Day One San Jose

Am finally here in San Jose and the weather is awesome.  The place is awesome.  The apartment is awesome.  Everything is awesome except me.  I am still in yesterday's clothes and am sitting here waiting on my bags.  

Damn weather in Chicago.

Jennifer Knapp on Larry King Live

So Jennifer Knapp was on Larry King Live recently.  You can check out her entire interview on YouTube.  If you don't know who Jennifer Knapp is, I blogged about her a short while back - in essence, she's a Christian music artist who came out as a lesbian recently.

All in all, props to Jennifer Knapp for rocking the interview and to Larry King for pretty much mopping the floor with Bob the Pastor.  Try not to cringe when for some reason or another CNN decided to bring in Ted Haggard (ex-evangelical pastor who was caught having sex with a male gay prostitute) during the second part of this interview.  If anything, I think he eroded some of the credibility of the argument.  

I actually laughed out loud when Larry King asked Bob the Pastor "Did you make a choice for heterosexuality" and he answered "I did!".  Larry King goes on to ask, "How did you do that?... How did you know you like women?".  10 points for Larry King!

On a more academic side of things, what was interesting for me was when Jennifer  questioned the fundamental translations of certain Greek words - a language obviously not our own.  The Greek words that have been translated into English to mean homosexuality include words like "arsenokoitai", "malakoi" and "paiderasste" and indeed there has been rising debates on how to interpret these words, given their historical context, the etymology of words and so on and so forth.  These 3 different words were used in various verses in various contexts, yet today, it all translates into one word: homosexuality.  I'm no seminary scholar, but that raises questions and rightfully so and I'm glad she talked about it.  

All in all, I thought Jennifer summed it up perfectly when she asked Bob the Pastor:

"What separates that (the "sin" of homosexuality") out as so grievous to you that we have to sit here and have this  type of conversation?"  

Go watch the interview if you have some time.

On a more personal side of things, this whole Jennifer Knapp thing has absolutely blown me over.  It wasn't so long ago that I decided that faith was something I wanted to explore again.   Mid April swings around and suddenly my internal grapplings with faith and sexuality are suddenly up for public debate.  Not that they weren't before, but this is the first time a Christian music artist has openly come out.  The rhetoric and discussions very much remain the same, but putting a more public face to the debate, compounded by my own personal sensitivities have made it that much more momentous. for me at least.  A fellow MBA student asked me recently if I could choose, would I still choose to be gay.  Well, like Jennifer Knapp, I told him, I feel very blessed to be who I am and no I wouldn't change it.

Balance

This is a sculpture by Lila Higgins.  In case you think this was put together with glue or nails or anything like that, you would be very wrong.  This is the art of rock balancing.  Its truly amazing, literally impossible and quite honestly absolutely blows my mind.  

The key to rock balancing is finding that very very unique balance.  Each rock needs to be positioned in exactly the right way in relation to all the other rocks.  This obviously takes time and lots and lots of patience.  It is certainly not an art form that I would personally take up.  Chances are, in my restlessness, I would end up throwing these rocks at passersby.  

On that note, this brings me to my thought for today - balance or in my case, the lack thereof.  I was tempted to write an almost philosophical piece on the art of balancing and all that, but figured I shouldn't subject anyone to it.  I guess it should suffice to say that at least I know how important this idea of balance is and how crucial it is to develop it (as oppose to finding it... but again, I promised I wouldn't get all philosophical).

Yes, another day of walking along the tight rope of life...

I've always loved Amos Lee's Sweet Pea and I found this awesome cover by Alex Salazar - one of many YouTube singing stars.  And what do ya you know, he's from San Jose California!  :D

Its just the right tune to jazz up your Sunday morning ain't it?  

Have a great Sunday and whoops, look at the time, Becca's coming to pick me up real soon!


And he even has this available for download! 

The Diving Bell

Even though I'm in school where I already am neck deep in readings, one of my resolutions this year was to read a little bit more - outside of Harvard Business cases, outside of textbooks - to expand my world that little bit more.

A week ago or so, I ordered The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  Its not a very long book and I've just started with it.  So far, its been a good read.  It describes the life of Jean-Dominique Bauby, ex-editor-in-chief of Elle in France, who was left paralyzed in a "lock-in" syndrome as a result of a stroke.  It details his life before his stroke, and his life after.  What was amazing was the fact that the entire book was written by Bauby blinking his left eye.  His translator would read out the french alphabet and he would blink to indicate which letter he wanted - for each word!  Bauby was obviously someone who loved life - in his book, he takes us through his memoirs with wit and compassion.  

Over and above how he wrote the book, it is story of imagination, of courage in the face of the impossible, of tenacity, of all things we regular people could learn from.  While Bauby's situation is admittedly very unique, it provides us a lens through which to view the entire human condition - as feeble and weak as we are, the potential between our ears, the potential for great imagination is limitless.  If only we could get beyond our diving bells.  

Unfortunately a couple of days after his book was published in France, Bauby passed on.

Why I Love Amazon and Half.com

I like to read.  I don't always have time or the discipline to read, but I like to read.  Recently, I've been reading a little bit more - yes beyond managerial accounting and talent management.  Since I don't own an iPad or a Kindle, my books are mostly in their old fashioned paper bound form.  And quite honestly, that's how I like it.  There's something genuine in being able to physically flip through a book.  And since I'm not a book collector, I tend to get for myself second hand books from Amazon and Half.com by eBay.

Its amazing how cheap second hand books can get.  A penny?  Yeap.  And its just another $3.99 (Amazon) or $3.49 (Half.com) for shipping.  

I can see my library growing a lot faster these days.  

Sunday Bob Fest

I've always like pop sensation Sara Bareilles.  I first came across her in iTunes - her song "Love Song" was actually one of the free singles of the week - can you believe it!  Anyway, her song shot to #1 as the most downloaded song and well, the rest is history.

This is one my favorite songs from Sara Bareilles and you know I love stripped down, raw and acoustic versions.   

Sacks Retirement Village

I'm a bit of a prankster - mostly clean and very harmless pranks.  None of those that are deeply embarrassing.  Yes I've been on that end of the stick before but well, that's a story for another time.

So anyway we have this guy, Sacks, in the program who's well, let's just say slightly older than everyone else.  He's constantly the butt of old jokes but he takes with a lot of humor and class and isn't afraid to throw it back you.  I guess that's what makes banter so fun eh?  So anyway, Sacks and I occassionally take jibes at each other, admittedly me at him more than him at me.  He makes fun of me being short, I make fun of him being old with moobs.  If you don't know what moobs are, click on the link and head on over to the urban dictionary.  

Sacks lives 2 doors from me - which makes it pranking even more convenient.  So just today, I decided to put a poster of him up on his door.  Its the weekend, which means he's probably driven home by now to be with the wife and kids.  So from now until Monday, everyone who walks past his door will hopefully see the poster and drop a donation a too.  Seeing how this is a graduate hall, I'm not expecting much donations from people, but at least now, everyone on the floor knows an old dude lives there.  

Why do I do these things you ask?  Gee, I don't know, why do I DO anything anyway? 

Signs of Exhaustion

You know you're exhausted when you fall asleep at 7pm at your desk, sitting upright, eyes closed staring at a half completed excel worksheet with your hand still cupped on the mouse.

You know you're completely exhausted when it happens to you twice over 2 days.  Yeap, I suppose that's what 8 hours of sleep over 2 days will do to you.

Can I just say how thankful I am this particular week is over?  Finally, no more 4am nights... well for a while at least. 

Jennifer Knapp Comes Out

Do I hear a who's Jennifer Knapp?  Well maybe no one that you know.  Well, hell, its no one I know either.  So why do I care that she's come out?  I care because she's a Christian.  

From all I've read, Jennifer Knapp is probably as famous as Kelly Clarkson in the evangelical music world.  She is a grammy nominated artist who is also a multiple Dove Award winner (the Dove Awards are the grammys of the Gospel world).  According to the news article, she took a 7 year hiatus during which she underwent a midlife crisis that led her to examine her faith, sexuality and career.   In her interview with the Advocate, she says she dropped out of sight because she was a lesbian.  Today, she announced that her new album and the fact that she's coming out. 

She says this:

"I hope that the defiance does come across as humble.  If there's any frustration, it's trying to politely break the yoke of being asked to be something that I just can't be, and with all humility go: 'Just please be kind when you discover the truth.' It's kinda all you can do."

For people who don't see why this is a big deal, let me tell me now, it is.  Not just for me personally, but quite honestly for the larger Christian community.  According to Reuters, there is no other publicly open lesbian gospel singer.  But more than a being the lone representative in the Christian world, what's more amazing is how she's reconciled her faith with her sexuality.  She's moved from thinking that you HAD to exchange one for the other to seeing that the two really aren't in opposition.  Coming out is in itself an uphill battle, and that's not even taking an entire religious worldview into consideration.  

On Christians who would likely oppose and boycott her music, she says: “I’m quite comfortable to live with parts of myself that don’t make sense to you,” 


I know with all my heart that Jennifer Knapp is not an anomaly.  Faith and sexuality aren't dichotomous or mutually exclusive.  There is little need to throw scripture across the room.  Either side would do this just as well and we all know that.  Let's really keep in mind what's really important - real people in all their real differences, in all their real similarities - real living breathing feeling people.   

Thank you Jennifer Knapp.