Waiting for the deorbit burn....

I'm watching the live feed and waiting for the deorbit burn. Updates are also released here.

About Jews and Rabbits.

While I was stranded at the Orlando airport while returning from the Shuttle launch, I had the time and the Internet connection to do some preliminary research on the difficult relationship between Jews and Rabbits. I concluded that whether a gift of a rabbit would be appropriate or inappropriate was linked between the intended purpose of the rabbit, the time of year in which the rabbit was given, and possibly the form the rabbit took.

Rabbits as food.

Suppose you gave a Jew a rabbit to eat.... Well, rabbits are not kosher (see primary restriction on chewing cud and cloven hoof). Certainly most gentiles, and in fact many Jews question the value of remaining faithful to the dietary restrictions in the Torah, and subsequently developed by the rabbis that are now encapsulated in the laws of kashrut or "keeping kosher." Does it really DO something, to bury a fork in the ground because it accidentally touched meat and dairy? Does God really care all that much about it? Isn't kashrut fundamentally about keeping people from getting trichinosis from undercooked pork anyhow? Interesting questions for the purposes of debate, but ultimately up to each person to decide. And so you have two options here -- if you give a Jew a rabbit to each with disclosure, it's probably only an ettiquette issue, and they'll quite possibly decline. You've only revealed that you're not knowledgeable about kosher law. But if you give a Jew a rabbit to eat WITHOUT disclosure, it's a far worse thing. You're encouraging another person into sin. This is, by Jewish law, a sin in itself.

Conclusion: If you give a Jew a rabbit to eat, you're encouraging him to break a fundamental law of kashrut.
Suggestion: Don't give a Jew a rabbit as a snack. It may TASTE like chicken, but it's not nice to lead a person into sin, whether you agree with it or not.

Rabbits and Easter.

Suppose you gave a Jew a rabbit in the spring.... The line between Christianity and Judaism is fraught with peril, and in the spring, the line between Jews and rabbits is intense. After all, it's spring, it's beginning to be warm, flowers bud, baby animals arrive on the scene -- what could be more heartwarming than a rabbit that shows up on a beautiful spring day and hides brightly colored eggs for the joy of children? And yet, the superimposition of Christian folk-activity on the heaviness of the Jewish ritual of Passover may be the second most fun-unbalanced time of year. And you hear it over and over -- what's the harm in a few dyed eggs? It's not like it's about JESUS.... But it *is* about Christian interpretation of rebirth and resurrection, which draws an undeniable connection to Jesus and to Christianity for Jews, and is a line that we dare not cross, because when you give a Mouse a Jewish child who's got Easter eggs, well, the next thing you know, he'll want you to get a visit from Santa.

Conclusion: If you give a Jew a rabbit in the spring, he'll associate it with the Easter Bunny and question whether your motives are perhaps more ... insidious.
Suggestion: Don't give a Jew a rabbit during Passover.

Rabbits as Hats.

The only place where I could find an actual correlative connection between Jews and rabbits had to with hats. Improbable? Perhaps. Wikipedia has this to say about that:

"Samet (velvet) or biber (beaver) hats are worn by Galician and Hungarian Hasidim during the week and by unmarried men on Shabbat as well. Some unmarried men only wear a samet hat on the Sabbath and a felt hat during the week. There are many types of Samet hats, most notably the "high" ("hoicher") and "flat" ("platcher") varieties. The "flat" type is worn by Satmar Hasidim, and some others as well. Some Rabbis wear a "round" samet hat in a similar style to the shtofener hats, however made from the Samet material. They are called beaver hats even though today they are made from rabbit."

Conclusion: Some Jews wear rabbit hats.
Suggestion: It's probably okay with a Jew if you give him a rabbit hat.

It's probably just not okay with the rabbit.

Holding my breath....

The last few days have had me holding my breath, waiting for conclusive news about the tile damage on Endeavor. This morning's CNN report indicates that they are more concerned about further damage to the orbiter that could impact the schedule of upcoming missions, but are not so concerned about a catastrophic event that could mean harm to the crew, and that's reassuring to hear. Nevertheless, I'll be watching with bated breath until Barbara and the rest of the crew are safely back on terra firma.

I'm watching the Orlando Sentinel's space blog, The Write Stuff for information, and enjoying their account of the mission on other topics as well. They also have video of press conferences and the launch.

NASA's website also has great video of the launch (much better than mine!) and images from each day of the mission -- images and video can be accessed here.

So for now, I'm distracted, waiting for the next news.

Words fail me.

I'm waiting in the Orlando airport for my flight home, and each time I feel an airplane rumble past on the runway, I'm reminded of the sensations from yesterday evening's launch of Endeavor.

The opportunity to see again so many of the teachers who shared Barbara's fervor for both space and education for all of these years was incredible. I'm pleased to report that teachers don't apparently age, they just go on to found space science organizations of their own.

For now, I just want to share one image: a group of teachers in the bleachers at the Saturn V viewing site, chanting with tears in their eyes:

Give me a B!
Give me an A!
Give me an R!
Give me a B!
What does it spell?
BARB!

It was an undeserved honor to be with them for the launch.

An interesting question

I set up an account with statcounter.com, which allows me to see some very basic information about visits to my blogs. What browsers people use, what countries they come from, and sometimes there's an interesting tidbit in what search terms landed them at this site.

I can't resist raising a question that brought someone to this blog -- and offering to make an effort to answer it.

The question is this:

Why would it be inappropriate to give a Jewish person a rabbit?

Initially, all I can think is that the answer probably has to do with what you expect the Jewish person to do with it. But it's an interesting enough question that I never thought of that ... well, I just wanted to acknowledge it.

Oh, and I also want to point out that this is, as far as I know, the only search string that returns me FIRST in the list of results. I can't tell you how important it made me feel.

Go Barbara!

In 1987, I was a newly minted college graduate with a degree in the extremely business relevant area of Fine Arts, looking for work. I'd done some radio broadcasting. I'd done some work in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library's AV section. I'd used a mainframe. I'd studied religion. In other words, I had utterly no marketable skills.

So I contacted an agency for secretarial placements, and somehow ended up with a job as the Administrative Assistant to the Coordinator of the NASA Teacher in Space Project. My primary task -- to handle the public mail for Barbara Morgan, who had taken on the role of NASA's Teacher in Space, after being the backup to Christa McAuliffe. I mailed educational materials around to the Teacher in Space Ambassadors -- the 2 teachers from each state who were semifinalists. I gathered some statistical information about their speaking and educational engagements. I enjoyed the heck out of hanging around NASA Headquarters, and all of the interesting people who worked there.

But I'm not well-equipped for a life of secretarial support work. As I enter midlife, I'm amazed that I was able to hang on as long as I did, honestly -- it's a miracle, really. After about 2 years, I left for a job handling logistics for a Navy RADAR program, entered government contracting, moved into IT systems work, and never looked back.

But I always said that if Barbara ever flew, I'd want to be there.

Then about 3 years ago, I had a baby, and a lot of things fell off my own personal RADAR in the interference of long nights, diapers, bottles, pacifiers, daycare drop-offs and wet milk-smelling kisses. And it snuck up on me.

Last Friday, I came to the sudden realization that I'd nearly missed it. Barbara's mission, STS-118, was scheduled for next Tuesday, August 7th, at 7pm. I panicked. How could I have let that sneak up on me? I must have been distracted, chasing my 3-year-old son. And that very thing nearly prevented me from following up on the dream of 20 years to watch Barbara fly.

I have not for one night been further than 20 miles from my son, and on that one night, he was at his grandmother's house as a kind of "testflight" of his own. We both survived the separation that night, but there's no question that I felt the extra tension on that particular heartstring until my boy was back at my side the following day.

And so the prospect of jetting off to Florida and leaving my family behind was just not something I felt prepared to do on short order -- asking my husband to take over child care duties for 2 full days was the icing on the cake. I decided to try to get a good-wishes message to Barbara, and send my love with my friend and former colleague Ed in the public affairs office.

My husband told me I was nuts. "GO!" he insisted. I had no idea how to even begin to make arrangements. But Ed quickly responded: "they're having a conference. Here's the contact information."

And 20 years later, the hospitality of the Teacher in Space community is fully intact -- I got a happy-to-hear-from-you from everyone I spoke to, and a seat on the bus to go view the launch, and with the other "friends of TIS," a welcome to the conference activities. One of the conference participants even offered to let me "bunk" for the night I'll be there.

And so a few hours of arrangements later, I have tickets, a car, a hotel room, and a seat on the bus for the show I've been looking forward to for nearly my entire adult life. I'm sure my excitement pales by comparison with Barbara's, and any of the members of the Teacher in Space community, but I'm still hardly able to contain my delight, and my prayers for a safe and joyful launch and return. My camera is packed!

Wren Chapel

On November 16, 2006, Gene Nichol, president of the College of William and Mary, took a bold step toward religious equality in the public college environment. President of the college now for less than two full academic years, Nichol made a small yet magnificent change in an environment where history and tradition rule, for all the right reasons.

If you've been to Williamsburg, you've seen the Wren Building. It is the heart and soul of the campus of the College of William and Mary, even for students who enter it only to ring the bell after completing a last final exam. It's the building on the postcard you send home to your parents when you finally begin to miss them, somewhere when the weather turns cold and muddy, right around November. It's the building you want to go back to when you return to campus, decades later with a partner or spouse and maybe your children. You want to feel the worn wooden floor under your feet again, and smell the dust of hundreds of years of scholars and classes and books. You want to stand in the college yard just at the right time of day to catch the sun glinting off the glazed headers in its lovely Flemish bond brickwork. You remember going up the stairs and ringing the bell, and the delicious feeling of freedom when all that stands between you and graduation is, well, your professors grading your exams. For the William and Mary graduate, the mystique of the Wren Building is powerful.

The Wren Building, and perhaps most importantly the Wren Chapel, is the ritual center of campus life, as well. Not only for religious services, but for meetings of student organizations, societies, and campus rituals like the annual Yule Log ceremony, and of course marriages. By policy, the Wren Chapel is a facility available to all students and faculty. And until November, it was nearly continuously presided over by a large cross on the altar, on loan from nearby Bruton Parish Church since 1940, which could be removed by arrangement for events where the cross would have been inappropriate.

Imagine for a moment that you're a non-Christian student, entering that space for a meeting. Just a meeting. A board meeting for a campus organization. Are you going to ask that the cross be removed? As in so many places in American culture, are you prepared for the dismissive look, like you're overreacting if you ask that someone else remove the trappings of their religious faith for an event when they are not appropriate? Probably not. But then, can you avoid the subtle message you receive from the placement of that cross? The little voice that says "This is a Christian space. We'll let you use it, but you have to ASK, and don't forget - it's ours. By the way? You're a minority." At a gut level, there's a division between you and the college. It's not our college; it's THEIR college, and you're being let in out of benevolence. You are at their mercy for the right to be in this space.

In November of 2006, Nichol boldly had the cross removed from the chapel, reversing the previous policy by stating that the cross could be requested for use for a specific event where it was appropriate. In Nichol's words:

And though we haven’t meant to do so, the display of a Christian cross—the most potent symbol of my own religion—in the heart of our most important building sends an unmistakable message that the Chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others. That there are, at the College, insiders and outsiders. Those for whom our most revered place is meant to be keenly welcoming, and those for whom presence is only tolerated. That distinction, I believe, to be contrary to the best values of the College.

It is precisely because the Wren Chapel touches the best in us—the brightened lamp, the extended hand, the opened door, the call of character, the charge of faith, the test of courage—that it is essential it belong to everyone. There is no alternate Wren Chapel, no analogous venue, no substitute space. Nor could there be. The Wren is no mere museum or artifact. It touches every student who enrolls at the College. It defines us. And it must define us all.

I make no pretense that all will agree with these sentiments. The emotions and values touched by this dispute are deeply felt. But difficult issues are the grist of great universities. Amidst the turmoil, the cross continues to be displayed on a frequent basis. I have been pleased to learn that students of disparate religions have reported using the Chapel for worship and contemplation for the first time. In the College’s family there should be no outsiders. All belong.

Debate has been furious, and as a member of the graduating class of 1986, I have watched the media attention on my small college with extreme feeling.

Those who argued for the return of the Wren Chapel cross spoke eloquently about the origins of the college as a school designed to Christianize the local native Americans, and the school's origins indeed were to further Christianity. But today William and Mary is a state college, not a religious institution, and has a student body that ranges the religious spectrum, each with equal standing.

Other arguments for the return of the cross focused on the long tradition of the presence of the cross. And admittedly, the cross has been in that location since before I was born, and you won't find a group fonder of tradition than the college community. But the cross has stood there for a mere 67 years; a blip in the lifespan of a college whose sports-event chant spelling out The College of William and Mary in Virginia Founded in 1693 (another "tradition") can take upwards of twenty minutes.

These arguments are no surprise, and perfectly logical. It's the anguish, really, of the voices calling for the return of the cross that surprised me the most. Could they genuinely not understand what it is like from the other side of the table? Can they not find any empathy for the feelings of those who have quietly tolerated the imposition of another's religion in situations like this for their entire lives? The moderate voices, the well-reasoned representatives of Christianity include Mr. Nichol himself, as well as David L. Holmes, who spoke eloquently as always on the matter during a public debate where he made it clear that he was not representing the college, but voicing a community perspective that DID have empathy for both sides.

In the end, the only explanation I could find for the seemingly extreme reaction of some was the realization that Christianity is simply no longer the default religion of our culture, and that Christians are no longer entitled to a louder voice or more comprehensive control of community assets. Reasonable minds have anticipated and prepared themselves for this. But to some, it's a shock to think that the status quo they are familiar with may eventually change. And I can understand that this represents a major change to their sense of their position in the community. Having to share is hard -- ask me, I have a two-year-old. But like a toddler who has never had to share before, those who feel entitled to perpetual control of the Wren Chapel are not playing well with the other children.

Clearly mediation and cool minds to find a middle path were in order. In January 2007, Nichol engaged representatives of the college administration, faculty, students, and alumni to engage in the Committee on Religion at a Public University, to address the issue and recommend a resolution. The Committee returned quickly with an unexpected and elegant solution, acknowledging the deep feelings of those who find meaning in the presence of the cross in the chapel, while removing it from its position of ritual authority, except as requested for specific events.

THE WREN CHAPEL CROSS SHALL BE RETURNED FOR PERMANENT DISPLAY IN THE CHAPEL IN A GLASS CASE. THE CASE SHALL BE LOCATED IN A PROMINENT, READILY VISIBLE PLACE, ACCOMPANIED BY A PLAQUE EXPLAINING THE COLLEGE'S ANGLICAN ROOTS AND ITS HISTORIC CONNECTION TO BRUTON PARISH CHURCH. THE WREN SACRISTY SHALL BE AVAILABLE TO HOUSE SACRED OBJECTS OF ANY RELIGIOUS TRADITION FOR USE IN WORSHIP AND DEVOTION BY MEMBERS OF THE COLLEGE COMMUNITY.

In his statement on the establishment of the committee, Nichol says:

I have sought, then, to find ways to assure that the Wren Chapel is equally open and welcoming to every member of this community. My goal has not been to bleach all trace of religious thought and influence from our facilities and programs, but rather to offer the inspiration of the Wren to all.

And I say "Well done."

I am undone by the generosity of spirit Nichol brought to the college, and the wisdom of those he chose to resolve this issue. I am undone by the feeling, so many years after I left campus, that my college shares my values about religious diversity and fairness. I have never been so proud to call the College of William and Mary mine.