Only kinda back

[elainegrey]

I slept most of Saturday, yesterday was Meeting and a discussion afterward. I did cycle 30 minutes on the trainer: i am using the disruption of being away as opening a place for a more disciplined exercise practice. I thought a great deal about the spiritual and ecological value of disruption during worship. I was clerking the meeting for worship (to the extent there needs to be a clerk) and, when i do so, i often visualize plowing, thinking about preparing the self for receiving new awareness.

Plowing is a controlled, human chosen disruption. Ecological systems need other disruptions: floods that move silt and nutrients to fertile plains and estuaries, winds that knock down trees open up the forest canopy for younger plants to succeed, beavers dam creeks creating ponds that slowly fill to become meadows, fires convert dead wood to nutrients clearing underbrush and triggering new growths.

Disruption (destruction) opens way for new ways of being.

So framing the disruption of this ten days away as an opportunity for intentional change instead of an interruption that has me all "behind" at home.

I note that the value of disruption comes when one is prepared for it: plowing without sowing brings forth a crop of weeds, and ecosystems have evolved so that there are organisms waiting for the opportunity that disruption brings. I am prepared for a change where i exercise more, thus i was able to just do so yesterday.

What other ways can i prepare for disruption? (Getting back to the career clarity practice is another preparation for disruption.)

My other writing this morning was to a system which labeled me male on a profile page that was automatically set up for me.

Dear Friends:

I'd like to ask you to reexamine your choice of a gender marker that defaults to "male" on the account profile, particularly in light of your values:

1. Treat people as human beings first.
4. Dare to be open and honest.

Apparently, your default is to treat me as a *male* human being first, unless i prompt you to change that. Furthermore, you do not allow those who are trans or queer to identify themselves, preventing them from being "open and honest."

I see no need to promulgate male privilege and cis-privledge on your profile page.

Before you just add an undeclared field, though, could you reflect on why you need a gender field? Obviously, you can't be using it for demographics as presuming all registrants are male undermines that purpose.

Are you using the gender field so you can address me more accurately in automated systems? A far more progressive way to fulfill that software need is to present users with pronoun sets. Note that the pronoun options need to go beyond he and she, and can easily include a few more options that will allow others to be open and complete. (Asking for "Preferred pronouns" is problematic [2].)

If you are presenting this so others can review my profile and discern more detail about me, you can leave gender as a free text field [3]

I honestly don't know why you need the field at all, particularly with your first stated value. I will not be changing it.

Sincerely,
[me]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_pronoun#Pronouns_and_transgender_persons
[2] http://invisiblyqueer.blogspot.com/2012/01/pronoun-preference.html
[3] http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2010/11/26/disalienation/