religion

Stumbling never felt so dangerous

I have recently become addicted (in a good way) to this website/ search engine-type web page called StumbleUpon. I don’t know how many of you have been Stumbling, but I guarantee that it is worth a look. You never know what kind of site will be sent your way for you to Stumble across. Which brings me to the purpose of this blog. I tried posting it once already, but my laptop decided it was going to overreact to a momentary lapse of wi-fi action and kick me offline completely, taking my blog along with it. And of course, as I was writing it in between Ethics and Anthropology, I didn’t think it would be a big deal if I typed directly into the blog-posting page rather than on a word document.

I saw the documentary Jesus Camp on A&E last night. This part really got to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mefXbLXlRpw

Later in the film the children stand in front of the capital with the word "Life" taped over their mouths.

I'm not against children being in political rallies or being involved in political action. If my daughter asked me at young age what abortion was I would explain it to her. This kind of propaganda is dangerous. The way in which the woman says "don't be a promise breaker" is scary. Such a small sentence, but it could have a huge impact for the girls that are in that room and then young boys that are "warriors for Jesus".

I don't know how many of you know about this, but the House of Representatives here in the US introduced a bill on December 18th that will designate the first week in may as "American Religious History Week." Here's what they're hoping to accomplish:

"Resolved, That the United States House of Representatives----

(1) affirms the rich spiritual and diverse religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history, including up to the current day;

(2) recognizes that the religious foundations of faith on which America was built are critical underpinnings of our Nation's most valuable institutions and form the inseparable foundation for America's representative processes, legal systems, and societal structures;

On a recent episode of Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO, retired general Wesley Clark said that the vast majority of women enjoy wearing the burka and choose to live in "those" societies.

The conversation over the burka started when Bill Maher pulled out a photo of Laura Bush sitting in between two women dressed in burkas. She was recently on a tour in middle east as part of her breast cancer awareness campaign (which brings up the point of why she isn't involved in a domestic violence awareness campaign this month, which is an important issue in that part of the world, obviously) but instead the panel focused on if Laura Bush should be speaking to women in burkas about breast cancer at all, that it was missing the obvious point. Wesley Clark jumped in and commented that women like wearing the burka, that polls have been done showing the vast majority of women in these countries like wearing the burka and even went further by saying that these women are choosing to live in these societies.

No, really. Take a read of this conversation.

I know, I know, it starts out with some of the pretty familiar, by-the-script banter, but it gets "better".

Dad: "We [Jehovah's Witnesses] don't have anything against homosexuals."

Me: "But I mean, if I wanted to become a Jehovah's witness- what, God would just lift the desire out of me or something?"

Dad: "No, you would have to do what many in our religion already do, and refrain from having sexual relationships. Or choose to get married heterosexually. No one is going to question a decision of celibacy; many who are NOT homosexual already do so that they can serve Jehovah better."

Me: "So you, on the virtue of being heterosexual, would get to experience the wonderful joy of being in an intimate relationship with someone, but I wouldn't?"

Dad: "Jehovah made man and woman to be together. That was his original intention, with Adam and Eve.

This is my late Earth Day post, because I had to make one and I got delayed. (Be forewarned. The Earth Day bit is long and at the end of an even longer entry about my weekend.

Let me tell you about my weekend:

On Friday I had a P.A. Day. Due to something last week I would rather not go into, I had a meeting with a hospital psychiatrist. It went over well; in the end, boring, and they wanted me to see them again this week-I don't want to, so the offer has been declined.

Then we met up with my Nan. Let me tell you a bit about nan, although I have before. It bears repeating that she is one of the most amazing women I know. Heck, she might be the most amazing. Nan survived something awful at age eleven, with no details. Before that, when she was eight, she moved from Germany to Canada.

As I was watching the news last night, I caught a blurb about the Easter mass in Rome on Good Friday. Traditionally, the pope symbolically follows the way of the cross in the Colloseum. During this mass, other Cardinals and Padres speak, and there is usually a focus or theme. This year's theme was the role of women.

Coming from the head of an organization that, as a matter of policy, does not allow women to do much more than provide floral arrangements for the churches, I was suspicious as to the way they would present this.

In his homily, Padre Raniero Cantalamessa first talked about the women in the bible that are know as "le pie donne", the pious women who stayed with Jesus until his death on the cross and were the first to come searching for him after his resurection. He explains that the reason why the women were the last to leave and the first to return was because they had different reasons for being followers of Jesus: Rather than the men, who had been promised that they would reign with Jesus, the women had not been promised anything and were following him not out of greed and hunger for fame but out of the goodness and the purity of their hearts (which we are to understand is inherent to women).

We all see Christmas commercials on t.v., and they have one of two themes:

1: Man surprises woman with diamonds/Woman surprises man with power tools.

2: Little children seeing/writing to/talking to Santa.

Obviously some commercials do not fit into these two choices, but you must admit that most of them do.

So, I was watching a Best Buy commercial, where Santa comes into the room, and the boy and girl are staring at a Best Buy present under the tree, and don't even see him making faces and waving at them. I am not Christian by any means, but I suddenly became quite puzzled at the secularity of Christmas. The traditions of Christmas were adapted from the pagans of Britian, where it was easier to put a new story into the already celebrated holiday (Yule), than to create new ones. But, there was never a time in our history until now that buying presents was more important than giving thanks.

I came out to my mom (and, consequently, probably the rest of my immediate family).

My friend R had been poking me to do it, telling me to "take the drama down about twenty notches," but that hadn't stopped me from curling up in my computer chair and wanting to throw up at the mere thought of doing it. After all, I am the girl who spent hours creating elaborate alibies to hide her trips to Giovanni's Room (especially when it meant meeting Alison Bechdel!), carefully choosing outfits that were "appropriately feminine," even if she really would have been more comfortable going about in drag that day and calling herself Andrew, etc.

I've been pretty seriously involved with boy friend for more than a year--spent holidays with his family, live with him, get along pretty well between the two of us and our respective siblings. This past weekend I finally went to church with him. Why is this a big deal? Because his family is Mormon. And apparently Mormon women made a significant faction of women's groups opposed to the ERA. Not that it has any bearing here, but I've always been a little leary.

We went to see his niece get christened, which occurs as part of a church service like any other religious rite. But they surprised me when a group of five men put their arms around each others' shoulders while the father said a prayer over the baby. A tiny baby girl in a circle of men. Because obviously men are the access points to salvation. Her mother sat fairly removed from and silent during the action--not a player in the ceremony at all. By this point, I was confused not to mention more than a little flustered. So wait, women give birth but have no role in this function that many religions deem essential? My inequity sense is tingling.

I think...you all deserve an explanation. You probably all think I didn't give camp a chance. And I know some of you are curious about what happened. So I'll explain.

Well, I got there. About three or four days later, I'm sitting talking to Nat and a couple other girls. Nat yelled something on the cruel side to this annoying little girly-girl who happens to be one of my cabinmates' foster sister.

Then that girl and Britney were in my cabin, trying to get information out of me. I wasn't very forthcoming. I was like 'they're my friends' and the girl's sister was like 'she's my sister'. Urgh.

As you know, I am Pagan. You may or may not have read my post on War and my debate there. I ended it by saying that I would post about my honour. First let me tell you that I have NEVER written this down. It's just a few hard-and-fast rules I came to for myself. I've never researched honour, I've never really looked at others' opinions on it.

Second thing, I will be posting a little about my Goddess and mythology. What I know of her, NOT from any myth, but from my own relationship with her.

First off, my Code Of Honour:
1. Be yourself. Don't let anybody else make you someone you're not.

“Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.” - Abbie Hoffman

This weekend, my mate and I drove up to a family wedding in northern ********. The drive was very scenic, with floods of trees waving by the window in swelling summer hills. Some cousins or another, whom I had never heard of, were to be wed in the same chapel as my mate's brother, who is an excellent Risk player and who will be a father in less than four weeks.

Having seen photos of the chapel from said previous wedding, I was excited to experience it first-hand, as its design is one of breath-taking genius. Rather than creating the enclosed, stuffy atmosphere that so many churches do, locking the congregation away from the very creation that they seek to worship, this chapel is a massive steel building that utilizes reflective glass as its walls. Awe-inspiring arches run down the length of this architectural wonder, repeating in pattern, blending in from the distance to create the illusion of a grand web. As the chapel is located in the forest, each glass wall reveals calming, natural scenery, with leaves brushing against its surface and sunlight liberally pooling in. Nothing is quite so calming to the soul as the unified presence of nature and the assuring protection from it.

That which transpired within the chapel, however, had no where near the same soothing effect on my temperament.