Monday, May 12, 2008 Arinday: The 'hybrid' flowers of May By GH Arinday, Jr. Sunfare
HUMAN creativeness in making religious celebrations more colorful and "artistic" does not always draw positive compliments where it is remodeled or embellished.
Take the traditional "Flores de Mayo", a treasured tradition of the Catholic faith. It has merited front-page treatment when Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales expressed abhorrence of the perceived aberrant practice of having gay or homosexuals as "sagalas" during the procession. The high-toned objection to the gays or transgenders is that it is blasphemous to the divinity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
As expected, collectively the lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transsexual community reacted in a sonorous riposte that what mattered most is faith, devotion and beliefs-the trinity of their reverence. Sounds reasonable? Surprisingly, another man of the cloth differed from the views expressed by Cardinal Rosales, and no less than Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz, would not let any "issue" pass, including petty ones, and defended the merry gays hewing along the same line of reasoning that of the "third sex".
How about the biblical injunction against false representation? How would we "crystallize" such character like the Mother of Christ as Stendhal would have commented? If we perceived the selection principle of how the Flowers of May be celebrated with its heavy religious significance, are we allowed to detour for an artistic interpretation? Is there still space in our daily grind for love and tenderness irrespective of gender?
There is no room for such stand as the man-and-woman-only defenders would define. They assert that the Bible does not mention an alternative to man-and-woman classification of persons. How about humankind? Or humanism? Where do they come in a comprehensive noun? Oh, is there a difference to be a man or to be a male? Oh, what a world we have today!
But of those living in the neuter world, bisexuals ricochet in both worlds. This phenomenon has been there in the Greek myth of Hermaphroditos, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, who grew together with the nymph Salmacis into one person.
Now, among the flowers of May displayed in relation to the religious feast, how would one determine that the sweet-smelling blossom does not come from the hermaphroditic fora? If Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud were with us today, such controversy would amuse the two authorities on the psychological realm.
However, there is definitely a problem, not a personal one but political. A case has already been decided in relation to the petition for change of sex of a particular person, from male to female, after transsexual surgical modification and this was totally denied by the court. This is the dilemma of the persons in the given peculiar situation.
Socio-psychological problem is undoubtedly present in the given case. Social anthropology has not been definite on this gender issue save for some psychological explanations brought about by erratic behavioral structure which remained unchecked during the growing stage. There are "closet queens" that have sired children. They have experienced "changes of feeling and attitude" evolving slowly in the hormonal change or imbalance, whatever that means.
At any rate, the controversy, insignificant as it appears, deserves to be thoroughly studied. One observer who wrote about the "rapid multiplication of the gays" was worried that this gender aberration would eventually weaken society in the moral sense, which is, of course, a valid issue.
In a free range of mind, there are issues to be resolved from different perspectives, but theological construction of a religious feast has a province of its own. Fealty to one's faith takes many paths as one interprets the devotional interplay of personal preferences, short of mockery or extenuation.
In a briefer observation: Let's not nip them out of context and misinterpret them!
In discussing the tepid objections to the participation of the gays in the Santacruzan and make one of them as Reyna Elena is unpardonable. From the point of view of a poet, the Blessed Virgin Mary is immortelle. Being one of the most compelling spiritual personalities in History, the riveting quest for truth about the Mother of Christ, the spiritual journey should not be marked by crossness.
Methinks, that the figure being interpreted in a festive adoration is not Salome, then a faithful rendition must be approximated, not a mythological figure.
Hybridization of a sweet-smelling flower is still a flower, but an effete absent of its natural essence.
