[Dialogue] "RAPE..."

[W. J.]

JWM probably said something like that, maybe. Maybe not exactly that. But the office that was in charge of that activity was called "Penetration." And I am struck by the appropriation of militaristic language to formulate, and inevitably influence, an understanding of what we were doing. That was definitely an influence, bigtime. You'd athunk Joe had been running the Pentagon in WWII, not just serving as a military chaplain.
   
  So I have to ask, where were the voices of women, and how were women influenced by this militaristic imagery?

  Some of what drove us to do those campaigns was Joe's ability to invoke a trance-like state of awe and wonder in contemplation of a Vision of great Victory.
   
  From the perspective of thirty years out, I realize that memory, including mine, is selective, and that we remember emotionally charged imagery and events, not someone's recitation of the phone book. Memorable experiences can have a positive or negative charge, or even a positive charge that may change valence over time with a changed perspective.
   
  In the last few days, seeing Joe again on videotape (one of the very few fragments that exist), speaking to Mayor Daley in 1973 about the great Resurgence in the City of Chicago, brought back an awareness of how much I valued his presence in all his glorious crazyness (and crazymaking for some).  Crazy, madman, mystic, ecstatic, religious fanatic, whatever you wanna call him, he had the gift of taking us into an Other World of consciousness, and care, and wild...how does the song go? And of course like many, I suspect, I long to go there again and would in a heartbeat. It's compelling.
   
  Finally I'm aware that I can choose what memories to treasure. I know Joe sat on the toilet like everybody else, but I don't particularly remember that. Seeing Joe up there on stage with Mayor Daley, I know that they both were probably scoundrels in some ways, maybe even frauds--just plugging away every day like Mother Teresa, despite her well-hidden doubt and genuine anguish. Daley ran a political machine that wasn't the exactly most angelic thing in town. And he spoke about erasing every slum and blight in the City of Chicago, while the reality was (and is) staring us in the face. Even so, what we witnessed that day was the fruit of making some kind of political deal with the Machine, and reaping the result. And God only knows the price we had to pay, both directly and indirectly, to get that done. But what else do you do when the alternative is just to sit on the sidelines?
   
  So what I choose to remember is the visionary Joe, always pointing us beyond his own personal crumminess. Like that Man of La Mancha who objectively was a total crackpot--'cause you definitely had to be one to dream the impossible dream.
   
  Marshall Jones
  
LAURELCG at aol.com wrote:
  This conversation has reminded me of a time when I was listening in awe to 
JWM speak about some particular strategy he was proposing, I think for local 
churches in North America. I was sitting close to the front of the Lumumba room, 
definitely in Joe's huge energy field. He had a diagram on the board, and as 
he punched the various points he had been laying out, he said something like, 
"If we do this, this, this and this, we'll RAPE (big gesture!) the whole 
country!" As if that would be a good thing. Contemplating the memory can still 
evoke a very deeply felt emotion in me, something like shame, and bring tears. 
It really was a shock, as if I'd been struck. It was not a new feeling, 
having grown up in a church where I "got" that to be female was not to be fully 
human, and with an alcoholic father who was less than sensitive with his 
language. The shock was to hear this in the Order, where I could speak, and had 
taken refuge from the "women are to keep silent in the church" theology. Thank 
goodness that where sin abounds, grace abounds more!

Thanks, Margaret, for not keeping silent.

Love and blessings,
Jann McGuire


In a message dated 10/10/07 3:23:16 PM, aiseayew at netins.net writes:

<< Randy, I appreciate your words from one perspective, but. . .

The point is not missed. The comment is to point out that a point can be 
obliterated by such insensitivity and trying to recouch it in personal particular 
historical moral justification does nothing for women today who are still 
having to put up with it. That what I was shocked by was not clear and obvious 
is even more disturbing and belies the entire onslaught of justifications. 
Margaret >>




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