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The other night I went to Borders Books while Steve was at class. I came out with the latest Archaeology, to which I think I'll subscribe, and a copy of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" to accompany "The DaVinci Code" which I just finished. (More on that later.) I also came out with a present for Steve, "Da Jesus Book". It's the New Testament translated into Hawaiian Pidgin. They treat Pidgin as a language in its own right, not a slang. They even translated from Greek INTO Pidgin. They didn't translate an English Bible into Pidgin! Parts of it can be read on Amazon.com, I believe; Steve has absconded it somewhere or I'd cite from it.

Also, happy birthday to badira. She turns 16 today!

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Got a written reprimand at work for being "angry".

I can't win.

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At a moment when everybody else was out of the office, I talked to Trini (assistant manager). I told him flat out I felt "burned" by this reprimand. He told me not to worry about it, and when I said I was pissed off all the time because I was not hired as a sales person but as a data entry person, he said that he's actually argued with Josephina about this. He's mad because there is a stack of price updates an inch thick on my desk, not to mention price tags that need to be generated, and it's not happening because she has me helping her with her rich bitches.

I commented that I was in particular trouble because apparently one particularly rich bitch, who I've always treated with (in my opinion) kid gloves, refuses to talk to me because I was rude to her. "Dealing with people like that isn't your job anyway," Trini said. He's told me to write comments (read: rebuttal) on the reprimand because I wasn't hired to do the things I'm being disciplined for doing badly, and not being allowed to do the things I was hired for, which I do well.

So I am somewhat mollified, though still far from pleased.

Thoughts on the Da Vinci Code, Mary Magdalene, etc

So, I just finished reading "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. I don't want to give away too much, but it's largely about the Priory of Sion, revival of the goddess, and Mary Magdalene, the same subject matter as "Holy Blood, Holy Grail". As everybody knows ad infinitum, I'm a feminist theologian and Virgin Mary expert. (This is why I work a crappy non-related job.)

As I was reading, something started to annoy me. It took me a while to figure out what it was. Finally, it hit me. Consider this paragraph:

"The ability of the woman to produce life from her womb made her sacred. A god. Intercourse was the revered union of the two halves of the human spirit--male and female--through which the male could find spiritual wholeness and communion with God...The Hieros Gamos ritual is not a perversion. It's a deeply sacrosanct ceremony."

The idea is that Mary Magdalene, mother of Jesus's children, is in a way unclear to me a prophet of the goddess.

Okay, now am I the only one who is bothered by "divine feminine as fertility"? Cause I am bothered by it a LOT. I have no children, probably never will. This concept of the divine feminine doesn't speak to me at all. Also, I know a lot of you reading are queer in some description. This whole thing smacks of divinely-mandated heterosexuality as well. Finally, how nice to know that women are the means to a MAN'S enlightenment. All we have to do is fuck them and they see God. Yay.

Sister Elizabeth Johnson in her book "She Who Is" proposes a good theory for the "divine feminine" by the way. She says that since all mens' patriarchal experience is assimilated to God (fatherhood, soldiering, rulership, to name a few) that womens' experiences need to be assimilated to God as well. Motherhood is part of that, but she proposes that if it is part of womens' experience, it needs to be studied to see how it can be shown to reveal God. She suggests that images and language about the Virgin Mary, who is queen, healer, mother, virgin, widow, and prophet, be mined for images of God. Johson points out that that's only the tip of the iceberg, as such images as sister and friend are not applied to God much yet, and I observe that lesbians have their work cut out for them.

Just say no to dualism! (Rosemary Radford Ruether is a source for the evils of that.)