Christianity/Politics/Religion

The Church, Feminism, Dorothy Sayers

Posted on by stephen t berg / 8 Comments

My mother isn’t a feminist. She was born a few years after women were given the right to vote, that is, when women became “legally human.” (Check out this timeline.) Her role as a woman was pretty much mapped out for her. Not that I’ve ever heard her complain. But sometimes I wonder…

She is, as we all are, a product of her time and place; but her “place” was primarily given to her from the point of view of the church.

It has been the church that has roped off and relegated women to a lesser realm. (Catholic and many Evangelical churches are still examples.) And it has been government and secular agencies that have progressed towards gender equality. But primarily because they were pushed by women who refused to be content, who risked being vilified often and misunderstood constantly. Women who were seen as anti-Christian even when they followed the Gospel.

Has the church and its leaders (mea culpa) ever lead the way? Why, when the sometime chauvinist Apostle Paul, had the foresight to see the direction of things? (“There is neither male nor female…but all are one in Christ.” Of course here most pastors gave us to understand that this was an eschatological utterance, having nothing to do with the then and there and here and now.)

And why has the church so little egalitarian traction when we have an exemplar par excellence who modeled this basic understanding? Here’s Dorothy Sayers’ thought:Dorothy Sayers

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the cradle and last at the cross. They had never known a man like this Man- there never has been another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them as “’The women, God help us!’ or ‘The ladies, God bless them!’; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious… Nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything ‘funny’ about women’s nature.”

But in spite of the ambivalence in fundamentalist churches, sphere mapping for women is inevitably breaking down. I’m taking the liberty of sharing a quote from a recent email I received. “There is such a wave of strength in the collective conscious of the women around me lately. We’re realizing that we don’t need permission from the men in our church to lead. We refuse to be treated as second-class children of God. It’s amazing how the awakening is rippling out—the more I talk to women, the more I hear the same voices. We will use our gifts! We will be who God made us!”

Beauty

Ocean Jazz

Posted on by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

Crashing wave We walked on the beach, pushed along by a baby gale, and I thought the sun was surprised to be shinning. The ocean churned out frustration. Or perhaps it was simply at play, amusing itself and throwing its cappuccino waves on the few random rock formations that break up an otherwise perfect twenty-mile strip of fine white beach. Or perhaps this was ocean jazz, Caribbean sea jazz with Buena Vista riffs.

Erosion hole We crawled up on one of the rock outcropping’s and listened to the sea roar and wail–like the Cinco Leyendas at full throttle–amplified through a basalt gramophone.

Two days before the ocean was asleep, or at least somnambulant. Only a few barely imperceptible swells gave away its life. That and the colours, because nothing can be that beautiful without being divinely alive. The still deep also gave its light back to the sky. The entire horizon exchanging a thousand shades of aqua-marine; the colours in a photo-journalist’s dream.

Walking back we bent into the wind and collected orange and yellow shells and red streaked coral.

Lichen

Beauty/Poverty

The two worlds of Veradero and Cardenas

Posted on by stephen t berg / 1 Comment

Veradero View from room

There is a glaring difference between the Veradero peninsula and most everywhere else in Beach and sailboatCuba. And from a certain philanthropic sensibility the difference is guilt inducing. In a limited respect, concerning the country’s two proximate living conditions, It’s like the reverse of the fly in the ointment.

We stayed at one of Veradero’s many all-inclusive hotels. From our room at the Isberostar Tainos we looked out across acres of visitor’s villas to the Straits of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. And on the beach we joined the well oiled and well baked, raising our Mojito’s in salud. But south of the hotels, ten miles away across the bay, was the city of Cardenas. The buses carrying tourists don’t stop here. Cuba prefers to hide a city like Cardinas.

Oscar and us on street corner

As a tourist from a decidedly first-world country I found it necessary to accept my birthplace, my history, and my limited experience without rationalization or excuse, without forgetting or neglecting what I found and witnessed. Some of the Cardenas street sugar cane factorytourists I observed stayed on the instituted turista path and moved with an established sense of entitlement–for some, perhaps it’s a defence. On the other hand spending the days in a slurry of guilt serves no one…unless it’s one’s preferred form of penance (I have some experience with this).

My practice–perhaps, hopefully, a kind of mindful detachment–was that I thoroughly and gratefully enjoyed the beach, the food, the people, our friends, our new friends, and pretty much all the toda inclusiva amenities. And at the same time, while walking the degenerated streets of Cardenas, and then meeting the Lopez family, I listened, engaged as well as I could, and joined our friends in giving gifts.

Girl and dog on Cardenas street

Beauty

Old Havana

Posted on by stephen t berg / 0 Comment

Cathedral square I wasn’t prepared for Havana. While Revolution Square is a sensory blight, Old Havana is mostly marvel. And even though it has decayed, and is decaying still, you can nevertheless absorb centuries of Old World wonder. It comes up through the stone in Cathedral Square, and through the dark-with-age rock walls of the nearby monastery. And it hangs in the air of the porticoes and patios of long-gone family mansions.

Portico

But Old Havana–colonized by Spaniards as early as 1510 and designated a city in 1592 by Spain’s Prince Philip II and decreed “Key” to the New World–has been forgotten, its fallen walls symbolic of generations of neglect. Only since the USSR’s abandonment, because of  its own dismantlement, has Havana been “remembered.” And this, of course, is only because of its “turista peso potential.” You feel conflicted in the knowledge but the pull to see and experience inner Havana leap frogs principle and jump starts the tourist in you.

Cuban poser

Walking the narrow “Spanish” streets you will need to navigate the posers. I was completely taken in by the first one I saw. A “classic Cuban,” I thought… dressed in a natty coordinated suit and hat and smoking a cartoon sized cigar. Then, on the next corner was an ancient woman with a caricature scale cigar, and across the street was another creased old man…with a cigar. Take their picture and they’ll ask for a peso. Fair enough. Also, for a peso or two you can have your picture taken with a nubile, olive-skinned girl, clothed in bright layers of saffron and ocher dyed silk…yup, also smoking a cigar the size of a Taber corncob.

Narrow Cuban street 2

On the wharf along the Ave Del Puerto that runs along Old Havana, I tried my few Spanish phrases out on a fish monger, a seller of bait–fingerlings mainly. I had remembered that Che Guevara had a residence across the bay not too distant from the Christ  monument and so I pointed, shrugged, and gestured, indicating Fish mongera question about whether or not what I was pointing to was Guevara’s residencia. Unfortunately all the gentleman understood was my “Che Guevara.” He then dug deep in his front pocket and produced a three peso coin. Not the convertible peso currency I had but a Cuban coin with the likeness of Che stamped on one side. He offered it to me, repeating, “Si, Che, Che,  Guevara.” I took the coin and attempted to give him something in return but he was having none of it and waved me off. I tried giving him his coin back and realized that I  was insulting him so I gave up, smiled, and stuttered several gracias’. I took out my camera and held it up, he smiled and positioned himself, holding up his swordfish head. I snapped a picture. He waved and so did I as I walked on. In my mind at least, I’d made some kind of an old Havana connection.

(Click on any of the pictures for a larger view)