Backstab

 'If the reports are true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war'

When your friends act like enemies... When your friends have lost their way. 

Gay Marriage

What is the privileged status of male-female marriage?

I will say from the beginning that it has no intrinsically privileged status.  During the present gay marriage debate in the United States I've heard the phrase "sanctity of marriage" used by religious factions, without a single definition of what this means, other than the formula: "One man, one woman."  This formula doesn't give us the meaning of the term "sanctity" but it must be related to it.  I think when a Christian speaks about the sanctity of marriage what they must really mean is that in its founding moment (think Adam and Eve), God blessed the union of a man and a woman, i.e. his intention was that this fundamental relationship be comprised of male and female.  Furthermore, from the theology of the Christian scriptures one can derive a notion of marriage whereby the partners in a relationship have analogical significance, i.e. man=Christ, woman=Church etc.  Christian marriage is the sign of some greater spiritual reality.  Insofar as a Christian believes this it is sanctified, though a Christian will maintain that whether or not they believe it it is still sanctified.  This is their belief.

So a marriage that is sanctified is one that is pleasing to God (and therefore blessed by him).  What is pleasing to God?  What scriptures tell us is pleasing to God, what pattern one sees there, what tradition holds to be the case.  One who opposes gay marriage will not say love sanctifies a marriage, because obviously gay couples love one another, or one will qualify love by adding a "male-female" in front of it.  But we now know that gender is to a large extent socially-culturally constructed, and I don't know many Christians who would want to reduce the sanctity of marriage to the interaction of sexual organs (or at least admit to it).  No, marriage for these is about God, a qualified kind of love, and scripture.  I won't waste my time commenting on how a qualified love is a rather sad pretender to the real thing.   When you look into the eyes of your beloved, tell me, is the first thing that comes to mind "thank God you're the proper sexual orientation"? 

This still doesn't answer the question asked at the beginning.  "Sanctity of marriage" turns out to mean little more than "sanctity of my definition of marriage."  This can never be the ground for a universal determination or privileged status.

Suffer the little children

Two year Beauty
Killed by indiff'rence
Angels and God watch
You burn in hell
 

Child, 2, dies after being left in car

Suffer the little children

Children are society's most precious beings, and her most innocent victims.  Anyone who really knows a child can never accept that child's abuse, not without a deeply perverse heart.  Those who thirst for war are numbered among those with such a heart.

(Iraqi orphan drew a picture of his mom and went to sleep in its arms.) 

Signa

 

 

The icon and the idol determine two manners of being for beings, not two classes of being.  Jean-Luc Marion.

Sex and Christianity (Letter to a friend)

I think the sexual revolution of the 60's has something to do with much of the Church's attitude towards sex.  The blogger was right to point out that for the monastics purity extended to all aspects of their lives, not just their attitudes toward their sex organs (but let's face it, any spirituality that seeks to be truly holistic must also consider the physical act of sex or self-pleasure otherwise it risks becoming an elitist gnosticism scorning even the redeemed flesh). 
 

During the sexual revolution the churches reacted. Like any pushback the reaction may have gone too far. You present us with sexual freedom, we respond with a militant sexual ethic veiled in ideal purity. You say we are existentially free, we say your subjectivity is bound up with your sexual practice. 
 

The tricky part then is reclaiming a Christian subjectivity that is not reactionary.  But Christians, of all people, know something about a new creation.
 

 

Later than you think -Part II-

 

Green wall fecundity

Breathe you into my nostrils

Writhing mass of sand grain-covered worms

Along such paths men haunt

Traces, mud swirls in puddles

Thick description- abstraction

Not here the babbling of neuron excretion

In my right vest pocket I could feel a kleenex and an old receipt.  In my left was a rubberband and a pocket knife.  My hands rested comfortably there on old familiar objects and the day was cool.  The air smelled fresh after a night of rain.  Three weeks had passed since Lynn left.  In that time I had to leave my apartment because I was short on rent, but I was still working down at the grocery store.  When she left I lost half the rent income.  I ended up pitching a tent just off the bike trail and slept there.  It wasn't so bad.  Oh and I also found out that Lynn was pregnant, but not, as I first thought, with my baby (I'm still close with one of her friends who works at the store with me).  Turns out Lynn was a couple months pregnant when she broke up with me.  I guess they'd been sleeping together for a while before that.  I wasn't sure if I should feel relieved or not the baby wasn't mine.  The ache I felt in my chest when I thought about it could mean almost anything.

The trail stretched off into the distance ahead of me.  My tent was another half-kilometer away.  At least there I could get away from all the craziness that surrounded me lately.  As I came closer I noticed two things at once.  First, I began to make out some of my things laying on the path.  Second, I heard the zipper of my tent open or close, I wasn't sure which.  Immediately adrenaline started pumping through my arteries.  Fight or flight.  What the hell: fight.

Later than you think -Part I-

Vidi nihil permanere sub sole.

From inside I could hear the car door close and the engine come to life.  I sat down in the old canvas-covered chair my neighbour had given me, just in time to hear her drive off with her new boyfriend into the distance.  The place suddenly seemed pretty quiet.  Looking back on things I doubt I would have done anything differently.  That being said, I'll sure miss her.

The clock said 7:30 pm.  What the hell was I going to do now?  I grabbed my vest and went outside.  Down the street I heard Larry yelling at his wife again.  Not a very happy guy that Larry, but if you think he's miserable you should see his wife.  Almost everyday she walks her dog past my place.  She's overweight, never smiles, and just kind of plops along with some very flattened-out flip-flops that can't be giving her much support.  She has one of those little foo-foo dogs that look like stained mop heads.  I'm sure the mop has a great personality, but it looks as dumb as a brick.  Anyway I feel sorry for her.  Nobody deserves the crap she takes from her husband.  I mean what the hell is his problem? 

I turn the opposite direction and start walking.  My mind is numb and I'm thinking about Lynn.  Where did she even meet this guy?  My girlfriend was way more social than me, but when did she have time to get this far into a relationship?  At least he waited in the car while she grabbed her stuff.  How awkward would that have been if he came in to "protect her" or something?  She obviously knew me well enough to leave the meathead in the car. 

I wasn't paying attention to the road and almost stepped on some roadkill.  My street doesn't have sidewalks so every now and then you might come across a flattened out animal of one kind or another.  Know how you feel little buddy.  Ok maybe not exactly.. I mean the poor bastard is flatter than a pancake.  God I need help.

Transcendental

[The divine] is given to us only in the form of a distance that refers us to what is other than itself.  We never have direct access to it, nor can we grasp it immediately. It is given only by silently referring us to something other than itself, something finite that is the object of our direct intuition and action.  

Karl Rahner, Sheehan trans.