These are my thoughts on friendship after watching the movie, the Social Network, about the beginnings of Facebook and how two good friends, mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, eventually lost their friendship.

Let me begin by making this sweeping statement: you can’t choose your family but you can definitely choose your friends.

Really leaves nothing much to be desired within your family circle as you need to put up with them and all their eccentricities. but, of course, you love them anyway because they’re family It’s the blood that runs through your veins that keeps you connected.

With friends, however, the forces of nature have been balanced and you are finally given the chance to choose persons with whom you can freely associate with.

It’s not imposed but out of your own free will. Choosing friends is your ultimate gauge to freedom and independence.

There are actually a number of theories, discussions, dialectics, songs, poems, and stories about true and lasting friendships and one common thread that weaves through all of these is the fact that in one way or another, we see a little bit of ourselves in them and vice-versa. (Although, I would also like to believe that there’s something about them that we aspire to be and possibly vice-versa, too)

Question is: Is there a motive to friendship?

I see this as the perfect question in answering where the friendship of mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin has gone wrong.

Ancient philosopher Aristotle outlined in one of his discussions on friendship featured in the Book of Virtues compiled by William J. Bennett, that there are varying motives for friendship, which could either be a motive to desire one another’s good or merely for utility or pleasure. the latter kind of friendship is one that is easily dissolved since it only exists only in relation to these circumstances. to quote Aristotle: I mean, that the others cease to have any friendship for them when they are no longer pleasurable or useful.

Aristotle, on the other hand, cited what is true friendship:

That then is perfect friendship which subsists between those who are good and whose similarity consists in their goodness: for these men wish one another’s good in similar ways; insofar as they are good (and good they are in themselves); and those are specially friends who wish good to their friends for their sakes, because they feel thus toward them on their own account and not as a mere matter of result; so the Friendship between these men continues to subsist so long as they are good; and goodness, we know, has in it a principle of permanence.

Rare it is probable Friendships of this kind will be, because men of this kind are rare.

Going back to mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, what kind of friendship did they have?

Aristotle to Mark Zuckerberg: What Kind Of Friend Are You?

Based on a true story, the book Peony in Love by Lisa See gives us a fascinating description of the Chinese afterlife. I was particularly struck by the concept of sister-wives and by the effect that not honouring a dead person – and her place in the family-can have over the living. Of course, for the Chinese, women ended up having several sister-wives, all of them married at the same time -or sequentially-to one man; the concept of brother-husband for men was non-existent. But in today’s world they are a reality.

It seems Chinese people are very strict about order in a family, and about honouring the dearly departed. the person who arrives first into a family system has priority over those that arrive after. when this order is subverted and when honoring does not take place, chaos ensues.

I immensely enjoyed the book, as this is certainly what we seek in psychotherapy, especially when you take the family system into account. and, who wasn’t born in a family? looking at it from the point of view of marriage – divorce – remarriage here are some important points:

1. Are you wife/ husband number one, two, three, etc.?

2. Make sure you know your place in the order: I am wife/ husband number one, two, three, etc.

3. Honour your previous sister-wives or brother-husbands; they were there before you, even if you don’t like it.

4. Ignoring previous sister-wives or brother-husbands causes a disruption in the energy of the family system which will seek a way to reconfigure itself.

Some of these relationships may be easier to accept than others. Let’s say that Sophie has been married twice, divorced twice and is in a new relationship. her second divorce was particularly difficult when her husband of 25 years left her for a woman 20 years her junior. Let’s see how the Family Order goes here:

Sophie and Albert married young, divorced young and had no children. Sophie then married Jerry who was also divorced, with no children. Jerry was okay to be husband no. 2 with Albert being his first brother-husband. Sophie was okay to be wife no. 2 with Jane as her first sister-wife. Jane and Jerry had divorced when she was unfaithful and left with another man. Jane gave her blessing to Sophie as her sister-wife. Jerry was not okay to have Sven as his brother-husband and kept on having anger and resentment towards him. could this have anything to do with the anger his son Mike expresses in his relationships?

Sophia acquired a new sister-wife when Albert remarried, and she gave the new wife, Nina, her blessing. Nina, on the other hand, cannot stand to hear Sophie mentioned. her teenaged daughter, on the other hand, is very curious about Sophia and has no end of problems with her mother.

Sophia is not at peace with Jerry’s new wife, her new sister-wife Betsy, who cannot abide hearing about Sophia. Betsy refuses to accept she is wife no. three; she wants to be Number One in Jerry’s life. Does any of this sound familiar?

In Peony in Love, things finally are set right when Peony is honoured and takes her place as first wife, even if she is dead. Here’s where psychotherapy is of help in untangling the systemic implications so that peace, happiness and growth may occur. so many times we believe that we are the cause of all that happens to us, and forget that we are part of larger systems. Lay your ghosts at rest, honor them include them and feel freer.

Peony in Love – Sister-Wives and Brother-Husbands

On April 14, 2012 at 11:50 a.m. Golda Sullivan, age 75, of Elkville, was ushered into heaven and reunited with her beloved husband, Perry Sullivan. Golda was born on August 13, 1936 in Elkville, Illinois to Ralph and Kate Stamm. She married Perry Sullivan on July 5, 1951 in Elkville, Illinois. Perry and Golda resided in the Elkville/Dowell area until 1958 and then moved to Du Quoin where they resided for 21 years. They had four daughters, Lorenda, Vickie, Londa and Brenda, whom they raised in Du Quoin before moving back to Elkville in 1978. in 1979 Golda gave birth to their fifth child, Ryan.      Golda's dream as a child was to get married and have children. She not only fulfilled her dream by being a great mother to her children, but she also became a mother and grandmother figure to many others who knew her. Golda had a peaceful and loving spirit which caused people to love her as she loved them. She opened her arms and her home to many young people and embraced them like they were her own.      Golda worked for over 15 years for Country Set Garment Factory in Du Quoin, Illinois. She became an expert seamstress and spent many hours sewing for her family as well as others. During the years she worked at Country Set Golda was a member of the International Ladies Garment Worker's Union. Golda often took summers off from the garment factory to spend time with her children and to work other places such as the Mug and the Du Quoin State fair. after leaving Country Set in 1977 Golda went to work for Turco. She worked two years there and resigned during her pregnancy with her fifth child. Golda became a stay-at-home wife and mother in 1979 and dedicated herself to raising her son. She worked briefly as a seamstress for the costume shop at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and resigned from there to help raise her youngest grandchild.      as a child, Golda attended Knoff Bend Pentecostal Church with her parents and siblings. She and her husband, Perry, joined the Dowell Baptist Church in 1951 where they raised their children and remained members until their deaths. Golda made it clear, however, that she was a "born-again Christian" and her name was "written in the Book of Life in heaven" which allowed her to go to any church she wanted. Golda believed in and exemplified a quiet, personal relationship with Jesus. She did not always attend church regularly, but she always prayed and read her Bible on a daily basis and was not ashamed to share her faith with others. Golda was a perfect example of the wife and mother described in Proverbs 31. She was a vigorous, hard worker, she opened her arms to the poor and needy, provided clothing for her family, put her family's needs before hers and was a faithful, loving wife. Not only did "her children arise and call her blessed" (Prov. 31:28) but so did many others; for truly all who knew her were blessed by her life.      She is survived by three daughters – Lorenda Cockrum and husband Jim of Thompsonville, Ill., Vickie Matyi and husband Bob of Henderson, Ky. and Brenda Rice and husband Mike of Elkville, one son – Ryan Sullivan of Elkville, five sisters – Connie Blevins of Hiawatha, Kans., Velma Stamm of Du Quoin, Clara Stamm of Elkville, Lillie Owens of Kirkwood, Mo. and Jane Pierce of Du Quoin, five granddaughters – Wendy Peter of Thompsonville, Amber Porter of Cambria, Ill., Ariel Matyi of Henderson, Ky., Haley Cockrum of Thompsonville and Hannah Sullivan of Elkville, five great grandchildren, numerous nieces and nephews.      She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, one daughter – Londa Lynn Sullivan, one granddaughter – April Cockrum, two brothers – Clarence Stamm and Lawrence Stamm and two siblings in infancy.      Funeral services were at 1:00 p.m., Friday, April 20, 2012 at the Searby Funeral Home in Du Quoin with Rev. John Nordstrom, Rev. Phil Nordstrom and Rev. Brett Beasley officiating.      Friends called from 5 to 8 p.m., Thursday at the Searby Funeral Home in Du Quoin.      Burial was in the old Du Quoin Cemetery at Du Quoin.      Friends may make memorials to the American Cancer Society Perry County Relay for Life and will be accepted at the funeral home.      for additional information or to sign the memorial guest register, please visit www.searbyfuneralhomes.com.

On April 14, 2012 at 11:50 a.m. Golda Sullivan, age 75, of Elkville, was ushered into heaven and reunited with her beloved husband, Perry Sullivan. Golda was born on August 13, 1936 in Elkville, Illinois to Ralph and Kate Stamm. She married Perry Sullivan on July 5, 1951 in Elkville, Illinois. Perry and Golda resided in the Elkville/Dowell area until 1958 and then moved to Du Quoin where they resided for 21 years. They had four daughters, Lorenda, Vickie, Londa and Brenda, whom they raised in Du Quoin before moving back to Elkville in 1978. in 1979 Golda gave birth to their fifth child, Ryan.      Golda's dream as a child was to get married and have children. She not only fulfilled her dream by being a great mother to her children, but she also became a mother and grandmother figure to many others who knew her. Golda had a peaceful and loving spirit which caused people to love her as she loved them. She opened her arms and her home to many young people and embraced them like they were her own.      Golda worked for over 15 years for Country Set Garment Factory in Du Quoin, Illinois. She became an expert seamstress and spent many hours sewing for her family as well as others. During the years she worked at Country Set Golda was a member of the International Ladies Garment Worker's Union. Golda often took summers off from the garment factory to spend time with her children and to work other places such as the Mug and the Du Quoin State fair. after leaving Country Set in 1977 Golda went to work for Turco. She worked two years there and resigned during her pregnancy with her fifth child. Golda became a stay-at-home wife and mother in 1979 and dedicated herself to raising her son. She worked briefly as a seamstress for the costume shop at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and resigned from there to help raise her youngest grandchild.      as a child, Golda attended Knoff Bend Pentecostal Church with her parents and siblings. She and her husband, Perry, joined the Dowell Baptist Church in 1951 where they raised their children and remained members until their deaths. Golda made it clear, however, that she was a "born-again Christian" and her name was "written in the Book of Life in heaven" which allowed her to go to any church she wanted. Golda believed in and exemplified a quiet, personal relationship with Jesus. She did not always attend church regularly, but she always prayed and read her Bible on a daily basis and was not ashamed to share her faith with others. Golda was a perfect example of the wife and mother described in Proverbs 31. She was a vigorous, hard worker, she opened her arms to the poor and needy, provided clothing for her family, put her family's needs before hers and was a faithful, loving wife. Not only did "her children arise and call her blessed" (Prov. 31:28) but so did many others; for truly all who knew her were blessed by her life.      She is survived by three daughters – Lorenda Cockrum and husband Jim of Thompsonville, Ill., Vickie Matyi and husband Bob of Henderson, Ky. and Brenda Rice and husband Mike of Elkville, one son – Ryan Sullivan of Elkville, five sisters – Connie Blevins of Hiawatha, Kans., Velma Stamm of Du Quoin, Clara Stamm of Elkville, Lillie Owens of Kirkwood, Mo. and Jane Pierce of Du Quoin, five granddaughters – Wendy Peter of Thompsonville, Amber Porter of Cambria, Ill., Ariel Matyi of Henderson, Ky., Haley Cockrum of Thompsonville and Hannah Sullivan of Elkville, five great grandchildren, numerous nieces and nephews.      She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, one daughter – Londa Lynn Sullivan, one granddaughter – April Cockrum, two brothers – Clarence Stamm and Lawrence Stamm and two siblings in infancy.      Funeral services were at 1:00 p.m., Friday, April 20, 2012 at the Searby Funeral Home in Du Quoin with Rev. John Nordstrom, Rev. Phil Nordstrom and Rev. Brett Beasley officiating.      Friends called from 5 to 8 p.m., Thursday at the Searby Funeral Home in Du Quoin.      Burial was in the old Du Quoin Cemetery at Du Quoin.      Friends may make memorials to the American Cancer Society Perry County Relay for Life and will be accepted at the funeral home.      for additional information or to sign the memorial guest register, please visit www.searbyfuneralhomes.com.

Golda Sullivan – Du Quoin, IL – Du Quoin Evening Call

We all fell in love with the iPad and most of us thought that the Xoom was pretty unique. Now Samsung has launched into the market the brand that will out do all tablets. This is with no other than Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Watch out iPad2 looks like you have a bit of competition.it is becoming quite over whelming with the continuous outburst of these tycoon technology companies shooting something new into the market ever few couple of months. Not are only techno-whizzes sucked in to the roller coaster …

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1: Forget the iPad and Indulge in Today’s Technology

Love him or hate him, Bryce Harper is here and he's not going anywhere. after 18 homers, 61 RBIs and a .290 batting average in 129 minor league games played, Harper made his highly anticipated MLB debut on Saturday

Say, this Bryce Harper kid might have a tool or two. Why hasn't anyone said something about this???

Bryce Harper. as someone asked on Twitter: which one of them will homer first? The answer to that, plus talk of the worst team in baseball and Barry Zito's resurgence, in today's Triple Play. You, too, can let us know what you want our experts to

LOS ANGELES — after two major league games, this is what we know about Bryce Harper: He can smash line drives off fences, throw laser beams from the outfield, drive in clutch runs, crash into walls to steal doubles, face the press and boos without

Bryce Harper playing center field in tonight's Nationals lineup

Siri, the voice command personal assistant application in the iPhone 4S, is still in beta. Even so, Apple recently began running two TV ads with well-known actors touting Siri’s capabilities in seemingly real-life situations.

The capabilities implied in the ads by Siri seem exaggerated at best, and deceptive at worst. Many iPhone 4S users will love the iPhone — the most popular smartphone on the planet –despite Siri. They might do well to ignore Siri altogether and judge the phone on its other merits.

In one of the ads, actor Samuel L. Jackson uses Siri to help in cooking gazpacho soup for a date night. in the other, Zooey Deschanel appears in p.j.’s inside her home, asks Siri if it’s raining outside, wants to find a restaurant that delivers soup and asks Siri to play a tune. 

Part of what’s offered in the ads is the exciting promise of artificial intelligence used in computers such as smartphones and the capabilities of using speech to interface with a computer, instead of touchscreen strokes. But promise isn’t reality — and might not be for many years still.

Siri does appear to be more accomplished than other smartphones I’ve used and tested at recognizing voice commands such as "Call Al Jones," which inititates a call by using a number which comes from my phone’s directory. in terms of Siri’s ability to "reason" with AI to understand what I MEANT to say in a given situation, I have found Siri decidedly in the beta camp.

Based on my experiences with Siri and those of analysts and other users, Siri is not ready for prime time as an AI tool, although I do admire Apple for being willing to arouse interest through its marketing and installation of the app in the iPhone 4S.

The question about whether the new TV ads and other Siri ads are deceptive is up to the courts.   

Two lawsuits filed in March in Los Angeles and new York call Apple’s ads deceptive, and say that Apple’s commercials and marketing make out Siri to be more intelligent that it is.  

Ars Technica found nearly 30% of 2,800 votes in a survey were from readers who said they no longer used the assistant because they tried it and didn’t like it. another 20 percent still used it with complaints, while 22 said they still use it and like its functionality.

My wife recently bought an iPhone 4S (I regularly use an iPhone 4 and have tried Siri many times other iPhone 4S devices) and had some fun trying to get some intelligent answers from Siri. Her experience isn’t at all scientific, but illustrates the problems with the app’s understanding of her speech commands (her articulation and enunciation) and also the essence of what she meant (Siri’s AI deciding between literal communications and implied communications).   

Asked, "how do i cook gazpacho?" Siri responded, "This is about you, not me."  Trying again, she asked: "how do YOU cook gaspacho?" and got from Siri: "Sorry I missed that. Let me think about it. I can’t answer, but I can search the Web if you like."

told "yes" to go ahead with a Web search, Siri came back with Google Search page with the question in text in the search field, slightly mangled, that asked: "how do you cook dispatch out?"

Trying to enunciate "gazpacho" on yet another try, Siri came back with with "how do you make the spot show?" and several URLs about spot removal and businesses connected to the word "spot."

On a third try with careful enunciation, my wife got a verbal response from Siri that said there were 19 restaurants nearby that serve soup.  That’s not obviously a cooking recipe for Gazpacho, but also not terribly different than the kind of response one would expect to get from typing in the same language on a typical search engine.

As with many smartphones and Web searches, most of us laugh when realize that we are the ones being trained by our computers, instead of getting our computers to adapt to us.  We are being trained to  speak clearly, in a quiet room unaffected by noise from a humming automobile or dishwasher in the kitchen.  We are also trained in the logic in our communications (as in, "It’s about you, not me.)

Siri, like other AI and voice command tools, apparently must learn from a user, to a limited extent. There aren’t tutorials where one would train the speech engine as in the past, and yet Siri still seemed to pick up my wife’s pronuciation over just a few minutes–a bit. Some of the logical progressions Siri made were actually pretty astounding. Examples:

Asking Siri "Do I have an appointment today at 4 o’clock?" Siri quickly came back with, "You don’t have anything on your calendar at 4 p.m." then to be a bit tricky, she asked: "what about tomorrow?" to which she surprisingly got back: "Here" with an onscreen listing of the next day’s calendar showing a 3 p.m. meeting with the music department. That was pretty slick, if you think about it, because Siri not only recognized the prior question and tied it the calendar for the following day, but also the appointment just before 4 p.m.

My wife’s use of Siri might get even better over time, but you do wonder if it will be consistent enough to be something practical on a regular basis, especially in a business setting. I can just imagine a businessman trying to reason with Siri and yelling into his iPhone while office visitors next door listen to his use of four-letter words, enuciated in loud tones.  Now, that won’t ever be an Apple TV ad, but situations like it have already been made into comedy sketches.

Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, said Siri is a very good application "if you ask the right questions."   the problem with Apple’s recent TV ads is they make speech recognition and AI "sound perfect, which it’s not….this is not easy technology to do." Siri and other similar applications don’t so far "understand standard human converations."

For buyers, the bigger implication of the latest Apple TV ads is about what a customer can expect, Gold added."If users expect something and get disappointed, they don’t come back," he said."If technology overpromises, people get disillusioned."  

Gold said Apple may be using Siri as a way to make itself appear unique and different from popular Android phones, especially those from Samsung.  Apple didn’t respond to my request to comment on any of  this.

My advice: if you are interested in an iPhone 4S, buy it for a great touchscreen experience, an exquisite browser, styling and access to a wide range of apps.   use Siri as much as you want, for fun and more, but don’t count on it. It’s beta, after all.

Quick! Dispatch out that gazpacho, Ms. Siri

By Peter Kline

This is the sixth piece in our series on “Marry the Night.” For the previous pieces, click here.
“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are…God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. – 1 Corinthians 1:27-28, 25
“Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon.” 
                                                                                    – T. Merton, The Hidden Ground of Love
“I wish that I could dance on a single prayer.”– Lady Gaga, “Scheiße”
“Together, we’ll dance in the dark.”– Lady Gaga, “Dance in the Dark”
Back in September of this year, we lost a little monster. Jamey Rodemeyer, 14, took his own life because he finally could not shake the messages he heard from his peers that his life was not worth living. Jamey was an avid Lady Gaga fan. among his last words was an expression of gratitude to Mother Monster for fighting the fight he found he could no longer fight. Jamey was buried in a Lady Gaga t-shirt bearing the words, “Born this Way.”
Suicide, particularly when it strikes young people, forces a mirror up to ourselves and to our world. what kind of world have we created that someone would want to force himself out of it after such a short amount of time? How could it happen that a 14-year-old boy could experience such a profound loss of hope? Why wasn’t this precious and vulnerable child more fiercely protected? I LOATHE REALITY. on September 21, in response to Jamey’s death, Gaga tweeted the following: “The past days I’ve spent reflecting, crying, and yelling. I have so much anger. it is hard to feel love when cruelty takes someone’s life.” during her iHeartRadio set a few days later, she performed “Hair” in tribute to Jamey. “Jamey,” she sang, “you’re not a freak.”
I begin here with a reminder of what is at stake for Gaga in her art: life and death, real bodies, real persons. We miss a great deal in our analysis and reception of her art if we don’t register its driving passion: the yearning to make true the lie that this broken and darkened world is yet worth living in with abandon and joy. I’M A WARRIOR QUEEN/LIVE PASSIONATELY TONIGHT. just a few days ago, responding to the moving video of another gay teenage boy, Jonah, courageously telling us his story of being bullied and his resolve, despite this, to keep living, Gaga tweeted: “Please everyone, take a moment to watch this. this is why I work so hard, this is why it’s wrong to hate.”
How does beginning here affect how we might view this remarkable new video Gaga has given to us? what we’ve been given is an intimate glimpse into the passion that drives this woman’s work. And I mean “passion” here in its literal sense – suffering. what we see in this video is the story of love being forged through suffering, strength being given in weakness, life finding its anchor in and through death. In an earlier essay, I suggested that Lady Gaga undertakes her art as a work of love for the Jameys and Jonahs of this world, for those who find themselves weak, low, and despised – in a word, monstrous. Where does such love come from? I’M GONNA MAKE IT…YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE.
Perhaps the answer is this: it is when life ceases to be the pursuit of things and becomes instead the pursuit of nothing – no-thing – that life opens up as hopeful possibility, as new creation ex nihilo, as a movement into the bedazzled darkness of love. LOVE IS THE NEW / DENIM OR BLACK. The line between despair and hope is razor thin. Both face the future anxiously as a kind of empty darkness. The only difference is that whereas despair cowers before the darkness in fear, grasping for some-thing to stabilize the dizzying anxiety (gummy bears? a knife, maybe?), hope leaps forward, dancing into the darkness with an inexplicable expectancy that love is present and that love will come. I’M GONNA MARRY THE DARK / GONNA MAKE LOVE TO THE STARK. Love is the impossible possibility of dancing the night away on the razor, treating it not as the precipice of despair, but as the edge of glory. I’M ON THE EDGE WITH YOU. (And there you have the whole sweep of Born this Way, from its first to its last track).

This video, at its heart, is a story about dancing. it is about losing the ability and the drive to dance, but then finding one’s feet again through love. The video opens with Gaga knocked off her feet, being wheeled into the clinic on a gurney. She comments on her heels CUSTOM GUISEPPE ZANOTTI (a glimpse of what is to come perhaps, a remembering forward), but her feet hang there motionless and stiff. Her whole body lies motionless and stiff. A turn in the video happens when Gaga tells us, “I have nothing left to lose.” “Do you need anything else?” the nurse asks. what does someone who has lost everything need? Some-thing? No, for things will eventually just be lost again. things don’t bring healing; things don’t bring freedom. “Juste un petite part de la musique,” “Just a little bit of music,” she replies. what Gaga needs are her dancing feet, and so she asks for music, for an invitation to dance. As Beethoven’s Pathétique begins to play, she raises her hands over her head into a dance position and elegantly falls back into her pillow. Even at her bleakest point, stabbed in the back, even surrounded by madness, not least her own, the dance is present, the dance is possible, and she desires its call. but how? How could such possibility be present amid such despair? Notice the crosses on her bed. One at her head (as if a saint’s halo), one at her feet, anchoring her, bearing her burden, loving her. She utters, “I have nothing left to lose,” as the cross cradles her.

(I danced on a Friday when the world turned black It’s hard to dance with the devil on your backThey buried my body, they thought I was goneBut I am the dance, and the dance goes on)[i] 
We are then ushered into a dream-like sequence with Gaga dressed as a ballerina. Ballerinas are the most rigorous of dancers. To be a ballerina requires perfection – physical, psychological, emotional. it is significant that Gaga has said on a few occasions that she regards dancing to be her least developed skill. Compared with her musical ability, she thinks of her dancing ability as something of a weakness. And so we find this ballerina standing in impossible shoes, dancing tentatively a dance we’re not sure she can pull off. Gaga has said these shoes represent the “Everest of [her] existence,” the impossible obstacle that occasioned her downfall. In the next scene, we witness the downfall. The call that knocks her off her feet, the anger, the yelling, the destruction, the nothingness of little zeros filling her mouth and covering her body (h/t Laurence Ross). The whole scene comes across as a dance dissolving into chaos. it is interwoven with shots of ballerina Gaga alternatively falling, hanging upside down, lying at the feet of other ballerinas, looking up at them in despair. She finally falls into her bathtub as if dead, drowning in the waters of baptism – “baptized into…death” (Romans 6:3).
Halfway through the video at this point, the decisive turn takes place. Beethoven’s song ends, and we begin to expect Gaga’s own. We’re not told or shown how the turn happens – one could never see the transition from death to resurrection, for it happens “in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor. 15:52) – we just see Gaga sitting in her baptismal/bathtub, somehow raised to life, her hair teal with the transition from brunette to blond, “Marry the Night” gently floating in the background. “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). And then the next scene opens and we see them…the heels. Gaga on her own two dancing feet, striding confidently into the dance studio, once again looking up at other dancers, but no longer with the despair of failed perfection. She’s not haughty or over-confident, though; we can still sense some anxiety. but it is an anxiety full of expectancy, not knowing what will come, yet open and ready nonetheless. Notice that the camera focuses on one of the dancers on the balcony, a ballerina. Gaga once again looks up and faces her Everest, the obstacle of perfection. but her face says it all – no downfall this time. I WON’T CRY ANYMORE.

Whence this newfound strength? The courage to “[do] it all over again,” to bedazzle the scraps and fragments of her shattered life? There is writing on the wall in this scene, which typically signals impending judgment or doom. but significantly, the writing here is reversed (h/t Meghan Vicks). what might be a message of judgment is actually a message of hope. but this is hidden from us initially; to see it, we have to look in reverse, a conversion has to take place. The message on the wall itself bears this reversal, this conversion. Flipped around, it reads: “The Cross is my Anchor.” The cross? that instrument of torture, death, and shame? How could this become an anchor, a source of strength? For the new Testament, the cross is a source of strength because the death of Jesus is that moment in history when the tender heart of God is thrown open to the world, never to close. Here God bears eternally the weight and nothingness of the world. its brokenness and violence are now forever cradled in the outstretched arms of that “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). For those who will relax into such love, as Gaga seems to do in the clinic – I’LL DANCE… / WITH MY HANDS ABOVE MY HEAD… / LIKE JESUS SAID – weakness and brokenness become no longer a threat, no longer an occasion for rivalry or mistrust. Rather, you are free, as Gaga has said in a recent interview about her video, to “trust yourself to make mistakes,” free to face your obstacles, internal and external, with expectancy, with hope, even with laughter. (And of course with a bedazzler).

And so we’re taken out into a moonlit night to watch Gaga marry it, to watch her bedazzle it, to watch her dance out into the darkness with abandon. Initially, we come upon what looks like wreckage and carnage – cars burning, Gaga thrown upside down, hanging out of the Trans Am, knocked off her feet. We’re reminded of the opening scene where Gaga’s feet lie motionless and stiff. but here there is movement, restlessness. Then a surge of life, her legs writhing in search of some ground, some anchor, on which to dance. She flips herself over, and the dance begins. TURN ON THE CAR AND RUN.

The video then moves into what is for me its most moving and significant sequence. We’re taken back into the dance studio to watch how Gaga inhabits and lives into her newfound courage and strength. She enters the company of dancers not out in front, but as one of them, with and among them. There is no presumption that she deserves to be a star. She has to prove herself. Before the dance begins, she lies low, nervously looking up and around, but with a quiet determination. She stands, takes a deep breath, and the dance begins. A break in the dancing occurs, and she looks relieved, but still nervous. what will they think of me? Was I good enough? She wanders around looking for someone to say something to her. Finally someone does, presumably selecting her for a smaller dance group in which she is now out in front – next to the ballerina. The dancing begins again. but then a stumble, a fall. The ballerina, that image of poise and perfection, shows herself less than perfect. She is fragile, broken. A reversal has taken place. it is now the ballerina who lies at Gaga’s feet, looking up in despair. And what is Gaga’s response? She bends down, picks her up, and kisses her. The one who could most easily become an enemy, an object of rivalry and contempt, becomes instead a friend, an occasion to give love. I’M GONNA MARRY THE NIGHT. The dance Gaga now dances is one of love, love for the broken, for the fallen, for the low and despised. Significantly, the ballerina Gaga stoops down to help appears to be transgendered or in drag, a “freak” in the eyes of the world. Marrying her own pain and suffering has freed Gaga to give herself to, to dance with, “the least of these,” to those languishing in their own nights of pain, suffering, and rejection. Her kiss says, “You’re not a freak.”

The dance begins again, and it eventually breaks out into an improvised celebration around Gaga, full of joy. such joy can’t be contained in a dance studio, and so it spills out into the streets, into the night. Gaga now leads a group of dancers unafraid to be out on the streets at night, unafraid to find joy in the darkness, unafraid to be monstrous. I can’t help but notice her teal lipstick here, the same color as the dye she uses to turn her hair blond. Her mouth once full of the zeros of nothing has been freed to sing, now teal with the promise of joy. THIS IS MY PRAYER / THAT I’LL DIE LIVING JUST AS FREE AS MY HAIR. She pulls off her sunglasses and looks straight at us, as if to say: come dance.

[i] Sydney Carter, “Lord of the Dance,” 1963. Hymn.
Author Bio:
Peter Kline is a Ph.D. candidate in theological studies at Vanderbilt University. his real love, though, is a little church in Nashville where he and his wife serve as ministers.
Click here to follow Gaga Stigmata on Twitter.Click here to “like” Gaga Stigmata on Facebook

Please contribute if you find Gaga Stigmata‘s resources valuable.

The Cross is My Anchor: On Learning to Dance Again

Surviving a Revenge hiatus may have been difficult, but it’s nothing compared to the struggles we’re about to see our

‘Revenge’: Gabriel Mann and Nick Wechsler tease good news for ‘Team Jack,’ upcoming ‘steamy love’

By Peter Kline

This is the sixth piece in our series on “Marry the Night.” For the previous pieces, click here.
“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are…God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. – 1 Corinthians 1:27-28, 25
“Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon.” 
                                                                                    – T. Merton, The Hidden Ground of Love
“I wish that I could dance on a single prayer.”– Lady Gaga, “Scheiße”
“Together, we’ll dance in the dark.”– Lady Gaga, “Dance in the Dark”
Back in September of this year, we lost a little monster. Jamey Rodemeyer, 14, took his own life because he finally could not shake the messages he heard from his peers that his life was not worth living. Jamey was an avid Lady Gaga fan. among his last words was an expression of gratitude to Mother Monster for fighting the fight he found he could no longer fight. Jamey was buried in a Lady Gaga t-shirt bearing the words, “Born this way.”
Suicide, particularly when it strikes young people, forces a mirror up to ourselves and to our world. What kind of world have we created that someone would want to force himself out of it after such a short amount of time? How could it happen that a 14-year-old boy could experience such a profound loss of hope? Why wasn’t this precious and vulnerable child more fiercely protected? I LOATHE REALITY. on September 21, in response to Jamey’s death, Gaga tweeted the following: “The past days I’ve spent reflecting, crying, and yelling. I have so much anger. It is hard to feel love when cruelty takes someone’s life.” During her iHeartRadio set a few days later, she performed “Hair” in tribute to Jamey. “Jamey,” she sang, “you’re not a freak.”
I begin here with a reminder of what is at stake for Gaga in her art: life and death, real bodies, real persons. We miss a great deal in our analysis and reception of her art if we don’t register its driving passion: the yearning to make true the lie that this broken and darkened world is yet worth living in with abandon and joy. I’M A WARRIOR QUEEN/LIVE PASSIONATELY TONIGHT. just a few days ago, responding to the moving video of another gay teenage boy, Jonah, courageously telling us his story of being bullied and his resolve, despite this, to keep living, Gaga tweeted: “Please everyone, take a moment to watch this. this is why I work so hard, this is why it’s wrong to hate.”
How does beginning here affect how we might view this remarkable new video Gaga has given to us? What we’ve been given is an intimate glimpse into the passion that drives this woman’s work. and I mean “passion” here in its literal sense – suffering. What we see in this video is the story of love being forged through suffering, strength being given in weakness, life finding its anchor in and through death. in an earlier essay, I suggested that Lady Gaga undertakes her art as a work of love for the Jameys and Jonahs of this world, for those who find themselves weak, low, and despised – in a word, monstrous. Where does such love come from? I’M GONNA MAKE IT…YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE.
Perhaps the answer is this: it is when life ceases to be the pursuit of things and becomes instead the pursuit of nothing – no-thing – that life opens up as hopeful possibility, as new creation ex nihilo, as a movement into the bedazzled darkness of love. LOVE IS THE NEW / DENIM OR BLACK. The line between despair and hope is razor thin. both face the future anxiously as a kind of empty darkness. The only difference is that whereas despair cowers before the darkness in fear, grasping for some-thing to stabilize the dizzying anxiety (gummy bears? a knife, maybe?), hope leaps forward, dancing into the darkness with an inexplicable expectancy that love is present and that love will come. I’M GONNA MARRY THE DARK / GONNA MAKE LOVE TO THE STARK. Love is the impossible possibility of dancing the night away on the razor, treating it not as the precipice of despair, but as the edge of glory. I’M ON THE EDGE WITH YOU. (And there you have the whole sweep of Born this Way, from its first to its last track).

This video, at its heart, is a story about dancing. It is about losing the ability and the drive to dance, but then finding one’s feet again through love. The video opens with Gaga knocked off her feet, being wheeled into the clinic on a gurney. she comments on her heels CUSTOM GUISEPPE ZANOTTI (a glimpse of what is to come perhaps, a remembering forward), but her feet hang there motionless and stiff. Her whole body lies motionless and stiff. A turn in the video happens when Gaga tells us, “I have nothing left to lose.” “Do you need anything else?” the nurse asks. What does someone who has lost everything need? Some-thing? no, for things will eventually just be lost again. Things don’t bring healing; things don’t bring freedom. “Juste un petite part de la musique,” “Just a little bit of music,” she replies. What Gaga needs are her dancing feet, and so she asks for music, for an invitation to dance. as Beethoven’s Pathétique begins to play, she raises her hands over her head into a dance position and elegantly falls back into her pillow. even at her bleakest point, stabbed in the back, even surrounded by madness, not least her own, the dance is present, the dance is possible, and she desires its call. but how? How could such possibility be present amid such despair? Notice the crosses on her bed. one at her head (as if a saint’s halo), one at her feet, anchoring her, bearing her burden, loving her. she utters, “I have nothing left to lose,” as the cross cradles her.

(I danced on a Friday when the world turned black It’s hard to dance with the devil on your backThey buried my body, they thought I was goneBut I am the dance, and the dance goes on)[i] 
We are then ushered into a dream-like sequence with Gaga dressed as a ballerina. Ballerinas are the most rigorous of dancers. To be a ballerina requires perfection – physical, psychological, emotional. It is significant that Gaga has said on a few occasions that she regards dancing to be her least developed skill. Compared with her musical ability, she thinks of her dancing ability as something of a weakness. and so we find this ballerina standing in impossible shoes, dancing tentatively a dance we’re not sure she can pull off. Gaga has said these shoes represent the “Everest of [her] existence,” the impossible obstacle that occasioned her downfall. in the next scene, we witness the downfall. The call that knocks her off her feet, the anger, the yelling, the destruction, the nothingness of little zeros filling her mouth and covering her body (h/t Laurence Ross). The whole scene comes across as a dance dissolving into chaos. It is interwoven with shots of ballerina Gaga alternatively falling, hanging upside down, lying at the feet of other ballerinas, looking up at them in despair. she finally falls into her bathtub as if dead, drowning in the waters of baptism – “baptized into…death” (Romans 6:3).
Halfway through the video at this point, the decisive turn takes place. Beethoven’s song ends, and we begin to expect Gaga’s own. We’re not told or shown how the turn happens – one could never see the transition from death to resurrection, for it happens “in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor. 15:52) – we just see Gaga sitting in her baptismal/bathtub, somehow raised to life, her hair teal with the transition from brunette to blond, “Marry the Night” gently floating in the background. “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). and then the next scene opens and we see them…the heels. Gaga on her own two dancing feet, striding confidently into the dance studio, once again looking up at other dancers, but no longer with the despair of failed perfection. She’s not haughty or over-confident, though; we can still sense some anxiety. but it is an anxiety full of expectancy, not knowing what will come, yet open and ready nonetheless. Notice that the camera focuses on one of the dancers on the balcony, a ballerina. Gaga once again looks up and faces her Everest, the obstacle of perfection. but her face says it all – no downfall this time. I WON’T CRY ANYMORE.

Whence this newfound strength? The courage to “[do] it all over again,” to bedazzle the scraps and fragments of her shattered life? there is writing on the wall in this scene, which typically signals impending judgment or doom. but significantly, the writing here is reversed (h/t Meghan Vicks). What might be a message of judgment is actually a message of hope. but this is hidden from us initially; to see it, we have to look in reverse, a conversion has to take place. The message on the wall itself bears this reversal, this conversion. Flipped around, it reads: “The Cross is my Anchor.” The cross? That instrument of torture, death, and shame? How could this become an anchor, a source of strength? For the new Testament, the cross is a source of strength because the death of Jesus is that moment in history when the tender heart of God is thrown open to the world, never to close. Here God bears eternally the weight and nothingness of the world. its brokenness and violence are now forever cradled in the outstretched arms of that “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). For those who will relax into such love, as Gaga seems to do in the clinic – I’LL DANCE… / WITH MY HANDS ABOVE MY HEAD… / LIKE JESUS SAID – weakness and brokenness become no longer a threat, no longer an occasion for rivalry or mistrust. rather, you are free, as Gaga has said in a recent interview about her video, to “trust yourself to make mistakes,” free to face your obstacles, internal and external, with expectancy, with hope, even with laughter. (And of course with a bedazzler).

And so we’re taken out into a moonlit night to watch Gaga marry it, to watch her bedazzle it, to watch her dance out into the darkness with abandon. Initially, we come upon what looks like wreckage and carnage – cars burning, Gaga thrown upside down, hanging out of the Trans am, knocked off her feet. We’re reminded of the opening scene where Gaga’s feet lie motionless and stiff. but here there is movement, restlessness. then a surge of life, her legs writhing in search of some ground, some anchor, on which to dance. she flips herself over, and the dance begins. TURN ON THE CAR AND RUN.

The video then moves into what is for me its most moving and significant sequence. We’re taken back into the dance studio to watch how Gaga inhabits and lives into her newfound courage and strength. she enters the company of dancers not out in front, but as one of them, with and among them. there is no presumption that she deserves to be a star. she has to prove herself. Before the dance begins, she lies low, nervously looking up and around, but with a quiet determination. she stands, takes a deep breath, and the dance begins. A break in the dancing occurs, and she looks relieved, but still nervous. What will they think of me? was I good enough? she wanders around looking for someone to say something to her. Finally someone does, presumably selecting her for a smaller dance group in which she is now out in front – next to the ballerina. The dancing begins again. but then a stumble, a fall. The ballerina, that image of poise and perfection, shows herself less than perfect. she is fragile, broken. A reversal has taken place. It is now the ballerina who lies at Gaga’s feet, looking up in despair. and what is Gaga’s response? She bends down, picks her up, and kisses her. The one who could most easily become an enemy, an object of rivalry and contempt, becomes instead a friend, an occasion to give love. I’M GONNA MARRY THE NIGHT. The dance Gaga now dances is one of love, love for the broken, for the fallen, for the low and despised. Significantly, the ballerina Gaga stoops down to help appears to be transgendered or in drag, a “freak” in the eyes of the world. Marrying her own pain and suffering has freed Gaga to give herself to, to dance with, “the least of these,” to those languishing in their own nights of pain, suffering, and rejection. Her kiss says, “You’re not a freak.”

The dance begins again, and it eventually breaks out into an improvised celebration around Gaga, full of joy. Such joy can’t be contained in a dance studio, and so it spills out into the streets, into the night. Gaga now leads a group of dancers unafraid to be out on the streets at night, unafraid to find joy in the darkness, unafraid to be monstrous. I can’t help but notice her teal lipstick here, the same color as the dye she uses to turn her hair blond. Her mouth once full of the zeros of nothing has been freed to sing, now teal with the promise of joy. THIS IS MY PRAYER / THAT I’LL DIE LIVING JUST AS FREE AS MY HAIR. she pulls off her sunglasses and looks straight at us, as if to say: come dance.

[i] Sydney Carter, “Lord of the Dance,” 1963. Hymn.
Author Bio:
Peter Kline is a Ph.D. candidate in theological studies at Vanderbilt University. His real love, though, is a little church in Nashville where he and his wife serve as ministers.
Click here to follow Gaga Stigmata on Twitter.Click here to “like” Gaga Stigmata on Facebook

Please contribute if you find Gaga Stigmata‘s resources valuable.

The Cross is My Anchor: On Learning to Dance Again

The singer opened up about the separation twice on Monday, professing his “tremendous admiration, respect, and love” for his wife of seven years.

Seal Explains Why He’s Still Wearing His Wedding Ring After Heidi Klum Split