Home at last! This has been a wild and unpredictable ride at times but it's over. We are Jewish. Well, the kids and I are. John chose not to convert at this time. Whether or not he does is a matter for him to decide but he supports us and that's all that matters. My conversion was Saturday night (just 4 days after surgery) and the kids were named on Sunday. Mom came to visit and be a part of our joy which was important to us. Being a military family means we are always away from family and it's nice to have someone from the family make the effort to come for something that is important to us. (Of course we recognize that is not always possible.) Anyway, we are Jewish now, we all have Jewish names and we maintain a Jewish home. I couldn't be any happier with our decision. We will move to Montgomery Al soon but I will stay connected to this Temple here by being the newsletter editor for them which is nice. If I will miss anything about this area, this temple and its members are it.

On another note, I've been mulling over the current state of our country and what's amiss...and it's less a Democrat/Republican issue....and not a Liberal/Conservative one either. It's Capitalism run amok that is causing trouble. I see no way for this to change unless we have a Revolution so it's time to make plans to live in a world where prices rise unchecked all the while the Democrats are trying to heap on more income taxes and the Republicans are giving huge tax breaks to the ultra-rich. So it's time for all able bodied people to get their rear ends in gear and do something.

The something I think needs to be done is a reorganization of our society to a move back to a pseudo-tribal one. We have 6 years until retirement from the USAF and after that we have to make a decision about where to go and what to do. My dream is to create a co-housing/compound living property with like-minded people where a portion of the land is devoted to growing food. Vegetables and fruits...nuts and seeds. Animals grown for meat in the most compassionate and comfortable way possible. This will be a place where we will function as a society within the larger society. Pitching in and helping each other with child care, farming, chores etc...the way life used to be minus the cholera and the religious extremism.

I believe this is the way our socitey must go to save itself and I'm devoting this next 6 yrs to making sure this can happen. So much must be decided, so much money raised...so much to do but having a plan makes it all the more doable. Why do this with other people? Because I've longed for connection for the last 14 yrs and I want that when we stop moving around for the USAF. I want the kids to grow up with a giant extended family, socialize with kids who have families that look like ours, to know what life can be like when people live in peace and with understanding. Pipe dream? Perhaps. But it's one worth nuturing.

How some decisions change your life in unexpected ways

We all know that certain decisions will change your life. Steal something, get caught, go to jail. That's not a mystery. Get pregnant and have a baby and your life will change...also not a mystery. But other changes can catch you unaware.

Recently I've made two changes to my life. I've converted to Judaism and I've adopted a brown child. Her racial identity isn't important because that's not what caused the change. The change came because she's brown. People look at us now. Sometimes I can tell people are just curious. Other times we get glares or people avoiding us. For the most part people have been good about the adoption but even parts of the family have been less than enthusiastic about this addition. Is it because she's brown? Doesn't share our DNA? Or are they just not interested because they simply don't care? Because we adopted I now see all interactions or lack of interactions this way. That has changed.

I've been called a "Jew Bitch" in traffic and spit at by a Muslim tech at a Dr's office. Obviously anti-semitism is alive and well in our world. I was not particularly upset by either incident because the people who did those things are from groups that I expect to be hostile towards Jews. But that I was anticipating these things means that my life has changed.

What this all means really is that we have given up portions of our White privilege...something most white people don't even realize they have. Our brown daughter as gained some white privilege by virtue of being adopted into a white family but not enough to get her treated as an equal by white people. It's an odd feeling being thrust into this new position on the social scale.

I'm not sure what this means long term and how it will change our lives but for better or worse, we have cast our lot with the Jewish people and our daughter can not change the color of her skin. The world will have to accept us as we are, our family will have to accept us as we are, or even more changes will have to be made. How can we change the world? Well just noticing what we had before, because it's gone now has made me aware of what is still very wrong with the world. Is there something I can do to change it? I don't know. But it's something I'm looking into. Things have to change if we want peace in this country. And I think the change begins with families like mine.

With Choices, come change

We have our daughter home with us now, she's been ours for two months but it doesn't seem possible that she hasn't always been here. It's not all daisies and candy, but she's a good girl and doing well.

During our wait for her, I made the decision to go through with converting to Judaism. It's something I've wanted since I was young and I realized that all my floundering around "playing" at religion was in fact meandering down the path to where I should have been all along. Were it not for this Christian dominated culture I may well have come to the decision sooner. It is not that I am worried about not being mainstream or anti-semitism, but that Christianity just dominates every facet of our culture that it pushes aside other choices and made me feel like it was Christianity or nothing. And since I can not abide the message of Christianity and a vast number of "representatives" of Christ I chose Nothing. But now I am where I feel as though I belong. It is a real sense of coming home. Anyway, I should have my conversion ceremony by May and then the kids will have theirs. I'm not sure what John will do or not do. He takes a long time to decide things.

This brings me to a kind of sad thing, through adopting a brown child and becoming Jewish, some of our family and friends have decided that they can no longer be involved with us. It's sad to know that people are so small. I am sorry that the decisions I've made for my life has caused me to lose people I cared for, but that's their decision and they are certainly welcome to their beliefs. It does disturb me to find this ugliness in the ranks of those whom I loved but it's better to know now than not know they are there.

The one discussion I haven't had with the boys is telling them that they have lost some of their white privilege. How do you tell kids that by choosing to be Jewish, some things will no longer be available to them? That by virtue of the Star of David around their necks some people will wish them dead? Certainly, this is not the West Bank and I'm not trying to say that it's that level of danger, but to assume that there are not people walking the streets here that think those things is folly. I have already been called a "Jew Bitch" once...by a Baptist. It is all very difficult to process.

I was confronted by an old man in the commissary over bringing a Chinese person into the US. Luckily Morgan doesn't understand much English so she wasn't hurt by it. But I was unprepared for this encounter. Prejudice is everywhere and it is offered up by more than just the people you expect to see it from. And now my family is no longer insulated completely from it. It's at once a troubling experience, and a gift because certainly we will now feel more compassion than we did before for those who can not hide from it.