Activism and Revelation
Fleeting Causes and Timeless Musings
Family Slice (by Kim)
Identity is such an interesting concept. In our culture we have phrases like “finding yourself” or “figure out who you are” as if there is a definitive answer you can one day give as a neat summary of This is Me. In our family, we’ve spent the last few years navigating the idea that who we are develops and changes, depending on the season and our context.
In a previous newsletter Lana shared that she asked the family to call her Mom. It was the next evolution in a process that began with Papa (he/him), spent some brief time at (they/them), and, more recently, had settled at Ima (she/her). It would be easy to view these things as Big Changes, something scary or hard. And we certainly were ready to hold that space for ourselves or our kids. But what actually happened is we got to witness the blossoming of the people we love. Lana glows everytime she hears Mom, the kids giggle when they get to correct each other or us for using Ima, and we all have an opportunity to get a little more comfortable with the ever changing nature of life.
I sometimes get asked how Lana’s transition has affected me and this is the true answer: Lana’s transition (and who she is as a person) has called me to deeper thought and more meaningful action than I would have ever engaged with otherwise. My personality is such that, once I have an ‘answer’, I don’t feel the need to reexamine something. In our family, there is instead an expectation to reconnect with things you thought you knew about each other and yourself.
Such examination leads to growth and, in my case, tapping into parts of my identity that I simply would not have found otherwise. That is the freedom of the iterative process of identity. For my part, I can’t wait to see who each of us will become next.
This Week’s Special - Naznin Boniadi
Kim and I like to watch 'The Rings of Power' show on Amazon Prime, and one of our favorite characters is Bronwyn, who is portrayed by Nazanin Boniadi. But as we were starting season 2 (no worries, no spoilers ahead), we didn't see Nazanin Boniadi anymore. We feverishly started to Google why she wasn't in the show anymore and were wondering if it was because of her advocacy for gender equality in Iran. We found a statement on her Instagram that said:
I made the choice not to return for season two of ‘Rings of Power.’ This was unrelated to my subsequent decision to prioritize my advocacy.
Throughout my career, the values I have held most dear are honesty, empathy and integrity. My character Bronwyn was committed to these same ideals in striving for a fairer world, which is why I connected so deeply with her.
I look forward to sharing my latest projects with you soon.
While she didn't step away from the show because of her activism, going through her Instagram account did make me realize how shallow our collective memory is. Or at least, how shallow the collective memory of my orbit is. A few weeks ago I already expressed my concern about the short attention span of progressive activism. It feels great to have them on your side and I mean GREAT.
When trans rights were under threat in the US, it was exactly those progressive activists who were the first to stand up, and it felt amazing to have such a large group of people stand up for your rights. In the Netherlands, the same happened. Last year on April 16th, a drag queen story hour was planned and a group of right-wing protesters gathered a dozen or so people to protest with signs like "gender ideology = pedophilia" (I know, it's ridiculous). But my city didn't disappoint, and not only did the right-wing protesters show up when the event was already over (mismanagement anyone?), but their cries were also swallowed by a sea of counter-protesters. The feeling of satisfaction lasted for days.
Likewise, it must feel amazing for all the massive protests that happened anywhere in the world. However, I can't help but be left with a bad taste in my mouth because progressive protesters are really good at rallying and demanding for the world to see the urgency of their cause, only to leave the cause when a new one arises.
Today I only see some sparse signs in people's yards with Ukrainian flags or BLM signs and yes, drag queen story hour has disappeared from the headlines. The reason why I bring this up is because another cause has been lost to oblivion as well. As I was scrolling through Nazanin Boniadi's Instagram account, I got more informed about her activism for gender equality in Iran. I also noticed that September 15th is the second anniversary of Mahsa Amini. I remember going through my IG feed in the months that followed her murder and all I could see were inspiring reposts of women who demanded liberation. I remember thinking to myself, this is going to be a massive revolution. But, nothing happened. Toomaj Salehi, a rapper, released a song protesting the treatment of women and got sentenced to death last April. While his death sentence was overturned last month, he still remains behind bars.
The reason why I bring this up is that I have not seen a single post commemorating the death of Mahsa Amini, or any of the human rights causes that progressives have previously brought up. As the world's eyes are nervously moving towards Lebanon, will we forget Gaza as well?
The Crust of the Matter - Twice the Size of Texas
Last week the folks at Transmission Ministry Collective and I did a Bible Study Live and we talked about Revelation 21. To give you an idea of how my classes went years ago when I was a young theology student, we talked about Revelation Chapter 4 and we had gotten to the part about the four creatures. I remember everyone getting into super deep conversations about what the meaning of the creatures were and, yes, we had a lot of Tim LaHaye-like answers. After hearing them all out, I raised my hand and said “Are we not going to talk about the fact that these creatures had eyes all over?” My professor assured me that it was metaphorical and I pushed back hard saying something along the lines of “First you take the bible literally but when I ask if there’s a lion with eyes in his belly you tell me it’s figurative.” No, I wasn’t a fun student to have.
At some point the professor went to grab a coffee and I snuck to the white board and drew a lion made out of eyes and when the professor came back he just stared at the white board and immediately yelled “MICHEL VAN ESSEN.” I think my reputation was set from that moment.
I’m telling you this to let you know how hard it is for me to take Revelation seriously. My main theory is that John was probably high and Revelation 21 doesn’t do a lot to convince me otherwise. Take this passage for example:
And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement.
Let me set the stage here - John was witnessing the new Jerusalem descend from the sky. I’m just imagining all those SciFi shows that show a big ship coming down with tiny humans swarming around for scale. This passage however, absolutely obliterates those SciFi scenes because the text here says that the new Jerusalem is 12,000 stadia in length, width, and height. Which is, wait for it, about 1,400 miles. Let me put that in perspective, the new Jerusalem is twice the width of the entire state of Texas.
Now let me ask you a question: how long did it take the dude with the measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its walls? My guess- somewhere out there he’s still at it.
Bytes - Urgent Optimist
I believe that we need to do something about the environment, if we don’t we probably will lose our earth over the course of a few centuries. That being said, adjusted for outsourcing our carbon offset, we have halved our carbon output and we have a larger than ever number of scientiest working on sustainable solutions. So let’s get some fact straight.
Dr. Hannah Richie suggests we focus on four main targets in order to do something about our global greenhouse gas emissions: Electricity, Transport, Food, and Industry.
The first target, Electricity, we already talked about a few weeks ago. But to recap, we are wasting a lot of energy by using energy to create energy. For example, we burn coal which in essence is burning energy in order to create more energy. As you can imagine a lot of that energy gets lost in the atmosphere, so while it is ready and available, it is not an efficient means of energy.
The problem until about a decade ago or so was that the price of green competition was just so expensive that we could not justify to switch over to green energy. However, today solar, hydro, and wind are competing with fossil fuels and are sometimes even cheaper. So it’s already cost competitive and economic to make the change today.
The second target, transport, we also talked about a while ago where I made a point to utilize more electric cars. The reason why that’s so attractive is that 75% of our transport emissions come from cars and trucks and only 11.6% comes from aviation. Yes, aviation is a large polluter, but no we won’t save the planet if Taylor Swift stops flying. Electric cars may have a higher carbon footprint at purchase because of the creation of the battery but after only two years an average car driver will have already paid that deficit off and every year after that will reduce the offset. The best thing about this? Our energy sources will get cleaner over time so over time the electricity that goes into the car will also get cheaper.
But even better than utilizing electric cars is to just drive less. I know that’s easier said than done but imagine a world where towncenters were not made for cars but for bikers and pedestrians. We don’t have to leave our cars but why would we invest in more cars on the road?
The third target is food, which has many factors but one of the key polluters here is changes in land use. While it is tempting to think that the urban areas and infrastructure are responsible for most of the land used in the world, the reality is that only 1 percent of the world’s ground is used for land. Much bigger is farming which accounts for about 45% of the world’s habitable land.
While there are many things we can do to change this, like focussing on how we can produce more food on less ground, a more interesting thing is what we can do about it individually. For example, it matters what kind of meat we eat. Just compare what the global impact is of eating 100 grams (about 3.5 oz) of protein is. 100 grams of beef protein is responsible for 49.89 kg of emissions while 100 grams of chicken protein only emits about 5.7 kg of CO2.
Ok, the fourth target is industry. Think construction and manufacturing. Of course part of this is solved by decarbonizing our energy sources, which will already be huge help but for other things it’s a bit more tricky. For example, cement uses heated limestone and in the process a lot of CO2 gets in the atmosphere. You may have heard of innovative ways of countering this process where some manufacturers are trying to put that CO2 back in the cement in the hopes of making it even stronger or storing the CO2 under ground so it doesn’t get into the atmosphere.
Howeve, there is a more sustainable way: to not use limestone at all in this process. There are already companies that use sources such as calcium silicate which creates the same cement but doesn’t contain any CO2. So when heated it won’t cause any additional CO2 emissions. The main thing that needs to happen here is that the process of turning calcium silicate into cement needs to become cheaper in order to compete with limestone cement.
Perhaps the most encouraging about all this is that we don’t have to demolish our environment anymore in order to progress. We have the innovation, we have the resources, and we have the money. I don’t think there is an actual political divide here - both Democrats and Republicans are trying to find ways to make this process as profitable and efficient as possible. I know there are road blocks along the way, like all the jobs that are in those industries, but with proper retraining none of those jobs have to get lost. We just, as a country, need to prioritize the health of our environment because ultimately that will mean a healthy society.
Pie to Go
🐉 This coming week our son’s school is putting on a play for Michaelmas. If you’re unfamiliar- so are we. But apparently there’s a knight, at least one dragon, and our oldest will be a singing/dancing farmer. So, it will most likely be epic and adorable.
🎧 I’ve been exploring music that lends itself to my new voice range. If you haven’t listened to the latest Kacey Musgraves album, Deeper Well is both beautiful and has the most meaningful lyrics.
🌊 This weekend, after my son’s play, I’ll be going on my last work trip of the year hopefully. Fortuantely it’ll be somewhere between Long Beach and Laguna Beach so it won’t be too much of a hardship haha. Transmission Ministry Collective will be filming some interviews and I’m excited to share more trans stories!