Tag: women

No Room for a Saint

Awkward subject to follow…just a head’s up.

When I was a child attending Catholic school, we spent a lot of time learning about the saints, I suppose as an incentive on how to behave as a good Catholic/Christian. What I remember in a general way were that male saints performed heroic deeds in the name of spreading the gospel against those who would try and silence them and often died horrible deaths. For women saints, however, the highlight of their heroic deeds included defending their virginity against those men of power who would forcibly take it from them, and by refusing to do so, also died horrible deaths, or another prerequisite was remaining a virgin because the church decided it was an indication of purity. I made a decision early on that saint hood was definitely NOT for me…best decision of my life. I want to tread carefully here, I DO NOT mean to defame or demean those in history who did what they did for God. But remember what I said about love…that just because you decide an act/behavior/expression is love, doesn’t necessarily make it so. Well, I believe the same goes for the kind of behavior that “the church” had decided was requisite for sainthood…in particular, for women.

Early on in my theological training, especially as I became more knowledgeable in scripture, I saw major contradictions between the interactions Jesus had with women and those historically, who went on to become saints in his defense. I’ll just say out loud what I’ve thought for a long time…Jesus didn’t give a shit about whether a women was a virgin or not. Sure he challenged them to straighten out their lives, but didn’t he challenge everyone to do the same? I think he meant that everyone should live a good and honest life, live up to their greatest potential and choose the greater path (remember the choice offered to Mary when her sister Martha demanded she help serve?). One of my most favorite gospel stories (included in all four), is when a woman, (in one it is Mary, in others she is unnamed and a woman of “ill repute” they are each a bit different) comes to where Jesus and the disciples are dining to wash his feet with her tears, wipe them with her hair and anoint his head with expensive oils…one of the most beautiful images I can recall about an intimate physical and loving expression between Jesus and another woman in scripture. When the men present (the gospels differ, some of the men are his disciples, others those he met along the way, and yet another is a healed leper) are vexed by what she is doing, especially since the oils could have been sold for a great deal of money to help the poor, he chastises them and says she has done a good thing, they offered no hospitality to him, but she did. And then he said the this famous line: “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” I’ve always loved this story, because as a man, Jesus declared that she had shown him “great love”. Mary Magdalene (after who I am named) another woman Jesus loved, stood with and supported Jesus until the very end, at his crucifixion and was the first to see him when he rose from the dead…an apt tribute to her behavior in my book…and it had nothing to do with her virginity, but that they loved each other. Contrary to popular belief, no where in the bible is she described as a prostitute.

I completely understand that in the context of the time and culture in the stories of the early saints, when a woman chose to remain a virgin and unmarried, it was more likely that she did so to retain her own agency and the freedom to live independently and preach and teach the gospel in the way she felt compelled to, and also because as a women she was considered chattel and under the control of a man, whether it be a father or a husband. Jesus openly challenged that antiquated social convention over and over, and it has always made me sad that the church never seemed to embrace his attitude. It has always seemed ridiculous that women were continued to be sanctified by simply abstaining from sex, as if the breaking of her hymen whether by force, culture or marriage somehow made her “less than” or not as pure, it’s not only irrational, but unreasonable in response to the gospel message. That their sainthood rested in protecting their “greatest virtue” from another man’s appropriation of it stymied even my 11 year old self (I clearly wrote about it in my fifth grade diary and please note that I had just “found out” about sex the year before, to which I believe sounded awesome…although I was unsure of the mechanics of it, my passion for David Cassidy at the time led me to believe that I was in for something big and I was 10… and also yes, I was indeed a very strange child). When I became older and studied theology, I was pissed off even more, especially since Jesus never saw the women that surrounded him in that way. I felt the church clearly put the onus on me to be a woman who remained functionally “unexciting” and still preach about love and the gospel. While it was clearly obvious, although unfair, I knew, as I prepared for ministry, it was simply a reality that I had to navigate carefully in a church culture of totally fucked up sexual understanding, value and behaviors. I did “abstain” because it was true that the expectations and standards were different for women than men, and given that I was attractive and dynamic (which is simply a fact, so get over it) I simply kept to those definitions of love, laid out by Paul, and did the best that I could in any given situation to retain the highest integrity that I could. What helped me, in a weird way, was recommitting to the child hood decision I had made that sainthood was definitely not for me. I loved men too much, even though I was completely clueless how to “engage” (but not in any way that was untoward, because deciding that I wasn’t a saint, didn’t mean I rendered null and void the rules of love). The sad truth, beyond the fact that I sucked at it, what often kept me from “dating” a man I liked was what I did for a living: a spiritual and social “cold shower” as it were. More importantly, I truly believe that if God could choose me, a whirling dervish and the antithesis of sainthood, to walk this path as a whisperer of love, then perhaps there were better qualities/gifts I had to focus on rather than worry that I had a fowl mouth, no filters and well, the rest will be unsaid.

Anyway, the reason I bring all this up is another attempt to challenge the draconian cultural rules (total crap) that historically have plagued, mostly women, but also those who express love in different ways, so there is a clearer understanding of how to live on a higher plane. I am no less a disciple of the God of love because of the manner in which I choose to express love. I, and only I, ultimately know whether its source is love or not…no one else. And, I must say with the increasing stories of sexual exploitation and abuse in modern society, we have to hit this bullshit head on. I don’t care how awkward it is. Look at the colossal horror story the Epstein files have created and the damage that has occurred. And the fact that there is so much secrecy and pushback about bringing the perpetrators and the truth to the public is even more reason to address this issue. Like I’ve said countless times before, we are all connected and in this together when it comes to moving into our future and the misguided ideas about sex and sexuality have to be addressed. How we do that is a whole other matter and way above my pay grade, but as a casualty of the distortion of a beautiful expression of love, I do not want any other human being to become collateral damage of the way the darkness has weaponized it.

As I’ve said in many posts this year, we have to decide which cultural rules or the world’s rules (as defined by humans) help us live successfully on a higher plane (which are never defined but discovered by or revealed to humans), and which ones hinder us. I think history has shown, especially through all the arts, that humanity can progress in a way where it is possible to live in the world as well as on a higher plane, but sometimes, however, it doesn’t. So, one of my main goals this year is to offer, rationally, when its time to let go of antiquated or illusory “world” views when it comes to what is necessary to live on a higher plane, especially when it comes to the power of love, and understanding how to wield it according to its true nature: the source of life and what guides and evolves us forward, and sainthood, happily is not a prerequisite. I am not a saint, never was, never will be…I am a simple whisperer for the God of love, a mustard seed, and my small little butterfly wings (although a badass one) will express my love and will change the weather a world away. What gives me faith in this statement? Jesus said that they will know you are my disciples by how you love one another.

Hope and Women

I remember back in college during a theological seminar (was studying academic theology, the female equivalent of seminarian), a seminarian turned in frustration to me in a small group discussion about calls of the Holy Spirit and said quite loudly, “Why can’t you accept the fact that God only wants men to be priests!” And in my unequivocal way, I responded: “Oh, so you have a direct line to the Holy Spirit, do you?” He was disgusted and left the group. I tell this story because I have always felt it is important for girls/women to know that they should follow their calling wherever it takes them, regardless of the opposition others may have to that calling. I fear the tide is turning, though, toward greater opposition to this idea.

I also wrote a paper in graduate school about the obstacles women leaders face by attacks against their characters, often times sexual or intellectual as a mechanism to render their words, actions and relevance null and void. I remember how difficult the meeting with my professor was, not wanting to acknowledge what I thought was well documented paper. He believed it biased because I had way more women in my bibliography than men. I did question whether he compared the gender equality of all bibliographies, and he just got mad, which was stupid of me to say because he gave me a C. I don’t think he quite understood me, so he was surprised when I picked him for one of my panelists when defending my thesis. I won’t go into why, but afterward he went back and changed my grade from a C to an A. I believed, back then anyway, that if I could present something in more of a three dimensional way, perhaps a more female orientation then everyone’s perspective is broadened. In this case I believe I was successful. When I use the past tense in the aforementioned story when I say “back then”, it really means that more people than not used to be open to a greater truth, and new ways of seeing things. (of course many don’t, but there is nothing I can do about those kinds of people). Today, I don’t feel that way anymore.

Lets go back then. Late in his second term, Bill Clinton was impeached for an improper relationship with an intern. I think the outrage went across the aisle on this situation and he was rightly tried. Now, we have a president elect who, by a court of law, by a jury of his peers is found guilty of being a sexual predator (this was a civil, not criminal trial so he is not a sexual offender…legally anyway). Whether you believe it fair or not, his behavior like Clinton’s was established and proven legally. And yet, and these are the posts that gross me out most on social media, are the allegations that Kamala Harris slept her way to the top, which can be factually, on the record dispelled, but still believed because she was deemed not smart enough or qualified to get there on her own. It literally took me seconds to fact check the veracity of those allegations. The generalization here is that men get away with shit, even when they are actually guilty of it, and woman are metaphorically stoned or burned, even when they are not.

There are plenty of places in Christian Scripture where Jesus pushed back against the status quo when men test him on the treatment of women. One important time was when a mob brought a woman caught in adultery (so the mob says) to him in John 8: 3-11

Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? “They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, (and) from now on do not sin any more.”

The interesting thing in this dynamic is that the man involved in the adulterous situation is nowhere to be seen. I am fully aware of the law at that time, and that women were considered no more than chattel, or property. Jesus, however, did not see her or other women that way. As a matter of fact, time after time Jesus helped and stood for women even when, by all cultural and temple standards, he should not have.

So, here we are. I expect there will be more character assassinations of women, people of color and sexual orientation who will be vilified and have their character questioned whenever their voices, qualities and callings make people in the status quo uncomfortable. In an age where facts just don’t matter as much as self righteous indignation and moral finger pointing (and yes, I am aware it happens on both sides) it does become more difficult to duck stones that come flying at my head. The hope for me comes when the woman walks away from Jesus, free from her accusers condemnation and Jesus saying “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life”

Just Plain Hope

As my pic, I chose a work in progress of Kamala Harris…one that I haven’t and probably won’t share on other social media sites (except for maybe the campaign…as a donation). Why? because I am so tired of the nastiness of the behavior for having the audacity to choose a side, and her ticket gives me hope, and a reprieve from all the name-calling, mistruths and fear mongering from the other side. Of course, we live in troubled times, BUT I think there is a responsible and hopeful way to go about change…change which will be frustrating for EVERYONE, because it means that no one will get everything that they want, and compromise is hard but necessary moving toward the future. And, I fear that those who don’t want change, have the misguided belief that their candidate can stop it from happening. Change is inevitable, evolution, however, is not. Evolution is never easy, because it means adapting to new circumstances, something many are too uncomfortable with. An underlying belief that I hold is that those who refuse to move forward and adapt, ,will simply never evolve, and their “fig tree” (an allusion to the gospel) will wither and die without bearing fruit. Hope in all people and things, and for me, God as a reliant support is rooted in my ability to continue to bear good fruit.

More importantly, for me anyway, I have recognized my personal bias at this point in history. I am tired of the misogyny prevalent today that somehow infers that woman are incapable of not only determining their own lives, but creating a better way forward for everyone than men do. I also believe that a man who has no ability to own up to, and suffer the consequences of his own behavior and chooses to instead vilify others, women, minority groups and any and all who disagree with him is not equipped to move us into a better future.

Kamala and Tim and their whole campaign gives me hope…not because they are perfect, but because they are willing to move ahead and adapt to a wildly changing future all within all the altruism that has kept this American experiment moving and adapting into the future.

1988

001.JPG

My second trip to Russia was through Canada. We flew on the Soviet airline Aeroflot, a night and day difference from our commercial airlines. Cautious, I felt this would be a good thing, Russia from the perspective of the people. That hope didn’t last long. Beyond the clear evidence of what materially was not available to purchase in their home country, each citizen had bags and bags of stuff they purchased in Canada.

It is clearly evident that I am an American on a Soviet Airline. I feel like I’m on a 1950’s grey hound bus. All around me I hear incomprehensible Russian, full of enthusiasm to share the spoils of their trip with their loved ones at home. People have bags and boxes stacked on their laps and under their seats, unwilling to let go of the proximity needed to put them in the upper bins. Their “stuff” includes electronics, Reeboks, and blue jeans. I forget sometimes how accessible material things are to me (even if I can’t afford them). The air in the plane smells Soviet-a mixture of perspiration, musty air and an ointment like smell. It makes me feel like a prima dona because I’m more concerned about brushing my teeth and taking a shower. I helped a woman squeezed into the seat next to mine who looked at me suddenly panicked and I knew she was going to vomit. I grabbed the barf bag in the pocket of my seat and put it in front of her face just in time. I felt so bad for her because I know how awful it is to get sick in a crowded place (like I did last time I was in Russia). It is so easy to love when one who is so vulnerably helpless is forced to lower their guard and let someone help. I didn’t need to speak the language, only sit and be present with my hand on her back and give her a Kleenex when she needed it. She smiled and tried to communicate for the rest of the trip.

002

I have always loved Leningrad, now St Petersburg. The Summer palaces, the Hermitage museum and churches are exquisite. Plagued by citizens trying to swap, poach, buy drugs was unsettling. I did not feel safe as a young woman there and wore my glasses most of the time, like it would make a difference (remember that I was young and a bit naive) I had such high hopes for a newer, fresher Russia. I expected a sense of moving with the times, but what I began to understand is that this was a country that wanted the benefits of a western society, but either didn’t want to do the work, or was ill equipped to handle the transition. And they worked so hard to create a smoke screen to make it appear that they would still be equal to or superior to America. It wasn’t a very good one though.

We’re in Leningrad-and it is the white nights. At 2:30 in the morning it looked like the afternoon. I met Leonard Bernstein in a shop. I was completely star struck. It was phenomenal, and he was surrounded by people here too.We went to tour the Hermitage Museum, such amazing beauty and art A young man came up to me and wanted to trade, which isn’t unusual, but then he wanted to know if I smoked or did coke and stared exclusively at my chest. I said “no” forcefully. It felt good, but I was mad that the only people who speak to me here-want something-money exchange or other stuff.

There were people we met with who really wanted to make a difference, but I never got a sense that they had much power or backing to really do anything about it. We met with a few peace summits, as they were called but there were always less than a dozen people present. You could hardly call them a summit. I give these people credit, though, they were working hard to make a better life for the people.

009   010

I had a wonderful conversation with a man named Demetrius at our peace committee meeting. It was refreshing to talk to someone young who is educated and open. He gave me his address and said they would invite me to visit again. Maybe, someday. I also went to the ballet it was wonderful, of course-I’ve been lucky enough to see the Bolshoi Ballet in the States. We went to the tea room afterwards, simple and relaxing. No one to bother us. One thing I’ve noticed this tour, is that there are no visits to war memorials, last time we were inundated. The talk of war is almost minimal except for a breed of hatred for Stalin.

014  1988 russia friend

Landed in Kiev on another greyhound type plane. It is much more relaxed than last time. I stayed in the same hotel, and this time had no less than three marriage proposals. Must not be a good place to plan a future. The peace meeting here, too, was just like last time-all party line.

012     011

My time in Crimea was wonderful and awful. I had never been, which I now see for what it was, sexually assaulted before. I am thankful that I was surrounded by people and members of my group to support me, and empowered by my own willingness to punch his lights out. The picture it painted for me was that I thought there was a license to treat women in a way that was unacceptable in Russia, and I unfairly blamed them for a long time. When I returned home and the growing awareness of sexual violence that continued to permeate my own culture, and more personal experiences on a much smaller and subtle level, I had to come to grips when the fact that it wasn’t exclusive to a reforming communist country. Yet, I’m glad that I only wrote about the wonderful and kind people I met there in my journal. When I saw the news that Crimea was annexed by Russia, I knew why. It is the crown jewel of the Black Sea, of the Ukraine, and like Russia seems to always do…it takes what it wants.

We are in Yalta, the vacation paradise of Russia. The hotel is magnificent, the beach crowded with people, families unconcerned about body image, just happy to be on the beach, work first, though. We went to a pioneer village, a youth camp and we only met one official, which was quite disappointing.One distinction beyond the same universal educational curriculum for the last 10 years, rock music is no longer suppressed, and some pictorial art.

Back relaxing in the pool, a very attractive man swam up and tried to sell me lacquer boxes. I splashed him off and then felt bad. I saw him that night in the disco and danced with him and nearly punched his lights out when he started to mall me. Whatever decorum was present last time is not present this time. It is very disturbing.

me and Diana    1988 gala dinner

Back in Moscow at the Hotel Rus (*which is now an office building…original built in 1894) and there were cockroaches. Someone stole a pair of my shoes from my room. I am ready to go home.The city tour was OK, it is dirty now.

That was all I wrote about Moscow the second time, except for one funny ditty I wrote in my journal “Hotel Rus, 6000 rooms with 6000 unused bidets”. We did have gala dinner to conclude our trip and I remember it as lovely, but full of other tourists. I couldn’t wait to go home. The only memory of my return trip was that I had to convince so many on the plane when we stopped over in Ireland not to spend all their money in the duty free shop there. It was hard to convince them that Canada would have everything they needed. Going through customs took forever, one of our party got in trouble for trying to smuggle in caviar. I missed my connecting flight and stayed in Montreal at a new friends family home. My sadness returning home would have been oppressive, but I was ready to start my new teaching job. I didn’t journal for months, so I can hardly recall what my feelings were. I did pack up all my Russia books and materials and put them into storage…which speaks volumes.

Both trips to Russia were an instrumental gift in my life. How it presented and continues to present itself in my life may seem blurred at times. I do know that my devotion to truth and cutting through political subterfuge is a result of those journeys, and is the number one reason I am so pained by what is happening in the world right now. I have paid a price for it, but one that I accept readily. Jesus says the truth will set you free…I walk in that belief and understanding every day.

Taking Umbrage…for and at Women

um·brage

noun \ˈəm-brij\

: a feeling of being offended by what someone has said or done

I started this post several times, wanting to be positive, a bit less controversal, and with propriety.  I couldn’t do it because I did promise a sense of wild abandon, so here goes.  I seem to take umbrage with almost every angle of the state of women in our world today.  I am sickened by movements to censure, mutilate, deny education, control and retract any advances made through history.  And yet, I take as much umbrage with a culture that objectifies, sexualizes, and at the opposite end values a woman based on some prudish matronly definition of goodness.  Seriously people, what in the sam hill is going on?

Jesus set the standard so clearly in his ministry.  Women were of great value to him; especially women who chose his instruction over what culture restricted them to, check out the Mary and Martha story…( I blogged about it here, maryfrancesflood.com/2012/06/18/im-a-mary-and-not-a-martha/.  I think women owe Jesus a great deal for the place that he brought us to…and with that comes responsibility.  We, as women, must take a stand against those who would force us to lose the sacred ground that many fought so hard to attain.  So where the hell do I stand?

While I am plagued with fear when I hear most men speak of rape, whether on a college campus, foreign soil, a military base or from the mouth of a politician, I have to admit that I am plagued with as much fear at the cavalier attitude and sexually charged culture in this country.  While I think we should celebrate our physical bodies, I am tired of how sex inundates our culture.  I don’t want to see young women run around in their underwear, or clothing designed to cradle a man’s package.  While I am not a prude…I say EEEWWWWW!  The pervasiveness of sex in just about everything is a problem for me. Being a good lover by today’s standards is understood by sexual prowess and not in the way the gospel intended.  Getting better at sex will never help us get better at love…PERIOD.  And it won’t help us reclaim our power either.

I have thought long and hard about whether or not my attitude is based on my aging form and diminishing beauty…and then that very thought even pissed me off!  Who defined aging and beauty anyway?  Well, I include myself when I say we all had a hand in that too.  With age, I’ve gained great experience and education and was for a moment ready to hold those accomplishments at a lesser value than my aging appearance…and yet, in all truthfulness I understand why. We live in a culture that worships youth and marginalizes maturity.  Look at the amount of money that goes into physical beauty; the money women spend on achieving some skewed idea of youthful perfection is tragic.  We could save all the starving children in the world many times over, if we allowed ourselves to age naturally and dump our obsession with beauty regimens.

I’m not saying as women, we can’t try to be beautiful and celebrate our sexuality.  But if we aren’t working as hard for the standard the Jesus set, i.e. we are as valuable as any man, and are offered the same gift of grace, with the same expectations for our behavior…then we’ve failed on a massive level.  Let’s be better at loving, starting with ourselves.

I’m a Mary and not a Martha

The story of Mary and Martha is one of my favorites in scripture. When, in response to Martha’s rebuke against her sister for not helping her with her chores, Jesus tells her to stop worrying and affirms Mary for choosing  the better course,  it gave the direction of my soul an authentication and authority straight from the mouth of God. Sure, it may be easy to say that most everyone would choose to listen to the Son of God over doing housework, but for me it was so much more than that. The affinity that I have for education and learning parallels another’s for sports, or music. It is when I’m in the pursuit of new information to broaden my ever-expanding world that I feel the happiest, hopeful and most successful. Had I been Martha’s sister, I wouldn’t have sat smugly listening to Jesus retort to my sister, I would have quickly stuck out my tongue at my nagging sister in an infantile vindication of my chosen path…and sadly, today it  would literally be hanging out all the time. It is sad that in today’s culture I almost feel the need to apologize for all the sheepskin trailing behind me. I readily acknowledge the talents of the men in my house, that their affinity for sports, health or acuity in computers largely remains uncontested. But whenever intelligence or education comes up, I’m just being arrogant or a know-it-all. And that is just unfair. I attended the classes, I did the work, I wrote every paper, attended every class, finished every internship, and I finished and paid for every degree. And like some are just really adept at sports or a host of other talents…my brain may be more adept for knowledge than a lot of other people…it is neither good or bad, it just is.

The greatest irony, though, lies in the fact that once done listening to Jesus…I’m sure Mary was up half the night doing chores because I’m pretty sure not one of the disciples pitched in to cover the slack. Sadly, that is the tenure of the workings of my house as well. Am I suited to the domestic arts because I am a woman? Compared to the men at my house, that would be a yes…but only because they all miss the commonsense gene that is necessary to maintain a household. Otherwise, I would never choose the task…but I suck it up and do it anyway because I don’t want to suffer bodily harm because “someone” thought the wood floors would look pretty if they sprayed a whole can of pledge on them making them dangerous to walk on with socks, or being so excited to eat the soup they cooked, they forget to turn off the burner. In my family, support for the men in my house falls to me, because it seems that it is most obvious and best way we can all be successful and stay alive. Even though the men in my house don’t always appreciate the synergy that my role has created…my big brain does. Most importantly it was and is my choice to do so and not because of some predilection to some inherent role women are supposed to play.  Most days I do feel that I made the right choice pursuing so many different academic roads, even though it may be more difficult to show the success of those degrees financially or when my arms are knee-deep in a toilet or answering phones at our clinic. I do think it makes be better at everything I do. Which brings me to the most important point.

I remember those brave women who have fought for us so that we are availed equal opportunities to utilize our God-given gifts and follow our dreams, whatever they may be. So I fear a  back slide into a past that held us to a propriety that was more a mask of control than anything else. It does make me angry at those men in the world who claim superiority as their God-given right, especially under the auspices of scripture. Why does one line from Paul in his letter to the Ephesians hold greater weight than the words and actions of Jesus? In the Gospels, the conversations he has with women make clear the regard he has for them as people. Mary, learning at Jesus knee was credited for making the greater choice…the operative word being “choice…” something women didn’t have much of in Jesus’ time, yet I am continuously befuddled at those who would judge women for making the same choice today. My choice to play a supportive role in my family is a result of balancing talents and what works best for us…not because of some preordained role dictated by God. Submitting to any man has never been within my realm of experience…just ask my father, brothers, husband and sons. But I have chosen to stand in support of many men in my life, which I can do while still sharing the vast stores of knowledge in my big brain.  Whether they listen is another story….and when they stop completely, I’m out of here. I owe it to Mary.