Wrestling With Reality
I've been having an oddly hard time just concentrating lately. Some of it is because the allergy, dry eye, and simple eye infection stuff has come back, but equal in both eyes now, not just the right like last year.
Some of it is that yesterday I went to see Out in the Silence, at our church, with the documentary's creators right there to talk to us, along with a brand-new (2 week old) state-wide initiative to make sure that all the school districts in the state follow through with the new anti-bullying legislation that was passed in the Colorado State legislature this last year. All good things... but some of the real stories just floored me.
If you have a chance, see the movie. It's not unrelentingly depressing, there's funny spots and uplifting bits, too. It's up on Hulu, it's on their site. It's free for anyone to watch that wants to see it. But they like it when you also do the public screening thing, as the main point is to allow regular people a voice to stop the abuse.
There were nearly a dozen local teens there for the whole thing, and they really got a charge out of it.
But one of the guys was from Greeley, which isn't that far from Longmont, just a little further East. He came out when he was like 13, but in high school, he was beaten nearly unconscious, his ankles placed on a curb, and the idiots dropped cinderblocks on his knees, breaking his knee caps. It took him a year to be able to walk again.
He's... amazingly upbeat for all that. I was... amazed and impressed, and he has surprisingly little rage, and a whole lot of 'all right, what can I do about it now' attitude that just filled me with awe. He wants help to do what he knows has to be done. He wants to help with the whole process, and the state-wide guy was there to be helped. So that was really cool.
I was also stopped in the hallway by a friend of mine, who was a counselor in the St. Vrain District, and she gave me a story of a kid that just needed someone to *hear* their story. And she said that if I was going to go help the Safe Schools Coalition, that she was going to turn all of her part of that over to me.
Wow. So.. yeah. I'm joining the coalition. Mostly 'cause of Jet and the other kids in the church. Any school that has tolerance for diversity is just going to be a very place for learning. And because it doesn't hurt to not be silent anymore about it all, and to just say something.
And... I can't bear the thought of not being there if some kid just wanted to talk in a safe place or with a safe person.
And some of it was that I was liturgist today for our new associate pastor, who is openly out and the first in Longmont to be an openly gay pastor. They've set up the schedule now so that I'm *always* going to be his supporting liturgist. So that should be interesting. I also got an really huge number of compliments on my reading today, including an "I just love you!" from Luke himself. *laughs* Funny thing was that I was just shaking by the time I'd finished reading. Something about power and words.
I'm reading Robert McKee's Story, and am getting floored by nearly every other chapter of it and how to think about story. What it is that I really want to do with it, and what it is that I am actually figuring out I'm *good* at and what it is that I really want to do with stories and the telling of them. It's a little bit like understanding the principles of string theory and *why* it unifies the understanding of what underlies the universe. *laughs* But for stories and the emotional underpinnings of why storytelling is so important and what makes it so powerful to human understanding of how life works and what to do.
It's hard stopping my mind when I'm going after those kinds of things. So I've been losing some sleep over it all, but in good ways.
The other thing is that I'll be visiting Oakland for a Minicon at Gamescape with Carl from the 19th to the 25th of October. So I'm planning the visit now. It's already looking pretty full, with a wild escape to Santa Cruz. But it should be fun, but yes, is taking brain to plan. *laughs*
[And after kicking LJ a few times, I've finally *paid* for my dreamwidth account (where this posted just fine) and we'll see if this even posts...]
Some of it is that yesterday I went to see Out in the Silence, at our church, with the documentary's creators right there to talk to us, along with a brand-new (2 week old) state-wide initiative to make sure that all the school districts in the state follow through with the new anti-bullying legislation that was passed in the Colorado State legislature this last year. All good things... but some of the real stories just floored me.
If you have a chance, see the movie. It's not unrelentingly depressing, there's funny spots and uplifting bits, too. It's up on Hulu, it's on their site. It's free for anyone to watch that wants to see it. But they like it when you also do the public screening thing, as the main point is to allow regular people a voice to stop the abuse.
There were nearly a dozen local teens there for the whole thing, and they really got a charge out of it.
But one of the guys was from Greeley, which isn't that far from Longmont, just a little further East. He came out when he was like 13, but in high school, he was beaten nearly unconscious, his ankles placed on a curb, and the idiots dropped cinderblocks on his knees, breaking his knee caps. It took him a year to be able to walk again.
He's... amazingly upbeat for all that. I was... amazed and impressed, and he has surprisingly little rage, and a whole lot of 'all right, what can I do about it now' attitude that just filled me with awe. He wants help to do what he knows has to be done. He wants to help with the whole process, and the state-wide guy was there to be helped. So that was really cool.
I was also stopped in the hallway by a friend of mine, who was a counselor in the St. Vrain District, and she gave me a story of a kid that just needed someone to *hear* their story. And she said that if I was going to go help the Safe Schools Coalition, that she was going to turn all of her part of that over to me.
Wow. So.. yeah. I'm joining the coalition. Mostly 'cause of Jet and the other kids in the church. Any school that has tolerance for diversity is just going to be a very place for learning. And because it doesn't hurt to not be silent anymore about it all, and to just say something.
And... I can't bear the thought of not being there if some kid just wanted to talk in a safe place or with a safe person.
And some of it was that I was liturgist today for our new associate pastor, who is openly out and the first in Longmont to be an openly gay pastor. They've set up the schedule now so that I'm *always* going to be his supporting liturgist. So that should be interesting. I also got an really huge number of compliments on my reading today, including an "I just love you!" from Luke himself. *laughs* Funny thing was that I was just shaking by the time I'd finished reading. Something about power and words.
I'm reading Robert McKee's Story, and am getting floored by nearly every other chapter of it and how to think about story. What it is that I really want to do with it, and what it is that I am actually figuring out I'm *good* at and what it is that I really want to do with stories and the telling of them. It's a little bit like understanding the principles of string theory and *why* it unifies the understanding of what underlies the universe. *laughs* But for stories and the emotional underpinnings of why storytelling is so important and what makes it so powerful to human understanding of how life works and what to do.
It's hard stopping my mind when I'm going after those kinds of things. So I've been losing some sleep over it all, but in good ways.
The other thing is that I'll be visiting Oakland for a Minicon at Gamescape with Carl from the 19th to the 25th of October. So I'm planning the visit now. It's already looking pretty full, with a wild escape to Santa Cruz. But it should be fun, but yes, is taking brain to plan. *laughs*
[And after kicking LJ a few times, I've finally *paid* for my dreamwidth account (where this posted just fine) and we'll see if this even posts...]