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A Leap of Faith - NY Times

New York Times Fashion & Style
Modern Love
A Leap of Faith
By RENEE WATABE
July 3, 2005

David Chelsea

A LOT of people think I was brainwashed. How else to explain why I would allow the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church to choose my spouse?

Most people regard the choice of a life partner as a deeply personal decision, perhaps the most important decision anyone has the opportunity to make; and if you give up that choice, you must be out of your mind. From the outside looking in, this evaluation makes perfect sense.

Me, I like to look at things once, twice, again and again. When I was a little girl, my father, a chemical engineer, told me that if you chew a piece of bland bread over and over, holding it in your mouth, it eventually becomes sweet. He was trying to explain to me about the breakdown of the molecules into glucose and such.

But what sticks in my mind is the deeper meaning I saw in what he'd said: how anything, any experience, conversation, scene observed or moment reflected upon, is like that bland piece of bread. Look at it a while, chew it, hold it, and it becomes sweet and satisfying. There are hidden surprises and hidden flavors residing in everything and everybody.

So how did I find myself on a spring day in 1987, sitting on a bench by a pond in Central Park with a complete stranger, licking vanilla ice cream cones, watching the toy sailboats racing by and discussing our future together as husband and wife?

I'd met him only an hour or two earlier. He, like me, was a member of the Unification Church and had been invited to the grand ballroom of the New Yorker Hotel where Reverend Moon was to perform a matchmaking ceremony, pairing a thousand brides with a thousand bridegrooms.

"Love your enemy," he preached, in echo of Jesus.

As we saw it, the path to world peace was through a coupling of the historically polarized: black and white, East and West, Jewish and Muslim. So many nations and religions are historical enemies. We "Moonies" were willing to sacrifice personal choice to spin gold out of the raw silk of ourselves, to help create world harmony through family harmony.

"I put you together not for your own happiness," our spiritual leader said, "but for the beautiful children your marriages will produce." Children whose very existence would challenge established notions of racism.

With me, Reverend Moon was preaching to the choir: I was the product of an intercultural marriage myself. Back in the 1950's my white Kansas-born mother had married my Chinese father, who hailed from Shanghai. When they were wed, their marriage was illegal in most of the Southern states. But my mother and father loved each other, and their racially blended relationship was a model for me.

So when Reverend Moon asked for those of us who wanted an international marriage to stand, I stepped forward. It wasn't long before he approached me, grasped the sleeve of my dress and tugged me to the middle of the room. I glanced up at the serious face of a handsome young man whom I later learned was born in Japan. We bowed briefly in silence and went off to get acquainted.

IN a room just off of the grand ballroom, I looked at the young man next to me, born halfway around the world from my American hometown. In a sense I didn't care who he was or what he looked like, only that he was willing, with me, to enter into this commitment to an ideal.

The first words he spoke to me were, "I never want to break this."

"Neither do I," I answered.

He liked to draw. So did I.

He liked to read good books. So did I.

He was a man. I was a woman.

So far, so good.

I had the feeling God was living in this space between us, and that God, like a baby or a tender plant, needed our care and attendance in order to thrive. There was an undeniable sense of holiness about the whole endeavor.

As is customary, following our engagement and marriage ceremonies several years passed before we consummated our marriage. We were sent on separate church missions: I to South Korea, he to the American Midwest. We understood that a union built upon a foundation of celibacy would purify us for married life and allow us to dedicate our hearts to God and mankind first, spouse and family second.

Was I brainwashed? I sit here writing this, 18 years and three children later, on the verge of divorce. Did he and I finally fail after all we've been through? We certainly haven't turned out to be the ideal picture-perfect family we set out to be. Even so, I still find Reverend Moon's vision a beautiful one, this path remarkable, this project admirable. It's just that my husband and I didn't know how hard and gritty the path would be.

Yet I honestly don't think I was more brainwashed than any young bride, who, starry eyed, says yes to the man of her choosing: the one she met at work, or in a coffee shop, or on a blind date, or in art class. Marriage under any circumstances requires a leap of faith no matter who you are or how your paths may have crossed. My husband and I ate our ice cream, took a chance and leapt.

It was difficult from the start of course. But we soldiered on. After all, why should achieving a peaceful marriage be any easier than creating a peaceful world?

So years passed, our children were born. One had cancer diagnosed when he was 1, and for two straight years he fought for his life. We fought with him - a hardship, I'm told, that either binds a husband and wife closer together or tears them apart. With us it did neither.

Initially I attributed our relationship's ongoing strife and my husband's overall remoteness and anger to "cultural misunderstandings." Then I shifted into the mode of telling myself, "If only I were a better wife."

Whatever the case, I didn't allow myself to consider breaking my wedding vows. My tradition-laden double whammy of being both Asian and religious made the idea of divorce extremely distasteful. Add to that the motto of our movement - "Live for the sake of others" - and any suffering I might incur from the agreement was rendered inconsequential.

I prayed. I read "Fascinating Womanhood," which my Christian friends guaranteed would yield the desired result: a happy hubby. In my attempts to be a "domestic goddess," I got my hair done, bought pretty lingerie, read the Bible and prayed harder. After consulting a spiritualist, I prepared a meal and offered it to the presumably angry ancestors of my even angrier husband by throwing it into the Hudson River. None of it worked.

Finally I came to understand what was missing. The religious call to love your enemy included loving that enemy as you would love yourself, and I didn't love myself. In all the sacrificing I'd done for marriage, children and world peace, I'd lost a sense of who I was and what I wanted.

And so I deliberately set out to recapture that sense: I began to draw, to paint and to write. I started having conversations with people from decades past, significant friends from the days before my celibacy and arranged marriage.

I got in touch with a dear old friend who was gay. He was successful, doing work he loved and, most important, he was in love.

"He fills a need in me that is so deep," he said of his lover. "If he didn't exist, I'd have had to dream him up just to go on."

These words intoxicated me. I wanted that for myself.

One evening I removed my wedding rings in front of my husband, held them up and made my declaration. "We need to do something, " I said. "We should try counseling. Something, please." I placed the rings on top of our bedroom dresser.

"When this marriage is a genuine marriage of heart," I continued, "I will put them back on."

But he wouldn't discuss the unhappiness of our marriage, and we never made it to counseling. The rings never made it back to my finger.

Eventually I fell in love with someone else whose heart miraculously chose me in return. And this experience felt more scriptural, holy and biblical than all the dogma I had tried to live up to for so many years. It was a revelation and it made me wonder, "How could I simply have given all this power away?"

PEOPLE marry for all kinds of reasons other than love: to please their families, to satisfy economic demands, to submit to the guidelines of their faith. Cults do indeed come in all shapes and sizes. You don't need to become a Moonie to lose yourself; nearly any club, political party or organized religion has the necessary ingredients.

And of course marriages dissolve for all kinds of reasons, too, even those that begin with love. But in one measure my marriage was an undeniable success: my husband and I were blessed with three loving children who are happy, healthy and wise beyond their years.

Concerned about how our children were handling the separation and impending divorce, I sat down the other day with my 12-year-old daughter. I meant to reassure her, but it was she who reassured me.

"Maybe God put you and Daddy together to have the three of us," she said. "And maybe now it's O.K. for you not to be married. Just look at how happy you are these days."

A marriage can end; perhaps it even can be doomed from the start. But it's impossible for me to look at my children and regret the chance my husband and I took, that jump into the unknown we made on that beautiful spring day, sitting by the pond in Central Park.

Renee Watabe, who lives in Verona, N.J., is a patient advocate in a hospital emergency department. She is completing a book of personal essays about life-altering experiences.

米連邦最高裁オコナー判事引退・後継者指名に関する記事・社説リンク集

washingtonpost.com Special Reports
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New York Times COMPLETE COVERAGE
Justice O'Connor Retires

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社説コレクション - TransNews Web

メモリアルキルトを公開 薬害エイズ遺族

アジア・太平洋地域エイズ国際会議：
犠牲者、生きた証しに　キルト６０枚飾る－－神戸 (毎日 2005/07/03朝刊)


　「第７回アジア・太平洋地域エイズ国際会議」は２日、神戸市中央区の神戸国際展示場で展示プログラムが始まり、会場の壁にエイズで亡くなった人々の生きた証しのキルト約６０枚が飾られた。

　世界共通の寸法（横１・８メートル、縦９０センチ）。生前愛用していた服などを使った。ワープロをデザインしたキルトは、引きこもりになったが、ワープロ手記を発表することで生きがいを取り戻した。この他、世界地図に仕立てた作品も。主催したメモリアル・キルト・ジャパンの寺口淳子代表は「一人一人が大切にされる社会を願うメッセージが込められているのを忘れないで」と話した。【大川泰弘】


ＨＩＶの子思い、キルト一針一針　神戸・中央区で展示 (読売・神戸版 2005/07/03朝刊)

　神戸市で開かれている「アジア・太平洋地域エイズ国際会議」で、ＨＩＶに感染した子どもたちに手作りキルトを贈っている市民グループ「ＡＢＣキルトＪＡＰＡＮ」（福岡市）が約５００点を出展。神戸国際展示場（神戸市中央区）の展示ブースに色とりどりのキルトが並んでいる＝写真。

　米国生まれの運動を、福岡市の染織家、堤希代子さん（５７）らが始め、現在３５グループ約７００人が取り組んでいる。１４年間で約５２００枚をタイやカンボジアなど約５０か国の子どもたちに届けてきた。

　ハート型をあしらったり、花模様の布をつなぎ合わせたり。一針一針思いを込めて縫い上げた作品で、４日までの展示期間中、エイズに悩む途上国の参加者らに無料で配布する。一般公開は３日午後２～５時。問い合わせは同会議事務局（０７８・３０３・４００８）。


メモリアルキルトを公開　薬害エイズ遺族 (神戸新聞 2005/07/03)



（写真）母親が亡き息子への思いを託したメモリアルキルト＝神戸国際展示場

　「アジア・太平洋地域エイズ国際会議」で、薬害エイズ被害者の遺族が亡くなった家族への思いを託した「メモリアルキルト」や写真などが展示されている。三日は会場の一般公開日。展示を通じて「エイズへの偏見をなくし、二度と薬害が起こらないように」と訴える。

　メモリアルキルトを作ったのは一九九二年、十三歳の長男を亡くした奈良県の母親（５２）。野球選手になるのが夢だった長男が、虹に向かってホームランを打つ姿を描いた。ユニホームの部分には、生前に愛用していたパジャマの生地を使った。母親は「息子はなぜ亡くなったのか、という思いが年々強くなる」。

　一方、夫を亡くした大阪府の妻（７０）は、夫が撮りためた写真を写真集や絵はがきに加工して展示。「エイズを身近に感じてもらうため遺族の実情を訴えたい」と会場に立ち、来場者に説明する。

　薬害エイズ訴訟原告団などの調査によると、遺族の中には「家族を守れなかった」との自責の念から、ＰＴＳＤ（心的外傷後ストレス障害）が疑われる人が多い。遺族の心のケア対策に取り組む神戸赤十字病院の村上典子・心療内科部長は「医療体制だけでは、遺族は救えない。地域の理解が何より大切」と訴える。

　展示公開は午後二―五時、神戸・ポートアイランドの神戸国際展示場で。（石崎勝伸）

ジュンケツ！デモ (教育と自治・埼玉ネットワーク)

July 03, 2005
ジュンケツ！デモ (教育と自治・埼玉ネットワーク)

　先月26日、吉祥寺駅付近で50人程の集団がデモを行っていたそうです。そのデモでは、「ジュンケツ！」「ジュンケツ！」（純潔）と大声でコールされ、ビラまきも行われていたとのこと。そのビラを入手したので、調べてみますと（「青少年健全育成と美しい家庭を考える会」という団体の名称と、電話番号が掲載されていました）、「世界平和青年連合 武蔵野．三鷹支部」に行き当たりました。デモはこれで３回目だった模様（１回目、２回目の画像もありました。１回目の画像にあるプラカードには「純潔は私の誇り」とあり、画像のキャプションとして、「ストップ・ザ・ジェンダーフリー」とありました）。annex で、今回のビラの画像ファイルをみていただけます。

教育と自治・埼玉ネットワーク annex

大きなサイズへの直接リンク；表

裏


統一教会とジェンダー・政治 - TransNews Web

文鮮明（統一教会）一味の悪巧み - TransNews Weblog

Gays, lesbianas y transexuales celebran en Madrid el avance de sus derechos - AFP

(Photo) 2 de julio de 2005, 22h30
Dos hombres bailan durante la jornada del orgullo gay celebrada en Madrid el 2 de julio de 2005.


2 de julio de 2005, 22h30
Gays, lesbianas y transexuales celebran en Madrid el avance de sus derechos

MADRID (AFP) - Cientos de miles de personas celebraron el sábado en Madrid una "histórica" Marcha del Orgullo Gay, un día antes de que entre en vigor la ley de matrimonio homosexual con derecho de adopción, duramente atacada por la Iglesia Católica, de la que no se olvidaron los participantes.

Bajo el lema "Avanzamos. Avancem. Avanzamos. Aurrera Goaz" ¡Ahora las/los transexuales!", dos millones de personas, según la convocante Federación Estatal de Lesbianas, Gays y Transexuales (FELGT) y 97.000 según la policía nacional, participaron bajo un sol implacable en una colorida manifestación en la que no faltaron los disfraces, los atrevidos y los cuerpos esculturales, pero tampoco una alegría infinita y la emoción de un derecho conquistado.

"Lo de hoy es un reflejo de la España de hoy y del siglo XXI, es una manifestación de alegría", afirmó Beatriz Gimeno, presidenta de la FELGT, minutos antes de iniciar la marcha.

A las 18H00 locales (16H00 GMT), el estruendo de petardos seguidos por un cerrado aplauso marcaba el inicio de la marcha encabezada por dirigentes del gobernante Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) y del propio ejecutivo, de Izquierda Unida -Verts (IU-ICV, comunista-ecologista), otras formaciones nacionalistas de Cataluña, País Vasco, Canarias, Aragón y Galicia -que el jueves aprobaron la ley en el Parlamento- y los principales sindicatos españoles.

Detrás les seguían la FELGT y Colectivo de Lesbianas, Gays, Transexuales y Bisexuales de Madrid (COGAM) con otra pancarta que decía "Se trata de tus derechos", celebrando el avance que supone la ley aprobada y más lejos marchaban entidades cristianas de gays y lesbianas y organizaciones de base.

Música tecno pero también batucada sonaban en la veintena de camiones que iban en la cola de la marcha, decorados para la ocasión en rosa, amarillo, azul, plateado y rojo, con altavoces gigantes a bordo y decenas de bailarines improvisados, como el autobús socialista que a sus lados llevaba una enorme inscripción "Orgullo 2005 - Año de la Igualdad".

Vestidos de cuero, plumas de colores y algunos tacones que exigen riguroso sentido del equilibrio, los gays, lesbianas, transexuales y heterosexuales que participaron en la marcha o simplemente miraban pasar la columna desde las aceras y bailaban al ritmo de las carrozas, no se olvidaron del episcopado español, que en los últimos meses atacó ferozmente la iniciativa socialista.

"Los obispos no quieren entender que la igualdad es un derecho", afirmaba una enorme pancarta, una de las más visibles en respuesta a la posición de la Iglesia Católica, para la cual el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo es un "virus", "moneda falsa" y "ficción legal".

La ley entrará en vigor el domingo, pues este sábado fue publicada en el Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE), tras ser firmada por el rey Juan Carlos, como manda la legislación española.

"Vaticano anticristiano", "Clericalismo agresivo ¡No!", eran algunas de las leyendas inscritas en pequeñas pancartas. Otros prefirieron jugar con la ironía.

"Sauna el Vaticano", decían unas toallas que dos jóvenes musculosos llevaban anudadas en la cintura paseándose muy orondos por la calle de Alcalá, a metros de un camión hidrante que echaba agua para refrescar a la multitud.

"En España somos más de cuatro millones de gays, lesbianas y transexuales cristianos y no nos pueden robar eso", afirmó en el escenario montado en la Plaza de Colón, Carla Antonelli, destacada militante por los derechos homosexuales y transexuales.

Muchas otras pancartas y carteles defendían la familia, atacada estos días por el conservador Foro Español de la Familia (FEF) que reclama un referéndum sobre el matrimonio homosexual, que según una encuesta apoyan más del 60% de los españoles.

"Asociación de padres y madres de gays y lesbianas" o "Por todas las familias" eran otros carteles que surgían medio de la marcha.

"Tenemos el apoyo de la sociedad, de nuestras familias, padres y amigos y estamos en una sociedad democrática en la cual queremos ser felices", se congratuló Carmen Hernández, presidenta de una asociación de gays, lesbianas y transexuales en Valencia que vino a Madrid, vestida el sábado con los colores de arcoiris.

A partir de ahora, los gays, lesbianas y transexuales inician otra batalla, la de conseguir una ley de identidad de género.

"Sólo entonces sabremos que hemos conquistado, al fin, la libertad y justicia que nuestra dignidad merece y reclama", afirmó el manifiesto que cerró la Marcha del Orgullo Gay.