'Dew of Hermon', is taken from a line in Psalm 133. The writer of that ancient song enthused about how good it is when people live together in unity,and compares it poetically to the dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion. In that spirit it is hoped these scribblings will be more refreshing mountain dew, than obscurantist valley fog, where a weary Pilgrim might be refreshed and replenished for the journey ahead.
Ireland's greatest living literary figure, Seamus Heaney has died at age 74. The poet was a Nobel prize winner and widely respected by his peers as well as a wider literary audience. Today the national airwaves here in Ireland have been full of tributes to the late poet and readings of his poems.
Heaney left
religion and faith behind early in his adult life, here in an interview with
fellow poet, Dennis O’Driscoll he recalls his youthful flirtation with
Catholicism…
When I was
going, from first awareness until at least my early teens, I dwelt entirely in
the womb of religion. My consciousness was dominated by Catholic conceptions,
formulations, pedagogies, prayers and practices. Salvation, damnation, heaven
above, hell below, grace and guilt, all were for real.
So the drama of last
things, the melodrama and even the terror of them were present from the start.
You’d hardly got out of the cot before you were envisaging the deathbed. Soon,
too, you would learn about the sacrament of extreme unction, able to answer
knowledgeably about holy viaticum and the final anointing of the organs of
sense with chrism and so on.
You had your puny south Derry being within the
great echoing acoustic of a universe of light and dark, death and everlasting
life, divine praises and prayers for the dead: as in ‘ Grant them eternal rest,
O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls
of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.’
LOS ANGELES,
July 26, 2013 – Brittni started shooting
porn practically as soon as she was legal, at the age of 18. One day, while
working as a dancer at a local strip club in Santa Barbara, where she was
attending college, she was approached by two men who asked her if she wanted to
act in “romance movies.”
Brittni
wasn’t under any illusions about what she was being asked to do. She had begun
stripping while she was still underage, and to her, porn was an easy and
logical next step. She agreed to go with the two men to L.A. to film a porn scene
the following day.
“I felt so loved
that day,” she recalls in “I was putting on hair and makeup. I was told that I
was beautiful, I was going to be a star. They sent my pictures to an adult
agency that I was with for about two years. The rest is pretty much history.”
In a
post-internet world where porn had become mainstream, and porn stars were
becoming as celebrated as Hollywood actors, Brittni saw porn as her ticket to
fame and fortune.
Her career
took off. In 2006, she came in second place on Jenna’s American Sex Star, a
reality TV show hosted by porn legend Jenna Jameson. In 2010, Maxim
magazine named her one of the top 12 hottest porn stars in the world.
Over the
space of her seven-year career, Brittni acted in what she says was literally
“hundreds” of porn scenes, and was nominated for numerous industry awards.
But all was
not as it seemed. Underneath the confident, devil-may-care exterior of the
hardened porn star was a tormented soul searching for peace.
It wasn’t
long before porn took its toll. “Not only does [porn] leave you feeling
drained, but I had to start finding ways to be able to do the scenes, because I
was so robotic,” she says. “I was like a rubber Barbie doll. I had no emotions.
I was plastic.”
Like many in
the industry, Brittni turned to alcohol and drugs - first cocaine, and then
heroin - “to numb my pain, to get me through.” This in turn led to other
destructive behaviors, like “cutting” and several failed suicide
attempts.
At one
point, after reaching rock bottom, she took a year off from shooting porn.
During that space of time she underwent a tentative conversion to Christianity
under the influence of her grandparents, and cleaned up with the help of
addiction recovery groups.
But Brittni
wasn’t prepared to give up her work as a porn star, and instead attempted to
forge a strange truce between her new Christian faith and her day job:
preaching Christianity during appearances on the raunchy Howard Stern Show or
to fellow actors in porn films that she herself was starring in, while
volunteering at worthy causes in her spare time. To those who criticized the
contradiction in her life, she would point to Jesus' treatment of Mary
Magdelene and the Bible’s strictures against judging.
Eventually,
however, something had to give.
A crucial
turning point came when she encountered missionaries with XXXChurch, a
radically unconventional Christian group that, as part of its ministry, sends
its staff to porn conventions. There they set up booths where they hand out
Bibles emblazoned with the slogan, “Jesus loves porn stars” and offer to do
makeup and hair for the actors and actresses while talking to them about
Christianity.
Finally,
last November, Brittni gathered the courage to leave the industry once and for
all. She shot her last porn scene, and has since found a job with a limousine
company. She hasn't looked back.
In a letter
to XXXChurch since leaving, Brittni thanks Rachel Collins, a XXXChurch staffer
who she came to know and admire during her time in the industry. “I don’t know
if she realizes how she impacted me or not,” says Brittni. “But her being so
kind and nonjudgmental always felt so good.
“I never
felt love in my life and was looking for it in all the wrong places,” she says.
“It felt great to speak to a woman as beautiful as Rachel who would tell me
that I was her favorite, and to just have a regular non-porn girl talk. Please
tell her that I thank her from the bottom of my heart.”
When asked
what she would say to other girls who are tempted by the allurement of the porn
industry, Brittni minces no words. She recalls feeling “empty” and “hopeless”
and living in a “hole of self-pity” where she couldn’t care if she lived or
died: “The feeling that nobody loves me except for these fans, who I’m actually
kind of really disgusted by, because they see me in my most personal
moments.”
“I believe
as women we are worth it, we are worth love,” she says. “And we are worth real
love, and they’re not going to get that from the industry."
“It’s not worth
it,” she adds. “I would give it all back.”
In the testimonial video produced by XXXChurch, Brittni says that it has been
a “long seven-year journey of porn, prostitution, stripping, drugs, alcohol,
and several failed suicide attempts.”
“But,” she
says with a smile on her face, “I made it.”
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve;
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy;
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life;
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all men most richly blessed.
When you stand praying, burdened with many sins and overpowered with
despair, begin to pray with hope, with a fervent spirit, and remind
yourself that 'the Spirit Itself maketh
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered!' (Rom.
8:26). When you remember with faith this action of the Spirit of God
within us, then tears of emotion will flow from your eyes, you will feel
in your soul peace, sweetness, justification, 'and joy in the Holy
Ghost,' (Rom. 14:17) and you will cry in your heart, 'Abba, Father!'
