Social 1.

This is what it’s like to be a Social 1 with a 2 wing:

• You are always guilty. It’s always your fault.
• You always have an opinion. Even if you’ve never heard of the topic at hand, you just make up an opinion and commit to it. Then you debate people on it.
• When you are mad or sad at someone you find a political cause and get really focused on it or write an angry blog post about short term missions.
• You have to win like a 3 and are as loud as an 8, and you feel really guilty for both of those things.
• You are evangelical about something or many things, but you are always converting people to things. And good at it.
• You love the party. I mean LOVE the party. (But you also feel guilty for having fun.)
• You are so focused on your cause(s) or work that you forget to eat and sleep.
• You define yourself by affiliations with causes; I AM a Republican, I AM a pro-lifer, I AM a Democrat, I AM a Fleshie, I AM a liberal, etc.
• There is no such thing as an understatement, everything is very dramatic.
• You project anger and intensity without realizing it.
• You can make change.
• You are passionate about a lot of things.
• You are fun.
• You are intuitive about people.

Ah, Enneagram, how I love you.

Kung Pao Chicken.

Homemade by Ches with her Grandma’s recipe, assisted by Dave, served at my house. Mmmmm… magic!

And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven’t yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food? ~Bill Bryson

Ha!

Maybe more applicable:

What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child? ~Lin Yutang

Your Body Remembers.

Your body remembers.

One of my ballet teachers in high school told this story about hearing a piece of music in Target and not knowing who the composer was, then she started remembering the choreagraphy and was dancing right there in the store.

Your body remembers.

My mind has forgotten the names of my fellow dancers, my teachers, even differences between the types of ballet I studied in elementary, middle, high school. I don’t remember the names of the moves; is it passé or retiré devant? What is sauté, tombé, pas de basque? Was this a Graham or Jose Limon style?

But my body remembers.

Nothing felt quite right this week. The leotards and tights too revealing, even though I used to sit in a girls dressing room half naked without blinking an eye. The shoes hurt my toes, which aren’t used to being cooped up. I can’t remember what is cool, tights rolled up or down? Long sleeves or short sleeves? Skirt or shorts or black pants to warm up? Hair in a bun or french twist?

But when the music starts my body remembers.

The weight I’ve gained in my thighs the last six “ballet free” years make a good turned out fifth position impossible, you could park a truck between my feet that should be touching heel to toe. I can hardly lift my legs above ninety degrees and it hurts my back to do an arabesque because I’m not used to all that weight stretched out away from the center of my body.

Somehow I still remember.

By thirty minutes into class my head is moving unconsciously in the direction of my arms, and when I turn around on the barre to do the second side, I always turn towards the barre. If I’m going from the corner I know to start on the second eight count and not waste the rest of the class’ time by pausing. I remember to watch closely and mark the exercises with my hands working full out so that the teacher knows I’m paying attention. I use all the music, drawing out the movements to suspend that moment. My feet do extra beats in the air even though I can’t remember the names of the steps. I feel when I’m cheating my posture by letting my hips stick out and how to keep my shoulders down even when they’re aching from being moved in old/new ways. I unconsciously attempt doubles because I forget that I haven’t done a true pirouette in years and I used to be able to pull off a triple or a quadruple when I was really ‘on.’ I get dizzy. Lots of hopping, not very much spinning.

Still, my body remembers. That’s something worth celebrating.

What I’m Reading.

This is what I’m reading at the moment. Would love to hear what you are working on- especially fiction, I need some inspiration, some imagination, some more fun.

Fun: The Bostonians by Henry James, my quarterly McSweeney’s subscription (LOVE IT!), The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian (might not finish), The Dude Abides, the Gospel according to the Coen brothers (not yet released, got a new copy! ), and a bunch of sweet stuff in the queue. I’m getting held up by the Bostonians, not the quickest read but I’m committed to seeing it through.

Work: Exclusion & Embrace by Miroslav Volf, Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster, Awed to Heaven/Rooted in Earth by Walter Brueggeman

Pray: Seven Sacred Pauses by Macrina Wierdekehr, The Nine Faces of God by Peter Hannan SJ, All Saints: Saints/Prophets/and Witnesses for our Time by Robert Ellsberg, and the book of John/book of Isaiah in the Bible alternating.

Tragic Hack Job.

Last week I drove Marcia home and we were talking, having a great time. We saw Wally and Pat (landlord) two common characters on our block sitting on Wally’s porch next door to us. “Hi Lizzy! Hi Marcia!” Wally said. “Hi!” she replied.

GASP! A small scream of dismay, my jaw dropped.

Pat had trimmed Wally’s tree. The same tree that shades our porch and front windows. The tree that I sat staring at the night before watching birds play in. The tree that provides shade and oxygen for our little section of the neighborhood. The tree that makes me feel like I’m sort of still in the Midwest and not living in a city stuck in the middle of a giant cornfield. That tree I love with my whole soul.

Arms cut off unnecessarily, branches askew, a couple bare spots on the side closest to the porch. A tragic hack job that apparently cost $400/hour.

“YOU CUT THE TREE!” I yelled. “It’s ok, it’s ok” Pat tried to calm me down. Wally started looking a bit worried. “It’s ok Lizzy.” ”I can’t believe you did that!!” “It’ll grow back” Pat said, “It’ll be shedding all over your yard by fall.”

I went inside, laid on my bed and started crying. This might seem like an end of the week fatigue cry but I contend it was purely about the tree. “Where will it end? Where is the line?” I asked myself (and Marcia) remembering threats from Pat and Wally about the apple tree in Wally’s back yard that hangs over our fence.

Later I made the point in defense of my tears that after all I DO have a degree in sustainable business, so that proves I love the environment.

Humility and Racism.

I went on a North Omaha trolley tour recently with Jara, Kenley, and Mimi. It was all about the World’s Fair in 1898 and what it would have looked like here or there or this building was like that. I got bored. Drank some OJ. I closed my eyes, imagining me and Jara in big dresses, walking through the streets talking and riding a REAL trolley.

Reality Check.

We probably wouldn’t have been walking through the streets together talking. We wouldn’t have been doing that because Jara is African-American and I am white. George Smith was lynched in Omaha in 1891 by a white mob who never faced any kind of repercussion. Racial riots and tensions were happening through out the early 1900s and Omaha was significantly segregated. I would most likely not have had a friendship with a woman of color, and if I did we couldn’t have paraded it at the world’s fair.

Go back 50 more years- Jara’s ancestors were slaves.  Jump ahead to the 1950’s, I had family members in the KKK.

It’s a shock to my naive optimism to imagine myself back in 1898 and without the possibility of Jara’s friendship. I hate the fact that as a white, socially- aware American I want to pretend we are integrated, pretend we are diverse, and pretend that racism doesn’t exist anymore. It does and it does even in me; I STILL have prejudices and naive ideas about race. Last year in Uganda I commented to my friend Royii “Well, they ( a young white person doing ministry work in Uganda) are living here so I guess they don’t have those assumptions about race.” He said to me “Didn’t you know, the number one qualification for a missionary in Uganda is to be racist?!”

Now, 2009. Reading this is another reality check. Had a great conversation with Jara and Joe Gerstandt talking about experiences in diversity and inclusion and one thing struck me. I’ve been dancing around this in my mind but haven’t known how to name it. I see white people wanting to make issues of diversity about proving we, as individuals, are not racist. I have to confess this- I want to do it. When issues of diversity come up it’s tempting to make a tally in my head of friends of color or situations where I proved that I’m really open to diversity. Joe said that is a really common response when working with companies, he is talking about creating a culture of diversity, someone gets defensive, and then it becomes about how many people of color went to each person’s high school. Sounds absurd, right? But people do it! I’ve done it!

I don’t think we’re going to get very fair in these larger conversations until we stop taking it personally. It’s not about me, it’s about structural issues of exclusion, and when I make it about me I am minimizing the issue and sinning against the people who are being excluded. These conversations should be about building a community (in WMF, in Omaha, in the world) of innovation and creativity- the kind  that comes from embracing diversity and recognizing people’s unique gifts. Diversity is deeper than race and it’s deeper than my ego about “not being a racist’ person.

Building an innovative and creative world is going to cost those of us who are white and socially aware something. It’s going to cost us the good feeling we get when we say “I have x number of African American friends.” or “I work with a Hispanic guy.” Today I decided that I’m willing to pay that price. I’m confessing my naivete, confessing that I’m going to stop taking it personal, and declaring that I’m done proving I’m not racist.

Ego?

I don’t think I have a big ego or too high an opinion of myself.

But sometimes when I feel sad I read my old blog posts just to crack myself up.

Hmmm…

Practicing Vacation.

When I was a kid we used to take a vacation once a year, almost every time to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It made a good rhythm for a family of really hard workers. My mom saved for an entire year for this trip and planned meticulously so that no matter how business was for Dad’s company we could go. She found cheap hotels in the off-season when it was still warm enough to swim, we drove and bought groceries and cooked in the hotel room. One night we would go out and blow it on a really nice seafood buffet and eat ourselves silly. Our attempts to play family football on the beach usually didn’t end so well, with an older brother who-shall-remain-nameless crying by the end of the game.

Over the years we went with different family members, brought friends, and took other close family friends. One of my favorite trips we went with the Flint family and drank Dr. Pepper and played hours of Canasta. Somehow my mom got a MB library card, she’s possibly the most resourceful woman I know. So we could rent books and read while we were there, especially if it was a longer trip. I remember reading for hours in the hot tub, sitting in an inner tube. I also remember deciding to take a stab at song-writing, a decision possibly influenced by the hours in the hot chemical soup. Yes, I have written a couple songs and I can still remember the tune and lyrics of one in particular.

The Myrtle Beach memories are sincere and beautiful in my heart, some of the best. I want to practice a vacation rhythm like that as I grow into my adult life.

Kobusingye- The Real Story.

“All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.” – Julian of Norwich

In June I wrote a prayer letter about Twitter. Then I thought, “Maybe I should actually start tweeting more.” So I’ve been trying to tweet regularly. A couple friends asked me about my twitter name; kobusingyeliz. “It’s too hard!” they said. I was thinking that if you don’t know the story it kind of seems like back in middle school (or college for some of you ) when AIM was big and people picked names like “2cool4skul” or “iheartpeterwege” to be their chat name. Remember old school AIM or chat rooms? haha.

Actually, my Twitter name is Kobusingye (Koh-bu- sin -jay) Liz. It’s a two part name and just plain “Kobusingye” was taken.  My sweet friend Gloria’s family is Banyankole from the Western part of Uganda. When I was visiting they called me Kobusingye. It was kind of a joke, like at church they’d introduce me that way to people and then at home, and even now over e-mail and Facebook they call me that. In their culture people have two names- a Christian name and a traditional name. It’s like having a first and a middle name instead of a first and a last name. So Gloria’s second name (Katusiime) is different than each of her brothers’ second names and her parents’ names. I’m still confused about how they can keep families straight without the help of a family name, but they do. Maybe in the future women and men will be able to figure out something like this in the States instead of hyphenation or women always taking the husband’s name, but then Gloria’s mom took her husband’s traditional name (Ndyagambaki- wow.mom.hard!) so I guess I don’t totally understand how the whole system works.

Kobusingye means peacemaker/peaceful one in Runyankore. Serenity/peace is my Enneagram ‘virtue’ which means I will probably spend my life learning to live into it. For me peace means accepting that things will be ok and that the manner in which they happen is also ok. Mistakes, sadness, embarrassing moments, emotions, anger, all those things are the daily manner of life happening and being peace means accepting that these things happen and life will still be ok. I think peace means that even while fighting injustice and reforming systems you have to accept the flaws of others and love them instead of trying to change them. It means that sometimes you have to compromise on perfection, and recognize that there aren’t perfect people and there are never perfect solutions. It means not giving up when something isn’t quite right because good and bad can be mixed together. To me, finally and most difficult, peace means that it’s ok that I’m not perfect and that God still loves me as a flawed person, and other people know my flaws and still love me too. One of my biggest sins is not believing that anyone, especially God, could love me though I’m not perfect.

So to live into this name in the day to day is part of why I use it for different things, even small and silly things like Twitter. I like Kobusingye because I chose it, I was called to it, and I’m challenged by it.

Little Girls.

Thinking about sibling dynamics today because a friend of mine just had twin boys! She already had two boys, so now that makes four of ‘em!

When my sisters were young we used to be called like this: “Keith, Elizabeth and the Little Girls.” It started there but then we would just call my sisters Little Girls all the time.

“Hey mom, where are the little girls?” “Are the little girls coming to Grand Rapids with you?” “Who is bringing the little girls?” “Did the little girls clean up their room?”

It’s funny now that they aren’t so little and our family dynamic has changed, one is in college and it’s hard to refer to them in a duo. I also think “Little Girls” might have ended sometime after Keith and I moved out and it was easier to call them by their names.  I wonder if when they both get out of college we’ll start calling them the little girls again.