![](\"https:\/\/i4.photobucket.com\/albums\/y125\/TheAnchoress\/DSMMEsonOprahpicExclusivetoAncho-2.jpg\")
\nNovices in chapel, observed by Oprah\u2019s crew<\/em><\/p>\n
The Dominican Sisters of Mary will be featured on Oprah Winfrey\u2019s<\/strong> show tomorrow, and the gals were kind enough to send along an exclusive picture from the crew\u2019s visit to their Ann Arbor Motherhouse. They have more pictures here<\/a>.<\/p>\n A peek at her teaser for the Tuesday show<\/a> (H\/T the Deac<\/a>) indicates that the Sisters will share the hour with a look at the \u201cthe word\u2019s only Western Geisha.\u201d One serves God and thereby all of humanity, one serves a single man and makes him feel like a god. I don\u2019t think<\/em> that Ms. Winfrey meant to make it sound like a carnival barker selling a \u201cfreak\u201d show.<\/p>\n I guess Oprah\u2019s \u201ctheme\u201d here is that two rather \u201csecret\u201d lives<\/strong> are being looked into, but I do wonder at the mindset that puts Consecrated religious and Geisha on the same footing. Either one of these subjects could easily fill an hour\u2019s worth of television, and by reducing them to 23 minute overviews, both features promise to be as penetrating as prop knives; superficial, shallow and sensationalistic.<\/p>\n But then again, I\u2019m not an Oprah (or daytime tv) viewer, so perhaps that is par for the course?<\/p>\n What disappoints about the teaser is something that consistently disappoints on those rare occasion when news people talk with Christian religious: the interviewers are so hung up on sex, and so lacking in imagination or depth of thought, that it is the first thing they talk about, and an issue the cannot seem to get past: \u201cyou give up sex? How do you not have sex? What about sex?\u201d It is literally the first thing Oprah brings up in her teaser: \u201cthey\u2019re young, and gave up sex<\/em>! careers! and children!\u201d Note the emphasis. And the priority.<\/p>\n They never harangue Buddhist<\/a> monks and nuns about celibacy<\/strong>, or call the Dalai Lama \u201chung up\u201d about it. But when talking to Christian religious, it\u2019s all they\u2019ve got. I recall an \u201cinsider\u201d visit Diane Sawyer made to the Poor Clare Nuns of Roswell, New Mexico, where she confronted 700 years of mystery and monasticism, tradition, sacrifice and silence, and all she seemed capable of talking about was \u201cno sex? How can you not have sex?\u201d<\/p>\n The inability of these people to get beyond the corporeal and into the spiritual bespeaks a discomfort with depth, an unwillingness to consider all they do not know as anything but \u201coddball.\u201d That is ironic, when they purport to be broad-minded sorts. Their opportunism sees an interesting topic to exploit for \u201csweeps\u201d week, but their imagination has perhaps been stunted by forty years of hearing that sex is the be-all-and-end-all-of human reality and happiness, and their curiosity extends only far enough to get a few pictures and soundbites (and a \u201cgotcha\u201d if you can manage it), because in their conflicted worldview, religion is both too boring and too provocative for their viewing audience to endure.<\/p>\n It\u2019s sad, isn\u2019t it?<\/strong> The reason I don\u2019t watch daytime television is because it is generally insipid and brain-killing. The cheap emphasis on trends, \u201cinstant\u201d solutions to real problems and the over-reliance on sex as a subject and selling point can only serve to delude people into thinking that \u201cthe world\u201d has all of the answers -that as long as they are reading a particular book, using a particular product, watching a particular show or espousing a particular mindset, they are progressing toward their happy-place. But they can never get there because every week the happy-place is redefined; the paths are changed, the next enlightened counselor, psychic or charlatan is the guy or gal who can tell you how to make your life perfect and achieve \u201cinner peace\u201d and ten-minute orgasms, by simply taking their vague advice.<\/p>\n You never hear one of these daytime-answer folk say that life is hard, and often unfair, and that sometimes the best way to deal with it all is to just buck up, stop whining, stop thinking about yourself, and go do something productive for someone else; find something greater than yourself in which to expend some energy, and much of your real or imagined grievances will fade away.<\/p>\n Take away the complaint, \u2018I have been harmed,\u2019 and the harm is taken away.<\/a> We have have had four decades of incessant sex-chat<\/strong>, sex-counseling and sex-advice, particularly in daytime television, and -if the constant arrival of new (or newly discovered \u201cancient\u201d) sex theories being foisted on the public is any indication- people are still grasping in the dark, and coming up empty. This indicates to me that all this talk has meant less-than-nothing, and that most people are still not having great sex.<\/p>\n The truth is, if your sex life is great, then you don\u2019t need to talk about it all the time. Just as a bride who is insecure about the strength of her marriage may overdo the gushing and \u201cprotest too much\u201d that she and her husband are \u201csolid,\u201d the person (or the society) needing to go on and on about sex is the person (or the society) that is insecure and unsettled about it.<\/p>\n I suspect much of that comes from our losing sight of sex as something more than a recreational entitlement, wholly detached from meaning beyond the moment. Lovemaking is sacred. The co-creative function that drives it so powerfully is Holy, and because it is Holy, it is wrapped in mystery, as well. Society has lost touch with that notion because it has so fully detached sex from procreation, and the politico-socio zeitgeist has demanded that all sex be \u201cfreed\u201d from the religious perspective, which can only be \u201crestrictive\u201d and \u201climiting.\u201d And here we are.<\/p>\n We have a very odd notion, really, of what makes us free<\/strong>, anymore. Sex that lives in fear of life, that must be protected from disease, that exposes the human body to degradation, the human heart to constant shielding and the human spirit to constant uncertainty, is not sex that makes us free. It is sex that entraps us, distracts us and ultimately makes us strangers to ourselves.<\/p>\n I believe that the Holy Spirit uses the most surprising people and circumstances to work toward God\u2019s purpose, and that most of the time the purpose goes far beyond our imaginings. So, I am very hopeful that the net result of Oprah\u2019s look at apostolic women religious will be a positive in the obvious way -that women who have had little exposure to this option might find themselves attracted enough to be open to the workings of grace. Margaret Cabaniss<\/strong> links and adds the hopes of the sisters<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related:<\/strong> Novices in chapel, observed by Oprah\u2019s crew The Dominican Sisters of Mary will be featured on Oprah Winfrey\u2019s show tomorrow, and the gals were kind enough to send along an exclusive picture from the crew\u2019s visit to their Ann Arbor Motherhouse. They have more pictures here. A peek at her teaser for the Tuesday show […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,43,44,69,96,113,145,187,261],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-remaking-ourselves","category-catholic-vocations","category-catholicism","category-dominican-order","category-faith","category-freedom-of-worship","category-john-paul-ii","category-nun-news","category-tvpop-culturemusic"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\u2014 Marcus Aurelius<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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\nBut I am also hopeful<\/strong> that there will be a less-obvious benefit as well: that the show may get some people to wondering what else they might be missing while they\u2019re obsessing on the trendy, the sensational, the sexually-titillating; that they may find themselves inspired to turn away from the superficial, and go deeper.<\/p>\n
\nJohn Paul II\u2019s Theology of the Body<\/a>
\nFr. Dwight Longenecker<\/strong>: Some thoughts on moral theology<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"