It's a miracle. It's a miracle how anyone holds onto faith in Catholicism in the face of insults like this, a "third-class relic," by the church's own description, "a replica of the cloth Veronica wiped Jesus’ face with" that "has been touched to Veronica's Veil, the True Wood of the Cross, and the Lance," oy vey. By this rationale, the original could fall on the floor (be touched to) and thereby bless the whole earth, ushering in world peace, blind faith, and worldwide allegiance to Rome and the Vatican. Has the Church tried that? If they did, it hasn't worked. Blessed are the meek, for they [shall believe and] inherit the earth. What they'll do with it only the God knows. When is the Rapture again? All we can think of is Alanis Morissette and her Catholic sentiments: "We all needed something to cling to, so we did. We all had delusions in our heads. We all had our minds made up for us. We had to believe in something, so we did."
*Christian Carnival Barker Voice* Get out of the bars, boys and girls, and into Catholic church to see the Holy Kerchief, the Vernicle (Sudarium or "Sweat Cloth"), Veil of Veronica or simply Veronica, the "Face of Jesus" relic.
Yes, just this one time, it may never come round to your neck of the woods again! You were wowed by the Holy Hand of St. Judas last year in Pasadena, but did you know the Creator's own son, drenched in blood, sweat, and tears while being whipped and beaten at the sixth Station of the Cross, had a kindness shown to him?
Veronica holding face of Jesus on her veil after wiping him
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, St. Veronica was kind enough to use her hanky on the lord, and with no time to emanate an entire life-size photocopy like he would with the Shroud of Turin, he left a headshot.
NOTE: While it may sound as if Wisdom Quarterly is mocking the idea of relics, sacred objects, particular religions, or those invested in their faith, a closer examination reveals that what is being mocked and made fun of is commercialization, corruption, and greed in the name of religion. This is what Mr. Show is aiming at, as well as taking on conservatives in government, Christianity, and hypocrisy in general. It is our confirmed belief that some objects are holy, sacred, divine, supernatural, extraordinary and miraculous. This may or may not be them, but such things exist. The Buddhist tradition, which preceded Christianity by six centuries, spoke of relics (sariras).*
Put down the pints of St. Paddy's Day Guiness and join us as we go out to see them on tour just as we went out to see various stops of the worldwide Relic Tour by Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhists years ago in LA. Wisdom Quarterly will be at each stop as part of our ongoing "Adventures in Church" series.
ALL religions are beautiful. They may not be true, but they are all beautiful.
Those who wish to be spiritual should not let commercialized religion stand in the way.
It may look like a splotch, but with FAITH, it becomes a holy face.
Think about it. You loved the Blood Moon, a mere sideshow, you loved snow in LA's mountain tops in spring, you think fire, rain, and chilling cold are spectacles, but how about the authentic miraculous face of the creator-savior incarnate?
Yes, leggys and germs, this is gonna be a really big shoe. This may be your only opportunity to stand up close to a real relic (as recognized in both Catholic and Orthodox traditions, though Protestant not so much).
Hieronimus Bosch painted these hideous nutters, including Veronica's Veil in lower left.
.
Artist enhanced version of image
It's authorized by your children's friends at the Vatican, within the fortress city-state, inside the vestigial heart of the Holy Roman Empire (not merely Rome, Italy, but the tiny, independent country known as the Holy See once dedicated entirely to the worship of the solar son-God Mithra and his mysteries), under CEO Francis, while he yet hangs on by the power of prayer and modern medicine.
Sudarium: Holy Sweat Towel
Price? Priceless! Donations? Solicited.
Cost? What is money but the seed of Mammon, the joy of Shaytan(Shaitan), the love of which is the root of all evil? It's free. But buy paraphernalia at the concessions stand with plastic bottled water, sugary drinks, plastic trinkets, tchotchkes, Catholic bling, and curios. Booklets and stickers too. Why not invest in an "I Saw It 2025" tour t-shirt to wear on your deathbed or any future surface where you might meet G Almighty? Might score some leniency points with St. Pete.
But Satan (Shayatin) and the Iblisneed me in a bar on Saint Patrick's Day to part and turn the toilet water green. Fiducia supplicans blesses gay Catholic marriages?
This is no joke, so don't dream of laughing (Alicante).
They made Veronica a saint for it
Need an indulgence (for the remission of sin by the Church for money)? Why not get a set of authentic wood simulated plastic rosary beads laced together with plastic twine to carry in your pocket, wear around your neck, or dangle from your rearview?! Now available in child and adult sizes. Please allow time for a long line of penitents and curiosity seekers ahead of you in the queue. No photography please as this relic replica may be very delicate and light sensitive.
True meaning of St. Pat's Day
Drive "snakes" out = kill pagans for Jesus - "Nazis" of the first Reich (Rome)
Earlier the same day, St. Patrick's Feast Day to the secular world of imbibers and intemperate drinkers, see the Vernicle travel from the small town of Monrovia, a foothill community in the SGV, to neighboring Alhambra for a stop at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church on Shamrock, just off of Foothill Blvd. (the famous Route 66):
Fortunately, St. Therese Catholic Church has something to say about this event in advance so parishioners might choose a St. Pat's party instead: "This year, being the 100th anniversary of the canonization of St. Therese,* we are having a special visit of a Holy Face relic on MONDAY, MARCH 17, FROM 6:00 TO 10:00 P.M.
"This third-class relic is a replica of the cloth Veronica wiped Jesus’ face with and has been touched to Veronica's Veil, the True Wood of the Cross, and the Lance that pierced Christ's side.
St. Patrick's Day celebration, Lenten Mission
Since this image was touched to the instruments of Our Lord's Passion, which were drenched in His Blood, it has therefore been touched to the Blood of Christ. And so is considered a “Living Image of Jesus Christ.”
(*Note: When she was still in the Carmel in Lisieux, France, our patroness’ religious name was Sr. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. She was first given the name “Therese of the Child Jesus” when she entered, and she added “and the Holy Face” when she took the veil.) The evening will begin with a talk at 6:00 p.m., by Vicki Schreiner, author of Chronology of the Holy Face Devotion, followed by Mass at 7:15 p.m., and then veneration of the Holy Face relic until 10:00 p.m." Source: Church bulletin, sttheresechurchalhambra.org).
Eve Libertine/Crass "Reality Asylum"
WARNING: Not suitable for anyone under 70. Vile, vulgar, crass, obscene
(Why is Crass SO angry at British/Irish Christian religious oppression?)
Atheist/Agnostic point of view
Mr. Show exposes hypocrisy, ripping it a new hole
Once upon a time in the Valley of Los Angeles, California, HBO gave Bob Odenkirk and David Cross the money to develop a comedy sketch show for cable TV: Mr. Show with Bob and David. They ran with it and filmed one of the funniest and smartest shows (right up there with Amy Sedaris' Strangers with Candy) ever created for basic cable. It has only gotten funnier with time, having introduced the world to many actors who went on to stellar comedy careers like Sarah Silverman, Jack Black, and that shy bald guy. In this 30-minute episode entitled "What to Think" (S1E02), they brilliantly satire the U.S. government's censorship attempts, the hypocrisy of the Christian church (at least the televangelist wing of it), and greedy transnational corporations, while cussing a lot.
*Relics (sarira) are real in Buddhism
Śarīra is a generic term referring to Buddhist relics, although in common usage it usually refers to pearl or crystal-like bead-shaped objects [which Wisdom Quarterly has determined to most likely be silica] that are found among the cremated ashes of the Buddha, chief disciples, and other Buddhist spiritual masters (aka "noble ones," the Aryans).
Relics of the Buddha after cremation are termed dhātu ("elements") in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta [1]. Śarīra are held to emanate or incite "blessings" and "grace" (Sanskrit adhiṣṭhāna) within the mindstream and experience of those connected to them [2].
Mind here refers to streams of cittas ("mind-moments")
Sarira are also believed to ward off evil in the Himalayan Vajrayana Buddhist tradition.
The Buddha, beloved figure of Thailand, SE Asia
Terminology
Cremation pyre relics of Shakyamuni Buddha
Śarīra (pronounced /ɕɐɽiːɽɐh/) means "body" in Sanskrit. When used in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit texts to mean "relics," it is always used in the plural: śarīrāḥ.
The term ringsel is a loanword from the Tibetan རིང་བསྲེལ (ring bsrel). Both of these terms are ambiguous in English; they are generally used as synonyms, although according to some interpretations, ringsels are a subset of śarīras.
Śarīra can refer to:
Dharmakāya śarīra, which are sutras as told by the Buddha. According to Ding Fubao's Dictionary of Buddhist Terms, a "Dharma body" śarīra is "the Sutra as told by the Buddha: That which is unchanging in what is told by the Buddha, is of the same property as the essence of the Buddha himself, hence it is called the 'dharma body śarīra.'"
Remains of the Buddha or other spiritual masters, either cremated remains or other pieces, including a finger bone or a preserved body, similar to the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox incorruptibles.
Broken-body śarīras refers specifically to cremated remains.
When used without qualification, it generally refers to the pearl-like remnant of a master left after cremation.
Pearl-like śarīras
Mass market holy Buddhist relic container
Although the term śarīra can be used to refer to a wide variety of Buddhist relics, as listed above, it is generally used to refer to pearl or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are purportedly found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters.
These objects are considered relics of significant importance in many sects of Buddhism since they are believed to embody the spiritual knowledge, teachings, realizations, or living essence of spiritual masters.
They are taken as evidence of the masters' enlightenment and spiritual purity. Some believe that śarīras are deliberately left by the consciousness of a master for veneration, and that the beauty of the śarīras depends on how well the masters had cultivated their mind and morals.
Śarīra come in a variety of colors, and some are even translucent.
Sariras are typically displayed in a glass bowl inside small gold urns or stupas (burial mound reliquaries) as well as enshrined inside the master's statue.
Śarīras are also believed to mysteriously multiply while inside their containers if they have been stored under favorable conditions.
Saffron threads are sometimes placed within or around the bowl containing individual śarīra as an offering. More
The Catholic Church; Mr. Show with Bob and David; Team Recovering Catholics (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
The priest recommended a sexy movie, The Substance, for its lesson on beauty, ashes, and dust.
Improving Catholic Jesus, nicer and whiter
Vibhuti is valuable. It must be. People will go to great lengths to get it, even if it's just a smudge or cross over the third eye. How does one turn common ash into a sacred object of veneration? Bless it.
It was a rainy Ash Wednesday in the City of Lost Angels. But we went on an adventure anyway. (No one walks in LA, and during the rain, no one remembers how to drive). The rain ruined it the big open house event at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center (MD, "Mother of Suffering" Catholic monastery situated next to burnt out Altadena high atop the idyllic town of Sierra Madre, Los Angeles).
The male gaze and absurd beauty standards
MD changed its whole schedule: No mass at 8:00 am or 6:00 pm as promised, and the "open house" (the first time the popular retreat center nestled in the green foothills after the Eaton Fire, which is right next door and partly burned the place, making it susceptible to mudslides and flooding. The volunteers did not have much information, even on the current condition of the pope. One would think they would be on top of it, but the pope seems not nearly as important as when the pope was John Paul.
I'm so pretty, and I'm getting ready for church.
The day was nothing, no tour, but one could walk down a hall to visit the "Stations of the Cross" by looking at very dark pictures of the great Roman Crucifixion of a troublemaker called "Christ."
He suffered for his sins against the state, but having no sins his suffering has been transferred to cover the Passionists who populate the place, Catholics in specific, and everyone in general. That means us, confirmed "sinners." And you better feel bad about it or else.
The glories of the Holy Roman Empire today
Joe Rogan and British comedian Jimmy Carr
Abstain from MEAT EATING for Lent or life or at least on Fridays, like Jesus wants (Christspiracy)
LA is a paradise from the air (Echo Park Lake)
The center has such a nice main building full of meditation rooms with their own showers. It's almost haunted in its kind of sterile monasticism with lots of Carmelite brown and old-style hotel. One is reminded of Self Realization Fellowship's Mother Center on top of Mt. Washington in neighboring Mt. Washington, overlooking the LA skyline. Now that's a place to visit, all syncretic Hindu-Christian, where Paramhansa Yogananda slept. One can visit his room with its tiny bed once a year on his birthday.
But this place, a kind multiroom mansion is dreary with devotion, austere penitence (tapas), and a priest from India who knows nothing about Jesus' time in India or all of the scholarship behind that century-old discovery.
See Nicolas Notovitch, Holger Kersten, Swami Abedananda, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the BBC, and others: Unknown years of Jesus
There's a written record of where Jesus was?
Holy cow. It has a nice gift shop and lots of things to sell. There were ashes for the asking, but very little else. It used to be that to get a communion wafer and wine (gluten cracker and grape juice) from a communal cup with saliva wiped off by a handkerchief, one had to have gone to confession or gotten right with the Priest/Lord/Church Official, or Holy Ghosts.
But not for this token? Anyone could go up and be smudged (not in the good way using Indigenous sage or Salvia apiana, but rather here using the burnt offerings of palms that were prayed over).
Two priests, one from India the other from the Philippines, did not inspire us -- noncommittal, inoffensive, diffident, and reticent with little to no knowledge of anything about Jesus in India or anything else that is not Chruch-approved and Vatican-sanctioned. That's the way to stay out of trouble, one could suppose. But how is it that a priest of this religion, so emphasizing the Stations of the Cross, doesn't seem to know about the face of the lord (God's son or devaputra) appearing on a cloth used to wipe his bleeding facade during his ordeal or "passion"? That cloth should be at least as famous as the Shroud of Turin and Jesus' tunic. There's a whole station about it, and in the middle of this month the holy relic goes on tour through Southern California from wherever it's kept the rest of the time (under lock and key in a temperature-controlled vault somewhere in Europe.
Jesus Christ lived in India?
Who had ever heard of such a thing? Jesus' face on another cloth and no one has anything to say? If it's coming on tour in the neighboring cities, but the Indian priest didn't know? He did know of a mysterious relic in his hometown in India. There a wax figure of Jesus under glass grows a beard not made of hair but of some fibrous substance. Another miracle yet this very same priest had never heard of the Christian saint's blood in a vile that has remained liquid for centuries. It was almost a shame to tell him about it, or anything else, because he didn't believe it. Did the Church say so? seemed to be his whole position on everything. What kind of kissing up is that, following a religion and never questioning it? The smart kind, the kind that keeps one in good graces with the higher ups, the "let's not upset things and get me in any kind of trouble or scandal"? What is he up to that he would so fear any potentially unflattering attention or appearance of impropriety in believing or admitting to knowing about anything unorthodox?
Let's get out of this place, exquisite grounds without a sense of holiness
The Church knew where I had been and deleted it.
From there we left, driving in the rain to find a better mass, something of a more popular nature. Every Catholic church in the country celebrates it. They are standardized and not allowed to deviate.
We found a giant ash mass at St. Andrew's Catholic Church (Pasadena, California), the one with the clock tower visible from the 134 Freeway, where it splits from the 210. It has some of the most beautiful Roman Italian (and life-like brown skinned mural art) and alabaster white statuary with giant imported marble columns and a big picture of the "God" right up front looking down, with impossibly high ceilings, which may be 100 or more feet up.
St. Andrew's Church campanile
There was a big crowd of penitents, half of them Anglos, half of them Latinos, with a sprinkling of Asians, gathering even as it drizzled and threatened to rain. There was a Spanish service going on in the St. Andrew Catholic School hall with a purple draped cross, the cloth representing the figure usually found on it. The Spanish version seemed more spirited, as accords with Chicano gatherings, full of heart and warmth.
The priest said an amazing thing we'd never heard before. If it were a trope, they'd all be saying it and wed've heard it a million times. The sign of the cross has two motions. The first spells "I" top to bottom, and the second, which sweeps from side to side, cancels it out. It's self-abnegation for God (a tip of the hat to Buddhism's selflessness).
Sign of the cross in six steps: I and Not I.
It was odd sitting there watching the giant church fill up. Most Catholics only go to church or "mass" three times a year -- Easter, Ash Wednesday, and Xmas. It seems like enough. The words of the priest were odd to hear: words full of guilt, sin, pleading for forgiveness, as if it were a given that everyone had and was going to sin.
Apparently, we are all sinners, and we have to sin, and there's no way not to sin, so be sure to feel guilty about it, and come to church for indulgences to stay on His good side in case you die midweek. Just keep coming, and that'll keep you in His good graces? (Who thoughtlessly accepts such empty promises, or is it that having nothing else, because they were never allowed to investigate anything, there is no choice? Just accept it all or reject it all, and since we can't reject it all, we have no choice but to accept it all?)
The Substance
You are not your body. - What?! But I...
The multilingual priest conducting the mass gave a good sermon when he deviated from the standard text and told a story about watching the Oscars and being surprised to see The Substance getting attention. To hear this Father tell it, he saw the film or at least part of it. In one scene a woman (Demi Moore), fearing she's getting to look too old and is losing the interest of her husband, goes in for a beauty treatment. It will make her look 20 years younger with porcelain skin (think filter but in real life). She does, but it has a side effect of inflammation and looking worse before it gets better. So she takes a walk and dives into a Catholic church to sit in the back and just reflect as she waits for her new face. It happens to be Ash Wednesday, and the preacher is yelling, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," not singing a song by Bowie but quoting the Bible. She's shocked to realize that after all her efforts to beautify her body, it remains ashes and dust (though better preserved looking now and less rotty).
This religion seems to have been better in the past. Or was it always like this? How is the spell not broken, the stench of hypocrisy of child molesting priests not enough to wake people up that the Vatican runs too tight a ship, here to take in taxes (rebranding them as tithes) for this arm of the Holy Roman Empire?
The rules for Lent
LENTEN REGULATIONS: The Holy Season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. This year it falls on March 5th. During Lent, all Catholics engage in various penitential practices. Of those, the most important and obligatory are the regulations on fasting and penitence.
Abstinence from meat is to be observed by all Catholics 14 years old and older on Ash Wednesday and on all Fridays of Lent. Abstinence means refraining from eating all meats including beef, poultry, pork, etc. [slaughtered cows, birds, pigs, and so on]. Seafood [dead fish] is permitted.
Fasting is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday by all Catholics who are 18 years of age but not yet 60. Those who are bound by this may take only one full meal. [That's quite a fast.] Two smaller meals (that do not equal one full meal) are permitted. [Will it be enough, will people starve?]
The special Paschal fast and abstinence are obligatory [mandatory] for Good Friday and encouraged for Holy Saturday. By the threefold discipline of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer the Church keeps Lent from Ash Wednesday until the evening of Holy Thursday.
All the faithful and the catechumens should undertake serious practice of these three traditions. Failure to observe any penitential days at all or a substantial number of such days must be considered serious.
Abortion? What's so special about a tiny egg?
Taken verbatim from the St. Andrew Church Bulletin, Old Pasadena, March 2, 2025
Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center is excited to announce that it is fully reopening and invites the public to a special homecoming event on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025, from 2:00–5:00 PM. No reservations needed. Come get ashes, pray the Stations of the Cross, and take a guided tour of the grounds [cancelled due to rain but moved indoors for a self-guided review of some pictures]. Development Director Melanie Goodyear at MGoodyear@MaterDolorosa.org and (626) 355-7188 x 103.
Team Recovering Catholics (accompanied by a real diehard old timey Catholic to ask questions), Wisdom Quarterly, March 5, 2025
Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy on religion; Serpentza (YouTube) on China; Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly
What does the holy spirit (prana) have in store?
I always imagined that if I were to have a kid, I would take srim (she/her/him) to all the churches and temples so as to give the child a good basis for making an informed decision about which religion, if any, to adopt in this life.
I, of course, would be a Buddhist (and a non-Judeo-Christian one at that), but I wouldn't want to impose that on the personality born to me as my newfound "family." Yes, like all parents I imagine I would like the developing child to one day say, "You know, Parent, you were right: Buddhism is the best one!" But I wouldn't hold my breath. Kids have to rebel. But they usually come around after that phase.
Take me to temples, Brian. - I'm not your dad.
Having been raised Catholic, the best of all religions BECAUSE it's the easiest one to reject in your youth. Why? It's so preposterous and fitted to imperialism, guilt, fear, exploitation, and egregious sinfulness and making excuses for everything. If, when you're reborn and you don't want to be a Christian like everyone else, get reborn into a Catholic family. First of all, it should be easy, as there are more Catholics than anything else other than, perhaps, Chinese animists who subscribe to an admixture of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, Capitalism, and Communism as the sort of state religion of police state mass surveillance as is found on other planets. If there's anything that matters more than anything else in China today, it has got to be the almighty Yuan (money). Think America's bad? See how desperate they are for cash and coin on the streets of China, where Winston once lived:
(Serpentza) Jan. 31, 2024: The Chinese economy really is this bad!
We can only model a spiritual tradition or religion, inspire, and hope for the best from Fate, Kismet, and Karma (knowing that past deeds really rule the underlying tendencies of newly reborn beings more than present actions, words, or ideas).
Then I remembered. I do have a kid! Well, of sorts, that little Shiznit, me. I have to raise myself. It's a lifelong project, extending over many lives in my case. Inner-child, outer-adult, Peter Pan Syndrome human being, what do I know? So where am I going to learn it? At the feet of gurus, as a chela (disciple), on a heroic journey into the woods like Bela in Poor Things or HCE in Finnegans Wake, the woods of course being a metaphor for the Big Bad World out there or the Sick Sad one on Daria's TV.
My friend, Coby, invited me to a Quaker Meeting this morning for the regular meditation and potluck and to pitch an idea he had to them. Sounds good. There aren't many Meeting Houses, so we arranged to meet there. Only I got lost after a nearly-late start because today is National Time Change Day when we spring forward after months of having bounced back.
The first church
Why are Irish novels more interesting?
I made it in time, showed myself in, where congregants were already seated. A very nice female preacher passed and said hello, giving me a personal welcome. Then she introduced today's guest preacher from Hawaii, a Wayne Dyer of a man, bad, bloated, barefoot and wearing a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned down to his hairy navel. "Nice," I thought, "very relaxing." The singing by the choir was great, very catchy as they got up, accompanied by piano.
So I took out my notebook and began to compose a new opening scene for my Irish novel. I was in the middle of it when I texted my friend, realizing I had just become the 'ayhole who texts in church.
The preacher at the Church of Truth (Pasadena Church of Truth, Center for Awakening Consciousness | Facebook) bounced between Protestant Evangelism and Hawaiian spirituality and the "heavenly light," which I thought he translated from da kine. But he was using another term. Indigenous Hawaiians believed in "heaven"? Certainly, there's a celestial sphere they could look up and see, and "kings" may have come down to rule them, take their mana, and leave rules for them to follow not exactly knowing why.
There's was no reply, so I searched the address and realized I was three blocks from the correct church building. What are the chances? It goes to figure. They're a lot alike, and Coby doesn't let details like exact addresses stand in his way.
I waited for an opening, a pause in the preacher's homily, then bolted for the door, raced to the right religious building, a beautiful old house, not unlike the Craftsman architecture the City of Pasadena is famous for.
The second church
I saw Coby leading the kids in some singalongs in the back, remembered I was told the meditation was in the main hall, and figured the front door must be the way in. Quite a deduction. Little did I know that behind that door was it, 50 people, 99% white, in pensive silence, shoegazing.
I had soft soles, so I was able to take a seat without further disruption, only the door didn't quite close. Someone had to get up to close it. Finally, the preacher got up, walked to the center of the room (the pews being arranged in a squared circle), and began to tell an interesting anecdote about how his female relative in the 1800s went to Korea (called Chosun) as a missionary and taught medicine.
She didn't speak the language nor know the culture. But she did write about the experience, and much to his surprise, the Korean government published her observations in six volumes now available on Amazon. He bought them, read them, and was bored to tears by their mundane and very undescriptive contents. They were all about her and her days, with next to nothing about the country, the people there, their habits, customs, odd ticks.
She didn't seem concerned with that, so she started teaching Western medicine and soon trained three Korean nurses to help as her assistants. The catch was they had to convert to Christianity, presumably Quakerism, to be eligible. They were willing.
So she moved to Pyongyang (or some similar sounding place north of Seoul). There she founded the country's first Western medical school, where a young female Korean developed a girl-crush on her. What became of this lesbianism we are not told, but that youth took her crush all the way to the top, becoming Korea's first Western-trained doctor.
Then the "preacher" stopped, who it turned out was just a parishioner (because there are only parishioners in the Quaker tradition) took his seat again, and everyone fell into silence.
This was the oddest Sunday service I'd ever seen, not a mass, not a singalong except for the kids in the garden. Then I remembered the time change. (Today, March 11, 2024, is when time sprang forward).
I could not have arrived on time. That could not have been the start of the service. And, no, it was not. For someone else stood up and gave a spicy testimony. Actually, she just talked about her wardrobe and how long it took her to choose it earlier that morning. Then she sat down.
Protestantism
I started to understand the Protestant movement from what a young Presbyterian -- a gorgeous blond shooting instructor with a twin sister -- had explained to me. She in her twenties became a "right honorable pastor" before they booted her out of the pulpit. The presbyters are elders, but they're ordinary people, part of a "church" of people, a Christian community.
They were strangely beautiful Norwegians, one slightly more beautiful than the otherwise identical twin because one smiled a lot, and this one not so much. Boy, she was cold and anxious, laconic, not much given to speech. It's like what they say about cold climate Scandinavians. What do they say? "Did you hear about the Norwegian man who loved his wife so much, he almost told her?"
"Church" is not a building. It's more a verb. If one is going to church, one is going to do something, and doing something is not a noun. One who attends a communing communes with the community, the "church," because church is churching -- communing with those who commune. Just about everything is at its root a verb, as Buddhist teachers like Alan Watts famously explain.
In fact, in Buddhism, one of the reasons "nirvana" is so hard to understand as not nothingness, not annihilation, not a void, not oblivion, yet it's not anything we can readily grasp without experiencing it. It's not a noun, not a person, place, or thing. (If it were a thing, it would have constituent factors that condition it, but it is the "unconditioned element." There's no sense in trying to think about it to figure it out. Our thinking will only mislead us. It is a verb that one might translate as "nirvanering" (quenching, slaking, cooling, bringing all suffering to cessation).
Watts makes this point nicely. Take your hand. Look at it. Extend all the fingers. What's it doing? It's handing (being a hand). Now wave it. What's it doing? It's waving; it's a wave. Now ball it into a fist. What's it doing? It's fisting. What is it? A fist when it fists, a wave when it waves, a hand when it hands things over. We call it by its function.
Actually, Watts doesn't mention the waving. It's a hand when it's open, a fist when it's closed, and they are not two separate things. By calling them at one moment a "hand" about to shake another (gladhanding someone) then a "fist" about to punch someone, we hallucinate two things into existence.
But there isn't. It's just this five-factored thing (or six factors or as many factors as anyone cares to analyze, dissect, and deconstruct).
It's the same way with the Five Aggregates clung to as "self." We can analyze the aggregates (heaps, groups), count them, separate out the 50 mental formations or shrink them back to one batch. We can know-and-see them with acute attention. But grasping them the way we do, we hallucinate an ego into being. There are just factors, and they get named. And the solution to the riddle is, If "I" do not have form (a physical body), feeling (sensation), perception (mental sorting), formations (like intention), and consciousness (awareness), then who does? A: No one does. The body has body, feeling has feeling, perception has perception, formations have formations, and consciousness has consciousness. They are processes (verbs) not nouns for anyone to "have." They cling to themselves, and a sense of "self" arises, but it is not what it seems. It's real, just and hand and fist are real, but it is not independent of its constituent factors. It cannot stand apart from those things, and it is not really those things -- all of which are always changing (impermanent), disappointing (suffering), and impersonal (not self).
A hand doesn't really fist (when balled up); it is a fist. Its action is what it is. A fist doesn't really wave; rather, a hand does another thing, and we give the thing that it's doing a name, make it a noun. In just the same way, rain does not rain down. The very raining down is what we call "rain." Rain is a verb, a function of water, not different from it.
Yet we treat things as nouns and become confused, deluding ourselves that something has come into existence. A fist does not come into existence, an illusion does. A hand (a waver) fists, and so is called a "fist" as if the hand had disappeared and a fist replaced it. It's right there. It hasn't gone anywhere. It's all that's there, useless without a doing, nameless until it does something. It hands, so we first called it a hand. Then the thing that it did got a name. That doing became a noun....
So here we were churching. It's all very different from Catholicism and the priestly ritual of the mass, with its entrancing mumbo-jumbo Latin, Gregorian chanting, sorcery and incantations, echoing off the floor and walls built just so as to create a grand sound effect and amplification.
The candles, costumes, curses, rhetoric, benedictions (bene = bien = good, beneficial + diction = words, utterances, blessings), the mystery and magic of it all, and the molestation and hypocrisy, the paying of indulgences and taking orders from the corporate body's CEO, literally called "the Father," il Papa or Pope. It's a gas.
Berkeley Zen Center, Bay Area, California
Here, now, all of that was stripped away. We were all imams with something to say, something to teach, glory in the ordinary. It was like reading Robert Frost poetry. One doesn't even know it's poetry at first. It's clean, crisp, unornamented. I suddenly understood why all the attendees and residents at the Berkeley Zen Center (BZC) were the way they were, a bunch of disaffected Abrahamic religion types.
I wanted meditation to make sense at BZC. But there were 101 unspoken rules about how everything was done. Everything was a ritual but one stripped of its mystery and meaning. It, to quote Tate McCrae, "is what it is and was it was."
There was no big thing to read into everything. It was all just Everyday Zen, fulfillment in Ordinary Dharma, the love of sparse and empty spaces, unadorned wood, lots of black robes, trees and flowers, German sandals and detachable monastic robes (because no one was a monastic in the Theravada sense of full-time, usually lifelong binding vows and abstentions, as if everyone were a monastic just for the moment and would then take off the uniform and go back to being just a regular Jane and Joe with a regular job going back to a regular home and marriage. I'd return to class with more questions than answers.
It made no sense, all that pretending, but the pretense was that we were dropping all pretenses. Everyone was equal (even though we weren't). And the community had no hierarchy or apparent authorities, just rule by committee and unquestionable customs, by whatever ancient master could be quoted as the authority of why we should have no authorities. "If you meet the Buddha on the road..." they used to say and smile as if they were clever. I would shiver, thinking WTF kind of thing is that to say?
Here now, many cities removed, down south in Pasadena (Hollywood adjacent), where we are far more religious, far more hypocritical, far more into seeking, and far more accepting of the mystical than the practical, unlike the northern climes of the Bay Area, and Berkeley in particular, I found myself in a hall full of familiars. But that was way back on March 11, 2024. How would they be on St. Patrick's Day? I'll have to find out.
Orange Grove Friends Meeting (ogmm.org) an unprogrammed group of Quakers in Los Angeles
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