Now isn't it weird?

Monday, 15 December 2008

Now isn't it weird
how sometimes
for some
what taking up your cross
and following Him
means
is laying down your whip
of self-flagellation?

Now, isn't that weird?
at

7 comments

  1. lucy16 December 2008 at 15:21

    methinks it may not be so weird at all...a bit counterculture perhaps...lay it down, girl. lay it down!

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  2. MikeF16 December 2008 at 21:20

    Weird? Maybe, but good weird, like St. Francis discovering his relationship with "Brother Ass" (his body)...

    I like weird, anyway.

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  3. Sue16 December 2008 at 23:00

    Hey, you two. Yeah, I know - as I was writing this I was thinking, "Cannae ye not pick something a bit closer to the mark than 'weird'?" (because I was thinking in Scottish, for some bizarre reason ;)

    Seriously, it doesn't intellectually feel weird, but in some way it does feel weird on the inside, where all the stuff swirls around, ya know?

    Yeah I like weird too. Weird's good. Brother Ass - hmmm, at times yeah, but I'm trying to get AWAY from that whole "body as a piece of poo" dynamic :) I thought of St Francis today. I was doing a meditation which involved me thanking Sister Earth at the end, and it did remind me of him and make me smile :)

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  4. MikeF16 December 2008 at 23:53

    Brother ass... you see, Sue, the whole point about St. Francis was that when he called his body Brother Ass he was doing so affectionately - Brother Ass - and he was actually regretting having treated his so harshly in his youth.

    It's terribly important to get the body thing right - to strike a balance between treating it as a piece of poo, or worse ;-) - on the one hand, and treating it as divine, almost, as though its every whim had to be obeyed, there and then, as we tended to in the late 60s, when I was rattling around the London music scene. Each of the two extremes is pretty near demonic, when you come to think of it, and each is equally far from the Gospel itself!

    Dear Francis - I think by calling his body "Brother Ass" he was putting it on a par with Sister Blackbird and Brother Wolf, neither of whom he would have dreamed of abusing!

    PS Previous comment deleted - it was the same as this one, only I'd left out a word, so it didn't make sense!

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  5. Tess17 December 2008 at 03:27

    I know I've said this before in a comment somewhere and I hope it wasn't here(!): I always thought one of the most realistic bits in the film The Matrix was that when the machines first created the false consciousness humans lived in, it was too perfect and happy and therefore not believable.
    I think we are fundamentally built for joy, but we have difficulty allowing it in.

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  6. wanting more17 December 2008 at 05:33

    Strange how we've "learned" to love torture so much. Thanks church! It's as if we pretended so much, it just became us. Don't you know that satan just loves it that we hate ourselves, the very creation that God loves dearly...created to love, for love, by love...yet, somehow we hate it. Yes...I bet satan loves that! You're defintely onto something very very truthful!!

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  7. Sue17 December 2008 at 20:56

    Mike - ahh, I see, that makes a bit more balanced sense :) I really must read more about our friend Francis. Funny you should mention wolves. I have just begun reading a book called Women Who Run With the Wolves, which is all about reclaiming the "wild woman" via the stories told all over the world in many different cultures. It sounds a bit nobby, and maybe it is occasionally, but it's really great stuff. She likens the disparagement of the wild side of women - as in the free side, the as-god-made-her side, rather than the psycho do anything you want side - to the disparagement that wolves receive in different cultures as well. Interesting stuff if you like Jungian approaches to things (which I do muchly)

    You are so right about the balance needing to be right with our bodies. We can get all nutso in the other way and just allow them to dictate whatever, can't we, and then we turn into little Hitlers.

    Tess - no, you didn't say that here :) I really must rewatch The Matrix. I have been meaning to do it for ages now. I can't quite remember this bit because my brain is like a sieve. Yeah, I think we are fundamentally built for joy too, but it's like we need to get to it in small doses or we will splatter all over the walls, LOL

    WM - hello :) I'm right with you there, it is certainly so demonic, and the church has played right into the hands of the demonic because ... well, because it's been stupid, mainly! :) That whole "love others as you love yourself" thing - kind of presumes that we are to love ourselves. What a warped crappy view of God that has fed the lie that it is a sin to love yourself? No wonder there are so many predators out there - we're taught to be predators to ourselves!

    Hallelujah things are changing :)

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