Size-ism, Able-ism, Disgust and Compassion or If I'm a Pagan, how come I meet Christ so often?

In my first post in this blog, I mentioned that one of the Gods of my house is Christ in his guise as homeless dude.

I've met Christ several times in my life--Not literally (I don't think, but perhaps I'm wrong), but in the "I greet the divinity within you" sort of way.

Last week I met him in the form of a possibly drug addled, traumatized, toothless, middle aged white man.

The thing is, whenever I've met Christ, He's always in the form of someone who would normally inspire both fear and disgust. It is my obligation, my intention, my wyrd to overcome both, in order to see Him.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle just before we got there, about accepting a women to the shelter because she had higher medical needs than we could cope with. The medical supervisor called around to the various shelters that handled nursing home level of medical needs. For hours she did this. None of them would take her.

The problem was not her medical issues: She walked with a cane and needed help getting in and out of bed. She communicated just fine, albeit slowly. Had control over her bodily functions. She was on numerous medications, had a bunch of chronic problems. This would doubtless why she was receiving the level of care she was getting.

The problem then? Her weight.

In what I can only think of as rampant size-ism, these places complained that they couldn't find a bariatric (specially made for fat people) cot (we had one, we could have sent one). They complained that they didn't have equipment. They complained they didn't have staff.

In other words, she was too fat to be sheltered.  At less than five foot, she probably weighed 400lbs. She had a lot of the issues that one would see in a person of that size. So, they would turn her away because of it.

The woman was kept hanging like this until Mister Toothless White Guy says to the shelter manager and medical supervisor, "You know what? I live in the same building as her. She's fine. We'll (the other shelter residents) help her out. She should stay here."

And as it turned out, people did help. People made sure she got three meals a day, they talked to her, they helped her to the bathroom and the shower. Perhaps there was some comments about her size, but I never heard them.

One of my night shifts, one of the other night staff came to tell me that this woman needed help getting to the bathroom. There was a look on his face that I really couldn't place. The nursing supervisor was catching a nap and I was really reluctant to wake her. On the other hand, the worker seemed to be implying that this was a major undertaking. I decided to see what I could do without waking the supervisor. I figured I could always call her  if I needed to.

I went down to the dorm and found the female police officer and the male shelter manager trying to help her up. They both were clearly uncomfortable, but mostly because this involved helping someone rather intimately.

I was concerned that, the way everyone was acting, that we had to carry her to the restroom.

Really, it was surprisingly easy. She had some of the typical motor control issues that you see in stroke patient but she was able to swing her legs out of bed with only a little help. She was practiced at using her cane to pull herself up. From there, I walked beside her to the restroom. Really, I was only there to make sure she didn't lose her balance.

I asked her if she needed help in the rest room and she said, "No, thank you." and I just waited outside. When she was done, she walked her own self back to her bed, with only a very little bit of help. She needed help getting into her bed, as again, the motor control on her legs was not good.

That done, I left, wondering what all the fuss was about.

In retrospect, I realize the male shelter workers expression was disgust, that great killer of compassion.

I'd heard that before. I know that Kali is all about overcoming disgust, but I'd never had it brought home to me what a huge deal it was.

Our fat woman had some problems that inspired disgust in this normally (I'm pretty sure that people who don't have compassion don't work for the Red Cross) pretty compassionate man.

First, and most obviously was her size. Second was the fact that she was a little whiffy--she'd been wearing the same clothes for days because she'd lost literally everything and (big surprise) we didn't have any clothes that would fit her. She also had trouble bathing, because (another big surprise) she really couldn't do it herself.

The man muttered darkly about her but I didn't catch it (ok, I was mentally going "lalalalalala I can't hear you!"). It seemed to be a weight thing, as though her weight issues were causing the other things. Actually, given the neurological issues, I doubt she could have done those things anyway.

This was when Toothless White Guy entered the scene. He very politely asked if he could have a word. I really though he was going to complain about her. Instead, he asked me if I could make sure to write  a report for her case manager, outlining her needs. He spent a long time with me. There was no condescension in his manner, no sense of anything but pure concern.

Toothless White Guy had nothing in the world but the clothes on his back.

I mentioned how sweet I found our lady. He agreed that she was very sweet, but then very seriously told me, "And even if she were an asshole, she'd still deserve the care."

He smiled toothlessly at me,and I realized I had, for perhaps the third time in my life, met Christ.

As I said, not literally, but I cannot think of anything quite so Christ-like--going out of his way to care for a woman who frankly is suffering from a type of modern day leprosy (the social stigma, not the actual disease). No one would have blamed him if he had just ignored the whole thing, it wasn't his problem. But his actions inspired the compassion of others. I noticed how many people helped this woman, before I left. All people who didn't have to. She never lacked for company or help.

I found myself thinking about a friend of mine, wishing I could offer more concrete help. But she lives three hours away from me has Mulitple Chemical Sensitivity and I don't kid myself that I am anything but toxic (I don't do scents, or cosmetics, air fresheners, but we have a wood stove and I use cheap ass shampoo and Arm and Hammer detergent on my clothes so they don't smell) to her. I worry about her and have done what I can. She's another one suffering from metaphoric leprosy, only hers is of the "Middle-aged-woman with weird health care issues" variety. This makes her a bad patient. She is the bad poor person because she won't shut up. She doesn't "know her place".

Another friend who is fleeing a bad marriage suffers from it too. All those people she thought would support her have evaporated. Again, I can only offer my sympathetic ears

Having met Christ, I think a prayer to him and hope he can help the all the people who need it navigate the Byzantine maze of so-called aid organizations. Perhaps Christ is the patron God of those who seek compassion?

A little note about my use of the term "fat": "Fat" is a descriptor, not a value judgment. It is an adjetive like "Short" or "Tall" and is preferred by many size positive people.



  

Memorial Day

The second Holiday in the Americana Animist wheel of the year.


Memorial Day is the official start of Summer to most Americans. Sure, most of the kids have  two or three more weeks of school, but this is the first long weekend of the summer. Parties and barbeques abound.


Strange that a solemn feast should be celebrated that way, but solemnity is tough for us, I think. There will be ceremonies at monuments and cemeteries, laying wreaths and and hearing speeches, but after that beer and hamburgers.


Memorial Day never fails to make me sad.


There is only a part of this country fighting a war. They have been fighting a war for years. We see it on the news, but it hardly touches most of us. 

This photo has been floating around the web for years, and it is true. Most of the people who go into the military, go in because there is very little opportunity for them elsewhere. 


Recruiters are commonly accused of selling the military life to people to whom higher education is nearly impossible due to economic constraints and these are kids who desperately want to improve their circumstances.


They come home with injuries that go deeper than skin and bone. For the second year running, we lost more troops to suicide than to combat. 


We're losing these children to failures of leadership. They go, they do what they're told to do. What the leaders tell them is right to do. And then, they come home to a country that doesn't care about them (Don't even make me start about what a nightmare it is to get treated at the VA), to houses in forclosure, and not a job in sight. Is it any wonder the domestic violence statistics for the military are ridiculously high?


Count the significant others of the military veterans who are victims of this war too, and the human cost is astronomical.


While we're on the subject, sexual assault in the military is endemic. Women in the military now have more chance of being  sexually assaulted than being injured in the course of their duties. 


I'm one of those people who've occasionally bought a serviceman their lunch anonymously. I don't go to memorials or parades. I don't like crowds and the memorials are too sad. I really dislike the rhetoric of "honoring the troops". How about we just stop sending them to wars we don't need to fight and treat the injuries they come home with?


When my family goes to Washington DC, we visit the different monuments. I like the Korean War Monument--life size statues of soldiers, all with thousand yard stares. They remind you

 

 When I worked in the homeless shelter, twenty years ago, we had lots of vets. Its a cliche, isn't it? The veteran who ends up a homeless junkie or a drunk? 


One of the first descriptions of PTSD appears in Norse mythology. It's where we get the term "berserk".


Jonathan Shay, MD, a psychiatrist and researcher in this field, makes a connection between the berserker rage of soldiers and the hyperarousal of post-traumatic stress disorder. In Achilles in Vietnam he writes:

If a soldier survives the berserk state, it imparts emotional deadness and vulnerability to explosive rage to his psychology and permanent hyperarousal to his physiology — hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans. My clinical experience with Vietnam combat veterans prompts me to place the berserk state at the heart of their most severe psychological and psychophysiological injuries.^[12]

Another war word from Old English is fæge (pronounced fa-yah), existing in modern English as "fey". It means "doomed to die". More correctly, I suppose it means someone who thinks they are going to die in the next battle. If they don't actually die, they were said to have their soul already halfway to the next world.


How many of our service people are coming home both fey and berserk?


On this weekend, if you're the type to go to memorials, remember the living as well as the dead.

The Imposition of Meaning

Although I have not been a Catholic for many years, the Catholic church does have one custom that I like. When one is suffering, one "offers up" one's suffering to God as a type of sacrifice or holy work. The sad, the suffering, and the afflicted then are to be seen as holy warriors rather than as victims. Or worse, as people whom God was angry with.

When my mother first developed Rhuematoid Arthritis, in her 40's, she used to say "I better offer up this pain to the Blessed Virgin."

I was never sure what she was offering the pain up for, until after my daughter was born. She said she always offered up her pain to the Blessed Virgin, that her children should be protected. She said it must have been accepted, because I and my sister-in-law had given her three granddaughters (and later a grandson) without complications.My mother saw her disease as a holy work. A long, intricate spell that was woven through her life.

She never believed that God sent her the pain, mind you. Pain and suffering were just things that happened. A big part of her religion was always to impose meaning on her own suffering.

If there is to be meaning to suffering, it must be imposed by the person suffering. Somehow, for her, "offering up" her pain somehow made it more bearable.

When people have a close call, such as surviving a plane crash or a car wreck, they say, "God was with me."

Really? What about the other 80 people on your flight. What about the people in the other car?

Does being a cripple or dead mean that God doesn't like you?

Megadoom, over at his blog, Dust In The Wind, has an excellent essay on this subject.

Gravity works for everyone. If your car spins out on a bit of black ice, the physical forces of velocity, inertia, mass, etc. are all in play. If you don't have your seat belt on, you're a marble in a box. No matter how devout or good a person you are. Conversely, when bad stuff happens, it is never some kind of punishment. 

You can't overrule the laws of physics.

I've heard of miracle cures, but they're always the merely improbable, never the truly impossible. I've also had my share of close calls.

How does this coincide with Animism?

The Animist does not see the world as a celestial ATM, nor yet is it a place of punishment. It is a complex system that is interlocking, interdependent and dynamic. Even the chaos the Anthropocene has wreaked upon the planet is part of the whole. Even if we were to cause a mass extinction event, life on this planet would continue to trip merrily on.

Since we are (as far as we know) the only fully self aware animal on the planet, it is only ourselves who try to find meaning. 

The New Age and the popularity of positive thinking takes this so far as to say that one calls one's misfortunes to oneself. That one "chooses" these "lessons",  or that karma is coming to get you, or that you had too many negative thoughts.

A really lovely discussion and debunking of this appears in Barbara Erenreich's Brightsided.

Suffering can be reduced by finding meaning in suffering.In 21st Century, North America there is a presumptuous, and sometimes cruel, urge to try to impose meaning on other people's suffering. I'm sure that this comes partly from our Calvinist leanings. That idea that misfortune happens because God doesn't like you.

Truly, bad things happen because bad things happen. At this place and time, many people feel they should be exceptions, because for years we have been told that we *are* exceptional.

No, on the macrocosmic scale, we are just one small piece. If there is meaning, one must impose one's own within the microcosm of one's own life.