Abigail's Greatest Poverty Hits

[GeoBQn]

Abigail just can't stay away from posts on poverty.

abigails-alcove.blogspot.ca/2013/03/blog-post.html

Proof my mainstream music taste is so cliche, but I just LOVE this song. It sings of the virtue of poverty to me. This song is about chastity and how awesome it is for a "player guy" to finally settle down on pursuing one girl. Everything beautiful in my life is tied to my vocation of marriage. How I shot loudly to the world this ONE GUY, Mr. Jon Benjamin, is so worth it. Worth me having five of his babies!

Poverty is my love song to Jesus. It's saying "I'm hung up on Him!" The glorious one. He is worth more than anything else in the world. There is not a trip that I could take. There is not a concert that I could attend. There's not a job that I could go to, a book that I could write, a spa that I could attend, a dinner that I could eat..... Nothing that costs money is more important that hanging out with Him. He's it for me!

abigails-alcove.blogspot.ca/2013/03/monks-setting-up-abbey-in-charles-town.html

Man, I did not realize how counter-cultural my life really was until I was sitting next to three monks with tonsure haircuts in a crowded theater and we're the only ones laughing at all the poverty jokes inside a children's production of A Fiddler on the Roof. So funny!

Take it from someone who played Yente, the poverty humor is all self-depricating. Jewish humor developed as a way to cope with a crushing situation. Did you miss the part where Tevye says, "It's no great shame to be poor, but it's no great honor either"?

[Jinger Jar]

I thought she was closing Abigail's Alcove for Lent?

[Koala]

I thought she was closing Abigail's Alcove for Lent?

It is closed. Except when it's not. :lol:

[bea]

I'm still kind of flabbergasted by Abigail. She's reasonably intelligent, and yet.....and yet....who the hell fetishizes poverty? And why hasn't her priest told her to STFU about her joyful poverty when A) her poverty is not really poverty but poor money management combined with self-congratulatory wanking and B) there are real poor people who are really in poverty in her very own town.

This bullshit posturing really pisses me off. Abigail has some serious mental problems, I know that's been discussed before, but this "lookitme I'm POOR" plus "I didn't get pregnant on my first cycle after having a baby and breastfeeding, SECONDARY INFERTILITY OH THE PAIN!" equals "Abigail, you need a smack in the head." Figurative, not literal.

[valsa]

This bullshit posturing really pisses me off. Abigail has some serious mental problems, I know that's been discussed before, but this "lookitme I'm POOR" plus "I didn't get pregnant on my first cycle after having a baby and breastfeeding, SECONDARY INFERTILITY OH THE PAIN!" equals "Abigail, you need a smack in the head." Figurative, not literal.

Someone else mentioned in a previous thread that Abigail has a need to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral, which I think is, hands down, the best and most accurate description I've ever heard for her.

She wants attention and has seen that misfortune tends to get it from people. It's the same principle behind Munchausen and Munchausen by proxy, which I think manifests quite clearly in her desire to have a child with a serious and fatal disease (iirc, Munchausen by proxy is when an illness is faked or induced in someone (usually in a child by a parent) but I wonder if that label also applies in cases like this, where a parent knows there's a high risk for a child to be born with a chronic or fatal illness before conception and actively tries to achieve that, or if there's another name for it)

[happy atheist]

She wants attention and has seen that misfortune tends to get it from people. It's the same principle behind Munchausen and Munchausen by proxy, which I think manifests quite clearly in her desire to have a child with a serious and fatal disease (iirc, Munchausen by proxy is when an illness is faked or induced in someone (usually in a child by a parent) but I wonder if that label also applies in cases like this, where a parent knows there's a high risk for a child to be born with a chronic or fatal illness before conception and actively tries to achieve that, or if there's another name for it)

I think the other name for it is "Appalling."

[divadivine]

It is closed. Except when it's not. :lol:

So, she's one of those people who thinks you can have what you gave up for Lent on Sundays? Or does she vary the day when she decides to blog?

It makes me mad when people say "I can have what I gave up for Lent on Sundays because Sunday doesn't count. There are more than 40 days in Lent if you count Sunday. It doesn't hurt anything." Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So, I guess if you're an addict and you stop doing drugs, you can have them every once in awhile because it won't hurt anything? The whole point of giving something up means you give it up for the duration of Lent. Not just Monday through Saturday. Giving up something during Lent is a form of fasting. Not necessarily fasting in the sense of not eating, but fasting from something that is turning you away from God. Clearly, Abigail didn't get that memo during RCIA.

According to Catholic Online "Lent is about conversion, turning our lives more completely over to Christ and his way of life. That always involves giving up sin in some form. The goal is not just to abstain from sin for the duration of Lent but to root sin out of our lives forever. Conversion means leaving behind an old way of living and acting in order to embrace new life in Christ."

Of course, Abigail is so holy the rules probably don't apply to her and her poverty.

[rward]

Mother Theresa fetishized poverty. As long as she wasn't the one dying of it.

[valsa]

Mother Theresa fetishized poverty. As long as she wasn't the one dying of it.

I think it was even worse than that- Mother Theresa fetishized suffering. But, as you noted, didn't really apply that principle to herself when the chips were down.

[NurseNell]

And now only the chosen few can comment on her blog.

[NurseNell]

I think it was even worse than that- Mother Theresa fetishized suffering. But, as you noted, didn't really apply that principle to herself when the chips were down.

I was one of those Catholics who thought a great deal of Mother Teresa. It was during her illness that I really began questioning things. And now, she really wasn't who she seemed to be. It's not popular in Catholic circles to say you aren't for her but the truth is the truth.

[Burris]

Poverty is my love song to Jesus.

*Promptly blows chunks*

LOL! Yeah. I wonder if people drinking polluted water in developing countries think the same way. (I somehow doubt it.)

I did not realize how counter-cultural my life really was until...

'...I found myself laughing for all the wrong reasons at how characters responded to what would have been actual poverty in Fiddler on the Roof.'

[GeoBQn]

I doubt that Abigail will ever read the actual Sholem Aleichem stories that Fiddler on the Roof is based on. Spoiler Alert--the stories about the two daughters not featured in the musical do NOT end happily.

[rward]

I was one of those Catholics who thought a great deal of Mother Teresa. It was during her illness that I really began questioning things. And now, she really wasn't who she seemed to be. It's not popular in Catholic circles to say you aren't for her but the truth is the truth.

I was horrified when I learned the truth about her. I actually vomited. That's how utterly betrayed I felt. Catholics, especially Catholic girls/women, worship that woman.

Now I wonder about the disgusting, pervy, pain-fetishizing side of all the "heroes" out there. I'm sure most heroes are just normal levels of bad (as all humans are), but Mother Theresa Disillusionment Syndrome left me unwilling to trust anyone held up as a hero.

ETA: That kinda sounds like I think BDSMers are bad people. I don't. They're consenting. Mother Theresa's victims most certainly were not.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Why does "two monk and a Carmelite nun walk into a Fiddler on the Roof production...." sound like the beginning of a corny joke?

Seriously, does this woman not have a clue? Are we going to hear about Czarist persecution next? I mean, there was a pretty good joke about that as well. (For those who don't remember: the rabbi's blessing for the Czar was "May G-d bless and keep the Czar....FAR AWAY FROM US!"]

The OP was right - if you leave Fiddler on the Roof thinking that it's all about happy singing dancing Jews merrily coping with hard times, then you aren't paying attention. The poverty was pretty desperate, much of it was inflicted by Czarist religious persecution, and even once the refugees arrived in New York the infant mortality rate was close to 50%.

[Jinger Jar]

I was one of those Catholics who thought a great deal of Mother Teresa. It was during her illness that I really began questioning things. And now, she really wasn't who she seemed to be. It's not popular in Catholic circles to say you aren't for her but the truth is the truth.

My conclusion about BMT is that she was a woman religious who struggled mightily with conflicting callings: the first was as a contemplative who sought union with God through detachment from the world, and the second was to minister to the 'poorest of the poor' - the forgotten dying in Calcutta.

Regarding Kalighat, what The Lancet, healthcare professionals, and the volunteers who served with her ultimately took issue with is that she allowed it to stray from its intended purpose as a hospice. It morphed into a wildly inadequate hospital packed with people with entirely treatable conditions and diseases. They went there expecting proper medical care - or miracle cures - but they suffered and died because no one was qualified to provide it. The facility was never equipped or staffed to be a hospital, and there were no referrals to hospitals or other healthcare facilities.

No one, including ardent critics like Christopher Hitchens, questioned BMT's intentions, but plenty have questioned why she was so fixated on what she wanted Kalighat to be that she never adequately addressed what it had become. She never directed people seeking medical care clinics or hospitals, yet she never properly provided those services in her mission. The people were given the impression that the mission provided medical care, and they were allowed to enter it and remain there, which lead to terrible, altogether preventable suffering and many, many unnecessary deaths.

Her desire to be a detached, unworldly contemplative lead her to make many bad financial decisions and to mismanage donations. She accepted millions - including money from shady people like Charles Keating - and she turned much of it over to the Vatican Bank. Meanwhile, people under her care suffered unnecessarily and her own sisters were forced to go begging for food.

Hindsight being 20/20, I think BMT should have made a decision early on in her spiritual formation. She should have been a cloistered contemplative, or she should have become a nursing/healthcare missionary. (She could always have stayed a teacher, of course.) Instead, she tried to do both to the detriment, I think, of both.

[GeoBQn]

Abigail has gone back to her Lent blogging fast--but this time with the comments turned off.

[Mudball]

Doesn't crowing on about your suffering and poverty fall under that bible verse about not looking miserable while fasting? :roll:

[mg78]

Dear Abigail,

You are not poor, you are playing to be poor. This is insulting to the millions of people who live in real poverty, who do not have water to drink, food to eat and no medical attention between other. There is nothing funny about REAL poverty. I think Jesus would prefer is your love song is about helping the poor and not jut pretend to be one of them. Doing what your doing has not charitable value.

[PraiseSeitan]

The detail that really turned me off about MT was, of all things, her refusal to allow the purchase of a washing machine. All manner of sick and dying people oozing god alone knows what all over the bedding, and volunteers were hand washing all of it. With a washing machine the volunteers could have done something more useful, the sick could have had cleaner bedding, and certainly her order could afford the expense. But something about having poverty tourists hand wash crusty sheets pleased her, so that's how it was done.

Every time I see one of those "Catholics Coming Home" signs in front of a local parish I think about it, because mass is beautiful and as a history geek being involved in something so ancient is appealing. But then I think about condoms in Africa, and I think about Prop 8 and I think about crusty sheets in Calcutta, and I just don't like incense and stained glass that much.

[Coconut Flan]

I'm home sick and watching the mass for election of the pontiff from St Peter's and thinking how many hundreds of hungry could be fed for the cost of this extravaganza.

[crazyforkate]

Aaaaand she's back to her blogging one day later. About the Papal election. Nice commitment there, Abby.

[Wolfie]

Why does "two monk and a Carmelite nun walk into a Fiddler on the Roof production...." sound like the beginning of a corny joke?

Seriously, does this woman not have a clue? Are we going to hear about Czarist persecution next? I mean, there was a pretty good joke about that as well. (For those who don't remember: the rabbi's blessing for the Czar was "May G-d bless and keep the Czar....FAR AWAY FROM US!"]

The OP was right - if you leave Fiddler on the Roof thinking that it's all about happy singing dancing Jews merrily coping with hard times, then you aren't paying attention. The poverty was pretty desperate, much of it was inflicted by Czarist religious persecution, and even once the refugees arrived in New York the infant mortality rate was close to 50%.

I went to a Russian Mennonite College. They still put Fiddler on every few years because it's their story too. It isn't happy.

[ems]

Dear Abigail:

You fail at Lent. Also at understanding poverty (there's nothing funny about poverty, unless, as the OP said, you use humor to cope with something that is really no walk in the park).