Burying my heart...again

When I was in 7th grade, I decided to write a paper on the book Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.  Quite an undertaking for a 13 year old girl.  The book and what I devoted to the writing of that paper stay with me to this day.  While I cannot imagine what it is like to live in exile in your own land, I know the heartache of not being able to claim something that is your 'birthright'.

Today, I share the capturing of memories from photo-journalist, Owen Luck as he recalls the 1973 uprising, which took place the same year I wrote my paper for my English class. 

From NPR: A Photographer Remembers Wounded Knee, 40 Years Later.  The pictures 40 years later are just as haunting, and the story of the injustice just as raw as the United State government's massacre of innocent Lakota Indians in1890.

Not so much or – Why I CAN’T remain a Catholic – A gentle rebuttal

(perhaps not so gentle)….


A Journey of Faith:

(Why is it people think pagans/agnostics, or even atheists are faithless?)

Between the ages of 12-14 years old, I decided to embark upon a faith journey. An exploration of all that seemed ‘outre’, verboten, and ‘different’ – prompted by one of my cousins’ books on the “occult”, palmistry, tarot, etc. I think it actually began years before that when I would ask questions as a 6-year-old in my Catholic school and was hushed, ignored, berated and belittled.

I was obviously searching outside of myself for guidance and something (it took me years to realize), I needed to find within myself. I finally ended up leaving the church (at what I took was a ‘forever’ sentence, after the passing of my mother).

Here I stand on that precipice again. What led me here? Being disgruntled as an answer seems too pat/easy. Soul searched? Check. Second class citizen? Check. But, mainly, I guess I am tired of belonging to a private, snobbish, elitist club, led by those who talk out of both sides of their religious mouths, proclaiming love and peace while simultaneously spewing contempt.

There was no ‘bad apple’ that spoiled the whole bunch, per se, and, to say I am not hurting is an understatement. I have cried/sobbed over this – it is a loss for me. I should wear black because this time, I am actually in mourning. I LOVE many of my brothers and sisters in my church home including and, especially our pastor – but, since I feel that no one will speak up (they’ve tried), and since I doubt they will listen to me or even the so-called 80% of Catholics who are fed up (an aside here: What the fuck is the matter with you people???? Why aren’t you screaming and demanding change – is that not Jesus enough for you???) – Since I do not wish to put my friends in the kind of position to defend me, and since my pastor took a vow of obedience – where does that all leave me but needing a spiritual home and feeling lost.

My husband, who has put up with enough from me to last an eternity – listened very patiently this time and agreed. Rather than go without a church, we visited our local Episcopalian house of worship several Sundays ago. We were warmly welcomed and greeted with smiles – they hugged one another during the exchange of the Peace at their service. The congregation seems very close knit and this practice is as close as I can get to Catholicism WITHOUT all the vitriol and bullshit of women, or gays being a threat to world peace (REALLY????) and other mind-blowing-didn’t-you-a-holes-leave-this-mediaeval-crap-behind-years-ago-doctrines.

What with the absolute refusal to own up to the sex scandal (reports which seem to get worse every day), the recent WAR on American nuns, (that’s right ladies, that social justice ‘what-would-Jesus-do’ stuff is E-V-I-L!), and making my dear gay and lesbian friends out to be more harmful than justifiable nuclear war – I am simply and irrevocably, DONE.

Peace.

C~

Thank you Salon

...and THANK YOU Mary Elizabeth ('name-does-not-get-more-Catholic-than-that') Williams for baring your literal soul in this piece ("No Matter what, I'm still Catholic") and making me think even further (so much so that my brain actually hurts, but not as much as my spirit these days).

And, while I would LOVE to jump on your bandwagon and hope that by doing so, things would actually change, sadly I simply cannot.  (More on that later).

"Present Shock"

It all started with this: Present Shock - Donald Rushkoff

Stream of consciousness now seems like a misnomer to me. I get mired in the ‘things of doing’ and not the ‘doing’ itself. I waste more time, feel more sad, and have more shit than I need or want, or know what to do with; both in the amount of things, and in the way I have relationships, in my life.

I am so enamored with Yoga – I preach it to people and then end up being a total hypocrite. I want to withdraw and find myself unable to (not unwilling, there is a difference) – because of my ‘obligations’. Again and again, the idea of retreating from the world and devoting myself to myself, to the betterment of the world, and of others seems like a distant pipe dream, something totally unattainable in the current social climate without selling everything I own and either joining a monastery or living in a cave.

For years, count them, nine so far, I have posted words, ranted at the world, and fancied myself a kind of writer, a social observer, a sentient being. Now, I am being called to readdress those notions and very nearly hang my head in shame.

I could try to come up with a laundry list of ‘things I should be doing’ and perhaps be able to pull it off – and maybe that would be enough to shut up that little voice inside of me that is beginning to question everything I think I believe in, everything I cling to – but to what end, and what would it solve?

I think it is time for a new path, a completely different direction as I find my own time dwindling and my own life winding down. I do not know what that vision looks like right now. All I know is that it is needed before I find myself careening off of a cliff and plunging headlong into the depths of the ordinary....