God Is Not 3 Guys

Inclusive liturgy

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:02:00 +0000

I write the Intercessions for our Catholic womanpriest liturgies, and after Sunday's Ascension and Mother's Day celebration, our musical director said they should be read in all churches, and he asked me to email him a copy. After I sent them he urged me to publish them, at least in my blog, if not elsewhere.
They are an example of how the symbolic interpretation of doctrine can bring meaning and assistance to human lives, rather than promoting the worship of an external god. For me "Christ" is not a human individual; it is the divinity within all.

PETITIONS

For officials in secular and religious governing bodies to manifest the Ascension of Christ by promoting the welfare of all humanity without prejudice toward any group, we pray.

For people of the world ravaged by weak economies, natural disasters, and calamities caused by humans, either willfully or accidentally, to manifest the Ascension of Christ by rising from their Passion to new levels of health and prosperity, we pray.

For people of the world dulled by habit, ignorance, and comfortable consumption to manifest the Ascension of Christ by rising to new levels of awareness and concern for fellow creatures, we pray.

For mothers and mothering caregivers who are ill, impaired, or alienated to be lifted in an Ascension to inner healing, we pray.

For us gathered here to manifest the Ascension of Christ by allowing our deepest aspirations, yearnings, and revelations to guide us toward creating more satisfying structures in our communities and our nation, we pray.

WE INVITE PETITIONS FROM THE ASSEMBLY

3 women and Half the Sky

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:13:00 +0000

The three women in Cleveland who were abducted and endured years of isolation, rape, beatings, and more have incited widespread sympathy, but how many people are aware of the NRA vendor who sells a shooting target that is "your ex-girlfriend"?
And how many people understand the larger issue of violence against women, especially as religion impacts it? Upon reflection, anyone with a mind should see the obvious connection between worship of a male-only God and worldwide abuse of females.

What can we do? We can be aware.

To that end, I post again the following, which I posted in March of 2012:

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn has more practical suggestions for transforming the world than any other book I know. It is painful to read. The first chapters are so packed with excruciating information, “the brutality inflicted routinely on women and girls in much of the world,” I could stand to read only small chunks at a time.

Its detailed evidence of sexual violence against women and girls—honor killings, bride beating, bride burning, genital cutting, forced prostitution, rape as a tactic of war, acid to disfigure, and selling of 7- and 8-year-old girls into sexual slavery—tells us that gender violence and discrimination is the paramount human rights problem of our time. Indeed, it tells us that nothing would do more to ameliorate the problems of the world than raising the status of women.

I say it’s painful, but you will read Half the Sky easily, with absorbed attention, because these journalists, husband and wife, know how to tell engrossing stories; it is not academic. One part of you seeks relief from the brutality; another part of you can’t put down the stories of individual women who defy their tormentors and with dogged determination escape their circumstances and now are helping others.

Some facts that document and illustrate the horror:

Biology produces more males than females, but China has 107 males for every 100 females (a greater disproportion among newborns), India has 108 and Pakistan 111. What makes the females disappear? The murder of women (femicide), the murder of female babies, deliberately less care and feeding of girl babies.

A Nobel laureate economist estimates that the globe should have 107 million more women.

“One third of all women worldwide face beatings in the home. . . . Women aged fifteen through forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.”
“Far more women and girls are shipped into brothels each year in the early twenty-first century than African slaves were shipped into slave plantations each year in the 18^th or 19^th centuries . . ."

Foreign Affairs observed: ‘It seems almost certain that the modern global slave trade is larger in absolute terms than the Atlantic slave trade in the 18^th or 19^th centuries was.’”

A story:

Meena and the other girls were never allowed out of the brothel and were never paid. They typically had 10 or more customers a day, 7 days a week. If a girl fell asleep or complained about a stomachache, the issue was resolved with a beating.

And when a girl showed any hint of resistance, all the girls would be summoned to watch as the recalcitrant one was tied up and savagely beaten.

“They turned the stereo up loud to cover the screams,” Meena said dryly. . . .

“They held my children captive, so they thought I would never try to escape.”

From a victim (sincerely, not ironically):

. . . if the wife is truly disobedient, then of course her husband has to beat her.

From the chapter “Rule by Rape”:

Woineshet—a battered, pint-sized girl surrounded by men who were threatening her—told the court official that she had been abducted [and raped], and she pleaded to be allowed to go home. The official, a man, didn’t want to listen to a girl and told Woineshet to get it over with and marry Aberew.

“Even if you go home, Aberew will go after you again,” the official told her. “So there’s no point in resisting.”

Half the Sky also exposes the complexities of achieving change. Genital mutilation has cultural approval in all of north Africa; women insist on it. Sometimes aid groups have committed blunders that worsened conditions for women and girls. Banning prostitution, for instance, does not work, and legalizing-regulating may not work either.

Nothing works better than education. So say women in the field and the world’s chief economists in the UN and World Bank. They state that educating and empowering women in the developing world is the most effective way to reduce poverty and, for the highest possible return on investment, to raise all economic indicators and bring benefits to whole societies. Women are the linchpin of effective economies. But education does not mean imposing Western values (learn how Tostan finally is making progress toward overcoming female genital cutting in Africa after Western methods failed).

I invite readers to consider the pain of these women and also the hope of real transformation, only possible if we allow women to become confident and powerful. Half the Sky lists effective organizations and gives specific suggestions. I don’t see how you could read these chapters without being changed in some way.

In churches, we need to change the talk about a lord or lords in the sky. Women of the world have too many lords lording it over them—they don’t need a god-lord besides. Yes, it’s hard to confront the aging, ultra-conservative men ruling from Rome, but not harder than the cultural changes we demand of the developing world.

Is God laughing or crying?

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:22:00 +0000

I think She’s doing both. Get ready to hold your mirthful sides and nod your head as you laugh at these cartoons on John Chuchman’s site. You’ll say, “Right on!” Be sure to click on some of his other pages.

Chuchman requests that I add this site on growth through loss and love.

Francis affirms Benedict's rebuke

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:36:00 +0000

Colman McCarthy asked, “What will it take to get me back?” Apparently he means get back to Catholicism, but for me the question is, “What would it take to get me back to respecting Catholic leadership?”

The news that PopeFrancis reaffirmed Pope Benedict XVI's rebuke of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious does not promise changes that both McCarthy and I want from the hierarchy:

“Go to confession collectively . . .”
“Confess to the sin of harassing the American nuns, . . .”
“the sin of stonewalling the appeals of pedophile victims.”
“the sin of expelling Fr. Roy Bourgeois from the priesthood . . .”
“the sin of demeaning gays and lesbians, . . .”
Give the laity equal status.
Put an end to priestly celibacy, male-only clergy, bans on contraception and altar girls.

A pretty thorough list that still leaves out a critical piece for me—stop the sexist God-talk. This tops all the rest because correcting it would naturally correct all the rest.

Readers, look at McCarthy’s list and see if you can find one not related to male domination. You think maybe pedophilia? Can you really believe the scandal would have happened if women had been equally represented in clergy and hierarchy?

Official and non-official explanations of sexist liturgical language insist that the He’s and Him’s do not stand for worshipping a set of males. Then why insist on keeping it? Why continue training the Christian world to value male over female? I believe Catholic leadership is conditioned and sabotaged by its own sick God-talk. Its deep-seated core belief, its North Star, is belief in the supremacy of males.

Speaking in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis repeated the old saw that women have “a special role,” code for no role in leadership or decision making. Combined with affirmation of Benedict’s rebuke of LCWR, this signals an intention to bar women from leadership. Francis’ rejection of papal pomp and his solidarity with the poor, welcome and attractive as they are, do not make up for his apparent acceptance of female subordination.

He can’t succeed, of course. Inside and outside of the Church the rise of feminine power proceeds, because Spirit does not take orders from the pope. To unseeing eyes it is not apparent, but we are moving toward equality between males and females, between colored and white, between various sexual orientations, between ethnic groups, and between religions. We are moving away from European and male domination of the globe. Despite loud splashes of evangelical color in the media, the Christian era is closing in the West as we move into the post-Christian era.

What would it take for me to respect Catholic leadership? I only ask the question rhetorically because I don’t expect the hierarchy to change collectively. I do expect continuing challenges to the official narrative, including those by individual bishops and cardinals. Little explosions of resistance will pop up here and there, in starts and stops, in a relentless, inexorable process of crumbling hierarchical domination and intimidation.

Easter

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 14:00:00 +0000

posted March 31, 2007
From a religious point of view, Easter is a more important Christian feast than Christmas, but it gets less attention because there’s less money to be made from Easter. So much for our supposedly Christian nation.

Like Christmas, Easter derives from pagan myth and ritual. The ancient religions surrounding the first Christians celebrated various saviors coming down from heaven and going back up to heaven.
A striking parallel to Easter is reported by church historian Henry Chadwick. He tells of the god Mithris, whose death was mourned on March 22 and resurrection celebrated on March 25.

The likeness of Good Friday and Easter to religious festivals of the pagans prompted them to accuse Christians of plagiarism. Besides the idea of dying and rising again in three days, Christians apparently borrowed ritual ideas.

My reporting this may give the impression that I have little respect for Holy Week and Easter. Wrong. I regard the Paschal mystery as a profound spiritual mystery, one centered on transformation, one that grows in meaning as I grow older.

But it doesn’t belong to Christians alone. Our tradition received appreciation of the link between dying and rising from both Judaism and paganism. Mythologist Joseph Campbell found thousands of transformation stories in myths of the world.

The word “paschal” is derived from the Hebrew word for the annual Passover celebration, when Jews commemorate their deliverance from Egypt. God brought death to Egyptian homes but passed over Hebrew homes on the night of their escape. They celebrate their break from bondage, the promise of a new home, and their birth as Yahweh’s people.
New Testament accounts say that Jesus was put to death on or around Passover, and so Christians and Jews celebrate the feast most important to them at the same time.

Pagan religious festivals honored several deities who died and rose in three days. The region where Christianity began teemed with death and resurrection stories prefiguring that of Christ.

Especially poignant is the story of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, who gifted humankind with fertile land and bountiful harvests. Persephone is playing in a field when she is abducted by Hades, god of the underworld and brother of Zeus, who is Persephone's father.
Heartbroken and mourning fiercely, Demeter learns what happened. She vows never again to let the earth be fruitful until her daughter is restored to her. Zeus relents, but Persephone has to spend part of the year above and part of the year below. When she arises every spring, the earth turns green again.

This mother/daughter story balances against the father/son story of Christianity as both portray the central figure dying and rising—both symbols of transformation. And the Eleusinian Mysteries, which commemorated Persephone’s rise, were celebrated for almost two thousand years, about as long as Christianity is old.

These mysteries had much in common with Holy Week mysteries. Initiation, fasting, and extensive preparation preceded them. There were processions, music, purifying with water, ritual eating and drinking, fire and light symbolism—all the elements of masterful Holy Week liturgies.

At the climax of the Eleusinian Mysteries, participants had a beatific vision that released them from the fear of death. They were transformed. Christians are urged to be transformed into new people, to die to our old selves and rise to new selves. But transformation from death to life permeates all of existence.

New shoots in spring arise out of dead vegetation left by winter. The end of a job opens the door to a new path in life. Births and deaths come together in uncanny ways. More than one family has seen new grandchildren arriving upon the passing of a grandparent.

The Paschal mystery tells us that beginnings and endings are joined in a mysterious way. John 12:24 states, “Unless a grain of wheat fall to the earth and dies it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies it produces much fruit.”
Understanding this soothes the pain of change. Every end’s sadness opens to a fresh beginning. Easter and other religious myths and rituals symbolize this holiness in all creation.

Pundits on the pope

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:40:00 +0000

The latest National Catholic Reporter (Mar.29 – Apr 11) feeds my addiction to religious politics with a wealth of opinion, reflections, suppositions, and guesses about the new pope. Joan Chittister (p. 13) expresses weary longing for reform of the Catholic Church, and many observers offer suggestions for cleaning up its moribund institutional structure.

John Allen (p. 9) reviews qualifications for high offices in its governing structure. Antonio M. Pernia (p. 12) states,

In a complex world—more multicultural, pluralistic, postmodern, global and technological—it is no longer possible for one person to govern alone. . . .

Just as a superior general of religious orders has a council to govern with him, cannot a pope, too, have a council (e.g., of six or eight or 10) who would share the responsibility of leadership with him?

Emeritus Archbishop of San Francisco John Quinn calls for

major decentralization of Vatican and papal authority . . . through the creation of regional bishops’ conferences and synods of bishops with decision-making authority, . . .

He said there is no impediment in doctrine or canon law that would prevent the creation of new patriarchal structures in the church.

Well, it would be some change but hardly encouraging. Thomas Reese (p. 17) appreciates the need for more substantive reform. His prescription for reforming the Curia resembles my decades-old prediction that the Vatican would eventually evolve into a centralized clearing house for Church matters.

It should be organized as a civil service and not part of the hierarchy of the church.

Thus my reforms start with not making members of the Curia bishops or cardinals. The current Curia is organized like the royal courts of the 17^th century where princes and nobles helped the king run the nation. . . . where the monarch held the legislative, executive and judicial powers.

Modern governments recognize the need for a separation of powers. Agencies like the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith should not make the rules, and then act as police, prosecutor, judge, jury and executor in dealing with theologians.

In other words, it should not exercise top-down power over the universal Church.

Jamie Manson (p. 11) offers the most provocative and unsettling comments by reporting that Cardinal Bergoglio was close to a movement little known in the U.S. but globally powerful. She quotes a researcher of Communion and Liberation who wrote,

CL boldly claims that the Church embodies authoritative truth that is binding on society at large. [It claims] a kind of inerrancy.

Manson warns,

Those who hope Francis’ humility indicates he may decentralize Rome’s authority or relax the demand for absolute orthodoxy may want to read more about Communion and Liberation’s understanding of the papacy.

It's as if Jamie Manson were answering me personally after reading my past ruminations about the new pope. Her facts suggest that Pope Francis will not address the institutional Church’s most pressing need—shared power. On pelvic issues his bias toward traditional teachings is clear.

We’ll have to see whether the Catholic Church will be a stabilizing or destabilizing force in the 21st century as the globe transitions to the post-Christian age.

March 26, 2013
Thomas Reese, former editor of America:
on Bergoglio’s opposition to Liberation Theology and on his alleged complicity with Dirty War tactics:

Part of the problem was the use of the term "Marxist analysis" by some liberation theologians, when they sought to show how the wealthy used their economic and political power to keep the masses down. The word "Marxist," of course, drove John Paul crazy. . . .

As provincial, Father Bergoglio was responsible for the safety of his men. . . . The junta did not get information from Bergoglio. Contrary to rumor, he did not throw them out of the society and therefore remove them from the protection of the Society of Jesus. They were Jesuits when they were arrested. . . .

Andrew O’Hehir:

Francis represents a break with tradition in several ways. . . . But the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio emerges from a Jesuit order that has been largely purged of its independent-minded or left-leaning intellectuals, . . .

it’s difficult to imagine that he can or will do anything to arrest the church’s long slide into cultural irrelevance and neo-medieval isolation.

Jim Wallis of Sojourners:

……. reports of the new pope being a “bridge builder” between Jesuits and other orders and, more widely, between conservatives and liberals in the church. How welcome that would be. ”

Wallis said the new pope must address these fundamental issues:

First, the church must indeed be transformed to become known, as Francis of Assisi was, as the defender of the poorest and most vulnerable. . . . Sadly, the Catholic Church’s hierarchy is not best known for those primary issues today.

Second, Pope Francis must address, with both compassion and justice, the enormously painful reality of church’s sexual abuse of children. . . . the horrible sins of pedophile priests and cover-up bishops must be repented and reconciled.

Third, the new pope must reverse and redress the Vatican’s recent censure and, in my view, mistreatment of its own sisters. These Catholic religious women around the world represent the best of Catholic social teaching. Pope Francis could and should embrace the women of the church instead of suspecting and disrespecting them.

Garry Wills:

“ The next pope should be increasingly irrelevant, like the last two. The farther he floats up, away from the real religious life of Catholics, the more he will confirm his historical status as a monarch in a time when monarchs are no longer believable.

Some people think it a new or even shocking thing that so many Catholics pay no attention to papal fulminations—against, for instance, female contraceptives, male vasectomies, condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, women’s equality, gay rights, divorce, masturbation, and artificial insemination (because it involves masturbation).

But it is the idea of truth descending though a narrow conduit, straight from God to the pope, that is a historical invention. ”

. . . “truth is not determined by a majority vote.” But that is precisely how the major doctrines like those on the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection were fixed in creeds: at councils like that of Nicaea, by the votes of hundreds of bishops, themselves chosen by the people, before popes had any monopoly on authority. .

Tom Roberts, editor at large of National Catholic Reporter:

. . . Francis also received enthusiastic endorsements from liberation theologian and former Franciscan priest Leonardo Boff of Brazil. . . .

Even his critics say he never acted to hide abuse and there appears to be agreement that Bergoglio acted with increasing resolve . . .

Pope Francis said:

We have to avoid the spiritual sickness of a self-referential church. It's true that when you get out into the street, as happens to every man and woman, there can be accidents. However, if the church remains closed in on itself, self-referential, it gets old. Between a church that suffers accidents in the street, and a church that's sick because it's self-referential, I have no doubts about preferring the former.

These words of Francis give almost more hope than his admirably simple lifstyle.

It was not possible that someone more liberal could be elected by a bunch appointed by the last two ultra-conservative popes.

Change in the Church is coming and will continue to come from the bottom up and from outside in, not from the Vatican. Power centers rarely experience success at effecting lasting change. That has to come from the collective consciousness, and changes there are outside anyone’s control.

Pope gives me hope, despite . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 18:46:00 +0000

I have hope that the papacy of the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, will lead to significant change in the Church, despite some disquieting facts. On social issues, his leadership does not look promising. He led and lost a campaign in Argentina to prevent gay marriage from being legalized, earning a tense relationship with the government of Argentina and President Cristina Kirchner. But history moves so inexorably toward acceptance of gays that this does not disturb me.

He opposed Liberation Theology, considering it tainted by Marxism. This disturbs me more, and it seems inexplicable, considering his lifestyle. The archbishop lived simply, opting to have an apartment in the city instead of residing in the mansion reserved for the archbishop. He cooked his own meals and rode the bus. His outreach to the poor included visiting with residents of slums, and he makes a point of communicating with ordinary people. These facts not only endeared him to his faithful; they appeal to me. I can respect a conservative who places so much emphasis on care for the poor. He chose the name “Francis” in honor of Francis of Assisi and apparently models his life on the saint known for advocating peace, simplicity, love of nature, and bringing people together.

During Argentina’s military dictatorship of the 1970s, Bergoglio as Jesuit superior dismissed two priests from the Jesuit order because he disapproved of their anti-government activism. They were subsequently kidnapped and tortured. Bergoglio was accused of colluding with the government in this case and for failing to prevent other disappearances because he did not speak out strongly against the junta. A lawsuit was dismissed, but debate about his guilt continues. I expect this will go nowhere for lack of evidence and his elevation to the papacy, but the potential for trouble persists.

Because Bergoglio is not a Vatican insider—he has never lived in Rome—I hope he will appreciate the need to reform the Roman Curia and to diminish its power over Catholics the world over. Bishops around the world are clamoring for restoration of collegiality, meaning decentralized power and more local input into decisions, for instance, on the appointment of new bishops. As archbishop, Bergoglio was reputed to be a competent administrator besides living his austere life. This bodes well for reforming the Curia and its global relationships. Things needing to be cleaned up are Vatican finances and clergy sex abuse, most troubling, the lack of accountability for bishops involved in it. I expect more exposés of bishops covering up their own cover-up, as happened to Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles. This issue will not go away.

Bergoglio is loyal to traditional Church teaching and opposed to changes favored by Americans. He opposed married clergy, women priests, and legal abortion. He opposed the free distribution of contraceptives in Argentina, a disquieting detail. He asserted that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children, but while battling gay marriage in Argentina, he also rebuked priests who denied Baptism to children born out of wedlock. Bergoglio is a brilliant Jesuit intellectual, and I tend to trust intellectuals’ ability to analyze and see the broad implications of issues. I expect them in time to at least understand liberal thinking.

Mostly my hope rests on the fact of change, which ultimately leads to renewal. Change has a way of doing this. And if power is decentralized, if the Curial dictatorship can be broken, more substantial change can happen despite the positions of people at the top. Hope springs eternal.

While the cardinals were voting,

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:32:00 +0000

Paul Ryan came out with another budget. No, it's essentially the same budget that voters already rejected—focused on repeal of Obamacare. Ironically, it depends on savings that Obamacare put into place. It even uses some language of the Affordable Care Act. Funny.

Also humorous—the media attention given proceedings at the Vatican. It is understandable that the line of cardinals in their regal attire processing into the magnificent Sistine Chapel would capture the imagination of the world. But knowing what lies behind the façade of holiness, I smile ironically. Thank Goodness, the pageantry did not stop reporters from asking tough questions of cardinals they could corner. Mainstream news reports even featured advocates of women’s ordination and diminishing the power centralized in the Vatican. But when I hear interviewees gush over the “Holy Father” and defend the exclusion of women, my throat and stomach squirm. And then I remind myself to laugh.

Benedict’s legacy will include one aspect I applaud—he sought justice for the lowly and unfortunate. He denounced “the scandal of inequalities” in a 2009 encyclical and called for a more just distribution of the world’s wealth. This will surely be promoted by Pope Francis I. His reported manner of living promises a papacy devoted to uplifting the poor and marginalized. Now, what about the other issues of justice?

Given the role of women’s ordination, contraception, gay marriage, and divorce in redressing injustice, I ask, what is working in men who recognize the need for economic justice but are blind to justice in sexual matters? A hard line on these issues exposes a block that I will avoid analyzing psychologically. But religiously, Benedict, the Roman curia, and bishops appointed by the last two popes apparently think traditional sexual roles are sacred, eternally ordered by God. To state it bluntly, women should stay in their place, and so should gays, who defy tradition even more disturbingly. Both groups must be held down, nicely but firmly.

Whenever a new story emerges of the Vatican or a bishop stomping on a Catholic exercising conscience instead of blind obedience, I find myself smiling. A display of sexual hang-ups is sad but also comical.

Another bit of entertainment comes from a Catholic newspaper I found online—The Remnant. A columnist there complains that,

“American Catholicism” is that branch of the Faith in which a man can believe anything he wants and call himself a Catholic.

Using this male-centered language, the essay scorns “priestesses” and “pervert priests,” while defending the stance on sexual matters of “the Holy Father.” It apparently advocates a smaller church of more fervent believers because giving in to American values would be to condemn one to eternal damnation.
Reading it provides a trip in time travel to the 1950s, which provides humor and a surprise—it actually disapproves of the Church advocating for social justice, contrary to Benedict’s position.

I did not expect a Catholic group to be so baldly opposed to helping people who need help and spreading love instead of hate. John Gehring, a Catholic who works for a liberal advocacy group, wants the Church to,

stop being the Church of No and once again put it at the forefront of social justice and helping the poor. . . . When being a good Catholic is defined on a narrow range of sexuality issues rather than a more positive, loving vision, it’s no wonder people are moving away.

The Remnant writer grouses,

Church of No” is code for wanting the option to sin sexually without having to confess, and the expectation that the Holy Father will overturn 2,000 years of dogmatic teaching on sexual matters. No real Catholic expects such a thing.

One more laugh. Here you can see Paul Ryan’s Freudian slip:

We’re not going to give up on destroying the health care system.

And HERE are 9 ways American Catholics differ from the cardinals in conclave.

Thomas Merton again

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:52:00 +0000

My quotations from Thomas Merton’s The Seven Story Mountain ("God in Her mercy" below) generated interesting responses. The writer of this first pleasing comment wishes to remain anonymous, but I will say it is a religious person.

Jeanette, I didn’t ‘catch on’ to the fact that it was Thomas Merton’s experience. I suspected it might have been yours!!!! I loved your sense of who ‘you’ were as woman, a much larger sense than most of us would allow ourselves to ‘take on’ as belonging to women! And I loved thinking…after discovering that this was a male experience. . .that such feminine qualities could also be masculine qualities!!! Thanks.

I agree with Steve’s analysis and response:

God, of course, has no gender. The metaphor of a patriarch was used millennia ago and through tradition and inertia, it has stuck with us. There is nothing wrong with using the female pronouns, but it is a little jarring to read and hear until you get used to it. Steve Applegate

And I like Scott’s response:

I am somewhere between an agnostic and atheist ....... at most a pantheist ....... and if there be an Almighty among these billions of stars and infinite universe with black holes that created a big bang, it is obviously sexless so you may call your Almighty whatever you need to call it as human beings have done throughout their existence. Scott Thompson

I would guess this next anonymous comment expresses the response of many:

I had to read your blog several times, and yes when you switch genders it was confusing. When I changed it to the male gender I understood what was written. I guess we are truly creatures of habit. I'm sure I could get used to it the other way. Your position is that gender should not be one way or the other, right?
I have Merton's book. I might have to dig it out and read it again.

These four comments show how the prohibition against imagining feminine divinity has formed and limited our minds, even these four manifestly open minds. More so the comment by Phyllis that came through blogger (below). It illustrates the assumption that personal reflections about spiritual matters have no authority, indeed, could be “depraved” and “Godless,” because only religious teaching “correctly teaches God’s truth.”

The “revelation” argument also comes up in a comment I received last week on a long-ago post, Does God exist? Wrong question! The writer refers to apophatic and cataphatic theology, two Christian ways of considering the nature of God. The first focuses on what is unknowable, the second on what is knowable from “revelation.” Both traditions exhibit the same male-centered bias that infests all Christian writings.

An Internet site states the basic premise of apophatic mysticism “is that, no matter how great the human mind, it simply cannot grasp God in all His fullness, all His glory, all His might.” One would expect the Unknowable to transcend one gender! Similarly, a site defining cataphatic theology describes God “according to what He has revealed of Himself in Scripture and nature”—exposing the same limited frame of mind. Apophatic, cataphatic, schmataphatic—it matters not if they reduce The Source of All That Is to one gender.

Sexist God-talk has closed the imagination so that "God in Her mercy" sounds "a little jarring" and "confusing." Worse, sexist God-talk endorses the supremacy of male power.
I inadvertently deleted the comment by Phyllis, but she was kind enough to send it again by email.

Like Thomas Merton, we seek after God, but your changes in his piece, Jeannette, demotes Almighty God (as I see it), because there is no image to attach to the "she" and "her" to fill that spot, and because, from the beginning, nothing has changed in the "story" to why we are born and what will happen to us. If the characters in God's life and death Salvation Plan shift, the meaning of life shifts. Dare we human alter anything about the God of Heaven who is in charge!   Isn’t this issue about obedience verses opinion?

    If the language is revised, then teachings become argumentative. Current lifestyle-trends are getting so Godless and depraved that we need to speak clearly of God's Truth. We ought ". . . not to fight over words. It does no good, but only ruins the people who listen. Do your best to win full approval in Gods sight as a worker who is not ashamed of his/her work, one who correctly teaches the message of God's truth . . have nothing to do with pointless philosophical discussions -- they can only lead further and further away from true religion." (2 Timothy 2: 14 - 16).
     I was uncomfortable with the new meanings indicated within the re-write of Thomas Merton. We can only know God from His input, and anything we add, is beyond the "Truth" in the matter. . . as I see it.

Phyllis Plum

God in Her Mercy, February 12
Here is the story of a soul converted to Catholicism in the 1930s as,

the world faced not only destruction, but . . . defilement of that which is most perfect in woman, her reason and her will, her immortal soul.

God in Her mercy was permitting me to fly as far as I could from Her love but at the same time preparing to confront me, at the end of it all, and in the bottom of the abyss, when I thought I had gone farthest away from Her. . . . She would shed, into my soul, enough light to see how miserable I was. . . .

The paradox is this: woman’s nature, by itself, can do little or nothing to settle her most important problems. . . . God gave woman a nature that was ordered to a supernatural life. She created woman with a soul that was made not to bring itself to perfection in its own order, but to be perfected by Her in an order infinitely beyond the reach of human powers. . . .

By grace we are able to share in the infinitely self-less love of Her Who is such pure actuality that She needs nothing . . . Indeed, outside of Her there is nothing, and whatever exists exists by Her free gift of its being . . . everything that is depends upon Her gift, depends upon Her unselfishness.

The soul of woman, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. . . . the natural goodness of woman . . . becomes transfigured and transformed when the Love of God shines in it. What happens when a woman loses herself completely in the Divine Life within her?

I was helpless without God . . . I wanted to do everything that people did to keep close to Her.

These are quotations from Thomas Merton’s The Seven Story Mountain. What’s wrong with this picture? Obviously, I tampered with the text. After my last two posts, I don’t have to explain exactly how I tampered.

Let me know what was happening in your minds as you read these lines. Was it confusing? How soon did you catch on to my ploy? Did it offend you?

You readers can easily reconstruct the original lines. Just use typical he-man language dominating the time Merton was writing. He is easily forgiven, but there’s no excuse for it in the Church today.

I will keep looking for more ways to confound the sexist mind. And the mind not sexist but confounded by sexist God-talk forcing Christians daily to imagine Supreme Power male and women naturally inferior to men.

If God is male, the male is God.

Goddess or god?

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:16:00 +0000

I hope you had fun sorting out the Bible verses I quoted last week mixing Sophia with Jesus, two parallel personifications of God. I had fun choosing the verses.

Personifications are figurative images; they are poetic ways of referring to what is not human as if it were human. Saying the stars danced, I personify them. Saying the wind howled, I personify it. Saying time flew by, I personify time. Saying God told me something, I personify God. The personifications Sophia and Jesus help us relate to the mystery we call God.

Here are more parallels between the female and male God-images:

Both speak in long discourses in first person, and both speak poetically.
Both reveal God and give instruction on what pleases God.
Both walk the streets, crying out their message and offering their gifts.
Both lead people to life and immortality.
Both refer to their followers as children and both use metaphors of food and water to describe their spiritual gifts.
Both are rejected.

Following are the original Bible verses. As you compare them with last week’s versions, you can see that I reversed the gender in every case. If the verse referred to Sophia, I wrote “He,” “Him,” or “His”; if it referred to Christ, I wrote “She” or “Her.” If the quotation is in first person and from the Book of Wisdom, Proverbs, Baruch, or Sirach, the speaker is Sophia (Wisdom).

Jn 1:2: The Word was present to God from the beginning.

Sir 1:1: Wisdom comes from YHWH; She dwells with God forever.

Jn 10:10b: I came that they might have life.

Prov 8:35 The person who finds me finds life.

Bar 4:1 All who hold Her fast will live, and those who forsake Her will die.

Jn 17:3: ………him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.

Jn 3:13: No one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven—the Son of Man.

Wis 7:25: She is a breath of the power of God, a pure light of the glory of the Most High.

Jn 1: 11 To his own he came, yet his own did not accept him.

Prov 1: I called and you chose not to listen, because I beckoned and you ignored me,

Sir 1:17 She showers the earth with insight and intelligence, and rewards those who espouse Her gifts.

Sir 4:15 To love Her is to love life; those who seek Her win Her favor.

Those who follow Her follow the Holy One; the Most High loves those who love Her.

Obey Her and you will be in a position of supreme authority;

Listen to Her and you will live in Her heart of hearts.

Sir 6:27-28 Draw close to Her with all your heart and keep to Her discipline at all costs.

Pursue Her, look for Her, seek Her, and you will find Her—and once you hold Her, never let go.

Sir 6: 29b She will be your joy.

Jn 3:16b: Whoever believes in Him may not die but may have eternal life.

Baruch 4:1b: All who cling to Her will live, but those will die who forsake Her.

Wis 8:14 “ . . . all nations would follow me”

My purpose in this exercise is to provoke realization that exclusive and repetitive HeHimHis God-talk keeps us from distinguishing between male images and the reality of God. It prevents appreciation of the Transcendent Mystery beyond our capacity to comprehend. It directs us toward worship of idols. If we want to advance in understanding of spiritual reality, we must change our habits.

For help in preparing this I used An Introduction to New Testament Christology by the eminent Catholic scholar Raymond Brown.

Theologian Elizabeth Johnson informs us further in She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. She noted the scholarly consensus on the influence of pagan Goddesses on the Jewish Sophia.

The cultural context that made possible a Hebrew personification of God in female form was pagan Goddess worship.

So, following the trail of influences, we see that the Goddess is a prototype of Christ—a fact to mull over if you’re a Christian ready for this.

Sophia & Jesus mixed, January 23
Many scripture scholars have noted parallels between the Jesus portrayed in the Gospel of John and Sophia, the female personification of wisdom in the Hebrew Scriptures (known to Christians as the Old Testament). “Sophia” in Greek means wisdom and is grammatically feminine.

So much do the two figures—male and female—resemble each other that verses about them are interchangeable, as the following list demonstrates.

I challenge readers to discern whether each line refers to the Divine Feminine in Wisdom Literature or the Divine Masculine in the Gospel of John. Translations are from the NAB and the Inclusive Bible, but I changed words that gave away the gender.

Decide whether the original line was talking about Sophia or Jesus. Answers—next week.

Sophia was present to God from the beginning.

The Word comes from God; He dwells with God forever.

I came that they might have life.

The one who finds me finds life.

All who hold Him fast will live, and those who forsake Him will die.

Her whom you have sent, Wisdom.

No one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven—Wisdom.

He is a breath of the power of God, a pure light of the glory of the Most High.

To Her own She came, yet Her own did not accept Her.

I called and you chose not to listen, . . . I beckoned and you ignored me.

He showers the earth with insight and intelligence, and rewards those who espouse His gifts.

To love Him is to love life; those who seek Him win His favor.

Those who follow Him follow the Holy One; the Most High loves those who love Him.

Obey Him and you will be in a position of supreme authority;

Listen to Him and you will live in His heart of hearts.

Draw close to Him with all your heart and keep to His discipline at all costs.

Pursue Him, look for Him, seek Him, and you will find Him—and once you hold Him, never let go.

We have seen Her glory . . . filled with enduring love.

He will be your joy.

Whoever believes in Her may not die but may have eternal life.

All who cling to Him will live, but those will die who forsake Him.

“ . . . all nations would follow me”

Tax injustice

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 16:25:00 +0000

For anybody who still shares Romney's contempt for people at the bottom who do not pay income tax (they pay plenty of other taxes), Need to Know on PBS Friday night explained the practical results of our tax code—its unequal treatment of rich, middle class, and poor.

You can learn about deductions, about the Earned Income Credit, about the practical effects for people representing various income levels. I love the 1 percenter, who says,

I think it’s perfectly reasonable that the wealthy, who, I believe, in the end benefit the most from having a society that works for everybody, should be contributing more. . . .

I absolutely think I should pay more in taxes.

Why should we have these differential rates between earnings from income and earnings from capital? It’s the hardworking individual who goes out to get money for their labor that we really ought to be rewarding. Isn’t that the person that we really feel is contributing the most to society? . . .

Why is it that we think what the venture capitalist does is more important than what the teacher does?

Conservatives like to crow that the top one percent pay almost 40 percent of all federal income tax and the top ten percent pay around 70 percent. So what? They should pay taxes commensurate with their share of the country's wealth. On average the 1 percenters pay an income tax of only 15%. Their share of the total federal income tax is big because their share of the country’s income is so monstrous.

As we learn HERE, the top 1 % have 42.1% of our country's financial wealth but they control 81% to 94% of the wealth.

We can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America. . . .

And the top 1% of income earners actually pay a smaller percentage of their incomes to taxes than the 9% just below them.

Americans have no idea that the wealth distribution . . . [net worth] is as concentrated as it is.

From the Need to Know transcript:

This guy makes eight times the amount that you make, and he’s paying a lower effective tax rate than you. What do you think about that?

SETH HAHN: It really sort of outrageous that our elected leaders allow it to continue to happen. The people who are reaping all of the benefits of the wealth that we are sort of collectively creating are those who are paying, often, the least in taxes.

Also on Friday night, Paul Krugman explained why the current obsession with cutting spending produces precisely the wrong effect—more misery for everyone, including the future generations that conservatives fancy themselves to be defending. Austerity does not work. Witness Europe and Japan. Krugman says,

. . . all the evidence of history says . . . in a situation like this [if] the private sector won’t spend, government can step in and provide the spending that we need in order to keep this economy afloat.

After the interview, Bill Moyers reported that the deal reached at the New Year included more gifts to millionaires. Damn. With their powerful finance lobby, Wall Street moguls wheedle out of government favors for themselves while preaching austerity for the rest of us. Already before the latest deal, Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs loomed nauseatingly, hypocritically. The Huffington Post commented:

While nobly calling for shared sacrifice, . . . [Blankfein says] the only way to address our grave fiscal crisis is to slash corporate tax rates and encourage poors and olds to get over their irrational aversion to dumpster-diving.

Outrage is appropriate. Until we pressure for justice, it will elude us.

Guns DO kill

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 20:16:00 +0000

I get a little hot when I hear, "Guns don't kill; people kill," so I wrote about it. My opinion piece published today gives evidence to show that the presence of firearms alone spurs gun violence. We live in a uniquely gun-loving culture and bear the consequences of living in the most armed nation in the world.

Eugene Beniek's comment to my editorial explains the reason for Americans' lack of common sense about guns—they’re flooded by propaganda from the National Rifle Association. Beniek quotes The Nation:

And though the NRA has been roundly mocked for its public relations effort this week, officials are watching what is sure to be a flood of new cash.

Here’s why: For every gun or package of ammunition sold at participating stores, a dollar is donated to the NRA. The NRA’s corporate fundraising division has several special retail partnerships called “Add-A-Buck,” “NRA Round-Up,” and “Shooting for the Future.” In some cases, these deals allow for customers to contribute a dollar or two to the NRA at the point of purchase; others, like one with Sturm, Ruger & Co., the company led by Mike Fifer, require automatic contributions to the NRA with every purchase. Many of these retail deals are linked to the NRA’s 501(c)4 affiliate, which can, unlike other affiliates of the NRA, spend that money on political advertisements and lobbying.

This year alone, Midway USA, an ammunition company, has given the NRA $1 million through the Round Up program.

In another comment, John Ellenbecker answers the argument that a national database of guns will lead down the slippery slope to confiscation:

Yes, registration can lead to confiscation. We are required to register our motor vehicles, and when a person commits a crime with their motor vehicle, in some instances their motor vehicle gets confiscated.

Unlike other debates, on the matter of gun control the sensible arguments come from one side alone. Arguments against any control of weapons fail any test of reason, perhaps because they are generated by a powerful profit-making propaganda machine—the NRA. How long will we be pawns of weapons manufacturers who supply the NRA with funds to dupe us?

The Children—Christ figures, December 19, 2012

This time of grieving since the massacre of innocents in Sandy Hook Elementary School is variously described as “horrible,” “tough,” “unendurable,” “tragic.” I suggest the word “holy,” because the dying children remind us of holy themes and they could save us from ourselves.

The life of Christ presents a template for every human life well lived—growing in wisdom and love, suffering with grace, and sacrificing in love for others. Jungian psychologist Robert Johnson writes that the story of Christ can be understood as a process within every one of us—an inner journey.

Read in this way, we can see that Christ is constantly being immaculately conceived and born, is confounding the elders, teaching, being betrayed, being crucified, dying, resurrecting, and is making an ascension. All of these are occurring in every moment; . . .

We have in the children of Sandy Hook—both those who died and those who survived—sacred models of Christ. As holy saviors, they direct our gaze to elevated concerns of enduring value and lead us to awareness of the illness in our gun-loving society.

May the lives of these Christ figures, these holy saviors, not have been sacrificed in vain.

Brenda commented (Dec. 23, 2012 at 11:30 AM):

Yes, we need to look to ourselves and our own society. Thank you, Jeanette.

Teilhard, Christians, atheists

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:09:00 +0000

It is altogether fitting and proper to begin the new year with a post on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. His ideas were recently featured on the public radio program On Being, which explores scintillating ideas in religion, science, ethics, and culture through interviews by Krista Tippett. The thoughts of people influenced by Teilhard de Chardin reminded me of his deep effect on me when I read him decades ago. At the time I was trying to be an atheist but still intensely connected to my Catholic upbringing.

Host Krista Tippett gives this summary of Teilhard de Chardin:

A world-renowned paleontologist, he helped verify fossil evidence of human evolution. A Jesuit priest and philosopher, he penned forbidden ideas that seemed mystical at the time but are now coming true — that humanity would develop capacities for collective, global intelligence; that a meaningful vision of the earth and the universe would have to include, as he put it, "the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter."

Teilhard’s The Phenomenon of Man thrilled me with its marriage of science and spirituality, and that it was authored by a Catholic priest satisfied my desire to stay inside Catholic thought. I felt safe in the bosom of Catholic theology, even while I was trying to be an atheist! The irony occurred to me then too.

When I read Phenomenon of Man I was electrified with excitement over Teilhard’s mind-expanding vision as he traced the rise of consciousness from inanimate matter through the living species, from the less to the more conscious, culminating in humans and a collective, global intelligence. He introduced the idea that thinking humans form a layer of consciousness he called the noosphere, a concept far ahead of his time that in retrospect seems to have foretold the World Wide Web. I was mesmerized by his exposition of the evolution of consciousness.

But the end of the book let me down with a disappointing thud. He stuffed his exhilarating concepts into the Christian frame by calling the Omega Point "Christ." A deflating return to what I’d rejected in grade school—that we have the one, true faith. Back to Jesus Christ dominating spiritual reflection. Back to the same old Christian claim of exclusive access to God. His loyalty to Christian thought appears sadder in light of the fact that the Vatican censored his ideas. His books did not appear until after his death.

Teilhard’s intoxicating synthesis of evolutionary science with spiritual reality spoke a prophetic wisdom that far surpasses Christian limits. It stirred me profoundly. I learned to ignore Teilhard’s Christian finish from commentaries by others who also were awed by his synthesis and easily ignored that Christian note. They were not still wrestling with Christian claims as I was. I add that I do not remember at the time reacting strongly to the English translation of Teilhard’s title. Today the use of “man” to mean humanity stabs me with irritation, as my awareness of its insult to women has grown over time.

From Teilhard I learned to think about The Within of things. Jung’s theology—called “depth psychology”—also spoke of inner realities unacknowledged in the outer world, but Jung focused on the emotional/spiritual health of the individual. In fact, he called the process of becoming aware of our unconscious motivations “individuation.” In addition, Jung directly addressed the problem of Christian literalism and myopia. He affirmed and explained both my dissatisfaction with Christian dogmatism and my dissatisfaction with atheism.

From Teilhard and Jung I learned to consider the dichotomy of inner and outer, the interior of reality and its exterior or what our outer senses can register. They let me appreciate spiritual reality free of both religious and atheist dogma.
May the new year nudge my readers toward the same.

Holy Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 14:26:00 +0000

I am recycling a post I wrote on December 25, 2006.

There was no feast of Christmas during the first two centuries of the Christian era. Our festival followed the model of pagan festivals observing the sun’s birth on the winter solstice.

This information may stun Christians but it comes from Christian researcher Hugo Rahner, brother of Karl Rahner, one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. He wrote that in 354 CE a calendar entry for December 25 listed the birth of Christ along with the birth of the sun.

Following pagan example, Christians bowed to the east to honor the rising sun. Church Fathers accepted this, calling Christ the true sun, the light coming into the darkness, the "Dayspring from on high." Up to modern times, the preferred place for the altar in Catholic churches was the eastern side of the building, the side of the rising sun.
Light imagery sprinkled in our Christian liturgy—such as “Light from Light” in the Nicene Creed—also honors pagan solstice celebrations. And references to holiness “from on high” reflect pagan cosmology, which imagined gods and goddesses living up in the heavens. Sun gods were popular then, and pagans accepted Christ as one of them. They called the Lord’s Day of Christians the Day of the Sun, giving us the name “Sunday.”

It is easy to understand the huge importance of the sun to people with no electricity during the dark days of December. As the ever darker days switched to ever lighter days, people rejoiced. Like the pagans of old, we like to light up the night, but their bonfires have given way to our electric lights.

The first celebrations of Christmas did not happen on December 25. They began on January 6, today the feast of Epiphany in the West. That used to be the winter solstice until a calendar adjustment moved it to December 25 and a later adjustment to December 21. This is the reason our Christmas comes a few days after the solstice. Eastern Orthodox believers still celebrate Christmas on January 6.

Not all Christians celebrate Christmas. In American colonial times, Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians opposed the festivities because of their pagan origin. As this history suggests, the date of Christmas has no connection with the day Jesus of Nazareth was born. There is no possible way to know what that was. But believers aren’t the only ones who thrill at the story of an exceptional child born in humble surroundings.

During my childhood, Christkindchen, the Christ Child, brought Christmas. (Pronounce the German words with a short i.) When kids in school noticed that the Santas in town were fake, I wondered how they could ever have believed they were real. Our family miracle was much more believable.
We celebrated Christmas through most of January, reveling in Christmas music by singing and harmonizing with piano and radio. In my youth it was still possible to hear the sacred music of the season after Christmas Day, and I miss that.

Why do people stop Christmas music and throw out the tree on the day after Christmas? Apparently there’s no point in celebrating any longer when spending for presents is over. Commerce has spoiled what used to be a sacred time of year. Media reports on Christmas are all about earnings. What a distance we have come from observing the holy course of nature and a holy birth!

I suspect many of us hate the buy-and-spend frenzy but don’t know how to stop it. As more people get sick of the commercial merry-go-round, I hope they will find the courage to withstand materialistic pressures and to give in meaningful ways.
Do we hear outrage over this sacred season being exploited for money? No, we hear complaints about saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” As if Christians were the only ones with festivals around the winter solstice!

If we really cherished Christian values, we would joyfully include all religious traditions in our celebration. Spiritual meaning is what makes Christmas taste good.
We can make the good taste last. Let’s stop buying useless junk that degrades nature and reflect on the precious child inside every human being.

Inquisition Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 19:14:00 +0000

Every time I hear about another punishment meted out by the Vatican for acts of grace and courage I wonder what it will take for the Church universal to finally unite in opposition against the tyranny. Now it’s a 92-year-old Jesuit who is barred from priestly service for supporting a womanpriest. The Province of Jesuits “regrets” Brennan’s act. It chose the wrong act to regret. What will it take?

Inquisition, December 5
The Vatican takes ever bolder control of Catholic lives. The latest jaw-dropping move of this increasingly oppressive regime was to expel Roy Bourgeois from his Maryknoll community because he supports the priestly ordination of women. Bourgeois has been internationally acclaimed for his peace and human rights activities. The Maryknoll superior general from 2002 to 2008, Fr. John Sivalon, decried the Vatican’s order as meddling in Maryknoll affairs and interfering in the integrity of the society. How will Maryknollers around the world, both men and women, respond?

I would like to see the society publicly, calmly, and courageously embrace Bourgeois as one of their own and commend him publicly, calmly, and courageously for his heroic actions in behalf of peace and justice.

He won a purple heart for his service in Vietnam.

He lived and worked among the poor in Bolivia for five years.

When his friends, Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, along with two other women, were raped and murdered in El Salvador, he became an outspoken opponent of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.

He has served nearly five years in federal prison for non-violent protests.

His courageous stand for women priests against the sexist stance of the Vatican continues this heroic action. No greater prophet or saint lives among Catholics today. And it is no surprise that the Vatican opposes such a person. Bourgeois acknowledges that many priests fear losing their jobs, pensions, and sacramental power if they speak out about the ordination of women. But, he said,

I’d rather eat at a soup kitchen and be free rather than not do something that I’m called to do.

There are parallels between our time today and the reign of the Inquisition. This was a tribunal searching for and combating heresy during the twelfth through fifteenth centuries when Roman Catholicism dominated in Europe. Heresy was any belief different from the prevailing opinion held by the hierarchy of the day. In our popular consciousness, torture and the Inquisition go together, and this association is not without justification. Today we do not see the rack or thumbscrews; we do see banishment, excommunication, and financial hardship.

Also fear and excessive caution. I am angry that the greater Church lets itself be bullied by the Vatican, but I understand that the majority of “the faithful” still live in a Catholic culture of exaggerated respect for orders from the hierarchy. It’s of one piece with awe and respect for the Sacred, which hierarchs presume to define. Those who know better, who are aware of hierarchical abuse, have given their lives to the institution and see no practical way to oppose it without incurring the painful consequences that Bourgeois appears willing to accept. Would I be as courageous? I don’t know.

Free of institutional ties, I would abandon this religion if I did not have dear personal ties to it and spunky articles in the National Catholic Reporter that model integrity and courage. Often it’s the editorial, such as the latest one explaining why the Vatican’s stance against women’s ordination is untenable.

NCR joins its voice with Roy Bourgeois and calls for the Catholic church to correct this unjust teaching.

In another NCR article, AnthonyRuff responds to the clumsy Mass translation imposed by the Vatican after refusing to accept a well-crafted one. He writes,

When it comes to liturgy, Catholics are quite patient. Most Catholics have no reason to track the dirty politics behind the scenes of how the Vatican centralized and micromanaged the translation process beginning in 2001, threw away 17 years of transparent and collegial work on a very fine revised English translation, and botched the new missal by making some 10,000 mostly ill-advised changes at the last moment.

And when they're attending liturgy, most Catholics are probably also not tracking the convoluted and inelegant language of the new missal. . . . people's reduced attention to liturgical texts is a significant piece of why "it worked."

The new missal has shown us how a secretive central authority, absent mechanisms of accountability, can impose its will.

My disgust with liturgical language centers on sexist God-talk, which reduces the Holy Source of All to a set of humanlike males. I was hoping that the linguists and other experts working for 17 years would come up with language that conveyed a truly exalted sense of the Divine. We never got to see the fruits of their work. Instead, the Vatican imposed words even more worshipful of male gods.

Vatican attacks on fresh, evolving developments in spiritual awareness are increasing rancor between hierarchy and Church universal. But its attempts to hold the Church in the traditional mindset will not stunt spiritual growth. Spirit does not take orders from the pope.

Palestine, Birth 2012 and more

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:22:00 +0000

The latest military upheaval in Gaza has reawakened a passion in me—my indignation at Israel’s continued oppression of Palestinians— and, worse, my government literally aiding this brutality by sending weapons to Israel. Of course, Israel’s action is called “defense” while retaliation by Gazans is called “terrorism.”

My recent writing on this bias in our government and media was published on Saturday. I argued that American media don’t give the Palestinian side and I gave some facts leading up to Israel killing Ahmad al-Jabari. Israel wins the propaganda war by playing the victim surrounded by hostile forces, thus cleverly blaming the real victims, the Palestinians. In this way it justifies its brutality and humiliation of Palestinians, which our biased media do not report to Americans.

The Times included my wish that Hamas would stop trying to win justice by military means and move to non-violent protests, but it did not include my reference to the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s, which awakened the conscience of Americans. Such an awakening is needed if justice is to come to the Middle East, and we all know that there can be no peace without justice.

Besides writing, I pass on many articles that come my way. Seeking background for those who do not follow the dire conditions in Palestine—Gaza’s children are malnourished and stunted—I found this written in 2011, before the latest explosion, and showing the U.N.perspective. It explains that humanitarian relief is welcome but a long term solution must stop Israel from undermining any progress toward economic independence for Palestinians.

Unemployment (at 30%, and 43% for under-30s), manufacturing and agricultural decline (despite a recent upturn), large-scale revenue losses, "dire" humanitarian conditions, worsening socioeconomic indicators—all these issues and more are linked explicitly and repeatedly to the political situation.

More cheerful news emerges from another passion of mine, the shift in global consciousness that we are living through right now. The evidence that we are is presented in this analysis by retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong. I passed it on to my personal email lists of politically interested. “It is really excellent,” responded my friend Sondra. “His historical framing of shifting attitudes is like looking through a microscope that is a little out of adjustment, a little fuzzy, and bringing it into really sharp focus.”

I appreciate Spong’s sharp critique of religion’s role in “the birth pangs of this new consciousness.” He understands that, “No new consciousness is raised without rampant anger from those being displaced.”

Finally, I recommend the incomparable S. Joan Chittister speaking about women oppressed. I love her for her eloquent expressions of outrage and her forthright criticism of religious oppression.

I do not stay silent and take as my reward the responses I get to letters in National Catholic Reporter, pieces in the Times, and my posts here. Thank you.

Which will reign—fear or love?

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 15:19:00 +0000

I received a message showing the power of the hierarchy to intimidate. Fear is gripping some Catholics. This came home to me in a personal way when I learned more this past week about how a community I love is restricting its educational outreach for fear of reprisals from the hierarchy. Signs of this growing fright have been dribbling out during the past months as we wait to see who will be appointed the new bishop.

I wish I could give details but they are not mine to give. Think fear of the Inquisition and you will be in the neighborhood. This is overblown because the Inquisition carried out physical punishment. But parallels exist, and ultimately leading the charge is the pope who used to be Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, head of the Vatican office formerly called the Inquisition. Pope John Paul II began the campaign to reverse the fresh-air reforms of Vatican II, his chief ally Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI. These two popes repudiated the Council, refused to share power, and appointed bishops they knew would carry out their repressive agenda. Fear of such a bishop infects this monastery.

I was studying for my masters at the School of Theology from 1986 to 1988 and was fortunate to have as an instructor the renowned Fr. Godfrey Dieckmann, one of the periti or experts educating bishops at Vatican II. Among the memorable moments in that class were Godfrey’s admissions that some of his views would not be approved by the Vatican and frankly asking for our silence regarding them.

“Epistemic closure.” This is the phrase David Brooks, conservative commentator on National Public Radio, used to describe his own conservative side. “Epistemology” is the science of knowing and this phrase means closing one’s eyes to what one does not want to know. He was referring to the pre-election Republican conviction that Romney would win, despite the polls indicating an imminent Obama victory. E.J. Dionne, the liberal counterpart in the conversation on NPR, applied Brooks’ phrase also to the Republicans’ denial of global warming despite the evidence produced by science.

I apply it to the Christian right’s denial of evidence refuting traditional beliefs on a wide range of issues—biblical interpretation, the rise of women, the legitimacy of non-Christian religions, and advances in moral awareness, particularly gay rights.

Catholic bishops campaigned against gay rights and greater access to contraception before the last political election. They were defeated. Contributing to the defeat were religious leaders who campaigned against the repressive amendment in Minnesota. Especially courageous were prominent Catholics who spoke out for justice. They won. The bent of history is clear.

Another sign of history’s direction is the flourishing Catholic womanpriest movement, which has the only liturgies that do not suggest God is exclusively male.

Would that my beloved monastic community placed itself on the side of history and of courage! Fear never rewards. It diminishes us as it cramps more and more. It robs our integrity, thus alienating us from our Beloved Source. I plead with you to release the resources of intelligence, learning, wisdom, and compassion in your community to educate, to model, to inspire, to spread the true message of Jesus of Nazareth. Let creativity and freedom ring!

Holy Misogyny

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 20:03:00 +0000

I’m reading a book titled, Holy Misogyny: Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter, by April DeConick. Its revelations on vilification of the female in the first centuries of Christianity would repel even most conservatives today. I had encountered much of this material before but had forgotten the details—who said or did what outrageous thing. The ugly story presents a backdrop to contemporary events and helps to explain the glacial pace of change today in the treatment of women and girls.

In these excerpts “Church Fathers” reveal prejudices so contorted as to call into question their soundness of mind.

[Jerome, translator of the Bible into Latin,] spells out all the details of fostering a virgin whose body would become the temple of God. The girl child must be kept in total seclusion . . . She should be taught such shame of her female body that after puberty she should never bathe again, being humiliated by the mere thought of seeing herself naked. She should learn to mortify her body, to subjugate it and live in deliberate squalor to spoil her natural sexiness.

Epiphanius claims that women are

“unstable, prone to error, and mean spirited.” Death entered the world through a woman’s action. As a consequence, she cannot be trusted or obeyed.

Tertullian earns his reputation as supreme woman-hater with these lines:

Do you not know that you are an Eve? . . . You are the Devil’s gateway. You are the unsealer of that forbidden tree. You are the first deserter of the divine Law. You are she who persuaded him whom the Devil was not valiant enough to attack. . . . On account of your desert, that is death, even the Son of God had to die.

Jerome opposed marriage and held up virginity as the only acceptable Christian lifestyle. Augustine finishes this picture of extreme asceticism verging on emotional disorder.

According to Augustine, the “hideous” unwilled erection of his penis was the consequence of sin and woman was its source.

Augustine considered all carnal desire to be sinful. He was the first to teach the fiction that woman’s body, when accepting semen in the sex act, becomes like soil to seed sown by her husband. He also was the first to argue that a woman has no authority over her own body, her husband does.

In the fourth century, even those who argued against Jerome’s denigration of marriage and Augustine’s conflation of sex with sin agreed that woman was inferior to man, subordinate to man, and must be submissive to man. So complete was fourth century contempt for the female that women could earn respect only by becoming men. This belief found its way into Saying 114 in the Gospel of Thomas, which has Jesus saying of Mary Magdalene,

I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Some women went into the desert to starve themselves until they lost their breasts and stopped menstruating.

It is tempting—I have done it—to dismiss opinions of the woman-hating “Church Fathers” as so grotesque they can’t possible influence any one today. But their weird misogyny peeks out from the statements of Catholic bishops who fight against equality for women in the Church today. When bishops came out against the Affordable Care Act and nuns dared to dissent from that opinion, the bishops were aghast that sisters would publicly disagree with them. Their words reflected this deep reservoir of misogyny in our tradition—the conviction that a female can have no authority.

The hierarchy’s arguments against women’s ordination obviously hearken back to the same early-centuries misogyny, echoing the patristic belief that woman’s body is shameful by claiming that her body does not constitute the correct sacramental “matter” for ordination. Catholic women do not stand alone in enduring abuse. In 1995 the Southern Baptist Convention revoked women’s ordination and excluded them from all pastoral ministry that involved leadership.

In the secular realm the fight for women’s equality is progressing a bit faster, but apparently our religious tradition also puts a brake on progress there. Reverberations of its sex and gender distortions pop out in the clumsy campaign rhetoric of conservatives. That such statements have caused huge controversies and fodder for comedians seems to me a healthy sign. It suggests we are moving out of the diseased view presented so graphically in books like Holy Misogyny.

Holy Misogyny 2, November 2

I’m sorry that comments I “publish” are not really published by blogger. It has happened several times and is annoying. Usually, however, I get a flurry of email responses that do not go through blogger. As a result of one exchange, I add this to the previous post.

The misshapen views of “Church Fathers” on women cannot be separated from their theology, which reflects their opinions on gender. Imagining God to be entirely male with no vestige of the feminine fits their twisted view perfectly.

We are trained to respect the "Fathers," but knowing what we know today, we should critically examine their words. Because of their contempt for half of humanity and creation, we will find distortions in their thoughts about God and human relationships—the heart of spirituality.

They were not the first to believe in and teach patriarchy. Scholars debate its origins, but we know that it did not exist in prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies. By the time of classical Greece, the intellectual origins of the West, patriarchy was firmly embedded. Plato, Aristotle, and other classical greats had the unshakeable conviction that women were inferior to men, and it imbues their writings. Aristotle, for instance, said that a female is an incomplete male, “as it were, a deformity.”

Our Judeo-Christian tradition was imbued with the same, as is abundantly evident in the Bible, where “the Lord” jealously competes with other idols for exclusive worship by “his people.” Raphael Patai, historian of ancient Hebrew culture, wrote in The Hebrew Goddess,

Every Hebrew-speaking individual from early childhood was imbued with the idea that God was a masculine deity. No subsequent teaching about the aphysical, incomprehensible, or transcendental nature of the deity, could eradicate this early mental image of the masculine God.

When I was studying at the School of Theology in the 1980s, I found a delightfully eloquent refutation of the patriarchal view coming from a people close to the earth. Rodney Venberg, a Bible translator for a people of Southwestern Chad in Africa, wrote that their word for God (Ifray) was related to their word for mother, This made his job of translating the Bible difficult and produced a weird kind of speech among Christians that confused their neighbors. Converts wanted to know if it was necessary to change their talk to become a Christian. Venberg wrote,

To speak of God (Ifray) with such terms as "he" and "Father" was totally inconsistent with their grammar and went against their whole notion of the creation (after all had a man ever given birth to a child?).

Fortunately, we are today moving out of the male-dominated era as part of a huge shift in human consciousness. Because the female is associated more closely with nature and less with dominance, I expect a non-patriarchal world will do a better job of addressing political, economic, ecological, and nuclear threats to the planet and all its inhabitants.

The imaginary lord god

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 15:45:00 +0000

On October 13 and 14 I will be at the Women & Spirituality Conference in Mankato, MN to give a presentation and attend other presentations. My topic is Sexist God-talk.

God as exclusively "HeHimHis" describes male power as natural, normal, proper, and right, and female power as unnatural, abnormal, improper, and wrong. In this way, the Christian “Lord” promotes male domination and therefore gender abuse. In fact, it promotes all types of inequality by establishing hierarchy and domination as the essential, even sacred, structure of the universe. Those of us still in the Christian tradition can help to transform sexist God-talk with its immoral power structure by taking every opportunity to insert inclusive God-talk into liturgical and everyday language. This workshop will suggest many ways to diminish the power of “the Lord” by naming the Holy with feminine and non-hierarchical terms.

This is timely after we watched Half the Sky and maybe cried a little to see how little girls are sold into slavery and getting their genitals cut in the practice of female genital mutilation, called less graphically “female circumcision.” They need us to pay attention to this cruel practice.

The reason for cutting little girls’ genitals? To make sure they will not get pleasure from sex, the better to control their bodies. I’m not making this up. A practitioner said as much in her own language.

The reason she had no intention of stopping it? She’s making good money at it—it’s what she said. Every day she cuts about 30 girls around eight years of age, without anesthesia or sterilization. Without warning the girls are suddenly grabbed by their mothers or grandmothers and taken to the hut of the practitioner. Their legs are tied to prevent kicking, and their screams are ignored.

Don’t imagine that this is like male circumcision. The clitoris is removed, not only cut. In 15% of the cases, the genitals are cut off entirely. All that’s left is a hole to let urine and menstrual blood flow through.

So what’s the connection between girls used as sex objects and sexist God-talk?
Religious God-talk trains people to worship an idol, an imaginary lord god who endorses male domination. It teaches everybody, not only religious people, that females have no status. Real transformation can come only if we allow women to become confident and powerful. This requires cleaning our religious language of God-talk that reduces the Source of All That Is to a lord or lords, definitely male and definitely lording it over others, especially women and girls because female terms for God are forbidden.

It’s not hard to clean up the sexist stuff. Just cut out the “HeHimHis” and “Lord,” and add Mother” in equal portions to “Father.” There are many enlightening terms for God that would gently and persuasively teach people about the ineffable Transcendent One.

I understand the impediments to change. But refusing to make any effort to reduce sexism in God-talk, out of habit or because of church authority, I find unconscionable.

Self and soul

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:34:00 +0000

Two submissions of mine were published in the last few days. In “Economy stifles middle class with unfair tax cuts,” I quote several conservative economists who refute the right-wing belief that tax cuts would stimulate and cure our country’s sick economy, resting my statement on the economic model of supply and demand. We don’t need more supply—billionaires have plenty of money to start businesses. What’s lacking is demand—customers with enough money to demand services and products.

My other published submission is not available online. It was a letter in National Catholic Reporter responding to an article in the previous edition of NCR. My letter prompted, in turn, a phone call I received from an 81-year-old in Phoenix, Arizona.

The article in NCR bemoans the shift of emphasis from soul to self in religious writing “because soul is a key word in a world that gave structure and meaning to a spiritual way of life.” The writer claims that changing the focus to the dignity of the individual was the root cause of changes in religious life over the past 50 years, writing,

With the eclipse of the soul, religious life found itself bereft of its essential focus.

She implies that religious communities have lost their souls and this caused their demise. She does not appreciate the vibrant spiritual health of religious sisters today.

I take a radically different view of the shift from soul to self. Traditional talk of saving our souls assumed that we had souls, disconnected things attached to our persons like appendages, white things pictured in religion class with black marks from our sins. Having moved past traditional Catholic training, I say we are souls; they are our essential selves, our whole selves.

The word “self” does not denote egotistical narcissism. Soul and self both refer to my deepest, divine self, my Higher Power, my inner Beloved, the “Christ in me,” to quote Paul in Galatians. This higher self, distinct from my ego personality, guides me, encourages me, brings me up short when I need it. I welcome the change in thought from having souls to being souls, our essential selves. Rather than a retreat from spiritual values, this incorporates spirituality into the whole of life.

The caller from Phoenix was very happy to see my statement, an insight she had come to from working through suffering.

Shift to a new earth

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 14:55:00 +0000

The Shift network describes itself as a group of global co-creators, that is, awake and aware evolutionary pioneers who intentionally participate in the Birth to the next era of our evolution. They have arbitrarily chosen December 22, 2012, as the birthday of a new earth, a world that works for everyone. The “undisputed planetary midwife” of this movement is futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard.

In this excerpt of her address to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Barbara Marx Hubbard claims an a-religious, agnostic, materialistic, secular, Jewish background, and wonders at the opportunity of her presence at the LCWR conference. The anomaly of Roman Catholic nuns having her speak at their conference stirs her immensely.

No one could have planned it this way, but perhaps the higher consciousness of the Divine is at work . . .

She claims,

a shared sense of mission” with the sisters at this most critical time in the history of humanity. We’re facing a moment of choice because the system is not sustainable as it is. . . . [It will shift] one way or another—toward radical breakdown, or innovation, creativity, love, and breakthrough. How the system tips depends on what happens, and this is happening.

By “this” I think she meant the linking of her secular spiritual movement with the sisters.

In the conscious evolution she intuits, we are at a chaos point, the critical tipping point in an evolutionary trend out of the present state of behavior, which cannot continue. The system is launched on a new trajectory to a new structure, a new mode of operation. The timing is perfect for this exact situation to have occurred. With intuitive, evolutionary eyes, she sees this as a 13.7 billion year trend, a pattern of breakdowns and breakthroughs.

My friend Sondra Lewis has this reflection on the movement:

This whole shift is like a tsunami that is still way out in the ocean. Without any sophisticated monitors you don't see it coming until it hits shore. Our sophisticated monitor is noticing and connecting what is happening below the radar.

This “sophisticated monitor” operates in every human breast but on a level not acknowledged by most. I think it explains the panicky fear and fanatical resistance to change exhibited by some. When I get discouraged by political and religious events, I hold in mind these thoughts, and I am consoled.

Paul Ryan v. S. Simone

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:24:00 +0000

Of course I root for S. Simone, leader of the nuns on the bus, in this exchange with Robert Royal, a Catholic defending the Ryan budget. I wanted her or Moyers to say more about big money in Congress getting the tax code structured so that the wealth created by middle class labor is directed to a few financial elites. Productivity of working people has risen impressively but they are not enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Over the past 30 years, a larger and larger portion of America's income growth has gone to those in the top 10% of incomes, and outlandish portions to those in the top 1%. This is a major change from the prior 60 years, in which the top 10% and the bottom 90% shared income gains. Wages have been steadily falling, while profits have been steadily rising. Financial elites have piles of money but are not investing in businesses because middle class consumers lack enough money to create the demand that investors need to create jobs. People have needs and wants but lack enough money to pay for them.

So diverting wealth away from the middle class hurts the entire economy. Wealth inequality not only is unfair; it hurts everybody, including the wealthy. They also depend on a healthy society. There’s plenty of supply—fabulous wealth lies ready to be used—but the demand is lacking. This is the root of our sick economy.

The Ryan budget has everything exactly wrong. Its tunnel-vision sees only the budget deficit and as a solution looks only at cutting funds for domestic needs. It looks at one tree and fails to see the whole forest of our sick economy. Middle class people work harder and harder just to stay in place. Families with two incomes still are struggling, still are falling behind. Adjusting for inflation, 85 to 90% of Americans have made no financial gains in the past 50 years, while CEO earnings have exploded.

The speaker in the last video thinks the solution cannot come from government. He thinks those with excess profits need to be convinced to pay fair wages for their own benefit, because systems don’t stay out of balance for long. They correct themselves. Either there will be a quiet revolution or a noisy, disruptive revolution. He may be right, because this imbalance will not go on for long. I hope enough financial elites catch on soon enough to avoid bedlam.

Those of us who recognize the inner world as the source of solutions can do more than pray. We can stay informed and help to educate our society dying from the illness of wealth disparity.

S. Simone at the DNC, September 6, 2012

Click and listen to S. Simone Campbell at the Democratic National Convention, and to the thunderous ovation. It will lift you up.

Barbara Marx Hubbard & LCWR

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 13:53:00 +0000

Listen to Barbara Marx Hubbard tell of “the most remarkable experience of [her] life,” having addressed the 900 sisters at the LCWR convention. She said she had made two important addresses in her life—the first in 1984 at the national Democratic convention and this one at the LCWR convention with 900 women deciding how to respond to the decree from the Vatican. The difference for her was stark.

“Here, you’re already doing it.” She saw 900 women in a few days make a cooperative decision. The leaders “leaned into” what everyone at the small discussion tables believed should happen and the participants informed the leaders of the decision. It was to open the field for more dialogue, more telling of their truth. It was the best example of democracy at work that she has ever seen. At this time in the evolution of humanity, when old structures are failing, she saw the sisters demonstrate a new structure of oneness, wholeness, and goodness to help the planet emerge as co-creative, cooperative humanity.

At the standing ovation, she recognized the seedbed for the future of humanity—caring for each other and for the unmet needs of humanity. The democratic structure she saw was new to her, not new to them. She felt privileged to be invited and feels like an evolutionary sister of the sisters.

Bible says NO

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 14:36:00 +0000

I received emails thanking me for my opinion piece in the St. Cloud Times: Bible tells us to vote ‘no,’ that is, vote No to the Marriage Amendment in Minnesota banning gays from marrying. I said,

Taking the Bible as a how-to manual on morals, we come up against teachings crude, comic, and cruel. Deuteronomy 23:2-3 commands: “No one whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off may be admitted into the community of the Lord.”

But this graphic language from the Catholic Bible was not allowed, and I didn't object to the substitution in this writing. Often changes are made in the copy we submit, but style changes give me more reason to grind my teeth. Still, I’m grateful to have the forum of the paper. An emailer wrote:

I would guess there are a few folks running to their bibles today. Wonder how those who may present questions to the clergy will be answered!

Shift in consciousness

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:25:00 +0000

I ended my previous post by saying I’m proud to participate in a worldwide challenge to patriarchal power that obviously is spurred by Spirit. A shift in consciousness is happening, with evidence of it popping up everywhere. See Brenda’s blogpost, for example, one beautiful manifestation of Spirit inserting itself in our world.

The Shift Network, Inc. seeks to unite many smaller movements in this “growing global movement of people who are creating an evolutionary shift of consciousness.” The network aims to empower the shift to “a more enlightened society, one built on principles of sustainability, peace, health, and prosperity.”

Overturning top-down power makes up a huge part of this movement, and our Catholic womanpriest movement addresses this directly. Scroll down to the previous post for more on it.

Another piece in the movement is the surge of support for nuns in response to the Vatican's attacks on them and all women. This week, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) is conferencing to consider its response to the Vatican. What I find most significant is that Barbara Marx Hubbard, futurist and visionary, is addressing them. Barbara promotes conscious evolution, urging us to participate actively in our expansion of awareness, and she plays a large role in the Shift Network.
My friend Sondra Lewis commented,

This whole shift is like a tsunami that is still way out in the ocean. Without any sophisticated monitors you don't see it coming until it hits shore. Our "sophisticated monitor" is noticing and connecting what is happening below the radar.

This is all so exciting. Consider, by contrast, the words of Stanley Kubrick, filmmaker best known for 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, quoted in The Week:

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile, but that it is indifferent.

What a bleak, empty life it would be to believe this, to have no awareness of inner reality! I couldn’t live like that. I believe he was actually led by the inner world without knowing it. No creative artist works without inspiration, but many lack awareness of the Source of their creativity.

May all my readers grow in awareness of their divine connections.