The Papal Bossa Nova

I wasn't particularly moved by the big crowds that cheered you in Rio, Francis, or by the babies you kissed--after all, John Paul II was as popular as a rock star and kissed plenty of third-world babies while telling their mothers that using condoms was a sin.

The dancing bishops did make me smile--they reminded me of those end-of-the-school-year shows put on by first-graders:  http://youmedia.fanpage.it/video/aa/UfUh9eSwJ9iQ7Zxv

But then came the extraordinary press conference on the plane back to Rome, when you said about gay priests, "If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them?"

That statement is being deconstructed all over the planet.  Fundamentalists of all denominations will see it as an open door to the kind of relativism that leads souls straight to hell.  Liberals, on the other hand, claim that you didn't go far enough.  You didn't declare yourself in favor of gay marriage.  You didn't contradict your predecessor's decrees about the inherent sinfulness of homosexuality.

You didn't go far enough for me either.  But the humble tone of that "who am I to judge?" was so unexpected, so revolutionary, that it makes me think you might just manage to keep the Church from going down the tubes.

Then you went and said that John Paul II had once and for all closed the doors of the priesthood to women.

You softened that by saying that we do not yet have a deep theology of woman in the Church.  I'm not sure what that means, but it implies that the theology of woman would be different from the theology of man, and I am suspicious of that.  I know that men and women are different, but the emphasis on those differences, as opposed to the emphasis on their common humanity, has seldom worked to women's advantage.  And in the long history of the Church the almost exclusive focus on difference has been disastrous.
You also said that you seek a greater role for women in the Church.  But no matter what else you allow them, as long as women are barred from ordination they will continue to be second-class citizens.

One step forward, two steps back--but this is no time for dancing, Francisco.   It's time to march directly towards what is right.

Making The Bed

Deep inside the reptilian center of my brain there lurks a  housewife with an eye for the Martha Stewart touch.  She's the paragon whose bathtubs invite long meditative soaks, and whose every tabletop reflects on its well-oiled surface a simple pottery vase filled with flowers.

The first thing this person does upon arising is to make her bed.  As the sun rises in the east and the birds twitter in the trees she straightens the pillows, gives the duvet a good shake and lays it down smoothly, and arranges a flock of throw pillows aesthetically on the bed.  Then she casts a look around the room and smiles, secure in the knowledge that her sanctuary, with its scented sheets, its orderly dresser tops, its bouquet of cheerful zinnias on the bedside table, will be waiting for her when she returns to it at the end of another happy and productive day.

Of course, this woman lives alone.

When I was growing up my mother was not obsessed with orderliness.  The living room and the music room where my father gave violin lessons were reasonably neat, but the rest of the place was another story.

As a teenager, I was dismayed by the clutter in my parents' bedroom:  piles of clothes on chairs, books and sewing projects scattered everywhere.  I thought that the mess revealed a disregard on my mother's part for the little touches that keep a marriage alive, and I promised myself that my conjugal bedroom, should I ever have one, would be a haven of order, serenity, and sensuous charm. 

I should mention that, messy bedroom notwithstanding, my parents had an enviably happy marriage.  And I'm sure that, if my mother wasn't bothered by the clutter, neither was my father, because in my experience men, straight men at least, don't care about neat bedrooms or beds.

I've heard stand-up comics deliver diatribes about their girlfriends' neurotic need to pile decorative pillows against the headboard.  I've heard happily married guys deride bed-making as an absurd and time-wasting ritual because, obviously, you're just going to mess it up when you get in it again.

Which is why my fantasy housewife lives alone.

Whereas I (fortunately, in most respects) don't.  And so I go through periods when, feeling like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the mountain, I make the bed in the morning, straightening up the duvet and placing the occasional pillows with care.  But after several days of having it callously disarranged by my (in most respects, adorable) spouse, I give up and leave the duvet in turmoil and the throw pillows unthrown.


And my inner Martha shudders with horror, and retreats even deeper into my reptilian brain.

Sex And The Scientist

Note to the delicately nurtured:  this post is slightly R-rated.

A long-ago TV documentary on the sexual politics of a troop of baboons showed the dominant male, huge and ill-tempered, lording it over his unfortunate subjects.  He chased the other males, swatted the babies who dared approach him, and grabbed food from the females.  This, the investigating scientist intoned, was natural selection at work, Gaia's way of ensuring that the next generation would be endowed with the best possible set of genes.  In order to be able to spread his DNA as widely as possible, the alpha male had to be big, aggressive, and mean.

Did I mention that the scientist in charge was a man?

Then some years later another ethologist went out and studied baboon sexual politics, and found that many of the lower-ranking males were peace-loving, friendly types who would share their food with females and help them when they got into scrapes.  And when the females went into heat, it was the nice guys they sneaked off into the bushes with, while the alpha male was busy snarling and swatting and stomping around.

Did you guess that this researcher was a woman?

When E.O. Wilson's theory of sociobiology emerged in the 1970s, it seemed to confirm all the stereotypes about male and female sexuality.  If humans are only the gene's strategy  for reproducing itself, it makes sense that men, who theoretically can father infinite numbers of children, would desire infinite numbers of sexual partners.  Women, on the other hand, can produce only one child a year at most, so they are programmed for monogamy.

Despite my admiration for E.O. Wilson, I always found his theory, when applied to human sexuality, unsatisfactory.  It failed to explain, for instance, women's sexual stamina--a woman can have sex with five men in five minutes, but the equivalent is not true for a man. And the theory provided a handy, science-based excuse--"my genes made me do it"--for male infidelity.

Now the old notion that men are programmed for polygamy and women for monogamy is being looked at again.  And this time, some of the scientists doing the looking are women  (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/books/review/what-do-women-want-by-daniel-bergner.html?pagewanted=1).

One of these researchers, primatologist and anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, thinks that women's anatomy might be specifically designed for sex with multiple partners within a single sexual episode --the slower pace at which a female reaches climax, for example, could be meant to ensure this, which in turn would maximize the chances of conception.  This would also, to my mind, guarantee her lots of help in the care and feeding of the resulting baby....

My point here is not to debunk the stereotypes of male and female sexuality, which most women have always suspected were false anyway.  My point is to celebrate the long-overdue entrance of women in these fields, so that a different view of the world is gradually emerging, one that reflects the perceptions and experiences of the other half of humanity.

As to where--in the male view, or the female view, or somewhere in between--the real, empirical, unequivocal truth lies...that, of course, we will never know.

The Guys At The Gym

The gym I go to in the little village just over the border, in New York, is clean, quiet and, on weekday mornings when I am there, mostly empty. There is a men's exercise room, where the weight machines are upholstered in blue, and a women's exercise room, where the machines are upholstered in red.

There are a couple of machines in the women's room that are not in the men's—a stationary bike and a stretching machine—so men will come in and use those. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, I'll see a woman exercising in the men's room.

While I'm working out, I watch some impressively athletic women go through their routines. They run on the treadmill for what seems like hours. They lift heavy weights. They sweat and they pant. But they are silent. Not a moan or a groan or a grunt escapes from their lips. They are discreet about their strength, and so the women's exercise room is almost silent, like a shrine. I like that a lot.

But last week two guys showed up and shattered the devotional atmosphere. I don't know why they came to use our weight machines, since the men's room was practically empty. But there they were, two balding guys in shorts, spotting for each other, egging each other on, cheering, laughing and guffawing so their voices bounced off the walls and the whole room seemed to shake. And the groans! The moans! You'd think they were being torn apart by hooks. You'd think they were lifting elephants, the way they carried on.

No sooner had one finished a set than, after appropriate rejoicings and high-fives, he would swap places with his buddy, and the groaning and grunting and exclaiming would begin all over again.

These were not teenage boys, surfing on a testosterone tide, but men in their fifties. Why were they making all that noise? Were they showing off for each other? For us? For their absent mothers?

And why was I so furious at them? Why did I want to yell at them to shut their stupid mouths and go back to the men's room, or, better yet, leave the gym? Why did I begrudge them the joy of behaving like five-year-olds at the playground (watch ME, Mom!)?

I have no idea. But I get annoyed all over again, just thinking about it.

The New Gym Ladies

“Don't you just love this aqua-cise?” the lady in the locker room says to her friend. “I've gotten so addicted I come in every day, even when there isn't a class, and swim by myself.”

I'm impressed. A sidelong glance reveals her to be no naiad: she's almost as wide as she is tall, and in her none-too-well-preserved seventies. “Let me tell you,“ she goes on, groaning as she bends over to tie her shoe, “walking yesterday was no fun. None of the sidewalks had been cleared, so I had to walk on the road ...”

I repress a gasp. I almost killed myself just crossing the parking lot to the gym just now, and she was out walking yesterday? On the icy, slushy roads of Granville, NY? What kind of woman is this?

She is one of the New Gym Ladies. I see them on my way to the locker room. They're standing in the shallow end of the pool in their flowery suits, their breasts bobbing just above the water line, lifting their heavy arms over their heads. Over their gray, curly, sparsely-haired heads.

I see them in the exercise room, large of thigh and heavy of breast, spending surprisingly long times on the treadmill, earphones on, watching the soaps. As they make their way from one weight machine to another, they walk with the swaying gait of those whose hips hurt badly. But they flex their biceps, and work their triceps, and squeeze and lift and crunch. And they carefully wipe down each machine after they've used it.

New Gym Ladies, wait for me! I'm not that far behind you. I was in high school when you were in college, maybe, in college when you entered the motherhood cloister and disappeared from view. But here you are now, doing something no woman your age has ever done before: working out, lifting weights, growing muscles. You're not in this for looks—a trivial thing--but for survival.

I'm amazed and touched and frightened by you. Because you are my future and you're showing me that it's both appalling, and not so bad.

November 21, 2008 "Going Out, Staying In"

Spent the evening out yesterday: our book group met at a friend's house. Before leaving the house I had to make sure that dogs and husband were fed, and the chickens closed in for the night. I had to make a pile of things to take with me: bottle of wine, books to return, books to lend. I had to think about my clothes. I had to arrange a ride. In my quasi-Cistercian Vermont existence, this is a lot of commotion. But it was wonderful to enter a space other than my own, see faces, hear voices (lots of voices), eat food that someone had deliciously cooked, and talk about half a dozen topics that I normally don't ever think about.

The book group comprises only women. When we gather, there is a feeling of expansiveness, of here we are again, just us, and isn't it terrific? I think that in contemporary life the book group has come to replace the village well, that pleasant place where women could be sure to meet with other women, and laugh and be themselves, and come away with a jar full of water, and a lightened mood.

Stayed in tonight, and oh, what bliss! Nothing to think ahead about. Just the evening spreading out in front of me like a meadow. Fire in the stove, books if I want them, dogs at my feet. Time to be quiet, to digest last night's tumult. There's nothing like the contemplative life....

In fact, there's nothing like the balanced life, at least for me. I'm no more a Cistercian than I am a socialite, though I am each by turns. The trick lies in the balance between the two. Too many outings and I become critical, intolerant and disenchanted with humanity. Too much isolation and I turn morose, depleted, and unable to take action.

There's a fine line for me between too much staying in and too much going out, too much silence and too much chatter, too many faces and too much solitude. It's the eternal Goldilocks dilemma, and it's taking me a lifetime to figure out what feels just right. But I'm getting closer to it all the time.