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Three Shows



I really love Houston's theater district. With a little creativity, I've seen 3 shows this month for a total of $37. Impressive, right? Take advantage of our city's amazing offerings!


Photo credit: nyc.gov
The Hobby Center's production of A Chorus Line was a lot of fun. My friend and I got student rush tickets for $15! It reminded me of auditioning for big parts in ballet performances in high school. It wasn't nearly as stressful as these kids, though. :) I think Broadway Across America does a good job bringing NYC shows around the country.


 
Photo Credit: CarnegieHall.org
The Houston Symphony's "Planets in HD" was spectacular. We asked my parents for tix to this show for Christmas (theater tickets are always on on holiday wish list!). The performance opened with music from Stravinsky and Dutilleux, two works contemplating the ethereal nature of the universe. For Holst's Planet Suite in the second half, the Symphony partnered with NASA and British filmmaker Duncan Cobb (who also holds a doctorate in geology and spent 3 years mapping Venus) to create an HD slideshow of space images from the last 35 years. Then the Symphony live scored it. For example, they played "Jupiter: Bringer of Jollity" while stunning images of Jupiter passed by on the screen. The whole thing was quite breathtaking.


Photo Credit: Alleytheater.org
And for "Cheap Thrills" - the Alley Theater offers $21 tickets on Sunday and Tuesday evenings - we saw Gregory Boyd's new musical production Wonderland. Boyd is the long time director at the Alley, wrote the Wonderland book, conceived the show, then produced it. It's a re-imagining of Carroll's tale, featuring a grown-up author Alice overcome by the demands of her life (mother, wife, author, friend, etc.). She dreams her daughter is missing and follows clues down the rabbit hole to find her. Her husband appears in the form of the White Knight (with a hilarious back-up boy band) and for a moment I feared he would rescue Alice, but Alice rescues herself as she rediscovers her passion for life, family, and work. As Eric put it, she goes from being a second-wave to a third-wave feminist, which is much more balanced. :)

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My Year of Peace: Peace and Fear

The greatest enemy of peace is fear. Some people erroneously equate the two, suggesting that people choose pacifism because they fear fighting or fear war. In fact, fear is the motivation for war and fighting, not for peace. Peace cannot be lived without great courage, supernatural courage. I don't think anyone would accuse Gandhi or MLK of being cowards, yet they were pacifists, the kind of bold pacifists whose courage still inspires us.

Fear is really at its core a basic instinct. It is one thing that we share with all animals. I believe that if most of us are honest, we could identify dozens of experiences in our daily lives when our immediate emotional response to a situation is fear. If we are being even more honest, I would bet that we could even admit that we act out of that emotional response far more often than not. Fear is universal, an instinct we are all born with. It is our mind's way to protect us from pain, physical and emotional. Courage is not an absence of fear. Courage merely recognizes fear and chooses to act in spite of fear. That is why peace and love are ultimately courageous acts and why war and violence is not, which is not to say that war is absent of individual acts of courage.

Wars are fought out of fear. We might dress up our justifications with fancy names and ideologies, but the ultimate origin of all war is fear. Right now our country is engaged in two wars primarily because we are afraid of terrorism, afraid that democracy might not be powerful enough to stand on its own without weapons backing it, and afraid that America and its values might become irrelevant or might even be offensive to some. We might say we are fighting for liberty and an end to tyranny, but the truth is that we are afraid. What peace asks us to do is to recognize those fears and simply to deny them, not through ignorance or recklessness, but through faith and love. I fear terrorism as much as anyone. I fear extremism. I fear tyranny. However, I believe that peace is stronger than war, that love is stronger than hate, that freedom is stronger than tyranny, that courage is stronger than terror, and that wisdom is stronger than extremism.

Some days, I struggle to believe this. Some days, I doubt. Some days, I lose faith in the power of good over evil. On those days, I pray for the peace that passes understanding and the love that makes us more than conquerors. Peace is not naive optimism. It is not ignorant. It is not passive. It is hope and love, and it is bold. I don't just hope for a peaceful world someday. I must live peace now even when it scares me.

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Keep It Classy, San Diego


My time in S.D. wrapped up well, complete with a trip to the Zoo and dinner in Old Town. I got back Monday to my freezing cold house. But before I left I watched this sunset. So beautiful!

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My Year of Peace: The Mindset of War

War has a number of negative effects: lives lost, infrastructures devastated, money wasted, psyches damaged, cultures eliminated - the list continues because the cost of war can never be measured, can never be balanced with its benefits, and since each war only propagates more wars in its wake, our war debts (financial, emotional, physical, political, religious, cultural, and personal) continue to grow.

For my entire life, my country has been at war. Some of those wars were more official, like the two we are currently involved in. Some were more covert, like our wars in Latin America in the 1980s. I have been fortunate though not to have faced any of these war tolls personally. I have not lost family members (though many Americans have). I have not lost my home, my job, my culture, my mind (though many worldwide have). It is easy for America to wage continual war as long as the effects of our warmongering stay mostly isolated in the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, or Africa. When the effects of our warmongering do come home to roost, we just use them as an excuse to wage more wars.

One effect of war that has cost our society very dearly is one that most people do not detect. Our endless wars have turned us all into mini-warmongers. In America, everything is a war, a civil war. I guess it was about two decades ago that we declared war on drugs. We have been fighting the "culture wars" for over two decades (with tensions only escalating). We war over the economy. We even war over providing health care to the needy.

Growing up in America, I was always taught to identify my enemies, taught to be paranoid about the next threat to my security, taught to defend myself. I wasn't really taught how to love, how to respect, how to heal, how to create. By the time I graduated college, my enemies list was pretty substantial (and growing), quite the problem for a professed pacifist. I would also argue that it is quite the problem for a professed Christian too.

Growing up Christian actually exacerbated this problem. I was taught to identify Satan much more easily than I was ever taught to identify Jesus. Satan is everywhere, in the abortion clinics, the gay rights activists, illegal immigrants, other religions, communism, television, R-rated movies, video games, the Internet, just about anywhere but the Bible. Of course, even the Bible isn't safe really because I, and any Christian that doesn't proscribe to a particular theology, could also be deceived and, therefore, misinterpret God's words. Jesus, on the other hand, seemed to be largely absent from much of my Christian upbringing. I don't remember being taught how to identify God's presence in the people I met, the media, politics, or even myself. I was raised in a religion that teaches that God dwells in us and among us, but I was much more aware of the presence of "the Enemy."

I don't blame my Christian upbringing for this problem. I merely wish to illustrate how pervasive the mindset of war is in American life. It is so powerful that it can even corrupt those who worship the Prince of Peace. Certainly Christians need to step back and ask ourselves, how have we contributed to this problem? Still, I don't think that the essential teachings of Christianity - like salvation by grace, really are the problem. The problem is that Christians don't take these teaching seriously enough. We don't extend grace to those we disagree with or even those we do. We don't love our neighbors as ourselves. Hell, we don't even love ourselves. And it is here that we come to the ultimate cost of the war mindset - when everyone is an enemy, the real enemy is ourselves.

In warmongering America, we have become our own worst enemies, which is why it is essential that peace begin internally. Until I can make peace with myself and my situation, how can I really make peace with anyone else? As a Christian, I must hold firm to the fundamental belief that God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-love. If that is the case, then shouldn't I be seeing Jesus everywhere instead of Satan. I am not looking for anyone to blame for this crisis. It is not the fault of our churches, our government, our schools, our courts, or even our enemies. It is our own. I don't experience peace because my mindset is not a peaceful one. My world is not a peaceful one because I make it into a warring one.

Peace begins here. It begins with having a conversation with a friend and not worrying if he says something I don't agree with. It begins with learning something from a friend who practices another religion. It begins with watching the news without a sense of fear and dread but with a stubborn insistence on hope. It begins with caring about the needs of others. It begins with loving rather than fearing. It begins with extending forgiveness without conditions. It begins with seeing the image of God in myself, my family, my neighbors, and even my enemies.

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San Diego So Far

I'm in San Diego for the American Historical Association conference and here are some things I've done whilst here:

* Shared a cab from the airport to the conference with two strangers who I knew were going just by looking at them
* Laughed at my colleagues who geeked out when they realized one of their historian heroes was sitting at the next table
* Laughed at myself when I got starstruck ("Omg, Paula Giddings is going to be here? Do you even know how she's influenced the field of African American women's history?!")
* Accidentally spent $36 on lunch (only in California does a "side salad" cost $7)
* Watched a protest parade call for a boycott of a downtown hotel for reasons I'm still not sure
* Watched the sunset over the ocean from a cliff
* Ate frozen yogurt at a place that tried unsuccessfully to mix yoga and yogurt in their store title
* Watched behind the scenes stuff on Lost with friends who are as crazy about as I am
* Had dinner with a good friend I've known since undergrad, who lives in Houston but who I can only seem to get together with at out of town conferences
* Got up before 8 am two days in a row
* Heard a professor rap about World War Two
* Attended a breakfast, special session, board meeting, reception, and dinner for my organization all in one day
* Had a drink with colleagues I haven't seen in 3 years
* Wandered into Gordana's (Project Runway season 6) shop (she wasn't there)
* Heard the phrases "feminist pedagogy" and "Christian historian" and no one rolled their eyes
* Bought new shoes b/c my heels were driving my crazy and my others were too small
* Got lost walking back from the Gaslamp District
* Stated my name, affiliation, dissertation topic, and future plans approximately 247 times
* Got eaten by a very cute, very crazy Jack Russell puppy
* Discovered "Facing History and Ourselves"
* Discovered that the C.S. Lewis Foundation is building a university (my kids are definitely going to C.S. Lewis College!!)
* Wore a suit for 12 hours
* Decided I miss California a lot
* Missed my husband a whole lot

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