure. People look at you confused and disappointed -- not exactly the reaction you were hoping for when you leapt with faith toward a life together. Perhaps onlookers think less of you, like he couldn't afford it, or didn't think you were worth it, or he just isn't the romantic type. you didn't play according to the rules and people feel unnerved. Is it possibly easier to get excited about a sparkling stone than a marriage, with all its buried light and rough edges?

What of the more important sacrifices later in the marriage? A man who turns down a promotion may be mocked as "whipped," or honored as a hero. But such sacrifice is hardly expected. A man who gets promoted out of family life is accomodated by society and women, at least until it's too late for everyone.

Would it not be better for a man to give himself for her than to give her a pretty stone to glitter as a placeholder while he's away on business? Which is a more worthy sacrifice of love?

For some men, no saving is necessary to buy a diamond capable of eliciting jokes about the size of the rock. Except maybe he could have saved a child by not buying into this diamond myth; a myth creating by the diamond industry, and not by tradition passed among generations, nor invented by Hans Christian Anderson, God, Hallmark or Disney.

A diamond.

Symbol of eternal love. Bloody, not with the loving, life-giving blood of Christ, but stained and dripping globs of childhood blood into red African earth.

Children. A great gift, welcomed into the arms of couples newly wedded, one in flesh and love, wishing peace, wonder and safekeeping for a tiny gift.

What curse have we bought that a diamond is equated with love even at cost of tiny gifts? And another shot down a minute later, his soul ripped from him long ago. We've confused status with love, symbol with reality. Where is the love for those who extract the gems in a kill or be killed competition promoted by the diamond industry's desire to keep diamonds rare and pricey -- feeding into killing sprees in origin countries, and illusory ideas about romantic love among young American wives; milking the cattiness among western girls who show off their rocks like some guys who off trophy wives. It seems we've all been sold out for sparkling studs.

Isn't it time to stop objectifying love?