The Jerusalem Flow
That's what I call it -- the sort of "everything happens for a reason and is exactly right sometimes" feeling, that is very Jerusalem. Not "holy" or "divine" but just this incredible flow of doing exactly the right thing at the right time, and that everything is in sync.
It happened last night. Was finishing up digitizing materials, I started the morning with Dina, a beautiful friend of mine that I've interviewed for the project-- articulate, gorgeous, her story is similar to the character Dina's story in the Bible. Dina is the rape story in the Torah, so its bizarre that she's named for her. I then digitized the dude, and then lots of my Jerusalem footage-- focusing on men in public space, the general vibe of male aggression and male pack behavior that makes a gal feel less than comfortable here. Was happy to turn off the computer.
Was waiting for flouncy roommate to come home with groceries so we could make soup, a little bonding plan we made. Was almost 8, she wasn't home, I was starving and about to leave. I have to prepare for this conference in England I'm invited to in two weeks -- the title of my seminar is: "Sex, Violence and Taboo in Film, Text and Torah" which is a hot title. Have no idea what I'm saying -- gonna show some of my film, talk about Heeb Bible illustrations, "The Red Tent" and the story of Dina in the Torah. So I decide to grab the old Biblical bodice ripper, "The Red Tent" and go to a cafe and start preparing. Just then flounce arrives with all these groceries and urges me to come to a lecture with her.
Coincidentally, this week's Torah portion is about Dina -- and the girl actually convinced me to go to a religous institution to hear a lecture. About Dina, the only real rape story in the entire Bible. It is this week, it is right now.
Get the the talk, and the speaker is brilliant. A British female scholar who talks about the faith and the human condition. Unfortunately in the Torah the rape of Dina is described as a dishonor that is done to her father, which is why "The Red Tent" was so fun, because it is written from Dina's point of view. This woman structures her talk around Jacob, Dina's father. She talked about the child-parent relationship and the turn of the century British psychoanalytic theory of the child acknowledging somehow the pain he puts his mother through -- through birth and breast feeding and internalizing that guilt and trying to repair it. Made me feel bad that I had been so bitchy to my father yesterday (although he was unreasonable to demand I get pregant and married immediately).
She then talked about the human condition. According to Kierkegaard, the central element of the human condition is anxiety -- or a knowledge of our own vulnerability. Dread, Anxiety, Fear and Vulnerability -- therefore making "faith" a tension between fear and trust. And Zen is a philosophy of dealing with an impossible paradox, like this one -- faith and fear. It was kind of the perfect thing to hear at the end of my day.
The only hitch in the flow was that I never got to eat dinner. But made up for it today.
It happened last night. Was finishing up digitizing materials, I started the morning with Dina, a beautiful friend of mine that I've interviewed for the project-- articulate, gorgeous, her story is similar to the character Dina's story in the Bible. Dina is the rape story in the Torah, so its bizarre that she's named for her. I then digitized the dude, and then lots of my Jerusalem footage-- focusing on men in public space, the general vibe of male aggression and male pack behavior that makes a gal feel less than comfortable here. Was happy to turn off the computer.
Was waiting for flouncy roommate to come home with groceries so we could make soup, a little bonding plan we made. Was almost 8, she wasn't home, I was starving and about to leave. I have to prepare for this conference in England I'm invited to in two weeks -- the title of my seminar is: "Sex, Violence and Taboo in Film, Text and Torah" which is a hot title. Have no idea what I'm saying -- gonna show some of my film, talk about Heeb Bible illustrations, "The Red Tent" and the story of Dina in the Torah. So I decide to grab the old Biblical bodice ripper, "The Red Tent" and go to a cafe and start preparing. Just then flounce arrives with all these groceries and urges me to come to a lecture with her.
Coincidentally, this week's Torah portion is about Dina -- and the girl actually convinced me to go to a religous institution to hear a lecture. About Dina, the only real rape story in the entire Bible. It is this week, it is right now.
Get the the talk, and the speaker is brilliant. A British female scholar who talks about the faith and the human condition. Unfortunately in the Torah the rape of Dina is described as a dishonor that is done to her father, which is why "The Red Tent" was so fun, because it is written from Dina's point of view. This woman structures her talk around Jacob, Dina's father. She talked about the child-parent relationship and the turn of the century British psychoanalytic theory of the child acknowledging somehow the pain he puts his mother through -- through birth and breast feeding and internalizing that guilt and trying to repair it. Made me feel bad that I had been so bitchy to my father yesterday (although he was unreasonable to demand I get pregant and married immediately).
She then talked about the human condition. According to Kierkegaard, the central element of the human condition is anxiety -- or a knowledge of our own vulnerability. Dread, Anxiety, Fear and Vulnerability -- therefore making "faith" a tension between fear and trust. And Zen is a philosophy of dealing with an impossible paradox, like this one -- faith and fear. It was kind of the perfect thing to hear at the end of my day.
The only hitch in the flow was that I never got to eat dinner. But made up for it today.
posted by No Longer Active at 6:07 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home