So, there's been this Italian professor from a major Catholic university in Italy in town giving a lecture series on early christian thought, and she has been focusing on the apokatastasis (the ultimate reconciliation of all creation to God, including demons and the devil) in the thought of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. She is very pale, with dark short hair, and is in her mid- to late-40s at least but has this smooth, glowing face with understanding eyes, and she always wears these white suit-coats with large tasteful jewelry, and she's wheeled around in a wheelchair, though it's not clear why, and another student told me that sometimes she crosses one leg on top of the other, but always the same leg.
In any case, she reminds me of a nun and strikes me like a saint, and when she talks about the theological ideas, she always does so very historically, but also very respectfully, and never dogmatically, because they are alive and true for her, and it's a wonder to just watch her face when she talks, she just radiates.
Last night I had a dream that I was in a room and she was standing, and she was strikingly tall, and for some reason though she wasn't that tall I couldn't see her face.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sink.
I've been running a minor experiment the past few months and clipping my nails, shaving my pencils, etc., into my bathroom sink, to see if it will clog up, or if the shit I put into it will go down the drain or decompose or whatever. The other night I trimmed my pubes and armpits into it, and that was what finally backed it up, after all these months, so now whenever I put the water on, water with sludge and my pubic hair floating on top gets backed up and just sits there swimming around slowly while the water takes forever to drain, and since I'm too earth-conscious to trust Draino or something else chemical that would remove the clog, I have no idea how long this will keep happening for.
I wonder, too, what will happen if friends come over and use the bathroom and turn on the sink faucet there, and see my pubes floating around on top of the water.
I wonder, too, what will happen if friends come over and use the bathroom and turn on the sink faucet there, and see my pubes floating around on top of the water.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Addendum.
I told my kabbalah story to the Indian scientist. He was very interested in scanning them in MRIs when they do whatever they do -- "Every religious practice affects brainwaves," he was like -- this is what in fact led into our guru discussion -- and he was amused by by offhand comment that every minor religion seemed to need its celebrity, and he laughed and nodded as if he agreed.
A couple India-related things.
A couple nights ago I went out for a drink with a friend, this really petite fashion conscious white-girl my age who studies India and really likes it and is fascinated by it, but is wary of coming across as an uncritical orientalizing Westerner trying to go native.
Anyhow, she had told me before that she got into this by researching the politics of Kerala in college, but then got hooked on what makes an Indian "god", and how that does or doesn't differ from a human, and since then she's never looked back, and her mom has also told her stories about how when she was little once she found her in front of the tv mesmerized by an Indian woman dancing some traditional dance, though my friend doesn't remember this now, she was too young.
Last night, though, we started talking about hijras, and she said that one time when she was on a train in India with this guy she was dating who came to visit her at the time, and this hijra came around begging and really liked her boyfriend and started poking him in the arm, and then they gave him money, and she loves how not only for all their overlaps with prostitution and whatnot are hijras accepted in India, but they're considered auspicious.
Today at lunch I sat with an Indian scientist who's done brainscans of people meditating, including TMers. He said it definitely changes your brainwaves, but TM doesn't do that exclusively, nor just Indian religion. I wanted to ask him what he thought about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh, and Ama, but then the lunch-lecture started, so I didn't get a chance. Next week!
Anyhow, she had told me before that she got into this by researching the politics of Kerala in college, but then got hooked on what makes an Indian "god", and how that does or doesn't differ from a human, and since then she's never looked back, and her mom has also told her stories about how when she was little once she found her in front of the tv mesmerized by an Indian woman dancing some traditional dance, though my friend doesn't remember this now, she was too young.
Last night, though, we started talking about hijras, and she said that one time when she was on a train in India with this guy she was dating who came to visit her at the time, and this hijra came around begging and really liked her boyfriend and started poking him in the arm, and then they gave him money, and she loves how not only for all their overlaps with prostitution and whatnot are hijras accepted in India, but they're considered auspicious.
Today at lunch I sat with an Indian scientist who's done brainscans of people meditating, including TMers. He said it definitely changes your brainwaves, but TM doesn't do that exclusively, nor just Indian religion. I wanted to ask him what he thought about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh, and Ama, but then the lunch-lecture started, so I didn't get a chance. Next week!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Alarm
Yesterday during the late morning when I was studying in my dining room with all my apartment windows open -- it was a great weather outside -- there was this sound from the street outside my living room windows, and it sounded exactly like the beginning of the ring on my digital alarm clock, but it only went for 2 or 3 seconds, though it did this like 4 or 5 times over a 45 minute period.
I still have no idea what that could have been.
I still have no idea what that could have been.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Heard Jeremiah Wright speak today.
I heard the Reverend Jeremiah Wright speak today; because he was friends with one professor at school, they booked him into a big speaking space on campus.
The big surprise of the night -- in his lengthy opening remarks where he talked about doing liberation theology workshops in Cuba along with the prof, he made a point of pronouncing all the Spanish names with a Spanish accent, and then when he turned to discussing South African theologians politicians etc., he said words along the lines of "Nkoko" authentically, and even did a few clicks.
Also, when he gave an anecdote about how Fidel showed up at one church service, he said one lady stood up and said, "[something in Spanish]," and after everyone who understood Spanish laughed, he then elaborated that it meants, "Holy shit, it's Fidel!"
He then said that the Cuban pastor noted right then and there that it was the first time Fidel Castro had appeared in church in 26 years, and Fidel was like (though not, it seems, in Spanish), "But it has been the first time in 26 years that I've been invited," to which all the black women in the audience were like "mmmmmmmmmm" (an "mmmmmmmmmm" that started up high and descended in tone, not an "mmmmm-hmmmmmmmm"), and then the Reverend Wright was like, "Like my mama says, 'Ain't that something to chew on right there.'"
When he first appeared, too, like all the black women stood up and applauded him and it felt very forced, and I was very uncomfortable, because it viscerally conveyed the kind of patriarchal black church "stand by your pastor no matter what" thing.
Anyhow, his remarks were on "Love your neighbor", and what me and a couple other students (one black male, one white female) after remarked on was how in his retelling of the Good Samaritan parable from Luke, he made the questioner who asked Jesus the question a lawyer (read "Jew"), and one of the people who passed the Samaritan by a rabbi, and another an imam, and the guy who helped him out be a gay former-gangbanger turned-Pentecostal Christian, "The kind folks like to sneer at" or something like that.
People definitely liked the gay thing there, but later in the Q&A when someone asked him about who in America we're trained to hate, he started out with Native Americans and then said blacks and then said gays and then went on to something else (maybe non-citizens?), and the black women next to me gave an "mmm-hmmm" to everything but the gays.
Though, the point of his good Samaritan story was kind of not-careful, since it perpetuated the anti-Semitism of the New Testament a bit, though later in his speech he made a point of saying how the holy scriptures of all religions perpetuate hatred towards different groups -- very odd.
The Q&A session was a wash, with like three "white guys with issues" standing up to ask questions - one biracial kid (white, hispanic) who told his life story and then asked something about hating Hilary Clinton, one guy (Jewish?) who asked about Israel policy (the Rev. Wright said we should sympathize with the Palestinians since they don't have guns), and one Mormon guy who said he was raised to love everyone and that his people too were persecuted in Mexico (I bet they were polygamists who fled there), and then asked something about forgiveness for historical injustices.
There was also some kid who said he was culturally Jewish but was raised atheist and felt out of place at inter-religious dialogue type-things, and he was just irrelevant.
The best part of that was this one Asian guy with an accent who asked about how something he's always struggled with is Jesus's "clear claim" that he is "the way, the truth, and the life," and how that factors into inter-religious dialogue. The Rev. Wright said that first of all no one on the South Side worries about that verse, and that maybe it was emphasized against other religions by Christian missionaries, and in any case scholars would debate that as words of Christ and see that as later church tradition concerned with spreading orthodoxy -- a very, very solid response, I thought, and the best overall part of the night.
The big surprise of the night -- in his lengthy opening remarks where he talked about doing liberation theology workshops in Cuba along with the prof, he made a point of pronouncing all the Spanish names with a Spanish accent, and then when he turned to discussing South African theologians politicians etc., he said words along the lines of "Nkoko" authentically, and even did a few clicks.
Also, when he gave an anecdote about how Fidel showed up at one church service, he said one lady stood up and said, "[something in Spanish]," and after everyone who understood Spanish laughed, he then elaborated that it meants, "Holy shit, it's Fidel!"
He then said that the Cuban pastor noted right then and there that it was the first time Fidel Castro had appeared in church in 26 years, and Fidel was like (though not, it seems, in Spanish), "But it has been the first time in 26 years that I've been invited," to which all the black women in the audience were like "mmmmmmmmmm" (an "mmmmmmmmmm" that started up high and descended in tone, not an "mmmmm-hmmmmmmmm"), and then the Reverend Wright was like, "Like my mama says, 'Ain't that something to chew on right there.'"
When he first appeared, too, like all the black women stood up and applauded him and it felt very forced, and I was very uncomfortable, because it viscerally conveyed the kind of patriarchal black church "stand by your pastor no matter what" thing.
Anyhow, his remarks were on "Love your neighbor", and what me and a couple other students (one black male, one white female) after remarked on was how in his retelling of the Good Samaritan parable from Luke, he made the questioner who asked Jesus the question a lawyer (read "Jew"), and one of the people who passed the Samaritan by a rabbi, and another an imam, and the guy who helped him out be a gay former-gangbanger turned-Pentecostal Christian, "The kind folks like to sneer at" or something like that.
People definitely liked the gay thing there, but later in the Q&A when someone asked him about who in America we're trained to hate, he started out with Native Americans and then said blacks and then said gays and then went on to something else (maybe non-citizens?), and the black women next to me gave an "mmm-hmmm" to everything but the gays.
Though, the point of his good Samaritan story was kind of not-careful, since it perpetuated the anti-Semitism of the New Testament a bit, though later in his speech he made a point of saying how the holy scriptures of all religions perpetuate hatred towards different groups -- very odd.
The Q&A session was a wash, with like three "white guys with issues" standing up to ask questions - one biracial kid (white, hispanic) who told his life story and then asked something about hating Hilary Clinton, one guy (Jewish?) who asked about Israel policy (the Rev. Wright said we should sympathize with the Palestinians since they don't have guns), and one Mormon guy who said he was raised to love everyone and that his people too were persecuted in Mexico (I bet they were polygamists who fled there), and then asked something about forgiveness for historical injustices.
There was also some kid who said he was culturally Jewish but was raised atheist and felt out of place at inter-religious dialogue type-things, and he was just irrelevant.
The best part of that was this one Asian guy with an accent who asked about how something he's always struggled with is Jesus's "clear claim" that he is "the way, the truth, and the life," and how that factors into inter-religious dialogue. The Rev. Wright said that first of all no one on the South Side worries about that verse, and that maybe it was emphasized against other religions by Christian missionaries, and in any case scholars would debate that as words of Christ and see that as later church tradition concerned with spreading orthodoxy -- a very, very solid response, I thought, and the best overall part of the night.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Kabbalah / Jobs / Homeless.
On Saturday it was a nice day and I was meeting a friend for drinks later that night, so I took the subway a couple stops up and took a book with me so I could walk and see a new part of the city and then find a coffee shop to read for a while before going to meet my friend. I ended up discovering where the city's Kabbalah center is, so I popped in, since they have a bookstore in front. No one was at the desk, and no one was coming out, and then all of a sudden this young white woman like my age got up from the couch over in the corner, and then I noticed there were two mats laid out on the floor and people covered in blankets napping there, and that the lights were dimmed, so I realized that I must have walked in on their naptime. The woman took me outside and said it was okay, I wasn't interrupting anything (though, she didn't let me browse the books), that they just left the door open so the kids could run in and out (what kids?), and she gave me a flier for a class downtown tonight that I should go to and learn what kabbalah is.
She also said that the biggest mistake is that people think it's a religion, when it's not, and that her boss got her hooked on it like five years ago.
She also asked me if I knew anything, and I said that Madonna and Britney were into it, and she clarified that Britney actually wasn't a devoted follower.
On another note, there were a lot of stores I saw on my walk that had just closed, and this was in the yuppie part of town where people have money coming out of their ass. In my neighborhood, at least, a few stores are closing too (including the only secondhand store, which you think would be doing well). Two people I know also both got laid off this past week.
On a related note, on Sunday when I was coming back from the grocery store a (black) guy outside the Boston Market asked me for money so he could go in and get some chicken, but I asked him if wanted some fruit instead, so I stopped and opened up my bags and gave him grapefruit and then tore off a couple bananas from the bunch to give him.
"Thanks, man," he was like, "You know these have a lot of potassium, right?"
She also said that the biggest mistake is that people think it's a religion, when it's not, and that her boss got her hooked on it like five years ago.
She also asked me if I knew anything, and I said that Madonna and Britney were into it, and she clarified that Britney actually wasn't a devoted follower.
On another note, there were a lot of stores I saw on my walk that had just closed, and this was in the yuppie part of town where people have money coming out of their ass. In my neighborhood, at least, a few stores are closing too (including the only secondhand store, which you think would be doing well). Two people I know also both got laid off this past week.
On a related note, on Sunday when I was coming back from the grocery store a (black) guy outside the Boston Market asked me for money so he could go in and get some chicken, but I asked him if wanted some fruit instead, so I stopped and opened up my bags and gave him grapefruit and then tore off a couple bananas from the bunch to give him.
"Thanks, man," he was like, "You know these have a lot of potassium, right?"
Sunday, February 8, 2009
a note, catholics, and michelle obama.
My mom recently sent me a package with some boxer shorts in it that I had brought home over the holidays so she could repair them, and on Friday I finally got around to opening. She slipped in the latest issue of my favorite crossword magazine, and two sticky notes on the front cover held down a twenty dollar-bill, one note saying
HI!
and the other
BUY!
Every chance I get I've been talking with people about the round of scandals surrounding the Society of Saint Pius X and Benedict not caring that much about a Holocaust-denying bishop, and it turns out that a ton of people are paying attention to this, even if they're not practicing Catholics.
For example, when I was drinking at my one Dutch friend's house on Saturday early evening, his neighbors, who are these kind of drugged-out artist people, stopped by, and a couple of them who are musicians and went to catholic high schools have been paying attention, and the one dude who wears a leather jacket and was telling me about how M.I.A.'s one song "Paper Planes" works off of a riff from this song "Straight to Hell" by the Clash, said that to him this just shows how there are very few liberal priests and bishops left like when he was young, and that now the only people going into the ministry or in positions of power are hard-line conservatives, all across the church.
Later on, I went out to meet friends from school and ran into some other people from school. In the course of talking about this, one student, this Italian guy from Rome, was saying that everyone loved JPII because he cared about young people, but Benedict is evil. He also said as an aside that everyone knows that JPI was poisoned because he was too liberal, and when I asked him how he knew this, he was like, "Oh, that is ah-something, that everybody knows."
I also ran into one French student from school who's a Buddhist and studies Buddhism, and he was saying that he's been reading this wonderful Tibetan commentary on a Sanskrit text and every night he goes to bed with a warm feeling in his chest, knowing that he'll be able to wake up and read the text in the morning and learn something wonderful, and that he's learned so much just in a few days how Being relates to ethical behavior in the world.
He also said that appreciates the articles about the SSPX scandal that I've been sending him, but he feels that he reads them as an outsider now. In an e-mail exchange earlier in the week he had said this to me:
I actually lived very closed to their church in Paris and used to do my laundry next to it.
Then, in reply to my next e-mail, he said this:
No theer were young people (some I knew I suspect they were part of it - but a lot of Catholic in France, even conservatives, are attached to the Pope so are against the "Lefebvristes"). And no I am not surprised there are holocaust deniers among them: the vast majority of them vote far-right and you could see them on Sundays, with the old people for the "Algerie francaise" and so on. The same bunch of mediocre and despicable scum.
Also, I stopped into the African goods store where I buy Obama buttons and talked with Sister Rose today. She was telling me about the bus of people from her church that went to the inauguration, and how they stuck around in D.C. to see stuff, and like at 11am two days after the inauguration they were outside the White House when Michelle Obama happened to look out and see all these people out there, so she had security let everyone in with cameras for an impromptu tour, and let the kids sit in the President's chair in the Oval Office, and she took pictures with them and everyone.
"Let the people in!", Sister Rose told me that Michelle had said when she asked security to allow them in but security had refused, and Sister Rose repeated that line several times, and it seemed to me that this is already a legend circulating among people in her church and beyond.
She also said that Michelle had said, "This is their house too!"
When I said that Jimmy Carter had said that the White House was distant because of all of the anti-terrorism barriers but Michelle refused to let those precautions separate her from people and that you could tell she didn't want to lose touch, Sister Rose was like, "Hallelujah!"
I also noticed that behind the counter at her shop there's an old painting of a white Jesus standing with his hands extended, and at his right hand there's Abraham Lincoln's head, and at his left that of John F. Kennedy. In the other paintings, Jesus is always black.
Also, a couple weeks ago my one dean at school said that Michelle's a "hugger", and if you even slightly know her and run into her, she just goes off and hugs you, which some (white) people find off-putting (my dean didn't say white, but the people I visualized in my head who were grimacing were white).
HI!
and the other
BUY!
Every chance I get I've been talking with people about the round of scandals surrounding the Society of Saint Pius X and Benedict not caring that much about a Holocaust-denying bishop, and it turns out that a ton of people are paying attention to this, even if they're not practicing Catholics.
For example, when I was drinking at my one Dutch friend's house on Saturday early evening, his neighbors, who are these kind of drugged-out artist people, stopped by, and a couple of them who are musicians and went to catholic high schools have been paying attention, and the one dude who wears a leather jacket and was telling me about how M.I.A.'s one song "Paper Planes" works off of a riff from this song "Straight to Hell" by the Clash, said that to him this just shows how there are very few liberal priests and bishops left like when he was young, and that now the only people going into the ministry or in positions of power are hard-line conservatives, all across the church.
Later on, I went out to meet friends from school and ran into some other people from school. In the course of talking about this, one student, this Italian guy from Rome, was saying that everyone loved JPII because he cared about young people, but Benedict is evil. He also said as an aside that everyone knows that JPI was poisoned because he was too liberal, and when I asked him how he knew this, he was like, "Oh, that is ah-something, that everybody knows."
I also ran into one French student from school who's a Buddhist and studies Buddhism, and he was saying that he's been reading this wonderful Tibetan commentary on a Sanskrit text and every night he goes to bed with a warm feeling in his chest, knowing that he'll be able to wake up and read the text in the morning and learn something wonderful, and that he's learned so much just in a few days how Being relates to ethical behavior in the world.
He also said that appreciates the articles about the SSPX scandal that I've been sending him, but he feels that he reads them as an outsider now. In an e-mail exchange earlier in the week he had said this to me:
I actually lived very closed to their church in Paris and used to do my laundry next to it.
Then, in reply to my next e-mail, he said this:
No theer were young people (some I knew I suspect they were part of it - but a lot of Catholic in France, even conservatives, are attached to the Pope so are against the "Lefebvristes"). And no I am not surprised there are holocaust deniers among them: the vast majority of them vote far-right and you could see them on Sundays, with the old people for the "Algerie francaise" and so on. The same bunch of mediocre and despicable scum.
Also, I stopped into the African goods store where I buy Obama buttons and talked with Sister Rose today. She was telling me about the bus of people from her church that went to the inauguration, and how they stuck around in D.C. to see stuff, and like at 11am two days after the inauguration they were outside the White House when Michelle Obama happened to look out and see all these people out there, so she had security let everyone in with cameras for an impromptu tour, and let the kids sit in the President's chair in the Oval Office, and she took pictures with them and everyone.
"Let the people in!", Sister Rose told me that Michelle had said when she asked security to allow them in but security had refused, and Sister Rose repeated that line several times, and it seemed to me that this is already a legend circulating among people in her church and beyond.
She also said that Michelle had said, "This is their house too!"
When I said that Jimmy Carter had said that the White House was distant because of all of the anti-terrorism barriers but Michelle refused to let those precautions separate her from people and that you could tell she didn't want to lose touch, Sister Rose was like, "Hallelujah!"
I also noticed that behind the counter at her shop there's an old painting of a white Jesus standing with his hands extended, and at his right hand there's Abraham Lincoln's head, and at his left that of John F. Kennedy. In the other paintings, Jesus is always black.
Also, a couple weeks ago my one dean at school said that Michelle's a "hugger", and if you even slightly know her and run into her, she just goes off and hugs you, which some (white) people find off-putting (my dean didn't say white, but the people I visualized in my head who were grimacing were white).
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