PeaceBang

No Thanks, I Just Ate!

DSCN1286
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

An Occasion for Repentance

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby writes in the Ideas section today that he is profoundly disturbed and distressed by the use of torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and most especially by the specifically religious forms of torture alleged by witnesses from within our own military. In one case, reported by former Army sergeant Erik Saar, a female interrogator wiped (faux) menstrual blood across the face of a devout Muslim prisoner, rendering him ritually unclean before his God. In another incident, detainees were forced to thank Jesus for their spared lives, and to renounce Allah. Some were forced to consume pork and liquor — hardly a great torment — unless your religion forbids both, as does Islam. Most of us are well-acquainted with the sexual humiliations practiced on the prisoners, but we may not have realized the religious taboos associated with the various pornographic tableaux arranged by the American jailers.

Jacoby writes, “Are Americans OK with using religious humiliation as tools of war?”

My short answer: Not this American - - even when my own religious and ethical convictions lead me to disagree with the spiritual legitimacy of certain Islamic taboos (e.g. homosexuality, menstrual blood). No. Never.

Jacoby continues, with an obvious sense of personal pain,

“As regular readers know, I write as a war hawk…[and] who has better reason to be outraged by this scandal than those of us who support the war? More than anyone, it is the war hawks who should be infuriated by it. It shouldn’t have taken me this long to say so.”

Americans of every stripe and kind should regard with horror the ongoing revelations that torture is routinely used to “break” prisoners and detainees associated with the War on Terror and the conflict in Iraq. However, what Jacoby did not say — and someone should — is that Christians have special cause to grieve and to repent this particularly sadistic branding of Christian triumphalism onto the very bodies and souls of Muslim captives.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.

Fear of Flying

I feel lucky to have gotten out of Georgia about 12 hours ahead of their ice storm. I’m a semi-nervous flier so I was surprised to find myself sitting next to a guy on the way down who was even more nervous than I am. I saw him clutch his armrest a few times and go kind of gray around the mouth as we got ready to land, so I was happy to be able to teach him my trick for making it onto terra firma in a calm fashion: you just breathe steadily and slowly and sing “If I Only Had a Brain.” The trick is to sing it really cheerfully, with special emphasis on the “YA da da da da da DA” (you know the part: “I could while away the hours/confirming with the flowers/consulting with the rain… YA da da da da da DA”) and calmly brace your hand on the chair in front of you as the plane goes screaming down the runway. This guy was really funny, a jumbo-sized hip hop guy with big dreds, and he said, “That’s cool. Can I pick another song?” I told him sure, but it have a high doofus quotient or it might not work. He made me teach him all the words to “If I Only Had a Brain” and we had a grand old time.

I did have one tiny panic attack on the flight from Atlanta to Boston, for which I promptly took one tiny Ativan. I call it “Atta Girl.”

Peacebang In Savannah

I hope you will all read ChaliceChick’s fascinating contribution to the understanding of the roots of the word “religious” in the previous post’s comment section (”Spiritual But Not Religious”). I thank her and her linguist friend for it; it’s always illuminating to have our erroneous beliefs smashed. I promise to put more brain power into understanding the details and implications of her explication later, but right now there are two golden retrievers who need to have tennis balls thrown to them. This is one of them:

Spiritual But Not Religious

I got into a small fracas over at Philocrites (don’t read him if you don’t want to get hooked — ’cause he’s one of the very bestest of the best in liberal religious blogs) about my sense of dreary exhaustion when yet another person describes him or herself as “spiritual but not religious.” My point on Philocrites http://www.philocrites.com (and on here) is that millions upon millions of people these days claim to be”S.B.N.R.”, so why is this most often proclaimed to me in such proud, ringing tones that I feel that the proper response is to jump up and salute? It’s either that or it’s made as a chip-on-the-shoulder, rebellious claim (think Elvis Presley saying “I’m spiritchal but not religious” with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth), thrown at me at such occasions as weddings — as though I will scrape my chair away from the table in shock and disgust. “Spiritual but not religious!? I’ve never heard of such a thing! Sir, hand me another dinner roll, please, and cease to speak to me thereafter!”

It doesn’t shock me, it doesn’t offend me, it’s not a unique, interesting identity, it’s a cliche. If it’s meant to be a conversation-starter, I can’t see how. Perhaps, “So tell me about the religion of Self you’ve concocted from bits and pieces of your rejected religious upbringing, your reading, your intermittent attendance in houses of worship and your acquaintance with pop psychology? I’m just dying to know!”

I am committed to church life. I believe in salvation through church/synagogue/sangha/etc.

I know that the label “S.B.N.R.” may be an expression of painful disenchantment or abuse by organized (or disorganized) religion, but a lot of the time, it’s just not. I meet people all the time with truly unconventional spiritual lives, paths and interests who never feel the need to use this particularly jejune label; let’s retire it! What is meant to sound so brave and unique about “S.B.N.R.” functions instead for me as shorthand for, “I, a consummate member of the consumer culture, have not found a religious product that suits my needs, a religious community and tradition that maintains my comfort level, and a worship tradition that suits my schedule. Therefore, I choose not to partake. And that makes me a rugged individualist, and therefore superior to the rest of you kneeling and hymn-singing drones.” The latter point is often implied by that kind of “I’ve thrown my gauntlet down” tone that makes me want to crawl under the table with my blankie and take a nap.

So what I know about that Mr. or Ms. SBNR is this: Instead of being willing to form their character and forge their spirit within the itchy, difficult, often uncomfortable crucible of covenanted community, that SBNR guy or gal sits on the sidelines, judging and critiquing the liturgies and theologies and personalities of the actively religious, staying away because details of community life irritate them, reading and filling his/her head with exactly what suits their current world view, surrounding themselves with exactly those people who agree with them on most important issues (a favor which extends to reinforcing their self-image), and — worst of all — thinking of themselves as counter-cultural! Hence my weariness. Counter cultural? Yes, our current administration is crazy bad religious. Yes, 80%+ Americans say they believe in God. So what? Belief in God doesn’t make someone religious. Being bound by the claims of a religious tradition and a religious community makes someone religious — committing to a regular, transforming, shared spiritual experience and encounter– ESPECIALLY WITH THOSE YOU WOULDN’T PICK TO BE YOUR PALS — that’s the heart of religion, whose root word means “to bind together.”

Maybe the Spiritual But Not Religious person is bound in mutual accountability and spiritual growth through some means other than the church or synagogue or mosque or ashram or sangha or the theatre or the Cause or the 12-Step Program, etc. I sincerely hope so. But if he isn’t, taking smug pride in claiming to be S.B.N.R is just sad to me; sad and floppy and a source of woefully misguided self-satisfaction.

The Hippo Lies Down With the Tortoise

owen

Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4152447.stm#

You’re stuck inside anyway, you may as well read this little BBC story about the orphaned baby hippo, Owen, and his new pal Mzee (”Old Man” in Swahili). There’s a video that you really have to see. It gently purveys the timeless message of peace,” I bite you on the head because I love you!” Wildlife people are all confused because reptiles and mammals don’t usually get to be such good friends. But they’re very happy and c’mon, admit it, you are too. While you’re on the page you might also want to read about the lioness who adopted some baby gazelle-type guys.

“And a little mammal shall lead them…”

Our Charming Little Blizzard

another snowy day somewhere
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

I awoke this morning to the noise of 55 mph winds battering at the house, which was built in 1765.
Assuming we’d lose power today, I got in the shower immediately. A girl doesn’t want to have to air dry her hair, after all. The house is clean, I’ve got dishes in the dishwasher and keeping my fingers crossed we don’t lose power mid-cycle, and all the faucets are dripping hot water to avoid freezing pipes. The cat and I marvel at the scene, and even though the driveway has been plowed three times in the night, ain’t no way I could have gotten around the corner to church this morning. The drifts in front of my door are chest level. My cute snow shoveling guy, Dan, stopped by last night to check on me. As he left he said the thing that warms the heart of every secretly whimpy lone homedweller: “Call me if you get scared.” Everyone in town likes to take care of the single gal minister,who they think of as all spiritchal and stuff, and not much good at practical knowledge, and they’re so right! Last night I had to call my neighbor Larry to ask if my fire was getting too big. Above all, I do NOT WANT TO BURN DOWN THIS HOUSE.

I am listening to this wonderful Frenchy jazzy gal named Madeleine Peyreux, courtesy of H & R who burned me a copy of the CD last weekend. Back in the days when we could leave our houses. I am even more grateful today to my mad compadres S and M, who spirited me off to the North End on Friday night. It was just what the Winter Doctor ordered, before the claustrophia-inducing blankets of white stuff.
If you have any deities of whom you are particularly fond, please appeal to them to get me on my flight to Savannah, GA tonight. Or even tomorrow morning would be okay. Thank you.

Somewhere Eve Ensler is Smiling

This is why I left the feminist spirituality movement.

We Live

I watched about a half hour of the PBS special on Auschwitz last night. I was filled with such paralyzing waves of hatred, disgust and dread that I could not move, and became ice cold. I quietly turned off the television and sat on the couch, contemplating Nazi hatred and accepting it, and accepting my own violent contempt for them.

My distant cousin Norman escaped the Nazis when he was a teenager and eventually wound up in England. When I met him in the 1980’s, he was every bit the old English gentleman, finally married in his elder years to the wife of his best friend: he had quietly loved her and proposed after her husband — his best friend — died. She is delightful. “Norman doesn’t talk about the war,” she told me in her brisk way. He was very proper, very reserved, very Anglicized (including his name — our name). But I noticed that several times during the course of my stay, Norman carefully queried me on the number of cousins and second cousins who are living in the States, and how many children those cousins had. “Yes,” he’d say, “And how many children did Marvin’s children have?” While I counted out the children and spoke their names again and again, he’d crane his head forward and take in the information like a hungry man takes in a meal. The more children, the better satisfied he was.

I don’t know if he is still alive. Maybe it’s enough that he knows we are still alive.

Gol, Mr. Summers, Math Makes My Head Hurt!

larrysummers
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

The problem with trying to stay low-carb and get more exercise is that I always want a huge piece of toast slathered with butter after a work-out. This is the kind of issue that occupies the American female brain all too often– don’t kid yourselves — which I suppose is why it took us until 1921 to get the vote. When the jailed suffragists went on hunger strikes in 1919, their captors tried to break them down by bringing them fried chicken. One of the activists, maybe Alice Paul, scoffed at this and said, “They think our souls can be bought with fried chicken.” I have to get real quiet and cast my eyes embarassedly off to one side when I hear that, as I’m afraid my soul could absolutely be purchased for fried chicken if conditions were bad enough. I don’t know. God forbid I ever have to find out. Alice Paul, forgive me.
Speaking of girlish weakness, Harvard President Larry Summers made a real doofus of himself at an M.I.T. gathering today by insinuating that women are inherently inferior at math and science. It’s, like, biological or something. Fat-headed big shot Larr, he’s so cool and famous he doesn’t even have to acknowledge the myriad social causes for womens’ historical inability to compete in the sciences. It must be something in the lipstick supply, passed down through the womb of our math-moronic mommies. Of course there were all kinds of dumb, easily intimidated chicks at the M.I.T. conference — ’cause that’s where dumb broads hang out — and they’re going to let him get away with saying that. Sure they are.
The last time I saw Larry Summers live and on-stage (at an academic hootenany) he displayed a combination of arrogance and social ineptitude that was actually tremendously entertaining.