What made you write about foregiveness? Some of our folks seem afraid to talk about foregiveness and accountability.
Just recently someone on Twitter asked the above question. I thought I’d answer this on my blog since Twitter might not give me enough space.
I started thinking about forgiveness when a former Unitarian Universalist minister kept mentioning it in her sermons. Up to this point, I hadn’t given the concept of forgiveness much thought except that I saw it was used oppressively at times as when the victim was blamed.
Then I read a very slim book on Christian forgiveness from which I learned that forgiveness is expected. The book did not explain how forgiveness is found in oneself. I read the book to see if it would be helpful for a Christian relative who was in constant distress. I didn’t think it could hurt, but I don’t know that she ever read it.
It was news to me that Christianity expected forgiveness — perhaps because I was raised secular. I started looking at forgiveness from a Buddhist perspective. There is one strain of Buddhist thought that says a slight to someone else is a slight to yourself. Like lots of people, I had things in my life to forgive and move on from.
I thought about it in my daily practice. I finally made up a mantra about forgiving everybody who had ever done me perceived or actual harm. Then after a while I forgave myself for any harm I may have caused intentionally or not. The thinking behind this is that none of us is perfect and that also our actions may have been misinterpreted.
It took a year of meditating on this, but I could actually feel the result. I felt lighter as if I had been dragging around a boulder for years and had just let go of it.
Like many things in my life, this worked it’s way into my writing.
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
Just recently, I was contacted online and was asked what do I mean by saying Unitarians don’t believe in hell and therefore I can’t be threatened by it.
Whatever the motivations were behind the question, it did make me think. I’ve long heard that Unitarian Universalists (UUs) don’t believe in hell and that it is an issue for some people. For the record, I do believe in karma (not necessarily a Unitarian belief) — that what goes around comes around and I do believe strongly in living an ethical life. UU beliefs on hell can easily be found online. One of the most accurate and pithy statements I found came from a website called Learn Religion which stated:
Heaven, Hell – Unitarian Universalism considers heaven and hell to be states of mind, created by individuals and expressed through their actions.
Unitarian Universalism describes itself as one of the most liberal religions, embracing atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Christians, and members of all other faiths. Although Unitarian Universalist beliefs borrow from many faiths, the religion does not have a creed and avoids doctrinal requirements.
I was raised secular and it felt natural to be part of a religion that doesn’t emphasize a “bad place” like hell or tell me I’m going there. Plus, I really like the UU notion of making life on earth less hellish with its emphasis on social justice.
But also for the record, I support people’s rights to believe what they want to. It’s called Freedom of Speech (or thinking for yourself) and it’s in the constitution. This notion undoubtedly helped me become a fiction writer.
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
As a practicing Buddhist, I admit that there are times when it’s hard not to be defensive. We’re naturally wired to the negative – it’s part of our DNA fight or flight hardwiring. So, I sit with my feelings for a while before responding. Sometimes I go online and listen to Tina Turner chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
At this point, I am used to being told that I’m going to hell for writing THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (Adelaide Books – New York/Lisbon).
But this time, a case of online harassment left me nonplussed. The harassing Tweet was of my review of Jeffrey C. Stewart’s biography of Alain Locke published by Oxford University Press which won the National Book Award for nonfiction. The review was aired on the international LGBTQ radio syndicate This Way Out.
Alain Locke was the first black Rhodes Scholar (in 1907) – and a gay man – who went on to start the Harlem Renaissance. In my view, the publication of this book was a major step forward.
The harassment stated that being gay was a sin (but being Black was not) and then it went on in very explicit terms to state the sexual practices of what the harasser thinks that it is that all gay men and all lesbians do with each other.
It was the use of the word “sin” that threw me. This is a secular book and we live in a secular culture where the sizable (22 percent) number of people who don’t identify with a religion is rising.
As far as what the harasser said about being gay being a sin but being Black not being a sin – it gave me pause to reflect that racism and homophobia often go hand in hand. As the saying goes, “Haters gonna hate.” Of course, there are homophobic Black people as well as racist LGBTQ people. But a moment of feeling better than someone else doesn’t negate the fact that we are in the same marginalized boat.
Recently I was hospitalized for kidney stone surgery. The minister of the Unitarian church that I am a member of came to visit me. I knew that he and his wife had joined the counter protestors outside a local library and lent Christian support to the story-time drag queen reader.
I asked him what he said to the Christian group of protestors who came to protest the drag queen story reader. He said that from a Christian perceptive that since Jesus died for our sins (specifically for the sins of the whole world – John 2:2) that all sin was erased. So therefore, sin is negated.
I was elated to hear this. I have never related to the word “sin.” I was raised secular and came to religion after fifty. I have always wondered about the word “sin” – if we are all sinners, why isn’t a moot point? So it seems to me that “sin” is an antiquated word – and given its ability to harm adults and children (and to keep them away from religion), I would prefer to use the word “ethical” as in “I’ve always believed in living an ethical life.”
As for the harassment – since it sounds religious – I will pray for the harasser:
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
When I heard about National Library Week, April 7-13, I immediately wanted to blog about libraries.
But my deep belief in libraries is too large to be contained on one week.
When I heard that the Free Library of Philadelphia was order multiple copies of my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (Adelaide Books; 2018) for its branches, I was thrilled.
The Free Library also has multiple copies of my book Tea Leaves: a memoir of mothers and daughters(Bella Books; 2012).
I began hearing from people from coast to coast, that they were ordering my novel THEY through their local libraries. I was thrilled, of course.
When a library buys a book, it means that many people can read it. Libraries are the great equalizer of knowledge. And in a nonreading culture (even if this was not true) libraries are essential. There is a very important link between reading and thinking.
Libraries — and librarians — teach people how to think.
(In addition to being available through you local library, THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders is available through your local bookstore or online.
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
To read a previous post about me reading from my book Tea Leaves at a local branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, click here.
I wanted to let you know about my upcoming reading at the Penn Book Center this January 30th (Wednesday) at 6:30 pm. I’m reading with novelist Anjali Mitter Duva.
The address of the Penn Book Center (in University City, Philadelphia) is 34th and Sansom Streets.
The series is hosted by the All But True Working Writers Group.
Note: I recently co-lead a workshop on exploring myth in words and visual art at the Art Room in Philadelphia where I read the following excerpt of my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders. The YouTube video is below and under that the text of my reading — which features the biblical version of Ruth and Naomi. There is a lesbian tradition of linking Ruth and Naomi together as lovers. (Ruth and Naomi are frequently pictured embracing.) And the writer and Biblical historian Gore Vidal agreed that it looked to him like Ruth and Naomi were lovers. I know it certainly informed my vision of traditional religion — and I’m honored to pass this tradition along.
Tamar looked down on herself. Her body lay on her bed.
Tabitha was at Tamar’s side. Her eyes were wet. Tamar knew why her sister was crying. They were almost the same person, from the same womb, from the same egg split into two. They were identical in looks, if not in spirit. They shared the same secret — that of tricking Judah. Zerah and Pharez were still living in Egypt with Judah.
Tamar saw a well-built man, younger but no longer young, dusting sand from his hands. He must have been digging the hole outside. Tamar somehow knew that the hole was where her body would be buried.
Shaggy salt and pepper hair brushed his shoulders. Light circled his head. She remembered that he was the young shepherd who had lain with Tabitha. Tamar had met him several times when he was a boy and his mother had brought him to her tent.
Tamar came back to herself, opened her eyes, and stared at her sister.
Tabitha looked down at her and said, “I am past my bleeding time now, so there won’t be a scandal.”
“Good,” Tamar said. That was her final word.
Tamar took her last breath — or so she thought. But in death, she found that she was breath.
She was the gentle breeze sweeping from her mouth as her lifeless body was put in the ground.
From the sky above their heads, she looked down and saw a small group of mourners. Judith was there. She was wearing her brown and white striped robe. It did not look like she was wearing her silver necklaces. A fat tear slid down her face, leaving a glistening trail. Judith was holding the hand of her youngest. She was now old enough to walk and to understand that the woman she had known as “Auntie” was no longer with them. But Tamar was not sad. She felt like herself — only like more of herself. She was the silence. Then she realized that someone else was with her. Aziz. (Her late pet camel) He had gone before her. He had died in the last growing season. She had made arrangements to leave Azizi (the baby camel she adopted when she was still alive) to Tabitha who had matured and was more of an animal person. When she was still living, Tamar had thought of Aziz every day. Now she felt a soft furry breeze next to her. They were together again. She caressed the face of the mourners. She lingered for a moment on Judith’s tear stained cheek. Then, in a gust, she took off across the desert. She had places to go.
Her first stop was the marketplace. She had told Tabitha not to tell Naomi that she was dying.
She only saw Naomi when she went to her tent to make the camel cheese. But they had struck up a friendship. Naomi’s daughter-in-law Ruth was left on her own when Naomi’s son had died.
Naomi had confided to Tamar that she loved Ruth. The famine was still bad in the land, and Naomi feared that Ruth might starve since she was on her own. Tamar had known that Ruth was fretting, and that was why she forbade Tabitha to tell Naomi that she was dying.
Tamar was a breeze blowing through the marketplace. She wanted to caress Naomi’s rough face, to thank her quietly for bringing her Azizi and for teaching her to make the camel cheese. But most of all, she wanted to thank Naomi for being a friend. A friend was hard to come by in the harsh desert. But Naomi’s stall in the marketplace was empty. So Tamar flew to her tent and found that she could slip inside the flap.
Naomi was still small and stooped. Tamar recognized her black and white striped robe. But it was no longer new. Time had left it in tatters. Ruth had aged too. Tamar had been right about Naomi’s skin. It had become brown and crinkled like the skin of an almond.
Ruth was beseeching Naomi: “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”
The two women embraced.
“I will think of a plan,” said Naomi, in her gravelly voice, “so that we can be together.”
The younger woman looked at Naomi with shining eyes. Tamar saw that they loved each other as lovers. The two women began caressing each other so tenderly that they looked like they might create a daughter.
With They: A Biblical Tale of Secret Genders, author Janet Mason posits that there could have been a hidden tribe of intersex children, kept under the radar by a pair of savvy twin sisters. Matriarchs Tamar and Tabitha can set the record straight on biblical heroes like Joseph and Jesus, along with other miracles of conception and reincarnation they’ve had to keep to themselves. — Windy City Times
available in bookstores and online where books are sold
RT @amusejanetmason: Some thoughts on forgiveness — #amreading#UU
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RT @amusejanetmason: “Father thinks we’re boys,” said Zerah. “He likes boys better since he is one.”
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RT @amusejanetmason: Children who are brought up to hate themselves often kill themselves or leave the church. Many parents changed their m…Follow me on Twitter! 3 hours ago
RT @amusejanetmason: As it turned out, I wasn’t only queer with a lower case “q,” but Queer also with an upper case “Q.”
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