Politics of Family

They say in Sicily women are as dangerous as shot guns. That's not really the full truth, the truth of the matter is that it depends on her role and how dangerous she wants to be, in some cases women are more dangerous than shot guns. This of course comes from our common heritage with those in the middle east that swept through and conquered us. It also comes from the traditional roles of women in the family.

The Sicilian family at least when it comes to women is somewhat limited in the roles that are played out. There is the wife, the daughter, the whore, and the darling. It is the darling that I fall into, and thankfully not the others. I'd much rather be the darling than the wife, the whore, or the daughter. Especially given what this particular set of society roles means and leads to. The darling is the best place to be. I realized this yesterday when the tears were flowing down my face and he was carrying on about the women in his life and I said funny you never treat me that way, better the darling than the whore since the whore is disposable. That earned me a smile, a nod, and a yes I told you that years ago. The reality is by playing the darling I purify him from his every day reality, and in many ways he needs me and loves me far more than I will ever need and love him. The beauty of us though is that whereas I love him as if he were my brother and I respect the power he holds in his hands enough not to ask questions (at least not too many and not about certain subjects), he loves me separately from these disposable women that ask too many questions and lose their heads.

In that regard I am afforded protected status so to speak, especially after yesterday's discussion. I have moved into the princessa status, course that is a natural transition given the many years we have known each other and the deference I grant him and vice versa. He denies me nothing, even my questions would be answered (I'd probably even keep my head if they were the wrong questions, but I choose not to enter that world) he always laughs when I refuse to ask things or discuss topics on the grounds that I wish to keep my head.

I broke my cardinal rule with him yesterday. I have tried up until this point to keep my relationship with him separate from other aspects of my life, I have tried to compartmentalize things in my non-protected world from the world I share with him, where I can do no wrong and anyone who crosses me finds himself outside. I have always maintained this difference for my own protection, for his, and just for the order of the universe. I have after all known him, and the way he behaves when it comes to me. I have known how vicious he can be, and how stealthy he can move in the night. He is after all one of my own brethren, we are much more alike than he cares to admit. We are much more alike than I care to admit, after all it is a fine line and I can walk over it just as easily as he can. For all of these reasons and more I have tried to live a different life when I am with him than when I am not with him.

Yesterday however aided by fatigue, illness, and my deep affections for him I broke my own rule. I laid everything at his feet, I wept, I became unglued. It was horrible undignified and I know men who probably would have spanked me for the spectacle as it was rather child like. So many aspects of my life have become child like lately, and the politics of the family have always been very good to me. I have maintained of course that keeping my life separated from him was the reason that the politics of the family were so good to me all these years, but the reality is that I was wrong and I had grossly misjudged him. I have always maintained in his presence that he is not the man that he thinks he is. He does what he must, but it is only because of our heritage that he is this way, he's not evil to the core or any of the things that he has confessed to me that he believes himself to be.

I have dutifully taken care of him in these moments, I have done my best to hold his hand (I am so good one wouldn't even realize how far away we are) through all sorts of terrible ordeals, without knowing the true nature of the situation (remember I like breathing so I don't ask). I have dutifully told him that it was the correct course of action whatever he had decided to do and that things would improve. I have wept with him, attempted to wipe the tears (even from this distance). I have made him who he is and I have fashioned out who he will be. This is after all my role as his darling. It is part of my responsibility as his darling to do these things and I've always taken this seriously. Even before I knew the full extent of who he is.

What I didn't realize is as his darling he has certain responsibilities to me, and I was so busy fulfilling mine to him that I neglected to consider the idea that he takes his to me just as seriously (if not more). It had never occurred to me that there were responsibilities to the darling. I had always felt that being the darling meant I was outside of his world and that I would never be in his space. He would come and go from mine as it were and we would talk, laugh, and leave things at that. Since I don't play the whore I don't have to worry about sexual issues or anything of that nature. I always felt a sense of relief about this, I had more control over the topics because I could choose to say I don't want to know about this or that. He would laugh and just change the subject.

Yesterday though, everything changed. I have never been able to refuse him anything, it is just part of the deference I grant him. I feel it's rude not to answer his questions, or to leave things at a distance where it comes to my world if he asks to be let in. I find this to be disconcerting of course but after all we are friends and I have consented to being the darling and as such I am the only non-disposable woman in his life. I love that status, and so I try not to push the envelope. So I was unglued and melting down and I could almost feel his hand on my cheek, lifting my face up to meet his when he asked me what happened. All I could do was continue to have my meltdown and explain it to him as best I could. I could tell he was less than thrilled, but he loves me what more was there to say? I could almost see him in the chair putting out his cigarette and sitting back slightly. I'm guessing a grin came to his face as he replied with, it'll all be OK I will take care of you and connect you. Destiny reached out and touched me yesterday, it is interesting as I am still outside the world in an innocent state and yet deeply connected to it now.

I have no doubts that things will stay the same, but I have no doubt that things are now entirely different between us. I have let him into the parts of myself that I didn't even know existed, the child side, the non-child side, the princess, the brat, all of me. He has now universally accepted me and this should make things interesting in the months and years to come. The beauty of it is that because I am the darling I can never be the whore, or anything else. I will remain here in this post for eternity.

My dear friend in the valley and shadows around here has given me a beautiful welcome letter. I love that, almost as much as I love my new life that is blossoming. My newly found abba tells me that I am turning into a new person and I have to agree. It is largely his influence though, like my beloved he carries me when I can't walk and gives me guidance when I can't find my own voice. He's currently observing yom tov I believe or some such tradition. I am sure that I will hear from him shortly. My beloved has also been out of touch, but I am guessing that has to do with either work constraints or his children, seeing as he's not a religious man (much to my dismay, but perhaps he will change his ways).

My friend in Jerusalem gave me some information today on a conversion program, of course it requires that one be involved with a Jewish community for a year or more before one is accepted. I wonder how I will be able to pull that off seeing as there are no Jewish communities here and I am alone in no man's land. I'll have to ask abba what he thinks about that, I'm sure he'll have some advice. I did email the program and asked them about it as well.
The conservative rabbi here wants to meet with me, and a friend of mine suggested that I become a Reform rabbi...honestly neither appeals. Why do anything half way, and besides the only universally accepted conversions are Orthodox. I suppose I can still move under right of return since that has yet to be destroyed, but sooner or later that too will pass and anyway I can't prove my heritage.

This is a long journey home I am afraid, but I have assurances from everyone abroad that this will work itself out. So, as soon as the quagmire clears I will be safe in the arms of those that would always be there even to the deepest depths of hell. I was chatting with an Israeli friend of mine today who asked when I am moving, he wants to go clubbing. I told him that we will have to make arrangements for that, we're supposed to chat in an hour I think, but who knows if he will be around.

Until next time, my ethical dilema is keeping me awake, and I have yet to sort it out. Perhaps the time for wandering the desert is over and things can move forward. At least I know that I am not alone and I will always be loved.

I find myself out of political musings for the moment. The reality is that I feel very uninspired to write much of anything these days. If and when something strikes my fancy I will be sure to create a new post to reflect that. For the moment I am taking a break.

Politics of Peace

As we start a new year, I've had many prosperous things already start to happen to me. I will be away, and probably blogging for training the next few days. I will also be very busy getting accustomed to the tasks required for my new job. That will take a while no doubt, I also got accepted into a school I was looking at examining going to. Where there is death, destruction, and war all over my life right now, there is also a sense of peace. There is a deep sense of peace that is coming over the waters. This brings up an interesting point.

What is peace, how does one get there, and politically speaking what are the ramifications of peace? We are all aware of the political ramifications of patriarchy, I've been ravaged by it recently and perhaps at some point I will discuss that under the topic of sexual politics, but who talks about the politics of peace? I mean really talks about it.

Peace is not just an absence of war, or conflict, or insert some other stupid stuff here. Peace is a state of being, a state of justice, a way of operating that promotes the ways of the world that are positives and helps the world or the peaceful populations along. It is a state of blessing, it is not merely a day without a battle. So many people think that peace is just the absence of a conflict.

We should attempt to bring peace into the world at every opportunity. In doing this we will allow for the world to be a better place, for us to be better people, and for the Kingdom to arrive. It is only through random acts of kindness that the Spirit lives on. If we want to see the return of the people to God and of God to the people, then we must invite God back into the world. Peace after all comes from and returns to God, but it requires us to think a little harder.

The political ramifications of this of course would be that the government could spend more time focusing on things other than defense, the G8 for example could make some real progress on other humanitarian fronts. Drug companies could actually make drugs that help people and get them to the people that need them, without worrying about warlords, and in fact the warlords would be welcoming of the drugs and help hand them out. This is the ramification of putting peace into the universe.

Peace is an interesting political animal, I don't think we've ever seen it enforced, and we may never see it. Who knows what will happen in this new year. May it be peaceful and prosperous for all of us. I have a feeling this is a big year for me.

Economic Politics

This is something that has an interesting phenomenon to it. Have you read the NY Times this week? It is filled with Econ related articles. From Pakistan training European terrorists, to the pain killers being banned in Sierra Leone. This is in fact what I'd like to comment on.

I think it is horrible that the rest of the world doesn't get to have the same resources we do here. For all the problems our society has, we can at least get the medications we need. I felt so bad for the people in that article. Health Care is a basic human right and as such we should either demote ourselves to their level or raise them up to ours. My vote is raise them up to ours. We need to actually sit down and come up with a solution to this, because right now those with the money get all the care. This is a fundamental problem and contributes to the rise of terrorism. See people don't think these things are related to each other, but they are. Life doesn't happen in isolation.

Politics in the US

OK Politics in the US right now is of course focused on the election coming up NEXT YEAR. LATE next year at that rate. There's this massive move to move everything up though, I think this is stupid and I prefer the primary schedule as it had been previously. I also find the number of candidates to be incredibly annoying. There are so many candidates where is one to actually find ONE that is decent? Well, I have a friend running for president, she strikes me as more capable than any of these candidates, but if you must vote for one of the parties I'd say either Bill Richardson or Fred Thompson.

Bill Richardson seems to be the only democrat with the experience and knowledge to be president. He also seems to be the only one staying on message, not getting into character debates or other mudslinging, and he seems to be the only one who has priorities that are inline with what I think we should have.

Fred Thompson is running as a so-called Log Cabin president. History has shown that voters like this. He looks very presidential and he is running on a small-town southern sort of American platform, or so his announcement seemed to indicate. It seems to me that he will be giving everyone a run for their money on the Republican side.

I'm not wanting to get any deeper into this today and I've found some other articles that I want to talk about next time, so we'll see what's happening in the world then.

Politics as usual?

If you read my old blog. I promised that this blog would have some political musings and that is true it certainly will have political musings as they come to me from wherever they come to. So this is the first political muse. The thing about politics is that they are in everything, honestly politics makes the world go round and nothing else is as powerful an influence. There are economic politics, sexual politics, religious politics, office politics, etc. We can't escape politics in any manner upon which we walk on the planet.

Politics of games how about that one? Have you ever noticed that on the chess board the most important piece is the queen? The king is almost like a pawn in what that piece can and can't do, but the queen is free to basically go anywhere on the board and loss of the queen usually results in loss of the game. This is an interesting commentary, since my experience as a woman is almost indeed the opposite of this.

My experience is that the politics of the game are closer to the way reality is and the truth if you will of what is happening on a broader level. I mean it is said that the man is head of the household, but that the woman is the neck and can turn him anyway she pleases. There's some truth to that, or at least there should be. However, this has really only come to my understanding since the ending of my marriage.

Oh, and there's another political arena, not just sexual politics, but the politics of marriage. I have never seen such a political state as that of marriage and for that matter divorce. What a strange combination of things that are put into play.

So I ask, politics as usual not as a commentary on politics in the political arena, but as a commentary on politics in the state of our every day lives. I think my next post will be on US politics, and then I'll move on to some other political topics that may be of interest. Including a project I am now working on with a friend of mine who works in international development.