"Nothing is sweeter than to think
well of others."
Saint Therese of Lisieux
As mentioned previously, this blog is sporadic, due to the natural ebb and flow of American life for a disabled senior lady living in a low-income apartment in the Southwest. Just the process of the cooking, cleaning and suchlike exhaust my aging body. Since I started this blog with a view in mind that my personal experiences may speak to the larger class of people to which I belong, I am sure you understand that this is an intensely personal collection of writings in which there is almost nothing of what you'd call a "professional" vibe.
San Felipe de Neri parish church
Old Town, Albuquerque
(Photo protected by copyright-
No use allowed.)
Father Dennis, at San Felipe de Neri parish church once told me that advocating for the vulnerable is the way that I can turn the injustices perpetrated against me to the benefit of others.
Swami Swahananda also helped me come to terms with some of this with his stories and corny jokes!
One of his jokes deals with the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. When an optimist is thrown into a cell in which there is a large pile of horse dung, she crows with delight and starts digging through it, exclaiming "I just know there is a pony in here somewhere!" This describes the job I am doing with my blog just perfectly. Giving you all a glimpse into my personal experiences and how they relate to my quest for holiness (and sometimes just plain old survival).
I have some stories to tell you from my life, with all the above in mind.
Something happened recently that has made me want to talk about the damaging aspect of assumptions, but it's a big topic, so I will focus in on a previous time in my life when this issue was particularly prevalent and personally ruinous.
One of the primary reasons I left the Hindu convent was my inability to deal with the constant gossiping lies of the other nuns. It was wrong of me to assume that these women should be better than any other group of ordinary women, but I was naïve about this. I should have realized that, just because one is a nun is no guarantee that one is ethical and immune from temptations. [Personally, I suspect that the tendency of women to gossip and tear one another down is the reason why men are in charge of the world to begin with, which is another issue I'd love to research one day.] At any rate, I experienced constant shocks when I ran up against this unattractive and unexpected state of affairs.
I used to frequently catch one particular nun hesitating on the back stairs, with her head cocked in the particular way one does when listening in on conversations of others. Later, she would share these nuggets of information, though not always in their original form. Invariably, she would mishear or misconstrue something. It was comical, as I look back on it now, catching her poised on the stairs like that, but at the time, I felt the atmosphere in this place to be toxic, instead of spiritually helpful, because I was often the target of unkind speculation and gossip. The swami used to say they were jealous of me but I never understood why that would be the case.
(I even woke up once to see my bedroom door cracked very slightly open, and this nun with her ear placed against the sliver of light that came through, which I thought was exceedingly bizarre. Was she listening to me snoring? I never could figure it out, and I was having enough problems with those people without calling her out on something she'd likely deny anyway.)
At that time, chocolate candies kept disappearing quickly from the snack cupboard, and several of the nuns assumed I was the culprit. I MUST have been, in their minds, because I was the chubby one. Without verifying their suspicions, they passed this rumor to residents of the ashram.
The thing is - I wasn't the one gobbling up all the candies. I am not overly fond of chocolate.
The nun I used to catch eavesdropping in the stairwell went on vacation, and while she was gone, the chocolates remained in the cupboard. It wasn't until she returned, and the chocolates began to regularly disappear once again, that the other nuns realized their error. Meanwhile, they'd spread their meanness all over the neighborhood, making me the butt of jokes. There is no way to suck this sort of thing back into the gossip machine once it's been spread everywhere. However, this experience did not keep them from continuing to spread lies - lies that live in the minds of others, even to this day.
When I first joined them, they spread rumors that I was lesbian, but by the time I had left, the same people were saying I'd been carrying on an affair with one of the ashram's male devotees while I was in the convent! Apparently, they couldn't make up their minds about what sort of sexual sins of which I was guilty! Horrible. Just horrible.
The physical work enjoined on the less senior nuns, which included me, was much more than my body's congenital deformations could tolerate. My back gave out and I was in a wheelchair for a short time. One of the senior nuns went to the swami and claimed I was "faking." He knew this was a lie and he immediately reported to me what she had said. I accosted her in the kitchen when she was preparing herself a nice tea tray and questioned her about it. Unused to the direct, honest approach, rather than the typical passive-aggressive rumor mill, she was nonplussed and hemmed and hawed. I called her to account for herself and she could not.
YEARS later, when I visited the swami to celebrate our arrangements for my taking sannyas, the back injury I had sustained in the convent had blossomed into a full-on disability that was largely responsible for my having to stop working outside the home, but because the nuns in the convent had spread the rumor, years previously, the devotee with whom I had coordinated part of my visit refused to park in the handicapped parking spot and made me walk a considerable distance to every location we visited while we were there. I was completely at her mercy and she flatly refused to use the handicap placard I brought with me. At the end of this visit, I was in terrible physical pain because of this woman's cruelty.
Another devotee tried to force me to move from a spot where she wanted to sit, even after I explained I was disabled and needed to remain where I was.
While the hosting devotee had offered to "put me up" she had instead placed me with her sister, above the garage, with a long set of stairs and no bathroom. When I asked to switch with someone who was NOT disabled, the sister coldly refused. She and the other guest looked down their noses at me. The lies of the nuns, from many years ago, had come to roost. (The next day, the sister drove me to an event. On the way, we stopped for an errand and I saw her use her dead mother's handicap parking placard so that she could park in a convenient spot for herself. Rumor mongers are often hypocrites.)
These are just a small portion of how I have experienced, first hand, the destructive power of assumptions, lies and gossip.
"Gossip can also kill, because it kills the
reputation of the person! It is so terrible
to gossip! At first it may seem like a nice
thing, even amusing, like enjoying a candy.
But in the end, it fills the heart with bitternesss,
and even poisons us."
While I was a nun in that Vedanta convent, I started reading about Christianity, and was struck by the kindness and love of Christ. I had no experience with Christianity or Christians, but I really warmed to the Catholic mystics. I naively imagined that the Christians would be kinder, more gentle, less prone to gossip and rumor. But when I left the convent to investigate further, I discovered that people are the same everywhere. I had no problem making friends, but as soon as Trump came on the scene and I began to object to his misogyny, xenophobia, racism and bigotry, all but a handful of the Catholic friends turned their backs on me because they love Trump and were mad that I did not share their enthusiasm for him. His policies, words and actions are the antithesis of Christianity, yet many Christians are almost slavish in their devotion to him.
"He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding
to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies,
he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the
father of lies."
~ Jesus in John 8:44
This week, I have come to hear of yet another assumption about myself that led to gossip in the apartment complex where I live. It is a complete lie. I have come to the point in life where it no longer surprises me. I have seen it SO many times. After all, I've been lied about by experts. I DO worry about the souls of the people who are spreading lies, though.
A Christian would say that Satan loves assumptions because they lead to gossip that is based on lies. Generating lies and promoting their dissemination is dangerous to the soul of the liar because the dark one is the father of all lies.
"I would rather you make mistakes in kindness
than work miracles in unkindness."
~ Mother Teresa of Calcutta
For the love of God, save your souls and the souls of your fellow Christians by avoiding making ASSUMPTIONS about people that lead to gossip. When you hear something derogatory about someone, don't spread it to others. You don't know if it is true or not, and you don't want to be linked with Satan.
Remember what Therese of Lisieux said about how pleasing it is to think well of others.
THINK WELL OF OTHERS and be blessed!
Blessings
Silver Rose
