The religious cheater

It was a beautiful day, so I was outside today working in my garage woodshop. I had the door open as I worked on my new workbench.

Outside other people in my apartment complex walked past. I saw a lovely young college student I've seen before, an Islamic girl wearing her Hijab. She was also wearing a black halter top that left her arms and back bare. She walked past my garage on her way to the mail boxes.

"Nice skin" I thought to myself. Really, it seemed flawless. I went back to sanding planks for my workbench.

And then I stopped. Wait a moment, something wasn't right here. Islamic women are supposed to dress "modestly" so that the eyes of men are not drawn to them. This woman wasn't being very modest!

So when she came walking back from the mailbox, I was waiting. As she walked by, I realized she was wearing an almost skin-tight long sleeve top under the halter top. The sleeves of the top came down past her wrists to her hands, but hugged her arms and back. The top was the same color as her cheeks and what I could see of her hands.

A skin-colored top that hugged almost like a leotard, with a halter top worn over it. And of course a Hijab and long pants and shoes. Technically all but her face and fingers were covered. But I had thought for sure that her arms and back were uncovered! I even thought she had nice skin.

It seems to me that she was cheating - following the letter of Islamic religious law, but not the spirit.

Too often, this seems to be the case for many different religious people, willing to follow the letter of religious law, but not the intent. When I point out that the bible clearly indicates that divorced and remarried couples are committing adultery Christians will start explaining why they don't need to follow these particular guidelines. They may even explain that this wasn't the intent of what was said.

When people want to use religion to justify their actions, they have little trouble doing so.  "Black and white" rules of morality go out the window when they become inconvenient.  And worse, religion is too easily used to justify immoral actions, from removing or restricting basic human rights to outright atrocity. 

Read More...

Summary only...

My life is in transition

The world around me seems real now. For almost the whole month of February, the world felt as if it were detached, dream-like and stuffed with a particularly flavorless cotton candy.

It is odd. I wake and my first thoughts aren’t about Won – but my second or third thoughts are often about her. I am still not to the point where I can dwell on her without tears, without survivor’s guilt – but it is not crippling now.

I can remember our disagreements, and still feel upset about them, still feel my old positions, righteous when I was right, remorseful when I was wrong. But when I remember our good times together… well, that’s when the tears flow.

The other night I had a dream where I was walking my little dog Tasha outside. In a tree sat a huge golden eagle that eyed Tasha hungrily and then gave a lion’s roar. I scooped up my dog and ran back inside where she was safe. When I woke, I realized there were many things in my life that were important to me, that I wanted to protect – my pets, my family, my friends.

I spent 23 years protecting Won. I taught her to drive, gave her more and more independence as she became integrated into America, graduated college, and finally took and passed (100%!) her citizenship test. I also protected her as she became sick – there were many times we rushed to the ER, and once she took a 200 mile ambulance ride for emergency heart surgery, with me scrambling to arrange for a pet sitter and follow behind her.


Last night I rented the movie “Zombieland” and laughed like a crazy person. It was wonderful! Emma Stone and Jesse Eisenberg reminded me of Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald in “Breakfast Club” – I’m not sure why… perhaps it was just the feel of an ‘80’s movie? Back then it was all about the hair, and now it seems to be about the eyes – Stone’s smoked and sultry eye makeup never seemed to smear or run. And none of the characters were splattered by blood, good thing I guess for a contagious zombie disease.

Stone is cute – and it is distressing for me to realize she was born 5 years after I graduated high school. Funny, I don’t FEEL old.

Won would have hated this movie. She liked “real” horror, like Amityville, or The Omen. She didn’t like the ever increasing dark humor in the whole “zombie apocalypse” genre. Ah well, she liked soap operas, both American and Korean, which I often found boring.

I’m heading to a birthday party on Saturday, CVAAS movie night on Sunday. Tonight I hope to start gluing up my next woodshop project, and hopefully finish it over the weekend.

And Tasha needs to go on a long walk. On Saturday I think I’ll walk her across the street to California State University, Fresno. There aren’t any Golden Eagles there, only squirrels and pushy Scrub Jays.

Read More...

Summary only...

974-5233

It's been 65 days since Won died of a heart attack while in South Korea.

For me, the entire month of February was pretty much a wash. I don't recall a lot of it. I would have been completely lost if it weren't for my friends.

But over the last week, I seem to have come to a new stability. I'm still very sad, very emotional. But I can laugh too. Last night I had a lot of fun at Drinking Skeptically. And when I got home, I was happy to see my fur kids again. See a picture here of Tasha? The apartment is really too quiet, but I'm learning to accept that now too. Before I married, I used to enjoy silence - I think I may get to that point again sometime.

Won's phone was turned off yesterday. Her iPhone is now nothing more than an iPod Touch. Her number - 974-5233 - is now inactive for whatever time before AT&T reassigns it to someone new. I tried calling it yesterday night and got a "disconnected" message. I chalk it up to my continuing adjustment that hearing that only made me a little sad.

On Saturday, while the phone was still active, I downloaded her outgoing voice message to my home PC. I listened to it once, and then archived it with the other voice mails from her that I've downloaded. I don't have much of her voice recorded. She hated being recorded, by photo, by video, by voice.

Today has been a good day. I woke up feeling good. It was sunny and cheerful, and I was full of memories of last night. I also got a new toy today... I purchased a new phone for myself - the Motorola Backflip, an Android OS phone. It's nice, but it has some problems. Luckily, being an Android, it won't take me too long to hack away the most annoying of those problems.

Of course this means I still have her iPhone, and my old cell phone. But it also means I don't have to delete her phone number from the contacts on my old phone. I think I'll let it stay there, and keep my old phone somewhere safe, for as long as... well... I dunno. Until it doesn't hurt to let go I guess.

Read More...

Summary only...