well, at least it's not just the Christians who are confused

I just had one of those I'm so old moments... not that I was especially hip to my times, but evidently teenage sexual behavior has experienced quite the evolution. 

This phenomenon of "sexting" (a term I fully intend to propagate, seeing as how I take partial credit for getting the term "MTV virgins" into minor circulation) is obviously concerning to those of us over, oh, I don't know, sixteen. Nevertheless, I can't help but recall some of the brilliant ideas that my friends and I came up with at the height of our hormonal development. Fortunately, to my knowledge, there are no public records of the pant-less jaunts through the football field or our (in retrospect) bizarrely strip-tease-esque moments in Mt. Tabor Park (sorry Mom... you had to find out someday, right?). The defining ethic of those events laden with indiscretion, however, is innocence. 

Much as I agree, these little "sexters" must be taught a lesson for their own protection, let's not go overboard in painting them as some sort of malicious criminals. They're experimenting. They're trying to find acceptance. They're discovering their sexuality. Who among us can't say that we strove to meet all those goals through sometimes inappropriate and even harmful means? Let's redirect behavior. Let's establish a healthy way of conducting sexual education - something that moves beyond the abstinance/condom debate and onto holistic sexual identity. Let's empower, rather than repress. Let's teach kids to value their sexuality, rather than communicate that it's something criminal.

Amen?

homogeneity

This article (http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/bigsort/archive/2008/10/30/how-running-a-campaign-is-no-different-than-building-a-megachurch.aspx) struck me as particularly profound in reference to the ongoing conversations Consuming Jesus (www.consumingjesus.org) and its related issues have spawned. 

"Self-government, however, is the opposite of self-love. Democracy is about meeting and coming to terms with people who look, talk, believe, and think differently from us. Government might work better if that democratic exercise began for voters during the campaign rather than the day after inauguration." 

You're welcome. In Christ, the Consumer Church model. 

I'm sorry. In Christ, Beyth.

ebenezer raising...

Last night I was out with some old friends, people who’ve been in my life for quite some time. As is the general nature of such friendships, we’ve grown apart and history often seems the only tie that binds. In an effort to avoid spending the entire night reminiscing about decades-old memories and catching up on mutual acquaintance gossip, conversation awkwardly danced between stories of dates gone awry and lusterless inside jokes.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I was the one from whom secrets had been hidden, the one to whom half the table shot sympathetic “I’m sorry” eyes at the very insinuation of questionable activity. And while I felt suffocated by an old identity at that table, I found an unfamiliar contentment with my own dissention.

That’s been the beauty of the past year. In the most cliché way possible, I’ve been learning to love myself. Though the girls sitting around that table probably wouldn’t believe it, I’ve honed the discernment of saying no, the art of taking care of myself and even the ability to balance leadership and followership. In my weaker moments, I take baby steps, acknowledging that it’s okay to prefer my Americano in a mug, use Suave and diligently compose thank-you notes. In my bolder moments, I can sit at a table of girls discussing the value of getting married in your thirties and affirm that healthy marriages can also be built in your twenties. In my strongest moments, I can cancel a coffee date or forget to return a phone call and know that I’m still a loving, compassionate friend who cares deeply for those she loves.

But I knew I’d be there someday. Even when I used to say “yes” to everything, I knew it was just a reflection of an immature understanding of my values. What I find surprising is that I’m happy. I don’t think I ever expected to be. Perfectionism made me perpetually dissatisfied, unwilling to rest in process. Perhaps what’s most strange is that I’m not doing anything I thought would make me happy. In fact, I’m doing the very things I was convinced would make me miserable – studying Bible and theology, living alone, working in publishing, making my adult life in my hometown. But maybe that’s exactly it… maybe I’ve found that point in life where I’ve realized it’s not my things or my accomplishments that make me happy, but, well, being comfortable in my own skin. It’s this feeling that I’d be happy no matter what my circumstances were, even though I’m grateful for the ones I’ve been given.

I know this is the coming-of-age story, the story of living your twenties in the United States. But for once, I’m glad to be a stereotype, not wishing I were extraordinarily unique. I’m just one more twenty-two-year-old woman, learning from my mistakes, occasionally doing things right the first time and finding pleasure and beauty in the midst of it all.

Here I raise my myself as an Ebenezer… yes, this Beyth will always be for me a symbol of redemption and transformation.

in the end, he's not one of us after all

As many of you know, I'm an avid reader of the editorials. I often find myself less interested in the news, and more interested in what people think about our news. (Sociologist to the core...) Hands down, my favorite columnist is Leonard Pitts Jr. Always provocative and insightful, he's nearly always spot on. Today was no exception, as Mr. Pitts pointed out that President Bush has failed miserably by all measures.


Here's how it is out there. Awhile back, I was at the self-checkout counter of a hardware store. A young man approached and offered to put my $20 purchase on his store gift card if I would give him $10 in cash. He said he had no money for gas.

I let him put my purchase on his card, but I gave him the full amount back. It was the second time in a week I'd been asked by a stranger for help in filling the tank. And this was before last week's prediction of a spike in gas prices to $4 a gallon.

So I am intrigued by the following exchange between President Bush and CBS News reporter Peter Maer at a news conference last week. ''What is your advice,'' began Maer, "to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4-a-gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing . . .''

The president stopped him. "Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?''

Well, it wasn't him personally, explained Maer. ''A number of analysts are predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline,'' he said.

The president was stunned. ''Oh, yeah?'' he said. "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that.''

Headline news all over the country, but he hadn't heard it. And it's "interesting.''

It will come as a surprise to no one that many, if not most, of our leaders are out of touch with the realities of everyday American life. One is reminded of the president's father pronouncing himself ''amazed'' back in '92 when he encountered a simple bar code scanner. And of candidate Bill Clinton scoring debate points because he knew the price of a gallon of milk. The Beltway crowd wondered why that mattered.

We are used to them being disconnected. But this particular disconnect is telling.

When it comes to our national leaders, we have historically required two incongruous things. We want them to be one of us, but we also want them to be better than us. That is, we want them to have gravitas and smarts and yet be just one of the guys or girls. That's why every election season finds millionaires and Ivy League alumni hanging out at county fairs, pleading for votes while eating fried Oreos.

With George W. Bush, one of those requirements -- gravitas, smarts -- was taken off the table. He was, we were told, just an everyman, a simple, God-fearin' guy guided not by pointy-headed intellectuals with their pie charts and prognostications, but rather by his feelings, his instincts, his gut. So he didn't need, for instance, to consult a bunch of State Department eggheads about Vladimir Putin because he'd seen Putin's soul.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Bush has said he regards his presidency as a vindication of the C student. Even the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, as reliably conservative a newspaper as exists in the English language, once described him as having ''no intellectual pretensions.'' It was meant as a compliment.
Bush is the perfect president for an era wherein the nation seems increasingly disdainful of intellectualism, where it turns out that many of us are, indeed, not smarter than a fifth grader, and educators and politicians can breezily dismiss the theory of evolution and not be hooted off the public stage.

George W. Bush, Average Joe, fits right in. Except that seven years, a useless war and a disastrous presidency later, the price of gas is headed for a ruinous record and President Average Joe hasn't even heard. Yeah, yeah, I know. Cut him some slack. It's not like he has to gas up the presidential limousine himself.

But I see nothing unfair in judging the president on the terms he himself has chosen. He may not have gravitas, the thinking went. He may not have piercing intelligence. But he's one of us.

Think again. Apparently, he's not even that.


In other presidential musings, I do feel I ought to temper my well-known opinions with the agreement that Mr. Bush has, in fact, done some very good things in Africa. He's sent large sums of money to fight AIDS and malaria (though the world I would like to see would prioritize healing over fighting with their dollars, this is certainly a step in the right direction), which is more than can be said on this issue for our past administrations. John Oliver, of The Daily Show fame, explains why this admission is perhaps more problematic than encouraging, "Just when I came to terms with his [President Bush's] incompetancy, I realize he's capable of doing good. That means he's been choosing to do bad for seven years."

Finally, today President Bush offered John McCain his endorsement. I'm quite certain this does not, in fact, bode well for Sen. McCain. Had Mr. Bush exercised any knowledge of political science, I suspect he would have endorsed Sens. Clinton or Obama.

320 days and counting...

my goals

Now, I realize it would be advantageous to begin this project with a musing on the theological basis for my increasing interests in creation-preservation, but I'm not in the essay mood right now. So, I'll begin with a list of my goals. This will be ever-growing, but I plan to check back in on these around the beginning of February.

1. Pick up no more disposable plastic shopping bags. This is so simple - I have a couple of those study, reusable bags, plus a plethora of old plastic shopping bags. The place I always run into problems is when I forget my reusable bags in the car - but no more, "I'm already in the store" laziness. It's time that I just walk back outside and grab those bags...

Did you know? We use approximately one million plastic bags per minute! (www.reusablebags.com) China just made it illegal for supermakerts and shops from handing out free carriers (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSPEK25589820080108?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true). It's not often we can really say that China's on the cutting edge of social concern, but we're definitely a huge step behind on this one.

2. Worm composting. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermicompost) Once I can figure out where to keep a worm composting bin (somewhere not in my house, but not frightfully cold), I hope to start this system. It's a great way to deal with food waste and some paper recycling that doesn't take up the space in a landfill or the energy to recycling.

Apparently, worm composting is easy. Essentially, it's a plastic or wood bin, with a layer of dampened newspaper or cardboard, a layer of red worms (there are formulas to determine numbers), food scraps, and more newspaper. The worms eat and poop, and voila! Compost - and I've become responsible for a small portion of my waste.

3. Send my fallen-out hair and Peter's combed-out fur to Matter of Trust (http://www.matteroftrust.org/programs/hairmatsinfo.html). This is an organization that creates mats from human hair and animal fur to clean up oil spills. They mostly seek donations from salons, but welcome individuals who want to contribute as well. Now, I think fallen-out hair is absolutely disgusting, but if I can keep it in a box and send it to someone else to deal with in a constructive manner, I think I can control the gag reflex.

4. Use Freecycle as my first option for getting rid of stuff I don't need/want and getting stuff I need/want (www.freecycle.org). It's an organization that connects people in the same city to one another and helps them redistribute stuff amongst each other. Similar to the free section on Craig's List, but more energy devoted to the free redistribution concept. I've already joined the group!

5. Sign up with Catalog Choice (www.catalogchoice.org), Greendimes (www.greendimes.com) or similar to reduce my junk mail. Less junk mail = less waste!

6. Read "Sustainable Dave's 365 Days of Trash" blog. Dave is a guy in LA, doing a trash experiment. He's keeping all his trash (recycling included, but seperate) in his basement for a year, to gain a better sense of what he contributes to our waste problem. He's full of helpful tips (like most of the above) and has been a good way to open my eyes to my trash consumption. (http://365daysoftrash.blogspot.com)

7. I've been saving this one for last, because it's the one I'm least excited about - start biking to Multnomah. In my mind the perfect bike ride is as follows: downhill (not steep), on a summer morning (approximately 7:30am) at about 73 degrees, wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops, no helmet, with a bike basket to carry my book and purse, and no precipitation whatsoever. Clearly, I'm not looking forward to biking to Multnomah for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to:
(a) I don't much care for exercise/breaking a sweat (my dad would be glad to hear me admit that). I don't know that I'm lazy, exactly, but I'm not particularly interested in the racing-heartbeat, drippy forehead feeling. I'd rather, um, stay up really late working on a paper or making a spreadsheet to score my "working hard" credits.
(b) I hate the rain. Everyone who's anyone (in my life) knows this. I'll only buy a purse if it's large enough for an umbrella and I wear a hoodie most everyday, just in case I get stuck in the rain. Portland is... VERY rainy in the winter. And I'm going to travel with it pelting me. This sounds like hell on earth to me. Plus, my hair looks terrible when it gets rained on.
(c) I'm already loathing that leaving-the-house-while-cold-so-I-pile-a-bunch-of-clothes-on-but-then-get-hot/sweaty-riding-my-bike-because-I-have-so-many-clothes-on conundrum. I hate stopping to peel off layers because (1) they'll be wet and taking off/carrying wet clothes is not fun and (2) it'll take a miracle for me to muster the motivation to get back on my bike and finish my ride.
(d) I'll have to wake up approximatley 40 minutes earlier to ride my bike to school. Not because it takes that long, but because it takes half that time, plus all the time to deal with the clothing issue.
(e) I'll never feel like I look cute, because I'll always be sweaty/rained on.
(f) I'll have to carry all my books/clothes in a backpack.
(g) I'm convinced that Multnomah doesn't have bike racks. (I'm probably wrong about this.)
(h) My bike is old, clunky and SO heavy.

See - you should bike too! In the interest of reminding myself why I'm subjecting myself to such misery, my motivations are as follows:
(a) Bikes don't take gas. That's (1) free and (2) reducing my dependance on the ultra-problematic foreign oil issue.
(b) Bikes are much less expensive to repair than cars. I repaired a bike flat for $10 the other day. Last time I paid for a flat repair on my car, it was a free AAA tow (which would no longer be free, since I no longer have a membership) and $75 to Les Schwab. And with the $450 repair to my heater core last month, I'll be grateful that my bike has no windows to fog up.
(c) Bikes don't have any harmful emissions (other than my complaining). This is, obviously, MUCH better for the earth than my car.
(d) It's a good way to get in shape. I don't have to do much to maintain my very-average body, which makes exercising a tough sell, but at least I'll know I'm a bit healthier.
(e) I'll feel like a tried-and-true Portlander.

8. Exciting success! I've given up my favorite indulgence - Pina Colada yogurt, in favor of yogurt in a larger tub. Single serving yogurt is not very helpful to reducing plastic consumption.

9. Replace two more of my lamps with compact florescent lightbulbs. SO much less energy!

10. Another success - ditching the plastic produce bags. I just stick them in the basket, since I wash them anyway.

11. Switch my billing to online.

Things that I'm not ready to sacrifice yet, but hope that I'll get to that point with in the next few months:

1. Turning down the heat. Bottom line - I like to be warm.

2. Newspaper. I hate reading online, but let's be honest - the only reason I take the Oregonian is for the editorials, which hardly seems worth wasting an entire daily paper.

Things I need to do some more research on/figure out how to integrate into my life:

1. Taking the bus more often (since I doubt I'm going to be too keen on riding my bike anywhere other than the promised one-trip-a-day to Multnomah).

2. Buying my food locally. Super tough in the winter, but I'd like to figure out how to be a good steward of our Oregon resources.

Clearly, I'm no expert. And clearly, I'm not coming up with anything brilliant or innovative. But, I'm convinced that, if I can implement these fairly simple practices into my life, I will be better for it. I'll keep you posted...

new year, new start

I'm not much one for New Year's resolutions, and I'd hardly name this as such, but the timing coincides nicely (much like last year's black coffee "resolution"). I've decided to begin blogging on a regular (read: non-travel based) basis. No promises on frequency, but as I'm sure it'll be as I feel so compelled.

As of late, I've become more and more concerned with, for lack of a better cliche, "being green." Yes, I'm a native Oregonian, and yes - I'm just now hopping on this bandwagon in a practical way. The values have been formulating for quite some time and I think I've finally reached that critical point where my actions have to reflect my values in order for them to be real, well, values. But more on that in a moment.

In this blog, I'll be writing to an audience of personal friends. Others are more than welcome, though I'm not doing any intentional marketing. However, dear personal friends, I'm writing to you with the understanding that we are (in most cases) very similar. Most of you care about the Earth approximately 10% more than I do, but for the few of you who are a snail's step behind me, I'm hoping to open the door to some of the fabulous discoveries I'm making. Both ideological and practical, I invite you to engage these thoughts with me.

Of course, I'll occassionally discuss other things - prospective Europe 2008, the occassional editorial, etc. But onto my intentions...

1. In our 15-minutes-of-fame world, I'll admit: I buy in. Not in the sense that I write for fame, or "social network" for fame, but I'm a consumer of it. I'm on Facebook, MySpace and Plaxo. I have a blog. Someday, I'll probably even post to YouTube. But, like I said, I'm not part of it for the fame. I'm not writing this blog so as to increase my platform (though wearing my literary agent hat, let me remind you that it's a good start to doing so!), and - quite frankly - I don't really care if you read this. I care to the extent that I care about the issues I discuss, but I don't care for my own personal inflation.

2. In the interest of full disclosure, much of my motivation is accountability. Caring for creation takes some extra work, and admittedly, I'm a good American. I like to do my shopping online, I think it's overwhelmingly convenient to do all my grocery shopping at Fred Meyer, I don't want to pay the price of United States-made clothing, and - well, I'll continue this in a later post, wholly devoted to my American assimilation. But, I'm uncomfortable with cognitive dissonance, and I imagine that my posting about environmental issues may help me hold myself to a slightly higher level of responsibility to my proclaimed values.

3. I think these issues are important. I know my own contribution is important, but I'm convinced that it's the responsibility of our culture at large. And I'm convinced that it's worthwhile to provide a venue for my friends to engage this topic. And finally, I'm convinced that I'm relatively relatable to the average American consumer. In other words - if I can do it, YOU can do it.

That's it for now. As always, this is an ongoing conversation to which I'll add, and I invite you to add.

Love, - b.

overdue

There's much to tell and little time, but we're coming home soon (Saturday!), and I'm sure many a story will be exchanged upon return. In the meantime, since I last wrote...

Mom and I split up our last full day in Vienna, as she wanted to see boring musuems and I wanted to see interesting ones. No reason to torture one another, we figured. I hit the 'Haus der Musik' - Vienna's Experience Music Project, if you will. Much, much better though. Everything was ultra-interactive, demonstrating the way sound operates as an experience within our body. Though it was just a teeny section, I found the room the simulates the sensations experienced by a fetus in the womb fascinating. (Shon, I think you would have thought in interesting too.) The whole place was just very unconventional, and managed to tear apart music and sound - in the midst of a city that puts an absolutely enormous emphasis on music (which, in many ways, is probably what incites a certain respect for the unconvention) - with a great respect paid to the ability of the body to turn purely fluid sound into music. It was really interesting. (And I ended up modeling in a couple of the exhibits for a Vienna musuem guide, so if you're in Vienna and you pick up a brochure with my picture in it, don't be too surprised.)

That morning, I also enjoyed my first (and actually only, oddly enough) romp in a classic Vienna coffeehouse. I had an incredibly delicious apricot cake with my coffee, which I'd like my favorite Portland coffeeshops to start making... The coffeehouses are a real experience - people sit and linger, like we do at home, but as the norm. Taking a coffee to go isn't just unheard of; it's an impossibility. The waiter is dressed in a formal tuxedo, and he comes and takes your order, as a waiter at a restaurant would do. It was lovely - again, I felt like I was entertaining myself in the most sophisticated of fashion. That was, of course, until we got to...

The Operahouse. Now, I'd repeat the Vienna Operahouse over and over, if I thought that might mean anything to anyone I know. Alas, I know Portland doesn't have much of a thriving opera scene (or anywhere in the States, as far as I know, for my favorite out-of-towners), so allow me to explain... evidently, the Vienna Operahouse is the epitome of operahouses (I'm convinced that's because there are very few places specifically devoted to opera, so the competition is minimal - though it is truly spectacular). It's one of those see-and-be-seen places - one of those places classical music conisseurs must step foot in to reflect on life with a smile. Our tickets were for a Sunday evening opera - Don Carlo. It was five hours.(!) We had box seats, with limited viewing, which turned out to be very limited, but at the price we paid, we didn't care. We could lean forward in our seats, or stand up in the box and catch a decent view. Even so, the music was entirely enjoyable all along. When I get home, be sure to ask me about the king of Spain making an appearance...

Early the next morning, we picked up our cute little Euro-car (after getting absolutely LOST on foot, luggage in tow) and hit the road to Hallstatt. En route, we stopped in Melk (where many of you will be receiving postcards from, as it was the only bag of postcards we could find for a few days), which had a splendid abbey Mom was excited to see. It was a delightful little town, very quaint. It seemed almost Oregon-beach-town-like to me, in a totally non-beachy, but tolerable-and-even-lovable kitcshy kind of way. The abbey was really interested. It'd been restored just ten years ago (ish), so all the paint was bright, the wood finely polished and the marble unchipped. It was fascinating to see a cathedral (calling these places 'churches' seems to fail to convey their enormity) in tip-top shape, the way it would have looked when first created. The Melk abbey had been restored in its original baroque style, so what we saw was near exactly what its inhabitants saw hundreds of years ago. It made for an interesting contrast to what we've seen at every other large, dusty, faded, chipped and antiqued European cathedral. And the library was fabulous... ask Trippe to see the postcard I sent him - it's really cool.

We drove to Hallstatt via backroads, along the Danube River, through the Wachau Valley (unthriving Austrian winecountry, thanks to a nasty scandal in the '90s about Austrians sweetening their wine with antifreeze - apparently true, though they claim they were framed as scapegoats and the practice was actually widespread - an uproar from which the industry has yet to really recover) and in the southern lake districts of Austria. It was an absolutely beautiful drive, save for the torrential downpours and seemingly unending tunnels (we don't have tunnels like these in the States - they're really weird). Despite the rain that evening, Hallstatt was an absolutely lovely quiet oasis. We ate dinner inside for the second night on our entire trip, watched a man lead a swan couple and their swan ducklings off the road and contemplated the bizarrely lighted sky at 9:30pm (it usually gets dark here about 8:45). The next day, we sipped coffee, took a boat ride and jumped on a hanging bridge, beat the rain at every turn and toured the salt mines (they let you - make you! - slide down wooden banisters! It's so great!). We drove into Salzburg late, where we quickly fell asleep in preperation for our last day with the luxary of our little car...

(I think I'm ending every paragraph with an ellipses transition. Sorry - the travel is evidently wearing on my compositional creativity.) The next day (Wednesday, by this point), we drove south-ish out of Salzburg, back through some of the senic roads we'd driven the day prior. We stopped for two hikes - one through a beautiful Ramona-Falls-esque waterfall (or Vasserfall, in German) and one on this fancy little pedestrian bridge over more waterfalls - similar to the Tremmelbach Falls hike we took in Switzerland. Both hikes were fabulous - particularly the first one, because it wasn't overrun as an obvious tourist destination. The other falls, however, were wonderful, because the bridge was built out of the rock, so we really were over the falls for the better part of the hike. It was an absolutely wonderful day - probably my second favorite of the trip (only behind the Samaria Gorge hike).

We're finally to today! Today we were the most sterotypical tourists we've ever been... we took the Sound of Music tour. And it was wonderful. We really enjoyed it. I realized just how much I'm missing all of you, because once it was over, I realized my favorite part had just been talking with a group of people for more than five minutes. Nevertheless, the tour was great. We saw all the classic spots - the front and back of the VonTrapp mansion, the gazebo, the abbey, the wedding church, as well as various asundry gardens, gates, lakes and meadows. We had all our precious Sound of Music myths debunked, but no one on our tour cried, which was good. Our guide was great, giving us lots of Austrian info, in addition to the Sound of Music bits. We drove through another part of the lake district, via delightful crater, which provided an enormity of incredible views.

And before I wrap this up, with the ten minutes I have left, let me enlight you into the new world to which I've been exposed... Canyoning. Anyone heard of it? Because I'm going to be searching for some companions... Evidently, people put on wetsuits and follow the water in a canyon as close as possible, using whatever means necessary, to avoid getting wet - hiking, climbing, spelunking, etc.

Okay, I have much to think on regarding Austrian culture, especially with regard their musical appreciations, but all that will have to wait for a cup of Stumptown... I miss and love you all so much, and truly can't wait to bring you all into my world of the last three weeks. See you in two days!