The Clarendon Connection

News of Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church October 2006

Sunday Schedule

Choir rehearsal 9:45 a.m.

Worship 10:30 a.m.

Christian Education (for children) 10:45 a.m.

Refreshments and fellowship 11:30 a.m.

Communion will be celebrated on October 1st.

October Calendar

World Communion Sunday, with the collection of the Peacemaking Offering will be celebrated on Sunday, October 1^st.

Orders for Equal Exchange coffee, tea and cocoa will be taken at church on October 1^st and the 8^th, for delivery on the 22^nd. (for more info, see page 1)

There will be a joint meeting for Session and Deacons on Wednesday, October 4th at 7:30 p.m.

Peace, Justice and Mission committee will meet on Thursday, October 5^th at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 7^th, 6:00-10:00 p.m.: MB 89 featuring Craig Colorusso, at The Nave Gallery (for more info, see page 3)

Sunday, October 8th^th, 3:00 p.m. Serenada Muscians concert in the sanctuary (for more info, see page 3)

Moday, October 9^th, time TBA, Peace Prayer flags, Part II!: meet at the church with members of B’nai B’rith to make peace prayer flags (for more info, see page 4)

Saturday, October 14th, 8:00 p.m.: Brazilian Serenade Concert, at The Nave Gallery (for more info, see page 3)

Sunday, October 15^th at 3:00 p.m., installation of Rev. Gustafson as our permanent pastor, with reception to follow service (for more info, see page 4)

Wednesday, October 18^th, 7:00 p.m. book group (for more info, see 3)

Sunday, October 22^nd, 1:00 p.m. – Peace Prayer flags vigil in Davis Square (for more info, see page 4)

Parish Notes

Kristen Bray’s father, David Pywell, passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, September 3^rd. We pray for God’s love and comfort to surround Kristen and her family as they grieve.

We had an email from Eric Beene, who served here as a seminarian several years ago. He is currently pastor of White Bluff Presbyterian Church: “I hope you are well! I am glad to hear there is some good energy going at CHPC!

We are getting settled here in Savannah, Georgia, after our move here in July. The congregation I am serving here has been very welcoming and has a lot of good things going on, and we are really enjoying living here. And, of course, we are continuing to prepare for the arrival of our first child in October. We finished painting the nursery last weekend, so now it’s on to putting together the bassinet, putting the car seat in, finishing washing the clothes and all of those other last minute chores!

Greeting to the folks at Clarendon Hill!”

The Presbyterian Coffee Project

Orders will be taken for Equal Exchange COFFEE (drip or whole bean) and TEA (English Breakfast, Earl Grey or Green), at church on October 1^st and October 8^th. You can send orders to Katherine no later than Tuesday, October 10th, by phone (617-628-6716) or email (kgkg@gis.net). Katherine has coffee and tea on hand for anyone needing some before the delivery date of October 22nd.

Starting in October, Katherine will be taking orders for cocoa mix (12 oz. cans), chocolate bars and for a new item, “Dark Chocolate Minis.” The minis are 4.5 g bars. They come 888 to a case. That is a great deal of minis!!!! (You can stock up on them to give out at Halloween!)v So Katherine will have a sign up sheet to see if there is enough interest for us to order a case. The same goes for the chocolate bars (Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate with Almonds, Very Dark Chocolate). She will place an order when there is enough demand to justify ordering a case (which is twelve 3.5 oz. bars.)

Last month we experimented with ordering a 5 lb. bag of Espresso Whole Bean and a 5 lb. bag of Sumatran, then dividing them into 1lb. bags for sale. If anyone in interested in participating in this effort, please contact Katherine.

What is EQUAL EXCHANGE? In 1991, Equal Exchange became the first U.S. company to adopt international fair trade standards as guiding principles on 100% of their products. By working with democratic farmer cooperatives around the world and paying a fair price, Equal Exchange supports efforts to improve local communities, putting more control and greater income in the hands of impoverished, small-scale farmers in developing nations.

We also serve freshly made Equal Exchange coffee at Clarendon Hill’s coffee hours!

The Nave Gallery

“Sacred Sense”, a show curated by Karl Gustafson and Matt Carrano, will be in the Nave Gallery has been extended through October 15^th. The artists shown are: Kelvy Bird, Matt Carrano, Barbara Cone, Jennifer Flores, James Herbert, Jim Jackson, Riki Moss, Diane Novetsky, Ellen Schon, V Van Sant and Sarah Weston. There will be a reception on Friday, September 8^th from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. You can also stop by the gallery and have “coffee with the curators”, an informal discussion about the art, led by one of the curators, on Sundays at 1:00 p.m. while the show is up.

Other events:

Saturday, October 7^th, 6:00 – 10:00 p.m., MB 89 featuring Craig Colorusso, at The Nave Gallery. Free!

On Saturday, October 14^th at 8:00 p.m.: Brazilian Serenade Concert, at The Nave Gallery

$15 at the door. Back from Brazil: Maurice Cahen: Guitar, Percussions; Ricardo Frota: Violin, Percussions

To see a schedule of events, which is updated often, please look at the website: www.artsomerville.org/upcoming.html

The Nave Gallery is a project of ARTSomerville and CHPC.

Welcome to Gusti Newquist

Gusti Newquist will serve as our seminarian this year. The three main areas where Gusti will be concentrating her time are exploring the role of preacher/worship leader in a faith community, helping to cultivate more adult education opportunities and researching long-term strategies for sustainable campus outreach .

Gusti is entering her second year of the Master of Divinity program at Harvard Divinity School. She worked for the PC(USA) national offices with the National Network of Presbyterian College Women from 1997-2005 and was ordained an elder at Highland Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. She is an Inquirer seeking ordination through the Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky. She loves hiking, cooking, reading, and practicing yoga. Please welcome her to Clarendon Hill!

Serenada Musicians concert

On Sunday, October 8^h, the Serenada Musicians will hold a concert in the sanctuary at 3:00 p.m. There is a $10 suggested donation.

The program will feature Thea Lobo, mezzo soprano, Annegret Klaua, violin, Shaw Pong Lui, violin, Mark Berger, viola, Orlando Cela, flute, Rebecca Hartka, cello, Kiera Thompson, clarinet, and Elah Grandel, bassoon

The program is Penderecki, Cadenza, Dick, Lookout!, Hindemith, Die junge Magd, op. 23, Poulenc, Le bestiaire (Cortège d'Orphée), and Hindemith, Ludus minor: for Cello and Clarinet.

Book Group returns

The group will be meeting on Wednesday, October 18^th at 7:00 p.m. The eventual book to be read is "The Rapture Exposed" by Barbara Rossing, For this meeting come having read the Book of Revelation, which will be discussed before tackling the book.

Service of Installation

On Sunday, October 15^th at 3:00 p.m. we will install Rev. Gustafson as our permanent pastor. When Karl was called to our church three years ago, he came as a designated pastor, and his installation at that time reflected his status. Now that he has agreed to be our permanent pastor, we will be having another installation service to reflect this. The service is at 3:00 p.m., and there will be a reception following the service. Everyone is invited!

If you are able to help with the reception (set up, providing food, clean up) please contact Valerie Donovan, or one of the deacons.

Prayer Peace Flags, Part II!

Join us on Columbus Day, October 9th (time to be announced) at the church to make prayer peace flags with members of B’nai B’rith. If you didn’t get a chance to participate last spring, mark your calendar and plan to join us. Unleash your creative potential as we use cloth, markers, sequins, glue and all sorts of items to create small flags that will carry our prayers for peace on the wind.

On October 22^nd, after the church service, we will join with our fellow flag makers and march to Davis Square where we will hold a vigil for peace. Our flags will decorate the square, and we hope inspire others to join us!

Clean Your Desk Campaign Update

Thank you for all your generous donations of new and used items for the Clean Your Desk Campaign. We shipped over 52 lbs. of supplies to the warehouse, where they will go by boat to Nicaragua, and eventually in to the hands of children who desperately need them in order to go to school. Last year we had many pounds of paper. This year we had many pounds of pens, pencils, crayons and markers. All of your donations will help!

Introduction to Yoga

Come join our small, half-hour class during coffee hour (12:00 noon, every other Sunday after June 4th) to practice mindful breathing and gentle yoga postures. Great for stress release, improved flexibility and strength. If interested, please email Liz at cavatorta1@hotmail.com for more info.

Education or mind infection?

Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a Lecturer in Language Education at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In September 1997, Nurit's daughter Samarder was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber. She and her family are members of the Palestinian and Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace.

By Nurit Peled-Elhanan

Speech given at Connecticut College, New London, CT September 27, 2006

I would like to dedicate these words to all the Palestinian boys and girls, and to all the Lebanese boys and girls, and to all the Iraqi boys and girls who have been massacred by mind-infected Israeli and American soldier boys, and who have recently joined my own little girl in the underground kingdom of dead children, which is growing under our feet as I speak. I would like to tell them not to worry: "You will be well received there, children, and no one will hurt you just because you wandered off on your way to school or because you wore a scarf on your head or because you lived in a certain place. Rest in peace, everyone is equally worthy in your new world. This is the world where Israeli children dwell side by side with Palestinian children. There they lay, victims and murderers, whose bloods have long been absorbed by the holy land which has always been indifferent to blood. There they rest, all of them, victims of deceit.

All of you dead children were deceived, because your death has achieved nothing at all and the world goes on living as if your blood had never been shed. Because the leaders of the world keep playing their murderous games, using you as their dice and our grief as fuel for their killing machines. Because children are abstract entities for generals and grief is a political tool. Living at both sides, that of the victims and that of the killers, I keep asking myself, what are the means by which good Israeli children are turned into murdering monsters, what are the means by which they are so mind-infected as to kill and torture and humiliate other children, their parents and grandparents, and sacrifice their own life for nothing but the folly and megalomania of their chiefs? In the so-called Western enlightened world everyone feels very well-founded when they blame Islam for suicide bombing and terror. But who would ever blame Judaism for murder? And yet, Ulta Orthodox Jewish children who have never left Brooklyn know that to kill Arabs is a 'mitzva' (holy commandment) for they are 'vilde hayeths' (wild beasts). And Israeli children actually commit the crimes of slaughter and torture. Neither Judaism nor Islam nor any religion for that matter are the cause for murder and terror. Racist education is. American imperialism is, and Israeli ruthless regime of occupation is. The women and children who suffer most from western violence today are Muslim women but racism has its way and the blame for their suffering is attributed to their being Muslim.

The western world today is infected with fear of Islam and of the Muslim womb. Great France of liberte egalite and fraternite is scared of little head-scarved girls, Jewish Israel calls in public speeches and schoolbooks the Arab citizens of Israel a demographic nightmare and the enemy from within. As for the Palestinians refugees living under occupation, they are defined in Israeli History schoolbooks as a 'problem to be solved". Not long ago the Jews were a problem to be solved.

This in spite the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. The people who are using the most sophisticated disastrous weapons to kill thousand of innocent civilians are not Muslim. They are Christian, and Jewish. Nevertheless people who belong to the Judeo-Christian cultures, who support American-British and Israeli crimes against humanity, and particularly against Muslims all over the world, people who send their children to fight these ruthless useless wars in the name of democracy and freedom which are cover names for greed and megalomania, dare call themselves enlightened and blame it all on some imaginary clash of civilizations.. What does this fear-stricken world offer as a solution to Palestinian , Iraqi or Afgan people who are harassed, abused, tortured and famished by western crimes and exploitation? The general offer this enlightened world gives them is: Be like us. Constitute a Democracy like ours, embrace our values which despise you, which consider you an inferior primitive lot to be cultivated or cleansed away.

This, ladies and gentlemen is the attitude that permit American soldiers to rape, torture and kill Muslim men women and children by the thousands, that permits Israeli soldiers to order Palestinian women to strip in front of their children for security reasons, jailers to keep them in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without clean water or clean mattresses and separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to destroy their water wells, to uproot their trees and to prevent them from working their fields. This is what permits Israeli pilots to drop a hundred bombs of one ton a day on the most crowded area in the world -Gaza. This is what permits Israel to issue racist laws that separate mothers from fathers and children.

Palestinian, Iraqi and Afgan women are mothers like me. And when they lose a child, even if it is one of 12, their pain is equal to mine. But in addition to losing their children they also lose their homes and their livelihood and their future because the world does not listen to their sufferings and does not punish their murderers. Their honour as women and mothers is crushed. Their identity is destroyed and their cry is not heard. Their faith and customs, their centuries-old ways of life are disregarded and despised.

Not only American soldiers but also Israeli soldiers who actually perform massacres of 'Arabs' - Palestinian or Lebanese - may never see an Arab human face until they are drafted to the army, but they learn, for 12 long years, that these people are primitive, bear children in order to send them to the streets and throw stones at our peace-keeping soldiers, uneducated because they don't receive our education, conniving and dirty because they have different notions about politeness, they dress differently and cover their heads with different pieces of cloth. Well, from my experience there are

many more Kafiehs in the camp of peace lovers than there are kippas. Israeli children are deprived from knowing their immediate neighbours, their history and their culture and their merits. Israeli children are educated to see their neighbours as an unwanted element. This is not education, this is mind infection.

The scientist Richard Dawkins was the first to speak about viruses of the mind. Children, because their minds are gullible and open to almost any suggestion, are not immune to mental infections of all sorts of propaganda and fashion. They are easily persuaded to pierce their faces and tattoo their bottoms, to turn their hats around and bare their bellies, to believe in angels and fairies. They are equally easy to acquire political beliefs and to appropriate mental maps which will later influence their decisions on the question of the future borders of the state and on the necessity of war. All of our children are mind-infected from an early age. So that by the time they are old enough to become real soldiers, they have already learned to be good soldiers, which means their minds are totally infected and they are incapable of questioning the 'truth' that has been inculcated to them. This is part of the explanation one can give to the terrible deeds that are committed today by good Israeli boys, who are characterized once and again as "people of values". Therefore it is high time to ask, what values are these? The following lines are part of a personal preface by Tal Sela, one of my university students to his term-paper, which included the analysis of a History textbook:

"On the 5th of September 1997 I found myself in Lebanon , on a rescuing mission. All my friends were in the battle, 12 soldiers were killed. The following days I was happy: " I am alive, I survived" I said to myself. However, a year later I was in deep depression. Sad and morose. I decided to consult a psychologist. After a few sessions I was able to gather up my forces again, both physical and moral. I could reorganize my thoughts. Then I understood that the mental crisis I had was in fact a moral crisis, a crisis of consciousness. What I actually felt was frustration, shame and anger. . How could I be so gullible and let myself be duped? How can I explain that a man of peace, exposes himself to such a morbid experience of his own free will? Today, like every two weeks, I drove peace activists to the military check-points of the Israeli army in the occupied Palestinian territories. I saw an officer put tight handcuffs on a taxi driver because he failed to obey the soldiers' order to park here and not there. "We told him a thousand times" the soldiers said. The man was lying on the ground in the worst heat of the summer, thirsty, for hours on end. His friend was luckier: He had to stand on his feet, in a cell, without handcuffs. What pushes these young Israeli boys to play the role of supreme judges until they lose all judgment? In my opinion it is the Grand Zionist Narrative which serves as a collective conscience to the whole Israeli society, explicitly as well as implicitly. This grand narrative is the system of values that makes us belong to this particular collective".

This is the system that dictates the relationships between us and the Palestinians. How else can one explain young people who were educated to love their neighbour as they love themselves killing their neighbours, destroying their educational institutions, their libraries and their hospitals, for no apparent reason other than their being neighbours? The only explanation is that their minds are infected by parents, teachers and leaders, who convince them that the others are not as human as we are, and therefore killing them is not real killing; it has other legitimating names such as "cleansing" "purifying", "punishment", "operation", "mission", "campaign" and "war". Although I speak about Israeli boys this is not an Israeli affair because, as you know, the epidemic is worldwide. My nephew, Doroni, 7 years old, who lives in the US, came home on Halloween day and said he wanted to be a soldier, and then to go to Iraq and save America. How many American young men, ignorant as he is of the absurdity of this statement, actually went to Iraq and died there without knowing why, but with the words "save America" on their lips? The question is, how were these false values imprinted on their minds and how can they be erased?

The human psyche, says Dawkins, has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. We all suffer because of labels, but only those of us who died because of labels have realized that the way to fight labels is to refuse labels. The way to defeat false value systems is to expose them. The viruses of the mind are only partially

weakened by young people like Tal and other Israeli refusniks such as 'Combatants for Peace'. But most of our mind infected children would not be free of the grip of those viruses until they find their final rest in the ever growing, underground kingdom of dead children . Only there will they realize that is doesn't matter whether their head was bare or not in a synagogue or a church or a mosque, whether they were circumcised or not, whether they pronounced forbidden words, ate pig or cow or whether they had a hot chocolate after their salami pizza just before they were blown up by someone who didn't. Israeli, American, English, Italian mothers raise their children with all the love and care in order to sacrifice them to the god of death, as if their uterus is a national or rather an international asset and fathers urge their children to commit themselves to armies whose interests have nothing to do with defense. And when these children die for the profits of somebody else their parents bear it with dignity and pride, as they were taught, put their dead children's photographs on the mantelpiece and sigh: He was so handsome in uniform. It is time to tell these parents that no-one is handsome in the uniform of brutality. It is time to tell them uniforms and ranks and medals have become ugly. Tell them their dignity and pride are misplaced. It is time to tell Jewish people that the only way to discourage anti-Semitism is by condemning the only government in the world who deliberately sends young Jewish boys and girls to their certain death and who persecutes to the point of genocide a whole Semitic nation, explain to them that it is the Jewish government and the actions of its army, not some primordial hatred for the Jewish race, which are the reasons for the invention of the new sign we often see in pro-Palestinian demonstration, where the Star of David is equated with the swastika.

It is a terribly hard task for people who were educated in Israel or in the USA or in any other 'western' 'democratic' country, to admit we were raised on false racist values. On heterophobia. The only thing that can enhance such a change of spirit is the constant image of the mutilated small bodies of the victims of these values . Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, the holiest day for the Jews. On this day people are required to ask forgiveness. Not to forgive but to try and be forgiven. I would like to quote one stanza from a poem written by the late Hanoh Levin, one of Israel's greatest playwrights, in the 1970s:

Dear Father, when you stand on my grave

Old and tired and very lonely,

And you see how they bury me in the ground -

Ask me to forgive you my father.

We must all ask our children's forgiveness for not being more alert, for not fighting hard enough to keep our promises for a better world, for not refusing the evil viruses before and for letting them be the victims of the horrible, mental infection we are all suffering from, to look at their innocent, astonished, disillusioned small faces and ask ourselves: why does that streak of blood rip the petal of their cheek???

Rhythm and Ritual to Live By

Christine Sine is an Australian physician who has worked extensively in Africa, Central America, and Asia. She and her husband, Tom, are co-founders of Mustard Seed Associates - an international network that encourages Christians to live out their faith authentically. This article is adapted from her latest book, GodSpace: Time for Peace in the Rhythms of Life(Barclay Press, 2006). For more information visit the MSA Web site, http://www.msainfo.org/.

According to anthropologist Paul Hiebert, there are two types of spiritual rituals we all need to maintain our spiritual focus and enable us to live at a healthy and balanced pace: restorative rituals and rituals of transformation.

Restorative rituals are those activities we perform on a regular basis to renew our faith in the beliefs that order our lives and to rebuild the religious community in which these beliefs find expression. We particularly need practices that renew our faith by connecting our life to the events of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Daily prayer times, weekly church services, and faith-focused celebrations at Christmas, Easter, and other important Christian festivals are all restorative rituals that can refocus our priorities on the values of our Christian faith. Not surprisingly, the secular culture provides an increasing array of its own rituals that compete with these. The morning news, Sunday sports, and gala seasonal sales can all drag our focus away from God’s priorities.

My husband and I have embraced the tradition of the Advent wreath with great enthusiasm. Each morning before breakfast we light the appropriate candles and read the scriptures for the day from the Book of Common Prayer. It is a wonderful way to focus our lives on the real celebration – the coming of Christ, Emmanuel – God with us, God in us, God for us. It renews and sustains me through a season that can otherwise be extremely stressful.

Rituals of transformation are the second type of practice Hiebert believes create healthy spiritual rhythms. These provide a structure that enables us to change and grow. In Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Baker Books, 1994), Hiebert explains that these rituals “cut through the established way of doing things and restore a measure of flexibility and personal intimacy.” Prayer retreats, pilgrimages, and mission trips are all transformative rituals that enable us to continue to nurture our faith and mature as Christian disciples. Because our consumer culture is so forceful in trying to get us to focus our lives on materialistic values, we need to just as intentionally focus on God’s biblical values in order to stand against these pressures.

For Tom and me, regular prayer retreats have become transformative rituals that enable us to adopt a whole new rhythm of life. Two to three times a year we get away for a couple of days to rethink our priorities and re-evaluate our use of time and resources. As a result, we are able to pace our activities more in synch with the life, death, and resurrection of Christ than with the dictates of secular culture.

In an effort to transform their lives one family we know decided to establish a rhythm of Christian service revolving around the events of the school year. In early September, when buying clothes and books for their children’s return to school, they now donate money to an organization that provides books and school supplies for inner-city kids who lack the resources to provide for their own school needs. At Thanksgiving, in gratitude for the education they are receiving, they contribute to a literacy program for young girls in Africa who would otherwise go unschooled. During the second half of the year, they tutor at-risk kids in their community who have no access to computers, and over the summer months they take some of their vacation time to go on short-term mission trips. Not only has this ritual approach changed the focus of their lives but they’ve found, too, that their children’s academic performance has improved. Teaching others has enabled them to learn, too.

Take time to think about your own values and examine your priorities. Make a list of the important events that define your faith and give meaning to your life. If possible get away for a day with your spouse or a friend and reflect on the values and faith principles you would like to see undergird your life and that of your children. How could you incorporate simple routines into your daily, weekly, and yearly routines that would enhance and reinforce these values?

We don’t have to succumb to the neurotic fads and rituals of our culture. We can all take control and work creatively to develop rituals and routines that reflect our values and strengthen our beliefs. In so doing we really will create a world that is healthy and hospitable not just for us but for others too.

Book Review

I recently finished reading this for my book group. It is a fascinating look at television, the meat industry, corporate life, advertising and many types of relationships in the U.S. and Japan.

My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki

ISBN

From Our Editors

Rarely does one encounter a first novel so unique that it is impossible to compare it with other works or voices. But this is exactly the case with Ruth Ozeki's assured debut, My Year of Meats. Like the author, a half-Japanese former filmmaker, the novel reflects a melange of contrasting influences and multiple points of view. The result is a book that is both cinematic and diaristic, a book whose compelling fiction rests upon unsavory, often horrifying facts. My Year of Meats may just represent a new hybrid in the literary landscape -- documentary fiction, or docufiction, if you will.

My Year of Meats chronicles a year in the life of Jane Takagi-Little, a struggling New York City-based documentary filmmaker who is hired to produce a Japanese television show, My American Wife!, sponsored by a lobby group of the U.S. meat industry. The show requires Jane to travel to the American Midwest to interview "representative American" women about their favorite beef recipes, interviews that are later broadcast to an audience of Japanese housewives. But it soon becomes apparent that Jane's ideas for the show differ wildly from those of the Japanese executives producing it. Unlike the list of "Desirable Things" that the executives tell Jane to look for in her subjects ("1. Attractiveness....2. Wholesomeness...3. Exciting hobbies....4. Obedient children.....5. Docile husband"), Jane prefers to focus on the individuals she finds most compelling: a pair of vegetarian lesbians, for example, and a family of impoverished gospel singers.

Jane's inadvertent subversiveness, while incurring the wrath of her bosses, also touches the hearts of the housewives back in Japan who watch her show religiously. One of My American Wife!'s most faithful viewers is Akiko Ueno, the long-suffering wife of John Ueno, the show's head advertising executive and Jane's boss. At first, John forces Akiko to watch the show and perform the functions of a mini-focus group, filling out a questionnaire after each episode that rates categories such as "Educational Value, Authenticity, Deliciousness of Meat and Wholesomeness." But Akiko, who is bulimic, begins to look forward to the program for the glimpse it gives her of lives so radically different from her own. Jane's feminist viewpoint gradually seeps in, and Akiko begins to dream of dismantling the power structures of her marriage.

But power structures, whether marriages or industries as powerful as the beef industry, are notoriously resistant to change. Jane's bosses threaten to fire her from the project for her attraction to "unwholesome subjects." John's abusiveness toward Akiko for what he feels is her willful infertility becomes increasingly violent. During filming, Jane, who had believed herself infertile due to her mother's use of DES (diethylstilbestrol -- man-made estrogen) during pregnancy, also discovers she is pregnant. DES, she soon learns, is the same growth hormone used to enhance the beef she is being paid to promote. While the plot thickens on several fronts, a desperate Akiko reaches out to Jane after a particularly severe beating by John. In her letter she pleads for what she believes is the key to a happy life.

Dear Miss Takagi-Little,

You do not know me because I am only the wife of Ueno of BEEF-EX so I regret to bothering you at all. But I feel compelled to writing for the reason of your program of the Lesbian's couple with two childrens was very emotional for me. So thank you firstly for change my life. Because of this program, I feel I can trust to you so that I can be so bold.

You see, Ueno and I wanted to have the child at first but because of my bad habits of eating and throw up my food I could not have monthly bleeding for many years. But now I can have it again thanks to eating delicious Hallelujah Lamb's recipe from your program of My American Wife! so secondly thank you for that also.

But I am most wanting to say that I listen to the black lady say she never want man in her life, and all of a sudden I agree! I am so surprising that I cry! (I do not know if I am Lesbian since I cannot imagine this condition, but I know I never want marriage and with my deep heart I am not "John's" wife.)

I feel such a sadness for my lying life. So I now wish to ask you where can I go to live my happy life like her? Please tell me this.

Sincerely yours,

Akiko Ueno

As it turns out, Akiko is soon well on her way to defining her own happiness. In the hospital after the beating, she befriends one of the nurses, Tomoko, who offers her a place to stay. While at Tomoko's, Akiko begins to plan her escape to America. Jane, meanwhile, has miscarried due to an accident at a slaughterhouse, but has shot damning footage of the meat industry's corrupt practices, a videotape that will secure her future for a long while to come. Thankfully, Ozeki doesn't opt for the entirely happy ending. Although the meat industry ultimately gets its comeuppance (in the book's final chapters, Jane exposes the literal -- and emotional -- toxicity in one cattle ranchers' home), Ozeki never lets us forget how the beef industry's greed has scarred Jane and Akiko -- and countless others -- forever.

Throughout the novel, hard-nosed documentarian research provides the underpinnings for a compelling, inevitable story. Combining the personal, the fictional, and the political, My Year of Meats is an intoxicating hybrid and an explosive and courageous debut.

I was raised by…parents with a profound awareness and reverence for God. And ingrained in me is the idea of service with a glad heart with the talents you were given. We all have the ability to serve God and each other with our talents……

-Vera Farmigia

The Clarendon Connection is edited by Ellen D. Schemerhorn.

Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church

155 Powder House Boulevard

West Somerville, Massachusetts 02144-1613

Telephone: 617-625-4823

www.clarendonhillchurch.org

The Rev. Karl Gustafson, Minister…………………………..John Adams, Music Director

Augustus Kwaa, Parish Associate/Evangelist……………………….. Arnie James, Sexton

Gusti Newquist, Seminarian

LECTIONARY TEXTS

Oct. 1: Esth. 7: 1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22; Pd. 124; James 5: 13-20; Mark 9: 38-50

Oct. 8: Job 1: 1, 2: 1-10, Ps. 26; Heb. 1: 1-4, 2: 5-12; Mark 10: 2-16

Oct. 15: Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Ps. 22: 1-15; Heb. 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-21

Oct. 22: Job 38: 1-7 (34-41); Ps. 104: 1-9, 24, 35c; Heb. 5: 1-10; Mark 10: 35-45

Oct. 29: Job 42: 1-6, 10-17; Ps. 34: 1-8 (9-22); Heb. 7: 23-28; Mark 10: 46-52

Nov. 5: Ruth 1: 1-18; Ps. 146; Heb. 9: 11-14; Mark 12: 28-34

Nov. 12:Ruth 3: 1-5, 4: 13-17; Ps. 127; Heb. 9: 24-28; Mark 12: 38-44

Nov. 19: 1 Sam. 1: 4-20; I Sam. 2: 1-10; Heb. 10: 11-14 (15-18) 19-25; Mark 13: 1-8

Nov. 26: 2 Sam. 23: 1-7; Ps. 132: 1-12 (13-18); Rev. 1: 4b-8; John 18: 33-37

Church Assignments