You Can Only See ...

My teacher, Richard Rohr, often says, "You can only see, what you've been taught to see." This has been brought home to me as I follow the campaign for the Labour Leadership.

I have voted for Jeremy Corbyn, and I did so because Jeremy DID NOT attend Oxford or Cambridge University, to study economics, like all his rivals, he HAS had a life outside the Westminster hothouse, and he DID vote against further cuts in welfare.

So what is it the centre-right political class is not seeing? Forty economists, not all Corbyn supporters, have written to the British press to say he's right on austerity. It won't stimulate the economy, it won't bring about a recovery, it will further impoverish the lives of the poorest, which will, in all probability, weaken the social fabric of our nation. So why do the three other candidates support the austerity programme designed by the opposition to dismantle the welfare state? Because they all studied economics at Oxbridge of course. And you cannot see what you weren't taught to see.

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Bull's Eye

I am taking a course through EdX.org from The University of Washington on 'Resilience'. I am pretty resilient one way or another and bouncing back from a knock has always proceeded at a steady pace.  I thought I'd take the course in order to use it to help other people. That'll come as no surprise. 

Well! I am bowled-over. Week Two was all about  clarification of values. This seemed easy to start with, but proved to be quite an existential challenge, because I had to ask myself, "Who am I and how do I define myself?" 

First off, I realised that I habitually spend far too much time asking the question: "Who do other people think I am, and what is their opinion of me?"

Just seeing THAT was worth the effort of working through the course. 

"Who I think I am?" might be quite an interesting discussion, but I'm not going to have it here, because  it's a fairly fluid concept and may change at any moment. It's what I DO about who I think I am that  was the focus of the Bull's Eye exercise. Which you might Google for yourself if you're interested. 

Given a while to think about it, I find that one of the least satisfying parts of my life, is my habit of attempting  to please other people. In the process of which, I don't always say what I really think, and I don't always do what I really want to do. 

I have no radical agenda here. I'm not going to do anything very life-changing. I'm just going to quietly, softly, say what I really think, and tip-toe around doing what seems right to me. 

It's an exciting prospect. 

Quietly and softly -  making a difference by being true to myself:

A New Kind of Doing -Fr Richard Rohr Thursday, May 22, 2014

"In the second half of life, we do not have strong and final opinions about everything, every event, or most people, as much as we allow things and people to delight us, sadden us, and truly influence us. We no longer need to change or adjust other people to be happy ourselves. Ironically we are more than ever before in a position to change people—but we do not need to—and that makes all the difference. We have moved from doing to being to an utterly new kind of doing that flows almost organically, quietly, and by osmosis. Our actions are less compulsive. We do what we are called to do, and then try to let go of the consequences. We usually cannot do that very well when we are young. Now we aid and influence people simply by being who we are. Human integrity probably influences and moves people from potency to action more than anything else. An elder’s deep and studied passion carries so much more power than superficial and loudly stated principles. Our peace is needed more than our anger. "

Calling Women From The Desert

I do not consider myself a feminist. I pootle along, watching, listening, growing in grace and truth, I hope,  as I age. I regard being a woman as a huge plus, subjected as I am (or was?) to the softer tyranny of oestrogen, observing with a smile of amusement,  the Alpha males and their priests make a dog's breakfast of running the world. This, I imagine to be the expression on the face of La Gioconda which has bewitched, befuddled and beguiled her admirers since the sixteenth century. But today, I am not amused, I am deeply, deeply distressed.

There is, with very little publicity that I can discover, a declaration being prepared in the United Nations that sets out to curb violence against women. That the Egyptian Brotherhood should oppose it comes as no surprise. I hear they deplore the fact that should this resolution be accepted, women will be able to travel,  seek medical advice, or use contraception without their husband's permission. (How those brave women who risked their lives to demonstrate against Mubarak have been betrayed!)

The ignorant posturing  of such a group doesn't surprise me. I am shocked rather, by the opposition of The Vatican. Is it THAT important to maintain the dubious rights of a male hierarchy to keep an iron grip of power over the Catholic laity - the giving up of which would hold out the hope of transforming the church from the shambles it is today, to a modern and more relevant institution?

Hold in the balance the 'rights' of  the Vatican and the 'wrongs' of the 66 MILLION ((UN figure) girls who are living wretched lives. Some simply grossly underprivileged. Too many mutilated, beaten, raped, starved, trafficked, tortured, exchanged as chattels and forced into marriages they have no say in, to be subjected to child-birth they are too young to survive. Ask yourself, 'Where would the carpenter of Nazareth stand?'

Today, I am ashamed to be a Roman Catholic.

For the rest, I include Fr Richard's Meditation for today, which once again seems uncannily timely.


The Feminine Face of God

Meditation 20 of 52

All this “women-stuff” is not only important; it is half of conversion, half of salvation, half of wholeness, half of God’s work of art. I believe this mystery is imaged in the woman of the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse: “pregnant, and in labor, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth . . . and finally escaping into the desert until her time” (Revelation 12:1-6).
Could this be the time? The world is tired of Pentagons and pyramids, prelates and princes, empires and corporations that only abort God’s child. This women-stuff is very important, and it has always been important, more than this white male priest ever imagined or desired! My God was too small and too male in the first half of my life. It kept me from the deeper mystical path.
Much that many feminists have said is very prophetic and necessary for the Church and the world. It is time for the woman to come out of her desert refuge and for the men to welcome her. As we see in the churches today. This is still quite difficult if you have been an “alpha male” all of your life. No surprise that Jesus came “meek and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29) to undo the male addiction to power and performance. Mary is the standing archetype of how the gift of God is received. One almost wonders if the Roman and Orthodox churches do not “worship” Mary to avoid actually following her on her oh-so-natural and simple path.

Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 279, Day 290