Theaology

About Madeline

Sat, 13 Mar 2004 12:38:25 GMT

I recently joined an online community called The WELL. I made a profile for it. It's rather nice...

Madeline is a radical, progressive, socialist, internationalist, ecofeminist, anti-racist, white, 27-year-old, student, francophone, writer, bisexual, polyamorous, Pagan, Unitarian Universalist who lives in San Jose, California.

She aspires to be a Witch in the Reclaiming tradition.

She advocates for personal liberty, communal responsibility, peace, economic justice, ecological sustainability, civil rights, sexpositivity, nudity, queer rights, women's rights, and international cooperation.

She believes in ultimate unity.

She values diversity, communication, self-expression, compassion, creativity, passion, play, laughter, pleasure, harmony, and the natural world.

She believes in education, integration, reform, reconciliation, restitution, rehabilitation, re-creation, transformation, re-visioning, and growth.

She decries marginalization, disempowerment, violence, punishment, division, ignorance, narrow-mindedness, zenophobia, and vindictiveness.

She loves animals, babies, music, drumming, crafts, earrings, chocolate, games, jigsaw puzzles, reading, writing, discussions, roller coasters, pizza, crossword puzzles, hiking, camping, singing, downhill skiing, guinea pigs, gardening, and the Internet.

On Marriage, Culture Wars, and the Human Race

Fri, 12 Mar 2004 07:22:33 GMT

As human beings, we are more than the means to reproduce our species: both basic common sense and deeper philosophical inquiry affirm that marriage is, has been, can be, and should be about so very much more than procreation! The traditional Christian God (the one worshipped by the RR) is a violent, chauvinistic, moralistic, vengeful, selfish, angry lout, and the ideas of marriage they promote are patriarchal, narrow-minded, anti-feminist, uncreative, and ultimately STUPID and BORING!

Instead marriage should be about relationship, committment, love, and family, in the deepest and most inclusive sense of those terms—about building a life together—about creating, declaring, and upholding a bond that is at once personal, intimate, communal, civil, legal, and social—a consentual and intentional covenant between equal human individuals that establishes them as a nurturing, nourishing family unit. It is a union of persons, not genders, and thus, obviously, the gender configuration of the persons involved is entirely irrelevant to the legitimacy and/or sanctity of the union.

To value marriage is to affirm its validity and insist upon its accessibility for all who desire it. To champion marriage is to fight against the imposition of irrational limitations upon it by ill-informed, misguided, anxiety-driven "traditionalists". To uphold the dignity of marriage is to reject attempts to essentialize it, to caricaturize it as no more than—as I once said—a union for the facilitation of penile/vaginal intercourse (which sounds to me more like a marriage between a man and his bottle of Viagra!). To defend marriage is to protect it from the absurd illogic that would deny it to those who seek it, all the while pressuring it upon others who do not. To proclaim marriage as a basic human and civil right of all who mindfully choose it is to raise it to the most enlightened standard of human potential.

Indeed it is not the loving same-sex couples who are a threat to the "meaning" of marriage, but in fact it is the fearful, backward, small-minded forces of the RR that pose a threat to the growth and development of the human race.

"Brother-making" ceremonies in the Middle Ages

Sat, 06 Mar 2004 10:14:10 GMT

From the book: The Case for Same-Sex Marriage: From Sexual Liberty to Civilized Commitment by William N. Eskridge, Jr.

(The Case for Same-Sex Marriage begins with an historical overview of same-sex unions, which shows that only in the modern West have gays and lesbians been denied full acceptance. Eskridge believes that until same-sex marriages receive the civil and legal benefits of heterosexual marriages America is erecting unnecessary barriers to social cohesion. Without full access to the institutions of civic life, gays and lesbians cannot be full participants in the American experience. As Eskridge points out the legitimacy of same-sex marriage would have profound implications for gay behavior, by reinforcing stability and commitment. In the end, Eskridge believes that the acceptance of same-sex marriage would help to civilize both gays and straights.)

In the early Middle Ages the Church developed institutions, memorialized in liturgies included in its formal collections, that combined the Church's spiritual commitment to companionate relationships with its members' desire to bond with people of the same sex. The existence of Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox rituals of "brother-making" or "enfraternization" has been known in the academic literature for decades and was brought to my attention by the Reverend Alexei Michalenko.' Ceremonies creating these brotherhoods were performed for same-sex couples (often male missionary pairs) from the fifth century onward. According to Church archives, these early liturgies were typically structured as follows:

The couple stand in front of the lectern, on which are placed the Gospel and a cross. The older of the brothers stands to the right.
The ceremony starts off with prayers and litanies celebrating earlier examples of same-sex couples or friends in the early Church. Sergius and Bacchus were the most frequency invoked precedent.
The couple is girded with a single belt, signifying their union as one, and they place their hands on the Gospel and receive lit candles.
The priest reads from one of Paul's episodes (1 Cor 12:27 £) and the Gospel (John 17:1016), which are followed by more prayers.
The assembled are led in the Lord's Prayer, followed by Holy Communion, the Eucharist, for the couple. The priest leads the couple, who are holding hands, around the lectern while the assembled sing a hymn.
The couple exchange a kiss, and the service concludes with the singing of Psalm 132:1 ("Behold how good and sweet it is for brothers to live as one").

Significantly, this early brotherhood liturgy was acted out in formal terms very similar to the liturgy later developed by the Church for the purpose of performing different-sex marriages.

A Cinematic Masterpiece for the Rest of Us!

Mon, 01 Mar 2004 08:48:17 GMT

If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet. —Niels Bohr

Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same. Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade, But do not be disheartened, The source they come from is eternal, growing, Branching out, giving new life and new joy. Why do you weep? The source is within you And this whole world is springing up from it. —Jelauddin Rumi

The truth dazzles gradually, or else the world would be blind. —Emily Dickinson

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. —Martin Luther King, Jr.

A full-spectrum approach to human consciousness and behavior means that men and women have available to them a spectrum of knowing—a spectrum that includes, at the very least, the eye of flesh, the eye of mind, and the eye of spirit. —Ken Wilber

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. —Galileo Galilei

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. —Lewis Carroll

Do you remember how electrical currents and 'unseen waves' were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy. —Albert Einstein

You cannot see anything that you do not first contemplate as a reality. —Ramtha

The spirit down here in man and the spirit up there in the sun, in reality are only one spirit, and there is no other one. —The Upanishads

While the evangelical Christians revel in Gibson's gorefest (and in their twisted interpretation of the significance of the life and teachings of the executed Jewish radical Jesus of Nazareth), those of us interested in the present and the future of life on Earth and in increasing our understanding of the nature of the Universe and of humanity and of the human mind, as studied by physicists, doctors, and mystics (rather than as dictated in the writings of some patriarchal, anti-Goddess, war-obsessed, primitive, desert nomads!), a mind-altering film has just been released that I am excited about seeing—that is if it makes it to the Bay Area! I can only hope and assume that eventually it will!

As Radical as Einstein
As Blasphemous as Bruno
As Heretical as Galileo
"WHAT THE #$*! DO WE KNOW?!" is a radical departure from convention. It demands a freedom of view and greatness of thought so far unknown, indeed, not even dreamed of since Copernicus.
It's a documentary. It's a story. It's mind-blowing special effects.
A new art form
About a New Worldview
For a new audience
This film plunges you into a world where quantum uncertainty is demonstrated—where neurological processes, and perceptual shifts are engaged and lived by its protagonist—where everything is alive, and reality is changed by every thought.
Like the movies, The Matrix, Vanilla Sky, and Minority Report, this film shows you a greater reality behind the one we all accept as true, and you have the ability to create absolutely anything from your own thought.
But the difference between this film and those movies is—
This isn't science fiction.
It's stranger still—
It's real.
(Keep reading!)

Wedding Church And State (From TomPaine.com)

Mon, 01 Mar 2004 04:37:22 GMT

Susan Jacoby's forthcoming Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism will be published in April by Metropolitan Books. The author is also director of the Center for Inquiry-Metro New York.

In 1773, the Rev. Isaac Backus, the most prominent Baptist minister in New England, observed that when "church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued."

Today's Religious Right is completely out of touch with the thinking of our esteemed "Founding Fathers" and with the nature of our Constitution, which "was written and ratified by a coalition of Enlightenment rationalists and evangelical Christians equally fearful of entanglements between religion and government... the men of faith who helped frame the Constitution were confident enough of the strength of their religion that they did not feel obliged to enlist the aid of government to promote their personal beliefs." [Apparently today's evangelical Christians are less confident in the strength of their religion to hold its own without the benefit of unconstitutional government support!]

My comments: The RR always likes to believe that the Founding Fathers were a group of pious traditional Christians, which is so much bull-dookey: they included Deists, Unitarians, and other "unorthodox" types. Most importantly they were not interested in creating a theocracy: far from it! They were products of the Enlightenment, and they were champions of the separation of Church and State.

Spong on Gibson's Testament to Violence

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 12:42:01 GMT

I hate to be giving any attention whatsoever to this repulsive spectacle, but Spong's words are so intelligent and right-on that I can't help but repeat them!

Once again, Gibson is reading the gospels through the lens of medieval piety. In the early church, especially in the writings of Paul, the death of Jesus was likened to the believer's act of being baptized. The believer in baptism was united with Christ in his death so that he or she could live with Christ in his resurrection (see Romans 6:1-11 and Col. 2:12). But Gibson turns this into a sadomasochistic scene of pain inflicted and suffering endured. It is so long and violent that it qualifies this film for an "R" rating, "for adults only."

The earliest Christians knew that crucifixion was not unique to Jesus. Thousands of people had died this way at the hands of the Romans. To the Jews crucifixion was particularly associated with shame and embarrassment, since the Torah said that one who was hung upon a tree was "accursed" (Deut. 21:22, 23). The fetish about the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus was again a pious devotional technique that ultimately attributed a sacred meaning to suffering and made cruelty an attribute of God, both of which are strange, even unhealthy theological concepts. Yet Gibson has developed these ideas to a fine art. His interpretive work may engender a guilt-laden piety but we need to recognize that it is not biblically accurate.

This reminds me of a discussion I had yesterday with my grandmother. She's a very independent woman, not particularly religious, a feminist in her not terribly enlightened way. Anyway, I'm not sure why she mentioned it, but I said that I have no desire or intention to see it, and that it's supposed to be horribly violent. I went a little bit into how disturbing I find it that the Christian symbol is an instrument of torture, and had to explain to her (she's not the swiftest arrow at 74) in more detail after mentioning that there was a group of people who would wear little electric chairs around their necks to highlight the disturbingness of having an instrument of torture and execution as your religious symbol. It's just so horribly morbid! They really should have gone with something else: a dove, a fish, anything!

It really is such a disturbing, twisted, unhuman, inhumane, fucked-up theology! That not only would the Divine permit suffering It has the ability to stop at any time at Its whim, but that It would actually demand suffering. That the Divine, the Spirit of Creation of the Universe, the Earth, all of life, humanity, sunsets, rainbows, and newborn babies would seek to punish anyone. What is this obsession with punishment? I find the concept so bizarre and repulsive. I do not comprehend how people think anyone has the right to punish another human being (as with prisons, and even punishing children). Punishment is a sick and twisted concept. (To jump back to children, I am a firm believer in firm and structured parenting, a critic of children who are out of control, but I don't believe that physical violence or "punishment" have any proper role in the parent/child relationship. I certainly believe in "discipline" in the sense of order and routine and structure, but not in the sense of "punishment". Actions have consquences, and wrongs require apology and restitution, but punishment is a sadistic, unhealthy, unloving concept I strongly reject.)

The Deity I know and love and worship is One of Infinite Love. You can reject this Love, fail to see it, turn away from it, but you cannot escape it. The whole conservative Christian focus on "free will" (with regard to explaining sin, damnation, etc.) I find absurd. It completely ignores the way virtually every human being feels towards their children, essentially making human beings more loving and compassionate than their God. There is nothing, absolutely nothing a child can do to make a parent stop loving them. There is nothing that can cause an ultimate rejection. There is no time, no matter what they've done or how they've hurt you, that you wouldn't welcome them back into your arms with love. That's the nature of parenthood! But this Christian "Father" God is apparently a pretty shitty parent, because He's willing to abandon some (arguably most, according to many Christians' beliefs) of His children to eternal torment. Christians defend this saying that He has no choice because of His infinite goodness. What an utter load of bullshit! Your God is a sadist, a bigot/ethnocentrist (look at how He prefers one group over others in the OT), and a really horrible parent!

What We Need Is Here

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 12:14:16 GMT

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

~ Wendell Berry ~

My Beliefnet Profile

Thu, 15 Jan 2004 01:10:03 GMT

As I said in the my last post, I (re)discovered I have a profile on Beliefnet... So here's what's in it:

My Statement of Belief:
I am both a Feminist Witch in the Reclaiming tradition and a Unitarian Universalist. (...followed by the text seen in the previous post.)

I am:
Religious
Spiritual
Moral
Liberal
Secular
Unitarian
Pagan
Church-going
Skeptical
Scientific
UU
Witch

I believe in:
Science
Reincarnation
Myself
Community
Power of Love
Hedonism
Service
Mother Nature

Religious Affiliations:
Humanist
Pagan
Unitarian Universalist
Reclaiming

General Interests:
Books
History & Scholarship
Movies
Music
Relationships
Science
Travel
Community
Family
Nature
Philosophy

Another thing it includes is a list of organizations and affiliations, but it doesn't give you very much space, so I had to make my list like this:
AlFr, AmnInt, ACLU, CUUPS, FMF, FUCSJ, GSUSA, GlEx, HRC, MvOn, NOW, Recl/Q, SrrClb, UUSC, UUYAN, TWV, WWF
Fortunately here I have all the room I need...

Organizational Affiliations (i.e. they get my $$):
Alliance Française
Amnesty International
American Civil Liberties Union
Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans
Feminist Majority Foundation
First Unitarian Church of San Jose
Girl Scouts USA
Global Exchange
Human Rights Campaign
MoveOn
National Organization for Women
Reclaiming / Reclaiming Quarterly
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network
The Witches Voice
World Wildlife Fund

For the purposes of this post I'd like to add a few more affiliations...

Internet Stuff that's gotten $$:
Meetup
Radio Userland
BlogRolling
Circle of Souls Pagan Radio Network (on Live365)

Internet Stuff that hasn't gotten $$:
LiveJournal
StatCounter
Feedster
Friendster
Beliefnet

Commercial places you can find me:
Yahoo!, Yahoo! Groups, GeoCities
eBay, Half.com

Pleasant surprise!

Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:07:47 GMT

It's so nice to find something that you'd forgotten about for a long time, especially when you subsequently realize how wonderful it is and how glad you are to have come across it so you can have it back in your life!! :o)

I'd completely forgotten all about this tidbit I wrote several years back until today when I (re)discovered that I have a profile on Beliefnet (more on this in my next post) and found this in it! It was inspired by a comment from some poor, narrowed-in fundie soul who questioned my worship of "creation" rather than "Creator". It really is lovely—I think you'll agree. :o) (I was so happy to have found the text that I dressed it up in a lovely outfit for this posting!) :) Have an inspiring and wonderful day!

The Goddess sure has a sense of humor...or something!

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 03:32:12 GMT

A lovely photo essay on animal mating practices...

The Summer Day

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 12:36:19 GMT

The Summer Day
Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?