St. Milarepa

St. Milarepa
acrylic on paper

I heard about Tyler Clementi on the radio yesterday. As a mother, I felt utterly crushed. The shy, gifted young man took his own life after his college room mate outed him by secretly recording Tyler Clementi's romantic encounter with another man and streaming it live on the internet.

(From the Huffington Post)

The shocking suicide of a college student whose sex life was broadcast over the Web illustrates yet again the Internet's alarming potential as a means of tormenting others and raises questions whether young people in the age of Twitter and Facebook can even distinguish public from private.

(and from NPR.org)

Clementi's death was part of a string of suicides last month involving youngsters who were believed to have been victims of anti-gay bullying. Fifteen-year-old Billy Lucas hanged himself in a barn in Greensburg, Ind. Asher Brown, 13, shot himself in the head in Houston. And 13-year-old Seth Walsh of Tehachapi, Calif., hanged himself from a tree in his backyard.


I won't pretend to even know what was happening in the minds of Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, the two students who have been charged with invasion of privacy. I can only say that deciding, somewhere in our consciousness, that another human being is not worthy of respectful treatment is just as hostile, just as hateful, just as damaging, as overt hate speech and physical violence. Excusing such disrespect as a "joke" or a "prank" is not acceptable. We all must be responsible for understanding our motivations. If our actions are not coming from a place of love, then where are they coming from? It is very, very dangerous not to understand the consequences of actions whose inception is in hate, disrespect and disregard. Ravi, Wei, their families, and the Clementi family will live with these consequences for the rest of their lives.

There are many spiritual teachings about the responsibility we bear for what resides in our hearts and how we allow it to direct our actions. My favorites are these:

"I have understood this body of mine to be the product of ignorance, composed of flesh and blood and lit up by the perceptive power of consciousness. To those fortunate ones who long for emancipation it may be the great vessel by which they may procure Freedom. But to the unfortunates who only sin, it may be the guide to lower and miserable states of existence. This our life is the boundary mark whence one may take an upward or downward path. Our present time is a most precious time, wherein each of us must decide, in one way or other, for lasting good or lasting ill." - St. Milarepa (emphasis mine)

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - Jesus Christ


and finally:

"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, It is between you and God;
It never was between you and them anyway."

- Author Unknown

I really wish Tyler Clementi had read this last part. If he had, he may have decided to live. As a mother, I want to say to any young gay person who is contemplating suicide: don't. You are loved, even if your family and community aren't accepting you, you are loved. There isn't a damn thing wrong with your being gay, except that a narrow minded, ignorant society is trying to make you suffer for it. Be strong, thrive, live your life, because the next generation is going to need you. The world needs you.

Amen

St. Valentine, Patron Saint of Lovers

St. Valentine, Patron Saint of Lovers
mixed media shrine

I have been watching the struggle for marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples with my heart in my mouth. Every time a marriage equality law is passed I rejoice, every time that law is struck down I am deeply sickened. For one group of people to enjoy a basic human right, and then for that same group to very self righteously work to DENY another group of people enjoyment of that right is so small minded. So puny of heart, so limited of spirit. So scary.

Because people who allow themselves to exist in a small minded state of being are the cause of the world's suffering. They might be perpetrating violence. They might be buying into some ugly rhetoric. They might be standing by cheering while their neighbor is dragged into the street and shot. They might be lobbying elected officials to violate the constitutional and human rights of their fellow citizens. Persecution takes place the world over. Persecution is universally recognized as WRONG unless a person is really and truly some huge asshole (the word asshole here symbolizing a spiritual void which is really, really ass). For example: the persecution of the Palestinian people by the Israelies, the persecution of Jewish people by Christians, the persecution of black people by white people, of Southern Sudanese people by Northern Sudanese people, of Native American people by white people, of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. by white people. How about women, children, and people who are poor who are exploited and/or denied justice by fundamentalist religions or rapacious capitalism (Marshall Islands, Tom Delay, sweatshop slavery-Google it)? How about political persecution? The list could go on and on. All heinous examples of one group of people who have some power or advantage being total assholes to somebody else. The denial of equal rights for gay people is no different. There is no justified reason to deny gay people equality. There never is any rational reason for this sort of miserable human failing. There is only fear, ignorance, hatred of one's self turned outward, and greed.


And if I hear the phrase "defense of marriage" ever again as a rallying cry to rob gay people of their right to marriage, I'm going to throw up in my mouth. Seriously. Because that is the most specious argument I have EVER heard. A fifty percent divorce rate would seem to indicate that straight people haven't been doing such a hot job with their God given right to wed, don't even mention the statistics on marital infidelity. Domestic violence, substance abuse, co-dependency, failure to rectify family dysfunction and lack of self knowledge are all killers of straight marriages. Gay people? Not so much.

I will end with this beautiful passage from the Bible, first Corinthians, chapter 13. It reminds us that love is the way in which God intends us to exist. That love is expressed through our way of being, our intentions, words, and actions. It also makes very clear what love is NOT:

"If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated,

it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,

it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.

For we know partially and we prophesy partially,

but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.

At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.

So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I believe that to deny gay people the right to wed is to work against love. I believe that to work against love is to work against God.

Amen.

St. Margaret of Castello

Saint Margaret of Castello, patron saint of children with disabilities, shown here as a fairy God-mother protecting and appreciating a small child who was born differently abled.

There is a news item on NPR today about some horrifying abuse occurring at a state institution in Texas:

Morning Edition, March 18, 2009 · At a state institution for people with mental retardation in Texas, six staff members have been charged with taking part in staging what have been called human cockfights, using residents with mental retardation. The accusations have raised questions about how workers trained and hired to care for some of the most vulnerable people in society could instead treat them with cruelty. Read the rest of this article:

My older brother, Wally, was diagnosed with autism when he was around 2 years old. The doctor recommended that my parents place him in an institution where he could get "professional" help, and focus their attention on my sister and I- the two "normal" children. This was in the late sixties, and a lot of parents were still choosing to institutionalize their children who had disabilities. My mom and dad decided that Wally would remain at home, and so he has until this very day. Even so I was exposed to the horrors of institutions at a very young age: Wally's day school, Wildwood, for a time was located at O.D.Heck Developmental Center. Being the youngest I went there with my mom to bring Wally to and from school and for meetings. I remember being horrified and frightened for my brother when we were shown a closet where kids having tantrums were put. We had a book with photographs of Willowbrook. I looked at it once as a child and I was just sick over it. The thing that haunted me the most was a made for TV movie- it may have been "Sonshine"- about a family like ours. The parents checked out an institution and the dad took a detour from the approved tour and found rooms full of children tied to chairs, just sitting neglected, because they were like my brother. I grew up fearing that if something happened to my parents my brother would end up in one of these horrible places. How are institutions different really from concentration camps, where a person is incarcerated and robbed of their human rights because they were born "different" and somehow unjustly deemed unacceptable by those in power?

Make no mistake-people who are "normal" cause pain and suffering for people with "disabilities", more than their actual "disability" ever has! I would love to see a class action lawsuit come out of this horror in Texas, along with criminal charges of course, and an amendment to the constitution to protect people with disabilities from the kind of "help" these prisons are offering!