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Joshua Doležal's avatar

I admire your determination to write through this, Zina. Some bullies only understand a punch back. I’m glad to be part of your community.

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Felix Purat's avatar

Sorry to hear you have to go through this. Especially this close to Christmas. Online or not, it's never pleasant to have to deal with such people. It reminds me of one person I had to deal with (also a woman, which I only mention because of the theme here, and a recent convert to Protestantism) who - to put it a certain way - proved herself wholly incapable of understanding the function of the character of Kichijirō in Shusaku Endo's masterpiece, Silence.

This woman doesn't sound very Catholic to me. What always sets Catholics apart for me (among other things) is the possession of a "baroque soul," or Interior Castle a la St. Teresa of Avila. There is nothing baroque about the profile of the soul presented here; I sense no interior castle. It's one of our strengths and American Catholics, from my observation, have struggled to maintain it in a majority Protestant and Mammonian culture that would sacrifice everything "baroque" in favor of the salesman's skin-deep, veneer identity in Arthur Miller's play. While I don't want to make what you've written about something else, this story is a reminder that for many Catholics the Protestantization of the Church is not just a theological abstraction but a real-world factor that can and will surface in daily life when we least expect it. (One that, if successfully negated, would considerably heal the current rift between the "nicey nice" Catholics and the trad Catholics; more on that another time, perhaps)

One of the beauties of the "baroque soul" is a closeness to the arts and to the fine things in life (including a forgotten intellectual Catholic tradition only now being rediscovered in English by great publishers like Arouca Press); dancing is one such art as any Irish Catholic (doing the ceili) or Polish Catholic (dancing the polka) can attest. As for belly dancing; while it is understandably not everyone's cup of tea and questioning its place in culture is valid in other instances (the Greeks, for instance, inherited belly dancing from the Muslim Turk occupiers when they enslaved their Christian subjects for sex (if women) and as psychologically abused soldier-slaves (if men)) it is also a somewhat misunderstood dance. Many do it for cardiovascular benefits, for instance, and not at all for the more "stereotypical" reasons. (I'm sure I don't need to tell you all this) It makes logical sense that a belly dancing class would be a good place to meet other women; can't say I know many men who know how to belly dance. 😅

In case I forget closer to the day - I haven't used the phrase "killing time" in years now - Merry Christmas, Zina! I'm glad you're not letting the cyberbullies bring you down. No petty person should be allowed to sabotage the joy we feel for the birth of Our Savior.

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