It Ain't Me

Credence Clearwater Revival: It ain't me. Maybe that's what I should do with these early morning posts. Just go with the radio. I remember that as a kid, after getting that first radio back in 1964 from Uncle Chuck and waking on Christmas morning with the story about the nuns and the snow (you'd have to look way back for that story)...and how I somehow knew that was important...I would stay in bed each morning, with the radio on and not get up until I heard "the" song I was supposed to hear that morning: the one that would tell me what kind of day I would have. I love waking to Michael Martin Murphy's "Wildfire." I thought that one described me best. I loved the piano solo at the beginning and at the end. And I had at least three boyfriends over the years give me Michael Murphy's record albums as Christmas presents. They didn't know about the song, but they kind of knew me.
My kids, when they were small, saw an Acura commercial: A little girl in kindergarten coloring a picture. The teacher was saying "Stay within the lines. The lines are our friend." The little girl grinned a big grin and began coloring all over the page...and then the scene went to a woman driving an Acura Integra. Both kids said almost at the same time, "Mommy, that's you!" I laughed.

And then I got my husband to buy me the Acura Integra.

And many years later, after the kids grew up and I got divorced, the car was given to my daughter Beth...and that car saved her life.

"Stay within the lines. The lines are our friend."

Ecclesiastes 3:
There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embrace.
A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

The connection I want to make here is that there is a time for things to change and a time for things to stay the same.

Last Saturday night, I had the change to hear an articulate, educated Dominican nun offer a lecture "Reading the Scriptures with the Mind, Eyes and Heart of a Woman." She did a wonderful job. She used theologians that I have not always agreed with, but her work was clean, direct and informative. It was a good and healthy look at how very few women get to do what I have been allowed to do: think outside the box. It was not a feminist lecture by any stretch of the imagination, but it was distinctly female in color and taste.

In ancient times, the first female mathematician, Hypatia, was flayed alive and then burned at the stake. Because she dared to learn. To think. And that kind of behavior is still going on today. In Afghanistan, women carefully hide the fact that they are getting an education. If caught, the Taliban would most likely kill them. Why? Because the ignorant are easier to control. To manage. Look up the word 'maquiladores.' You will discover how this country uses the poor and innocent for profit.

Social justice has always been a primary goal and task of the Catholic Church. That is why the Methodist Church was so attractive to me. It had a bent toward social justice in a way that no other Protestant Church had. John Wesley said, Feed them. God will convert them.

This wonderful nun gave an excellent talk. Deeply Catholic audience. I watched. I observed. Only men asked questions. One woman spoke, but it was only to compliment her. I cringed.
But my reaction was set into play by the first question from a corner in the back of the room...it took no time at all to see what was going on..."Sister, how do you reconcile your lecture with what was spoken in 1990 about the ordination of women..." and she explained that was not what her talk was about. She even offered to speak with him later as he continued to press her on the question. she politely went on to another person.

Then another question, from a male religious, positing the question again from a different point of view.

No one seemed to hear what she had said. Somehow, a lecture on how women are treated for choosing to better themselves, their lives, their families, their relationship with God...got turned into a political question of power defined by gender.

The plight and learning experience from Sister's work in Chiapas disappeared because some people went down the slippery slope: educate women and they will take over the world...or something like that.

I sat and asked myself why had I returned to the Catholic Church. I had to remember what was good about it. And I realized that only death lies in front of me if I choose to fight a battle I cannot win.

The question that seemed to scare the man who sat in the back and only saw and heard what he wanted to see and hear...made me so sad. And angry. I thought, I could go to Mexico and help women learn math and the Bible. To understand what it really means to carry your cross...

It doesn't mean putting up with abuse, or destructive behaviors or immoral employers...but it does mean suffering for Christ's sake, for furthering the Kingdom of God here on earth. There is a fine line, and clever people use it to control others for their personal benefit. I want that to stop, but I also know there is a time when each will be held accountable to our choices...and they will be held accountable for what they did and did not do.

So I wonder, how to I build up the kingdom and not tear down? Many people, men and women, are afraid of smart women, educated women. This Sister showed with grace a problem and ways to deal with it. Then she encountered a Pharisee...who was all about the LAW...

I watched a living out of the gospel, in that room. Jesus spoke about the poor and the oppressed and that "love thy neighbor thing" and in the back was the question about the LAW.

I don't think I'm the woman who can show dignity and grace as well as Sister did. I wish I could, but I'm not there yet. It ain't me. But God may have other ideas. We shall see. I'll wait. For now.

Whose wife will she be in heaven? (referring to yesterday's reading) and I think Jesus might have withheld a laugh and a smile...you guys just don't get it at all, do you?

Our birth into the next place is like nothing you can imagine. But love now. Here. While you can. Because you can.

Because I loved you first.

Love, Cindy