Tuesday, April 21, 2009

to be possessed

If the Gerasene demoniac [Mark 5] was able to come into his right mind, if, as I sense to be the case, we gay people are, despite all the odds, on the threshold of being able to talk among friends, at home, in our right minds, this is because the demoniac has indeed, and at last genuinely, been possessed. Possessed by the Spirit that was within the man who walked up the shore of Gerasa. What had been outside the demoniac as one who talked to him is now within him as the heart of the Creator who longs with a passionate and visceral longing for us to be free, and rejoices in nothing so much as our quiet, gentle contamination of each other with the first hints of that longing, translated into the first stutters of a right mind.
James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay, New York: Crossroad, 2001. 143

2 comments:

ms said...

i am reading this book -- wouldn't take even a thought of a think to know it's beyond me ... whatever his target audience and at times he makes clear that there is some specificity to some of it -- but while some of it is prety dense there are many other sections of not such ... but sensing i understand any of it i tend to think i must be missing it all -- or here is someone who, though the specific facts of his experience are other than mine seem to have led to similar places ... is that really possible or are the facts so all-shaping that they cannot lead to same places? I'm not sure if it matter or if so why though i do wonder... i might guess he had more expressed disapproval from the outside world where ours was more internal shame and fear...no one ever knew, it took very long to become aware on a conscious level much less saying anything in words, and even now...not a part of my life, not embraced (it's part of me but why/how could i ever do that? should i? does that "not" hold us back?) -- obviously i don't know any of the answers, or maybe i can't yet for wahtever reason allow my self to know more than i do (since what i know i deny or try to most of the time)... i know i digress. This comment makes little if any sense. This is not a part that jumped out at me ... but "the quiet, gentle contamination of each other ... hte fist stuters of a right mind" -- that phrase did resonate, continues to resonate, and just maybe...
but i will not hope, i will just read, and perhaps write, ask questions, wait and see, come what may. That sensing of being on the threshold of being able to talk among friends, at home, in our right minds,..." all things i desire and try to be open for, because i sense there is no other way to move past the self imposed and societal, church, and self-righteous-imposed blame and exile -- the shun -- so maybe, just maybe, there is a tunnel and i might even see the proverbial light one of these days. From the article on atonement, i get the scapegoat, the sacrifice, that i have to be kicked out and told to stay out so that can remain the good, and it's easier to push me away than to accept the truth about other members of their group .. I really do, bc i don't always or easily accept the truth either, and it's my life inhabited by this body and yes, i guess what soul i have, amd still there are times more than i like to admit that all things being equal my choice would be to remove myself, to leave and be gone to hide.
Anyway, good book

brtom said...

yeah .... just keep reading ... and processing it ... as you will ...

i'm still on the road & quite discombobulated ... and happy ... reading Alison's "On Being Liked" in the bits & pieces of time i can find ... good stuff ... i.e. i'm not yet weary of his rap ...