On Dag Øistein Endsjø and Buddhist nuns...

My Dutch/Kiwi colleague, Sonja was kind to share the work of Dag Øistein Endsjø .  In looking at his work I came across the following quote: 

Few things cause more involvement, passion and zeal within a religious context than sex. While the Catholic Church in Spain generally remained perfectly calm during almost forty years of Franco’s systematic oppression of most of the most basic human rights, it immediately initiated demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of believers the very moment a democratically elected government suggested legalization of same-sex marriages. -Dag Øistein Endsjø

During the sitting last nite my mind wondered to the anger place (briefly... sigh) and before I brought myself back, I thought I should rewrite the above, so this morning, I rewrote it to say:

Few things cause more involvement, passion and zeal within a religious context than sex. While the Bahá’ís throughout the world remained silent during almost a half century of systematic oppression of most basic human rights in Latin America and other developing countries, it is now expelling it’s GLBT members, supports reparative therapy, and anti-gay legislation in Africa and South America; all this at the very moment that numerous democratically elected governments are suggesting legalization of same-sex marriages.

Last nite at SBMG… Arinna Weisman an absolutely amazing Buddhist nun led the sitting and gave the dharma talk.  She began by talking about privilege… she grew up in apartheid S. Africa. She talked about how automatically if you are white, Christian heterosexual, educated… it comes with free assumptions... vs  people of color, non-Christian, GLBT…  it was astonishing… as she talked to us about being a queer Buddhist nun… and the inequities found within the  Buddhist community.  

I cannot imagine any Bahá’í public figure talking so candidly about the inequities and about their  life in such a way.  It was respectful, it was refreshing and it was very honest.

One of my hurdles I am crossing related to organized religion is the thought of priests and ministers and teachers... last nite gave me chills, she was astonishing... reminding me of some sort of an oracle... questions, a pause... a profound answer... these people are smart, respectful and honor differences and science and law and ecology...  and are able to link it all to spiritual practice... she went on to talk about ridding ourselves of our anger towards those who repress us ( I still need time on this one).

I left feeling grateful for the dysfunctional homophobic Bahá’í Faith, for if it had not thrown me out, I would never had entered on this new deeply meaningful and liberating path. I am beginning to feel that 30 years of trying to work with the Bahá’ís has left me spiritually damaged, and very, very alone. Tho I have no intention of being a queer Buddhist nun ;-)  She left us thinking about how Buddhism is transforming itself once again because of its contact with the Americas… I cannot wait to see what it is like in Brasil.