My mother has quit going to mass.

Two weeks ago, I paid a visit to the parish I once belonged to in Chicago. I put on my Facebook status that I was headed for mass, and my mother responded, “pray for me.” I found it odd, but she’s given to cantankerous outbursts. They run in the family. I didn’t think much of it, until she called me today to thank me for a Mother’s Day gift I had sent her. I asked her what she had planned for tomorrow: brunch with my sister and her man and going to the marina if the weather’s nice and then she added, “I’m not going to church anymore, so there’s one thing I won’t have to do.”

I was intrigued.   “Well . . . what does that mean ‘I’m not going to church anymore?’”

This is a woman who dragged my siblings and me to church kicking and screaming, at least until she presented the dreaded option of going out to the car, which no one wanted because a sound spanking would follow as surely as night follows day. Her answer was, “I’m disgusted with it,” and nothing more.

I was not going to let that go. I availed myself of one of Thorn Coyle’s favorite lines, “Could you say a little more about that? Which part are you disgusted with?”

“The Church locally. The Church in Rome. All of it.” 

At this point, I thought it might be some kind of Mothers Day put-on, and the thought of being on one of those radio call-in prank shows crossed my mind. “Why, Mom? What happened???”

Then she told me. There was a local scandal about a deacon at the cathedral in the diocese where she lives sexually harassing the openly gay church handyman. The diocese fired the handyman and the church secretary that witnessed the harassment and then reassigned the deacon and the pastor, who had denied all of it and had done their best to sweep it all under the rug. The Diocese of Saginaw denies the whole thing ever happened. She went on to mention the pre-schooler who was thrown out of a Catholic school in Colorado because her mothers were lesbians, the school for the deaf in Wisconsin, and then Ireland and Germany, all with the tacit approval of Benedict XVI himself. It was clear to her that the church had learned nothing at all from the scandals of a decade ago and hadn’t changed their policy at all. She just was not going to be a part of it any further. 

She seems to have had her own Mothers Day present in mind for me. I am at a loss to explain the precise moment when my mother became a one-woman PFLAG chapter. 

Happy Mother’s Day, strega, I’ll see you at circle. 

Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising, even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy strength, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in His splendor at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Night!

                                                                --Liber Resh vel Helios sub figura CC

This is how I usually start my mornings these days. It comes from a text that exhorts aspirants to the A∴A∴ to be ever mindful of the Great Work they have undertaken to perform, namely the attainment of the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness. What could be better?

This morning after that prayer and my usual daily devotions, I responded to a challenge to return to a religious ceremony in my tradition of origin, which for me is Roman Catholicism, and to observe the ritual and my reactions to it. To really engage that work, I chose the parish around the corner from my house that I was intimately involved with before I gave up the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost for the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. I went with two other Catholic apostates turned Pagan. It made for some fun catty commentary, not to mention a true sense of camaraderie. Picture me turning to them and saying, “Merry meet,” during the opening greeting and whispering, “I’m melting, melting, melting . . . ,” during the asperges. We were some naughty gay witches in church.

For me, being back at St. Ita was warm and familiar, like coming home after a long absence. I realized sitting in mass this morning that the Catholic mass has really informed my tastes in ritual. For me, the mass is simple, direct, concise, purposeful, fixed and consequently predictable. It was a refreshing departure from the Neo-Baroque drivel and purple prose to which I am too often subjected in Neopagan rituals. I recognized parishioners from my tenure there that ended years ago. This parish is very diverse and definitely isn’t the parish where I grew up: there was a Nigerian cantor, a Haitian lector, and a young and handsome Spanish-speaking deacon, all of whom regrettably could benefit from accent reduction practice. We were ten minutes into the homily before I realized that the deacon was talking about sheep and not a ship. The only celebrant I had no trouble understanding was the pastor, whose resonant South-Side Chicago accent was unmistakable. I saw two handsome men in their late 30’s sitting together, and I assumed they were gay. I saw a young twink with teased hair and knew he was.   This is exactly as it was ten years ago. Some things never change. 

Another less happy unchanging feature is that I am not fully welcome there. I never thought I would wax nostalgic for the “liberal” reign of John Paul II, but here we are. I know that if any of the gay men I mentioned above are too visible or too undeniably out, it will provoke a crisis of duty, if not conscience, for the shepherds of this parish. It’s why I left a decade or so ago. 

Fortunately there was a baptism today. Yes, I said fortunately, despite the collective energetic sigh that arose from the congregation when it was announced. It gave me an opportunity to renew my baptismal vows. Or not. Mostly not, in fact. If you are unfamiliar with them, here they are, with my internal responses to them:

Q: Do you reject sin, so as to live in the freedom of God's Children?
My response: I do indeed reject the notion of sin as propagated by Christianity; yet, I do recognize that I can betray my own Will by not being true to it.

Q: Do you reject the glamour of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin?
My response: Oooh, let’s think more about this “glamour of evil” thing. I certainly do live well within the confines of my own ethics, and sorting out my definition of sin and evil is infinitely more demanding and fallible than following the list of rules proposed by the likes of Benedict XVI.

Q: Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?
My response: Well, let’s consider the original concept of Satan in Judaism as a divine accuser who points out the evil inclinations of people and humankind generally. Honesty, I wish he’d show up in that function a little more often. I don’t think he was ever “the father of sin and prince of darkness” until he started to look like the Horned One and became a boogey man to scare converts with. 

Q: Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth?
My response: Well, I do believe in pre-gendered Divinity, whom I typically call, “God Herself.” I’m pretty sure that’s materially heretical. 

Q: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
Who was Born of the Virgin Mary,
was crucified, died, and was buried,
rose from the dead,
and is now seated at the Right Hand of the Father?
My response: Well, I like Jesus. He ran around with 12 close friends working miracles; it sounds like a good coven to me. Here’s that god-born-of-the-goddess motif that I like. I think we are all the children of the Divine, so I’d probably get the branding iron for that. 

Q: Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints,
the Forgiveness of sins, the Resurrection of the body, and Life everlasting?
My response: Holy Catholic Church? Hell no. I’m not sold on the idea of “sin,” although I do think all my actions have results that ultimately return to me. That said, I probably do not believe in the forgiveness of something I am not sure exists, much less any divine exculpation from the results of my misdeeds. Curiously I do believe in the Holy Spirit as the Fifth Element, that my body will return to the Earth and assuredly be resurrected as part of the biosphere, and that my triple soul is indeed divine and everlasting. That was almost a yes, wasn’t it?

Looking at my responses, I am convinced and reassured that Catholicism was not the correct spiritual path for my Summum Bonum, warm feelings of homecoming and nostalgia notwithstanding. Still, knowing who I am not is as essential as knowing who I am. 

At the same time, mass was very informative, providing me with lots of information and a touching culminating event that attests to the congruence of my spiritual path. St. Ita’s Spanish-speaking population is predominantly Cuban and Cuban-American, and where there are Cubans, there is Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre, which is the Catholic disguise of the African diasporic goddess, Oshún, who has recently made Herself known to me and who enjoys a yellow altar in my east window. I could not possibly pass by Her shrine at St. Ita without lighting a candle in gratitude for favors past, present and future. 

Can it really have been over a year since my last LJ post? Yes, I guess it has. It’s been quite a year, as those of you who also read my Facebook posts already know. 

Why post now? That’s a funny story. Clearly, Sex is truly the point of connection. I got an invitation to LJ from a friend who moved to Florida years ago. I suspect that his LJ post will be a titillating account of his extremely robust sex life. I am definitely looking forward to reading all those posts.

I’m going to indulge my inner woowoo for minute and take this as event as reassurance from the Universe, or Multiverse if you swing that that way, that Sex is indeed the point of connection. 

I am going to resolve to post at least one LJ entry per week. Call me on it if I don’t.

Le Tonneau de la Haine

La Haine est le tonneau des pâles Danaïdes;
La Vengeance éperdue aux bras rouges et forts
À beau précipiter dans ses ténèbres vides
De grands seaux pleins du sang et des larmes des morts,
 

Le Démon fait des trous secrets à ces abîmes,
Par où fuiraient mille ans de sueurs et d'efforts,
Quand même elle saurait ranimer ses victimes,
Et pour les pressurer ressusciter leurs corps.
 

La Haine est un ivrogne au fond d'une taverne,
Qui sent toujours la soif naître de la liqueur
Et se multiplier comme l'hydre de Lerne.
 

— Mais les buveurs heureux connaissent leur vainqueur,
Et la Haine est vouée à ce sort lamentable
De ne pouvoir jamais s'endormir sous la table.
 

— Charles Baudelaire

Hatred's Cask
 

Hatred is the cask of the pale Danaides;
Bewildered Vengeance with arms red and strong
Vainly pours into its empty darkness
Great pailfuls of the blood and the tears of the dead;
 

The Demon makes secret holes in this abyss,
Whence would escape a thousand years of sweat and strain,
Even if she could revive her victims,
Could restore their bodies, to squeeze them dry once more.
 

Hatred is a drunkard in a tavern,
Who feels his thirst grow greater with each drink
And multiply itself like the Lernaean hydra.
 

— While fortunate drinkers know they can be conquered,
Hatred is condemned to this lamentable fate,
That she can never fall asleep beneath the table.
 

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

I don't have a pithy one-line summary of the poem, but I know which parts resonated most with me.

I found an affirmation that also resonated with me, "Love dissolves cruelty and fills the world with beauty."  I think that's what I'm going with today.  It seems as if it would be a auspicious day for me to forgive past cruelties and even accept them as gifts that have taught me and made me a stronger person for my highest good.  Naturally, since I'm in übergeek mode, I went to my favorite online etymology site to choose between forgive and pardon and ultimately chose forgive.

forgive

“Well, no, I would never date you, but I would like to still be f*$# buddies.”

Oh yes, dear ones, the apple of my eye for the last year and a half or so really said that to me the other day. Before anyone gasps, clutches their pearls and reaches for the black salt, this is something I have suspected for a quite a while, but he’s never really had the wherewithal to tell me. Usually I get some vague mixed message coupled with reassuring affection, and this has only been a suspicion that plagues me. Hearing it was hard but liberating at the same time. 

I was so proud of myself for responding quite calmly, “You know, I’m a pretty good catch. Why would I have sex with someone who would never date me?”

I was not at all ready for his laser-like and sincere response: “You know, you really don’t carry yourself like you believe that.” He was right, of course, but I really didn’t think anyone else could see that. Obviously, it’s how I keep meeting guys with his fatal flaw. It’s pretty much the story of my romantic life in my 30’s. And now with just a few months left in my 30’s, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve been selling myself short all this time, but I was really startled that this guy knew it.

I’m in the dark half of an Adjustment year, which is no picnic, I’ll tell you. To make things even more interesting, I have taken an office within my beloved Brotherhood of the Phoenix that is aligned with the planet Mars. Suddenly I’ve gone from quiet and easy-going to, “Look out! He’s got a sword, and he’s not afraid to use it!” I really have been working with my selling myself short in earnest since Samhain. I haven’t seen him since about then, because he’s been too busy feeling sorry for himself about the rest of his life in general and about someone who was “worth dating” in particular. He hasn’t seen the changes since then, even if I have. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have responded in September as I did the other day.

He went on to tell me what a great guy I am, which is true enough, and give me advice that I completely agreed with and had even figured out and implemented without him. I reciprocated. He actually seemed grateful for the wisdom I imparted to him about his current melancholy. I know that in our own way, we really do understand and appreciate each other. In most respects, except for the obvious divergence in the trajectory of our acquaintance, this is the man I have always wanted to meet. I suppose then that it is true that all sincere requests are answered, but the form is always unexpected.

One of the lessons of my recent shadow work is an awareness of this shard of myself, which apparently even dolts (and I say that lovingly) can see. I haven’t figured out yet how to change this jagged piece of myself, or at the very least buff some of the sharper edges. It may be work for the light half of the year.

Who is this Flower above me?

And what is the work of this God?

I would know myself in all my parts.

Be careful what you ask for, dear ones. All sincere requests are answered, but the form is always unexpected.