fallout

schiz·oid (skĭt'soid') adj.

1. Of, relating to, or having a personality disorder marked by extreme shyness, flat affect, reclusiveness, discomfort with others, and an inability to form close relationships.
   
   
2. Of, relating to, or suggestive of schizophrenia. No longer in scientific use.
   
   
3. Informal Relating to or characterized by the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic elements: "This schizoid town is part resort, part sardine cannery" (Jean Anderson).

It's the third definition I was thinking of when I used the term in a meditation I wrote for Ash Wednesday. It never occurred to me that this would be offensive to anyone. But apparently many health care professionals were offended because they descended upon Episcopal Relief & Development with angry outcries.

This was not ERD's fault; it was my failure to be mindful. But as the publisher, they took the fall, and now must scramble to do damage control. They have issued an apology statement to all those who receive the meditations via email, because they take people's feelings seriously. When language usage is harmful then the responsibility must be accepted and addressed. My feeling is we both have done that.

In my life I have not ever been especially conscious of the politically correct way to do things. George Carlin is one of my heros, and he was probably the most offensive comedian to walk the earth; may he rest in peace.

And… I have to admit I'm still processing my feelings on this. People who know me (and like me) thought nothing of it. It's just the way I talk and my voice comes out in my writing. But people who don't know me, who have no reference point to hear my inflection… they are the ones I must worry about.

So now I'm second-guessing all the meditations I wrote. What else did I say that will offend somebody somewhere with a sensitivity to something I'm oblivious to? Time will tell.

This is definitely going to be a most interesting Lent.

Excuse me?

As many of you know, we are building a new convent. The location is Harlem at 150th and Convent Avenue. We broke ground in June and hope to move in by mid August this year. The weather has been a bit better so we actually have three of the floors poured... things are looking good.

Except that we got a $3500 fine. The city wrote a ticket because our construction company closed off the sidewalk. The company had permission from the DOT to do this, and erected a walkway with barriers outside. If you live in New York you know exactly what these look like. If you don't here's a picture.



So... get this: the fine says we closed the sidewalk and did NOT erect a walkway. And a photo similar to this one was attached to the paperwork to prove it.

Huh?

So the subcontractor went to court (the one who put up the wall around the sidewalk and erected the barriers for the walkway.) Result: The judge wouldn't take his not guilty plea, wouldn't even look at the photograph. No... they want the construction company to go back to court to enter the not guilty plea. That's two court dates to prove something any moron can see in the photograph, and apparently the person who wrote the ticket, took the picture.

What is it I'm missing? Well, here's another photo to show that some people can actually read the sign and use the walkway.
Is this where your NYC tax dollars are going?

I am woman hear me rant

Today was a tough day that started with an early morning subway ride across the city. By the time I got to work I was thinking of blogging a long list of rants against New York's rude subway riders. 

It's amazing how inconsiderate we can be to each other in our use of mass transportation. Blocking the doorways for one: there was a young woman on the #1 train who was blocking half the entrance to the car from 110th Street to 50th Street (where she finally exited.) That's nine stops where people had to squeeze by her to get on and off the train. Now I can understand wanting to be close to the exit when yours is the next stop. But for nine whole stops? And that's only the ones I could count. She was blocking the doorway when I got on at 110.  The MTA needs more money to run its operations—why can't they fine people for doing that? That... and holding doors, dropping your trash on the floor and blasting your headphones so loud they might as well not be headphones. I wonder how many of the ipod users of the future will have to wear hearing aids because of their blasted eardrums from their ipods? I wonder how much time that same person spends in a year untangling their ear pieces to those ipods? Inquiring minds want to know.

But the truth of the matter is you can't legislate manners. There's just so much you can make "against the law" before it gets silly. Rude people will continue to be rude because there are no consequences for their behavior. It is what it is. Get over it.

more wrinkles... damn.

I'm finding new wrinkles when I look in the mirror.

I don't especially mean the ones on my face, although they are definitely there... but the parts of my personality that have changed, are changing... it's scary. I've always known I was an introvert, but now the energy required to stay focused and present in a group setting wipes me out. Totally.

I was away for three days on a Cursillo weekend renewal retreat. If I break it down into segments, little pieces, individual parts... it was okay: informative, fun, inspirational, a good time. If I try to describe it as a whole, it was a waste of my time, a drain on my energy, an annoying barrage of too many people, too many personalities, too many needy, inconsiderate, thoughtless bodies that I was just not up to contending or coping with. When I finally arrived back at the convent late Sunday afternoon, I couldn't wait to hug my sisters... I was so glad to be home! I could hardly wait to sleep in my own bed.

Geesh! Where did that all come from? The truth is I love to travel. I love to meet new people, to experience new ways of being in the world, to learn new information. Apparently living in a convent has stripped away my natural protective barriers, because another truth is also making itself apparent: I cannot stand crowds. This could be a real problem... good thing today was a rest day for me. I slept til 10:00 and took a nap at 3:00. I'm hitting the sack before 9:30 too. Wiped. Out.

in the nick of time

As I mentioned yesterday, the sermon touched on the theme that change for the sake of change is not necessarily such a grand idea. It was explored in the larger context of the difference between change from and change for. As our preacher was speaking, I made one of my tangential parallels between that and another concept: Be careful what you ask for, little girl.

You might think these have little in common. However, the first lesson (Exodus 17: 1-7) about the Hebrews serving God as the oppressed in Egypt versus serving God as free men in the barren wasteland, was not lost on me. In Egypt, Pharaoh was the oppressor and God the savior. In the desert, they forgot. (How convenient.) Just as I forgot that I knelt before God a couple of months ago and said "use me." (Be careful what you ask for, little girl.)

Because of course what I meant was use me, but don't let me feel used. Put me to service but I'll pick and choose the ones I serve.

The collect for the third week in Lent begins: Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves; keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul... That pretty much covers last week.

Adversities happen. Evil thoughts assault and hurt the soul. And yet again, I am brought up short by the understanding that I have no power in myself to help myself.

The assaults in my case were the judgmental thoughts, comparisons in my heart about what was fair and unfair, about who was really sick and who was maybe taking advantage. For me it's always intertwined, this connection between body and mind... when my body suffers and has little strength, then my capacity for charity is wiped out as well. That prayer didn't come any too soon... just in the nick of time, in fact.

no is just a slower form...

A friend of mine posted a poem on her blog here. She writes lots of poems, but the words in this one resonated on some deep vibrational level, so I told her how much I loved the thought.... that in fact, I might even want to steal it for my blog.

Here's an excerpt... the words that struck me especially in the context of my decision to make this life in community permanent:

Yes is yes,
but no is just a slower form of yes
until we learn the steps
because

the dance is all there is.

I thought of all the times I had joked about "running off to join the convent if things didn't work out", about all the prayers to God to match me up with a nice Christian guy who was interested in a life of service, about every time the idea of being a nun flitted through my consciousness I had said: not only no, but hell! no!

Another reader took issue with us, both with her words and then my agreement... as if he knew so much more than we do. She patiently explained her point but he kept at it, and at it, and at it.

And, his point was valid, in the context he was coming from. What rankled was his inability to see any other point of view. This is obviously an intelligent man. But in this particular case, it would appear his need to be right overpowered his own intelligence.

I agree the dance is all there is. But if someone keeps stepping all over your feet, he might want to invest in a course at Arthur Murray.

Can you spell p-a-s-s-i-v-e aggressive?

Every now and then my paranoia gets the best of my compassion... and I go straight to "she did that on purpose!" Seven times out of ten I am wrong. She did not do it on purpose (at least not consciously). She forgot. Or she didn't even notice, or even think it was something that was hers to do. The she in these cases could apply to any one of my sisters at any given time, but more often than not, it comes down to just one or two... whose ways of being in the world are so alien to mine I get bent out of shape.

For instance: if I walk into my bathroom and hear the shower running next door, I don't flush my toilet. I don't get into my shower and turn the water on. Our pipes are ancient and the pressure is awful. Yet I can be showering away myself and suddenly be without water. What's with that?

Another example: Dishes get put away in certain places in our cupboards. One sister gets so upset when they are put in the wrong place or in the wrong order she slings them around and the bowls get chipped. I feel like slinging them myself, when I keep finding the large baking sheets on top of the small ones. They nest. Beautifully. Yet someone is either too lazy to bother to nest them or doesn't think it matters.

Then there's the sister who does everything at a snail's pace, and others are continually waiting for her. Waiting for her to finish eating, to finish getting dressed, to finish going to the bathroom. She takes her time no matter how many people are inconvenienced, seemingly oblivious to the resentment swirling around her.

But wait, there's more... one sister volunteers for everything and then only does half of what she volunteers for. Another sister never volunteers for anything and feels put upon when someone suggests maybe she could help with the workload. And then there are the passive aggressive behaviors that are too vague and discreet to point a finger at, yet irritate and annoy. Leaving your trash for someone else to clean up... making the coffee but not emptying the grounds, leaving one spoonful of food in the container so you won't have to wash it out, or using the last of it and leaving the container for someone else to wash. For me these are matters of common courtesy, the oil that keeps community running smoothly. But that is my take on the situation, and it is not necessarily the law. And even if it were the law, people wouldn't always obey.

When I came into community, I took the Meyers Briggs Personality test and came out on the fence between the P and J designations. You'd think that would mean I could easily swing both ways. However, the way it manifests in real life, is that if I'm in a room full of Js I'll act like a P. If I'm in a room full of Ps, I'll act like a J. We have mostly Ps in our community, so my J-ness comes to the fore way more often than I care to admit.

I hate this about myself. I hate that all these little things pile up inside me and I want to bite somebody's head off. I hate even more that when it gets to me I stoop to the same level and act passively agressive myself. I think for Lent I'm giving up judgment. Will that fly?