Welcome to my blog! Below you'll find evidence of two things that give me great joy - writing and taking photos. If you want to see some of the posts I'm most proud of, a list bloggers I respect and follow, and more information about me, check the top navigation bar. Thanks for visiting; please comment and join the conversation.
Not long ago, I read a blog that raised an interesting question: why do Christians and churches in North America tend to give more to the poor overseas (especially to Africa and to places where natural disasters have occurred) than to the poor in their own cities?...
Every Monday night since July, I have been trying out a new activity: First Nations traditional dance classes. (Well, it hasn't been every Monday night... I took a bit of a break from dance after I stepped on a sea urchin while on vacation, but that's for another blog entry.) I will say this up front: I am the whitest regular attender of the drop-in class. Last Monday, several new people joined us, so we did the customary go-around-the-circle-and-say-your-name thing, but we were also asked to share our tribal background. There were Miqmaqs and Plains Crees, two Squamish girls, a Haida woman, a Gitxzan, and a few people from Tsawwassen nation. When it was my turn, I said, "I'm Beth, and I am British/Irish/Swedish/Czech."...
"I don't want all of my blog posts to be about friends who have passed away, but, well, there's been a bunch of them lately. Tonight, we're having a memorial for Ricky Lavallie. Ricky was probably the closest and dearest DTES friend I've lost yet. His death took a whole day to sink in (not to mention we didn't hear about it until 3 weeks after it happened), and I found myself weeping before falling asleep that night, remembering him and wishing we'd had more time together..."
"Selma was more of an acquaintance than a friend. She passed away a few days ago. As I've been remembering her this week, I started working on a poem about one morning I spent with her. I have struggled over whether or not to share it online. My hesitancy in posting it is that I don't want to sentimentalize or sensationalize her. She was much more than this moment I had with her; she was a whole lifetime of moments. In the end, I decided to post it because I want to try to let you in more on some of my experiences on the DTES..."
I just heard the bells ring at the Russian Orthodox church down the block. It's Christmas. My Advent season has been spent mostly with folks who wait not with eager expectation of Christmas, but with a certain amount of dread, because of the grief and loneliness that are so much more palpable during the holidays. One woman said she tried to come up with a project to do in the last week of December so she didn't have to think about Christmas. Several others told me they didn't celebrate. It was just a time of year to be endured...
I've been listening to Dave Matthews Band for a good chunk of my life now - in fact, when I met Danice six years ago, they were one of the only bands in my collection that Danice actually approved of. :) Seeing DMB live has been on my bucket list for some time. It turned out this was the perfect year to cross it off. DMB plays the Gorge every Labor Day weekend, but this time, for the first time, they brought about 20 other bands with them...
From the evidence I've seen, efforts to change a same-sex orientation into a heterosexual one have rarely been successful, though those who are highly motivated can learn to live celibately or in mixed-orientation marriages. For the many who have been forced (or who forced themselves) through these programs, the only thing that has changed is an ever-deepening sense of shame, similar to the shame felt by Native children in residential schools as well-meaning Christians tried in vain to change them into white children...
