Category Archives: Church

March 29, 2016 · 5:14 pm

Easter Egg Hunt 2016

Sunday morning was our annual backyard Easter Egg Hunt – a very popular event among our friends, family, and neighbors. Children ages 20 months to 20 years joined the search for hundreds of plastic eggs filled with chocolate candies. For the adults, there were two specially hidden eggs: gold and silver. Only the following unreasonably-hard poems gave clues to their locations:

Silver Egg
(Hidden in the thatch of a jasmine vine on an arbor)
A Silvery Sonnet in Iambic Quadrameter

You’d have to share Bruce Banner’s height
to see me, though Scott Lang’s would do.
I spy Prince Adam’s gift and strong
John Henry’s lifelong deadly work;
those battlefield banner icons
of Henry IV and Richard III;
Cascadian separatists’
beloved Doug rises near me.
You Ravenclaws’ll examine text,
Those Gryffindors’ll fetch ladders,
Gauche Slytherins will counterfeit,
my badgers — Hufflepuffs — prevail!
I shine like the good captain’s shield,
keep on your search and don’t you yield!

Gold Egg
(taped to the top of a tree branch ten feet above the ground)
A Golden Sonnet in Rondel Form

From my stand I see tall privets
and high above me is a tree
above which trucks flew high & free
that now shade stones & thin rivlets.

You ate breakfast warm off trivets
while I perched here meek with glee
from my stand I see tall privets
and high above me is a tree.

My neighbor’s the joy of kid-lets
and grown-ups too shade in her lee
warm on her couch you can see me
above kitty’s curling ringlets.
From my stand I see tall privets.

Thanks to the Associate Easter Bunnies: my daughter Jessica for the poems, and son Paul who stuffed 775 eggs, and to John and Matthew and all the friends and family for helping create the festivities. Such a delightful celebration of Spring and renewal!

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Tagged as garden, Jessica, John, Matthew, Paul, San Jose

March 25, 2016 · 1:47 pm

Three Border Walls

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down. …
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
– Robert Frost, 1914

After watching John Oliver’s 20 March 2016 comic-news analysis on the proposed Border Wall, I remembered the lines in “Mending Wall“, the first poem I read by the great American poet Robert Frost. I have had experience with three border walls in recent years:

Israel-Palestine Wall – Bethlehem, 2016

Between the TechWomen Delegations to Jordan and Zimbabwe, last month a group of us visited Gaza and the West Bank in addition to more usual Israel-Palestine tourist locations such as Jerusalem and Masada. Bethlehem is a mixed Muslim-Christian city in the West Bank, typified for me by Manger Square, which has the Church of the Nativity at one end and the Mosque of Omar at the other. The wall runs through Bethlehem, in one case right around an existing home.

This wall is regularly a target location for violent confrontations between citizens and soldiers, one of which we regrettably observed from two blocks away, as we were preparing to leave the city. The wall is also a ground for artistic and political communication: it is covered with paintings and graffiti, including some by famous artists like Banksy. In a Bethlehem shop, we saw a traditional olive wood nativity scene – with the addition of a barrier wall keeping out the three wise men.

Berlin Wall Sections – Mountain View, California, 2010

Two graffitied sections of the 1961-1989 Berlin Wall lived in an office park near where I worked in Mountain View, California, for many years. I used to visit them sometimes during lunch, thinking of the people who died climbing the Berlin Wall trying to get to freedom. In 2013, the sections were moved to the front of the public library.

The original sign in front of these sections said: “…Between November 9 and 12, 1989 the Wall was breached; not from without with bombs or bullets, but from within by the sound of freedom and the vision of a better life that had drifted over the Wall. The World must not forget that it was America’s resolve and its political and economic ideals that made this bloodless revolution and most significant historical event possible.” I don’t know if that sign is still with the sections since they moved.

Berlin Wall Section, Mountain View, California, 2010

California USA-Mexico Wall, 2008

In 2008, my husband and I flew with friends to Baja California to see the grey whales at Laguna San Ignacio. Coming home, we got fuel and checked out with Mexican customs in Mexicali, then flew 9 miles north across the US border to check in at Calexico. The Calexico general aviation airport is directly on the USA-Mexico border fence. It was strange to see our two nations that are culturally and economically one family – with a line drawn between them.

Photos Copyright by Katy Dickinson 2008-2016

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Tagged as Israel, John, Mexico, Middle East, Palestine

March 16, 2016 · 3:46 pm

Understanding Gaza

In the month since I was in Gaza City, I have been thinking through that journey. Living in East Palo Alto for 20 years and teaching in a prison are two experiences that have given me some perspective on Gaza. I lived in EPA when it was named the murder capital of America. (EPA was where I could afford a house as a single mother working in the Silicon Valley – lower house prices being one of its virtues.) I recently started mentoring an EfM seminar at Elmwood Jail in Milpitas. Both EPA and jail can be dangerous and depressing places, but they can also be home and a ground for community support, growth, laughter, and love. When we visited Gaza, I saw devastation, poverty, and political anger but I was warmly welcomed by hundreds of locals who are building their lives and working to raise their community from the ruins. Five of us went to Gaza together: Erin Keeley, Eileen Brewer, Aliya Janjua, my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, and me. It was the first visit by a group of executive technical women ever hosted by MercyCorps and Gaza Sky Geeks. Ours was also the first group visit by TechWomen mentors to our Palestinian mentees.

When I got back from three weeks in the Middle East and Africa, I briefly described Jordan, Israel – Palestine, and Zimbabwe to the men in my class at Elmwood. Trying to explain Gaza, I compared its twenty-year siege to lockdown, when inmates are immediately locked in their cells and all jail visitors must quickly leave because of an emergency situation. While we were with the TechWomen Delegation in Jordan and during the two days we toured Israel before going to Gaza, we often heard deep surprise that we would be allowed in at all. While we were in Gaza City, people on the street were very surprised to see us shopping and eating out. We were told that many outsiders who visit Gaza drive through quickly, surrounded by guards. We did follow MercyCorps’ rules to only go out during the day and early evening and always to be accompanied by a MercyCorps staff member but we were treated with hospitality and respect whereever we went. Of course, I mostly was with my 2014 mentee Mai Temraz and her charming family!

Although Gaza is primarily Islamic, we visited the 50-bed Ahli Arab Hospital (supported by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem) and the Church of Saint Porphyrius (Greek Orthodox) between giving presentations on mentoring, venture capital, design thinking, crowd funding and other professional topics. One effect of the long siege of Gaza is that the small Ahli Arab Hospital treats tens of thousands of patients per year with a mortality rate for diseases such a breast cancer at about triple – partly because of a lack of local medical facilities and the difficulty in getting patients out of Gaza promptly for treatment elsewhere.

One of the most difficult conversations I had several times with professional women in Gaza was whether they should stay or go. Gaza is blessed with many talented and educated people whom it needs to rebuild after each conflict ends. However, those are the people who can most easily qualify for graduate school, jobs, and programs elsewhere – which may be the best choice for them and their immediate families. My prayers are with the people of Gaza every day.

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Filed under Church, Mentoring & Other Business, Mentoring Standard, News & Reviews

Tagged as Education for Ministry, Geeks, Israel, Jail, Jessica, Mentoring, Middle East, Palestine, teaching, technical women, TechWomen, Zimbabwe

March 13, 2016 · 5:40 pm

TechWomen in Zimbabwe

Catching up on my blogging with my adventures as a member of the TechWomen Delegation to Zimbabwe, 20-28 February 2016. This was my 8th Delegation trip since 2011, and 4th trip to the region of Sub-Saharan Africa. Zimbabwe was the third country of a three-week trip, after a week in Jordan and a week in Israel-Palestine. Each of these journeys has been fascinating and different from the others!

The Delegation stayed at the Meikles Hotel in Harare but made day trips to Mbare, Bindura, and Bulawayo among other locations nearer the capital. We visited girls in school as well as programs and universities focused on STEM, including: TechWomen Zimbabwe’s Pamusha Project (at Chitsere Primary School, Mbare), University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Institute of Engineers, Harare Institute of Technology, Bindura University, African Regional Intellectual Property Organization, and the National University of Science and Technology (Bulawayo).

We had some opportunities to see Zimbabwe’s famed wildlife (zebras, giraffes, antelope, wildebeests, lions, leopards, baboons…) but that was not a big focus for our trip. I was much more interested in the technical challenges and entrepreneurial accomplishments of a country which has at least 80% unemployment (for which the most common computing device is a cell phone) – and in their creative artworks. I found many chances to use the Notable Technical Women materials to present role models and career choices to the hundreds of friendly and fascinating women and girls with whom I spoke.

After the delegation ended, I had an opportunity to meet with some of the leaders of the Anglican Diocese of Harare and to shop for Shona stone sculptures, printed cloth, and reclaimed metal work art at the remarkable Newlands craft street market in Harare.

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Tagged as Africa, Israel, Jordan, Mentoring, Palestine, teaching, technical women, TechWomen, Zimbabwe

January 19, 2016 · 6:22 pm

Understanding King Lear

Our Shakespeare reading group met on Sunday to read his 1606 masterpiece King Lear aloud, and share a potluck meal in a local home. I wrote my Honors Thesis at U.C. Berkeley on King Lear, so I felt very well prepared for this reading. John Watson-Williams presented the part of Lear wonderfully, and I very much enjoyed reading both Cordelia and The Fool (as a doubled role). We had fifteen readers in all to cover characters of the court and countryside. It is delightful listening to good people enjoy developing nasty roles like Edmund the Bastard, Goneril, Regan, Duke Cornwall, and Oswald.

When I wrote my thesis as a university student, I understood the interaction between Lear and his daughters in a 21-year-old’s context. Now (a few years later), after my father passed on at 85 (about Lear’s age), and I am managing my 84-year-old mother’s affairs, I hear the play differently. I know Goneril to be greedy, vicious, and unfilial but her plea to her father in Act I, Scene IV rings true:

Come, sir,
I would you would make use of that good wisdom,
Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away
These dispositions, that of late transform you
From what you rightly are.

King Lear is part of my life: a play that is deep and broad and always fresh, offering new understanding with every reading. The Shakespeare reading group is based at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California) but we welcome readers from the community. We meet every other month: next up is Richard II, in April.

On 24 January 2016, I asked John Watson-Williams to pose as King Lear in front of St. Andrew’s Mark Adams stained glass window of Chaos. John WW gave me three aspects of Lear: benign, stern, and mad:

John Watson-Williams as benign King Lear 2016

John Watson-Williams as stern King Lear 2016

John Watson-Williams as mad King Lear 2016

Top Image: King Lear Act I, Scene 1: Image from Shakespeare-Gallerie, printed in Berlin around 1885

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Tagged as Shakespeare, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, University of California

November 14, 2015 · 7:40 pm

Farsi, Art, Prayer at Elmwood Jail

This year, I have been working in a ministry new to me: visiting the prisoners at the Elmwood jail in Milpitas, California, as part of the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy. This is one of the outreach efforts of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Saratoga, which has supported a variety of jail ministries for many decades. Since last summer, I have started visiting the jail once a month, after going through an extensive application, clearance and training process. Some volunteers visit more often. The Rev. Peggy Bryan leads our group of three in a Sunday afternoon service of song and prayer each week. We use a basic form of the same service used at St. Andrew’s on Sunday mornings. Peggy brings in recorded music chosen by the inmates – and they also sing songs to us as part of our worship.

I have gotten to know a little about some of the prisoners in the group we visit. One inmate is an older man from Iran who mostly speaks Farsi and asked if we could find him books in his native language. My Farsi-speaking friends found him an English-Farsi dictionary a few weeks ago and this week I am bringing him two novels. Another inmate drew the images you see here. The men only have access to short pencils – he does his drawings on envelopes. He told me that he learned to draw watching his mother who is a tattoo artist, and from reading a basic art book that someone gave him. Prisoners make their pencils longer by using string made from plastic bags woven into a long sleeve that grips the wooden casing. The 35 year old native of San Jose, California, said his advice to other artists is “Never give up, keep trying!”

The inmates we visit can be at Elmwood for up to five years and many are still in the justice process, waiting for their cases to be heard or resolved. They live in a barracks-style room with about forty other men, wearing pale green or brown clothes with orange plastic sandals. Some of the men are leaders or caretakers for their community, others are more passive. Their lives are on hold while they are in jail.

16 Nov 2015 Update: I visited Elmwood yesterday and showed the inmates a printout of this blog post. All three seemed pleased and gave me permission to share their stories. If you are interested in serving in this jail ministry, please contact the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy.

21 Jan 2016 Updated to omit names

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Tagged as Episcopal church, Jail, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

July 6, 2015 · 5:51 pm

Israel, Palestine at Episcopal General Convention

I wrote on 25 June about attending two Social Justice and International Policy legislative committee meetings (morning and afternoon) where it was standing room only at the 78th Episcopal General Convention (GC) in Salt Lake City. On 3 July, I wrote that the House of Deputies discussed Israel-Palestine restorative justice. The topic of Israel-Palestine was one of the most controversial discussed at GC, after church structure, and marriage. What I did not write is that B013 Peacemaking Through Political Action was the only resolution that was voted on twice by the House of Deputies.

B013 came out of Committee 7 – Social Justice and International Policy – after six hours of public testimony by witnesses. My own witness was one of those quoted in “Money and the Holy Land: Committee Hears Testimony” in the “House of Deputies News” on 26 June. There was a followup article: “How best to invest in the Holy Land: Deputies debate divestment” on 27 June.The two sides of the question on whether the Episcopal Church should divest from Israel were: Stay at table, engage to make change vs. Divest, do not profit by occupation. Seven different resolutions on this topic were considered but only B013 made it out of committee, through the House of Bishops, to the House of Deputies.

After B013 was passed by the House of Bishops, the resolution was sent to the House of Deputies on 3 July for concurrence. I was glad to be sitting with the Deputation of the Diocese of El Camino Real (ECR) in the House of Deputies (rather than in the Alternates section) at the time that vote came up on the legislative calendar. I was one of the 83% who voted for concurrence with B013. That afternoon, there was a motion to reconsider B013. There was a brief discussion (my favorite comment was: “It is not a good idea to negotiate peace in the Holy Land on the floor of the House of Deputies”), then 62% of the House of Deputies voted against reconsidering B013.

My two favorite sections of B013 are:

…Resolved, That the General Convention encourage The Episcopal Church to (1) embrace the principles of restorative justice in its advocacy and engagement for the just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and (2) engage and support the voices of both Israelis and Palestinians—especially those who are themselves victims of violence and injustice—who seek peace with justice through nonviolent and restorative responses to the conflict; and be it further

Resolved, That the General Convention support existing efforts toward restorative justice by urging the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society [the full name of The Episcopal Church] to identify and find creative ways to commend, support, and elevate the work of local peace-building and economic development initiatives, including those of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and the Middle East and grassroots organizations jointly led by Israelis and Palestinians…