Adonis Diaries

A Virgin from Medjugorje? And why my mom is kneeling in front of the TV screen?

Lebanon is a major theater for the exotics: Events, artistic shows, mass religious ceremonies of all of the 18 officially recognized sects, and not counting the State “heretic” sects, not the least the horrors of a civil war that lasted 17 years, a pseudo State that do not practically exist…Lebanon is the theater of one-dimensional mentalities, demonstrations of opposing factions separated by a barbed wire to prevent theocratic and ideological groups from coming to close hand-to-hand contacts…

Last week, and for every evening, we had this lady “communicating directly” with the Virgin Mary who landed in Lebanon (see note), along with her statue of the white virgin, and a few TV channels reporting live of the mass gathering in the Forum of Beirut, attending mass…

As if Lebanon lacks all kinds of statues of the Virgin, perched on hills, mountain tops, standing in niches at every street corner, and people crossing their faces at the sight of the statue…

It is reported and confirmed that the Virgin of Harissa turns her face at every election period, facing the political alliance that the Maronite Patriarch and his bishops want to win in the poll. We all know how this tactics works, and we make plenty of fun about this phenomenon. The irony is that it works each time at the poll!

Covering publicly these masses sounds absurd by TV channels. The less than absurd phenomenon is watching my mom kneeling, with the congregated people in the Forum, in front of the TV screen. The more absurd of all is that mom was very upset that the coverage was not clear: The channel was scrambled, blurred, breaking up…That was an ignominy of the highest degree…It sounded far worse than the electricity going off, at the nick of time, when a cake was being prepared in the cooking show of “Sit Latifeh” and mom missed the recipe.

And I wondered how mom, plagued arthritis managed to getting up: I had left the premises at this excruciating view…

The Virgin was not considerate the next day: My mom was left flat on her back in the garden shouting: “Oh Virgin Mary. Come to my rescue…” The virgin was listening, and my sister was returning from her morning brisk walk and saw my mom and extended a helping hand.

I have been telling mom to do very light exercises before she venture in the kitchen or the garden so that her joints and muscles warm up for the day non-stop exertions: Mom has not learned yet to taking occasional short breaks before finishing all her tasks. Apparently, I failed to admonish her not to kneeling, in front of no one…

I would feel somewhat relieved if Lebanon turns the page on racist behaviors and import a Black Virgin from Brazil, or a Lebanese sculptor is temerricious enough to using black marble for the his “chef-d’oeuvre” of the virgin…I don’t think this artist will be tolerated by his fellow artists or the clerics…

The funny thing is that mom whispers to me ironically: “Your dad touches every single icon and picture of saints in the house and crosses his face, on each of his frequent visits to the bathroom, and back and forth too…”

Note: In the center of actual Herzegovina, ex-Yugoslavia, Marija Pavlovic Lunetti, one of the “eye-witnesses” of Mary appearance in June 24, 1981, and the one who conducted the mass, supposedly listening to the Virgin…