God Is Not 3 Guys

My Swan Song

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 16:20:00 +0000

It’s time to write my swan song—this is my last post, but this blog with its Blog Index on the left will remain available.

I look back with nostalgia on heady blog discussions in years past with readers from every corner of the country.

My posts were primarily essays on religions and spirituality involving research and careful thought rather than quick impressions of the moment. I like to provoke thinking, to challenge conventional beliefs and question accustomed patterns of thought.

Comments from readers show the same love of ideas. Intriguing statements came from atheists. Besides mocking foolish literal beliefs, they seem to share my yen for thinking about large, metaphysical questions—Where does everything come from? What is life about? Who and what are we? Why do we exist?

Various brands of religion and spiritual systems have grappled with these questions, and my posts reflect on them. In them I repudiate Christian teaching that violates science and rational thought, and I also repudiate materialist science that denies the inner soul world.

I started this blog in 2007 after publishing God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky: Cherishing Christianity without Its Exclusive Claims. It seemed dangerously radical in the late 1980s, but Franciscan friar Richard Rohr teaches the same interpretations of doctrine in popular talks today.

Rohr does not share my anger at sexist God-talk, but in his talks, “the Father,” “Christ,” “Trinity,” “myth,” and “scripture” carry the non-patriarchal understandings expressed in this blog.

While I align myself with Richard Rohr’s teachings on spiritual matters, I turn to physicist David Bohm to give scientific backing for my understanding of the importance of consciousness in quantum mechanics.

My most recent post, “Scientists Teilhard and Bohm,” shows Bohm focused on the connection between spirituality and science, a recurring theme of my writing. I bring mind and matter together intuitively, but Bohm presented scientific evidence of the inner realm impacting the outer world.

Lately I have blogged on political subjects because politics involves spirituality. It’s all about power, and that’s a moral issue. Injustice—unfair power—upsets me.

But politics is the reason I haven’t blogged for weeks. The election with its volume of lies, disinformation, and suspense took priority in my life, and I didn’t want politics to take over this blog.

I will probably still send letters to publications that occasionally print letters or op-eds of mine. I’m on Facebook but not often. My blog posts will remain available to explore by scrolling down to recent posts here and by clicking on titles in the Blog Index left for posts in the past.

For information about my books or to contact me, visit http://jeanetteblonigenclancy.com/

I expect to continue forwarding articles and notes of interest to my email lists, because I enjoy thoughtful email exchanges.

Readers and dialogue partners, you propelled my writing. Mysteries continue to swirl but I can be at peace—that’s just life for those of us who like thinking about ideas. We will continue exchanging views in some fashion to whatever extent you want.

Thank you, all.

P.S. I’m fond of this, which I wrote while Ruth Bader Ginsburg was lying in state in the U.S. Capitol

I love her brain.

I love her tiny, sturdy frame.

I love her fights for the rights of women and thus all human rights.

I love her slow, thoughtful choice of words to challenge centuries of conditioned beliefs.

I love her wily strategies to break down recalcitrant jurists.

I love her incompetence in the kitchen, a perfect complement to her legal brilliance.

Scientists Teilhard and Bohm

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:52:00 +0000

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Scientists experiment on physical reality or what can be seen all around us, what our external senses can feel or touch. From the first moment I encountered quantum mechanics in the 1990s, I thrilled to it as the key to joining spiritual reality with physical reality, mind with matter, internal with external.

Subsequently, I found many authors who corroborated my spiritual interpretation of quantum mechanics, but no physicist . . . until I discovered David Bohm.

Physicist David Bohm, whose scientific credentials are unimpeachable, wrote a textbook called, Quantum Theory, which was widely used to inform physics students. Einstein praised its clarity, and it remains a classic on quantum theory.

Most significant for me, Bohm found scientific evidence of a hidden order in what appears to be simply chaos or random chance. He called it the “implicate order.” Most of science deals with "explicate order," and some scientists even deny the existence of anything but physical or outer reality.

For me “implicate order" is what I call the "inner realm," an overarching theme in God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky and my memoir, Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses.

From his work on quantum mechanics, Bohm’s thinking evolved to include philosophical inquiry, marrying scientific rigor with spiritual philosophy. Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama entered into dialogues with him, leading to groups around the world to form Bohmian dialogues.

The work of David Bohm augments the message and vision of the first scientist I read who combined science with spirituality—Teilhard de Chardin. In my memoir Beyond Parochial Faith, I show how Teilhard influenced my mental, emotional, and spiritual life, often without my being aware of his influence. But I see it in retrospect.

I encourage readers to research the thought of David Bohm. His implicate order echoes Teilhard’s within. Both hint at that presence in all things—the inner realm—that a poet interviewed by Krista Tippett described as “our gorgeous interior.”

Hope is not naïve

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 14:04:00 +0000

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I am going to quote myself, that is, my op-ed in the St.Cloud Times on the last Sunday of September. It again proclaims hope, continuing the theme in my recent blog posts:

Never before have so many white Americans noted the unfairness to Hispanic immigrants who work outside, while smoke and record temperatures keep more fortunate people inside.

Never before such awareness of racial injustice, of income inequality, of all suffering, fellow human beings.

Bruce Lipton says, “The chaos we’re in is a necessary stage in human evolution.” I believe this. Hope is necessary and it is realistic, not naïve.

Now that President Trump is in the Walter Reed Medical Center being treated for the coronavirus, have we reached the apex of our country's chaotic year? We can't know what will happen, but it tells me more insistently that we can trust unseen forces to sort order out of the chaos that, to many, seems to be engulfing us. It will not bury us.

Staying sane during crisis September 23

I stay sane by focusing on hopeful things happening, not on the bad news that is creating a rise in anxiety and panic attacks.

If we take the long view, we can see evidence of human flourishing. Dawson Church, PhD, a researcher and science writer, lays it out. His writing in Unity magazine shows that, as a species, we are becoming more compassionate.

Hard to believe? Here are some of his words.

In 1800, child labor was not controversial. In the coal mines of Britain, 8-year-olds pushed heavy tubs inside underground tunnels. Sweating and breathing black coal dust, they emerged from the pits black with grime. they died young.

Then we changed our minds, and in just a few decades, child labor was banned.

We're in the process of changing our minds about the legalization of drugs. About doctor-assisted suicide. About the death penalty. About gay marriage. About gun control, About racism. About universal health care . . . each of these historical changes involved people becoming more compassionate.

People in power, with no incentive to relinquish it, were able to mentally place themselves in the shoes of those less privileged than themselves. They then voluntarily shared their power.

In 1890, the number of countries in which women were able to vote was 0.

Within 40 years, . . . women could vote in virtually every democracy.

To his list I add compassion for animals and awareness of the planet’s needs. Dawson Church maintains “we are in the midst of an explosion of spiritual, physical, and material well-being,” but media depict “the opposite of what’s actually happening.”

If we look, we can see the evolution of human consciousness to be more compassionate, more aware, and more mature. Dawson Church quotes Charles Darwin, who wrote that communities with “the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best.”

Dawson Church’s thought is available online, although this article in Unity magazine is not available online.

The crisis that for decades has worried me the most is global warming and the seeming determination of political leaders to avoid looking at it. Dawson Church assures me by pointing to the massive changes in global consciousness already realized. His large view gives me hope that humanity will act in time to save the planet and all its inhabitants.

I want readers to know that soon I will stop blogging. I’ll say more about this soon.

To the popular sign-off, “Stay safe,” I add “Stay sane by staying hopeful.”

Virginia Woolf & Tulsa Massacre

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 19:47:00 +0000

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Response to Virginia Woolf & Tulsa Massacre, August 13, 2020
Readers of "Virginia Woolf & Tulsa Massacre" (below) joined me in admitting ignorance about the massacre—white Americans killing 300 African Americans. Samples:
Carol:
After all my years of studying history (elementary, secondary, undergrad and grad levels) I have to admit that I was woefully ignorant of the treatment of blacks . . .
If we who have had what we thought was a “solid” education have such blank spaces in our knowledge, I am not surprised that many Americans are ignorant of the terrible things done to people of color.

Lois Thielen:
The fact is, so much history is buried or not accurate or biased. Think back to our school history books. They were basically propaganda.
I try to do better in my own writing of history.

Poet Larry Schug:
Thanks, Jeanette. It amazes me to learn of the history we were not taught. . . . We writers have a special obligation and opportunity to spread truth through our art.

George Floyd

You breathed until you stopped breathing,
your breath cut off by a uniformed knee
pressing on your neck.
Know this, George Floyd.
Nothing goes away,
your last exhalation
became a part of the Great Breath.
Your breath is yet being breathed
in and out of all of us,
passed from breather to breather.
Always a part of the air.

Readers and sustained media attention to racial injustice motivate me to stay on the subject—right now the top priority in the moral universe. It fits with my abiding purpose in writing—battling injustice.
I want to help, and I can’t march or organize or fund. All I can do to promote justice is to wield words.

I sank into TV coverage honoring the life of John Lewis, letting myself weep. To prod America into waking up, John Lewis wrote a farewell to be published on the day of his funeral. He was determined to keep us marching, as Bill Clinton said at his funeral.

President Obama in his eulogy did not mince words.

There are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in the runup to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick.

Continuing my current passion, I am reading—James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, among others—and consuming multiple media. Public radio and public TV consistently promote racial justice.

An MPR program promised to tell people like me how to help. I expected to hear ways of giving information, but that’s not what I heard. African Americans on the show told us to accept being uncomfortable.
Huh? Uncomfortable about what?
About being a privileged white.
Then I got it. We whites don’t like to see how much more comfortable we are than black persons. We just don’t want to look at it. This is the theme of Robin DiAngelo’s bestseller WhiteFragility.

It serves us to not think about racism, says DiAngelo, because seeing our privilege awakens defensiveness, withdrawal. When our everyday white control is challenged, we resist the discomfort.

“I’m not racist,” says Trump after being called on obviously racist remarks. We all swim in racism, and along with Trump, few of us whites see what we’re swimming in.
Some of those wanting to stay unaware pretend to be colorblind. “This is a color-free zone,” they say, or “I’m not political,” or “I don’t see race.”
A black author replied, “That’s fine. You can choose not to see the sky, but it exists.”

With denial comes refusal to take responsibility. White voices have been missing in discussions of racial injustice. We’ve let black people carry the burden, the psychic energy, of exposing racism, but it is our job to own, to confess, to confront our unconscious biases.

Rev. Sonny Martin, pastor of Calvary Baptist, was trying to understand and help his congregation understand Black anger.

See, I haven’t experienced the hatred that a black man feels walking down the street. . . .
I don’t know how it feels. Sometimes I guess it’s like depression—like, if you’ve not gone through depression, you don’t know how it feels. Maybe it’s like that.
(appearing in The Week, originally The Washington Post)

So, being white, how can I understand and reveal Black perceptions? I turn to black people to be educated. In National Catholic Reporter, Bryan Massingale declared,
"No white person would ever wish to be black. [This is] where things may get uncomfortable for most of you.
It's just something that you know . . . Because you realized, even without being explicitly told, that being white makes life easier. Even if you have to do some hard work along the way, at least you don't have to carry the burden of blackness as a hindrance. . . ."

Massingale used a confrontation in Central Park, New York, to jolt whites into awareness.
Amy Cooper, a white woman called the police on a black birdwatcher because he asked her to do what rules require in that part of the park—to leash her dog.

[Amy Cooper] knew deep in her soul that she lived in a country where things should work in the favor of white people.
• She assumed that [the black birdwatcher] knew that any confrontation with the police would not go well for him.
• She assumed that the frame of "black rapist" versus "white damsel in distress" would be clearly understood by everyone: the police, the press and the public.
• She assumed that if he protested his innocence against her, he would be seen as "playing the race card."

Massingale listed 15 assumptions that are reasons white people would never wish to be black.
"That’s the reason for the grief, outrage, lament, anger, pain and fury that have been pouring into our nation's streets.
Because folks are tired. Not only of the individual outrages. But of the fundamental assumption that ties them all together: that black lives don't matter and should not matter — at least not as much as white ones."

Richard Wright in his memoir Black Boy (American Hunger (1945) wrings feelings out of readers as if they possessed the skin of an African American.

“I heard that a nigger can stick his prick in the ground and spin around on it like a top,” Reynolds said, chuckling. . . .
I ignored him.
Mr. Pease was watching me closely; . . .
“Come here, boy,” Pease said.
I walked to his bench.
“You didn’t like what Reynolds just said, did you?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s all right,” I said, smiling.
“You didn’t like it. I can see it on your face.”
I stared at him and backed away.
“Did you ever get into any trouble?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“What would you do if you got into trouble?”
“I don’t know sir.”
“Well, watch yourself and don’t get into trouble.,” he warned.

What gets me is the smile. I despise it. Not the African-American smiling but the racism that forces his participation in his own degradation.
Such a smile also figures in Toni Morrison’s novel Sula. I’m ashamed for us all.

Wright reveals why black youth kill each other in gang warfare.

. . . being an organic part of the culture that hated him, the black man grew in turn to hate himself . . . each part of his day would be consumed in a war with himself . . .
Held at bay by the hate of others, preoccupied with his own feelings, he was continuously at war with reality.
I had seen many Negroes solve the problem of being black by transferring their hatred of themselves to others with a black skin and fighting them.

Wright was not optimistic. He feared America was too suffused with color hate to ever comprehend. I’d like to think the time is now when we prove him wrong.
George Floyd’s six-year-old daughter said, “Daddy changed the world.” May it be so.

We live in a system of white supremacy and don’t know it. I am learning to know it. Writing about it is my own individual, feeble, reparation.

Virginia Woolf & Tulsa Massacre, July 9, 2020
I had never read A Room of One’s Own. For decades it was on my “someday” list of works to read. Now that I get books from the library only by ordering them, I finally read Virginia Woolf’s famous book, doubting I would find it as groundbreaking as everyone said.

Its emotional effect on me surpassed my expectation, shaped as I am now by the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing fallout. Written in 1928, A Room of One’s Own still applies today, in 2020.

Woolf wondered why women are so interesting to men. “Have you any notion of how many [books about women] have been written by men?”

She studied a few learned tomes by men about women:

Alexander Pope wrote, “Most women have no character at all.”

Dr. Samuel Johnson regarded a woman composer “like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

Oscar Browning, professor at Cambridge, declared after looking over examination papers that “the best woman was intellectually the inferior of the worst man.”

Woolf reacted,

“All that I had retrieved from that morning’s work had been the one fact of anger.”

She wondered, Why were they angry? They had all “the power and the money and the influence.”

It seemed absurd to her,

"that a man with all this power should be angry. . . .

Possibly when the professor insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his own superiority. That was what he was protecting rather hot-headedly and with too much emphasis, because it was a jewel to him of the rarest price."

Parallels between sexism and racism leap to mind. Commonly implied in racist talk:

“The best black man is intellectually the inferior of the worst white man.”

During this national outcry for racial justice, I have been focusing on Black experiences even more than I had before. I have the radio on and tuned to MPR whenever I’m not reading or writing, so without trying, I learn things I didn’t know were missing in my education. I didn’t think I could be surprised by the level of white cruelty in our nation’s history. I was wrong. How ignorant we educated whites are because of white-centric history taught in schools!

I didn’t know that a Black Wall Street flourished in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was burned down in 1921 by white mobs furious that African Americans lived prosperous lives.
I didn’t know about the Massacre of 1921. Why was I ignorant of it? I don’t blame myself or any single individual.

The racist structure of our entire American system kept us white Americans—and black Americans too—ignorant of how our nation treated—and treats—our black citizens.

One part of the history we should have been taught came to my attention by president Donald Trump’s ill-fated choice of Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the place to stage his return to campaign rallies—on Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery.

In the early part of the twentieth century, African Americans turned Tulsa, Oklahoma, into one of the most prosperous black communities in the country. Along Greenwood Avenue flourished 150 businesses, called Black Wall Street.

. . . there were luxury shops, restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, jewelry and clothing stories, movie theaters, barbershops and salons, a library, pool halls, nightclubs and offices for doctors, lawyers and dentists. Greenwood also had its own school system, post office, a savings and loan bank, a hospital, and bus and taxi service.

The Greenwood District in Tulsa included residential black neighborhoods of about 10,000 souls spread out over 35 city blocks. Affluent African Americans with upscale lifestyles triggered resentment among whites who, to soothe their own emotional needs, wanted black people to keep their inferior status (echoing sexism). In a little more than 12 hours, white mobs invaded Greenwood, burned it down, and murdered 300 people.

This happened in 1921. Almost a hundred years later, Donald Trump boasted that a million people requested tickets to his campaign rally. He had no idea how fraught was his choice of Tulsa on the nineteenth of June, or his boast. He moved his event to June 20, but many registered for it with no intention of going, making his boast an embarrassment.

The Greenwood District evolved on Indian Territory in Oklahoma, an area bearing its own painful history. When Andrew Jackson initiated the federal government’s relocation of Native Americans onto their Trail of Tears, this was their forced destination. It later attracted American Blacks, who later still built the Greenwood District.

The Tulsa Race Massacre started as white crimes against Blacks usually do, with an incident distorted to foment hatred of African Americans.

In an elevator a black man, Dick Rowland, inadvertently touched a white woman in a way that scared her. Someone called the police. Rowland was found, accused of attempted rape, and arrested; stories were spun whipping up white fear, envy, and hatred; mob riots exploded as white people set fires, looted, and murdered black citizens.

White power overwhelmed the few Blacks who fought back. The facts are cloudy but include deputized and weaponized white men, machine guns, the National Guard, and airplanes dropping mayhem from the skies. According to black victims, city officials and military officials participated in the destruction of Greenwood.

A CBS report leading up to a 60 Minutes story said,

The first time Americans were terrorized by an aerial assault was not Pearl Harbor.
Scott Pelley reports on a race massacre in which an estimated 300 people, mostly African American men, women and children, were killed, and aircraft were used to drop incendiary devices on a black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Greenwood Massacre of 1921 has been largely ignored by history, but Pelley finds a Tulsa community seeking to shed more light on what's been called the worst race massacre in history.

Another historical document relates,

So intent were the white rioters on destroying Greenwood that they stopped firefighters from getting to the blazes.
Firefighters testifying in an insurance case several years later said they were threatened and even shot at when they arrived on the scene of the earliest fires. Later, they received orders from Fire Chief R.C. Alder not to respond to alarms from the black district because of the danger.
That order remained in effect until the fires were out of control.

Thousands of black Tulsans were herded into Convention Hall and detained, purportedly in protective custody. In the aftermath of the massacre, no one was prosecuted for the killings. Insurance companies rejected claims by black property owners. Criminal investigations of whites fizzled out. Black men were indicted for inciting a riot, charges that all had been dropped by a decade later.

A welfare fund to assist recovery was started but raised only a tiny fraction of the damage. On their own, Black Tulsans had to repair and rebuild themselves and their property. They persevered. Readers who can stand more outrage can learn more by following the links above.

I am glad that white people today finally seem ready for indignation on behalf of black people. But conversion of hearts does not depend on knowledge alone. We humans are driven by emotional factors hard to fathom. Still, knowledge helps, and I’ll keep educating myself and trying to educate others, as I do in my battle against sexism.

I see a real step forward in national compassion for the abuse black citizens endured while most of us were oblivious. The Trump presidency brought on this moment of national reckoning. Historian Jon Meacham says the Trump presidency is the last gasp of white America that wants to keep America white. They are a besieged minority who fight what they know—that they’re on the way out.

Dawson Church, genetic researcher and ordained minister, writes in Unity Magazine that we are

at a turning point in global human consciousness . . . [we are] becoming more compassionate as a species. . . .

Never before in human history have so many people been prepared to sacrifice for so few. This is a pandemic of compassion that has broken out in the human race in 2020.

I cling to this.

St. John Lewis

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 21:35:00 +0000

JULY 22, 2020
“Donald Trump is not my president,” said John Lewis. I rejoiced because that is how I felt. I felt validated hearing it from a person of unquestioned integrity—John Lewis. The words “president” and “Trump” do not fit together as one phrase; the office is respectable; the current holder is not. I hate saying or writing “President Trump.” It seems wrong.

Some years ago I turned on the radio to an interview that struck me as unusually fine and wondered who the inspiring speaker was. Ever after, I have recognized John Lewis’s voice after hearing only a few words.

Lewis preached love and forgiveness. Nothing remarkable about that, but John Lewis modeled them in remarkable ways. Elwin Wilson physically attacked Lewis when Lewis was marching for civil rights. Wilson was gleeful in his frequent attacks on Negroes. Lewis forgave him. Trent Lott declared that civil rights turmoil could have been avoided if racist Senator Strom Thurmond had become president. Lewis forgave him.

The death of this giant in moral courage has greater significance for its timing at this moment, when the country is reckoning with our sordid history of white supremacy. The nobility of John Lewis contrasts with the stoking of racial resentment by Donald Trump. “I’m the least racist person there is anywhere in the world,” he lies.

Refreshing are the words of John Lewis: “My philosophy is very simple. When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, stand up. Say something. Speak up and speak out." When you do that, he says, “you get into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.” He motivates me to keep working for justice.

After listening to John Lewis on NPR being interviewed by Gwen Ifill, I feel weepy and think, “Wouldn’t it be great if Pope Francis declared John R. Lewis a saint. It would be a super-courageous thing, canonizing someone outside of the Catholic Church. St. John Lewis. Hmmm.

JULY 29, 2020
A Congressional colleague of his said that John R. Lewis was the most Christ-like person he has ever known.

Lewis was beaten nearly to death when he led civil rights marchers across the Edmond Pettus Bridge in 1965, as every American by now should know. He had been arrested and jailed up to 40 times before. “I don't like pain,” he said.

I don't like to suffer in a hospital. But if that's the price you have to pay to make things better for others, I was willing to pay that price.

This is my idea of a martyr.
Christlike, Lewis preached and modeled love and forgiveness, earning the title “conscience of the Congress.” He forgave enemies of civil rights marchers.

His philosophy, he said, was very simple.

When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, stand up. Say something. Speak up and speak out. [Then, he says,] you get into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.

Saint-like, he motivates us to keep working for justice.
Lewis’s words in an On Being interview with Krista Tippett brought “Christ-like” home to me. [Excerpts]

We studied what Gandhi attempted to do in South Africa, what he accomplished in India. We studied Thoreau and civil disobedience. We studied the great religions of the world. And before we even discussed a possibility of a sit-in, we had role-playing . . . we would act out.
There would be Black and white young people, students, interracial group, playing the roles of African Americans, or be an interracial group playing the roles of white. And we went through the motion of someone harassing you, calling you out of your name, pulling you out of your seat, pulling your chair from under you, someone kicking you or pretending to spit on you.
And we would tell people, whether young men or young women, that if you’ve been beaten, try to protect the most sensitive part of your body. Roll up, cover your head and look out for each other. So when the time came, we were ready. We were prepared.

Tippett: I also read somewhere that you were trained even if someone was attacking you to look them in the eye, that there was something disarming for human beings.
Lewis:

We did go through the motion, the drama, of saying that if someone kick you, spit on you, pull you off the lunch counter stool, continue to make eye contact. Continue to give the impression, yes, you may beat me, but I’m human.
Be friendly, try to smile, and just stay nonviolent. And during the nonviolent campaign in a city like Nashville and so many other parts of the American South, you never had one incident of someone striking back or hitting back.
. . . you have to grow. It’s just not something that is natural. You have to be taught the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolence. And in the religious sense, in the moral sense, you can say in the bosom of every human being, there is a spark of the divine.

Forgiveness without limit:

If you see someone attacking you, beating you, spitting on you, you have to think of that person, you know, years ago that person was an innocent child, innocent little baby. And so what happened? Something go wrong? Did the environment?
Did someone teach that person to hate, to abuse others? So you try to appeal to the goodness of every human being and you don’t give up. You never give up on anyone.
. . . a nonviolent revolution. It was love at its best. It’s one of the highest form of love. That you beat me, you arrest me, you take me to jail, you almost kill me, but in spite of that, I’m going to still love you. I know Dr. King used to joke sometime and say things like, “Just love the hell outta everybody. Just love ’em.”

Sacrifice unto death.

I thought I was going to die. . . . But in all of the years since, I’ve not had any sense of bitterness or ill feeling toward any of the people. I just don’t have it. I guess it’s not part of my DNA to become bitter, to become hostile.
you have to be prepared to literally put your physical body in the way to go against something that is evil, unjust, and you prepare to suffer the consequences. But whatever you do, whatever your response is, is with love, kindness, and that sense of faith.

Love is more than words.

When we went on the freedom ride, it was love in action. The march from Selma to Montgomery was love in action. We do it not simply because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s love in action. That we love our country, we love a democratic society, and so we have to move our feet.

Tippett: That phrase, an African proverb, when you pray, move your feet.

I see my involvement in American politics as an extension of my faith, not simply as an extension of my involvement in the civil rights movement. My life, whether in the civil rights movement or whether in American politics, is an extension of my faith.

The calling.

It’s the sense that you believe that somehow and some way with love and a sense of I got to do it. You have been caught up. You have been led.
You have been not necessarily forced, but something caught up with you and said, “John Lewis, you too can do something, you too can make a contribution, you too can get in the way, but if you’re going to do it, do it full and with love, peace, nonviolence, and that element of faith.”
I didn’t want to go to jail.

Tippett: I know [laughing].

Jail is not a pleasant place, but jail became one of the ways out. To be arrested, to go to jail when it’s unearned suffering, it sent a message. It helped make the person who’s suffering better. I felt so good the day I was arrested.

When John was slated to speak at the March on Washington, before what would be the famous Dream speech by Martin Luther King, civil rights leaders were nervous. John’s speech was too confrontive for them and he had to compromise.
Here’s what he had planned to say:

We will march through the South, through the heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We shall pursue our own ‘scorched earth’ policy and burn Jim Crow to the ground — nonviolently. We shall fragment the South into a thousand pieces and put them back together in the image of democracy.

The reference to Sherman was deleted. Years later with Krista, John laughed,

You don’t change the world, the society, in a few days, and it’s better. It is better to be a pilot light than to be a firecracker.

But at the March on Washington he roused listeners with the words,

You tell us to wait. You tell us to be patient. We cannot be patient. We want our freedom and we want it now.

You can hear the voice of John Lewis at On Being. I don't expect the institutional Catholic Church to declare him a saint, but wouldn't it be great?

Racism

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 15:49:00 +0000

Racism in Catholic history, June 24

Guest columnist John Chuchman thought a bit about Catholic Church history.

In the 15th century,

the Catholic Church became the first global institution

to declare that Black lives did not matter.

In a series of papal bulls

beginning with Pope Nicholas V's Dum Diversas (1452)

and including Pope Alexander VI's Inter Caetera (1493),

the church not only authorized the perpetual enslavement of Africans

and the seizure of non-Christian lands,

but morally sanctioned the development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

This trade forcibly transported

at least 12.5 million enslaved African men, women and children

to the Americas and Europe

to enrich European and Catholic coffers.

It also caused the deaths of tens of millions of Africans and Native Americans over nearly four centuries.

In the land area that became the United States,

the Catholic Church introduced African slavery in the 16th century

long before 1619.

In fact, at various moments in American history

from the colonial era to the U.S. Civil War,

the church was the largest corporate slaveholder

in Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri.

We must also never forget Roger B. Taney,

the nation's first Catholic Supreme Court Justice

and a descendant of prominent Catholic slavers from Maryland,

infamously declared that Black people

had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,

while denying the freedom petitions

of Dred and Harriet Scott and their two daughters in 1857.

Following the abolition of slavery,

the Catholic Church stood as the largest Christian practitioner of segregation.

In the United States,

where the history of many Black Catholics

predates that of white and ethnic white Catholics

by over three centuries,

the vast majority of Catholic institutions

and religious orders of men and women

systematically excluded African-descended people,

especially U.S.-born Blacks,

from admission solely on the basis of race

well into the 20th century.

George Floyd, June 12 2020

I’m running errands, knowing the memorial for George Floyd is happening. When I get back to my car, I hear the announcer’s voice ending and then silence. More silence. Then the announcer saying people are standing for 8 minutes, 46 seconds. Immediately I think, "That’s too long! If I were there I would have to sit down."

I can’t stand for long. When I was a little girl, everything around me turned black during long-standing portions of the Mass. Always I was saved by the congregation shifting positions before I fell in a faint.

The radio announcer comes on again and explains the silence is how long the cop’s knee was on George Floyd’s neck. Oohhh. Tears of sudden understanding fill my eyes as I drive on. The image of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck returns—staying for a long time!

Other moments of sudden tears happened that weekend. At home I studied Chauvin’s face as he knelt on the neck of a Black man. No fear of being discovered. Rather, a look of victory. He looked secure in his impunity. The police federation would see to that. He’d already had at least 17 abuse citations with little consequence.

The Minnesota legislature and others around the country are finally moving on police reform—slowly. I know many whites are as affected as I. What can we do?

Blacks on Minnesota Public Radio inform us. I hear,

Live with the discomfort of being a privileged white.
Why are you glad you’re not Black?

Living with that question illuminates. If we’re not uncomfortable we are not doing it right.

In the National Catholic Reporter, Bryan Massingale writes,

It has never been easy to be black in America. Still, the past few months have pushed me to depths of outrage, pain and despondency that are unmatched in my 63 years of life. . .

Let's recall what Amy Cooper did. After a black man tells her to obey the posted signs that require her to leash her dog in a public park, she tells him she's going to call the police "and I'm going to tell them that there's an African American man threatening my life." . . .

Christian Cooper's camera records the events and shows that he made no threatening moves toward her, spoke to her calmly and without insult, and kept his distance from her the whole time. . . .

She knew what she was doing. And so do we. . . . What did she and rest of us know? . . .
She assumed that she would have the presumption of innocence.
She assumed that he, the black man, would have a presumption of guilt.
She assumed that the police would back her up.
She assumed that her race would be an advantage, that she would be believed because she is white. (By the way, this is what we mean by white privilege). . . .
She assumed that if he protested his innocence against her, he would be seen as "playing the race card." . . .

Massengill lists 15 more assumptions.

Weeks ago I wrote, “The coronavirus pandemic is laying bare grotesque inequities.” Now I hope the video lays bare the need for racial justice. And it seems to have been the knock-on-the-head needed. America is opening its eyes.

In the New York Times, Lisa Lerer quoted Frank Luntz, a veteran Republican pollster:

In my 35 years of polling, I’ve never seen opinion shift this fast or deeply. We are a different country today than just 30 days ago.

Thank Goodness.

St. John Lewis, July 22, 2020

“Donald Trump is not my president,” said John Lewis. I rejoiced because that is how I felt. I felt validated hearing it from a person of unquestioned integrity—John Lewis. The words “president” and “Trump” do not fit together as one phrase; the office is respectable; the current holder is not. I hate saying or writing “President Trump.” It seems wrong.

Some years ago I turned on the radio to an interview that struck me as unusually fine and wondered who the inspiring speaker was. Ever after, I have recognized John Lewis’s voice after hearing only a few words.

Lewis preached love and forgiveness. Nothing remarkable about that, but John Lewis modeled them in remarkable ways. Elwin Wilson physically attacked Lewis when Lewis was marching for civil rights. Wilson was gleeful in his frequent attacks on Negroes. Lewis forgave him. Trent Lott declared that civil rights turmoil could have been avoided if racist Senator Strom Thurmond had become president. Lewis forgave him.

The death of this giant in moral courage has greater significance for its timing at this moment, when the country is reckoning with our sordid history of white supremacy. The nobility of John Lewis contrasts with the stoking of racial resentment by Donald Trump. “I’m the least racist person there is anywhere in the world,” he lies.

Refreshing are the words of John Lewis: “My philosophy is very simple. When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, stand up. Say something. Speak up and speak out." When you do that, he says, “you get into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.” He motivates me to keep working for justice.

After listening to John Lewis on NPR being interviewed by Gwen Ifill, I feel weepy and think, “Wouldn’t it be great if Pope Francis declared John R. Lewis a saint. It would be a super-courageous thing, canonizing someone outside of the Catholic Church. St. John Lewis. Hmmm.

JULY 29, 2020
A Congressional colleague of his said that John R. Lewis was the most Christ-like person he has ever known.

Lewis was beaten nearly to death when he led civil rights marchers across the Edmond Pettus Bridge in 1965, as every American by now should know. He had been arrested and jailed up to 40 times before. “I don't like pain,” he said.

I don't like to suffer in a hospital. But if that's the price you have to pay to make things better for others, I was willing to pay that price.

When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, stand up. Say something. Speak up and speak out. [Then, he says,] you get into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.

Saint-like, he motivates us to keep working for justice.
Lewis’s words in an On Being interview with Krista Tippett brought “Christ-like” home to me. [Excerpts]

We studied what Gandhi attempted to do in South Africa, what he accomplished in India. We studied Thoreau and civil disobedience. We studied the great religions of the world. And before we even discussed a possibility of a sit-in, we had role-playing . . . we would act out.
There would be Black and white young people, students, interracial group, playing the roles of African Americans, or be an interracial group playing the roles of white. And we went through the motion of someone harassing you, calling you out of your name, pulling you out of your seat, pulling your chair from under you, someone kicking you or pretending to spit on you.
And we would tell people, whether young men or young women, that if you’ve been beaten, try to protect the most sensitive part of your body. Roll up, cover your head and look out for each other. So when the time came, we were ready. We were prepared.

Tippett: I also read somewhere that you were trained even if someone was attacking you to look them in the eye, that there was something disarming for human beings.
Lewis:

We did go through the motion, the drama, of saying that if someone kick you, spit on you, pull you off the lunch counter stool, continue to make eye contact. Continue to give the impression, yes, you may beat me, but I’m human.
Be friendly, try to smile, and just stay nonviolent. And during the nonviolent campaign in a city like Nashville and so many other parts of the American South, you never had one incident of someone striking back or hitting back.
. . . you have to grow. It’s just not something that is natural. You have to be taught the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolence. And in the religious sense, in the moral sense, you can say in the bosom of every human being, there is a spark of the divine.

Forgiveness without limit:

If you see someone attacking you, beating you, spitting on you, you have to think of that person, you know, years ago that person was an innocent child, innocent little baby. And so what happened? Something go wrong? Did the environment?
Did someone teach that person to hate, to abuse others? So you try to appeal to the goodness of every human being and you don’t give up. You never give up on anyone.
. . . a nonviolent revolution. It was love at its best. It’s one of the highest form of love. That you beat me, you arrest me, you take me to jail, you almost kill me, but in spite of that, I’m going to still love you. I know Dr. King used to joke sometime and say things like, “Just love the hell outta everybody. Just love ’em.”

Sacrifice unto death.

I thought I was going to die. . . . But in all of the years since, I’ve not had any sense of bitterness or ill feeling toward any of the people. I just don’t have it. I guess it’s not part of my DNA to become bitter, to become hostile.
you have to be prepared to literally put your physical body in the way to go against something that is evil, unjust, and you prepare to suffer the consequences. But whatever you do, whatever your response is, is with love, kindness, and that sense of faith.

Love is more than words.

When we went on the freedom ride, it was love in action. The march from Selma to Montgomery was love in action. We do it not simply because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s love in action. That we love our country, we love a democratic society, and so we have to move our feet.

Tippett: That phrase, an African proverb, when you pray, move your feet.

I see my involvement in American politics as an extension of my faith, not simply as an extension of my involvement in the civil rights movement. My life, whether in the civil rights movement or whether in American politics, is an extension of my faith.

The calling.

It’s the sense that you believe that somehow and some way with love and a sense of I got to do it. You have been caught up. You have been led.
You have been not necessarily forced, but something caught up with you and said, “John Lewis, you too can do something, you too can make a contribution, you too can get in the way, but if you’re going to do it, do it full and with love, peace, nonviolence, and that element of faith.”
I didn’t want to go to jail.

Tippett: I know [laughing].

Jail is not a pleasant place, but jail became one of the ways out. To be arrested, to go to jail when it’s unearned suffering, it sent a message. It helped make the person who’s suffering better. I felt so good the day I was arrested.

We will march through the South, through the heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We shall pursue our own ‘scorched earth’ policy and burn Jim Crow to the ground — nonviolently. We shall fragment the South into a thousand pieces and put them back together in the image of democracy.

The reference to Sherman was deleted. Years later with Krista, John laughed,

You don’t change the world, the society, in a few days, and it’s better. It is better to be a pilot light than to be a firecracker.

But at the March on Washington he roused listeners with the words,

You tell us to wait. You tell us to be patient. We cannot be patient. We want our freedom and we want it now.

You can hear the voice of John Lewis at On Being. I don't expect the institutional Catholic Church to declare him a saint, but wouldn't it be great?

Grandparents saving the world

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 16:10:00 +0000

Grandparents can be a powerful force for building a stable society. My appreciation for this rose when I watched my sister-in-law Marilyn, a master grandma, at work. She was hosting me for a few days and apologized that she had to babysit her granddaughter. I looked forward to it because I’d already pegged her as a master grandma.

I had heard her telling stories about her grandchildren and enjoying their personalities. She watches them interacting together and vying to get their way. Traits of each are astutely displayed in her accounts—the introverted scholar wearing glasses, the more physical ones, the feisty ones, the ones needing certain types of attention.

Grandma’s love for them is unquestioned, impartial, and immense, but she’s no pushover. Her knowledge of child psychology comes out in stories of adults giving in to child pleading, with the sure result of future trouble.

Aella, nearly two, the youngest and only girl, is not intimidated but establishes her place among her older brother and three older boy cousins. She was dropped off by her daddy and wanted nothing to do with me. I took it as a challenge to interact with her.

Out came ingenious teaching toys unfamiliar to me. Books for pre-readers intrigued me the most. One had pictures of faces depicting various emotions, prompting a lesson in naming feelings. One of the books had little holes just the right size for Aella to place individual Cheerios.

Grandma let Aella pour Cheerios into a bowl and walk around with the bowl, eating them as she pleased. Of course, many of the Cheerios also landed on the floor. We helped her to pick them up and proceed with her work of eating and fitting Cheerios in the right places.

A few dishes had accumulated from breakfast, and Grandma decided it was a good time to do them with Aella there. Aella could help. I wondered how, but Aella knew the protocol. Eagerly she went to a stepstool and tried dragging it to the counter by the sink.

During much of dishwashing time, a thin stream of water flowed from the faucet so that Aella could hold objects there and place them onto a towel placed in front of her. Grandma washed the boring dishes but found tools in her drawers that might do interesting things with water.

When Daddy came to pick up Aella, she came up to me, knowing a goodbye would be appropriate, but she refused Grandma’s suggestion to give me a hug. She waved her goodbye and smiled her “Nice to meet you.”

Grandma acknowledged the impossible indulgences a grandma can tolerate that a busy mom or dad cannot. After Aella’s dad picked her up, Grandma had to straighten up a room made chaotic by Aella’s toys. It was worth it for both Aella and me.

Grandma will be a stable center of support for each of her grandchildren as they grow to maturity. She has formed this relationship at the most important age in their cognitive and emotional development.

When I got permission from Marilyn to post this, she wrote, "I do feel privileged to have had so much time with the kids in their early years and have so enjoyed seeing their little brains and personalities take shape."

As an educator of adults, I am fascinated by progress in educating the very youngest. My lesson in it leaves me convinced that my skill level does not rise to the level of pre-school teacher. I admire this work and give it educational priority. It requires patience and skill few possess. Teachers of the very young must see the world through eyes that would disorient most of us.

But grandparents generally get no pecuniary reward. The same needs to be said about child care workers, who also mold minds that will lead the future. Many desperately needed decent pay before the coronavirus hit. On average they made less than $20,000 a year.

Compare their contribution to society with that of Wall Street financiers whose primary focus is to expand wealth and power. By contrast I think of the Jimmy Stewart movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which gives a little tutorial on the role of banks. Today such banks—main street banks that finance businesses and personal accounts—have less clout than what’s called “the big boys.”

To me it seems that workers who do the most essential tasks get the least money and those who do the least good for society make the most. I hope—and I sense my hope rising in others—that the coronavirus pandemic will upend the status quo of immense injustice and inequity.

To prevent indignation from taking over, I rest my mind and heart in vignettes like Aella with her grandma and generous acts springing out of the pandemic.

A pet peeve

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 16:48:00 +0000

http://s411101314.onlinehome.us/beyond-parochial-faith

To be honest, the only connection between this writing and spirituality is that I'm confessing a feeling that roils me every time I hear people abuse language, people who should know better—professional writers and speakers. They're the ones who commit this sin.

I have yet to meet “in terms of” in a sentence that needed it. I wish it had never entered the English language. In most cases, “terms of” is witlessly added to in and should simply be deleted. Almost always it signifies nothing but a lack of precision.

“This nation faces a crisis in terms of health care.” Cleaned of the meaningless words, it says, “This nation faces a crisis in health care.” “Where will they take the country in terms of foreign policy?” More pleasing, “Where will they take the country in foreign policy?”

Readers can easily clean up the following: “The government plays a part in terms of education. If it gives less money in terms of grants you have a rise in terms of tuition.”

More prepositions than in are replaced by this verbal pollutant. In the following sentences “in terms of” replaces to. “Members were appointed in terms of helping set up programs,” should be, “Members were appointed to help set up programs.” The same applies to the following: “Raccoons use their front feet in terms of foraging.” “It’s the only thing we have in terms of making sure it works.” “. . . their mission in terms of killing Osama bin Laden.”

I didn't make up these idiotic examples. When they were said on radio and television, I quickly scribbled them down. Spoken English includes the offending phrase more than written English, because speakers have less time to think of the right words for their intended meaning.

I admire journalists’ ability to fashion articulate sentences on the fly, but when “in terms of” falls from any speaker’s lips, my esteem for that person falls with it, if only a little. The esteemed Daniel Schorr didn’t take the split second to think of the right words when he said, “It will be a real contribution in terms of opportunities for young people.”

“In terms of” has contaminated the language to such a degree that it may seem essential to some. I have caught myself beginning to say it before zealously correcting myself. “Portugal and Spain resemble Greece in terms of their economy.” “Portugal and Spain resemble Greece in their economies,” is cleaner.

In the same way, I edit, “in terms of the coronavirus crisis,” “in terms of trade policy,” “in terms of ability and social background.”

From journalists I hear “in terms of” replace about or over. “What would you add in terms of exposing doctors who market for drug companies?” I consider more accurate, “What would you add about exposing doctors who market for drug companies?” “There was a dispute in terms of how to interpret the court’s decision,” should be, ““There was a dispute over how to interpret the court’s decision.”

I have seen or heard “in terms of” take the place of in, to, for, as, about, around, because of, with, through, and more. “Will they hire minorities in terms of sub-contractors or employees?” should be “Will they hire minorities as sub-contractors or employees?” To clean up, “There’s no constituency in terms of resisting abuses,” I suggest, “There’s no constituency for resisting abuses.”

In some sentences the offending phrase replaces in spite of or because of. “Conditions for women in Afghanistan are better in terms of the surge.” I think the writer meant, “Conditions for women in Afghanistan are better in spite of the surge.” “Relations with Europe have declined in terms of tariffs.” I think the speaker meant, “Relations with Europe have declined because of tariffs.” Or perhaps they meant, “Relations with Europe have declined in relation to tariffs” or “in tariff negotiations.”

For clear and accurate communication, I think it best to avoid “in terms of” because it bloats sentences, reduces comprehension, and diminishes thoughtful reflection. I do not, however, advocate deleting the word “term.” Used correctly, it carries meaning, as in, “When the term “COVID 19” was first used, . . .”

To my ears, the phrase I’ve come to loathe diminishes the richness of any statement. For clarity, precision, and economy of expression, I think English would benefit if “terms of” were entirely deleted from the language. But judiciously scouring it out of weighty sentences requires practice and skill.

The good of COVID 19

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 16:09:00 +0000

http://jeanetteblonigenclancy.com/

NOW is the MOMENT, May 12, 2020

Now is the moment to change the world,

writes Rutger Bregman in Time magazine. He quotes Milton Friedman:

Only a crisis . . . produces real change.

Bregman strengthens my hope that this crisis may be a catalyst for changes that help heal the planet and its inhabitants.

The coronavirus pandemic is laying bare grotesque inequities, making a return to the “normal” before it unlikely. Like a forest fire letting sunlight reach the forest floor, it shows the rot of injustice and inequality preventing the whole of society from flourishing.

It exposes the craziness of our economic system. In Bregman’s words, “the more vital your work, the less you are paid, the more insecure your employment and the more risk you are in the fight against the coronavirus.” I add that performers of the least vital work—hedge fund managers, multinational elites, Wall Street financiers—control the most wealth.

Among changes needed, Bregman mentions autocrats “suffocating democracy.” Kim Jong Un, Victor Orban in Hungary, Maduro in Venezuela, Duterte in the Philippines, Bashar al-Assad in Syria come to my mind. When I fret over conditions in the world, I include the president of the U.S. denying climate change.

But beneficial effects from crises in history give reasons for hope: The Great Depression brought the New Deal, overturning control by the monied class and spreading money to many more. World War II produced Germany’s economic miracle and lasting peace in Europe.

The Financial Times, “the world’sleading business paper,” according to Bregman, published an editorial,

Virus lays bare the frailty of the social contract.

It endorses taxing the rich, a basic income for everyone, and increasing the size of government. Imagine the world’s leading business paper saying this!

And, says Bregman, the beneficial changes we want depend “on the ideas that are lying around.” Majorities in developed nations favor climate protections, and majorities favor taxing the rich. Two-thirds of Americans, including 53% of Republicans, think the rich should pay more taxes.

Showing how “the ideas lying around” shift, Biden’s “tax plan is twice as radical as Hillary Clinton’s tax plan of 2016. His $1.7 trillion climate plan includes 30 times as much clean-energy commitment as Clinton’s did in 2016, and is even more ambitious than that of Sanders four years ago.” According to Bregman, “. . . ideas that used to be dismissed as unreasonable or unrealistic have moved into the mainstream.”

That a new normal will develop is assured. Bregman reminds us that it’s already happening. There’s been an explosion of altruism and cooperation.

Whether more good change comes is up to us. He advises, “We need to assume the best in one another.”

How can we go on if we’re visited by misfortune or even despair? I find spiritual guidance gets me through when I feel helpless. Collectively. we can harness spiritual power with our minds and hearts to guide us. During a shattering moment in my life. I got through it by chanting, Accept, Surrender, and Trust.

Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

March 19, 2020, The Good of COVID 19
When faced with an overwhelming concern—now the COVID 19 pandemic—I look for the silver lining. In the face of realistic fears—economic fallout, hospitals overcrowded and short of supplies, health care workers at risk, and, I believe, the less serious fear of dying—here are silver linings I see coming with the COVID 19 pandemic.

I’m not a scientist but it occurred to me that worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases must have dropped drastically, mostly by a drop in air travel. Going online, I learned my guess was right. It’s estimated that China, the worst emitter of carbon, experienced a 25% cut in emissions. The 2008 recession also drove down emissions. Some of this good effect will be offset by increased home energy use.

I’m hoping physical scientists, social scientists, and political scientists will learn some things from this lurch in world affairs, ways to help the world fight climate change and other threats to the planet’s inhabitants.

Another silver lining from COVID 19 is that it muted political campaigns—thank heavens! No more screaming rallies, no more fund-raising at expensive events, no more crowding people together to create energy, no more daily assessing of who's ahead, no more wall-to-wall coverage of politics.
Instead, news programs are devoted to tamping down anxiety and helping everyone cope with COVID 19. And most miraculous of all—Republicans and Democrats are more united in working together on this common cause.

Social distancing, as I’ve experienced it, actually results in more social outreach. I see and hear people showing more care for each other. How refreshing!

This is happening around the world, a small miracle in itself. The world seems to be growing closer. Governments, like people everywhere, can’t avoid seeing that we’re all in this together, that what’s good for one is good for all. It must be getting increasingly obvious that “American first” and “go it alone” simply don’t work in a pandemic.
I need to add a sour note, though. Tensions are increasing between Iran—a hotspot of the virus—and the U.S., which refuses to let up on economic sanctions.

I admit I’m more fortunate than most in being a recipient of Medicare and social security and also able to care for myself. I’m not wondering how to cover bills and feed a family without an income.
The administration’s idea of sending $1000 to every adult wouldn’t begin to take care of a family that needs more than $1000 just to cover rent or a mortgage. And unemployment checks don’t go out to artists and other free-lance workers, whose source of income also can dry up.

So I understand the anxiety of others, knowing it’s easier for me to count blessings, but I offer a few more. From my writers group comes this reminder of another blessing—“people may discover how to cook, again, and to conserve supplies."

If we compare our situation to the pandemic of 1918 that killed 50 to 100 million people, we can see how technology helps us to cope better today by connecting us in ways not dreamed of in 1918.

Not only do we have incomparably better communications and medical technology, our ability to socialize with each other is incomparably improved. Although telephones started to connect many before 1918, they did not allow long long conversations of the kind I like to have. People were much more isolated in their concerns and suffering.

With the whole world on the “same page,” COVID 19 is actually bringing social harmony! For me, this means not more anxiety but less anxiety. I wish the same for all, but I understand that it’s impossible for many less fortunate than I am. They will have to work harder to see any silver linings.

March 22, 2020, The Good of COVID 19

The disaster keeps triumphantly surging as states and D.C. struggle to control it. Harvard Professor Ken Rogoff warns,

“We are going to see a recession, at least in the short term, the likes of which we have not seen at least going back to World War II. . . . We're in a war. . . . I would have no problem with the government debt magically going up $5 trillion in the blink of an eye, . . . This is an emergency.”

In addition to the economic war, we have to win the psychological war. COVID 19 can threaten emotional stability, our faith in ourselves and our universe.

Still, within every dark moment rest points of light, and I intend to make some known.

Disasters have a way of inciting extraordinary kindness and courage. A “mysterious, erotic, enveloping sense of possibility and communion” emerges in disasters, says Rebecca Solnit, who was interviewed by Krista Tippett on On Being this morning.

During Hurricane Katrina, mainstream media believed and broadcast vicious, made-up stories about the non-white people in the Superdome too poor to evacuate. They were said to be killing each other and shooting at helicopters trying to rescue people. Lies.

The truth coming out later—I remember learning it at the time—but never fully brought to the public’s awareness, was that their mutual misery generated extraordinary acts of kindness. Next to filthy, overflowing toilets, they retained their humanity and decency. They rescued others in worse shape and did what they could to lift spirits.

Our present disaster, despite its social distancing, also generates cooperation and reaching out to help.

Two neighbors called me to offer their services if I need something. Such sympathetic reaching out is becoming common. People are finding ways to be useful—walking the dog for a harried health care worker, signing up for an experimental vaccine, packing lunches for delivery to homebound people, running errands for whomever.

My daughter, who lives an hour and a half away, offered to pay for having groceries delivered to me and reminded me of my damaged respiratory system. I declined but consider myself unusually fortunate. I don’t anticipate running out of supplies I really need.

Someone explained the run on toilet paper by saying that, unlike groceries, it’s not replaceable. “There are no substitutes.” I disagree. During the earliest of my growing-up years we used catalogs in the outhouse.

It wasn’t been so long ago that Americans did not consider toiletpaper absolutely essential. I don’t recommend catalogs in the outhouse but can imagine using tissues, paper towels, napkins (saved from eateries), or even what women used during menstrual periods before better products emerged—rags.

Having been trained by a mother who never changed habits begun during the Great Depression—she and Dad married 4 weeks before the stock market crash of 1929—I throw away hardly anything. Articles of clothing nicely absorbent and too ragged to donate to a used-clothing store, I save. They do a better job of cleaning than any products on sale.

I hope others now learn habits of conserving that were common during the Great Depression.

Businesses are reinventing themselves to tackle needs caused by COVID 19. A Duluth distillery got an idea implemented by distilleries around the country. Its supply of ethyl alcohol, no longer in demand for bars, can be an ingredient for making hand sanitizers. A business in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, changed the use of its chemical disinfectant from pest control to disinfecting offices, medical equipment, gyms, and vehicles.

Italians raised their spirits and those of their neighbors by belting out songs from balconies.

An Italian tenor serenaded his stricken city, Florence, by singing Verdi’sLa Donna E Mobile” and Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.”

I expect the media will keep telling such uplifting stories during this crisis. If we look, we will see profound humanity and decency during the coming months.

Sexploitation

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 19:52:00 +0000

March 8, International Women's Day
and the whole month of March is Women's History Month. In celebration, Time magazine devoted an issue to 100 women of the year with short summaries of each.

Luminaries known are joined by women unknown to me that I feel I should have known about.
Just one—Recy Taylor—helped to shape Rosa Parks, known for her courageous refusal to surrender her seat on a bus, thus sparking the civil rights movement. Years earlier, Recy Taylor was gang-raped by white men and refused to stay silent. Despite death threats and firebombing of her home, she insisted on prosecution. Rosa Parks was sent by the NAACP to investigate. Find the story in Time's stellar issue.

Super Bowl Halftime Show—Sexploitation

I never watch the Super Bowl, biased as I am against pro sports, which I hold responsible for many problems in our country. I still can’t say who won because I don’t remember names of teams. They mean nothing to me. But “everybody” was talking about the half time program, so I went online to see what the fuss was about.

The Super Bowl Halftime Show drew praise for its exuberant, “electric energy” and sexy Latin women. Franklin Graham objected that the show violated moral decency, and many thousands agree. Viewers criticized the NFL for lowering decency standards on primetime TV by allowing young people to view “soft porn.”

I have more serious objections than moralistic preaching.

I believe the show’s female stars set back advances of the women’s movement more devastatingly than sexual violence committed by Weinstein, Epstein, and other sex offenders like the one in the White House. They lowered the status of women.

They told the world that women function primarily as sex objects. They justified keeping women in their place as bodies to lure men. They told girls to admire sexual behavior. They said it’s the way to get ahead and hid its real effect of inviting gender violence.

I need to note that religion with its supreme male gods set the stage for demoting the place of women. Despite its fine words about cherishing women, Christianity needs to take responsibility for contributing to gender abuse with its Father/Son myth, which robs women of ultimate dignity and worth.

But a woman who gyrates sexually and gestures suggestively to her crotch area in front of over 100 million viewers demeans women as surely as any man who beats a woman. The show’s efforts at solidarity with Puerto Rico, and resistance to current immigration policy do not redeem it.

Politics without Despair

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 15:50:00 +0000

http://jeanetteblonigenclancy.com/

There is much to despair about—the planet heating up, inundating cities and island nations; humans continuing to aggravate climate change; unprecedented income disparities; nuclear threat; military arms races; forced global migration; corrupt political leaders . . .

I struggle to avoid crippling worry and contempt for some American voters. After the impeachment of Trump, 49 percent approve of his job performance as president.
It floors me.

Did they not pay attention to evidence of his guilt? Or don’t they care that the president of the U.S. tells a foreign power to meddle in our election?

You see, I waste time trying to figure out the minds of voters. I wonder: Why don’t people care about his lies? His sexual assaults? His verbal assaults on desperate asylum seekers, on all people of color, all critics of himself?
Don’t voters care about corruption in his administration? Its withdrawing of protections for consumers, for clean water and air, for students, workers, farmers, even investors? Trump’s profiting from the presidency? (recent outrage: Taxpayers were charged room rates of $650 for Secret Service protection at Mar-a-Lago, contrary to Trump Organization claims.)

The Republicans’ refusal to remove Trump from office does not distress me. I don’t want Pence to become president; I want voters to become informed.

I explain to myself: The fine persons I know who stick with Trump don’t follow politics. They’re too busy to learn what’s happening.
But that’s not right! If ignorance reigns, how there be hope for our democracy?
We’ll have to see what happens in November.
Another four years of Trump would ruin our country forever!

You see how I can work myself into a dither. Observing my agitation, I look for relief, and find it. I can stop my fretting by focusing in two ways—turning my thoughts to history and spirituality.

Our country has survived worse. Not only the Civil War, but the Great Depression and crippling recessions, unimaginable cruelty toward Native Americans and African Americans, worse character assassinations, wars necessary and unnecessary, and despicable presidencies. Andrew Johnson—also a braying mouth, also impeached but not convicted—reversed gains for African Americans after the Civil War.

The long arc of history tells me things have been worse, and the country endured. While I believe no previous president ever reached such depth in blatant indecency, I also believe Trump triggers reverse action toward dignity, integrity, compassion, and love for fellow humans.

When before has the country ever witnessed such sympathy for immigrants? For Blacks and people of color? For prisoners, victims of sex crimes, workers on the bottom? When before have so many tried to walk inside the skin of people unlike themselves? When have women achieved so much status and recognition?

The ugliest trash falling from the current administration spurs counter actions. Even in the Republican Party. The party of Lincoln that led civil rights efforts after the Civil War and after World War II, and joined efforts to protect the environment in the 1960s and ‘70s, subsequently lost its soul. But reports that Jeff Flake and Mitt Romney are secretly admired by their fellow Republicans show how good ultimately triumphs.

And that is the spiritual focus that saves me when despair threatens. My faith saves me, and I don’t mean religious belief—God is not 3 guys in the sky. But an inner reign deep beneath and within the physical world moves outer events toward Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. We can detach from the chaos around us and turn inward for serenity.

In Beyond Parochial Faith I share the formula that saves me when despair threatens—Accept, Surrender, and Trust.
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In Memory of Hazel

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 15:37:00 +0000

Ron Howes, husband of my high school and college classmate, Hazel Ehrnreiter Howes, tells the story.

When Hazel was diagnosed with cancer this past Spring, all plans for travel were put away, we moved into the family lake cabin, making those 40 mile one-way trips to see the doctors. Tests and more tests, radiation treatments, a trip to the Mayo Clinic, where three doctors told us thyroid cancer was normally slow-moving, but this one was especially aggressive.

When a CAT-Scan revealed a new mass that wasn't seen in the one taken just a month earlier, Hazel was hospitalized and radiation treatments were to begin again. It was at that point that common sense stepped in, with the medical team admitting they couldn't get ahead of this one, recommending Hazel be transported back to our cabin by ambulance.

A hospital bed was set-up in the living room with a good view of the lake, and nurses came in to help us attempt to keep her comfortable. I asked the doctor, "how long", and received the standard answer "six months".

The call went out to our nine children, who came rushing home to be with her.

Hazel lived 6 days.

A week has passed since Hazel died, my son Tom, who came in from the Washington, D.C. area, has been spending time with me here at the cabin, keeping me company and providing great support. The funeral is Tuesday, six of my sons will serve as pallbearers, my son Jim, an operatic tenor, will sing, my daughters Sarah and Annie have been working non-stop, along with my sister-in-law Laura, to arrange the funeral, purchase the double cemetery lot (I finally know where I'll be spending eternity), and I couldn't have survived the week without them.

Today, I thought maybe I should start moving Hazel's clothing and personal possessions from the motorhome into the lake cabin, so that the family could go through them, decide what they would like to keep, and what they felt should be donated to the Salvation Army and Goodwill. It took me all afternoon, almost all of what she'd accumulated in life was in that 30 foot class A motorhome, packed in the closets, under the bed in containers, and I'd even added an additional clothes rack back in the bedroom, an area we always called "the captain's quarters".

Going through Hazel's bedside stand, I found a small notebook. Most of the pages were blank, except for this, written in Hazel's handwriting:

Hello Little One,

You've been with me about 2 weeks now, I'm so glad you're here. I'm going to do my best to grow a wonderful body for your wonderful spirit to live in for a lifetime. I'm your mother and I welcome you and will do my best to love and protect you in your smallness.

Sometimes I'm probably going to be grumpy, and I hope it's not often, I'm sorry about those times. I'm going to enjoy your time with me. It's good to have you so close and always here when I do the dishes or sweep the floors, or go for a walk or read, or snuggle up for the night, you're always here warm and safe with me.

I told your daddy about you, he's excited that a new little person will be coming to live with us.

We don't know which of their children she was expecting, but I think it was Glenn, the first of their 10 children.

Sexist Talk reformed

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 18:01:00 +0000

In a StarTribune article analyzing the New York Times “1619 Project,” Katherine Kersten wrote,

Man’s seemingly boundless capacity for inhumanity to his fellow man

is one of history’s indelible lessons.

It is typical male-centered language, using “man” to mean “also women.” For centuries women have been expected to accept this without minding it. I mind it. So I revised it:

Humanity’s seemingly boundless capacity for inhumanity to fellow humans

is one of history’s indelible lessons.

I’m pleased that the StarTribune published my letter with this revision and publishes my other feminist letters. I thank them and other media for helping to correct what I call sexist language.

The following comes from a book I find thoughtful and nourishing, but irritatingly full of he-man language. I changed it from male-centered to woman-centered language:

Important data comes to woman from the inner self.

What happened, however,

is that woman was taught to accept only data from the outside world.

This denies her full strength;

it cuts her off from important sources of her being.

Her inner self forms and cushions her living

and brings her extraordinary information.

I challenge men to include themselves in these sentences.

And here are more challenges. All of us, women and men, need to do some adjusting when we take in these words:

All women are created equal.

One small step for woman; one giant step for womankind.

Can men include themselves in these statements? I challenge them to try, because women are expected to include themselves in the following and not complain.

All men are created equal.

One small step for man; one giant step for mankind.

In The Varieties of Religious Experience (73), William James quotes people who say they know God exists. I changed the pronouns:

God surrounds me like the physical atmosphere.

She is closer to me than my own breath.

In her literally I live and move and have my being.

There are times when I seem to stand in her very presence,

to talk with her.

Answers to prayer have come,

sometimes direct and overwhelming in their revelation

of her presence and powers.

There are times when she seems far off,

but this is always my fault.”

Here are more passages to test your ability to adjust to feminine God-talk. I adapted these from a novel by Lorraine Snelling:

Lady, I give up. This is too much.

If you have a plan for my life, let me know it.

Our Heavenly Mother knows our needs. She is protecting us.

I believe She is opening my eyes to Her plan for me.

Lady, give me the wisdom to know what’s right in this challenging situation.

Spirit has amazing ways of working everything out for the best, doesn’t She?

Spirit, help thou my unbelief.

I hope these examples are ways for readers to retrain their minds. My purposes are to raise awareness of sexist talk and awareness of the damage it causes.

*** I should have seen it coming and explained the following immediately. An email comment tells me I'm misunderstood as advocating a female image of what is called "God" to replace the male image.
I do not pray to or think of the Source/Creator as having a gender. My purpose here is to raise awareness of male-dominant God-talk, to provoke understanding of how minds are trained.

In Beyond Parochial Faith, I give this list of

possible synonyms for the word “God.” My list includes Energy, Source, Transcendence, Divinity, Infinity, Vastness, Creator, Force, Mystery, and Consciousness.

None of these alone completely satisfies me. Lao Tzu said, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”

October 15, 2019 Apathy over sexist God-talk

When I was growing up, we drove to Sauk Centre for the Stearns County fair where we exhibited as 4-H members. As I grew a little older, I learned that on the other side of town was a reformatory for girl juvenile delinquents. I had no idea.

A book review in the StarTribune on Sunday was written by someone whose grandmother was born in the Minnesota Home School for Girls in Sauk Centre. Girls were committed there until age 21 because they were pregnant or ran away from home or were “incorrigible.” Girls as young as 8 were in the Home to be “reformed.”

School officials bragged that the girls were happy to be learning domestic arts. The high number of escapes put the lie to this boast. One resident’s poem began, “I live in a house called torture and pain, it’s made of material called sorrow and shame.”

Lisa Pasko, a criminology professor at the University of Denver, said about two-thirds of girls sent to juvenile facilities had experienced sexual violence. From other studies I suspect the figure is higher. In starkest terms, girls and women are punished for being raped. Carol Jacobsen, in “When Justice Is Battered,” writes:

Most, if not all, women in prison come from abusive backgrounds, including incest, domestic violence, emotional and/or physical abuse.

What does this have to do with my abiding theme of denouncing what I call sexist God-talk? The Lord Father and Son reigning supreme over the universe with no feminine divinity? Gender imbalance in the God-image creates gender-imbalance in human relationships. Male domination in church leads to male domination outside of church. Female submission follows naturally when divinity—the highest value imaginable—is imaged solely male.

In biblical times, men who raped women committed the crime of theft against the husband or father who owned the female. If a man raped a girl and was discovered, “he shall pay the girl’s father fifty silver shekels and take her as his wife” (Deuteronomy 22:29). It was the law. The Lord God commanded females to marry their rapists, and women submitted.

In the New Testament we find this verse:

Wives should be submissive to their husbands as if to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22).

Today Ephesians 5:25 is more often quoted:

Husbands, love your wives,

As if this justified the power imbalance of the previous verse.

Fathers who raped their little daughters, putting them in the Sauk Centre Home School, were formed by the patriarchal mindset—female bodies exist for sexual use.

The constant drumbeat of Lord/He/Him/His—never She or Her—carves a deep mark on our minds without our awareness. The effect is unconscious, and that makes it powerful. Our minds are structured to view males always on top.
I am distressed by apathy over sexist God-talk, particularly the male pronouns—He/Him/His—in reference to the Creator/Source of all that is or could be. If we're aware that these pronouns favor one gender in God-talk, we may be resigned—that’s just the way it is. It’s tradition.

But sexist God-talk is not harmless.

Out of sexist God-talk flows gender violence of all kinds, including female genital mutilation, domestic abuse, and clergy sex abuse. But also legal bias against people with less power—men or women—and bias against sexual diversity. Male-on-top power even contributes to racism, wars, pollution, and climate change, but these more distant consequences are harder to see and may be the subject of subsequent posts.

The exposure of sexual misconduct by men like Harvey Weinstein is starting to throw light on violence against women, but for exposure of daily, casual, widespread violence in thousands of less celebrated relationships, we need the light of the #MeToo movement. Some argue that the movement for redress of sexual violence has gone too far. Certainly not. We are still far from sexual equality.

Most distressing to me is lack of awareness that the Christian Father/Son divinity supports structures of power imbalance. I am committed to the effort of raising such awareness. Without it, Christians inadvertently help to perpetuate sexism. Theologian Mary Daly had it right:

If God is male, male is God.

Sexploitation

I never watch the Super Bowl, biased as I am against pro sports, which I hold responsible for many problems in our country. I still can’t say who won because I don’t remember names of teams. They mean nothing to me. But “everybody” was talking about the half time program, so I went online to see what the fuss was about.

The Super Bowl Halftime Show drew praise for its exuberant, “electric energy,” its sexy Latin women. Franklin Graham objected that the show violated moral decency, and many thousands agree. Viewers criticized the NFL for lowering decency standards on primetime TV by allowing young people to view “soft porn.”

I have more serious objections than moralistic preaching.

I believe the show’s female stars set back advances of the women’s movement more devastatingly than sexual violence committed by Weinstein, Epstein, and other sex offenders like the one in the White House. They lowered the status of women.

They told the world that women function primarily as sex objects. They justified keeping women in their place as bodies to lure men. They told girls to admire sexual behavior. They said it’s the way to get ahead and hid its real effect of inviting gender violence.

A woman who gyrates sexually and gestures suggestively to her crotch area in front of over 100 million viewers demeans women as surely as any man who beats a woman. The show’s efforts at solidarity with Puerto Rico, and resistance to current immigration policy do not redeem it.

Religion with its supreme male gods does nothing to affirm the dignity and worth of women despite its fine words about cherishing women. And that is why Christianity needs to take responsibility for contributing to gender abuse with its male-only god.

October 24, 2019
I’m not done writing about sexist God-talk—“He Him His Father Son Lord”—because its damage to people disturbs me. I aim to raise awareness of it so that more Christians resist praying to lords in church and replace the word “Lord” with inclusive terms. I replace “Lord” with “God” because I can think “God-She,” but a lord is always male and always authoritarian.

The constant drumbeat of “Lord Lord Lord” in churches has a subtle effect. It conditions churchgoers to assume that male top-down power is natural, normal, proper, and right.
During funerals in my home-town parish I cringe when I hear intercessions end with “we pray to the Lord,” and the congregation immediately answers, “Lord, hear our prayer.” I feel like shouting, “Get that damn lord out of our prayers.”

Although that repetitious “Lord” lording over every prayer and song spoils church for me, I don’t want to stop participating in church services because I value my ties with church people.

The issue is not only fairness—the idea that women should get equal billing—it’s that sexist God-talk does psychic damage to the entire human race. That this is not recognized adds to its power. The bias works unconsciously.

Imagine the effect on the mind of a teen trained in Christian prayers to god-lords and then trafficked for sex. Imagine her facing human lords—her pimp or her abuser, the buyer of sex. Lords in church make it harder for her to defy her human abusers.
And imagine a wife dealing with her macho, alcoholic husband, one also trained in church, male-on-top power.

Docile compliance of church-goers is not healthy. Christians inadvertently help to perpetuate sexism by reciting and singing sexist God-talk prescribed by the patriarchal hierarchy.
Repetition of “He Him His Father Son Lord” is not harmless. We’ve got to stop accepting the exclusively-male God-image because it leads to unquestioned acceptance of male authority in human affairs. Which leads to barring women from power.

When women get power, things improve. Dr, Muhammad Yunus, who introduced the concept of microfinance to transform poor communities, prefers loaning to women because, he says, they almost always use it to benefit their families.
Men are less likely to do so. I have heard other microfinance philanthropists say that women use money to raise the whole community, while men spend money on themselves. Melinda Gates says,

One of the most astonishing statistics I’ve seen is that when a mother has control over her family’s money, her children are 20% more likely to survive.

Women in Congress demonstrate more bipartisanship than their male counterparts. Women legislators are more likely to author bills benefiting families. And I don’t think it’s an accident that the rising status of women happens as Christian churches are losing members while the number of “nones” unaffiliated with religion is rising.

How we think about Divinity makes a difference.

Two Popes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Sat, 28 Dec 2019 16:19:00 +0000

With my son and daughter, I watched "The Two Popes" on Christmas Eve, depicting fictional conversations between Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. The film accurately depicts the debate between right and left in the Catholic Church. In a PBS Newshour interview, the director voices my bias by saying he began thinking of Benedict (played by Anthony Hopkins) as the bad guy, but when working through the project he could see the grey areas.

Although the two never had those conversations, "The Two Popes" accurately presents right and left positions. It is also historical in showing Francis' conversion as a result of his experience when Argentina's military waged a "Dirty War" against the Catholic Church. We see that guilt and suffering have the power to enlighten.

Listen to me

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Mon, 23 Dec 2019 20:27:00 +0000

I will be on “Voices of the Sacred Feminine,” an online radio program by Karen Tate on the day after Christmas, December 26, at 11:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Central, 2:00 Eastern time.

My topic will be "The Goddess in the Bible." Follow the link and do it five minutes early in case you have to sign in. The Bible is suffused with feminine God imagery, but redactors and translators have made Her hard to recognize.

Quantum Physics on Prayer

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 16:19:00 +0000

In my previous post I quoted this by physicists Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner:

Quantum mechanics challenges [commonsense] intuitions by having (conscious) observation actually create the physical reality observed.

These physicists don’t shy away from the shocking implications of quantum science—that’s what I love about Quantum Enigma. After the statement above they write:

This idea is so hard to accept that some soften it by saying that observation appears to create the observed reality. Most physicists . . . today decline to sidestep the enigma with semantics and rather face up to what Nature seems to be telling us . . .

Years ago, when I first read what happens in quantum experiments, I immediately drew spiritual implications from it. Since then I’ve read multiple experts—physicists and spiritual masters—who support my conclusions.
Rosenblum and Kuttner refuse to affirm spiritual lessons—they stick to physics—but for me it’s impossible to avoid spiritual implications because consciousness is not physical. This is precisely what maddens physicists. Rosenblum and Kuttner acknowledge,

It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent manner without reference to the consciousness.

Dr. Larry Dossey does not shy away from linking quantum physics with prayer. He writes,

[C]onscious mental activity exerts measurable effects on the physical world—a world that includes human bodies, organs, tissues, and cells.

In Be Careful What You Pray For, Dossey quotes physicist David Bohm:

Everything material is also mental and everything mental is also material.

If thoughts and physical realities are one, then our thoughts and prayers influence results.

So here we have it. Our mental activity—thoughts, prayers, feelings, expectations, and attitudes—make a difference. It’s not hard to see the effect on our own health but can we make a difference for others far away, some who don’t even know we’re praying for them?

Rosenblum and Kuttner pose the challenge,

Most of us share commonsense intuitions that deny the implications of quantum theory. . . . surely, what happens here is not affected by what happens at the same time someplace very far away.

And the answer:

[Q]uantum theory tells us that an observation of one object can instantaneously influence the behavior of another greatly distant object—even if no physical force connects the two.

Think of the dogs who know the decision of their masters on the other side of the planet.

Larry Dossey explains the scientific principle this way:

Two particles, once in contact, separated even to the ends of the universe, change together instantaneously when a change in one of the them occurs.

Mind activity travels without needing physical transportation of any kind. Distance does not lessen the effect of our prayers and wishes—both religious and non-religious— on outcomes.

If we think about it, we experience minds communicating when we’re with likeminded people. We read their minds without needing any physical signs.

What about prayer that does NOT bring the results we want? My friend whom I call Ben in Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses posed this challenge.
In prayers for others, this is easy to answer. The consciousness of the person prayed for naturally determines more of the outcome than my prayers for her. If she lacks the will to live or believes she won’t, my hopes for her can’t overcome that.

But what about my own hopes dashed? Let’s say I hate my fat body and want it to change.
(For my real problems nakedly revealed, go to my memoir Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses.)
But let’s say I want my body to look different. I’ve spent years conditioning myself to see it as gross. Wishing and praying for it to change doesn’t do the trick. It takes hard, sustained work to decondition my emotional and mental patterns. And it all starts with awareness of how I hypnotize myself, awareness of my mind affecting matter.

At the same time that I wish and pray, my basic attitude might scream, “I hate my body.” Shedding this feeling requires intense spiritual work. Yes, spiritual.

This topic of our thoughts creating reality—mind over matter—is so huge I know I’ll write about it again. If you poke on posts under “Scientific Materialism” in my Blog Index left, you can read much more on it.

Quantum Physics on Prayer, December 2, 2019

In Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home by biologist Rupert Sheldrake, is the picture of a dog sitting by an outside door and facing it. Some dogs do this, writes Sheldrake, the instant their owners on the other side of the world decide to come home. They refuse to move. I see it as evidence of the power of prayer.

To help me explain, I turn to another science writer, Dr. Larry Dossey, a physician in Dallas, Texas. His writings translate the work of quantum physicists for ordinary people by applying their findings to practical matters like health. He seems taken with the same discovery of quantum physics that thrills me—actions of mind or consciousness create physical effects.

Since the middle 1920s, when Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg formulated the basics of quantum mechanics, science is finding evidence that minds have power. Quantum experiments demonstrate that the experimenter’s consciousness—that is, their thoughts or mental process—determines the outcome of the experiment.

Physicists were befuddled when the results first came out. They feared that,

some people, seeing the solid science of physics linked with the mystery of the conscious mind, might be susceptible to all sorts of nonsense.

So wrote physicists Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner in Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness.

Quantum experiments contradict the belief of scientific materialists that activities of the mind are caused by molecules or chemicals in the brain. To quote Quantum Enigma,

Quantum mechanics challenges [commonsense] intuitions by having (conscious) observation actually create the physical reality observed.

The physicists who wrote this italicized the word “create.” It shows that thought has priority over physical reality. They acknowledge how hard it is for some to accept this “enigma that challenges our classical worldview.”

But I respond with jubilation. Nothing excites me more than the implication coming out of quantum physics—the link between spirit and matter, religion and science on the same page.
The secular world speaks of mind and matter rather than spirit and matter—same thing, because all thoughts are immaterial, therefore spiritual. They don’t need to be religious to be spiritual.

So our prayers—our mental processes—bring results. Some of our thinking, praying, and feeling could bring more harm than benefits, but that’s too complicated to go into here.

What matters is knowing that physical results depend on our states of mind. We non-scientists can observe the effects on sickness and healing. When I get sick—whether seriously or not—I look for an emotional cause and usually find it.

Healing also depends on our states of mind. When doctors expected me to die of cancer, I had a strong purpose to live and recovered. A person who expects to live and has a strong reason to live probably will recover. A person without a reason to go on is more likely to die. Hopefulness helps healing.

What about prayers for others? Now we get to what’s called non-local causality. Think about Sheldrakes’s dog confidently waiting at the door for its master before the master’s friends know of the return home from far away.

This is abstract stuff, so I’ll stop for now and go on with it next time.

http://jeanetteblonigenclancy.com/

Where I grew up

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 15:21:00 +0000

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The square house where I grew up originally had three sets of stairs anchoring its middle—basement stairs to main floor, stairs to bedrooms, and stairs to the attic. We could climb even higher, but I’ll leave that for now. There were four rooms downstairs, four upstairs. To me, the most appealing things about our house were the flowers my mom cultivated around it—her precious Blumen.

The house had been reconfigured by the time I arrived. The back door had become front door with a small porch. It led to the largest room downstairs, our dining, sewing, television, music, family room, where everything but cooking and sleeping happened—band practice the loudest. The room's corner in the middle of the house held the Loch—meaning “hole” in German—a walled-in area under stairs to the bedrooms.

Before reconstruction, this space had held stairs from what had been the back door to the basement. The narrow Loch’s ceiling slanted down almost to the floor on one end. It stored cleaning supplies accessed by a small plywood door, the right size for a child to enter and fetch supplies for Mother. The Loch’s child-size door was inviting, but we didn’t play in it because someone coming along might slam shut the door, and it was no fun being in total dark. That also made it a less than desirable hiding place.

The all-purpose room held a metal table with Formica top, large enough for a family of two parents and eight kids. As second-youngest, I was one of “da kits.” Around the sides stood a buffet, piano, sewing machine, television, and a variety of musical instruments. My father was tight, but besides the piano we had an accordion, woodwind and brass instruments, a set of drums, a guitar, a harmonica, and toy instruments.

I was offended by the room’s colors. Green and yellow alternated on the four walls, opposite walls the same color. Linoleum on the floor loudly competed in red, white, and blue. Why didn’t one of the big people stop this from happening?

Maybe I was not the only one bothered by the bad taste. When one of my aunts came to my house many years later, she told me, “You have good taste.”

Stairs to the basement led from a back porch added on during reconstruction. I forget how old I was when I figured out that the window between back porch and kitchen indicated the porch was not part of the original structure. Two steps in a corner of the porch led to a tiny room with a toilet over the basement stairs.

These stairs looked old and rough. More puzzling, they descended over a dirt floor holding supplies for Dad. Not until I was an adult did I figure out that these used to be cellar stairs of the kind often featured on old farmhouses.

Their basements could be accessed from the outside without going through the house. An opening with stairs from cellar to outside facilitated hauling in coal and vegetables. On the outside, they could be identified by large horizontal, almost parallel to the ground, doors adjacent to sides or backs of houses. The doors could be opened by lifting them from inside or outside. During remodeling, those doors were taken off and the cellar steps became basement steps enclosed by the new back porch.

A fourth of the basement was walled off with boulders and cement to hold a cistern. It held rain water caught by gutters around the roof. During droughts we hated washing our hair in harsh hard water. Access to the cistern was through a trap door cut into the red, white, and blue floor of the many-purpose room on the main floor.

Electrical wiring added during reconstruction did not reach the basement. During my earliest years Mother did the wash in the basement. When I grew older, my oldest sister did it in the back porch where the electric ringer washer was set up. This made the clothes chute from upstairs to basement much less handy. Verna had to haul dirty clothes up from the basement.

Upstairs were four bedrooms. My four brothers all slept in the largest room on two beds. We sisters got two rooms, oldest and youngest in one and middle sisters in the other. The smallest room upstairs held storage. Between our girls’ rooms was the only full bathroom in the house, added during reconstruction.

Each room had windows on two sides except the room I shared. Instead of a window, it had a door to the roof of the back porch. On moonlit nights I liked sitting on the roof and looking at our farmyard in the mysterious, intriguing light of the moon. Down below I could view chicken house, smokehouse, barn, granary, garden, and machinery from a higher perspective. Interesting.

Directly across from my perch, was the grove—what we called the bush. In it were stacks of yellow bricks taken off the original house and replaced by asbestos siding. At the edge of the grove was the Beckhaus or outhouse, no longer used by that time. A two-seater, it had a little hole for little people. I remember my fear of falling in the first few times I used the big hole.

I assumed our term for the outhouse—Beckhaus—was German. Everybody in Stearns County said it and people elsewhere didn’t. After consulting German-English dictionaries, native speakers of German, and a clever neighbor, I felt a little silly. Beckhaus is just Stearns County’s adoption of the English word “backhouse.”

Across the hall from the bathroom upstairs was the usually-closed door to the attic stairs. One summer when I was bored and hungry for reading material, I discovered the attic’s riches—bushel baskets full of old magazines, and another high view.

Our square attic had one window, giving enough light in summer to read and a high standpoint to survey the landscape on the side opposite the back porch. But I discovered an even higher position. Next to the staircase, a ladder with inviting steps drew me up toward the roof. Looking down from the top, I could see two stories beneath me to the bottom of the attic stairs. Exhilarating!

I unlatched the trap door in the center of the roof, pushed it aside, and climbed two more steps to see a fascinating panorama. Below and far away were familiar things from a new and very high perspective, a metaphor for how I want to view issues that divide people.
Read more of my personal story in Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses.

Amazon Synod of Bishops

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 14:42:00 +0000

Sacred indigenous image vandalized, October 31, 2019

In connection with Pope Francis’ synod of bishops for the Amazon, indigenous people of the Amazon brought sacred symbols to the Vatican for a prayer service. One was the figure of a pregnant woman, which triggered conservative outcry on the Internet. Vandals stole the figure and threw it into the Tiber River.

The NCR editorial relating this story decried racism in the conservative outcry and vandalism. But I see more. This could not have happened if the Catholic Church accepted God as Mother and prayed to Her.

The indigenous people of Latin America revere the Divine Mother regardless of Church doctrine’s careful distinction—only Father and Son are divine, Mother Mary is not.

Latins prefer Mother Mary to Father anyway, continuing indigenous worship that preceded the arrival of Europeans. Goddesses were popular in South America long before Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego. Her garb, mysteriously imprinted on his cloak, is that of an Aztec Goddess.

One outcome of the Amazon synod could be to accept married priests, but only men. Of course.

An Old Story, September 24, 2019

Women doing the real work but not recognized. What’s new? Preparations for a Catholic synod of bishops from the Amazon posed another version of the story.

Conservatives objected to suggestions for ways the Church could meet the vast needs of people threatened by ecological destruction in the Amazon basin. The document opened for consideration ordaining married priests and . . .

What did it say about women? It suggested identifying “the type of official ministry that can be conferred on women, taking into account the central role they play today in the Church in the Amazon."

A timid approach to women’s ordination. Official ministers in the Catholic Church are ordained—the only true and sure way for women to continue the work they already are doing.

But U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke said he would undertake a 40-day "crusade of prayer and fasting" in hopes that the synod’s document would not be approved because it contains "theological errors and heresies." I can’t read or write this without smiling at the foolishness.

German Cardinals Walter Brandmüller and Gerhard Müller, a former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also criticized the document.

Women will have no voting rights at the synod that is focused on the very ministry they are leading. But women spoke up. "That was a surprise," said a participant originally from Argentina.

Very, very powerful statements from women. It was quite refreshing.

The priest had been working at the Vatican for two years.

Living in Rome in a very clerical environment, personally for me it was a refreshing surprise to see that they had no fear in saying whatever they want.

A consultant said women are the ones working in the indigenous communities and are “the very presence of the Church.” He was moved by women’s statements because, he said,

They are the ones maintaining the faith, the tradition, and even the presence of the Catholic Church.
So, it was very sorrowful to hear how neglected or excluded they feel in many ways.

Church structure does not allow recognition of women’s enormous achievements. Another adviser said,

Women are practically the ones who are leading communities of faith in Latin America.

Such recognition of women is abhorrent to conservatives. Francis seems determined to avoid roiling conservatives yapping at him, because he refuses to challenge the rule set by John Paul II and Benedict XVI—no women’s ordination. Francis’ language seems an attempt to mollify liberals. He says women should not be “clericalized.”

While I press for women’s ordination, I’m not anxious about it, because time is on the side of women. The longer the official Catholic Church delays, the less relevance it will have in real life. Its institutional structure will crumble.

Reader Response, September 30

E. thanked me for the previous post, An old story, and said she appreciates my last statement:

While l press for women’s ordination, I’m not anxious about it, because time is on the side of the women.

The longer the official CC delays, the less relevance it will have in real life. Its institutional structure will crumble.

That sustains me and gives me hope! Peace.

Jeanette:

I'm pleased, surprised, and also not surprised that a professed religious can think this way. It tells me I'm right when I tell people they'd be surprised by how much their most progressive views are also represented among religious sisters.

Oh Jeanette, There are quite a few of us who believe that the institutional CC needs a lot of reform…and openness.
Given that religious communities have also had their share of decadence, reform and ongoing need for reform, we tend to be patient … at least outwardly.

But we do pray … and sometimes act … for a more gospel-like CC.

Jeanette:

I knew many of you wanted reform of the institution, but my statement that the structure will crumble implies a lot more.

I hesitated there when I was writing it because I hope the Vatican will in future be nothing more than a center for disseminating information about Catholic Christian activities around the globe—no hierarchical structure at all.

Now that’s a thought … Letting the church be indigenous to each country, nation, culture.

Sounds like a great idea! Giving the church back to the people.

Of course, I won’t see it … but it still sounds good … less hierarchy, less regimentation, less $$$ oversight …

It is something to hope and pray and talk about.

Jeanette:

What a great response to my idea of a Vatican clearinghouse instead of a Vatican overlord!

Like immigrants today

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 17:00:00 +0000

http://jeanetteblonigenclancy.com/beyond-parochial-faith

A New York Times article threw national attention onto anti-Muslim hostility in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Besides sadness and embarrassment here, it generated an ongoing debate in the St. Cloud Times between supporters of immigrants and persons opposed. I wrote in a Your Turn article for the St. Cloud Times:

I am sad that I saw German names signed on letters angry at the Times for encouraging hospitality to Somali immigrants. . . . Stearns County is known for its heavy concentration of German-Catholics—my people. I’d like to be proud of them.

I noted striking parallels in today’s anti-immigrant feeling to facts I found in writing Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses.

German-Catholic families fled poverty and violence in Europe as Somalis flee al-Shabaab in Somalia and Hispanics flee violent gangs in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. In the 19th century, my great-great grandparents living in the poorest region of Germany responded to the invitation of Fr. Francis Xavier Pierz to come to Minnesota. No laws barred them, but they faced hostile feelings against immigrants and Catholics.

I wrote that we need to apply our German-Catholic experience to the present day.

Complaints about Somali prayer remind me of a story in my Avon centennial history book where Protestants protested Catholic prayer and instruction in Avon’s public school.

Someday—who knows how long from now—people will look back on the venom spewed today, led by the present occupant of the White House. They will be appalled that their people participated in it.

Beyond Parochial Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 14:12:00 +0000

My memoir, Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses is now available at http://jeanetteblonigenclancy.com/beyond-parochial-faith

Six years ago, a woman rang my doorbell and said she walked a mile to tell me that my book, God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky: Cherishing Christianity without Its Exclusive Claims, had a profound effect on her. Its subversion of common Christian belief seemed undeniable but left her bereft. She asked me to write a sequel for persons like herself who wonder, “If not Christianity, then what?”

Beyond Parochial Faith offers some answers.

My fire-of-purification story traces my evolving views of religions and spirituality, culminating in faith I call “secular.” It weaves together strands of my life—alcoholic husband and mid-life meltdown, judgmental siblings and prudish aunts, Carl Jung and Father-Son myth, the Goddess and the historical Jesus, lord-gods and sexual abuse, atheists and naïve seminarians, Teilhard de Chardin and quantum theory, Benedictines and Somalis—to support my faith in an inner realm called “God.”

Reared in Catholicism, I developed doubts about doctrine and tried atheism. Countless books and experiences later, I attend Mass with Benedictines and remain a friend of atheists while rejecting both literal religious belief and scientific materialism. My critique shows how sexist God-talk is connected to the #MeToo movement.

Hundreds of authors unmask patriarchy in Christianity, evincing hunger for spirituality free of religious indoctrination. Some stay in the Catholic Church to urge reform from within. I do.

I hope readers of my memoir gain a fresh perspective on their own relationships and their own interior lives by observing mine.

I hope you see that a deep spiritual life does not have to be connected with religion. I hope you draw courage to question doctrines that make no sense to you.

Visit my website to order and learn more. You can also order from my publisher.

Why "Parochial" Faith? July 11, 2019
On my way to being interviewed on the local radio station, KASM, I found myself on a gravel road that couldn’t possibly be the right way. I didn’t know the way, though I’ve been on that radio station countless times over decades.

I even brought students there one time. We were ushered into the studio while some tape was playing, so we were gabbing animatedly—my voice as loud as any. The announcer told us to quiet down, then said it more insistently, and finally roared, SHUT UP! Just in time for his mike to come on and our time on the radio to begin.

But back to this time and my floundering on the way to the station. I was getting panicky. Imagining the announcer having to fill in with some other content and wondering what change in the road I’d missed. Twice I stopped the car to ask for directions. But I got there in time.

Brad Mielke asked great questions. Obviously he'd studied information on Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses because he dug right into religion and spirituality. I expected we’d focus on my German/Catholic upbringing and local history.
“What’s wrong with calling God Father?” he asked.
“Nothing, except it’s not enough. What’s wrong with calling God Mother? The Church doesn’t allow that. We never hear ‘Her’ or ‘She.’”

“I read that you grew up in a “blanketing Catholic climate,” he said. “Why the word “blanketing”? Did you mean ‘smothering’ or ‘isolating’?”

“I thought of using the word ‘smothering’ but it’s too harsh. ‘Blanketing’ also suggests warming and comforting. I’ve moved beyond the parochial faith of my childhood but my upbringing gives me stability and security that I think a life without religion might lack.”

On my way home I reminded myself of more ambiguities. As “blanketing” has more than one meaning, so do the words “parochial” and “confession” in my title—Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses.

My childhood faith was parochial in being narrow and limited, also parochial in the type of grade school I attended. A confession can be exposure of some kind, in my case personal secrets. A confession also can be a formal declaration of faith such as the Confessions of Augustine of Hippo. Mine is not a formal confession but I hope parts of my book set readers thinking hard about their own beliefs.

My rattled mind on my way to the station gave me an “in” to talk about the distinction between rational knowing and intuitive knowing. To talk myself out of panicking because I didn’t know the way, I reminded myself that I have the tendency to experience rising anxiety when I’m in the car alone trying to find a place. I know this about myself intuitively, without external, rational proof.

Scientists’ rational minds may know there is no God because they see no evidence of God. The same scientists may know without doubt that God exists through their intuitive experience. Intuitive knowing leaps to conclusions without external evidence that can be tracked. Intuitively we know people are likely to behave in certain ways.

In The Varieties of Religious Experience William James quotes intuitive believers in God. One said,

God surrounds me like the physical atmosphere. . . . I have the sense of a presence, strong, and at the same time soothing, which hovers over me. Sometimes it seems to enwrap me with sustaining arms.

Another said,

God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person. . . . [It] answers me again and again, often in words so clearly spoken that it seems my outer ear must have carried the tone . . . love for me and care for my safety. I could give hundreds of instances, in school matters, social problems, financial difficulties, etc. . . . Without it life would be a blank, a desert, a shoreless, trackless waste.

I hope Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses inspires more satisfying discussions like the one Brad Mielke gave me. To buy my book visit
http://jeanetteblonigenclancy.com/beyond-parochial-faith

Preview of my memoir, May 24, 2019

I am waiting for my publisher to release my memoir, Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses. With this book on my mind, I’m postponing my promised reflection on how Mary Magdalene’s influence can be detected in the unique Fourth Gospel.

The first chapter of Beyond Parochial Faith describes what my life was like living in the unique German-Catholic culture of Stearns County, Minnesota. One of my endorsers says I bring you into the strange world of my puritanical childhood. True.

But here’s a more cheerful look. Asking for input on rural schools in Stearns County, I received this lovely description by Bernadette Weber, OSB. I posted it here two years ago.

Attending District 125 Public Country School was a rich experience.

Being among 50 students in 8 grades with one teacher helped us be creative in using our time. When in the lower and middle grades, I would listen to the interesting classes of the upper grades.

We had wardrobes to keep our coats etc. (one for the boys and one for the girls).

When I finished my assigned work, I got to take the first graders for reading class in the wardrobe. Although I wasn’t aware of it, that was my first practice teaching.

We also had a library, so could spend time reading books.

In our school all the students and the teacher were Catholic. When I think about it, we were like a parochial school. We had a crucifix in the classroom and had Bible History classes twice a week and The Baltimore Catechism the other three days.

We probably got more religion than parochial school students. We also went to religion classes on Saturdays. On Sundays the pastor would ask catechism questions from the pulpit.

We got to participate at the county fair. I remember being in the exclamatory contest. There were also spelling bees.

Recess time we usually played with our classmates. The classes had their sections of the playground in which to play their choice of games. Of course, anyone who could play ball did so. The pump for our drinking water was in the way when we played, so we had to be careful. My sister, knocked out a tooth bumping into the pump.

At the end of the school term we had a picnic. It wasn’t just food. We also had races of every kind: running races, sack races, high jumping., stilt walking.

Name it, we did it. We got our exercise at recess, at picnics and walking to school. My home was 2 ½ miles from school. Think of it: a first grader walking 5 miles a day.

Since we were in school with brothers and sisters, we never tattled. Anyway, with my parents the teacher was always right. Respect for authority was upheld.

Bernadette is older than me and I went to the village school, not a one-room school, and we didn’t call it a wardrobe. We called it “the cloakroom.” In the early grades I didn’t know what cloaks were.

But Bernadette describes the thoroughly Catholic culture of my childhood. Our school stood next to the church, priest’s house, and parish cemetery. We ate lunch in the parish hall. During my primary grades, the priest came into school to teach catechism.

Nora Luetmer, OSB, wrote a master’s thesis titled, “The History of Catholic Education in the Diocese of St. Cloud: 1855-1965.” It gives more evidence of public schools in the county being treated like parochial schools. But during my school days—in the 1950s—changes started appearing.

By my seventh and eighth grades, the public school changed from just acting Catholic to becoming legally a Catholic parochial school funded by the parish. Some parishioners couldn’t understand why they should pay taxes for education twice.

Much more coming soon. Also more on women in the exceptional Fourth Gospel.

My next book soon, March 15, 2019

Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses is on the way. Emails tell me I haven't written about it enough. I learned that not all my readers know another book of mine is on the way. Beyond Parochial Faith is a memoir telling, not only about outer events in my life, but my inner evolution—how my faith evolved beyond my very-Catholic upbringing on a Stearns County farm.

My story includes a grandmother heading off lecherous men, my midlife meltdown, the historical Jesus and the Goddess, both clueless and astute seminarians, helpful and astute Benedictines, atheists, Teilhard de Chardin, and Carl Jung,

I define faith as trust in spiritual power. With this I join everyone else who accepts something other than outer things we can see, feel, hear, smell, or taste. A few people I know and more whose writings I read don't believe anything else exists. Called scientific materialists, they deny the existence of any spiritual reality.

Scientific materialists are created by religious preaching that makes no sense. I went through the same disbelief, but life soon told me that, whatever the failings of religions, we're not just cells and molecules.

Our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and expectations are far more important than the stuff of us felt by outer senses. Deep inside we are God-stuff. Religions suggest this with myths, but they do it in a way that misleads.

One consequence for the Catholic Church is the clergy sex abuse scandal. After the abuse summit called by Francis at the Vatican, I wrote a letter to National Catholic Reporter commenting on the outcome. Instead of taking effective action, the bishops responsible for this raging scandal cluelessly, stubbornly, clung to clergy culture. American bishops proposed that archbishops take care of it by investigating bishops.

NCR printed my letter. I can't find it online so I print it here:

"Vatican likely to empower archbishops on abuse claims against bishops" (NCR, Dec. 28-Jan. 10):
Clerics investigating clerics are expected to mend the clerical sex abuse scandal? With this suggestion, the U.S. bishops show they still don't get it. Expecting clerics to clean house in their own ranks is precisely what perpetuated the problem.

The only fix worth considering is to release control to laypeople and secular authorities. Conferences of the Catholic hierarchy produce only more controlling patriarchal claptrap.

Feminine energy is needed to balance clerical culture. If the prelates sincerely want reform, they will ordain women, let themselves be re-educated by women theologians, fill seminaries with women faculty, and practice praying to Her as well as to Him.

Thank you, NCR, for printing my non-conformist letters.
NCR plus good Catholics in my life keep me in the Church, which I left for a while but went back to. I invite you to watch my journey in Beyond Parochial Faith when it comes out.

November 16, 2018

Yesterday I sent my completed manuscript, Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses to my publishing company, Wipf and Stock. They publish mainly academic religious works, but mine is a memoir.

I combine my personal story of growing up German Catholic in Stearns County with my spiritual evolution. As a lifelong educator I aim to educate with this book too. It exposes my deepest vulnerabilities to encourage readers as they experience the pain of their own wounds.

I hope my story eases the spiritual work required of absolutely everyone—reflecting on our lives, honoring our pain, and grappling with life's questions. I reveal my secrets because seeing another's story somehow makes it easier to face one's own.

Beyond Parochial Faith weaves together alcoholic husband and mid-life meltdown, judgmental siblings and prudish aunts, the Goddess and the historical Jesus, the Father/Son myth and Carl Jung, atheists and Benedictines. I aim to inspire self-awareness, to open minds. to broaden horizons.

This book started four and a half years ago with a series of articles in Crossings, the magazine published by the Stearns History Museum. My writers group encouraged me to write more personal stories, which I did, but as I continued writing, I fell back into my usual intellectual reflection.

The result is this memoir that merges my life story with information challenging the religion I learned in my youth. I had to unlearn a lot. Now you can unlearn and learn with me.

Beyond Parochial Faith reemphasizes the message in my book published in 2007, God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky: Cherishing Christianity without Its Exclusive Claims. Its message is that Christianity mistakes its myth for history and its symbols for facts. With a few clicks on this site you can read excerpts from that book.

I neglected this blog while I was preparing it for publication. Now I plan to post here more often, probably some excerpts from Beyond Parochial Faith, which will come out in Spring 2019.

Intrigued by 4th Gospel

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 14:46:00 +0000

JFK & Mary Magdalene, May 10, 2019

John F. Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage. The book deserved the honor but not the purported author. Kennedy did conceive the idea and some of the content, but he did none of the research or writing. Most of that was done by Theodore Sorenson, whom Kennedy called his “research assistant.” Sorenson is the one who gave the book its “drama and flow,” according to historian Herbert Parmet. Ted Sorenson was essentially the ghostwriter of Profiles in Courage.

I see a parallel in the gospel I call the “Fourth Gospel” instead of the “Gospel of John.” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do not really name authors of the gospels. Each of these gospel names, for various reasons, developed while the gospels were being passed around. They became convenient tags for identifying and discussing the gospels, but they are not the authors’ names.

“John” was thought to be the only real name of the Fourth Gospel, because John is named at the beginning, in Jn 1: 6. But the intriguing character in this gospel is the Beloved Disciple. And that person was Mary Magdalene, according to Ramon Jusino, whose reasoning I presented in my post, “Mary Magdalene authored the 4th G.”

I made the mistake of titling the 2014 post, “Mary Magdalene wrote the 4th Gospel,” and some readers commented that a woman could not possibly have written it. They were right. She didn’t, but she led the community that produced the Fourth Gospel.

All gospels in the New Testament were oral works first, evolving in communities that told stories about Jesus. Finally, the stories were organized and written down. Jusino attributes authorship of the Fourth Gospel to Mary Magdalene by building on the work of Raymond Brown, premier expert on the Fourth Gospel. According to Brown, the gospel was authored by the anonymous Beloved Disciple mentioned in 7 puzzling passages.

I urge readers to follow my link to Jusino’s article in “Mary Magdalene authored the 4th G.” where I summarize his arguments. He turned my initial skepticism into unreserved acceptance of his conclusion. Now it seems obvious to me that Mary Magdalene’s name completes the Beloved Disciple passages and that her name was written out of the story by patriarchal redactors. Go to my post for Jusino’s evidence, but here I intend to show how naturally Mary Magdalene fits into the narrative.

Jn 19: 25-27:

Near the cross of Jesus there stood his mother, his mother’s sister Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Seeing his mother there with the disciple whom he loved, Jesus said to his mother, “Woman there is your son.”
In turn he said to the disciple, “There is your mother.” From that hour onward, the disciple took her into his care.

This passage needs little imagination to see that Mary Magdalene was originally the “disciple whom he loved” and who took care of his mother.

Jn 20: 1-2:

Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been moved away, so she ran off to Simon Peter and the other disciple (the one Jesus loved) and told them, “The Lord has been taken from the tomb! We don’t know where they have put him.”

What follows in Jn 20:3-9 is a race to the tomb between Peter and another (male) disciple, who wins the race. Then this odd sequence in Jn 20:10-11:

With this, the disciple went back home. Meanwhile, Mary stood weeping beside the tomb. Even as she wept, she stooped to peer inside . . .

The redactor had gotten Mary out of the picture by saying she ran off to tell the men. How did Mary suddenly come to be standing at the tomb?

What follows is one of the most touching stories for Christian believers in the gospels. Mary Magdalene sees a man she does not recognize as Jesus until he says, “Mary!” The redactor did not deprive Mary Magdalene of this moment, although he interrupted her poignant story by inserting a race to the tomb by men.

Apocryphal writings that were not chosen for the New Testament state that Peter envied Mary Magdalene’s closeness to Jesus. Jn 21: 20-24 also suggests that Peter envied her. The “disciple whom Jesus loved” asks,

“Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?”
When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”
Jesus said to him,” If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”

Although Jesus’ meaning is not clear, we infer that he tells Peter to stop competing.

The Fourth Gospel ends by saying the Beloved Disciple witnessed these things and “his” testimony is true. Jusino makes a convincing case for believing that that witness was Mary Magdalene.

I hope readers take the time to read “Mary Magdalene authored the 4th G.” and click on the link to Jusino’s article. His cogent arguments seem indisputable to me. I think the rare doubters I’ve encountered could not possibly have read the evidence and absorbed it.

Inserting Mary Magdalene’s name into the Fourth Gospel, particularly Jn 19: 25-27, Jn 20: 1-11 and Jn 21: 20-24, is the only way to make sense of the odd passages. It also helps to explain the unique perspective of the Fourth Gospel. Giving a man credit for a woman’s accomplishment is an old story repeated in history thousands of times.

Don’t miss reader comments following my original post at “Mary Magdalene authored the 4th G.” I think it provoked the most informed comments I’ve ever received on my blog. Note the varied responses to Dan Brown’s novels.

Next time I plan to reflect on how I imagine Mary Magdalene’s influence might account for the unique content of the Fourth Gospel.

Comment by Ron Howes, May 10, 2019:
We were led to believe the gospels were written by the actual disciples of Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and as a child attending Catholic school, nothing to dissuade that false idea was ever suggested. Until the writings of Paul around 77 A.D. [scholars date them shortly after 50 CE] Jesus was not mentioned in any writings at all, with the exception of a Roman historian, whose works were later disputed.
None of the authors of these gospels were alive, at least as adults, during the time of Jesus, and as we know, oral sources just get better and better with each retelling. Feeding 5,000 with half a dozen fish? I want to see the video.

Intrigued by 4th Gospel, June 13, 2019

The Fourth Gospel is different from the other canonical gospels. I disliked it when I was studying theology because, more than any other gospel, it turns Jesus from a man into God. My attitude was changed by a kernel of information in one of my theology books. Years later I used it in a writers’ group.

A Protestant minister started coming to our group and showed interest in my writings because they gave results of historical-critical research on the Bible. He looked disappointed, though, when he learned that I don’t believe Jesus is God. Quoting what’s usually called the Gospel of John, he said,

I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.

“The historical Jesus did not say these things,” I answered. I had learned that discourses in the Fourth Gospel bear the traits of a literary composition that reflect the thought of their literary creator. “Some form of myth creation was clearly involved,” I read in Raymond Collins’ book, Introduction to the New Testament. Literary creators put words into Jesus’ mouth.
The minister never came back to the writers’ group.

The new perspective identifying Mary Magdalene as the Beloved Disciple in the Fourth Gospel (JFK & Mary Magdalene) transformed my reading of it. It spurred me to look for elements to like. Some of my favorite Bible stories appear only in the Fourth, not in any other gospel.

One is the Last Supper account. The Fourth Gospel does not tell the story of the Eucharist being instituted. Very interesting. It may indicate that Mary Magdalene did not recollect it because it didn’t happen.

Walter Kasper, theologian and prominent cardinal close to Pope Francis, wrote a Christology that says the Last Supper passages “are definitely not authentic accounts; they show very clear signs of liturgical stylization.” This means the ritual evolved after Jesus’ death and then became gospel text.

Kasper does not decide whether they are based on history, but I believe, “This is my body . . . this is my blood,” are words put into Jesus’ mouth. Mary Magdalene would have remembered something so startling.

I have no difficulty believing that Jesus intuited his likely end and used the meal as a farewell to his disciples. What Mary Magdalene recollected was the foot-washing at the Last Supper. Only the Fourth tells that story. And I think it more likely that a woman would focus on the master washing the feet of his disciples to make a point.

Lengthy discourses by Jesus mark the Fourth Gospel. From biblical scholars we learn that his discourses follow a pattern established by a female predecessor. Jesus’ sayings in the Fourth Gospel have much in common with Sophia’s sayings in the books of Proverbs, Sirach, Baruch, and Wisdom. I invite readers to a past post that shows how much Sophia and Jesus sayings resemble each other.

Sandra Schneiders gave me another good reason to cherish this gospel as a feminine gospel in an address at Newman Center. She finds in the Fourth Gospel four strong women, not one-dimensional women but women capable of rational intelligence who interact with Jesus unmediated by men. They are more tough-minded, unconventional, courageous, committed, and powerful than many men in the gospels.

The Samaritan woman at the well (Chapter 4) converts many in her Samaritan town.
Martha of Bethany (Chapter 11) leads her household, and her confession, “You are the Messiah, the son of God” in Jn 11:27 surpasses in believable conviction, says Schneiders, the same words from Peter in Mt 16:16.
Mary of Bethany (Chapter 12) anoints the feet of Jesus. When Judas protests her extravagance, Jesus defends her.
Most impressive is Mary Magdalene, the first to witness the risen Christ (Chapter 20).
These women protagonists break the mold of stereotypical portrayals of women.

Even more illuminating is a reflection by a Hindu writer, Ravi Ravindra. He unlocks the true meaning of the Fourth Gospel to me as no Christian author ever did.

Although an outsider to the Christian tradition, Ravindra is “much moved” by the gospel. In it, Jesus speaks as a mysterious higher voice, a “transmitting conduit” for “the deepest Self of every human being, the very kernel of a person.” This echoes Carl Jung’s interpretation of Christ—the symbol of divinity at the core of every person. Ravindra warns against using the I AM passages as proof texts to say Jesus is the only divine son, an exclusive savior. That, he says, is “based on a misunderstanding of the sacred texts, . . .”

The Fourth Gospel leaves Revindra “in an uplifted internal state.” And Ravindra’s reflection does the same for me. He shows us that sacred texts are the voice of Spirit to all humanity, not only to particular religions.

Church hypocrisy

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 17:51:00 +0000

POLITICAL HIERARCHY, August 21, 2019

Religion and politics are intertwined. Religion is not the same as spirituality, particularly if we’re talking about institutional religion.

The political structure of the Catholic Church works against spiritual goals that should be the main concerns of religion—kindness, fairness, and compassion. Instead, Catholic hierarchy wants to tell people what to believe and what to do. It wants to judge what’s good and what’s sinful.

Pope Francis’ dislike of judging sins and his focus on loving kindness do not sit well with Catholic conservatives, who flourished under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. They have veered further right since then. I believe Benedict resigned because he realized he could not fix financial and sexual corruption rampant in Church hierarchy. Pope Frances was voted in to reform it, but he receives steady pressure from right-wingers.

The extreme right is led by Cardinal Raymond Burke, who claims to know the “authentic” teachings of the Catholic Church. His anti-Francis views are spewed on Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and the National Catholic Register.

The extreme right generally stands against empowering women, against gays, against married priests, against contraception, against other religions, for capital punishment, for the Latin Mass and priests facing away from the congregation, and for the privileged status of priests.
Clerical privilege is what caused the sex abuse crisis, according to most analysts.

The right likes sin-talk—other people’s sins. Pope John Paul kept taking money from sex criminals, most blatantly the Legionaries of Christ, after being informed of their crimes. Yet, Pope Benedict blamed the sex abuse crisis on modern secularity and the sexual revolution. In such acts, Catholic hierarchy perfectly exemplifies the religious “frauds” and “hypocrites” whom Jesus’ condemns in Matthew 23.

While elements of the Catholic hierarchy spew anti-Francis rhetoric (because of his supposed “heresies”), Catholic officials also bemoan Catholics leaving the Church. At the same time, they balk at Francis wanting to bring back into the fold divorced Catholics who remarried.

How that goes over shows in these words from a former student of mine. She wrote this after reading my memoir, Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses.

I found your book to be very interesting on two levels. On one level, I felt empathy for all the psychological and physical struggles you endured while still being a parent, educator, writer. I have gone through some struggles, too, but have been lucky in health, thankfully, so can't imagine adding all of your physical issues and coming out ahead like you have.

Your thoughts on spiritual issues struck me in a very personal way, because I also had many of the same thoughts, but did no research as you had. I went to 8 years at a Catholic school and then to the College of St. Benedict. (They didn't have my major, so I didn't graduate from there.)

I asked the priests and nuns many questions regarding my confusion on believing some of the teachings, dogma, etc. I was told once by a nun not to ask the priest any more questions. I was also told more than once that I was a "doubting Thomas."

So, when I read your book, I connected with the spiritual part of it and your concept of Jesus being a prophet, charismatic human being, revolutionary of the time, etc. I do not attend a formal church as you do, but feel very spiritual from the inside....so there again, I connected.

I was divorced and didn't feel I needed to go through men to annul my marriage. Felt it was personal and I would deal with it. I got remarried and had a wonderful husband for 25 years that my kids loved. He was there for all the births of the grandchildren and he was their favorite grandfather. He died of cancer 3 years ago.

The grands are now receiving 1st Communion, etc., but I am not welcome to receive that sacrament. Talked to a priest about that. He said I would have to get an annulment for the 1st marriage, and confess to a sin for the second one.

Goodbye again, Catholic Church. My 2nd marriage was not a sin, and I will never confess it as such.... nor will I ever go to confession. I can talk to God myself. Don't need a man to do it for me.

I also always felt frustrated about the roles of males, and lack of roles of females. Always wondered why all of the writings, positions of authority, makers of rules were all men!!! So, there again, I connected with your writings.

I will read your book again, because I read it very quickly and know I missed many areas that need more thought.

Cheryl.

I applaud Cheryl’s decision to leave despite my decision to stay in the Catholic Church. This writing gives evidence of her courage and sound moral bearings, which put to shame the behavior of Catholic officials.

CHURCH HYPOCRISY, February 23, 2019

Again I offer an excuse for not writing here more often. I've been preoccupied with getting my memoir ready for publication. That consumes my writing energy--how many hours it takes amazes me--but I keep up with my usual reading of magazines and newspapers. For Catholic news, National Catholic Reporter is tops. The latest NCR turns my attention to the following.

Officials in the Church finally are responding to outside pressure and removing the cloak of secrecy hiding their sexual misdeeds. German Cardinal Reinhard Marx admitted that Church files documenting sexual crimes were destroyed or never created. Victims' rights were "trampled underfoot."

The word "hypocrisy" now is heard in official mea culpas.
An excerpt from a new book, In the Closet of the Vatican, contains facts that surprised me, despite decades of reading about sex abuse in the Church. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was going on. I didn't.

Author Frédéric Martel spent four years investigating, "living immersed in the Church" by installing himself "inside the Vatican" one week every month. The outcome is this book. He writes,

The Vatican has one of the biggest gay communities in the world, . . .

According to Martel, what bothers Pope Francis--and I think it should bother us--is not that the cardinals and bishops in the Vatican are gay but that they publicly denounce homosexuality while actively practicing it in secret.

. . . the dizzying hypocrisy of those who advocate a rigid morality while at the same time having a companion, affairs, and sometimes escorts.

In Minnesota, John Nienstedt, Archbishop of St. Paul, demonstrated such hypocrisy, although not with a regular companion. Before a statewide election on gay marriage, he led a campaign against it by sending a DVD to every Catholic household in the Catholic parishes of Minnesota at the cost of a million dollars funded by an anonymous donor (Would that such largesse be used to relieve suffering!)

Martel confirms an observation of mine:

the more homophobic a priest is, the greater the chance that he himself will be homosexual.

After Nienstedt's campaign failed, I learned from two personal sources that Nienstedt himself was undoubtedly gay. Subsequently, his reputation has been completely destroyed amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

Finally Church officials are admitting some things: that secrets must be aired and victims compensated, that Church officials cannot police themselves and clear guidelines are needed for bringing prelates to justice.

The biggest lesson has not been learned or even talked about.

Martel writes that "the broadly homosexual dimension"is key to understanding "facts that have stained the history of the Vatican for decades . . ." Among them he lists the disastrous prohibition on artificial contraception by Pope Paul VI and "unfathomable misogyny of many cardinals and bishops."
And, "alas," he writes, homosexuality is one key to explaining institutionalized cover-up of sexual crimes. Martel himself is gay and likes the gay men in the Vatican, but he gets it. I also like gay men and my book reveals one reason.

I admire Martel's insight as far as it goes. Neither he nor other commentators on the sex scandal have seen its connection to the exclusively male image of God imposed by the Vatican in liturgical language.

Think about it. Misogyny (hatred of women and girls) and God having to be lord, father, he, him, his without fail. Of course, they're connected. So thoroughly has the male god been drummed into people that my computer rebels every time I write "She" in reference to God.

I don't believe the Catholic Church can clean up its sex scandal without cleaning up its sexist God-talk.

March 1, 2019

On Sunday I went to Mass with the Mary Magdalene, First Apostle community, after which we discussed In the Closet of the Vatican, the sex scandal, and my blog post (above).

Malcolm (see his comment in last post) asked, “Why are men in the Vatican misogynists?” Good question.

He pointed out that you’d think men who belong to minorities (gays) could be expected to sympathize with other groups who are marginalized.

The “unfathomable misogyny of Vatican cardinals and bishops” is both enlightening and befuddling. Gay men I know seem to understand the feminine perspective better than straight men.

I experience gay men as talented and creative, less focused on sports, more appreciative of the arts, and more supportive of women than many straight men.

Gays don’t hate women. So why are cardinals and bishops in the Vatican misogynist?

Is it because the hierarchs have given themselves privileges? They claim that ordination sets them on a level higher than ordinary humans. Excluding women from their exclusive club worked for years.

A Benedictine friend bemoaned the Church’s abuse scandal. I confess I’m glad of it.

The Church hierarchy is being called to account. That's good. The Catholic Church does not have hegemony where it once did. That's good. People are thinking more critically about religion and spirituality. That's good. Spirituality is becoming less tied to specific religions in localities. That's good.

Now we need to evolve to the ultimate lesson taught by Church sex scandals—the need to stop worshiping lords.

Catholic teachings change, January 11, 2019

In a conversation about the Catholic Church's infallibility doctrine, someone insisted that its teachings have never changed. This claim upholds its infallibility doctrine, but the claim is easy to refute. I quickly compiled this list.

The Church changed its teaching on slavery. In Paul's Letter to Philemon, he assumes that the slaveholder Philemon rightfully owns his slave Onesimus but urges Philemon to treat Onesimus kindly. Today the Church teaches that slavery is intrinsically sinful or always wrong.

The Church changed its teaching on usury by first saying it's always wrong to saying we ought to charge interest fairly and reasonably.

The Church changed its teaching on cosmology. I need only mention Galileo, whom the Inquisition found guilty of heresy and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life for saying the earth revolves around the sun instead of the sun revolving around the earth.

The Church changed its teachings on women and this change continues. Hierarchical statements in the past disrespected women to the point of doubting women have souls. Today official rhetoric professes to respect women, but actions demonstrate unwillingness to share power with them. Unofficial attitudes range from ignorant bias to pressuring the official Church for more women in decision-making roles. Most Church faithful disagree with the official ban on ordination of women.

The Church continues to change its positions on gender and sexual matters, including the hot-button issues of gays, contraception, divorce, and women's ordination. Again, people outside of the hierarchy or magisterium are leading the way.

Decades ago, international aid organizations started realizing the need to listen to and learn from people in communities they wanted to help. Catholic officials need to do this, but fiercely they resist. I think their resistance is driven by fear and hatred of women's sexuality and power.

So far the magisterium still controls; Vatican bureaucracies remain in place. But they can't prevail much longer. A shift away from top-down decisions is happening in all society and affecting the institutional Church.

Clergy sex abuse finally prods lay Catholics, especially women--as in secular society--to reject the authority of the Vatican. Individuals bypass it and make their own decisions on deeply personal matters. Inevitably, lay Catholics will triumph and change official positions on issues that inflame public discourse.

The question is, how long will it take? And how many more Catholics will leave in the meantime?

Changes on issues inflaming public debate work hand in hand with changes in teachings on divinity and our relationship with it. Libraries are filled with them. Catholic educators today include science and other religions in reflections on transcendence. I detect less focus on the Father/Son myth and more focus on teachings of Jesus. I hope this leads away from worshiping God-images to building healthy relationships.

Although the Catholic Church is changing, its pace is too slow for me. I don't go to Catholic sources when I seek spiritual guidance, but my Catholic heritage accompanies me always. I find that, when an author affects me deeply, he or she often was nurtured by the Catholic Church and then moved on. It suggests that others are walking a path like mine.

For religion it is the best of times and the worst of times. As the shrinking globe feeds religious imagination a richer diet, it is forced to grow beyond the restricted images of one religion. Traditional religions are giving way to generic or what I call secular spirituality, independent of religion. It is an exhilarating time to live.

Epiphany (revealing moment)

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 19:30:00 +0000

When I was growing up, Catholics believed that Epiphany celebrates three kings who visited Jesus in the manger. Today the word epiphany is more pregnant with meaning. Various definitions of epiphany show its intangible quality—flash, insight, inspiration, realization. Epiphanies are sudden flashes of awakening to the inner realm.

To illustrate, I am re-posting a story I wrote about in this space before.
In Fingerprints of God, Barbara Bradley Hagerty never speaks the word “epiphany” but that’s what she writes about, reluctantly. She was a little embarrassed, “spooked,” to find herself experiencing transcendence.

An NPR correspondent, Hagerty explores whether science can find physical evidence of God in her book, Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality. She wanted to know,

Does brain activity reflect encounters with a spiritual dimension?

I’m glad she used terms like “spiritual dimension,” “transcendence” and “spiritual reality” and never reduced God to a humanlike individual or god.

Belief in matter-only dominates science—93% of scientists believe God is a delusion conjured up by the brain. Spiritual matters, it’s assumed, are no subject for scientific observation, but in the last 20 years some neuroscientists have started looking for physical evidence of the spiritual world.

Is God only the result of chemical processes? Of a God spot in the brain? Only the activity of nerve cells? Or do people actually touch the Transcendent? Hagerty concludes that science can’t prove or disprove God, but she believes there’s something there.

There is a lobe in the brain that apparently registers awareness of Spirit and there is a phenomenon called temporal lobe epilepsy. Some scientists to believe that religious greats like Moses, Joan of Arc, Mohammed, Teresa of Avila, Joseph Smith, the Buddha, and Paul on the way to Damascus had this condition. But Hagerty doesn’t buy it. She thinks the temporal lobe mediates spiritual experience instead of causing it.

She illustrates. Turn off a radio and you don’t hear the music but it’s still being transmitted by the station. Just so, Spirit is always transmitting, but some brains turn it off or have the volume so low it’s hard to hear.

Others are sensitive to it, attuned to it, and a few have the volume so high they actually may need medical help. Hagerty thinks people with better antennae have more transcendent moments.

Right here is the crux of disagreement between non-believers and believers. Believers can be well aware of religious tyranny, fraud, and foolishness but not dismiss religion entirely. We think some spiritual entity initiates transcendent events. We believe epiphanies come from a reality outside of our individual consciousness, although we can cultivate habits that develop better antennae to receive them.

We can’t be shaken from our profound conviction of Something Beyond this surface world, and we base this on experience. The philosopher/psychologist William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience quotes such persons:

God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person.
God surrounds me like a physical atmosphere.

And he comments about this conviction:

These feelings of reality . . . are, as a rule, much more convincing than results established by mere logic ever are. . . . if you do have them . . . you cannot help regarding them as genuine perceptions of truth, as revelations of a kind of reality which no adverse argument, however unanswerable by you in words, can expel from your belief.

James addresses rationalist pooh-poohing of anything spiritual.

If you have intuitions at all, they come from a deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which rationalism inhabits. . . . something in you absolutely knows that [the transcendent moment] must be truer than any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, however clever, that may contradict it.

Because William James looks at spirituality as a disinterested observer, his conclusions have more credibility for me than those of any religious writer. The same applies to Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s Fingerprints of God. Both console and uplift me.

Vincent Smiles commented, "The notion that scientists reject belief in God because of science is not accurate." For more of his comment, go to Epiphany vs. materialism.

Dismantling Male Domination

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 19:16:00 +0000

Women, Blacks, & Violence, April 9, 2019

Time magazine has a great article by Henry Louis Gates, America's Second Sin, and starting this evening, PBS presents the series, Reconstruction: America after The Civil War. In article and television broadcast, Gates informs us with amazing facts about Reconstruction that were unknown to me until recently. Also, I'm convinced after 16 years of supervising student teachers, unknown to high school teachers of American history. I don't blame the teachers; I blame our still-racist society.

Reconstruction raised African Americans from slavery to dignified positions in society. They became voters, educators, and legislators. Then, the federal government gave in to Southern states and they rolled back the gains of people freed by the 14th and 15th Amendments. One tiny fact. In 1898, 130,000 black men were registered to vote in Louisiana. By 1904, only 6 years later, the number had dwindled to 1,342.

Whenever I hear or read stories of Blacks acting with courage to counter white supremacy, I am inspired to keep working for women's equality in religion. All stories of overcoming injustice are related. In the Catholic Church, most voices demanding equality for women support women's ordination. A German Benedictine prioress raised a stir by doing this.

But supporting women's ordination is not enough. In a letter printed in National Catholic Reporter, I wrote that cleaning up clergy sex abuse needs to include cleaning up sexist God-talk.

Maybe we're taking a turn to justice, because the highest levels of Church authority can no longer deny the Church's misogyny and violence against women. Pope Francis acknowledged the dirty secret that priests have been sexually assaulting nuns.

Thanks to the #MeToo movement gone worldwide for making it impossible to keep these secrets any longer. But unveiling clergy sex abuse is only the beginning. To overturn inequality for women, the whole system of patriarchy needs to be overturned.

Patriarchy keeps all systems of injustice in place by endorsing unequal power. We need to topple the exclusively-male God-images perpetuating the injustices. Praying to Her needs to become as normal and right as praying to Him.

Don't forget to watch Reconstruction: America after The Civil War. In my area it's on Channel 2 at 8:00 Central Time.

Women's peacemaking ignored, March 28, 2019

I’m profoundly moved by women’s struggles for justice around the world.

Editors and writers of a women’s magazine at the Vatican quit the magazine in protest. Its founder, Lucetta Scaraffia, sent an open letter to Pope Francis explaining their action. Woman Church World, the Vatican’s only publication run by women, has been published monthly by L’Osservatore Romano since 2012.

The new editor, explained Scaraffia, tried to control the magazine’s content by selecting women for the staff who would follow the line dictated by men. Pressure on the current staff increased when they reported that nuns had been sexually abused and were being economically exploited by priests.

PBS just concluded an outstanding series—Women, War, & Peace. The unbelievable courage and persistence of women struggling for peace against men determined to make war and ignore women brought tears to my eyes. The 4-part series documents neglected stories of heroic struggles by women in Northern Ireland, Palestine, Egypt, and Bangladesh.

In each fight, women recognized the need for collaboration with perceived enemies and acted on it. From opposite camps women reached out to each other and formed organizations to bond with their counterparts. Men followed, but not enough to sway official deals.

In Northern Ireland, former senator George Mitchell and Hillary Clinton praised the women of Northern Ireland for their peace work, but in the end the peace deal brokered by Mitchell, the famed Good Friday Agreement, demoted the work of women.

Palestinians have been living under Israeli occupation since 1967. As the years pass, the plight of Palestinians grows no better. It could be said that it grows steadily worse and the injustice reaches its lowest point with the alliance of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump.

But the Women, War, & Peace segment on Palestine informs us of events leading up to the Oslo Peace Accords. During the first intifada in 1987, imprisoned Palestinian women formed bonds that strengthened them to lay the groundwork for peace. But the famed photo showing Bill Clinton presiding over Mahmoud Abbas shaking hands with Yitzhak Rabin includes only men. No credit is given to women, who were working on a deal that would have been far better for Palestinians.

The heartbreaking story of Hend Nafea in Egypt almost prompted me to turn off the TV because it was so painful. I know I could not have endured the torture. Repeatedly she endured assaults but continued working for the human rights of others.

I encourage readers to go online and learn more. Again and again women’s contributions are bypassed or made invisible. Fights continue and women continue to work for peace. The planet depends on their efforts.

A must-see for central Minnesotans on April 4: Esteemed theologian Elizabeth Johnson is coming to St. John’s. Her book, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, strikes me as a principal study in all theological discourse.

Dismantling Male Domination, December 3, 2018

My book, Beyond Parochial Faith: A Catholic Confesses, will come out in spring, but another book with an essay of mine just came out at Thanksgiving. Karen Tate is the editor of this anthology.

Awakening the Feminine...
Dismantling Domination to Restore Balance on Mother Earth
JUST LAUNCHED FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
Third in the "Manifesting a New Normal" Series

SPECIAL HOLIDAY PRICING for AWAKEN THE FEMININE !!
$15.00 through December 31 (Including S&H in the US only)
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Manifesting a New Normal Series...

Cardinals & #MeToo, October 3, 2018

When I saw the idea in National Catholic Reporter, I thought, "Impossible." But making women cardinals seemed much more plausible when I read the facts given there.

The rule that cardinals must be ordained is only 100 years old. It was part of a new Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1917 to curb abuses in naming cardinals.

Some men had little knowledge of theology, and others were, well, very young.

One was only 8 years old.

John Paul II wanted to appoint a woman cardinal. I can't think of a less likely pope to do that. Timothy Dolan reported on EWTN that John Paul offered it to Mother Teresa, but she didn't want it. This story was corroborated by Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI.

The list of eminent women theologians suggested as candidates makes another good argument in favor of making women cardinals. I mention only those whose names are familiar to me: Elizabeth Johnson, Margaret Farley, M.Shawn Copelend, Phyllis Zagano.

I still think it can't happen until hell freezes over, but I like putting out ideas to subvert the common mindset that automatically places men as authorities over women.

****************

I aimed to subvert the common mindset in a letter to the StarTribune of Minneapolis last Sunday, September 30. Adding to the discussion, "How to fill the churches: reconciling reason and faith," I said that God was imagined a woman in prehistoric cultures. Myths portrayed the supreme authority in heaven as a great lady.

Before Hera became the jealous wife of Zeus, . . . She sat on the throne with Zeus at her side. God was known as "Queen of Heaven," "Her Holiness," . . .

Everything changes when God is imagined to be a woman rather than a man.

Greek historian Herodotus wrote that in Egypt, "women go in the marketplace, transact affairs and occupy themselves with business, while the husbands stay home and weave."

Imagine that.
It's actually not so hard to imagine today because roles in some marriages are already reversed. An American living in Stockholm, Sweden, wrote in Time magazine that he was startled by the number of dads there parenting kids full-time. I have seen the same here and applaud men brave enough to do it.

Thank Goodness, we have made some strides toward equality but what a distance to go! The most pernicious sexist habits happen in church--always, without exception, referring to God as He, Him, or His, and never as She or Her.

Sexist God-talk has got to go if Christians seriously want to address #MeToo.

Awaken the Feminine, December 17, 2018

Today promises to be a sunny day, unlike the gloomy past month. I sorely missed the sun hiding behind clouds day after day. While preparing a Christmas card for my nephew and his family in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, I realized they have an even longer darkness surrounding winter solstice. I wondered how difficult it is for him, born and bred in Minnesota.

Years ago I overcame the blues of sun-deprivation at this time of year by placing it in the context of spirituality and religion. While I was trying to be an atheist, I learned about non-Christian religions. My discoveries appear in my essay for Awaken the Feminine!: Dismantling Domination to Restore Balance on Mother Earth.

Wanting distance from Christian stuff but drawn to spiritual content, I read about the pagan religions I had been trained to despise and got surprising revelations about the Goddess. I learned that human beings had prayed to a Great Mother before the Father/Son myth started.
Accounts of Mater Magna, the Great Mother, creator of the universe, taught me that She manifests the feminine face of the Divine. She is simply an alternative way to think of what is called “God.” That She reigned under many names in pre-historic times obliterated the Judaeo-Christian claim to being the first monotheistic religion.

Goddess myths center divinity more in the earth than in the sky. The Goddess envelopes the sun in her body every evening and sends it forth in the morning.

Christmas copies birthday feasts honoring pagan gods. Before gospels were written about the life of the Nazarene Jesus, pagan gods had twelve disciples, died and rose in three days, were commemorated in rituals involving wine and bread, and so on. Promoting their own feast, Christians declared that Jesus Christ is the real sun-god—“the real light which gives light to everyone." John 8:12 has Jesus saying, "I am the light of the world.

Having learned alternatives to the Christian myth enriches rather than spoils my celebration of Christmas. It also makes me more tolerant of the way our secular, commercial world treats it.

When displays of Christmas lights appeared before Christmas, I used to strongly resist. I wanted the world to begin Christmas celebrations on the Day, as we did it in St. Martin in the 1950s. But it’s during these dark days before the solstice that the world needs more light. I’m sure that this, and not only the commercial motive of making money, accounts for Christmas lights going up a month before Christmas Day and coming down soon after Christmas Day.

I leave my lights up much longer just because I was trained that way. But I see that after the solstice on December 21, people are relieved and happy that the sun stays with us longer and longer. So the artificial lights come down.

Whatever connects us with Transcendence seems good to me.

Trump Disaster

noreply@blogger.com (Jeanette Blonigen Clancy) — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 16:00:00 +0000

Democratic socialism, September 2018

I’m sharing another of my published opinion pieces, this one in the St. Cloud Times. An email friend told me it was in. That’s usually how I find out it’s been published, because I don’t get the paper until days later from a kind neighbor. This arrangement saves both the environment and my pocketbook.

The Times used my suggested title— “Socialism” is not a dirty word.” I explain that democratic socialism does not reject capitalism but checks its vices—power-grabbing, union-busting profiteering at the expense of all citizens with less money and power.

The U.S. already has forms of socialism because our taxes fund transportation, police, schools, FEMA, Social Security, Medicare, and many more socialist institutions. They provide for the welfare of all and check the power of capitalist bosses to control what rightly belongs to everyone—like our government.

Without socialist checks, Washington D.C. becomes an enemy of the people instead of our protector.

During this time of Trump, people of conscience must do what we can to resist destruction of socialist protections: clean air, water, and soil, safe drugs, health care, protections for consumers, workers, elderly, disabled, and marginalized persons. All are at risk today.

Democratic socialism tempers strict capitalism with kindness and justice. This is where religion and politics intersect.

********************
I just listened to MPR Presents, The Making of Male Dominance. It quickly summarizes sexist developments over millennia, back to pre-history.
I would have liked to hear more about religion's role in this, but my greatest criticism concerns language. They call humanity "man." How could people working to topple male dominance fail to recognize this vocabulary of male dominance?

Obscenely Rich, August 2, 2018

My recent letter in the St.Cloud Times got such favorable response that I decided to post it here. But it can leave a person despairing for our country, so I'd like readers to scroll down to the post below to see reasons for hope. Excerpts of my Times letter:

One sentence in “The Politics of Politics” stands out for me: “We cannot be jealous but are to be grateful to those who do well and not punish them with punitive taxes.”
It displays a naïve concept of economic reality in the U.S.
Multi-millionaires and billionaires hold their wealth in assets that are not taxable. . . .
The belief that cutting taxes boosts the whole economy contradicts reality. . . . Strenuous efforts fail to find any benefit for most people.
The top 1 percent own more than the bottom 90 percent combined. . . . Big Money buys influence in D.C. . . .
Raising taxes for those who are doing obscenely well would not be punitive. It would be wise.

My letter in the Times spells out how our national government tilts toward the rich and powerful, but it inspires little hope. Again I remind readers to scroll down for reminders that all is not bleak.

Injustice has always existed in our national government. From the very beginning it privileged the privileged and burdened the needy by, for instance, excluding women, Blacks, and persons without property from playing a role as citizens. Our current president and administration only do it more blatantly and extremely.

But that rouses ordinary citizens to action. Just this morning I heard about citizens countering NIMBY (not in my back yard) resistance to building apartments in neighborhoods with single-family homes.

A woman who saw how NIMBY was fueling the housing crisis in San Francisco decided she did not have to settle for being angry. She could do something to relieve homelessness. And thus began the YIMBY (yes, in my back yard) movement. It assures fearful homeowners that building affordable housing in stable neighborhoods does not threaten their economic security. YIMBY has spread around the country—including Minneapolis—and even to Australia.

Similar stories of volunteers springing to action show grass-roots in motion as never before. And that gives me hope.

Food Aid, April 28, 2018

Having just given the rich hefty tax cuts, the Trump administration and Republican Congress now are bent on reducing aid to have-nots in sundry ways. NCR editorialized:

While cable pundits are buzzing about Stormy Daniels, the most vulnerable Americans now face the prospect of losing critical nutrition support for their families.

The editorial bemoans the draft of the 2018 farm bill that proposes cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Rep. Colin Peterson of MN said it would drop 8 million people—children, seniors, disabled, and those who aid them—from getting food aid. Authors of the draft are reconsidering because of intense opposition.

It’s already an old story during this administration. It and Congress propose outrageous attacks on vulnerable people, then have to back down in the face of vigorous objection. Citizens have power during this critical time, but only if we keep paying attention.

We must not accept as normal what is now going on in D.C. This president and this Congress do not represent citizens fairly. They got their positions of power through gerrymandering and misleading propaganda paid for by Big Money. We need to keep calling out against injustice. Only if we are vigilant can we save our country from its immoral politicians.

Responding to proposed food-stamp cuts, a Benedictine friend mourns, "What next?"

I draw strength from a psychic friend who sees the sun rising because of Trump's presidency. When we've sunk so low, the only direction to go is up.

But we have to make it happen, with our attention if nothing else. Staying informed, paying attention, is not doing nothing. Our mind activity alone can help to make things happen.

Migrants on the Cross, March 31, 2018

From Good Friday to Easter, Christian church-goers memorialize the transformation of a man named Jesus who lived in Palestine. The Apostles’ Creed says he descended into hell and rose again from the dead.

From Joseph Campbell I learned of innumerable myths around the world with an array of Christ-figures whose lives resemble the Jesus story. The myths tell of transformation—dying and rising—often through the death and resurrection of a god or goddess. Campbell called this ubiquitous theme “the monomyth” of ancient civilizations.

The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl evokes Christ on the cross by sacrificing himself and descending to the Underworld. His heart then rises to the heavens and becomes the star Venus.

A Mother/Daughter myth of dying and rising balances the Father/Son myth of Christ. Persephone, the daughter, is abducted by Hades, who rules the underworld where the dead live. After her descent to the dead, her mother Demeter becomes enraged and withers the earth into a wintry death.

Demeter and Hades come to an agreement. He lets Persephone ascend to earth and live there for two-thirds of the year. When she rises, Demeter allows the earth to reawaken and it bursts into the fertile growth of spring.

Persephone’s descent and dwelling awhile in the underworld symbolizes a drop into the unconscious, where she is transformed. We all are transformed during moments—sometimes lasting years—when our divinity within guides us through perilous circumstances.

Striking examples of cross and resurrection today are the journeys of migrants. Imagine the terror of facing their horrific crossings over sea and land and then perhaps to meet hostility at their destination. If they experience a final resurrection on this earth, it is hard-won.

Our small deaths and resurrections pale by comparison, but recognizing the parallels with their journeys may help us to empathize appropriately.

Bottom-up power, August 20, 2018

I neglected this blog to work on my memoir, but I continued getting opinion pieces published elsewhere—recently in the Minneapolis StarTribune about righting patriarchal wrongs. To provoke awareness of what’s been done to women, I wrote, “Consider an ad displaying a man’s genital area clad in a clinging fabric.”

I urge women to sensitize themselves to male bias in advertising all aspects of society and then to educate men in healthy relating.

Yesterday, the St. Cloud Times titled my piece: Citzens gain power when they work together.

The real voter fraud is blocking people from voting by expensive ID requirements and other restrictions, obviously, to suppress bottom-up power. . . .

The Consumer Financial Protection Agency, formed during President Obama’s term to protect consumers . . . was taking three to five enforcement actions against powerful wrongdoers each month. After Donald Trump took charge, its enforcement actions dropped to zero. . . .

But this bleak picture tells only half the story. As top-down power surges, bottom-up power is roused to action. . . .
In the new wave of sensitivity, . . . Minneapolis police now are listening to the homeless and finding out what they need. . . .
“Focusing on what’s wrong leads to despair. . . . We can infuse hope, living by Paul Wellstone’s words: We all do better when we all do better.

The Good of Trump, July 20, 2018

I'm gratified by the scene in America today. Sounds like a Trump-fan, huh? How can Clancy be saying this?

I'm serious. What's going on in our country gives me hope. Never before have so many Americans defended Blacks, Muslims, and immigrants. Never before so many men nurturing children and doing housework. Never before so many women and people of color entering politics. Never before so much concern about unequal wealth and power, disgust with Big Money, awareness of discrimination in our criminal justice system, and concern for victims.

At the same time, macho toughness seems to be rising not only in our country but around the world. Victor Orban in Hungary and Morawiecki in Poland turn away immigrants, Putin persecutes opponents in Russia and kills them elsewhere, Duterte slaughters citizens in the Philippines, Xi Jinping tortures political opponents in China, el-Sissi in Egypt and Erdogan in Turkey jail dissidents, Kim Jong Un tortures citizens and executes rivals in North Korea.

Trump expresses admiration for these strongmen, he calls them friends, but American citizens are repulsed by strongman brutality and cruelty. As they come into stark relief, they engender reverse impulses. People are waking up to the ugliness of making enemies of people who are different from us and disagree with us.

The story of Americans insisting that immigrant children must not be torn from their parents shows the rise of compassion and understanding of otherness. Stuff going on in our country and elsewhere pains me, but it forces awareness and I believe this ultimately leads to good. When we hit bottom, the only way to go is up.

July 22

As I read about the administration's dirty, less well-known policies that persecute refugees, workers, consumers, and marginalized of all kinds, it becomes a challenge to keep my chin up. Seeing things from a long-range perspective helps.

Political Worries, January 31, 2019

My outdoor thermometer registered 32 degrees below zero about 6:20 yesterday morning. I'm fortunate because I don't have to leave my house. On I-94 I saw traffic moving, less heavy than usual but not by much, it seemed to me—people going to work or doing necessary chores, I'm sure.

Pre-publication tasks have taken my mind away from blogging but not from political events. On MPR I heard a political scientist review our history since 1969 and express concern for the state of our nation today.

In the January 11 to 24 issue of National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters wrote,

The country is headed into some rough and uncharted waters. We Americans have not witnessed such a direct threat to democratic norms since, well, never.
This is worse than Watergate, worse than the McCarthy hearings. Our nation has faced other kinds of crisis, from the Civil War to the Great Depression, and in those times the constancy of our democratic norms has been a source of solidarity.

He expressed doubt that Republican leaders today would act as courageously as Republican leaders during the Watergate era.

I take heart from the editorial in the same issue of NCR, which quotes a roster of respected conservative columnists, all critics of Trump: Michael Gerson, George Will, the late Charles Krauthammer, and David Brooks. I consider them true conservatives, whom I distinguish from right-wingers.

In the latest development—new ones come every day—Trump lashed out at intelligence chiefs who corrected his false claims. He called them "naive" and suggested they "go back to school." Some people are outraged by his foolishness. Not I.
I laugh at the image of a kindergartner mouthing off at college professors.

Although I title this post "Political worries," I'm less worried than most. I think, finally, Trump's boast that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose voters, which so far seemed accurate, will prove less than prophetic.
As the foolishness and cruelty of right-wing ideology grows impossible to miss, it is bound eventually to be undone.

Looking for the silver cloud, I see how this unsavory Trump saga has uncovered trends in our political system that need mending. Only when the public can clearly see what's wrong can remedies occur. Signs of public awakening appear for eyes to see.

Awareness is growing that capitalist markets left unregulated cause severe injustice. Groups historically excluded from power have been roused to action. They're entering politics.
Women and other marginalized groups are smarter about societal norms because they've had to swim in waters not of their own culture. We can realistically expect more diversity in political leaders to produce good outcomes.

When things reach their lowest point, there's nowhere to go but up. Trump is not the cause of what's wrong; he's the effect. And also the billboard showing what needs to change.

Before the 2016 election, a psychic friend received the image of the sun rising at the horizon, about to rise over it. After that election, she saw the sun higher, above the horizon and still rising.

The picture may be bleak now, but I have faith in our system surviving and growing stronger from it. My generation will not see the far-reaching consequences. They'll appear after we're gone.

The Silver Lining, April 25, 2019

This email came to me:
H.L. Mencken had it right when he said, “As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron."
H. L. Mencken. The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

“Ouch!” I replied. “I don't like that sentiment at all.”

I prefer to look at the silver lining of any bad situation. If Hillary Clinton were in the White House now, the country would be less aware of immigrant suffering; less aware of conditions in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras; less open to people of color inhabiting our country; less accepting of Black rights; less opposed to gun "rights"; less aware of climate change.

And the list goes on. A Hillary Clinton presidency would have roused more furious right-wing emotion. She would not have been able to implement her ideas for domestic policy reforms. Our country needed Trump to show how bad right-wing ideology—which is not true conservatism—can get. Now we have to take advantage of the natural pendulum swing back toward the values needed to restore good government.

Years ago my spiritual reading led me to the habit of looking for what's right when everything looks wrong. This habit and a spirit of gratefulness keep me sane.

P.S. "I think HLM might have been referring to Harding," wrote Bill.
I think this astute reader is right.
"Quite timely though," added Bill.

God Is Not 3 Guys

My Swan Song

Scientists Teilhard and Bohm

Hope is not naïve

Virginia Woolf & Tulsa Massacre

St. John Lewis

Racism

Grandparents saving the world

A pet peeve

The good of COVID 19

Sexploitation

Politics without Despair

In Memory of Hazel

Sexist Talk reformed

Two Popes

Listen to me

Quantum Physics on Prayer

Where I grew up

Amazon Synod of Bishops

Like immigrants today

Beyond Parochial Faith

Intrigued by 4th Gospel

Church hypocrisy

Epiphany (revealing moment)

Dismantling Male Domination

Awakening the Feminine...Dismantling Domination to Restore Balance on Mother EarthJUST LAUNCHED FOR THE HOLIDAYS!Third in the "Manifesting a New Normal" Series

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Trump Disaster

Awakening the Feminine...
Dismantling Domination to Restore Balance on Mother Earth
JUST LAUNCHED FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
Third in the "Manifesting a New Normal" Series

SPECIAL HOLIDAY PRICING for AWAKEN THE FEMININE !!
$15.00 through December 31 (Including S&H in the US only)
Using Paypal - PayPal.Me/karentate
Manifesting a New Normal Series...