Tsunami of Rain on a Soggy Land

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2nd Amendment, astronomy, breakfast, Catholicism, chicken, crochet, dessert, education, environment, George Bush, ice cream, Iraq, potatoes, torture, vegetables, Women's history, world history

Today, our featured art offering is from Japan. Katsushika Hokusai did this in a series in 1830-31, entitled “The Great Wave off Kanagawa. ” The mountain in the background is Mt. Fuji. You can find it at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I am always rather captivated by East Asian art. I like the delicacy and simplicity, yet great and intense attention to detail.

I sure hope you are having a good day. It’s raining here, cold and windy. It is expected to go on all day. The good news is that temperatures are going up next week, maybe into the low 70’s!!!

On the home front, the bathroom is finished. I always start with the bathrooms thinking they are small and won’t take time, but they always end up I think being the hardest, soap scum, tiny places where mops don’t reach and all that make for slow progress. So I’m delighted to finish. It’s three rooms down and 4 to go. Really 4 1/2 to go, since the laundry/pantry is a room too. But at least tomorrow I can start on my room, getting it all spiffy for serious crafting.

Okay, ready to see what’s going on? Proceed with caution, you never know what you may find.

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A Mingling of Tastes has a great little recipe for breakfast that would certainly work for a nice brunch as well. If you want to kick it up a notch, try Orange-Ricotta Pancakes with Almonds. Sounds about perfect for a lazy spring Sunday meal.

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Lesbians. Oh, I can just see your mind flip into gear. Hmmm, gay rights post right? Nope, Originally the word referred to inhabitants of the isle of Lesbos. The poet Sappho is its most famous daughter and she wrote lovely poetry of love about both men and women. Skip over to the Ancient History Blog and learn more about this fascinating woman.

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I have no doubt that General Petraeus is a fine soldier, perhaps one of the best. He may well be a great military strategist for all I know. But I do think that he has been placed in the breach by the Bush Administration. George stands behind the bemedaled army general, afraid to stand forth alone, and lets the General do his dirty work for him. The General is not a politician, yet he is being used as one. Now George steps forth and says, “well, I’m just doing as my generals advise.” Alternet has a compelling post today addressing the “betrayal” of the American people. See what you think.

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American Revolution Blog has an important post today. It is about the abysmal state of education in this country. We like to think our system is better than any in the world. That is far from the truth, and has been for many years. Any cursory watch of Jay Leno’s, Jay Walking will set you straight in a moment. College students whose major is education cannot answer basic questions about our government officials and framework. A full 25% of high school teachers believe that man and dinosaur co-existed. This cannot be tolerated. Read a fine post that will give you the facts on this growing dilemma that threatens our very standing in the world, and our claim to be the best.

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I am a big fan of Bill Moyers. I believe he is one journalist who has never compromised his ethics for the moment. I say that being aware that he was a politico and has served in our government in times past. Mr. Moyers was recently given the Ridenhour Courage Prize. If you follow the link you can read his acceptance speech. It’s a very valuable statement, about our government, our times, and our responsibilities as citizens. I hope you will take the time to read it. It reminds me, and all of us that we too have some responsibility to the truth. To tell it as best we can. To hold government’s collective feet to the fire. I do so in the most minor of ways, but the words of Mr. Moyers are powerful calls to us all. I hope you take the time to heed it.

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C’est La Vie has a post today about our love for guns. She views this from a Canadian point of view. While she graciously says that she casts no aspersions on other countries, I have no problem saying that her country has some sanity where this issue is concerned and we are largely insane in my opinion. But that is true of quite a few others issues as well. She is spot on in her analysis. Stop by and take a look.

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I don’t know about you, but I adore artichokes. This recipe is a new one for me, I usually do the usual, boil them and then make a lemon/butter sauce. This just looks so good I want to eat the screen. LOL. Epicurious finds this recipe from Cookie, and it’s called Braised Artichokes.

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Okay, it may not be the right timing. After all, today is a slug of a day, but if you have a hankering for something exotic and terribly upscale when it comes to ice cream, consider this one for Coconut Pineapple Ice Cream. Oh a nice one to keep in mind for the summer. Much thanks to Gourmet CakesEasy Dessert Recipes.

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I keep saying I want to knit some socks, when Knitting Dragonflies who knits quite obviously, comes up with patterns for crocheting them. Now I’d never even thought of that. And I have not of course yet started the infamous socks. (Afraid of failure no doubt). So, take a look and see if it motivates you. Perhaps to shout a resounding NO!, or maybe to try it yourself. I think they would function best as kind of sock slippers , rather than for shoes. They look a bit bulky.

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In the news last evening was the new stuff about how all this torture crap got approved. Tenent is seen scrambling to the White House again and again, demanding permission from higher ups before his guys and gals participate. Colin Powell was in attendance. So were all the usual suspects, such as Cheney and Rice. It now seems clear that they all were in it up to their necks. Nobody can claim they were unaware of the “details,” they defined the details. What sordid and unAmerican tactics. It makes my skin crawl, it makes me ashamed, it makes me burning mad.

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Perhaps you have heard. Pope Benedict XVI is coming to America. Couple of reasons: to seek some sort of reconciliation in a church torn with sex scandals, and to pump up the flock so to speak which has suffered losses of numbers in recent years. Nobody expects Il Papa to wag his finger at Bush’s war a good deal, or say anything very dramatic. The truth is Benedict, often called the “Rottweiler” in his pre-popery days, is a quiet, soft-spoken, pious and nice man. His policies are not to my liking for the most part, but I can appreciate his great intelligence and learning. It will be interesting to see what he has to say. A report by Phillip Pullella from Vatican City, purports to alert us that our view of Benedict seems to be changing.

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Taken a gander at the Constellation Leo lately? If you had, you’d undoubtedly seen the planet that is located there. That is if you happened to have a super duper Palomar type telescope to see it. Actually, I doubt that would be big enough. The darling is about the size of Neptune and is rocky. And it may have a brother or sister planet too. Both orbit a devilishly cute star called Gliese 436.

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I love hash browns, and I know how to make them nice and brown and crispy. If you don’t, and for a long time, I didn’t, Simply Recipes has the recipe, but more importantly, the method for guaranteeing that they turn out perfect. (She uses a ricer, I use a tea towel to squeeze out the liquid–the most important part of the recipe.)

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Heather Mills, remember her? Dancing star, who actually seemed kinda nice for that brief moment in time before she reverted to her evil self and the divorce from Paul? Well apparently the lady has scored once again, this time she has been awarded the right to royalties on the song “Eleanor Rigby,” super superior song we thought was written by Lennon/McCartney. She claims this is just the start of her claims, so watch out! Ouch, the fumes are making me cry!

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Chicken recipe alert. Chicken Marsala from the Olive Garden. The Secret Recipe Blog has it for you just in time when you were wondering what to do with the 1/2 cup of Marsala wine lurking in the fridge. You no doubt have a 1/2 cup of Marsala in the fridge don’t you? Oh, well, then use some red wine you do have and call it Chicken Red! I doubt it will be apparent to any but the most discerning palate.

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You know it wouldn’t be so bad, but this happens every damn time. Whenever its something versus the environment, the something seems always more important than it. And this is no exception. The planned “fence”to keep out illegals is dangerous to the environment. That is a given. The White House has ordered it built and decided to side step all state laws to the contrary. The Congress gave them that power, long ago. Nobody wants to talk immigration in this political year, so, yep, you guessed it, nobody is gonna stop this silly fence unless the Courts step in. Many are planning lawsuits. I’m not very hopeful. Sigh, I’m never very hopeful when it comes to our recognition of environmental matters.

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Urantian Sojourn has a most sharply concise synopsis of the Petraeus/Crocker hearings in Congress. I concur with their conclusions quite obviously and admire their style, wit, and ability to write well. See if you agree.

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If you happen to be a Civil War buff, and there seem to be many, there is a great little site, featured at World History Blog that you might like. It seems you can animate the various battles and see them progress from start to finish. I assume CivilWarophiles like that sort of thing. If you do, skip on over and take a look. Oh, if you are WWII buff, there is a similar companion site for that too. Both links are at WH Blog.

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“Most men are within a finger’s breadth of being mad.” Diogenes the Cynic

“The average person thinks he isn’t.” Father Lawrence Lorenzoni

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According to the insiders, Condoleezza Rice has been actively lobbying to be John McCain’s vice presidential candidate. That would be interesting, don’t you think? Condoleezza Rice, John McCain. Kind of like Ebony and Ornery. Jay Leno

Canada just announced it may boycott this year’s Summer Olympics because of China’s treatment of Tibet. Yeah, when asked about the boycott, Canada’s prime minister said: “I’m very angry at China. Plus, we suck at summer sports.” Conan O’Brien

In case you forgot, taxes are due next week. You know, we all hate paying taxes but the truth of the matter is without our tax money, many politicians would not be able to afford prostitutes. Jimmy Kimmel

What we’re finding out in the hearings in Congress is that General Petraeus tells better war stories than Hillary Clinton. – Gil Stern

The Power of the Word

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Add new tag, Book Reviews

I can’t tell you how happy I was to receive Dr. Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza’s latest book The Power of the Word~~Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire, from Fortress Press for review. Dr. Schussler Fiorenza is without doubt the premier feminist theologian in the world today. It is a deep honor for me to review this, her latest work.

Dr. Schussler Fiorenza is the Krister Stendahl Professor at Harvard Divinity School. She is co-founder of of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. She was the first woman president of the prestigious Society of Biblical Literature. Her list of publications is formidable, including the standout and highly influential, In Memory of Her. She serves and has served on the boards of many journals and societies.

In her new book, she delivers a masterful argument about the power of empire and the degree to which it is entwined in Christian scripture. Her premise is that language is not neutral, and the use of imperial Roman power language within the Christian Testament has become normative to the degree that it covers up the true message, while allowing a continuation of kyriocentric models of power which are still in use today. It is this conclusion, that such power structures, based on Christian texts, are still in use today, which must critically be addressed. These structures, which point to violence and patriarchal leadership as normative, do great harm to women and to all marginalized Others both past and present.

Those who conclude that this is only about women would be wrong. She uses the term w0/men in order to make it clear that all marginalized people are included and harmed by the language of empire. Slavery, racism, and class distinctions are hurtful to men who also find themselves cast as Other. Dr. Schussler Fiorenza coins the term kyriarchy/kyriocentrism to define the domination by “emperor, lord, master, father, husband, elite propertied male,” to describe how empire works.

A complicated hermeneutics is stated, which frankly from the lay point of view is not easy to navigate through, but such a technical understanding is unnecessary. There are plenty of examples to show the average reader how to “deconstruct” scripture and get a glimpse of what indeed was happening in the early Church. Most interesting and exciting is her claim that such work is never-ending, but must be done anew in each location, and in each time. How individual women in individual places are impacted by scripture will be different as our life experiences which we bring to the table are different. The goal is to arrive at a democratic image of scripture wherein the true message of justice and well-being for all is proclaimed and received. Dr. Schussler Fiorenza attempts to show us how current readings support a “power over” people approach rather than a truer “power across” paradigm.

Ironically, since I speak about the dangers of fundamentalism often on this blog, it was most interesting to note that Dr. Schussler Fiorenza also sees the danger and traces some of the Right’s rhetoric directly to such kyriocentric textual readings. “The bible is insistently invoked because it allegedly teaches the divinely ordained subordination of wo/men and the creational differences between the sexes as well as rejecting the “abomination” of homosexuality. As the 2004 presidential election has shown, this right-wing political rhetoric is effective because it defends the American family in the name of biblical Christianity.” [p.31]

Although many things are responsible for the rise in the Religious Right, the increasing turn from the nation state to the multinational corporations with the attendant lack of accountability allows those in religion to use this new-founded insecurity to their advantage. “Religion that stresses dependency and submission to an all-powerful G*d intensifies this insecurity wrought by global capitalism, by promising certainty to those who are obedient to His will and punishment to those who are not. Hostility to outsiders, homosexuals, feminists, pacifists, immigrants and “terrorists” is religiously legitimated.” [p.40] Any one who looks around the political landscape in America today, can not help but see the truth of this statement. Liberationists, whether they be feminist or otherwise are equated with “godless humanism and Western decadence.”

Dr. Schussler Fiorenza says that the modern question is not whether God exists, but rather, what kind of God we proclaim, and she argues that we must do this in the context of each of our specific socio-political locations. Texts are to be examined to determine whether they demand submission and subordination or whether they express power in terms of energizing us to combat injustice and exploitation.

She suggests that when we are faced with texts such as 1Cor 14:33-34 or 1Tim 2:11-15 in which women are admonished to remain silent, follow the law, not teach, be modest and to have children, we not make extraordinary efforts to excuse or explain Paul in such a way as to free him from the obvious claim of misogyny. Rather we read across grain and see the that these directives from Paul were given because women were participating as full members of the ekklesia. We see then that the early church was indeed following an egalitarian system in which, as Paul had stated in another context all were neither male nor female, slave nor free.

This is precisely why fundamentalist ways of reading scripture is so dangerous.The language of empire becomes re-inscribed, and remains as normative today. It affects our understanding of the Divine as much as it reinforces these stereotypical definitions of men and women, rich and poor, us and them. A “decolonizing” examination of scriptures allows all marginalized peoples to see the liberation offered in the text and upholds them in the continuing struggle against global oppression.

Rather than the often stale and familiar but little changing rhetoric we are so used to, this kind of analysis “. . .understands revelation as something ongoing, as fermenting yeast of the empowering presence of Divine Wisdom, which can be experienced and articulated only in and through the rejection of the violent power and ethos of empire.” [p.67] It recognizes that this was the understanding of the early church, one that has been buried under 2000 years of kyriarchical interpretation.

Dr. Schussler Fiorenza rejects all explanations of Paul that argue he promoted “equal by different.” Such gender inequality, she suggests is an old tried and true method used to keep wo/men out of academic, political and societal leadership. It is still be used today, most obviously in the Catholic Church to keep women from the priesthood. Paul’s descending sequence of God, Christ, man and woman as the rightful hierarchical structure is simply not supported. We cannot prove that democratic equality was the norm in the early church, no more than we can prove that a kyriarchal heirarchy was normative. Yet it is clear that such a radical equality can be read in the text and remains an “active process of struggle moving toward greater equality, freedom, and responsibility. . . .” [p.108]

Similar treatments are conducted on portions of Revelation and 1Peter. In noting that 1Peter is full of subordination language the modern exegete is invited to “hear into speech,” the submerged discourse that was occurring in these early church houses. Women were admonished to submit to their husbands, since it was usually the women and the slaves in the household who converted. It was the male head of household who often remained pagan, and it was threatening to imperial power when the first bastion of imperial power, the patriarchal household was threatened with “Christian” equality. There is suggestion that there was a serious struggle between these two viewpoints within the community. Peter advocates accommodation to the ruling power, yet it is clear that the charge that Christianity was subversive and destructive of kyriarchal households continued into the second century.

Explaining and then employing a number of hermeneutical tools, enables Dr. Schussler Fiorenza to work a great deal from the existing texts. First we must assume that the marginalized wo/men were present even when the text is silent, the burden is on those who would argue otherwise. Second, admonitions are to be assumed proscriptive rather than descriptive. The context of kyriocentric domination must always be in place, not only cultural and religious contexts. Lastly, our aim must always be to give voice to those who were left voiceless. In this way, we can transform the texts into the “power across” message that gives hope to all and justice to everyone.

Dr. Schussler Fiorenza asks what this kyriocentic empire language means to our understanding of G*d? “Do scriptures proclaim an almighty ruler G*d of injustice and dehumanization or a G*d of liberation and well-being, a G*d of domination, or a G*d of salvation and flourishing? Do they speak about a G*d who sides with the poor, consisting of wo/men and children dependent on wo/men, or do they speak about the Almighty Lord who is aligned with those who wield the oppressive powers of empire?” [p.197]

She argues that language about God has always been “metaphorical or analogical,” simply because human language is inadequate to convey such powerful ideas. Whereas the Hebrew bible is imbued with images that were drawn from the Near Eastern Empires, the Christian Testament is likewise imbued with images drawn from the Roman Empire. Given that we can never define G*d, then no symbol or name can become normative for God, whether that be masculine or feminine or neutral. She claims that because we have so associated G*d with imperial domination words, Christianity becomes open to attack as being violent and destructive historically. This is true, she would argue, equally so for other religions that also claim to be textually based. Additionally to the degree that they promote us/them, and insider/outsider status, in a exclusive way, all monotheistic religions fall prey to this charge. This claim of exclusive holding of truth is inscribed within the sacred scriptures of Jews, Christians and Muslims, and many others besides.

For many feminists, Divine Wisdom is an image neither associated with male or female traditionally. Nor is it inscribed with the words of empire. It becomes the choice of many who would seek a feminine imaging of G*d. In Christianity, Wisdom is known as Sophia. Wisdom tradition is found in all known religions in some way. She is the way of justice and well-being. Sophia, although well known in Eastern Orthodox traditions has nearly become lost to Western Christianity. What remains of her has been reduced to a subordinate female figure reflected in Mary. Such new inscriptions, Dr. Schussler Fiorenza argues must not be limited to one person of the Trinity, nor should they be seen as feminine “attributes” of an otherwise male G*d. Neither masculinity nor femininity is an attribute or quality of the Divine, no more than referring to Jesus as the “lamb” attributes animalistic qualities to him.

There is just so much to gain from this book. I have but touched the surface of what can be learned here. I highly recommend this book to any and all. It is imperative in my opinion that these types of books are read by a wide audience, not simply those whose profession it is. These are dangerous and frightening times, fueled in large part now by radical fundamentalism which seems on the upswing in most of our mainline religions. This book plays its part in helping us to deconstruct scripture, becoming aware of how language is and was used to promote ideas apart from the actual information intended. We must come to understand that the Christian Testament like others was meant to convey equality, justice, and inclusive love for all people. This book helps in bringing that message to the world.