Ritagail’s posterous

Yesterday at Mass, I was "caught" by the reading of the Gospel where Jesus picks up a little child and, basically, uses the child for an object lesson..............(paraphrased from memory) "If you receive one of these....". 

While standing there, immediately the image of myself being put in the midst of all these churchy folks.....complete with my reddened/blistered nose.  Yes, I had/have a few pimples that are wreaking havoc underneath a sunburn.........bright red while my cheeks are relatively pale.....out front where EVERYbody can see it.

Nobody said anything at Mass, thank goodness, but, one lady just had to point it out to me before Mass.  Now, in all fairness she was trying to be motherly, something I've been guilty of.......ending her talk by telling me I could put a hot wet washrag on it to burst the whitehead..........

So, there I am standing for the Gospel, with this image of me being God's object lesson:  "Look at this Child of mine, bicycling her way to Mass, not hiding even with her big red nose!!"  (Great, NOW I'm God's Rudolph!!!  Haven't flown yet, gee whiz, ya'd think I'd get SOME compensation!!)

Anybody going to join me out there being one of God's object lessons???  Maybe we could start a club or something.  Oh wait, I forgot......THAT'S supposed to be CHURCH!!!!

Red Nose Blinking Over and Out

****************************************

For those of you who are worried that Vatican II priests/bishops are hiding during the current sickening power grab, here is a link to a letter posted on National Catholic Reporter from a priest to his bishop:

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/kansas-city-st-joseph-diocese-priest-criticizes-his-bishops-leadership

Amazing how the hill has changed in just a week.  The leaves are already starting to turn, but still a lot of green

It was a family of deer.  First we saw the doe and one fawn.  Then I saw the buck and Hubby saw another fawn.

Hubby whispering through his teeth:  "Get the camera."

Me whispering back through my teeth:  "They'll leave!"

Hubby:  "Get the camera."

Slowly, as cat-like as possible, I reached my left hand towards the backpack Hubby was wearing to get my camera out of it.  Unzipped the wrong pocket.   The deer were getting nervous.

Unzipped the other pocket.  Unzipped the camera case.  Got out the camera.  By this time the little ones were going into the high grass for cover and the adults were starting to leave.  Three pics I got, zooming in further at each one. 

Sadly, I didn't get a pic of the whole family, and the first two were either too far away or they had their backs to us, but, in the third before they completely disappeared into the woods, I got the Mister.  Hubby helped me get my first buck today (in photo format).

He told me later, "It was all I could do to keep from yelling 'Get out the damn camera!!'."

Before I get going on my current subjects,  it may seem that I don't care about some current issues, such as the upcoming 9/11 memorials, health care, etc. 

1) I always stop to pray for others, 9/11 or not. 

2) I'm resigned to the fact that I will die low-income in America and most likely not receive the health care that I need.  I mean, I don't get it now and I don't see any coming any time soon.  (In the state of Oklahoma, Medicaid is not based on income, if you aren't on Disability or SSI and are over 21, you simply don't qualify.)  Anything passed by Congress for persons in my socioeconomic class will most likely be too late, and, I won't be alone.  I no longer get angry, just resigned to the fact and move on with living the most I can.  IF I'm proven wrong, so much the better, but, I refuse to waste my life either in anger over people not doing the right thing or in waiting for something that might never happen.

Actually, that resignation and acceptance is part of what I want to write about.  It's been a few weeks since I was given the gift of seeing the movie Seraphine.  If you missed my post about the movie, it is a beautifully videographed French film about a painter named Seraphine who lived in France, not sure when she was born, died in 1942.  She worked as a housekeeper/washerwoman/cook for the middle/upper classes, but when she wasn't doing their labors for them, she spent time with nature and painted images of nature.  She was Catholic.  She ended up going "mad" and died in an asylum. 

The movie is in itself a work of art.  It is most likely dramatized, one review calls it "fictionalized", but, one thing's for sure, without the real Seraphine for inspiration,there could have been no movie.

In this movie, I saw myself mirrored.  Seraphine isn't like everyone else, she's physically round, loves nature, attends Mass, sings heartily, clods to work, does her work, mutters under her breath, manages to find compassion for others, knows she's "beneath" those she works for--yet will not let ANYone, not the landlady to whom she owes money, not the shopkeeper to whom she owes money, not the nasty middle class woman who tells her she is wasting time painting.......none of them keeps her from working the God-given creative calling she has within herself, and so she paints.

If anything, I need to get more of her determination to work on my own creativity in spite of the naysayers and those to whom I "owe", be it money or alleged respect.

I also don't drink like she did, which, as the health people are now telling us, makes me less healthy.

Because I saw myself reflected in this movie, saw the Beauty of Seraphine, I had to acknowledge my own beauty.  I'll be mulling that for a time, but, the other totally unexpected gift God gave me from this movie is that BECAUSE I saw so much of myself mirrored, I also saw what the "others" are and have been like in my life.  I've been trying to find a kind way to put what these people......and there are many of them in fact I see them as the "ruling majority".....been trying to find a kind word(s) to call these people, and I still haven't figured out a nice way to say it, so, I'll just put it in my own words:

They are no good.

Period.

They not only have no right to have told/tell me what I should and should not be doing, but, they are so wrapped up in their own worlds that they really are ignorant of what is best for me (and people like me).

One person used the word "insignificant".  That's still not quite the word I'm searching for, but, it may be getting closer. 

Unexpectedly, and blessedly, this realization let the air out of the huge balloon of anger/bitterness/resentment that has been building within me the last several years. 

Not only did it let out the anger, but it also seems to have somehow wiped out most of my shame at not being able to be a "productive member of society", of what label to give myself for what is "wrong" with me, of not being one of the family, of not being one of the church.

This movie, which I strongly believe God nudged me to go see......I nearly didn't go.......did for me what no religious experience has ever been able to do.  In my lifetime I've been to more altar calls than I can count, searched religious orders for answers, begged God to show me what the heck it is that I am doing so wrong, why oh why can't I get it right?

So, God smiled on me and used this movie to put it right in front of my face:  When I work the gifts God has given me, it doesn't matter if I'm "successful" by society's or even the church's standards, when I'm simply being myself I AM doing what God asks of me. 

At first, this shocked me, that I had finally gotten the message a few people have been wishing I'd "get" from outside of church.  And then I realized after my last post about the movie, Seraphine WAS/IS part of the Church!!!  Yes, I know some, perhaps many, devout persons will vehemently disapprove of this movie, but that doesn't negate Seraphine's faith, or mine.

I am part of the Church. 

Ok, now some of you will be asking what am I writing this for?  Because, I've been asking God if I should stay Catholic, even more, if I should stay in any branch of organized Christianity.   I'm sickened and appalled by the current Catholic liturgical war, but I'm also just as sick and tired of some of the other denominations bickering over what is or is not "Christian".  So, I've been begging Jesus for an answer, do I belong, or don't I?  Do I stay or do I just drop out and let them all bury themselves in their hatreds of each other?

I don't know if I've been given the whole answer, or, if I've even got a handle on the partial answer, but, this is what came to me:  Seraphine believed.  She went to Mass and prayed and sang because of her faith and because she wanted to.  "Church", for the most part--there is a hint that some religious Sisters were kind to her--but regular parishioners, etc. were no help to her, they weren't going to include her in their social web.  And Seraphine didn't care.  She loved God, she worked, she loved God's Creation, she played in that Creation, she painted.

Seraphine did her own thing.  She left behind a legacy of creativity and compassion and staying within a Church that is frequently frigid and void of love.  Seraphine stayed not because of the people who call themselves "Christian", but because of Jesus Christ Himself, because of God the Artist and Giver of the Arts.  A path for a few of us to follow around all of the "church noise" that threatens to shove us out:  Nurture your own faith; work the gifts God gives you; cheer and/or help others if/when you can; leave behind a few works to show you were there--each of us who journeys this way makes the path just a bit more visible for others to find; and, if you go crazy, it's ok because God is there.

That's all I will write for now.  I still want to write about a theology of art, of the unseen person behind the work of art that is left behind to point the way.  This is something I've been struggling with since I tried to put it into words in seminary days, more than 15 years ago, when I was told specifically that art is not a ministry.

Thank you and a nudge of encouragement to everyone who reads this and knows what I'm writing about.

And the South Wind blows the Sun's
Heat
Once more,
Giving me Reason
To eat an ice cream bar
And sip a soda
In the midst of fallen
Pine needles
While gazing into the haze of the hills
Where trees' leaves are weary,
Welcoming the dry hot winds
That will turn them from green
To blaze
Before dropping to rest
Upon a ground of hope
And promise
And patient enduring of a
Cold Winter's Night
Before Spring plays
Havoc
Between North Wind and South
And starts the process of
Green
And
Growth
And
Possibility
All over God's Earth
One
More
Time.

rgcb
2009