Heather King's Blog, page 35

CRUCIFY HIM!

Here’s how my Good Friday reflection begins:

The root of all disturbance, if one will go to its source, is that no one will blame himself.
–Dorotheus of Gaza, 6th c. monk

French anthropological philosopher René Girard (1923-2015) was a “philosophical anthropologist” best known for his study of the phenomenon of scapegoating.

His theories (courtesy of wikipedia), are basically:

“1. mimetic desire: imitation is an aspect of behavior that not only affects learning but also desire, and imitated desire is a cause of conflict,

the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry,the Bible reveals the two previous ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism.”

Girard wrote close to 30 books. His “classic texts” include Deceit, Desire and the Novel; Violence and the Sacred; and Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World.

A sampling of his thought: “[H]uman culture is predisposed to the permanent concealment of its origins in collective violence.”

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

EVERYONE’S WAY OF THE CROSS

Here’s an excerpt from my reflection on the Stations of the Cross in this week’s Angelus:

Of course we can pray the Stations throughout the year. But to my mind the best way is with the random group of people who gather in any given sanctuary on a Friday afternoon during Lent.

There’s always an old guy who can barely walk and who reverently, laboriously, genuflects all fourteen times. There’s often a giggly teenage girl or two, and a person who lives on the street. There might be a man with a gigantic crucifix around his neck and an American flag pin, a couple who drove in from the suburbs, a fierce-looking middle-aged woman in running gear.   

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

LENTEN ALMSGIVING: A CATHOLIC TAKE ON MONEY

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

Recently, a friend recommended the podcast New Polity. A 30-episode series called “Good Money” sounded especially relevant to Lenten almsgiving.

Marc Barnes and Jacob Imam, out of Steubenville, Ohio, are the hosts.

If you can set aside their juvenile potshots at libs, hippies, Democrats, and the West Coast; their lumping of all “rich people” into one perdition-bound category; and their obsession with Jeff Bezos, the series is packed with good, radical meat.

“Two Rules for Money,” the first episode for example, establishes that money is essentially for spending, not hoarding—a Gospel concept that goes entirely against our “American,” holdover Puritan-work-ethic way of thrift, saving, and storing up.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

ARE YOU ON MY TEAM?

Recently a dear friend reported that he’d just asked his girlfriend: “Are you on my team?”

“Like a third grader!” he laughed incredulously. “Are you on my team?”

Afterwards, though, I thought about how that is in a way the deepest question of the human heart. Do you have my back? Can I count on you? Are you on my team? DO YOU LOVE ME–OR NOT!?

Monday’s Gospel reading was John 8:12-20:

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.” Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.” Then they asked him, “Where is your father?” “You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come.

So there you go. “I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.” Those are the two people on our team: Jesus, and the Father. The Pharisees in one form or another are forever challenging us, questioning us, accusing us, tempting us to doubt. Sometimes the Pharisees come from without; sometimes “they” come from within. So we damn well right need at least a couple of people on our team.

No-one knew that better than Jesus.

Mary his mother, and John, and possibly a few others, were at the foot of the Cross. But in his final stupendous Agony, by far the most important Person on his team seemed absent.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how Catholicism is relational. We don’t worship or look for an explanation of final things to an idea, a feeling, a sensation, a principle, a philosophy. We look for a relationship with the one who created us. We look for healing for the wounds others have inflicted upon us; we look for forgiveness for the wounds we’ve inflicted upon others: both situations/crises are relational.

Another friend spoke to me recently about a difficult relationship he was having with am emotionally abusive family member. His impulse was to “go no contact,” but his spiritual advisor said, “Why not wait? Maybe over time, and with a ton of patience and hard work, you could build a different kind of relationship with your relative.”

That got me to thinking about the zillions of people walking around with God baggage and specifically Catholic baggage. Often with very good reason. They’ve been fed a distorted image of religion, God, Christ, the Church. Or they’ve been personally wounded by a person in the Church. Or what with the general harshness and loneliness of life, with its incessant suffering, losses, and calamity, they just can’t see their way to a loving Father. They would laugh you off the face of the earth, if not gag, should you remotely suggest that God were “on their team.”

Still, I thought, maybe the same principle could apply. Instead of going “no contact,” at least keep the door ajar. Be willing to acknowledge that we may not have considered the whole picture. Remain open to surprise.

Cause when I start thinking the only person on my team is me–I’m in big, big trouble.

THE FIFTH WEEK OF LENT

Well, I have been right out straight–Lent has flown by, though I have observed it closely, at depth, and with interest.

Mostly, I’ve been working on a St. T of Lisieux study guide which has necessitated many many days of hard-core, without-much-of-a-break work. Thus I have not been able to devote as much time as I might otherwise to my labor-of-love blog posts.

Nonetheless, today’s Gospel is the parable of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11) and as I was reading it this morning, I had a new (for me) insight.

As you probably know at one point Jesus kneels and starts writing in the sand with his finger. Nobody has ever quite agreed on or figured out what he was writing. He then straightens, tells the crowd, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” and then “Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.” Everyone falls silent and leaves. So it’s just him and the adulterous woman. She’s standing up and he’s kneeling. THEN he straightens up, looks her in the eye (we can presume with total love) and says, “Has no-one condemned you?” “No-one, Sir.” “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

So what struck me was that for a moment at least Jesus put himself in a position of humility before her.

Maybe to put her at ease because how horrifying would it be to think you were about to have a bunch of puffed-up self-righteous men heave stones at you till you were reduced to a bloody pulp and died? What kind of hideous anxiety could the woman have been in ever since she got caught?

Or maybe he stayed bending down to underscore that, unlike the crowd, he was not using her as a scapegoat. He wasn’t letting her off the hook, either. He wasn’t pretending she hadn’t sinned. But he knew damn well that everyone else in that crowd had also sinned, one way or another. And he was not going to use her as the scapegoat.

Note that they’re on the Mount of Olives, in which is located the Garden of Gethsemane where Christ will be arrested the night before he dies.

So I thought of the next or other time we see him in such a bodily posture: on Holy Thursday, after the Last Supper, when he puts a towel around his waist and insists upon washing the feet of his disciples. So it’s almost as if the woman caught in adultery is a kind of mirror image, except female, for the washing of the feet. He’s recognizing that, especially back then, and especially in matters of sex and love, women bear the brunt, take the blame, get left holding the bag–whether that happens to be a child, or a broken heart, or both–while the guy so often gets off scot-free.

All the same–go and sin no more. Jesus totally gets the ache of womankind for love, but he also knows the kind of shortcuts we’ll sometimes take. And he kneels before the whole complicated mess, saves the woman caught in adultery from being stoned to death, and gives her the blueprint for new life.

And tells the guys in so many words, Nice try, but how about taking the plank out of your own eye before you go around trying to take the splinter out of your neighbor’s? And by the way, your effort to silence her is hideously evil, weak, and cowardly–the opposite of the character of a real man and a real human being.

I’m sure many others have made the same observation and articulated it a lot more clearly, but part of the glory of the Gospels is that we get to make our own discoveries.

In other news, Allegiant Air has now cancelled two RT flights in a row, nefariously keeping the $150 voucher I was issued for the first one (to Santa Maria, CA), and that I used for the second one (to Traverse City, Michigan, which I will probably now never see)! I have protested of course but as you can imagine, their customer service lines are a tad busy. Not fair!

Tomorrow I am going to submit my weekly column, then take off for Tumacácori National Historical Park, an hour or so from here, and take a nice long walk along the Anza Trail.

Cause I REALLY need to get away from my laptop for a day.

Meanwhile, don’t get caught in adultery (or engage even if you don’t get caught)!

CARYLL HOUSELANDER’S GUILT

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

Caryll Houselander (1901-1954) was a British mystic and  writer who wore a pair of big round tortoiseshell glasses, lived in London during the Blitz, and until l she died at 53 from breast cancer, apparently barely slept or ate. A friend observed: “She used to cover her face with some abominable chalky-white substance which gave it quite often the tragic look one associates with clowns and great comedians.”

That Divine Eccentric, Maisie Ward’s fine biography, charts Houselander’s difficult childhood, her reversion to the Church in 1925, and her unrequited love for a British spy who would be the model for Ian Fleming’s “James Bond.” She had an eclectic circle of friends and was utterly devoted to Christ.  She never married.

She called “ego-neurosis” the greatest illness of our day.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

LIVING THE GOSPEL AT DOWN HOME RANCH

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

Judy Horton is co-founder, along with her late husband Jerry, of Down Home Ranch, a residential care facility outside Austin, Texas, for those with intellectual disabilities.

After a first marriage ended in divorce, Judy married Jerry in 1973.

Ten years later, her three kids from her first marriage were 16, 20 and 24. She and Jerry were looking forward to an empty nest, a new leg of the journey. 

And then, at 41, Judy got pregnant.

In spite of her age, she refused amnio. “Strangely enough, I was pro-life, even as a radical left-wing hippie.” Jerry, having no natural children of his own, was thrilled. Kelly was born in 1984. “I saw right away that she had Down syndrome.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

TO CALL MYSELF BELOVED

THE HERMIT’S PRAYER

Grant me, sweet Christ, the grace to find–
Son of the living God!–
A small hut in a lonesome spot,
To make it my abode.

A little pool but very clear
To stand beside the place
Where all men’s sins are washed away
By sanctifying grace.

A pleasant woodland all about
o shield it from the wind,
And make a home for singing birds
Before it and behind;

A southern aspect for the heat
A stream along its foot,
A smooth green lawn with rich topsoil
Propitious to all fruit.

My choice of men to live with me
And pray to God as well;
Quiet men of humble mind—
Their number I shall tell.

Four files of three or three of four
To give the psalter forth;
Six to pray by the south church wall
And six along the north.

Two by two my dozen friends—
To tell the number right—
Praying with me to move the King
Who gives the sun its light.

A lovely church, a home for God,
Bedecked with linen fine,
Where over the white Gospel page
The Gospel candles shine;

A little house where all may dwell
And body’s care be sought,
Where none shows lust or arrogance,
None thinks an evil thought.

And all I ask for housekeeping
I get and pay no fees,
Leeks from the garden, poultry, game,
Salmon and trout and bees.

My share of clothing and of food
From the King of fairest face,
And I to sit at times alone,
And pray in every place.

–St. Manchan of Offaly, 5th-6th centuries AD (stanzas from a possibly longer poem)

LOOK! I beg you, don’t ever stop looking
because what makes the world so lovely
is that somewhere
it hides a WELL,
a WELL that hasn’t been found yet
–and if you don’t find it, maybe nobody will…
–Antine de Saitn Exupery, The Little Prince

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
Beloved on this earth.
–Raymond Carver, Late Fragment

Blesssed Third Sunday of Lent. Praying for peace, for everyone…

FORTY DAYS IN THE DESERT OF A NEW CHILD

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture piece begins:

Laura Zambrana is Director of Content for Endow Groups, a Catholic women’s organization, and works from home 25 hours a week. Her husband James is account manager at the media company Deluxe Entertainment Services Group.

They live in San Gabriel. Their parish is St. Andrew in Pasadena.  They have three children: Peter was born in 2016, Helen in 2018, and Jane in June of 2020. Their fourth child, a girl, is expected in May of this year. 

Says Laura: “Your heart has to break each time you give birth.”

“There’s a book called The First Forty Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother that’s not Catholic but is common in crunchy Catholic mom circles.” The author, Heng Ou, emphasizes that in ancient Chinese culture the recommended length of time for post-partum solitude is 40 days.

“Just like Lent.”

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

THE GUEST HOUSE

A poem by the Sufi Master, Rumi:
THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival,
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably. He may be cleaning you out
For some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice meet them all at the door
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes. because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

–Emily Dickinson