Decade

Earlier this week, I realized something: I missed a momentous anniversary.  Not the wedding one, I never forget that one.  No, I remembered that this past April marked ten years since I left the Cult.  Ten good long years to put between me and then.

There are a lot of things that have happened since that time, and most of them good.  Top of the list is probably this one, and although that anniversary (the 8th, not the 10th) is not until July, here's a photo, since I am celebrating happiness and all that good stuff:

(note that I am in my winter coat, in May. brr.)

zumba

I found something that I am worse at, and is more publicly humiliating for me, than mountain biking: zumba.

The above video shows what my class was like, more or less.  My MIL took me along and we looked nothing like the folks in this video.  You'd better believe I would never have agreed to do it in front of an audience (or in that "shirt"). 

 I only wish I had Mike Perlman's guts, or his moves.  If you have ever seen me dance, you know I have the rhythm and coordination of the Perry Mastodon.

However: at least with zumba I am not risking my life:

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Culture shock, intense emotions, and close encounters with death and life. An Easter season post.

I have been trying to figure out what to tell family and friends now that I am home again after months abroad.  I wrote several different posts and what follows is kind of a combination of a few.  (Btw: if you think this post is long, try living in Calcutta for four months.)

 I like jogging.  I never knew this until after my youngest was born.  To get in shape, I started out slow and then, before I knew it, I was training for my first (and only) long race.  I made Jeremy run with me for 13.1 miles in San Diego's August heat and we actually finished.  I was proud of what my body was capable of, but I wondered if this was pushing too hard.  By the end, every step was excruciating, I almost fainted at the finish line and my knees don't handle hills too well.  Maybe six miles is more reasonable, and healthier?  I wondered.  Yes, my body was ready and able to finish, my lungs and muscles were conditioned, but 10K races are probably going to be the most intense ones I will want to tackle in the future.  

There was no jogging for me while in India for a lot of reasons (what's a sidewalk?) and so, during our European stopover, at the first chance I got out on a trail.  Not only are there sidewalks in Austria, but bike and jogging paths alongside creeks and rivers!  And then, instead of happily huffing along in company of Bono and Kyra Dawson, I broke down crying.

In part, it was out of relief.  Relieved to be out of Asia, out of stinky, steamy Calcutta-in-April and the feeling of trying to keep moving, the feeling of being under that summer morning sun again and trying to pull myself uphill at the 10th mile, with 3.1 more to go.  I was sick of wondering if it broke me down or made me stronger (whatever that means).  All those moments when I didn't know if was going to make it (and worse, the fear that it wouldn't be worth it after all the tears and snot and sweaty sweat) had left me exhausted.   There were plenty of tears while in Calcutta.  Homesickness, fury at injustice, my dear friend PMS (she follows me everywhere, that b*$#!), and later, contrition.  The whole range of human emotion, only magnified because it's all new and because it's hard to be away from home.  But in Austria I cried because even though so much had changed since the last time I had heard these songs or pounded along a jogging path in running shoes, it still all felt so familiar.

Yesterday I came across this post by a friend who has been in India one year and is staying on a few months longer:  

There is so much about India that I don't know and never will.  Expats here either love it or hate it.  People pay tons of money to come to this spiritual land to 'find themselves'.  And I'm here.  Living it.  Doing it.  But I don't feel the least bit enlightened.  Grown, sure but not enlightened.  I am in awe.  I am in disgust.  I am ambivalent.  I am inspired.  I am pissed.  I don't care.  I want more.  There was life before India, which was easy and I knew how to do it.  Then there is life in India and instead of resisting it I am learning to let go and be a part of it.  No matter how you look at it, India changes you.  She breaks you down and makes you learn another way and I'm just trusting the experience....however hellish it might feel sometimes. [...] You discover who you are when you're real far from home.  Love it or hate it.  

Our time in India was different from what I thought it would be.  It was much worse. I expected regular bouts of diarrhea and battles with nasty critters.  I expected adventure—you know, the exciting kind.  But in the end it was fairly uneventful and that was the killer.  My husband got to do the "fun" stuff—working in a hospital and being on the so-called front lines.  I did…nothing much.  It was hard enough to care for and homeschool the kids, to get to and from a shopping center, a bookstore, to a friend's home or to church.  One outing a day was already too much so we stayed home a lot.  Remember that post where I mentioned my trip downtown to register to volunteer with the MCs?  Yeah, well, I didn't know the way to their site and I wandered the streets for awhile after the cabbie dropped me off in the wrong spot, and it was about a gazillion degrees and when I got there they had cancelled registration for the day because of a funeral. 

Speaking of funerals.  Calcutta definitely lives up to her reputation—brutal, inhospitable and, if you are in denial about your mortality, only too willing to help you get in touch with it.  Narayan (the friend I told you about in this post) told me this was the reason for publicly processing the bodies of the dead—so that people would become comfortable with the idea of death.  "We must embrace both life and death," he said.  But I am not at all comfortable with death and so I was completely at a loss what to do when, one winter’s evening during rush hour, our taxicab ended up wedged up against a hearse with an all-glass cover.  There was a cloth draped over the body, but they made sure to keep the face uncovered and magnificently well illuminated so that everyone could clearly see in without having to strain their eyes. 

My son: “Uh, is that man dead, Mom? I think he is.  Yup, he looks dead alright.”  He was three and completely undisturbed by the scene; just a little curious.

Me: “Oh yeah?  You think so?  Hmm…” which is what I usually say when I don’t want to give a direct answer or when I don’t know what to say.  This isn’t normal.  This is so not normal!  

In the ER, my husband sees death regularly.  Sometimes he is shocked by it, and sometimes he is not.  Sometimes he helps relatives with difficult decisions to remove life support from elderly patients who will never recover their natural ability to breathe unassisted and other times he fights desperately for lives that threaten to end too early or abruptly.  I like to think that I help him do his work and that I am equally helpful those nights (or mornings) when he comes home and needs to sit and think and talk and sort it all out.  Usually, though, I end up blurting out that it's a good thing he does the job because not all of us can, nor do we even want to.  Which is basically the equivalent of a pat on the back and a "Hey, good luck with that."

 I feel the same way Churchill did about the suffering masses of Calcutta, and usually about the suffering masses in any place.  I can't handle it.  Nothing in my life has prepared me for this, I think, for the ten thousandth time since my plane touched down.  So can I leave soon, please?  

One morning, during our first week in Calcutta, I went to the early Mass at the Mother House.  Well, for the nuns it probably seemed early, but I had been up since 2am with jetlagged children, so that makes me pretty hardcore, don’t you think?  Truth is, I never feel as useless and frail as I do when I go to India.  Whatever the opposite of hardcore is, that’s what I feel like.  There must be a word for that…hmm…what is that word?  Oh yeah: wimpy.  India makes me feel like the world’s premier wimp.  Wimp-o Numero Uno.  Le Plus Grand Wimp du Monde, as the French say.  (No they don't.) 

What’s even worse: I don't have the strength to care because I am too busy trying to figure out how to keep the kids and myself safe and alive.  Also, I keep busy wondering why I am the only one who seems worried because there is Jeremy, acting like everything is normal!  He has spent more time in India than I have and he is more familiar with human disease and decay.  It could also be that he is just plain tougher and he can handle more, and in higher doses.  Or maybe because he is a dude.  I have no idea.  Other American moms in Calcutta often had the same deer-in-the-headlights look that I did, so maybe it's a guy thing. 

 _______

In the days before we left India, as a mental exercise, I tried to anticipate how it would feel to be home and how I would look back on the time in Asia.  In my journal, there is an entry from just before our departure in which I lamented the absence of any feeling of satisfaction for a job well done.  Instead, I was disgusted with myself for feeling relieved that I get to leave and return to a better, more comfortable and safer place, even if others do not and even though I hadn't accomplished anything.  "Maybe it is appropriate," I wrote, "that I won't end my time here on a note of triumph—this city rarely allows those.  If you escape, or survive, with your health and property mostly unharmed, you can consider yourself one of the lucky ones."  (Calcutta brings out the Serious in me.)

This year my Lent began in Calcutta, which I guess was also appropriate.  Suffering and death, life and redemption—all up in my face, all at once, as soon as the plane reached the gate.  Like it or not.  That Easter arrived the day before we landed on U.S. soil could have been a metaphor for something (a new season, at the very least), but instead I seem to be stuck in Lent.  Apparently, the period of sorrowful penance is not over for me yet.  My sacrificial gift an especially ugly and humiliating one: fragility, incompetence, guilt and regret for what I did not do and for what I cannot do. 

My grief is partly intentional.  This way I can nobly go on mourning with those who mourn and deliciously wallow in the self-reproach of past personal failings and present inadequacies.  (“See?  I am such an especially bad person!  Poor me!”)  And I become one of Those Others Out There I used to ridicule who come home from their few weeks in the developing world convinced that they have encountered True Suffering and now understand What The World is Really Like.  (“Oh no, now I am just like everyone else!  Poor me!”)

Culture shock, at least in my experience, plays similar mind games. It is a battle of confronting, and then trying to contend, with perceived extremes. It is tempting to label everything and start to rank them into two distinct columns of "foreign" or "familiar."  We travelers to Calcutta insist that the scale of human suffering there is worse than in other places, and certainly, it may be more concentrated than in most other places in the world.  India does hold one sixth of the planet’s population, after all.  The causes are less clear, and the boundaries between structural, systemic injustice and individual wrongdoing are as gray as in any other place.  Do desperate and degenerate people go to any length to survive?  Or does the System keep people down and ensure that they will become lawbreakers?  Same diff?   The borders between inner or exterior poverty are just as unclear to me now. 

Honestly, despite all the anxiety and guilt it has provoked, I am thankful that I have been in one of the poorest places in the world as a visitor from one of the wealthiest.  The intensities of “foreign” and “familiar” are less overwhelming after awhile.  What I thought was so strange and unique in Calcutta is, I suspect, a state of being so closely shared by us all that it was unrecognizable.  Unfamiliar and strange to me because I couldn’t ever step back far enough to be able to see, in myself, the same ugliness and destitution. 

Over and over again, during those four months, I found myself questioning Mother Teresa’s view that it was Jesus Himself who was clothed in rags and walking these filthy, sewage littered streets—that it was Jesus in disguise, uniting himself with people who would do anything, anything to stay alive or profit off of those more vulnerable than themselves.  How?  How could He bear to go so low?

A question only someone so out-of-touch with her own spiritual poverty could ask. 

________

Yesterday I had lunch with an old friend.  We lost touch about a dozen years ago a continent and an ocean away, and right now she lives only twelve miles from me.  She asked me, as I knew she would, what it was really like for us in India (the reports I'd sent back were obviously edited for concerned grandparents and for the sake of my own survival).  I was worried about how to answer because being truthful and preserving happy memories is tricky sometimes. "It was really good," I said, "and hard." 

Yup, that about sums it up.

_________

The lighted hearse, and my revulsion to it, might end up being more powerful than I first understood.  Four months in India, like the half marathon, kicked my butt.  With both, the feeling is more of defeat than victorious elation.  It just doesn't seem healthy or normal to embrace death as much as life and it even seems wrong.  Because death is a distortion of the natural order and things are not as they were originally intended to be, right?   This is not normal!  I want to keep screaming. 

Aren't suffering and even death, as tragic and terrible as they are, supposed to be only temporary realities of the human condition?  There's something about that somewhere in the Catechism, probably.   Can't we skip over them, get to the good part a bit faster, sooner?  Then again, death turned into life, penitence transformed into love, and suffering into sanctification—these also are realities.  The real way to Christ is a share, however small, in that Passion that was so very real.  And the final reality?  That's the big one: Christ is Risen.

the only thing better than Simcha is the quality of her readers' comments

The rapture, Danielle Bean's fondness for Red Bull and skirlots.  It's all right here.

Your dress is illegal (part II)

The "Part I" post from a few days ago got one single comment and now it has mysteriously disappeared.  Blogger has been acting up all week and now the only opinion offered about my previous post is gone.  Phooey.  The good news is, I can offer a very concise summary: he stated, very strongly, that J. Cumming's article was wrong.  He said that full-body coverings for women are degrading to them and to men, since it implies that men are incapable of controlling themselves if they catch sight of even a square inch of skin of a woman's body.

I happen to agree, so let's start there, then.


#1: Full body coverings objectify women. 

There are at least two meanings here.  First, that women's bodies are sexualized and therefore become, exclusively, objects of sexual attraction.  It is as if to say that her legs are not intended primarily for walking nor her hands for working, for carrying or writing or any number of other tasks.  No: the sight of skin is primarily sexually appealing.  Or perhaps more correctly, skin itself is, primarily, sexual.  Body=Sex.  If anything, I would think that concealing her figure might heighten the "mystique" of the feminine, and statistics have confirmed that completely hidden women are unfortunately not safer from sexual predators than women who don't. 

Secondly, that women's bodies become a source of socio-religious capital for their families is distressing to me.  According to this model, full covering = increased honor quotient for herself and family, while no covering = less honor. 

Third, a woman's body becomes a single man's possession: only a spouse will have the right to look at her body (her face, her skin, her everything).  Everyone else gets to see the general outline.  But wait, you say, not everyone else, right?  Surely she still has rights to at least look at her own body and other women will also be able to be in her company without her needing to cover up.  And that brings me to #2:


#2: Full body coverings sexualize all male-female relationships.

It is my understanding that in communities where women choose to (or are forced to) cover themselves up completely, they will do so in the presence of any male relative or stranger (if they are even permitted to be in the presence of a man who is not a relation).  This means: sisters in front of brothers and father, and mothers and grandmothers with their own sons and grandsons, nephews or great-grandsons.
 
But even when this is not the case, for a woman of any age to cover up anytime she walks outside her home means that any man (of any age) that she encounters could be tempted by her body.  And frankly, that is disturbing.

Let me pause here and say once again that I am not writing about the general issue of women's dress as compared to men's and whether or not women have a responsibility or duty to present their bodies modestly when in public.  That is a different topic and to me it seems much more complex.  In this series, I am only interested in whether or not it is harmful to society (not just to women, not just to men, but to everyone) to encourage or compel (post-pubescent) women of any age or state in life to completely cover themselves when in public--or in private, for that matter.  I believe it is.

It is especially degrading to married couples, so I will make that it's own bullet-point:

#3: Full-body coverings for-women-only devalues men's sexuality.

Not only does covering up a woman head to toe imply that men cannot, or should not have to, exercise self-control when attracted by a woman, but, worse, it over-values a woman's sexuality as opposed to a man's.  I mean: if the [sexual] purity of a woman's body is worth protecting and if their [sexual] honor is so valuable for a father, a brother, or her husband, why isn't a man's?  Is it because fidelity is less important for a man than a woman?  Another way to say it: if a man's honor rests so precariously on his wife's good name, why isn't his body considered just as precious to her reputation?  Or in other words, it points to that inequality the French brought up.  Is it really marriage between a man and a woman, where a couple is formed?  Or is it that a man is "taking a woman as his wife" (language that makes me shudder whenever I hear it)? 

#4: Full-body coverings contribute to alienation between the sexes.

The material cloth that drapes a woman's body serves as a physical barrier between an individual woman and any male onlooker.  It is not only her distinctly feminine parts which are covered with special care, but every single part of her.  This is not a practice that encourages public exchange, dialogue or communion between men and women, but one designed to shield women from men and men from women.  As a material barrier, it is only reasonable to assume that it will likely only increase isolation between men and women rather than serve to foster intimacy or mutual understanding between the sexes, and especially within a marriage.  Should we conclude that honor is valued more highly than marital communion?

I realize that some will disagree with this point perhaps more than others.  There are people who oppose France's law for this very reason: to wear a covering is a woman's only chance to have any kind of public existence.  It is the only way that she can, in good conscience (or according to the rule of her religion, as she interprets it), appear outside the safety of the home.  Without the freedom to cover up, she would have no public life whatsoever and less liberty to interact with others outside her family unit.

And I just want to ask, Why?  Which brings me to my final objection:

#5. Full-body coverings are just plain unncessary (and in certain climates they might even be cruel!)

There is just something inherently unnatural about covering oneself up entirely.  It is impractical to walk in, it is unnecessarily zealous, it does not ensure a woman's safety, and outside of an ice or sand storm, the outfit makes no sense at all.  Why not wear a headscarf, or a long skirt, or whatever else you want if modesty is your greatest concern? 

The truth is, I believe that it coverings are actually harmful, and not neutral.  I think we can all agree that clothing can be a reflection of the inherent dignity and value of a woman's body and person.  That's what fashion and personal style are all about, right?--showing off your individual creativity (for men, and women).  But clothing does not confer dignity.  I have a big problem with women's bodies being the main point of focus for dignity or honor.   Doesn't a woman's (and man's, for that matter) entire person have inherent and sufficient dignity?  And if we believe in the unity of person and body, then why cover up?  I simply object to the implicit or explicit notion that a woman who does not cover up is somehow lacking in self-respect. 

A woman is precious not just because of what she thinks or does or believes, and not only because of her relationship to certain others (such as parents or spouse or inlaws).  A woman is not just a wife or mother or sister.  She is all those things even though she is first of all an individual person with her own rights, inherent dignity, talents and gifts.  Clothing neither adds to nor dimishes any of these elements of her personality or uniqueness, though it might reflect them.  I simply have a hard time believing that a woman requires an extreme and impractical mode of dress such as a burka to be modest.  I disagree that men need their wives or sisters or mothers or aunts to distinguish themselves by being "extra" modest, let alone the notion that full-covering be a minimum requirement for minimum modesty. 

None of this is, to me, a question of cultural relativity because it is simply so very extreme and because it singles one half of the population and not the other.

 _________

Standing next to women while in Malaysia who were covered from head-to-toe, a feeling of revulsion for the clothing (not the women!) came over me more than once.  To me, no style of dress symbolized the alienation of men from women that we currently struggle with in today's world more than this cloth. 

But it wasn't all bad. As I spent time thinking about women robed in black and for all intents, concealed from society's intrusive view, I couldn't help but appreciate how these coverings point to the very public dimensions of sexual behavior.  The act of sex is private in one sense, and yet also very public.  Ideally, in a perfect world, we wouldn't have to wear anything at all; we wouldn't have to conceal anything.  Ideally, we could all, men and women alike, truthfully say, "I've got nothing to hide!"



[I just re-read this post and realized something.  I was going to add a note mentioning that, besides ultra-conservative Muslim ones, I don't know of any other communities where women shield themselves almost completely from view, but then I thought: hey, some Catholic religious do!  So let me point out a few differences.  First of all, I don't know any nuns who wear netting over their faces; usually you can see the entire face.  Secondly, nuns are not married and they are not going about "life as usual."  Their clothing is a designation of a life set apart from that of others.  Third: this rule often applies to men and some male orders also wear long and impractical-to-walk-in robes.  Some of them even do their gardening in these robes, which I guess is for extra penance or something.  But again, I can't think of any religious who cover up entirely.  Anyone have thoughts on this?]

ooh...don't you want to see this now?

Your dress is illegal (part I)

While in Malaysia, where many women do wear headcoverings of various kinds and some even cover themselves head to toe (with only their eyes showing) I came across this article.  It is not a long read, so if you are curious, go ahead and read through it.  Here's a brief summary: in some places it is now illegal for a woman to be so completely covered that her face would not show.  The author of the article argues that, although not all Muslims feel very strongly about this issue, we Christians ought to consider supporting those who do simply because we believe in religious freedom.

What do you think?  I mean, what do you think about the issue of state involving itself in this matter?  Secondly: what thoughts do you have about his argument?

Specifically, I am interested in hearing what you have to say about full-body coverings.  Whether or not a woman wants to cover her head and whether or not it is modest according to some objective standard is a different subject, in my opinion. 

In France, it is illegal to wear headcoverings in various public settings (like school), but not always.  Two of France's arguments I heard against covering up a woman's entire face and body were:

1. that it was an issue of security because women could not easily be identified (in fact, who is to say it is even a woman?), and

2. that it contradicts the nations ideals of equality.

I intend to write more of my own thoughts soon, and the issue was very interesting to me while visiting Malaysia, which seems to be a popular tourist destination for conservative Muslims.  Because of their work, my parents have been there many times and have told me all about burqinis, but it was still startling to see them up close. 

For now, I will just say that although a lot of the logic in the early part of the article is flawed, I do agree that people (and not just Christians) ought to work for and support the freedoms of others, especially minorities.  Even still, the question of whether full body coverings are "inherently oppressive to women" needs to be addressed first.  Whether or not some women choose it freely is kind of beside the point. 

Also, I should mention that Joseph C. is my dad's colleague, so be nice, ok?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Happy Easter!

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Man of Sorrows, and Tears

For the first two months of my time in Kolkata, I congratulated myself anytime I walked outdoors.  If I found myself outside for any reason at all and if I was standing up, it felt like a real triumph.  Jeremy and I exchanged notes and laughed that we had both been doing the same thing.  The fact that it might even occur to us to think, "wow, I am totally able to handle this" where "this" refers to standing or walking is something you'd have thought we had outgrown, oh, about 30.5 years ago. We figured that it was probably also an indication of just how well we are not handling things, so we had to laugh.  Twelve of my years were spent in one of Africa's largest and dirtiest cities, and I had hoped they would have served a little better as preparation for the new and the strange, but I guess I was wrong.

So much for plans; it is hard to get used to the sight of human suffering and neglect on such a scale as this, and I am not sure I want to, anyway.

Last December, only a few hours after we were introduced, a new acquaintance called me "delicate."  I don't know exactly what he meant by it, but I received it as an insult to all the effort and hard work I feel I have directed toward becoming a strong, capable and resilient woman and mother (not to mention the brave public face I thought I was successfully pulling off).  Of course delicacy and strength do not necessarily cancel each other out, but four weeks on the ground in one of Asia's dirtiest and most horrifying cities meant I was already dipping deeply into my reserves and so, yeah, I will admit that I was a bit fragile. 

Like I said, I don't know what he meant by it (and he was a bit of a strange one), but he was obviously quite sincere as he spoke, and he said it very gently.  From his expression, I understood that I ought to take it as the simple truth, and maybe even a compliment.

This year has offered plenty of opportunities to contemplate the limits of my endurance.  Immediately before Kolkata, a season in Brooklyn "broke me in" a little for life in an overcrowded and filthy urban setting.  Mostly, it made me want to move somewhere beautiful and remote.  So I had to laugh when I read the Onion's a hilarious (and satirical, as usual) piece about how, at the same moment on the same day, the entire population of New York City all suddenly realize just how awful the place is and decide to leave immediately:

At 4:32 p.m. Tuesday, every single resident of New York City decided to evacuate the famed metropolis, having realized it was nothing more than a massive, trash-ridden hellhole that slowly sucks the life out of every one of its inhabitants... According to residents, the mass exodus was triggered by a number of normal, everyday New York City events. For Erin Caldwell of Manhattan, an endlessly honking car horn sent her over the edge, causing her to go into a blind rage and scream "shut up!" at the vehicle as loud as she could until her voice went hoarse; for Danny Tremba of Queens it was being cursed at for walking too slow; and for Paul Ogden, also of Queens, it was his overreaction to somebody walking too slow.

Oh man, I am still laughing.  (It's funny because it's true!)

The article goes on to joke about the misplaced pride New Yorkers feel at being able to tough out all the unpleasantness and inconvenience that comes from stuffing 8.4 million people onto a few islands.  As if the real pioneering Americans are the ones who continue to test themselves against the unbeatable odds of their day--ours being pollution, global terrorism and overgrown subway rodents.  Face the facts, people: New Yorkers are more hardcore than the rest of us. (Well, besides Alaskans.)

You can always tell survivors by the fact that they have been through so much more than you have, and they want to tell you all about it.  The medical community has its share.  They are the physicians who were trained before the 80-hour/week cap for residents came into effect and frankly, they are insufferable.  I am pretty sure these are the same people who, as kids, used to walk two miles to school (uphill both ways) year-round, in the snow.  With no boots.  They lived through it and they were even made stronger by their trials, and you ought to accept your share of suffering, too, preferrably in silence.  If you don't, well, I guess that just shows what a softie you are.

It is best not to argue with those folks.  Not least because they have a point.  "Yup," I want to say, but don't, "that's just the kind of wimp I am.  Even this is too hard for poor, fragile me."  That's not too hard to admit.  Actually, the implication that difficulties and hardships naturally makes one less compassionate is more of a problem for me.  "So you are saying that you endured the same, or worse, and you refuse to admit that my pain is legitimate?  Shouldn't you, of all people, understand and empathize?"

A neighbor lent me a book recently, but I had to return it after reading only a couple of chapters.  It was about the women who work in the "dance bars" of Bombay and I should have known better than even to pick it up.  Too, too sad.  I couldn't handle it.  Abuse is so common that when someone gives in to tears about it, the other women accuse them of overreacting.  "Those who cry have not suffered enough," they say, exasperated by one of their number who has a habit of telling and retelling her sad story.

Toughen up.  Learn to cope.  That's what we all do.  Right? 

The truth is, human beings are remarkably resilient and, with time, we can get used to almost anything.  On the other hand, we have also been known to (when given the choice) take the easier way.  The easiest thing is to try not to hurt or care too much and avoidance is a particularly effective shield from the hurts we would rather not remember.  Still, it seems more than a little harsh to judge those women who resented being forced to face their own still-unhealed wounds.  They, like all of us, have learned to adapt in the best way they know how.  Everything has its purpose and calluses are there, after all, to protect what is most fragile.

On Sunday we read the Gospel passage about the raising of Lazarus, a story that foretells an imminent and more glorious Resurrection.  Outside the tomb, people crowded around to see what Jesus would do, and before He did anything else, He wept.  "See how He loved him!" the witnesses said, and their words have been passed down to us so we would know that Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, never outgrew the ability to cry. 

It is difficult to balance the mutual need for grief and resilience, compassion and the work of survival.  If everything has its purpose, and if tears are proof of love, I hope that I have not--and that I will not--toughen up too much.  Love, exultation, and the sorrows of the crushed are still the tools used to heal the world and raise the dead. 

penitence

Suffering, it has been said, is meant for our conversion.  Wherever you encounter it, whether your own or that of others, suffering ought to help return our hearts and minds to God.

photo: D. Lange

Some pain is hidden; other hardships are obvious and in plain view.  The man who can barely pedal his bicycle-rickshaw because it could never earn him enough to replace the calories he expends to do it--that man cannot conceal what a lifetime of material deprivation has meant to his body.   The women who are eighteen but look to me like they are in their mid-thirties, and the ones who are hauling bricks long after they should be home and tucking their children into bed, can't hide it, either.  Neither can the workers at the Fukushima plant or the people in the surrounding areas of tsunami-devasted Japan. 

This kind of thing is what leads so many of us to (very ironically) classify sufferings based on severity or, worse, to dismiss one person's pain on the basis of our knowledge of a greater and more legitimate hardship "out there somewhere."  How dare she complain about the broken dishwasher when there are millions who do not have running water in their homes!   When you stop to think about it, this is a very clever diversionary tactic if it succeeds in preventing a person from considering the messy state of their own inner life.  It is much easier to maintain the belief that it is "those others out there" who are really bad off.  

With our attention focused on another, we are much less less likely to notice how the sufferings of others mirror our own.  "Who me?  No, I'm fine, I am not the one with real problems..."

My daughter's Catechism book gives two reasons for the Passion and the Crucifixion.  Jesus suffered and died, it says, so that we would know the depth of the Father's love for us and the evil of sin.  The book is aimed at first graders, so the language is straightforward.  The authors, understandably, chose to dodge the theological arguments (and violence) that have raged over the past couple millenia about why Jesus had to die and how exactly one is saved.  The book leaves the conversation about the mechanics of the salvific process alone and, rather, it says very simply that there are two things to contemplate when considering the sufferings and ultimate death that Jesus endured: love, and just how bad sin is. 

Christianity teaches that all life reveals God, but most especially human life because God became a human person.  The Church tells us that all of human experience is a manifestation of the Life that was lived by God-on-earth, but most especially the experience of suffering.  Because Jesus suffered for our sake.  More accurately, His sufferings are our sufferings. 

In other words, the suffering Jesus, the One whose body is tired from trying to stay alive though overworked and underfed, is at once a metaphor and the reality of sin in the world.  Out of the Father's great love, the Son took on all of the sin of the world, and it killed him.  Suffering, then, is sin made visible.

Carryll H. and I have been spending lots of time together here in India.  The first book of hers that I discovered was not one of her well-known works but actually an out-of-print collection of letters to close friends or acquaintances.  There are echoes of her published pieces in the letters; it seems she was never tired of repeating what the saints have always said: Christ lives in the littlest and lowliest.  This is where He usually chooses to manifest Himself.  She must have feeling a bit catty one day because in one letter she was almost ridiculing the folks who celebrated St. Therese's canonization.  It shouldn't be so surprising that someone like this little French girl could become a saint and live with God in heaven, said Carryll.  The more surprising thing is that Jesus would actually live in someone like Therese, quintessential bourgeoise that she was!

from D. Lange's "Migrant Mothers" Depression-era series

Every person, said Mother Teresa, has been created for great things: to love and to be loved.  Rich and poor alike.  And yet both Mother and Carryll agreed that those who are poorest and sickest and suffering most acutely have the most to teach the world about love.  We need them and we owe the poor a great debt, Mother said, because they show us how much we need God.  

Suffering, wherever we encounter it, is for our conversion.  It is not useless; it can make us holy.  The marks on those who suffer show us the wounds of our not-always-visible sin.  We may try to conceal them, but the obvious neediness of the poor, the sick and the neglected aren't going to let us get away with it. 

To you, O Lord, I make my prayer for mercy.  Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.  - from Evening Prayer, Lenten Season

ask the internet...

...and you'll get an answer.  Or a hundred.  I asked, Why do Indians touch the feet of their elders?

about complaints and the preservation of happy memories

Life is very tough on my eldest daughter.  As a newborn, she screamed for three straight hours one night because of a bit of gas.  Three long hours and three little toots, and then she was quiet.  By then it was midnight so I was just happy to get to bed, finally.  You can imagine how relieved I was when I noticed, after my second was born, that she had learned to fart while still in her hospital bassinet.  (Oh, the prayers of thanks we mamas pray...)

Now the oldest is six, and still very theatrical.  I filmed a recent meltdown over a sliver of cucumber she was supposed to be eating.  For evidence.  Or as a way to preserve my sanity in the moment, maybe.  Also, I wanted to be able to show it to her later and (hopefully) have a laugh about it.  "Don't put that on YouTube!" she screamed when she saw the camera.  

And then, a day or so later, she changed her mind.  She couldn't deny it; it was ridiculously entertaining. (I put in on YouTube and the family blog.)

 

See, she doesn't exactly hold grudges, but she certainly wants me to know when something has not gone her way.  At the end of the day, as I tuck her in bed, we say our "thank you" prayers.  We list some of the good events of the day, or the names of people we are thankful for, and you know what L. always does?  She lets me know exactly which part of the day was not to her liking.  "Yes, we went to an amusement park, but we were there for only a short time and sometimes I didn't get to choose which ride to go on and I didn't get the snack I wanted."  Or: "Well, part of it was fun, but other parts weren't good like when I had to do chores."

For L., almost every day is like Alexander's very bad day.  And yes, I am the mom in the background with her head down and one hand on her hip.  Between the two of us, I'll bet my husband has often wished we would both move far away to Australia...

Then there is my second daughter.  Not only did she get off to a great start in the bassinet, but she is still, on the whole, quite happy and content no matter where she is.  She is secure in our affection, that's for sure.  "Mommy, why do you love me so much?  Why am I so awesome?"   During the thank-you prayers, she'll thank God for "the whole universe," or—a favorite of mine from last week: "Thank you that I was born so creative."   Now that's a happy and grateful kid.

For both girls, it all seems to have a lot to do with their level of satisfaction regarding the amount of attention they have received.  Lately, though, I have been skeptical that there is anything at all I can do to help; L. might just be a bottomless pit that can never be filled. 

So what makes this difference between my two girls—or any two people?  For some folks, it's enough to know that they are loved.  Then there are those of us who seem always to be looking for more validation and more attention.  Complaining seems as good a way as any to get it, I guess.  Do we need to know that we have been heard?  Or is it more simple than that--do we just wish everything was a bit more fun? 

I remember reading somewhere that people inclined to brood and have negative thoughts are the same people who tend to complain a lot.  I didn't like to read that and I resent all the time I have spent thinking about it since.  Flarg.*

Besides the obvious--that negativity has the power to ruin the present--I have also had to admit that complaining can also ruin our memories of the past.  Chances are good that if you tell and retell the stories of unpleasant happenings enough times, those are the only things you will remember.  My bedtime conversations with my daughter seem to support this theory, as does my experience during my first week back in India after a five year absence.  All of a sudden I remembered all of the things I had enjoyed during my first visit!  Lovely plants, exotic birds and food, and yes, even certain smells, all of which had been overshadowed in my memory by the somewhat unpleasant (and the other truly terrible) events from that first visit. 

Anyway, I would like to try to remember this little lesson as well as to get some perspectives from others on the matter.  I want to try to remember to shut up more often, and to speak the full, happy truth, whenever I get the chance.  So that's why I have written this down. You know, to preserve it before it got buried under my complaining about all of L.'s complaining.  Ha. 


*We make up cuss words at my home.  Little first-grader eyes peeking over my shoulder as I type, etc.  It's more fun to make them up anyway, try it sometime.

sheep and goats

An excerpt from Uncle Tom's Cabin.  The dialogue takes place after the death of St. Clare's daughter, and (though he doesn't realize it) only a few hours before his own.  I read this particular portion of the book a few weeks ago, while lying on my couch (ahem), during commercial breaks while watching The Counterfeiters about courage and resistance in a WWII concentration camp so I guess that made it extra super poignant. 

"What a sublime conception is that of a last judgment!" said he, --"a righting of all the wrongs of ages!—a solving of all moral problems, by an unanswerable wisdom!  It is, indeed, a wonderful image."

"It is a fearful one to us," said Miss Ophelia.

"It ought to be to me, I suppose," said St. Clare stopping, thoughtfully.  "I was reading to Tom, this afternoon, that chapter in Matthew that gives an account of it, and I have been quite struck with it.  One should have expected some terrible enormities charged to those who are excluded from Heaven, as the reason; but no—they are condemned for not doing positive good, as if that included every possible harm."

"Perhaps," said Miss Ophelia, "it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm."

"And what," said St. Clare, speaking abstractedly, but with deep feeling, "what shall be said of one whose own heart, whose education, and the wants of society, have called in vain to some noble purpose; who has floated on, a dreamy, neutral spectator of the struggles, agonies, and wrongs of man, when he should have been a worker?"

"I should say," said Miss Ophelia, "that he ought to repent, and begin now."

"Always practical and to the point!" said St. Clare, his face breaking out into a smile.   "You never leave me any time for general reflections, Cousin; you always bring me short up against the actual present; you have a kind of eternal now, always in your mind."

"Now is all the time I have anything to do with," said Miss Ophelia.

[…]

"My view of Christianity is such," he added, "that I think no man can consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being against this monstrous system of injustice that lies at the foundation of all our society; and, if need be, sacrificing himself in the battle.  That is, I mean that I could not be a Christian otherwise, though I have certainly had intercourse with a great many enlightened and Christian people who did no such thing; and I confess that the apathy of religious people on this subject, their want of perception of wrongs that filled me with horror, have engendered in me more scepticism than any other thing."

"If you knew all this," said Miss Ophelia, "why didn't you do it?"

"O, because I have had only that kind of benevolence which consists in lying on a sofa, and cursing the church and clergy for not being martyrs and confessors.  One can see, you know, very easily, how others ought to be martyrs."

"Well, are you going to do differently now?" said Miss Ophelia.

"God only knows the future," said St. Clare.  "I am braver than I was, because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose can afford all risks."

"And what are you going to do?"

"My duty, I hope, to the poor and lowly, as fast as I find it out," said St. Clare, "beginning with my own servants, for whom I have yet done nothing; and, perhaps, at some future day, it may appear that I can do something for a whole class; something to save my country from the disgrace of that false position in which she now stands before all civilized nations."

ugly self-portraits: Holi edition

 I hear it can take a few weeks for this stuff to come off. 

It was worth it.  Pink beard nothwithstanding.