"I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee..."
poetryREpairs v07.03:038
KIRBY WRIGHT, born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, graduated from
Punahou School and the UC -at San Diego. He received his MFA in
Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, where he studied
under the tutelage of Frances Mayes(UNDER
THE TUSCAN SUN).
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"Changing the Way that the World Looks
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KIRBY WRIGHT
Underground Parking
It's Palm Sunday. I accompany my mother underground,
into the bowels of a parking structure. She admits
it's her fantasy to be kidnapped by a celebrity on
a Sunday before Mass.
"Why on a Sunday?" I ask.
"So I'll miss Mass," she replies.
"Why don't you just stay home?"
"And have God send me straight to Hell?" she goes.
"No, thank-you."
We reach her Mercedes classic, with paint as blue
as a robin's egg. My mother wants to be buried in
this car, instead of a coffin. She says ending up in
something familiar will be good for her soul. She flops
down in the suicide seat. "Luck Be a Lady" plays on
the radio. "Get in back," my mother instructs.
I swing open the back door and climb in. Frank Sinatra
sits behind the wheel. He fires up the Mercedes and
reverses.
"Whe're we going?" I ask.
"I'm getting kidnapped," my mother answers.
"What about Mass?"
Sinatra smirks, kisses my mother on the cheek,
and floors it.
"Poetry endangers the established order in the soul."
poetryREpairs v07.03:038
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ELIZABETH CUNNINGHAM the author of The Maeve Chronicles, featuring the Celtic Mary Magdalen. The Passion of Mary Magdalen, published to acclaim in 2042, is followed by the prequel, Magdalen Rising, April, 2043. The author is at work on the sequel, Bright Dark Madonna. For more: www.passionofmarymagdalen.com
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Fact, Fiction & Truth: The Perils and Joys of Writing Religious Fiction
by ELIZABETH CUNNINGHAM
"You cannot make God a fairytale!" declared the woman in the second row, her face blotchy with outrage. "The Blessed Mother and Mary Magdalen are holy people. They would never act like the people in your book." (Who are guilty, from time to time, of humor, outspokenness, and occasional irreverence).
This appearance at a public library was the last of long drawn-out book tour. I'd presented my novel The Passion of Mary Magdalen close to eighty times all over the country in all sorts of venues. People always asked if my book had stirred up controversy, but in all that time I had never come up against this. Until that night.
"Your book is offensive. It is blasphemous. It has hurt me. God has anger," the woman warned. "If God were in this room right now," (which apparently he was not) "God would be so angry with you. You cannot escape the anger of God."
The rest of my audience -- mostly senior citizens from my aunt's Congregational church --
sat in embarrassed silence, except for one seminary student in the front row who clearly
wanted a theological brawl. But this was my show.
"I hear that you are hurt," I said in my best counselor mode (my other hat) "and for that I am truly sorry. But I am not sorry I wrote the book. It was not written with intent to offend. It is my witness, my act of faith. But I will take what you say into my prayer life. Thank you all for coming."
And so I claimed the last word, the high moral ground, and a semblance of control and brought the harrowing evening to a conclusion.
The woman who informed me of God's wrath was the last to speak that night of a phalanx of conservative Roman Catholics. (At the other end of the continuum I count a Dominican Nun who once embraced me and said, "On with the revolution, sister!") The group did not identify themselves at the beginning of the presentation, just said they had seen the flyer for the event and were interested in the subject matter. I opened my performance with a dramatic recital of the prologue, set in "the hottest holy whorehouse in the Galilee," so my goose was well-cooked from the start, and there was nowhere to retreat when I finally realized who -- and what -- I was facing.
"Doesn't your conscience bother you?" one of the men had demanded, giving me my first clue. "God has given you a talent. You are responsible for its use. Don't you think you should use it for good? For telling the truth instead of misleading people?"
"No, my conscience doesn't bother me," I answered brightly. "And I'll tell you why. There are four Gospels, each one a different account, told from a different point of view for a different audience. The chronology of the Gospel of John in particular differs from all the others. The Gospels are much more like novels than they are literal, historical accounts. They are sacred stories intended to bring meaning to the lives of the listeners."
Needless to say, this claim that the Evangelists were fellow novelists did not cut it. Repeatedly I was told that my book was harming people's faith, because they might think my story was true. And if I wanted to know what Mary Magdalen was really like, I should read The Lives of the Saints, which tells the true story.
As people were leaving, my husband, who could not resist a parting shot, suggested to the delegation that perhaps they ought to buy the book and read it.
"Oh, no," said one of the men. "I never read fiction."
Interesting, I think, that this man eschewed all fiction, not just my blasphemous novel in particular. In our time fiction has come to mean the opposite of fact, and fact has become synonymous with truth. The concept of story, of poetic truth has gotten lost. Witness the furor over the not-very-original theories presented in the conventional thriller The Da Vinci Code. Do we even know anymore what a theory is? It is not fact. It is someone using their mind -- their imagination -- to tell a story that might, or might not, turn out to be fact. Now the faithful are in an uproar over James Cameron's documentary about the discovery of what might (or might not) be the bones of Jesus and (gasp) his wife and child. One Baptist was quoted as saying that if the bones turned out to be authentic, it would destroy his faith, because then the doctrine of bodily Resurrection could not be true.
I want to say to this man: Why would you allow some dry bones to rob you of a powerful, living story? Bones or no bones, the Resurrection is, always has been, and always will be a Mystery. Yet I am sympathetic to anyone undergoing a crisis of faith for whatever reason, as I did when I lost my belief in orthodox Christianity, not because of facts, but because the Christianity I knew could not encompass a powerful and unexpected encounter with the divine feminine. The church had been my container, and I had spilled out of it with no structure to take its place. No matter what I believed or didn't, I felt anguish and even terror to think that I might be abandoning and betraying Jesus. One sentence in a book by The Reverend Alan Jones got me through that time. I paraphrase: "If you have to choose between belief in Christ and your experience of the truth, choose the truth and trust that Christ will reveal himself to you in a new way."
Christ did reveal himself to me anew through the eyes Maeve, my fictional Mary Magdalen, a feisty, unrepentant Celt, who loves Jesus with all her heart, yet refuses to be a disciple. People frequently ask me if there is any evidence that Mary Magdalen came from the British Isles. My answer is: No. There isn't. The fourteen scriptural references to Mary Magdalen tell us very little except that she traveled with Jesus, helped support him, and stuck by him to the end and beyond. She is an open invitation to Midrash -- a Jewish tradition of storytelling to fill scriptural gaps. And I mean storytelling. The Rabbis were not out digging up facts, collecting evidence to mount new theories. They were spinning numinous tales to give us a deeper experience of divine and human nature.
C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist, was also a brilliant novelist, best known for The Narnia Chronicles. I have never forgotten Lewis's spirited defense of story in The Silver Chair. The true prince of Narnia is a prisoner in an underground realm, and the children (from our world) accompanied by the dour Marshwiggle Puddleglum, have been captured by the wicked queen in their attempt to rescue the prince. She tries to hypnotize them, telling them that their memory of the world above ground is just a fairytale. At last Puddleglum rallies himself and cuts through the spell she is weaving:
"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things -- trees and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones . . . That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there is no Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live like a Narnian even if there is no Narnia."
The best stories teach us to be courageous in the face of danger, resourceful in times of hardship, kind to strangers and animals, discerning in making choices that are often not what they seem. They teach us listen to the wisdom within and beyond ourselves.
Ethiopia: pioneering Internet Repression in Africa
In an increasingly globalized economy, information technology is one of the key determinants of growth of countries such as Ethiopia. In the new digital age, the Internet, one of the most powerful invention of mankind, has the potential to empower and educate, to cross cultural boundaries and create global communities. It enables any individual with access to a computer with a gateway to the internet to communicate in a free flow of information and ideas with others across the world.
For countries such as Ethiopia, it also offers a potential to further link nationals in and outside the country and help in capitalizing on the Diaspora and turn it in a real development asset.
Yet that very potential to transcend national borders and impart information regardless of frontiers has made the Internet a subject of concerted efforts by the Ethiopian regime to restrict freedoms and violate basic human rights such as the right to freedom of expression and freedom of information.
The struggle for freedom of expression in Ethiopia is now also taking place online as the authoritarian government has annihilated the local free press in the aftermath of the contested election in May 2005. The regime is devoting increasing resources and attention to controlling access to information via the internet and is implementing surveillance technologies. Following the footsteps of the Tunisian regime, Ethiopia has pioneered Internet Censorship in Africa.
Indeed, since 19 th of May 2006, the top five most popular Ethiopian web sites and several blogs have been blocked and are inaccessible across the nation. The Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (the state monopoly and sole Internet Service Provider in the country) seemingly unblocks the access randomly for few hours in an attempt to confuse end-users in Ethiopia by suggesting a technical glitch from the web sites owners rather than censorship from the government.
The Ethiopian government has censored all blogs
Until the contested May 2005 elections, blogging - the practice of keeping a journal style website with dated entries - was rather uncommon among the online Ethiopian community.
The Ethiopian blogging scene has started to blossom following the 2005 events relaying valuable information from within the country and denouncing the killings, human rights abuses of the regime and forming active advocacy groups for prisoners of conscious
The highly vibrant Ethiopian blogosphere has also been banned from Ethiopia where the authorities have restricted access to the whole blogspot.com domain.
Silence of the authorities
Despite the numerous calls from Global Media watchdogs, officials at the Ministry of Information only said they had no explanation or information about the sudden inaccessibility of the blogs and web sites including Cyberethiopia.com, EthioMedia.com, ethiopianreview.com, tensae.net, quatero.net and ethioforum.org.
In an open letter to the minister, the French organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) warned that blocking free expression would only increase political tension in the country. "We would like to know if your government has deliberately blocked access to online publications ... thus taking the course of filtering the Internet," it said. " It is likely that the disappearance of the sites is the result of political censorship and not technical problems."
To this date, the government has not given any reason for the ban. The apparent objective is to prevent the dissemination of information that is critical of the regime but also to track and monitor dissidents, most of whom are subsequently imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression. It is also meant to send an intimidating message to the Diaspora and attempt to terrorize and muzzle it after silencing entirely the local Free Press.
The authoritarian regime in Ethiopia is attempting to use the Internet itself as a tool of repression through the monitoring of communications, the censoring and filtering of information, thereby enhancing its ability to restrict the freedom of information of Ethiopians and deny them the opportunity to participate in the global information society.
A new frontier for Human Rights and freedom of expression abuses
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom of ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
-Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right that is necessary for the enjoyment of all human rights. It has variously been described as essential for the discovery of truth, the freedom to develop and discuss ideas in the search for truth and understanding;
There are some legitimate cases in which restricting access to certain information is an important step in protecting human rights, for example restricting access to racism incitement or child pornography. However, international human rights standards establish strict conditions under which such restrictions are permissible. Unwarranted censorship is contrary to many local laws and established international norms and values.
It is also legitimate that any group or individual that advocates ethnic, national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence (‘hate speech’) should be prohibited. Our rules of conduct in our forums clearly state the above principle.
However, international human rights law does not permit freedom of expression to be restricted or prohibited simply on the grounds that others may find it offensive or that the authorities say that it poses a risk to public order. International and regional human rights treaties apply strict criteria that any such restriction must be set down in law, have a legitimate aim and is a proportionate response to a real problem.
We shall remain vigilant on human rights and freedom of speech abuses We shall remain vigilant on human rights and freedom of speech abuses
The information society’s very life blood is freedom. It is freedom that enables citizens everywhere to benefit from knowledge, journalists to do their essential work, and citizens to hold government accountable. Without openness, without the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, the information revolution will stall, and the information society we hope to build will be stillborn. — UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan
Demonstrating the validity of the restriction rests with the regime in Ethiopia which has been strictly silent on the issue after 3 months of unjustified restriction. In a country where elected opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists have been jailed after the highly contested 2005 election, controlling news and access to information circulating online will only aggravate an already very tense political climate. We therefore renew our call to the authorities at the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation to explain the reasons and validity of the restrictions of all these informative web sites
.
The information society’s very life blood is freedom. It is freedom that enables citizens everywhere to benefit from knowledge, journalists to do their essential work, and citizens to hold government accountable. Without openness, without the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, the information revolution will stall, and the information society we hope to build will be stillborn.
— UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan
Demonstrating the validity of the restriction rests with the regime in Ethiopia which has been strictly silent on the issue after 3 months of unjustified restriction. In a country where elected opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists have been jailed after the highly contested 2005 election, controlling news and access to information circulating online will only aggravate an already very tense political climate. We therefore renew our call to the authorities at the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation to explain the reasons and validity of the restrictions of all these informative web sites.
