Ash Wednesday thoughts

Hello!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Christian calendar, Lent is a holy period of forty days prior to the Easter triduum.  The Easter Triduum is Good Friday -- when Jesus was crucified; Saturday -- grief and despair; and Sunday -- when Jesus rose from the dead.  The forty day period of Lent invites Christians to return to their faith through prayer, fasting, reflection, etc in preparation for Easter.  It's forty days because Jesus spent forty days in the desert, praying, fasting, and confronting multiple temptations.

Anyway, that's just a quick summary for those who don't know and wondered.  Some of you may also not know that I'm Catholic, though I also claim to be part of the "loyal opposition" to the Church.  If you're reading this, you know me well enough to know that I have a number of problems with the Catholic church.  Maybe I'll get into some of that, maybe not -- time will tell.  But suffice to say that I enjoy the liturgical calendar and how it helps guide me in life.

So, after thinking in the last day about this writing and about sharing it with you, what I most want to write about is being a parent, particularly being the white, American mother of a mixed-race (and mixed just-about-everything) child.  Parenting is serious business.  Race is serious business.  And a lot of my conscious and subconscious time is occupied by these issues, and I think writing about them would be good for me.  Not like taking my vitamins or eating my green veggies good-for-me.  Just good for me.  More like exercising, eating good food, having good sex, or getting a good night's sleep good-for-me. 

Also, I remember way back in the previous century when Mohan and I first started dating and immediately ran into major issues around race and racism.  I remember running to the college library one Sunday morning and frantically using all my research skills (which included card catalogs and large, vinyl-bound volumes -- yes, I am indeed that old) to try to find something about interracial relationships.  I was desperate and knew I needed guidance from some trusted advisors, i.e. books.  I was livid that I didn't immediately find things that were relevant.  But over the years, many people, as well as books, journals, magazines, and yes, even blogs, have helped address some of those questions and difficulties.  I especially remember one large book I found in a second-hand store in 1995 that was a collection of racial autobiographies.  Some of the people featured there are still writers I come across or seek out, and I remember feeling that these individuals, with their lovely black-and-white photos and their thoughtful words, were part of a community I needed.

To be perfectly frank, that was something like sixteen years ago.  A LOT has happened since then, I have learned a lot, including from many of you.  And, like most knowledge, I also now have some vague sense of how much I don't know and still very much need to understand.  There are many ways to learn.  Writing is one of them.

More tomorrow.

Peace,
Briana

P.S.  I found the book mentioned above: Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity by Becky Thompson and Sangeeta Tyagi.