Rachel’s Musings

In your nick of the world, 2009 might’ve started hours ago, so I’d like to wish you a Happy 2009 before it’s too late! May many of your dreams come true in 2009! May the good days outnumber the bad days and may your life overall move toward the good life.

To utilize peer pressure to my advantage, I thought I’d post my goals for 2009 publicly. Essentially, I have three goals:

1. Continue working toward overcoming singlism and matrimania, both internalized and in society.
2. Develop emotional freedom.
3. Stop pouring energy into black holes.

For the first goal, I will continue my work with the Alternatives to Marriage Project, especially through consciousness raising about matrimania and how needs of all unmarried people can be met, whatever their reason for their relationship status. In 2008, I identified several internalized singlism dragons that need taming. That is ongoing work.

The second goal is tied to overcoming internalized singlism but is more specific about how I interact with people. In particular, I am still struggling with the dragon that I need a partner to be complete. So, instead of viewing them as potential friends, I approach men as potential partners. Although I realize that there are some biological reasons for that, some of it is social conditioning, which I would like to counteract because I really don’t like how I act toward men when I view them that way.

My third goal comes from the realization that I often do things without considering what the return on my investment is. Instead of pouring my energy into projects, including friendships, that aren’t very rewarding, I want to focus on those things and people that are rewarding. I only can do so much, so I’d like to use my energy for projects and connections that create more energy, rather than things that simply drain it.

I also want to continue working on things I worked on in 2008: Building and deepening my friendship network; creating community; and laying the foundation for a more meaningful, authentic life; a life that I don’t feel a need to be rescued from (which is tied to goal # 2). This will require defying convention a lot more than I am already doing. And overarching all of this, I want to be patient with myself if I don’t achieve all these goals by January 2nd: My intend is to work toward them, rather than perfectly achieving them.

I love the song “Defying Gravity” from Wicked (number 6). Defying gravity is not some sort of metaphysical thing to me. I am not going to start flying around on a broom. To me the song symbolizes defying convention.

I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It’s time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!

I guess fear’s what’s keeping me grounded. What am I afraid of? It’s scary to fly without a safety net…

I’ve been puzzling over the claim that Christmas is now largely a secular holiday ever since I first read it (I can’t recall where but here’s an example). Secular means “denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.” Clearly, Christmas has a religious basis. If it weren’t for the claim of the Catholic Church that Jesus was born on December 25th, there would not be a Christmas (there would be other holidays but not Christmas). It does not matter that they usurped other holidays to do that. It does not matter that Jesus was very likely not born that day if he ever was born at all. I find it absurd to claim that Christmas can be a secular holiday. And “secular Christmas” is an oxymoron.
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As I was checking out my phone bill, I noticed that Credo (one of the few progressive phone companies) has put up a survey to find out what people see as the 2009 priorities.

I added this under “Other” and then selected it as one of my top 3 (keeping Obama honest and universal health care are the other two):

Fight to end marital status discrimination by pushing for legislation that values ALL families, not just families with married couples (and their look alikes) but also single parent families, networks of chosen family and all the diversity we have.

Let’s start a write-in campaign! It looks like the survey is open to anybody, not just people who use Credo for their telecommunication needs… If you feel that it’s about time we move beyond marriage and start valuing all families, make your voice heard by adding this as a 2009 priority for Credo Action.

Reading Rick Warren’s position on marriage (see the section starting with “bottom line”), made me realize what I disagree with the most: That marriage is somehow better, more valuable, more deserving of rights than any other relationship. The key to my position on marriage is that marriage should not be elevated above all other relationships. There is nothing about marriage that makes it more special/healthy/important to society than other close relationships.

Here’s my position on marriage currently, this is still evolving, so I expect my position to become clearer as I ponder this more:

1. Marriage is only one way people relate to each other. Other forms of relating are just as valid and valuable as marriage, whether these relationships are conjugal or not.
2. Using marriage as a way to distribute rights and privileges is ignoring the underlying issues that we, as a society, need to address. Universal health care, living wages, accessible & affordable education and sick leave, for example, address unfairness more directly and appropriately.
3. Valuing all ways of relating and all families will rebuild community and strengthen America by creating an atmosphere of respect for people’s choices and everybody’s way of life. Moving beyond marriage is the most inclusive way of creating community.

My vision for marriage: Marriage is one way people can express their commitment to each other but it does not make them more or less committed than people in other relationships. Nor does it give them rights, privileges, or obligations not available to others.

Here are some other interesting & thought provoking positions on marriage and relationships.

Obama has picked Rick Warren as the pastor to give the invocation (whatever that is) at the inauguration. Aside from wondering why a pastor has to be at the inauguration in the first place – after all there’s supposed to be a separation of religion and state in this country – this particular pastor pick is, well, it’s rather offensive. And not just to atheists (invocation is after all invoking god). It is basically offensive to most supporters of Obama: Rick Warren is, according to a quote in the HuffingtonPost article:

“[...] is also very established in the religious right and his position on social issues like gay rights, stem cell research and women’s rights are all out of the mainstream and are very much opposed to the progressive agenda that Obama ran on. I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day.”

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