Category: Community

Blogging Revelations

On By SarahIn Community, Friends & Family, Internet2 Comments

When I started blogging back in November of 2006, a mere nine months ago (but time really does fly), I felt that a whole new world had opened up to me. I was stumbling across tools and other blogs that gave me ideas and inspiration. I ventured into the world of social networking, and at every turn I discovered people and communities doing really cool stuff.

In November, I felt as if I was diving in with my whole self, embracing my inner geek, and I have been having loads of fun writing, sharing photos and sharing my newly discovered links (I really love Ma.gnolia). When I speak about blogging and social networking to my friends, many of the either have no idea what I’m talking about, or they think that it’s simply about a MySpace page, and I am too old for that. I admit that I feel a little old sometimes out there. It does seem as though many bloggers that I come across are a good decade younger (at least!) than I am. But many are not, and I found an article recently about how folks are using blogs and web presence to enhance their resumes.

So far, I have met and corresponded with a few strangers with shared interests, giving me a little taste of what it’s like to have an on-line community. I have found many great resources this way, and encountered a few blogs that I now like to check out regularly. Admittedly, I have not been producing enough content on a regular basis that would be of interest for readers to check back regularly. I guess I am still a bit of a lurker, in a way. I haven’t quite found my place in Cyberspace.

But when you have more of a personal blog, I realize that it is a really cool way to keep in touch with friends and family. Indeed, that is how many of my younger friends are using blogging and social networking. I guess my close friends and family just need to catch on, check in regularly, and leave a comment now and then.

Yesterday, I had the experience of finding a bunch of websites that really put things in perspective for me. Some times you find a link to a site or blog that becomes a portal to another world that takes you to places you didn’t know existed. I love the Internet for that. One of my Ma.gnolia contacts posted a link to the blog of librarygrrl, which for those of you who know me that blog name has appeal for numerous reasons. I had to check it out.

librarygrrl’s blog, cool in and of itself, has a blog roll for other websites run by librarians. I found the The Cool Librarian, The Library Spot, Library Thing, The Beacon for the Freedom of Expression. What a gold mine! And this is just a sampling. I kind of went crazy with Ma.gnolia with all of this.

By absolute random coincidence, by searching for favicons in WordPress blogs, I found the blog of a Quaker Ph.D. candidate from LA at gatheringinlight.com, and through his blog I found the Convergent Friends blog, for Quakers responding to the challenges of defining what it means to be Quaker in the world today. I am not in the world of Quakers too much these days, but as a formerly Quaker-identified progressive Christian, I am delighted to come across these sites. I now have a place to check once in a while to see what people are talking about in these communities, and perhaps even find a place for me there.

All of these discoveries yesterday I now am aware of how much I have to learn about blogging. I don’t think I will ever fully be on the tech side of things. I blog more for sharing content, and beyond adding specific functionality to my sites, I really don’t care to delve that far into the world of programming and web development. I do find this world and the language they speak a little intimidating, so I guess my struggle will be not to let my limited abilities hold me back.

As in real life, I am a Jill of all Trades, Mistress of None. My interests are broad and varied. And even if I was able to pick just one topic to write about, I don’t think that blogging would give me the satisfaction and even the focus that I find in it. I guess one of my passions in life is information. I love information, hence my excitement about the library links! Blogging and social networking give me the media and tools through which to find, organize, and share information about everything that piques my interest. Perhaps my blog will be a portal for someone else to make their own discoveries, leading to their own blogging revelations.

An Oakland Love Story

On By SarahIn Community4 Comments

I have lived around Lake Merritt in Oakland for years. The bird sanctuary here is the country’s oldest wildlife refuge, I have read somewhere. I used to run the Lake regularly, and years ago I often noticed a pelican and swan, always together. They were beautiful. And you could tell they were companions, not just accidentally hanging out in the same place like so many other birds there are wont to do.

One day I ran into one of the ornithologists at the Lake, and I asked her what their story was. This is what she told me:

Helen was the pelican, and earlier that year her life-long mate of more than 28 years, Hector had been strangled in some fishing nets in the lake. Helen was beside herself with grief. The folks who work at the bird sanctuary buried Hector’s body out of Helen’s sight, purposefully, so that she would more easily be able to move on from her grief. However, she found his grave, and stayed there for days, refusing to leave her beloved.

Before Hector died, a swan named Lancelot had been hanging out with the other large birds of Lake Merritt. He was there on and off. One day when he was at the Lake, he started hanging around Helen at Hector’s grave, and this offered her some comfort. Before long, Helen was persuaded to leave Hector’s burial site, and she and Lancelot were constant companions after that.

Helen died the winter of 1999, and Lancelot hasn’t been seen since they buried her.

This is a tale of love, grief and companionship, and a true Oakland love story.

The Conversion of Venus

On By SarahIn Community, Opinion, PoliticsLeave a comment

Michelle over at Metacentricities recently blogged about the conversion of Venus Magazine to an ex-gay publication. I really had to do a double-take when I read this. The website has the testimony of its publisher, who started the magazine thirteen years ago as a voice for the black lgbt community which is so often invisible in main-stream lgbt media.

I don’t subscribe to any lgbt magazines, but I pick them up occasionally when there is an article that interests me. In the past I have bought a copy of Venus, and I was always appreciative of the presence of that voice among all of the others in the lgbt community. Being a white lesbian with a black wife living in Oakland, I know how important this visible presence is.

I must say that this conversion saddens me for many reasons. First of all, I view converting to “ex-gay” as a self-hating act. So many lgbt folks have a hard time coming out in the first place because of all of the negative messages that we are bombarded with about what it means to be lgbt. We are taught to hate ourselves, to surpress who we are, to be something we are not. And it hurts.

Also, she is doing this from an Evangelical Christian platform. As a Christian, I feel this is sinful. Jesus preached about love, compassion, and community. He taught that the Kingdom of God is within each one of us, and God created us as S/He intended. The “ex-gay” movement is manipulating the words of Jesus to strike fear and self-hatred into the hearts of all lgbt people. As Woody Allen so insightfully stated, “If Jesus Christ came back today and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”

To hear about someone who had once embraced who she was, who had once even loved who she was, who fought for the rights of others like herself, who very publicly provided a voice and image for the black lgbt community, I can’t help but feel this is anything but tragic. Not to mention the fact that she is now using Venus as a vehicle for her Christian testimony and that of others who have converted to “ex-gay” in order to “convert” other lgbt folks.

Finally, there is already so much hatred of lgbt folks in the African American, and specifically African American Christian community, which is a tragedy in itself. I am pleased that there is a movement to work to change this, and that there are communities like my church, First Congregational Church of Oakland and our sister church in San Francisco, City of Refuge that are not only open and affirming but also addressing the needs of the black gay community. Thank God for this good news!

Quilts of Gee’s Bend

On By SarahIn Art & Culture, CommunityLeave a comment

Gillian and I went with some friends today to see the Quilt’s of Gee’s Bend exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. The exhibit is leaving San Francisco soon, and we have been meaning to get there to see it for so long. I regret that we will not likely get back to see it again before it leaves. I am so glad to see these works of art receiving the acclaim and attention that they so deserve. It is interesting to see this “vernacular” folk art talked about in terms of art criticism.

On the audio tour, select pieces are introduced by a knowledgeable art critic who compares the works to more famous painters. This is followed by clips of the artists, women, all descendants of former slaves living in a remote and poor part of Alabama, talk about how they make their quilts. These narratives juxtaposed against each other is fascinating to me. These women humbly and yet proudly designed these quilts. They are all incredibly beautiful, all made with old clothes, rags, and scraps of odd materials, everything from flour sacks, worn work pants, to double knit leisure suits. Each quilt is clearly designed with heart and soul, some are indeed like abstract paintings. And yet when each woman spoke about her design she was very matter-of-fact about the simpleness of how it comes together: tearing the strips apart, sewing them together, taking them apart when it is not what she wants, and sewing it back up.

What I love about them is that as the generations go on and the tradition on quilting is passed down, each design pays homage to the designs that came before. You can see the references to the patterns of the earlier quilts, and yet each quilt is a unique expression of its designer, its own interpretation of a theme.

I also love that it is an art that was born out of poverty, necessity, frugality, and the legacy of slavery in America. These families were poor and needed these quilts to keep them warm through the winter. These families had nothing, so the women sewed together scraps and they made something useful and beautiful. Beauty and warmth in spite of hardship.

It is just funny to me to hear the language of art criticism being applied to this medium that came out of a completely unrelated context. Its an odd intersection of class, race, and art. And you can see in the newer quilts the self consciousness of the criticism, the response to the fact that the medium has been noticed by a class that wants to commodify these objects.

I’m glad these women are getting acknowledged as artists, and that these quilts are hanging in museums. They merit this kind of attention, and the artists should be compensated for the value of the work, however that is defined by the culture that wants to pay for it.

The fact is, however, that the consumption of these quilts as art objects has changed the medium and the tradition. It continues to pay homage to the quilters that came before, but the new patterns indeed reflect new influences.