A New Kind of Independence Day

Hawai`i: A New Kind of Independence Day - July 4, 2014 from Ruth Shiroma Foster on Vimeo.

HONOLULU - It's the Fourth of July, and Henk Rogers, founder of Blue Planet Foundation, declares this day Happy Energy Independence Day. With iPad in hand, his granddaughter, Hannie, "flips the switch" and brings the family's new Round Top Drive home "off the grid." Leading the charge at the celebration, he called for Hawaii to be energy-independent by 2030.

Musical artists include:

Kenny Endo (taiko)
Norm Foster (clarinet)
Duane Padilla (violin/guitar)
Alika Lyman (bass)
Gerardo Velez (congas)
Jim Gagliano (guitar)
Jeannette Trevias (piano)
Jeff Mikulina (drums)

Video produced by Ruth Shiroma Foster

Imagination and Civilization

Photo by Ruth Shiroma Foster

Recently on Facebook, a friend in his mid-'20s asked, "Do you feel your generation has any say in making the world a better place? And what does that mean for you? I believe most people my age are resigned to the fact that the world is doomed and choose to live for themselves, in whatever form that takes. We've learned to accept our helplessness." Here's my reply:

Interesting question. Let me ramble, as I don't know exactly how I'll answer your question just yet. At a very core level, all humans want to thrive (survive, grow). Our human nature is to have imagination - imagination being the advanced evolutionary trait that allows us to plan for the future. At the base level, imagination is tied directly to thriving, surviving. It is thus the level of complexity by which humans use imagination that allows them to apply their energy to larger, more conceptual, institutional endeavors that promote human thriving - "making the world a better place," if you will. The simpler use of imagination may be to consider the ramifications if a mother fed her baby potato chips only - imagining how doing so would destroy her child and imagining feeding the child fruits and vegetables will promote a healthy body in the future. Both desires and applications of imagination, it can be argued, are inherently selfish because they harken to that core desire for human thriving, survival. It's just that in the case of "making the world a better place," you are applying your desire to thrive several concentric circles outside yourself. I think the drive for why we do things needs to be examined.

I don't know if I can speak for my generation per se, but among my peers, it's clear that many are applying themselves in a way that they know they are "giving to the community" to make the world a better place. This trait is seen in ministers, park soccer league coaches, songwriters, bloggers. I don't know how self-aware they are as they do it, but at the very least, their contributions often serve large groups of people - the community. The inventors of Google are 40 (I'm 41), and I don't know their story enough to know whether they planned to make the world a better place. But the result of their complex imaginations made it so anyway - sort of like positive collateral damage. 

Your observation about people your age living for themselves - perhaps their imagination goes only to the bounds it's ready to go - so to family and friends, but nowhere outside of that. I think that quality is mutable as people's perspectives change with life experience. I have a friend who is putting his money, leadership, talent and design skills toward having humans populate Mars one day - with the idea that Earth will one day be unable to sustain human life. Now that's applying his imagination many, many, many concentric circles outside himself. One of the reasons homo sapiens were able to survive while other species died out was its ability to create community and use shared imagination. I think among humans, there are those who can think conceptually and apply themselves in larger ways that affect the population at an institutional level. But, there are those who keep their interests pretty close to themselves, just enough for their own inner circle to support a more predictable path. I've come to the conclusion that both kinds are necessary for the advancement of humanity. You need the thinkers and leaders to create new curves, but you also need the everyday folks with perhaps less imagination to sustain the curve long enough for the next one to come about. 

Not sure how satisfying this response is, but something to chew on.

New Wine

Below are a series of selected journal entries describing what it was like to be confronted by my evangelical Christian family over my loss of faith. 

It has been more than five years, and we have all forgiven each other, and the relationship has been healed. I attribute this to the inherent love that has always existed in my family.

Still, I feel it is important to make public what I went through. It was one of the most dramatic experiences, emotionally, I've ever been through. I believe it can be helpful for people on both sides - whether you're in ministry or whether you've left the faith. 

Despite all the hurt, no matter how large the chasm, there is hope that relationships can heal. Humans and our ability to love are incredible things. 

Photo by Ruth Shiroma Foster

New Wine

August. 27, 2008

I just want to scream. I just want to be anonymous so I can scream as loudly as I can.

Today, I saw a "shrink" for the first time in my life. I'm 35.

My dad is a Southern Baptist minister and so is my brother. For the past eight years, I have questioned my faith in a very methodical way. And the things I now hold in my mind, the orthodoxy I no longer embrace, have made my mom cry, my dad not eat and drink and my brother cry and pray. I didn't want this to happen, but it did. And I'm so glad it did, because these days, I feel more capable of love, of reaching my potential, of thinking grand things. I am born again. And this makes my family sad. My mom says she has gotten high blood pressure and told my sister to never do what I'm doing. She says dad's quality of life will go down and that "this will affect us for the rest of our lives."

Dr. T heard 90 minutes worth of my life. He said many things, but the one thing that resonated most clearly was the idea that I need to pursue "personal power." The power my family has had over my life is a force I'm left to deal with.

I just want to fly away, as far away from here as I can. I just want to be in a place where I can truly discover who I am. I am new wine, and I can no longer be held in old wine skins.


No Longer Feels Like Home

August 31, 2008

When Norm and I visited Mom and Dad last week, Mom spoke in two-word sentences to me. I called her several times this past week and invited them to come to the Okinawan Festival. I'm getting the cold shoulder. Last week when I visited them, I felt completely uncomfortable, not welcomed at all. Mom didn't say "hi" to Norm until later and barely could stand to talk with me, despite my overtures at small talk and helping in the kitchen. With that feeling just under my skin, I am expected to "power through" like a robot and go to their house and "take" another one of these uncomfortable interactions? 

If you think that this is normal and how Christian family members should treat their own family members, then I am truly at a loss for words. I simply don't agree. I would like to have a normal relationship with my parents, and because this is not possible on their end, I do think they need a third-party person to help them (1) accept me as a person even though they are disappointed with my decisions and (2) help work through some of their feelings of loss.

I know Mom and Dad are hurt over me not wanting to go to church. I have to say that I feel so heavy-laden with feelings of rejection that every time I look at the "Who We Are" or "Mission Statement" or "What We Believe" statement on the websites of other churches I've thought about visiting, I feel completely alienated. Emotionally, the recommendation from James to "take a break" from the Praise Team has taken a huge toll on me. This, in addition to the way the rest of my family has reacted caused a hole in my heart.

No one in my family, except Naomi, seems to have a shred of appreciation for what I'm going through.

Please don't call me. I really don't want to talk to anyone or email anyone. I just truly need a break.

The Inquisition

September 1, 2008

So now my Dad and Mom want me to drive over to their place and lay out in front of them the points of my theological beliefs. On the phone, Dad sounded exasperated and upset. I already articulated it before and got beaten down so hard by my brother and Mom. To experience the downpour of their disappointment and anger, the constant accusations that something is wrong with me, that I need to see a counselor because of my 180-degree turn, that I need to return to where I used to be eight years ago has affected my ability to focus on work. I took a sick day, but really I should have taken more. I told my Dad that I need a few days to gather my thoughts.

This meeting with my parents is going to be like the freaking Spanish Inquisition. I hate my family. Sometimes I just wish I could have kids so I do NOT raise them Christian. 

Terms of Enlightenment

September 17, 2008

Today, my brother told me that he gets "frustrated" talking to me. He says he doesn't know who he's talking to. He thinks I that I think other people are not as informed as I am and that I give off this air that I'm more "enlightened" than others. "You're the hardest person in the world to talk to," he told me. He then went on to tell me he thinks that I don't know who I am and that I only believe what others around me believe and hold no beliefs of my own. It's as ifI 'm just adopting other people's ideas to "fit in." 

"That is just so insulting," I told him. I turned told him that likewise, he was the same as I was. People do things to reinforce who they are and the things they believe. "You've been in a Christian bubble your whole life," I told him, then I said that I don't seek out Christian friends necessarily because that's not where I am. He, on the other hand, has pursued a Christian career (pastor), seeks Christian friends and married a Christian. It's really the same thing just with different content. People do things as a reflection of where they are - that's human nature. 

I know he accuses me of looking down on him, but he looks down on me, too. Really. I think we're both even. Frankly, these days, it's hard for me to not look down on someone who sees the world in such simple terms and looks down on people who don't see things his way. This whole thing - this circular thing that has no clear resolve - is so tiring. It just wears on my soul.

Tainted 

September 18, 2008

God, this is crazy. My family thinks I'm tainted.

March 1, 2014: It was my experience dealing with my family that caused me to pen the song, "Fingerprints." This song won the Oahu Kaua`i Music Festival Song Search competition in 2009 and can be found here. 

I stopped journaling after the above post, most likely because the extreme emotional storms began to subside, and I no longer felt the need to let it out. Since our big rift, everyone in my family had grown more capable of seeing and accepting the other person. As I continue to build my journal entries, you'll see that my beliefs continue to evolve, with new insights every day. Today, my beliefs most closely resemble that of an atheist, but I consider this a mutable thing. This is a separate topic altogether, but it's important to note how far this is from the evangelical faith given to me by my family.

My relationship with my parents have mended. In fact, last summer, Norm and I went with my parents to Alaska and Seattle, and we had an incredible time. I was even able to enjoy a glass of wine with my salmon dinner! 

My relationship with James has historically been pretty emotional. Growing up, we would really slug it out, and this always upset my mom. When we were both in ministry together, James and I supported each other with prayer and with very intense, deep conversation. Naturally, when our deepest-held beliefs collided, we collided as well. Since the explosion, though, we learned what has worked best to show love to each other, despite our differences. We have stopped talking too much politics and too much religion, but when we do and things get a little heated, we've found ways to to turn it into comedy or patch things with follow-up phone calls. 

It was important for me to share this because I thought I'd pass along hope. When the rift happened, I couldn't see the end; I had absorbed so much hurt, and I thought my relationship with my family would never be restored. We are stronger and better than we think - we just need to give it time and apply love to places where there is common ground.  

Shirley Horn

When I watch videos of Shirley Horn, I see power. A very quiet, strong power.

Lately, I've been watching people I admire - I mean, really watching them, so I don't just listen to them, and I don't just look at them, but I try to feel what it might be like to be them.

And as much as I respect them for their technique and skill - their intonation, perfect pacing, the grace in their movement - that is not what inspires me, and I've known this for a long time. But only through this exercise have I been able to finally grasp why some people move me: It's their power of being. It's a live energy, a strong will, a current inside their body that is so deep and so real. They are strong from their heart, their gut, or, as they say in Hawaiian, their na`au. It's a kernel of power that over time they have managed to grow into something that, when you encounter it, takes your breath away. It's not what they do - it's who they are. You are simply experiencing who they are through what they are doing.

I'm certain this intensity of being, this live energy, is what makes a woman become amazing at anything she chooses. It is this strong being that propels her to hone her skills, so when in life she is called upon to express herself, she can honor that expression with the refinement necessary to make that expression true. Becoming skillful is not the end, but simply a means. Indeed, many go through a lifetime pursuing refinement in their chosen craft and never move those who hear and see them. With this in mind, I'm certain if Shirley Horn decided at a young age that fixing cars was her thing, she'd be a beautiful auto mechanic. I've come to understand that even though the world may venerate you for the contribution you've made to a specific field, for the role you've played, you should not allow your identity to be wrapped up in what you do; the real imprint lies in the power of your being, in who you are.

I have yet to unlock the mystery of what makes this live energy grow strong inside of you. Perhaps if I am able to see this power, the next step for me is to be this power, to give in when emotions well up inside of me - perhaps emotions are the center from which this begins? This is what I want to be mindful of as I become the Ruth I was meant to become.

This is just the beginning ...

Wax Puddle

Photo by Ruth Shiroma Foster

A couple months ago, I woke up in tears. My breath was heavy, and my chest was filled with sadness and pain. I had a strange nightmare, and I thought I should record it before it evaporates from my memory, then from existence.

I dreamed that Naomi and I were attending a high school in Manoa, near the McDonald's at Manoa Marketplace. Oddly, it was a school that was governed according to the strictest of Sharia law, the kind of terror factor you read about in the news. It was nestled in the rainforest, with school houses constructed of wood and with floors that made quaint sounds when you walked on them. In some ways, the school felt like a treehouse school because you had to walk up a wooden flight of stairs that led you into classrooms shaded by banyan trees.

One day, a school administrator approached me and said that Naomi had broken one of the laws, perhaps a law that was easy to break by modern standards, though I can't remember which law it was. The administrator told me that by just cause, Naomi was to be put to death. I gasped. I was filled with rage. I spent the whole day trying to cajole the administrator to change her mind. I tried charm; I tried brashness. I begged with unabashed desperation. Nothing worked.

Then, in a moment of weariness, I gave up.

And at the end of the school day, they told me she had been executed. They told me her body and her things were in one of two "closets" near the exit. The school exit was at the top of a wooden flight of stairs, and from there, you could see the tar pavement of the Manoa Marketplace, lined with cars that belonged to afternoon shoppers going about their daily lives.

I stood in the shade of the trees, the wooden floor beneath me, the parking lot and green leaves peeking through the slats. The closets were little rooms that had latches on them, with thin plywood doors and chipping green paint. Naomi would be in the first closet, along with her books and her book bag. They told me I could look in to say goodbye. With the afternoon light brushing my face, I loosened the latch and pulled open the door. There she was, lying in eerie silence with her lips slightly apart, her eyelids fallen, as if sleeping. I was boiling, my breath hard and short. I wanted to scream, but my spirit was so tired, I could do nothing. Absolutely nothing. I stepped toward the stairs, then walked down toward the black parking lot, in the hot afternoon, my knees melting like candlesticks. I reached the parking lot, the weight of my body becoming more and more difficult to bear, and then I became a puddle on the pavement.

Farewell in Blue

Photo by Ruth Shiroma Foster

We rode on a white foam trail, dozens of us in six boats, from the Waianae Boat Harbor to Maili Beach. I watched Jason sit in the corner of his boat, cradling the copper urn that carried his father's ashes.

The motor was loud, but constant, like a meditation. The blues of the water were rich and clear, like jewels. It was then that the song Time by the Alan Parsons Project began to fill my head. And, it was then that time stood still, and I could look to the Pokai Bay shoreline and remember Bob Adair, standing in the shallow waters, his hair soaked, wearing no glasses and always that smile from within, alongside my dad countless times during baptisms. Two mild-mannered men doing the humblest of tasks, together. Bob Adair was a deacon, he was a friend. I know the mountains in the backdrop behind Farrington Highway, each mountain proud to have its own shape and color, like old friends, all different, but meant to be together. Bob knew these mountains very well, too. It was good to say hello again to the water and the mountains of Waianae, even on the occasion of saying goodbye.

When the boats stopped at the spot that marks Maili Beach, below the Waianae Comprehensive Center, family members huddled around Jason, the youngest of Bob's children. Jason stepped with one foot on the ledge of the boat. Then, it was time. The ashes were rich grey plumes in turquoise blue, a transfixing sight. It was a moment when the ancient soul gathered to its chest a new and beautiful soul.

Farewell, Bob. To be in the sea will forever be sweeter.

+++++++++++++

Fading Film

Even if I were to be free
And fly as far away as I possibly could
Even if I had the chance to be me
To realize fully my potential,
The things I leave behind
Are things that I loved
Things that made me feel grounded as a human being
Like happiness and closeness to family
Joy and satisfaction.
I feel the cells in my body separating somehow
They are saying goodbye to each other inside my body
Like two lovers parting
Not because they want to
But because they have to.
This is so new to me, I don't know what will happen to me.
I know it goes somewhere, I just don't know where.
I shiver sometimes,
Perhaps out of fear
But mostly out of pain.
I keep crying because something is slipping away,
And I can't do anything about it
A part of me is fading away.
Sometimes I think of my mom's voice
And my dad's voice,
And they sound so sweet,
But somehow they are getting so faint
Like after you watch a movie you really loved
And you are trying to recall what happened.
Your heart connects with what you felt
When you first saw the movie
But the images get blurrier and blurrier.
Does anyone know what this feels like?
I thought this would be easier.