Friday, September 19, 2008, 07:31 AM PST
[General]
September 18th, 2008 by Genevieve S. Kineke
While hysteria swirls around Sarah Palin, wife and mother of five, everyone would benefit by taking a large step back from the pandemonium in order to better perceive what is really happening. Her supporters rightly point to her affirmation of life and her ability to juggle family with wider commitments as the cause of a nearly unhinged backlash from liberals, but this is wide of the true mark. The actual cause of international outrage is not her motherhood, but the fact that she does not reject fatherhood. There has been a deliberate blurring of these two facts in recent decades, and it is essential that we restore our critical focus. We have been tricked by a clever charade.
For forty years, we have witnessed incalculable energy being spent on the questions surrounding human reproduction, and most of the capital has been used to promote the separation of stable conjugal relations from nurturing subsequent generations. The terrain in these battles encompasses the right to contraception and no-fault divorce, the glorification of sodomy and same-sex marriage, an unprecedented assault on the purity of children, the degradation of traditional family values in the entertainment industry, and the insidious establishment of the mass media as primary communicant with the young which undermines parental authority. The result is moral anarchy and sexual chaos, which have confused so many impressionable souls about the very meaning of family life and sexual intimacy.
Most pro-family advocates over the decades have pointed to the attack on motherhood as an integral weapon in this war. When a mother turns on the child of her womb as a competitor or even enemy, many rightly presume that civilization is in great peril. It is true that Satan approached Eve in order to bring about our fall from grace - and that diabolical strategy has had its successes ever since - but we cannot lose sight of the subsequent means of restoration. Motherhood was key to salvation and always will be, not only because of the life it fosters but because of the bridge it creates.
The motherhood of Mary is instructive for all mothers, in that she received the seed of God and that she restored our relationship with the Creator, thus placing motherhood within a constellation of family of relationships. The enemies of motherhood strategically attack it - not primarily because of its capacity for life but because of the truth it contains: motherhood is the bridge to fatherhood, and fatherhood is the icon of God Himself. The war on motherhood is of a transitive nature: fatherhood is the true enemy.
Many have asked whether Sarah Palin is a feminist. This brings to the forefront the lively debate among women of faith about whether secular feminism, in its ideal sense, can be a vehicle for the beautiful truths about authentic femininity. Sincere and admirable women have taken both sides of the issue, whose primary component seems to be semantics. Some find the word "feminism" so burdened with misunderstandings that it takes too much time to unburden it; others demand the right to use the word in its purest sense out of principle.
The National Organisation for Women (NOW) has tipped its hand in this debate since the success of Sarah Palin in the national arena. Truly, she seems to have embodied their long-standing mission statement, "Our purpose is to take action to bring women into full participation in society-sharing equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities with men, while living free from discrimination" This ripe claim worked as long as Hillary Clinton was in her ascendancy, but the reality of applying it to the Republican vice presidential nominee rankled NOW to its core, and their keyboards must have overheated.
The result was a hot new mission statement, parading down the feminist runway: "NOW works to end discrimination and harassment in the workplace, schools, the justice system, and all other sectors of society, secure abortion, birth control and reproductive rights for all women." This new creation - wobbling on shaky syntax and wrapped in a hasty cobbling of goals - nevertheless reveals the feminist view of men, who discriminate, impregnate and otherwise harass women as a matter of course. The veil is dropped, revealing more clearly their Marxist dialectic: the new oppressors are men (who make motherhood possible); therefore women must control the means of reproduction as a weapon to free themselves.
Feminists don't hate motherhood - as long as it's on their own terms and disengaged from fatherhood. Sperm banks, in vitro fertilization and lesbian adoptions are touted as hip and brave choices, and cloning is the Promised Land on the horizon. Their true hatred is reserved for fatherhood - for the Todd Palin's of the world - who love and support the women in their lives and collaborate for the good of their shared offspring.
Sarah Palin has forced their hand for two reasons: she allows her children to live and she collaborates with men. While neither is conducive to the NOW worldview, the first is an irritant, the second is the real outrage. As the nation struggles to understand how feminists could possibly not appreciate this example of hard work, courage, balance and brains, we are invited to look beyond feminism into the back rooms of strange bedfellows.
Why are feminists silent about radical Islam, which habitually oppresses and demeans women around the world? Why do homosexuals collaborate with environmentalists, whose appreciation for pristine beauty would seem to exclude bathhouse orgies laced with unnatural substances? Why do Wiccans and New Agers turn a blind eye to fascistic atheists whose material world view would crush their spiritual longings in a heartbeat? Why does every radical parade host this hodge-podge of elements of the most unlikely diaspora?
The answer is found in their shared hatred of all manifestations of fatherhood. The widespread contempt for legitimate authority thus devolves into a collective tantrum ultimately pointed at the Father-God of all. Behind every raging feminist is a wounded heart that blames the patriarchy. Hence the giddy embrace of ****-eyed metrosexuals; the love affair with Gaia and perverted theology; the scornful interpretation of patriotic gestures as shallow jingoism, the drive to castrate the military through social experiments that distract the soldiers from their mission; and the ramped-up government programs that undermine the principle of subsidiarity which is the very source of fatherly strength and oversight within the family.
The goal of feminism is to destroy fatherhood by destroying the links inherent in traditional family life. This scheme allows only two options for men: either excessive brutality to remind the world of the dangers of too much testosterone or the abdication of responsibility through feckless self-interest. Any deviation from these models is discouraged or ridiculed.
Women wield an extraordinary influence in this realm because fathers can only know their children when the mothers cooperate, and male authority finds its legitimate voice only when women bring themselves and their children to submit to it. Given the widespread contempt for masculine strength and legitimate authority among the youth of the West, we would have to conclude that the diaspora has had tremendous success thus far.
Pope Benedict has alluded to this state of affairs in his recent address at Lourdes: "My greatest concern is for young people. Some of them are struggling to find the right direction or are suffering from a loss of connection to family life." The disintegration of the family, he notes, is alarming. "Sometimes on the margins and often left to themselves, they are vulnerable and must come to terms on their own with a reality that often overwhelms them." How is it that reality itself is incomprehensible to these young people? It is because the enemies of God have collaborated to make motherhood and fatherhood themselves alien notions. While this is the end of feminism, it is most assuredly not the end of the family, and women are key to the resurgence of truth. The family is not subject to redefinition, nor a playground for innovation. Strong, well-grounded women are critical because they are the essential bridge to fatherhood, they are the guiding lights for these children struggling to know reality.
Any environmentalist can explain the dynamic interactions among living creatures, and the family is the most important eco-system of all. When the Vatican organized a congress earlier this year to honour the Church's finest document about women, Mulieris Dignitatem, it called the event: "Man and Women: Humanity in its Entirety," highlighting the need for collaboration between the sexes. Even the survivors of Lost know that we "live together or die alone." The problem with feminists is their zero-sum game, in which "grrl power" must be achieved at the expense of boys and men - and babies.
While we fight to defend motherhood, let us always remember that it is the link to something greater - the Father from Whom all fathers take their name. The strategic deconstruction of fatherhood makes it increasingly difficult for children to understand the natural order and to find God - indeed, to find their way to their ultimate home. Motherhood is not an abstract but the solution. Just as Mary's fiat "magnified the Lord," authentic femininity is a pole star pointing to the One who makes all life possible, primarily by loving and supporting masculinity in all its richness. Defend motherhood - for the sake of fatherhood. That's the ultimate target in these turbulent times.
Friday, September 12, 2008, 02:09 PM PST
[General]
escape the haunting do look back it sucks inward darkness and gloom seize and relax, hide all in the name of love delicately harsh walls seeping brazen savagery black air weeping, reaping haunting scent and color guise, rouse linger but vanish wraith catch suffocate brave fear muscle memory whispers living fears whithered, dead still living breathing, writhing unyielding release reality haunting learned and persisting never escaping never healing never knowing ignorant bliss ignorant hell catch suffocation surge the ebb
ROME, SEPT. 1, 2008 (Zenit.org).- For historians, who inhabit the remote world of the past, the injustices and sufferings of people are sufficiently distant in time to ever have much emotional impact on them.
Thus, history can serve as a convenient escape from turbulent contemporary issues.
Studying the plague in 1348 or slavery in the South, it's easy to feel complacent about man's progress through the centuries. Abolition and penicillin seem to testify to humanity's ability to overcome illness and degradation.
And then, as if rudely awakened from a deep sleep, some event will reveal the horrific truth that we haven't budged as much as we would like to think from the darkest practices of antiquity. Human traffickers buy and sell women and children for the pleasure and profit of men, while malaria kills more people than the bubonic plague ever did.
A dear friend shocked me out of my academic coma by sending me a video link. It has already been widely circulated among pro-life circles since 2003, but I was unaware of it until, taking a break from Early Christian Architecture, I clicked on the link.
I watched Jill Stanek, a registered nurse, describing how a child dies after surviving a late-term abortion. I profess total ignorance; I did not realize that these abortions often involved inducing early labor and letting the exposed child die because it no longer had the protective home of its mother's womb. Expelled from the mother's body, and left to die alone among the garbage, a living and breathing child was deemed unworthy to live.
Making matters worse, those who sought to provide protection for those infants by sponsoring the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, were opposed by persons who claim that those children who survive abortions should be left out to die.
It seemed as though I had time-traveled back to antiquity where, in Greece and Rome, the civilized veneer of their clever laws, philosophical speculations and brilliant engineering, co-existed with their sadly primitive customs of slavery, blood sport and exposing unwanted infant children.
In books, it seems so easy to look down on the Ancients for doing something so barbaric as leaving a child out to die. But what are we to make of the tolerance of the presence of this same brutal practice in our modern liberal democracies?
In both Greece and Rome, among the majestic temples and sophisticated societies, the harsh utilitarianism of their world began at birth. Children were discarded because of birth defects, single parenthood, economic strain or because they somehow interfered with the well-being of the parents (Oedipus Rex is a famous example of the latter).
The Greek author Plutarch wrote that "the father took his child and brought it to the elders of the tribe. They examined the child, and if it was well formed and strong, ordered it to be raised, but if the child was ill-born and maimed, they discarded it in the so-called Apothetae, a kind of pit, on the grounds that it was not worth the rearing."
Under the Roman law, fathers, called "paterfamilias," had power of life and death over all the members of their family. Romans claimed that "Romulus compelled the citizens to raise every male child and the first-born of the females, and he forbade them to put to death any child under three years of age, unless it was a cripple or a monster from birth. He did not prevent the parents from exposing such children, provided that they had displayed them first to the five nearest neighbors and had secured their approval."
Compared to our age of abortion on demand, the Romans had more rigorous strictures on putting their children to death.
Both in Greece and Rome, the parent exposed his own child. In our world, we make others complicit in our evil. Babies who are born alive after attempted abortions are handed over to nurses to be abandoned. Not only is the child's life destroyed, but forcing nurses, who have pledged to assist and care for people, to stand by as a baby feebly kicks and fights for each dragging breath is to deprive them of their essential humanity.
It is a sad irony that the Ancients come across as more humane than those who oppose the Infants Born Alive Protection Act. By exposing children, they at least left open the possibility of the child being saved whether by a compassionate passerby or the will of the gods. Both Roman and Greek cultures, pious in their own way, left a certain amount of leeway for the gods to act.
Those today who oppose legislation protecting survivors of abortions want to preclude any assistance, any compassion or any recognition of these little lives; their brief experience of the world destined to be cold, lonely, unalleviated suffering.
Two thousand years ago, Christianity came to the rescue of these abandoned children. As early as the first century A.D., they possessed a manual of catechesis, the "Didache." In it the first Christians learned about the ways of life and the way of death. The way of life was a way of love where they were explicitly commanded, "Do not kill a fetus by abortion, or commit infanticide."
Thanks to Christianity, the exposed infants were saved, nurtured and raised. In our post-Christian culture, these children have lost the protection they enjoyed for a while. Sometimes, sadly, history comes full circle.
Last Satuday through Monday, 5 of us from Bible Study and one acquaintance went to San Bernadino County to camp in Idyllwild/the San Jacinto Mountains. It was a couple hours drive.
Well first things first - haha! We met up at Angelo/Hector's house to compile all the supplies and bodies into 2 cars. But Gavin's mom prepared Thai barbeque chicken ( yummy!!!) that was so much that we couldn't put it in the cooler with its marinade. So we decided to crash Angelo's weekend and eat the chicken for lunch right then and there! LOL It was pretty funny.
Then we finally got on our way. I rode with Eman and Gavin, and they totally thought I was joking when I said I was going to bring my sewing. They looked in the backseat, and there I was with needle, thread, etc. along with all the camp supplies.
Anyway, we got there about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, set up camp and decided to hike one of the trails. We hiked the Sawmill Flats trail. Trina, Hector and Tony were leaving Sunday afternoon so they could go to work on monday morning. So, Trina and Hector went on a trail hike to see the sunset, which was really red from any smog (mostly haze; driving in we sat dirt devils in the desert). Meanwhile, I was soon to learn that they were to live like dogs and eat like kings. On Saturday evening, we ate polenta (a corn that is packed into a roll like salami) and it was cooked with ground chicken and turkey, which simmered with mushrooms and tomatoes, and some yellow peppers. It was really good!
That evening, Eman had asked us prior to the trip to bring with us something that helped us on our spiritual journey, for show and tell. It was really interesting. Then Eman (he had all these neat contemplative topics!) asked us to take a moment of silence and think of how we see Christ in the other person, and then share it with the group. I was paired with Trina. Then one final thing to think about as we went to bed in silence was how you see your relationship with God.
Sunday morning we were up at 6:30am, skipped breakfast except for coffee and hot cocoa, and shared our thoughts on our relationship with God. I had spent the night before sleeping thinking about a passage from the Morning and Evening Prayer and shared that with the group. Then we cleaned up camp and went to town for Mass at 8am. Afterwards we picked up more ice and fruit; I dropped my Rosary pouch and had to be driven the 6 miles back into town, later! Then on the way back for retrieving the pouch Trina and I missed the turnoff for our camp site and found a lake. Breakfast was pancakes, sausage, and turkey bacon. So, we finally turned back and told the guys about the lake. Which we could not park at because we didn't have the 'forest adventure pass' and the lake was too murky to swim in and was closed for public health reasons. So we went back to camp and tried to find the Marion Mountain trail for about an hour, until the Rangers ran into us. We asked them and began the (at least) five mile hike to the beginning of the Marion Mountain trail, and proceeded to hike for a couple more hours. I think we returned to camp around 5pm. The hike was good, but due to the altitude some of us could hardly breathe every 5 strides or so! (LOL, including yours truly). Dinner was left over Thai chicken, korean barbeque chicken and french bread. Then, Hector, Trina, and Tony left' leaving Gavin, Eman, and me. We immediately felt their loss.
Monday, we had a breakfast of left overs - tomatoes, chicken, peppers, carrots and celery tossed together in a skillet, and scrambled eggs. We broke camp, packed the car, and re-hiked some of the sawmill flats trail, then went to Idyllwild for a while, then lunch in Hemet, and we were in LA county by 5pm.
Why did I say that we lived like dogs? Because the closest showers were 6 miles away. I was the only one who bathed - from the same small tub we did the dishes in. It was hard, and cold, but phew! those boys .... you dont want to know! lol.
Nice and silent - no ipods, cell phones (who had signal?!?), chubby and furry squirrels, woodpeckers, crickets, and the noise of the forest.
yummy!!!) that was so much that we couldn't put it in the cooler with its marinade. So we decided to crash Angelo's weekend and eat the chicken for lunch right then and there! LOL It was pretty funny.