1. Lately, members of our family, both here and across the USA, have had discussions about code-switching, the word used for the practice of people alternating between languages or vernaculars depending on who they are speaking with. Examples of code-switching are various and multiple. Any number of people, American Indian tribal members, indigenous peoples of Alaska, African-Americans, and many others who live in one kind of ethnic neighborhood or community or another often speak one way with one another and switch the way they talk with people outside their community.
It's common.
National Public Radio produces a regular program and podcast entitled, Code Switch. The program explores "how race affects every part of society -- from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between."
I've known about this program for many years, but, until today, I hadn't listened to any episodes.
Since code-switching has been a recent topic of family discussion, I decided that while I huffed and puffed at the Fitness Center, I'd choose an episode of Code Switch and listen to it.
Especially after listening to Sarah McCammon's interview on Monday, this episode title at Code Switch caught my eye: "A former church girl's search for a new spiritual home".
So I clicked on it and listened to Jess Alvarenga tell her story.
She was raised in a Pentecostal church, had deep and joyous experiences with prayer, fellowship, and with having been (these are my words) slain by the Holy Ghost.
But Jess is queer.
Her sexuality and the Pentecostal church didn't mesh.
So, Jess went searching.
In this episode, she interviews a dominatrix and together they talk about the spiritual dimensions of BDSM.
At the top of this episode, the people at Code Switch made it clear that this episode would deal with sexual content that some listeners would prefer not to hear talked about.
As I huffed and puffed and listened to Jess Alvarenga tell her story and the dominatrix tell her story and as they both discussed their spiritual journeys, they expanded my notions of spiritual experience and healing and, as it turns out, connected me back to stories and experiences some of my Lane Community College students had confided to me many years ago.
Jess Alvarenga also spent time interviewing Buddhist monks who experienced spiritual enrichment through the ingesting of psychedelic mushrooms.
Jess Alvarenga's last interview brought her back to where the episode began, in a way. She interviewed a Berkley Pentecostal pastor, a pastor who was accepting of Jess Alvarenga as a queer woman, who moved her with his openness and loving spirit.
Jess Alvarenga's search for a spiritual home is ongoing.
If you'd like to go beyond my summation of this episode and listen to it yourself, just go here.
2. I continued my exploration of Code Switch by listening to an episode entitled, "Women of color have always shaped the way Americans eat". In this episode, we hear immigrant women cooks not only discuss how they cook and how they think about cooking, we also hear about the obstacles they face in the publishing world as they work to have cookbooks they've written published.
If you'd like to listen to this episode, it's right here -- I enjoyed how hungry it made me feel!
3. As I went to sleep tonight, I listened to a Fresh Air interview with E. Tammy Kim. Kim wrote an article back in January for the The New Yorker about the 2020 ballot measure Oregon voters overwhelmingly passed decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of hard drugs. In this episode, Dave Davies interviews Kim about the article and the unforeseen difficulties that arose as the new law turned out to look much better on paper than it was in reality. You can listen to the interview here.
I don't know if The New Yorker article is protected by a paywall. If not, it's here.
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