This is Me

As I mentioned in last year’s ‘Coming Out Day’ post, I’ve been questioning my gender for several year, ever since our minster at the time, Rev. Connie Simon, asked the congregation to wear pronoun stickers on their name tags. I encountered some ‘big feelings’ at her request, and at the time I didn’t quite know why. I gave the matter some real thought over the years, but it wasn’t until my sabbatical that I was finally able to delve deeper into the matter. And, it all began with Sonya Renee Taylor and her book The Body is Not An Apology. Thanks to Taylor, a few fiction authors, and the support of my communities, I can now say I’m transmasc non-binary (They/Them pronouns). Here are the quotes and questions I gathered from Taylor’s book that I think are worth considering…

Quotes

• How we value and honor our own bodies impacts how we value and honor the bodies of others… we must build in us what we want to see built in the world. p. 5
• “There is no wrong way to have a body” – Glen Marla p. 10
• Taking up space we have previously been denied is a step toward bringing a just balance of power and resources (i.e. space) in the world. It is an act of radical love. Why are we constantly apologizing for the space we inhabit? p. 16
• Understanding is not a prerequisite for honor, love, or respect… Not knowing is an opportunity for exploration without judgement or demands. p. 22
• Health is not a state we owe the world. We are not less valuable, worthy, or loveable because we are not healthy. p. 24
• Your body need not be a prison sentence. p. 26
• Children’s bodies are not public property. Teaching children bodily autonomy, privacy, and consent are the cornerstone of raising radical self-love humans. p. 33
• Rendering differences invisible validates the notion that there are parts of us that should be ignored, hidden, or minimized, leaving in place the unspoken idea that difference is the problem and not our approach to dealing with difference. p. 36
• Relationships with our bodies are social, political, and economic inheritances. p. 42
• It is an act of terrorism against our bodies to perpetuate body shame and to support body based oppression. I call this “body Terrorism.” p. 58
• You are not your thoughts. p. 67
• Guess what? Your brain is part of your body! p. 76
• Truthfully, radical self love is not the work of superheroes but of community and connection… we must learn to be with each other if we plan to get free. p. 80
• We desperately want our good intentions and niceness to be enough. Although each of us is inherently “enough” to be loved, valued, cared for, and treated with respect, our efforts to raze systems of oppression and injustice will require more than our niceness. p. 83
• Each of us is responsible for our sphere of influence. p. 88
• This responsibility [to disrupt body terrorism] is distinct from some sort of savior complex in which radical self love emboldens you to save the poor and downtrodden of Earth. Radical self-love is a manifestation of our interdependence. p. 89
• We treat new ideas like we treat bodies, dismissing what we can’t understand, what we view as too different. p. 101
• In a society incredibly adept at harsh and often cruel critique, it is deeply moving to witness one tending to their own culpability with a sense of humility, compassion, and grace. p. 111
• Liberation is the opportunity for every human, no matter their body, to have unobstructed access to their highest self, for every human to live in radical self-love. p. 130

Questions

• When Taylor talks about ‘taking up space,’ she’s not only talking about physical space, but mental, emotional, and social space as well. When was the last time you stopped yourself from taking up space? How would things have been different if you had claimed the space instead?
• When was the last time you engaged in exploration ‘without judgement or demand?’ What or who do you love, honor and respect without understanding?
• What makes you different from those in your communities?
• What messages does media send you about your body? What messages does the government send you? What messages did you receive about your body during your childhood? What messages do you tell yourself?
• How can you extend compassion and grace toward yourself today?

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll come back in September for an overview of Dean Spade’s book Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity Through this Crisis (and the Next).

Rest

I first encountered The Nap Ministry sometime around 2018. As an overtaxed mother, wife, and worker Tricia Hersey’s message of ‘Rest is Resistance’ resonated deeply with me. When Hersey’s book of the same name, Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, was released I knew I had to read it for this sabbatical. Here are some of the key quotes and questions I took from my reading…

Quotes

• Survival is not the end goal for liberation. We must thrive we must rest. p. 5
• Our bodies are a site of liberation. p. 7
• Grind culture is a collaboration between white supremacy and capitalism. p. 24
• If we are not tapped into the truth of our divinity, there is the possibility of continued brainwashing. p. 15
• Nothing we accomplish in life is totally free of the influence of spirit and community. We do nothing alone. p. 18
• The removal of physical education, recess, and nap time from public schools is more evidence of a culture unconcerned with space, connection, and slowing down. This ongoing socialization and manipulation by the systems then become internalized and we become agents of grind culture. p. 23
• You are worthy of rest. We don’t have to earn rest… the more we think of rest as a luxury, the more we buy into the systemic lies of grind culture. p. 28
• Where spirit is, healing can happen. p. 33
• We don’t have to have a complete answer to everything right now. We don’t have to know everything. We don’t have to be everything. We don’t have to do everything. p. 59
• Stay in the space of knowing that you are not a failure, inadequate or unworthy because you are tired and want to rest. p. 67
• When we don’t take our own rest while holding space for others around us to rest, we are functioning like the systems we want to gain freedom from. p. 76
• There is no system in our culture that supports and makes space for us to rest. p. 94
• Rest is somatic work – connecting your body and mind. p. 120
• It can be easier to believe resting is simply about retiring to your bed when you are tired instead of beginning the messy process of deconstructing your own beliefs and behaviors that are aligned with white supremacy and capitalism. p. 122
• Rest is not a state of inactivity or waste of time. Rest is a generative state. p. 153
• You have permission to experiment. p. 173
• Rest on a somatic level is a small resurrection. p. 182
• We imagine by being in community. We imagine by receiving and offering radical care. We imagine by embracing and running toward our interconnectedness. p. 188

Questions

• Do you know you are divine? Do the people around you know they are divine? How does Unitarian Universalism convince people of their inherent worth and divinity when so many of our members were raised Christian, whose doctrine of original sin is in direct opposition to this belief?
• What would church look like if we centered space, connection, and slowing down? What would your life look like if church centered rest?
• What damage are we inflicting on our children when we don’t give them or their caregivers space and time to rest, when we overschedule and overdemand? Much has been said recently about Gen Alpha and the failings of Millennial parents. But, what if Millennial parents aren’t failing? What if we are just struggling to survive in a system designed for urgency and disconnection?
• How have you internalized grind culture? When was the last time you rested? Gave yourself permission to experiment? When was the last time you gave and received radical care from your communities?
• What does rest look like to you? When will you rest next?

That’s all for this month. Join me in August as I share my wonderings from Sonya Renee Taylor’s book The Body is Not An Apology (my second favorite Sabbatical read). Until then, rest.

Guess What…

Hi! Hello! How have you been? I know… you can’t answer that question. Comments are turned off. But, still, for your own sake, I’d like you to answer it anyway. How have you been?

If you find you aren’t doing too well, then I encourage you to stop what you are doing right now. Put down your mobile device, or move away from your computer, and take 5 minutes for whatever you want. Rest your eyes, stretch your body, reach out to a friend, sit in silence – listen to your body. Everything else will still be here when you are done. (Breath)

Now, if you wish to continue, then let me answer that question – I’m really f****** good. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this to you before, but the Pandemic, and all the years that followed, broke me. They broke me in more ways than I thought possible. And, honestly, before my sabbatical, I was starting to wonder if I’d ever recover, despite all my best effort. But, sabbatical, it was like magic. This time away – studying, resting, connecting with colleagues – was more restorative than I dreamed it would be. Perhaps, one day, I will tell you the full story of how the pandemic broke me, of all that I did to repair myself, and how Sabbatical was the missing key to my continued recovery. But, I’m not quite ready to tell that story yet. So, instead, I’m going to share some key quotes and questions I gathered during my sabbatical.

To begin, I want to share a few quotes and questions from the book The Good Enough Job by Simone Stolzoff. This is the first book I read while on sabbatical. If you are struggling with work-life balance, burnout, or the ravages of classism, then I’d highly recommend this book to you…

Quotes

• For White-Collar professionals, jobs have become akin to a religious identity; in addition to a paycheck, they provide meaning, community, and a sense of purpose. p. xii
• Most religious traditions actively separate divinity from productivity – as either a separation of time, as in the Jewish tradition of Shabbat; a separation of space, as in a monastery isolated rom the rest of society; or a separation of behavior, as in the Islamic call to prayer, which halts all other activities five times a day. p. 36
• Promoting the message that a profession is inherently righteous allows people in positions of power to characterize injustices as isolated incidents rather than systemic failures – if they’re even discussed at all. p. 51
• But it isn’t just our country or employer that imposes this value system on us. Using productivity to measure worth is a standard we also impose on ourselves. And in the process, many Americans have internalized the values of our dominant economic system: Capitalism. p. 71
• Koretz recommends building infrastructure around sacred time as one might build infrastructure around sacred space like a temple, mosque, or church. p. 76
• Play is a natural antidote to workism. p. 77
• According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the lowest-earning quintile of Americans worked nearly 25% more hours in 2016 than they did in 1979… Overwork is not simply a matter of the number of hours worked, but also the intensity and unpredictability of those hours. p. 116
• Workplace communication apps keep knowledge workers perpetually half connected, in a state reminiscent of sharks sleeping with one eye open. p. 142
• Developing a healthier relationship to work starts with defining what you want that relationship to be. If not, your employer will happily define the relationship for you. p. 155
• Furthermore, overwork is a systemic issue – one that is the result of economic, political, and cultural factors – and thus there are limits to individual interventions. All too often, the ones that carve out and protect space for our nonwork selves falls on workers. Common anti-burnout advice like “set a boundary,” or “practice self-care” crumbles without institutional support behind it. p. 182
• To decouple our human needs from our employment status is to declare that each of us has worth whether or not we have a full-time job. p. 189
• A 2021 survey from the Society for Human Resource Management found that 41% of Americans feel burned out. p. 190
• I found that those with the healthiest relationship to their work had one thing in common: They all had a strong sense of who they were when they weren’t working. p. 196

Questions

• How do Unitarian Universalists promote a separation between divinity and productivity? How do Unitarian Universalists sanctify a connection between divinity and productivity?
• As a society, we regularly recognize people’s labor / contributions / output / productivity. But, when do we recognize people’s “ever-green” characteristics (i.e. When do we recognize people because they are good listeners, or gregarious, or [fill in positive adjective here])?
• What does a liberatory Unitarian Universalism look like when our current culture is steeped in workism? What feels liberatory to you?
• How would you like to define your relationship to work?
• Who are you outside of your work?

That’s all I got for you now. Check back in a few weeks where I will share quotes and questions from Tricia Hersey’s groundbreaking work Rest is Resistance.