In 2011 our son had a classroom assignment to create a CD “About Me”, containing songs that would tell people something about him. It was a fun project, and I thought it would be a good theme to use for a quick review of the year that was 2011.

This was a year of ups and downs in many ways, including spiritually. I know spiritual development is made in fits and starts, and often one doesn’t see clearly the road ahead. This year, I finished out a fantastic year of catechism teaching and began my inquiry to the Secular Franciscans in earnest, enjoying the company of some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. But there have also been times I’ve keenly felt God’s absence this year, especially after the loss of some friends, including one of Patrick’s best friends (and our daughter’s godfather) Mark, the joyous and creative Gingie Noe, and the brother of another of our close friends.

So this year one of my spiritual exercises has been learning how to “be” in those periods when God feels most absent. KT Tunstall’s song speaks to this for me – it’s a beautiful love song that to me is a great “crossover” song about God’s absence.

Speaking of love songs, Patrick and I celebrated our 20th anniversary this year. As part of our year of celebration, we were blessed to have relatively cheap tickets to Turkey practically fall into our laps, so off we went and it was a wonderful trip. Patrick’s great to travel with, and in a city so full of history it was a joy to walk the streets of Istanbul together.

As we walked through the gardens of Topkapi Palace, wild parrots chattered in the background, and I took it as a good omen for our next 20. Parrots also figured into our courtship in Hyde Park so many years ago, under a big tree where dozens of wild parrots would nest and squawk.

Annie Lennox has always been one of my favorite artists, and this one seems to fit as a mark for our first 20 years together.

Maintaining some sort of work-life balance in the midst of so many life changes at home would be difficult enough. But this has also been a tough, if rewarding, year in work. I had the terrific luck to make two presentations on Drupal and content migration at a conference for government webmasters this year, and it was tremendous fun. I helped our organization make a huge leap towards distributed content management this year with the implementation of a Drupal-based series of websites. It’s a huge project for a part-time person, and it’s been a long road, but it’s been an important shift, one that will allow the city to be more responsive to its citizens and manage online content efficiently. Very good bang for the buck. But such a large project in the midst of major life-upheavals really challenged my life-work balance.

Janelle Monae’s Tightrope was in my running playlist many times in 2011. It’s got a great beat and high energy, and seems a good reflection on work-in-life for 2011.

In my running, I hit a nice stride over the summer (so to speak), and decided to push myself a bit. So, in 2011 I accomplished a major goal of finishing my first half-marathon. It was cold, rainy and windy, and I struggled at the end when I hit a physical and mental wall. Still, it was great training and I’ve learned a few things about how to push myself physically without turning running into a chore or hurting myself.

As every runner does from time to time, I’ve felt this past year like I was learning how to run all over again. As the years go by and our bodies change, we have to get re-acquainted with ourselves and be patient. I look forward to more miles in 2012, and think it’ll be a great running year.

I hope your 2011 was great, and that your 2012 will be challenging, blessed and full of wonderful people.

Dance more, pray and sing more, make soup, paint and knit and spend time with those you love. Happy New Year!

what's behind the wall?

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions. – Rainer Maria Rilke

When I was in high school we had a unit on the process of insight and how creativity works, and I found it fascinating and revelatory. I considered myself a “creative”, and loved exploring where creativity and insight comes from, and especially how to nurture it during those “stuck”, uninspired, moments of confusion or emptiness we all face. Interestingly, it was led by our chemistry teacher Mrs. Jakalski, and in the class she introduced the concept of “po”, or lateral thinking. (I’ve since learned that scientists are some of the most creative people out there.)

“Po” is about trying something new, about embracing mystery, the unsolved problem. Just as in my creative life, I’ve found embracing (leaning into) mystery and the questions both necessary and helpful to diving deeper into my own relationship with God. But spiritual practice takes this even further. As Rainer Maria Rilke points out, we have to not just question, try new approaches to find an answer or insight, but also frequently sit back and just live with the fact of our un-knowing. To an inquisitive mind, that’s really hard to do. It feels like sitting on one’s hands.

There’s a great kids’ song we sing in our house sometimes, What’s Behind the Wall? by Dog On Fleas. It’s a bouncy tune based on the Humpty Dumpty rhyme, and is full of questions: what’s behind the wall? Who put that wall there? Who put the egg on the wall? Sometimes, my questioning, creative mind wants to keep turning over the darkness, the stuck-ness, to come at it with the same questioning energy in the children’s song. But I’m learning that right now this side of the wall is maybe where I need to be, and just living in the dark right now is right.

Zen Buddhist koans contain that, Christian contemplative prayer does too. It’s hard, awkward, uncomfortable. One feels silly, foolish. But not only is it necessary, it’s the only way forward sometimes. Sometimes the questions are all you’ve got, and living with them a bit is precisely the thing to do.

The kids are thinking about Stamboul, as have Patrick and I. I’m encouraging them to journal about what they’re thinking, what they’re afraid of, what they hope to see, smell, eat, and hear. L is enamored with the idea of the luxurious bath, the hammam, D is worried about making mistakes and inadvertently offending someone.

Patrick surprised me with some travel books this week, and I’m working my way through them. They are food and history, long walks and a couple of Pamuk novels. And one includes an excerpt of John Feeley’s Stamboul Sketches, which is so evocative and beautifully written I’ve been reading passages out loud to P.

Istanbul is best seen from a seat by a tavern window in the Passage of Flowers, froth-crowned Argentine in hand. The city is at heart nothing more than the sum of its citizens, and most of these will eventually stroll by your window or sit next to you, drinking from an Argentine themselves. You will get to know the Stamboullus in this way, and later you can visit them in the monuments they inhabit. This is the Levantine approach to sightseeing, a distinct improvement on the Guide Bleu.

One thing I find compelling in his writing is his intense focus on local faces and street scenes to paint a picture of life in this enormous, diverse, and ancient city.

Still life with cat, yarn and travel book.

Istanbul, I read in other passages, is awash in feral cats, which brings to mind our honeymoon in Rome, where we snuck triangles of soft cheese from our hotel breakfast plates and fed them to the cats who inhabit the ruins of the temple of the Vestal Virgins. I spent some happy hours there, feeding the cats and sketching for a few watercolor paintings. I read that our pensione in Stamboul has at least two resident cats; I look forward to meeting them.

Meanwhile, I am home planning the trip and thinking (of course) of knitting projects to bring on my journey. Reading through the Turkish Cultural Foundation’s website I of course light on Turkish knitted stockings, where I discover to my delight that Anna Zilboorg (whose book Marvelous Mittens is a deep well of inspiration) has written a book on them, called Fancy Feet. I do believe a trip to the library is in order.

Of course, this means Anna has herself been to Turkey, and now I want to go drink tea with her and knit and talk about Turkish textiles. For now, her book will have to do.

Every year, there is at least one week (sometimes several) that I know will be a significant challenge for me, whether due to circumstance or my own tendency to push myself to the breaking point. This week (Sept 12-18, 2011) is shaping up to be one of those weeks.

This week I’m flying out to Cincinnati to give two presentations to my peers on Drupal and content migration. Sunday, I’m running my first half marathon.

I’m nervous, excited, scared.

Recently, JC Penny removed from its stores a t-shirt bearing the words “I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me”. They removed it because people complained that the shirt promoted the old stereotype that girls can be smart or pretty, but not both, re-normalizing a stereotype that so many have fought so hard to eliminate from our young daughters’ environments.

Boys and girls alike are keenly tuned in to what their peers are wearing, and how media they encounter portrays “normal” and “successful” girls and boys (as well as women and men).  Girls are bombarded daily by ads for butt-toning shoes for toddlers, Barbie dolls that like shopping but think math is tough, padded bikinis and thongs with the words “eye candy” on them for elementary school girls, and told via way too many outlets their worth is (and should be) measured by their looks.

GeekMomBlog went to bat for JC Penny and the shirt this morning.

I don’t think anybody, including the folks at JCPenney, believes that girls are too pretty to do their own homework or that they should force their brothers into servitude.  I doubt there are any kids that think so, either.

The problem is that it sends a message to girls about what their priorities should be, and that girls should choose between smart & pretty. A message reinforced in our culture over and over again. Shopping is more important. Because how you look is most important. The copy accompanying the JC Penny ad?

Who has time for homework when there’s a new Justin Bieber album out? She’ll love this tee that’s just as cute and sassy as she is.

If she buys this, it’s proof that she is cute and sassy!

GeekMom implies in her post that it’s ok because it’s intended to be ironic. Ironic messages like this are certainly prevalent in our culture. So much so that maybe our kids will grow immune to them, desensitized because they see it so often.

It’s the secret of social ease in this country.  They talk entirely for their own pleasure.  Nothing they say is designed to be heard. – Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One

The problem is that sexualizing our daughters *is* built into commodity culture. If only one shirt existed promoting this message, it would indeed be no big deal. But it’s not one shirt. It’s everywhere. Remember the kids’ movie Robots? How are we going to sell upgrades if people think they’re fine the way they are?

Speaking out against the sexualization and commoditization of our kids is important because it does make change happen. If JC Penny thinks people will boycott their stores if they hawk this kind of merchandise, they’ll put less of it up for sale. We can’t eliminate these messages, but we can fight back. And in fighting back, we in turn set a positive message for our girls.

Update: Wanna do something about it? Girl Scouts of the USA is helping promote the Healthy Media for Youth Act (HB 2513/ SB 1354). Click the link to read more.