Starting new blog

Hi folks! I just started a new fat liberation theology blog called Kataphatic and invite you to check it out! The first post is about how we demonize and externalize our hunger, and try to conquer or control it.

The blog will be devoted to the Good News for fat folks. Whether you're fat or thin, if you're in need of a good word about your body, come on over!

I'm gettin' hitched!

I have recently realized that I haven't updated this blog in nearly a year! A lot has happened since I last updated. In August I met an amazing man named Scott, and in September I started my internship with Craig Rennebohm and The Mental Health Chaplaincy, his street ministry in downtown Seattle. I'm placed specifically at The Recovery Cafe, working with persons recovery from addictions and homelessness. In April, Scott and I got engaged, and will be getting married next fall. I am now finishing my 7th quarter and have 4 more to go before graduating.

Scott and I have set up a wedding website that has a blog, so all blog posts from now till the wedding will be posted there. There are two posts up right now: Wedding Traditions and Loving the Distance Between Us. Please check it out and continue to check back as we update the site and blog with more information and thoughts as the big day approaches!

Mt. Rainier View

I turned in my notice and I'll be moving out of this apartment on August 15th. Where I'll be living after that I don't yet know; ideally, I will be living as a residential minister in the dorms. I'm going to miss the privacy, (relative) quiet, and mostly, my view.











I actually know the person moving in here after I move out--an incoming MAPC student. He said that I can come over and see the view anytime I want, which makes me feel a little better for having to leave it :)

Identity

So... are we supposed to call you Katie now?

I'm sorry, but you'll just always be Kathryn to me!

It might be difficult, but I'm really going to try to call you Katie!

Hey, Katie, what's up?

These are some characteristic responses to a change I've made; those of you who receive emails from me or use social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace have noticed that I'm now referring to myself as Katie.

I am in an intensive week-long class this week; six hours a day every day (except today), essentially cramming 10 weeks worth of classes into one week. On the first day, I was wondering how I should introduce myself, since about 8 or 9 of the 20 people in the room knew me as Kathryn. However, I didn't have to worry about it for long; the professor announced that for the introduction activity, we were going to free write for 5 minutes about our name. I think what I wrote sums up pretty well the emotional reasons for switching back to Katie. While the most true statement I could say about this right now is that I simply feel that Katie is more representative of my identity than Kathryn, I think this free write explains some of the depth behind that. I want to emphasize it's only some of the depth. I could have probably written for 15 or 20 minutes about this, but we only had five.

My name is Katie. It is playful, brave, beautiful, and loved. On the day I was born I was supposed to be named something different but when my parents saw my face for the first time with wide bright eyes and a full head of hair they knew I was Katie. They put Kathryn on my birth certificate in case I wanted to be a lawyer or something and needed a serious name. Kathryn is serious, responsible, quiet and reserved. Kathryn is looked up to; Katie is a peer. Kathryn carries the weight of the world and the family on her shoulders. Katie is free to be to speak to think to act. When I was nine my family and my life asked me to grow up and be an adult Right Now. I wasn't ready so I took on the name Kathryn and wore it like a badge of courage. A mask. Not me. What others wanted me to be. I am part of Kathryn, responsible, dependable, reserved. But deep down I am Katie. Playful, loved, beautiful, free. Katie. Me.

My classmates were delighted by my revelation; at the break, one of the women said to me, "I'm so excited we get to call you Katie now!" Several of them agreed with me that Katie represented me more accurately than Kathryn. I don't expect anyone to use Katie; some of you have always known me as Kathryn, or for at least the last 16 years. Others of you have used other nicknames, like Kat or Kath (or some people have even used Kip or Kit). Those nicknames actually mean a great deal to me, so I don't want to lose them in this change. I guess the way I would word it is that Katie and Kathryn are both my names. When I refer to myself as Katie, I don't feel I am using a nickname, I'm returning to the name my parents chose; the name I was always supposed to have. Kathryn will always be part of my identity too, and I will always answer to that.

The bottom line is that I'm not demanding that anyone use Katie instead of Kathryn. The most that I ask of anyone is that, with the knowledge of what it means to me to be Katie instead of Kathryn, you make the choice of which name or nickname you feel most authentically expresses your relationship with me.

Taizé services at Redmond UMC

Taizé services are held monthly on third Sundays at 7:00 pm in the chapel at Redmond United Methodist Church.

The services are quiet. Reflective. There's not a lot of people usually, but enough.

Tomorrow evening, we'll be doing a special dinner before the service, with a presentation and question/answer time on the community of Taizé and the music style which emerged from it. Dinner at 6:00pm, service at 7:00pm. We'd love to have you there. Reply to this or email me if you have any questions!

Good Friday

The sky peels back to purple
and thunder slaps the thighs of heaven
and all the ears of those who grieve
fly up to clouds and are released and drench the earth.
The only One named Savior
died on a cross.
The ones who believed and loved
huddle together--stunned.
And all night long--the angels weep.

-Ann Weems

Glory of God

"The glory of God is the human person fully alive"
-St. Irenaeus

Pictures from The Priory

Last week I took a two-night private retreat at the Saint Placid Priory Spirtuality Center in Lacey. I embarked on several picture-taking prayer walks over the grounds at the times when the sun peeked through the clouds, and have chosen five of my favorite images to share with you:

Indian American Food

Some of you know I have been dating a man from the Panjab region of India since December. One of our favorite things to do is cook dinner together. Both of us eat better when we do this; I do because he is vegetarian and both of us do because we're not just throwing a frozen burrito in the microwave or a frozen pizza in the oven. It is a lot easier to get motivated to actually cook with raw ingredients when you have someone to share the job with, talking about your day and laughing about the process. And there is a lot of laughter about the process, because we're both trying to combine our unique cultural expectations about food into a meal, and the results can sometimes certainly be classified as humorous.

On Saturday night, he had a bunch of vegetables that he wanted to use so I suggested that we make something for dinner with them. I had something like a stir fry in mind, and he had something like an Indian curry. We started with our usual base; sauteeing onions and tomatoes in olive oil. Then, my contribution was adding tofu, and my insistence that we add the carrots and cucumber he wanted to leave out. His contribution was to add fresh ginger and garlic, as well as powdered garlic, red pepper, black pepper, and turmeric; and to fry some Indian Roti (a round, flat whole wheat bread resembling something like a flour tortilla, from which you rip a piece to eat the curry). The end result was delicious but completely impossible to categorize. It was not American; not much like the stir fry I originally had in mind. It was not Indian; not much like the curry he had in mind. In fact, no one in the world has probably had that exact meal! But oh, we enjoyed it.

Source for previous post's quote

I can't believe that I forgot to cite the source for the quote I posted earlier today! Thanks very much to Jason for pointing it out!

The quote came from:

Grace Sufficient: A History of Women in American Methodism by Jean Miller Schmidt.