Huh, it’s only been 3 months or so since my last post – quite a dry spell. I figured I should dust off ye ol’ blog in case anyone out there was worried. (then again, most of you probably are my FB or Twitter friends, so you know that I’m alive and well, and probably using social media a little too much)
Quick update: all’s well. Just returned from a trek homeward to the States for a family visit. I love going home — though I know that a time is coming when I’ll visit home and I will have lived in Canada for longer than I had lived in my home country. And that’s weird for me to process.
While we visited, we rented a car that had New York license plates — let me tell you how FUN that was to drive all around Virginia and Tennessee. #outsider #mistakenYankee
Right now: Emma is in her last week of kindergarten (!), I’m playing Ultimate Frisbee for the first time ever, I’m off to a conference in Cape Breton on Wednesday (my first trip by myself, sans partner or child, in years), and I should know this week whether or not I’ve moved up a step on the academic feeding chain in terms of a new job I applied for.
So, life has been busy — but good. I know I need to be better about recording some of the moments I’m having here on this space.
Hopefully I’ll be back again to muse and/or rant about something. In the meantime, leave me a comment and let me know I still have a reader or two.
Today I was invited to take part in an interfaith symposium on the topic – Religion: A Source of Conflict or Peace? When an organizer contacted me to ask if I’d be willing to be a part of it, it didn’t take me long to agree. I think it’s important for nonbelievers to have a voice in these kinds of events, even though we are not a part of a “faith” system.
I decided to approach the symposium’s question from a personal perspective, rather than outline all the ways religion has caused conflict all over the world (and throughout history). My main goal was to get believers to think of atheists in a different, more positive light — so I made the focus more about the religious-induced conflict I’ve experienced in my personal life since I’ve come out as a nonbeliever.
And I think it worked.
It was interesting to watch how the women in the audience positively received my message. The majority of my audience was Muslim or Sikh, with only a few friends and Western-ized folks in attendance. As I told my story, I could tell that many women could empathize with what it feels like to be discriminated against because of your philosophical (read: religious) outlook. Isn’t it funny how an atheist could build rapport with such an ideologically different set of people! But we did connect, and it was a cool experience.
And when it came to the question period, I had almost twice as many questions asked of me than the other panelists — I must have hit a nerve. I wish there could have been more time for the Q & A, since that’s when you really get to know someone.
As I left the mosque tonight, I wondered about if any evangelical church in Saskatoon (or elsewhere) would ever feel compelled to host an interfaith event like this. While I didn’t always agree with my fellow panelists on the issues (especially when it came to a woman’s role), I felt like I left today’s symposium with a better understanding of these different faiths. Would an evangelical church be comfortable to enable their congregation to consider other points of view when it comes to spirituality? Unfortunately, my experience in the church tells me no — and that’s really sad.
“…she’s going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.”
Of late, that is one lesson I’ve been reminded of.
Why do you want to leave people out? Why is it considered an attack to say “holidays,” to say “seasonal?” I mean, don’t you want other people to join you in joy? Why are you excluding other people? I don’t think there should be any sort of, you’re not allowed to say Christmas. I think you’re fine putting up your trees. I think you’re fine talking about Santa Claus and you’re fine talking about Jesus Christ, about equal to me. But why leave me out? Why do that? What’s your motive? And trying to turn around a “we want to leave you out,” into “why are you forcing us to not have our joy,” is insanity. It’s backwards.
Huh, it’s only been 3 months or so since my last post – quite a dry spell. I figured I should dust off ye ol’ blog in case anyone out there was worried. (then again, most of you probably are my FB or Twitter friends, so you know that I’m alive and well, and probably using social media a little too much)
