I started watching the show Band of Brothers on DVD, and it's really good. But as I watch it, I think a lot about my Grandpa Johnson, who was also at Normandy. He wasn't in the 101st Airborne like the guys in the show, he was an MP, but he was still there. He didn't say much about his tour of duty, save for a few vague things here and there. Even my Grandma didn't know what he went through. The only time he talked about it was when my Uncle David came home from Vietnam, and they traded stories. But no one was privy to the details of that conversation. He essentially took his secrets to the grave.
I wonder what he went through, and the fact that I will never know drives me insane.
Here's what I do know:
At Normandy, the Nazis liked to switch road signs to get the Allied troops lost, so my Grandpa's job was to go around and switch the road signs back. He rode a motorcycle to do this, and went with three other guys. Two men rode in front, and two men rode in back. Grandpa was in the back. Also at Normandy, the Nazis liked to use boobytraps. So one day, as my Grandpa was driving around with the others, they unknowingly came on a trip wire stretched over the road at about the same height as their necks. The two men in front ran into the trip wire and were instantly decapitated. But for the grace of God, Grandpa wasn't in the front.
I also know that Grandpa was in a company that stumbled on a newly abandoned concentration camp. I don't know it's name, but his company found it. It was just like on that episode of Band of Brothers called "Why We Fight." Grandpa never described what he saw, but once, he sat my dad down and told him one of the only things he ever said on the matter: "The Nazis were pure evil, and they had to be stopped." My Grandpa wasn't prone to making blanket accusations against people, but he must've saw something so terrible that they'd done that there was no doubt in his mind what they were.
"Pure evil." I can't fathom what that looks like. I've been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., and I've studied WWII and the Holocaust on my own for a long time, so I've seen pictures and read statements. But to see it with my own two eyes, I can't imagine it. But Grandpa didn't have to imagine it because he did see it. And all he could bring himself to say was "pure evil."
I wish I knew what he went through. Maybe it would be hell on my psyche, this knowing. They say ignorance is bliss. But I feel that we, as a society, are forgetting what kinds of hell the soldiers endure, and as a result, are becoming apathetic to them. I don't want to be apathetic to them, I want to know what they know, because then it reminds me why we fight. I can't let their memory fade into oblivion, and I certainly can't let my own Grandpa's stories fade as well.
But, what can I do?
Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Forevermore
In his foreword to The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe, Scott Peeples claims that he has written “an accessible introduction to Poe studies and a history of a major author’s inception, providing in the process a broad overview of twentieth-century trends” (x). Then he dives into his book, which is neatly divided into five chapters and an afterword, all of which detail Poe scholarship through different critical lenses. It is true that this book is an “introduction” as Peeples states and therefore not designed for someone like me who is more familiar with Poe’s work, but I confess I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it does contain some useful information for those interested in Poe studies, and it presents some unique insights into the history of Poe scholarship as well. It will be especially helpful to those new to Poe. But for seasoned veterans, Peeples’ book persistently swings back and forth between boring and fascinating, and I question just how accessible it is to the modern reader.
Peeples first creates Poe scholarship’s historical context and uses Rufus Griswold’s famous obituary statement to kick off his chapter which delineates the writers and critics who’ve kept Poe’s work alive. Naturally, he details Poe’s conflicts with Griswold, how the French symbolists led by Baudelaire adored him, how scholars such as Cleanth Brooks tried to exclude him from the canon. For readers new to Poe, the information he provides in this first chapter is a crucial foundation. To those already familiar with Poe’s history, this chapter is tedious, chock full of Bible-like Jebidiahs begat Jedidiahs. I fall into the latter category.
If we have the mental fortitude to plod through the first chapter, we are rewarded with psychoanalytic theory. Peeples starts with Freud’s fascination with Poe, and he describes how Freud’s work, in turn, inspired many subsequent generations of Poe psychoanalysts, most notably Marie Bonaparte. According to Peeples, she deduced, and numerous other psychoanalysts agreed, that Poe suffered from a classic Oedipus complex. They speculated that he, who had lost both his mother and foster mother, married his cousin Virginia not out of love, but to use her to get closer to Maria Clemm, his aunt. Clemm, they said, was a mother-figure to him and therefore the object of his desire. To them, Poe could never love Virginia as a wife because he was spiritually unable to. They argued that his strange relationship with her took center stage in his work.
Although interesting, I actually found Peeples’ mention of the debate between Lacan and Derrida more fascinating. According to Peeples, Lacan inadvertently started this argument between the two with his lecture, “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter.’ In his lecture, he tried to explain his theory of repetition automatism using Poe’s story. Derrida immediately countered him with his essay “The Purveyor of Truth.” As the title implies, Derrida criticized Lacan for trying to reduce Poe’s story to pure truth. Unfortunately, we the reader don’t get much more information than that. Peeples apologizes for glossing over this seemingly important debate, stating “because Lacan’s and Derrida’s essays defy concise summary, and because this continuing discussion has more to do with theories of language and writing in general than with ‘The Purloined Letter’ specifically, I will not attempt to summarize their arguments” (55). Given Poe’s love of language theory and his theories of composition, he is especially relevant to Derrida. Peeples should have focused less on Marie Bonaparte’s obsession with Poe’s sexuality and more on this debate which has informed many modern critics’ works.
Although Poe is “regarded as the forefather of critics who emphasized textual unity and whose readings demonstrated how various elements in a poem or short story work together to produce a subtle but ultimately coherent meaning,” New Critics tended to detest him (63). In his chapter on formalism and deconstruction, Peeples easily ticks off the names of all the formalists who hated Poe: Yvor Winters, Cleanth Brooks, and Robert Penn Warren to name a few. For example, according to Brooks and Warren, Poe’s settings are only good for scaring children, his place and character names are meaningless, his rhythms are monotonous, and his effects are superficial. Allan Tate and T.S. Eliot immediately came to Poe’s defense. Peeples explains how both men were impressed with Poe’s afterlife and how both called him a modernist before his time. Eliot acknowledges his experimental style and theory while Tate admires his “uncannily contemporary” subject matter (68).
From there, Peeples returns to the Lacan-Derrida debate to claim it launched a series of story deconstructions that continue to the present day. William Carlos Williams, he then says, in his book A World of Words, “bridges the gap between the old New Critical tradition and the poststructuralists, demonstrating how Poe’s fiction again and again destabilizes logocentrism, and along with it Enlightenment notions of selfhood” (86). The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is a deconstructionist’s dream, the “lightning rod text” according to him, mainly because Poe used linguistic playfulness and codes while simultaneously avoiding transcendent truths, but their fascination with his work doesn’t end with Pym. “X-ing a Paragrab,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Morella,” and Eureka are also favorites. Basically, the way Peeples presents them, poststructuralists have received Poe much better than the formalists.
Race and gender are clumped together into Peeples’ fourth chapter. According to him, nineteenth-century Poe scholars tended to ignore the issue of slavery and racism in his work. Peeples argues that the evidence of Poe’s racism has rapidly piled up against him, compiled by critics such as John Carlos Rowe and Joan Dayan, and it is compelling. Not only does much of his work include racist imagery, such as the exaltedness of the color white, but Poe also worked as editor for The Southern Literary Messenger, a journal that occasionally published pro-slavery articles. Critics on the flip side of the coin, Peeples explains, point out that if Poe was guilty of anything, it was of social indifference. A rank opportunist, he refused to make political waves so he could protect his ambitious dreams. Other critics such as Dana Nelson suggest that Poe was more concerned with worldly matters than he let on, and therefore used his work to undermine racist rhetoric and expose the dangers of treating other races as “The Other.”
Gender takes a backseat in Afterlife, using up a grand total of four pages in a thirty page chapter. Once again, Peeples apologizes for glossing over it, saying “if gender has received less attention in Poe studies than race, it might be because a feminist response to Poe seems too obvious: the tellers of Poe’s tales, who are nearly always men, idealize the women in their lives and sometimes kill them…” (108). According to him, critics like Karen Weekes and Nina Baym identify Poe’s feminine ideal in his “gentle, vulnerable, delicate females such as Eleonora or Annabel Lee, [who] pose no sexual or intellectual threat” (109). Ligeia, they say, comes back because her will is strong, and not because her husband’s love and grief pulls her. Peeples seems to imply that they think Poe a misogynist. But again, as with matters of race, critics also argue that Poe was deliberately defying and undermining sexual conventions to expose how women struggle with the idea someone has made of them. Joan Dayan argues, according to Peeples, that Poe was in fact a feminist.
Peeples concludes his book with a chapter on Poe’s cultural significance, detailing the ways Poe has affected society since his death. He traces him through theater and film, spending several pages explicating plays performed in the late nineteenth century, right down to the dialogue between characters. From there, he naturally progresses to film, claiming that Alfred Hitchcock made movies like Psycho and The Birds as a tribute to his beloved Poe. “The Raven,” Poe’s most famous poem, seems to have influenced culture the most, inspiring movies like The Crow, episodes of the T.V. show The Simpsons, and even the name of Baltimore’s football team to highlight a few examples.
My problem with this book is that it is heavy-handed with the name-dropping. True, this is a book tracing the lineage of Poe scholars, but it seems as if there is just too much. Yet I am disturbed that Peeples never mentions modern Poe scholars like Benjamin Fisher and Kevin J. Hayes; how can a book devoted to Poe scholarship slight two of the field’s most important, if not the most important, figures working today? If Peeples had cut out a third of the names he cited and focused more on the modern heavy hitters in each school of theory, I think I still would have gotten a good feel for Poe scholarship according to each doctrine.
The bottom line is that Afterlife reads like a history textbook mostly rooted in turn-of-the-century theory. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if Peeples, having promised us “a broad overview,” had better included more modern critics and ideas as well. To his credit, he shed light on critics and issues that have inspired my own Poe studies, and I’m sure other readers will experience similar insights. But ultimately, I am indifferent towards this book.
Peeples first creates Poe scholarship’s historical context and uses Rufus Griswold’s famous obituary statement to kick off his chapter which delineates the writers and critics who’ve kept Poe’s work alive. Naturally, he details Poe’s conflicts with Griswold, how the French symbolists led by Baudelaire adored him, how scholars such as Cleanth Brooks tried to exclude him from the canon. For readers new to Poe, the information he provides in this first chapter is a crucial foundation. To those already familiar with Poe’s history, this chapter is tedious, chock full of Bible-like Jebidiahs begat Jedidiahs. I fall into the latter category.
If we have the mental fortitude to plod through the first chapter, we are rewarded with psychoanalytic theory. Peeples starts with Freud’s fascination with Poe, and he describes how Freud’s work, in turn, inspired many subsequent generations of Poe psychoanalysts, most notably Marie Bonaparte. According to Peeples, she deduced, and numerous other psychoanalysts agreed, that Poe suffered from a classic Oedipus complex. They speculated that he, who had lost both his mother and foster mother, married his cousin Virginia not out of love, but to use her to get closer to Maria Clemm, his aunt. Clemm, they said, was a mother-figure to him and therefore the object of his desire. To them, Poe could never love Virginia as a wife because he was spiritually unable to. They argued that his strange relationship with her took center stage in his work.
Although interesting, I actually found Peeples’ mention of the debate between Lacan and Derrida more fascinating. According to Peeples, Lacan inadvertently started this argument between the two with his lecture, “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter.’ In his lecture, he tried to explain his theory of repetition automatism using Poe’s story. Derrida immediately countered him with his essay “The Purveyor of Truth.” As the title implies, Derrida criticized Lacan for trying to reduce Poe’s story to pure truth. Unfortunately, we the reader don’t get much more information than that. Peeples apologizes for glossing over this seemingly important debate, stating “because Lacan’s and Derrida’s essays defy concise summary, and because this continuing discussion has more to do with theories of language and writing in general than with ‘The Purloined Letter’ specifically, I will not attempt to summarize their arguments” (55). Given Poe’s love of language theory and his theories of composition, he is especially relevant to Derrida. Peeples should have focused less on Marie Bonaparte’s obsession with Poe’s sexuality and more on this debate which has informed many modern critics’ works.
Although Poe is “regarded as the forefather of critics who emphasized textual unity and whose readings demonstrated how various elements in a poem or short story work together to produce a subtle but ultimately coherent meaning,” New Critics tended to detest him (63). In his chapter on formalism and deconstruction, Peeples easily ticks off the names of all the formalists who hated Poe: Yvor Winters, Cleanth Brooks, and Robert Penn Warren to name a few. For example, according to Brooks and Warren, Poe’s settings are only good for scaring children, his place and character names are meaningless, his rhythms are monotonous, and his effects are superficial. Allan Tate and T.S. Eliot immediately came to Poe’s defense. Peeples explains how both men were impressed with Poe’s afterlife and how both called him a modernist before his time. Eliot acknowledges his experimental style and theory while Tate admires his “uncannily contemporary” subject matter (68).
From there, Peeples returns to the Lacan-Derrida debate to claim it launched a series of story deconstructions that continue to the present day. William Carlos Williams, he then says, in his book A World of Words, “bridges the gap between the old New Critical tradition and the poststructuralists, demonstrating how Poe’s fiction again and again destabilizes logocentrism, and along with it Enlightenment notions of selfhood” (86). The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is a deconstructionist’s dream, the “lightning rod text” according to him, mainly because Poe used linguistic playfulness and codes while simultaneously avoiding transcendent truths, but their fascination with his work doesn’t end with Pym. “X-ing a Paragrab,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Morella,” and Eureka are also favorites. Basically, the way Peeples presents them, poststructuralists have received Poe much better than the formalists.
Race and gender are clumped together into Peeples’ fourth chapter. According to him, nineteenth-century Poe scholars tended to ignore the issue of slavery and racism in his work. Peeples argues that the evidence of Poe’s racism has rapidly piled up against him, compiled by critics such as John Carlos Rowe and Joan Dayan, and it is compelling. Not only does much of his work include racist imagery, such as the exaltedness of the color white, but Poe also worked as editor for The Southern Literary Messenger, a journal that occasionally published pro-slavery articles. Critics on the flip side of the coin, Peeples explains, point out that if Poe was guilty of anything, it was of social indifference. A rank opportunist, he refused to make political waves so he could protect his ambitious dreams. Other critics such as Dana Nelson suggest that Poe was more concerned with worldly matters than he let on, and therefore used his work to undermine racist rhetoric and expose the dangers of treating other races as “The Other.”
Gender takes a backseat in Afterlife, using up a grand total of four pages in a thirty page chapter. Once again, Peeples apologizes for glossing over it, saying “if gender has received less attention in Poe studies than race, it might be because a feminist response to Poe seems too obvious: the tellers of Poe’s tales, who are nearly always men, idealize the women in their lives and sometimes kill them…” (108). According to him, critics like Karen Weekes and Nina Baym identify Poe’s feminine ideal in his “gentle, vulnerable, delicate females such as Eleonora or Annabel Lee, [who] pose no sexual or intellectual threat” (109). Ligeia, they say, comes back because her will is strong, and not because her husband’s love and grief pulls her. Peeples seems to imply that they think Poe a misogynist. But again, as with matters of race, critics also argue that Poe was deliberately defying and undermining sexual conventions to expose how women struggle with the idea someone has made of them. Joan Dayan argues, according to Peeples, that Poe was in fact a feminist.
Peeples concludes his book with a chapter on Poe’s cultural significance, detailing the ways Poe has affected society since his death. He traces him through theater and film, spending several pages explicating plays performed in the late nineteenth century, right down to the dialogue between characters. From there, he naturally progresses to film, claiming that Alfred Hitchcock made movies like Psycho and The Birds as a tribute to his beloved Poe. “The Raven,” Poe’s most famous poem, seems to have influenced culture the most, inspiring movies like The Crow, episodes of the T.V. show The Simpsons, and even the name of Baltimore’s football team to highlight a few examples.
My problem with this book is that it is heavy-handed with the name-dropping. True, this is a book tracing the lineage of Poe scholars, but it seems as if there is just too much. Yet I am disturbed that Peeples never mentions modern Poe scholars like Benjamin Fisher and Kevin J. Hayes; how can a book devoted to Poe scholarship slight two of the field’s most important, if not the most important, figures working today? If Peeples had cut out a third of the names he cited and focused more on the modern heavy hitters in each school of theory, I think I still would have gotten a good feel for Poe scholarship according to each doctrine.
The bottom line is that Afterlife reads like a history textbook mostly rooted in turn-of-the-century theory. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if Peeples, having promised us “a broad overview,” had better included more modern critics and ideas as well. To his credit, he shed light on critics and issues that have inspired my own Poe studies, and I’m sure other readers will experience similar insights. But ultimately, I am indifferent towards this book.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Missiles Against Libya
I was watching some European news cast, from Holland I think, and the topic was how world opinion is turning against America now that we've bombed the hell out of Libya.
Really?
The U.N. has been pushing the U.S. to do something about this Libyan uprising, and now those countries are mad at us for doing exactly what they wanted? Hypocrites, I swear...
I find it especially interesting that France pushed us into this situation. This is the same country who, for the last ten years, has been adamantly opposed to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hasn't their slogan been "no blood for oil"? They wouldn't lift a finger to help us because they thought we had no right to interfere. Their people publicly condemned us, saying we didn't really care about the terrorists, we were just worried about oil. And that was partially true, we were worried about the oil for good reason, but to them, we were the evil, imperialist Americans going to war with anyone as easily as John Wayne fighting a bad guy in a movie. And now they want us to get involved in an uprising we have no business interfering with?
Funny how being a stone's throw across the Mediterranean from an unstable country changes your opinion on these things, isn't it?
Incidentally, France gets it's oil from Libya. Coincidence? I think not.
While I'm not opposed to Qaddafi's inevitable overthrow because he's an evil bastard who's killed a lot of innocent people through the years, I don't think we belong there. And make no mistake, taking out Libyan air defense isn't the end of it. The only way this is going to get resolved is if we go in on foot to kill all of Qaddafi's supporters. But our resources are already stretched too thin. Our economy is to its breaking point. Our soldiers are tired, having served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. And most importantly, there is nothing in Libya worth a single drop of American blood. If we do anything, I think it should be to arm the rebels with weapons, just like we did for Afghanistan back when they were fighting Russia. Give them the means to take care of Qaddafi themselves. This is their battle, after all, not ours.
Really?
The U.N. has been pushing the U.S. to do something about this Libyan uprising, and now those countries are mad at us for doing exactly what they wanted? Hypocrites, I swear...
I find it especially interesting that France pushed us into this situation. This is the same country who, for the last ten years, has been adamantly opposed to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hasn't their slogan been "no blood for oil"? They wouldn't lift a finger to help us because they thought we had no right to interfere. Their people publicly condemned us, saying we didn't really care about the terrorists, we were just worried about oil. And that was partially true, we were worried about the oil for good reason, but to them, we were the evil, imperialist Americans going to war with anyone as easily as John Wayne fighting a bad guy in a movie. And now they want us to get involved in an uprising we have no business interfering with?
Funny how being a stone's throw across the Mediterranean from an unstable country changes your opinion on these things, isn't it?
Incidentally, France gets it's oil from Libya. Coincidence? I think not.
While I'm not opposed to Qaddafi's inevitable overthrow because he's an evil bastard who's killed a lot of innocent people through the years, I don't think we belong there. And make no mistake, taking out Libyan air defense isn't the end of it. The only way this is going to get resolved is if we go in on foot to kill all of Qaddafi's supporters. But our resources are already stretched too thin. Our economy is to its breaking point. Our soldiers are tired, having served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. And most importantly, there is nothing in Libya worth a single drop of American blood. If we do anything, I think it should be to arm the rebels with weapons, just like we did for Afghanistan back when they were fighting Russia. Give them the means to take care of Qaddafi themselves. This is their battle, after all, not ours.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Genius of the Crowd
For Sacred Writing tonight, my classmate Harley played for us a reading of Charles Bukowski's poem, "The Geniuse of the Crowd." Then his prompt asked us what that phrase meant, who or what it was referring to, and as we wrote, we were to narrow our focus on what he meant by the word "genius." Here's my answer:
The crowd is the "genius" in this poem, meaning that mob mentality rules because it is the only genius accepted by civilized society. People who think on their own are ostracized, much like the man in "The Allegory of the Cave." People are utterly convinced that the world exists in just one way, and if anyone tries to show them a different reality, they are destroyed or exiled, be it physically, mentally, or spiritually. I have Asperger's Syndrome, and one of the telling symptoms of it is that I belong to no social group. This is not because I am an outcast. No, it's because I choose it. I've always marched to the beat of my own drum. That way, if I go over a cliff, it's because I chose to and not because I was following the ass of another lemming.
The crowd is the "genius" in this poem, meaning that mob mentality rules because it is the only genius accepted by civilized society. People who think on their own are ostracized, much like the man in "The Allegory of the Cave." People are utterly convinced that the world exists in just one way, and if anyone tries to show them a different reality, they are destroyed or exiled, be it physically, mentally, or spiritually. I have Asperger's Syndrome, and one of the telling symptoms of it is that I belong to no social group. This is not because I am an outcast. No, it's because I choose it. I've always marched to the beat of my own drum. That way, if I go over a cliff, it's because I chose to and not because I was following the ass of another lemming.
Annoying Comment Posted on Facebook
My husband's family is Pentecostal, and in true Pentecostal fashion, they are very zealous about their faith. To most of them, I am the Devil because I am Catholic. There's no other reason for it. I just hail from a different branch of Christianity than them, so I'm automatically evil. I'm an idol-worshiping, wine-drinking, ritual-loving Catholic, and that makes me the Devil. This has made for some interesting Thanksgivings, let me tell you...
But, in the interest of playing nice and being diplomatic, which isn't my strong suit, I'll admit, I'm friends with a lot of them on Facebook. And usually, we're cool. When they get off on these zealous tangents, I start to comment to set them straight, then I remind myself a leopard won't change his spots. So I shake my head in perplexed defeat, wondering how people can be so truly naive about the way the world works, and then I get on with my life. I used to comment, like the time my niece insisted Santa Claus wasn't real. I told her that yes, once upon a time he was a real person. I'm going to assume you all know the history of St. Nick, but she didn't, so I tried to inform her and broaden her teenage mind. Yeah, it did no good. So now, I just shake my head and go on with my life.
But tonight, as I was checking it, one of my husband's cousins re-posted this self-righteous rant on her status. And while I didn't have the courage to defy it in that forum (I admit I was afraid all her Bible-beating friends would crucify me) I have to vent about it here. The indignant question was: "Why do people get so offended when you preach the word of God to them?" Then it trailed off into this tangent about how those who get annoyed with it are hellbound because they're defiant of God's will and that the preachers will be embraced by God in Heaven.
I'm going to answer that question right the hell now. You know why we get offended? Because you are assuming we actually want to listen to your self-righteous bellowing. You're assuming we should see the world exactly the way you do. And I'm sorry, but I don't. God and spirituality aren't so black and white. And how could you possibly know what God wants from you anyway? How could you possibly assume to know who is on his naughty and nice list?
St. Thomas Aquinas said, "Beware the man of one book." Well, in these people's cases, that book happens to be the Bible. They use it like a cudgel without knowing anything about it, and it pisses me off. And I can say that because I've read the Bible. But I've also read the Bhagavad Gita, the teachings of Buddha, the Apocrypha, the Torah, the writings of great philosophers, etc. Since I first became interested in angels, I've religiously, pardon the pun, pored over the religious texts so that I might better understand how the entire world, not just Western Civilization, views the afterlife. And it's been a very rewarding journey. But as educated as I am on such things, I'm still no closer to any definite answers about anything.
But in addition to religion and philosophy, I know a boat load about history. And here's the history of the Bible after Christianity came into being. Every little sect of Christians had their own version. They carried around the books they thought best reflected God and Jesus' message. But actual written books didn't even happen until hundreds of years after Jesus' death. In fact, if memory serves, the earliest known ones were published about 300 years later. Anyway, that means for at least 300 years, people passed down the story of Christianity by word of mouth. Have you ever played a game of telephone? Now play it for 300 years and see how distorted the original message is, okay? But now I have to bring in Constantine the Great, who essentially told the warring Christian factions (oh yes, holy war really is NOT a new idea) to come to a consensus about what texts should be included in the Bible, or suffer the punishment of death. So, in the interest of diplomacy, the sects compromised and came to a consensus. But numerous texts got left out, creating gaping holes in the original story. Now fast-forward another thousand years, to King James. He decided to make his own Bible and throw out all the texts that took away from his ultimate goal of glorifying God or from perpetuating his own agenda to control his people. These texts are now what we call the Apocrypha, the Book of Adam and Eve, the Book of Noah, of Tobit, of Enoch, etc. And on top of all of these problems, the Bible has been translated through many languages - Sanskrit, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, etc. - and with each translation, some meanings are lost. Not everything translates from one language to another perfectly. So, knowing how problematic the Bible is, how can anyone take its message as gospel truth?
Not that I don't think the Bible has some good points. I believe in the 10 Commandments for common sense reasons, if not for religious ones. Not committing murder is a good thing. That whole "treat others how you want to be treated" thing that Jesus was always saying is pretty smart too. But I find it awfully convenient that when these zealots are condemning the rest of us to hell, they tend to forget that passage in the New Testament where Jesus said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." You can't have your cake and eat it too. And if you think for one second you actually hear God telling you to preach to us and to condemn us if we disagree, then it is obvious that your brain is getting bad reception and you really need to crumple some tin foil on your head to get a clearer picture!
~Deep breath in~ Anyway, that is all.
But, in the interest of playing nice and being diplomatic, which isn't my strong suit, I'll admit, I'm friends with a lot of them on Facebook. And usually, we're cool. When they get off on these zealous tangents, I start to comment to set them straight, then I remind myself a leopard won't change his spots. So I shake my head in perplexed defeat, wondering how people can be so truly naive about the way the world works, and then I get on with my life. I used to comment, like the time my niece insisted Santa Claus wasn't real. I told her that yes, once upon a time he was a real person. I'm going to assume you all know the history of St. Nick, but she didn't, so I tried to inform her and broaden her teenage mind. Yeah, it did no good. So now, I just shake my head and go on with my life.
But tonight, as I was checking it, one of my husband's cousins re-posted this self-righteous rant on her status. And while I didn't have the courage to defy it in that forum (I admit I was afraid all her Bible-beating friends would crucify me) I have to vent about it here. The indignant question was: "Why do people get so offended when you preach the word of God to them?" Then it trailed off into this tangent about how those who get annoyed with it are hellbound because they're defiant of God's will and that the preachers will be embraced by God in Heaven.
I'm going to answer that question right the hell now. You know why we get offended? Because you are assuming we actually want to listen to your self-righteous bellowing. You're assuming we should see the world exactly the way you do. And I'm sorry, but I don't. God and spirituality aren't so black and white. And how could you possibly know what God wants from you anyway? How could you possibly assume to know who is on his naughty and nice list?
St. Thomas Aquinas said, "Beware the man of one book." Well, in these people's cases, that book happens to be the Bible. They use it like a cudgel without knowing anything about it, and it pisses me off. And I can say that because I've read the Bible. But I've also read the Bhagavad Gita, the teachings of Buddha, the Apocrypha, the Torah, the writings of great philosophers, etc. Since I first became interested in angels, I've religiously, pardon the pun, pored over the religious texts so that I might better understand how the entire world, not just Western Civilization, views the afterlife. And it's been a very rewarding journey. But as educated as I am on such things, I'm still no closer to any definite answers about anything.
But in addition to religion and philosophy, I know a boat load about history. And here's the history of the Bible after Christianity came into being. Every little sect of Christians had their own version. They carried around the books they thought best reflected God and Jesus' message. But actual written books didn't even happen until hundreds of years after Jesus' death. In fact, if memory serves, the earliest known ones were published about 300 years later. Anyway, that means for at least 300 years, people passed down the story of Christianity by word of mouth. Have you ever played a game of telephone? Now play it for 300 years and see how distorted the original message is, okay? But now I have to bring in Constantine the Great, who essentially told the warring Christian factions (oh yes, holy war really is NOT a new idea) to come to a consensus about what texts should be included in the Bible, or suffer the punishment of death. So, in the interest of diplomacy, the sects compromised and came to a consensus. But numerous texts got left out, creating gaping holes in the original story. Now fast-forward another thousand years, to King James. He decided to make his own Bible and throw out all the texts that took away from his ultimate goal of glorifying God or from perpetuating his own agenda to control his people. These texts are now what we call the Apocrypha, the Book of Adam and Eve, the Book of Noah, of Tobit, of Enoch, etc. And on top of all of these problems, the Bible has been translated through many languages - Sanskrit, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, etc. - and with each translation, some meanings are lost. Not everything translates from one language to another perfectly. So, knowing how problematic the Bible is, how can anyone take its message as gospel truth?
Not that I don't think the Bible has some good points. I believe in the 10 Commandments for common sense reasons, if not for religious ones. Not committing murder is a good thing. That whole "treat others how you want to be treated" thing that Jesus was always saying is pretty smart too. But I find it awfully convenient that when these zealots are condemning the rest of us to hell, they tend to forget that passage in the New Testament where Jesus said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." You can't have your cake and eat it too. And if you think for one second you actually hear God telling you to preach to us and to condemn us if we disagree, then it is obvious that your brain is getting bad reception and you really need to crumple some tin foil on your head to get a clearer picture!
~Deep breath in~ Anyway, that is all.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
How St. Michael Became My Patron Saint.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.
It's kind of a funny story. I've never been what you would call devout. My family was very rational-minded, and it wasn't until I was a teenager that my mother decided to rekindle her faith. The problem was, she dragged all of us right along with her. So, even though I was fundamentally opposed to the idea, she forced me to become a baptized Catholic.
Naturally, I rebelled at every point I could. I deliberately played Devil's Advocate just to annoy the hell out of her. At times, I insinuated that I was an atheist just because it made her mad. I made it extremely clear that I hated church and everything religion stood for. I embarrassed her in front of priests by asking them hard questions that couldn't be answered 100% honestly. The scientist in me demanded absolute proof, and I knew no one could give me that. Faith isn't about proof.
One day, my mom cornered me after school. She handed me a book, Butler's Guide to the Saints, and said "Pick one." Then she explained to me that I was about to turn 16, and that I was going to have to be confirmed soon. Puzzled, I asked her what the heck being confirmed was. She told me it was when Catholics decided to accept being Catholic their whole lives. When she made that announcement, I quickly started to think of ways to weasel my way out of it. I didn't know that I even wanted to do that! And it didn't sound like something your mom could just force on you. But just try telling her that...Anyway, she continued to explain to me what it was all about, and said that Catholics have to pick a patron saint for this ritual. But they need to choose well because that saint is imprinted on their soul forever. When she said that, I flashed back to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. "Choose, but choose wisely." Great. No pressure there. "So how am I supposed to pick a saint?" I asked. Evidently, that's what the book was for. It documented as rigorously as possible the biographies of all the saints. Mom explained that some Catholics choose a saint whose feast day coincides with their birthdays. Some choose a saint who is the patron of something that fascinated them, like medicine for example. I quickly looked at who ruled my birthday. No one stood out. Then I looked at some who ruled over my presiding interests. No go there, either. I faked a smile. "Okay, Mom," I said, "I'll look this over and get back to you." The funny thing is she actually believed me!
So later on, my parents went to this weekend retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, called the Marion Conference. It's a big hoo-rah-rah for Catholics where they get together and talk about how cool it is to be Catholic. Okay, whatever. I got to stay home (quickly crosses myself and thanks God). But my mom decided that while she was there, she was going to peruse the booths hocking religious junk to find her heathen daughter a medal. At first she noticed the abundance of Virgin Mary medals and thought she'd buy me one of those. But "something" told her no way. She liked the Virgin Mary, true, but that wasn't the medal for me. Then that mysterious "something," a strange gut instinct, led her to a booth obscured by a wall and a potted palm tree. It wasn't a place she would've found on her own, so she says, but she was certain destiny guided her there because she found medals that weren't as mainstream as say, St. Christopher. She found one of St. Michael, the Archangel. Not knowing much about him, she read the accompanying card, saw he was God's right hand angel and the crusher of rebellion (hint, hint, Katie), and decided he was perfect for me.
She gets home, gives me her gift, and tells me this story about how God led her to it. Naturally, I rolled my eyes at her in the way only a teenager can, but I put the stupid thing on because it got her to shut up about religion for a while, and that was priceless. Besides, it wasn't bad looking. It was kind of cool, a necklace with a fierce warrior angel about to impale the Devil with his spear on it.
I can't recall how many days, weeks, or months passed by, but whatever the case, one night I was sitting in the dark, looking out my huge window at the pretty Wyoming night sky, when suddenly I got the heebie-jeebies. There was no reason to get scared, but there it was. I looked around, and noticed that the ceramic Halloween skull I had stored in my closet was glowing orange, as if a fire had been lit inside of it. And kind of hovering by my bed were these wispy humanoid figures. I can't say for sure what they were, exactly, but if I had to choose a word, I would say wraiths. They were transparent, with gnarly, long, thin fingers and gaunt, skeleton-like faces. Their long white hair kind of trailed off in all directions as if they were floating underwater. Naturally, I freaked! So I jumped out of bed to turn on the light. I naively assumed that light would scare creatures of the night away. Oh, how wrong I was! I flipped my switch on and off several times, but the wraiths would not leave.
Finally, I jumped back into bed and buried myself under my pillows and comforter so I wouldn't have to see them reaching for me anymore. I knew they were getting closer, and as they did, my fear climaxed. I was sure I was going to die. What to do? I couldn't run for help. Nobody would believe me. They would chock it off to a wild imagination. And besides that, what could anyone do against non-corporeal spirits terrorizing a sixteen year old girl?
So I started saying every prayer to God and Jesus I had learned in catechism. Hypocritical of me, yes, but that's what I did. But those traditional, go-to prayers didn't help. And my panic was rising. I couldn't breathe because I was hyperventilating so bad. I was shaking like a leaf. It was all I could do not to scream! Then, by chance, my hand drifted across my neck and felt my St. Michael medal. Suddenly, I remembered one last prayer I could say: "St. Michael, the Archangel, defend me in battle..." I repeated that over and over while I felt my heart psychically beg God to send the warrior Archangel to save me. At that moment, the fear instantly vanished. It was just gone, like it never existed. And in its place was the most wonderful feeling of peace I've ever felt. I never felt anything so warm and comforting before that moment, or since. It was like someone was cradling me like a small child in their arms. I fell asleep not thirty seconds later.
When I made the mistake of telling my mom this, she obviously used it as a point to preach to me, and insisted it was God who had comforted me. But I don't think so. I can't say with 100% certainty who helped me that night, but my heart tells me it was St. Michael. I don't have a rational reason for it, I admit. I just know it was him.
So I started researching everything I could about him in books and on the internet. And I found out that he represents everything I want to be. He is the defender of the weak and those without a voice. He is loyal, and has a soft spot in his heart for soldiers, police officers, and firefighters, just like I do. As the angel of justice, he, like me, has a strong sense of what's right and wrong. When I learned all of this about him, and more, I knew he was destined to be my patron saint. So I went to my mom and told her. She said, "I don't think the Catholic Church allows people to pick angels for their patron saint." I said, "I don't give a damn what the Church allows. He's going to be my patron saint, and that's the end of that!" Okay, so in spite of my experience, I still have quite a bit of the Devil in me...
When I was 23, I finally decided to be confirmed. And for the record, the Church did allow me to pick him. And the Archangel Gabriel, but that's a different story for a different day. The bottom line is that when I was confirmed, I felt a special connection, a special bond, form with him. I mean, ever since that night in my room, I felt like he was a kindred spirit. But since my confirmation, I feel like he's a close friend that I can talk to when things are rough. Honestly, I don't know if he even knows who I am. But just the thought gets me through the day.
So yes, it was a long story, but hopefully, it was worth it!
It's kind of a funny story. I've never been what you would call devout. My family was very rational-minded, and it wasn't until I was a teenager that my mother decided to rekindle her faith. The problem was, she dragged all of us right along with her. So, even though I was fundamentally opposed to the idea, she forced me to become a baptized Catholic.
Naturally, I rebelled at every point I could. I deliberately played Devil's Advocate just to annoy the hell out of her. At times, I insinuated that I was an atheist just because it made her mad. I made it extremely clear that I hated church and everything religion stood for. I embarrassed her in front of priests by asking them hard questions that couldn't be answered 100% honestly. The scientist in me demanded absolute proof, and I knew no one could give me that. Faith isn't about proof.
One day, my mom cornered me after school. She handed me a book, Butler's Guide to the Saints, and said "Pick one." Then she explained to me that I was about to turn 16, and that I was going to have to be confirmed soon. Puzzled, I asked her what the heck being confirmed was. She told me it was when Catholics decided to accept being Catholic their whole lives. When she made that announcement, I quickly started to think of ways to weasel my way out of it. I didn't know that I even wanted to do that! And it didn't sound like something your mom could just force on you. But just try telling her that...Anyway, she continued to explain to me what it was all about, and said that Catholics have to pick a patron saint for this ritual. But they need to choose well because that saint is imprinted on their soul forever. When she said that, I flashed back to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. "Choose, but choose wisely." Great. No pressure there. "So how am I supposed to pick a saint?" I asked. Evidently, that's what the book was for. It documented as rigorously as possible the biographies of all the saints. Mom explained that some Catholics choose a saint whose feast day coincides with their birthdays. Some choose a saint who is the patron of something that fascinated them, like medicine for example. I quickly looked at who ruled my birthday. No one stood out. Then I looked at some who ruled over my presiding interests. No go there, either. I faked a smile. "Okay, Mom," I said, "I'll look this over and get back to you." The funny thing is she actually believed me!
So later on, my parents went to this weekend retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, called the Marion Conference. It's a big hoo-rah-rah for Catholics where they get together and talk about how cool it is to be Catholic. Okay, whatever. I got to stay home (quickly crosses myself and thanks God). But my mom decided that while she was there, she was going to peruse the booths hocking religious junk to find her heathen daughter a medal. At first she noticed the abundance of Virgin Mary medals and thought she'd buy me one of those. But "something" told her no way. She liked the Virgin Mary, true, but that wasn't the medal for me. Then that mysterious "something," a strange gut instinct, led her to a booth obscured by a wall and a potted palm tree. It wasn't a place she would've found on her own, so she says, but she was certain destiny guided her there because she found medals that weren't as mainstream as say, St. Christopher. She found one of St. Michael, the Archangel. Not knowing much about him, she read the accompanying card, saw he was God's right hand angel and the crusher of rebellion (hint, hint, Katie), and decided he was perfect for me.
She gets home, gives me her gift, and tells me this story about how God led her to it. Naturally, I rolled my eyes at her in the way only a teenager can, but I put the stupid thing on because it got her to shut up about religion for a while, and that was priceless. Besides, it wasn't bad looking. It was kind of cool, a necklace with a fierce warrior angel about to impale the Devil with his spear on it.
I can't recall how many days, weeks, or months passed by, but whatever the case, one night I was sitting in the dark, looking out my huge window at the pretty Wyoming night sky, when suddenly I got the heebie-jeebies. There was no reason to get scared, but there it was. I looked around, and noticed that the ceramic Halloween skull I had stored in my closet was glowing orange, as if a fire had been lit inside of it. And kind of hovering by my bed were these wispy humanoid figures. I can't say for sure what they were, exactly, but if I had to choose a word, I would say wraiths. They were transparent, with gnarly, long, thin fingers and gaunt, skeleton-like faces. Their long white hair kind of trailed off in all directions as if they were floating underwater. Naturally, I freaked! So I jumped out of bed to turn on the light. I naively assumed that light would scare creatures of the night away. Oh, how wrong I was! I flipped my switch on and off several times, but the wraiths would not leave.
Finally, I jumped back into bed and buried myself under my pillows and comforter so I wouldn't have to see them reaching for me anymore. I knew they were getting closer, and as they did, my fear climaxed. I was sure I was going to die. What to do? I couldn't run for help. Nobody would believe me. They would chock it off to a wild imagination. And besides that, what could anyone do against non-corporeal spirits terrorizing a sixteen year old girl?
So I started saying every prayer to God and Jesus I had learned in catechism. Hypocritical of me, yes, but that's what I did. But those traditional, go-to prayers didn't help. And my panic was rising. I couldn't breathe because I was hyperventilating so bad. I was shaking like a leaf. It was all I could do not to scream! Then, by chance, my hand drifted across my neck and felt my St. Michael medal. Suddenly, I remembered one last prayer I could say: "St. Michael, the Archangel, defend me in battle..." I repeated that over and over while I felt my heart psychically beg God to send the warrior Archangel to save me. At that moment, the fear instantly vanished. It was just gone, like it never existed. And in its place was the most wonderful feeling of peace I've ever felt. I never felt anything so warm and comforting before that moment, or since. It was like someone was cradling me like a small child in their arms. I fell asleep not thirty seconds later.
When I made the mistake of telling my mom this, she obviously used it as a point to preach to me, and insisted it was God who had comforted me. But I don't think so. I can't say with 100% certainty who helped me that night, but my heart tells me it was St. Michael. I don't have a rational reason for it, I admit. I just know it was him.
So I started researching everything I could about him in books and on the internet. And I found out that he represents everything I want to be. He is the defender of the weak and those without a voice. He is loyal, and has a soft spot in his heart for soldiers, police officers, and firefighters, just like I do. As the angel of justice, he, like me, has a strong sense of what's right and wrong. When I learned all of this about him, and more, I knew he was destined to be my patron saint. So I went to my mom and told her. She said, "I don't think the Catholic Church allows people to pick angels for their patron saint." I said, "I don't give a damn what the Church allows. He's going to be my patron saint, and that's the end of that!" Okay, so in spite of my experience, I still have quite a bit of the Devil in me...
When I was 23, I finally decided to be confirmed. And for the record, the Church did allow me to pick him. And the Archangel Gabriel, but that's a different story for a different day. The bottom line is that when I was confirmed, I felt a special connection, a special bond, form with him. I mean, ever since that night in my room, I felt like he was a kindred spirit. But since my confirmation, I feel like he's a close friend that I can talk to when things are rough. Honestly, I don't know if he even knows who I am. But just the thought gets me through the day.
So yes, it was a long story, but hopefully, it was worth it!
The Seal of St. Michael
I found this image on the internet, and it's supposedly called the Seal of St. Michael. The thing is, nobody seems to know what it means. And it's driving me nuts! I even emailed it to some professors in the know, scholars who specialize in this sort of thing, and they're all perplexed. So I wonder if it's just something someone made up and started calling the Seal of St. Michael. But I hope that's not the case because I'll be extremely disappointed if it is. I was hoping I'd stumbled onto something Enochian, like something King Solomon might have used.
I deciphered the words on the outer ring. That wasn't so hard individually translating them:
Michael = who is like God?
Athanatos = immortality
Saday = fields
Sabaoth = armies
The problem is putting the words in a context that actually means something. The other problem is figuring out what the symbols in the middle circle mean. They look vaguely like angelic script or some sort of Arabic alphabet.
If anyone knows anything about this symbol, please please please tell me!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Japan's Earthquake
As we all know, Japan was struck by a terrible 8.9 magnitude earthquake on Friday and multiple subsequent tsunamis. The news channels keep showing us the same footage over and over, and while the death toll was originally estimated to be in the hundreds, now it's in the tens of thousands. I'm not surprised. I've never seen such a horrible natural disaster in my life, and that includes Hurricane Katrina and other hurricanes, or even other earthquakes.
The worldwide psychic energy was overwhelming at first. The last time I felt it, the day was September 11th. It was like somehow, I tapped into America's collective consciousness and felt everything everyone else did. It was like riding a bolt of grief-stricken lightning. On Friday, I felt that again. The energy was so strong that it threatened to choke out my own essence. Even still, I was glad for it because it assured me that thousands, perhaps millions, of people cared about their fellow man, even if they weren't Americans.
What made it real for me was when my ten year old son, Michael, asked me what a tsunami was. I waited for the inevitable footage of the twenty-three foot wall of water crushing part of Japan's coast to explain. Then I pointed to the footage and said, "See this huge wave coming inland, Michael? That's a tsunami. It's a huge wave that destroys everything it touches, and sweeps everything away, including people." My words snapped me out of my scientific apathy. I looked at the wave crushing buildings, knocking down power lines, and washing cars away, and I realized that even though I couldn't see them, there were people in that water. They were drowning right before my eyes, and I couldn't do anything to help save them. I felt so helpless, and it broke my heart. I struggled not to cry in front of my children.
I thought Facebook would be abuzz with talk of what had happened, and sure, on the first day, the prayers circled around. But last night, after Japan was hit with a 7.9 aftershock, and after CNN had reported the nuclear plant might currently be undergoing meltdowns in two separate reactors, I checked to see what people were saying. I was disgusted by how quickly people had gone about life as usual. The Farmville requests were back in full force, as were all the stupid little games one can play on Facebook. People were talking about getting drunk and partying before the weekend was over. They were talking about sports and St. Patrick's Day, and asking who was going to drink a green beer in celebration. Even the news pages I follow had long forgotten about it. The St. Patrick's Day Parade was on the top of their list. It was like because it wasn't us, we can forget. We took our obligatory moment of silence, and now it's life as usual.
How did America become so apathetic and complacent? Why don't we care longer than is expected of us, and why is that just us going through the proprietary motions? CNN's weather man reported that as of last night it was eleven degrees in Japan. Now think about that. The Japanese survivors are homeless, without food, without heat, without electricity, a lot of them soaking wet, and it's eleven degrees. That's not just adults. That's children and old people too. How many people will have survived the earthquake only to die of exposure or starvation? And yet, we in America sit in our comfy homes, gluttonously pigging out junk food while we furiously play on the internet or watch TV. It's sickening!
I'm not trying to point blame because I think a lot of our apathy is this feeling of helplessness. They're so far away, and what can we really do to help anyway? So we say a prayer and go about our lives, hoping things will get better. But you can help. Donate money to the Red Cross. They're only asking for $10. In addition, they let you choose where you want your money to go to help. Obviously, I did this, and I checked Japan. The Red Cross is a reputable organization and they'll buy the stuff the Japanese people need to get through this catastrophe.
Here's the link:
http://www.redcross.org/
Please shake off this apathy and see what you can do to help.
The worldwide psychic energy was overwhelming at first. The last time I felt it, the day was September 11th. It was like somehow, I tapped into America's collective consciousness and felt everything everyone else did. It was like riding a bolt of grief-stricken lightning. On Friday, I felt that again. The energy was so strong that it threatened to choke out my own essence. Even still, I was glad for it because it assured me that thousands, perhaps millions, of people cared about their fellow man, even if they weren't Americans.
What made it real for me was when my ten year old son, Michael, asked me what a tsunami was. I waited for the inevitable footage of the twenty-three foot wall of water crushing part of Japan's coast to explain. Then I pointed to the footage and said, "See this huge wave coming inland, Michael? That's a tsunami. It's a huge wave that destroys everything it touches, and sweeps everything away, including people." My words snapped me out of my scientific apathy. I looked at the wave crushing buildings, knocking down power lines, and washing cars away, and I realized that even though I couldn't see them, there were people in that water. They were drowning right before my eyes, and I couldn't do anything to help save them. I felt so helpless, and it broke my heart. I struggled not to cry in front of my children.
I thought Facebook would be abuzz with talk of what had happened, and sure, on the first day, the prayers circled around. But last night, after Japan was hit with a 7.9 aftershock, and after CNN had reported the nuclear plant might currently be undergoing meltdowns in two separate reactors, I checked to see what people were saying. I was disgusted by how quickly people had gone about life as usual. The Farmville requests were back in full force, as were all the stupid little games one can play on Facebook. People were talking about getting drunk and partying before the weekend was over. They were talking about sports and St. Patrick's Day, and asking who was going to drink a green beer in celebration. Even the news pages I follow had long forgotten about it. The St. Patrick's Day Parade was on the top of their list. It was like because it wasn't us, we can forget. We took our obligatory moment of silence, and now it's life as usual.
How did America become so apathetic and complacent? Why don't we care longer than is expected of us, and why is that just us going through the proprietary motions? CNN's weather man reported that as of last night it was eleven degrees in Japan. Now think about that. The Japanese survivors are homeless, without food, without heat, without electricity, a lot of them soaking wet, and it's eleven degrees. That's not just adults. That's children and old people too. How many people will have survived the earthquake only to die of exposure or starvation? And yet, we in America sit in our comfy homes, gluttonously pigging out junk food while we furiously play on the internet or watch TV. It's sickening!
I'm not trying to point blame because I think a lot of our apathy is this feeling of helplessness. They're so far away, and what can we really do to help anyway? So we say a prayer and go about our lives, hoping things will get better. But you can help. Donate money to the Red Cross. They're only asking for $10. In addition, they let you choose where you want your money to go to help. Obviously, I did this, and I checked Japan. The Red Cross is a reputable organization and they'll buy the stuff the Japanese people need to get through this catastrophe.
Here's the link:
http://www.redcross.org/
Please shake off this apathy and see what you can do to help.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Thoughts on Libya and Egypt
I was talking to my pen pal in Africa on Facebook today, and after I asked him what his thoughts on the rebellions in Libya and Egypt were since I don't trust our news, he said that he believes our government uses the media to twist the true state of the world in order to hide its real agendas from the American people. I'm not into conspiracy theories, but what he said made a lot of sense. I don't feel like we get the whole story when it comes to world news. I'm ashamed to say that while I've heard a lot of bickering about what President Obama is supposed to do about these rebellions, I haven't heard a lick of information about why they're rebelling to begin with. I can only assume that Qaddafi is a tyrant, and the oppressed Libyans have had enough of his bullshit, so they're rebelling. If that is indeed the case, then God bless. Qaddafi has been a pain in America's ass for a long time.
But what should we do about it? On the one hand, I feel like because we have an abundance of wealth and resources, we are obliged to help the parts of the world who aren't so fortunate. I feel it's our humanitarian duty. On the other hand, it's not America's job to act as the police in Libya's domestic spat. For that matter, any country's domestic spat. We are not the world's police force, especially in times when we face our own domestic problems like our struggling economy and the polarization of our political parties to name a couple. We have no money to spend and our military is stretched thin. But these rebellions conjure thoughts of the American Revolution and how without France's intervention on our behalf, and granted they had their own shady reasons for helping us, we could never have beaten England. We needed the help of one of the world's then-superpowers. So in the interest of freedom, do we lend a hand?
Unfortunately, I think American's have become so apathetic to the world that we're inadvertently becoming the architects of our own demise. We're so submerged in our own wealth and excess that we can't be bothered with anyone else. We're greedy, gluttonous, and indifferent people, so strung out on deep fried cheese and shows like "The Bachelor" that we just don't care about anything, not even us. I can't imagine what our Founding Fathers would say if they saw this degraded generation of self-absorbed me-monkeys. In our relatively safe corner of the world, we have forgotten that everyday, people are dying in 9/11-esque attacks, that people are still under the thumb of tyrants, that people would kill for half a slice of bread. We should feel immense gratitude towards the universe that we got dropped here rather than anywhere else, yet I don't see any gratitude at all. We take our good fortune for granted.
In many ways, I see parallels between the Romans and us. Do you know when their Empire started to fall? There were many complicated reasons, but I think the most pertinent reasons were when they, like us now, became politically polarized and divided. Towards the end, they had two joint emperors ruling the east and west, four Caesars underneath them ruling four sub-sections, and an army that was spread impossibly thin. Furthermore, their people were, like us now, greedy, gluttonous, sex-crazed pigs. Did you realize that archaeologists are now finding that Pompeii, the famous town that got buried by Vesuvius, was the sex capitol of the Roman Empire? There were more brothels, prostitutes, lewd pictures and statues, etc. there than anywhere else in the Roman world. I'm not passing any sort of moral judgment on them, but my point in mentioning it is that when a society becomes so engrossed in pleasurable activities that they become apathetic to the world around them, their downfall is inevitable. It was fairly easy for the barbarians to overrun Rome and destroy the world's greatest Empire at that point.
We're becoming the Romans. The difference is that Rome lasted thousands of years before it fell. Why? Because communication was so much slower then. Now, communication is an instantaneous affair, so our demise is heading towards us much quicker. Still, when it comes to America, I am always optimistic. I don't think we're lost yet. I think we can look at the rebellions in Libya and Egypt and remember our own heritage. I think we can rise up against our government, peaceably, as is our right, to demand that we get the truth of the world situation from our corrupt government. But first, we must shake off these greedy, gluttonous chains that bind us and free ourselves from our apathy. We must ignore the polarizing forces in our culture and work together for a common purpose. Only then can we restore our people to our former greatness.
But what should we do about it? On the one hand, I feel like because we have an abundance of wealth and resources, we are obliged to help the parts of the world who aren't so fortunate. I feel it's our humanitarian duty. On the other hand, it's not America's job to act as the police in Libya's domestic spat. For that matter, any country's domestic spat. We are not the world's police force, especially in times when we face our own domestic problems like our struggling economy and the polarization of our political parties to name a couple. We have no money to spend and our military is stretched thin. But these rebellions conjure thoughts of the American Revolution and how without France's intervention on our behalf, and granted they had their own shady reasons for helping us, we could never have beaten England. We needed the help of one of the world's then-superpowers. So in the interest of freedom, do we lend a hand?
Unfortunately, I think American's have become so apathetic to the world that we're inadvertently becoming the architects of our own demise. We're so submerged in our own wealth and excess that we can't be bothered with anyone else. We're greedy, gluttonous, and indifferent people, so strung out on deep fried cheese and shows like "The Bachelor" that we just don't care about anything, not even us. I can't imagine what our Founding Fathers would say if they saw this degraded generation of self-absorbed me-monkeys. In our relatively safe corner of the world, we have forgotten that everyday, people are dying in 9/11-esque attacks, that people are still under the thumb of tyrants, that people would kill for half a slice of bread. We should feel immense gratitude towards the universe that we got dropped here rather than anywhere else, yet I don't see any gratitude at all. We take our good fortune for granted.
In many ways, I see parallels between the Romans and us. Do you know when their Empire started to fall? There were many complicated reasons, but I think the most pertinent reasons were when they, like us now, became politically polarized and divided. Towards the end, they had two joint emperors ruling the east and west, four Caesars underneath them ruling four sub-sections, and an army that was spread impossibly thin. Furthermore, their people were, like us now, greedy, gluttonous, sex-crazed pigs. Did you realize that archaeologists are now finding that Pompeii, the famous town that got buried by Vesuvius, was the sex capitol of the Roman Empire? There were more brothels, prostitutes, lewd pictures and statues, etc. there than anywhere else in the Roman world. I'm not passing any sort of moral judgment on them, but my point in mentioning it is that when a society becomes so engrossed in pleasurable activities that they become apathetic to the world around them, their downfall is inevitable. It was fairly easy for the barbarians to overrun Rome and destroy the world's greatest Empire at that point.
We're becoming the Romans. The difference is that Rome lasted thousands of years before it fell. Why? Because communication was so much slower then. Now, communication is an instantaneous affair, so our demise is heading towards us much quicker. Still, when it comes to America, I am always optimistic. I don't think we're lost yet. I think we can look at the rebellions in Libya and Egypt and remember our own heritage. I think we can rise up against our government, peaceably, as is our right, to demand that we get the truth of the world situation from our corrupt government. But first, we must shake off these greedy, gluttonous chains that bind us and free ourselves from our apathy. We must ignore the polarizing forces in our culture and work together for a common purpose. Only then can we restore our people to our former greatness.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Why Angels?
If you're reading this blog, my screen name has not escaped your eye. "Katie's Angels." Why angels? Is that a reference to her kids? No. Angels, the honest-to-God divine creatures that serve as holy messengers are the beings I had in mind when I created my name. St. Thomas Aquinas, the angel doctor, said something to the effect that people who are devoted to the angels have a mark of destiny written upon them. Of course, those aren't his exact words and the relevant book where I could find the exact wording is packed up in a box in storage, but his words had a profound impact on me because I've always been devoted to angels. At the risk of sounding blasphemous, angels are more interesting to me than God. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. Yawn. What's so interesting about a being who has no flaws? Angels, like humans, are flawed, have limited ability and knowledge, and have free-will. Their choices define them. That is just terribly fascinating to me.
Oh, yeah, I'm sure someone out there is insisting that I'm wrong about the free-will thing, and they're undoubtedly stuck on the Dionysian bandwagon from ancient times. Let me remind you that Lucifer was an angel once. If angels don't have free will, then how was he able to rebel against God? I have a lot of heretical ideas about him, but those will have to wait for another day.
So how did I get to be devoted to angels? I'm an angelophant, meaning someone who has had an angel encounter. In my case, I've had a lot of angel encounters. But those will have to remain private for now because I'm sure most of you, like me, are inherently skeptical of anyone claiming to have had an encounter. Most people, I've noticed, don't try to find the rational explanation for something first. They just automatically jump to angels, even if that probably wasn't the case.
I remember reading this horrid book by Doreen Virtue about the Archangel Michael, and she used a so-called reader encounter as an example of his presence in our lives. This woman evidently dropped her cell phone in a glass of water, and naturally it wouldn't work. So she said a prayer to St. Michael, put it on her charger, and let it sit overnight. The next day, it worked! Yeah, of course it worked. It dried out! But she attributed the "miracle" to St. Michael. Incidentally, that book pissed me off so much I actually returned it to Barnes and Noble; it was the first book I've ever returned. Yes, it was that bad. As someone who finds Virtue's brand of stupidity annoying, believe me when I say all my experiences defy reason. And even still, I wonder if I was suffering from temporary insanity or something. And that is the other reason I'm not big on sharing. I'm skeptical of myself.
But if I assume that I'm not mentally defective in some way, then it's clear to me that for whatever reason, angels are interested in my life. Honestly, I don't know why. I'm not that great. I'm just an average woman living an average life. There's absolutely nothing remarkable about me. So I figure that if St. Thomas Aquinas is right, it behooves me to understand them as much as I can. And that's why I'm devoted to learning everything I can about them. I don't rely on any religion or any human as my teacher. Rather, I rely on them. Who better to teach me about angels than angels? I've already learned a lot about the universe through them, my angels, and hopefully my education will continue.
Oh, yeah, I'm sure someone out there is insisting that I'm wrong about the free-will thing, and they're undoubtedly stuck on the Dionysian bandwagon from ancient times. Let me remind you that Lucifer was an angel once. If angels don't have free will, then how was he able to rebel against God? I have a lot of heretical ideas about him, but those will have to wait for another day.
So how did I get to be devoted to angels? I'm an angelophant, meaning someone who has had an angel encounter. In my case, I've had a lot of angel encounters. But those will have to remain private for now because I'm sure most of you, like me, are inherently skeptical of anyone claiming to have had an encounter. Most people, I've noticed, don't try to find the rational explanation for something first. They just automatically jump to angels, even if that probably wasn't the case.
I remember reading this horrid book by Doreen Virtue about the Archangel Michael, and she used a so-called reader encounter as an example of his presence in our lives. This woman evidently dropped her cell phone in a glass of water, and naturally it wouldn't work. So she said a prayer to St. Michael, put it on her charger, and let it sit overnight. The next day, it worked! Yeah, of course it worked. It dried out! But she attributed the "miracle" to St. Michael. Incidentally, that book pissed me off so much I actually returned it to Barnes and Noble; it was the first book I've ever returned. Yes, it was that bad. As someone who finds Virtue's brand of stupidity annoying, believe me when I say all my experiences defy reason. And even still, I wonder if I was suffering from temporary insanity or something. And that is the other reason I'm not big on sharing. I'm skeptical of myself.
But if I assume that I'm not mentally defective in some way, then it's clear to me that for whatever reason, angels are interested in my life. Honestly, I don't know why. I'm not that great. I'm just an average woman living an average life. There's absolutely nothing remarkable about me. So I figure that if St. Thomas Aquinas is right, it behooves me to understand them as much as I can. And that's why I'm devoted to learning everything I can about them. I don't rely on any religion or any human as my teacher. Rather, I rely on them. Who better to teach me about angels than angels? I've already learned a lot about the universe through them, my angels, and hopefully my education will continue.
What Have You Sacrificed in Your Cause?
For our weekly Sacred Writing exercise, my friend Sonia posed the question: What have you sacrificed for your cause?
My cause has been getting a good education, mostly so I can provide a financially stable life for my kids. But the irony of my cause is that seeking this education has kept me from spending a lot of time with them. Dr. Margaret Barber once told me that you never have free time in grad school because you spend every waking moment studying. And this, in my experience, is true. While my kids watch movies like "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid" or play baseball in the yard, I'm engrossed in largely torturous reading. When I'm writing papers and they come to visit me, I have to tell them to leave because they're distracting me. Even after the car accident, I couldn't nurture them like I probably should have because I had to jump right back into my homework. So essentially I'm sacrificing my kids for my kids. Strange...
My cause has been getting a good education, mostly so I can provide a financially stable life for my kids. But the irony of my cause is that seeking this education has kept me from spending a lot of time with them. Dr. Margaret Barber once told me that you never have free time in grad school because you spend every waking moment studying. And this, in my experience, is true. While my kids watch movies like "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid" or play baseball in the yard, I'm engrossed in largely torturous reading. When I'm writing papers and they come to visit me, I have to tell them to leave because they're distracting me. Even after the car accident, I couldn't nurture them like I probably should have because I had to jump right back into my homework. So essentially I'm sacrificing my kids for my kids. Strange...
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