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Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Malicious Speech
Via White Crane Institute // THORNTON WILDER
Died
1975 -
THORNTON WILDER, American playwright died (b. 1897); In 1926 Wilder's first novel The Cabala was published. In 1927, The Bridge of San Luis Rey brought him commercial success and his first Pulitzer Prize in 1928. From 1930 to 1937 he taught at the University of Chicago.
In 1938 he won the Pulitzer for drama for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. World War II saw him rise to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Force and he received several awards. He went on to be a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii and to teach poetry at Harvard. Though he considered himself a teacher first and a writer second, he continued to write all his life, receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1957 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. In 1967 he won the National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day. He died in his sleep, December 7, 1975 in Hamden, Connecticut, where he had been living with his sister, Isabel, for many years.
Wilder had a wide circle of friends and enjoyed mingling with other famous people, including Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Montgomery Clift and Gertrude Stein. (Sensing any patterns here?) Although he never discussed his sexuality publicly or in his writings, his close friend Samuel M. Steward is generally acknowledged to have been his lover. This relationship is explored in the fascinating biography of Steward, AKA Phil Andros, written by Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor , Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade
For more on Secret Historian: http://www.amazon.com/Secret-
Wilder’s father, Amos Wilder was a stern, teetotaling Congregationalist who expected his son to be scholar-athlete and a muscular Christian. When Thornton announced that he had been cast as Lady Bracknell in a school production of The Importance of Being Earnest, the senior Wilder informed him that he would rather that Thornton not play female roles. Papa would not absolutely forbid it, but he assumed that his son would want to honor his father’s wishes. Thornton reluctantly conceded, but later wrote to his father in China, “When you have changed your mind as to it, please notify.”
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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Via Daily Dharma: Finding Faith
First you go in faith to receive help from another, and then, in accepting this help, you find it in yourself.
Reb Anderson, “In It Together”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Lama Rod Owens // December 2022 Newsletter
A Monthly Online Gathering
Thursday, January 5th, 2023 from 6:00pm - 7:00pm UK | 1:00pm - 2:00pm EST | 10:00am - 11:00am PST
Free Radicals
is a monthly online community practice space created specifically with
our UK friends in mind - although everyone is welcome to join us.
Meeting on the first Thursday of every month, our next gathering will be on Thursday, January 5th, 2023 with Lama Rod.
Closed Captioning and Audio Description will be available.
Via Words of Wisdom - December 7, 2022 💌 Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation
All of the work that people did on their inner beings, now is the time when that work is valuable to the common good. If you can stand nowhere, if you even know of that potential, you can smooth out the rough edges that are going to happen.
- Ram Dass -
From Here & Now Podcast - Ep. 119 – A Sense of Change Pt. 2
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Compassion
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Via Daily Dharma: Changing Our Story
If we can change our thoughts, we can ultimately completely change our story.
Catherine Burns, “How to Break Free from the Stories We Tell Ourselves”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Monday, December 5, 2022
Dear Anonymous...
Case in point… over on [Revoked] a new comment was just posted on one of the original posts from 2009: “Lets start with consulting about a letter”. The author is Anonymous, and I am left to wonder… is it the same Anonymous, or another one, but I digress…
Here is his/her comment dated December 1, 2023:
“A beautiful letter which is most fair and explaining that the decision to join the Faith must be made with the knowledge that there are certain laws which must be upheld in both word and deed. But also making it clear that one cannot be in a same sex relationship or marriage and be a member of the Baha’i Community. But that the choice is up to the individuals, and it can only be to obey the Baha’i laws or not to obey and thus not to join the Faith.”
The beautiful letter thing… it comes around frequently, and creeps me out to no end. Especially with the Anonymous need to school us LGBTQI folk, as if we have never read any Baha’i law, but thanks to them they will teach me, again. At any rate we can ignore the arrogance and cruelty, seems like state sanctioned, homophobia. Let me try and explain.
Anonymous’ opinion reminds me of stories Helen Bishop used to talk about when she shared stories of her years in the League of Nations during WWII and her encounter with Nazis. She used to share truly blood curdling tales of how polite and civil the officers who met with her (she had diplomatic immunity). Anonymous comments like this, sort of remind me of this civil cruel, cold. A beautiful letter.
So, I am curious, why don’t Anonymous Baha’i law-abiding homophobes ever begin with, well equally beautiful responses like:
“I am truly sorry, I know you have reviewed the laws, but please allow me to school you once again, because as a homosexual you obviously find it hard to understand that we do not want you here. I truly wish we could welcome you, but we don’t want to. Unlike other regions who might welcome you, and your partner/husband/wife, we don’t. Unfortunately, for you, but good for us, the law allows us to exclude you from our community. In fact, you aren’t even allowed to speak openly in any forum, meeting, or community consultation about this. Baha’i laws encourage heterosexual Baha’is that only law-abiding heterosexuals are allowed to talk about your homosexuality. Again, we are so very sorry, you seem like a nice person, but the Baha’i community doesn’t want you. Nor do I”
There fixed it.
Via Daily Dharma: Being Honest About Our Mistakes
If you hide your faults, you not only lose the trust of your friends but also close the way to making progress on the path.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Why Shame Gets a Bad Rap”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: The Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering
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Via White Crane Institute // TODAY'S GAY WISDOM: Adam and Steve--Together at Last
Today's Gay Wisdom
2018 -
TODAY'S GAY WISDOM
Adam and Steve--Together at Last
Kate Pollit
Will someone please explain to me how permitting Gays and Lesbians to marry threatens the institution of marriage? Now that the Massachusetts Supreme Court has declared Gay marriage a Constitutional right, opponents really have to get their arguments in line. The most popular theory, advanced by David Blankenhorn, Jean Bethke Elshtain and other social conservatives is that under the tulle and orange blossom, marriage is all about procreation. There's some truth to this as a practical matter — couples often live together and tie the knot only when baby's on the way. But whether or not marriage is the best framework for child-rearing, having children isn't a marital requirement. As many have pointed out, the law permits marriage to the infertile, the elderly, the impotent and those with no wish to procreate; it allows married couples to use birth control, to get sterilized, to be celibate. There's something creepily authoritarian and insulting about reducing marriage to procreation, as if intimacy mattered less than biological fitness. It's not a view that anyone outside a right-wing think tank, a Catholic marriage tribunal or an ultra-Orthodox rabbi's court is likely to find persuasive.
So scratch procreation. How about: Marriage is the way women domesticate men. This theory, a favorite of right-wing writer George Gilder, has some statistical support — married men are much less likely than singles to kill people, crash the car, take drugs, commit suicide — although it overlooks such husbandly failings as domestic violence, child abuse, infidelity and abandonment. If a man rapes his wife instead of his date, it probably won't show up on a police blotter, but has civilization moved forward? Of course, this view of marriage as a barbarian-adoption program doesn't explain why women should undertake it — as is obvious from the state of the world, they haven't been too successful at it, anyway. (Maybe men should civilize men — bring on the Fab Five!) Nor does it explain why marriage should be restricted to heterosexual couples. The Gay men and Lesbians who want to marry don't impinge on the male-improvement project one way or the other. Surely not even Gilder believes that a heterosexual pothead with plans for murder and suicide would be reformed by marrying a Lesbian?
What about the argument from history? According to this, marriage has been around forever and has stood the test of time. Actually, though, marriage as we understand it — voluntary, monogamous, legally egalitarian, based on love, involving adults only — is a pretty recent phenomenon. For much of human history, polygyny was the rule--read your Old Testament — and in much of Africa and the Muslim world, it still is. Arranged marriages, forced marriages, child marriages, marriages predicated on the subjugation of women — Gay marriage is like a fairy tale romance compared with most chapters of the history of wedlock.
The trouble with these and other arguments against Gay marriage is that they overlook how loose, flexible, individualized and easily dissolved the bonds of marriage already are. Virtually any man and woman can marry, no matter how ill assorted or little acquainted. An 80-year-old can marry an 18-year-old; a john can marry a prostitute; two terminally ill patients can marry each other from their hospital beds. You can get married by proxy, like medieval royalty, and not see each other in the flesh for years. Whatever may have been the case in the past, what undergirds marriage in most people's minds today is not some socio-biological theory about reproduction or male socialization. Nor is it the enormous bundle of privileges society awards to married people. It's love, commitment, stability. Speaking just for myself, I don't like marriage. I prefer the old-fashioned ideal of monogamous free love, not that it worked out particularly well in my case. As a social mechanism, moreover, marriage seems to me a deeply unfair way of distributing social goods like health insurance and retirement checks, things everyone needs. Why should one's marital status determine how much you pay the doctor, or whether you eat cat food in old age, or whether a child gets a government check if a parent dies? It's outrageous that, for example, a working wife who pays Social Security all her life gets no more back from the system than if she had married a male worker earning the same amount and stayed home. Still, as long as marriage is here, how can it be right to deny it to those who want it? In fact, you would think that, given how many heterosexuals are happy to live in sin, social conservatives would welcome maritally minded Gays with open arms. Gays already have the baby — they can adopt in many states, and Lesbians can give birth in all of them — so why deprive them of the marital bathwater?
At bottom, the objections to Gay marriage are based on religious prejudice: The marriage of man and woman is "sacred" and opening it to same-sexers violates its sacral nature. That is why so many people can live with civil unions but draw the line at marriage--spiritual union. In fact, polls show a striking correlation of religiosity, especially evangelical Protestantism, with opposition to Gay marriage and with belief in homosexuality as a choice, the famous "Gay lifestyle." For these people Gay marriage is wrong because it lets Gays and Lesbians avoid turning themselves into the straights God wants them to be. As a matter of law, however, marriage is not about Adam and Eve versus Adam and Steve. It's not about what God blesses, it's about what the government permits. People may think "marriage" is a word wholly owned by religion, but actually it's wholly owned by the state. No matter how big your church wedding, you still have to get a marriage license from City Hall. And just as divorced people can marry even if the Catholic Church considers it bigamy, and Muslim and Mormon men can only marry one woman even if their holy books tell them they can wed all the girls in Apartment 3G, two men or two women should be able to marry, even if religions oppose it and it makes some heterosexuals, raised in those religions, uncomfortable.
Gay marriage — it's not about sex, it's about separation of church and state.
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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