Friday morning I spent about an hour and 45 minutes staring at some dude's hairline. And when I say some dude I actually mean a Buddhist monk. And when I say Buddhist monk, I mean some guy who dressed in red robes and worked at a Buddhist center. To be honest I have no idea what he introduced himself as because, as I shall explain, I did not understand a single word that came out of this man's mouth.
There were definitely a solid few minutes where I was shaking with suppressed laughter when, sitting Indian style with my ass propped on a meditation cushion, I realized that I was stuck in a never-ending lecture with a man who was less intelligible than my newborn niece. I wasn't laughing at him, mind you--no way, having been the unintelligible foreigner in Israel, I'd never laugh at someone else's accent. Rather, I was laughing at myself, because at the time I thought I was the only person who didn't understand this man.
I looked around me as this lovely gentleman spoke to us, and all I saw were all of my classmates nodding attentively, as though this man had just provided some life-changing insight into the nature of the world. An insight which was completely lost on me. Needless to say, I began to zone out and wonder about things. For as much as I tried to understand this man he seemed to get even harder to understand. And after witnessing our tutor continually ask questions about lineage and history that invited hour-long responses, not a second of which I could understand, I began to wonder if I had had a stroke.
At one point the monk may have asked me a question. Yes, me personally. Actually though I'm not entirely sure it was a question, and I'm not entirely sure it was addressed to me. It was sort of the aural equivalent of someone with a lazy eye addressing you. There was definitely a moment where I considered pointing at myself and mouthing the words, "Sorry, me?" and quickly glancing behind me and slightly to the left.
All I know though is that I'm grateful we didn't do any silent meditation. When I saw the hippie white guy lead us into this room with mats and cushions I got a little afraid. I'm not afraid of finding Enlightenment, but I am afraid of the weird noises my stomach makes. Public silent meditation and I don't get along because my stomach is a bit of a diva. Well, he's not really a diva--maybe he's just one of those people that is afraid of awkward silences. "HEY GUYS!" my stomach likes to scream in silent moments. And even though most of these dear classmates have seen me fall over furniture, molest trees, fall in front of an ambulance, and eat disgusting amounts of kebab, I don't want them to misunderstand my stomach noises and think I'm the sort of person who goes to other people's shrines just to fart in them.
This did, however, lead to a private silent mediation during the monk's lecture. I began to ponder meaningful questions about the relationship between farts and Buddhism. Namely, "If you're about to reach Enlightenment in a shrine and somebody farts, do you get sent back a bit?" And "If you intentionally fart in a shrine to distract someone from reaching Enlightenment, will you get reborn as something really nasty?"
I can't believe they let me teach RE...
Showing posts with label celibate clergy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celibate clergy. Show all posts
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Dead Anglican Monk Ghosts
The other day I had print something, so obviously I went to the mortuary chapel to take care of that. I should probably explain that my college used to be a monastery, and apparently all the old monks used to go to one wing of the complex to die. Once dead they’d be carted down the hall to the mortuary chapel, which is now our computer room.
To be honest, I have to question how much of this is true. I know I heard the story from a priest, and when has a priest ever lied, but I can’t help feeling like the whole thing was made up for shock value. You know, the other colleges have stories like, “JRR Tolkien used to sit at this very chair!” or “And in this room, CS Lewis probably took a dump!” Tourists and students alike faint with excitement at the mere suggestion of historical connections, no matter how tenuous. And, as much as I like Fort Jesus, we just don’t have that kind of history. Because “people used to die in our college” is kind of the trump card of the desperate, the Helen Keller or Hitler card in “Apples to Apples” if you will.
Still, just in case, I insist on propping the door open when I’m in there alone at night. While not entirely sure if the suggestion of death has made me perceive an aura of death in that hallway or if there is a genuine aura of death there, I don’t like to take any chances. I figure if I prop the door open the chances of the ghost of some dead Anglican monk coming out of the walls and killing me for being Jewish are significantly lower than if I were to close the door.
So last night I was in this creepy chapel that smells of death (that is, if death smells of printer toner and faint body odor) when all of the sudden the door facing the open computer room door opened. Out from the darkened room stepped a girl, maybe about 8 or 9, who made intense eye contact with me. She gave me that look that you always get from your roommate’s friends. I’m not referring to any roommate in particular, I just mean that it’s a universal truth that if your roommate has friends over and you enter the room, all of the friends will turn to stare and give you a look that says, “Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing here?” After they’ve met you their look drops the “Who are you” part, but they will always give you the “What the fuck are you doing here?” part. I’m genuinely fascinated by this look because I’m deeply curious to know what they could possibly think I was doing in my own apartment. I want to respond to their silent “What the fuck are you doing here” look with a casual shrug and an “Um, living.”
Anyway, this little girl gave me that look, probably minus the “fuck” because she isn’t even aware of that word yet, being 8 or 9. We had an intense minute or so of just staring at each other, a minute in which I had to fight the urge to shout a word, any random word, just because I felt so uncomfortable. Luckily before I could shout “CHESTNUTS!” the little girl peered round the corner of her door and started shouting at someone down the hall. I know it wasn’t in English, maybe it was French. Yeah, I know it’s terrifying that I did a bazillion years of French and the best description of this kid’s language that I can give you is, “Maybe it was French.” But get over it. Most of my brainpower at that moment was being devoted to planning escape routes for various horrific hypothetical scenarios involving the ghosts of dead Anglican monks.
So what’s your computer room like?
To be honest, I have to question how much of this is true. I know I heard the story from a priest, and when has a priest ever lied, but I can’t help feeling like the whole thing was made up for shock value. You know, the other colleges have stories like, “JRR Tolkien used to sit at this very chair!” or “And in this room, CS Lewis probably took a dump!” Tourists and students alike faint with excitement at the mere suggestion of historical connections, no matter how tenuous. And, as much as I like Fort Jesus, we just don’t have that kind of history. Because “people used to die in our college” is kind of the trump card of the desperate, the Helen Keller or Hitler card in “Apples to Apples” if you will.
Still, just in case, I insist on propping the door open when I’m in there alone at night. While not entirely sure if the suggestion of death has made me perceive an aura of death in that hallway or if there is a genuine aura of death there, I don’t like to take any chances. I figure if I prop the door open the chances of the ghost of some dead Anglican monk coming out of the walls and killing me for being Jewish are significantly lower than if I were to close the door.
So last night I was in this creepy chapel that smells of death (that is, if death smells of printer toner and faint body odor) when all of the sudden the door facing the open computer room door opened. Out from the darkened room stepped a girl, maybe about 8 or 9, who made intense eye contact with me. She gave me that look that you always get from your roommate’s friends. I’m not referring to any roommate in particular, I just mean that it’s a universal truth that if your roommate has friends over and you enter the room, all of the friends will turn to stare and give you a look that says, “Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing here?” After they’ve met you their look drops the “Who are you” part, but they will always give you the “What the fuck are you doing here?” part. I’m genuinely fascinated by this look because I’m deeply curious to know what they could possibly think I was doing in my own apartment. I want to respond to their silent “What the fuck are you doing here” look with a casual shrug and an “Um, living.”
Anyway, this little girl gave me that look, probably minus the “fuck” because she isn’t even aware of that word yet, being 8 or 9. We had an intense minute or so of just staring at each other, a minute in which I had to fight the urge to shout a word, any random word, just because I felt so uncomfortable. Luckily before I could shout “CHESTNUTS!” the little girl peered round the corner of her door and started shouting at someone down the hall. I know it wasn’t in English, maybe it was French. Yeah, I know it’s terrifying that I did a bazillion years of French and the best description of this kid’s language that I can give you is, “Maybe it was French.” But get over it. Most of my brainpower at that moment was being devoted to planning escape routes for various horrific hypothetical scenarios involving the ghosts of dead Anglican monks.
So what’s your computer room like?
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Nuns and Ex-Shetland Ponies
So I’m walking down the road by myself, reflecting on a full day of classes. A full day of being asked about my accent, explaining that, no, I actually prefer the weather here, and having to explain that we don’t do RE in the US (Me: “It’s illegal in state schools.” Englisher Type: “[*doing a spit-take with a mouthful of Hob Nobs and tea*] WOT? Ah you sehrious???”) My mind’s swimming with all this new information I have to deal with, all these new people to socialize with, and all these new cultural norms I have to wrap my mind around.
And suddenly I see a nun. I’m half blind and she’s about a football field away, but man do I have nun radar. Well, radar suggests it’s an intentional and deliberate thing, whereas the truth of the matter (as I explained in the previous post) is that I get distracted by celibate clergy in the same way that small children get distracted by shiny objects. She’s about to enter the Pitt Rivers Museum, so I take off running, cutting across the sacred English grass like a rocket. Well, I say rocket but I’m such a fat ass that I took off more like a wonky-legged ox with a weight problem. But even wonky-legged oxen make it to Oregon eventually, and before long I had caught up with the nun inside this famous museum.
Look, I promise that not every post on this blog is going to be about how nuns, monks and priests don’t have sex. But I’m not gonna lie and tell you that it’s not going to come up often. So anyway, the reason I’m running after this nun is that I want to spy. I want to follow her around so that I can know what nuns do in their spare time. What does a person who doesn’t have sex do?
The answer: They stare at dead Shetland ponies.
I’m not sure how, nor am I sure of the more important Why, but there is a dead, stuffed Shetland pony right in the entry hall of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Apparently it’s been dead for longer than I’ve been alive, and it just sort of lumpily stands there with an empty look in its glass eyes for all eternity. I can’t stop imagining that the soul of this poor dead creature is looking down from Shetland Pony Heaven, indignantly reflecting on the fact that Shetland ponies don’t stuff dead humans and put them in museums for comically small horses to stare at.
But you know, I’m not here to talk about the ethics of taxidermy. I’m here to talk about nuns. So this nun that I’ve chased after is just standing there in silent reverence of this creature that is the animal kingdom’s version of a fun size pack of M&M’s. There was a sign in front of this pickled animal that encouraged the museum visitors to “PLEASE TOUCH!” And I’d like to hope that, among the various other things nuns silently contemplate at all times, the nun was silently contemplating whether or not to give this dead pony a good stroke.
Do it, Sister. And I mean that in the sense of the larger sisterhood of all women, not the sisterhood of nuns. Or traveling pants for that matter.
Obviously I had to leave at some point. The nun seemed to be giving this particular dead animal some seriously long consideration, and I couldn’t just sneak around all afternoon, hiding behind dead cheetahs and ducking behind deceased penguins just to see if this nun eventually touched the Shetland pony. But I’d like to think she did.
And suddenly I see a nun. I’m half blind and she’s about a football field away, but man do I have nun radar. Well, radar suggests it’s an intentional and deliberate thing, whereas the truth of the matter (as I explained in the previous post) is that I get distracted by celibate clergy in the same way that small children get distracted by shiny objects. She’s about to enter the Pitt Rivers Museum, so I take off running, cutting across the sacred English grass like a rocket. Well, I say rocket but I’m such a fat ass that I took off more like a wonky-legged ox with a weight problem. But even wonky-legged oxen make it to Oregon eventually, and before long I had caught up with the nun inside this famous museum.
Look, I promise that not every post on this blog is going to be about how nuns, monks and priests don’t have sex. But I’m not gonna lie and tell you that it’s not going to come up often. So anyway, the reason I’m running after this nun is that I want to spy. I want to follow her around so that I can know what nuns do in their spare time. What does a person who doesn’t have sex do?
The answer: They stare at dead Shetland ponies.
I’m not sure how, nor am I sure of the more important Why, but there is a dead, stuffed Shetland pony right in the entry hall of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Apparently it’s been dead for longer than I’ve been alive, and it just sort of lumpily stands there with an empty look in its glass eyes for all eternity. I can’t stop imagining that the soul of this poor dead creature is looking down from Shetland Pony Heaven, indignantly reflecting on the fact that Shetland ponies don’t stuff dead humans and put them in museums for comically small horses to stare at.
But you know, I’m not here to talk about the ethics of taxidermy. I’m here to talk about nuns. So this nun that I’ve chased after is just standing there in silent reverence of this creature that is the animal kingdom’s version of a fun size pack of M&M’s. There was a sign in front of this pickled animal that encouraged the museum visitors to “PLEASE TOUCH!” And I’d like to hope that, among the various other things nuns silently contemplate at all times, the nun was silently contemplating whether or not to give this dead pony a good stroke.
Do it, Sister. And I mean that in the sense of the larger sisterhood of all women, not the sisterhood of nuns. Or traveling pants for that matter.
Obviously I had to leave at some point. The nun seemed to be giving this particular dead animal some seriously long consideration, and I couldn’t just sneak around all afternoon, hiding behind dead cheetahs and ducking behind deceased penguins just to see if this nun eventually touched the Shetland pony. But I’d like to think she did.
Flying Catholic Priests and "The List"
I think I might possibly be the most immature person in all of England. Well, not that that’s really saying all that much. I mean, take a look at this place, high school kids here dress more professionally than I do, and I think my 15 days in England so far have been the only 15 days of my life in which I haven’t heard the phrase, “That’s what she said!” …followed by an exchange of high fives. (And, on that note, I’ve had only a few high fives these past two weeks—and I’m pretty sure the few I’ve had were just done to humo(u)r the silly American.)
There was a moment today where I thought all this had changed, where I thought that finally the legendary English refinement had rubbed off on me and I was actually a proper adult now, no longer a small child in a 23-year-old’s body, constantly on the look-out for opportunities to tell a good fart joke. Or even a bad fart joke. I ain’t picky.
I’m talking, obviously, about the fact that today I met a Catholic priest and I was not tempted—-not even for a second—-to scream out, “YOU’RE NOT HAVING SEX!” And if you know me you know what a big deal this is. As someone who studies religion and who has met celibate members of a couple different religions, it’s something I used to always struggle with. I mean, the words have never actually escaped my lips (though I have planned a follow-up recovery sentence should I ever scream the first one: “Oops, sorry, I mean, it’s just—NOT EVER! NEVER EVER!”), but the fear of accidentally letting it slip one day used to always color my interactions with these people.
And please don’t think I’m picking on Catholics or Buddhists or Shakers or whoever—being a future RE teacher I am proud to announce that I have strange urges around people of ALL creeds. For example, whenever I’m in certain parts of Jerusalem (*COUGHMEAHSHEARIM*) it takes every ounce of my limited self-control NOT to run around naked and eat bacon.
Anyway, not having to fight the urge to loudly point out to this priest (in case he wasn’t aware) that he wasn’t having sex, I saw this as a sort of graduation into adulthood. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “I am a goddess of serenity. I am not thinking about this man’s lack of a sex life. Therefore I am the mature equal of my English cousins.”
But then I realized that, while sitting in a chair in front of an altar, this priest’s legs did not reach the ground. They just sort of hung there, occasionally kicking about, like a small kid chilling out on a swing. No, it actually made him look like a fairy or pixie, or something. And once I realized this there was basically no point in him continuing his lecture on John Henry Newman, because how are you supposed to concentrate on JHN’s Oxford links when there is essentially a wood sprite sitting in front of you? I’m doing a terrible job of explaining this, and maybe even there isn’t a good way to explain it at all, but the fact that this guy’s feet weren’t touching the ground and were instead swinging around basically made me think that at any moment he was going to sprout wings and take flight, fluttering all over the Oratory like that terrifying Israeli cartoon from the 70’s I once saw—it wasn’t about priests flying around churches, but it was about creepy cartoon butterflies…so…it’s sort of the same thing. Thankfully I didn’t break down into the giggles that threatened to form, but I sat there with a glazed happy expression on my face, like I was high on incense or something.
Later on in the day, after I’d had time to shake off images of this priest zooming around the church on his fairy wings (and not having sex), we went off to another church. It was an old, gorgeous college chapel, you know, dead people in the floor and everything. All was going smoothly as, thankfully, this time the priest leading us around was Anglican, whose sex life was therefore wholly uninteresting to me. But unfortunately he commented on the “stillness” of the chapel. We all paused to take in the silence and the stillness…
…which, of course, made me think of The List.
If you’ve read this far you’re surely curious/masochistic enough to want to know what The List is. So I’ll tell you. Rewind a bit: I like to go church surfing. I like to go to different churches and see what they’re all about. Sure, I like to pay attention to the liturgy, and the music, and the sermon, and the architecture, and the congregation…but I also like to make a note of where this church ranks on my “The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregation.” It’s hard to explain why I do this, and to be honest I’m not really sure why I do. It’s not like I’m really planning on launching some kind of bio-terrorist attack in church, it’s more like the same sort of thing that inspires people to climb mountains. Just because.
To fill you in, The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregations is topped by the Evanston Society of Friends and is bottomed out by whichever charismatic church has the best sound system. So there I am in this historic college chapel, lead by a fantastic tour guide, and all I can think about is, “On a scale of one to horrific, how bad would it be if one were to fart here?” And I started smiling and giggling to myself when I concluded that this chapel was almost as discriminatory against farts as the Quakers.
And this is normal for me. I have a feeling that if I had mentioned this particular aspect of my church surfing adventures on my grad school application, expensive overseas tuition fees or not, nothing would have tempted those poor bastards into accepting me. (Whenever I make eye contact with my RE tutor the phrase “NO TAKE BACKSIES!” comes to mind.) And I just don’t get it. I don’t get how I could be so immature and giggly. I am a dedicated student, a chair in the library here is already intimately acquainted with my ass, and I genuinely want to know more. But then everything is just so fucking hilarious.
Part of me wants to ask God/Shiva/Richard Dawkins just what the hell is wrong with me. But then an even larger part of me is so thrilled that I wrongfully find everything to be so delightful that, well, I just don’t want to be right.
There was a moment today where I thought all this had changed, where I thought that finally the legendary English refinement had rubbed off on me and I was actually a proper adult now, no longer a small child in a 23-year-old’s body, constantly on the look-out for opportunities to tell a good fart joke. Or even a bad fart joke. I ain’t picky.
I’m talking, obviously, about the fact that today I met a Catholic priest and I was not tempted—-not even for a second—-to scream out, “YOU’RE NOT HAVING SEX!” And if you know me you know what a big deal this is. As someone who studies religion and who has met celibate members of a couple different religions, it’s something I used to always struggle with. I mean, the words have never actually escaped my lips (though I have planned a follow-up recovery sentence should I ever scream the first one: “Oops, sorry, I mean, it’s just—NOT EVER! NEVER EVER!”), but the fear of accidentally letting it slip one day used to always color my interactions with these people.
And please don’t think I’m picking on Catholics or Buddhists or Shakers or whoever—being a future RE teacher I am proud to announce that I have strange urges around people of ALL creeds. For example, whenever I’m in certain parts of Jerusalem (*COUGHMEAHSHEARIM*) it takes every ounce of my limited self-control NOT to run around naked and eat bacon.
Anyway, not having to fight the urge to loudly point out to this priest (in case he wasn’t aware) that he wasn’t having sex, I saw this as a sort of graduation into adulthood. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “I am a goddess of serenity. I am not thinking about this man’s lack of a sex life. Therefore I am the mature equal of my English cousins.”
But then I realized that, while sitting in a chair in front of an altar, this priest’s legs did not reach the ground. They just sort of hung there, occasionally kicking about, like a small kid chilling out on a swing. No, it actually made him look like a fairy or pixie, or something. And once I realized this there was basically no point in him continuing his lecture on John Henry Newman, because how are you supposed to concentrate on JHN’s Oxford links when there is essentially a wood sprite sitting in front of you? I’m doing a terrible job of explaining this, and maybe even there isn’t a good way to explain it at all, but the fact that this guy’s feet weren’t touching the ground and were instead swinging around basically made me think that at any moment he was going to sprout wings and take flight, fluttering all over the Oratory like that terrifying Israeli cartoon from the 70’s I once saw—it wasn’t about priests flying around churches, but it was about creepy cartoon butterflies…so…it’s sort of the same thing. Thankfully I didn’t break down into the giggles that threatened to form, but I sat there with a glazed happy expression on my face, like I was high on incense or something.
Later on in the day, after I’d had time to shake off images of this priest zooming around the church on his fairy wings (and not having sex), we went off to another church. It was an old, gorgeous college chapel, you know, dead people in the floor and everything. All was going smoothly as, thankfully, this time the priest leading us around was Anglican, whose sex life was therefore wholly uninteresting to me. But unfortunately he commented on the “stillness” of the chapel. We all paused to take in the silence and the stillness…
…which, of course, made me think of The List.
If you’ve read this far you’re surely curious/masochistic enough to want to know what The List is. So I’ll tell you. Rewind a bit: I like to go church surfing. I like to go to different churches and see what they’re all about. Sure, I like to pay attention to the liturgy, and the music, and the sermon, and the architecture, and the congregation…but I also like to make a note of where this church ranks on my “The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregation.” It’s hard to explain why I do this, and to be honest I’m not really sure why I do. It’s not like I’m really planning on launching some kind of bio-terrorist attack in church, it’s more like the same sort of thing that inspires people to climb mountains. Just because.
To fill you in, The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregations is topped by the Evanston Society of Friends and is bottomed out by whichever charismatic church has the best sound system. So there I am in this historic college chapel, lead by a fantastic tour guide, and all I can think about is, “On a scale of one to horrific, how bad would it be if one were to fart here?” And I started smiling and giggling to myself when I concluded that this chapel was almost as discriminatory against farts as the Quakers.
And this is normal for me. I have a feeling that if I had mentioned this particular aspect of my church surfing adventures on my grad school application, expensive overseas tuition fees or not, nothing would have tempted those poor bastards into accepting me. (Whenever I make eye contact with my RE tutor the phrase “NO TAKE BACKSIES!” comes to mind.) And I just don’t get it. I don’t get how I could be so immature and giggly. I am a dedicated student, a chair in the library here is already intimately acquainted with my ass, and I genuinely want to know more. But then everything is just so fucking hilarious.
Part of me wants to ask God/Shiva/Richard Dawkins just what the hell is wrong with me. But then an even larger part of me is so thrilled that I wrongfully find everything to be so delightful that, well, I just don’t want to be right.
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