World AIDS Day comes of age
On December 1st, people around the world are called to prayerful action on the 21st international World AIDS Day. What are we doing in preparation for the coming of age of this deadly disease?
Unfortunately I am not doing much. In fact, had it not been for a question raised about the conspiracy theories around AIDS I would not even be mindful of the coming day. But having promised a friend that I would do some reading, I waded into the muddy waters this week of theories and counter-theories.
In the interest of full disclosure, I need to begin by admitting that though I have an undergraduate degree in Mathematics, I am totally inept in the world of science. I enjoyed the philosophy of mathematics and the history of mathematicians and struggled with the technical aspects.
As I wade through the sea of theories regarding the origin of AIDS and the disquieting voices suggesting an origin of genocidal intent, I am keenly aware that I am out of my league in terms of scientific theory. Beyond the world of science, however, the more I read the more keenly aware I become of the human implications of the competing theories.
In a study commissioned by the National Institutes of Health, 500 African American’s were interviewed about their knowledge of the origin of AIDS. The results were startling. Nearly half of the interviewees expressed the belief that the virus is man-made, more than a quarter believing that it was created in a government laboratory. The point of the Washington Post article describing the study was neither to defend nor debunk the conspiracy theories, but rather to point out the implications of their existence. The Post suggests that it is difficult at best to accept a vaccine offered by the creator of the plague. Believing that the government is the source of AIDS makes government funded and supported efforts of treatment and prevention suspect.
Which brings me to a second important place of confession, that of my privilege as a middle class white raised in the American heartland. I learned about the Tuskegee experiment from disengaged textbooks not family stories. I developed a passion to defend neighborhoods from toxic waste from my church’s advocacy not from my child’s doctor. And though AIDS rocked my world and most likely thwarted my own sexual self identity in the late 1980’s, it has since become an illness which plagues communities largely beyond my daily view. My privilege allows a naive trust and provides no motive to look beyond the official opinion. Tragically it is this privilege that allows me to pursue and support efforts for prevention. Without the trust (warranted or not) that is born of privilege, prevention and treatment are often beyond reach.
When I first became aware of this disease more than two decades ago, my captivation, then as now, was less about the science and more about the ways in which our finger pointing undermined proactive efforts for healing.
As a theologically trained non-scientist, I will not comment on the persuasiveness of the conspiracy theories but I will comment on the theological morass that lies at the feet of this crisis. With a church cowed in the face of racism and heterosexism, a much needed voice of moral authority is missing in our community. Recognition of the creator in the midst of creation demands that we reach across lines of race and class in order to build trust, share resources, and protect our children.
On December 1st, I plan to be lighting a candle in prayer and preparing for action. Care to join me?
is anybody listening?
“But nobody told me,” is the number one response I hear both at home and at church.
Let me just go on record as saying that because Person A didn’t hear the news of the day does not automatically mean that Person B wasn’t speaking clearly. Communication is an art, and I’ve come to believe that when Persons A and B hear each other, it is truly a miracle.
Sometimes we are suspicious that we are speaking and no one is listening, and sometimes our suspicion is well founded. Back in high school a group of my friends had become certain that our teacher was grading our papers without reading them. So sure were we that we filled the center of our papers with a repitition of “Mickey mouse, mouse mickey mickey mickey mouse mouse.” And, at least in my remembrance of the story, we were never found out. Just because we were screaming our disrespect and our craving to be heard did not mean that our teacher was listening. Communication requires that both parties have a desire to hear and be heard. Yet even when both parties are trying, we still often pass like ships in the night.
Our mantra as a church staff used to be “five ways”. We knew that we had to advertise events with at least five different mediums in order for people to actually assimilate the information. In the old days the most common forms of communication were bulletin boards, worship bulletins, newsletters, announcements and postcards. Long before robo-calls had been unleashed, phone trees were common and moderately effective. As we entered the so-called information age, I erroneously assumed that we would be a more informed people. Instead, we have developed more elaborate internal systems for assimilating, and blocking, information. Which is probably why the most effective means of communication, then and now, is simply person to person.
There is nothing new and yet everything changes. Nowhere is this paradigm more true than in the Herculaneum efforts to keep our church community informed. In the midst of our technological revolution, the avenues of communication available have expanded dramatically. I can type this letter on a Friday morning and ¾ of our congregation will have it within hours (it is sent by post to those not on our email list, they receive it within 24-48 hours). In fact, I can even check later in the day and over the weekend and find out exactly which of the email recipients opened their email! But even if ½ of the recipients open the email (which is incidentally a high expectation), I can assume that only about half of the opened emails actually are read. At best, about 15% of the congregation might actually be reading this.
Maybe with a
paragraph break and a
blockquote
I might have better odds of sharing the news. But by now I’ve forgotten what I wanted to say.
hold your stones
What a foolish notion, that war is called devotion
When the greatest warriors
Are the ones who stand for peace.
“Foolish Notion”, Holly Near
As an avid fan of all things peacenik, I was awed when the Nobel committee bestowed their prestigious honor on President Barack Obama. From the time that he made his way onto the national stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama has been garnering massive crowds of people clamoring for a way in this world beyond our penchant for war making. Admittedly I am both an ardent fan of peacemakers and also President Barack Obama, but clearly I am once again out of step with the majority of Americans who think the prize was awarded at best prematurely. The reaction to the award has been shockingly negative.
Perhaps most surprising to me were the darts thrown from the Jerusalem Post. Gil Troy describes the situation most succinctly as “the growing gap between Barack Obama’s saintly status in Europe and the skepticism he generates in Zion.” Herb Keinon complains that it strains Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and also complicates the tenuous relationship with Iran. Schmuley Boteach is a long time Nobel watcher, so passionate was he about the important work of the prize and it’s fostering of peace that he established an annual lecture at Oxford (endowed by philanthropist Edmund Safra) to be delivered by Nobel laureates. Boteach first decried this year’s award and then went on to describe the demise of the Nobel peace prize in general.
Boteach remembers that when Yassar Arafat was awarded the esteemed prize in 1994 (along with Perez and Rabin), the response was less than enthusiastic in many corners of the world. For the Palestinian people, Arafat’s leadership provided a cohesiveness and identity that elevated his status; for many, however, Arafat’s name was synonymous with terror. That the prize was awarded for his work with Perez and Rabin was deemed irrelevant, the supporters and decriers lined up to cheer or boo long before the read the fine print about how or why Arafat was chosen for the honor.
So too the hype surrounding this year’s win.
Obama’s presence on the world stage, elected by an unlikely but mesmerizing groundswell of public support amidst the American people, shifted the discourse even before he gave his first speech. His ethnicity, his youth, and his background all highlight his unlikely claim to the role as president of the United States and indeed witnesses to possibilities yet unrealized. The award isn’t for peace achieved, but for efforts to forge peace in a world bent on war. Specifically, Obama received the award, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.
In Nobel’s will, which lays out the criteria for this esteemed prize, he declares that this honor will be awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”. Given the warring engendered this past decade which as used religious affiliation as an organizing rubric, Obama’s efforts to ford the Muslim-Christian divide is alone worthy of the esteemed Nobel honor. Immediately upon election, Obama took his can-do message of hopefulness from the American stage to the world’s weary stage, and his message was a welcome one.
Standing on either side of the “he is worthy” shouting match, however, offers the ultimate irony, dissension engendered by a prize for peace. Throwing stones does not foster peace. Discrediting a peacemaker isn’t peaceful. If our intent is to defend the integrity of the Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps we might begin by responding peaceably toward those esteemed with the award.
happy trails to officer ziegler
Like thousands of local St. Louisans, I hold the dubious honor of having been “Zieglered”. As I read last week’s Webster Kirkwood Time’s feature article about Officer Ziegler’s pending retirement, I felt a sense of solidarity as one who knew the adrenalin rush inspired by this tireless traffic cop.
Although writing tickets for careless speeders along Manchester Road was Ziegler’s claim to fame, it is misleading to summarize his contributions to our community with tales of his ticket pad.
Many bemoan the speed trap nature of his work on Manchester Road but, as he points out in the WKTimes article, there is no trap. The speeds are clearly posted and reasonably set for conditions. The amount of traffic, the number of children, and the numerous entrances and exits, and the number of pedestrians make excessive speed not only illegal but also dangerous. Officer Ziegler’s work to enforce speed limits have been the most fundamental of public safety initiatives. Simply put, many of us are alive today because he helped us slow down.
An often overlooked aspect of Ziegler’s work along Manchester Road is the accessibility that his presence offered. Only once have I needed to call the police to my home to help, but on that one occasion, years ago when my daughter was bit by a neighborhood dog, Officer Ziegler was on duty and ready to role. He was at our home in minutes and responding with remarkable compassion and professionalism.
Of course, like all Rock Hill residents, I am keenly aware of the precarious nature of fiscal viability of small municipalities and Ziegler’s prolific ticket writing must surely have been a boon to the budget. In fact one wonders how many jobs will be lost without the steady source of revenue that his pen provided.
Which brings me to my point, revenue. Communities depend on people like Officer Ziegler, and Officer Ziegler depends upon communities like ours for an income. Nobody likes to pay taxes, but like it or not there are bills that belong to all of us and our public servants depend upon us to contribute our fair share. If we were more gracious about paying our taxes, our roads would have fewer pot holes and Officer Ziegler could write fewer tickets. Until we are willing to pool our resources for the common good, we’ll continue to hold bake sales for schools.
As a member of the Zieglered, though, I can be proud of supporting my community.
cake decorating class
I imagined many scenarios as I became the parent of teens, but taking a cake decorating class with my teenage son was not one of them. It would never have crossed my mind, or his for that matter, but it has been an utterly delightful if challenging experience. So much so that we’ve committed to another four weeks.
And herein lies the challenge.
Each week two of us go to class to decorate a cake, and each week we need to practice. Simply put, that’s about four cakes a week, which is more cake than the surgeon general deems healthy for a family of four. Already we’ve eaten cake, given cake to the neighbors, taken cake to meetings, and still we have an uncut cake on the counter. Given that the people beheaded Marie Antoinette when she suggested the hungry eat cake, I’m loath to play loosely with the excess.
Besides, it’s quite an investment of both time and money. Tomorrow is Friday, which has traditionally been my day off and is now my designated baking day. First I’ll need to go to the store to buy another six boxes of powdered sugar and some more cake mix, eggs, and oil. I will bake cakes for our ‘practice’ time and cakes for our class time. It’s a lot of cake mix.
And the accoutrements we’re collecting! Because we are two, we have twice the supplies. It’s hard for two people to practice the rose with one bag of frosting. Somehow I’ve ended up with a shelf full of cake pans, four 8-inch cake pans (2 for each of us) plus two of the ‘wrong’ size. We also have fun stuff like cardboard circles in two sizes, coloring, flavoring, and a half dozen containers of various shades of frosting filling the refrigerator.
My counter is filled with utensils semi-clean and readied for the next go-round and my kitchen floor is sticky from the last. The only thing messier than a cake decorating class is a new baby, and at this point in the learning curve the baby looks much neater.
Signing up for another course means more supplies, more mess, and more… cake! Where will we send another 16 cakes! To be sure, we could practice the decorating on wax paper, but where is the fun in that?
Besides, the time with my son? Priceless.
