Who am I and what do I want?

(first posted on CrossLeft on Sun, 01/20/2008 - 23:43)

Honestly? I don't really know who I am and I discover day by day yet another thing I really really want. Here's a written semi-bio for a start:

Janet Detter Margul is a retired journalist living in north central Texas with pharmacist husband, attorney daughter, three unemployed cats and one dog who thinks he is a cat. She is always being surprised at what she remembers that those around her don't, usually because they weren't born when that happened. She is not old, she insists, explaining that she's young and foolish with a half century of experience at it.

She's always had a very high interest in political matters, and has clocked many hours doing the most mundane (but important!) tasks of campaign work. She started her political activism as a Republican (they supported the ERA) and isn't real sure when things changed, but found herself unable, ethically, to go where the party was leading.

She found a lot of support for her political views within her Episcopal parish family, and quickly decided the liberal/progressive label fit best. Her religious beliefs have always influenced her political actions, enough so that knowing what was the right thing to do and explaining it was often answered with a "just take it on faith, it's one of those unseen things."

She's recently found herself among the "unchurched," as her parish was one of those that chose to break away from the Episcopal Church of the USA. As of today, there is not an Episcopalian church in her wee village of almost 300,000 people, which irritates and grieves her at least once a week, usually on Sunday. She's sure there's a blog in there somewhere, as soon as she gets a better handle on the mourning for the parish that meant so much.

Thus ends the reading of the already written.

I named this blog "Faith of our Grandmothers" because when I put "faith of our fathers" it just didn't feel accurate. In my family, and I think in most families, at least in the south, the culture is passed through our mothers and our grandmothers. I am one of the extremely blessed to have had both my grandmothers living well through my college years, my daughter had years to get to know them both. I miss both of them now, in widely different ways.

I was closest to my mother's mother (matriarchal society, told ya) I miss her daily and talk to her daily, on my lucky days I can hear her answer back. And usually that answer is "Now Janet, you're better than that." And usually I am not better than whatever I was whining to her about, she always saw me as better than I was, but, just like always, I resolve to try to BE better, because my grandmother always believes me to be so.

There will be more grandmother stories, more family stories, because I have a rich heritage of funny stories. For now I'll call me introduced enough and promise more insights in the days to come. It's an honor to be a featured blogger for CrossLeft, because CrossLeft is like a group tailor-made just for me.