First, if you are reading this, let me apologize for the gap in posts. I was beginning to doubt whether or not anyone was reading the blog, and so I left it unattended for awhile. In any case, here is a new posting:
“I think of you every day. Much Luv”
There were the words above…”I think of you every day. Much luv” staring up at me. I had just gotten on the train I call the “tunnel of death”, that is, the subway. The reason for this is the autophobia and bit of claustrobia I have. Ok, perhaps there is more claustrophobia then I will admit. I am not sure at this point. However, I will just bet “dollars to donuts”, as grandmother used to say, that not many people will not double knot their shoelaces for fear of feeling trapped in their own shoes. There. I said it.
But I digress.
I take the subway to work. I sat down, and there written on the top edge of the seat in front of me where those words… “I think of you every day. Much luv.” The average person might not have even given it a second thought. But, dear reader, I am far from being the average person.
In a series of books called “True Life in God” God says that there are no co-incidences to Him. Now we can debate endlessly the legitimacy, or not, of the books. We can debate endlessly what about when bad things happen to good people (in fact there is even a book written with that very title). But let me pose a question. What if God doesn’t always speak to us through pillars of fire in a deep voice that sounds suspiciously like Charlton Heston? Perhaps this is not just a coincidence? Does this seem reasonable? Shingon Buddhist believe in the “voiceless voice” of God. At Medjugorgie Mother Mary tells us of God speaking to us in silence. St. Teresa of Avila and the Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta speak of the same thing. So what if God speaks to us in other ways?
What gives me pause to consider this, on this day is not just the words above, but the context in which I viewed them.
Human beings are often creatures of guilt. We have all heard of people being given a “guilt trip” whether the person giving the guilt trip is a family member or a friend. When human being sin, we later come to God with a guilty conscience. We feel guilty. The fact of the matter is most people don’t have to wait for someone like satan to come along and make us feel guilty – we do just fine on our own.
Yes. I know. There are sometimes when there may be a reason to feel guilty.
But there are other times when it is merely a matter of not being able to forgive ourselves for being human. There are other times when we don’t even understand the concept of righteous anger.
“Righteous anger?”
You bet. Even Christ Himself threw the money lenders out of the temple – His Father’s House – and overturned their tables. He had every right to do so. Not just because of who he was, but because of what was going on. There are some things that just aren’t done. Disrespecting God is one of them. Do you think Jesus felt guilty for throwing out the money lenders? I can’t tell you. One day, if we are all lucky, we will get to ask Him.
Yes, the other side of the coin is that there are times when it is a darn good thing that we can feel guilty.
Consider Mother Mary – Christ’s mother.
Now at this point, if you are not Christian, just bear with me. If you are Christian you at least understand that Mary was Jesus’ mother. If you believe that Jesus was also God, as I do, you have an understanding of Mary as Mother of God. OK? Lets just leave it at that.
In the news we see people like Mel Gibson throwing around racial epithets aimed at Jews. He is far from being the only one. It is easy for people to forget, for those out there who may be anti-semitic, that Christ was a Jew. Mary was a Jew.
There is a game called “the dozens” For those of you who may not know it, it is a game where two people start insulting one another’s mother until the other one has no come back. Now – I told you that to tell you this –
Think about the above paragraph. How many times have you heard someone talk about “those damn jews” Not often out in the open any more. Bigotry isn’t as accepted, happily, as it once was. But it is still there my friends, it has just gone underground. It circulates through society like a nasty undercurrent, and one that, if it where anthropomorphically embodied would be just as mean as a snake. That is why we have people like Mel Gibson insulting Jews and people like Michael Richards (Cosmo Kramer of “Seinfeld” fame) insulting African Americans in night clubs. Bigotry is still alive and well.
But the thing is this – remember – Christ is a Jew. His mother is a Jew. The apostles were all Jews. I don’t know about you my friends but playing “the dozens” with God’s mother seems a very, very dangerous thing to me.
Some things just aren’t done. That is one of them.
I told you that – to tell you this. This is one case where it is a darn good thing that there is such a thing as guilt
So whether we are guilty because we have something to feel guilty about, or we feel guilty just because human beings seem to enjoy feeling guilty think about this:
If you deserve to feel guilty, say a little prayer to God, whatever your concept. Also remember the words “I am sorry” go along way. Then forget about it. Don’t relive the guilt. If the other party can’t forgive you, at that point their hard heart is theirs to live with and that is their own lookout.
If you feel guilty because of righteous anger – such as the leader of your country killing people in another country because “God told Him to do it” Well in that case, the person upon which you have heap your anger for that issue had it coming. Offer a little prayer to God, to get it to stop. Then forget about it. Leave it in God’s hands.
If you are guilty just because you seem to enjoy feeling guilty. (see the above paragraph about asking for forgiveness). Well, first off – cut it the heck out. Do you enjoy feeling guilty? Do you “dig” on it? Is it “your thing?” No? Well allow yourself to be human. Once you have done one of the above FORGET ABOUT IT.
As human beings one of the saddest things is that, even if we ask God for forgiveness we seem to have a hard time forgiving ourselves. This is where God speaking to us in silence comes in.
We may be going through our day. We may feel like we have disappointed God (after all feeling guilty about something can be very, very contagious to those around you). Then we sit down on a train. And there, in our field of vision are the words from God.
“I think about you every day. Much luv. – God”
Friday, November 24, 2006
Friday, October 06, 2006
What goes around comes around
Every now and then Mother Superior and I go out to a movie together. It is rare that our schedules and duties allow us both to go anywhere at the same time. This time we went out to see a movie called "Idlewild". First, friends a small disclaimer - I may have lived a good deal of life in my time, but this does not mean I want to see it on the silver screen. Yes, there is a scene in the movie where I found myself saying, "Why do they always have to put the obligatory scene like that in the movie." I have often thought there should be disclaimers on movies that read something like, "Some scenes may not be appropriate for children and nuns".
What is important is a line from the movie. One of the main characters in the movie is a man named Rooster. One of the running themes in the movie is a whisky flask that never seems to be more than arms reach from Rooster. The front of the whiskey flask, which we see throughout the movie, has a picture of a rooster on it. This same rooster is animated. The upshot of which whiskey flask talks to Rooster giving him advice and comments.
At one of the crucial moments in the movie, the whiskey flask rooster talks to the human named rooster and says this:
"What goes around comes around Rooster - its called karma"
Rooster goes on in the movie to discover the truth of these words. I won't spoil the movie for you by telling you how.
But it brings up a point that Sister Frances and I talk about alot - what goes around comes around. In other words Karma.
Recently there has been a rash of key loggers going around the internet. For those of you who don't know what a key logger is - it is a rather vile little program that creates a record of the actual key strokes you make as you type on your computer and sends them over the internet to some unscrupulous person who uses the information to victimize you.
This prompted a comment from me this morning at breakfast, "Why do so many people dedicate such a larger portion of their lives to victimizing other people. How can they do so without thinking that there will never be any repurcussions?"
Yet people do this and in plenty. Recently a member of the House of Representatives the United States victimized his teens by sending the sexually explicit messages. The result is he ended up having to resign his position in congress.
The list of crimes and victims goes on and on. They cover an international scale to a personal scale. They crimes or simple wrongs may have been anonymous or done right out there in the open.
So often we see wrongs such as these and too often see no results of wrong doing. It may be someone at work. It may be someone we know. We may find ourselves saying, "Why don't they ever get punished for that?" The same person who wronged someone may later have some tragedy befall their lives; then look at the heavens and say "Why God? Why me?" If they listened to the still small voice within, they may hear God saying, "Remember that person you harmed last week?"
Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to paint God as some hairy thunderer waiting to reek havoc upon the unsuspecting masses. On the other hand, recently Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of the Rev. Billy Graham was interviewed on The Early Show By Jane Clayson. This is an excerpt from the interview:
Jane Clayson: I've heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, if God is good, how could God let this happen? To that, you say?
Anne Graham Lotz: I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we're sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it.
She is right in that we cannot expect to call God in to save us when something goes wrong and yet tell Him to get out of our lives the rest of the year. If we harm someone on purpose, if we push God from our lives, then why should He protect us?
Think about it.
So no...the bad guys don't win. Karma is Karma, whether in this world or the next. Too many people don't believe in an afterlife until they are one step away from it. Grandmother, God rest her soul, used to say, "the world is full of old people trying to work their way into heaven." Yes, she said this because she was one of those people. To many people God, by whatever name, is a being "measured and far away" to use a phrase from Thoreau. St. Therese, our dear sister, felt God to be real, close and personal. He was not some historical personage.
I will leave you, this time with the words of Dr. Wayne Dyer, the author and motivational speaker. He had this to say about Karma:
"How people treat you is their Karma, how you react is yours" - Dr.Wayne Dyer
What is important is a line from the movie. One of the main characters in the movie is a man named Rooster. One of the running themes in the movie is a whisky flask that never seems to be more than arms reach from Rooster. The front of the whiskey flask, which we see throughout the movie, has a picture of a rooster on it. This same rooster is animated. The upshot of which whiskey flask talks to Rooster giving him advice and comments.
At one of the crucial moments in the movie, the whiskey flask rooster talks to the human named rooster and says this:
"What goes around comes around Rooster - its called karma"
Rooster goes on in the movie to discover the truth of these words. I won't spoil the movie for you by telling you how.
But it brings up a point that Sister Frances and I talk about alot - what goes around comes around. In other words Karma.
Recently there has been a rash of key loggers going around the internet. For those of you who don't know what a key logger is - it is a rather vile little program that creates a record of the actual key strokes you make as you type on your computer and sends them over the internet to some unscrupulous person who uses the information to victimize you.
This prompted a comment from me this morning at breakfast, "Why do so many people dedicate such a larger portion of their lives to victimizing other people. How can they do so without thinking that there will never be any repurcussions?"
Yet people do this and in plenty. Recently a member of the House of Representatives the United States victimized his teens by sending the sexually explicit messages. The result is he ended up having to resign his position in congress.
The list of crimes and victims goes on and on. They cover an international scale to a personal scale. They crimes or simple wrongs may have been anonymous or done right out there in the open.
So often we see wrongs such as these and too often see no results of wrong doing. It may be someone at work. It may be someone we know. We may find ourselves saying, "Why don't they ever get punished for that?" The same person who wronged someone may later have some tragedy befall their lives; then look at the heavens and say "Why God? Why me?" If they listened to the still small voice within, they may hear God saying, "Remember that person you harmed last week?"
Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to paint God as some hairy thunderer waiting to reek havoc upon the unsuspecting masses. On the other hand, recently Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of the Rev. Billy Graham was interviewed on The Early Show By Jane Clayson. This is an excerpt from the interview:
Jane Clayson: I've heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, if God is good, how could God let this happen? To that, you say?
Anne Graham Lotz: I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we're sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it.
She is right in that we cannot expect to call God in to save us when something goes wrong and yet tell Him to get out of our lives the rest of the year. If we harm someone on purpose, if we push God from our lives, then why should He protect us?
Think about it.
So no...the bad guys don't win. Karma is Karma, whether in this world or the next. Too many people don't believe in an afterlife until they are one step away from it. Grandmother, God rest her soul, used to say, "the world is full of old people trying to work their way into heaven." Yes, she said this because she was one of those people. To many people God, by whatever name, is a being "measured and far away" to use a phrase from Thoreau. St. Therese, our dear sister, felt God to be real, close and personal. He was not some historical personage.
I will leave you, this time with the words of Dr. Wayne Dyer, the author and motivational speaker. He had this to say about Karma:
"How people treat you is their Karma, how you react is yours" - Dr.Wayne Dyer
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Hell in a Hand Basket
A section from our upcoming Podcast - "There Heretic Hour"
The section is called "Hell in a Hand basket":
(Music Bridge: “Start me up” by the Rolling Stones)
You can start me up
You can start me up
I'll never stop.
You can start me up
I've been running hot
You got me just about to blow my top.
You can start me up
you can start me up
I never stop
never stop
never stop
never stop.
(Music Bridge fades under)
Sister Julie: I can hear it now – my dear departed grandmother saying, “the world is going to hell in a hand basket” – and it is never true than it is today. This section is dedicated to those people who have lived in antithesis to all those individuals we feature in our “heretic of the week” section. This section is dedicated to those among us who have made much of the world what it is today – a miserable, wretched place filled with greedy, angry animals.
(cue sound bite – Tommy Lee Jones from “Men in Black”)
"A person is smart. People are dangerous, panicky, stupid animals and you know it."
Sister Julie: Yes, individually there are may people who have actually made the world a better place, even if it is only one life at a time. You know who you are, and God does too – the caretakers who change adult diapers for a living, the doctors who give up lucrative careers to work in third world countries destroyed by earthquakes. God, by whatever name sees all your deeds, and counts them great, even when you don’t.
But there are some people - that have distinguished themselves in the annuls of modern events. Who have, by their deeds, lifted themselves above the crowd, head and shoulders.
And today we have a tie –
Sister Frances: I opened the paper this morning at breakfast. There staring up at me from the Daily Herald for September 12, 2006 was the following:
“There are three kinds of people in this world: those who wouldn’t shoot you in the back for a million dollars, those who would, and those who would find someone to do it for them and split the money.”
What is sad, is not that this is true, for surely it is, but that it was listed under “Today’s Chuckle” While it may be true that there are people in the world today that would sell the grandmother for a nickel, the fact is hardly a “chuckle.”
President Bill Clinton left office in 2001 with a federal budget surplus of $127 billion. President George Bush ran a deficit of $319 billion in 2005.
Sister Julie: William Gale, who worked on the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush. has said, “Since taking office, Bush pushed through tax cuts totaling $1.85 trillion and raised government spending 23 percent in his first four years in office to $2.29 trillion.”
Sister Frances: We received this in the mail this week and I would like to read it to you:
A Japanese doctor says, "Medicine in my country is so
advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put
it in another, and have him looking for work in six weeks."
A German doctor says, "That is nothing, we can take a lung
out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking
for work in four weeks."
British doctor says, "In my country, medicine is so
advanced that we can take half of a heart out of one
person, put it in another, and have them
both looking for work in two weeks."
The Texas doctor, not to be outdone, interjected
"You guys are way behind. We took a man with no brains
out of Texas, put him in the White House and now
half the country is looking for work."
Sister Julie and Sister Frances: So to George Bush for all that you do this tip o’ the veil is for you.
The section is called "Hell in a Hand basket":
(Music Bridge: “Start me up” by the Rolling Stones)
You can start me up
You can start me up
I'll never stop.
You can start me up
I've been running hot
You got me just about to blow my top.
You can start me up
you can start me up
I never stop
never stop
never stop
never stop.
(Music Bridge fades under)
Sister Julie: I can hear it now – my dear departed grandmother saying, “the world is going to hell in a hand basket” – and it is never true than it is today. This section is dedicated to those people who have lived in antithesis to all those individuals we feature in our “heretic of the week” section. This section is dedicated to those among us who have made much of the world what it is today – a miserable, wretched place filled with greedy, angry animals.
(cue sound bite – Tommy Lee Jones from “Men in Black”)
"A person is smart. People are dangerous, panicky, stupid animals and you know it."
Sister Julie: Yes, individually there are may people who have actually made the world a better place, even if it is only one life at a time. You know who you are, and God does too – the caretakers who change adult diapers for a living, the doctors who give up lucrative careers to work in third world countries destroyed by earthquakes. God, by whatever name sees all your deeds, and counts them great, even when you don’t.
But there are some people - that have distinguished themselves in the annuls of modern events. Who have, by their deeds, lifted themselves above the crowd, head and shoulders.
And today we have a tie –
Sister Frances: I opened the paper this morning at breakfast. There staring up at me from the Daily Herald for September 12, 2006 was the following:
“There are three kinds of people in this world: those who wouldn’t shoot you in the back for a million dollars, those who would, and those who would find someone to do it for them and split the money.”
What is sad, is not that this is true, for surely it is, but that it was listed under “Today’s Chuckle” While it may be true that there are people in the world today that would sell the grandmother for a nickel, the fact is hardly a “chuckle.”
President Bill Clinton left office in 2001 with a federal budget surplus of $127 billion. President George Bush ran a deficit of $319 billion in 2005.
Sister Julie: William Gale, who worked on the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush. has said, “Since taking office, Bush pushed through tax cuts totaling $1.85 trillion and raised government spending 23 percent in his first four years in office to $2.29 trillion.”
Sister Frances: We received this in the mail this week and I would like to read it to you:
A Japanese doctor says, "Medicine in my country is so
advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put
it in another, and have him looking for work in six weeks."
A German doctor says, "That is nothing, we can take a lung
out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking
for work in four weeks."
British doctor says, "In my country, medicine is so
advanced that we can take half of a heart out of one
person, put it in another, and have them
both looking for work in two weeks."
The Texas doctor, not to be outdone, interjected
"You guys are way behind. We took a man with no brains
out of Texas, put him in the White House and now
half the country is looking for work."
Sister Julie and Sister Frances: So to George Bush for all that you do this tip o’ the veil is for you.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Heretic of the week
Heretic of the week:
Sister Julie: First let me read a quote to you by the Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, winner of the Nobel Peace prize, founder of a religious order that cared for India’s poorest citizens:
"There is only one God, and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I've always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic. We believe our work should be our example to people. We have among us 475 souls - 30 families are Catholic and the rest are all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs - all different religions. But they all come to our prayers."
Here is an e-mail I recently received by Dennis Momin who comments on the life and works of Mother Teresa. His letter starts, “Heretics you all are!!” and continues from there…
“If "Mother" Theresa has truly uttered those words that you
dorn on your front page sister (and which, I believe, greatly
reflects your ideals and organization) then the crucifix she
pinned on her shoulder was her greatest shame. All her life
long deeds of kindness and love was for the sake of humanty
than God and was not worth a child's day who died for
Christ.” – Dennis Momin
Yes, Dennis, in answer to your letter I am proud to say that our order is dedicated to the same hertical principles espoused by this most famous of heretics, a nun who devoted her life to God and who has been beatified by the Catholic Church. And so Dennis we have named this part of our podcast for your words and call it:
Sister Frances: [with emphasis] HERETIC OF THE WEEK!
Sister Julie: Each week we will be dedicating part of this podcast to people who dedicated their lives to the heretic principles of peace, harmony, unity and understanding. People who in some way, whether small or large, made the world a better place to live in. Keep in mind that God, by what ever name you may call Him, does not always call for deeds that stand out in the world’s eyes to be great…sometimes the smallest deeds of kindness can be great in God’s eyes.
Here with our first Heretic of the Week is Mother Frances:
Sister Frances: This weeks heretic was a rebel amongst rebel. You have seen Him over and over again in the news at every turn, with his long hair, scraggly beard and sandals – a real throwback to the hippies of the sixties.
He is a Jew and not only that He is a Rabbi.
Sister Julie: [shocked gasp of amazement] NO!
Sister Frances: Yes! Time magazine for June 21, 1971 describes Him as a:
- Notorious leader of an underground liberation movement
- Practicing medicine, winemaking and food distribution without a license.
- Interfering with businessmen in the temple.
- Associating with known criminals, radicals, subversives, prostitutes and street people.
In one of His famous public quotes He has said, “Do not think I have come to bring peace to the world, No, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
He was sentenced to death by the civil authorities but remains at large. Yes my friends, He is the only man that women don’t mind sharing – you know Him, we love Him, Sister Julie and I want to be like Him – this week’s Heretic of the Week is none other than Jesus Christ Himself.
Sister Julie: In a future segment of Heretic of the Week we will feature one of His close followers – a man who dared to be both Christian and Jew, author of much of the New Testament – none other than the Apostle Paul Himself.
Sister Frances: Our pod-cast is about spirituality, yet with a tongue-in-cheek sort of humor. The basic idea is to call ourselves and all these various past "saints" and holy people "heretics", because most of them, if not all of them were thought of as heretics by one group or another during their lives. We are laughing AT the people who even make the call of "heretics" about other people. We are laughing at those who think themselves in some way better than the general population, better either because of social status, religious rank, or ego.
Sister Julie: My dear departed grandmother put it best when she said, “If you didn’t laugh, You’d cry.”
Sister Julie: First let me read a quote to you by the Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, winner of the Nobel Peace prize, founder of a religious order that cared for India’s poorest citizens:
"There is only one God, and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I've always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic. We believe our work should be our example to people. We have among us 475 souls - 30 families are Catholic and the rest are all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs - all different religions. But they all come to our prayers."
Here is an e-mail I recently received by Dennis Momin who comments on the life and works of Mother Teresa. His letter starts, “Heretics you all are!!” and continues from there…
“If "Mother" Theresa has truly uttered those words that you
dorn on your front page sister (and which, I believe, greatly
reflects your ideals and organization) then the crucifix she
pinned on her shoulder was her greatest shame. All her life
long deeds of kindness and love was for the sake of humanty
than God and was not worth a child's day who died for
Christ.” – Dennis Momin
Yes, Dennis, in answer to your letter I am proud to say that our order is dedicated to the same hertical principles espoused by this most famous of heretics, a nun who devoted her life to God and who has been beatified by the Catholic Church. And so Dennis we have named this part of our podcast for your words and call it:
Sister Frances: [with emphasis] HERETIC OF THE WEEK!
Sister Julie: Each week we will be dedicating part of this podcast to people who dedicated their lives to the heretic principles of peace, harmony, unity and understanding. People who in some way, whether small or large, made the world a better place to live in. Keep in mind that God, by what ever name you may call Him, does not always call for deeds that stand out in the world’s eyes to be great…sometimes the smallest deeds of kindness can be great in God’s eyes.
Here with our first Heretic of the Week is Mother Frances:
Sister Frances: This weeks heretic was a rebel amongst rebel. You have seen Him over and over again in the news at every turn, with his long hair, scraggly beard and sandals – a real throwback to the hippies of the sixties.
He is a Jew and not only that He is a Rabbi.
Sister Julie: [shocked gasp of amazement] NO!
Sister Frances: Yes! Time magazine for June 21, 1971 describes Him as a:
- Notorious leader of an underground liberation movement
- Practicing medicine, winemaking and food distribution without a license.
- Interfering with businessmen in the temple.
- Associating with known criminals, radicals, subversives, prostitutes and street people.
In one of His famous public quotes He has said, “Do not think I have come to bring peace to the world, No, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
He was sentenced to death by the civil authorities but remains at large. Yes my friends, He is the only man that women don’t mind sharing – you know Him, we love Him, Sister Julie and I want to be like Him – this week’s Heretic of the Week is none other than Jesus Christ Himself.
Sister Julie: In a future segment of Heretic of the Week we will feature one of His close followers – a man who dared to be both Christian and Jew, author of much of the New Testament – none other than the Apostle Paul Himself.
Sister Frances: Our pod-cast is about spirituality, yet with a tongue-in-cheek sort of humor. The basic idea is to call ourselves and all these various past "saints" and holy people "heretics", because most of them, if not all of them were thought of as heretics by one group or another during their lives. We are laughing AT the people who even make the call of "heretics" about other people. We are laughing at those who think themselves in some way better than the general population, better either because of social status, religious rank, or ego.
Sister Julie: My dear departed grandmother put it best when she said, “If you didn’t laugh, You’d cry.”
Friday, September 08, 2006
The Heretic Hour
Good morning, afternoon or evening friends (depending on when you are reading this). For those of you who aren't friends and seem to hate us, well God bless you anyway. While I finish the next part of "The Relentless Pessimist" I thought I would update you on one of our most recent projects. We have decided to enter the world of Podcasting. For those of you who may not know what a podcast is, it is simply a small audio (and sometimes video) show that is downloaded to computers and IPODs. Sort of like an internet radio show.
While I get many letters thanking us for our mission, I also get a few zingers. Some of the letters would wilt a steel rose. What put the idea for the title into my head was one of the zingers I received recently. So - as it is oft' said - without further ado, is a short script (a draft) of the opening of the first podcast, still in the works.
The Heretic Hour with Sister Julie and Sister Frances
(Show starts with an audio clip of the following)
Announcer: In the early years of the 16th century, to combat the rising tide of religious unorthodoxy, the Pope gave Cardinal Ximinez of Spain leave to move without let or hindrance throughout the land, in a reign of violence, terror and torture that makes a smashing film. This was the Spanish Inquisition...
Chapman: Trouble at mill.
Cleveland: Oh no - what kind of trouble?
Chapman: One on't cross beams gone owt askew on treadle.
Cleveland: Pardon?
Chapman: One on't cross beams gone owt askew on treadle.
Cleveland: I don't understand what you're saying.
Chapman: [slightly irritatedly and with exaggeratedly clear accent] One of the cross beams has gone out askew on the treadle.
Cleveland: Well what on earth does that mean?
Chapman: *I* don't know - Mr Wentworth just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at the mill, that's all - I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.
[JARRING CHORD]
[The door flies open and Cardinal Ximinez of Spain [Palin] enters, flanked by two junior cardinals. Cardinal Biggles [Jones] has goggles pushed over his forehead. Cardinal Fang [Gilliam] is just Cardinal Fang]
Ximinez: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...(Audio clip fades out)
Mother Frances: "It is important that everyone is seen as equal before God.” Harsh words? Radical? Heretical?
You would think not. Nations have been founded on that principle – including this one. Yet that is the very belief in harmony and equality for which we have been called heretics. The quote is from a particularly radical and heretical person – Mother Teresa of Calcutta - a nun who won the Nobel peace prize for her work helping some of the poorest people in the world.
(Bridge: From “smooth” by Carlos Santana)
And if you said
This life ain't good enough
I would give My world to lift you up
I could change my life
To better suit your mood…
Sister Julie: People expect us to change to suit their moods. When people hear the word nun they usually see a see a mental image of one or two things. Either a woman in a penguin suit wielding a ruler as if it were a machete – some belligerent biddy whose face would crack if it ever smiled or…
Mother Frances: …a woman who is serenity incarnate, who usually wears a halo for a hat.
Sister Julie: I am sister Julie
Mother Frances: and I am Mother Frances.
Sister Julie: - and reality, is often much different. Instead of a halo I wear an IPOD. My world extends beyond the walls of the convent, even when that world is a virtual one – the global community, that makes its second home on the internet.
While I get many letters thanking us for our mission, I also get a few zingers. Some of the letters would wilt a steel rose. What put the idea for the title into my head was one of the zingers I received recently. So - as it is oft' said - without further ado, is a short script (a draft) of the opening of the first podcast, still in the works.
The Heretic Hour with Sister Julie and Sister Frances
(Show starts with an audio clip of the following)
Announcer: In the early years of the 16th century, to combat the rising tide of religious unorthodoxy, the Pope gave Cardinal Ximinez of Spain leave to move without let or hindrance throughout the land, in a reign of violence, terror and torture that makes a smashing film. This was the Spanish Inquisition...
Chapman: Trouble at mill.
Cleveland: Oh no - what kind of trouble?
Chapman: One on't cross beams gone owt askew on treadle.
Cleveland: Pardon?
Chapman: One on't cross beams gone owt askew on treadle.
Cleveland: I don't understand what you're saying.
Chapman: [slightly irritatedly and with exaggeratedly clear accent] One of the cross beams has gone out askew on the treadle.
Cleveland: Well what on earth does that mean?
Chapman: *I* don't know - Mr Wentworth just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at the mill, that's all - I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.
[JARRING CHORD]
[The door flies open and Cardinal Ximinez of Spain [Palin] enters, flanked by two junior cardinals. Cardinal Biggles [Jones] has goggles pushed over his forehead. Cardinal Fang [Gilliam] is just Cardinal Fang]
Ximinez: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...(Audio clip fades out)
Mother Frances: "It is important that everyone is seen as equal before God.” Harsh words? Radical? Heretical?
You would think not. Nations have been founded on that principle – including this one. Yet that is the very belief in harmony and equality for which we have been called heretics. The quote is from a particularly radical and heretical person – Mother Teresa of Calcutta - a nun who won the Nobel peace prize for her work helping some of the poorest people in the world.
(Bridge: From “smooth” by Carlos Santana)
And if you said
This life ain't good enough
I would give My world to lift you up
I could change my life
To better suit your mood…
Sister Julie: People expect us to change to suit their moods. When people hear the word nun they usually see a see a mental image of one or two things. Either a woman in a penguin suit wielding a ruler as if it were a machete – some belligerent biddy whose face would crack if it ever smiled or…
Mother Frances: …a woman who is serenity incarnate, who usually wears a halo for a hat.
Sister Julie: I am sister Julie
Mother Frances: and I am Mother Frances.
Sister Julie: - and reality, is often much different. Instead of a halo I wear an IPOD. My world extends beyond the walls of the convent, even when that world is a virtual one – the global community, that makes its second home on the internet.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
The Relentless Pessimist
(The following is an excerpt from my book “Congratulations your baby is a boy and a girl”)
The relentless pessimist…and the way out
Those of you who know me, or have read the rest of my book, know that over the years I have tended toward being a bit pessimistic. In fact, tended is not the word – Mother Frances once called me a “relentless pessimist” There is an old adage that says one of the definitions of insanity is to repeat the same action and expect a different outcome. Scenes such as the following have played themselves out throughout my entire life.
Spouse: (with a reassuring hand on my arm) “I will always be there for you.”
Me: (with a worried look) “Always?”
Spouse: (smiling) “Yes – always.”
Result? The very next day, the next afternoon in fact – less than 24 hours later – I came home to find a “Dear Jane” note. The person who left me for another woman not only waited until I was gone, but on the way out stole my dog. Thus enacting the now famous adage (which I did not originate):
“My spouse left me and stole my dog – I miss the dog.”
To make matters worse, at least for the dog, is that the same person who stole my dog didn’t even take with their own. Poor Ralph. Ralph had his buddy Winston, my dog, stolen from him as well and was at the same time abandoned by the same person who had abandoned me. So there we were. Quite a pair. Ralph and I (pictured above) both abandoned by the same person.
With the chapters of my life filled out with pages such as these is it any wonder that I eventually became a “The glass is not only half full, but the other half is full of toxic waste” sort of person (I did coin that expression – in fact I have lived it).
All your dreams come true…
Those of you who have seen the original “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” with Gene Wilder in the title roll will remember the following scene. At the end of the movie, Gene Wilder’s character looks at Charlie, to whom he has just given his chocolate factory. He looks very concerned as he admonishes Charlie with the following words:
“Charlie do you know what happened to the little boy who suddenly got everything he ever wanted?”
To this Charlie gives a very worried reply, “No what?”
“He lived happily ever after,” says the Gene Wilder character with a big smile.
At that point Charlie goes on to live happily ever after. Me? There was a time I would probably have looked the person who had just given me a chocolate factory straight in the eye and yelled, “YOUR LIEING”
Even after I began to live “happily ever after” I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, why not? In my case the other shoe had always dropped.
If You’re happy and you know it…
There is a song I remember from my childhood that has a line in it that has always stuck out in my mind…
“If you are happy and you know it clap your hands!”
In my case that would have been the sound of one hand clapping. Why? I will tell you why. After all the pain, after all the misery in my life, there reached a time when God reached down his mighty hand and touched my life. He made my life happy.
So what was the problem?
The problem was that I was happy and I didn’t know it.
How can you be happy and not know it? You can reach the point in your life where pessimism becomes self-fulfilling. Yes, when I walk down the street I typically get what I have come to call “the look” What is “the look?” It is when someone not just glances at me, as all people glance at each other when they are on a train or walking down a street. It is when they stare at me and their head looks up and down my body as if to say “does that nun really have a dead baby hanging out of her mouth” Priceless. I have seen that look over and over again.
But how does that make you a relentless pessimist?
I am glad you asked. It is not “the look” itself that makes one a pessimist. It is the frequency. It happens so often that I come to expect it, whether or not it is really there. I forget the person who follows right after the person with “the look” and smiles at me. I forget the person in my office who smiles and says “good morning sister” and remember the person who refuses to get on an elevator with me. Or at least I used to. Does this mean “the look” happens less often than I think it does?
Nope.
What puts the “P” in pessimist?
Here is an example. The sad truth about Christianity today is that in many cases Christians make the worst Christians.
Okay, how many people just thought “Huh?”
Look at it this way – Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.” What he meant is that democracy may not be the best form of government but it is the best of the worst. Christians can often be the same way, the best of a bad bunch of people. The world is full of people who would sell their grandmother for a nickel. One only has to pick up the average newspaper to realize that. Better a Christian who doesn’t live their faith than someone who has no faith in anything but greed and ignorance. In other words…
Christianity is great if it wasn’t for the average Christian.
“Wait a minute,” you say, “Did I just hear a nun say that?”
Yes you did. You heard God’s little dipstick say that and I am not alone. If you go to church ask yourself “why?” Do you go because you want to? Of do you go because you feel you have to? Do you go because your parents taught you it is the thing to do? Or do you go because you are afraid of what will happen if you don’t?
The churches I have been to are full of people who give me “the look” and worse. There was a time recently when I went up for communion and for a moment the woman who was passing out communion was not going to give me the host because of the way I look. Based on nothing other than her disapproval of my physical appearance. Those of you who have read the rest of my book also know about the church I attended where I was told that they didn’t want “people like me” passing out communion. No. Not pretty, educated well mannered people. They meant people who had once been both genders and looked it.
The big butt (no not mine)…
But that same church also had a woman who attended it (and still does) who is a dear friend. Emma is an 93 year old Irish woman who is the living embodiment of “Mrs. Doubtfire” from the movie of the same name. Emma recently told Mother Superior that every time she goes into the church and sees the woman on the church staff who told me that I was not wanted as a minister of care to pass out communion to the sick, that she thinks of what was done to me. Emma is a woman who is a living saint if ever there was one. Ask anyone who knows her.
But Emma and the people who give me “the look”, the people who refuse to shake my hand, who refuse to talk with me – all those people go to the same church as Emma. It is easy, far too easy, to reach the point in your life where you forget about the people like Emma and remember all the people who are the “bad apples in the barrel” so to speak.
So what is the way out of being a relentless pessimist? The solution can be different for different people. For me, the solution was to find out that I was happy – and know it. How did that happen? How did I find out I was happy? Well my friends, in my case that required a brick up along side the head.
And that is the subject of the next blog…
© 2006 Juliemarie Whitefeather. All rights reserved.
The relentless pessimist…and the way out
Those of you who know me, or have read the rest of my book, know that over the years I have tended toward being a bit pessimistic. In fact, tended is not the word – Mother Frances once called me a “relentless pessimist” There is an old adage that says one of the definitions of insanity is to repeat the same action and expect a different outcome. Scenes such as the following have played themselves out throughout my entire life.
Spouse: (with a reassuring hand on my arm) “I will always be there for you.”
Me: (with a worried look) “Always?”
Spouse: (smiling) “Yes – always.”
Result? The very next day, the next afternoon in fact – less than 24 hours later – I came home to find a “Dear Jane” note. The person who left me for another woman not only waited until I was gone, but on the way out stole my dog. Thus enacting the now famous adage (which I did not originate):
“My spouse left me and stole my dog – I miss the dog.”
To make matters worse, at least for the dog, is that the same person who stole my dog didn’t even take with their own. Poor Ralph. Ralph had his buddy Winston, my dog, stolen from him as well and was at the same time abandoned by the same person who had abandoned me. So there we were. Quite a pair. Ralph and I (pictured above) both abandoned by the same person.
With the chapters of my life filled out with pages such as these is it any wonder that I eventually became a “The glass is not only half full, but the other half is full of toxic waste” sort of person (I did coin that expression – in fact I have lived it).
All your dreams come true…
Those of you who have seen the original “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” with Gene Wilder in the title roll will remember the following scene. At the end of the movie, Gene Wilder’s character looks at Charlie, to whom he has just given his chocolate factory. He looks very concerned as he admonishes Charlie with the following words:
“Charlie do you know what happened to the little boy who suddenly got everything he ever wanted?”
To this Charlie gives a very worried reply, “No what?”
“He lived happily ever after,” says the Gene Wilder character with a big smile.
At that point Charlie goes on to live happily ever after. Me? There was a time I would probably have looked the person who had just given me a chocolate factory straight in the eye and yelled, “YOUR LIEING”
Even after I began to live “happily ever after” I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, why not? In my case the other shoe had always dropped.
If You’re happy and you know it…
There is a song I remember from my childhood that has a line in it that has always stuck out in my mind…
“If you are happy and you know it clap your hands!”
In my case that would have been the sound of one hand clapping. Why? I will tell you why. After all the pain, after all the misery in my life, there reached a time when God reached down his mighty hand and touched my life. He made my life happy.
So what was the problem?
The problem was that I was happy and I didn’t know it.
How can you be happy and not know it? You can reach the point in your life where pessimism becomes self-fulfilling. Yes, when I walk down the street I typically get what I have come to call “the look” What is “the look?” It is when someone not just glances at me, as all people glance at each other when they are on a train or walking down a street. It is when they stare at me and their head looks up and down my body as if to say “does that nun really have a dead baby hanging out of her mouth” Priceless. I have seen that look over and over again.
But how does that make you a relentless pessimist?
I am glad you asked. It is not “the look” itself that makes one a pessimist. It is the frequency. It happens so often that I come to expect it, whether or not it is really there. I forget the person who follows right after the person with “the look” and smiles at me. I forget the person in my office who smiles and says “good morning sister” and remember the person who refuses to get on an elevator with me. Or at least I used to. Does this mean “the look” happens less often than I think it does?
Nope.
What puts the “P” in pessimist?
Here is an example. The sad truth about Christianity today is that in many cases Christians make the worst Christians.
Okay, how many people just thought “Huh?”
Look at it this way – Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.” What he meant is that democracy may not be the best form of government but it is the best of the worst. Christians can often be the same way, the best of a bad bunch of people. The world is full of people who would sell their grandmother for a nickel. One only has to pick up the average newspaper to realize that. Better a Christian who doesn’t live their faith than someone who has no faith in anything but greed and ignorance. In other words…
Christianity is great if it wasn’t for the average Christian.
“Wait a minute,” you say, “Did I just hear a nun say that?”
Yes you did. You heard God’s little dipstick say that and I am not alone. If you go to church ask yourself “why?” Do you go because you want to? Of do you go because you feel you have to? Do you go because your parents taught you it is the thing to do? Or do you go because you are afraid of what will happen if you don’t?
The churches I have been to are full of people who give me “the look” and worse. There was a time recently when I went up for communion and for a moment the woman who was passing out communion was not going to give me the host because of the way I look. Based on nothing other than her disapproval of my physical appearance. Those of you who have read the rest of my book also know about the church I attended where I was told that they didn’t want “people like me” passing out communion. No. Not pretty, educated well mannered people. They meant people who had once been both genders and looked it.
The big butt (no not mine)…
But that same church also had a woman who attended it (and still does) who is a dear friend. Emma is an 93 year old Irish woman who is the living embodiment of “Mrs. Doubtfire” from the movie of the same name. Emma recently told Mother Superior that every time she goes into the church and sees the woman on the church staff who told me that I was not wanted as a minister of care to pass out communion to the sick, that she thinks of what was done to me. Emma is a woman who is a living saint if ever there was one. Ask anyone who knows her.
But Emma and the people who give me “the look”, the people who refuse to shake my hand, who refuse to talk with me – all those people go to the same church as Emma. It is easy, far too easy, to reach the point in your life where you forget about the people like Emma and remember all the people who are the “bad apples in the barrel” so to speak.
So what is the way out of being a relentless pessimist? The solution can be different for different people. For me, the solution was to find out that I was happy – and know it. How did that happen? How did I find out I was happy? Well my friends, in my case that required a brick up along side the head.
And that is the subject of the next blog…
© 2006 Juliemarie Whitefeather. All rights reserved.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Good Grief!
Good Grief
Everyone who has ever read peanuts has met “good old Charlie brown” and everyone who has ever met the overwrought Charlie Brown has heard him utter the now immortal phrase – “good grief”
Yet stop and think about this phrase for a moment.
Good Grief
Can our grief be good? I don’t ever remember seeing Charlie Brown say this phrase with a happy smile on his face.
Followers of the old television show “Night Gallery” often hear Rod Serling present each show using the phrase – “We offer for your consideration.”
And so…
I offer for your consideration the life of a woman that to many would seem a nightmare in every waking moment – the life of Blessed Saint Margaret of Costello.
“Yes sister,” I hear you ask, “but what has the life of a short Italian woman who has been dead for over 900 years got to do with anything?”
That, my dear friends, is easy to answer. This was a woman born into a wealthy noble Italian family. Normally she might have lived in the lap of luxury as it is said. But God blessed her – she did not.
“How is it then,” you ask, “that she was ‘blessed’ by missing out on the easy life?”
Margaret was born a midget, lame, a hunchback, and blind. All this features where matched by her lack of good looks. She spent the first thirteen years of her life imprisoned by her own parents so they could hide her away from the world so they would not have to be ashamed of their daughter. The last of those thirteen years she was forced to live in a prison in a catacomb. When finally God refused to take away all this from their daughter so her parents would no longer have to feel shame, they abandoned her, blind, and alone, on the church steps of Costello, Italy (and hence Margaret of Costello).
She may not have been a ‘looker’ as they say, but, oh my friends, she had a beautiful soul. She had a wondrous, glorious soul. Even if you discount the time she is said to have levitated 20 inches off the floor of a Costello prison Cell while praying for a prisoner; even if you discount the time, after hear death, after an autopsy where three pearls where found in her heart when it was cut open. Even if you discount that…
After her death, at her funeral, in front of a church full of people, including witnesses from the Vatican, she moved her arm and healed a young girl.
Over 900 years later her body has not decayed. Long after all those who abused her have turned to dust, her body just looks like it has a really, really good tan. She is an incorrupt. Other saints that where so holy that God has kept their bodies from decaying in death include Saint Bernadette Soubiros who looks better more than 100 years after her death, then I do now when I am alive.
Yes, my friends, Margaret had a life that was the living embodiment of the phrase, “life is a bitch and then you die.” Yet was she filled with anguish and hate for the way she was born and the way she was treated? Not a bit of it. When she originally came to Costello, Italy, forced into the life of a blind beggar, she was despised by everyone she met. Yet she walked down the street with a smile on her face.
By the time she died?
By the time she died she was universally loved by everyone in Costello, Italy. Do you know the phrase used in high school when it comes to “girls” like me? They say, ‘but she has a great personality’. Well, my friends, when it comes to having a great personality, Margaret was the proverbial ‘IT’ She is the one for whom the expression was originated.
She spent the later years of her life as a nun. One day one of her sisters came to her in despair. It seems the sister had just found out that she was going blind. Now, mind you, as we have said, Margaret was born blind. So at this point it was very much a case of preaching to the choir.
At first Margaret admonished the sister to accept Gods gift. Margaret was no stranger to suffering. She was, in fact, well acquainted with the concept of redemptive suffering. That is, suffering for the sake of others – as did our dear Lord, Jesus. This is suffering for Christ. In other words – ‘good grief’.
The sister was incredulous that Margaret could view blindness as a gift from God. In the end, Margaret healed the sister of her blindness.
To most people, myself included, Margaret of Costello was one of those rare individuals who set the pole so incredibly high that few people would be able to jump the spiritual hurdle.
There are some of us, such as myself, that God has blessed with being the target of more than the usual amount of bigotry and hatred. The world is full of people who are full of themselves; people who have a set view of the world and how it – and everyone in it – must be. When someone, such as myself, born a hermaphrodite, doesn’t fit into that view of the world, they insist on telling others so. Most often they do so loudly and long. It may be a matter of a total stranger telling me “you need to have a dick shoved up your ass.” It may be a co-worker who screams “I am not going to use the bathroom with that THING”. It may be something as subtle as a co-worker who refuses to ride an elevator that has me on it. I have had a lifetime of such treatment.
Yet, you may ask yourselves at this point how one endures such grief and even consider it “good”? I will tell you, it isn’t easy; especially when it is going on – and continues to go on, on a daily basis. There is a darn good reason why many people born such as I was kill themselves.
So how does one endure such grief? How does it become good grief?
As granddad used to say, “It is hard to remember that your original intent was to drain the swamp when you are up to your ass in alligators” – or in this case, bigots.
It is also something else. It is the subject of my next blog.
© 2006 Sisters of Embracement. All rights reserved.
Friday, July 21, 2006
God's Little Dipstick
“Blazing Saddles,” I said.
“Oh what was the name of the movie with Clevon Little in it? The one where he played a sheriff?”
The second voice came from Bernie, a co-worker who, to this day, will not speak to me nor even ride an elevator with me. I once held a door for Bernie, as he was about to walk through it. Rather than walking through the open doorway, he stopped and stood facing the wall next to the door – nose to the wallpaper.
This time I answered Bernie’s question even louder.
“Blazing Saddles! The name of the movie is Blazing Saddles!”
At this point I could have been heard in the next county let alone the next cubicle , or by Bernie who is not hard of hearing. Still Bernie’s questioning continued unabated, blatantly ignoring my response.
“It had Mel Brooks in it,” Bernie asked the woman who sits in the cubicle behind mine, “What was the name of that movie?”
At this point I came to the conclusion that one of two things have happened. First possibility – The laws of physics have suddenly and inexplicably become suspended and sound will no longer carry more than three inches from my lips.
Second possibility – and this one far more likely – Bernie, like so many other of my co-workers has come to consider me with such disdain that they are aghast that I have had the effrontery to exist. In other words…
Nun non-grata
Scenes such as the one able have repeated themselves throughout my entire life. They play themselves over and over again as people pass through my life. I have had a lifetime of watching people laughing amongst themselves only to see the smile rapidly run away from their face when they see me. Yet this are amongst the “kinder, gentler” moments I endure. There have been times, such as when a female co-worker, headed for the ladies room herself, saw me walk in to it first. She took the opportunity to yell after me, “I am not going in their with that THING!” Interestingly enough, to this day she considers herself a “good Christian woman.” Even passers by in the street have taken time from their busy day to heap abuse upon me as I pass. One fine sunny day, not long ago I was walking down the street near my office. I passed a man, as is often the case in larger cities, seeking alms for the poor, among whose ranks he placed himself. I doubted the man’s sincerity in this case, not because of the look on his face, but rather by the look of the suite he wore, which would easily have cost upwards of $300.00. I did not turn a deaf ear on him, as so many others did around him. Instead I spoke with him as I passed and he started walking next to me down the street. When he realized he wasn’t going to get money from me, where he at first addressed me politely as sister, he now shouted at me “You’re really a man aren’t you! You need to have a dick shoved up your ass!”
Welcome to one of my average days.
What have I done, you may ask yourself, to warrant such treatment? Have I committed some heinous crime? Do I kick babies as a hobby? Do I advocate the overturn of the United States by force of arms? No…
I have had the simple fortune of having been born both genders. In more proper terms, a hermaphrodite. Unlike some of the others like me in the country (and there are more than the average person realizes) I had the chance to decide for myself “which gender” later in life.
Wait a minute. Think back. Re-read the last paragraph. Did I say “misfortune” or “fortune”? That’s right. I said I had the FORTUNE to be born a hermaphrodite. Why? Think of the quote by Marshall Mcluhan in the footer - "A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.” Being born as I was has given me the opportunity to gain insights and understanding that most people will never have, nor even understand. Still you may ask yourself, how does this make me fortunate? Why would anyone want to suffer so on a daily basis?
Well, “Want” has nothing to do with it.
Why would I welcome such abuse? I don’t always. But as grandmother used to say, “It’s like hitting yourself in the head with a rock. You can get used to anything if you do it long enough.” Still of what benefit can such abuse be? For the answer to that. You will have to read my next blog.
Sister Julie.
© 2006 Sisters of Embracement. All Rights Reserved.
“Oh what was the name of the movie with Clevon Little in it? The one where he played a sheriff?”
The second voice came from Bernie, a co-worker who, to this day, will not speak to me nor even ride an elevator with me. I once held a door for Bernie, as he was about to walk through it. Rather than walking through the open doorway, he stopped and stood facing the wall next to the door – nose to the wallpaper.
This time I answered Bernie’s question even louder.
“Blazing Saddles! The name of the movie is Blazing Saddles!”
At this point I could have been heard in the next county let alone the next cubicle , or by Bernie who is not hard of hearing. Still Bernie’s questioning continued unabated, blatantly ignoring my response.
“It had Mel Brooks in it,” Bernie asked the woman who sits in the cubicle behind mine, “What was the name of that movie?”
At this point I came to the conclusion that one of two things have happened. First possibility – The laws of physics have suddenly and inexplicably become suspended and sound will no longer carry more than three inches from my lips.
Second possibility – and this one far more likely – Bernie, like so many other of my co-workers has come to consider me with such disdain that they are aghast that I have had the effrontery to exist. In other words…
Nun non-grata
Scenes such as the one able have repeated themselves throughout my entire life. They play themselves over and over again as people pass through my life. I have had a lifetime of watching people laughing amongst themselves only to see the smile rapidly run away from their face when they see me. Yet this are amongst the “kinder, gentler” moments I endure. There have been times, such as when a female co-worker, headed for the ladies room herself, saw me walk in to it first. She took the opportunity to yell after me, “I am not going in their with that THING!” Interestingly enough, to this day she considers herself a “good Christian woman.” Even passers by in the street have taken time from their busy day to heap abuse upon me as I pass. One fine sunny day, not long ago I was walking down the street near my office. I passed a man, as is often the case in larger cities, seeking alms for the poor, among whose ranks he placed himself. I doubted the man’s sincerity in this case, not because of the look on his face, but rather by the look of the suite he wore, which would easily have cost upwards of $300.00. I did not turn a deaf ear on him, as so many others did around him. Instead I spoke with him as I passed and he started walking next to me down the street. When he realized he wasn’t going to get money from me, where he at first addressed me politely as sister, he now shouted at me “You’re really a man aren’t you! You need to have a dick shoved up your ass!”
Welcome to one of my average days.
What have I done, you may ask yourself, to warrant such treatment? Have I committed some heinous crime? Do I kick babies as a hobby? Do I advocate the overturn of the United States by force of arms? No…
I have had the simple fortune of having been born both genders. In more proper terms, a hermaphrodite. Unlike some of the others like me in the country (and there are more than the average person realizes) I had the chance to decide for myself “which gender” later in life.
Wait a minute. Think back. Re-read the last paragraph. Did I say “misfortune” or “fortune”? That’s right. I said I had the FORTUNE to be born a hermaphrodite. Why? Think of the quote by Marshall Mcluhan in the footer - "A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.” Being born as I was has given me the opportunity to gain insights and understanding that most people will never have, nor even understand. Still you may ask yourself, how does this make me fortunate? Why would anyone want to suffer so on a daily basis?
Well, “Want” has nothing to do with it.
Why would I welcome such abuse? I don’t always. But as grandmother used to say, “It’s like hitting yourself in the head with a rock. You can get used to anything if you do it long enough.” Still of what benefit can such abuse be? For the answer to that. You will have to read my next blog.
Sister Julie.
© 2006 Sisters of Embracement. All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Why Virtual?
A Virtual Nun…
Why “The Virtual Nun”? First, to answer the question I am often asked, I really am a nun. Am I a Buddhist nun who happens to be a Christian or a Christian nun who happens to be a Buddhist? The question is like “which came first the chicken or the egg?” The important part of the answer is that Buddhism and Christianity are not, as many assume (and some of my co-workers have screamed at me), mutually exclusive. I am not the first person to follow both Buddhism and Christianity and I certainly will not be the last.
So why “Virtual”?
Marshall McLuhan, the author who wrote so much about mass media, would speak of the world becoming a global village – no part of it not being instantly accessible by the flow of electrons. This is certainly the case today, whether those electrons be in the form of television, radio, internet, or cell phone. The world is becoming an increasingly smaller place.
We live in a world where I can sit in a room with a friend in New Zealand, and another friend in Florida, USA at the same time – all the while I am sitting in my room in Illinois. Yet we can all see and hear each other, real time and in three dimensions. What we see may be a collections of pixels called an avatar, a virtual representation of the self. But we still see each other. We still talk to each other. This is the world of the global village. This is the internet.
William Gibson, the author who first coined the term “cyberspace” described it as an alternate reality in his books. A large part of the global village has become just what the author envisioned – an alternate reality. Massively multiplayer online games (mmo) like “World of Warcraft” are just such alternate realties. How real? Ask the 6.5 million subscribers that consist of everyone from grandmothers to five year olds to movie stars. This is just one small corner of the global village.
Sister Can I talk to you?
Yet too often we forget these collections of pixels are the intrusions into cyberspace of a real person.
One evening a virtual neighbor leaned over the virtual railing of her virtual front porch and spoke these words to me – “Sister can I talk to you?” The porch may have been a collection of pixels in the mmo “Ultima Online” but the woman speaking to me was very real. She was a woman stuck in a marriage with a physically abusive husband. Ultimately she had to take her children and flee for her life.
Whether it is a virtual front porch, an instant message, an email or a telephone call, many is the time I have spoken to troubled residents of the global village. I have never met them. Not in person. But they have met me, the virtual me – The Virtual Nun.
© 2006 Sisters of Embracement. All rights reserved.
Why “The Virtual Nun”? First, to answer the question I am often asked, I really am a nun. Am I a Buddhist nun who happens to be a Christian or a Christian nun who happens to be a Buddhist? The question is like “which came first the chicken or the egg?” The important part of the answer is that Buddhism and Christianity are not, as many assume (and some of my co-workers have screamed at me), mutually exclusive. I am not the first person to follow both Buddhism and Christianity and I certainly will not be the last.
So why “Virtual”?
Marshall McLuhan, the author who wrote so much about mass media, would speak of the world becoming a global village – no part of it not being instantly accessible by the flow of electrons. This is certainly the case today, whether those electrons be in the form of television, radio, internet, or cell phone. The world is becoming an increasingly smaller place.
We live in a world where I can sit in a room with a friend in New Zealand, and another friend in Florida, USA at the same time – all the while I am sitting in my room in Illinois. Yet we can all see and hear each other, real time and in three dimensions. What we see may be a collections of pixels called an avatar, a virtual representation of the self. But we still see each other. We still talk to each other. This is the world of the global village. This is the internet.
William Gibson, the author who first coined the term “cyberspace” described it as an alternate reality in his books. A large part of the global village has become just what the author envisioned – an alternate reality. Massively multiplayer online games (mmo) like “World of Warcraft” are just such alternate realties. How real? Ask the 6.5 million subscribers that consist of everyone from grandmothers to five year olds to movie stars. This is just one small corner of the global village.
Sister Can I talk to you?
Yet too often we forget these collections of pixels are the intrusions into cyberspace of a real person.
One evening a virtual neighbor leaned over the virtual railing of her virtual front porch and spoke these words to me – “Sister can I talk to you?” The porch may have been a collection of pixels in the mmo “Ultima Online” but the woman speaking to me was very real. She was a woman stuck in a marriage with a physically abusive husband. Ultimately she had to take her children and flee for her life.
Whether it is a virtual front porch, an instant message, an email or a telephone call, many is the time I have spoken to troubled residents of the global village. I have never met them. Not in person. But they have met me, the virtual me – The Virtual Nun.
© 2006 Sisters of Embracement. All rights reserved.
The Virtual Nun
I am a nun in the Sisters of Embracement, a Buddhist, a Christian and an MMO Gamer. I will be writing a blog here about all of these things in the days to come.
Sister Julie
Sister Julie
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