“In silence, we come to know ourselves.”
~ ~ ~ Sister Joan Chittister from this excellent NCR column https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/where-i-stand/st-benedict-counsels-little-less-talk-little-more-thought
*****
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When I was on the online rapid response team for commenting on fracking issues in New York, I learned over time not to revisit comments on articles, even though I knew I was getting inaccurate (and occasionally nasty) replies.
Due to changing circumstances, I haven’t been commenting on much of anything lately, but I did make a comment on a recent column by Thomas Reese, SJ, on a carbon tax. This has turned into a long stream of comments from a man who does not believe in mainstream climate science with my replies and a few others weighing in.
I have decided to stop replying at this point, but I’ve spent so much time on it that I thought I would share it here:
https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/faith-and-justice/carbon-tax-revisited
In response to this powerful article by Sister Christine Schenk, I wanted to share one small story of an incident that happened when I was working at an office as a summer job.
I was doing some filing when a man came up behind me and tickled me on my ribcage. I turned around quickly and an older man from another department was standing there right behind me. He said in surprise, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were Maggie,” and walked away.
I was shocked. As a young feminist from Smith College, I knew that this was totally unacceptable office behavior.
I told Maggie (not her real name) and some of the other women in the office what had happened. Maggie acknowledged that this man often did this kind of thing; she supposed it was because he was trying to cover up the fact that he was gay. Best to keep quiet about it so as not to get him in trouble.
It was discouraging to me that anyone would behave that way and get away with it repeatedly, but the other women just accepted it as the way things are.
It is even more discouraging that decades later, people still make excuses for abusive behaviors of all kinds.
No, it is not okay to touch another person against that person’s wishes. It is not okay to belittle or bully or threaten another person.
Every person is due respect at all times.
No matter how rich, famous, powerful, or talented a person in, they never have permission to treat another human being in a disrespectful way.
Period.
I wasn’t sure what I would write about using the prompt of including the letter T until I read this: http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/2014s-runner-person-year about how Stephen Colbert was the runner-up to Pope Francis to be National Catholic Reporter’s Person of the Year.
We are fans of Stephen Colbert and his just-completed nine-year run of The Colbert Report. I wrote about it here.
When I told my family about the NCR piece, our daughter T immediately began to concoct a segment of “Who’s Not Honoring Me Now?” about how Stephen (in character) didn’t much care for this pope but that now it was personal.
In real life, Stephen Colbert is a practicing Catholic and I’m sure is fond of Pope Francis. That would be the Stephen who pronounces the T at the end of his last name.
From the first promos of The Colbert Report, it was pointed out that both the T at the end of Colbert and the T at the end of Report are silent. It was how you could tell that someone was familiar with the show or not. Fans would never have pronounced those Ts.
Stephen, being runner-up to Pope Francis is still a great gig!
This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday, with the prompt being the letter T: http://lindaghill.com/2015/01/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-january-315/ . It is also part of Linda’s Just Jot It January: http://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/ . Come join in the fun!
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