thegreennun.org

The Green Nun

At age 8, 1 announced to my family that I had decided to be a nun.  Everybody laughed, reminding me that my independent streak and tendency to speak my mind did not bode well for such a calling.

At age 17, 1 boarded a bus from Tampa, Florida to Oakland, California to enter a French-Canadian semi-cloistered, very rigid teaching order. I stayed 17 years, strictly because I was told that God had chosen me, so I should never, ever question my vocation.

I was reprimanded continually, “Sister Lorena Mary, you must quit thinking and analyzing everything!” They might as well have asked me to stop breathing or shed my skin.   I did my utmost to silence the eternal “Whys” and “What Ifs” that plagued me even in my sleep!

Finally at age 34, 1 was given the ultimatum, “Quit Thinking or Leave!”  So here I am!

It is one thing to take the nun out of the convent, but quite another to get the convent out of the nun. You may interpret that as adjustment problems surrounding the vows of Chastity,

Obedience, and Poverty – “the Nun of this, Nun of that syndrome.” Not so.  What I have never been able to shake is my compulsion to save the world!

That’s how the Life of Jesus Christ affected me – not the trappings of so-called organized religion that has its own self-serving agenda – but the living, breathing, speaking Jesus Christ who came to teach us what life is supposed to be:

We must love God with our whole being – expressed by loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.  Christ actually made that commandment the basis of our final judgment, saying that what we do to the LEAST, we do to HIM.  Who exemplified the Least?   A Samaritan, the lowest of the low in Jewish circles.  In today’s world, that image translates to individuals of other races, languages, creeds, social, sexual, and economic status.

Wouldn’t you think that would scare the “Bejesus” out of all the people wandering around this earth calling themselves “Christians” while simultaneously fabricating false accusations, hating, cheating, legislating against – even killing anyone who gets in the way of their own beliefs and insatiable greed?

Remember the time when the scribes and Pharisees attempted to entrap Christ, with the woman caught in adultery (where was the man???), asking whether the law should be carried out – that she be stoned?   Christ responded by writing indecipherable comments in the sand; then looked at each and said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”  They walked away in shame leaving Him alone with the woman.  Christ was the only one qualified to cast a stone, but He did not.

Guess you know where that puts the likes of you and me who find it so difficult to love our neighbor and so easy to believe the worst, judge, and condemn him or her!  Love, by the way, in this context is not mushy – it is simply fair play.  Don’t do to others what you would not want done to you!

Christ was merciful and loving. He never condemned those who committed sins of the “flesh”.  In His depiction of the Last Judgment, it was the political and religious leaders who were damned for placing burdens on others that they would not bear themselves. Wouldn’t you think that would scare the “Bejesus” out of all our so-called “God fearing” politicians and hordes of self-appointed reverends inciting their followers to persecute and prosecute “sinners”??

Of course, in their book, only sexual aberrations are regarded as “sins”.  Everything else falls into their single creed – “ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR – ‘CAUSE GOD’S ON OUR SIDE!”  And anything that is not some form of war falls under the category of “love” in all of its self-serving manifestations.

Years ago, I was walking along Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, feeling useless as an ex-nun in my quest to save the world.  Surrounding me were fantastic examples of architecture dedicated to both material wealth and religious supremacy – buildings housing the city’s most prominent wheelers and dealers in finance, oil, real estate, insurance, media, churches, synagogues, etc. Resplendent temples dedicated for the most part to Greed, not God.

At that moment, I imagined Christ and Robin Hood appearing to me, clad in blinding, shimmering green attire.  Christ spoke first: “Jeanne, don’t be so discouraged.  You can carry on your mission here.  The world still needs all the help it can get.  Robin and I are here to encourage you to create your own crusade to enrich the downtrodden!”

“My own crusade?”

“Yes,” Robin chipped in, smiling just like Errol Flynn and flexing his bow as if aiming at an invisible target.  “You’ve been chosen to create the ‘Order of Holy Avarice’.”

“What kind of hallucination is this?” I stammered.  “Jesus, you preached that money is the root of all evil; that it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.”

Christ shook his head, “Riches – in and of themselves – are not evil.  They become vile when human beings place wealth and power above all other values, gaining personal wealth and influence by stealing from others through various means.  They create poverty through slavery in all its devious guises -especially in business and even marriage wherein for centuries racial minorities, women and children were – and still are –regarded as “goods and chattels” with no rights – dependent solely upon their ‘Lords and Masters’.  Actually, it is this institutional acceptance and perpetuation of financial inequity that is the root of all evil.”

Robin spoke up, “I was accused of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.  But I was really reclaiming stolen goods and returning them to their rightful owners.”

“So you were practicing ‘holy avarice’?”

“Yes, seeking to restore the poor to a just share.”

“And that is now my mission?”

“Yes, you can choose your own methods in what will be a slow but rewarding process.”  POOF!  They disappeared as I tried to imagine myself as “The Green Nun” sort of a modern version of my hero, the Green Hornet of radio fame in the ‘30s and ‘40s, who righted wrongs non-violently.  I could use my tongue as my weapon of choice in social service and educational agencies and have done so, with a modicum of success over the years.

But that is not enough!  Human meanness in the name of Christianity has reached new depths of depravity.  When Karl Marx said that religion is the opiate of the people, he was referring to the Machiavellian duping of the masses to such an extent that they hypnotically conform to the dictates of their power-mad leaders.  Nowhere is this more obvious than the return to Old Testament interpretations of Might makes Right – the “Born Again” sneaky subjugation of women and minorities, steadfastly destroying the gains of the Civil Rights movement.  Nowhere is this more evident than the fact that here and now lawmakers are wallowing in restrictive legislation concerning immigrants, gays and pregnant women, while indiscriminately throwing taxpayers’ money into the bottomless pit of senseless bloody wars.

Well, those sentiments definitely indicate that I am no saint!  I would love to be God long enough to expand Hell and dump all the masterminds of evil into it immediately.  Secondly, I would change the status quo of the sexes and make it possible for men to get pregnant – starting with the Pope.  Abortion and Birth Control would become Sacraments overnight!   And, finally, I would scoop up all the women and children living in repressive societies and relocate them to truly democratic locations.  Their men folk could then fend for and screw themselves.

The “Sacredness of Life” contention touted by religious and political spokespersons is seriously contradicted by their readiness to slaughter human beings once they emerge from the womb!  And don’t start spouting the “Right to Life’s” Beethoven song and dance routine.  Christ himself said at the Last Supper when telling the apostles that one of them would betray him:  “IT WERE BETTER FOR THAT MAN HAD HE NEVER BEEN BORN!”

It’s time that we place our emphasis on respecting the living who are already here  both in our own nation and the rest of the world.  Amen!