All Screwed Up

My quarantine is over. I am no longer contagious (see blog post below).  I lectured for three hours this morning. I never thought I’d last that long, but once I’m in the first century of Christianity I cannot be stopped, not even by myself.

 

I found it hilarious (and very touching too) that in separate phone calls yesterday both my best friend and my son found it necessary to provide me with instructions on how to be sick. They know that I don’t know how; to rest, to be still, to be sick. My son said that when he read my email about the strep he thought to himself, “Oh wow. This is serious. She doesn’t know how to do this.” His instructions were to take out three or four CDs that haven’t received a close listen and to lie down and just listen. My best friend recommended that I take out a novel (“do you have any novels?”—as opposed to all those head books I usually read) lie down and read, presumably until I fall asleep. She also reminded me about five times that I am sick (to help me understand that it was a reality I should not try to ignore). I rummaged in a box in an upstairs closet and actually found a novel! I didn’t exactly strictly follow their advice, but I did for some of the day. I made a popsicle run to the store too.

 

I continued to paint my little iron table, which wasn’t really work at all. It was a relaxing joy. And then, as I sat outside on my newly decorated patio/courtyard/corralled enclosure thing I noticed that indeed there is another board on which I could have hung my flower pot because the gate swings outward! I couldn’t wait. I unscrewed the screws and started to screw the hanger into  the newly  chosen board. That was my mistake. As I began to screw the screws into the new board the threads of the Philips heads began to wear, disintegrate, down to nothing. The screws stopped screwing.

 

Sometimes, in this blog, I write about big things and sometimes, little things. This blog post is about a little thing and it includes an admission or a confession; that for most of my adult life I have been screwdriver challenged.

 

I am not entirely incompetent around the house. In Rhode Island my ex-husband and I owned an eight-room, two-story house,  with attic and basement. One summer, he and I stripped and re-painted the entire exterior of that huge house by ourselves (the children helped a little, but they were little, so…). One day as I was precariously perched on the peak of the second-story, front porch roof, attempting to scrape the paint off the attic eave my neighbor across the street shouted, “Louise that looks a little dangerous up there.” I said, “Well, Mr. Lanoie, if anything happens just be ready to call 911.” Mr. Lanoie was retired. He wasn’t a nosy neighbor at all, but if he sat on his front porch, how could he avoid seeing me up there? Besides, he let us borrow his ladders, so as far as I was concerned he could watch all he liked. He had some kick-ass ladders that man. Another summer my daughter and I decided that she had outgrown her “baby” wallpaper. We chose paint this time with a Toile wallpaper border. I started to scrape the old wallpaper off. I wanted to get the wall down to the stucco. I discovered to my horror that under our layer of wallpaper, which we had put up over the painted wall when we moved in, was the layer of paint over another layer of wallpaper. I went to the hardware store, rented a steamer and for one, long, hot July I worked in that room with steam until the walls were down to their pristine bareness. Then  I painted and applied the wallpaper border. I swear, that summer there were suspicions that the owner of the hardware store and I were having an affair. I painted a huge living room and dining room with ten foot ceilings (all the time avoiding getting paint on the crown moldings) with a paintbrush, not a roller. My brother-in-law, who was a carpenter, remarked as he inspected the walls that he couldn’t even find a brush stroke. I’ve fixed the guts inside toilet tanks, spackled holes in the wall, cut and hung wallpaper, pulled up carpeting. (I know. It’s hard to believe. I’m such a delicate flower).

 

In Rhode Island I had an electric screwdriver. I cannot tell you the gift this was. I could actually screw in a screw without breaking something (in the house or in me) or letting out a string of profanities worthy of the sailors in Newport. But I don’t have one here. So, after school today I went to the hardware store (with my screw in my little hand) and said to the cute boy, “I want one this size but I don’t want a Philips.” He said, “YOU DON’T WANT A PHILIPS?” He asked this question with the same incredulity one might expect if I had just said, “I don’t want to go to heaven.”

“YOU DON’T WANT TO GO TO HEAVEN?”

I said, “No. I don’t want a Philips head.”

He said, “Well, most companies don’t make the straight heads anymore.”

(Oh for Pete’s sake).

“The threads on these Philips screws are all worn down and they’re brand new.”

“Did you get them here?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s your problem then. Hehehehe.”

(Yah. That’s funny, Pal).

“Oh all right. But maybe I should get a new screwdriver too. From here. The one I have only cost a dollar.”

(More laughter from the cute boy).

 

So, two new screws in hand, I arrived proudly at my home.

I mounted the plant hanger up against the board and started driving the screw. (Oh pleeease don’t tell my son or my best friend. I’m supposed to be reading, or listening to music). About halfway in, it stopped dead. “Ok, just leave that one hanging there for a while and try the other one.” Now, I know the trick of hitting a nail into the intended hole to make way for the screw, but I didn’t HAVE a nail. But then I saw one sticking slightly out of the fence, so I pulled it out. I used it to make my entry hole but I’d driven that sucker so deeply into the wood I could not get it back out! So I pulled and pulled and finally the whole board started coming with it. Whoooooooooooaaa! I positioned the pronged end of my hammer in the opposite direction and pulled with all my might until it finally gave. I stuck the screw in and twisted the driver. The result is that now, my pot hanger is listlessly swaying back and forth on the screws, which are each about a quarter of an inch from being firmly embedded. So every hour or so this afternoon I have gone out there with the screwdriver and tried again—to move the bloody screws a millimeter at a time. The last time I went out, I came inside and noticed a huge blister sitting right in the middle of my right hand. There  will be no more screwing today.

I cannot express my frustration. Why does driving a screw have to be so hard?

All I want to do is hang a flowerpot. (pouting).

 

Now some of you might think that all of this is funny and maybe someday I will too, but this is what is really funny…

 

The little iron table-- I didn’t just paint it one solid color. I painted it in green and pale yellow stripes and then on top of the stripes I painted huge, brilliantly colored flowers and vines. Then I sprayed the protective acrylic coating on it (outside, well ventilated) where it now sits. This afternoon as I sat near my new table, I noticed that little flying insects began to visit it. Evidently the flowers look so real that real insects are alighting! And this of course is a table on which I plan to EAT. I guess I’ll have to go back to see cute hardware store boy and purchase a Citronella candle…

 

 

 

 

 

Master of Denial

Many years ago, a therapist named Donna (to be said with the same tone of voice with which Seinfeld said, “Newman”) told me that I was a “master of denial.” I ditched her quick. She was on to me and I wasn’t ready anyway. I was always fiercely outraged at others’ suffering and eerily attuned to someone else who was in pain. When a student walks into my classroom and they are in pain, I can smell it. The denial about which Donna spoke pertained only to my own pain. My best friend would ask me how I “felt” about something and if the response required that I touch something painful inside, she said that a veil would come down across my eyes like a curtain. I’d shut down. Refuse to feel. She could actually see it happening. The students of my evil and suffering course would be surprised at this. I am such an advocate of lamentation, of telling the stories of suffering, of the need to express pain in order to heal it. It is the second stage of Dorothee Soelle’s “new language of suffering.” Breaking the silence is crucial to breaking the power of abuse, oppression and suffering. But, this is now and that was then. 

 

It wasn’t even so much as a refusal to feel pain as it was that I didn’t know how. I could feel other things profoundly; love, compassion, anger, but when the pain was mine, when someone had hurt me, I simply didn’t know how. I’d stare abuse in the face and wouldn’t even know what it was when it was happening. I have a history that explains it. It is all quite explainable. Not feeling one’s pain can become quite destructive after a time and so one year, when the not-feeling got to be too much to bear, I went to another therapist, Peggy, who led me gently to my pain. She never told me what to do, never told me what I was feeling and  she certainly didn’t call me names. She simply, always, infuriatingly asked the right questions. And the tears would come tumbling down. I hated crying. I never cried. But Peggy led me to the place where instead of walking away from the pain, I walked through it, tears and all. I hated therapy. Therapy sucks. Therapy hurts. Therapy is hard. There were days when I walked through Peggy’s front door (her office was on the third floor of her house) and brushed past her with a perfunctory, “hi,” and marched upstairs ahead of her. She laughed a gentle laugh and said, “Well, I can tell you’re happy to be here today.” I was never happy to be there. I’d watch the clock like a hawk and when it struck the 60 minute mark, I’d say, “Time’s up. Time to go.” She’d smile again and say, “ok, Louise.”

 

Learning how to feel my own pain took a long time and will continue to take a lifetime. I still don’t always know what I’m feeling, but now at least, I know when I’ve been kicked in the stomach, or insulted, or degraded (well, most of the time but even now sometimes it takes days). Still, at least now I know something doesn’t feel right. I swear there were days when I was new at this feeling stuff that I would sit on my sofa with my eyes closed, face all scrunched up and fists tight like a five-year old who’s thinking really hard. I’d ask myself the same questions over and over again. “What are you feeling? What is this? What is this feeling?” That’s how much effort it took.

 

Physical pain is something else. I have a high tolerance for physical pain that probably goes back to when I was 13 and had gum surgery and a root canal at the same time without any anesthesia. I had a dentist a few years ago who called me her “masochistic patient,” because I underwent below-the-gum deep cleaning without benefit of Novocain. No big deal. There are times though when I deny physical pain as well. I trace this history directly back to my father and all the men on the Duguay (my maiden name) side of the family. This denial is probably true of many groups, but it seems to me that the men of French-Canadian descent raised pain-denial to an art form. My father would actually tell his friends at his bar, “You’re not sick until you go to the doctor.” And they’d try not to go to the doctor, even when they were vomiting blood, even when they had chest pain, even when they couldn’t breathe.

 

To those who know me then it will come as no surprise that on Friday when I started with a sore throat and a few chills in my classroom I just figured it would go away. I am very rarely sick. I haven’t had a fever in such a long time I didn’t even recognize it when I had it. I am rarely without a thermometer in the house (some throwback to motherhood no doubt), but I couldn’t find it. Saturday I got up at 6:00, worked a four hour shift at Starbucks (chills and sore throat continuing).  I have a little corralled courtyard in back of my townhouse and after the Starbucks shift I went to get some flowers and some cheap resin chairs. I already own a discarded Starbucks’ round, iron table so I started painting that. I swept out the courtyard, re-potted the plants and cleaned out my laundry room that leads to the courtyard. It looks so pretty. I hung a pot from one of the wood panels on the fence but the main joist, the only board to which I could attach the hanger, is positioned slightly over the air conditioning unit so the plant gets a little blown when the AC comes on. I'll probably kill it. Last night I painted more on my little table; all this with strep throat and a fever. Of course I didn’t know this then. I was still in denial.

 

My father may have raised a stubborn girl but he didn’t raise an idiot. When I awoke at 2:00 this morning with shaking chills and throat on fire I knew I couldn’t wait until Tuesday. I went to the emergency room at daybreak. My temp was 102. The doctor took one look at my throat and my swollen lymph nodes and didn’t even need to do a throat swab. Strep. Funny how when there was an actual diagnosis; the thing had a name to validate it; I was suddenly very, very tired. I asked the doctor if I was contagious. He said once I take the amoxicillin I’ll only be contagious for one day. As he was giving me final instructions and just before I left the ER he asked if I wanted a steroid shot for the pain. I bit back the urge to ask, “What pain?”

 

Student Bloopers

The following are actual statements written or spoken by my former students:

 

“Saint Thomas Aquinas was born in the Dominican Republic.”  (Thomas was a Dominican monk, a religious Order of the Catholic Church).

 

“Job was a riotous man.”  (Job was a righteous man). 

 

“Aristotle believed that all children came from seamen.”  (Aristotle believed that human life was generated and constituted by semen). When I read this in an  exam I imagined Jason and the Argonauts sailing on the Aegean Sea to Athens …prepared to have a really, really good time.

 

“The Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of Budapest.” (I am not making this up).

 

“Jewish men wear Yamahas on their heads to remind them that they are  below God.”  (With the exception of American Jews of course, who wear Harleys).

“A bodhisattva is an Enlightened Being who doesn’t go all the way.” (Bodhisattvas are Enlightened Beings who experience nirvana but who are not liberated from the chain of rebirths in order to teach others to reach nirvana).

 

As I taught the history of the Crusades in The Christian Tradition course, a student raised his hand and asked, “Where were the Protestants when all this was going on?”  (Uhhhhhh… they were waiting for Martin Luther to come along  in the sixteenth century.)

 

“How could Adam and Eve have lived in a patriarchal society if it was just the two of them?”  (My immediate response to this question was to think, “Oh Man, am I going to have to explain this again?”). 

 

“Catholics believe that Mary was always a virgin, which means that Joseph didn’t get any sex either.”  (No comment).

 

“The ancient Akkadian women would pull men off the streets to participate in their sacred sexual rituals. The men probably didn’t mind this…”

 

“Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgers.”  (Joan was captured by the Burgundians).

 

“Joan of Arc was burned at the steak.” (It seems that for my students, Joan of Arc is intimately connected to beef).

 

“I was always taught that the snake in the Garden represented Jesus.” (I think I just stared at this kid for about 4 minutes… waiting for my head to explode while I tried to figure out what the hell this could mean).

 

“Professor Doire, whatever must you be like, stoned?”

 

“Even if God wasn’t omniscient, World War II would be kind of hard for a god to miss.”  (Indeed.)

 

“Mary Magdalene wasn’t really a whore. She had some good qualities too.”  (Ah, yes… the kind-hearted prostitute, in the tradition of Belle from “Gone with the Wind”).

 

“Voltaire questions God because of the suffrage of children.”  (Voltaire had a problem with children voting?) The misuse of the word “suffrage” for “suffering” occurs more times than I care to think about, even though at the beginning of my “evil and suffering” course I make a point of telling my students that “suffrage” refers to the right to vote.

 

“Jesus was the Carnation of God.” (According to the tradition, Jesus was of course, the Incarnation of God… hard to imagine God wearing a pink Jesus on His lapel).

 

“Socrates was a Christ-like figure.” (I wrote in the margin of this student’s paper, “Considering that Socrates lived about 500 years before Jesus, perhaps Jesus was a Socrates-like figure.”)

 

“Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Christ-like figure.”

 

“Joan of Arc was a Christ-like figure.”

 

“Gandhi  was a Christ-like figure.”

 

“Father Gabriel in ‘The Mission’ was a Christ-like figure.”

 

(Why is it that everybody who dies is a Christ-like figure?)

 

“Saul changed his name to Paul? That doesn’t seem like a very big change to me.”  (I responded, “No, but he still had to change the monogram on his towels.” It took the class about 10 seconds to realize I was kidding.)

 

“Professor Doire, is there something you do everyday to be the way you are?” 

 

“For the first few weeks of class I would go home to my roommates and say, ‘I have this professor who went to Harvard… and I think she drops acid.'”

 

“Socrates argued before his Athenian jurors utilizing the Socratic Method.”  (That’s like saying Darwin was Darwinian, Carl Jung was a Jungian and Franz Kafka was  Kafka-esque).

 

“During Ramadan, Muslims  can’t  have  sex during the day. But  they can do it at night.” (Thank goodness for sundown).

 

And I will conclude this blog post with perhaps the funniest thing that has ever been said in my classroom… I began to tell a story and realized halfway through that the end of the story required that I say a word that might bother some students.  I stopped midway and said to my class, “OK, now I have to say a word that may offend some of you. If it does, I apologize. But wait, we’ve been together almost three months. You know me and I know you. I think we’re quite comfortable with each other at this point and can say anything to each other, right?”

And James, sweet baby James, piped up from the back of the room without skipping a beat, “F**K yeah.”

P.S. to My Year of Activism

P.S.  There were a few more “activities” in which I took part, but after a year I came to the personal conclusion that activism aimed at the Church was energy I could put to better use. In terms of the Church, the activism was unproductive. In terms of myself it was very productive. The action allowed me to confront the experience of betrayal, to channel my anger through creative engagement, to lift up my voice from a silent past and in lifting that voice I began the initial, tentative steps towards the creation of one. It allowed for the liberating experience of doubt. I will never forget those women; Kay and Pat and Annie, who gave birth within me to an intellectual confidence and a spiritual bravery, I never knew I had.

My Year of Activism: Part II

The second outrageous act of protest came that same year, during the Feast Day of the Pentecost. Pentecost commemorates the “birth of the Church,” which is traditionally identified as the day recorded in Acts:2 when the disciples were hiding, presumably in fear that what happened to Jesus would happen to them. They were gathered together in the “upper room” and were visited by the Holy Spirit, which descended upon them as of “tongues of fire.” According to Scripture, after this miraculous event they went out from the upper room and the Tower of Babel came tumbling down; they were able to preach to all who were present, of whatever nationality or language and they were understood. Pentecost is celebrated 50 days after Easter.

 

The Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in Providence, Rhode Island is an interesting piece of real estate. It is an imposing edifice constructed of red stone in the Gothic style; high nave, wide center aisle, narrower side aisles, tall stained-glass windows. A proud feature of the Cathedral is a magnificent pipe organ. The stone steps that descend from the entrance are as wide as the Cathedral itself. They open to a huge stone courtyard known as Cathedral Square. Though none of this is unusual as cathedrals go, what is unusual about the cathedral in Providence is that “Cathedral Square” into which the faithful flow is not the property of the Diocese of Providence but of the City of Providence. So, all one need do to assemble lawfully, right in front of the Cathedral steps is to get a permit to do so from the City of Providence. Hehehehehe.

 

Spirited Women of Rhode Island could assemble and conduct protests in front of the Cathedral’s massive wooden doors without fear of eviction for trespassing.  On the Feast Day of Pentecost, 1991, there we were again, the bane of our Bishop’s existence. We planned a May Day ceremony that included a “sermon,” to be delivered by… you guessed it. Me.

 

My sermon entailed a critique (and a rejection) of the Church’s claim that the birth of the Church began in the “upper room.” It was my contention that the birth of the Church occurred much sooner than that, at the tomb. Some of you recall that according to the Gospel tradition (and this story is included in all four canonical Gospels and so, is considered “authentic” to the Apostolic tradition), several days after the death of Jesus, Mary Magdalene visited the tomb, which she found empty. In one account, Jesus appeared to her. She mistook him for  “the gardener” but then he spoke to her and in her recognition she advanced to embrace him. He said, “Do not touch me for I have not yet ascended to the Father…but go tell the others.” In the story, Mary runs to Peter and declares, “I have seen the Lord.” Peter races to the tomb to see. It is Mary, not the disciples of the upper room who is the first to believe and the first to proclaim. She is recognized by the author of the Gospel of John as “apostola apostolorum,” apostle to the apostles. The first moment of declaration, the spreading  of the “Good News,” the commission to “go tell the others,” the birth of the Church, began with Mary.

 

The Pentecost action was a combination of protest and ritual. We held placards and signs, prayed the prayers of dissent, sang the songs of solidarity and held hands.

 

One other moment I will recount occurred when Annie (a recent MTS graduate from Harvard Divinity School) invited me to appear with her on a 30 minute local television program on the role of women in religion and feminist theology. I arrived at the television station where I met Annie. As she introduced me to the director of the program, Annie said, “Here’s the other theologian who will be on tonight’s program.” After I shook hands with the director and she walked away to attend to production details, I leaned in and whispered to Annie, “I’m not a theologian.” She whispered back, “Yes, you are.”

  

My Year of Activism

I came across a sheet of paper while attempting to clear up some office clutter the other day. I didn’t even think it still existed. It was tucked away with a bunch of academic papers I’d brought with me from Rhode Island. And so I was reminded...

My year of activism began in the spring before entering the first year of my divinity program. I can’t believe I fit that in too, with everything else I was doing that year. Through one of my feminist mentors, Annie, I was introduced to a group of Rhode Island Catholic women who called themselves “Spirited Women of Rhode Island.” We gathered twice a month, created rituals, held discussions, read feminist theology and, we protested.

My involvement with Spirited Women came at a time when I was experiencing the tension many faithful women experience when they are confronted with the truth of a misogynist Church. This tension is often experienced as a choice; reject or reform.

There are feminist theologians who stand on either side; those who claim that the Biblical traditions are hopelessly patriarchal and must be abandoned, and those who claim that they can be redeemed through revisionist readings of the texts, reconstruction of women’s history and re-evaluation of ritual language.

But before I faced that decision, I had to face the anger and sense of betrayal. In a sense, this process for me involved something like the grief stages identified by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. First, there is denial. For me that was a good fit. I spent ten years or so in that stage. The next stage is anger, which I experienced during my year with Spirited Women. And it was wonderful. Yes, my anger was wonder-filled, because I did something with it that was creative and healing.

I was never really convinced that active protest would change the Church. I never really thought that my little voice would change a 2000 year history. But that wasn’t the point anyway. The point was that my activism changed me. Protesting the Church’s past was intimately connected to protesting my past and to raising my voice.  

The first act of protest in which I was engaged took place on Holy Thursday, 1991. Holy Thursday is traditionally the day on which the Church celebrates the priesthood, which in the Catholic Church is forbidden to women. The Church interprets Jesus’ words during his Last Supper as instituting a priesthood, a suspicious and spurious interpretation at best. In the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in Providence, RI, this commemoration takes place during morning Mass. Every priest and every Catholic school child in Rhode Island is in attendance. The place was packed. Twelve of us Spirited Women attended as well. During the entire Mass we stood. We stood, twelve across a single pew in the back of the Cathedral, feminist texts in hand and we faced the Bishop who was also forced to face us. We were quiet. We were as respectful as protestors can be, but we stood. We stood in contradiction. We stood in defiance of our exclusion. We stood in solidarity with each other. And we stood as if our feet could demand justice and make it a reality.

When it came time for Communion, because we were at the back of church, we were the last to approach the altar for its reception. As the first few women received communion something happened as if inspired. In a spontaneous act, they remained where they were and waited until all twelve of us had received the wafer that still meant something to us. And then, as if by instinct, we turned as one and returned to the back of the Cathedral (a long walk). We created what can only be described as a procession, unplanned to be sure, but a procession nonetheless. We raised the texts of our truths high; the words of the likes of Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Rosemary Radford-Ruether and Mary Daly. We walked, I think, more slowly than required. Every single priest who had been a priest of my childhood, my adolescence and my young womanhood was in attendance and they saw me. O, they saw me. They saw that I was there in spite of them, despite them, because of them. And I was scared shitless. But it was liberating in a way I never thought possible. Fear and courage experienced in the same moment is not rare I think, but one requires the other if one is going to act, doesn’t it?

Later that day, when The Providence Journal evening edition hit the newsstands, there was a story about the protest which included the reaction of the Bishop. He was incensed. He declared that Spirited Women of Rhode Island owed the worshippers an apology for their behavior that morning and for “disturbing the peace” of the congregation. And so we issued one.

One of the amazing things I learned through this entire experience was that if one calls a “press conference,” the press shows up! I couldn’t believe it. Spirited Women called a press conference to be held at Cathedral Square and there they were; newspaper reporters, local television mini-vans, cameras and all. I was elected to prepare and deliver the response, since the form of the "apology" was my idea. This is the text that I prepared and delivered that day (the piece of paper I found in my office this week), microphones shoved into my face:

Spirited Women of Rhode Island has made several unsuccessful attempts to meet with Bishop Gelineau to discuss the role of women in the Church and the issue of sexism within the Diocese of Providence. In his most recent correspondence, Bishop Gelineau once again refused to enter into such

dialogue. In addition, he suggested that Spirited Women issue an apology

for disrupting the “peace and tranquility” of the congregation present at

the recent Holy Thursday celebration of Holy Chrism at which Spirited

Women engaged in a silent protest within the Cathedral. Today, we would

like to respond:

We are sorry that our Church continues to insist that women remain silent, invisible and marginalized.

We are sorry that our Church leadership values “peace and tranquility”

over justice and equality.

We are sorry that our Church measures the quality of ordained ministry

on the basis of sex rather than individual gifts, intelligence, compassion

and call to service.

We are sorry that for centuries, women’s experience of the divine has not

been lifted up as equal in value to that of men’s experience.

We are sorry that the hierarchy of the Church is so threatened by a perceived sense of loss of control and power, that it has lost the ability for leadership within a discipleship of equals.

We are sorry that the Church esteems the maleness of Christ above the spirit of Christ; a spirit of inclusive grace.

We are saddened by the refusal of our Bishop to even consider altering

those elements of oppression and inequality, which fall within the scope

of the local Church; the incorporation of women into the Diocese of

Providence hierarchy; the education of clergy on the concerns of women

and the encouragement of gender inclusive language in parish worship.

It is with deep sorrow that we watch our children and grandchildren continue

to experience the pain, exclusion and sexism of a patriarchal Church.

In lifting our voices in sorrow, Spirited Women of Rhode Island join the

Bishop in praying and hoping for reconciliation borne truly from the teachings

of Jesus Christ.

Whew. Needless to say, we received no further correspondence from the Bishop of Providence.

To be continued….     

Inquisitive Minds...Get Silenced

A few nights ago, I watched a PBS program on the Inquisition and its effects on a small medieval town in Southern France (I know. What can I say? It’s a geek thing). Anyway, these were the effects: the entire town was wiped out. Everybody knows that there were actually three Inquisitions (ok, not everybody). The Papal Inquisition, begun in the thirteenth century in an effort to “educate” heretics, the Spanish Inquisition, when the “Catholic Monarchs” Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain were given jurisdiction over their own inquisition and the Papal Inquisition, which claimed Galileo as a victim and which eventually resulted in the famous (or infamous) Catholic Index of banned books.

 

Doire Tangent #1: The list of banned authors includes Victor Hugo, who almost single-handedly saved Notre Dame Cathedral from certain ruin in the 19th century, Jean-Paul Sartre, Voltaire, Kierkegaard, Daniel Defoe (why?), Nikos Kazantzakis (author of The Last Temptation of Christ. No surprise there.) and by the way, the movie of the same name is viewed in my Religion and Film class. Also on the list, Jonathan Swift, Emile Zola, Graham Greene (surely they jest), Gustave Flaubert (of The Parrot??), Immanuel Kant, Nietzsche (again, no surprise) and Alexandre Dumas (oh yes, The Three Musketeers is surely a threat to Catholic orthodoxy). In 1966, the faithful were officially released from doctrinal obligations against reading the banned books but not from its moral obligation. Never to be accused of falling behind modernity, the Church has now added movies to the list.  End of tangent.

 

Doire Tangent #2: The Spanish Inquisition of the 15th century resulted in the expulsion of all Jews from Spain. They had a choice-- receive baptism, leave Spanish soil, or die. Of the estimated 500,000 Jews in Spain at the time, half of them underwent the mock baptism and half of them migrated to Portugal, which didn’t help them much because within a few short years Jews were expelled from Portugal too. The deadline year when Jews had to make this choice? 1492. There are historians who are working on the thesis that Christopher Columbus may have been Jewish and left Spain with his famous fleet just in time.

Ha! Wouldn’t THAT be rich? If “Christian America” had, in reality been “discovered” by a Jew! Only time and scholarship will tell. Of course, it seems to me that any historian attempting to definitively pinpoint Columbus' religious lineage need look no further than his first name. I've never met a Jew with that name. Unless... it's Columbus' mock baptismal name!!  End of tangent.

 

Back to PBS…Before the program began, the director found it relevant to include screen text, which informed the audience that in 2004, Pope John Paul II issued an apology for the “wounds” inflicted by the Inquisition. Oh really? I didn’t know that it was over. 

 

I have joked on occasion that it is my goal to be silenced by the Church. I am not important or influential enough for them to pay attention, but I take comfort in the fact that if they knew about me, I probably would be.

 

Many of the theologians I most admire have been. Very important to the development of  my own theological voice, Dominican Father Matthew Fox (the“father of Creation-Centered spirituality”) who once wrote, "What is it about patriarchy that makes it so stupid?"  Fox  was “asked” not to teach or publish for a year while his work was examined for heresy by the Vatican. They never found any but in the meantime Fox, refusing to be silenced, left the Catholic priesthood and was welcomed into ordination by the Episcopal Church. Edward Schillebeeckx, whose book on Church was the first theological work I’d ever read. Then, there is Hans Kung, who took the Council of Vatican II seriously and fashioned a theology that was broad and open and well, just plain cool; Charlie Curran who lost his license to teach theology at Catholic University in 1986 for questioning the Church’s teaching on birth control in his classroom. Karl Rahner, the most brilliant modern, male (ha!) theologian I’ve ever read (certified by the fact that some of his sentences are three pages long) was silenced by Pope John XXIII (stick the knife in and twist). In 2004 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (headed by Joseph card. Ratzinger) declared his writings orthodox.

 

Doire Tangent #3: When the Office of the Inquisition was dissolved the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith took its place. For much of the latter half of the 20th century its Prefect was Joseph card. Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. A 2004 Pastoral Letter sent to Bishops around the world, written by Ratzinger and signed by Pope JPII, dealt with the role of women in the Church and the world. In it, Ratzinger called feminism “lethal to Church and society.” End of tangent.

 

And then, there are the Liberation theologians, Gustavo Gutierrez often called “the father of Liberation Theology,” was investigated and issued “complaints” but was never officially silenced; Leonardo Boff silenced both in 1985 and 1991. He left the priesthood in 1992, so is now free to say what he wills. Most recently Jon Sobrino, not officially silenced but as recently as October, 2006 was “admonished,” and denounced.  When I teach my Religion and Film course and we watch “The Mission,” Liberation Theology is the focus of the study. Selections from Sobrino’s Christology at the Crossroads are  required reading.

 

The Latin American Liberation theologians changed the world. I am not kidding. They are for me, the quintessential example of how the power of an idea can begin a revolution. A handful of Jesuit priests living and working amongst the poorest of the poor of Central America and informed (perhaps) by the work of Jurgen Moltmann and his suffering God, began to do theology from the ground up. Theology had classically been a project that speculated about the nature of God and then reflected upon humanity from God’s presumed point of view. The Liberation theologians turned traditional theology on its head. They reflected upon the human experience and then “did theology” in light of that experience. The result was a theology that placed God on the side of the poor and oppressed, rather than the privileged and triumphant. Suffering became the epistemological locus. Latin American Liberation Theology opened the door for all other theologies of liberation; feminist, African-American, Mujerista, womanist; all are the children of these Jesuit priests who had the radical notion that if theology is not concerned about justice, then theology has become absurd and obscene. Their theology began a movement that called for change in the unjust and corrupt political systems of Latin America. Bishop Oscar Romero, one of its spokesmen, was assassinated while at his altar celebrating Mass.

 

Doire  Tangent #4: In the 1980s, Ratzinger led the Vatican's campaign to wipe out the movement, which he said replaced the church's spiritual role with misplaced social and economic activism. And now the Pope is visiting Latin America, a region of the world in which millions suffer relentlessly from poverty, violence, the spread of  HIV and other diseases and unjust and corrupt governments. So, what is the Pope addressing in Latin America? Abortion, as he issues the threat of excommunication to all Catholics (especially U.S. politicians) who support a woman’s right to choose. What color is the freaking SKY in his world?

 

Wow. Have I written so much? I could write so much more. I cannot imagine that any of you have stayed with this blog post to the end, which mercifully will occur here and which will conclude with a quote from Jon Sobrino’s Christology at the Crossroads.

 

       Christian hope is hope in the fulfillment of the universe, but it is

       not naïve either. Rather than directing its gaze above and beyond

       injustice and death, Christian hope takes a stand against injustice

       and death; it is a hope against hope (emphasis mine).

 

May there  be more theologians to come who are courageous enough to challenge a complacent Church and a dead theology. One of the truest signs that a voice must be heard is that the Church has attempted to silence it.

 

Reasons to Celebrate

#10: The last three issues of Vanity Fair have featured covers depicting Brad Pitt (April), Leonardo DiCaprio (May) and Bruce Willis (June).

 

#9: Rumor has it that Joni Mitchell has been busy in the studio and is about to release a CD of brand new songs about war and peace. The CD will either be titled “If,” or "Fife and Drum,” (according to my sources).

 

#8: The long awaited fourth installment of the Die Hard series will be released this summer. Live Free or Die starring Bruce Willis as John MacLane will not disappoint as long as it is just a little bit better than Die Harder (#2 in the series).

 

#7: Bob Dylan and his band have not YET completed the announcement of summer tour dates, so perhaps there is still a chance that Dylan will be somewhere near Charleston… and I will get to kiss him.

 

#6: This month there will be a blue moon. The second full moon, which occurs in the same month, is a blue moon. I’m thinking of throwing a party and serving Blue Nun and Moon Pies.

 

#5: On Queen Elizabeth II’s recent visit to the White House, President Bush was only mildly embarrassing, dating America’s BI-centennial in 1776 and referring to the Queen inappropriately as his mother.

 

#4: Roger Clemons is returning to baseball. OK. Yes, I know he’s going back to the Yankees, but I do not consider The Rocket to be a traitor to the Sox (unlike Demon Damon). He is phenomenal. He is The Rocket. And it is always a joy to watch him pitch.

 

#3: It is May in Charleston and the beach beckons.

 

#2: Tropical storm Andrea was gentle and kind.

 

#1: I am alive. And life is good.

 

Post a comment! Tell me something you're celebrating!

I Had the Hard Part

Thursday evening, I participated in a three-part panel presentation on “The Effects of the Women’s Movement on Religion.” The public forum was organized by a local Rabbi and sponsored by The Jewish-Christian Council of Greater Charleston. Isn’t that precious? They still think that ecumenism is possible…

 

The audience was comprised of older members of the community. And I don’t mean older than my students. I mean older than me.

 

It was my job to introduce the feminist critique of patriarchal religions (which is redundant of course, because they all are). I had ten minutes. I know. You’re laughing. I’m laughing too. I started by doing the breakdown of “feminist critical analysis.” Although I had to skip the “feminist” part and just hope that they understood that this was about women. The “critical” part begins with the observation that all of recorded history has been recorded by men, for men, about men. I did the standard Schussler-Fiorenza working definition of patriarchy, i.e. “a system of organization in which dominant men exercise the most power (politically, culturally, religiously, domestically… oh shoot, in every damn way there is) and less dominant men hold lesser power in descending order.” Fiorenza is quick to point out in her classes that one of the characteristic marks of patriarchy is that women are not even included in the structure of power. Then, I did the “analysis” part; that 5,000 years of human reality described, proscribed and prescribed by men must mean something. It does. It means that the body of inherited knowledge; of human understandings of ways of being in the world; of philosophy, history, psychology, mythology, theology… oh shoot, of every damn ‘ology there is, has been constructed by men, through the experience of men. But not just men; men who have lived within a patriarchal system of organization, which privileges them.

 

The result of the analysis is the conclusion that this body of knowledge is fraught with androcentrism, the tendency to think, write and act as if men constitute the standard of what it means to be human; that men serve as the model of ideal humanity and all those who are not men are marginal and peripheral as human beings. And then I gave examples of androcentrism as it rears its ugly head in language; in authorship, interpretation and translation of texts. One of the consequences of androcentrism, particularly in worldviews that assume a dualistic approach to all things, is that those things associated with maleness/femaleness will correlate to other dualisms; spiritual/material, heaven/earth, sun/moon, dry/damp, and ultimately, good/evil, superior/inferior.

 

Then, I read an excerpt from Judith Plaskow’s Standing Again at Sinai in which she points out that at the moment in which the chosen people make a covenant with God at the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses addresses the people by saying, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.” (Exodus 19:15). At this defining moment in Biblical history, when the God of the Bible makes a covenant-not with an individual, as with Abraham-but with the entire people, Moses addresses the people only as men. This is, of course, counter to the experience of Jewish women. They know that they were there. But, in one swift androcentric move on the part of the chronicler, they are rendered invisible.

 

And then, my ten minutes were up. I hadn’t even scratched the surface. My nail had not even made contact with the skin of the thing.

 

The next presenter spoke about the role of women in Biblical history, naming the names we know and relating the changing role of women in the participation of leadership and ritual in Reform Judaism. The next woman spoke of the increasing power of women’s roles in certain denominations of Christianity; of changes in the language of ritual (particularly the marriage ceremony) and of the power of women’s ordination.

 

Then came the Q and A.

Guess who bore the brunt?

 

The first question was posed (to me) from a man who asked, “I’ve been married 50 years. My marriage has been equal. Does that mean I am not a man?”

 

Huh?

 

“No sir, it simply means that your marriage has not been characterized by patriarchy, a system of organization.”

 

It really was a great opportunity though to point out the complexities of the feminist analysis of structures of domination, which do not operate solely on the basis of sex, but of race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, age, etc., what Fiorenza calls “kyriarchy,” from the Greek word for master. To point out that the term “patriarchy” implies that all men dominate over all women would be erroneous and would constitute a naïve understanding of the issues. Clearly in history there have been women who have wielded the power of life and death over certain men (white women in the South during a certain part of its history as having power over black men, for example). The key word here is system, which excludes women from exerting powers of decision, of agency and the exercise of choice for the direction of their own lives; of participation in encoding the laws that will govern them, the texts that will describe them and the voices that will name who they are.

 

The next question (again, addressed to me) was more of a statement than a question--the inevitable person in the crowd (or classroom) who will point out the exception and expect it to send the rule crashing.

 

“What about the Greek goddesses?”

 

Huh?

 

That a culture might have goddesses in the sky does not mean that female power gets translated to the ground.

 

“What about Mary, in Catholicism… blah, blah, blah?”

 

I didn’t even tackle this one. I merely said, “Yes. Thankyou.”

 

The next few questions were (gratefully) not posed to me in particular so I remained quiet while the other panelists fielded them. The last question of the evening asked about women’s ordination and what did we think women’s rabbinic and priestly roles contributed to the future? The other panelists took their turns and then I said (something like); “I was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. When I was a little girl women were not allowed to even go near the altar unless she was a nun changing the altar linens (which of course, she had also washed and ironed). The first time I saw a woman at the altar I was in divinity school and in my thirties. It was a powerful moment. Can you imagine what it was like for me, to see a woman occupying the sacred space that had always been denied me? Can you imagine what it was like growing up learning and understanding that by the very fact of my being, I violated sacred space? Can you envision the impact of believing that my very body constituted a thing so repugnant and profane that I was barred from the Divine’s imminent presence? The stunning fact of women at the altar, reading the Torah, consecrating bread and wine, accomplishes many things. Among them, it begins to reverse centuries of betrayal and pain, and it assures that those little girls sitting or standing in the halls of sacred space will not experience the blow of exclusion and rejection.”

 

Then the evening officially came to a close and the crowd began to disperse.

The Rabbi approached me with tears in his eyes. He clasped my hand and then told me something that made me laugh out loud. The Rabbi said, “I want to take your class!”

 

Two Surprises Before 8 AM

Surprise #1: I awoke ravenous. All I consumed yesterday was a Starbuck’s Cranberry Orange Scone and two mini-Luna bars. That’s it. All day. I forget to eat sometimes. Scavenging around the kitchen for something to eat for breakfast I found leftover rice and lentils, a dried up orange, and salad fixings. None of which was appealing. Waaayyyy in the back of my refrigerator I discovered a box of Bisquick, purchased sometime last year to make homemade shortcakes for strawberries. I checked the expiration date: February 2007. What the heck? Baking Soda surely can last through an extra two months. Pancakes!! I had an egg, but no milk. What to do? I know… 1 part water, 1 part Half & Half. Presto! Milk! I started to make the recipe and thought, what else can I put in here? I remembered I had some fresh, frozen cranberries in the freezer… I threw some of those in. As the pancakes started to cook in the frying pan, the little frozen cranberries began to pop… little red fireworks happenin’ right in my kitchen.

Life. One damn gift after another…

 

Surprise #2: I finally opened and played a new cd I received as a gift this week. And I gotta tell ya’, the only way I would have ever heard this music is to receive it as a gift. Kanye West. That’s right. Doire’s listening to Kanye. But that’s not the surprise. The surprise is- I like it! Couldn’t help but dance.

 

I wanna share candy and stuff…

Purposeful Musings?

Excerpt from the spring 2007 issue of Harvard Divinity Today:

 

“Science is no replacement for religion,” Nowak (Professor of Mathematics and Biology at Harvard) said, “because we are interested in many questions which are not scientific. For example, what is the purpose of my life? Where do I come from? Where will I go?”

 

Indeed, some of these questions cannot be answered by science. The scientific project prides itself on treating only those questions that can be proved or unproved; questions that can be validated or invalidated through hypotheses, testing, and the evaluation of empirical data. “What is the purpose of my life?’ does not fall into this category. I do think that science can respond to the question, “Where do I come from?” (though I find it disturbing that a Professor at Harvard ended a sentence with a preposition)…

 

Doire tangent: Harvard Joke:

Freshman (to an upperclassman): “Do you know where the library is at?”

Upperclassman: “We at Harvard do not end sentences with prepositions.”

Freshman: “OK then, do you know where the library is at, asshole?”

 

Anyway… I DO think that science can answer the question “From where do I come?” but certainly not, “Where will I go?”

 

As regards the question “From where do I come?” I personally care only to look as far back as human history. Beyond that, origins are at best scientifically speculative and/or mythological. To examine the effects of 5000 years of human history is enough stuff for analysis and it is burdened with enough problems. As regards the question, “Where will I go?” I have already answered that question in this blog. I don’t care. I care not for an afterlife, nor do I need one. My narcissism, extensive though it might be, does not prevail upon me to insist that I live forever in some otherworldly realm. This life is enough for me. There is enough beauty, purpose and grace. Here.

 

Which I suppose leads us to the remaining question posed by Dr. Nowak, “What is the purpose of life?” Ha! Do you think that I am arrogant enough to propose that for you? No. My audacity would not stretch so far. But I am always astonished by the human search for meaning that is so desperate it would excuse an omnipotent god of unspeakable crimes; it would find meaning in suffering that is (to quote Emmanuel Levinas) “useless;” it would assign ultimate purpose in a Will that would condemn millions to fiery damnation. Why must the human imagination stretch so far so as to find a purpose for this life? Isn’t living it enough? Isn’t that grace enough?

 

As for me, my purpose is fulfilled when I tell a student that I love him and he is so moved as to become speechless, because it is the truth. My purpose is accomplished when I move to the rhythms of my own longings and I delight in the fulfillment. My purpose is fulfilled when I stand before a crushed soul who needs only a hand extended and my arms are there, and open. I am so tired of humanity seeking purpose in spaces and places other than those that stand right before them. When will we understand? My purpose is proposed to me in the very instant that there is a need expressed before my eyes and before my heart. My purpose is fulfilled when I rise up to meet it and greet it and embrace it in the constant and ever moving flow of humanity that I encounter, every day.

Do I need religion to respond to THAT? NO. I need only the willingness to bend whichever way life takes me, and into whatever hollow sounding breath is blown my way, and to whatever joy is there for the taking.