February 28, 2010
The Transfiguration
Rivaled only by the Wedding at Canaan, this is the Bible story I have thought about, talked about and even occasionally written more about than any other. At the Teen ACTS Retreat I once gave the "Coming Down the Mountain" talk. I love it, I'm thrilled that it's now a mystery of the rosary.
But I'd never thought about it the way that the priest's homily broke it down today. He started talking about retreats, appropriately enough, and one of the points he made about only doing devotions if you feel yourself growing closer to God through them was a great challenge to hear during the early days of Lent. But what I had never thought about before was the Transfiguration as a preparation for climbing, as he put it, the Other Mountain. Calgary.
I don't remember him going quite that far, but perhaps that's why it's so hard with Teen ACTS right now. We're good at the mountain, seeing Moses and Elijah and Jesus's true form, building tents. Coming down is different, but it's all about getting back up. Getting on team. Getting back to the moment of wonder and awe. Probably what started the fight about how would be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven in the first place. It's real, so the politics start. Something beautiful we want again, something that's real and we can own now. A very human response but a very telling one that makes it almost encouraging, in a way, that they got the point.
But that wasn't what the moment was about. It was a promise to sustain us through Calgary. The Son of Man was not born to live atop the mountain or even to ramp up and back down. The real place that the Earth, that man touched divinity and found a way to touch, was the mountain at Calgary.
Perhaps these moments of glory and fellowship and revelation are always because a Calgary is coming in one form or another. It might be ours or someone else's, but we will be called to carry that cross. The final stage of this will be more glorious still - heartbreaking and unbelievable. Unimaginable. The taste herer was a promise to get us through Calgary.
You can't live on the mountain, because that's not where the meaningful work gets done. It doesn't really matter if you were enlivened on retreat, not really, if you can't bring that into your long journey to Calgary. It doesn't mean you never falter - goodness knows Peter did. Perhaps it's about knowing that there is something beautiful in the world to hold to when everything's breaking. When everything is hurting. When the world is cold and hard and doesn't care. When you have to sacrifice pieces of yourself for those who do not care and thank you.
You've touched Grace. The Transfiguration could have been present with the disciples on the hill of Calgary. Perhaps it was for John, who was given the Mother of Christ to look after. It doesn't necessarily change what you would do - but you do it knowing what is to come. What awaits you on the other side. You can remember the other mountain and take comfort.
You can remember the other mountain and take strength.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
February 27, 2010
Hebrews 3
Apologies for the lateness. Yesterday was an interesting day. I don't think you would have appreciated my drunken ramblings of late last night, so this will have to do. I'll be back tonight with today's gospel.
I understand the tone of this chapter, but it's one of the ones that makes it hard for me to maintain what I do firmly believe about the path to salvation. The focus on the difference between Moses and Christ functions well for his audience, but isn't the whole point of Jesus that now God doesn't have to do all that Old Testament stuff to us? When we turn away we don't have to wander in the desert for forty years so that He can be sure we get the point. He reaches down and speaks to us, He comes to us in a Spirit that inhabits our very bodies. He doesn't have to use the blunt instruments of fire hailing from the sky anymore.
But perhaps the warning is more temporal and earthly. I do believe in sharing faith and trying to bring people to the faith even if I don't believe it's a prerequisite for admission to heaven (not to make salvation sound clinical). Because I believe in the blessings of the sacraments. The price for turning away from the Church or from belief in Christ is not having the sacrament of the Eucharist or Reconciliation or any of them but especially those two. To not commune with the real physical presence of Jesus, to not go to one of his earthly representatives and receive absolution for your sins and failings.
What a price.
Those who can find their way to faith without such things are to be admired. Those who are good people without the touch of God in their lives, who do not have a guidepost to work from, are impressive. More impressive than us. They're doing it the hard way.
They don't have to.
We should be fantastic with our tools, that's the burden of Christianity, especially Catholicism. We should be spectacular, always. They'll know we are Christians by our love - absolutely bursting out of us and growing every second. Because we are full of the Spirit, because we have been to heaven on a regular basis, because God has literally filled us with Himself.
Because we have been loved that much.
I have always believed He finds every chance to tell all of His children that however they will listen, but how lonely it must be to those who are not told and shown as often as we are. For God so loved the world that He sent His only son. John 3:14.
Hebrews 3
Apologies for the lateness. Yesterday was an interesting day. I don't think you would have appreciated my drunken ramblings of late last night, so this will have to do. I'll be back tonight with today's gospel.
I understand the tone of this chapter, but it's one of the ones that makes it hard for me to maintain what I do firmly believe about the path to salvation. The focus on the difference between Moses and Christ functions well for his audience, but isn't the whole point of Jesus that now God doesn't have to do all that Old Testament stuff to us? When we turn away we don't have to wander in the desert for forty years so that He can be sure we get the point. He reaches down and speaks to us, He comes to us in a Spirit that inhabits our very bodies. He doesn't have to use the blunt instruments of fire hailing from the sky anymore.
But perhaps the warning is more temporal and earthly. I do believe in sharing faith and trying to bring people to the faith even if I don't believe it's a prerequisite for admission to heaven (not to make salvation sound clinical). Because I believe in the blessings of the sacraments. The price for turning away from the Church or from belief in Christ is not having the sacrament of the Eucharist or Reconciliation or any of them but especially those two. To not commune with the real physical presence of Jesus, to not go to one of his earthly representatives and receive absolution for your sins and failings.
What a price.
Those who can find their way to faith without such things are to be admired. Those who are good people without the touch of God in their lives, who do not have a guidepost to work from, are impressive. More impressive than us. They're doing it the hard way.
They don't have to.
We should be fantastic with our tools, that's the burden of Christianity, especially Catholicism. We should be spectacular, always. They'll know we are Christians by our love - absolutely bursting out of us and growing every second. Because we are full of the Spirit, because we have been to heaven on a regular basis, because God has literally filled us with Himself.
Because we have been loved that much.
I have always believed He finds every chance to tell all of His children that however they will listen, but how lonely it must be to those who are not told and shown as often as we are. For God so loved the world that He sent His only son. John 3:14.
Saturday, 27 February 2010
February 26, 2010
Hebrews 2
I'm sure it's partially the late hour and partially the fact that Shutter Island is currently running rings through my head (not a fan of it, incidentally), but I'm having trouble making heads or tails of the second chapter of this book.
Which is odd, because this morning I skimmed over it and missed what I think is the most beautiful thing. How ridiculous it really is what happened when God became Man. The Son of Man elevated humanity, o so much lower than angels, to something like Himself.
That's just shocking behavior.
And all the time that we don't spend ascending is therefore wasted - we who have heard and understood just how magnificent a gesture God has made must not rest on our salvation.
But so often, especially, I often think, us Catholics, we let it go. How shocking it is to hear God Himself say, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters and in the midst of the congregation praise you." Paul's quoting. The Word of God that created the world came to the Sabbath service. And said hi to his family. Made us his family, sharing flesh and blood in no metaphor or symbolic union but a nothing-but-literal-one.
Just like he does at Mass every day.
I remember once at Youth 2000 a retreat director told a story about a friend of his who said, "I don't know how you Catholics believe what you believe and walk to communion, because I would be crawling." God doesn't ask you to crawl, because the gift is freely given, but it's just amazing how we've normalized experiencing heaven for fifteen minutes before it digests in the stomach. You know, before the pancake breakfast.
It's one of my favorite quips for why Catholics are so crazy, especially from the inside, but it's an issue Paul seems to be grappling with all the way back here. It's almost barmy what God has done for us. We can't wrap our heads around it if we recognize it for what it really is.
So we don't, but dang do we miss out because of it.
Hebrews 2
I'm sure it's partially the late hour and partially the fact that Shutter Island is currently running rings through my head (not a fan of it, incidentally), but I'm having trouble making heads or tails of the second chapter of this book.
Which is odd, because this morning I skimmed over it and missed what I think is the most beautiful thing. How ridiculous it really is what happened when God became Man. The Son of Man elevated humanity, o so much lower than angels, to something like Himself.
That's just shocking behavior.
And all the time that we don't spend ascending is therefore wasted - we who have heard and understood just how magnificent a gesture God has made must not rest on our salvation.
But so often, especially, I often think, us Catholics, we let it go. How shocking it is to hear God Himself say, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters and in the midst of the congregation praise you." Paul's quoting. The Word of God that created the world came to the Sabbath service. And said hi to his family. Made us his family, sharing flesh and blood in no metaphor or symbolic union but a nothing-but-literal-one.
Just like he does at Mass every day.
I remember once at Youth 2000 a retreat director told a story about a friend of his who said, "I don't know how you Catholics believe what you believe and walk to communion, because I would be crawling." God doesn't ask you to crawl, because the gift is freely given, but it's just amazing how we've normalized experiencing heaven for fifteen minutes before it digests in the stomach. You know, before the pancake breakfast.
It's one of my favorite quips for why Catholics are so crazy, especially from the inside, but it's an issue Paul seems to be grappling with all the way back here. It's almost barmy what God has done for us. We can't wrap our heads around it if we recognize it for what it really is.
So we don't, but dang do we miss out because of it.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
February 25, 2010
Hebrews 1
I've decided to just plow straight through to the next book (after Philemon, which is after Titus).
It's very different. It's designed to argue with those of the Jewish faith or at least explain how Jesus transcends prophets and even the more supernatural (I hate sometimes how that word has been coopted by ghost stories, I mean that beyond the natural world) messengers sent by God. You have a seed of John's Word of God introduction to his gospel here.
It's all interesting, but the first part that really grabbed me (already ready to cede this point to Paul) was the last verse of the chapter. "Are not all angels spirits in the divine service sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" Because - conversely, are all who do that angels?
On an entirely different tangent, I am a huge fan of the new series of Battlestar Galactica. I swear I have a point. Especially in the final season(s), the story really played with this. Sent an angel who didn't know she was an angel to guide everyone home and explained Lucifer's Fall in the most coherent and heart-wrenching yet unapologetic way I've ever seen. The later movie The Plan showed how he can be saved.
That's what I want to talk about in conjunction with this. God comes to us in all sorts of forms. It's not every day I spent personal time with these books of the Bible.
Cavil, also called One, also called John once, was furious with his parents and creators for loving the human race more than his own - an important one with its own beautiful biology and history though of the same mold. So he did countless terrible things, hated and tortured them in human form, but when he went to the man who came down from his role as creator and became a human like us for a whole lifetime, he came to understand why his creator loved the humans beyond their grossness and ugliness and flaws and craziness.
Why God created us, to be loved. That, of course, is moving away Battlestar Galactica. And I don't claim to really understand any of it or to know if/how Lucifer could ever return home, but the thing is that it's so easy to get twisted as a servant of God. Because when it's supposed to be all about everyone else, you have to know how to find God's love for you coming right back.
Anyone who works with people who are down, who are broken, anyone who has ever helped heal someone else, knows how full of Grace and Love it makes you. It's competing for God's love that will break you, because it makes no sense. He has infinite love, and He gives all of it to every one of us. It's breathtaking. It's shattering. It's shocking. It's incomprehensible.
It's people who think they're exempt from that - for whatever reason - that fall into the Devil's traps. Either they think they are too bad or too insignificant or too clever and proud to bow and follow, but it's always codswallop as far as God loving you is concerned. He sends angels to hover about you. Because I've always believed that we have all inherited salvation.
Those who are lucky enough to be agents of that love, human and angel, only feel it pouring over them more and more. And if you stop feeling it, it does not mean it has stopped. You've just forgotten how to look. Look around and remember. He is everywhere. His love is infinite.
"Imagine something infinitely loving, that knew all of your sharp edges and your hard bits, and loved you anyway."
- a recap of Battlestar Galactica
God speaks through everything, always the same message. I love you I love you I love you.
Hebrews 1
I've decided to just plow straight through to the next book (after Philemon, which is after Titus).
It's very different. It's designed to argue with those of the Jewish faith or at least explain how Jesus transcends prophets and even the more supernatural (I hate sometimes how that word has been coopted by ghost stories, I mean that beyond the natural world) messengers sent by God. You have a seed of John's Word of God introduction to his gospel here.
It's all interesting, but the first part that really grabbed me (already ready to cede this point to Paul) was the last verse of the chapter. "Are not all angels spirits in the divine service sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" Because - conversely, are all who do that angels?
On an entirely different tangent, I am a huge fan of the new series of Battlestar Galactica. I swear I have a point. Especially in the final season(s), the story really played with this. Sent an angel who didn't know she was an angel to guide everyone home and explained Lucifer's Fall in the most coherent and heart-wrenching yet unapologetic way I've ever seen. The later movie The Plan showed how he can be saved.
That's what I want to talk about in conjunction with this. God comes to us in all sorts of forms. It's not every day I spent personal time with these books of the Bible.
Cavil, also called One, also called John once, was furious with his parents and creators for loving the human race more than his own - an important one with its own beautiful biology and history though of the same mold. So he did countless terrible things, hated and tortured them in human form, but when he went to the man who came down from his role as creator and became a human like us for a whole lifetime, he came to understand why his creator loved the humans beyond their grossness and ugliness and flaws and craziness.
Why God created us, to be loved. That, of course, is moving away Battlestar Galactica. And I don't claim to really understand any of it or to know if/how Lucifer could ever return home, but the thing is that it's so easy to get twisted as a servant of God. Because when it's supposed to be all about everyone else, you have to know how to find God's love for you coming right back.
Anyone who works with people who are down, who are broken, anyone who has ever helped heal someone else, knows how full of Grace and Love it makes you. It's competing for God's love that will break you, because it makes no sense. He has infinite love, and He gives all of it to every one of us. It's breathtaking. It's shattering. It's shocking. It's incomprehensible.
It's people who think they're exempt from that - for whatever reason - that fall into the Devil's traps. Either they think they are too bad or too insignificant or too clever and proud to bow and follow, but it's always codswallop as far as God loving you is concerned. He sends angels to hover about you. Because I've always believed that we have all inherited salvation.
Those who are lucky enough to be agents of that love, human and angel, only feel it pouring over them more and more. And if you stop feeling it, it does not mean it has stopped. You've just forgotten how to look. Look around and remember. He is everywhere. His love is infinite.
"Imagine something infinitely loving, that knew all of your sharp edges and your hard bits, and loved you anyway."
- a recap of Battlestar Galactica
God speaks through everything, always the same message. I love you I love you I love you.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
February 24, 2010
Titus 3
Paul certainly gives everyone a lot to do before signing off on this letter. A lot of it is specifics that really mean just about nothing to us now - although I've very happy for Zenas and Nicopolis for being sent out into the world, or at least worried for them. Does it do any good to put people in your prayers who have died two thousand years ago? I have, personally, always felt that prayer transcends such things. Of course, it's not like I'd know how it turned out, but I pray for a lot of things I probably wouldn't know worked out one way or another.
The admonition not to get bogged down in "stupid controversies" of every sort ("geneaology, discensions, and quarrels about the law") really hammers home the message about getting to work taking care of people and doing good works - addressing the most urgent needs in the community rather than sitting idle arguing about circumcision. If that isn't something that needs to be said to every modern politician, I don't know what does.
But we also do it all the time. How many people let themselves be driven from the Church because of the people in it? A friend of mine turned his back on Mass because of the negative energy in much of the congregation at St. Francis. Luckily, we found a church in Waynesboro with a healthy spirit, but it really puts perspective on the harsh-sounding command to "have nothing more to do with anyone who causes divisions" after a first and second warning, of course, because "you know that such a person is perverted and sinful, being self-condemned."
It's so harsh. Shouldn't we be loving them back across the line? How can we abandon people to their own negativity?
But I think we've all come up against people who weren't so much angry or bitter or sad or confused or anything you can fix. There are people who project negativity. I've had several discussions lately about whether or not one person has such an aura. I don't know, really, since she's always been nice to me, but at what point do you decide that you have to let a person go? For your own spiritual health and that of your community?
Would St. Francis be a different place if we still did this? If we cast out the usher who crosses himself whenever someone doesn't after they receive communion or the people who refuse to move over to admit you into their pew? It'd be awful, but I can't help thinking about how St. Anne's back home would be if they had gotten rid of their youth minister years ago. Before the retreat movement and the youth group went to war and the parish split its teens into those who joined what felt increasingly like a cult and those who thought it was all crazy and awkward.
Do you have to cut some people off? Is that better for the whole? Is it better for them to be in a situation where they can't cause more trouble?
It's such a harsh thing to even think of, and we'd never do it nowadays really, but how many people have been driven away by those people in the midst of the Church? How many have turned their backs from its graces and blessings? Can we let that stand? Is that on our conscience for letting the divisions spread and crack at our very foundations? Is there a way to keep them from being able to divide the congregation instead?
If so, Paul doesn't seem to have been able to find it. I hope we can.
Titus 3
Paul certainly gives everyone a lot to do before signing off on this letter. A lot of it is specifics that really mean just about nothing to us now - although I've very happy for Zenas and Nicopolis for being sent out into the world, or at least worried for them. Does it do any good to put people in your prayers who have died two thousand years ago? I have, personally, always felt that prayer transcends such things. Of course, it's not like I'd know how it turned out, but I pray for a lot of things I probably wouldn't know worked out one way or another.
The admonition not to get bogged down in "stupid controversies" of every sort ("geneaology, discensions, and quarrels about the law") really hammers home the message about getting to work taking care of people and doing good works - addressing the most urgent needs in the community rather than sitting idle arguing about circumcision. If that isn't something that needs to be said to every modern politician, I don't know what does.
But we also do it all the time. How many people let themselves be driven from the Church because of the people in it? A friend of mine turned his back on Mass because of the negative energy in much of the congregation at St. Francis. Luckily, we found a church in Waynesboro with a healthy spirit, but it really puts perspective on the harsh-sounding command to "have nothing more to do with anyone who causes divisions" after a first and second warning, of course, because "you know that such a person is perverted and sinful, being self-condemned."
It's so harsh. Shouldn't we be loving them back across the line? How can we abandon people to their own negativity?
But I think we've all come up against people who weren't so much angry or bitter or sad or confused or anything you can fix. There are people who project negativity. I've had several discussions lately about whether or not one person has such an aura. I don't know, really, since she's always been nice to me, but at what point do you decide that you have to let a person go? For your own spiritual health and that of your community?
Would St. Francis be a different place if we still did this? If we cast out the usher who crosses himself whenever someone doesn't after they receive communion or the people who refuse to move over to admit you into their pew? It'd be awful, but I can't help thinking about how St. Anne's back home would be if they had gotten rid of their youth minister years ago. Before the retreat movement and the youth group went to war and the parish split its teens into those who joined what felt increasingly like a cult and those who thought it was all crazy and awkward.
Do you have to cut some people off? Is that better for the whole? Is it better for them to be in a situation where they can't cause more trouble?
It's such a harsh thing to even think of, and we'd never do it nowadays really, but how many people have been driven away by those people in the midst of the Church? How many have turned their backs from its graces and blessings? Can we let that stand? Is that on our conscience for letting the divisions spread and crack at our very foundations? Is there a way to keep them from being able to divide the congregation instead?
If so, Paul doesn't seem to have been able to find it. I hope we can.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
February 23, 2010
Titus 2
You get a lot of things in homilies these days. Goodness knows, the Chips, Amanda and I are fleeing from St. Francis to get away from some of them. There's also a lot of politics in that church, which isn't very welcoming. But it seems like everyone these days is getting in on this act - politicizing the Church.
After talking with my mom today about what kind of book comes out of the salutation in the first chapter, I expected a debate on the Jewish/Christian traditions of the time - something deeply ecclesiastical and local and dated. Something political, in short. Instead, it's an exhortation to keep all that stuff in its proper place. What you preach and teach is how to be a good person. Morals, responsiblity, caring for one another.
I wonder when the last time I heard that homily was. Ironically, we all seem to want a simple answer - what to do to get into heaven, to be a good person. Maybe it's that we all know it - Golden Rule and all that. The stuff you needlepoint on samplers and hanging in Catholic school classrooms. Not the kind of thing to find in serious sermons.
It actually kind of pains me to talk about an argument against the nitty gritty of liturgical theology - because, after all, we do need to know why we believe and understand the reasoning of those who have spent their lives puzzling all of this out. But I do have a big question: when did these simple morals stop working?
Seriously - can we blame the Hallmark channel for it? You want to blame TV for something - I vote that. It's cheesy. It's too easy. It's not like real life.
Um...yes it is.
Decisions really are that simple sometimes. I believe firmly that you choose, every day, who you want to be. How you want to act. It's a hard won bit of knowledge, because I spent so many years insisting that I couldn't help my "reactions" to the people and world around me.
Yes you can.
I'm not saying I always do, but really, it was all a very simple message. And that's the one we should be sending. That's who a Catholic is - someone who cares about others and is reverent and faithful and takes care of themselves and others. A lot of the things that Paul says describing each group - older women, older men, younger women, younger men, slaves - seem more like conservative stereotypes now, but think about their time period's version of perfect womanhood.
Christians should always be the progressives in society. Not necessarily the liberals - but we are called to be in the world but not of the world. That means we should be the ones looking at the whole system and demanding - why? We could be doing this better. We could all be better. We should be the ones propelling the world in new directions, because the people of fifty (or sixty now) years ago did not have it right. No one has yet. We live in a Fallen World.
We should be the first to line up and change it. And our message should be just this simple. Don't get bogged down in all the politics or the theory of it - not if it keeps you from living your life as a good person, showing the world that this is what a servant of God looks like. This is the joy of serving God - the joy that fills you and the joy that you bring to others.
Check the politics at the door. None of the parties are putting forward the Christian agenda. They're not nearly progressive enough.
Titus 2
You get a lot of things in homilies these days. Goodness knows, the Chips, Amanda and I are fleeing from St. Francis to get away from some of them. There's also a lot of politics in that church, which isn't very welcoming. But it seems like everyone these days is getting in on this act - politicizing the Church.
After talking with my mom today about what kind of book comes out of the salutation in the first chapter, I expected a debate on the Jewish/Christian traditions of the time - something deeply ecclesiastical and local and dated. Something political, in short. Instead, it's an exhortation to keep all that stuff in its proper place. What you preach and teach is how to be a good person. Morals, responsiblity, caring for one another.
I wonder when the last time I heard that homily was. Ironically, we all seem to want a simple answer - what to do to get into heaven, to be a good person. Maybe it's that we all know it - Golden Rule and all that. The stuff you needlepoint on samplers and hanging in Catholic school classrooms. Not the kind of thing to find in serious sermons.
It actually kind of pains me to talk about an argument against the nitty gritty of liturgical theology - because, after all, we do need to know why we believe and understand the reasoning of those who have spent their lives puzzling all of this out. But I do have a big question: when did these simple morals stop working?
Seriously - can we blame the Hallmark channel for it? You want to blame TV for something - I vote that. It's cheesy. It's too easy. It's not like real life.
Um...yes it is.
Decisions really are that simple sometimes. I believe firmly that you choose, every day, who you want to be. How you want to act. It's a hard won bit of knowledge, because I spent so many years insisting that I couldn't help my "reactions" to the people and world around me.
Yes you can.
I'm not saying I always do, but really, it was all a very simple message. And that's the one we should be sending. That's who a Catholic is - someone who cares about others and is reverent and faithful and takes care of themselves and others. A lot of the things that Paul says describing each group - older women, older men, younger women, younger men, slaves - seem more like conservative stereotypes now, but think about their time period's version of perfect womanhood.
Christians should always be the progressives in society. Not necessarily the liberals - but we are called to be in the world but not of the world. That means we should be the ones looking at the whole system and demanding - why? We could be doing this better. We could all be better. We should be the ones propelling the world in new directions, because the people of fifty (or sixty now) years ago did not have it right. No one has yet. We live in a Fallen World.
We should be the first to line up and change it. And our message should be just this simple. Don't get bogged down in all the politics or the theory of it - not if it keeps you from living your life as a good person, showing the world that this is what a servant of God looks like. This is the joy of serving God - the joy that fills you and the joy that you bring to others.
Check the politics at the door. None of the parties are putting forward the Christian agenda. They're not nearly progressive enough.
Monday, 22 February 2010
February 22, 2010
Titus 1
I admit I chose this book pretty much because tonight I opened in my first major acting role as Lavinia in Titus Andronicus. However, the smaller books have really made me focus on the different salutations and openings. It's so easy to just skim over those things - the "hello!"s actually have an interesting story to tell.
While the Philemon salutation was brief, the Titus one is almost overwrought. The focus lies on the truth - Paul is proclaiming the things that are true, and that's because they are from God who never lies. I wonder what comes next in this book that that is the preface. Will Paul be setting down some rules? The next section is all about what we want in a bishop in a given community. Or is it more about legitimacy and establishing a chain of authority that comes straight from Jesus Christ? Because I don't know how often he refers to himself as an apostle, but it's a bold move even if we tend to accept it as true these days. And he didn't do that in Philemon for all he was throwing his moral authority around.
The interesting thing from the modern perspective of an ideal bishop is the qualification that they be married "only once." Which would change a lot about the Catholic Church, wouldn't it? But I'm reminded of a passage in Orson Scott Card of all people that talked about priests and those in the religious life as less a part of the church as in service to it - how full adult membership in a community and thus the Church as the Body of Christ required marriage. To be outside the Church was a worthy vocation, but membership required a partner.
Setting aside, however, whether or not either side of that divide is true - is that what it feels like to be an apostle? Is that how it always feels? My mother is a great woman in our church community, but she gets to be thoroughly IN and OF the community. Is it different for priests and nuns - who are always a breed apart? It must be, in a way. Because they're job and their religious life choice becomes such a huge definer of who they are as people. Choosing to marry and teach or work or raise children doesn't usually define you in the same way. You are a priest. Everything else is prefaced with that - you are a priest who is funny, you are a priest who likes to go to the gym, you are a priest who has a great hunting dog. Does it get lonely? Or does it keep you closer to God to be continually identified with Him?
How does it feel if you are assumed to be "blameless" (married only once, children believers), "not accused of debaucery", "not rebellious", "not arrogant," "not quick-tempered," not "addicted to wine or violent or greedy"? To be assumed "hospitable, a lover of goodness, prudent, upright, devout, and self-controlled"? Does it help you become so?
The last description of what a priest must be is a man knowledgeable in the world so he can take up the quarrels with the world. Paul goes into arguments of Jewish tradition, especially circumcision, but it's an important point. Priests have to defend the faith and the positions of the Church. They have to be able to explain the delicate and often crazy-talk-sounding doctrine of the Church so that their flock can understand and the detractors can be at least challenged in their nay-saying.
It's a tall order, so all I can say is, in this our Year of the Priesthood - here's to them all.
Titus 1
I admit I chose this book pretty much because tonight I opened in my first major acting role as Lavinia in Titus Andronicus. However, the smaller books have really made me focus on the different salutations and openings. It's so easy to just skim over those things - the "hello!"s actually have an interesting story to tell.
While the Philemon salutation was brief, the Titus one is almost overwrought. The focus lies on the truth - Paul is proclaiming the things that are true, and that's because they are from God who never lies. I wonder what comes next in this book that that is the preface. Will Paul be setting down some rules? The next section is all about what we want in a bishop in a given community. Or is it more about legitimacy and establishing a chain of authority that comes straight from Jesus Christ? Because I don't know how often he refers to himself as an apostle, but it's a bold move even if we tend to accept it as true these days. And he didn't do that in Philemon for all he was throwing his moral authority around.
The interesting thing from the modern perspective of an ideal bishop is the qualification that they be married "only once." Which would change a lot about the Catholic Church, wouldn't it? But I'm reminded of a passage in Orson Scott Card of all people that talked about priests and those in the religious life as less a part of the church as in service to it - how full adult membership in a community and thus the Church as the Body of Christ required marriage. To be outside the Church was a worthy vocation, but membership required a partner.
Setting aside, however, whether or not either side of that divide is true - is that what it feels like to be an apostle? Is that how it always feels? My mother is a great woman in our church community, but she gets to be thoroughly IN and OF the community. Is it different for priests and nuns - who are always a breed apart? It must be, in a way. Because they're job and their religious life choice becomes such a huge definer of who they are as people. Choosing to marry and teach or work or raise children doesn't usually define you in the same way. You are a priest. Everything else is prefaced with that - you are a priest who is funny, you are a priest who likes to go to the gym, you are a priest who has a great hunting dog. Does it get lonely? Or does it keep you closer to God to be continually identified with Him?
How does it feel if you are assumed to be "blameless" (married only once, children believers), "not accused of debaucery", "not rebellious", "not arrogant," "not quick-tempered," not "addicted to wine or violent or greedy"? To be assumed "hospitable, a lover of goodness, prudent, upright, devout, and self-controlled"? Does it help you become so?
The last description of what a priest must be is a man knowledgeable in the world so he can take up the quarrels with the world. Paul goes into arguments of Jewish tradition, especially circumcision, but it's an important point. Priests have to defend the faith and the positions of the Church. They have to be able to explain the delicate and often crazy-talk-sounding doctrine of the Church so that their flock can understand and the detractors can be at least challenged in their nay-saying.
It's a tall order, so all I can say is, in this our Year of the Priesthood - here's to them all.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
It is written.
February 21, 2010
The Temptation of Jesus in the Desert
In my typical fashion of my posts, I'm going to take something tiny and talk about a lot of stuff around it in an attempt to frighten that small moment into making more sense. Sneak up on it from behind.
So, thank you Textual Culture class for this reflection.
It is written.
What a phrase to preface everything with in a Temptation scenario. But what does that mean in a culture where so few would ever see such words written? When it was passed along orally at meetings, and that was how most people studied scripture? Scrolls - we literally hadn't invented the book yet - were kept beautiful and apart. Would it have the same authority if you had never seen the words written down?
But what we have here is not a recitation of words written far away and long ago. This is the new written Word, emblazoning the truth on the rocks of the desert and the towers of man and kingdoms of the world. This is what is written, the Word that made the world. Now He not so much writes so that we can read it but points to where it is already written across creation and in revelations to those who have the blessing to listen.
Not a personal rebuttal - no, I won't. I reject you, Satan.
It is written.
The Truth, on scraps of sheepskin and papyrus, rolled together and stained with ink. What a thing - a thing that so many would never see but only hear told of. Something so precious in something so ordinary - out of materials that mean nothing comes the written word. Like in our own dirty flesh and sticky blood and dry bones came the Word of God, made of things that were never precious until they were put together and given the Grace to become more.
The Word that spoke into the Nothing and created the world shrunk itself down far enough to be scrawled in dark liquid across the belly of tamed fluffy beasts and woven reeds in order to tell us something important. The answers were always there.
Listen. It is written.
Not has been, not will be. The words were always there. So was the Word.
The Temptation of Jesus in the Desert
In my typical fashion of my posts, I'm going to take something tiny and talk about a lot of stuff around it in an attempt to frighten that small moment into making more sense. Sneak up on it from behind.
So, thank you Textual Culture class for this reflection.
It is written.
What a phrase to preface everything with in a Temptation scenario. But what does that mean in a culture where so few would ever see such words written? When it was passed along orally at meetings, and that was how most people studied scripture? Scrolls - we literally hadn't invented the book yet - were kept beautiful and apart. Would it have the same authority if you had never seen the words written down?
But what we have here is not a recitation of words written far away and long ago. This is the new written Word, emblazoning the truth on the rocks of the desert and the towers of man and kingdoms of the world. This is what is written, the Word that made the world. Now He not so much writes so that we can read it but points to where it is already written across creation and in revelations to those who have the blessing to listen.
Not a personal rebuttal - no, I won't. I reject you, Satan.
It is written.
The Truth, on scraps of sheepskin and papyrus, rolled together and stained with ink. What a thing - a thing that so many would never see but only hear told of. Something so precious in something so ordinary - out of materials that mean nothing comes the written word. Like in our own dirty flesh and sticky blood and dry bones came the Word of God, made of things that were never precious until they were put together and given the Grace to become more.
The Word that spoke into the Nothing and created the world shrunk itself down far enough to be scrawled in dark liquid across the belly of tamed fluffy beasts and woven reeds in order to tell us something important. The answers were always there.
Listen. It is written.
Not has been, not will be. The words were always there. So was the Word.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
February 20, 2010
Philemon
Yes, again, but I had another thought. I'll be moving on to Titus after tomorrow, although I want to do the gospel readings on Sundays.
I commented briefly on the passive aggressive language Paul veers into yesterday, but I have a new take on it this time.
It's easy to realize that blessed are those, like Mary, who say yes right away, without prompting or cajoling or shaming into it. But for the rest of us - well, isn't that what guilt is FOR? And the outrageous mix of humility and command in Paul is the confusing part, but what he keeps saying is this: I declare Onesimus a free man, accept him as a brother. I would rather you do it freely, from the good in your heart, but this is what's going to happen. We cannot budge on certain issues, but the ideal would be to bring everyone around to the right way of thinking.
In that process, the weapons in our arsenal might often seem odd - and Paul bends over backwards and forwards trying to keep his humility and friendship unharmed "prisoner in Christ" appears twice and another more oblique reference occurs in these brief twenty-five lines. He doesn't want to pull the Teacher card or take away Philemon and Timothy's chance to make this discovery for themselves, but he has to make sure that Onesimus comes there and is accepted as a brother - that he has a place of honor and respect.
If you think I was building toward an actual moral, I'm afraid that'll have to wait until there's something that I have a grip on. I suppose it's a lesson on how hard it can be to have a position from which you can't bend - especially when it butts up against those you love and respect, who are used to you speaking softly and sweetly and not making waves in your relationship. Then suddenly you have to, and you're liable to end up sounding like Paul: "I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and no something forced" or "I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love" Philemon 1.14, 8.
What was the response to this? "Of course"? "How dare he?" ? "What?" ?
I can imagine them all, and chances are everyone can. How do we handle coming up against those we love when we cannot bend or compromise? When we cannot let the point drop? When we have to use every weapon in our arsenal, even those we hoped never to have to resort to? Can the ends ever erase the means?
We all live in a Fallen World - do we dare use its tools?
Philemon
Yes, again, but I had another thought. I'll be moving on to Titus after tomorrow, although I want to do the gospel readings on Sundays.
I commented briefly on the passive aggressive language Paul veers into yesterday, but I have a new take on it this time.
It's easy to realize that blessed are those, like Mary, who say yes right away, without prompting or cajoling or shaming into it. But for the rest of us - well, isn't that what guilt is FOR? And the outrageous mix of humility and command in Paul is the confusing part, but what he keeps saying is this: I declare Onesimus a free man, accept him as a brother. I would rather you do it freely, from the good in your heart, but this is what's going to happen. We cannot budge on certain issues, but the ideal would be to bring everyone around to the right way of thinking.
In that process, the weapons in our arsenal might often seem odd - and Paul bends over backwards and forwards trying to keep his humility and friendship unharmed "prisoner in Christ" appears twice and another more oblique reference occurs in these brief twenty-five lines. He doesn't want to pull the Teacher card or take away Philemon and Timothy's chance to make this discovery for themselves, but he has to make sure that Onesimus comes there and is accepted as a brother - that he has a place of honor and respect.
If you think I was building toward an actual moral, I'm afraid that'll have to wait until there's something that I have a grip on. I suppose it's a lesson on how hard it can be to have a position from which you can't bend - especially when it butts up against those you love and respect, who are used to you speaking softly and sweetly and not making waves in your relationship. Then suddenly you have to, and you're liable to end up sounding like Paul: "I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and no something forced" or "I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love" Philemon 1.14, 8.
What was the response to this? "Of course"? "How dare he?" ? "What?" ?
I can imagine them all, and chances are everyone can. How do we handle coming up against those we love when we cannot bend or compromise? When we cannot let the point drop? When we have to use every weapon in our arsenal, even those we hoped never to have to resort to? Can the ends ever erase the means?
We all live in a Fallen World - do we dare use its tools?
Friday, 19 February 2010
February 19, 2010
Philemon
Yes, the entire book. It's tiny.
It's about slavery. It's about equality. It's about reversing the social hierarchy - or rather doing away with it completely. It's about our duty to each other. It's about letting go of old assumptions and old ways of doing things.
It's only 25 verses. And most of them are a pointed - almost passive agressive - guilt trip about the fact that Christians still have slaves.
Onesimus was a slave, and a rebellious one. He must have been so full of anger. Slaves were mostly prisoners of war in those days. In the Roman Empire you weren't usually born into slavery - America instituted inherited slavery. He had a life, and it was taken. Perhaps because of something he did, perhaps because he stood to fight for those he loved, perhaps because he never knew another way. And he was uncooperative to his newly converted Christian master, until he was asked to tend to Paul in a prison.
And I wonder if it was like Ben Jonson, who converted to Catholicism because he was so impressed with one priest who had the guts (not the chosen part of the anatomy in his description) to walk into the jail when the punishment for being a priest was considerably harsher than that any of the inmates could look forward to. This man who loved something too much to bend.
If he fought and lost because he knew no other way, perhaps Paul simply showed him the power of a peaceful fight. If he felt justified in his wars and victimized, perhaps he saw in Paul a way to accept it with dignity. Regardless, he found a consolation in someone else's faith - it became a bridge to his own.
We tend to envy, I think, those who saw Jesus appear miraculously on the way to Damascus, but to me, this is more beautiful. When God reaches down through other people, and we get to help show someone the light of Christ. Perhaps it's less brilliant, and it's certainly less dazzling, but when a small light unfolds into your hand, how gorgeous it must be for both.
But the other half of this story is the fact that Christians had slaves. It was just the way of the world, but a Christian's job is to overturn the way the world thinks. Because we still think the wrong way - human ways, not God's ways. Paul pawns anything that Onesimus has done, takes it onto his own reputation and honor and conscience. How many of us would do that for our brother? That seems an easier answer, sometimes, than this one: how many of us have?
Because we have far more opportunities to do so than we could pretend.
God knows I don't speak up. God knows I don't see past our society all the time. God knows I should.
Philemon
Yes, the entire book. It's tiny.
It's about slavery. It's about equality. It's about reversing the social hierarchy - or rather doing away with it completely. It's about our duty to each other. It's about letting go of old assumptions and old ways of doing things.
It's only 25 verses. And most of them are a pointed - almost passive agressive - guilt trip about the fact that Christians still have slaves.
Onesimus was a slave, and a rebellious one. He must have been so full of anger. Slaves were mostly prisoners of war in those days. In the Roman Empire you weren't usually born into slavery - America instituted inherited slavery. He had a life, and it was taken. Perhaps because of something he did, perhaps because he stood to fight for those he loved, perhaps because he never knew another way. And he was uncooperative to his newly converted Christian master, until he was asked to tend to Paul in a prison.
And I wonder if it was like Ben Jonson, who converted to Catholicism because he was so impressed with one priest who had the guts (not the chosen part of the anatomy in his description) to walk into the jail when the punishment for being a priest was considerably harsher than that any of the inmates could look forward to. This man who loved something too much to bend.
If he fought and lost because he knew no other way, perhaps Paul simply showed him the power of a peaceful fight. If he felt justified in his wars and victimized, perhaps he saw in Paul a way to accept it with dignity. Regardless, he found a consolation in someone else's faith - it became a bridge to his own.
We tend to envy, I think, those who saw Jesus appear miraculously on the way to Damascus, but to me, this is more beautiful. When God reaches down through other people, and we get to help show someone the light of Christ. Perhaps it's less brilliant, and it's certainly less dazzling, but when a small light unfolds into your hand, how gorgeous it must be for both.
But the other half of this story is the fact that Christians had slaves. It was just the way of the world, but a Christian's job is to overturn the way the world thinks. Because we still think the wrong way - human ways, not God's ways. Paul pawns anything that Onesimus has done, takes it onto his own reputation and honor and conscience. How many of us would do that for our brother? That seems an easier answer, sometimes, than this one: how many of us have?
Because we have far more opportunities to do so than we could pretend.
God knows I don't speak up. God knows I don't see past our society all the time. God knows I should.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
February 18, 2010
Daniel 13.28-64
While the first reflection I did on this reading showed the fact that the Gender and Performance class is in full swing in the conversations swirling around me in my grad program, this is a more traditional interpretation. Then again, perhaps it's coming from a family of lawyers that makes me realize that all of this was possible for any of the community members to do.
No one asked. No one demanded details, no one fact-checked the story. Then again, when do they? We have an obsession with wanting to say things first, a race to get things out, and we end up apologizing for getting it wrong a lot.
But it could have been anyone in that assembly who stood up for Susanna and asked a few simple questions. Clearly the Elders weren't prepared for even the slightest challenge. Hubris, really, to not bother to get their stories straight. Any of the many family members we are told Susanna brought with her could have spoken up, asked a few questions because they knew this must be a lie. But we get so stuck in the idea that we can't do anything to stop the bad things from happening. We've become so used to watching it all happening, throwing up our hands, and going back to our dinners.
I wonder how many people the Spirit of the Lord whispered to before a young man stood up and spoke the words aloud. Who stood up and said: No. Who said the thing anyone could have said. Who stood up and asked the questions everyone should have asked.
We don't stand up. Or if we do, it's just to condemn. What if we asked the obvious questions? What if we fact-checked? What if we demanded a higher standard? And yes, my frustration with "Opinion News" especially the 24-hr kind, is filtering in the way my gender studies periphery is, but the point stands. Daniel stood, and the Spirit of God filled him. The initial courage was his. Everything else was God, and it was fantastic and rhetorical and powerful, but that initial courage was what he provided. That's the bit so many of us don't seem to have anymore. It's always the hardest part.
And the saddest part is what I've said ten times already in this post: anyone could have asked those questions. So why don't we?
Daniel 13.28-64
While the first reflection I did on this reading showed the fact that the Gender and Performance class is in full swing in the conversations swirling around me in my grad program, this is a more traditional interpretation. Then again, perhaps it's coming from a family of lawyers that makes me realize that all of this was possible for any of the community members to do.
No one asked. No one demanded details, no one fact-checked the story. Then again, when do they? We have an obsession with wanting to say things first, a race to get things out, and we end up apologizing for getting it wrong a lot.
But it could have been anyone in that assembly who stood up for Susanna and asked a few simple questions. Clearly the Elders weren't prepared for even the slightest challenge. Hubris, really, to not bother to get their stories straight. Any of the many family members we are told Susanna brought with her could have spoken up, asked a few questions because they knew this must be a lie. But we get so stuck in the idea that we can't do anything to stop the bad things from happening. We've become so used to watching it all happening, throwing up our hands, and going back to our dinners.
I wonder how many people the Spirit of the Lord whispered to before a young man stood up and spoke the words aloud. Who stood up and said: No. Who said the thing anyone could have said. Who stood up and asked the questions everyone should have asked.
We don't stand up. Or if we do, it's just to condemn. What if we asked the obvious questions? What if we fact-checked? What if we demanded a higher standard? And yes, my frustration with "Opinion News" especially the 24-hr kind, is filtering in the way my gender studies periphery is, but the point stands. Daniel stood, and the Spirit of God filled him. The initial courage was his. Everything else was God, and it was fantastic and rhetorical and powerful, but that initial courage was what he provided. That's the bit so many of us don't seem to have anymore. It's always the hardest part.
And the saddest part is what I've said ten times already in this post: anyone could have asked those questions. So why don't we?
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Ash Wednesday
February 17, 2010
Daniel 13.1-27
Susanna
One of the things I've always liked best about the Ten Commandments is the separation of the last two commandments: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's property and Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. I remember one of the moments of my life when I was most filled with religious anger was not outrage at our society's excesses or even the abortion massacre. It was when a street preacher was handing out coins with the ten commandments which elongated the first "I am the Lord your God, / you shall have no other gods before Me" into two (at the slash mark) and shortened the final two into a simple, "Thou shalt not covet." To my mild distress, I found my translation of the Bible did something quite similar. The reason this distresses me is that I've always seen those final two commandments as a divine endorsement, all the way back in Exodus, that there is a big difference between a wife and property. Not just, I like to think, in how she may be coveted.
The section of the chapter before me today, however, shows what can happen when those two things get tied up together. The two elders who visit Joakim's house every day and lust after his pretty wife, we are told, see a lot of splendor and receive a very fine meal. They do not take her in the woods or a more private place - nowhere will do but Joakim's own fine garden for their tryst. Surely this is not just about a pretty woman (although I'm not doubting that she was extraordinary). They coveted Joakim's life and riches and the woman he could maintain in splendor with them. They wanted to possess her and cuckold him. It was not for her mind or virtue that they were drawn to her. Even Angelo, in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure has that on these elders. He fell for the person, they seem to have fallen for the idea of stealing something from Joakim. How many times have we seen this story? You can't beat the man, but you can sure as hell seduce his wife? And somehow that's really winning because that's his chief possession and the real measure of his manhood. We're putting women back as property, a jewel on a rich man's arm that can be stolen without the keeper even knowing the difference.
If they had paid enough attention to Susanna they might not have bothered trying, but then again, maybe I'm wrong. They knew that just the offer of sex wouldn't do, they had to pair it with a threat of dishonor - take her reputation and drag it through the mud. Even if Susanna was respected in the community (and it sure turns on her fast) the Elders knew they had the advantage there. After all, she was a woman and not to be trusted. And how many people are loath to see the rich man's wife fall?
Her dilemma was interesting from another perspective entirely, but she negotiated it smoothly. A truly remarkable woman - not just for caring more about her honor than her life. Countless women throughout history have proclaimed to prefer death to dishonor. I'm currently playing Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, and I spend an entire scene begging my tormenters to kill me rather than rape and dishonor me. Susanna, however, chose dishonor over sin. That's a harder choice. Yes, death was tied up with the dishonor, but they were not threatening to cut her heart out in the bath. They threatened to drag her before the community and shame her - turn her husband and family against her, make her a common punchline and a famous slut. To watch her die despised and cast out of society. How many of us could make that choice?
To have no one even know that what you did was honorable and just and virtuous? To have no one believe that you were being the good one? To stand firm in your inner moral center as everyone hung the sins of all women onto your shoulders?
And one bit that I really like about this, back to my original theme, is that Joakim's stake in Susanna is not what is in play here. Whether Susanna consented to cuckold him in reality or had her name dragged through the marketplace until everyone believed that she had anyway, his property was about to be devalued. There was nothing about Joakim at stake here. It all came down to Susanna, as a person. As a woman, not as Joakim's wife.
It's easy to get caught up in such stories with the virtues expected of an ideal woman, but preserving their right to choose who to love ultimately came down, in one chapter of the book of Daniel, to an issue of a woman's choice for her own soul rather than her inherent value to man. Even our modern world gets so confused in this situation.
The strength and grace she showed are not the only lessons we can learn from this story. It's another Old Testament shout out to a concept even the modern world cannot fully grasp - women are people, just like men, and however we try to make them into possessions, in the end that's not what is at stake. A single bright, beautiful soul standing up and saying that she cannot control what the corrupt Elders of her people choose to do, but she can choose what she will do, as a woman. And she chose to honor her husband, her self and her God.
You go girl.
February 17, 2010
Daniel 13.1-27
Susanna
One of the things I've always liked best about the Ten Commandments is the separation of the last two commandments: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's property and Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. I remember one of the moments of my life when I was most filled with religious anger was not outrage at our society's excesses or even the abortion massacre. It was when a street preacher was handing out coins with the ten commandments which elongated the first "I am the Lord your God, / you shall have no other gods before Me" into two (at the slash mark) and shortened the final two into a simple, "Thou shalt not covet." To my mild distress, I found my translation of the Bible did something quite similar. The reason this distresses me is that I've always seen those final two commandments as a divine endorsement, all the way back in Exodus, that there is a big difference between a wife and property. Not just, I like to think, in how she may be coveted.
The section of the chapter before me today, however, shows what can happen when those two things get tied up together. The two elders who visit Joakim's house every day and lust after his pretty wife, we are told, see a lot of splendor and receive a very fine meal. They do not take her in the woods or a more private place - nowhere will do but Joakim's own fine garden for their tryst. Surely this is not just about a pretty woman (although I'm not doubting that she was extraordinary). They coveted Joakim's life and riches and the woman he could maintain in splendor with them. They wanted to possess her and cuckold him. It was not for her mind or virtue that they were drawn to her. Even Angelo, in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure has that on these elders. He fell for the person, they seem to have fallen for the idea of stealing something from Joakim. How many times have we seen this story? You can't beat the man, but you can sure as hell seduce his wife? And somehow that's really winning because that's his chief possession and the real measure of his manhood. We're putting women back as property, a jewel on a rich man's arm that can be stolen without the keeper even knowing the difference.
If they had paid enough attention to Susanna they might not have bothered trying, but then again, maybe I'm wrong. They knew that just the offer of sex wouldn't do, they had to pair it with a threat of dishonor - take her reputation and drag it through the mud. Even if Susanna was respected in the community (and it sure turns on her fast) the Elders knew they had the advantage there. After all, she was a woman and not to be trusted. And how many people are loath to see the rich man's wife fall?
Her dilemma was interesting from another perspective entirely, but she negotiated it smoothly. A truly remarkable woman - not just for caring more about her honor than her life. Countless women throughout history have proclaimed to prefer death to dishonor. I'm currently playing Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, and I spend an entire scene begging my tormenters to kill me rather than rape and dishonor me. Susanna, however, chose dishonor over sin. That's a harder choice. Yes, death was tied up with the dishonor, but they were not threatening to cut her heart out in the bath. They threatened to drag her before the community and shame her - turn her husband and family against her, make her a common punchline and a famous slut. To watch her die despised and cast out of society. How many of us could make that choice?
To have no one even know that what you did was honorable and just and virtuous? To have no one believe that you were being the good one? To stand firm in your inner moral center as everyone hung the sins of all women onto your shoulders?
And one bit that I really like about this, back to my original theme, is that Joakim's stake in Susanna is not what is in play here. Whether Susanna consented to cuckold him in reality or had her name dragged through the marketplace until everyone believed that she had anyway, his property was about to be devalued. There was nothing about Joakim at stake here. It all came down to Susanna, as a person. As a woman, not as Joakim's wife.
It's easy to get caught up in such stories with the virtues expected of an ideal woman, but preserving their right to choose who to love ultimately came down, in one chapter of the book of Daniel, to an issue of a woman's choice for her own soul rather than her inherent value to man. Even our modern world gets so confused in this situation.
The strength and grace she showed are not the only lessons we can learn from this story. It's another Old Testament shout out to a concept even the modern world cannot fully grasp - women are people, just like men, and however we try to make them into possessions, in the end that's not what is at stake. A single bright, beautiful soul standing up and saying that she cannot control what the corrupt Elders of her people choose to do, but she can choose what she will do, as a woman. And she chose to honor her husband, her self and her God.
You go girl.
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