There Goes the Rug in Everyday Ramblings

It is not raining! It hasn’t rained in over two days! It will start raining again on Thursday and then probably rain until July but at least we have had a break. The cats are moving from patch of sun to patch of sun while I work here at home.

I am resoundingly and with much determination not working overtime this week. On Thursday afternoon I start round 457 of “Noko’s Dental Extravaganza” having the last problem tooth removed and some bone grafting to prepare for what I hope is the last implant in a good long while. Like 10 years. I am taking Friday off to rest though I will still teach.

My goal is to have all the work done by Thanksgiving. One can hope.

Church was interesting yesterday and moving in a somewhat disconcerting way. We have a large congregation that is almost exclusively white. More white and well heeled for sure than the demographics of our city would suggest.

About four years ago we choose a black minister when our senior minister retired. And just a few months ago we choose a black director of music when our very popular white music director retired. Our associate minister and our beloved intern minister this year are gay men.

Our new music director is not only African American but also gay. He is unbelievably talented and the sound he brings out in our multiple choirs is just gorgeous, gorgeous. He makes them work hard for it too.

He is kind of a shy guy, very serious and yesterday he spoke to us very directly about his experience being a black gay and Christian director looking out at and working with almost exclusively white people, who have good intentions but really have no idea what it is like to live in fear of law enforcement that is paid for with his and our tax payer money and to program spirituals composed by slaves but arranged for choir by well meaning white folks.

And then he sang one of those spirituals to us a cappella.

It made me cry.

But I noticed I was the only person around me that was crying. I don’t know if everyone else was defensive or what. I know Mrs. Sherlock wasn’t as I was sitting next to her and she had been looking forward to this service on privilege and “not noticing” things that people of color notice every day of their lives.

I know I have biases both that I am aware of and many that I am not, both racial and class oriented. All my students are white. That is an inescapable fact right now.

There is this huge effort in some corners of the yogic community to make the practices more accessible to all sorts of people. On the cover of Yoga Journal this month is a strong, beautiful and big black woman teacher Chelsea Jackson Roberts. Inside they have profiles of five teachers that don’t fit “the profile”.

Today on the New York Times podcast “The Daily” they had a long piece on what is happening in the conversation about free speech on college campuses and the shouting down and silencing of conservative voices and one young woman said that this has never happened before because of the power dynamic and dominance of the story that speech was free because a certain type of person (mostly white male) got to decide what that was.

Very interesting to think those of us who consider ourselves liberal minded and tolerant being emphatically spoken to with anger and no tolerance left by those we have always congratulated ourselves that we are tolerant of.

Marat, we’re poor and the poor stay poor…

The times they are a changin’

Last updated May 08, 2017