Some thoughts on sex trafficking

We are spiritual beings having a human experience. When someone ignores this, thinking you are just a body, detachable from spirit like a shadow, you demean the core sacred center of the life of this person, a multifaceted human being. Making them into a thing. Disposable, like kleenex. To take lovemaking and turn it into a crass use of someone’s body, often not even to give pleasure, and certainly not intending that this person receive tenderness, compassion, or love, but simply to exercise power over them, ensnared like a trapped animal, is extremely destructive. Often it is exacerbated by even more violence and cruelty. For many of us, it would instinctively be better to be murdered than raped. Rape incurs deep shame, feeling abased. It never goes away. The scars last for decades, even in healthy relationships; sexual abuse suddenly may rear its ugly roots of torment and emotional scarring. The body remembers, and shrivels down into fear and wanting to find safety, even after successful therapy. As a gynecologist, I have known this, I have seen it in women even into their 70s and 80s.

To sell a person into slavery is a terrible thing. To sell them to do manual labor, dangerous and unrecompensed work, is hard enough; but to make their body feel so abused and their personhood so corrupted, is soul-destroying.

The Epstein sex-trafficking ring lasted for 30 years. There were at least a thousand identified victims. Many have told their stories in court, and won their cases. The majority of women who were used by this ring came from Eastern European countries. That is probably how the tracks got covered for so long. The monetary value of that ring was 1.5 BILLION dollars. In early reports, it was said that 1.1 billion came from Trump. I don’t have the attribution to that, but maybe this week, when Congressman Ro Khanna allows the victims to tell their stories to Congress and the public, we will get more details about the way the money was hidden. But this is not just about money. It is about a long-standing practice of abuse of children and women, and we need to have good men and women rise up and share OUTRAGE, and promise to tighten the laws, to not let it happen again. And to bring the perpetrators to justice. Certainly not to allow access to children; girls and young women, but also young men. Jesus had heavy words to say about those who hurt children (Matthew 18:6). For those who want our country’s ethics to be based in Christian thinking, it is worth pondering that.

Martina Nicholson, MD

retired gynecologist

Rerum Novarum

In the wake of Trump’s attack on Harvard and the 25% of the students who are foreign:

this is what Pope Leo XIII said in Rrum Novarum, the Catholic Social Justice critique of the Industrial Revolution:

“Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, addressed the social issues arising from the Industrial Revolution, primarily focusing on the relationship between labor and capital. Five key points include: the need for a just wage, the right of workers to organize, the importance of private property, the role of the state in protecting the common good, and the moral responsibilities of both employers and employees. “

This is an important critique of both capitalism and communism.

A just wage is what Bernie Sanders and many others have been fighting for for decades. The rights of workers to organize, to have representation with big business through unions, is another big point, which Joe Biden consistently pointed to as a major contributor to the 40 hour week, and protections against dangers in the work place, and in protection of retirement for workers.

The right of private property is a caution against communism, or state-mandated control of everything.

The role of the state in protecting the common good is a direct flag to our Constitution, to consider the needs of the people in the country, not just the big employers, or corporations.

Moral responsibility of both the employers and employees gives us the necessity of working together for “best practices” and the best working relationships.

Our government needs to stay on course between the two extremes of capitalism and communism. After WW2, Europe made great headway with Democratic Socialism, which is also an attempt to provide for the general welfare, to buffer the costs of medical care, the housing costs, the retirement needs of the elderly, the needs of families raising children, the needs to have a well-educated workforce, and to have good laws which protect the peace and well-being of the people in the society.

Recently Paul Krugman again recommended that we have appropriate taxation of corporations and billionaires, to help fund the needs for meeting the common good, in our time. Instead of passing a massive tax cut for them, we should be increasing it. After WW2, in the Eisenhower years, the tax rate for the top bracket was 90%!. This money helped make America great. We need to put a reasonable tax burden on the corporations, and on the billionaires. This will help us meet the needs of our people over this century. We CAN be moderate in this way– helping make our nation great, as we also provide for the vulnerable in meaningful ways. It gives me great hope that Pope Leo XIV, our new American pope, decided to use the name Leo, perhaps pointing to this great insightful “middle way” of his predecessor with the same name. We need to support Harvard, and all institutions of higher learning, and we need to protect due process of law. We need to help working families to be able to raise healthy children. And we also need to recognize that these goals do not exclude human spirituality and love of God.

Today, beware the Ides of March

I have been really absorbed in substack, the Contrarian, and various thinkers who are educated people. I have really enjoyed and learned from Paul Krugman’s posts, and Robert Reich. And my favorite is Andrew Weissmann. I have enjoyed the posts by Robert Hubbell, also. People who are deeply cultured, and well-informed, and who think clearly and carefully about each issue. Every day I read Heather Cox Richardson first. Context is so important!

I am really worried about the government shut-down. It closely follows the model of Hitler’s destruction of the Weimar Republic in Germany. I believe DT wants to destroy the government and set up a dictatorship. I do not understand why the Republican Congressional reps are trying to give away their power to help him do this. I am grateful for the lawyers and judges who are trying to uphold the law. I am appalled at the hubris of a president who shutters the State Department, and destroys the attempt at diplomatic relations and attempts to eliminate diplomats, as well as judges and heads of agencies. The brutality of the coup and the blitzkrieg with which it has been enabled, is really terrifying. I cannot see how we are going to get past the Ides of March, but I am sending a postcard to the occupant of the White House. I am praying. Perhaps that is the most important thing I am doing, besides letters and posts and emails to the Congressional reps, just to pray for our country, for the courageous men and women of honor who are trying to uphold the rule of law. For those who are trying to protect the Constitution from the wrecking ball of Musk and his people, and DT. May God help us, and somehow, help us to preserve the nation.

Techtonic plates in Government

Substack has been very helpful in offering us people who have been kicked off the WaPO and the NYT. People who have expertise and informed opinions are what I feel the deepest need for. There is a mountain of toxic waste building up in cyberspace.

This morning there is a substantive conversation between Paul Krugman and Kim Schappelle, called “From Orban to Trump, part II.” They are discussing the way we are being manipulated and turned from democracy to autocracy. One of the scary parts is how each inroad makes return to full democratic function less possible. We have to keep staying aware and pushing back. In my opinion the right-wing under DT is attempting to destroy the government. I think a lot of people think he is just trying to maneuver and build a kleptocracy, but I think he truly wants to be a dictator, and has henchmen who want to help him do it. The Project 2025 agenda is being executed very clearly. There is a lot of distraction, and smaller but significant issues, losses. and moral injury to important people who are being fired without cause, to take away responsibility and accountability from each agency!

What I think is happening is that DT is orchestrating the chaos, talking wildly, not substantively, to distract people from the main issue we face. If the Congress fails to refund the government on 3/14, we have been erased as a democracy, and the Constitution lies fallow. Trump the dictator takes over. The corporate taxes are due 3/15. The personal taxes are due 4/15. Trump and his henchmen are simply going to empty the coffers and put our tax money to their own uses. Including transferring wealth and power to Russia, which is already probably almost done, through the computers they have forced the State Department to open to Russia, and close to Ukraine. None of our allies can trust us, as long as this is the situation. DOGE has locks and surveillance keys on the computers of the IRS, and the Treasury. They have taken away as much oversight as possible for each of the agencies, and reduced the power of the supposedly “in charge” heads.

How can we put appropriate pressure on DT and these treasonous people? Not pay the taxes. If we all do not pay the taxes, and Congress then says that we can impeach him, we can get the government back. This is a huge long-shot.

A reflection on blooming

I have been thinking that it would be good to share short reflections on very meaningful things I have forgotten, but once knew. This story in Kitchen Table Wisdom, by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, called Remembering, is about a woman who sees herself as selfish and ruthless.
Rachel starts the story with “What we do to survive is often different from what we need to do in order to live.”

I find this really a profound story for now, as the world melts and shrinks, and what we thought were safe walls begin to crumble like a sandcastle at high tide, or in a time of such dryness that it is impossible for the grains of sand to hold together: things fall apart.
At her birthday party on zoom, Rachel reminded me that when we met, I told her I am a medieval Catholic in a postmodern world. I just heard a talk about St. Therese of Lisieux, who is named a doctor of the church, for her “little way”. I had read her book “Journey of a Soul” just before meeting Rachel. She died of tuberculosis in a Carmelite convent in France, when she was 24. But the book has helped many others on their spiritual journeys, which so often are like the book of Exodus— we wander in the desert for 40 years before we get to a sense of belonging and coherence, although we may have glimpses as we go. St. Therese was a model of studying one’s own feelings and coming to terms with them and how they affect our actions, while trusting in a loving God. It is that trusting in a benevolent source of love and energy which most helps me have hope, in spite of things falling apart. The person speaking about St. Therese said she maintained a “non-adversarial stance” toward difficult, damaged and disturbed people, often people who were in chronic pain, and bitter and angry, small-minded but struggling to “be good”.
This is a lot like the virtue of “detaching with love” — to not take personally a person’s cruelty and stupidity, but to try to hold in compassion, these difficult people. It is not naive. It also helps us face our own poverty and imperfection, to try to hold ourselves in this same compassion toward ourselves. This is a very Buddhist kind of thinking, and helpful to me now. “May all beings be free of suffering.” Perennial wisdom.
The story is great, as the woman begins to bud, and bloom, as she is healing and learning to have compassion for herself.

My theatre experience

In high school, at Marymount in Santa Barbara, I was in a small class of young women. Our teacher-nuns decided to put on the play “The Lark” by Jean Anouilh. I was given the role of Warwick, who was the British supervisor of the trial of Joan of Arc, in the mid 1400s, in France.

Just recently, I found a cache of letters my sisters and I had sent to our parents, who were on a trip in Europe. I mentioned my theatre practice, and that the sister in charge of us was asking me to be more masculine and to show more authority. I loved that play, and the words I got to say contained the title. “The girl was a lark over the skies of France.” I grappled with being from an all-girl family (admittedly the bossy older sister) playing the role of Warwick, with masculine energy and authority.

Many years later, (about 20 years ago, I think), someone brought forth a copy of the silent film of the Passion of Joan of Arc, made by the Danish filmmaker Carl Dreyer, in 1928. It was so intensely beautiful, and hard to watch, but then a musician at the Cabrillo music festival set the movie to music. Our local choral people got to sing it, and I was present at the local premier. The composer, Richard Einhorn, did a marvelous job. It is profoundly moving, to hear fabulous and complex choral music paired with a classical silent film based on the innocent suffering of a saint. It deepened my awe for Joan of Arc, for what she did for France.

After “The Lark”, to which we won a small bonfire of acclaim, as a senior in High School, I was in a single act play for one actress, called. “Sorry, Wrong Number” by Lucille Fletcher. This play starts with a woman in her bed at night answering the phone and overhearing a plan to murder someone. Slowly and fiercely the tension is turned up, as she realizes she is the target of the plan. I got much critical acclaim in our little community for this role, also, though it was somewhat emotionally draining, and very intense.

So when I got to college, I thought it would be fun to join the theatre for a play, and the play that I auditioned for as a freshman, in 1968-9 was “Marat-Sade”. This is the short name for the whole name of the play, which is “The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, as performed by the inmates of the asylum of Charenton, under the direction of the Marquis de Sade.” by Peter Weiss. Our theatre director had really wanted to work with this play, and none of us had any idea of what it was about. When we got to the rehearsal room, he told us that it was a play about the French Revolution, as acted by inmates of an insane asylum to which the Marquis de Sade had been committed. The themes of the play were grappling with the revolution, and the murder of Marat, who had been the head of the reign of terror, as he tried to eliminate all the aristocrats who they thought had been the root cause of the revolution. The sung refrain in the play is “Marat, we’re poor, and the poor stay poor. Marat don’t make us wait any more. We want our rights, and we don’t care how: we want our revolution NOW.” SO our theatre director’s way of choosing the “chorus” for the play was to ask us to practice being theatrically insane, such that we could each be seen in our own little boxes, at the back of the stage, (very like what a zoom screen looks like now), with about 20 people in little boxes like cages, about 4’ by 4’, sitting cross-legged, or kneeling, or dangling their legs over the edge, where each one is in his or her own world of insanity. All of the actors in the play, when we performed it, wore white padded long tunics for clothing and white padded long, over-the knee boots, and their faces were a mask of white make-up.

In the room where we were practicing acting insane, some were howling, some were groaning, and many were writhing. Some got down into a fetal position and curled up in a posture of acute paranoia and almost catatonia. A few were lashing out. One guy was dramatically lascivious toward the women. One woman sat in the corner drooling, with her arms going up and down like she was trying to draw out spirits from a dream-hole we couldn’t see, in a sort of slow balletic rhythm.

My response to this was to walk around wringing my hands, saying to myself and to anyone listening “Oh, my God, what can I do to help here?” It was beyond endurance. I think we stopped this acting after about 2 hours. I think the director was trying to see if we could keep it up for the actual length of the play.

I was accepted into the cast. The director continued to work with each of us, to polish our spontaneous acting. My role was to be a Sister of Mercy, with the wide white winged-headdress of the nuns, a grey loose robe, and a long big wooden rosary at the waist. My hands were to be continually wringing, in between tasks, or tolling the rosary beads; and every once in a while I was to say, somewhat Sotto Voce, “Lord, forgive us for we know not what we do.” This was not hard to say, in the context of the play. My main task was to try to keep the lascivious hands of the lecher off of Charlotte Corday. Also, I was on the side of the stage folding laundry, maintaining a small rhythm of sanity in the madhouse. The play began with a woman screaming a long blood-curdling scream in one corner, while I folded the laundry and acted like this was normal. It was electrifying, and gut-punching. Occasionally someone in the patients group would climb down from their box, and I was to carefully and tenderly guide them back. Meanwhile Marat was in his bath in the center of the stage, and occasionally he would get out to go to his desk, or have a board brought to set across the bathtub, to give him a surface for writing another edict or order for execution. The bathwater was imaginary. We even had real wooden tumbrils for the king and queen, rolling across the stage to their executions; manned by the patients like big wheelbarrows.

We got rave reviews across the Bay area. No one could believe the college players could do such a rivetingly intense job, and the theatre was packed for all the performances.

Our school work was like eating oatmeal after doing this play day after day, night after night. I was emotionally overwrought by it, and when it was over, I decided I could not stay in theatre, and successfully do my college work.

So that was the end of my theatre career. It also occurs to me now that I am in my 70s, that the lines I said in the play have still been very easy for me to say often, and my hands often reach for a rosary. My faith has been tested but has held through all these decades. I tried to take care of the people who are suffering as well as I could; and I am very afraid of both madness, and revolution. There is also a weird resonance with the play about Joan of Arc; and the question of saintliness, martyrdom, and a calling that to many seemed not only extraordinary but insane. Archetypes who are both realistic and mystical still hold my attention. Intense and contradictory emotions and ideas which don’t fit easily into neat categories seem most real to me.

Teatro Campesino and the pageant called “The Virgin of Tepeyac”

On Thursday before Christmas, I went with friends to the theatre in San Juan Bautista, of Teatro Campesino’s production of “La Virgen de Tepeyac”. This is the story of Guadalupe. For 50 years, the local players have re-enacted the Christmas story. It was much more old-fashioned and charming 10 years ago. Now it is riveting, intense and super-dramatic, as the confrontation with the bishop and priests who show disbelief and distain is so realistic. The old gods are angry and do not want to be replaced. The people who worship them are called witches. Forced Baptisms are happening. There is a huge power differential. The dramatic energy rises, the tension stays just taut— the dancing with drums and guitar music, and costumes with big feather headdresses is wonderful. Juan Diego’s visits with the little Mexican mother/virgin on the mountain are tender and marvelous, and she sings to him with a clear and high soprano voice which is mesmerizing. It is a wonderful production! I immediately wanted to film it, and share it. i recently read Michener’s book, Mexico, which helps me see those old murderous gods as vile, who constantly demanded more and more cut-out live hearts from the sacrificed victims, and the people who saw the image of Mary and the baby as life-giving, joyful, and peace-enhancing. She sings to Juan Diego that all the people are her children, and she wants to save them too, from abuse and slavery. The resolution at the end, with joy and goodwill, is huge. It was very moving, and I hope it will get more attention. It is full of color, and great lighting and acting, dancing and drumming, and guitar music and high energy!

The winter catalog from the Southwest Indian Foundation has a book offered, about the prophesy to the people, before Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego in 1531. It is called Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy, by Joseph and Monique Gonzalez. I am going to read this book!

The Mother of God

1/1/25

The Sanga Shantivanam Peace Vigil last night was beautiful– the hall is softly lit with candle light and white icicle lights, and they bring the cloth labyrinth for people to walk. I love to do this, and it gives me joy each time I get to experience it.

Each of the speakers was wonderful, and the time for contemplative quiet between speakers was companionable and peaceful.

The topic was Return to the Mother, for this year’s focus. It made me think of the book I just got, about “Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy.”

It is fascinating that there are records in Nahuatl, from centuries before, about a person very like Juan Diego, picking beautiful flowers on the mountain, for the Mother of God. The people who wrote the book, and Mexican history scholars currently are considering this as a prophesy, similar to what Isaiah says about the Messiah, which prepared the way for Jesus’ coming. Something like 10 million people came to the Missionary Spanish priests, begging for baptism! Begging urgently for baptism and conversion! The appearance of Guadalupe herself on the “tilma” or cloak, of Juan Diego is still considered miraculous– there is no explanation for its presence, its continuity in time, as the cloth would normally have disintegrated since 1531; its graphic depth— they have done studies of the eyes in the image of Guadalupe, and the image of Juan Diego is reflected in her eyes! To recognize her as the Mother of God, and the protectress of all the children of God, especially the abused and oppressed, made the Spanish missionaries really understand the Gospel more deeply. The Buddhists call the mother of Buddha or “all” of us, Prajna paramita. Perfect wisdom. The mammalian brain, which is 50,000 years old, is superimposed in our brains on the reptilian brain which is 100,000 years old. The older reptilian brain covers the body’s actions which are unconscious, and regulates our metabolism. The cortex (mammalian brain) is about thinking, dreaming, imagining, putting things together in meaningful ways. But above all, there is compassion. Mercy and understanding, and connection and communion are possible because of this compassion. To my mind, this is the great achievement of the mammalian mind. For the Mother of God to appear in each part of the world, in culturally appropriate ways, simply and purely to show compassion, and to assure people of her love and protection, is to prefigure humanity’s potential for love, tenderness, forgiveness, unity and hope. I came away with an even more profound love for Our lady of Guadalupe, and for the wonderful attempts of this interfaith group sharing, respectfully and joyfully praying for peace together, from every faith tradition and culture!

Moral vs. legal

It has taken me a long time to get to the position of recognizing that what is moral and what is legal have to be separated, so that we can do the best thing, in the circumstances of abortion or hemorrhage from a pregnancy whose outcome is uncertain.

What is moral belongs properly to the individual conscience. What is legal is what belongs to the authorities, and certainly to the “chain of command” in medical care. I have always loved the understanding that God is the advocate, and the adversary is what constantly pushes lies and fear, against our faith and hope and courage. We can stand together and help each other, but courage is needed. And it is not right for the authorities to suborn the conscience of a woman, to their opinion. It is her moral burden to carry.

A further reflection on Cosmology

Since my freshman year in college, when I read the book “The Human Phenomenon” by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who was a paleontologist and a French Jesuit priest, I understood something important about what we think about the structure of reality. It is not cyclic, it is actually a process, with cyclic rhythms and order, but unique as time unfolds. This has amazingly important implications. The most important to me today is that St. Augustine was wrong. There was never a “fall” from a perfect Garden of Eden. We are evolving, and we were never perfect. The capacity to nurture and love, and connect have grown from beings which at first had no language. The brain had a reptilian underpinning, which is 100,000 years old, and then a mammalian brain, which is about 50,000 years old, which also has evolved, and which gives us these nurturing and empathic abilities.

This means that there is no “original sin”. The creation, the universe, is an unfolding miracle of physical order and unity, in which coherence is given by the substances of time and space, mass and energy, and in which all the elements of the Periodic Table came from processes which devolved from the Big Bang, over 13.8 billion years. From the original moment, the stars formed, then the planets as the universe rapidly burst outward. Some stars are dead or dying, but they are a unique unfolding, not going back to the beginning of time. There are billions of galaxies. We do not know of life anywhere else yet, but it is possible that another planet somewhere in all these billions of galaxies is also unfolding the complex interactions which might lead first to chemicals which begin to come together, and then exist in circumstances which make possible the biosphere. Fr. Teilhard spoke of what he thought as the countervailing force, which balances against the Second law of thermodynamics, which supposes that by spending energy, things ultimately fall into entropy. His understanding of Einstein’s showing us that energy and mass are interchangeable at the speed of light, was that there is a law of Complexity-Consciousness, which is building the process of the unfolding development of the universe. He considered the energy to be Love. Love as he defines it is not romantic, it is about growth and connection and order, where the order subsumes what was previously the structural organization. For example, the time and place in Earth’s development when chemical molecules coalesced and “infolded” to become organic compounds set the stage for the further development of life.

For many people, this doesn’t really seem to touch them, but what it does in theology is show that there was never a fallen world, and that we have misunderstood what Jesus came to do. His life, death and resurrection mirror the way life, death and resurrection are happening in the universe all the time– it is the pattern. Nothing is lost; rather, it is built- in to what comes next. The Cosmic Christ is the pattern of this unfolding. Jesus was not “paying” for our sins, but he LOVED us, so that we could learn how to be human in the best way, as our connection to God within this reality of the process of Creation. We can feel and believe and THANK Him for this gift of the modeling of how to be more loving, more connected, more deeply compassionate; and to be enfolded in love with God and with the world around us. The scriptures constantly connect us with this loving Creator. This God is benevolent, and wants our growth, and wants to help us, actually IMPELS us, toward greater empathy, connection and unity. Teilhard called this the NOOSPHERE, which will be a way that humans become more connected, as we are so quickly doing through the use of communications and our inventions for sharing knowledge and problem-solving skills over the whole Earth. This is the understanding of St. Bonaventure, who with St. Aquinas, emphasized what is GOOD in creation, and that in the first chapter of Genesis, God saw it was “GOOD!” Instead of being full of fear, and hearkening back to a mythic time when everything was perfect, we need to have courage to move forward into the unknown, unfolding creation. We need to let go of the picture of a static universe, such as was the Ptolemaic system, before Galileo. We need to understand that Jesus was inviting women as well as men to a deeper relationship with the Divine Mystery. We need to get rid of the concept of “original sin”. We each have enough flaws and dents in our characters, and we hurt ourselves and each other, but the invitation is toward growth, healing, strength, and deeper loving union with the Divine who is calling us forth into a blooming future! There is no need to add a super-sin, which is our imperfect character, which needs to be forgiven. God made us and God is helping us grow. We are the universe expressing itself, lovingly. We can ask God for forgiveness for our behaviors, our sins; but the idea of an original sin which was committed by Adam, is not true, not the right way to see the story of Creation. This does not take away from our love of God, it makes us see that God is so much MORE loving, MORE creative, than we thought! Ilia Delio, a follower of Teilhard de Chardin, calls this God the “not-yet God”. The God of the future.

St. Thomas Aquinas thought that sin was “missing the mark”. As if a behavior was shooting an arrow and missing the bull’s eye– we overthink or overreact, or our own agenda or needs get in the way of a clear and good way to interact or solve a problem. We are called to deeper interactions, better human unity and relationships. The biggest sins we commit are failure to love. Love brings increased complexity but also keeps individual uniqueness. All of the ways the universe is made of relationships help us see that love and relationality are how God is bringing the universe along!

Whenever I see something about Original Sin now, it makes me angry. It is bad theology. It is not appropriate to what we know about the universe and the way creation has unfolded. It also makes God look like a mean and cruel deity, who would send his son to be killed. We have to get back to what is actually in the scriptures, that we are called into being out of God’s infinite creative love. That is the “good news” we need to share!