Tag: the art of the possible

I suspect that everyone who reads this blog knows that science is a strong and passionate interest of mine. Science! Because it works! Science! Because it’s built to incorporate new information when new information is available, and to provide tools for making it available! Science! Well. I don’t think you’re the people who need convincing.

But there are people who need convincing, because our president-elect has just been making noise about “nobody knows” whether climate change is real. Oh, sure, nobody except a vast consensus of scientists and a still more vast consensus of scientists whose fields are relevant to it. And the people who listen to them and read their papers and look at data. But other than that, nobody.

It’s a really good time to support science with a public face. Science playing a role in civic affairs. Science trying to shake us all by the shoulders and say “LISTEN UP BUDDY THIS IS SERIOUS.” This is why this week’s charity Union of Concerned Scientists. http://www.ucsusa.org/ Tons of scientists doing tons of work in a democratic society, towards a democratic society. Worth the time and attention. Go. Support. For science.

A lot of charities for health variants assume that those health variants are illnesses or disabilities. And a lot of them are. And some of them aren’t. One of my metrics for whether I’m willing to support a group that’s “about” autism is whether they automatically assume that it’s a disease, a disability, a flaw. I’m a non-autistic/neurotypical person, but I have several autistic people dear to my heart, and they’re different from me, not flawed in the way that my balance disorder is a flaw. They process differently than I do. I’m really glad to see the word “neurodiversity” in the world, because I think having different modes of thought, different perspectives, is a positive good, and some of those are about brain wiring, not just philosophy. Sometimes we’re using a metaphor when we say that someone sees the world differently. Sometimes if you’re measuring, for example, discrimination between number of fine lines per inch, it’s really quite literal and you can poke it. And seeing the world in more than one way helps all of us.

Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) is one of my favorite resources for this philosophy. With the motto “nothing about us without us,” they form a solid opposition to the kind of rhetoric that treats autistic people as objects, and inconvenient objects at that. Website is http://autisticadvocacy.org/

(I am putting websites in text right now because WordPress ate my link yesterday. Sigh.)

Autism Housing Network definitely inclines toward the portions of the autism spectrum that are more clearly disabilities, or at least are disabilities under our current society. But people with those types of autism do need choices for where and how to live as adults. http://www.autismhousingnetwork.org/ has been recommended to me as a good resource for people struggling with those choices.

I would be glad to hear about other organizations that support neurodiversity in our broader culture, with a clear focus on not treating difference as a problem to be eliminated or solved. Or, as always, any other charities near and dear to your heart can go in the comments section, too.

I said I was going to make a post about charities each week until the election. And look, the election is over! I took a week to think about it, but I don’t really feel like stopping right now. I don’t really feel like now is a time when I feel less like promoting good causes to which you can donate time and money. So I’m going to keep going with weekly charity posts, because that’s the world we’re living in right now.

(You know what? These charities would still have been a good idea if Hillary Clinton had been elected. There is so much more that needs doing in the world than we will ever get done in one lifetime, even if each of us makes exquisite choices every single day from here on out. When you are disappointed, when you are elated: the work of the world will still need doing.)

So let’s talk about civil rights for Muslims in this country.The biggest Muslim civil liberties group, the one you’ve probably already heard of, is CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. They need non-Muslim support in addition to Muslim support right right now–they have for years. (Other groups are increasingly vulnerable, too. By all means recommend charities in case I don’t have your favorite one lined up for another week. Additional positive groups are always, always welcome in the comments.)

If you prefer to keep your charity work closer to home, keep in mind that your local Muslim cultural centers may be facing various problems in times when the US’s treatment of its Muslim citizens and residents is in the news. In Minneapolis area, there is, for example, the Islamic Center of Minnesota, which provides all sorts of community services (listed on webpage) for local Muslims. This sort of group providing a food shelf and burial services is exactly the sort that get targeted when racists decide they want to do bad things. If you’re able-bodied and able to help with counter-demonstrations, clean-up, etc., find the cultural centers in your area and keep them in mind when you read the news. Inter-faith (or interfaced faith-with-lack-of-faith, why not!) outreach shows that we believe in civil rights for everyone, that we cannot be divided so easily.

Here’s how broken our culture is: when I went to google “Minneapolis Muslim cultural center,” Google tried to autocomplete, “Minneapolis Muslim problems.” And for some reason they didn’t seem to think that “getting kid good ice time” and “finding halal Swedish meatballs” were the Minneapolis Muslim problems in question. Some people would like you to think that Minneapolis is a war zone, with our Somali neighbors trying to force their religion on the rest of us. Nothing could be farther from the truth. That’s fear and ignorance talking, not fact. It’s all very well to say “if there’s a registry for Muslims, I’ll register too!”, but if it’s an immigrant registry, that’s not going to help. CAIR and your local Muslim institutions almost certainly have some very concrete ideas about what will help. We’re all in this together. We always have been.

I want to say some things to you about preaching to the choir.

I’ve heard that expression a lot the last few days. We all know what it stands in for. The choir is your core group of faithful. They show up every week. They know the message by heart. Preaching to the choir means that you’re not reaching anyone new, you’re not changing hearts and minds.

But sometimes.

You look through the choir and you will find some people who are exhausted. Some people who only made it because they gave their word they’d be there. They feel hopeless, lost. Some people are frazzled to a nubbin, and their choir robe is sticking to the syrup they spilled on their shirt at breakfast. Didn’t have time to change it and still get there. They got there. But they need what you have to say just as much as anyone who has never heard it before.

In our lives, we have very few conversion moments. Very few grand revelations. Today is probably not the day for yours, statistically, and there probably won’t be one tomorrow either. But there are a lot of moments when you shift a little. When you get a slightly different angle on something, and as it percolates through your mind, through your actions, you’ll get different angles on more. And one of the things this means is that we’re not lucky enough to help other people to epiphanies very often either. Demanding an epiphany out of everyone, every time is the path to disappointment. Quite a lot of time it’s the small things–the things that you and your choir might not line up on just exactly. Nobody agrees with any other person on everything. But sometimes you can show another person something smart and interesting and compassionate about one more thing.

A choir sings together. That’s a truism. But the most expensive recordings in the world, from the biggest recording conglomerates: if they want the sound of a choir, they don’t record a hundred people singing their parts separately and mix them. Not just because the tracks would be a nightmare. Because it wouldn’t sound the same. If you’ve ever sung with a choir, you know it’s not the same as singing along to a recording of a choir. You’re surrounded by people with the same aim as you, the same goal, and you’re working together to make it happen. Solo performances are powerful, and choirs are powerful, but we need both. And sometimes the choir needs to show up and listen together. Sometimes knowing that they’re hearing it together, surrounded by people with the same aims as they have in at least one area, makes all the difference in the world.

For most people, it’s easier to show up and sing in a choir than to sing a solo in the middle of a public place. And that’s okay. Not everybody has to have the chutzpah–or the talent–to belt out “O Holy Night” in the middle of the subway station. That’s not the shape of everyone’s contributions.

We have to remember, though: the choir is not there in this metaphor to listen. They will listen. But that’s not what makes them a choir. The choir is there to sing. I know this isn’t a home metaphor for all of you, but for those of us who have experienced preaching from the choir loft, we can all think of a time when it went on too long. When each of us–and every face in the congregation–yearned silently for the sweet release of the offertory.

So don’t castigate yourself for preaching to the choir. Just don’t mistake it for the only thing you could possibly do. Make sure you have something to say, bring them together, say it–and sit down, shut up, and give them the chance to sing.

One of the most frustrating things about the way the American news cycle has devolved into over a year of all-presidential-election all-the-time is that events in the wider world get downplayed, ignored, or at best recast as opportunities for US Presidential candidates to make a gaffe (or, I suppose, dodge one).

Meanwhile, Hurricane Matthew is yet another blow to the country of Haiti, which has already suffered under natural disasters and shoddy international policy from the rest of the world. Disaster porn gets thirty seconds on one night of the evening news, and then we go back to discussing our own horse race. The people of Haiti deserve better.

Hope for Haiti is working to provide support as Haitians develop sustainable economic and social communities. Clean water, a cause close to my heart, is one of their primary areas of endeavor, but they also work in other infrastructure areas, health care, education, and more.