Now THIS is an Outrage!!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/03/cesarean_births_hit_new_high_i.html

I am back to blogging, and will do my best to keep up. Finally, something made me mad enough to blog about! Mostly, I have been busy with my five year old. Hence, the words "shall try" to keep up.

I had a Cesarean in 1982 (and I still have trouble spelling it!); yes, friends, that was twenty-eight years ago. The result is my very handsome and loveable, if somewhat troubled, son, Casey. The other result is that I have been an advocate for natural birth ever since! Due to a wonderful organization that offered classes for "VBAC" (vaginal birth after Cesarean), I was able to have my second and third children completely naturally. The really amazing one was Colin, born in 1984. He was the first VBAC to be executed in that particular hospital, and I used a lot of stealth methods to make it happen. I am pretty sure I wrote another piece elsewhere on this blog that tells about how I was born that day, too.

The most revolutionary thing I learned in my "hippie childbirth" class, besides how to toss out the breathing methods and subvert the hospital regimens, was that women have given birth for all of human history, naturally and successfully. This is something our bodies know how to do! Yes, there are exceptions in a small percentage of cases where intervention is required, but nowhere near 32%!!

Since then, I've taken my revolutionary battles elsewhere; religion, politics, racial justice, and on and on. But I was appalled this week when I learned that C-section rates have gone up! This NPR blog explains the statistics; be sure to read the notes that follow, about the "cascade of interventions", and the way hospitals and the business of health care interfere with the progress of natural birth.

I wrote a paper in seminary for a class on Ritual, about how the modern hospital technology has replaced what was once an intimate and community function. The upshot is that women have lost their power, the confidence in their own bodies, and their connection to Gaia and God.

One third of US births are now done by Cesarean! Let's all pray that our new beginning in health care, which might just return some authority to  the patient/client, will help turn this back around.

Haiti: Theology & Theophany

I couldn't write the blog for a few weeks.. I was silent in the wake of Haiti. I didn't have words for it; writing about anything else seemed beside the point. This past Sunday, we had a service of solidarity for the people of Haiti. We called the names of just a few of those missing and presumed dead. I piled up 100,000 sunflower seeds on a Vodou altar, which people could touch, take home, feed to the winter birds, or try & plant. And we listened to haitian music and several reflections, of which the following is one:


HAITI: Theology & Theophany

(Song, "For My People in Haiti," Wyclef Jean)




I love this song by Haiti’s most popular contemporary artist, Wyclef Jean. The line, Where is god when we need her? is the question, whether you believe in her, in him, or not. It’s another way of saying, where is Hope? In the song he closed the TV special with, he rapped, “Earthquake. Feel the earth shake. But the soul of the Haitian people it will never break.” Hence, he answers his own question.

Only privileged people, people like us, can afford to even consider a God who is a hands-on God. The vast majority of people of the world know that God is not a being, but a way of being. God is a mystery. Their faith in God is strong because they cannot hide, as we can, or could until September 11, 2001, from horror. Because they cannot hide, they know both suffering and joy.

David Blanchard, a former minister here at UUCL, is now my friend on Facebook. He shared with me yesterday these words from Pema Chodron: "How did I get so lucky to have my heart awakened to others and their suffering?" Indeed!

So today I propose that the only answer to Wyclef’s question is not, “There is no God, fool!” but something far, far, deeper.

In 1955, the year I was born, Paul Tillich wrote The Shaking of the Foundations. In this monumental work of postmodern theology, he begins by quoting the Prophet Jeremiah:

I look out on earth. . . lo, all is chaos; I look at heaven . . . its light is gone; I look out on the mountains . . . they are trembling; and all the hills are swaying! I look out . . . lo, no man is to be seen; all the birds have flown! I look out . . . lo, the sown land lies a desert; and the towns are all razed by the Lord's rage. For thus has the Lord said: The whole land shall be desolate. And for this shall the earth mourn and the heavens above be black. I have purposed it and will not repent. Neither will I turn back from it. At the noise of the horsemen and the archers the land is all in flight, men taking refuge within woods and caves, and climbing upon the rocks. Every city shall be abandoned, And not a man dwell therein. You ruined creature, what will you do! JEREMIAH 4:23-30.

And the Prophet Isaiah:

The foundations of the earth do shake. Earth breaks to pieces, earth is split in pieces, earth shakes to pieces, earth reels like a drunken man, earth rocks like a hammock; under the weight of its transgression earth falls down to rise no more!


Lift up your eyes to heaven and look upon the earth beneath: For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke.


And the earth shall grow old like a robe; the world itself shall crumble. But my righteousness shall be forever,


And my salvation knows no end. ISAIAH 24:18-20

Tillich makes it clear that the prophets of long ago could never have understood God as both omnipotent and omniscient. They were not sheltered, like the people of Haiti are not now and have not for a long time been sheltered, from the “shaking of the foundations.” They did not have the luxury of cynicism or aversion. He writes: We always carry the end with us in our bodies and our souls. And often whole nations and cultures succeed in forgetting the end. But ultimately they fail. Tillich writes that the perfect God of the idealist “is not God at all, and does not exist.”

Instead he turns to the atheist Nietzeche for a better metaphor: “God” is the perpetual Witness. From this God, he says, we cannot flee, for he/she is the Ground of our Being. The Eternal. Reassuringly, he adds, “let us not forget that life is also friendly.” There is a grace in life. Otherwise, we could not go on living. (ch6) With our eyes, we see this Grace in the outpouring of compassion, the will to sustain the gaze, even upon unimaginable suffering, and in the outstretched hands eager to help. Therein we find Purpose, Hope, and meaning.

things and people... COFFEE!

Dr.Mehmet Oz is the new media health guru. I figured he was Turkish, because of his name.

Being Turkish, how could he not love coffee, right? (Actually, I have been to Turkey, another thing that makes life worth living.. and they usually drink TEA!)But, I digress.

Dr. Oz says that coffee in moderation is good for you! It contains anti-oxidants; in fact, it is our best source of anti-oxidants. He also says to pretty much avoid any white foods (bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, SUGAR, etc) and here's a recipe from his blog that I liked:

But I LOVE me some coffee!!!!

The Magical Breakfast Blaster: Oz and his family love this smoothie for breakfast as a way to deliver nutrients and long-lasting power. The psyllium helps fill you, while the flaxseed contains omega-3 fatty acids that are beneficial to your heart.




½ large banana, peeled and cut

1 scoop (½ cup) soy protein

½ tbsp flaxseed oil

¼ cup frozen blueberries

½ tbsp apple juice concentrate or honey

1 tsp psyllium seed husks

8 oz water



Peel bananas; break into chunks. Combine all ingredients in a blender, with a few cubes of ice if desired. Cover; blend until fairly smooth.