July 1 Of Healing and Wholeness Mark 5:21-43

[norma dollaga]

 

July 1, Gospel reflection 

 

Of Healing and Wholeness

 

Mark 5:21-43(NRSV)

The trajectory of story in the Gospel of Mark reveals the unique attitude of Jesus on women and his primary concern on health and wellness. The stories of women here may not be necessary pleasant, but it could end in a ‘live happily ever after’ episode in their lives.    One story is about a woman who is without a man to defend and protect her in her most physically and socially unhealthy situation; and another one who is a   dying girl with a father to plead for her.

 

The nameless woman who is suffering from hemorrhage for twelve years must have been enduring  multiple layers of misery.  Back then, a menstruating woman is considered to be unclean.  Everything that she touches is considered unclean (Leviticus   15:19-35). The woman had spent a fortune to restore her health, but nothing happened, instead her situation further worsened.  Her situation is so desperate, almost dreary. Poverty   must have gripped her. Being vilified as unclean or filthy has a corresponding socio-economic   impact. Unavoidably, she could not engage in a productive activity   to sustain her economic needs. She could not enjoy social undertakings, nor participate in significant community affairs, because her condition prohibits her. According to the story, she had been bleeding for twelve years. Whether it is an exaggeration or symbolic, the fact remains that she had lived in a very wretched circumstances   . She could be one amongst the crowd who could have rated herself as poor and unhappy. Being poor and being a poor woman made her life into the most vulnerable situation .

 

 The cultural laws that time was legitimized by a certain “purity”  code  , and ergo, have  marginalized and denied her to perform  various responsibilities that would make her a positive force in the whole process of community life. Alas, given this patriarchal set-up, the natural biological cycle in a woman’s life like menstruation had been a source of her misery.

 

But she never gave up.  Determined to be healed, she came behind Jesus and acted according to her beliefs: she would be made well     if she could only touch Jesus’ cloth.  Both the woman and Jesus felt the power. She was healed, and Jesus perceived this. Jesus called her “daughter” and made the public know that it is the woman’s faith that made her well.

 

 

Then Jesus went to the house of Jairus, a synagogue manager. He pleaded to Jesus as her daughter was at the brink of death.  At the very least,  Jairus who was relatively had a little advantage in society, could  act in behalf of his daughter unlike the bleeding woman who  practically has nothing. Nevertheless,  Jairus’ desire to  make her daughter well and alive  is the same desire for the woman with hemorrhage.  Traditionally in the Jewish society, boys were preferred over girls. But here  is Jairus longing her dead daughter to live again . It speaks well how a long-held tradition can  be  reversed. . Jesus touched the dead daughter of Jairus. Again,  another breach of the “purity code”.( Numbers 19:11)    

 

The girl became alive again.

 

Jesus transcended what used to be a normal custom though is not necessarily helpful. He cast off  the mind-set and cultural norm that caused marginalization and  suppression. Lo and behold, he could not do it alone. There is one woman who dared, who was audacious enough to collaborate with Jesus’ intention. There is Jairus who has also shown  how to care for his daughter, and has been insistent so that Jesus would heed his plea.  

 

Health and wholeness is a sign of how a society is progressing. Likewise, science and medicine can be re-oriented  to serve the general welfare of the people. Some cultural traditions that prevent people from experiencing healing and wholeness can be critiqued and discarded. Jesus dared to surmount what used to be a normal and acceptable practice but not necessarily beneficial. As a known leader and healer, he humbly recognized the power that came out from her, from the power of  will and determination of the woman in the story.  He did not  become unclean when touched by a bleeding woman, instead, he praised her  boldness and strong faith. She bravely  challenged the “code”, and she was made whole again, and yes PEACE is what she experienced. Likewise, the daughter of Jairus, touched by Jesus, rose and become alive again.

 

Health and wholeness are basic needs. Healthy people makes a progressive society.   This is possible when the order of society is based on the principle of justice and righteousness.   Privatizing health care contradicts  this principle. Health services must be accessible to everyone. Turning over this service to private enterprise or  commercializing  it, will only deny the majority of the people of basic health services and leave them in a helpless and health(less) condition.  A healthy society is composed of healthy people.    They  will act towards  participation  in  the production  of wealth and resources, engagement  in production of knowledge,  promotion of  art and literature for the benefit of  the people.  With this scheme, even the reproductive health  needs of every boy and girl, man and woman can be attended to.  

 

Meanwhile, the 2012 national budget for health gives each   Filipino a mere P1.25 ($.03) per day  .  We are far from our dream. But the woman in the Gospel story according to  Mark, tells a lot about being risk-taker. Dare to dream   for the welfare of the  people. This makes us human  and different from the rest who see nothing wrong in an unhealthy  society.

Norma P. Dollaga

KASIMBAYAN

 

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If Men Could Menstruate

by Gloria Steinem

 

Living in India made me understand that a white minority of the world has spent centuries conning us into thinking a white skin makes people superior, even though the only thing it really does is make them more subject to ultraviolet rays and wrinkles.

Reading Freud made me just as skeptical about penis envy. The power of giving birth makes "womb envy" more logical, and an organ as external and unprotected as the penis makes men very vulnerable indeed.

But listening recently to a woman describe the unexpected arrival of her menstrual period (a red stain had spread on her dress as she argued heatedly on the public stage) still made me cringe with embarrassment. That is, until she explained that, when finally informed in whispers of the obvious event, she said to the all-male audience, "and you should be proud to have a menstruating woman on your stage. It's probably the first real thing that's happened to this group in years."

Laughter. Relief. She had turned a negative into a positive. Somehow her story merged with India and Freud to make me finally understand the power of positive thinking. Whatever a "superior" group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever and "inferior" group has will be used to justify its plight. Black me were given poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "stronger" than white men, while all women were relegated to poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "weaker." As the little boy said when asked if he wanted to be a lawyer like his mother, "Oh no, that's women's work." Logic has nothing to do with oppression.

So what would happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?

Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much.

Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.

To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields- "For Those Light Bachelor Days."

Statistical surveys would show that men did better in sports and won more Olympic medals during their periods.

Generals, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve God and country in combat ("You have to give blood to take blood"), occupy high political office ("Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priests, ministers, God Himself ("He gave this blood for our sins"), or rabbis ("Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean").

Male liberals and radicals, however, would insist that women are equal, just different; and that any woman could join their ranks if only she were willing to recognize the primacy of menstrual rights ("Everything else is a single issue") or self-inflict a major wound every month ("You must give blood for the revolution").

Street guys would invent slang ("He's a three-pad man") and "give fives" on the corner with some exchenge like, "Man you lookin' good!"

"Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!"

TV shows would treat the subject openly. (Happy Days: Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still "The Fonz," though he has missed two periods in a row. Hill Street Blues: The whole precinct hits the same cycle.) So would newspapers. (Summer Shark Scare Threatens Menstruating Men. Judge Cites Monthlies In Pardoning Rapist.) And so would movies. (Newman and Redford in Blood Brothers!)

Men would convince women that sex was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself, though all they needed was a good menstruating man.

Medical schools would limit women's entry ("they might faint at the sight of blood").

Of course, intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguements. Without the biological gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets, how could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics-- or the ability to measure anything at all? In philosophy and religion, how could women compensate for being disconnected from the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death and resurrection every month?

Menopause would be celebrated as a positive event, the symbol that men had accumulated enough years of cyclical wisdom to need no more.

Liberal males in every field would try to be kind. The fact that "these people" have no gift for measuring life, the liberals would explain, should be punishment enough.

And how would women be trained to react? One can imagine right-wing women agreeing to all these arguements with a staunch and smiling masochism. ("The ERA would force housewives to wound themselves every month": Phyllis Schlafly)

In short, we would discover, as we should already, that logic is in the eye of the logician. (For instance, here's an idea for theorists and logicians: if women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long? I leave further improvisation up to you.)

The truth is that, if men could menstruate, the power justifications would go on and on.

If we let them.