I haven't been making the time to write - instead, I've been mixing banana pineapple smoothies with a three foot hand-held blender in five gallon buckets, learning "One Voice" by the Wailin' Jennys on guitar, snowshoeing, skiing and snowboarding every chance I get, jamming on the djembe with an impromptu reggae band, eating an assortment of truffles, and attending Paul Hinderlie's culinary art classes - last night we had salmon fillet poached in white wine, dressed with a buttery fish sauce, and garnished with fresh parsley alongside a Napoleonic burger. Paul said if Napoleon would have actually eaten foods like Napoleonic burgers, he might not have died of stomach cancer.
I've got five more massages to gift, four more inches to knit on my woolen hat, three more shifts in the kitchen, two more yoga sessions to lead, and one partridge and a pear tree to find before I leave Holden a week from today. This is quite a full schedule for the next seven days, but I welcome with busyness with a peaceful heart.
On the 6th of January I fly to Nicaragua, and through the end of February I'll mostly be on my yoga mat moving in and out of bendy postures with other yogins enrolled in SchoolYoga Institute's teacher training course. During this time, I plan to intentionally stay away from the Internet as much as possible - and I'm also not quite sure what access we'll have either - so this will be my last entry until the beginning of March, when I'll return to Alaska and divulge all anecdotal instances which make life so incredibly interesting. Thanks for your readership, and wishing you a Happy New Year coming into 2010! This is Elise, signing out from Holden Village.
11 December 2009
Excerpts from Holden...
At Holden there is always something going on – a concert, workshop, presentation, discussion, documentary, coffeehouse live music night, talent show, dance party, and, on the schedule for tonight is hot chocolate and a village-wide cookie decorating extravaganza. Sweets have been on the docket everyday, actually, so we are full swing into spirited holiday mode. Yesterday I made pumpkin bars, and the day before that we had caramel rolls – with extra caramel sauce. But then, there were also the chocolate chip cookies thematically decked out with Christmas swedish fish, a panoply of blueberry, apple and rhubarb pies, oh, and I mustn't forget to mention Paul Hinderlie's homemade rum egg nog. That was a jolly good night – of sobriety, of course. The rum was only added to taste.
During December, David, a Luther College campus minister, and Karla, a professor at the same university, along with their two children – Dawit and Meheret – are visiting the Village on teaching staff. David is Guatemalan (and now an American too after marrying Karla – from Minnesota); he was raised Jewish, and then came to the States when he was 19 to attend seminary. His research interests focus on reading scripture – at the moment, the book of Esther – through the lens of an immigrant, and he's taking this year on sabbatical to travel to several communities in the U.S. with high Hispanic populations to study the ways in which immigrants understand the text, and how their belief systems impact their reactions to it. Most recently, David read Esther with a group of Hispanic women in Postville; you may remember hearing about this small town in Iowa which made national headlines for an immigration raid in May of 2008. Some of the undocumented women in David's study were affected by the raid. The Washington Post's full story is available online at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/17/AR2008051702474.html should you be interested.
This is my first time sifting through Esther – which David describes, is a parody of fictitious history. In other words, the story of King Ahasuerus and Esther may be more representative about a specific time and context versus an actual series of events. After two sessions with David, I find I'm surprised – first, by how much I'm enjoying the experience; I'm starting to read the Bible with enthusiasm for the first time. I don't believe it is an infallible source, but I'm starting to believe it is a literary masterpiece with many truths. Second, I'm surprised by how a story can meaningfully travel through time, where today we are still grappling with similar issues – power constructs, role expectations, and our own agency within these overarching institutions.
Then, Karla was born blue-eyed, blond-haired and from a Finnish background. She grew up in Moorhead, Minnesota just blocks away from where my Grandpa and Grandma Lyseng lived, and her research passions concentrate on the increasingly complex and pluralistic forms of identity we are seeing within society as well as within ourselves. She sights her family as one example, with her Midwest background, David's upbringing in Guatemala, and their two adopted children – Dawit and Meheret – from Ethiopia.
Karla is most interested in religious pluralism; she observes, people today are less likely to fit into a religious category – e. g. Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu. Rather, people are gravitating towards meaningful customs and traditions which draw from a span of spiritualities. This is reflected within my own spiritual path. I grew up Catholic, having a close connection with the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls. In college, I was a soul searching irregular church-goer, and when I moved to Japan I became more interested in Buddhism and Shinto. During graduate studies in England, I found myself in Catholic, Methodist and Protestant circles, and now, here I am at Holden Village – a liberal Lutheran retreat center in Washington State's Cascade mountains.
In our first session with Karla, The Life of Pi by Yann Martel entered discussion. The main character, “Pi”, has many questions – and many about religion. At one point his mother says to him: “Listen, my darling, if you're going to be religious, you must either be a Hindu, a Christian or a Muslim”. And Pi responds with: “I don't see why I can't be all three...Mamaji has two passports. He's Indian and French. Why can't I be a Hindu, a Christian, and a Muslim?” I've often wondered this myself.
Right now I'm reading Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thick Nhat Hanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ, and I think he presents a similar philosophy to Pi's. Here's a short section called "More Than One Root"...
“If a Buddhist woman wants to marry a Christian man (or vice versa), should we encourage them? The woman will have to learn and practice her husband's tradition, and the man will have to learn and practice his wife's tradition. Then, instead of having just one spiritual root, they will have two. But can a person have two spiritual roots at the same time? Can both of them learn Christianity and Buddhism and practice both traditions? We know that when someone does not have any root, he or she will suffer tremendously. But what about the question of having more than one root?
Before I met Christianity, my only spiritual ancestor was the Buddha. But when I met beautiful men and women who were Christians, I came to know Jesus as a great teacher. Since that day, Jesus Christ has become one of my spiritual ancestors. As I have mentioned, on the altar of my hermitage in France, I have statues of Buddhas and bodhisattvas and also an image of Jesus Christ. I do not feel any conflict within me. Instead I feel stronger because I have more than one root.
Can we allow young people of different traditions to marry each other freely, with our benediction? Can we encourage them to practice both traditions and enrich each other?”
This is Elise, signing out from Holden Village.
During December, David, a Luther College campus minister, and Karla, a professor at the same university, along with their two children – Dawit and Meheret – are visiting the Village on teaching staff. David is Guatemalan (and now an American too after marrying Karla – from Minnesota); he was raised Jewish, and then came to the States when he was 19 to attend seminary. His research interests focus on reading scripture – at the moment, the book of Esther – through the lens of an immigrant, and he's taking this year on sabbatical to travel to several communities in the U.S. with high Hispanic populations to study the ways in which immigrants understand the text, and how their belief systems impact their reactions to it. Most recently, David read Esther with a group of Hispanic women in Postville; you may remember hearing about this small town in Iowa which made national headlines for an immigration raid in May of 2008. Some of the undocumented women in David's study were affected by the raid. The Washington Post's full story is available online at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/17/AR2008051702474.html should you be interested.
This is my first time sifting through Esther – which David describes, is a parody of fictitious history. In other words, the story of King Ahasuerus and Esther may be more representative about a specific time and context versus an actual series of events. After two sessions with David, I find I'm surprised – first, by how much I'm enjoying the experience; I'm starting to read the Bible with enthusiasm for the first time. I don't believe it is an infallible source, but I'm starting to believe it is a literary masterpiece with many truths. Second, I'm surprised by how a story can meaningfully travel through time, where today we are still grappling with similar issues – power constructs, role expectations, and our own agency within these overarching institutions.
Then, Karla was born blue-eyed, blond-haired and from a Finnish background. She grew up in Moorhead, Minnesota just blocks away from where my Grandpa and Grandma Lyseng lived, and her research passions concentrate on the increasingly complex and pluralistic forms of identity we are seeing within society as well as within ourselves. She sights her family as one example, with her Midwest background, David's upbringing in Guatemala, and their two adopted children – Dawit and Meheret – from Ethiopia.
Karla is most interested in religious pluralism; she observes, people today are less likely to fit into a religious category – e. g. Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu. Rather, people are gravitating towards meaningful customs and traditions which draw from a span of spiritualities. This is reflected within my own spiritual path. I grew up Catholic, having a close connection with the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls. In college, I was a soul searching irregular church-goer, and when I moved to Japan I became more interested in Buddhism and Shinto. During graduate studies in England, I found myself in Catholic, Methodist and Protestant circles, and now, here I am at Holden Village – a liberal Lutheran retreat center in Washington State's Cascade mountains.
In our first session with Karla, The Life of Pi by Yann Martel entered discussion. The main character, “Pi”, has many questions – and many about religion. At one point his mother says to him: “Listen, my darling, if you're going to be religious, you must either be a Hindu, a Christian or a Muslim”. And Pi responds with: “I don't see why I can't be all three...Mamaji has two passports. He's Indian and French. Why can't I be a Hindu, a Christian, and a Muslim?” I've often wondered this myself.
Right now I'm reading Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thick Nhat Hanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ, and I think he presents a similar philosophy to Pi's. Here's a short section called "More Than One Root"...
“If a Buddhist woman wants to marry a Christian man (or vice versa), should we encourage them? The woman will have to learn and practice her husband's tradition, and the man will have to learn and practice his wife's tradition. Then, instead of having just one spiritual root, they will have two. But can a person have two spiritual roots at the same time? Can both of them learn Christianity and Buddhism and practice both traditions? We know that when someone does not have any root, he or she will suffer tremendously. But what about the question of having more than one root?
Before I met Christianity, my only spiritual ancestor was the Buddha. But when I met beautiful men and women who were Christians, I came to know Jesus as a great teacher. Since that day, Jesus Christ has become one of my spiritual ancestors. As I have mentioned, on the altar of my hermitage in France, I have statues of Buddhas and bodhisattvas and also an image of Jesus Christ. I do not feel any conflict within me. Instead I feel stronger because I have more than one root.
Can we allow young people of different traditions to marry each other freely, with our benediction? Can we encourage them to practice both traditions and enrich each other?”
This is Elise, signing out from Holden Village.
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