Surviving the Workday

Have you heard of a Yes Man? Thanks to Myfanwy, I now have an entirely new perspective on the Yes Men.

Yes Men is a group of corporate ethicists who trick companies to make a moral point.

This particular adventure described in Yes Men Pull Halliburton Hoax and involves Yes Men tricking Halliburton into a presentation on a SurvivBall to protect corporate executives from the effects of corporate warming.

Oh my. And people believed it.

“It’s basically a giant inflatable orb,” said a Yes Man posing as “Fred Wolf of Halliburton” during a phone interview yesterday. “If catastrophe threatens a large population, the business manager simply enters the orb, puts it on, and it protects him or her in any climate condition, whether it involved tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, ice conditions or heat conditions.”

Photos here. Warning: I almost choked.

And I think a definition of “irony” might be relevant here.

This is the first article that I’ve seen on an important topic that affects lots of people that I know, Coping with Mother’s Day Grief. It includes helpful tips for those who have lost a mother or a child, who are working with infertility, or have difficult relationships with their mother.

Included in the tips, which depend on the circumstances:

1. Create an online memorial
2. Buy yourself a special gift.
3. Join a support group.
4. Participate in Motherless Daughters Day.
5. Keep Mom’s memory alive.
6. Send an email to heaven.
7. Plant a tree to keep her memory alive.
8. Ask God to help you through.
9. Live their philosophy.
10. Spend the day with family.
11. Volunteer.
12. Spend the day visiting a nursing home.

For a first person account of grief and loss on mother’s day loss, click Healing My Heart.

To send a mother’s day card from feministing.com, click here.

Finding your calling may be less difficult than you think. I’ve heard from those who have found that calling that if you allow yourself time to reflect that you may become aware of your calling–it’s that pull at your heart that moves you toward action.

In Edge, A Woman Warrior’s New Mission, we learn about how Cholene Espinoza received her calling after a long career in military service.

In the article, Peter Cassels writes:

Her spirit of service to others that she told EDGE in a recent telephone interview was instilled during her Air Force Academy days led her and life partner Ellen Ratner to travel to the Gulf Coast to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. That experience prompted Espinoza to write Through the Eye of the Storm, a book published in March by Chelsea Green. She’s donating the proceeds from sales of the book to build a community center in a small Mississippi town ravaged by the hurricane.

Thanks to Gay Spirituality and Culture for the link

Show Me the Course

Steer the ship of my life, good Lord, to your quiet harbour, where I can be safe from the storms of sin and conflict. Show me the course I should take. Renew in me the gift of discernment, so that I can always see the right direction in which I should go. And give me the strength and the courage to choose the right course, even when the sea is rough and the waves are high, knowing that through enduring hardship and danger in your name we shall find comfort and peace.

- Basil of Caesarea (c. 329-379)

From Beliefnet’s Prayer of the Day

Art from FG-A

I’ve been thinking about the theology of the body recently. Mostly I’ve thought about it in reference to Cupid’s Broken Arrow, a story in the Washington Post about how aggressive young women may be responsible for the increase in erectile dysfunction in young men on college campuses.

There’s an interesting discussion on the article Feministing.com, with all of the implications of the article teased out–that young women speaking their mind aren’t sexy, that young who are passive and silent recipients of sexual acts are much sexier, that the Washington Post writer should not quote Weezer to make a point….

It was interesting to think back and recall that in fact I have found myself to be the most desired when I’m lost, confused, drunk, asleep or unconscious, in short, vulnerable. That there may be something (culturally? biologically?) that makes me seem more attractive. Anyway, all of this brought to mind theology of the body.

“What then is body theology?

It is nothing more than our attempts to reflect on the body experience as revelatory of God.”

-James Nelson

The Theology of the Body understands that our bodies are sacred and that sex can be revelatory, revealing, illuminating, and deeply spiritual.

The Theology of the Body connects the relationship that we have with our bodies to our relationship with God, as in our bodies are sacred, our bodies are ways of experiencing God, sex is sacred, sex is a way (and perhaps the primary way) of experiencing God.

Conversely, the further we are from our own physical experience in the world, the further we are from the sacredness within our own bodies, the further we are from God. That abuse, assault, rape, all bring us further from God.

So this is what I’m thinking about: the theology of the body and the sexual relationships between young people. And how difficult it is to make the body a sacred place when it is is vulnerable and taken advantage of rather than vulnerable and open to revelation.

What does this have to do with surviving the workday? I think it just has to do with finding ways to survive.

Pomo Musings explores the idea of body theology further and from there you can find an interesting paper by Adam Cleaveland on The Theology of the Body.

I’m trying to point out decent corporations whenever I can.

Seventh Generation allows you go help donate tampons and pads to homeless shelters in your state. It’s free. It just takes 30 seconds or so right here. And they’ve developed the word TamPontification, which I think I may use at every opportunity.

Seventh Generation makes lots of household goods that are non-toxic.

I found the link through Feministing.

It is probably not a surprise to women with children that they earn less than women without children. But did you know it was so much?

From The Nation (through a link from Ann):

Recent Cornell University research by Shelley Correll confirms what many American women are finding: Mothers are 44 percent less likely to be hired than nonmothers who have the same résumé, experience and qualifications; and mothers are offered significantly lower starting pay. Study participants offered nonmothers an average of $11,000 more than equally qualified mothers for the same high-salaried job.

Correll’s groundbreaking research adds to the long line of studies that explore the roots of this maternal wage gap. “We expected to find that moms were going to be discriminated against, but I was surprised by the magnitude of the gap,” explains Correll. “I expected small numbers, but we found huge numbers. Another thing was that fathers were actually advantaged, and we didn’t expect fathers to be offered more money or to be rated higher.” But that’s what happened.

This isn’t an issue of meditating more, finding balance better, learning how to delegate, etc. This is an issue of systematic economic discrimination. I rarely get to use this word, but clearly we have some MotherFuckers on our hands. Literally.

Steve Lopez is one of my favorite writers because of columns like this: Looking for an End to Her Skid.

Steve writes about what is really happening in the greater Los Angeles area complete with the absurdity of Sharon Stone saying that everyone wants to see her breasts (Note to Sharon: I would pay not to). He writes about the lack of public transportion amid the worst traffic, the grueling day of a migrant worker who can’t take off work on May Day in solidarity because he needs the money, the apathy over war, and the challenges of being homeless.

In today’s column, he writes about Lee Sevilla, a 71-year-old woman who lives in her Dodge Neon with her dog.

Lee had a couple of awful life experiences: a divorce, a child who committed suicide, followed by a low-paying jobs. That made her homeless in Southern California. For those of us who live paycheck to paycheck, the edge is far closer than we think it is.

Lee says, “I just don’t understand how we can go to Iraq and build up that country, but not be able to figure out how to get homeless people off the streets or build affordable housing.”

I don’t understand either, except to say that powerful lobbies and powerful men seem to be in control of how the money is spent in this country and money is allocated in order to make the richer far richer, which in turn makes many of us without homes, cars, and scraping to survive even as we work full-time.

As you may know the the Episcopalian church (called Anglican in GB) in California is choosing a new bishop today. 3 of 7 candidates are openly gay.

A Prayer for Episcopalians

Please take a deep breath and just choose the best candidate based on their qualifications not their sexual orientation.

God has nothing to say about sexual orientation. He never did. The Bible certainly doesn’t (Read What Does the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality? Short Answer: Nothing).

The Anglican/Episcopalian churches have usually been open and embracing to people of different sexual orientations. Please live up to your wonderful reputation.

Anglicans in US face new gay row

For Relief From Anxiety & Grief

O He who is sufficent from all things
But nothing is sufficient from Him
Be sufficient for me in what worries me in the state I am.

Yaa man yakfee min kulli shay’
Walaa yakfee mihu shay’
Ikfinee maa ahammanee mimaa anaa feeh.

- Imam Taqi Al Jawad(as) from Beliefnet and Duas*

*A dua’a is an Islamic prayer of supplication.

Blessing for the Home

Peace be to this house
And to all who dwell in it.
Peace be to them that enter
And to them that depart.

From Beliefnet

Did you know that Jim Geezil has released another CD? It is vintage Geezil, songs that were thought to be buried, but have now been found. The first and last track are techno songs, written for your favorite rave, and the rest are Jim’s folk-rooted sound. It is titled His American Pop.

You can buy Jim’s CD from CD Baby or download songs from iTunes (use the search feature) or Rhapsody.

To listen to either His American Pop or Sold the Home for the Tackle Box, his last album, click here.

I am of course married to Jim Geezil so am a biased listener, but Jim’s music has received consistent radio play on the college radio circuit. This is a very big deal for an indie artist, especially in the age of Payola, where major record labels simply pay for albums to receive radio play regardless of quality. He’s a talented and eclectic musician and much like you buy fiction and literary journals to support writers, you might consider buying an independently written, recorded, and produced album to support indie music.

It’s fairly amazing to me how important it is to be likable. It doesn’t matter what degrees you have, what skills you bring, what awesome haircut you sport, if you’re not likable, you probably won’t get the job.

In Another Reason to Be Nice, we learn how likability is more important than just about anything else in the workplace. The reason? Who wants to work with someone (or buy from someone) that you don’t like? Few people.

Co-workers would rather work with the likable colleague, according to the research by Harvard Business School professor Tiziana Casciaro and Duke University assistant professor Miguel Sousa Lobo.

“Organizations have traditionally focused on competencies and thinking ability of their staff. There is growing recognition, however, that job effectiveness can be undone if an employee is not likable,” Susan David, a psychologist and researcher at Yale University, says in an e-mail.

“Being proficient at job tasks is of little comfort to the organization if an employee alienates clients or other staff.”

So while we all tend to concentrate on developing our skills in the workplace, it might be our people skills that could use the attention.

The Likeability Factor by Tim Sanders, which was published this year, explores how having an appealing personality can positively influence life and careers.

“Life is a popularity contest,” Sanders says. “We want to work with people that make us feel good to be around them. Likability is the tiebreaker to almost anything.”

That said, how do you act likable? How do you become so appealing to others?

But being likable isn’t that difficult. It’s a matter of helping other people feel good about themselves. That means listening to what other people say, respecting their boundaries, and taking an interest in their lives.

Many of us have moments of truth in our work. It is these moments when our work seems transcendant, our purpose lucid, and our life deeply meaningful.

Mark Goulston, a psychiatrist and writer, describes this moment in A Breakthrough moment for both of us:

Suddenly all the color was gone. Then the furniture began to melt. In its place I saw waves, like hot air rising off a blazing highway in the desert. Everything turned gray and bleak. I thought I was having a stroke or a seizure.

Seated across from me was my patient.

He continues to describe how he made contact with someone who was deeply depressed, how through a haze of sleeplessness he seemed to feel her pain and gain a new sense of empathy.

How have you broken through?