Shelter from the Cold

I understand why bears hibernate and birds fly south; why groundhogs won’t emerge from their burrows. It is winter and I want to wrap myself inside my cocoon of a quilt, laze warmly on my red and cream buffalo plaid sofa and wait until I see crocuses from my window.

 

My northern friends and family would accuse me of having become soft during these years I have lived in the sultry south. Years ago I would have laughed at those who complain of cold when the temperatures dip below 35 degrees. But Yankee-weather-tolerance-superiority is something I no longer need to claim for my self-esteem. I’ve paid my dues. I lived in New England for over 40 years. I shoveled snow until my back stiffened. I scraped ice from car windshields until my chapped fingers split open, even through my gloves. My teeth chattered. My body shivered uncontrollably. My toes turned white. I said Hail Marys before inserting my key into the ignition with faith and hope that the Blessed Mother, Ever Virgin would jump start my freezing and most assuredly dead battery into resurrected operation. I worked at a job for 8 years that required I be out 3 to 4 nights a week, locking up the church auditorium in winter’s dark, alone. I commuted to Cambridge from Rhode Island for three years; the last leg of the trek involved a 20 minute walk from Harvard Square’s subway station to the divinity school. Some days the wind whipped in from the Charles River and dropped the wind chill factor to below zero. I ducked into the Law School lobby along the way and felt the relief of warmth just long enough to continue on. The last year of my program Boston broke their 100 year-old record for snowfall at 96 inches for the season. So, in addition to the cold I trudged through slush and snow and freezing rain that assaults one’s face like little shots from a pellet gun.

 

Southerners are stereotypically depicted as moving very slowly, while their northern counterparts rush about their days almost running, barely taking the time to notice their surroundings. One of the first things a relocated northerner must learn when they arrive in the South is to be patient. No one is in a  hurry, especially store cashiers and DMV employees. My theory is that these habits have culturally evolved through centuries of adaptation to the heat or the cold, respectively. Heat indices of 100 degrees or more for much of the summer tend to slow one down. And temperatures below 45 for as many months create the need to run from the cold and move from one place to another as quickly as possible.

 

When I was a child, I rubbed beeswax on the runners of my sled for the next downhill thrill. I laced up my ice skates and hoped that my ankles would not fail me as I attempted to glide across the ice. I made snowmen and snow forts, engaged in snowball fights with my brothers, and went through pairs and pairs of wet mittens before reluctantly going inside to cocoa and toast. I pulled icicles from tree branches and licked them like popsicles. I stood in the yard while the snow fell and stuck my tongue out to catch the flakes. It took five minutes to get dressed just to go outside. Now, I look suspiciously at those who actually choose to skate, to ski, to toboggan. My adult self considers the phrases “winter sport,” and “winter fun,” to be oxymoronic.

 

So, yes, I’ll go to work. I’ll walk the cobblestone sidewalks of Charleston wrapped up in gloves and scarves. I’ll pull out my cashmere sweaters from the cedar and my tights from the back of the drawer, but don’t ask me to go out when I don’t have to; not until the crocuses lift their little heads up from the earth will I lift mine. I’ve given up my cold-weather false bravado for the comfort of an old quilt and a red and cream colored sofa.

 

Want to Go to the Movies?

No. No, thank you. No, I don’t. (Can’t you just feel a rant coming on?).

 

I just finished watching a movie on this Sunday afternoon. I ate a whole bag of Organic Air-Popped Popcorn.  It was a movie that I admit, I rented. I am not in the habit of renting movies. Let me clarify. I never rent movies.  Last Christmas I got a six-month gift subscription to Net Flix and I would be willing to bet it was the least used membership they had. I can imagine the Net Flix employee given the task of filling my infrequent order, “Who is this? She has a subscription?”

 

I don’t know what possessed me, but I rented movies this weekend. And even when I rent movies, one of the three I take home will always be one I’ve already seen and adore, so that at least I know there’s a familiar friend in the bag. I just finished watching a movie that did not end the way it was supposed to. It was in the comedy section of Blockbuster. This wasn’t a freakin’ comedy. And I’ll admit, the way it ended for most of the characters was good enough, but the awkward outcast did not end up charming everyone, the guy ended up getting the girl’s sister, the girl ended up getting the guy’s brother and the mother of everybody died. She died, for cripes sake. The last scene was the first Christmas after the mother died and everybody stood around the Christmas tree remembering her. Her absence was so present she might have been in the room, but of course she wasn’t. Because she died.

 

The movie ended an hour ago. In the meantime I have eaten dinner (leftover Shrimp Curry and Jasmine Rice that I made last night), I have made coffee, have been watching the Patriots/Colts game for the past half hour and I am still freaking crying.

 

And this is why I hate movies. They mess with your head.

 

Just yesterday a woman asked me if I was going to see the movie Volver, the new movie by that hot Director-whatever-his-name-is. I said to her, “No probably not. Because you see, I hate movies.”

 

I have taught a Religion and Film course for the past three years and every first day of class I have begun the same way, “This is Religious Studies 298, Religion and Film. I am Professor Doire, and I hate movies.” I tell my students that I have not studied film criticism. I have not taken courses in film. I have read enough to know what to look for, but this is a religious studies course. Religion, I know. The movies we will see are simply a different form of “text” through which we can talk about the religious stuff that I want to talk about; Latin American Liberation Theology, Joan of Arc and the construction of the “holy woman,” Mary Magdalene, and the quest for the Holy Grail.

 

Of course I have favorite movies. One cannot be a fully active member of this culture without having been exposed to some movies, in fact, many. There are movies I will watch over and over again because I know what they are, I know how they end and I just love them. I love The Godfather I & II, The Mission, Die Hard I & III, The Rock, The Fugitive, The Untouchables, The Lion in Winter, everything Cary Grant ever did, and a few romantic comedies, French Kiss, While You Were Sleeping, Corrina, Corrina, The Princess Bride, Something’s Gotta Give and yes, ok a bunch of others. I feel secure with these movies. They won’t disappoint me. And I know when I sit down to look at them, I won’t have wasted 2 freakin’ hours. And don’t give me that, “Well, how do you know that the next movie you see won’t become one of your favorites too?” That’s a little like asking me to date a swamp full of frogs on the off chance that Prince Charming might be hiding in the rushes. (And I can just hear some of my girlfriends now, "Uhhh. Yuh. So... what's your problem?")

 

One of the problems I have with watching movies; the two-hour commitment. I don’t know if I can even describe what I feel when I have to sit down for two hours to watch a movie. I feel resentful. I feel anxious. I feel resigned. I’m almost pissed off. I want to rebel because I know that I am now trapped for two hours, committed to this thing that I may not even like. If it turns out that the movie was a waste of time, I’ll have spent two hours better used doing something else. And if it’s good, so what? In a couple of years, if someone asks if I’ve seen it, I’ll say something like, “ummmm… I think so.” That’s how memorable it will be. I figure, if there’s a movie out there that’s destined to be my next Godfather, or Die Hard, my kids will tell me.Years ago I spent a lot of time with someone who would ask me, “Have you seen this movie? Have you seen that movie?” Invariably I would say, “Well, parts of it.” He said, “Why do you always say you’ve seen parts of movies?” I saw “parts of movies” for much of my adult life because watching the movie would be the idea of someone else in my family and I’d get up from the sofa in the middle of it to do laundry, or start dinner, or answer the phone or stick needles in my eyes.

 

One of the other problems I have with movies is the messing-with-your-head thing. I am so affected by some movies it takes hours for me to get them out of my head. I enter into them fully, in spite of myself. And when they’re over, I’m still in them and I can’t get out. Someone I love would tell me, “That’s the whole point, Mom.” And I suppose it is always the point of storytelling; to get the listener to sympathize with the character, to portray something of the human condition, to inspire or repel, to simply tell a story. One might say the same thing about books, but it’s not the same. When I read a book, I can put it down and leave it for a while, regain my footing in the world and then return when I choose. The characters have days to develop and to become people I love or hate, admire or detest. By the time I am crying at the end of Jane Eyre or Les Miserables, Jane and Jean have unfolded before me in my own time. I have invited them in and they are beloved. A movie has two hours to suck you in, to move you to identify or sympathize or be appalled. As such, screenwriters and directors have to tug at you, pull at you, intensify the emotion, the pathos and frankly, well, I feel manipulated.

 

When I saw The Exorcist I couldn’t sleep in my bed for two weeks. I slept on the floor lest my bed begin to rise or shake and spin. When I saw Dances With Wolves I walked out of the movie theater, sat  on the curb and wept. My ex-husband sat down beside me and asked, “Are you OK?” I replied,“No. No, I am not OK.” And I have heard all the criticisms of that movie; of how it once again depicts Native American stories through the eyes of a white man, of how Native Americans are idealized and romanticized, etc., etc. And I hear it is all the fashion to claim Native American heritage, but my maternal great grandmother was a Canadian Native American from Manitoba and it was a part of my childhood family folklore to tell the story of how she was burned out of her house and forced to move off her land. Perhaps it was that, perhaps it was simply the depiction of genocide on the BIG SCREEN, but no, no I was not OK. In fact, I was inconsolable. When I watched Life as a House I went into my bathroom and cried a cry that was a wailing heart-wrenched hurt, a hurt so big my eyes were still swollen the next day. Like, I NEED this??

 

Two friends of mine have commented that they know the one sure way to get me NOT to watch a movie is to recommend it. One of them lent me her copy of The Hours and said, “OK. Don’t watch this. I don’t want you to see this movie.” I had the movie for six months before I finally watched it, resentful, anxious, and resigned. In the meantime, she bought herself a second copy because she thought the Second Coming would occur before she got her movie back.

 

Do I sometimes feel left out of the conversation in which the new movie that everybody’s talking about is being talked about? I suppose I do. But I really don’t care. Because you see, I hate movies.

The Rabbi

My Comparative Religious Ethics course utilizes a narrative approach, which simply means that in the attempt to locate the elements that form the ethical foundations of the world’s religions we read and study the life stories of those who are lifted up by the tradition as representative of the virtuous and noble life. The narrative stories are drawn from both the ancient origins of the tradition and more contemporary examples. For example, when studying Christianity we encounter the life of Jesus of Nazareth and Martin Luther King, Jr.; in Hinduism, the story of Krishna and Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita and Mohandas Gandhi. In Judaism we read about Abraham, Job, King David and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972). Within the context of these lives we also encounter a set of characteristics that seem to be held in common. One of these characteristics is what Rabbi Abraham Heschel has identified as “audacity,” which is understood to be held in tension with obedience. Audacity refers to the courage to stand up boldly in the face of authority; to speak outrageously (for justice). Yesterday in class, when I asked my students what they thought audacity meant, a young women offered, “to be rudely forthcoming.” I thought that was just wonderful. Unique among the world’s religions Judaism embraces a tradition of audacity which extends even to the courage to challenge God when the justice of God is in question. Elie Wiesel once wrote, “I remember my Master telling me, ‘Only the Jew knows that he may oppose God as long as he does so in defense of God’s creation.’” The tradition of audacity in Judaism is present in Abraham, through Moses, the book of Job and in Elie Wiesel as well.

 

In my attempt to continuously educate myself in the subjects (and lives) that I teach in this course, I went to the college library today to borrow a book of essays by Rabbi Heschel. I have just finished reading his essay entitled, “The Reasons for My Involvement in the Peace Movement.” Heschel, of course was referring to the Vietnam War. Since the beginning of the war with Iraq, representatives of Congress, the Senate and those of us citizens who are of the more ordinary type have drawn comparisons with Vietnam. The historian can make his argument, the esteemed Senator from Massachusetts can declare his conclusions, but as I read the Heschel piece I had chills. His wisdom and audacity reach from beyond the grave and his words are as relevant today as they were when they were published posthumously in The Journal of Social Philosophy in 1973. I found them to be so compelling that I reproduce them (in part) for you here:

 

To my dismay I discovered that the people in this country who made decisions on waging war in Vietnam thought almost exclusively in terms of generalizations---for example, Communism was seen as the devil and the only source of evil in the world. These decision-makers also had an exceedingly superficial knowledge of the economic, cultural and psychological condition of that country. Americans who went to Vietnam to take over the running of affairs there were not even able to speak the Vietnamese language, and as a result could not communicate except through interpreters who were often biased, self-seeking and even corrupt. Devoid of understanding, burdened with prejudice and pride, mighty America sank into the quagmire of this most obscure and complex conflict.

 

When I concluded in 1965 that waging war in Vietnam was an evil act, I was also convinced that complete and immediate withdrawal from Vietnam would be the wisest act. Realizing the hopelessness that such a proposal would ever be accepted by the then-current administration, I formulated my thought by saying: True, it is very difficult to withdraw from Vietnam today, but it will be even more difficult to withdraw from Vietnam tomorrow. Above all, it was a war that couldn’t be morally justified, for war under all circumstances is a supreme atrocity and is justified only when there is a necessity to defend one’s own survival. It is politically illogical, I thought, to assume that Communism in South Vietnam would be a greater threat to the security of the United States than Communism in Hungary or Czechoslovakia.

 

As much as I abhor many of the principles of Communism, I also abhor Fascism and the use of violence in suppressing those who fight against oppression by greedy or corrupt overlords. In addition, the war in Vietnam by its very nature was a war that could not be waged according to the international law to which America is committed, which protects civilians from being killed by the indiscriminate bombing and shooting of our own military forces, that numerous war crimes were being committed, that the very fabric of Vietnamese society was being destroyed, traditions desecrated, and honored ways of living defiled. Such discoveries revealed the war as being exceedingly unjust. As a result, my concern to stop the war became a central religious concern.

 

Although Jewish tradition enjoins our people to obey scrupulously the decrees issued by the government of the land, whenever a decree is unambiguously immoral, one nevertheless has a duty to disobey it.

 

When President Johnson expressed to veterans his consternation at the fact that so many citizens protested against his decisions in Vietnam, in spite of his authority as President and the vast amount of information at his disposal, I responded, at the request of John Cogey of The New York Times, that when the Lord was considering destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham did not hesitate to challenge the Lord’s judgment and to carry on an argument with Him whether His decision was just. Can it be that the Judge of the entire universe would fail to act justly? For all the majesty of the office of the President of the United States, he cannot claim greater majesty than God Himself.

 

                            From Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, NY, 1996

 

 

T'was the Night Before School Starts

T’was the night before school starts, when all through the dorm,

Not a student was stirring, which isn’t the norm.

The notebooks were piled, in the book bags with care

In hopes that some knowledge, soon would be there.

 

The coed was nestled, all snug in her bed

While visions of eReserves danced in her head.

She wore not a kerchief, nor a bed cap

She just settled down for a long winter’s nap.

 

When out on K lot, there arose such a clatter

She sprang from her bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window she flew like a flash

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

 

The rain on the breast of the concrete below

Gave a luster of rainbows in the car oil’s glow.

When what to her wondering eyes should appear

But her new teacher Doire, but why was she here?

 

With her Bob Dylan jacket and a dress to the floor

She knew in a moment, the crazy professor.

More rapid than eagles her courses they came

And she whistled and shouted and called them by name.

 

“Now Ethics! Now Theodicy! Now Islam and Buddhism!

On Genesis! On Theology! On Job and on Feminism!

To the front of the class! To the lectern she strode!

Now dash away! Dash away! Her words they explode!

 

As sharp pencils before the wild GRE fly,

When they meet with an obstacle have to ask, “why?”

So up to the Cistern profs’ caps and gowns flew,

Girls’ stupid white dresses and red roses too.

 

And then in a twinkling the girl heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little proof.

As she drew in her head and was turning around

Into the classroom Doire came with a bound.

 

She was dressed all in black from her head to her foot

And her clothes they were vintage, a very strange look.

A bundle of books she had flung on her back

And she looked like a peddler just opening her pack

 

Her words how they twinkled! Her theses, so many!

Her stupid jokes failed, her tangents so plenty!

Her stern little mouth was drawn up like a bow

The chalk on the board was as white as the snow.

 

The stump of a Camel she held tight in her teeth

And the smoke it encircled her head like a wreath

She had a kind face and a laugh that was quick

Her cowboy boots clapped on the cobblestoned brick.

 

She spoke what she thought, her words often dared

And sometimes her students thought she was weird.

A wink of her eye and a twist of her head

Soon gave them to know they had nothing to dread.

 

She spoke many words and went straight to her work

And she filled all their notebooks then turned with a jerk,

And laying her glasses a top of her nose

And giving a nod out the classroom she strode.

 

She sprang to her Volkswagen,and blew the Kazoo

And away she then drove to Fairmont Avenue.

The girl heard her exclaim ‘ere she drove out of town

“Truth is constructed! Turtles all the way down!”

New Year Revolutions

No, that isn’t a typo or a misspelling. I meant to write revolutions instead of resolutions. I like the image of revolving instead of resolving. Revolving implies a turning around. Resolving implies standing firm, and I’d rather be in motion. Turning around creates images of dancing; standing firm, well…of standing still. I heard someone the other day say that they thought New Year resolutions were ridiculous. And although I never made them until two years ago, I disagree. If New Year resolutions are ridiculous, then so are Lent and Ramadan and Yom Kippur and examinations of conscience and the sacrament of reconciliation. New Year resolutions are the secular equivalent of an integral aspect of these religious acknowledgements of the need for renewal; of metanoia. Typically though, in religious imagery the movement is often signified as a “turning away from,” i.e., a turning away from sin or evil or vice or self-absorption. Indeed there may be an awareness that ultimately the turning away from sin is intended also to be accompanied by a turning towards God, but sometimes this latter gets lost in the pre-occupation with the ascetic practice itself.

 

There are those who view Lent as an opportunity to lose weight or to quit smoking and if they have lost five pounds by Easter Sunday, they consider their Lenten sacrifice to have been successful. But they have grown no closer to their God, and they have changed not a whit with respect to a kinder, more compassionate or self-reflective inner self. There are those who will follow the Lenten obligation not to eat meat on Fridays, but will visit the nearest seafood restaurant and order five-pound Maine lobsters dripping in butter. Clearly they observe the letter of the law, but its spirit escapes them entirely. Medieval mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote, “In the search for God, if one concentrates on the way, all one will find is the way.” If someone who loves chocolate decides to give up chocolate, then all they think about is the self-denial of chocolate and how difficult it is not to have chocolate. Easter Sunday then becomes The Day I Can Eat Chocolate Again, rather than the day Christians believe that Jesus defied history and rose from the dead. This is what Meister Eckhart meant.

 

I remember when I was teaching at Bay-View Academy, an all-girls Catholic High School in Rhode Island. Every time we needed or wanted to celebrate the sacraments we had to invite a local priest to preside over the ritual for us. Typically, the priest was a stranger to us. He didn’t spend time with us and didn’t know who we were. He was an outsider, present in a place which attempted to create community inside and outside the classroom. Now, if women were ordained in the Roman Catholic Church it might have been possible to have a liturgy celebrated by one of us; someone who actually belonged to our community and who knew us. But this was not possible. So a stranger would come in and address the assembly of 700 girls, young women and teachers (with an occasional male teacher thrown into the mix). During one Ash Wednesday service (the day which marks the beginning of Lent) there we were, assembled in the school auditorium while a local priest began his sermon. His message was not about renewal but about self-denial. At one point in his sermon he paused for dramatic effect and with what I can only describe as disdain, he said to us, “Give something up, Girls… for a change.” His assumptions about us were clear. He assumed that all the girls at Bay-View were privileged and wealthy, concerned only for themselves and their own comforts. He assumed that for us, the road to Lenten renewal could only be achieved through self-denial because after all, we were such spoiled brats to begin with. I was furious.

 

When the service was over and we returned to the classroom, I gave my students a different sermon because I knew that within those walls were girls who had already “given up” much; there were girls who had lost parents to cancer or whose parents were attempting  to recover from it. There were girls who suffered from anorexia, bulimia, self-mutilation and self-loathing. There were girls who suffered the indignities of social ostracism because they were fat or gay or pregnant or not quite up to our culture’s standard of beauty. There were girls who were there on scholarship and whose parents both worked two jobs to provide for their families. There were girls whose best friends had died, whose parents were embattled in bitter divorces and girls whose worlds for a variety of reasons were crumbling all around them. I told them that the priest had been wrong. Lent is not about self-denial.  It is about renewal and sometimes renewal means you do something wonderful for yourself; to re-create yourself. And I wondered out loud what that priest would be denying himself, for Lent.

 

And so I approach New Year revolutions as opportunities for twirling around; for creating opportunities to learn, to grow and to become.

 

Typically when I create a revolutions list, I include things on it that I can accomplish easily, today (so I do not feel like a complete failure) and others that are so unlikely they will turn up on next year’s list again.  #1 on my list was also #1 on last year’s list and on 2005’s list:

 

1.  Kiss Bob Dylan.

 

2.  Learn to cook Moroccan. (Ok… also on last year’s  list, but at least I bought the cookbooks).

3.  Brush up on my French.

 

4.  Eat more chocolate.

 

5.  Visit a place I’ve never been.

 

6.  Finish that quilt I started 5 years ago.

 

7.  Read Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

 

8.  Publish a poem, or a paper.

 

9.  Go to Paris.

 

10.  Return students’ papers to them more quickly (sigh).

11.  Be more patient with the arrogant.

 

12.  Learn more about wine.

 

13.  Paint a self-portrait.

 

14.  Drink less coffee (not likely).

 

15.  Attend at least one opera or ballet in NYC.

 

16.  Take the Christmas tree down (this is the thing I can cross off today...maybe).

 

17.  Learn to identify at least 10 constellations.

 

18.  Wear that faux fur, leopard print, red satin-lined, car length coat hanging in  the closet (all the while hearing Bob Dylan sing, “Your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat”).

 

19.  Get another tattoo.

 

20. Get married (HA!!!  GOTCHYA!!!).

 

Happy New Year, Y'all.

 

Oops. Later Addition to list:

Note to Quixote:

#21. Start that book you have been relentlessly bugging me to write.