Molly Sweeney: What does she have to lose?

 2/26

Molly Sweeney

One of my pleasures during this pandemic has been  the opportunity to enjoy theatrical productions from literally all around the world. And of the many companies I have come to know and love, one of my most appreciated has been the Irish Repertory Theatre from right here in New York City. For the last several weeks, the Irish Rep has been streaming a festival of its best productions  from the last year, produced specifically for the ZOOM platform.  And among these was the unexpected gift of Molly Sweeney.

Written by Brian Friel, perhaps best known for his hit show “Dancing at Lughnasa,” and directed by Charlotte Moore, Molly Sweeney is the story of a young woman blind from infancy. Molly has constructed a full life for herself rich in friendships and sensual fulfillment and then comes the  fateful entrance into her life of two men with their own agendas. 

Convinced that what they are doing is for her best, they have decided that she should have surgery  to seek to restore her sight. For her  husband Frank, it’s his effort to make her “complete”  and for the Doctor, Mr. Rice, an effort to restore his damaged reputation and career. In discussion of the proposed operation, the question is raised, “so what does she have to lose?” As it turns out, quite a lot. 

Molly has a full life. She knows her father’s garden like the back of her hand. She knows her way around the streets of her town and her other heightened senses give her a sense of  independence. She has a job at a local sports club and many fulfilling relationships. Nevertheless, out of a sense of obligation to her (seemingly) devoted husband, she agrees.

In a profoundly moving scene, on the day of her operation, Molly takes one last walk to enjoy and experience her world as she has known it. Sadly, the operation is only minimally successful. She can sense light and dark and vague images but no clarity. A second operation does little to improve  the situation. She increasingly find herself in a perpetual state of limbo, an in between place with no clear vision and the loss of her sensual perception. She slowly retreats into her own solitude and within the year has lost her job and her friends and  begins a descent into a madness from which she will not recover. Her husband loses patience and takes his savior complex to Africa while the Doctor consoles himself with the idea that at least now she could  see men as “trees walking” as in Mark 8: 22-26. 

Molly winds up institutionalized while her “saviors” get on with their own lives. What did she have to lose? Nothing but herself.

The play, based on a true story, is a clear expression of the ableist perspective that it is always the able who know what is best for persons with disabilities, completely missing the fact that quite often persons with disabilities have used their own God-given resources to learn how to navigate their world on their own.  Regardless of good intentions, such valuing of one’s own perspective over and against the other’s self understanding will most often result in a form of violence being done to the one being instructed how to live their lives. Perhaps even being fatal.The play serves as a great resource for an important discussion. 

Molly Sweeney starring Geraldine Hughes is valuable  in opening  to a world persons without disabilities do not really understand. There is one more performance on March 2nd at 7 PM. Check here for information (https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/32325?_ga=2.219670940.406887579.1614351578-631720132.1613663229

The text for  the play can be found here: 

http://pioneer.chula.ac.th/~tpuckpan/mollysweeney.html

Living in Coronavirusworld 252: on picking up the cross

 2/22

Tonight as we gather for study, we are looking at Mark 8: 31-38. In this passage, Jesus predicts his death and resurrection. ( See also Matthew 16: 21-28 and Luke 9: 22-27) This is the first of three times that Jesus will make this prediction. (See also 9:n32-34 and 10: 35-41.). They are connected with three discourses on discipleship. 

The question here is obvious. That is, is this a matter of Jesus “predicting” the future, like part of God’s ordained plan, or is it simply an awareness of the inevitable consequences of following the chosen path?

Jesus speaks of himself as the “son  of man”, a cryptic self-reference. It’s a phrase he will use 16 times in the Gospel  of Mark. His emphasis is on his humanity, thus the more contemporary translation, the human one. And of suffering. A suffering that he must undergo. It’s the content of that must that is at issue. It’s an image drawn from the apocalyptic visions of Daniel. (7: 13-14)

His understanding of his mission places him at direct odds with the “elders, chief priests and scribes,” in other words the Sanhedrin, In other words, the ecclesiastical  institution. In other words, the  Vatican, in other words, the Program Agency Board of the Presbyterian Church. The hierarchies of Episcopal and Lutheran Churches, etc. The institution, primarily commited to its own survival, has made its accomodations with the occupying Roman Empire as church institutions always make their bargains with the empire of the moment. This of course will lead to rejection. 

It must be said, however, that rejection itself is not proof of righteousness. Pastor David Manning of Harlem’s ATLAH church, black nationalist and homophobic, sees the criticism that  come his way as proof of his kinship with John the Baptist, Jesus, King and Malcolm. Sometimes rejection is simply proof that you are wrong. It takes discernment. 

Peter of course gets who Jesus is. Sees Jesus as the one who is to be Messiah, savior. But again, what does that mean? When Jesus speaks of suffering and death, Peter rejects that. For Jesus. But by extension, himself as well.

Jesus only responds “Get thee behind me Satan,” because he clearly doesn’t want to suffer and die. Peter’s rejection of that idea is attractive, is tempting. Could there be another way? Like the girl Diana learns from her mother Hippolyta in Wonder Woman 1984, there are no short cuts. You must pass through every check point, regardless the cost. 

Note that suffering is a consequence of faithfulness, it has no value of its own.

The cross is imposed by the political power, the empire. A punishment not for crime, but for insurrection. And to send a message to those who might be drawn to down that path. Jesus is saying that faithful Christianity is in its essence, subversive by its nature. 

And of course the warning about gaining the world and losing your soul. Perhaps the best TV series ever, the Wire, through its examination of Baltimore, makes very clear the reality of soul forfeiting compromise in every level and every American institution. 

We find ourselves, like Peter, in a rift between expectation and reality. What will happen to Jesus is a direct result of how he lives his life, rejecting religious an social norms. Reaching out to those who are ostracized, unclean, marginalized. He sees what happens to John the Baptist. And knows what will happen to him.

How are human knowledge and expectation related to God’s aims? In studying the actions of early Illinois abolitionists, we see that these couragous defenders of enslaved people had gained their place through violently displacing Native Americans, so  even our capacity to “lift up the cross” can come at others’ expense. 

How is this Good News? How are we scandalized by Jesus? How does fulfillment and pleasure measure up to defeat and ignominy in the world’s eyes? Are we ready for that? 

Jesus speaks of these things in Caeasrea Phillipi, with it's temples to Caesar and cultural acquiescence to earthly power. In confronting these powers, self denial doesn’t equal self fulfillment. Self sacrifice can be self actualization. 

We end with the story of Father Christian de Cherge, a French Trappist monk in Algeria in a time of Islamic uprising.  He chooses to remain in Algeria and not return to France. A decision which costs him his life.

Here is his profoundly moving final testament:

If it should happen one day – and it could be today – that I become a victim of the terrorism that now seems to encompass all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to Algeria; and that they accept that the sole Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure.

I would like, when the time comes, to have a space of clearness that would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who will strike me down.

I could not desire such a death; it seems to me important to state this: How could I rejoice if the Algerian people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder?

My death, obviously, will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naïve or idealistic: “Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!” But they should know that…for this life lost, I give thanks to God. In this “thank you,” which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, my last-minute friend who will not have known what you are doing…I commend you to the God in whose face I see yours. And may we find each other, happy “good thieves” in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.

Faithfully following Jesus is not easy. Lent is a time to prepare for that journey.

Mark 8:31-38

New Revised Standard Version

Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,[a] will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words[b] in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Living in cornavirusworld 251: Lenten days

2/17

BEARS

In our underground discussion, we begin considering that at it’s roots, the anti-government ideology of the Republican Party is inherently anti-black. Following the 1963 March on Washington and the Civil Right Act of 1964, Government was perceived as imposing unwanted Black people on us.  For example, public swimming pools built during the New Deal Works Process Administration were filled with concrete and shut down rather than open for Black people. Government has come to be seen as that power that robs you of your wealth snd gives city to someone else who does not deserve it. Amazingly, since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, no Democrat has won the majority of white votes. 

2/18

Our Sabeel study group is reacting on fasting. All major religions observe fasting as a discipline in one way or another. Each has it unique practices, in Christianity, for example, Roman Catholics fast from meat while Orthodox meat and dairy both. (And most Protestants don’t fast at all.)

Lent becomes an opportunity to reflect on our mortality. That is especially important in our continued life in Coronsvirusworld. In the United States now over half a million people have died. Half a million. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…

The tradition includes both alms and prayer, and both are essential. Our giving is not so  much giving as giving back. And fasting must be connected to justice. For example while Israel, for one, is proud of vaccinating half its population, some 130 countries still have no access to the anti-covid Vaccine. 

2/19

The cold continues to linger as the snow is into its third week with us. A brutal storm has swept through the south and southwest hitting Texas particularly hard. Thousands and thousands without heat or light or even water. Conservative ideologues seize the opportunity to blame green energy, like wind mills, even though the real reason is having gone off the grid and let their infrastructure languish. Senator Ted Cruz, who passionately goes wherever the wind blows, cluelessly heads to Mexico for a vacation as his state suffers than blames his trip on his daughters. Clueless. And shameless. 

Late afternoon in the Gate. At 25% capacity but the warmth’s the candles, feels cozy and a relief. I order fish and chips to remind me of the season of “fish fries” back home.

2/20

For Sonko, in whim our hope lis...

in support of Sonko

against injustice

Decide it’s too cold for the farmer’s market today. I’ll just stay in. Usual all too brief family ZOOM with my mom at her assisted care facility. As always, there are ZOOMfails for more than one person. There are demonstrators outside the Senegalese consulate decrying political violence and repression and in support of Ousmane Sonko. We’re all talking about vaccinations. And despite all, Zoom does allow us to gather from Berlin, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Pittsburgh and New York all at the same time. Late in the afternoon, meet a friend for a drink at my neighborhood place. 

2/21

fixing the bears

wnbctv

with the children

smiles shared

Almost a year now. These months of Covid have been wearing on us. The isolation has pushed elderly into dementia. And younger people into severe depression. After becoming depressed myself, I decide to to head to the park to visit my friend’s polar bear snow sculptures. Over 15 now last the Central Park 86th Street entrance. And to my pleasant purpose, she is there, working on the bears and being interviewed by a TV news reporter. A crowd is there as always. Little children want their photos taken. I continue to be amazed how this spontaneous moment of inspiration has turned into an engaging creative happening, an event, something brightening the lingering cold, winter and covid. Even in the crowd, there are smiles to exchange. 

Living in Coronavirusworld 250: Lent begins

 2/15

"....with the wild animals...."

Yesterday was the day of the Covid Valentine. Met a friend indoors as the city has opened up indoor dining again. It’s hard to get over a feeling that you are doing something wrong by being inside. Adjusting to what used to be normal is not going to be easy.

Today, I visit Central Park to see my friend’s polar bear snow sculptures before they melt then meet someone for lunch at the Israeli coffee shop. (A portrait of Reb Schneerson hangs in the office….) It is good to be inside.

Tonight in our Bible Study, we are preparing for the first Sunday in Lent. The gospel is Mark 1: 9-15.  In three succinct periscopes, we find the Baptism (again), the time of temptation in the wilderness and the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

We notice that it is the same Spirit that proclaimed Jesus beloved that drives him out to the wilderness…drives…He will spend 40 days there like Moses on Sinai  receiving the law or Elijah on Horeb. ( A reminder of the Transfiguration story from last week…)

His three companions are Satan, wild animals and angels. As for Satan, the Biblical Satan is more ambiguous and complex than the one we have in popular culture. (See Job 2:1-8) God and Satan seem to be in relationship, as it were. Almost like Satan is testing Jesus on behalf of God.  We can however, find portrayals of that ambiguity in Jose Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and the Amazon Prime series “Good Omens.” Satan’s like a Lou Gossett drill sergeant getting Jesus ready. 

It is significant that Jesus is with the wild animals. Note that word. A scene of peace like Isaiah 11’s Peaceable Kingdom. Like in those wonderful paintings by Edward Hicks. No more predators and prey. Natural enemies have become friends. It also implies that the “kingdom” Jesus proclaims is not just about people, but all creatures, all creation. Which has profound implications for our behavior and sense of responsibility.  Satan, wild animals, angels, all together. The “neighbor” we love includes all living things. And since we are made of earth, the very earth is our neighbor. 

Immediately upon leaving the wilderness, we learn that John has been arrested.  So Jesus picks up John’s mantle, goes to Galilee and begins to preach the Good News of the arrival of the Kingdom of God and the call to repent, to turn around, to begin living a new way. 

The construction is so clean. The wilderness experience lies the middle part of a sandwich with John on either side. Almost as if the wilderness experience was especially intended to prepare Jesus for picking up John’s mantle.

We enter into this Lent with a pandemic still raging but potentially in retreat. A state like  Texas unable to meet its people’s basic needs while also exemplifying attitudes that define our current radical division. This Is our context in which we must proclaim the Good News of the arrival of the Kindom of God. Let these 40 days of Lent be days of preparation. Let us use them for reflection, contemplation, repentance, renewal. They say this Easter could truly be a time of return, Let’s be ready….

Mark 1:9-15

New Revised Standard Version

The Baptism of Jesus

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved;[a] with you I am well pleased.”

The Temptation of Jesus

12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

The Beginning of the Galilean Ministry

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news[b] of God,[c] 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;[d] repent, and believe in the good news.”[e]

Living in coronavirusword 249: Ash Wednesday

 2/17

2/17

Central Park

Ash Wednesday

After a warm day, the temperature has dropped again. It is the longest winter we have experienced in many years. Snow and ice cow much of the country. Thousands of people in Texas without light or heat. Their Senator Cruz has taken his family to Mexico for a vacation. Beverley Church has asked me to lead an Ash Wednesday service. Here’s what I had or say:

Today is Ash Wednesday,….the beginning of Lent. What do you remember about Ash Wednesday?  I remember that when I was a little kid in school, most all of the kids in my class would get up and leave and I’d be stuck there with only 2 or 3 others. Then an hour or so later, all the other students would come back with smudged crosses on their foreheads which I always found kind of scary. 

My parents when I was growing up always viewed Catholics as next to pagans. Ash Wednesday and ashes was especially suspect and “giving something up for Lent” superstitious at best. In fact recognizing Lent itself was thought of as idolatrous.

I didn’t mark Ash Wednesday for the first  time until I was at Yale and Henri Nouwen, author of the Wounded Healer,  led a service where he placed ashes on the heads of those of us who didn’t want to have a visible cross on our foreheads. From that point on I began to reevaluate the whole idea. Having special seasons to focus on different aspects of the faith began to make sense to me. 

It was always a special day for me at West Park. We would begin by taking the palms from last years’s Palm Sunday and turning them into ashes…We’d have a service at noon then be available to distribute ashes up until 6 o’clock when we had a second brief service. I was always moved by the people who would  walk  in all day long seeking ashes. The moment to be in private prayer with them. My favorite was when a bus driver jumped off his bus at the stop in front of our door, came in, received ashes and went back to his bus. It has come to mean something me, And over the decades, it has become important in our church as well.

For me, I don’t think our focus should be on “giving something up.” Rather, I like idea of taking something on, taking on a spiritual discipline for the 40 days. (Although back home in Pittsburgh, we always looked forward to the “season of fish fries” where every Friday our neighbor Catholic Churches held fish fries…)

In our Gospel for the day, Jesus has some pretty specific advice for spiritual disciplines:

1. Never be doing anything just to be seen by others. (That might seem to be an argument against ashes on your forehead…unless where everybody seems to have them…)
2. Charity too should be anonymous. The best charity  is when the giver and the receiver are not aware each other…like a deacon’s fund, fo0r example.  And it’s sure an argument against wanting your name on anything…
3. Once again, prayers are not for public shows of flowery flowing words…it’s about you communicating privately with God in your own language, own words…intimate….
4. Fasting. Jesus is all for fasting. It’s part of all our our Abrahamic religions…the total fast in Judaism on Yom Kippur, the fasting from leavening during passover, the daylight fast for Muslims during Ramadan….our tradition was meat…the very word for carnival has as its root the Latin word for meat, carne…it’s literally putting away meat, so last night was Mardi Gras…the last time for meat, for “fatness”….I always love that Catholic cultures celebrate with parades, music  and revelry and Episcopalians cook pancakes…Jesus says how and what you do should be between you and God that’s it…what gets in your way? What distracts you? Try and set that aside…
5. Finally…and this is the bottom line…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also..take these 40 days to evaluate what you treasure…where you heart is …try to get where you put your time an energy more where your heart is….what’s really and truly important….strip away all that isn’t necessary…

Even as restaurants reopen, maybe even  soon our churches, spring will come.. Let us begin this journey tonight so that we might greet Easter prepared for a true rebirth, a true new beginning….let us begin tonight…

When we reach the part of the service where we begin Lent, you  can have with you ashes, dust, or taking from Matthew…oil or just a bit of water…

Let those with ears  to hear, hear.

Amen.

I have created a service where we can use ashes, dust, oil or water, water is as comfortable or convenient in our own homes. Ashes and dust from tradition…you are dust and to dust you shall return.  Water from our baptism. Oil from anointing for healing.

And so we begin our Lenten journey in  coronavirus world

Gospel Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

1“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

16“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

19“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Living in coronavirusworld 248: impeachmnets, demons, vaccinations and and polar bears

 2/13

"Mommy what's a carbon footprint?"

The week of the impeachment trial. Watching the videos of the invasion of the capital are a stunning reminder of just how serious that was. Republicans with all their efforts at false equivalence seem to forget that the Black Lives protests did not try to disrupt our political process or overthrow the government. Nor seek to “hang” or kidnap politicians. And there is the matter of seven ;ives lost.With or without Trump we are in a very perilous place. 

Wednesday

Our Underground group is wrestling with how much of what’s going on right now is connected to Christianity.  There’s no denying that a major component of current right wing activity is Christian Nationalism. Our Old Testament scholar believe the problem is that many self-proclaimed Christians don’t know their Bible. Our friend Steve P says they know it says “love your neighbor” but they have decided that don’t want to. And we agree that sadly, nobody is reasoning their way to their moral conclusions. 

We debate to what extent this is an inherent theological problem of Christianity. I say that only Christianity makes an exclusive claim for “salvation” or right living. Steve P argues that Muslim shave ben just as bad. 

It’s an argument worth continued exploration. I need to do more research to compare to the crusades, the age and doctrine of discovery and so much more….continue out have a major impact on current policies.

Thursday

Our Thursday morning group conversation group, organized by Palestinian theology center Sabeel,  is struggling with the meaning  of casting out demons in the context of Palestine. It is brought up that if we cast out demons, we must not demonize   the people who have been possessed. And that we have to look inside of ourselves and our own communities, internal as well as external.   We have to get Jesus onto our agenda. Another friend says that casting out demons  is casting out excuses and that Palestinians have been haunted by excuses.  

                                           ****

polar bears

puppy

For two days I have been following my artist friend Heide’s  project to sculpt polar bears out of snow. Both to inspire joy but also to raise concerns about global warming. I’m impressed by how the neighborhood has respected he sculptures and just let them be….   Last night the added a puppy as well. 

                                         ****           

My time for my second vaccination shot. At first I”m feeling all right but then by night I’m shover with chills and a sick headache and aching again. A predictable but un welcome out come for someone who has previously had Covid. I literally spend all of  Friday in bed.  Only emerging for open mic. But….now that’s over.      

and a real live dog as well....