Portland, Maine-Saint Ansgar Completes Class on Sexism

Pastor Maria Anderson and co-facilitator, Christopher Bear-Beam, gathered with congregational members for five Sundays, beginning in April 30 and ending on May 28, 2017, to lead a class on Sexism.  Participants could attend as many or as few of the classes as they wished.

St. Ansgar is located at 515 Woodford St, Portland, ME and can be reached by calling 207-774-8740, or going to www.saintansgar.org.  

The class was formulated to include accurate content, interactivity, group communication, and dialogue within the group.  St. Ansgar is a church within the sphere of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA); the denomination began the process of creating a church-wide social policy statement on Sexism in 2009.  Each congregation within the ELCA will give feedback to the Churchwide Assembly, and the document will be brought to the Assembly in 2019.

Topics covered during the five-week class (that began during the Easter season) included: 1).  Intro: why are we here to discuss this topic; getting on the same page around Sexism; 2).  What problems do women face?  3).  How is Sexism personal?  4).  Why do images of God matter?  5).  What does economic justice look like?

The class used group guidelines that we hope were effective in creating a safe, sacred space; the facilitators used small group exercises, large group activities, and other focused exercises.  Our philosophy was to create a “give-and-take” (a dialogical model that uses listening to “two to one or more” as a primary method so that experiential learning may emerge.

One participant attended the class because she lives in the neighborhood where St. Ansgar is located.  She was also interested in the class because she’s an editor for parts of a biblical commentary that’s a feminine critique & exposition of other teachings & practices in the biblical annals, using a feminist mode of interpretation & hermeneutics.

Other presentations, groups and classes will be sponsored by St. Ansgar, so be sure to watch for future events!

©Christopher Bear-Beam

Wells, Maine: Blended Awakenings Opens New Season!

Brewed Awakenings opens their new season (through the summer and into the fall).  My refrain was “Is there only one coffee café (shop) in Wells?” (1846 Post Rd., Wells, ME 04090; [207] 646-2600).

The present-day proprietor, is Jackie Maude, and she’s been doing this job for the last three years; her dad, Jim, began the café about eight years ago. When Jackie took over, she decorated the café in her way & with her touch.

Saturday, May 27, 2017 was the first day of a brand-new season.  It was gratifying seeing many of Jackie & Jim’s friends & family come to the café.  I felt it was a wonderful support to the café.

Another sense I had of the café, was its “family-style” atmosphere, that was informal, amiable, and filled with the scent of wonderful coffees & bakery goods.  By the visitor’s remarks, many of them knew the owner’s family for a long time.

Jackie Maude is a person with incredible energy, which is obvious, if you just watch her for a while in the café.  There’s no doubt she loves what she does.

One new idea that will become a future reality, is that the café will soon begin serving hamburgers, remaining open in the afternoon & evening, to meet the needs of clientele. With this new attraction/food many folks may stop for a burger after they’ve hit the beach.

Another event that Brewed Awakenings is a sponsor for & supporting, will be held on Father’s Day, June 18, 2017

For a poet, like me, you search to find the right vibe & atmosphere, to sit drinking your coffee, and typing on your computer. If the energy is good in a place, it effects everything else, including artists who may doing their art, or poets who need inspiration and positive affirmations to write their poetry.

The only shortcoming, I could find was Jackie’s refusal to sell me her “Poseidon” color pick-up truck (I think it’s vintage 1963).  She loves her truck, so I don’t foresee any upcoming raffles for it.  It rounds out the “Poseidon Blue” color-scheme for the café.  I also heard another secret: Jackie also has a motorcycle that she loves riding.

In short, a good vibe & energy helps everyone, because it enlivens us, and helps us to digest what we’ve put in our stomachs.  My recommendation is to check it out yourself.  You won’t be sorry!

©May 28, 2017

Politicians Try to Play It Cool, Take off the Masks of Your Fake Humanity!

Republican Greg Gianforte, on the eve of the election for the lone congressional seat in Montana, broke the law by “body-slamming” a reporter who asked a question about the new, Republican-driven, Health Care Law; the assault was witnessed by other journalists, who said Gianforte grabbed the journalist by the neck and threw him to the ground, injuring his arm.

“Gianforte had been silent in the wake of the allegations, with his campaign only releasing a statement claiming that The Guardian's Ben Jacobs had been the aggressor. But speaking at his victory party in Bozeman shortly after the race was called, Gianforte admitted he was in the wrong and offered an apology to Jacobs.”

"[Wednesday] night I made a mistake, and I took an action that I can't take back, and I'm not proud of what happened," Gianforte said. "I should not have responded in the way that I did, and for that I'm sorry.

"I should not have treated that reporter that way, and for that, I'm sorry, Mr. Ben Jacobs," the congressman-elect continued. "That's not the person I am, and that's not the way I'll lead in this state." (NPR, Jessica Taylor, Republican Gianforte Wins Montana House Race Amid Assault Charge, May 26, 201712:45 AM ET)

Now, here’s a real problem.  Gianforte is a politician but he’s also a human being; each human being has a “light” side of good, healthy qualities & attributes.  We also have a shadow-side which usually is the part of ourselves we deny or disown.  As a result, our shadow can sneak up on us, catching us off-guard.

Gianforte’s shadow-side was behind him, and not out in front where he could see it, and possibly head-off potential problems.  Yes, Mr. Gianforte, this is the person you really are, so I suggest that you find a way to see why you’re wearing this mask.  Stop rationalizing, and using excuses to defend yourself.  See it for what it is, and keep your eye on it.

All politicians need to shift in this way if they want to continue growing and improving as a human being.  If they want to be effective in elected office; if someone says or does something clearly dysfunctional, as Gianforte did, maybe they’re in the wrong line of work?  But an occupational or geographical change won’t necessarily be the solution-violence and assault are in the hearts of human beings, so that’s where change must start.

-Secondly, this incident indicates the stress & “driven-ness” that the Republicans feel to pass a new Health Care law.  It’s a fundamentalist, antithetical statement against former President Obama.  Republicans are known for their “crazy-making” actions, “grandiose claims minus facts,” competitiveness, and ignorance of the genuine needs of their constituency.

The face of the Republican Party has shifted like a huge leisure-ship, like the Queen Mary, under the sway of Donald Trump.  Trump’s political rhetoric has “made it OK” to strike out, and to repudiate the non-white citizens of the U.S.  This mixture of racist & non-factual statements is now what fuels many Republican politicians and supporters.

So, body-slamming a reporter whose questions you don’t like, is now OK, right? After all, Trump’s statements about wishing he could punch someone in the face, his offer to pay the legal fees for supporters who assaulted someone during the campaign, and his racist invectives, seemingly now “down-lowed” due to being President.

You can’t change or erase the spots of a leopard-Trump’s internal racism is there in his silent-breathing consciousness.  Don’t be duped by his wealth, his power, and his rhetoric.  What you see & hear is now hazily behind a smokescreen.  But if you look hard & critically, you see the layers of gray frosted smoke behind the screen.

©Christopher Bear-Beam May 26, 2017

Cool Loneliness

As I age, I’ve found that my mind’s proclivity is to attach to loneliness; in earlier times in my life, I thought I had no problem with it-but it’s different during my eldering sage-ing years.

When I was involved in meditation much more than I am now, I prided myself on having the attribute of understanding aloneness, and loneliness, didn’t present a problem to me.  Pride, self-centeredness, and self-conceit are opponents to spiritual growth & understanding, but Ego loves to present that these qualities are only about self-interest, not self-conceit, i.e., Greed is good.  Or Pride is OK.

In The Pocket Pema Chodron [(2008). Boston: Shambhala Publications], a Buddhist teacher & writer, writes about loneliness in the sixty-fourth reading, the following:

“When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a relaxing and cool loneliness (my emphasis) that completely turns our usual fearful patterns upside down” (p. 106)

So, what’s cool loneliness, I wondered?  The first given that came to mind is that it’s cool to be lonely.  If one is lonely, pause, be with that feeling, and then let it go; that’s one thing that appears to have a good outcome, because we can be open to all of life, not just what we define as the good parts.  Extrapolating, it’s cool to be angry, greedy, ignorant-it doesn’t mean that you are those things, rather they’re simply your emotions running through your mind like the current of a river.

If cool loneliness is cool, then it presents us with a counter-cultural axiom.  In other words, if we think of coolness (as described in the previous paragraph) as something positive, then it can meet something called heat, and come out on top, right?  Empirically, heat should trump (pardon my innuendo) cold, but in a spiritualized realm, cool loneliness replaces uncool loneliness as an attachment that, say Buddhists, is something we can use as an antidote to uncool loneliness that may become an attachment or addiction.

Another popular usage of “cool” is used when we say to someone, “Will you just cool it?”  Here, “cool” means moving to a more stable and less hot-headed way of doing things.  Couldn’t cool loneliness be looked at and used in this way?  “Hey, just pause & relax.  Take it easy.  Be cool.”  An admonition to be more balanced and less off-the-chain hyper.

Pema writes about a “relaxing and cooling loneliness;” Think of a very hot day wherever you live, and both your car AC and home AC are broken: feeling a cool breeze would make your day, right?  Refresh you, right?  Or, say, it’s about one-hundred degrees’ temperature outside, and you drink some ice-cold water-ah, the pause is refreshing!

This positive “loneliness” or “aloneness” gives us pause to sit with our feelings of pain because we’re alone, our feelings of fear because we’re alone, and possibly memories of early-childhood experiences of loneliness.  Anytime we pause and breathe like this, we allow our unconscious to float to the top of our minds; we note it, and let it go.  Our noticing perhaps grooves a place or track in our consciousness, so that now what’s bubbled up can be looked at in our lives.

This is a kind of cool loneliness, because it’s not hot with resistance, inner commentaries, or denial.  There’s a welcoming & inviting “coolness” without the stressful pressures that heat up in our minds as fixations or obsessions.

So, don’t judge yourself-love yourself and invite in your guest-Ms. Or Mr. Cool Loneliness!

©Christopher Bear-Beam May 18, 2017

Soul Wounds for All of Us to Consider

Maybe you’ve already heard of this phrase soul wound, that has been used to refer to PTSD-like injuries & mental health resulting from trauma.  I don’t think anyone would argue with this definition when it refers to the Holocaust; it also occurred in Rwanda and many other places.  To this day, Genocide has consistently done over the years; for example, the Turkish government has denied any role in the Armenian Genocide in the early 1900s.

Abraham J. Peck wrote an article for the Maine Sunday Telegram, “Genocide Survivors Share Soul Wound,” April 23, 2017 p. D1, asking about the nature of Genocide, and writes, “Is this the dark cloud that lurks in all of us just waiting to emerge if the circumstances are right and we no longer see the victim as a human being.”

“But the murderers murdered and the dead cannot be brought back to life.  What do we do with our memories and with our own soul wounds, those of us who bear the burden of our genocides?  And how can humanity begin to understand the ‘other’ in its midst as our brothers and sisters?”

I won’t even go near the rash of ‘Holocaust Deniers’ that have risen out of their sleekly hidden beds to give voice to protest even resisting the fact that it happened.

Isn’t this what ISIS is doing, too?  They are in Syria, cordoning off an area that they hold militarily; I’m sure there are ongoing discussions between the U.S. government and our allies, as to how best to stop the slaughtering of innocent women & children.  It will be an ongoing process.  Is this incipient Genocide?

People who endure any kind of mass & traumatic event such as Genocide, have received “soul wounds” from this kind of experience.  Depending on what beliefs you have about the soul, this might be as real as tar on a road, or as phantasmagorical as a vision in the desert.

Maybe it would be better to choose the words, “wounds of the spirit,” or “spirit wounds.”  Or perhaps we could choose the word consciousness.  Our consciousnesses mine the treasures & sieves that allow unconsciousness to flow into our being; in fact, it can reflect all the holistic elements of our spirituality.

As such, I would say that wounds of the soul can be healed.  There are many tributaries of healing ways & methods that can be selected by unique individuals with various learning-styles; there is no time limit to this kind of healing, because it is triggered by an individual’s collective thought processes, emotions, intellectual aspects or our intelligence, social aspects, physical aspects, brain-chemistry functions, genetics, environment, etc.  A person must decide if it’s time to jump into the flow and go!

Many therapists point out that until the wounded traumas are confronted and processed and integrated, the powerful, often submerged, impacts will remain in place in one’s life.  This is an important point: whether it be children’s sexual abuse, a natural disaster, combat, etc. it will continue to impact the sufferer’s life in unhealthy ways.

Henri Nouwen created the term “the wounded healer.”  A “wounded healer” is a person who has spent time with her own wounds, and has found the means to integrate the wounds into one’s spirituo-psycho-social fabric of life.  Due to this process, the “wounded healer” develops greater compassion & empathy for the wounds, both of themselves & others.  So, in this way, a wound can act as a change agent.

It’s a perfect time to think of soul wounds, and recognize that Mother Earth (Earth Day) has been wounded greatly & extravagantly, by our own human, unethical actions.  We’ve damaged the earth’s soul by living in our boundaries, but dissing respectful-love.

Mama Earth has modeled for us how to mend souls that are wounded; she was the beginner of this work, showing us how it works, and to perpetuate it beyond the bounds of our moral imperatives, wrong or right, it’s been going along all this time under the loving & caring guidance of the Universe.

Yesterday was Earth Day-a good way to sift our memories & knowings about the earth is to celebrate life this week; think of the ways we can advocate, work for, or serve the Universe in the mission of a “soul wound” capacity of re-integration and community wellness.

©Christopher Bear-Beam April 27, 2017

Trollers’ Strategies on People from A Different Ethnicity

Erin Schrode is Jewish.  She has received countless, vitriolic emails from people who know she’s Jewish, and says this is how online racism & anti-Semitism by trollers reach many.  She sees them each day, because she’s run for political office, and is a founder of an environmental nonprofit.  She must keep up with Social Media to do her job.

Among the sites that have impacted her are trolling, racist-mode content, such as the Daily Stormer; then, of course, we have Bannon’s site, the Alt Right, that stirs up white nationalism and racism; by the way, remember?  Bannon’s one of Trump top aides.

But, think about it for a minute: if you were (or are) Jewish, who had family, friends, and ancestors killed in the Holocaust, how would you feel receiving one of these anti-Semitic emails?  Does it harm, or does it cause good?  There’s not really many positives on this one.

My opinion is that the Far-Right Websites are attempting to change our cultural reality (they came to mainstream around 2014).  They are trying to make the fact of people with ethnicities different from ours, something to joke about, something to laugh at-if they can reach this goal, they’ve managed to de-fang any kind of “ism” that promotes exclusivism, hate, bias towards others, stereotypes, racial slurs, and indirect racism-it now doesn’t exist!

Historians and textbook writers & editors have avoided “x-ing” out the exceptionalism from textbooks, they’ve mislead people by their nuancing of American Colonialism, and their explanations of slavery and democracy.  Shame on you!

Andrew Auernheimer, a notorious hacker and digital hitman said, “Being offensive is a political act, if something pushes up against polite civilization, it’s for purpose.”  But does that mean we should go “low” by laughing at groups and people we think are abnormal-they’re not white!  Going “low” appears to label the dynamics of politics today.  Humor is humor, because it levels us all at the same place-we have common mishaps and foibles-so we can learn to laugh at ourselves.

A poor use of humor, however, may come across just as oppositional as a “put down” or any other kind of insult or innuendo.  So, it can backfire.  The trollers ought to

Walk with wise hears, and hear the possibilities of their cultural demise.

©Christopher Bear-Beam April 1, 2017

No longer blog@Examiner.com; please disregard this on the website-try to fix soon. Bear