PeaceBang

Are They Worth Praying Over?

My mother and I had to question the wisdom of the New York Times, which saw “fit to print” way more sordid and salacious details from the Dennis Rader trial than could reasonably fit in anyone’s definition of “news.” Did we really need to know that one of his eleven year-old victims wore mary jane’s when she was murdered? This particular details plays too close to school girl snuff fantasies to deserve an outing in the Times. Shame.

Reading Rader’s testimony was like reading something right out of the Marquis de Sade, only without the sick humor. And with de Sade, we have very little evidence that he actually committed many of the horrid depravities he wrote about and imagined.

But BTK, despite his tears and remorse (which seemed genuine for his own family but did not extend much beyond them) has a similar kind of insouciance, a sneering sense of pride in his own perversity that approaches de Sade’s tone and approach to cruelty. “I’m sorry,” he remarked. “I know this [his victim] is a human being, but I’m a monster.”

He is beyond despicable. He is beyond hatred, although I certainly hate him purely and completely, and I don’t intend to give that up for Yom Kippur or for Lent. He is beyond my concept of God’s grace, but I’ll leave the fate of his soul to the Lord, as it’s none of my business (perhaps the Universalists would like to take a shot at it?).

I sincerely hope that he will be tormented in prison, painfully and for a long time. I hope that he will die painfully in prison, but only after long , terrible suffering. Only then may he learn compassion (suffering with) in its true sense.

I don’t much care if that’s not very Christian of me. I never claimed to be a good Christian. I claim to be a practicing Christian.

Beyond the atrocities committed upon the bodies and personhood of his victims, BTK — in his monumentally evil egotism — dared to keep a file he called “Afterlife Concepts,” wherein he assigned his victims roles in his fiendish eternity. His eleven year old victim would be his sexual toy. Another would be his personal slave. And so on. I’m not sure that even the Marquis deSade went so far as to defile the eternal soul of his victims, even as de Sade railed in grandiose manner against all the sacraments and ceremony of the Church (so much so that one begins to laugh and enjoy it. Or maybe that’s just me appreciating the high drama that approaches farce).

I should think that while the criminal justice system decides BTK’s fate as a citizen, religious people might seriously consider his spiritual fate, and certainly that of his victims. Remember Shirley Ceasar, the great and mighty gospel singer, singing ~

“SATAN, we’re gonna tear your kingdom down!
SATAN we’re gonna tear your kingdom down!
You’ve been BUILDing your KINGdom all over this land,
SATAN, we’re gonna tear your kingdom down (oh glory to God).

The mothers are gonna pray your kingdom down.
The mothers are gonna pray your kingdom down.
You’ve been building your kingdom
all in the house of God.
SATAN, we’re gonna tear your kingdom down!” (And etc.)

Dennis Rader’s kind of evil invites spiritual warfare; a concept quite foreign to religious liberals. Sure, yes, absolutely, fix the neurology, fix the chemistry, fix the socio-economic system, fix the Church, fix the schools, fix the society, protest porn, protest repression, protest all you want, however you want. Yes, I know he’s still a human. I know he’s not Satan. I know he’s a product of many factors. I know. I know. And I’m asking for spiritual warfare because not only did he annhilate their bodies, he made claims on their souls.

So, religious people:
Pray, if you will, for the souls of those dead by BTK’s hand, who by any animistic religion’s definition are sure candidates for “hainthood,” and who left their bodies in a state of extreme terror, agony, horror and likely sense of abandonment. Pray for them because he intends to populate his heaven with them.

I know this is hard reading for a snarky little blog, but I think it needs to be said. There is far more to these crimes than what was done to the victims. There is spiritual consequence. There are souls at stake. I am a Christian and I do believe that those souls are beyond pain and that they rest in the peace of God. But while their tormenter still lives and still holds them to him by this terrible, vile intimacy of claiming them for his own afterlife, I think it’s well worth it to pray them over, and pray them over, and pray them over again.

These are the names by which they were known in this life:

Julie, Josephine and Joseph Otero.
Kathyrn Bright.
Shirely Vian.
Nancy Fox.
Marine Hedge.
Vicki Wegerle.
Dolores E. Davis.

“…neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God…” — Romans 8:38

Nada te turbe

Nada te turbe
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

I just read that Brother Roger, founder and abbot of Taize, was stabbed to death during a worship service:

http://www.philocrites.com/

I can’t be the only one with a sick, broken heart right now.

So many of my most treasured memories of worship services include the music and spirit of Taize. So many times, when sick or anxious or lonely, I have sung Taize chants to myself and felt calmed and strengthened.

Thank you, God, for the life that was Brother Roger.

Stay with me
Remain here with me
Watch and pray
Watch and pray

My Idea Of the Perfect Power Couple

vwg-anne-barstow
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

My heart pounds with admiration. I am reading this terrific book on ritual (Liberating Rites: The Transformative Power of Ritual) by Tom Driver, an emeritus professor at Union Theological Seminary, and thinking how cool he is for blending his faith-based peace activism with his anthropological studies.

I read his Acknowledgements and see that he thanks Anne L. Barstow, his wife and oh my gosh, wow, could it be? — (total religious geek version of a rock star crush) — could it be ANNE LLEWELLYN BARSTOW, Xena Warrior of medieval studies, who wrote Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts? The very finest book on the subject that saved me from getting a Ph.D. in religious studies (because why should I bother if she wrote my idea of the perfect thesis on the subject?)?

By golly it is, and I’m left wondering where they live and if I write them a really extra special fan letter, will they have coffee with me sometime?

Wow. I bet they didn’t meet on Match.com, either. Or e-Harmony.

It turns out that in addition for being really amazing academics, they’re both intensely committed peace activists and were recently arrested at Fort Benning.

Gush, gush, gush. I haven’t had a thrill like this since I found out that Annie Dillard was Bob Richardson’s spouse (he wrote the marvelous Emerson biography, The Mind on Fire* and she wrote… well, all those extraordinary things like Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Holy the Firm and my favorite, For the Time Being).

I ask you, is this not absolutely the most gripping opening chapter of a biography you have ever read in your life? Follow Amazon’s link and get a gander:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520206894/103-7878712-6352611?v=glance

Speaking of Camels

camels1
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

I don’t have an appropriate photo to submit for my Adjunct Professorial bio, and it’s due on Monday.

I’m not really fretting, just miffed. All of my headshots were taken to grace theatre lobbies, and Scott says I look like Megan Mullaly in the last one, so no go.

Meanwhile, I am just so tempted to send mama camel’s mug in…

Two More Flicks

We had a monster storm the other night and my modem went bye-bye, so I’ve had two days of internet deprivation.

I finally saw “The Story of the Weeping Camel,” a beautiful little film from Mongolia. It’s slow-going, but if the sight of a half-born camel colt’s hooves hanging out of his agonized mama’s hindquarters doesn’t grab you, definitely get back to “Desperate Housewives.”
Me, I was stuffing chili-powder sprinkled popcorn into my face and going, “GAW, how did they film this? Oh my Gaw.”

The children in the film are definitely the gold medalists in the Adorable Children Olympics, especially the little boy. If you don’t want to eat him up with a spoon there’s nothing I can do for you. He’s just the most wholesome, punkin-faced, beautiful, free little Mongolian shepherd boy ever. And the fact that he’s just dying for a television set is both incredibly adorable and sad. At the end of the film there’s a ginormous satellite dish outside the yert and you think, “well, the fat’s in the fire now.”

Even the tiny baby who does nothing but cry is precious. With the big stickin’-up pigtails. I mean.

P.S. I don’t know why Mongolian shepherd wear hasn’t set the fashion world on fire, because it looks both comfortable and chic. The colors are fabulous and the cuts are flattering on every kind of figure. Even the wizened grandmamas and grandpapas look glamorous. Ditto for the yert. I don’t know who did their interior design but if that’s desert living, you can sign me right up.

Okay, but the DVD is hugely disappointing because after having seen this beautiful story you just have a bajillion questions, like how did they film this? And was that camel eligible for an Oscar? And how did they get it to cry? And were any camels harmed in the filming of this movie? And is there some scientific explanation for why the camel responded to the violin playing, and what do you call that instrument anyway? Because that waren’t no violin.
And did they set out to make a film about a camel who had such a traumatic birth experience that she would reject her cute little white fluffy baby, or did they just go to the Gobi desert to make a picture about the shepherds and then this amazing thing just happened ?
They for sure weren’t faking that birth. If you tell me that camel’s birth was CGI I will take to my bed and refuse to quit it for anyone or anything.

Their official website is just as frustrating, but it has some cute pictures:

http://www.weepingcamelmovie.com/

So yesterday a friend and I went to see a totally vile, disgusting, pornographic picture called “The Aristocrats,” which is about a classic old joke that is so dirty, comedians only tell it to each other. It was a fun peep into the really sordid underbelly of comedy’s shadow culture. And not to get too highbrow or anything, but for anyone who has read the works of the Marquis de Sade, you would have no choice but to conclude that it is definitely the comedy world that’s keeping the ole French perv’s philosophy alive and kicking.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436078/

I don’t think it was surprising that two of the loudest snorting-laughers in the whole crowded theatre just happened to be ordained clergy.

Preacherly Satisfaction

Much of a preacher’s life is spent collecting stories and anecdotes for sermons, and therefore wracking one’s brain to remember where we saw that great story about (for instance) the humble rabbi or the wise trickster.

I’ve been killing myself looking for a particularly lovely Hasidic tale — two of them, in fact — that I want to use in upcoming sermons. Since hundreds of my books are lined up in the hall right now (we got three gorgeous new bookshelves for the parsonage today, but I can’t re-shelve until they’re braced against the wall) I sat myself down on the floor just bound and determined to find the stories.

Eureka!
I found them both in Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat.
Like winning Lotto, I tell ya!
I did the little “found-my-story”preacher dance, which is like a cross between a football player just making a touch-down and Molly Shannon doing Mary Katherine’s superstar! routine.

That book’s a jim dandy for great stories.
Also a favorite is Soul Food, edited by Jack Kornfeld.

I found my storieees, I found my stooories, I finally go-ot ‘em, I finally
go-ot ‘em, I got a ice cream I got a ice cream and you don’t GOT one and you don’t GOT one

"Garden State"

I finally saw “Garden State” last night and despite the very cool soundtrack and truly charming performance by Zach Braff, I thought it was overrated.

It’s a sweet little film. It was lauded for being quirky and unconventional. But how so? I feel like I’ve seen this movie a dozen times: emotionally closed-down guy comes home because of family crisis, has his heart opened by quirky gamine. I mean, are there not sixty basquillion variations on this theme in cinemaland?
Let me tell you how it ends: they’re in an airport saying tearful goodbyes. He has to leave, baby, because he’s got to go find himself, and she’s left sobbing in a phone booth (which don’t even exist in airports anymore, but I digress). Then suddenly — what do you think? He shows up because he just can’t live without her. She weeps, they exchange dopily hopeful dialogue, they kiss. And… scene.

Yea, we’ve seen that before.

Peter Saarsgard is great as the totally loser grave-digger friend who really believes he’s going to be living off the profits from his Desert Storm trading cards collection someday. My favorite line, delivered in just the most subtly injured tone:
“Don’t make fun of my hobbies, man. I don’t make fun of you because you’re an a-hole.”

Natalie Portman is a beautiful, glowing girl but I just don’t buy her as the uber-quirky, neurotic type. She tries too hard. When she delivers a pretty funny running monologue explaining how her African brother came to be her brother you can see her acting technique all over the place. That really bugs me. A lot. Ditto the first scene she’s in, where she laughingly advises the embarrassed Largeman to kick the dog who’s humping his leg. Not authentic. Studied. Technique-y.

However, she and Braff have real chemistry and when she doesn’t have too much dialogue, she just shines.

Ian Holm is terrific as Braff’s dad. LOVE him.
And again, Zach Braff is totally winning. I fell off the couch laughing at his character’s brief attempt to look as though he knows how to swim. In a cut that lasts maybe three seconds he contorts his head in such a dorky way, and with such sincere effort, he had me in hysterics.

So, cute with some lovely moments. Overall, overrated.

More Friday Feminist Blogging

This promised to be a great article on movies that “get women right,” but it’s just lame and disappointing:

http://www.alternet.org/movies/24026/

How many movies has this author seen, anyway?

Thanks to pandagon for the link: http://www.pandagon.net/

I’ll write more on this later (maybe) but a role that immediately comes to mind is Isabella Rossellini in “Fearless,” as Jeff Bridges’ wife. I like the movie a whole lot in general, but I loved that her role was so different than the usual long-suffering spouse of the dysfunctional guy.

When Bridges’ character couldn’t get his emotional stuff together after surviving a plane crash that killed almost everyone else, Rossellini wasn’t eternally sympathetic and furrowed-browed like one of those Anne Archer types (I can’t avoid Ms. Archer often enough). She was irritated, angry and frustrated, and she told him that if he didn’t start to make some progress she was going to leave him.

Now that’s a real woman character. Not a by-the-numbers-villainess, not a limpid-eyed victim, not a robo-mommy, not arm candy, not a whore with a heart of gold, not a princess warrior babe.
A real woman with real emotions.

Others:

Kathy Baker in “Clean and Sober.” Real, sympathetic, believable. A woman you might actually know. Too bad they had to kill her off.

Cherry Jones in “Cradle Will Rock.” Historic, real, kick-butt, terrific.

Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman in “Reds.” No big hammy stuff — just real, funny, brilliant, wry. And the real Emma G. was as much of a woman as you could ever want.

Kate Winslet as Clementine in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Not eye candy, not an agreeable romance item. Prickly, difficult, high-maintenance, heart-breaking. Real, with a twist of fantasy. Just like some actual women.

June Carter Cash as Sonny’s mama in Robert Duvall’s brilliant “The Apostle.” Neurotic, loving, faithful, smothering, adorable, loveable. Real.

Patrick Swayze as Miss Vita Boheme in “To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar.” The best girlfriend a girl could ever want. Elegant, loyal, confronational when necessary, generous, and sweet-hearted as can be. Also… Vita works out (I was not offended by the fact that the Stockard Channing character had to be rescued by a group of men in drag. A typical device and disappointing, but in no way minimized my response to the wonderful Swayze character).

Cate Blanchett in “The Gift.” Strange, feared and fearful, possessed of psychic ability that freaks her out just as much as it freaks out some of her Savannah neighbors. Sad, beautiful, lonely, devoted to her kids. Fascinating, enigmatic, just like real small-town “witches.”

Laura Dern as the vile, paint-fume-huffing, pregnant Ruth in “Citizen Ruth.” Wonderful film, unsparing — an ugly, skanky, bravura performance by Ms. Dern. Real.

There are more, but those are some of my favorites.
What are yours?

"French Women Don’t Get Fat"

ChaliceChick is blogging about dieting, and I am commenting:

http://chalicechick.blogspot.com/2005/08/sinful-chocolate-cake-no-really-sinful.html#comments

I bought that best-selling book French Women Don’t Get Fat, and it’s a fairly fun read except for the author’s rather precious cheer-leadery writing style, liberally peppered with cutesy French phrases.

She talks about gaining 20 lbs in college and how her father, upon seeing her for the first time, blurted out that she looked like a sack of potatoes.

What a jerk. TWENTY pounds? Please. If I put my mind to it I’m sure I could gain twenty lbs. between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. I mean…twenty lbs. does not a sack of potatoes make.

Of course what’s fascinating is that while the author admits to being terribly stung by her loving pere’s greeting, she never acknowledges how cruel and inappropriate her father’s vicious indictment of her body really is. She’s hurt, and he’s tactless. Poor, tactless papa. That’s as far as it goes.

In the words of another best-selling book about fat chicks, Fat IS a feminist issue. “French (Men Don’t Let Their) Women Get Fat?”

I’m not denying the obesity problem we have in this country. I’m not suggesting that living at a healthy weight and exercising/staying active aren’t good and important things. They are, and I, like most people I know, am constantly battling the bulge, trying not to fall prey to Taco Bell on a regular basis, and hustling my buns to the gym with guilty semi-regularity.

But the hostility and disgust that our culture reserves for fat chicks (much more so than for fat dudes) has nothing to do with health and wellness. It has to do with sexism and misogyny and the sense that a woman who takes up too much space is a crime against the natural order.

Take a little spin through www.match.com today. Keep count of how many men specify that they will only date slim or petite women (one of the more cloying euphemisms for “non-fatty.” Hey fellas, I am petite! I’m 5′3″ and buy clothes in the petite department but just, shall we say, in the very upper registers size-wise!).

Here are some of the qualities that single men are apparently not nearly as interested in as in thinness: kindness, social consciousness, loyalty, intellectual curiosity, community involvement, home-making skills, spiritual fitness, strength in crisis, ability to sing and dance well, energy, lust, aesthetic sense, good relationship with family, a fine education, experience in living different places, professional accomplishment, self-respect, sense of humor and of the absurd, resiliency, independence, supportiveness, ability to express emotions, intimacy, honesty, compassion.

I have wondered for years that if we lived in a culture that didn’t actively demonize fat women, ridicule them and exclude them from the never-ending parade of sexy, gorgeous images constantly titillating men (and women) to buy all kinds of products (not to mention render them utterly invisible on prime time), perhaps hetero men would find that their menu of potential lust objects to be far wider and broader (pun intended) than it currently is.

Desire is an interesting thing. It can be easily manipulated by image, and powerfully influenced by public opinion.