Yesterday one of my friends told me he is gay. He announced he had something to tell me, which of course led me to think immediately that he was coming out. He did, and it was good. I have gay friends, I have straight friends, I have bisexual friends. I would write more about that, as it seems terribly important in the current miliue of the Church. But it's difficult to write much more when you're stomach is agog. That will prove a subject for much fruitful reflection as this project progresses. Sexuality.... embodied spirits aflame...... directing the energies within.... the fundamental goodness of the human body.... the beauty of a chaste life.... (Is agog a word to be used in connection with a turbulently upset stomach?)
Today, on the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist, I read about a 70 year old nun who was decapitated somewhere in Baghdad. Sister Cecilia Hanna was found beheaded, evidently by a local mob of some sort.
Assyrians say they were the first nation to adopt Christianity as state religion in 179 AD, more than 100 years before Armenia, which prides itself with being the first Christianized country. The Assyrians also claim were the ones to have built the first Christian churches and to have been the first to translate the New Testament from Greek into their vernacular, which still resembles the language of Christ.
The Chaldean Church, to which the murdered Sacred Heart of Jesus nun belonged, is in union with the Vatican and has approximately one million members, half of whom still live in Iraq, while the rest is spread around the world, Bishop Ibrahim said.
Well. God bless Sr. Cecelia Hanna.
Yes, evil is afoot in the world. And it is fundamentally all the more important to affirm goodness and truth in our lives.
And for now, I will go nurse my ailing corpus with a restful and prayerful sleep.
posted by David Greenleaf at Thursday, August 29, 2002
