tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10404893.post115672580850680371..comments2008-08-30T20:17:47.045-04:00Comments on The CAC Review: Caribs and the Santa Rosa Festival, 2006Maximilian C. Fortehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209329841918356753noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10404893.post-1162557309338080832006-11-03T07:35:00.000-05:002006-11-03T07:35:00.000-05:00Hi Max - Thank you for a wonderful article that re...Hi Max - Thank you for a wonderful article that resonates the Catholic Church everywhere I've lived - in Ontario, Quebec, and Paris, France. The energy of dominance and control, the diminishment of others, the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual abuse - all of these are identifying features of this malevolent energy. <BR/>As you know, I am working in a small town school in Northern Quebec where, in many of the classes, there is the occurence of terrible daily violence. Little girls are grabbed between the legs and dragged screaming across the room by young boys. Young boys kick each other, hard, between the legs. Teachers weep with fatigue and the children cry. The Principal, a devout Christian, hugs the little criminals as they appear in her office and then, smilingly, sends them back to class without due process. I've done my best but watch, dismayed, as every helpful strategy or intervention is summarily dismantled by this Director.<BR/>As I walked home through the snow last night after another rough day, I realized that there will be no change to the passive violence of the Principal or to the overt cruelty of the children, until groups of people are enough empowered to liberate themselves. One of the defects of Christianity, in my opinion, is that it establishes a disempowering culture in which external dependancies are created: "Let Christ carry the cross." "Let Christ liberate you." This entire projection of one's own personal responsibility to 'The Other' is underscored in a variety of submissive ways such as language, ("Yes, Father. Bless me, Father"), and gesture (genuflection, exposing one's tongue without participation of one's own hands to receive, ironically, 'communion')and Catholic protocol (the exclusion of women from the priesthood.) <BR/>One of the frantic teachers called me tonight - a devoted young woman who so wants to serve her class and who is fully encouraged by me. Once again all safety measures have been craftily removed and she is desperate. <BR/>The thought occured to me that the neglect she and the students suffer plays an important evolutionary purpose - namely, to prompt her to honor her own instincts, her own anger, her own knowledge of what is right and what is wrong and finally, to self-support. I suggested tonight that this fine educator simply state to the abandoning Direction of the school that she no longer feels safe in her classroom and refuse to enter it without the proper support to which she is entitled according to the law. I suggested that she refuse to collaborate or cooperate with a system that hurts herself and all of the children in her care. <BR/>Now she is frightened. She is being invited to grow, to stretch her own boundaries, to engage with her own low self esteem, to act differently from some of her frightened colleagues who live this abuse day in day out. <BR/><BR/>Malevolence invites her to individuate. <BR/>I believe Christ once smacked the glommy hands of those who clung to his garments. Did he not assure them that the 'Kingdom of God' is within? Instead of doing as Christ did, namely, individuating - people prefer to lean. <BR/>Instead of working in cooperation with Divine energy, do people want to be carried? <BR/><BR/>Authenticity does not create dependancies. Truth empowers each one to be all s/he is. <BR/><BR/>Perhaps to the degree that we all abandon our own most uncomfortable personal growth responsibilities - do we cook for the monsters of dominantion and neglect?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10404893.post-1156969788548880912006-08-30T16:29:00.000-04:002006-08-30T16:29:00.000-04:00Thank you again for your work Max and for your com...Thank you again for your work Max and for your comments JT.<BR/>I have used every opportunity I have had to shout and have also been shouted down but we continue to work toward gaining some recognition independent of the Catholica Church.<BR/>In some ways confronting the church equals confronting our elders as they have been completely brainwashed and the present Carib "President" does consider himself a good Catholic as well and I would be surprised if he stood up to rock the boat. <BR/>In fact, at the smoke ceremony at the start of the festival this year he seemed to almost break into the Our Father at one point.<BR/>There is a split in the community. The community is divided between those who refuse to go any further with the church (and this includes Shaman Cristo Adonis) and those who want to continue under the cross ("President" Ricardo Barath and my own great aunt among them).<BR/>With many elders the church has dominated their lives so much it has come to be all they know. If my aunt is feeling unwell and is unable to make it to church herself a car is sent to pick her up. There is no escaping for them.<BR/>For us, the ones who speak out, there are accusations of wanting to take away "control" from the "President".<BR/>We feel we just want the real story to be told and that story is one of survival.<BR/><BR/>One additional note: missing from the celebrations this year: Cristo Adonis and the other rabble rousers who refuse to play good house slave for the priests.boneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13514705731673676258noreply@blogger.com