Exile

 

Exile

Definition

“the state of being barred from one's native country, typically for political or punitive reasons.” 

I would add "religious."

I am an exile from Ireland. I have been so for fifty six years.

It’s a strange word, exile.

Me, I left because of religious intolerance – which infected entire families – of a woman/girl who became pregnant outside of holy matrimony. Back then, if this happened, there were three choices for a woman in that condition.

(1) Get married if the fellah was honourable and didn’t vanish or deny his responsibility. A choice not available to raped women or girls who were blamed for their condition and were now “spoiled” and deemed unmarriagable for any decent man.

(2)Be incarcerated in a Mother and Baby Home, run by nuns, giving birth in agony (suffering being a reparation for carnal sins committed) and then have the baby whisked away immediately and sold to a decent Catholic family in the U.S.

(3)Become a slave for life in the infamous Magdalene Laundries, mocked, beaten, demeaned and the baby yanked and sold immediately post birth.

 (4)Emigrate to the UK, Australia, South Africa or Canada.

I chose options 1 and 4. I was twenty three years old.

To be pregnant and getting married (in a side chapel away from the prying eyes of relatives and friends who would be counting the months) was no joyful event. Disgusted judgment would be wrought upon the family of the bride for raising such a tramp. Fathers would forbid the errant daughter from darkening their doorway so the neighbours could observe their disapproval as would her siblings as a signal as to what could happen to them.

I hid my condition from everyone. I was, luckily, tall and carried high.

My wedding was a grand affair. Absolutely no one knew of my four month’s pregnancy and the Canadian Embassy blessed my potential emigration with free passage to my new country along with free rent on an apartment until we “settled in.” Many employment positions were lined up as Canada was in need of more bodies in the work force. Economically then, Ireland was dismal.

Shortly after the wedding we vamoosed on the SS Carinthia.

The SS Carinthia.

Standing on that deck, looking down at the tender taking my grieving family back to Cobh Harbour, I finally realized why it was known as the “Irish Wake”

Cobh - also the last port of call of the Titanic.

I didn’t cry. I turned my face to look west, to the new land that awaited me with open arms.

I had exiled myself and my little one to Canada.

Politics and Religion

Well, that was quite a volcano on my last post. I love the debates, the differences, even the justification for Trump voting. I don't have to agree but I certainly can listen. Nothing cranks the handle more than politics and religion.

I remember being told that they were absolutely taboo topics at the dinner table and no polite family would ever broach them if they wanted to keep their guests' stomachs in operating condition.

Civil discourse is the hall mark of a well bred mind. So I was told.

We had debating teams at school. Taking opposing sides to positions. It forced us to study up on topics. I remember being on the Jewish side of a Christianity-Judaism debate - and this in a private Catholic convent school - so I had to research in the City Library and learned so much I wanted to convert on the spot. Then again I was one of those irritating teens who'd read about communism and wanted to strut down the main street with a placard demanding union rights for workers.

Nothing has changed in me anyway. I'm an enthusiast. If something fires me up I want to know all about it.

You'd never know by the sedate tone of this post that my water heater has bust, would you? I'd love to have given a long whine here but know that my handyman is taking care of it all tomorrow. Daughter popped in today unexpectedly, she was out on a drive and wanted to go for an aimless spin with me ("giving mother an airing", she calls it).

We love these aimless spins. Dropping in here and there as the mood takes. I left the millions of wet bath towels all over the kitchen and the utility room, bragged briefly how I'd managed to shut off the water to the tank all by myself, and we headed out.

I'd gone out for a solo airing yesterday and dropped in on a friend and we stuffed ourselves with scones and cream and had 4 kinds of homemade jam and drank tealeaf tea for 3-1/2 solid hours. And talked Trump and local politics and religion and feminism and books, lovely books.

Even with a squelchy house I don't lose the run of meself.

Adulting feels good.

What kind of a world is this?

We are a sad, sad, species.

Why?

I have to question the sanity of us all when a helpless 19 year old girl moves far, far away from her family 50 years ago to give birth to a child "out of wedlock". Her parents and friends don't know about the pregnancy. It would be a cause of enormous shame and embarrassment. Girls who got pregnant without the sanctity of the ring around their fingers were sluts and the parents who gave birth to these sluts were shamed and often shunned. The tentacles and condemnation and judgement of the RC church was everywhere, even in Canada. Especially in Montreal.

So this 19 year old found an obscure town on a map of Ontario and gave birth in the local small town hospital and insisted on keeping the child. She had to fight to keep this baby as the chaplain and the holy sisters of the hospital were adamant in their lectures about the "child's best interests."

She left the hospital with the baby in a blanket and caught a bus to her rooming house and her money was running out so she asked around, in shops and the neighbourhood, about a private care home for the child and found one. She then secured a job in a nearby city. And commuted to her rooming house and paid the care home for the 5 day care of her daughter. She'd pick her up on Friday night and then spend the weekend with her. And this went on for 9 months, her life revolving around her job with its long hours, the minescule paycheques, the payment to the care home and her weekends with the baby.

And then, out of the blue, the temporary care parents took her to court. They said the child was upset at being disrupted every weekend. They didn't think the mother was fit. Their children were grown and gone. They could dedicate themselves to ensuring this child had a better quality of life than what this irresponsible single mother was offering.

And the 19 year old pleaded at the judge's bench she had to work to support the child, she saw her every chance she got, she was studying every night of the week after work so that the two of them could have a better life, maybe a live-in nanny.

Her tears and eventual sobs fell on deaf ears. The judge ruled in the care couple's favour and they could proceed with formally adopting the child. The mother was classified as unfit.

Years later, years and years, she reconnected with the child. The child refused to meet with her. Over and over and over again.

She said she would never, ever forgive her for "giving her up," even when she knew she was dying.

The other side of this story has never been written.

And I wish it was.

30 Days - Day 7

Big Question.

At times, I write about the bad old days. The days when women and children were treated like chattel and given no voices, no land, no vote. Beaten.Abused. Told what to wear, how to behave. Deprived of education and rights. All encouraged by the various religious despots pounding their important books, dictating laws offering forgiveness for transgressions - at a price of course.

And I bring up the hundreds of years of oppression and paedophilia, castrations and genital mutilations - and to bring it closer to home my mother's symphysiotomy - and the answer always comes back:

"Well, those were the old days, they didn't know better, we are more enlightened now," or some variant on this.

And I am flabbergasted.

So in the "good old days" these clerics and their male acolytes didn't know that when they raped and abused women and children that it was wrong? That when they burned witches and sent women to work free in laundries for life that it was truly evil? Women's suffering wasn't quite human, was that it? That banishing the bad seeds of unwanted pregnancies (unwanted by the male impregnators/rapists who remained anonymous, of course)to the dungeons of an orphanage was the RIGHT thing to do?

And tell me again how the ICH* approved of and condoned these horrific acts? After all he wrote The Good Book? Oh, only for men? Slaves and women and eunuchs are like animals and should be treated as such?

I don't think I'd care to be saved by such a misogynistic pedarest - however many times his stripes change according to the times and his interpreters, thanks. Why couldn't he do it right and respectful to begin with?

*Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper

Photo and Cartoon of the Week

This has been kicking around Facebook but I thought it worth further exposure here as it so bloody well said, yeah?

And when this shyte has to be posted isn't it hard to believe we're in 2012 and not 1812 ?

How long will it take for the females of our species (50% of us) not to be perceived as growbags?

And for those of you who may not have seen the following due to your newspapers' censoring, here's Garry Trudeau shouting out about another serious erosion of women's rights in the USA:

Have a Question about Religion?

If you have a question about religion, your best bet is to ask an atheist.

According to the Toronto Star atheists are the most well informed about all religions than any religionist.

The survey polled 3,412 Americans who defined themselves in one of nine groups, including atheist/agnostic, Jewish, Mormon, white evangelical Protestant and white mainline Protestant.

The group that garnered the most correct answers on the 32-part questionnaire was atheists and agnostics. As a group, they answered 20.9 questions on the Bible, Christianity, world religions and religion in public life correctly. They were followed by Jews (20.5) and Mormons (20.3).

and

principled non-believers performed so well because they had deeply considered their choice to opt out of organized religion. They also tended to have higher levels of education.

.

Amen to all of that, I say.

See other posts on atheism here, here, and here

Important Flow Chart

click to embiggen

H/T Bartcop

The Three Letter Word

I imagine we’re all pretty much immune to further shocks in the continuing saga of the Catholic Church and the systemic abuses which have been ongoing for centuries I would imagine with only the victims of the last fifty years coming forward to shout the truth.

We’ve all been reading the staggering but unsurprising revelation of the child abuse scandals in Germany one literally touching the pope with his brother, Georg Ratzinger, the choirmaster of a group of boys who have now alleged abuse.

Paedophilia charges against church officials continue to surface across Germany, and allegations have included the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir, which was led for three decades by Rev. Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's brother.

Read more here

But a tiny word caught my eye in the latest church saga in Ireland. Cardinal Sean Brady is now implicated in the massive cover-up of the abuses – you can read about the Irish scandals in a previous post here.

Cardinal Sean Brady was a priest in 1975 when abuse allegations were raised against another priest, Brendan Smyth. At a meeting at that time, Brady asked two victims — boys aged 10 and 14 — to sign letters agreeing they would remain silent. The church did not share the information with police.

Cardinal Brady ASKED two abused children, victims of horrific paedophilia, aged 10 and 14, to sign letters agreeing they would remain silent about their abuse.

ASK, such a tiny word, such unconscionable implications.

Think about it, look at the definitions below.

(1)to make inquiry; inquire: to ask about a person.

(2)to request or petition (usually fol. by for): to ask for leniency; to ask for food

And ASK yourself if they were his equals. ASK yourself if they had a choice.

The F word

I don’t take any of it for granted. Ever. My equal rights under Canadian law.

Once upon a time, you see, I didn’t have them.

I didn’t have them in Ireland where I grew up. Upon leaving college I was one of several women hired for the very first time as an accountant in a national organization. Great, you say? Well, the work itself was great, I enjoyed it.

Thing was, I was paid on the ‘female’ scale of pay. Yes, you read that right, all you born in the last 40 years. The ‘female accountant’ wages were half that of men. Even then, working for those 50% wages I was criticized by some (mainly those of the female persuasion) for taking the job over a deserving man.

And another thing: most days I was subject to verbal sexual harassment and double entendres by a few of my more primitive (and usually married) male colleagues. And complaining to the (male) boss was treated jovially, mockingly and could be summarized by the following phrases: “You should be flattered” and “Suck it up”. Par for the course. And I wasn’t alone, as my friends in other workplaces were harassed also. We would try and come up with strategies to minimise it, knowing we could never eliminate it.

It took until 1982 to have equality of the sexes enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 1982!

And who fought for those rights taken by so many young women for granted today?

That dirty F word. Feminists.

Definition of feminist:

Someone, male or female, who believes in social, political and economic equality between the sexes.

A word that has been taken and smeared and re-formed into “militant” and “bra-burner” and “lesbian” and “man-hater” by the patriarchal media to terrify women into becoming their old submissive selves.

I, for one, believe we are all born equal: male, female, gay, straight, cross-gendered, trans-gendered, black or white and all those wonderful variations between,

And I never take equality for granted.

And I will protest peacefully for equality, yours and mine and ours, till my dying day for the job is far from over: look towards the third world, look to any country which has a powerful religious stranglehold on the government - (Hello, Ireland and U.S.A!)

And I will speak out when I see injustice, prejudice and inequality based on gender, race or sexual orientation.

Feminist? Hell, yeah!

£20,000,000

Yes, that's the amount the beyond-broke British taxpayer will be paying for a visit from Himself-The-Holy so that he can utter these immortal words created especially for those who live within the 'natural law'.

"In a speech in which he confirmed that he will be coming to Britain on a four-day visit in September, the Pope said: “Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.”

Excluding gays and women of course in that equality nonsense, not being part of what's natural and stuff. I hadn't realized that paedophiles are part of the Natural Law Club.

Let's hear it once again for hate, prejudice and exclusion, shall we?

Some days I get suspended between LOLing and SOBing.

The Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper

People ask me about God.

What do you believe?

Do you have a deity?

Are you a lapsed Catholic?

lapsed
 
–adjective
1. expired; voided; terminated: a lapsed insurance policy.
2. no longer committed to or following the tenets of a particular belief, obligation, position, etc.: a lapsed Catholic.

Well, yeah, I guess you could call me that.

Personally, I’d prefer the word “recovered” though, if you don’t mind.

re·cov·er v. tr.

1. To get back; regain.
2. To restore (oneself) to a normal state: He recovered himself after a slip on the ice.
3. To compensate for: She recovered her losses.
4. To procure (usable substances, such as metal) from unusable substances, such as ore or waste.
5. To bring under observation again: "watching the comet since it was first recovered—first spotted since its 1910 visit" (Christian Science Monitor).
v. intr.

1. To regain a normal or usual condition, as of health.
2. To receive a favorable judgment in a lawsuit.

As in: I’m now restored to a normal state.

I’m in fit mental condition.

I believe in logic.

I believe in science.

What’s that you say?
No, I don’t believe in religion.
Yes. Of any kind.
Yeah, it does seem that that’s hard for you to believe.
What’s that about the bible?
It was written for people like me?
By whom?
No, I don’t think God wrote it.
Oh, he dictated it?
How do you know that?
Oh, the bible says so?
Well, that doesn’t compute for me, that logic thing I have. Sorry.

Thanks for asking. But if I did believe in God the whole scene would go like this:

My god has no religion.
My god has no gender.
My god has no agenda.

Basically I don’t believe in an Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper or ICH for short. Especially one who is always whining for more money and the biggest fanciest house in the poorest neighbourhood.

Blasphemy you say?

Well, I’m quite cool with that.

No, really I am.

And another thing I really believe in, you want to hear it?

My rights end exactly where yours begin.

Namaste.

Enlightenment

Picture is of Cape Spear, Newfoundland, August 2007
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I felt like pluralizing the above title but decided against it, why contribute to further deterioration of the language - and at my crusty age I should feel ashamed of the temptation.

Answers to life's puzzles come in their own good time. Like the ongoing teaser of the great R puzzle. Now resolved. A further conversation with him last night showed his heart very clearly is in another direction. My investment in the whole thing was entirely removed this morning when he forwarded me a Christian YouTube film about this 13 year old boy whose elderly cow gave birth to a calf and broke her back in the effort. He had to shoot the old cow but as he stood there afterwards in grief the voice of God came into his head to tell him that God had endured the loss of His Only Son so could understand the sorrow.

I was snapped into reality really, really quickly. My mind riffed off on this. God voices in the head have gotten the world into a lot of trouble. See George Bush and his God calling him into war. See The Crusades. See The Holocaust. See the Irish Famine. Then I had the thought that given a Goddess and the same wonky scenario would She have had the same enthusiasm in torture-slaughtering Her daughter for the good of womankind and our 'sins'? While watching and having the power to stop it? Just puttin' it out there.

The R switch has been turned off for me. I found this whole film (and his admonition for me to get out the Kleenex first before watching!) appalling, the brainwashing of the young boy, the attempt to thread the two similarities of sacrifice vomititious in the extreme. Far from R's intent. He was 'inspired'. Another dream bites the dust.

I must admit to shedding a few when Hillary got the nomination in NH last night. I'm not a Hillary hater like many, I've felt from way back, when she was Bride of Bill, that she was the better 'president'. Opportunistic, yes, aren't they all in the cutthroat and Hollywoodized politics of our Southern neighbour? But looking at all the Democratic candidates since the outset, for my money and the future of the planet she is by far the best choice. I absolutely cannot see her sacrificing any more youth to this undending war on so-called terror, her past votes be damned. Politicking. And we need more women in politics. We need more of an equal gender balance however we get it. Compassionate people get slaughtered out there in the voting trenches. Given a chance, I think she will do her best to clean up the mess and initiate universal healthcare and education. If the pot hasn't been totally licked dry by the Incumbent and his cronies.

Remind me, who are the terrorists again? They are currently patrolling the Persian Gulf. How would the U.S. react to Iranians patrolling their war ships in the Gulf of Mexico? Little speedboats wouldn't be it. Nuclear warheads more like. WW 3 for sure. And the bought-and-paid for MSM falling over themselves to pontificate on the threat of the little speedboats on their own waters against those "benign" humungous battleships? There's money to be made in tham thar war zones!