hineini
Two years ago I wrote something joyful and fun about what women were wearing to the polls to vote for Hillary Clinton. (I decided on a Yale sweater, a red lip and a middle finger.) Then, in the aftermath of that election, I reflected on why I wasn't ashamed of the piece or my instinct to be interested in clothes, in the small ways we prepare ourselves to face big moments. I'm going to quote a little bit of it here:
"On Saturday I woke up panicking, and read an article about the intersection between astronomy and religion. We so often think of the two as being at odds, but did you know that the Vatican has an observatory? One of the men who works there says in the piece that astronomy is not just not counter to faith– rather, that it can be, and should be, part of its practice. He says, “If we are doing math, if we are doing science—for that matter, if we are doing art— any human activity done with generosity and reverence is acting in God’s image. Science is included in that.”
It was the loveliest thing I had read in weeks. It is precisely my approach to faith: to believe that if God made everything in the world, then all of it– all of it, and all of us– is equally holy– or some days that it’s all equally unholy, because honestly lately God seems like a bad fucking word in my mouth. I mean, whatever, take God out of the equation: I believe that we live in a neutral world, that we never know what we’re doing when we’re doing it. That what matters more than anything else is to engage generously and reverently with everything around us: every single goddamn mundane exhausting miniature little detail, because the world is full to the fucking brim with things to pay attention to, and we’re bad at choosing which ones, so I try to choose all of them– all of them."
This year, in the spirit of engaging generously and reverently with detail, I have been canvassing pretty much every weekend since September. I wrote about what it felt like for LA Magazine.
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If you live in California, here are two voting guides I found very useful-- they have information about judges, even!
And if you want to tell me what you're wearing to vote today-- however mundane and un-special it is-- I would really love that.
"On Saturday I woke up panicking, and read an article about the intersection between astronomy and religion. We so often think of the two as being at odds, but did you know that the Vatican has an observatory? One of the men who works there says in the piece that astronomy is not just not counter to faith– rather, that it can be, and should be, part of its practice. He says, “If we are doing math, if we are doing science—for that matter, if we are doing art— any human activity done with generosity and reverence is acting in God’s image. Science is included in that.”
It was the loveliest thing I had read in weeks. It is precisely my approach to faith: to believe that if God made everything in the world, then all of it– all of it, and all of us– is equally holy– or some days that it’s all equally unholy, because honestly lately God seems like a bad fucking word in my mouth. I mean, whatever, take God out of the equation: I believe that we live in a neutral world, that we never know what we’re doing when we’re doing it. That what matters more than anything else is to engage generously and reverently with everything around us: every single goddamn mundane exhausting miniature little detail, because the world is full to the fucking brim with things to pay attention to, and we’re bad at choosing which ones, so I try to choose all of them– all of them."
This year, in the spirit of engaging generously and reverently with detail, I have been canvassing pretty much every weekend since September. I wrote about what it felt like for LA Magazine.
-
If you live in California, here are two voting guides I found very useful-- they have information about judges, even!
And if you want to tell me what you're wearing to vote today-- however mundane and un-special it is-- I would really love that.
(The subject line, for those of you not versed in biblical Hebrew, means here I am. It's what Jews say when God calls on us to do things that seem to be wildly above our pay grade-- sacrifice a son, say, or lead a people out of slavery. We stand before whatever the divine looks like, inadequate and imperfect and terrified, and hearing the call, say well, hineini, God. Here I am.)
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