Israeli Man's Burden?

So, I am a bit reticent to dip my toe into this water, but I think it's a necessary dip in light of this CNN story on Scarlett Johannson's SodaStream debacle.  I know the title is a little provocative, but if you stick with me, you'll see why I have this title...

The CNN story is vapid and shallow in its treatment of a complex issue. First off - CNN, you are discussing international law and can't have a single person explain what "international law" issues are at hand? Come now.  That's just lazy reporting.

But more importantly, what CNN does here is present two stories that are seemingly disconnected - the ability of SodaStream to employ both Israelis and Palestinians on the one hand; and the conditions of Palestinians in nearby towns on the other -  and never explains what the connection is between the two, other than the presence or absence of bubbles in their water.

WTF?  You think that's the connection you need to hone in on CNN?  Because I was sooo confused when the Palestinians were using a jerry-rigged hose for their water source.  I totally thought "I bet that sh-- comes with bubbles."

Okay, no more cursing.  This story is too important for cursing - only the bad reporting deserves cursing...

The CNN story would be annoying if the underlying impact of the Israeli businesses in the West Bank wasn't so fundamentally important both to individuals in Palestine but also to the underlying stability of the region.

The connection that CNN failed to draw was that SodaStream's operations in the West Bank may provide jobs for a few Palestinians but their presence actually harms a lot of Palestinians, and the Palestinian state as a whole. This is why it actually is part of a larger threat to the stability of the region.

Let's start with some basics. In all decisions about the investment and human rights (or business and human rights, if you will) - meaning the impact of businesses on human rights - the question comes down first to a cost-benefit analysis.  What is ratio of the benefit for the community to the detriment facing the community, and is that ratio worth it?

The general premise of business development is that you pursue projects that may harm some people in the short-term but that ultimately benefit the community as a whole.  And you compensate those who are harmed so that the harm isn't unfairly distributed just to them.

The underlying question, though, and the one I'll principally be discussing here, is who gets to decide that balance.  That's the issue when discussing Israeli businesses in the West Bank.

In international law, the state (or "country" for my American friends and fam) gets to make decisions about the use of its own territory.  It's called "state sovereignty."  No other state gets that right.

Underlying this right is a belief that the decision-makers are operating in the state's best interests and have some accountability towards the local citizenry.  This isn't always through a democratic voice -- international law favors democracy but doesn't explicitly require it (though it's definitely moving in that direction). But there's a presumption (a naive one, at best) that in a sovereign state, those in power work on behalf of those they exercise power over.

This deep naivety has changed a bit with the advent and development of international human rights law, but there remains an underlying foundation of state sovereignty.  And with state sovereignty comes the right to make cost-benefit analyses about the operation of certain companies, local water conditions, health and safety regulations, etc.

In an occupation, though, international law recognizes that those with power and authority aren't accountable.  As in, they explicitly are not intended to be accountable to the people they are now exercising authority over.  The leaders represent a whole different set of people - their own citizens - and a whole different interest set; an interest set that may benefit from completely ignoring the local population's needs.

In an occupation, the occupied get no decision-making power; they have no authority; no one is accountable to them; and they get no clear representation.

This is the problem that international law recognizes and the issue that is at the heart of this SodaStream controversy.

International law recognizes that since those individuals under the control of an occupying force have no recourse to the domestic system, the occupying force (Israel) has additional obligations to the occupied (Palestinians).

One of those obligations is to ensure it does not make decisions about the regular use of the territory.  The occupier doesn't have a right to bring businesses in and give them land titles.  It doesn't have a right to confiscate (or expropriate) land, to create new communities or to decide the balance of rights-detriments of a particular industry's presence. It doesn't have a right to forcefully move a population, to destroy its land, or to sell the local minerals, resources, etc.

The right to make all of those decisions about the use of a territory comes from state sovereignty. And an occupier has no sovereignty over the occupied territory. Occupation is distinctly a temporarily limited and does not transfer rights associated with sovereignty.

The West Bank doesn't belong to Israel.  Israel therefore doesn't get to make decisions about its daily use.

Now, let's be clear: these are standards Israel has consented to be bound by.  Israel is a party to the Conventions that govern occupation.  Israel just wants to believe it shouldn't be bound by these rules in relation to the Palestinian state.  But, wishing and hoping isn't a legal answer.  I know - I've tried it.   I got laughed at in 1L classes because the law isn't whatever you think is right in a particular situation. The law is what the law is and if you don't like it's application in a particular context, the obligation is to change the law.  Israel hasn't done that and neither has the international community.  The law of occupation remains as it was, and Israel is bound by it.

[I do realize I'm oversimplifying the debate on this, but that's because it's not the focus of this piece. I can address the debate another time.  After my PhD is done.]

There's another reason for the rules on use of land, deciding what corporations you'll let in, etc.:  you don't get to derive legal benefits from illegal activities.  That's one of the fundamental rules of all law.  

So, occupation is illegal under international law.  Going back to the issue of sovereignty: you only have a right to your own territory; not to anyone else's.  So when you're on the other territory, you're just there, but you're not supposed to derive any legal protection / rights / benefits from your presence there.

But when occupiers (like Israel) establish businesses in occupied territories (like Palestine), they often do so in ways that give a lot of financial benefits to Israel.  For example, SodaStream pays taxes to Israel, not to Palestine.  While 1/3 of SodaStream's employees are Palestinian (according to the CNN story numbers of 1500 employees, 500 of whom are Palestinian), that means 2/3 of them are Israeli.  And Palestinians have no ability to decide which Israeli's they want working there - and taking jobs from them.

Think about it terms of US-Mexican immigration: the US gets to decide how many Mexicans it lets come to look for work; it gets to decide what their qualifications must be; and it gets to decide to not let criminals or threats to national security into its borders.  The US gets to decide when the market is too saturated and protect work-based immigration for its own people.

Palestinians, though, don't get to do this.

So despite the fact that there is high unemployment within Palestine, 2/3 of people working in a plant on their territory aren't Palestinian and the local government - the PA - has no right to refuse them the right to enter the territory for work. So while CNN pretty much sings the praises of SodaStream for paying Palestinians an appropriate wage, there's 1000 jobs that the Palestinians don't benefit from but have to accept the detriments of.

And they didn't get to chose that reality.

The tax on all those incomes also goes to Israel, not Palestine.  While a normal business enterprise might pay taxes that work towards the construction of local schools, local hospitals, local Universities, water and food distribution, and welfare services for those in the community, that's not what Palestine gets out of the deal.

Perhaps a moral - though still not legal - case could be made for the benefit to Palestinians if the Israeli government were using the tax money on incomes from Israeli settlement businesses on developing said schools, hospitals, Universities, homes, roads, etc., for the benefit of Palestinians.

What's actually happening, though, is that the tax money Israel gets is going toward demolishing Palestinian homes, cutting off Palestinian water supplies - or providing protection for those who do interfere with the right to water, demolishing Palestinian churches, denying access to hospitals, and other activities that harm them and benefit Israel or Israeli settlers.

So when CNN takes us to a Bedouin village, what it's showing us isn't really disconnected from the story of SodaStream: the plight of Palestinians is directly related to the operations of settlement businesses, and not simply because of the jobs they may get.  Those businesses take from the Palestinian community -- land, resources and water, for a start --  and the benefit that should be paid back to Palestinians -- the benefit that is normally paid to the community in which a business operates -- that benefit is instead being used to further limit Palestinians and their rights.

CNN simply fails to explain that connection -- favoring a trite comparison about how bubbly water can be.  But that lack of water for the Bedouin community?  It's because businesses like SodaStream are paying taxes to the wrong people.  They are abiding by the wrong laws.  And they are supporting a regime that ignores its international obligations toward the Palestinians.

If SodaStream was the only company for which this was applicable, there'd be a problem but it wouldn't be a big problem.  But, this is a big problem because it happens throughout Palestine.

Now, those that defend SodaStream's presence - including numerous commentators on the CNN article but also the CEO of SodaStream himself - argue that the 500 jobs are a great benefit to Palestinians.  They argue Palestinians are better off than they would've been but for their jobs, and they get paid better than they would in ordinary conditions -- without ever questioning why Palestinians are underemployed and receive lower wages.

And this is where we get into a "white man's burden" argument: we are telling Palestinians what they should accept because it's better for them.  We are telling them that this one, small, minor benefit from the plant is enough to outweigh all the harm the plant's presence done.  Like how bringing Christianity to the slaves was supposed to outweigh the harm of the whip and the lash.

Now, let me be clear: I'm not comparing Palestinian standards or treatment with that of slavery.  But, what I am saying is that it's not the right of the externals -- Israelis, Americans, others -- to decide for Palestinians what benefits outweigh what harms in their own communities.  That's for Palestinians to decide.  That's the Palestinian right in their territory.

Perhaps I wouldn't think of it in "white man's burden" terms but for watching 12 Years a Slave last night.  I was struck by the brutality of man to mankind, but perhaps not in the way most were.  Yes, the whipping scenes were brutal and horrible.  The hanging scenes made me want to vomit - particularly when I thought about how long after the end of slavery that was a reality in the US.

But what stuck with me was the other brutality.  The brutality of those that sat by, not agreeing with slavery but refusing to do anything about it.

The guy who treated his slaves well but then sold them and traded them to others.

The wife who seemed at first to disagree with slavery, until she decided if her husband would be a slaver, he should be the worst slaver possible.

The guy who was sentenced to slave conditions and then sold out a man he knew was free.

Those individuals bore the brutality of indifference - the acceptance that another human being was not worth supporting. Was not worth standing up for. Was sacrificial.  And collectively, the South justified its brutality by pointing to the "benefits" to black people.  When they realized that black people were people at all.

Evil and injustice require a lot of bystanders.  And with that bystander mentality comes the cruelty.  With that bystander mentality comes acceptance and the perpetration of cruelty.

So SodaStream's ill is not in its treatment of its Palestinian employees.  It's in its willingness to participate in, benefit from, and ignore injustice.  The cruelty comes in its willingness to point to the benefits it gives as a justification for the incalculable harm it is doing to the very people it claims it is helping.

Sure, SodaStream pays its employees well.  But at what cost?  What social injustices do those same employees pay because of SodaStream's indifference and assistance in an illegal occupation?

And who should get to decide that the cost is worth it?

Unless we see Palestine as the Israeli Man's Burden, we know the answer.  International law and morality demand the same here: the Palestinians should get to decide the cost-benefit analysis of any new investment.  Since they can't, nothing excuses what SodaStream is doing.

An Open Love Letter to Alan on His Belated Birthday

Unlike X and Q, I'm not working particularly hard to conceal Alan's real identity in choosing his pseudonym.  But at least it's still not googleable, so that's something.  Alan is actually how he introduced himself to me, but it's not his real name.

Alan has been one of my best friends since he stopped me one day to ask if there was a way to do a joint J.D. / M.D., and I thought he was crazy.

Truth is, it wasn't that instantaneously.  I mean, I did think he was crazy, but it took him like another 2-3 weeks to convince me to play poker with his 1L friends. I was an uber cool 3L by that point (nerdy high schoolers make really cool law students), I had a lot of amazing friends that remain dear to me, and I just didn't need more. I didn't need to answer 1000 questions about each professor they had, or advise them how to outline and revise, or ... well, all the other things that 1Ls obsess over that 3Ls find boring.

After the second or third time I blew him off, he called me out for thinking I was too cool.  And like other people who pretend to be humble, I hated being called out on my arrogance.  So I agreed to play poker.

I have mad skills at poker.

Okay, it's actually just that I have a vagina, which people think is a handicap for poker.  Like the math of knowing three of a kind beat a pair is too hard for our pretty little brains.  So I won.  I don't remember how much but it was nice. I wanted to play again, but none of my friends played poker.  Liar's Dice, yes, but poker, sadly ... I had to keep hanging out with 1Ls for that.

A few days later, I had looked at his class's picture poster (it's actually what it sounds like, a poster of people's pictures so you can learn each other's names; we hung a copy at the library). I realized that his name was not Alan.  I wasn't exactly sure how to pronounce his name, though, and I felt... awful.

Want to know how to f... fudge... with a Western human rights activist's brain?  Make them think they have Anglicized your culturally significant / identifiable name.

Two years of people being unable to pronounce my name in Japan had made me extra sensitive on this, and here I was thinking I'd just changed someone's entire identity to suit my linguistic palate.

The next time I saw Alan was at a bar.  I avoided using his name.  I sat next to two of his friends from high school who referred to him by his real name.  I 'fessed up.  "Okay, can you teach me how to say his name?  I really feel awful but I thought it was Alan."

When he came back to our table ten minutes later, he faced a right ol' piss-taking.  And that is how we actually became friends.

A few years later, the law firm had beaten me down.  I had gained close to 50 pounds in a year of sitting at my desk, miserably eating all my feelings.  We met up for coffee and when I made a comment about my weight, he said he didn't think I looked any different.  The weird thing is, he actually meant it - and it came off as a compliment.  He just saw me for who I was.

A few years after that, he picked me up at the airport when my grandmother died.  I had called home the night before, standing on a windy train platform shouting into the phone asking who would come and get me.  No one knew.  Everyone had somewhere else they were supposed to be.  Except Alan.  He was right on time, grabbed my super huge suitcase and drove me home.  Later, he would drive himself the 5+ hour round trip to attend my grandmother's funeral so I didn't have to go through it alone.

In most of my life's biggest moments over the past 8 years, he has held my hand either physically or metaphorically.  He is one of my biggest cheerleaders and greatest supports. When I start to doubt myself, a twenty minute phone call - or Facebook chat - is enough to remind me of why I'm here.  Like last night...

My 36th birthday is arriving shortly and I am dreading it.  Let's be honest, my 8 year old self would be very disappointed in my 36 year old self.  No house.  No dog.  No husband.  And no 8 year old daughter.  What the hell am I doing with my life???

Now, 8 year old self would be very pleased that I was a lawyer, but why didn't that make me more money?  Why didn't I live closer to home?  And where the hell is my puppy?

36 year old Tara has some serious issues when she thinks of what 8 year old Tara had planned. And last night, 8 year old Tara was winning the debate about the appropriateness of my life decisions.

Until Alan popped up to wish me a happy birthday.  Unleash pathetic, wallowing, ungrateful rant that is definitely not the appropriate response to birthday greetings.

Within two minutes, though, I got to laugh.  Not sympathetic or polite chuckles, but literally laughing out loud, sitting on my bed, feeling happier than I've felt since... well, since I said goodbye to my nephew.

He does that.  Regularly.

Alan has the same birthday as VL.  Apparently, I have a thing for men born on 14 January.  They leave an impact. So happy belated birthday, Alan. My life is undeniably better because you're in it.  And not just because you can quote West Wing* all day long. I love you.



*And those other shows I won't publicly out for you. :)

The Rules Just Don't Apply to Us... On Being American

I was once given a 30-minute lecture on how Americans don't understand what it means to be powerless - not really powerless.

Of course the person giving me the lecture was from a wealthy family in his country, and as a male from the dominant religion there, he had more power than most.  But he needed me to know that as an American I didn't understand power dynamics.  Not really.

Whenever I attempted to point out that his understanding of Americans seemed to be quite narrow - that there are many who remain without real power, he reassured me I was wrong.  He explained that Americans had a great deal of power.  I said that some Americans have a great deal of power; he said I was wrong.  Now, he had never been to the US so his understanding of Americans came from Baywatch, Beverly Hills 90201, and the Big Bang Theory.  But every time I attempted to point out a differing opinion, he said I didn't really understand what he meant.

It doesn't matter that power dynamics is kind of my field of study - not exactly, but I'd be absolute shit at my job if I didn't understand power dynamics, if I didn't delve into those issues, pay attention to them, and work to redress them.

My point wasn't that Americans are powerless, but that powerlessness is a relative thing - somewhat like poverty - there is absolute, or global, poverty and then there is relative poverty.

There are few Americans who would be globally poor - living on less than $2 / day, but there are also a lot of Americans who risk dying from exposure during bursts of cold, we have people who have to choose between food and medicine, people who choose between not working or working and leaving their young children at home unattended because they can't afford childcare.

If you go to the US - and leave the tourist traps - you can easily meet people who have little to no real power in any relative sense, and that relative powerlessness can be as powerful and constraining and absolute powerlessness.

And yet...

This week as I've thought about X's response to our stunted ... what do you call something like that? ... relationship... fling... thing?  ... our whatever.  That's what I'm calling it....  When I think about that whatever,  I realize that perhaps even many of the relative powerless in the US have more power than even the powerful in other states.

X's response was about paying attention to the rules - the need to obey his parents, and his social constructs.

Christianity requires obeying one's parents as well, but in the US we're taught that that obligation ends at a point.  It ends somewhere between entering your teenage years and becoming an adult.  At that point, the relationship with one's parents becomes something else.  It's about respect and honour - assuming a parent has earned it by not being abusive.

The difference is significant.  Respect is about deference, about an obligation, or perhaps more appropriately the desire to listen to one's elders, to take on board their opinion, to understand their side of the story, and perhaps to defer to their opinion when one does not have cause to disagree.

There's a mutuality to a relationship built on respect.  It is two adults looking to honour the inherent dignity of the other, working together, compromising where compromise can occur, and remaining committed to the underlying relationship even where disagreements make compromise impossible.

Obeying, on the other hand, is about listening without factoring in one's own opinion.  Obeying is about force and control; respect is about choice, with the whole range of choices available from agreeing to one's opinion to disagreeing and walking away.

And in the emphasis on respect over obeying, Americans can find a clear power, even when they are otherwise powerless.

Our society does not expect obeyance (I'm linking that word because blogger doesn't recognize it and autocorrect tried to make it obeisance!).  I mean, it does when it comes to the law, but not when it comes to another human's individual decision. We are taught instead to challenge unearned authority.

We may not have invented the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, but by golly, we're going to make sure we never end up like naked people on the side of the road cheering on another naked guy (though, um, of course, there are those times when that's the official plan for things, but that's different).

We're taught to trust our own judgment.  That being an adult means breaking from our parents, not violently or permanently, but that we are supposed to come into our own, make our own mistakes, and ultimately become stronger with each new step away from authority that we take.

It would be a lie to suggest everyone in the US has this type of power.  There are between 14,500-17,500 people trafficked into the US every year.  14,500 modern day slaves.  They are the truly vulnerable in our society.  There are also domestic abuse victims, those with mental health issues, and men from minority groups, any of whose questioning of authority may be used to justify their torture or death.

The demand for respect rather than orders is also not something exclusive to Americans, so my European friends can put down the pens they started furiously jotting notes with.  I know that the US does not have a copyright on the idea of respect (or is it a trademark?  patent?  I think patent...).

The expectation of respect, though, is a form of power.  It gives us an opportunity to grow, to learn, to evolve, to change our opinions, and to challenge authority.  To challenge The Rules.

We celebrate those who challenge the rules.  My great-great-great-great-some more greats-uncle was Swamp Fox Marion.  The Swamp Fox Marion, who brought guerrilla warfare to the US during the Revolutionary War.  What'd we do with that?  We gave him a children's television show (no kidding) and then Mel Gibson made a movie about him (RIP Heath Ledger).    

We dedicate a national holiday to Martin Luther King, Jr., who moved the country from the acceptance of segregation to its condemnation.  Our children memorize the "I Have a Dream" speech,  the ultimate call to challenging the "wisdom" of those who come before us in order to make a path that is more just and more righteous than the one we inherited.

We watch and read about the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an all-black regiment who fought in the Civil War at a time when they couldn't even vote.  They looked at an army unwilling to have them and said, "I can do that, even if you don't see it yet."

We learn the names of suffragettes, and read biographies of Harriet Tubman.  Sojourner Truth gets pages dedicated to her willingness to challenge notions of femininity and racial superiority.

And we celebrate the more minor revolutionaries.

The women who played professional baseball during the war.

We praise Jack Kerouac and Steve Jobs.  We elect a man whose name most couldn't pronounce 10 years ago but whose very presence challenges our often unspoken expectations regarding race and leadership.

We do this because we respect those who know how and when to bend or break rules that no longer make sense for us. Challenging the rules doesn't mean we always break them. Sometimes, we may find the rules comfortable and sometimes find them obsolete.  We take the rules and bend them, sometimes until they break and sometimes until they simply form a circle that allows us to travel 180 degrees from where we started without ever leaving our heritage.

But sometimes, we are taught, we need to be willing to break the rules in order to honour our true selves.

And therein lies our real power.

Happy Birthday VL

Sometimes, when I tell people about my early years, they don't believe it.  People don't believe that my community was so racially diverse that I went away to University thinking all dry skin was described as "ashy."  (I had to be told that it was a "black term" there. I don't know why - my skin looks ashy when it's dry, too...)  They don't believe that one of my ex-boyfriends turned out to be a drug dealer.  They don't believe that I have friends who went to jail.  And they don't believe the strangely large number of friends and classmates we lost to car accidents, suicides, and more unusual circumstances.

When that all sinks in, they don't believe that we sent two kids to Harvard and a long slew to other Ivy League and Public Ivies.  They don't believe that my classmates have turned into amazing human beings, working for large multinational corporations (including the one that made my beautiful computer) and small start-ups. They're business owners and lawyers and bankers and teachers. They work at insurance companies and sell real estate, some are loving, invested stay at home moms. Many are a combination of these. One was instrumental in the amazing Cleveland Rocks New Years Eve celebration - second in NYE TV viewing audiences only to Ryan Seacrest and NYC.

I don't come off as particularly lily-white in my background, but for some reason people assume the angsty-est my teenage years ever got was worrying if Johnny or Jimmy would take me to prom.  And I don't even think Johnny or Jimmy were in contention.

The older I get, the more appreciative I am of my class and my classmates.  They knew me when I was awkward and nerdy (haha, as if that's changed!).  They went through my horrible middle school years.  Some taught me how to do make-up, another how to use a curling iron without burning the ends of my hair.  Some held my hands and let me cry on the bad days; some made fun of me almost every day. I acted dumb for some of the guys; I acted too smart for my actual knowledge most of the time.

And my classmates went through all of that with me.  That's not to say it was a grand ol' time.  It wasn't. There are a significant number of people from my high school that I like a whole heck of a lot more now than I did then. They've grown, I've grown.  Our interests have shifted and merged; our egos have been assuaged as we've grown into ourselves. We're better human beings than we were in our teenage years.

And yet, those years mean we are indelibly imprinted on each other's lives.

I can love without attention to background because some of my first friends were Tanisha and Ada. I don't shy away from showing my intelligence because Angela, Allison and Joe D. challenged me to be smarter, to apply myself more, to compete for respect. Colleen taught me about forgiveness and about strength. Carrie taught me to stand up for people, even if it means risking your own popularity. And Adam, Tom and Krissy Z. taught me that literally anything can be fun if you let your creative juices out of the bag.

Had you taken the 360+ of us and spread us throughout the country, you would likely get 360+ people who look nothing like we do now. We influenced each other, strengthened each other, became a part of one another even when we didn't want that.

They know this, though - we've talked about it before.  At our high school reunion, there was a long list of stories that ended with "It's so nice to be around other people that understand this!"

Today, though, is a day to remember and pay tribute to these friends.  Ten years ago in November, we had to say goodbye to one of our classmates. He was in a car accident our senior year, and he never recovered. Today is his birthday.

Out of respect for his family and other friends, I'm just going to refer to him by his initials.

VL was ... a hottie.  There's not really any other word that comes to mind first. He was also smart, creative, and funny.  But, boy, could he get away with anything by flashing his smile.  I used to let him cheat off me in history just to see that smile.

I often wonder what life would be like if VL was here.  He was supposed to be here - to be in "awe" of my "success" as a lawyer, to be one of the ones who says "I always knew this is what you'd turn into." And he would've meant it.  He was supposed to be present at our high school reunion, buying rounds of shots while telling stories of our younger years.

And I was supposed to congratulate him on his marriage - to fawn over pictures of his kids.  To congratulate him on his new job or new career or new ... something. I often sit and wonder what that something would have been.  Potentially a hockey star. Or a model. Or a reporter.  Or a TV anchor man.

It's not rewriting history when I remember VL that way.  Sometimes, I know, we glaze over the bad in a person as we try to remember the good.  I've seen that a lot this week in the news.  But, that's not this.  This is the story of a kid who really had a life to lead.  And it's still upsetting all these years later to realize he didn't get to live it.

VL taught me a lot.  He taught me how to be flirtatious.  I know that sounds strange, but I knew in 8th grade that he could say and do things I just could never have gotten away with.  So I remember studying him - studying how he interacted with teachers.  Later, I would practice those looks. Those smiles.  The way he finished a joking sentence.

As I said - I was a nerd.  I had a lot of time to study kids who were cooler than me.

He taught me to be confident in myself.  He taught me about leadership and about dedication.

And in his death, he has taught me to be extraordinarily generous in love.

I say "I love you" often and quick.  It's supposedly one of my worst habits.  I get a lot of slack for it.   Some people think the sentiment's not worth sharing - some people think "I love you" is only meaningful if you're reserved with it, if there's only a certain number you dole out.  Some people think if you love someone you shouldn't have to or need to say it.

But that's all bullshit.

Love isn't some staid thing.  It's not meant to be confined by rules, and it doesn't benefit from a limited engagement.  It's wild and rambling, it dances in moonlight and wakes up before the earliest sun ray.  It can be quiet at times, but only between bursts of unbounded excitement - a fire that got a little too much gas poured on it.

Love has many forms, but at its purest, most God-like it has this stretching force, this consistency that is all encompassing, constantly growing, constantly reforming to invite many more into it, that just never stops.  It skips between people like a child with a rope.  It pulls you in and then encourages you to pull others in.

When we try to stop it, we lose it.  Just all together gone.  Like a balloon after you stick a needle in it - you've changed its very definition and it loses its purpose.

So I say it - "I love you" - almost constantly.  Sometimes too soon, sometimes too often, but always with sincerity.  And always with the hope that if I pass too soon - or if I never get to tell someone how I feel again - that they will know it was the truth.  That they will feel that force, let it transform them, and then pass it on.

There are many things I wish I had said to VL back then.  I wish I had told him his eyes could make a girl melt (although I imagine he knew that).  That I appreciated when he was humble and honest with his failings. That I hoped I could be that way too, someday.  That even though we lost touch after 8th grade, I have so many vivid memories of him that my junior high life could never be defined without him.  That I was grateful for his friendship.  That it was painful when he left us - that it still is for many of us.  That I miss him and wish he was here.  That I think his impact on the world has lasted much longer than mine would have at that age.

Of course, I was 17 then.  I wouldn't have known to tell him some of that; I would've been mortified to tell him other parts of it.  But, in his passing, I have kept lessons that will never leave me.  Lessons that have transformed me.

Today as I wish him a Happy 36th Birthday, I can't help but think of these two songs.  I love you VL. You are missed.

The Dance, Garth Brooks

Go Rest High on that Mountain, Vince Gill

On Cross-Cultural Relationships

My mother was told to never date an Italian.  Being that she lived in Ohio her entire life, my grandmother was clearly referring to Italian-Americans, so I don't know how broadly applicable this advice was supposed to be.  But, she told my mother, Italians beat their wives.

I don't know where my grandmother got this into her head.  But there it was - rolling around in her upstairs, a piece of advice that my mother heard regularly.

My great-grandmother told my father to never marry a Catholic.  I don't actually know why.  But Catholics were out.

Now, my mother did not marry an Italian and my father did not marry a Catholic, but given their dating histories, neither of them listened to the bigotry that got passed down.

I love my great-grandmother and my grandmother - I was lucky to know both - but there's no other word for their advice. It was bigotry.  Inherited bigotry that they hoped would continue to be inherited.

Thankfully, though, my parents stopped that cycle.* I never got advice to not date someone because of their color, race or religion.  Of course, my parents had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they told me love knows no boundaries; when they told me they'd love me and whoever I brought home "no matter what."

*Special note to TR: I am so lucky that my parents let me be friends with Catholic Italians!

I wonder how many times they have regretted their open-mindedness. 

I know the first time I brought a black boyfriend home, my parents felt the need to tell me that we might not be accepted by society.  I said f--- society.  And then promptly apologized to my mother for using the f-word. My parents said nothing more.

Then there was the time I told them I was in love with someone who lived halfway around the world. Literally, half-way around the world.  My mother was afraid she would never see her grandchildren. I had to promise that wouldn't be true. My father offered to buy my plane ticket to see if it could work.  

That was not how I had imagined that scenario would play out. It's probably not how they imagined I'd live my life.

Then there was the time my mother knew I had feelings for a guy from a country the US is not friendly with. A country I cannot visit safely. A country I won't even identify publicly so as to keep the guy(s) [yes, there ended up being more than one] feeling safe and secure.

I hadn't told her about the guy.  I didn't want to cause my parents unnecessary anxiety and decided they'd hear about it if turned into something serious.  But, my mom knew - the way moms know things they aren't supposed to. In the way mothers do, she would prod in a way that was seemingly not prodding, asking about this guy and then asking about my dating life. Never in the same sentence, but close enough to each other that I knew she knew.  I'm sure she was always slightly hoping I would put the kabash on any insinuation of a relationship.  When I finally did, it was after the relationship was over. 

I've been thinking about my parents' approach to life and love a lot this week.  First, I read this piece by a woman living in Djibouti, thanking her parents for never asking her and her husband not to lead the life they feel called to. (If you're an expat feeling at all homesick, don't read this. Says the girl who sat crying in an airport coffee shop.)

I don't have grandkids for my parents yet, but I could've written it all the same. I know they didn't always want me to leave but they never stopped me from going. At times, they even helped push me out the door when I needed it.

They've been self-sacrificing in their love.

I get a small taste of the pain that must mean each time I leave my nephew and niece.  It is horrible to realize that I can't see them all the time. Just the thought of how long it will be until my next visit is enough to make me tear up.  I feel sick when I realize my nephew may outgrow our favorite game before my next visit.  Or that by then he won't be willing to indulge a thousand versions of "Are you a giraffe?"  (For those wondering, this is where my sister and I ask "Are you a ---" just to hear my nephew go, "No, Aunt Tawa, I am not a --- I'm [insert his name]."  Replaying those games in my head simultaneously makes me laugh out loud (I cannot tell you how many people I've told those stories to this week), and then want to board the first plane out of Heathrow.

I can't imagine what it will be like when they aren't waiting for my return; when it's my brother, sister-in-law and I who watch them leave, pack up for college, head out on their own, go around the world unprotected...

Ugh. 

But that's what my parents do all the time.  Their life is a constant series of "goodbye daughters!" followed by months of emails about the cats and a welcome home sign when we're ready to return.

And if this wasn't enough for me to want to catch the next plane home just to hug my parents one more time, these past few weeks I have had the heartbreak of another relationship ending before it was fully realized because his parents won't accept someone from a different background.

This happens when your life is full of cross-cultural relationships.  When you're taught to love without boundaries, you inevitably fall in love like that.  

The first time this happened, it broke my heart. I didn't recover for a few years - if I ever have.

I'll call him Q because I can't think of a single guy I know whose name starts with that letter.  

At the time, Q was only the second man I had loved. After years of being told I needed to be more submissive, I was too opinionated, too loud, too picky, too everything, he accepted me as I was. I fell for him before I even realized what had happened.

It wasn't just that he accepted me.  He was kind and funny and sweet.  He was smart and driven.  We could talk for hours or sit next to each other and not talk at all. It was the most comfortable I had ever felt in a relationship - perhaps the most comfortable I had ever been in my own skin. 

I remember waking up every day for a week thinking, "I love this man," and then immediately thinking, "No... no, you cannot love Q... it hasn't been long enough." I'd had relationships that lasted for years that didn't feel as right as this one did within a month.  

The day I finally told him I loved him, he told me he loved me, too.  Then he broke up with me.

His parents could never accept me, he explained, and he could never hurt them in this way. Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story romanticize this reality. They also teach young American girls that true love is more important than social identity - and that failing to realize this can have dire consequences.

Unfortunately, those dire consequences remain a reality in some cultures, and no matter how much I tried to get him to change his mind, he couldn't. Or wouldn't.

I thought it was an excuse. I thought he was a coward. I thought he should try. I thought his parents would eventually learn to love me. I thought the cultural norms were outdated and unrealistic and inappropriate. I thought I was worth it. 

I cried. I screamed. I was sarcastic. And quiet. I was rationale. I listened. And ultimately, I 'lawyered' him.

I finally convinced Q to try it out by telling one of our friends. Well, one of his friends who liked me just fine when he thought I was a random friend. Back when our relationship was secretive, I had asked this friend how his parents would react if he brought a white girl home.  "Oh, it would be fine; they wouldn't care of course."  "Would you be willing to tell them - if you fell in love with a white woman?"  "Of course... it wouldn't be a problem.  Not a problem at all."

I thought I had won this argument - without question, without debate.

When Q told him, though, the friend replied, "this isn't how things are done." He had switched to a language I didn't speak.

I got the translation, though, and was shocked.  This was a man raising his children in England.  A man my age.  "What happens if your son comes home with a white girlfriend?" I asked.  His son was about 8 and cute as a button.  There will be many a woman falling over this kid someday.  "That won't happen.  And if it does, I'll pack the entire family up and take them back."

I accepted the inevitable and the relationship ended.

I am sorry, Q, that I'm posting on this so publicly right now, but it's been long enough and few enough people knew about it that I'm not divulging anything that will give away your identity.

We remain friends, though we needed time and space apart before that could be a real thing.  He continues to hold an important place in my heart, and he remains my last, significant, in-person relationship.

Q scarred.

He knows this, so it's not like if he's reading this and learning something new. For a long time, I thought I would never find love again.  It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime moment.  In some ways, it still does.

I moved on.  I've dated.  At times, I've probably dated too much. But the few times it really meant something ... there were impossible challenges. And I mean impossible challenges.  Oppressive regimes; inability to communicate; crazy distance challenges.  Life got in the way, and I've always felt that when that happens - when the road is not just difficult but impassable - there must be a reason.

I kept believing that Q and I were both bound for some other, great, all-encompassing love that would make our past look like a sweet adolescent coming of age movie.

(I know, I know - this isn't a movie, but isn't it awesome??)

That hasn't happened, though... and right now, I'm doubting that this really is all for some greater reason. 

X - also not anything related to his name - has made me revisit all my Q-related feelings.

Like Q, X wasn't supposed to be this special. And when it was clear that it would be, I was on the receiving end of a speech I now know so well I could give it, except that I don't believe it.

It's hard for a WASP-y American girl to accept that cultural differences are a legitimate reason for not pursuing a relationship.  At least a WASP-y girl who grew up in a liberal city in the midwest, who had friends who were the product of interracial relationships, and who rejected society's understanding of a woman's role by the time she was about 8.  But for those kinds of WASP-y women... the notion of culture as a reason for not letting love flourish... it's a hard pill to swallow.

I was looking for a Mindy Kaling gif for this piece, but I couldn't find it.  (I love The Mindy Project and find Kaling's alter ego to be the most relatable character on TV right now.)  I couldn't find what I wanted, but through the spiraly whole that the internet sucked me down, I found this important response to John Mayer's now-infamous quote that he has a "Benneton heart and a f---ing David Duke cock." [for the edit, you're welcome, Mum; for the quote, sorry Stefany.]

In it, Jezebel writer Latoya Peterson notes

We all formulate preferences around what we like and what we don't like. That's part of human nature. But it is disingenuous to pretend that these preferences are not informed by society, and are not informed by racist ideas. Think about it - if our fickle hearts have the capacity to love people who are abusive to us, what makes people think that love is somehow immune to or above racism?

I realize the parents of both of these men think they're being protective. They don't realize that what they are actually doing is embedding racism. If you're not teaching your child to love the person who is speaking to their heart - if you're not teaching them to find those who understand them best, who care for them, encourage them, and support them, because you're too busy teaching them to find someone of their own culture... you are wasting their opportunities. And you are teaching them racism.

My background hasn't been a direct issue for either of them - but neither felt they could tell their parents that the future grandchildren they had always imagined were likey to have a slight change in appearance. Their parents made it clear that a relationship with someone like me - children with someone like me - was worth less than a relationship with someone who looked like them.

What they don't realize is that in embedding this racism into their children's psyche, they are also teaching them to settle for something less... to not dream big, but to dream small... to erase portions of themselves in order to fit a cultural expectation that the children shouldn't be bound by.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me is that I am not actually competing against a person, just an ideal. There's not some "right woman" in mind for their sons; they just can't imagine - without having met me, without having seen us - that I could be better than the hypothetical woman with the "right" cultural identity.

I'm not suggesting I'm the end all be all of women.  I'm not.  I've been in relationships where the problems leading to the end were squarely on me. And there have been men in my life I would have made a terrible partner for. Great friend; horrible for anything more.

For Q and X, though, I was a good match.

I would have loved the opportunity to challenge their parents - to force them to interact with me before rejecting me.  But, I can't.  Circumstances in both cases make it a practical impossibility. So, I'm going to write a note here, and while it will, inevitably, never reach them, it's the catharsis I need.  For Q, it's the letter I should have written years ago; for X, it's almost too fresh to be fair.

Dear parents,

You don't know that I've prayed for your son.  I've cried for him and with him.  I've laughed with him and made him laugh when he didn't want to.  I brought him joy, and would have loved to bring him joy for many more days and months, maybe even years. You don't know that he brought me joy, too.  I love his heart; I admire his brain; I am encouraged by his spirit.

I could hate you for what you're doing to me.  I don't.  You don't know any better because you don't know me.  I can't, however, forgive you for what you've done to your son.  He deserved better. He deserved to know you love him unconditionally.  That you're proud of him for who he is, not for who he falls in love with.  He deserved to know that you would be there, ready to welcome me into your family if he chose to do that.  He deserved to know that some things are irreplaceable and unbreakable, and that family and love are two of those things. He deserved to know that while he had roots, he also had wings, and that you wanted to see him use and honour both fully. 

I will continue to pray for your son.  That he finds someone he can love, who loves him back.  Someone he can fold into late at night, when the world seems to be too big and his faith feels too small.  Someone who will hold his hand and his heart with the precious care he deserves.  

I am just sad for you that you won't know what that looks like unless it comes in the package you - not God, not your son, but you - desire.  And I'm sorry that you have taught him that the package is more important than the gift inside - at least if he is giving it to you. I, however, won't be praying about what culture she comes from. I'll be too busy praying for her heart. 

I know that I can't blame the parents exclusively. I know others whose cultural identities are the same as Q and X.  I know people from these cultures who have said - as I did at 16 - f--- society (and sorry mom for the cursing).  As X said the other night, though, I just chose the wrong guy.  Twice.

Okay, this post deserves another Wonder Years clip.  Because we all know that Kevin gets a happy ending (even if it's not with Winnie).

There is no God but Allah: On Malaysia's banning Christians' use of "Allah"

"There is no God but Allah."

I can say that expression without hesitation, without shame, and without conversion.

There is no God but Allah.

It is the start of the Shahada, what is essentially the Muslim equivalent of the Apostle's Creed.  But just as Muslims could also say "I believe in God the Father, the creator of heaven and earth,"*  I can say there is no God but Allah and mean it.  

Or at least I can in every culture, language and country, except Malaysia.  As a Christian, I am now banned from using the Arabic word for God in Malaysia after a court ruling found that "Allah" is exclusive to Muslims.

The problem is that in Arabic, "Allah" is not God's name, but his title.  Allah means God.  Just like in English "God," it is a generic word, not an individual identifier.  I can say "In Vishnu Hinduism, Tara is the goddess who gives the seed for Lord Vishnu, the supreme god and the creator of the world," without usurping the Christian belief about God the Father being Creator of the Earth.  And Vishnu Hindus can just say - as they often have when I tell them my name** - "Tara is the goddess who gives the seed for Lord Vishnu, the supreme god."  Or simply "there is a god..."

When I say "There is no God but Allah" all I am saying is "There is no God but God." It is a cardinal belief in Christianity.

What you follow that sentence with is what distinguishes Christianity from Islam and both of those monotheistic religions from Judaism. But all have the same foundational belief.  One God.  The God.  The only God.

In Judaism, God has a name.  A real, true name. Several, actually, but one dominant one that the Jewish people do not speak (and that I will not type here out of respect for their belief, though it does appear in full form on the linked page so friends should be warned).

In Christianity, God has several names, mostly the same as those in Judaism, but with some additional ones.  Jesus Christ being the most obvious; the Holy Spirit being another.  We believe in the triune - three in one - but ultimately it's one God.  One Almighty.  One Lord of Life.  One Emmanuel - One God With Us.

In Islam, though, God does not have a name.***  The Arabic word - the language of the Koran - is used for the generic word God.  The usage predates Islam; it predates Mohammed, whose father was, in fact, named meant "God's servant" uses an derivation of Allah in his name. How could Allah be something inherently Islamic if the founder of Islam's father used the word in his name?  It is the Arabic equivalent of "god" or "God."

So the Malaysian judgment is telling Christians that they cannot use the word God.  

This naturally raises a fundamental question about who owns the word "God"?  Can one group have exclusive claim to the word "God"?  The answer, of course, is no religion owns God.  No religion could.

I didn't use the Jewish name for God out of respect, but at the same time, I could if I wanted to.  No where in the Torah is God's name followed by ™. And while certain translations of ancient texts can be copyrighted - for example, the New International Version of the Bible has a copyright - you can't actually copyright facts.  So if you believe God is a fact - or if you believe there are multiple gods - then there's no ownership over that fact.  There can't be.  He just is.  (or, she just is; or it just is; or they just are or there just is, depending on your beliefs).   

What the Malaysian court is doing, in essence, is to give ownership over God - or at least over God in one language - to one religion.  That denies, in essence, the right of other religions to invoke a word for God.  A word.

What it becomes, though, is not just censorship over the word but censorship over the debate of who God is.

If one person or one religion owns the word God, it owns the right to define God however it wants, which means dissent from the definition of that word is prohibited.  That is evident from the raiding of Christian organizations and the planned protest at Christian churches in Malaysia.

While the some may say it's not that big of a deal when discussing the use of Allah by Malaysian Christians, but it is definitely a big deal when you consider Baha'i believers and Ahmadiyya Muslims. Baha'i, founded in Iran, uses the text of Islam and add to it for the creation of a new religion, must like Christianity does to Judaism. Ahmadi Muslims identify as Muslims but the religion broke from the dominant beliefs in the 1800s.  Baha'is, Ahmaddiya Muslims, and the Alawites in Syria, are condemned by some Muslim groups as blasphemous non-believers. All three religions are indigenous to areas or groups in which Allah is the word for God.

Can they use Allah in Malaysia?  Do they get to debate God's character and God's prophets with Islamic leaders?  Or must they adopt a different word for God, despite their Middle East origins?

And if religions with origins in Arabic-langauge states are protected, then why isn't Christianity - with its origins in present-day Palestine (Bethlehem) and/or the shared city of Jerusalem (old Jerusalem being claimed by the Palestinians) allowed to use Allah?

Consideration of the Palestinian Christians raises the final danger in this whole reworking of the word Allah by Malaysian courts: it suggests that Christianity and other religions don't belong in Arabic-speaking countries.

Christians in the Middle East are already under attack.  I know that many of my Middle Eastern Muslim friends will object to this assertion because, well, I tend to hang out with open-minded people regardless of their backgrounds, so my Muslim friends tend to be people who have Christian Arab friends in their home countries. So in their experience, Christians are treated well because they treat Christians well. 

But... the evidence suggests things have, in the words of Prince Charles, reached a "crisis point," with some questioning whether Christianity can survive in its Holy Land, in the Land of its origins and the Land of its Savior.

For some, perhaps, that's a positive thing.  You know, if you like crimes against humanity and stuff.  Because the reason Christianity won't survive isn't that all the Middle East Christians will convert, but that they are fleeing the Middle East - fleeing from persecution, from killing, from church bombings, from targeted attacks. Which means the widespread or systematic attacks against Middle East Christians may reach the status of crimes against humanity.

And now, the Malaysian court has told Middle East Christians they don't even have the right to say "God" in their own language.

I realize that the Malaysian court's decision doesn't extend to the Middle East, but still, the decision suggests that certain sacred words belong only to certain sacred people. It is part of an increasingly problematic way in which religion is discussed globally. Majority religions feel entitled to deride, undermine, or isolate minority religious followers.  This has long been the case, and the long-used blasphemy laws - a remnant of colonialism that has not gone away - have been supplemented with increasingly problematic interpretations and a willingness to prosecute minority religious followers for blasphemy.  In states where blasphemy prosecutions do not occur, minority religious followers face abhorrent actions when attempting to exercise their faith.

Often religious persecution is through law.  Sometimes it is through social exchanges.  Now, it is through isolating and claiming exclusive rights to words that identify sacred beliefs.

It is an attack that stems from the belief that some of us have a right to own God. They own his title.  They own the word.  They own religion.

And that is a problem for everyone.

*I need a quick caveat to my assertion of Muslim repetition of the first line of the Apostle's Creed.  I have seen my Muslim friends refer to God as Father, but I don't know if they would ever refer to "God the Father" because they do not recognize the triune.  Still, they could easily say "I believe in God, Father, the creator of heaven and earth."

**No, that's not who I was named for.  But I do love that my name is that of a goddess in any culture or religion.  

*** Note: I think Aslan is overly harsh in his treatment of the Malaysians on this issue, but I ended to link to him for the point he makes about the lack of a name in Islam.  His comments did inspire this post.

A Year in Review... and a Year in Anticipation

The last year has been ...

That sentence has filled my Facebook status for the past two days.  I've tried to think of how to finish that sentence, but I can't.  There was no defining moment of 2013 for me; just small moments that filled me with great joy, great fear, or great sorrow.

For me, 2013 was:

• discovering the countries of my dominant ancestry with good friends. Slovenia with C, J, A and J2; Germany with A2.  They weren't "It's Tuesday so we must be..." trips; they were work related, with a little enjoyment on the side.  They were good for my soul, though, and made me want to reconnect with my family's history.
• walking with S, talking about her relationship and beliefs in God, feeling like she was my younger, cooler self coming back to remind me of my own life journey. 
• an inordinate amount of dance breaks to Taylor Swift, watching R - who was once in a music video - show us "how to dance." 
• long conversations about love, human rights, relationships, and feminism with R & J, my flatmates and close friends, as evening turned to night and night turned to early mornings. It was also playing "geography quiz" with these two, very intelligent, women who would very comfortably fit into those "Look at how bad Americans are at geography quizzes" videos, except they aren't Americans.  It very much made me feel better about the US! (kidding girls... sort of.)  
• handing K my rucksack and letting him carry it home.  I'm a feminist.  Learning to let a man carry my rucksack was... not easy.  K, like S who is discussed below, does things like that, though, out of respect for women.  In his culture, that's what men do for women they care for.  It's not because he thinks I need him to carry my rucksack.  There's no confusion as to whether I'm strong enough or independent enough or simply capable enough.  He just cares for me, and part of that means easing my burden a little bit.  But... learning to accept that... that was a period of growth for me, because it meant accepting how he expressed his care rather than forcing him to care for me as I'm used to.  By the time he was to go home, I realized I was very much going to miss handing him that bag, not because it really made my life easier but because it meant my friend and all his respect, care, and appreciation were leaving me.
• watching S run up the street to check our garage and make sure no one was breaking into our home.  S is an amazing guy friend we called when we thought someone was breaking in.  Five minutes away normally, he arrived in 2. Looked around.  Realized we weren't in danger of being murdered in our sleep and left.  He had to do this one more time for me a few weeks later when I was all by myself.  And even though I deserved it, he never actively made fun of me for this.
• a second trip to Istanbul, a place I love and am always ready to re-discover.
• my first real cancer-scare.  2013 was when I discovered the UK sends you a letter if you might have cancer - and then again if you do have cancer.  I love universal health care, but I kept thinking that the UK could learn from places like Belgium and the US, where you at least get a phone call for news like that.  
• deepening friendships with my fellow PhDs, and realizing how lucky I am to be with the cadre of people life threw at me.
• finding my inner - sometimes suppressed - love-filled radical. I'm not scary radical. I don't believe in violence; I categorically reject the notion that blood must be shed in revolutions; I don't think people are evil for not agreeing with me; I don't think people are evil for not being me - for being men, or a different color, race, ethnicity, religion, political party, socioeconomic background, etc., etc. I don't think we should overthrow all of anything, much less our world, our government, or our global relationships.  But, I remembered what it was to challenge authority that exerts itself solely because of its position, and strengthened the voice inside myself that lets me challenge that same claim of authority.
• getting closer to the professional I wish to be.
• my friend C, who I was in Slovenia with.  I let her down at one point in the year, but she's such an amazing friend that she hasn't let it be the defining moment of our lives.  Instead, during another trip, she kept trying to buy random things for me - even before my wallet was stolen!  We'd go into a shop and she'd say, "Oh, do you need me to buy your adapter?"  Um, no, I have the 3 CHF available.  "Oh, right! Sorry!"  Normally, you don't need to apologize to me for throwing money my way.  She's just so caring and so lovely.  I can't wait until I can travel again to get over to Belgium and visit her! 
• learning how violent theft actually is, even when no violence is present.  Being robbed makes you feel vulnerable, hurt, betrayed, stupid, anxious, frustrated, alone, and fearful. There was no violence when I my wallet was stolen, but it felt emotionally violent.  My friends, though, came through big time, and I will forever be grateful for them.
• My brother provided me with so many invaluable gifts this year.  A niece. Time with my nephew.  And he was the first person in my family to read my email, so he was also the first one to offer to write funds when my wallet was stolen.  As I was walking back to meet friends after talking to the police, he called to ask if the email was really from me and if so how much money I needed.  The case was an early Christmas gift; knowing I had someone looking out for me is a forever gift. 
• New friendships. 

I can't predict 2014.  I have a few goals - have a better prayer life; be a better friend; publish; travel; finish my PhD.  But what I really want in the new year - what I want this new year to be about - is creating space for myself, for the person I want to be.  I want to go back to living life as I did at 22 without the naivety, stupidity, and bad choices, but with the joy, constant sense of adventure, and willingness to take real risks.  Doing a PhD chips away at that lifestyle a bit, but I'm looking forward to going back to it. Oh - and my dating life!  I'd love my 22 year old's dating life again.  Hmmm... scratch that.  25 year old self dated guys who could at least afford nice meals out!