Christian Person: Merry Christmas!
Jewish Person: And a Happy Hanukkah to you! *wink*
Christian Person: Oh, yes, of course, thank you!
Both: *good-natured chuckles and slaps on the shoulder*

However, nowadays, Bill O’Reilly and his ilk would have us believe that a typical conversation might instead go like this:

Christian Person: Merry Christmas!
Non-Christian Person: *sucker punch to the kidneys*

Therefore, this line of reasoning continues, we now regularly have the gutless watered-down version of this conversation instead, which goes something like this:

Person of Indeterminate Faith #1: Happy, uh… seasonal… celebration time to you!
Person of Indeterminate Faith #2: Oh, yes! Same to you. Enjoy your, uh… paid vacation days. Is that a Santa Claus pin?
Person of Indeterminate Faith #1: *claps hand over lapel* What? No, no. Just a bauble. Entirely meaningless. *laughs nervously and tiptoes backwards around the corner*

And of course, now that Bill and his buddies have whipped the steadfastly-Christmas-celebrating public into a frenzy, they are admonished to stand up for their God-given right! To say! Merry Christmas!:

Person of Indeterminate Faith: Happy Holidays!
Christian Person: *left hook to the cheekbone*

This is all very silly, of course, and it has to stop. Christmas is stressful enough with its crowded shopping malls and old-fashioned-style figgy pudding recipes and last-minute midnight trips to the 7-Eleven for rolls of Scotch tape. We don’t need people beating each other up in the streets over the forms of social courtesies they have chosen to employ.

A couple of points to consider:

There is nothing wrong with saying “Merry Christmas” to a non-Christmas participant. When I was in Nepal during their busiest holiday season, it is very unlikely anybody mistook pasty-white, red-headed me for a Hindu. Yet many people wished me “Happy Tihar” and “Happy Dipawali” and gave me flower necklaces and put red smudges on my forehead.  The world did not come shattering down around my ears, and my identity as a Christmas-celebrating Westerner was not compromised. Being wished a happy Tihar did not in any way diminish my enjoyment of Christmas the following December. Why should the reverse be any different?

Likewise, there is nothing wrong with saying “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” to a Christmas participant. I’m quite certain both expressions were around long before anybody decided to get butthurt about them. I don’t think Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire were worried about alienating those who would prefer to celebrate Kwanzaa. I’m pretty sure, in fact, that both greetings were originally coined as an alternative to running out of breath when you want to tell people to “have a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year, and hey, while I’m at it, I hope you get some really sweet deals on the latest electronics during Boxing Week, too”.  And if people now want to expand these greetings to include Ramadan, Yalda, Pancha Ganabati and Festivus, why shouldn’t they?

It’s all really quite simple. There’s really only one thing you need to remember. When somebody offers you cheerful and heartfelt well-wishes for merriment and joy, this is not an opportunity to become morally offended. The appropriate response is to smile, say thank you, and reply with whatever seasonal greeting works best for you.

*Seriously, go read this, it’s amazing. Even if it means you don’t have time to read my post. I’m okay with that.

So I’m taking up the challenge. And man, this is hard.

It’s not that I find it hard to write in general terms about love, or people who are different. It’s that I want to genuinely challenge myself to reach out to those who I normally wouldn’t – and this is creating a certain cognitive dissonance. I was an awkward bullied weirdo kid myself, and I lived through it and grew stronger, and as a result I like to think of myself as some kind of defender of the world’s underdogs… so it’s hard for me to admit that there are still people I shun, too. People whose eye contact I go out of my way to avoid, whose attempts at conversation I deflect, who make me feel uncomfortable for one reason or another. I might never be actively unkind to them, but I find it difficult to think of them in a loving way.

So I guess, rather than a bold message, I’m going to make a promise to myself and to these people.

The next time I encounter someone who makes me uncomfortable, I’m going to try to follow the principles of Nonviolent Communication by making a genuine attempt to understand where they might be coming from and what they might be going through. I’m going to try to figure out why I’m having a negative reaction – what part of my own life experiences are causing certain buttons to be pushed. I’m going to examine what makes me afraid to let these people connect with me. I’m going to consider the boundaries I have set and whether they may benefit from being pushed. My hope is that these critical self-examinations will allow me to unlock a source of compassion and love that I have been unable to access before.

Why do I want to do this? You might argue that there can be good reasons for feeling aversion to certain people, that our gut instincts are there for a reason. Sometimes you will be right. But sometimes you might be wrong. And unless I have compelling evidence to the contrary, I want to assume that most people deserve the benefit of the doubt.

I want to do this because of Rick’s Rant and Dan’s blog post. I want to do this because I know there are people out there who feel justified in their aversion to queer people, and if we are to ask them to try to critically examine their own discomfort and unlock their own untapped wells of compassion and love, we have to be prepared to do the same ourselves. Rick Mercer says it’s not enough to tell people that It Gets Better; we have to make it better. I want to do this because I believe that one of the best ways, if not the only way, to make things better is to start from within.

They stayed away, cold and afraid, for days. Some of them had never been outside before. They found unoccupied corners and disappeared into them. They scavenged for scraps. If they had hunted before, it had only been in play, full-bellied and careless. But there was nothing to hunt in this lingering winter anyway.

Eventually the cold and the hunger drove them out of their hiding places. They approached the charred-out building, tentative, testing the air. They didn’t know where else to go. Everything they had ever known had been there. Knowing nothing of safety inspections and structural integrity, they slipped under the security fencing and padded through the blackened ruins, looking for something familiar.

Firefighters and security personnel put out dishes of food, hoping to lure them out again. If they could be reunited with the tenants who had lost every stick and shred of their accumulated belongings, maybe this could bring some small comfort. But they were wary, having turned half-wild with the urgency of survival, and not easily caught. They pilfered mouthfuls, then darted back into the rubble. Soon the newspapers turned their attention to other stories. The townspeople slowed less often to gape, the tenants pulled pieces of their lives back together, and the gutted building continued its imperceptible inward collapse, centimetre by centimetre.

Then actual snow started happening last week, way earlier than it’s supposed to. I didn’t even get to enjoy the sparkly magic of the first snowfall because we were away in Seattle. I had about ten seconds of excitement on our return where I stepped out of G.’s truck and was all like “Snow!!”, and then my face froze because it was -18 and I had to negotiate my way across a slippery sidewalk in the dark with all of my belongings to unlock my front door, and then somehow deposit everything I was holding far enough away from the door jamb I was standing on so that the snow clinging to my boots wouldn’t melt all over it, while simultaneously trying to pull the door closed to keep the cat in and the asthma-inducing sub-zero air out. Apparently winter took some assertiveness training to boost its self-confidence while it was away, and is now back to tell us all where we can stuff it.

I forgot about how inconvenient snow is, and how much longer it takes to get everything done. I had this nice list of errands I was intending to complete today, the kind of list whose items could easily be checked off during a satisfyingly productive afternoon cycling around downtown. But after trudging home from the gym with great effort through piles of dirty snowdrifts (yes, uphill too, you snarky bastards) I have opted instead to stay at home and feel sorry for myself.

This probably makes me a bad Canadian. But I have a good excuse to hate winter – I am genuinely allergic to the cold. I really am! I wheeze and I get hives. Even fun things like skiing, ice skating and flying suicidally downhill on flimsy sheets of molded plastic can lead to gasping fits of spastic coughing for days afterwards. So I feel I am entitled to gripe about the snow while everyone else clutches their tuques gratefully and hails the return of the prodigal season.

Click to feel the warm fuzzies (EDIT: Or not. Oops)

I remember being asked this riddle in high school. And no, I didn’t figure out the answer. Hooray for generational advancements in social enlightenment!

EDIT: Damn, the video I had linked to has expired from ABC’s news site, and I can’t find it on YouTube. Here is an overview of the segment; the part that made me feel fuzzy and warm was not only that many of the kids got the “right” answer, but that quite a few replied, as if it were no big deal, that the boy might have had two fathers.

Anyway, there’s a new video I want to share, although this one is more “have-your-kleenex-ready” rather than “click-for-warm-fuzzies”. This is Fort Worth, Texas councilman Joel Burns bravely sharing his very moving personal story in response to the recent rash of teen suicides.

Anyway, I’ve come a long way in the last year. I’ve mostly stopped worrying what people will think. I’ve put myself out there. Although I’m still getting used to holding my girlfriend’s hand in public, I’m feeling more confident and open every day. And although I probably still blush a bit when I introduce her to people, I’m kind of enjoying the ambiguity that happens where I’m wondering if people are wondering if I mean girlfriend when I say “girlfriend” (as opposed to girl (pause) friend). Not knowing who has visited this blog and who hasn’t lends a whole other facet to the experience, too. This is what it’s like to live and breathe in the grey area.

____________________

There’s a new face in the classroom. She’s nervous, wondering if she’ll be able to live up to all the high expectations – her own, and those that have been set out for her. She hopes that she will be heard and understood. She hopes that she will have the tools and the support that she needs to see this course through to its end. Her circumstances leave her singled out in this crowd, and she hopes that the pairs of curious eyes all turned her way will see her for who she is before they judge why she is here. Most of all, she hopes they will be patient with her when she stumbles and makes mistakes.

The person described above is not a student, although she is a learner; she is me, the teacher, as I’ve felt on the first day of every class I’ve ever taught. I relate this scenario because it illustrates the foundation of my personal philosophy of education: the classroom is a shared experience between teachers and students, and the needs of both are similar. I believe that optimal learning takes place in an atmosphere of trust, empathy, and mutual respect, where participants are easily able to step into each other’s shoes, and clear communication is unhindered by fear of judgement.

When I am able to connect on this level to my students’ needs by seeing them as analogous with my own, it becomes easy to identify the values I wish my classroom to embody. I strive to create a learning environment which is learner-centred, success-oriented, positive, and inclusive. To me, a learner-centred environment is one where course objectives, materials and outcomes are negotiated between students and teachers, and curricula is tailored to the individual. In a success-oriented environment, students are adequately supported and prepared for assignments and evaluations, and accommodations are made as necessary. A positive environment is one in which mistakes are viewed as signs of progress and opportunities for learning; the focus is on building strengths rather than correcting weaknesses. Finally, an inclusive environment acknowledges all forms of diversity, respects differences, and allows for multi-modal instruction adapted to the needs of the individual classroom participants.

I have been greatly influenced in my educational philosophy by the principles of Nonviolent Communication, particularly those espoused in the book Life-Enriching Education by Marshall B. Rosenberg. It is my belief that the simple act of clear, honest, and empathetic communication can transform the most challenging educational situation into an opportunity for personal connection and growth. I am confident that the positive and supportive nature of the Okanagan College community that I have experienced in the last two years will allow me, as a wide-eyed and optimistic instructor on my first day of class, to put these ideals into practice and build an educational experience worthy of the College’s name.

Then there are movies like Frida. Ignoring for a moment the casting of the beauteous Salma Hayek in the lead role, this is a movie that pays tribute to a woman who was broken, crippled, scarred, and identified by her excessive facial hair – yet managed to go down in history as a passionate and erotic seductress of both men and women.

I am fascinated by people who can take such command of their physicality, whatever it may be, and transcend it in a way that makes them irresistible to nearly everyone. People who live in their skin, rather than hiding inside it. I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to be one of those people.

Along with practically every other woman I know, I grew up bombarded with imagery of perfect skinny supermodels, and learned to feel terribly inferior in comparison. We were also bombarded with counter-messages telling us to love ourselves just as we were, and we tried to do so, in the same desperately false way that people try to love fat-free artificially-sweetened frozen yogurt more than triple fudge sundaes.

But as I’ve evolved, I really have come to see how sad and misguided it is that our culture can only seem to love perfect bodies. I once had a boyfriend tell me that he found cellulite kind of sexy. At the time, I was bewildered by the idea, but I can completely relate to it now. Flaws are sexy. Flesh is sexy. Bumps and dimples and moles and creases are sexy, because they’re real. They’re proof of a living, breathing, touchable person.

This is a poem I wrote a long time ago on this very subject, back when I still didn’t feel completely pretentious about writing poetry; maybe Frida will inspire me to give it another go.

____________________

Flawless

It’s funny how
we start by putting clothes on

Dress-up reverie, you tightening my laces

This seems backwards, you say

Nothing wrong with doing things in reverse, I say
lifting my hair

And this is a dream, because I’m flawless
and I’m brave, and you
are responding just how I would want you to
catching your breath on the curves of my back

my spotless
airbrushed
skin

Why can’t I dream
that your fingers find the flaws
and touch me anyway?

If I could be real to you

we’d kiss the lines
around our eyes, beside our lips
and remind each other
how many ways there are to be beautiful

I didn’t have to move this time. I almost didn’t. I was a little bit afraid. The rooms seemed too spacious for me, too tasteful and grown-up. Too much all my own. I’m not used to having two bathrooms to myself and cutlery that I know for sure is mine. I enjoy my privacy, but the last time I tried this, it nearly smothered me. Who is this paint for?

I have made more friends in this town than anywhere I’ve ever lived. I’ve found a community of people who know how to reach out to loners. I have a friend who shares sharp-edged secrets in a musical voice. I have a friend who wears awkwardness like an elegant dress. I have a friend who is so cheerful it shames me into laughter. I have a friend who cooks me food just in case I’ve forgotten to go shopping. I have a friend who is carrying his solitude across a desert. I have a friend who is always here, even when she is all the way over there. And I have a friend who is beautiful in ways I can’t fit into complete sentences.

I should switch on my new cellphone and let these friends know how much I love them. Instead, I hum softly to myself, climb my ladder, and spread colour across the walls.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m no fan of oppressive religious practices that marginalize and objectify women (and yes, I believe that hiding women’s bodies is as much an objectification as revealing them, in that it still puts the focus on women as bodies rather than thinking, feeling people). But how is banning the niqab possibly going to help? The following statement (whose original source I unfortunately don’t have) sums up the issue so well I’m gonna put it in a great big blockquote:

The idea of imposing a law on how women can dress, in order to save them from being told how they can dress, is self-evidently stupid.

Not only is it stupid, it has the potential to be even more harmful to women. If a woman’s religiously fanatic family forces her to wear the veil in public, what do you think is going to happen to that woman after this type of law is passed? It seems pretty obvious to me: She’s not going to be allowed out in public anymore. A piece of knee-jerk legislation is not going to reverse thousands upon thousands of years of misogynistic practices in Islamic society.

I mean, taking this far enough, it can get downright silly. Is Halloween going to be made illegal in Belgium? What happens if there’s a blizzard and someone puts on a balaclava to keep warm? Will they be arrested? Fined? Honestly, if I want to walk around wearing a paper bag over my head (and some days I do), I should have every right to do so. If a Muslim woman chooses of her own free will to wear the veil, she should have that same right.

Trying to legislate away cultural traditions (with the exception of those that are obviously violent) is in itself oppressive and authoritarian, regardless of the noble ideals behind it.