I am making this announcement on March 3, in observance of the feast of St. Aelred.
This is an invitation to our annual Lenten Spiritual Retreat. And indeed, by all accounts, it has always been a special day of recollection and spiritual insights for those who attend. We have them every Good Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., including dinner and two meriendas for up to thirty people. No charge.
This year we want to open up the retreat for all the hundreds on our SAeF mailing lists. Although it is aimed for the enlightenment of LGBT people on LGBT spirituality, of course it applies to all people everywhere, even Opus Dei, if they have ears to hear and the Spirit to listen.
This year, Holy Week is only two weeks from now. This year, our Lenten-Holy Week Retreat will be a cyber retreat with participants all around the globe. It’s a gigantic international Lenten-Holy Week retreat. The theme is: Spirituality is for God’s children who are LGBT, too.
Lent is the traditional retreat season. Have you had a chance in your busy life to take time for your spirituality this Lent? Here is a unique opportunity.
You don’t have to come over here with the transportation problems of Good Friday. You don’t have to eat our meatless arroz caldo. You can cook your own lunch wherever you are, but you can have a leisurely day of recollection communicating with me through email.
Another good thing about this cyber retreat is that you can work, contemplate, meditate at your own pace. You don’t have to do it all in one sitting, or even in one day. And even more fun would be to do the retreat together with a prayer partner at places and times of your convenience.
For those men and women in St. Aelred Seminary preparing for the priesthood, it will count as a one-credit subject upon completion.
It’s very simple. There are some “talks.” After each talk, you will send an email to me (Fr. Richard) commenting on some aspect of the talk. In those places where it is appropriate, I will interact with you on your comments.
So, therefore, after each talk, click on my email, and send me your comments. Simple as that. That’s your 2008 Lenten Spiritual Retreat. Wear whatever you are comfortable in.
Fr. Richard
Spirituality is for LGBT people, too
St. Aelred Lenten-Holy Week Spiritual Retreat
2008
St. Aelred Monastery, Quezon City, Philippines
(A Cyber Retreat)
Preface
The following progression of “talks” accompanied by appropriate exercises and retreat dynamics was experienced by a wonderful LGBT “family” on April 6, 2007. The progression begins with obstacles to LGBT spirituality, self-esteem, and efforts to live in God's friendship. It establishes what is bad, and what is good, better, best in sexual expression. The later talks are devoted to exposing how LGBT people can progress in spiritual development from good to better to best.
Theme
Today we are embarking on a mission of truth. In fact, it is a mission to find the truth and shake ourselves free from untruth. One author has fortuitously used the expression that for too long we have been in moral slavery, slaves to a “moral”” system that neither comes from God nor from the Bible. A “system” of “rights and wrongs” that bind us to what people tell us we have to do or not do.
Most of us are Christians in this country and in this retreat, but we have with us today some friends who are not Christian, but who have the same yearning for truth and spirituality as all of us. Those of us who are Moslem and Christian, it should be remembered, have the same God, Allah or God the Father. ( In Indonesia, a predominantly Moslem nation, the Catholics call God Allah, just as the people of Islam do.)
We will try our best today for everything in our retreat to apply equally to all. No matter what the name of our religion, we are going to take a look today at some spiritual truths for LGBT people. We need to reclaim our rights as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people. We want to be free from the shackles of moral slavery. We need to get back our right to the joy of knowing God’s love and friendship.
Let me tell you little story, a story which is too true. Jason is a ten-year old child who went to church on Sunday with the family. On the way home Jason turned to his gay brother, Andy, 18, and asked him, seriously, and with tears in his eyes, “Are you really going to burn in the fires of hell forever because you are gay? What’s an abomination?”
That’s what the preacher had said in the sermon. Little Jason was more upset by it than Andy. Andy is one of those LGBT persons who are not blindly accepting the fires of hell anymore. Let’s take some time today and get a good look at the truth.
Talk 1: “SIN: Barrier to the Truth”
We believe there is such a thing as sin. We believe sin separates us from God. But the truth is: not everything they tell us is sin – is sin. That’s what we have to get clear.
1. For the first exercise in our cyber retreat, make a list of what you would include in a “list of sins,” especially for LGBT people. Please write down your list of sins and email the list to saintaelred@gmail.com
Let’s just be sure from the very beginning that
SEX IS NOT SIN.
Almost 2000 years ago St. Augustine came up with the idea that sex was only for a married man and woman to have a baby, and they could have sex once a year, under the covers, with their clothes on. Get in there fast. Get out fast; make the baby, and don’t enjoy it.
That is an extreme picture of the “Sex is bad” theory.
When a same-sex couple comes to me for a wedding, I always ask them, “What do you say if some one tells you, ‘It is a sin for you to have sex with your same-sex partner’”?
I am pleased that more and more couples these days are saying, “I don’t believe it is a sin. We love each other. Love can’t be a sin.”
That’s wonderful and true. Still there are too many people who believe the “sex is sin” theory.
To make a long story short, we should not put labels on acts, and call them sin. “Is it a sin to kill somebody?” Most people immediately answer, “Yes, of course, it is a sin to kill.” But, if a one year old child picks up a gun and kills somebody, is that act of killing a “sin”? It’s not the act (doing something, killing) that automatically makes it sin. Automatic list of “sins” is moral slavery. We have long been a slave to “masturbation is a sin,” “It is a sin to use condoms.” “Only a married man and woman can have sex (hopefully to make a baby).” “No sex ever in your whole life in any way if God brings you into this world with a same-sex attraction.”
If you want to keep on judging what is sin, you have look at all the circumstances around it, not just the act listed in a list of sins.
There really should not be
such a thing as a “list or book of sins.”
That is because sin is in the person,
in the intentions,
in all the factors in the situation around an act.
And not in the list in a book of sins.
For example, if a man and woman, married with six kids, struggling to feed them and send them to school, use condoms, is it a sin? Maybe a better question is: Is it a sin for them not to use condoms? Because of the consequences, it may well be far more sinful if they don’t use birth control when they have sex. In addition, sex is their right as human beings. Why should the price of sex be child number 7, 8, 9, or 13? Not because the child is bad, but because it is bad to bring children into the world that they cannot care for.
What does that have to do with us who are L, G, B or T?
We have to do the same thing.
We have to look at all the circumstances
involved in our sex.
We have to decide
if the circumstances of our sex
make it good or bad.
We will talk about some guidelines for that later. The point here is that: sex is not automatically sin.
We have to decide,
we have to make a judgment.
We have to take a look at it
and see if there are any factors
that make it good or bad.
We call that judgment
“forming our conscience.”
Conscience at looking at all sides,
and deciding whether something is good or bad.
(See my blog: Conscience.)
( Fr. Richard's personal blog: http://richardrmickley.blogspot.com/)
We can’t run down to the church and ask Fr. Garcia if having sex with our boss is a sin. We have to make a decision about its possible good effects, and possible bad effects. Almost always it seems to be automatically bad. But look at the circumstances. Maybe you and your boss were in a relationship long before you became boss and employee, for example? But what would be the bad effects under most circumstances? Would there be pressures at promotion time? Would there be power issues? Would there be justice and rights issues? Would somebody else deserve the promotion more than the boss’s lover? Etc, etc.
In summary, then, sin is not an act on a list. Sin is deciding to do something that separates you from the love of God and the “love of neighbor” because we know from our judgment of the situation that more harm than good will come from the act, maybe even somebody will be hurt.
Retreat meditation.
Email to saintaelred@gmail.com the following comments:
Talk 1:
Have I ever been a victim of “Moral Slavery”?
If so, Do I want to continue to be a victim of moral slavery?
3. How can I shake loose the chains of moral slavery?
Talk 2: “How do we know if our sex is good or bad?”
Now let us take a quick look at some guidelines for judging what is good or bad in sex for LGBT people.
We have already established that
same-sex sex is not automatically bad.
We don’t have time to go into the whole story of human sexuality, or natural human sexual attraction. It’s already something that everybody should know is a fact:
some people have a natural human sexual attraction
to persons of the same gender.
It’s there. It’s a fact.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have agreed on that
since the time of Jose Rizal.
So, how do we decide when it is bad or good, or even better?
Let’s look at a sex ethic
which applies equally to everybody:
to a man with a woman, a man with a man, or a woman with a woman, or a transgender person with any person of his or her choice.
The starting point for this sex ethic is that
sex is good,
the opposite of the “Sex is bad” theory.
This sex ethic has three stages. They are
GOOD, BETTER, BEST. (Not bad, badder, baddest)
We quote and we follow a world famous theologian, Fr. Norman Pittenger.
[Imagine a ladder with rungs marked: GOOD, BETTER, BEST. Think of stepping up each rung at the appropriate time: good, better best.]
1. All sex is GOOD,
if it is not harmful or forceful.
Therefore when a person forms their conscience, they decide
is this sexual act harmful?
What bad effects will or can come from it?
Will it treat somebody as an object to be used or abused?
And then, will it be adult and consensual?
Or will there be force in this act? Is it a case where one partner is not willing?
Will there be any factors in which one partner has ‘power’ over the other
thus making the “force” more subtle?
This power can come from a boss? A parent, a counselor,
a teacher, a priest, a doctor, or other professional, or a politician?
The conclusion is:
sex is bad if it is harmful or forceful.
We have to form our conscience,
make a clear judgment about that.
2. Some sex is BETTER,
if it is accompanied by love and caring.
A rule of thumb to help decide if a sexual experience is “good” or “better” could be to ask yourself as you are dressing to leave the scene: “Am I leaving a body which I have used for good sex? Or am I leaving a person whom I have LOVED in better sex?”
3. Some sex is BEST
if it is in a committed,
loving, enduring relationship.
So, it’s that simple. You can judge if it is good, better, or best. You can judge it to be bad if it harmful or forceful. The more love there is, the better it becomes. That’s why it is so untruthful for anybody to condemn our love.
The same guidelines apply to all people
and all sexual orientations.
Cyber retreat meditation: emal to saintaewlred@gmail.com
1. Is recreational sex a sin? Why? Why not? How? How not?
2. What is an example of “better” sex with loving and caring? (and/or the opposite, sex that is not loving or caring?)
3. What makes “best” sex “best”? Why can we say that? Why is that true?
Talk 3: “Claiming Our Right to Spirituality”
Now we move up the ladder of life.
We have talked about what is sin and what is not sin. We have talked about what makes sex good, better, or best.
Let’s look now at how all this affects our relationship with God.
Surely, LGBT people are included in the “redemption” which Jesus accomplished on the Cross through the whole sequence of his death and resurrection.
But what are the special factors which have cut off LGBT people from the full realization and enjoyment of the “Redemption” which is the right of every LGBT person?
There is a special factor which brings a problem to thousands of LGBT people. There are more than 8 million LGBT people in this country. How many of them have been told “God will zap you into hell” (for anything from masturbation to loving a person of the same gender)?
Remember the story of little Jason and his brother Andy that we heard about above? I invite you to share very quickly any experience you have had, similar to the one Jason and Andy had.
Email to saintaelred@gmail.com
Thank you. That is why we need to talk about claiming our right to being spiritual persons. Of course, it’s our right. It’s part of being human. But the truth has been taken away from so many of us. We deserve to have the joy of knowing God’s love and friendship. We should not let anybody try to take that away from us.
Somehow when people talk about “good people” or “‘holy people,” they seem to pass over good and holy LGBT people. And, by the way, being “holy” is just plain being in God’s friendship.
In other words we have to “claim” the love and friendship of God which is there (available) and rightfully ours. And we have the right to it just as much as anybody else.
God loves each of us unconditionally.
God does not say,
“Okay, Gay, I will love you
IF you stop doing that sex stuff.”
God is not like that.
God loves us with no ifs,
and God loves us LGBT people unconditionally.
God embraces us, hugs us,
reaches out to us with all-loving arms,
and nobody can take that away from us.
St. Paul put it as clearly as possible in Romans 8 of the Christian Scripture when he said there is no power anywhere that can separate us from the love of God.
The sad part is that we have allowed “people’” to separate us from God’s love, by not standing up for our right to the love of God which is always with us, waiting, reaching out, available to us. Jesus said, “Come to me ALL who are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.” He did not say, “But that does not mean you naughty LGBT people.” He said ALL are welcome to come to him.
Cyber Retreat meditation: email to saintaelred@gmail.com
Have I ever believed that God shuns LGBT people?
Do I still believe God’s shuns, condemns, and rejects LGBT people?
Do I believe God loves me unconditionally and embraces me in love and friendship and smiles upon my same-sex love which is not harmful or forceful.,
Talk 4: “A Better Spiritual Life”
In regard to “morality,” above we talked about good, better, and best in our sex life.
In our spiritual life
we can also establish a concept
of good, better and best.
First of all, let’s look at a definition. What is spiritual life? What is being spiritual? How do we have spirituality? Does everybody have it? How does it fit into our every day life?
Here in the Order of St. Aelred
we speak of “wholeness” or wholistic health.
A human life is life the way God always intended it to be when God gave us human life. And that is:
a life with its four components
– all working together,
all working in harmony.
[Refer to diagram of the logo of OSAe on our website).] So, looking at the diagram in our logo, you see a human life, a person, represented by a circle with four components in equal segments. They start with the letters IPSE. Ipse happens to be the Latin word for self or person. A complete person has all four of these components in balance and harmony.
Intellectual.
A fully human person will have their intellectual component functioning above the level of TV cartoons or computer games. (I can think; I do think; I will think.)
Physical.
One’s physical health and well being will be a matter of concern and attention.
Spiritual.
One cannot be a fully human person unless one’s spiritual capabilities are part of the wholeness of one’s life.
The spiritual component of one’s life
is fundamentally
pursuing meaning and purpose in one’s life
and what one does in life.
Animals are lacking this component, and cannot seek meaning and purpose. They cannot acknowledge their origin or their destiny. Human beings can see their position in this world as creatures who came from a Creator, and they can find meaning and purpose in structuring and living their life in accordance with the meaning and purpose of human life in the plan of the Creator. (Fulfillment, happiness, friendship…)
Emotional.
And finally a human life will have an emotional component in which there will be occasions to be mad, sad, glad or scared; and a fully functioning person will experience these emotions, but will keep them in balance and harmony with the other components.
But What about sexuality?
Then, you ask,
where does sexuality come in?
That is a very important question because our sexuality is also a very integral and valuable and wonderful and important element in our human life. But it is not a separate component.
Our human sexuality resides in our whole person.
One does not just have
a sexual penis or a sexual vagina.
Human sexual behavior is characterized
by being fully immersed
in the intellectual, physical,
spiritual, and emotional parts of us.
An animal can, and usually does, just copulate and walk away. It cannot think about the meaning, purpose, value, or implications of the physical sex act. Human beings are whole person whose sexuality resides in the wholeness of their wholistic being: IPSE.
So, never forgetting how wonderful sex is,
we also look to the health and well being
of all components of our wholeness.
The one that LGBT people seem to be cut off from
is spiritual wholeness.
For many, that is because they are told
they cannot be spiritual and holy
or even good
because they are going to hell.
Then some LGBT people believe that; and they just give up or throw out any effort to be “spiritual.” Thank God most LGBT people don’t really accept or believe that any more, but still they don’t have a positive program for being who they can be with the joys and fulfillment of a life complete with all four components, including a healthy spiritual life.
A good person – a person with a good spiritual life of not harming or forcing others in sex or any thing else, is a good person. So the next step up the ladder is:
We could think of moving up
from a good
to a better spiritual life.
A better spiritual life – beyond simply not being bad – is:
one that has an erect and stable spine
to keep it strong.
That strong and stable spine is
PRAYER, STUDY, AND ACTION.
Prayer
Again, there is a wide variety of possibilities for prayer. It could embrace the most sophisticated forms of meditation, it could embrace the several times a day common prayer in praise of Allah by Moslems as the face Mecca, or it can be for any of us as simple as conversation with Allah in the simplest everyday language. It can include Mass and the sacraments; it can involve prayer rallies, and retreats. It can be whatever is meaningful and nurturing for the individual. That’s the key. There should be a means, method, instrument for nurturing one’s spiritual life. So, we label that “prayer” as a general turn for some exercise, discipline, or regime that forms the spine of one’s spiritual life of contact and friendship with God..
Study
Then, there is study, which can be very very informal, or very very formal. It can consist of some uplifting reading that is related to one’s meaning and purpose in life. It can mean seeking out opportunities for “intellectual/spiritual” growth, something that gives more depth to one’s spirituality.
Action
And finally, there is action. One’s spiritual component is not nourished by “contemplation” alone. Even cloistered nuns who spend many many hours a day on their knees or in spiritual reading, have some form of action to carry out their plan for spiritual growth.
Well, we are not cloistered nuns. We live and love and have sex in a real world, with our feet on the ground or in bed, but not floating on the wings of prayer to the holy of holies 24 hours a day. So, what is a practical, helpful, joyful plan for me, for you, for each of us in his or her own way to move from the level of not being “bad” to the better level, or having our spiritual life in harmony and balance with our whole selves, nourished by a plan that’s right for me or for you.
Our spiritual life will be good, if it is not bad,
Our spiritual life will be better if it held erect by Prayer, Study, and Action.
Cyber Retreat meditation (Email to saintaelred@gmail.com )
You are invited to reflect upon your wholistic life.
1. Is your IPSE in balance and harmony? Do you have “health and well being in I, P, S, and E? Estimate what percentage of well being you have in each component. Which is highest? Which lowest? Are they in harmony and balance (preferably, all equal)?
2. Write a paragraph marked prayer, and one marked study, and one marked action, outlining what you would like to do to have an erect and stable spiritual life, one that is better than “not bad.”
Talk 5: “Enriching and energizing the spiritual life”
The next level, the next step up the ladder of spiritual well being and spiritual joy is comparable to the expression of the “best” in our sex life.
You can be good if you are “not bad.” You can be better if you nourish your spiritual life with prayer, study and action. You can then,
Experience the “best,”
if you allow the fruits of the Spirit
to operate in your life.
As always when we move higher on the ladder, the rewards are greater. In the spiritual life the rewards of the next step are the wonders of living in love, joy, and peace.
St. Paul offers us so much spiritual depth in his letters in the Christian Scriptures, that in a lifetime few people absorb all the joys and blessings of the potential that is possible for “spiritual depth.”
When St. Paul speaks of the “fruits of the Spirit,” he gives us a glimpse of the spiritual potential that we can claim if we truly desire to move beyond the good and the better to the best.
In Galatians 5:22 St. Paul tells us when we are on this level, we will have a life characterized by
love, joy, peace,
patience (long suffering),
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
humility (gentleness),
and self control.
[Work silently and alone on studying your own life for a few minutes and evaluating your experience of the fruits of the Spirit.
These fruits of the Spirit are for LGBT people, too. Nobody can take them away from us. We have only to claim them for our own as we progress on the path from good, to better, to best.
Cyber Retreat meditation: email to saintaelred@gmail.com
Evaluate your experience of the fruits of the Spirit (one by one) on a scale of one to ten.
What would you like to do?
Talk 6: “FRIENDSHIP: The ultimate”
We cannot have a complete picture
of human wholeness and human fulfillment
without having a well-rounded experience
of “friendship.”
St. Paul, as always, gives us some wonderful insights into what the life of Christians is intended to be. In 2 Corinthians, he points out that Jesus, by dying for us on that first Good Friday, changed us into God’s friends, and he emphasizes that God wants all human persons to be friends of God.
And look at what he says. “God does not keep an account of our sins, but indeed does everything to bring us into God’s friendship.” St. Paul reminds us that if God so much wanted us to be God’s friends, we, too have the task of bringing others to God’s friendship. And we know from other Scriptures that the best way of doing this is by being friends with other people.
Here
in the Order of St. Aelred,
we are inspired by the spirituality of St. Aelred.
St. Aelred wrote two notable books
on love and friendship.
For these we are indebted to him.
His definition of friendship is a masterpiece.
We give our own translation of St. Aelred's definition of Friendship (from his book, Spiritual Friendship). Like the famous definition of Cicero, it was written in Latin. Most translations use big words. We try to portray the true meaning in simple words.
“Friendship is
oneness of Heart, Mind and Spirit,
in things human and divine,
with mutual esteem
and kindly feelings
of approval and support.”
In Mirror of Love (Speculum Caritatis), he gives us a delightfully human description of what a friend is.
St. Aelred indeed gives us a wonderful model for true friendship, that is having a true friend with love.
A True Friend
It is such a great joy to have the consolation of someone’s affection;
· someone to whom I am deeply united in the bonds of love;
· someone with whom my weary spirit can find rest;
· and to whom I may pour out my heart;
· someone whose conversation is as sweet as a song in the tiring times of daily life;
· someone whose presence is a harbor of calm when my life is rocked on the choppy seas of life;
· someone to whom I can lay bare all my thoughts and secrets;
· someone whose spirit will give me the comforting kiss that heals all the sickness of my troubled heart;
· one who will cry with me when I am upset and rejoice with me when I am happy;
· the one I can talk to when I need advice or good judgment;
· someone so closely bound to my heart and soul that even when far away is together with me in spirit;
· when the world falls asleep all around us, our souls will be embraced in absolute peace;
· our hearts will lie quiet together, united in our oneness, as the grace of the Holy Spirit flows over us;
· with heart and mind together, we are bound by the closest ties of love.
His description of a Friend is a guideline for a truly human and beautiful friendship.
Our purpose for pondering these selections from his writing is to point to an ultimate enjoyment of the gifts of life and love. These, indeed, are gifts which lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders are fully entitled to. Of course, they are part of our heritage even though some elements of society (church and culture) would try to deprive us of them.
For a moment we are going to talk about friendship and describe it as the ultimate element, at once wonderful and essential to a fully human ultimate experience of the gift of human life.
The bottom line, then, is that
nothing is more essential
to a full and rich
and beautiful spiritual life
than friendship with God
and with “one another.”
We briefly introduced St. Aelred’s definition of “Friendship” and his description of “A True Friend,” to open up to us the beautiful richness of what friendship can be, and as such it is the essence of holiness.
Cyber Retreat Meditation (email to saintaelred@gmail.com )
1. Ponder for a moment: Have I ever had a friendship which would fit the definition of St. Aelred for a friendship? (Note: not the description of a friend; save that for a few minutes.) Now share if you have ever had a friendship that fits this definition. Would you like to have a friendship like this?
2. Now think of, say, your best friend, or your lover, and then “evaluate” your friendship with that person on the basis of the points in the description of St. Aelred
You may comment about what you would like to do to make your friendship good, better, or best.
Talk 7: “Encouraging holiness
in our fellow LGBT people”
In my family, when I was young, the oldest of 10 kids, I can never remember in my whole life, eating a meal alone. When mom finished cooking, she called dad, and all of us kids, and we sat down to the table together to enjoy mom’s good cooking.
I thought that was the way it was in all the families in the world. I did not know then, that some families don’t even have a table, or food. All my uncles and aunts had large families. They ate together – all except uncle Ed’s family. There were 13 kids and Uncle Ed and Aunt Hilda, and their table simply was not big enough for 15 people. They had to eat in two shifts, even though their farm was the biggest one for miles and miles around and they discovered oil on it and Uncle Ed made a lot of money from farming and from oil wells on his farms. When he died many years later, he left a million dollars as an inheritance to each of his kids. But when they had kids, they all ate together.
That’s what Jesus and his beloved and the other 11 were doing when they gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem the night before that first Good Friday. They had a meal together.
One of them, the youngest, had the privilege of lying with his head on the heart of Jesus when they reclined at dinner. That one was called the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. Yes, the Bible tells us eight times that Jesus was there with his lover when he gave us that special way of remembering him that Christians call Holy Communion. The 12, including the special one, were all together with Jesus in a loving meal when he gave himself to them the night before he died.
So, I don’t want anybody to tell me that we LGBT people cannot go to communion because we love someone of the same sex. The first communion was celebrated by Jesus practically in the arms of his beloved. And it was in a meal.
I am telling this story, just to remind us that Holy Communion is for us Christian LGBT people, it is ours, too, and nobody can take it away from us. Jesus is still telling is, “Come to me, all you who are heavily burdened, carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
I went to party recently where 20 or so people were playing games together, singing together, eating together, and in general spent some time really connected to one another. It seemed a lot different than watching chickens or pigs eating together. Another day I went to the mall. I was surrounded by hundreds of people. But I was alone. Each was in his or her isolated iPod world. I was surrounded by hundreds, yet I was alone.
You can pray alone.
Or you can choose to be more “human,”
in togetherness in this world.
The choice is yours.
Moslems can pray alone, or they can take their prayer mats and join with their fellow Moslems in the daily prayers to Allah together in the Mosque.
If you are Christian, you have to make your own choice about accepting Jesus invitation to Holy Communion, but my advice is not to let anybody tell you that you don’t belong there. Jesus invites you, and me, and all of us LGBT people. He did not make any rules to keep people away from him. He just said, “Come to me.”
Cyber Retreat Meditation email to saintaelred@gmail.com
Have I ever felt that I was excluded, as a LGBT Christian, from Mass and the Sacraments?
In my search for “true spirituality” what do I see as good, better, best for me?
What would I like to do as a result of the reflections of this retreat.
FINAL PRAYER.: Closing exercise
Pray this prayer, from your heart and soul, pray it meditatively.
I pray with St. Aelred, “O Good Jesus, let your voice sound in my ears, that my heart and mind and inmost soul may learn of your love, and the very depths of my heart be joined to you who are my greatest delight and joy.”
With deep gratitude I realize that you have chosen me to make this retreat. I am here because you selected me and gave me the privilege of living these few moments of special love and reflection during this retreat. I praise you as I face with courage the opportunities and challenges you have given me during this retreat. I pray for all those around the world who experienced this retreat. Along with my gratitude, I ask for your continued presence and power to carry out the resolutions I have made and grow closer to you in the friendship you offer me as I strive to live, under the mantle of your unconditional love, in true friendship with those whom you have given me as friends. Thank you, Jesus.
Then reflect again on the following:
1. What line or thought was most significant for me?
2. What line or thought in the retreat was most significant for me?
Cyber Retreat Meditation: email to saintaelred@gmail.com
© Fr. Richard R. Mickley, O.S.Ae., Ph.D., Abbot
The Order of St. Aelred
St. Aelred Friendship Society
13 Maginoo Street
Barangay Pinyahan, Quezon City
1100 Metro Manila, Philippines
Mobile: 63 920 9034909
E-mail: saintaelred@gmail.com
Website: http://www.geocities.com/staelredmonasterymanila
E-group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saeffriends
Fr. Richard's personal blog: http://richardrmickley.blogspot.com/
Monday, March 3, 2008
St. Aelred, March 3, 2008
One of the last of the church fathers, one of the earliest Christian humanists, St. Aelred is the patron saint of the Order of St. Ael;red and St. Aelred Friendship Society.
For me a Christian humanist is one who recognizes the full awesomeness of the humanity of God, God becoming human in Jesus Christ. To say the least, it raised humanity to a dignity that gave it new meaning when the very God of the universe walked this earth as one of us.
St. Aelred gloried in the humanness of Jesus and, in my terms, he told us that being human is a wonderful gift from God, that loving as a human is a wonderful gift from God.
For a bit more biographical data on St. Aelred, I refer you to our page on St. Aelred in our website: http://www.geocities.com/staelredmonasterymanila
For our tribute to St. Aelred today, I offer a quote from the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Vol 4, American Council of Learned Societies.
St. Aelred is known as Christocentric twelfth century monastic humanist. His most famous work, On Spiritual Friendship, which explores the relation between spiritual and human friendship in a monastic context, reveals his own conscious homosexual orientation and gives love between persons of the same gender its most profound expression in Christian theology.
In his writings, St. Aelred shares candidly and honestly his own same-sex feelings of love and friendship.
One of our St. Aelred Seminary students, for a class on St. Aelred, sums it up quite well, “St. Aelred deserves to be the patron saint of gays and lesbians because he was true to himself. He never covered up his sexuality, which was same-sex attracti0n, and he was not pulled fully into the prevailing sex-negative antibody dualistic philosophy of St. Augustine.”
For me a Christian humanist is one who recognizes the full awesomeness of the humanity of God, God becoming human in Jesus Christ. To say the least, it raised humanity to a dignity that gave it new meaning when the very God of the universe walked this earth as one of us.
St. Aelred gloried in the humanness of Jesus and, in my terms, he told us that being human is a wonderful gift from God, that loving as a human is a wonderful gift from God.
For a bit more biographical data on St. Aelred, I refer you to our page on St. Aelred in our website: http://www.geocities.com/staelredmonasterymanila
For our tribute to St. Aelred today, I offer a quote from the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Vol 4, American Council of Learned Societies.
St. Aelred is known as Christocentric twelfth century monastic humanist. His most famous work, On Spiritual Friendship, which explores the relation between spiritual and human friendship in a monastic context, reveals his own conscious homosexual orientation and gives love between persons of the same gender its most profound expression in Christian theology.
In his writings, St. Aelred shares candidly and honestly his own same-sex feelings of love and friendship.
One of our St. Aelred Seminary students, for a class on St. Aelred, sums it up quite well, “St. Aelred deserves to be the patron saint of gays and lesbians because he was true to himself. He never covered up his sexuality, which was same-sex attracti0n, and he was not pulled fully into the prevailing sex-negative antibody dualistic philosophy of St. Augustine.”
Monday, February 18, 2008
Conscience
In my ministry in the Roman Catholic Church, I advised the people a lot on “conscience” with regard to “birth control and family planning.” Only recently have I realized that I have not adequately instructed LGBT people on conscience. Conscience is the honorable way out of “moral slavery.” Moral slavery is “no condoms, no masturbation, no sex ever in your whole life if you are given a same-sex attraction.”
I have written briefly about it a couple of times recently. But now I realize from hundreds of conversations in counseling that I have not written, spoken, and taught enough about conscience.
Here in the Philippines, a cult of conscience is arising around a new “national hero,” Jun Lazada. People from former President Cory Aquino, many senators, religious people, and people on the street are praising Mr. Lozada for following his conscience as a whistleblower in a prominent investigation of corruption in government.
A full page ad by the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines today begins with a quotation from Martin Luther King: On some positions, COWARDICE asks the question, “Is it safe?” EXPEDIENCY asks the question, “Is it politic?” VANITY asks the question, “Is it popular? CONSCIENCE asks the question, “Is it right?”
Dr. King continues: There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but one must take it because CONSCIENCE says, “It is right.”
For too many years, black people stayed in the back of the bus because of COWARDICE or EXPEDIENCY. CONSCIENCE finally told them: It is right to stand up for your rights.
Martin Luther King continued, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent on things that matter.”
The issue here, in this blog, in my ministry, is moral slavery of LGBT people, the minority, to the homophobic human teachings and traditions which have bound them to a moral code of the majority that comes neither from God, not from the Bible. (When you allow the majority to make “rules” for the minority, the minority will suffer on the short end of the proposition.)
The Catholic Encyclopedia on the internet devotes 11 pages to an intricate “explanation” of CONSCIENCE. The bottom line is that it does not negate or contradict my definition, from church textbooks, that CONSCIENCE IS A CHRISTIAN MORAL JUDGMENT.
LGBT people have a basic human right to form their conscience without bowing to the chains of moral slavery.
They will do this first by listening to the teaching voice of their Christian church (and Moslems will make an Islamic moral judgment after first listening to the teaching voice of Islam.)
Secondly they will weigh, examine, and consider (the word of the Catholic Encyclopedia) all the factors that make a decision a personal moral judgment. This will include cultural matters, human psychology, and their own personal situation. (For example: To kill is a sin, but my personal situation is that if I don’t kill this intruder, the intruder will kill me.)
Thirdly, each person in each situation decides, makes a judgment about what is right or wrong, sin or not sin in that situation. (For example: Judgment: it is not a sin for me to kill in self defense.)
The mother and father with low income, perhaps no employment, with four kids whom they cannot house, feed, and send to school adequately must decide if it is sinful to protect their family from deeper poverty by using condoms or other appropriate methods which cause nobody any harm.
The LGBT person, then, in freedom of conscience, will weigh all the factors which affect the expression of same-sex love. They are aware of centuries old prohibitions, but they have a right to recognize these prohibitions of their love as moral slavery and move on to consider all the personal human psychology which makes this attraction and its expression “right” for them. And the finishing touch could well be that God is love and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And they will then decide to love according to their nature with the full confidence that God is smiling upon their love.
LGBT people can make a Christian Moral Decision to express their same-sex love according to their nature with the confidence that their love and its expression is not sin. Indeed, God smiles upon their love.
I have written briefly about it a couple of times recently. But now I realize from hundreds of conversations in counseling that I have not written, spoken, and taught enough about conscience.
Here in the Philippines, a cult of conscience is arising around a new “national hero,” Jun Lazada. People from former President Cory Aquino, many senators, religious people, and people on the street are praising Mr. Lozada for following his conscience as a whistleblower in a prominent investigation of corruption in government.
A full page ad by the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines today begins with a quotation from Martin Luther King: On some positions, COWARDICE asks the question, “Is it safe?” EXPEDIENCY asks the question, “Is it politic?” VANITY asks the question, “Is it popular? CONSCIENCE asks the question, “Is it right?”
Dr. King continues: There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but one must take it because CONSCIENCE says, “It is right.”
For too many years, black people stayed in the back of the bus because of COWARDICE or EXPEDIENCY. CONSCIENCE finally told them: It is right to stand up for your rights.
Martin Luther King continued, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent on things that matter.”
The issue here, in this blog, in my ministry, is moral slavery of LGBT people, the minority, to the homophobic human teachings and traditions which have bound them to a moral code of the majority that comes neither from God, not from the Bible. (When you allow the majority to make “rules” for the minority, the minority will suffer on the short end of the proposition.)
The Catholic Encyclopedia on the internet devotes 11 pages to an intricate “explanation” of CONSCIENCE. The bottom line is that it does not negate or contradict my definition, from church textbooks, that CONSCIENCE IS A CHRISTIAN MORAL JUDGMENT.
LGBT people have a basic human right to form their conscience without bowing to the chains of moral slavery.
They will do this first by listening to the teaching voice of their Christian church (and Moslems will make an Islamic moral judgment after first listening to the teaching voice of Islam.)
Secondly they will weigh, examine, and consider (the word of the Catholic Encyclopedia) all the factors that make a decision a personal moral judgment. This will include cultural matters, human psychology, and their own personal situation. (For example: To kill is a sin, but my personal situation is that if I don’t kill this intruder, the intruder will kill me.)
Thirdly, each person in each situation decides, makes a judgment about what is right or wrong, sin or not sin in that situation. (For example: Judgment: it is not a sin for me to kill in self defense.)
The mother and father with low income, perhaps no employment, with four kids whom they cannot house, feed, and send to school adequately must decide if it is sinful to protect their family from deeper poverty by using condoms or other appropriate methods which cause nobody any harm.
The LGBT person, then, in freedom of conscience, will weigh all the factors which affect the expression of same-sex love. They are aware of centuries old prohibitions, but they have a right to recognize these prohibitions of their love as moral slavery and move on to consider all the personal human psychology which makes this attraction and its expression “right” for them. And the finishing touch could well be that God is love and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And they will then decide to love according to their nature with the full confidence that God is smiling upon their love.
LGBT people can make a Christian Moral Decision to express their same-sex love according to their nature with the confidence that their love and its expression is not sin. Indeed, God smiles upon their love.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Human Rights in Senegal, Everywhere
Today an Email from ILGA (International Lesbian and gay Association) details the arrest and detention of 10 persons in Senegal for alleged ‘homosexual activity.”
It outlines the response from the International Federation for Human Rights.
We have been outspoken in proclaiming and defending human rights for LGBT people. For example, recently we have clearly stated the elements of the basic human right to “freedom of conscience.”
In this blog post I suggest that we compare the old sex-negative, destructive and vio;ent approach of Senegal to LGBT peple with the urgent recommendations of the International Federation for Human Rights.
Senegal
Homosexuality must no longer be a crime
The International Lesbian and Gay Association(ILGA) and its 600 affiliates take note of the release, after 3 daysof arbitrary detention, of 10 persons held in Dakar in connection withthe investigation of an alleged homosexual marriage.On 5 February , 10 persons were arrested and detained at the CriminalInvestigation Division in Dakar, Senegal. These arrests followed thepublication in a monthly magazine of a report concerninghomosexuality in Senegal, in which photos of individuals celebratingan alleged homosexual marriage were printed. The 10 individuals wereinterviewed concerning allegations of indecency and unnaturalmarriage. Others appearing in the photos, fearing reprisals, havereportedly fled the country and are sought by the Senegaleseauthorities.
Then it outlines the urgent message of the International Federation for human Human Rights addressed to the government of Senegal.
Under the Senegalese Criminal code, homosexual acts are punishable by 5 years imprisonment and to a fine of 100 000 to 1 500 000 CFA francs(between 150 and 2300 euros). In penalising private relations , the lawcontravenes provisions of the International Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights , in force in Senegal since 1978, which provides under Article 17 (1) that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary orunlawful interference with his privacy, family, home orcorrespondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.”
In addition, these discriminatory provisions of the Criminal code arecontrary to the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights that provides under Article 3 (1) that “every individual shallbe equal before the law.”
While our organisations welcome the liberation of the ten individuals who were arrested, we remain concerned for their physical and psychological integrity.
Consequently, we urge the Senegalese authorities to:
- Ensure the physical and psychological integrity of the personscharged in this affair, and more generally, firmly condemn homophobicacts that attack the physical and psychological integrity ofhomosexual individuals;
- Revise the Criminal code to abolish punishment of homosexual acts;
- Conform with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civiland Political Rights, and in particular Articles 17 (1) and 26, aswell as the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and in particular Article 3. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)Rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l'Homme (RADDHO)Organisation nationale des droits de l'Homme (ONDH)Union interafricaine des droits de l'Homme (UIDH)Amnesty International Senegal (AI)Pan Africa ILGA - the African Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)
It outlines the response from the International Federation for Human Rights.
We have been outspoken in proclaiming and defending human rights for LGBT people. For example, recently we have clearly stated the elements of the basic human right to “freedom of conscience.”
In this blog post I suggest that we compare the old sex-negative, destructive and vio;ent approach of Senegal to LGBT peple with the urgent recommendations of the International Federation for Human Rights.
Senegal
Homosexuality must no longer be a crime
The International Lesbian and Gay Association(ILGA) and its 600 affiliates take note of the release, after 3 daysof arbitrary detention, of 10 persons held in Dakar in connection withthe investigation of an alleged homosexual marriage.On 5 February , 10 persons were arrested and detained at the CriminalInvestigation Division in Dakar, Senegal. These arrests followed thepublication in a monthly magazine of a report concerninghomosexuality in Senegal, in which photos of individuals celebratingan alleged homosexual marriage were printed. The 10 individuals wereinterviewed concerning allegations of indecency and unnaturalmarriage. Others appearing in the photos, fearing reprisals, havereportedly fled the country and are sought by the Senegaleseauthorities.
Then it outlines the urgent message of the International Federation for human Human Rights addressed to the government of Senegal.
Under the Senegalese Criminal code, homosexual acts are punishable by 5 years imprisonment and to a fine of 100 000 to 1 500 000 CFA francs(between 150 and 2300 euros). In penalising private relations , the lawcontravenes provisions of the International Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights , in force in Senegal since 1978, which provides under Article 17 (1) that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary orunlawful interference with his privacy, family, home orcorrespondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.”
In addition, these discriminatory provisions of the Criminal code arecontrary to the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights that provides under Article 3 (1) that “every individual shallbe equal before the law.”
While our organisations welcome the liberation of the ten individuals who were arrested, we remain concerned for their physical and psychological integrity.
Consequently, we urge the Senegalese authorities to:
- Ensure the physical and psychological integrity of the personscharged in this affair, and more generally, firmly condemn homophobicacts that attack the physical and psychological integrity ofhomosexual individuals;
- Revise the Criminal code to abolish punishment of homosexual acts;
- Conform with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civiland Political Rights, and in particular Articles 17 (1) and 26, aswell as the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and in particular Article 3. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)Rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l'Homme (RADDHO)Organisation nationale des droits de l'Homme (ONDH)Union interafricaine des droits de l'Homme (UIDH)Amnesty International Senegal (AI)Pan Africa ILGA - the African Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Requesting your comments
You may have thought I have forgotten you. I have been posting blogs for five months, and maybe you didn’t receive any of them.
The problem is that my computer crashed in September, and only now someone made it possible to get it fixed. Locked in a computer that didn’t work was the file with your address, so, in the meantime, I was limited to my Gmail directory.
All the blogs are posted on my personal blog, http://richardrmickley.blogspot.com. I invite you to visit and catch up.
Some of my blogs are quite personal, and some are quite religious, and some are somewhat philosophical.
Today, I need your comments. Situations have come up which require some wise advice in two areas. In regard to both of these areas, people have recently come to me seriously asking for “how to” information to protect and strengthen their relationship.
The first question I ask for your personal experience, information, and advice on is:
“What are some tips for making a relationship work when one is 15-20 or more years older than the other?”
Please send your comments. I will publish the final results here. Please indicate if your name may be used.
The second question I ask your personal experience, information, and advice on is:
“What are some tips for making a relationships work when the partners are living in different countries – a long distance relationship?”
Please send your comments. I will publish the final results here. Please indicate if your name may be used.
Thank you.
Father Richard
The problem is that my computer crashed in September, and only now someone made it possible to get it fixed. Locked in a computer that didn’t work was the file with your address, so, in the meantime, I was limited to my Gmail directory.
All the blogs are posted on my personal blog, http://richardrmickley.blogspot.com. I invite you to visit and catch up.
Some of my blogs are quite personal, and some are quite religious, and some are somewhat philosophical.
Today, I need your comments. Situations have come up which require some wise advice in two areas. In regard to both of these areas, people have recently come to me seriously asking for “how to” information to protect and strengthen their relationship.
The first question I ask for your personal experience, information, and advice on is:
“What are some tips for making a relationship work when one is 15-20 or more years older than the other?”
Please send your comments. I will publish the final results here. Please indicate if your name may be used.
The second question I ask your personal experience, information, and advice on is:
“What are some tips for making a relationships work when the partners are living in different countries – a long distance relationship?”
Please send your comments. I will publish the final results here. Please indicate if your name may be used.
Thank you.
Father Richard
LGBT Rights
I am very impressed by the 1999 book, “Identity and the Case for Gay Rights: Race, Gender, Religious Analogies.”
It delves deeply into subjects that I am profoundly interested and involved in: gay and lesbian rights, women’s rights, and religious liberation from moral slavery.
It is written by David A. J. Richards, professor of Law and director of programs in Law, Philosophy, and Social Theory at New York University.
He is a leading philosopher who has brought together in this book all the topics in the book title into one learned thesis. He develops an intriguing study of social hierarchy and moral slavery.
He argues that racist, sexist, and anti-gay issues all have in common the degradation of human identity and denial of the rights of conscience. And this is what he calls “moral slavery.” I find the invention of that term an absolutely tremendous breakthrough.
It is impossible to summarize this weighty book in short, but “in short,” it is a powerful defense of gay rights. [Footnote: unfortunately he comes from a mind-set which uses gay as a substitute for homosexual, thus including in his intention all LGBT people. That is not my approach, and I try to cover it up wherever plausible.]
The book is written in the “deepest” (most learned) academic language as if for advanced doctoral degree candidates.
My challenge is, first of all, to understand it myself, and then in this blog to present his powerful arguments and valuable insights in language we can all understand.
There are six (Library of Congress) research areas referenced in the book title alone. One blog could not do justice to even one of these topics: gay rights, gay identity, Afro-American civil rights, women’s rights, freedom of religion, identity (psychological).
This blog will only analyze one short paragraph, the final paragraph of the Introduction to the book. I will present professor Richards’ words (modified only enough to make shorter sentences). Then I will briefly comment on each sentence.
“The case for gay rights expresses a structural injustice common to extreme religious intolerance, racism, and homophobia.”
Comment: He develops the proposition that the very structure of American culture expresses the same kind of injustice against Blacks (racial minorities), women, and persons with same-sex attraction. He calls it structural injustice because it is the basis and foundation of societal behavior that reduces all those who are “non-conformist” (to patriarchal one-mold society) to a common pit of unjust treatment – which he later identifies as “moral slavery.” [Note: the book deals with American society. It would be interesting to have an authoritative “social scientist” report on the relevance of these issues to Philippine society. In my 16 years now as a Filipino, I unauthoritatively observe the same phenomena.]
“The analysis of the case for gay rights also advances general understanding of the two mechanisms by which such injustice is entrenched: its privitatization and stereotypical sexualization.”
Comment: He will, in his own words, demonstrate how injustices became so much a mold and pattern of society that not even the victims recognized that they were victims.
Entrenched means “dug in,” “firmly set in place,” “immoveable,” and unremoveable, as it were.
That was when women naturally knew that their place was in the home kitchen and the home laundry. Blacks knew their place was in the back of the bus. Gays and lesbians knew that they had no place, and were even unmentionable. Gays and lesbians would never to dare think of the “right” to marriage because they knew they did not have a right to exist, and no rights.
“These mechanisms enforce on homosexuals (as they have on religious minorities, people of color, and women) rigidly defined, hierarchical terms of identity, thereby unjustly reducing human complexity to the simplistic terms of a dehumanizing stereotype of abject servility and silence.”
Comment: These mechanisms – privatization and stereotypical sexualization – require whole chapters to explain.
In another era and another arena, we see the mechanism of injustice in Apartheid South Africa. Blacks had no right. Period. And that’s the way it was – entrenched. Nelson Mendala had no rights in prison for 20 some years – and came out to serve as a world-respected president of the country and a world-respected leader.
For centuries in America, in the Philippines, and around the world, gays and lesbians allowed themselves to be “as Blacks in Apartheid.” Reduced to dehumanized non-identity. He calls it abject servility and silence. He later explains an aspect of this as servility as “moral slavery” – the chaining of the minority (gays and lesbians, etc) to the moral whims (albeit traditions) of the majority.
It was all condemned to silence. “Don’t even think of rights – you have none.” And that is why same-sex marriage was not mentioned for centuries.
“Resistance to such unjust hierarchy clarifies and explains the legitimate grounds of contemporary expressions of gay and lesbian identity in the experience of an empowering choice and ethical demand of responsibility for self.”
Comment: Resistance ended Apartheid. Resistance ended “back of the bus” treatment of Blacks. Resistance gave women the choice of coming out the kitchen and laundry. Resistance brought recognition to indigenous people of the Philippines. Resistance brought “equal marriage” to all citizens of five countries of the world and recognition of same-sex relationships in many other places.
The book goers on at great lengths to explain the “legitimate” (lawful) grounds that gays and lesbians have for expressing their true identity (and humanity).
When I came to the Philippines (in 1991), I found that gays and lesbians in general did not realize there is an alternative to sex-negative theology, an alternative to “moral slavery,” slavery to the entrenched “morals” of the majority.
Richards fully explains there is a choice. Each person does the have the right to a natural and religious choice to be oneself and take responsibility for what the author will explain as “freedom of conscience.”
Thus the author ends the “Introduction.” He then devotes the book, four chapters, to “The Racial Analogy,” “The Gender Analogy,” “The Religious Analogy,“ and finally “Identity and Justice.”
My added comment: Why is this discussion of injustice and “silencing” and denying of identity of importance or value?
There may some among us today, still, in this day and age, gay or lesbian or whoever, who do not realize they have a right to advance from the back of the bus, if they choose; to come out of the closet of fear and shame, if they choose; to claim their rightful and just place in society, in church, in God’s embrace, if they choose.
And why should we never forget the injustice? Why should we never let the world forget? Why do the Jewish people, who lost millions of their fellow Jews in the Holocaust, build memorials and never let the world forget what happened in those extermination camps of dreaded memory? Can a world which remembers ever let it happen again?
Why was a symposium on the Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, composed of survivors and historians, held in Washington DC on April 28, 2000?
How many people – gay, lesbian, or straight – know about the Nazi programs to persecute and exterminate homosexuals – because they were inferior, not “real” Aryan human beings who did not bear good strong Aryan children; and that they were subjected to medical experimentation. Lesbians were not targeted, but gay men, especially effeminate ones, were imprisoned, sent to concentration camps and forced to wear pink triangles. Sometimes they were given the option of volunteering for castration.
Six million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. No one knows for sure how many homosexuals were among the additional five million “substandard” human victims killed by gas, torture, and furnaces of fire.
Even after the end of the war and liberation of the concentration camps in 1945, many homosexuals clung to silence in their shame.
In the here and now we can take a cue from Barack Obama’s campaign message. He says it is all about change. It is the past against the future. For us that means it’s time for change from moral slavery to freedom of conscience. For LGBT people, it’s all about change from injustice to justice.
So why is Professor Richards’ study of silence and “moral slavery” important and valuable?
It delves deeply into subjects that I am profoundly interested and involved in: gay and lesbian rights, women’s rights, and religious liberation from moral slavery.
It is written by David A. J. Richards, professor of Law and director of programs in Law, Philosophy, and Social Theory at New York University.
He is a leading philosopher who has brought together in this book all the topics in the book title into one learned thesis. He develops an intriguing study of social hierarchy and moral slavery.
He argues that racist, sexist, and anti-gay issues all have in common the degradation of human identity and denial of the rights of conscience. And this is what he calls “moral slavery.” I find the invention of that term an absolutely tremendous breakthrough.
It is impossible to summarize this weighty book in short, but “in short,” it is a powerful defense of gay rights. [Footnote: unfortunately he comes from a mind-set which uses gay as a substitute for homosexual, thus including in his intention all LGBT people. That is not my approach, and I try to cover it up wherever plausible.]
The book is written in the “deepest” (most learned) academic language as if for advanced doctoral degree candidates.
My challenge is, first of all, to understand it myself, and then in this blog to present his powerful arguments and valuable insights in language we can all understand.
There are six (Library of Congress) research areas referenced in the book title alone. One blog could not do justice to even one of these topics: gay rights, gay identity, Afro-American civil rights, women’s rights, freedom of religion, identity (psychological).
This blog will only analyze one short paragraph, the final paragraph of the Introduction to the book. I will present professor Richards’ words (modified only enough to make shorter sentences). Then I will briefly comment on each sentence.
“The case for gay rights expresses a structural injustice common to extreme religious intolerance, racism, and homophobia.”
Comment: He develops the proposition that the very structure of American culture expresses the same kind of injustice against Blacks (racial minorities), women, and persons with same-sex attraction. He calls it structural injustice because it is the basis and foundation of societal behavior that reduces all those who are “non-conformist” (to patriarchal one-mold society) to a common pit of unjust treatment – which he later identifies as “moral slavery.” [Note: the book deals with American society. It would be interesting to have an authoritative “social scientist” report on the relevance of these issues to Philippine society. In my 16 years now as a Filipino, I unauthoritatively observe the same phenomena.]
“The analysis of the case for gay rights also advances general understanding of the two mechanisms by which such injustice is entrenched: its privitatization and stereotypical sexualization.”
Comment: He will, in his own words, demonstrate how injustices became so much a mold and pattern of society that not even the victims recognized that they were victims.
Entrenched means “dug in,” “firmly set in place,” “immoveable,” and unremoveable, as it were.
That was when women naturally knew that their place was in the home kitchen and the home laundry. Blacks knew their place was in the back of the bus. Gays and lesbians knew that they had no place, and were even unmentionable. Gays and lesbians would never to dare think of the “right” to marriage because they knew they did not have a right to exist, and no rights.
“These mechanisms enforce on homosexuals (as they have on religious minorities, people of color, and women) rigidly defined, hierarchical terms of identity, thereby unjustly reducing human complexity to the simplistic terms of a dehumanizing stereotype of abject servility and silence.”
Comment: These mechanisms – privatization and stereotypical sexualization – require whole chapters to explain.
In another era and another arena, we see the mechanism of injustice in Apartheid South Africa. Blacks had no right. Period. And that’s the way it was – entrenched. Nelson Mendala had no rights in prison for 20 some years – and came out to serve as a world-respected president of the country and a world-respected leader.
For centuries in America, in the Philippines, and around the world, gays and lesbians allowed themselves to be “as Blacks in Apartheid.” Reduced to dehumanized non-identity. He calls it abject servility and silence. He later explains an aspect of this as servility as “moral slavery” – the chaining of the minority (gays and lesbians, etc) to the moral whims (albeit traditions) of the majority.
It was all condemned to silence. “Don’t even think of rights – you have none.” And that is why same-sex marriage was not mentioned for centuries.
“Resistance to such unjust hierarchy clarifies and explains the legitimate grounds of contemporary expressions of gay and lesbian identity in the experience of an empowering choice and ethical demand of responsibility for self.”
Comment: Resistance ended Apartheid. Resistance ended “back of the bus” treatment of Blacks. Resistance gave women the choice of coming out the kitchen and laundry. Resistance brought recognition to indigenous people of the Philippines. Resistance brought “equal marriage” to all citizens of five countries of the world and recognition of same-sex relationships in many other places.
The book goers on at great lengths to explain the “legitimate” (lawful) grounds that gays and lesbians have for expressing their true identity (and humanity).
When I came to the Philippines (in 1991), I found that gays and lesbians in general did not realize there is an alternative to sex-negative theology, an alternative to “moral slavery,” slavery to the entrenched “morals” of the majority.
Richards fully explains there is a choice. Each person does the have the right to a natural and religious choice to be oneself and take responsibility for what the author will explain as “freedom of conscience.”
Thus the author ends the “Introduction.” He then devotes the book, four chapters, to “The Racial Analogy,” “The Gender Analogy,” “The Religious Analogy,“ and finally “Identity and Justice.”
My added comment: Why is this discussion of injustice and “silencing” and denying of identity of importance or value?
There may some among us today, still, in this day and age, gay or lesbian or whoever, who do not realize they have a right to advance from the back of the bus, if they choose; to come out of the closet of fear and shame, if they choose; to claim their rightful and just place in society, in church, in God’s embrace, if they choose.
And why should we never forget the injustice? Why should we never let the world forget? Why do the Jewish people, who lost millions of their fellow Jews in the Holocaust, build memorials and never let the world forget what happened in those extermination camps of dreaded memory? Can a world which remembers ever let it happen again?
Why was a symposium on the Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, composed of survivors and historians, held in Washington DC on April 28, 2000?
How many people – gay, lesbian, or straight – know about the Nazi programs to persecute and exterminate homosexuals – because they were inferior, not “real” Aryan human beings who did not bear good strong Aryan children; and that they were subjected to medical experimentation. Lesbians were not targeted, but gay men, especially effeminate ones, were imprisoned, sent to concentration camps and forced to wear pink triangles. Sometimes they were given the option of volunteering for castration.
Six million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. No one knows for sure how many homosexuals were among the additional five million “substandard” human victims killed by gas, torture, and furnaces of fire.
Even after the end of the war and liberation of the concentration camps in 1945, many homosexuals clung to silence in their shame.
In the here and now we can take a cue from Barack Obama’s campaign message. He says it is all about change. It is the past against the future. For us that means it’s time for change from moral slavery to freedom of conscience. For LGBT people, it’s all about change from injustice to justice.
So why is Professor Richards’ study of silence and “moral slavery” important and valuable?
Friendship
I think a very good subject to start the new year with is Friendship. I capitalize the word because Abbot St. Aelred teaches us that God is Friendship.
Of course we will joyfully keep it positive even though His Holiness Pope Benedict Ratzinger has already in the first 4 days of the new year declared war and hatred four times on our same-sex Friendship (still capitalized).
The very Love which is of God, in God, and with God is condemned cold bloodedly and blasphemously. Indeed, those who live in Love and Friendship live in God, and God lives in them. So we don’t want to play the war and hatred game. It is just plain out of order. It does not ft the plan of God for Love and Friendship.
In our website, we note Abbot St. Aelred’s beautiful description of a “True Friend” (from his book on Love, “The Mirror of Love” which St. Bernard of Clairvaux asked him to write).
In Mirror of Love (Speculum Caritatis), we find a delightfully human description of what a friend is. This is indeed a model for true friendship; that is, friendship with love.
A True Friend
It is such a great joy to have the consolation of someone's affection;
someone to whom I am deeply united in the bonds of love;
someone with whom my weary spirit can find rest;
and to whom I may pour out my heart;
someone whose conversation is as sweet as a song in the tiring times of daily life;
someone whose presence is a harbor of calm when my life is rocked on the choppy seas of life;
someone to whom I can lay bare all my thoughts and secrets;
someone whose spirit will give me the comforting kiss that heals all the sickness of my troubled heart;
one who will cry with me when I am upset and rejoice with me when I am happy;
the one I can talk to when I need advice or good judgment;
someone so closely bound to my heart and soul that even when far away is together with me in spirit;
when the world falls asleep all around us, our souls will be embraced in absolute peace;
our hearts will lie quiet together, united in our oneness, as the grace of the Holy Spirit flows over us;
with heart and mind together, we are bound by the closest ties of love.
Abbot St. Aelred yearned for such a True Friend, and in his books he describes not only the general description of a “True Friend” (as above), but also reveals and describes his own beautiful relationships with “true friends.”
At the end of his description of a “True Friend,” he adds a very pointed paragraph. Since it was obvious that he was talking about a same-sex friend, he suggests that some people may find this wonderful awesome friendship between two persons of the same sex unusual.
Then he invites us to ponder the “model” of true friendship, directing us to look at the friendship of Jesus and his beloved friend. “No doubt,” he writes, “Jesus loved all the 12 apostles, but one had the privilege of lying with his head on the heart of Jesus.” He goes on to remind us, not just once, but eight times, that this one special one was called the beloved of Jesus, “the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.”
Is this the kind of Love and Friendship His Holiness has declared war on? Of course, he would deny that. I’m sure Abbot St. Aelred would debate that with him or anybody else.
Below, at the end, I am going to include a neutral “mini bio” of this “beloved disciple.” My friend, Ito, emails me every day the “Saint of the Day,” and that’s the website where this appears.
According to a very ancient tradition in the Christian church, the beloved disciple was St. John whose remembrance day is just after Christmas.
For now, and we have only just begun to discuss friendship, let conclude with a practical application of what it is to be a “true friend.” I want to make a little comment about “love’s bottom line,” a day to day way to put all the points of abbot St. Aelred’s description of a true friend into daily life situations.
When two people say they love each other, or they are “true friends,” and if their Friendship is truly “in God,” we say they will live “love’s bottom line.”
Some people, shall I say many people, seem to think that the purpose of being together is to argue, fight, and win. But those who want to live as true fiends, will always have in their heart and on their mind, not, “how can I win,” but “how can I make my partner happy?” It’s the secret to the happiest relationship, friendship, in the world.
Now go back and ponder Abbot St. Aelred’s description of “A True Friend.” Then you see some of the manifestations of the happy life and friendship of those who live love’s bottom line. This is Friendship at its very best, because God is Friendship and those who live in Friendship live in God, and God lives in them.
Since I have been teaching “Love’s bottom line” for several years, I receive happy stories form around the world. Please email your questions or comments about Friendship, about Love’s Bottom Line. (Email: saintaelred@gmail.com)
Fr. Richard
December 27, 2007
St. John the Apostle
It is God who calls; human beings answer. The vocation of John and his brother James is stated very simply in the Gospels, along with that of Peter and his brother Andrew: Jesus called them; they followed. The absoluteness of their response is indicated by the account. James and John “were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him” (Matthew 4:21b-22).
For the three former fishermen—Peter, James and John—that faith was to be rewarded by a special friendship with Jesus. They alone were privileged to be present at the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemane. But John’s friendship was even more special. Tradition assigns to him the Fourth Gospel, although most modern Scripture scholars think it unlikely that the apostle and the evangelist are the same person.
John’s own Gospel refers to him as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2), the one who reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper, and the one to whom he gave the exquisite honor, as he stood beneath the cross, of caring for his mother. “Woman, behold your son... Behold, your mother” (John 19:26b, 27b).
Because of the depth of his Gospel, John is usually thought of as the eagle of theology, soaring in high regions that other writers did not enter. But the ever-frank Gospels reveal some very human traits. Jesus gave James and John the nickname, “sons of thunder.” While it is difficult to know exactly what this meant, a clue is given in two incidents.
In the first, as Matthew tells it, their mother asked that they might sit in the places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom—one on his right hand, one on his left. When Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup he would drink and be baptized with his baptism of pain, they blithely answered, “We can!” Jesus said that they would indeed share his cup, but that sitting at his right hand was not his to give. It was for those to whom it had been reserved by the Father. The other apostles were indignant at the mistaken ambition of the brothers, and Jesus took the occasion to teach them the true nature of authority: “...[W]hoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:27-28).
On another occasion the “sons of thunder” asked Jesus if they should not call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable Samaritans, who would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. But Jesus “turned and rebuked them” (see Luke 9:51-55).
On the first Easter, Mary Magdalene “ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, ‘They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him’” (John 20:2). John recalls, perhaps with a smile, that he and Peter ran side by side, but then “the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first” (John 20:4b). He did not enter, but waited for Peter and let him go in first. “Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8).
John was with Peter when the first great miracle after the Resurrection took place—the cure of the man crippled from birth—which led to their spending the night in jail together. The mysterious experience of the Resurrection is perhaps best contained in the words of Acts: “Observing the boldness of Peter and John and perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they [the questioners] were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
The evangelist wrote the great Gospel, the letters and the Book of Revelation. His Gospel is a very personal account. He sees the glorious and divine Jesus already in the incidents of his mortal life. At the Last Supper, John’s Jesus speaks as if he were already in heaven. It is the Gospel of Jesus’ glory.
Comment:
It is a long way from being eager to sit on a throne of power or to call down fire from heaven to becoming the man who could write: “The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).
Quote:
A persistent story has it that John’s “parishioners” grew tired of his one sermon, which relentlessly emphasized: “Love one another.” Whether the story is true or not, it has basis in John’s writing. He wrote what may be called a summary of the Bible: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.” (1 John 4:16)
(This entry appears in the print edition of Saint of the Day.)
Of course we will joyfully keep it positive even though His Holiness Pope Benedict Ratzinger has already in the first 4 days of the new year declared war and hatred four times on our same-sex Friendship (still capitalized).
The very Love which is of God, in God, and with God is condemned cold bloodedly and blasphemously. Indeed, those who live in Love and Friendship live in God, and God lives in them. So we don’t want to play the war and hatred game. It is just plain out of order. It does not ft the plan of God for Love and Friendship.
In our website, we note Abbot St. Aelred’s beautiful description of a “True Friend” (from his book on Love, “The Mirror of Love” which St. Bernard of Clairvaux asked him to write).
In Mirror of Love (Speculum Caritatis), we find a delightfully human description of what a friend is. This is indeed a model for true friendship; that is, friendship with love.
A True Friend
It is such a great joy to have the consolation of someone's affection;
someone to whom I am deeply united in the bonds of love;
someone with whom my weary spirit can find rest;
and to whom I may pour out my heart;
someone whose conversation is as sweet as a song in the tiring times of daily life;
someone whose presence is a harbor of calm when my life is rocked on the choppy seas of life;
someone to whom I can lay bare all my thoughts and secrets;
someone whose spirit will give me the comforting kiss that heals all the sickness of my troubled heart;
one who will cry with me when I am upset and rejoice with me when I am happy;
the one I can talk to when I need advice or good judgment;
someone so closely bound to my heart and soul that even when far away is together with me in spirit;
when the world falls asleep all around us, our souls will be embraced in absolute peace;
our hearts will lie quiet together, united in our oneness, as the grace of the Holy Spirit flows over us;
with heart and mind together, we are bound by the closest ties of love.
Abbot St. Aelred yearned for such a True Friend, and in his books he describes not only the general description of a “True Friend” (as above), but also reveals and describes his own beautiful relationships with “true friends.”
At the end of his description of a “True Friend,” he adds a very pointed paragraph. Since it was obvious that he was talking about a same-sex friend, he suggests that some people may find this wonderful awesome friendship between two persons of the same sex unusual.
Then he invites us to ponder the “model” of true friendship, directing us to look at the friendship of Jesus and his beloved friend. “No doubt,” he writes, “Jesus loved all the 12 apostles, but one had the privilege of lying with his head on the heart of Jesus.” He goes on to remind us, not just once, but eight times, that this one special one was called the beloved of Jesus, “the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.”
Is this the kind of Love and Friendship His Holiness has declared war on? Of course, he would deny that. I’m sure Abbot St. Aelred would debate that with him or anybody else.
Below, at the end, I am going to include a neutral “mini bio” of this “beloved disciple.” My friend, Ito, emails me every day the “Saint of the Day,” and that’s the website where this appears.
According to a very ancient tradition in the Christian church, the beloved disciple was St. John whose remembrance day is just after Christmas.
For now, and we have only just begun to discuss friendship, let conclude with a practical application of what it is to be a “true friend.” I want to make a little comment about “love’s bottom line,” a day to day way to put all the points of abbot St. Aelred’s description of a true friend into daily life situations.
When two people say they love each other, or they are “true friends,” and if their Friendship is truly “in God,” we say they will live “love’s bottom line.”
Some people, shall I say many people, seem to think that the purpose of being together is to argue, fight, and win. But those who want to live as true fiends, will always have in their heart and on their mind, not, “how can I win,” but “how can I make my partner happy?” It’s the secret to the happiest relationship, friendship, in the world.
Now go back and ponder Abbot St. Aelred’s description of “A True Friend.” Then you see some of the manifestations of the happy life and friendship of those who live love’s bottom line. This is Friendship at its very best, because God is Friendship and those who live in Friendship live in God, and God lives in them.
Since I have been teaching “Love’s bottom line” for several years, I receive happy stories form around the world. Please email your questions or comments about Friendship, about Love’s Bottom Line. (Email: saintaelred@gmail.com)
Fr. Richard
December 27, 2007
St. John the Apostle
It is God who calls; human beings answer. The vocation of John and his brother James is stated very simply in the Gospels, along with that of Peter and his brother Andrew: Jesus called them; they followed. The absoluteness of their response is indicated by the account. James and John “were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him” (Matthew 4:21b-22).
For the three former fishermen—Peter, James and John—that faith was to be rewarded by a special friendship with Jesus. They alone were privileged to be present at the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemane. But John’s friendship was even more special. Tradition assigns to him the Fourth Gospel, although most modern Scripture scholars think it unlikely that the apostle and the evangelist are the same person.
John’s own Gospel refers to him as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2), the one who reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper, and the one to whom he gave the exquisite honor, as he stood beneath the cross, of caring for his mother. “Woman, behold your son... Behold, your mother” (John 19:26b, 27b).
Because of the depth of his Gospel, John is usually thought of as the eagle of theology, soaring in high regions that other writers did not enter. But the ever-frank Gospels reveal some very human traits. Jesus gave James and John the nickname, “sons of thunder.” While it is difficult to know exactly what this meant, a clue is given in two incidents.
In the first, as Matthew tells it, their mother asked that they might sit in the places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom—one on his right hand, one on his left. When Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup he would drink and be baptized with his baptism of pain, they blithely answered, “We can!” Jesus said that they would indeed share his cup, but that sitting at his right hand was not his to give. It was for those to whom it had been reserved by the Father. The other apostles were indignant at the mistaken ambition of the brothers, and Jesus took the occasion to teach them the true nature of authority: “...[W]hoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:27-28).
On another occasion the “sons of thunder” asked Jesus if they should not call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable Samaritans, who would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. But Jesus “turned and rebuked them” (see Luke 9:51-55).
On the first Easter, Mary Magdalene “ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, ‘They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him’” (John 20:2). John recalls, perhaps with a smile, that he and Peter ran side by side, but then “the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first” (John 20:4b). He did not enter, but waited for Peter and let him go in first. “Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8).
John was with Peter when the first great miracle after the Resurrection took place—the cure of the man crippled from birth—which led to their spending the night in jail together. The mysterious experience of the Resurrection is perhaps best contained in the words of Acts: “Observing the boldness of Peter and John and perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they [the questioners] were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
The evangelist wrote the great Gospel, the letters and the Book of Revelation. His Gospel is a very personal account. He sees the glorious and divine Jesus already in the incidents of his mortal life. At the Last Supper, John’s Jesus speaks as if he were already in heaven. It is the Gospel of Jesus’ glory.
Comment:
It is a long way from being eager to sit on a throne of power or to call down fire from heaven to becoming the man who could write: “The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).
Quote:
A persistent story has it that John’s “parishioners” grew tired of his one sermon, which relentlessly emphasized: “Love one another.” Whether the story is true or not, it has basis in John’s writing. He wrote what may be called a summary of the Bible: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.” (1 John 4:16)
(This entry appears in the print edition of Saint of the Day.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)