Thursday, August 9, 2012

Anything could happen


I interrupt my process of letting go of the Holocaust to salute the Catholic church.

I just read that the Pope has changed his mind about condoms. Here is a link. I am flabbergasted and profoundly grateful. Wow. Who saw that coming? (I just discovered he made the change in 2010. Oops. But today is the first I've heard about it, so it's news to me.)

This is just the sort of surprise that resonates with the same kind of energy we felt during the 60s. It felt dangerous but also miraculous, as if anything could happen. Just like now.

This is a great time to be alive. It calls on us to step up and transform ourselves, personally and culturally. Even the Catholic church is channeling the energy of change. Wow!

Here's the other great piece of news from this morning, about the meeting of 900 nuns who are gathered to try to figure out how to respond to reprimands from the Vatican. The story features a great picture of a couple of nuns in silhouette next to a window through which the St. Louis arch is gleaming and resplendent, a powerful symbol of where the nuns are, standing at a gateway, a threshold, in the middle of the worst drought in 60 years. Will they step through? Who knows? But their process in this meeting is extraordinary. 
"They sat in silence for a long stretch, sang songs about truth and mystery accompanied by a guitar and a choir, and heard a keynote address by a futurist who was escorted to the podium by seven liturgical dancers waving diaphanous scarves of pink and tangerine."

Well, wow.

Just wow.

Shalom.

3 comments:

Linda Sue said...

the orb on the arm of the nun in photo- kind of like a gentle nudge...a bit of support.

Reya Mellicker said...

Yes. So cool!

Steve Reed said...

Interesting news about the condoms -- that surprised me as well! It sounds like the Pope is hedging a bit, though. He still thinks they're evil for contraception purposes. He's just getting on board with disease prevention. (Which is better than nothing, I grant you.)