Clausen House is considering potential new members for its Board of Directors. I am Secretary to the Board and we are seeking to expand our numbers. I think you would find this service as personally rewarding as I have since I joined in 2021. Baseline requirements for Board service are 3 to 6 hours a month (including service on one committee), plus a meaningful annual donation.
About Clausen House:
“Founded in 1967, Clausen House is a registered charitable 501(c)(3) institution that provides housing, wellness programs, and advocacy for developmentally disabled adults in Oakland and the surrounding East Bay area. Our clients are adults challenged by autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and other intellectually and developmentally disabling conditions. We currently support 200 adults with developmental disabilities, and indirect support to their families in Oakland and throughout Alameda County.” (More information is on About Clausen House.)
Please contact me if you are interested!
Clausen House Board 2023-05-24 at 6.17.31 PM
Images Copyright (c) 2023 Katy Dickinson. If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right on Katysblog home).
“This is a shifting time of change in the potential for reparations to African Americans, especially where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the last few months, the governments of the State of California and the City and County of San Francisco have both been considering major financial reparations proposals on which legislation may be developed, with details being discussed almost daily in both the progressive and conservative news media. One group wrote on the California task force, ‘In addition to remedying the lingering effects of slavery, the report seeks to compensate black Californians for five categories of harms: housing discrimination, mass incarceration, unjust property seizures, and the devaluation of black businesses and health care.’ Other cities and states have made the national news discussing or acting on reparations, and a national bill supporting reparations has just been submitted in the U.S. Congress. In introducing this new legislation calling for $14 trillion in reparations, Representative Cori Bush said, ‘The United States has a moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm on the lives of millions of Black people.’
Despite the inherent lack of perspective in responding to very current events, in this paper I present four well known reparations cases and then propose next steps to achieve practical and sustainable reparations for African Americans. The course of action I propose will be based on some of the work that is already being done, as well as addressing gaps where more efforts are needed.”
If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right on Katysblog home). Image Copyright (c) 2023 by the Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson Charitable Art Trust.
Satan with Angels and Adam, Bal’ami, Annals of al-Tabari manuscript, 1413-1416,
Topkapı Saray Museum, Istanbul, Turkey,
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1928.
My term paper is titled “Sin and Satan in the Qurʾān and Bible” for “SARS-1000: The Qur’an: Origin, Application, Interpretations.” This Spring 2022 class was lead by Professor Mahjabeen Dhala, at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. The paper begins:
In this paper, I consider sin and Satan, with a focus on the stories of Joseph and Job, both in the Qurʾān and in the Bible. I chose this topic because, as a jail Chaplain, I find prisoners are very aware of sin and Satan, and I wanted to learn more. The anthropomorphic personification of Satan is a huge topic, so I have concentrated on a limited set of scriptural verses to keep to term paper length, rather than allowing this to grow into a dissertation. There is much more to be said based on the thousands of scholarly and religious works (many with conflicting opinions) written on these topics over many centuries. I assert that ideas of embodied sin and the personification of Satan evolved over at least a thousand years (between 500 BCE and 610 CE), through Biblical and Qurʾānic stories and exegetical understandings that are sometimes not substantiated by sacred texts. Historical evolution presupposes a starting point, and this paper considers alternatives for the first Biblical mention of sin.
GTU Women and Religion Conference, 28 April 2023Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble, GTU Women and Religion Conference, 28 April 2023Katy Dickinson, GTU Women and Religion Conference, 28 April 2023Dr. Mahjabeen Dhala, GTU Women and Religion Conference, 28 April 2023
Images Copyright (c) 2023 Katy Dickinson. If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right on Katysblog home).
Katy Dickinson Women of Faith in Jail This presents a jail chaplain’s view on how women prisoners’s experience, especially their faith experience, is different from that of men in the American justice system. In many ways, the lives of American women and men prisoners are similarly marginalized; however, the systemic social and economic disadvantages of women in our society are reflected in the lives of female inmates. For example, women are usually the primary caretakers for children from whom incarceration separates them, women often enter the carceral system having had more traumatic experiences, and all-too-often women undergo more trauma in jail and prison. As a result, working with women inmates as a chaplain or officer can be more complex and emotionally intense compared to working with male prisoners. While some avoid working with women, others find special satisfaction in supporting female prisoners. A groundbreaking report has just been published about women prisoners and their unique challenges and patterns.
Here is a link to the whole submission, if you want more text (and references). The event will be recorded but not available online in real time.
Images Copyright (c) 2023 Katy Dickinson. If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right on Katysblog home).
After a lot of thought, I have decided to write about having breast cancer. Mine has been a relatively minor case (“Level Zero” or “Stage Zero” in a measurement system where the higher the number, the more advanced the cancer). I have not wanted to talk about it because I did not want any more fuss than needed. However, now that I have finished surgery and radiation, it feels like not talking about it makes it scarier and more important. I know so many who have died from cancer, and others who are bravely seeking healing with much more advanced cases. My father, Wade Dickinson, had cancer five times. I am deeply grateful for my “Level Zero” circumstances and for the support of my beloved husband John and family and friends during this challenging experience. I feel blessed to to be surrounded by a caring and loving community who have generously advised, commiserated, and celebrated with me during this long process. I am also blessed to have good health insurance for this expensive treatment. The estimated cost for the surgery alone was $112,124.
The kind of cancer I had is called DCIS – or Ductal carcinoma in situ, sometimes described as pre-cancerous or a non-invasive cancerous lesion. The DCIS was in only one breast. The first sign of trouble turned up in a routine mammogram a year ago. There were discussions and rounds of diagnostic tests by the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center. All of that ended up with my having a Lumpectomy in early January 2023, followed by ten radiation treatments.
Something that surprised me about this process was that unlike every other medical experience I have had, cancer seems more of a lifestyle than a disease. During my treatment, there seemed an unstated assumption that cancer was all there was to my life. For example, nurses would repeatedly schedule appointments without consulting me, assuming that I would be available whenever they had an opening. When I said I had a graduate school class to attend, or was teaching a class, or going to work, they were surprised. This seems to be an indication either that most people have worse cases than mine, or maybe they have less to do. Similarly, there was pressure for me to get tattoos (three small blue dots in several places on my torso) to make radiation alignment easier. I pushed back because I have sensitive skin and have no idea how it would respond to tattoo ink, and it seemed inappropriate to make permanent marks on my body for a two week treatment. Again, the nurses were surprised. On 15 March 2023, when I graduated at the end of my radiation treatments, I got to ring a brass bell and the nurses and technicians gave me a diploma and ovation – and a “mybluedots” pin even though I had them mark my torso with ink and tape rather than getting tattoos.
I am still tired and in a little pain from the radiation treatments, and am waiting for radiation burn to appear at the treatment area. I will start taking Tamoxifen (selective estrogen receptor modulator) in a few weeks. I will also continue to check in with the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center nurses and doctors, probably for the rest of my life.
Katy and John Before Surgery, 4 Jan 2023Katy in radiation, 7 March 2023Katy – Radiation graduation, 15 March 2023
Images Copyright (c) 2023 Katy Dickinson. If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right on Katysblog home).
This semester at the Graduate Theological Union‘s Berkeley School of Theology, I am taking three classes as part of my Doctor of Ministry studies. They are: “The Qur’an: Origin, Application, Interpretations” (Dr. Majabeen Dhala, Center for Islamic Studies), “Introduction to Prison Ministry” (Father George Williams, Jesuit School of Theology), and “Examining the Case for Reparations for African Americans” (Dr. Ronald Burris & Dr. Aidsand Wright-Riggins, BST).
I just gave my first presentation in Dr. Dhala’s class, called “Joseph – Yusuf.” In this presentation, I considered the story of the patriarch / prophet Joseph – Yusuf as presented in the Torah / Hebrew Bible and in the Qur’an, in the context of my ministry as a jail chaplain. The class and I had a good discussion!
You can see the whole presentation here. See the last pages of my presentation for where I found the images and other sources.
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