Photo of the Day

Related Off-site Links:
Twin Cities: Bitter Cold, Dangerous Wind Chills, More Snow Expected – Joseph Lindberg (Pioneer Press, December 6, 2013).
Salt, Plows Can't Dent 'Bulletproof' Ice Pack on Twin Cities Roads – Rochelle Olson (Star Tribune, December 9, 2013).
After a Snow Globe of a Day, Get Ready for the Arctic Blast – Jenna Ross (Star Tribune, December 5, 2013).
Big Storm Dumps Snow on East Coast, Travel Dicey – Michael Rubinkam and Dan Gelston (Associated Press via Yahoo! News, December 9, 2013).
Cold, Ice Grip U.S. as More Snow to Blanket East – Carey Gillam (Reuters via Yahoo! News, December 9, 2013).
Cold Snap Felt Across the Nation – Yahoo! News (December 9, 2013).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Photo of the Day – February 1, 2013
Photo of the Day – December 9, 2012
Winter Storm
Shadows and Light
A Winter Walk Along Minnehaha Creek
Just in Time for Winter
First Snowfall
Winter Garden
Northwoods

Image: "Window View" by Michael J. Bayly.

(Old) Catholic Thoughts on the Feast of the Theotokos

When I started The Wild Reed in May of 2006 it was to share "thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective." This remains true today as it was back then. However, over the years I've discovered that the "Catholic" is actually more Old Catholic than Roman Catholic. I have my good friend Bob, an Old Catholic priest whom I first meet back in July 2007, to thank for this discovery. Bob recently married his longtime partner John. (Yes, Old Catholicism, despite its name, is a very progressive, inclusive, and thus authentic expression of Catholicism!) Currently, Bob is serving as an Old Catholic military chaplain in Kuwait. (Yes, a married gay Catholic priest serving openly in the U.S. military. When I first met Bob in 2007, this was pretty much unthinkable. How far we've come in such a short time!)

In short, thanks to Bob and in particular his authoring of the book on Old Catholicism in America, I've come to understand and greatly appreciate Old Catholicism and the ways it aligns with and differs from Roman Catholicism.

I share all of this as a way of introducing the following reflection that Bob wrote earlier today and shared on Facebook. It's a reflection on the feast of the Theotokos (Mary the Mother of God), a feast that Old Catholics, Orthodox, and Roman Catholics celebrate today.

Old Catholics and Orthodox view Mary's role differently from the Roman Catholic Church, theologically speaking.

The use of the term "the stain of Original Sin" is exclusive Roman Catholic Church terminology and is NOT the language of Old Catholic or Orthodox Christians.

The Old Catholic and Orthodox doctrinal belief is we are all born into a sinful world made sinful by the Fall/Pride of Adam. No one is or ever has been conceived and born with a “stain” resulting from Adam’s sin. In her lifetime, the Blessed Virgin Mary chose the good and holy with the help of the Holy Spirit. The most perfect example of this is when she allowed the Holy Spirit to overshadow her at the annunciation.

Because Roman Catholic doctrine teaches that all people bear the stain and guilt of original sin from the moment of their conception in the womb, the Roman Catholic Church had to devise a “Doctrine of Immaculate Conception” (a product of the infallibility doctrine) to confirm that the Holy Mother was sinless because, the Vatican rationalized, our Lord could not be born of someone sinful.

The Old Catholic and Orthodox way (because there is a strong emphasis of Christian freedom of conscience in both churches) assert that the immaculate conception doctrine makes Mary different from the rest of humankind; it makes her not fully human because she was not by her own choice sinless but by the will of God. If Mary were sinless by God’s choice, not hers, then by virtue of the fact that she was as fully human as all of humankind is and has been, then God could make us all sinless and take away the free will given to us by our being created in His image and likeness. The immaculate conception is altogether a different teaching from that of the Early Church fathers about Mary's importance in God's plan of salvation.

For further reading, see Life of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, by Blessed John Maximovitch, published by Holy Apostles Convent, Buena Vista, CA.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Old Catholic Church: Catholicism Beyond Rome
Understanding the Old Catholic Church (Part 1)
Understanding the Old Catholic Church (Part 2)
Understanding the Old Catholic Church (Part 3)
Robert Caruso's Scholarly Introduction to Old Catholicism
The Declaration of Utrecht
Celebrating the Dormition of Mary
Celebrating the Risen Christ – Old Catholic Style
Robert Caruso on the Pentecost Rainbow Sash Presence at the Cathedral
An Old Catholic Perspective on the Roman Hierarchy's "Dumbing Down" of the Catholic Church
An Old Catholic Perspective on the Papacy
Adventures in Mississippi River Bluff Country

Image: Theotokos of Vladimir.

Edward Sellner on the Archetype of the Double and Male Eros, Friendships and Mentoring

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According to Lisa Wade in a recent Salon.com article, American men are facing a "hidden crisis" in that they are failing to make the same kinds of intimate friendships many women have – even though they want to.

Writes Wade:

When asked about what they desire from their friendships, men are just as likely as women to say that they want intimacy. And, just like women, their satisfaction with their friendships is strongly correlated with the level of self-disclosure. Moreover, when asked to describe what they mean by intimacy, men say the same thing as women: emotional support, disclosure and having someone to take care of them. Men desire the same level and type of intimacy in their friendships as women, but they aren’t getting it.

This lack of deep, intimate friendships has consequences, says Wade, as having a friend to whom you can disclose your feelings is a "major determinant of well-being."

I mention this article as earlier this year I had the honor of being invited to write an endorsement for a book all male bonding and intimate friendships. The book, entitled The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring – From Gilgamesh to Kerouac, is written by my friend and former college professor Edward Sellner.

Following is what I wrote about Ed's latest book . . .

The Double is a remarkable accomplishment as, with insight and verve, Ed Sellner illuminates the archetype of male bonding and relationships in contexts both ancient and contemporary. Weaving scholarship, informed analysis, storytelling, and personal sharing, Sellner takes his readers on a compelling exploration of a long-ignored archetype. It's a journey that affirms the energy that inspires and sustains a range of male-to-male relationships, including those of fathers, sons, brothers, friends, comrades, and lovers. In a world that routinely views the expressing of emotion between men as suspect, Sellner's The Double is a much need and healing balm.

The double is, without doubt, an intriguing archetype. Early in his book Ed (pictured at right) reminds us that archetypes are "psychic patterns . . . constellations of energies, blueprints of basic human drives and qualities that we all share." Like all archetypes, the double has both a positive and negative side. As examples of the latter, Ed identifies a number of behaviors that are both self-destructive and harmful to others. These include sexual compulsiveness (including pornography), sexual abuse and lack of respect for other males' integrity and vulnerability, and the acting out of various narcissistic tendencies. In terms of the positive side of the double, Ed suggests that perhaps the most powerful symbol of male friendship and mentoring offered by the Christian tradition is that of Jesus and the "beloved disciple," a relationship that he devotes a chapter to in his book.

Throughout The Double Ed defines and celebrates eros as a transforming spiritual power of love and connection. In the excerpt I share below from The Double, this understanding of eros is explored within the context of "the ancients" – the Celts, in particular. I hope this excerpt provides a sense of the importance of Ed's book for our world today, a world in which, as Lisa Wade notes in her Salon.com article, so many men, especially in the industrialized west, are in crisis around their lack of guidance and support in developing intimate friendships with other men.

Ancient peoples, including the Greeks and Celts, were convinced that eros is a unifying power, a source of creativity and meaning, an opportunity for spiritual growth. It is definitely associated with attractions and needs, both physical and spiritual, which often overlap, especially when people are intimately involved or living in close proximity with each other. For warriors [such as] in the stories of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Achilles and Patroclus, and Cú Chulainn and Fer Diad, the battles and wars in their lives brought them closer together than probably any other situation might, and because of their deep friendship as well as their crucial dependence on each other for survival itself ,any of them responded both emotionally and physically.

The ancients, especially the Celts, thus knew of the power of eros, acknowledging the inherent mystery of attraction and celebrating it in stories, rituals, and dance. They knew that attraction contains all sorts of elements – from childhood experiences, dream figures, fantasies, to the basic human need to touch and be touched. They knew too that. among both women and men, some might be more strongly pulled to the opposite or to the same gender as themselves, while some might be drawn to both. This, the ancients thought, was a matter of personality and taste, like the preference for red wine rather than white. They didn't divide people nor themselves as we do today into strict categories labelled "heterosexual" or "homosexual." They simply acknowledged erotic feelings in relationships when they became aware of them, and were often grateful for them as a sign of genuine love. They recognized that although eros can be expressed genitally, and at times self-indulgently, its presence is also a manifestation of the deeper levels of the soul, and the soul's needs for wholeness and meaning, friendship and community. They did not seek to demonize eros or erotic attraction as the later Christians did by turning the god Cernunnos into Satan himself, replacing the stag horns of the Celtic god of fertility in art, icons, and spiritual literature with demon's horns, tail, and cloven feet.

. . . The ancient Celts did not limit the erotic to the human body alone. Their eros included the beautiful landscape in which they lived which caused them to be filled with wonder and awe at its mysterious beauty and power. They believed that the rivers and trees had a melodious voice and that one could hear music in the moving waters and rustling leaves. The positive side of their erotic traditions included a profound appreciation of physicality, of natural beauty – whether in nature or in the feminine and masculine expression of beautiful bodies. Above all, their sexuality was perceived as a sacred phenomenon, including even when Celtic men expressed themselves with one another as bed-partners or simply as friends.

We today can learn from them, or we can try to contain our eros, as St. Kevin and later Celtic saints did, with cold baths, sparse diets, sleepless nights, and immersion in our work. For many of us, however, our struggle is not to suppress our passions, but to somehow find ways of channeling them into creative expressions of our love and spirituality, of our soul.

– Edward C. Sellner
The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring:
From Gilgamesh to Kerouac
pp. 99-101

Related Off-site Links:
American Men's Hidden Crisis: They Need More Friends – Lisa Wade (Salon, December 7, 2013).
The Double Archetype: Men Loving Men – Edward C. Sellner (Aisling Magazine, 1998).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Manly Love
A Fresh Take on Masculinity
Rockin' with Maxwell
Learning from the East
The Trouble with the Male Dancer

For more on eros at The Wild Reed, see:
"More Lovely Than the Dawn": God as Divine Lover
In the Garden of Spirituality – Diarmuid Ó Murchú
In the Garden of Spirituality – James B. Nelson
Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 1)
Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 2)
The Dancer and the Dance

Nelson Mandela and the Rainbow Connection

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For LGBT people around the world, the rainbow is celebrated as a symbol of sexual and gender diversity. South Africans adopted it with the end of institutional apartheid, to describe themselves as the “rainbow nation”, celebrating ethnic and linguistic diversity.

In his life and legacy, Nelson Mandela showed us that freedom and human rights are indeed, indivisible . . . Just as Mandela refused to limit his own support for justice to just one sphere, of racial equality, so we too must always remember that our struggle for full LGBT equality and inclusion in church and in the secular world must not be at the expense of other marginalised and excluded people.

We must learn from his own example of outreach and forgiveness, to work without resentment with those who have opposed us, making them partners, not enemies . . . We must remain always optimistic that in the end, justice will prevail . . . And above all, love is more powerful than hate. No one is born hating other races – and nor is anyone born hating sexual or gender minorities.

– Terence Weldon

"Nelson Mandela – Queer Icon for a Rainbow Nation"
Queering the Church
December 6, 2013

Related Off-site Links:
The Moral Courage of Nelson Mandela – Desmond Tutu (The Washington Post, December 5, 2013).
Remembering Nelson Mandela: From Freedom Fighter to Political Prisoner to South African President – Democracy Now! (December 6, 2013).
Sanitizing Mandela: 12 Mandela Quotes That Won't Be In the Corporate Media Obituaries – CommonDreams.org (December 6, 2013).
Dear Revisionists, Mandela Will Never, Ever Be Your Minstrel – Musa Okwonga (Okwonga.com, December 6, 2013).
The Right Wing’s Campaign to Discredit and Undermine Mandela, in One Timeline – Igor Volsky and Zack Beauchamp (ThinkProgress.org, December 6, 2013).
Mandela, A Life of Struggle: The History Most Mainstream Obits Omit – Derrick O'Keefe and Jahanzeb Hussain (CommonDreams.org, December 6, 2013).
Don't Sanitize Nelson Mandela – Peter Beinart (The Daily Beast, December 5, 2013).
Friends of the Earth South Africa Reflects on the Life of Nelson Mandela – Bobby Peek (Friends of the Earth, December 6, 2013).
Randall Robinson on Nelson Mandela, U.S. Backing of the Apartheid Regime, and the Success of the Sanctions Movement – Democracy Now! (December 6, 2013).
Pope Honors Mandela for "Forging a New South Africa" – AFP via Yahoo! News (December 6, 2013).

Image: Patrice Murciano

Europe 2005

Part 6: Paris

For reasons that I'll go into at a later time, I'm keen to wrap-up various series that I've started here at The Wild Reed. A few weeks ago, for instance, I concluded Pahá Sápa Adventure, my series of posts documenting time spent in the Black Hills of South Dakota earlier this year.

This evening I conclude a series started back in August of 2010, and which highlights the two weeks that my parents and I spent traveling in Europe in the summer of 2005. The main focus of this final installment is on our time in Paris. However, the first couple of photos are actually of Lucerne, Switzerland, which we visited while traveling to Paris from Florence, Italy.

Above: In this picture can be seen part of one of Lucerne's most famous landmarks, the Chapel Bridge (Kapellbrücke), a wooden bridge first erected in the 14th century.

About Lucerne Wikipedia notes:

Lucerne is a city in north-central Switzerland, in the German-speaking portion of that country. It is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and the capital of the district of the same name. With a population of about 76,200 people, Lucerne is the most populous city in Central Switzerland, and a nexus of transportation, telecommunications, and government of this region. The city's urban area consists of 17 cities and towns located in three different cantons with an overall population of about 250,000 people.

Above: During our time in Lucerne we visited a Swiss village on the outskirts of the city. Part of the journey involved traveling in a horse-drawn wagon. It was while we were enjoying the warm Swiss sun and the beautiful alpine vistas that we heard about the terrible event that had taken place in the U.S.

Thursday, September 1, 2005 (11:57 p.m.)

I was in the picturesque and peaceful Swiss countryside this morning, enjoying a horse and carriage ride, when I was informed of the events in New Orleans. Tonight I've been watching CNN International in my Lucerne hotel room. As many as 1,000 people could be dead in New Orleans and elsewhere in the region as the result of Hurricane Katrina. Elsewhere, close to 1,000 people have been killed in Baghdad as a result of a stampede of people on a bridge. I've also just finished viewing a special commemorative program on the first anniversary of the Beslam massacre in Russia. So much suffering, chaos and destruction in the world. I pray for all affected by such realities – pray that they may know God's transforming love, strength and peace in their lives.

The U.S. officials, including President Bush, all seem totally inept. They also sound incredibly pompous and uncaring – more concerned about their reputations than the harsh truth that their response to this disaster has been totally inadequate. I pray that there will be justice and accountability in the weeks and months ahead.

Above: Paris!

Following is another excerpt from my journal.

Sunday, September 4, 2005

Paris was very beautiful and interesting – though, as with London, it's unfortunate that so many of its monuments and buildings honor military exploits and the conquests of empire.

At the Louvre on Friday night I located three statues of Antinous – one original piece from Roman times and two that were made in later times. I'm getting quite good at recognizing Antinous, which is just as well as the museum guides were hopeless.

After the Lourve we went on a night cruise on the Seine. Yesterday we visited the Eiffel Tower and Napolean's tomb.

Afterwards, Mum, Dad and I did our own thing by catching a city sightseeing bus and visiting the Arc de Triomphe. We then went in search of the last home of Maria Callas – which we found easily enough as the bus dropped us off quite close to Georges Mandel Avenue.

Last night we enjoyed a night of entertainment at a Parisian cabaret – complete with can-can dancers, acrobats and jugglers.

Above: A view of the base of the Eiffel Tower – Saturday, September 3, 2005.

Notes Wikipedia:

The Eiffel Tower (La Tour Eiffel) is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. It was named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, it has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world; 7.1 million people ascended it in 2011. The tower received its 250 millionth visitor in 2010.

The tower stands 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to assume the title of the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years, until the Chrysler Building in New York City was built in 1930. Because of the addition of the antenna atop the Eiffel Tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres (17 ft). Not including broadcast antennas, it is the second-tallest structure in France, after the Millau Viaduct.

The tower has three levels for visitors. The third level observatory's upper platform is at 279.11 m (915.7 ft) the highest accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend, by stairs or lift (elevator), to the first and second levels. The walk from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the walk from the first to the second level. Although there are stairs to the third and highest level, these are usually closed to the public and it is usually accessible only by lift. The first and second levels have restaurants.

Above: Mum and Dad on a night cruise on the River Seine – Friday, September 2, 2005.

Above: The Arc de Triomphe – Saturday, September 3, 2005.

About this impressive structure Wikipedia notes the following:

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle (originally named Place de l'Étoile), at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. The Arc de Triomphe (in English: "Triumphal Arch") honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.

The Arc de Triomphe is the linchpin of the historic axis (Axe historique) – a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route which goes from the courtyard of the Louvre, to the Grande Arche de la Défense. The monument was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806, and its iconographic program pitted heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail. It set the tone for public monuments, with triumphant patriotic messages.

The monument stands 50 metres (164 ft) in height, 45 m (148 ft) wide and 22 m (72 ft) deep. The large vault is 29.19 m (95.8 ft) high and 14.62 m (48.0 ft) wide. The small vault is 18.68 m (61.3 ft) high and 8.44 m (27.7 ft) wide. It was the largest triumphal arch in existence until the construction of the Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang, in 1982. Its design was inspired by the Roman Arch of Titus. The Arc de Triomphe is so colossal that three weeks after the Paris victory parade in 1919 (marking the end of hostilities in World War I), Charles Godefroy flew his Nieuport biplane through it, with the event captured on newsreel.

Above: The Louvre.

Notes Wikipedia:

The Louvre or Louvre Museum is one of the world's largest museums and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, France, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement (district). Nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet). With more than 8 million visitors each year, the Louvre is the world's most visited museum.

The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre), originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace.

Above: With the Antinous Mondragone in the Louvre – Friday, September 2, 2005.

Notes Wikipedia:

The Antinous Mondragone is a unique colossal 0.95 metre high marble example of the iconographic type of the deified Antinous, of c. 130 CE. It can be identified as him from the striated eyebrows, full lips, sombre expression and the head's twist down and to the right (reminiscent of that of the Lemnian Athena), whilst its smooth skin and elaborate, centre-parted hair mirror those of Hellenistic images of Dionysus and Apollo.

It formed part of a colossal acrolithic cult statue for the worship of Antinous as a god. Thirty-one holes in three different sizes have been drilled for the attachment of a head-dress (possibly a lotus flower or uraeus) in metal; the sculpture has also lost eyes in metal, ivory or coloured stone.

It is said to have been found at Frascati between 1713 and 1729 - it was certainly displayed as part of the Borghese collection at their Villa Mondragone there. The German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann made it better known by praising it in his History of Ancient Art, calling it "the glory and crown of art in this age as well as in others" and "so immaculate that it appears to have come fresh out of the hands of the artist." This was since, though Roman in date, it echoed the 5th century BC Greek style which Winckelmann preferred over Roman art.

In 1807 it was bought with a large part of the Borghese collections for Napoleon. Sometime since a brown layer of wax was added to give an opaque finish, along with plaster round the base of the neck to make the statue look more complete - these were both removed in recent cleaning. It is now held at the Louvre Museum, though it toured to the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds in 2006 for the exhibition "Antinous: The Face of the Antique."

Writes Vittorio Lingiardi of Antinous (or Antinoos) in Men in Love: Male Homosexualities from Ganymede to Batman:

Like Ganymede, Antinoos for centuries stood as a symbol of same-sex love, and also as a platonic ideal of spiritual love. Like Ganymede, Antinoos was transformed into a star: wanting his lover to be remembered for all eternity, [The emperor] Hadrian named a constellation after him. In the Almagest, Ptolemy’s first great compendium of Greek astronomy, the stars of Antinoos are mentioned as part of the Aqila (Eagle) group; in various ancient maps of the heavens.

The best book about Antinous and Hadrian is undoubtedly Royston Lambert's Beloved and God. It's a book that is not only scholarly but also eloquently written and entertaining.

Above: The façade of the Palais Garnier – Saturday, September 3, 2005.

According to Wikipedia:

The Palais Garnier is a 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the ninth arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier in recognition of its opulence and its architect, Charles Garnier. The theatre is also often referred to as the Opéra Garnier, and historically was known as the Opéra de Paris or simply the Opéra, as it was the primary home of the Paris Opera and its associated Paris Opera Ballet until 1989, when the Opéra Bastille opened at the Place de la Bastille. The Paris Opera now mainly uses the Palais Garnier for ballet.

The Palais Garnier has been described as "probably the most famous opera house in the world, a symbol of Paris like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, or the Sacré Coeur Basilica." This is at least partly due to its use as the setting for Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and, especially, the novel's subsequent adaptations in film and on stage.

Speaking of opera . . . One of the places my parents and I visited in Paris was the former home of opera legend Maria Callas, located at 36 Georges Mandel Avenue. Callas lived at this address from the late 1960s until her death on September 16, 1977.

In 2000, Georges Mandel Avenue was dedicated to Maria Callas (above).

Above: 36 Georges Mandel Avenue, Paris – the former home of Maria Callas.




Right: Dad snapped this photo of me standing at the front gates of 36 Georges Mandel Avenue – Saturday, September 3, 2005.

Above: A 1968 photograph showing Maria Callas in her Paris apartment at 36 Georges Mandel Avenue.

For a short video of pianist Robert Sutherland revisiting Callas' former apartment many years after her death, click here.

For more about Maria Callas, see the previous Wild Reed posts Remembering Maria . . . Celebrating Callas and Callas Remembered.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Europe 2005 - Part 1: London
Europe 2005 - Part 2: Bruges and Brussels
Europe 2005 - Part 3: Germany and Austria
Europe 2005 - Part 4: Ah, Venezia!
Europe 2005 - Part 5: Rome and Florence

Images: Michael Bayly and Gordon Bayly.

Quote of the Day

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Maybe in this situation [of the the bishops feeling "out-marketed" on marriage equality] it’s not about marketing. Maybe, I don’t know . . . maybe the Catholic [hierarchy] is, in this instance, in the morally inferior position.

– Jon Stewart
The Daily Show
December 2, 2013

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Three Excellent Responses to Cardinal Dolan
Why the Bishops Are Being Ignored
Responding to Whiny Catholic Bishops Who Cry Victim
A Head and Heart Response to the Catholic Hierarchy's Opposition to Marriage Equality
Quote of the Day – November 8, 2013
Responding to Bishop Tobin's Remarks on Gay Marriage
Progressive Perspectives of Archbishop Nienstedt's Anti-Gay Activism
Doug Mataconis on the Bishops, Religious Freedom, and Living in a Civil Society
What Part of Jesus' Invitation to "Be Not Afraid" Don't the Bishops Get?

Happy Birthday, Mum!

In Australia today my mother celebrates her 75th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mum!

Left: With Mum and my friend Garth in Sydney in May 2012, which was when I last saw my parents. (For more images and commentary on this time in Australia, see here, here & here).

I've said it before and I'll happily and truthfully say it again: My two brothers and I are incredibly fortunate to have Margaret Anne Bayly (nee Sparkes) as our mother. She’s a beautiful, wise and strong woman who extends care, kindness, and love to everyone she encounters.

I love you, Mum, and can’t thank you enough for who you are and for all you continue to be and give to me, my brothers, our family, and so many others whose lives are fortunate enough to be touched by yours!

In celebrating Mum's birthday at The Wild Reed in 2009, 2010 and 2011, I shared quite a number of photos from the Bayly family archives. I share this evening a few more. Enjoy!

Above: Mum with her younger sister Ruth, photographed sometime in the early 1940s.




Left: Mum and Dad, early in their courtship, in Gunnedah in the mid-1950s. Dad is in his band uniform.

Above: Mum on her wedding day – November 7, 1959. That's Mum's sister Ruth at left and their father, Valentine Sparkes, at far left.

Above: Mum with Aunty Phyllis (Dad's aunt), standing in front of Phyllis' Newtown terrace house on Union Street in 1960. Newtown is an inner city suburb (or neighborhood) of Sydney. For more recent images of Newtown, click here.

Above: Mum (left) in the early 1960s in our hometown of Gunnedah with her friend and neighbor Heather Sills.




Right: Mum doing her Shirley Bassey routine at Aunty Phyllis' apartment in Ashfield, Sydney, in 1976.

Above: Mum and Dad, December 1987.

Above: Mum in 1989 with her mother, Olive Sparkes (1906-1997).

Left: Mum with her younger sister Ruth in 1996.

Above: Celebrating Mum's birthday in Gunnedah in December 2000. From left: Mum, Aunty Val (Mum's sister-in-law), me, and Aunty Fay (Mum's older half-sister).




Right: Mum and I in January 2001.

Above: Mum in Melbourne with her daughter-in-law Cathie and two of her grandsons, Mitch (left) and Ryan – April 2003.

Above: Mum at Hanging Rock, Victoria, Australia – April 7, 2003.

For more images of our day at Hanging Rock, click here.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Happy Birthday, Mum (2011)
Happy Birthday, Mum (2010)
Happy Birthday, Mum (2009)
Thanks, Mum!
Catholic Rainbow (Australian) Parents
Congratulations, Mum and Dad!
My "Bone Country"
This Corner of the Earth
Journey to Gunnedah
Gunnedah (Part 1)
Gunnedah (Part 2)
Gunnedah (Part 3)
Gunnedah (Part 4)
A Visit from the Hometown Relatives
An Afternoon at the Gunnedah Convent of Mercy

To Be Gay in the Vatican

Writes Michael Joseph Gross in his recent Vanity Fair exposé, "The Vatican's Secret Life":

To be gay in the Vatican is no guarantee of success, mark of belonging, or shortcut to erotic intrigue. Most basically it is a sentence of isolation. Gays in the Vatican are creatures of a cutthroat bureaucracy whose dogmatic worldview denies or denigrates their own existence. They live in a closet that has no door. Among recent Popes, Benedict made the most concerted effort to sharpen Church doctrine on homosexuality, which he once called “a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil.” He tried to cull gays from clerical ranks, most notably in 2005, when men with known “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” were prohibited from being ordained, even if they were celibate.

Denunciation and exposure have made gay priests figures of fascination—though less as people than as symbols—especially to the secular far left and the religious far right. Both sides find these clerics to be politically useful. The left uses them to level charges of hypocrisy. The right sees them as a stain in need of removal. They all got a shock late last July when Francis made his first direct public statement about gay clerics since becoming Pope.

During an impromptu press conference aboard the papal jet, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Rome after his first overseas trip, Francis was asked about the so-called gay lobby. His response, delivered with casual humor and punctuated by shrugs and smiles, was as follows: “So much has been written about the gay lobby. I still haven’t run into anyone in the Vatican who has shown me an identity card with ‘gay’ on it.” He pantomimed holding up such a card in his left hand and then went on: “When you find yourself with a person like that, you have to distinguish between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of somebody forming a lobby. . . . If a person is gay and is searching for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge him?”

He spoke these words with a palpable warmth, unlike the embattled, wary tone that other Popes have adopted. This may well have been the first time in history that a Pope has publicly uttered the term “gay”—the word that most men who feel romantic love for other men use to describe themselves—instead of the pathologizing 19th-century medical term “homosexual.” Then, in a lengthy interview with a Jesuit journal, the Pope went further, stating that the Church’s ministry should not be “obsessed” with a few divisive moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage. “When God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?” the Pope asked rhetorically. “We must always consider the person.”

– Michael Joseph Gross
"The Vatican's Secret Life"
Vanity Fair
December 2013

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Gay Men in the Vatican Are Giving the Rest of Us a Bad Name
Why I Take Hope in Pope Francis' Statement on Gay Priests
Astounded
Homosexuality in the Priesthood
A Fact That Should Be Neither Surprising Nor Derogatory
Officially Homophobic, Intensely Homoerotic
Blaming the Gays
Report: Homosexuality No Factor in Abusive Priests
Donohue's "Blame the Gays" Tactic Refuted by John Jay Study Researcher
Bill Donohue's Homophobic Claims Refuted by Bishops' Study
In a Right Gay Tizzy: The Catholic Hierarchy's War on Gays
Let's Face It: The Catholic Church is a Gay Institution
Keeping All the Queens Under One Roof
Vatican Stance on Gay Priests Signals Urgent Need for Renewal & Reform
Catholic Church Can Overcome Fear of LGBT People
Quote of the Day – November 21, 2010

Remembering Maria . . . Celebrating Callas

If you were online today you no doubt saw that the Google logo honors opera great Maria Callas on what would have been her 90th birthday. The animation (pictured below) shows the legendary soprano performing on stage and channeling through her expressive arm and hand movements what fellow singer George London called her unique "energy of mind and spirit."

Here at The Wild Reed I honor Maria Callas on this special day by sharing an excerpt from John Ardoin's insightful essay "The Art and the Life" in the now out-of-print 1974 book Callas (which I was fortunate to have found at Magers and Quinn's used books store in Uptown earlier this year!). Enjoy!

Three things come to mind when I summon a mental image of Callas: her eyes, her hands, her walk. Callas' face was not beautiful in the conventional sense, but it was better than beautiful for the needs of the theater. Offstage, her eyes, mouth, and nose have a quality of exaggeration. But these very proportions were what made it possible for her face to speak so eloquently from the stage of even the largest opera house. People who saw her from the upper reaches of La Scala or the Metropolitan Opera are still able to describe details – a spark of a tear in her eyes – with the accuracy of one sitting downstairs. This facial projection had all the immediacy of a cinematic close-up.

. . . Oddly enough, one noticed Callas' mouth most when she was not singing. Then, it so often shaped itself into a peculiar half-smile, a bemused look as though she sensed an irony which had escaped the rest of us. This look had about it all the enigmatic beauty writers have long ascribed to Leonardo's La Gioconda. It was easier to digest those snarled, black looks that accompanied the rages of Medea or Norma than this simpler, infinitely more mysterious glance.

When one wasn't mesmerized by her face, one was held by her arms and hands. They too sang with a range of mood and accent comparable to those in her voice. When she spread her arms full, and usually with a slight arch in her wrists, her long, slim fingers seemed to extend from stage left to stage right, so powerful was the gesture. She usually kept the fingers of her open hand tightly together, so that the line of her arm came to a single, fine point rather than a diffused or blunted one. Yet she could also contract her arms and hands to the most intimate of gestures and frequently wrapped herself in them, cradling her body as she sang. Except in moments of extreme urgency, Callas moved almost as in slow motion. When she moved more forcefully, it was not so much a walk as a lanky stride of strong, decisive steps (a "Gary Cooper lope," one writer termed it). But more often she stood still, knowing full well the effectiveness of making the drama come to her.

Through director Sandro Sequi did not work with Callas in a production, he watch her performances with the trained eye of a man who thinks music in terms of movement. To him, "she was never in a hurry. Everything was very paced, proportioned, classical, precise. Probably this was her Greek origin, I mean the history behind her which came out. When one has seen Callas only in photographs and not on stage, you might think she was like a crazy woman in Medea, for example, running around the stage and shouting. Not at all. She was extremely powerful but extremely stylized. Her gestures were not many, if you consider the whole interpretation of a role. I don't think she did more than twenty gestures in a performance. But she was capable of standing ten minutes without moving a hand or finger, compelling everyone to look at her."

This gift of acting without movement, of commanding a stage while immobile, belonged to George London as well, Callas' Scarpia in Tosca at the Metropolitan in 1956. He has explained the force as "an inner spiritual and artistic motor, something which is always running and is part of an internal identification with character. That kind of energy, which is an energy of mind and spirit, has an irresistible thrust into an audience. But to work, it requires an innate dramatic personality. You can't teach it to someone. It's like a talent. How do you teach that? You can teach the superficial aspects of what must be enacted, but you cannot create a Callas out of Miss X, even if she were to do in every detail what Callas did in a given situation onstage, because it came from Callas' inner strength and that cannot be fabricated."

Franco Zeffirelli, who directed Callas in five productions, felt Herbert von Karajan (stage director and conductor for her at Scala Lucias) most successfully capitalized on this quality. "Karajin didn't even try to direct," Zeffirelli remembers. "He just arranged everything around her. She did the best Mad Scene with a follow-spot like a ballerina against black. Nothing else. He let her be music, absolute music. It was the best you could do with Callas. I think he was the only one who really got it. . . . You could spend hours looking at [Callas]. It was tremendous, that half-smile of hers, the mouth, the eyes. She was enchanting, living music, the perfect illumination of the music. No director taught her this, she was born with it, she found this way of trusting herself, the right gesture, the right moment, not one motion more or less than was necessary, She somehow knew the incredible trick of achieving the maximum with a minimum of effort. . . . For me, Maria is always a miracle. You cannot understand or explain her. . . . What is it this woman has? I don't know, but when that miracle happens, she is a new soul, a new entity."

Below is footage of Maria Callas performing the aria "D'amor sull'ali rosee"/"On the rosy wings of love," and the duet "Miserere"/"Lord, thy mercy on this soul" from Il trovatore at a recital in Paris in 1958. About these performances John Ardoin writes the following in The Callas Legacy: The Complete Guide to Her Recordings on Compact Disc:

The year 1958 came to a close for Callas with her debut in Paris, her future home, at a gala Legion of Honor concert carried live throughout Europe on television. . . . The Il trovatore sequence, minus cabaletta, lacks the full sense of night and mystery Callas usually wove into the music, nor are her top notes too steady. The cadenza is pushed and the final note held more by Callas' throat than her breath. The chorus is wretched in the "Miserere," and Callas' voice takes flight only in the second verse. But, as was frequently the case with Callas, seeing her makes hearing her more exciting, and the [footage] of the "Miserere" is riveting.

Related Off-site Links:
Maria Callas: Google Gives Singer a Solo – The Guardian (December 2, 2013).
Maria Callas Gets a Google Logo to Celebrate the Opera Singer's 90th Birthday – Amy Gesenhues (SearchEngineLand.com, December 2, 2013).
Viva Maria! No Wonder Google Wants Some Callas Stardust – Tom Service (The Guardian, December 2, 2013).
Maria Callas: The Truth is She Was Far from Perfect – Terrence McNally (The Guardian, December 2, 2013).
Icon: Maria Callas
Re-Visioning Callas
Callas as Medea

For more of Maria Callas at The Wild Reed, see:
Remembering Callas
Re-Visioning Callas
Callas Went Away
Maria Callas – "Ava Maria"
Callas Remembered
Here's to the "Crazy Ones"

Opening image: Gary S. Bralow.

Advent: The Season of Blessed Paradox

Yesterday marked the beginning of Advent, that season of the liturgical year full of paradox.

Why do I say this? Well, think about it: Advent is all about waiting while journeying; being centered while engaged in preparations; and retreating inwards in anticipation of revolutionary transformation!

Now that Thanksgiving has past it's also that time of year for putting up Christmas decorations, which is exactly what my friend and housemate Tim and I did on Saturday afternoon when we set up and decorated our Christmas tree!

I therefore share in this post today some of the Advent thoughts I heard articulated yesterday at the Spirit of St. Stephen's Catholic Community . . . and some images of the Christmas tree that Tim and I decorated.

I start with the following reflection by Sr. Joan Chittister.

God is not in the whirlwind, not in blustering and show, Scripture teaches us. God is in the breeze, in the very atmosphere around us, in the little things that shape our lives.

God is in the contradictions that assail us, in the circumstances that challenge us . . . in the life goals that demonstrate our real aspirations, in the burdens that wear us down, in the actions that give witness to the values in our hearts.

God is in the stuff of life . . . God is where we are, including in the very weaknesses that vie for our souls.

God is not a mystery to be sought in strange places and arcane ways.

God is a mystery to be discovered within us and around us.

And savored.

Also shared yesterday at the Spirit of St. Stephen's was a wonderfully insightful and inspiring homily by one of our community members. Here's part of what was shared:

There are multiple references to the image of a thief breaking into a home throughout Scripture. It must have been a big problem and a bigger worry. Just the thought of it can bring an apprehensive shiver—that feeling of invasion, vulnerability and eroded trust. We who are blessed with wealth know that things can be replaced but feeling safe is harder to come by.

So, is God a thief, wanting to break in and startle us? Does God want us to be afraid? Of course not. God wants us to pay attention, to prepare, to be ready and awake.

Is God a thief? Of course. God is the thief who wants to break into our barricaded hearts and souls to shine the light of day on the treasures there. God is the thief who wants to steal our economy of war and death and dazzle us with the light of peace with justice. God is the thief who can wait no longer for an invitation but must be an intimate part of our lives—right now.

Joan Chittister says God is in the contradictions, the challenges, the burdens and the actions that give witness to the values in our heart. Simply put: God is where we are.

. . . Megan McKenna calls Advent the “guard dog” rousing us from our sound sleep. There is an intruder in our midst—wake up!

And do what?—Grab a weapon to defend ourselves, our loved ones? Run and hide? Melt into a puddle of fear?

No, the revolutionary call is to fling open all of the doors and the windows, light the lanterns and roll out the red carpet in welcome.

The intruder is the One we have been waiting for.

We would have missed it without the barking of Advent and our prophets and those who beg us to raise our voices with them for living wages and dignified working conditions, for just immigration processes, for housing that feels like home.

Come . . . let us walk in the light of hope and promise. Let us open the home of our heart willingly, putting thieves out of business. Let us be the evidence of peace for pilgrims climbing the holy mountain. Let us be always ready—more than ready, let us be longing—to approach the burning bush of God’s inviting presence.

Better still, let us light the fire of God’s glory and wisdom so that others are drawn to the Holy One’s warm love through our prayers and actions, through our lives of peace with justice.

Welcome to the revolution, fellow pilgrims! Blessed Advent to you.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Something to Cherish
Rejoice? (Advent 2012)
Advent 2011: Thoughts and Reflections (Part 1)
Advent 2011: Thoughts and Reflections (Part 2)
Advent 2011: Thoughts and Reflections (Part 3)
Advent 2011: Thoughts and Reflections (Part 4)
Thoughts on Waiting . . . and a Resolution
Advent: Renewing Our Connection with the Sacred
The Centered Life as an Advent Life
My Advent Prayer for the Church
Advent Thoughts
Letting God Loose
Mystics Full of God
Thoughts on Transformation (Part 1)
Thoughts on Transformation (Part 2)
Thoughts on Transformation (Part 3)
Christmas Baubles