Killing the Buddha

Do you ever get taken by surprise when watching shows with your spouse or significant other or pet? I was watching That Mitchell and Webb Look with my husband and pets the other night. You know how it is: Last night of vacation, laptop, electric mattress pad, wind blowing, had my face all lotioned up, was feeling 95 years young. The Vermont Country Store Catalogue mocks me at times like this ’cause I sure could use some insulated underpants and an electric nose cozy and some of that barfy old-timey marzipan candy with extra walnuts. I’d eat it. I had just huffed a bunch of herbal “Rest Easy” supplements from Whole Foods and exactly nothing. was. happening. “Natural” remedies: I shake my fist at thee.

This being Baltimore, we’re celebrating Christmas Eve morning by gathering around the grave of Johns Hopkins. He’s buried in the expansive Greenmount Cemetery, which is now located in the so-called “Station North Arts District.” Doctors tell tales of great men and women and their muscle, bravado and intellect. We hear about Mary Elizabeth Garrett, whose grave is in eyeshot of Johnsy’s (I think of him that way). She was the daughter of a railroad magnate, and she made John Hopkins Hospital admit women to the medical school on a completely equal basis. When John Singer Sargent was commissioned to paint her portrait, he liked being in her presence as to a mouse being in the company of a boa constrictor. “A Woman of Quietly Realized Enthusiasms” reads her grave marker.

I’m not a doctor at these things, but I am a cancer patient, still. I was just in Johns Hopkins Medical Oncology a few days ago and I have a lot on my mind. I’m existing in a strange space where, for all intents and purposes, I’m out of treatment but the doctors still refer to the cancer in the present tense, whereas civilians tend to think of me as being “well.”  No one really knows for sure if I have cancer or not, but odds are that I do, so what can be done or not done to stop the cells from dividing and massing once again? My body and its functions have become completely unpredictable. I’m taking pills. I’m considering my options.

I place a coin on Hopkins’ grave and ask him only to think of me. A photographer from the Washington Post appears and snaps a photo of my daughter doing the same. I consider the vestiges of civilization, and how graves give people a place to gather and speak. Then we’re off to see where John Wilkes Booth is interred, and hear an impromptu lecture on him and the Booth family. Having touched the past and shaken hands with each other, we can now continue with our day. My doctor is going to call me the day after Christmas.

As with most things, the circles repeat, infinitely.

Related: Baltimore, cancer, Christmas, ritual

Oh Ross. You are making me violate my custody of my mind with your words again. You’re talking Hitchens and his “atheism” or whatever, but the most important thing about this column is the part where Hitchens “cornered” you in a “pantry” at a “Washington dinner party” and “insisted on having a long argument about the Gospel narratives.”

I have to imagine the two of you flushed, a little boozy, excited at being able to talk God with another man, a sportcoated man, in a pantry, at an important Washington party. Oh! The knees weaken a little just thinking about it! And I imagine you and Hitchens snuggled in there together, tasting each other’s breath, smelling each other’s manly scent—and somehow, even though you’re both talking, the words float away and you lock eyes and both think this in unison:

Your paunch
is touching
my own

Sssigh. Damn you, Ross.  I’m going to be racking up more penance and it’s all your fault.

Related: atheism, Christopher Hitchens, communicant, mary valle, ross douthat

I took BeliefNet’s Belief-O-Matic test and here are the results. Check out #1 and #27 out of #27. OK. Fine. I’ll light some candles and don a shawl and pray to the Goddess. Oh wait. I already do that.

The first shall be last and the last shall be first, Belief-O-Matic.

Click any Faith for more information Neo-Pagan (100%) Liberal Quakers (97%) Unitarian Universalism (94%) New Age (83%) Mahayana Buddhism (79%) Reform Judaism (79%) Secular Humanism (79%) Baha’i Faith (73%) Jainism (72%) Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (72%) Sikhism (68%) Taoism (64%) Theravada Buddhism (62%) Hinduism (58%) Scientology (58%) New Thought (52%) Nontheist (52%) Orthodox Quaker (51%) Islam (47%) Orthodox Judaism (47%) Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (42%) Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (26%) Seventh Day Adventist (24%) Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (23%) Jehovah’s Witness (11%) Eastern Orthodox (9%) Roman Catholic (9%)

Related: Beliefnet, Catholicism, paganism

Related: libraries, occupy movement, occupy writers, ows

I keep planning to go visit Occupy Baltimore and then I keep getting stymied by the cold or just my own love of staying home. I was super-excited to go sing some protest songs at OB one afternoon, but it rained. Friends, it would take me about 15 minutes to get there. I’d love to visit OWS, too, but, obviously, I don’t make it to New York very often. Going to Town is an operation that involves loading up the burro and putting on the store-bought clothes and taking a long, arduous car ride; trip on the Megabus; or, if I’m lucky, the train. What can I say? If I could live in a hobbit-hole, I would, brewing endless cups of tea, warming my paws at the turf fire, drawing pictures of small furry creatures. Such as myself. Hmm. Perhaps I actually do live in a hobbit-hole.

Anyway. I have been known to act quickly upon great enticement. You say “Vegan cupcakes” or “Free books” or “Rabbit show” and I’m out the door. Or “Sister Nancy Murray in a one-nun production of the life of Catherine of Siena?”  Also. Well, Wall Street Occupiers, something might very well entice me into your groovy encampment of joy. According to the Village Voice, a so-called “friendly cult,” the Twelve Tribes, has parked a “huge ’70s-style RV” (got me right there!) across from the famed Zuccotti Park. The bus is “wood-paneled” and “cozy” and they give you brownies. The bus, on the inside, looks like “someone’s rec room mixed with Frodo’s house.” (!!!!!)

The Twelve Tribes are “a messianic group that traces its origins to early 1970s Tennessee. They live on communes all over the U.S. and Europe. If you’ve ever seen a Yellow Deli or a Common Ground Café, that’s these guys.” When the Voice asked if they were looking to recruit at #OWS, a Tribesman named Emmett said, ”What we always say is, ‘Come for a day or to stay.’ ”

I think I would definitely like to come for at least 45 minutes, Emmett! Do you know “Pass it On?” 

Did you know that October 31 is not only a great time to be a Catholic or Pagan, but also a very special day for Protestants? That’s right! October 31 marks Reformation Day, which Brother Jeffrey Gros recently told me has fallen into disuse:

“Since the 1980s, traditional Reformation Day services have evolved into commemorations and moments of reconciliation between Protestant and Catholic, except in the evangelical communities, and Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, who distance themselves from fellow Christians in the ecumenical movement. Since the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification—between Lutherans, Catholics and Methodists—work has intensified on healing the 16th century alienations.”

Cleaving together and minimizing differences is nice and all, but I wonder if by downplaying Reformation Day, we’re all missing out. Maybe Reformation Day might be an opportunity for unhad fun. Catholics, especially, might enjoy a Reformation Day blowout. Imagine the possibilities!

You could:

•  Temporarily whitewash an unoccupied stone church—au style de Christo à la Jésus,
•  Have a wine-into-juice station,
•  Smash molded-sugar plaster saints,
• Encourage everyone to bring various theses they might have boxed up in the basement—college, master’s, doctoral—and nail them to a selection of old, warped doors.
• Rip off  ”cassocks,” emerging in layman’s polyester suits.
• Suggested soundtrack: Anything from the Jesus Music era, Bach, or Mendelssohn. Or no music if you want to go that far. You might!

Additionally, with the general theme of Reformation, you might ask everyone to consider what might need reformin’ in their own lives, write it down, and whisper it to a special advisor. Maybe in a wooden box built for two, behind lacy metal screens? Wait. Sorry. I mean, speak to Jesus and Jesus only because only He can save us?

Cap it all off with an End Times lottery, and allow those who are saved to beat the unwashed with styrofoam mallets.

Don’t forget to send photos of your Reformation Day parties!

Related: Catholicism, Halloween, Protestantism, Reformation

Related: apocalypse, Catholicism, rapture

Blogging can be a lonely job. Sometimes I feel my words blowing through cyberspace like little pixellated tumbleweeds. Or I’ll be tweeting away, thinking “Why am I writing this stuff? No one cares!”

But sometimes I hear from people. Sometimes I actually get fan art! Recently I was tweeting about the Guitar Mass and realized I was the only person on earth doing such a thing and how that was kind of special in and of itself, but also a little sad. I began to question my Twitter use and think “Maybe I’m looking for love in all the wrong places and should be, like, scrubbing the bathroom floor and/or giving my husband a BJ in his sleep—you know, things that make other people happy.” But his morning I got this in my emails!

With this caption: “Love flipboard for this…look how wonderful your side bar is! I never use my iPad in portrait mode (it’s even better in landscape) however I wanted to show you your stream. WONDERFUL!”

I am not alone! Thank you, Scott from San Francisco!

Then, regarding a piece I wrote a while back, “Jesus in Space,” this recently arrived:

OK, so someone took time out of his busy schedule to craft some digital art based on my writing? Totally touched. But it gets better. A top Los Angeles litigator, who used to be a top heavy metal guy, who is the legendary older brother of one of my nearest and dearest friends made this. Wow. Thanks, “Ricky Rockets.” I am beyond touched. I would also like to add that I think the Osmonds are cuter and more talented than the Biebs but Donny and the Biebs are almost shockingly similar.

I feel so filled with the love of the people. Thanks, fans.

Related: art, letters, technology

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church “rejects both the liturgical and doctrinal changes of Vatican II in their entirety and without exception.” Indeed, there are other churches in the Louisville area that offer the Tridentine Mass, but “what differentiates St. John the Baptist Church from these other communities is its total fidelity to the Catholic Church’s Tradition where the traditional Latin Mass is offered exclusively in context with unaltered (pre-Vatican II) Catholic teachings. The Tridentine Mass is not ‘mixed’ with the novel ideas of Vatican II.”

But rejecting all “Modernist” ideas doesn’t prevent St. John the Baptist Catholic Church from “being open to the idea of using the internet to help those who have decided that the modernism of Vatican II has illicitly and fundamentally changed what was passed on by the Apostles.” Indeed, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church has gone digital in its anti-Vatican II crusade. “Besides the new avenues of social networking being initiated, from Twitter to Youtube, the church also has a main phone and fax/recorded line that is now operational.”

Step back in my own personal time with me for a moment, readers. When I was a student at 1970s-hatched Hampshire College, what with its jargon and “coloring outside the lines” and sheep and coed bathrooms and bunks, I met a very bossy girl named Hillary Slevin. Like me, Hillary was also an Irish Catholic. We were rare in such a secular, dare I say it, Modernist atmosphere. We fell in immediately, based on our love of singing church songs and telling eerily similar household tales. Dread, ghosts, terrifying night rosaries and visits to convents…no one else could possibly understand. We also loved, equally, prank-calling boys (when you could get away with such things) and calling my mom whenever we had a doctrinal question. We’d press our heads together and stifle our giggles, a two-”woman” Trouble With Angels in the midst of remarkable un-that. I remember clearly one late afternoon when it was already quite dark and cold—some kind of Massachusetts gray frozen stuff was falling from the sky—we were pondering the Holy Spirit and wondering what, exactly, was Its job? We decided to call my mom. She told us that you pray to the Holy Spirit for the little things that you don’t want to bother the other two with. Thus, the Holy Spirit has been on the receiving end of many prayers to “let this eyeliner go on right” and “please let me remember to put out the recycling this week” and so forth in the ensuing years.

Upon reading about St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, my greatest impulse is to get Hillary on the phone and, trying not to snicker, call St. John the Baptist Catholic Church on their “main phone line” and ask, quite formally, if they could please tell me what time their Saturday Guitar Mass is? In the face of denials, I would continue to insist that I had read about their Guitar Mass on their Twitters and that apparently they had the only Guitar Mass in the whole America that is in Latin? Yes,  I would insist. I read it on a blog! The exchange would continue, I am sure, until I goaded St. John the Baptist Catholic Church into slamming down the phone in horror. And then Hillary and I would laugh until our stomachs hurt. Holy Spirit, please give me the strength not to do this. Paraclete, hear my prayer.

Photo of Wellspring, in the diocese of Gaylord, MI.

http://www.1888pressrelease.com/st-john-the-baptist-traditional-catholic-church-s-use-of-onl-pr-335500.html (via Religital)

Related: Catholicism, technology

Photo by Dale Prince.

Baltimore is the land of a million amateur haulers. The streets are teeming with old trucks hand-painted with phone numbers and offers to haul anything—telephone poles always have handwritten ads for the same service. Having moved into two old-lady houses since moving here, I can see the need. One was still full of a hoarder’s lifetime of jars of screws, boxes of old Life magazines, and scary jars of home-preserved items. The other, in which I currently live, was not so bad but still had some wall-to-wall that needed removing. And now I’m in the process of accumulating and weeding-out, and like all good Baltimoreans, I need hauling every so often. That charming 1940s bamboo settee? Just fell apart. Too big to put out for the once-weekly trash pickup. Nail-filled wood planks left over from a renovation? Ditto. I need a truck to come and take some stuff: the good news is that all I have to do is step outside and hail one like a taxi. (If I were hailing a hack cab, I’d hold my hand down low and wiggle my fingers a bit.) Oh! There’s the one! Gotta go!

Related: relics

Governor Perry, I’ve got more ideas for you, but I gotta talk to Mrs. Bachmann for a few minutes. Michelle: the “$2 gas” idea is great. Nice use of a Wal-Mart-i-an “loss-leader”… get them in the door with “limited supplies” of 50-cent taco filling, and watch them fill up their carts with high-ticket China-made gizmos. Good stuff, but next time you break this one out—and you should—use the right prop! It’s called a two-dollar bill. Start waving that Jefferson around with pride. Then your supporters can start waving them/using them in stores/altering them to have your picture where it should be. Not that I’m advocating defacing U.S. currency—wait—yes, I am. I want to see this nation awash in Bachmanns. Here’s $2.00 to get you started. Spend it all in one place: the gas station!

Related: politics

Rick Perry’s recent 30,000 strong prayer meeting was dwarfed by a similar event the same day—seven miles away in Texas, 100,000 people showed up for a free back-to-school event where children got free school supplies, haircuts, uniforms, immunizations, and “three-pound bags of food.”

As a genetic Republican, this gives me odd pain. It’s the same kind of pain I experience every time I realize that people really believe in Jesus and are planning on eternal life with the Lamb of God, who still loves me even though I wander, alone, clad only in my little coat of black wool. Baaa, I bleat sadly. Baaaaaaaa. It’s the pain of someone who was born onto the winning team but couldn’t stick around for a variety of reasons (see my upcoming memoir for more info). I’m like Fox Mulder, religiously and politically: I Want to Believe. But I just can’t. And I know my new team just isn’t cutting it. Anyway. Gaffes such as these also remind me that my brainpower is not working for the winners, either. Well, guess what? I’m giving away some tips to you, Governor Perry, because 30,000 is peanuts when you’re looking at 100K in humans, with more chomping at the bit.

Rick, here’s a tip for bigger future rallies, so you don’t get shown up by the so-called “Houston Independent School District” and their taxpayer-funded handouts. It’s called bait and switch, amigo. It’s like when you show up at a soup kitchen and have to sit through an AA meeting just to get your grub on. You need to get corporate sponsors, natch. Then you announce it: Governor Perry’s Free McDonald’s Lunch and Prayer Meeting, perhaps. “Come for a McDLT but stay for the prayers.” Once they get in the stadium, no one leaves until all the prayin’ is done. “It’s OK to pray with your mouth full.” Are you seeing it?

Furthermore, Gipperites, the bait-and-switch rally could be used for a variety of causes. Free Playtex Tampons/Pro-Conception Rally. Free Complementary Replacement of Gold Fillings/No-Swearing Rally. Free Charmin Toilet Paper/Pro Forest Management Rally. Free Aladdin Kerosene Lamps/Pro ANWR Drilling and/or Whaling Rally. And so forth. I got a million where those came from. Republicans: I hate to say it, but if you all need me, just call. I don’t know why, but I’m here for you.

Related: politics, Texas

Once July 15 passes, it’s all back-to-school displays in the megastores and reenrollment paperwork/digital forms/paying of tuition tout de suite. It still makes my stomach hurt. A friend just passed along this list from her son’s back-to-school forms. If you’re wondering what the religion choices might be at an “independent” “East Coast” stone-walled place of learning—here are your choices.

7th Day Adventist
A.M.E.
Agnostic
Angelican (Huh? -Mary)
Apostolic
Bahai
Baptist
Baptist/Presbyterian
Buddhist
Catholic
Catholic/Episcopalian
Catholic/Jewish
Catholic/Lutheran
Catholic/Protestant
Christian
Christian/Baptist
Congregational
Episcopalian
Episcopalian/Lutheran
Greek Orthodox
Hindu
Islam
Jehovan’s Witness
Jewish
Jewish/Buddhist
Jewish/Catholic
Jewish/Episcopalian
Jewish/Protestant
Lutheran
Methodist
Mormon
Muslim
Non-Denominational
None
Not Affliated
Orthodox Christian
Other
Pentecostal
Prefer Not to Designate
Presbyterian
Protestant
Quaker
Quaker/Jewish
Russian Orthodox
Unitarian

I have so many questions about this list, but the first that springs to mind is, “How can one person be a Catholic and an Episcopalian at the same time? That’s like Coke and Pepsi being in the same can, but distinctly separate. Unless, of course, you are part of the Anglican migration and attending an Anglican-rite Roman church, but somehow that’s not what I think they had in mind.” And I wonder what I’d check off if I had to fill it out for myself—I don’t think they have the right category for me, which is frequently a problem I encounter and no big surprise. I showed this to my daughter, whom I thought still identified as a Catholic/Buddhist. Nope: she’s joined the great Non-Denominational movement. They grow up so fast. Sigh.

Related: childhood, family

I reported to the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center yesterday for an appointment in the Avon Foundation Breast Center(!). The first thing I saw as I exited the parking structure was what I assume to be an Episcopalian priest in a dog collar. Then, while I waited in the waiting room, considering just how ugly the stained-glass pink ribbon-themed partition is, and how impossible it seems for industrial designers to design discomfort spaces that aren’t plug-ugly, a woman began chatting with me. And it was woe. Lots of woe. Lots of cancer, and lots of family members dropping dead from it. She told me that the only thing that’s getting her through it is God. I wanted to ask her why, if there is a God, are nice people like her suffering so much? What kind of Lordly jerk would do this to people? But I didn’t. I said I was sorry to hear about her family members… so many of us have been touched by this disease… I trailed off since I was about to get into “why?” territory.

She said she was glad I’m doing better, as if we knew each other. “You look good,” she said, almost as if she knew how bad I looked not a short time ago, but anyone might guess that, given where we were. “The only thing that’s getting me through all this is Him,” she said. “We are blessed.”

“I know I’m lucky,” I said.

“You enjoy every day you have, sweetheart, ’cause we are blessed.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know I’m lucky.”

“No,” she said. “The world is lucky. You and I are blessed.” She made a motion like God was communicating to her through her fingertips. “We are blessed. Just believe in Jesus and enjoy every day,” she said. “That little girl needs you.”

Did I mention I have a daughter? I wasn’t sure. Had we met before? I didn’t know.

“We’re blessed,” she said. “The world is lucky. We’re—”

“Yes,” I said. “We are blessed.”

Later, as I walked out of the Airport of Doom, as I think of it, I reached into the pocket of my hospital bag for my parking ticket and pulled out a pamphlet with the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary on the front. Even though I know it’s mine, left over from long hours of treatment and logging some prayer time during those hours, I still felt a little spooked.

Somehow, I felt that Elizabeth Seton’s shriveled finger was pointing right at me. Or maybe it’s all just coincidence.

Related: cancer, health, relics, saints

In a recent Guardian article about Italian Bishop Domenico Mogavero’s flash new Armani-designed liturgical duds, mention was also made of the Pope’s rumored penchant for Prada footwear. “The Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano scotched the rumours, pointing out that the shoes in question were in fact made by an Italian artisan. ‘The Pope is not dressed by Prada but by Christ,’ the newspaper stated.”

To His Eminence and His Holiness, may I present this:

That’s right. I will not mock the Armani vestments’ “sober type of silk” or give excellent examples of Christ’s taste in Papal wear. I will only confirm that Jesus has been quite busy researching, designing and fabrication of Benedict’s extensive wardrobe. Why am I honoring the card now? Because I like grown men in spectacular garb. Because I saw the shriveled finger of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in a monstrance last weekend (being of recent provenance, it was still quite identifiable as a part), and my daughter and I both stood there in a kind of nauseated awe, which is, I suppose, the reason for all these costumes and relics. Keep it up, Rome. We depend upon you for this sort of thing. OK. Pollen. Just a minute. No, I’m fine. (garbled) I depend on Rome for this sort of thing! What? No, I just said “Why doesn’t Gollum just take back the ring?” Just some onions…cat fur…I’m fine.

Related: Catholicism, fashion, pope, relics