The Yiddishe Secret

If you watch Oprah you know about The Secret, the notion that like attracts like and thinking makes it so. If you’ve been reading this blog you know that The Secret is both scientifically false (the Law of Attraction states that opposites attract, not likes), and morally repulsive, blaming the victim of evil for the existence of evil.

Having demolished the false secret let me reveal to you the true secret. I learned the real secret from my bubbe, my father’s mother. Bubbe came to America from Russia. She epitomized the Old World Jew. While deeply versed in Jewish ritual and holy days, and running a strictly kosher household and life, the entirety of her theology could be reduced to a single concept: Ayin haRah, the Evil Eye.

Without knowing anything about science, my bubbe lived by the scientific Law of Attraction. She knew that opposites attract; and while she was disinclined to speak harshly of anyone, she was even more wary of speaking well of someone for fear of attracting The Evil Eye.

According to the Law of Attraction as understood from the perspective of Ayin haRah, if someone says, “Oh what a beautiful baby!” the baby will come down with the pox. If someone says, “Mazal tov on your new job!” you will be laid off in a matter of weeks. If someone says, “You sing like a dove!” you will get cancer of the larynx. Good attracts evil. It is a law of nature.

Warding off the Evil Eye is a full time and somewhat messy job. Battling the Evil Eye requires spitting; not a huge glob of mucus, mind you, but three staccato flicks of your tongue between your lips to make an audible sound similar to a wet snowball striking a brick wall. The spitting is preceded by a defensive spell, “K’Ayin haRah” in Hebrew or “K’nehorah!” in the Yiddish preferred by my bubbe. Both phrases mean “Against the Evil Eye.” Say this, spit three times, and the Eye is warded off— for a while. But stay on guard, for the Law of Attraction is eternal, and every positive thought, word, or deed can bring on the Evil Eye yet again.

Warding off the Evil Eye works. Here are two of many testimonials I have heard:

Moshe Gross was an executive with a California dotcom. At an important strategy meeting he sought to defend a particularly good idea by casting a K’nehorah and spitting three times. This being California rather than Chelm, Moshe was given a generous severance package and fired. Three weeks latter the company collapsed and people lost everything.

Malkah Frankl was a shoe-in for winning the Queen Esther Beauty Pageant at her day school, when, just to make sure, her mother spit three times and accidentally blinded the judge who went on to choose some other girl. Malkah went home crying, but her classmates stayed for the party, ate spinach contaminated with e coli, and fell deathly ill.

Think what you like about the Yiddishe Secret, but have a good day. K’nehorah! Feh, feh, feh!

Think Peace

I may be obsessing over The Secret, and if you cannot abide yet another blog on this topic please skip this entry, but as the Iraq War enters its fifth year, as over sixty human beings were murdered in Baghdad car bombings this morning, as President Bush promotes his “First We Take Baghdad, Then We Take Teheran” strategy, I cannot help but wonder why Rhonda Byrne and The Secret’s millions of followers don’t think us into peace.

I don’t mean to be facetious. Yes, I disagree with The Secret’s premise that whatever comes into our lives does so because we attract it with out thoughts, but, I could be wrong. The Secret could be true, and if it is and we don’t use it for peace but only to feed our desire for personal perfection, what does that say about us? So, just for a moment, let’s imagine that The Secret is true, that we can think our way to peace?

Imagine millions of Oprah viewers who saw her two segments on The Secret plus millions more who have purchased the book and DVD, deciding to Think Peace. Imagine millions of The Secret fans converging on Washington and London to Think Peace. Imagine millions more flying to Kabul and Teheran to do the same. This would be world changing!

I’m serious. I may have missed it, but I don’t recall peace and an end to the Iraq War ever coming up in either Oprah segment. And in the chapter in the book entitled The Secret to the World, Iraq is never mentioned, and peace is almost a footnote.

Part of this may be that to mention such things would be to put energy into the negative and thus make matters worse. I understand that and why The Secret suggests we focus on peace rather than the negative energy-attracting notion of anti-war. But all I found in the book was Rhonda’s admission that she doesn’t watch television or read newspapers because she doesn’t want to think about (and hence add to) the injustice, violence, and evil in the world. But by avoiding the real evil in the world, she is doing us all a terrible disservice. There must be a way to acknowledge war even as we think peace. If we do not admit to evil, how can we stop it? After all we are willing to admit to personal poverty, illness, and relationship problems as a first step to thinking these around, why not war? Why not evil?

The Secret is a worldwide phenomenon, and The Secret team of motivational speakers has a tremendous opportunity to transform the world not simply by selling books and DVDs, but by organizing global Think Peace initiatives.

I know I called The Secret new age boomer narcissism. I know I said it was all about feeding greed and avoiding guilt. Prove me wrong. This isn’t a challenge, but a heartfelt plea. What could be a better use of The Secret than this?

You Are, Therefore I Am

I was reading the Bible the other day, and noticed something I had not noticed before: until the birth of Eve, Adam is mute. God creates Adam, gives him mastery over almost all of nature, puts him in a Garden where all his needs are taken care of, and gives him the sole commandment not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and through it all Adam says not a word. Then God puts him to sleep and extracts Eve from his side and—voila!—the man speaks. He looks at Eve and says, “Now this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh…” (Genesis 2:23).

Adam’s first words are neither to God nor to Eve but to himself. His speech is self-reflexive, the emergence of the other, Eve, gives rise to self-awareness and speech.

Why? Because self and other go together like front and back. The creation of Eve is the creation of Adam. Adam was unaware of himself before Eve. Self and Other arise together, and together they create speech.

Of course Eve remains silent. It is not until she meets the serpent that she begins to speak. Is the serpent is her other? No. The serpent speaks to Eve first. She is his other, just as she was Adam’s other. Her speech is in response to the serpent, and a bit latter in response to God who wants to know why she ate from the Tree. Eve doesn’t initiate self-reflexive speech until she births Cain (Genesis 4:1). She sees what has come forth from her and this other creates her sense of self. She is for the first time a fully realized “I.”

What does this mean? The Torah can never be reduced to one meaning, but it may suggest that the self is a by-product of the creative act. It is not the self that creates another, but the act of creating another that creates the self.

I experience this all the time. When I am in a creative mode I cannot say “I” am creating something, rather something is being created and “I” enter into the picture only to evaluate what was created. In fact, if “I” appear on the scene too early, the creative act ceases and whatever was in the process of emerging is gone. This is why I find the creative process essentially spiritual.

Is this what the Genesis author intended us to see in her story of Adam, Eve, and Cain? I can’t say for sure, but it is certainly there to find. Which is what makes the Bible worth reading in the first place.

Do Ya Wanna Know The Secret?

This is my second blog entry on “The Secret,” Rhonda Byrne’s dangerous piece of New Age boomer madness. I am posting it in answer to those who emailed me asking if “The Secret” says what I say it says. To answer that question I have quoted liberally from the book (I have not seen the DVD) and added my comments to the quotes. Unfortunately blogger.com does not allow italics, so the quotations are a bit hard to distinguish from the commentary. Just keep in mind everything after a page number is me.
•••
Everything that is coming into your life you are attracting into your life…Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you. (p.4) If you are the victim of abuse, disease, or injustice it is your fault for thinking thoughts that create abuse, disease, and injustice. There is no need to change the world, just change your thoughts about it.
•••
You are the most powerful magnet in the Universe! (p.7) This notion that you are a magnet is the central metaphor of The Secret. Obviously they mean this metaphorically; otherwise you would be covered in iron filings. Coupled with the idea that you are a magnet is the notion that “like attracts like.” Unfortunately for The Secret this is not true; opposites attract: positively charged magnets attract negatively charged objects, negatively charged magnets attract positively charged objects. This is just the opposite of what The Secret claims is the secret.
•••
Since you attract to you what you think about most, it is easy to see what your dominant
thoughts have been on every subject of your life, because that is what you have experienced. (p.9) In other words, if there is evil in your life it is your fault for putting it there. Tell that to the Jews in Nazi Germany, or Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, or the people being murdered in Darfur.
•••
The law of attraction is a law of nature. (p.13) No it isn’t. The Law of Attraction is a law of motivational speakers.
•••
Quantum physicists tell us that the entire Universe emerged from thought! (p. 15) No it doesn’t. Physics, quantum or otherwise, does not know from what the universe emerged. But if The Secret is right, then you and I are only thoughts in someone else’s mind, and therefore have no control over anything at all.
•••
You can begin to consciously choose your thoughts, and you can change your life. (p19) While it is true you can change your life (do things differently) it is not true that you can consciously choose your thoughts. In order to choose my thoughts there must already be thoughts from among which to choose. If these thoughts are already there, I didn’t think them, yet The Secret’s Law of Attaction is already in play and my choosing among them is too little too late.
•••
Meditation quiets the mind, helps you control your thoughts. (p. 23) No it doesn’t. Meditation allows you to witness your thoughts without getting caught up in them. Good thought, bad thoughts—just thoughts. Meditation isn’t about choosing to think good thoughts; it is about living without getting trapped in thoughts at all.
•••
“I am the master of my thoughts.” (p. 23) Try this experiment. For the next ten seconds do not think of a naked skier speeding down the slopes of Aspen. You can’t help yourself. You are not the master of your thoughts. The thoughts you notice are already thought, so how can you be their master?
•••
This is your life, and it’s been waiting for you to discover it! (p.41) Wait a minute. First we are told that we are to create our life now we are told we are to discover it. Creation and discovery are mutually exclusive. If my life is to be discovered then it is already created and my thoughts have nothing to do with it. The secret to The Secret may be to say outrageous things in sentences ending with exclamation points and hope no one pays much attention to what is being said.
•••
Nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it through persistent thoughts. (p. 43) You were raped? Your fault. You were abused as a child? Your fault. You are the victim of racism, sexism, or other injustice? It is your fault. Don’t put an end to evil and injustice, simply stop attracting these into your life.
•••
The first step is to ask. Make a command to the Universe. Let the Universe know what you want. The Universe responds to your thoughts. (p. 47) Do you have any idea how huge the Universe is? Do you have any idea how infinitesimal your brain waves are in comparison? The Universe is not your cosmic concierge.
•••
Now that you know you can have, be, or do anything, and there are no limits, what do you want? (p. 47) I can imagine few things more frightening that a world were everyone gets everything they want. Endless desire as Ecclesiastes, Buddha, and Jesus teach us is the root of all suffering.
•••
Ask once, believe you have received, and all you have to do it receive is feel good. (p. 53) The assumption is that you can control your feelings, but you can’t. You don’t even know what you are feeling until you are feeling it. The Secret is about feeling good, but the truth is that you are made to feel a much fuller and richer palate of emotions. There is nothing wrong with feeling sadness, guilt, remorse, or anything else. Don’t control your feelings; just don’t let your feelings control your behavior.
•••
Time is an illusion. Einstein told us that. (p. 62) No he didn’t. Einstein said time is relative to the speed of light, not that time is an illusion.
•••
What quantum physicists and Einstein tell us is that everything is happening simultaneously… If everything is happening at the one time, then the parallel version of you with what you want already exists. (p.62) First of all Einstein didn’t say this, and if The Secret is going to rely on Parallel Universe theory they are in trouble. Parallel Universe Theory says that all possibilities must exist, each in its own universe. If this is true then there is a “you” that has everything you desire, but that “you” isn’t you and you can never be that “you” because that would destroy the very fabric of reality on which the Parallel Universe Theory rests.
•••
It is impossible to bring more into your life if you are feeling ungrateful about what you have. (p. 77) While I am a firm believer in gratitude, it just isn’t true that lack of gratitude blocks you from getting more. First of all, behavior is what matters and not feelings and gratitude is a feeling. Second, there are plenty of wealthy people who lack all gratitude and their money still grows. It’s called compound interest.
•••
Think about the inventors and their inventions… They only way anything has ever been invented or created is because one person saw a picture in his mind. He saw it clearly, and by holding that picture of the end result in his mind, all the forces of the universe brought his invention into the world, through him. (p. 82) This is patently (pun intended) untrue. Inventors work by trial and error. Failure and persistence in the face of failure is a key to creativity not its nemesis.
•••
The only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts. (p. 98) Wow, talking about ending welfare as we know it. This is blaming the victim at its socio-economic worst, and leads to a world of selfishness that would make even Ayn Rand turn over in her grave.
•••
I never opened my bills until I had got myself into the feeling that they were checks. If I opened my bills before convincing myself they were checks, my stomach would churn when I opened them. (p. 105). Does this really work? You know they are bills (otherwise you wouldn’t have to pretend they are checks), so you lie to yourself before you open them. OK, but what do you when you do open them? Do you try to cash them? Can you think the bank into giving you cash for bills? Or do you still have to pay them? Since you think they are checks rather than bills, however, you won’t pay them, and the bank will repo your car and foreclose on your house. Who’s happy now?
•••
…Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus were not only prosperity teachers, but also millionaires themselves, with more affluent lifestyles than many present-day millionaires could conceive of. (p.109) Dangling participles aside, this is just bizarre. Jesus said it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven. (Matthew 19:24) He tells the wealthy Pharisee to give all he has to the poor. (Mark 10:21) And he tells the apostles to travel and teach without a staff, bread, or money (Mark 6:8). I think it clear here what The Secret really worships.
•••
You can think your way to the perfect state of health, the perfect body, the perfect weight, and eternal youth. You can bring it into being, through your consistent thinking of perfection. (p. 131) Illness, anorexia, obesity, even aging is your fault. Genes don’t matter. Don’t waste money on health insurance, and don’t bother fixing the nation’s healthcare system— just think healthy thoughts.
•••
You cannot “catch” anything unless you think you can, and thinking you can is inviting it to you with your thought. (p. 132) Aids? Your fault. Cancer? Your fault. I wonder if any of the The Secret folks get ill or immunized their children or grandchildren?
•••
When I discovered The Secret I made a decision that I would not watch the news or read newspapers anymore, because it did not make me feel good. (p. 145) Rather than feel pain and sorrow over the injustice and suffering in the world, rather than take action to stop the madness that your government may be engaged in, rather than take any responsibility for being a global citizen and working toward global justice and peace, The Secret tells us to take refuge in ignorance. This is unconscionable.
•••
Nothing is limited—not resources or anything else. It is only limited in the human mind. (p. 149) This kind of thinking leads to environmental exploitation and degradation all in the name of greed. The only thing that is unlimited is the amount of injustice The Secret is willing to sanction.
•••
I never studied science or physics at school, and yet when I read complex books on quantum physics I understood them perfectly because I wanted to understand them. (p. 156) For The Secret even education is a waste of time. I wonder if, on the off chance that one of The Secret people needs a doctor, or a mechanic, or financial advisor if they go to one who just read about on her own or if they seek out someone who is well schooled in their field?
•••
The Secret makes a mockery of social justice, environmental sanity, education, health care, ethics, and civil rights. It celebrates greed and a level of narcissism that verges on sociopathology. The Secret should be exposed for what it is, motivational snake oil, and used as a platform for discussing how best to live in the real world guided by the universal challenge of all great religions to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.

The Real Secret

I watched Oprah’s “The Secret” yesterday and was outraged by what I heard. The all-star panel that Oprah assembled to promote The Secret comprised wealthy motivational speakers and authors, the secular equivalent of tent meeting evangelical preachers. I was all the more troubled because I am a fan of one panel member, Rev. Michael Beckwith, and suspect that if he had been on by himself we would have had a very different show.

A book/DVD phenomenon from Australia, the secret The Secret reveals is the Law of Attraction: the life you live is the result of the thoughts you think and feelings you feel. I find this so disturbing I hardly know where to begin. So here are just four quick thoughts. I may write a more detailed review of this book but for now this will have to do.

1. The Secret says, “All forms of matter and energy are attracted to that which is of a like vibration.” To test this out, I took a rock, broke it in half and waited for the two halves to move toward one another. I’m still waiting.

2. The Secret says, “You are a living magnet.” What? Magnets do not attract likes; magnets attract opposites!

3. The Secret says your thoughts and feelings determine your reality, and that you should choose which thoughts and feelings to focus on. The problem is that by the time you have thoughts and feelings among which to choose you have already thought and felt the negatives you don’t want to chose and have thus fallen victim to the Law of Attraction. You can’t win!

4. The idea that you create your own reality, denies everything we know about genetics, ignores things like racism, sexism, social, political, and economic injustice, and blames the victim for all the horrors one endures. If you didn’t think “rape” you wouldn’t have attracted a rapist.

The Secret is simply Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking repackaged for New Age seekers. Sure it helps to be positive, but it helps more to do positive. Actions influence feelings and thoughts and are by and large under your control. To use the mind to fix the mind is to simply make you crazier.

Your behavior, far more than your thoughts and feelings, determine much but not all of your reality. If you are depressed and try to think or feel your way of out it, you will only get more depressed. Instead, do something constructive (see “Constructive Living” by David Reynolds and checkout the ToDo Institute on line). Doing good will often make us feel good. But if we wait to feel good before doing good will do very little good.

Here is the real secret: a sucker is born every minute and The Secret is going to milk them dry.

No "I" In Team

There is was again, that ubiquitous cliché “There’s no ‘I’ in team” coughed up by some sports hero to downplay the fact that he carried his team to victory in the Super Bowl. I understand the need for this kind of talk, but let’s face: it there are two I’s in humility.

So I decided to spend a few minutes looking for other “No I” wisdom. If any of these catch on please give me credit, after all there is an “I” in credit.

There is no “I” in sex, which is why masturbation is evil, which, by the way, has an “I.”
There is no “I” in fuck, but there is a “U” which may mean something.
There is no “I” in mortgage or rent, so why should I have to pay these?
There is no “I” in goodness, but there is an “I” in sin.
There is no “I” in looser, so be sure to blame someone else for your screw ups.
There is no “I” in company, which is why the individual worker usually gets screwed.
There is no “I” in human, which means being one is no guarantee of being an individual.
There is no “I” in man or woman, but there is an “I” in insect. Go figure.
There is no “I” in me, which is what the Buddha taught 2500 years ago.
There is no “I” in Buddha because there is no “I” in me.
There is no “I” in Jesus, but there are three in Christianity. Must be the Trinity.
There is no “I” in Torah, Koran, or Gospel so don’t try to read these books by yourself.
There is no “I” in terror, but there is one in terrorist.
There is no “I” in holy, but there are two each in religious and spiritual.
There is no “I” in death so no need to worry about after-life or reincarnation.
There is no “I” in church, synagogue, or mosque, but check out priest, rabbi, and imam.
There is no “I” in joy, but there is one in pain.
There is no “I” in reason, but there are two in insanity.
There is no “I” in God, but there is one in Rami.

If you want to make bumper stickers out of any of these, please be my guest. Or if you come up with some of your own post them on the Blogspot version of ToTo.

Straight Shot to Straighthood

Hallelujah! After three weeks of intensive therapy and a few months of prayer, Ted Haggard, the homophobic homosexual preacher, is now, in his own words, “completely heterosexual.” Based on my own sources what the Rev. Haggard actually said was “I am completely straight, totally not gay, absolutely heterosexual, beyond a shadow of a doubt playing for the right team, I mean if I lived in Sodom I would have given the angels to the mob and saved Lot’s daughters for myself. I am not gay!”

Good for him. I knew homosexuality was a matter of choice no different that being Democratic or Republican (except that your father determines your politics while an overbearing mother makes you gay). And if you get caught being a total hypocrite by damning gays and lesbians while secretly playing for their team, you can hide out for a few months in the Betty Page Clinic for the Straight and Narrow(minded) and then declare yourself a changed man.

What kills me isn’t that Ted fled to rehab—every rich schmuck in this country outed as a racist, xenophobe, homophobe, or anti-Semite runs to rehab if they can afford it—no, what kills me is that Rev. Haggard’s tens of thousands of followers will swallow (no pun intended) his changed man routine hook, line, and sinker.

I can imagine them on CNN, their faces puffy with thanksgiving, their eyes moist and glued heavenward, invoking the idea that God is love and love is nothing if not forgiving unless you happen to be of the wrong religion in which case God’s love is right up there with Hitler’s Final Solution. But this is bull. The reason they will accept Ted’s conversion from gay to straight in three months flat is that they cannot stomach the idea that God could make homosexuals in the first place.

Other TV preachers have had sexual scandals with prostitutes, but with female prostitutes. This is natural: men—God fearing, red-blooded, all-American men (like Jimmy Carter) lust after women. But homosexuality is something else. No straight guy is sexually attracted to men. Of course if we are honest, or Freudian, we must admit that most men are not as heterosexual as Ted would like us to believe he now is, but by and large straight guys don’t call male prostitutes for massages and meth.

So, if Ted is going to sin, and all of us sin, why sin that way? If homosexuality is a choice and no heterosexual man is inclined to make that choice, then, given that Ted did make that choice, we can only assume that he is not heterosexual, that he was born gay. That is the way God made him. Otherwise he would have had called a female prostitute.

So Rev. Ted can say whatever he has to to get his life and career back together. His wife can say whatever she has to to save face and stand by her man. But, please, let the rest of us not be fooled. Ted is gay and God made him that way. My only problem is that we can’t love him the way he is. Will somebody please send him a lifetime membership to GLAAD? And a carton of Snickers.

Stop Snicker(s)ing or Don’t Get MADD get GLAAD

While I am pleased that GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) got those terrible Snickers ads off the air and Internet, I am more than a bit distressed by the whole affair.

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl last Sunday because I don’t like to watch giant hulking sweating grunting men pile on top of one another in some obscene parody of Lynndie England's patriotic photos at Abu Ghraib. But it seems that the good people of GLAAD do watch and did us all a favor by attacking these ads.

If you didn’t see it on TV (or the different versions of it) on the Internet, the ad features two giant hulking sweating grunting men working on a truck. One whips out his Snickers and starts to suck it into his mouth hands-free. His coworker, obviously driven by a deep-seated hunger for a chocolate, caramel and peanut phallus-shaped concoction began sucking in the other end.

Just like the clearly heterosexual dogs sucking a single strand of spaghetti in the Disney classic Lady and the Tramp, our two giant hulking sweating grunting men end up kissing. Disgusted by their sudden moment of intimacy and clearly doubting whether real men suck Snickers, they leap apart and seek to prove their hetero-hood by ripping out their chest hair or, in the versions on the Internet, beating themselves with wrenches and truck hoods like Click and Clack if the Tappit Brothers were Opus Dei or Shi’ite flagellants.

Now you may not be bothered by two giant hulking sweating grunting men sucking on a single Snickers bar but GLAAD people are and they got the candy company to cancel the ad. Good for them. I personally love Snickers but I have to admit I will never ever be able to eat one again with engaging in of some homoerotic fantasy, something that usually only happens when I eat Three Musketeers bars.

I’m serious— these ads have ruined Snickers bars for me. In fact now I’m skittish about eating any candy bar whose shape reminds me either of spaghetti (and hence bestiality) or a penis.

To check out my new phobia I went to a series of grocery and drug stores to buy one or another chocolate bar in the hitherto mentioned shapes. Just walking down the isle made be queasy. I started to swagger and talk like John Wayne just to make sure no one thought I was gay or GLAAD or even happy to be there.

Yet I love chocolate. At first I thought I could take refuge in M&Ms but that “melts in your mouth and not in your hand” slogan is now taboo. What to do? With a little careful searching I found Godiva Chocolate, and there is nothing that says heterosexual more than eating Godiva. Unless you are a lesbian. Damn!

Mea Culpa

My last blog (I’m Sorry, So Sorry) contained an error I feel compelled to correct. While I was right to absolve my people from the murder of Jesus Christ, I was incorrect to absolve myself. As it turns out, I did kill Jesus Christ.

It’s true. I did it in a past life. Usually I don’t believe in reincarnation, seeing it as another of the ego’s endless attempts to avoid its own dissolution into the greater unity of God, but I now see that my theology may be just my attempt to avoid facing my own guilt over the murder of God. You see I once again telepathically contacted with Iraqi astrologer Ali al-Bakri (see Must Seer TV) on the issue of who killed Jesus and this is what he told me:

I was a Jew in first-century Jerusalem. I hated Jesus because his mother told him he was God while my mother told me I was God. Since we Jews have only one God, I knew Jesus for lying. At the time Jesus showed up I was working on a marketing plan to promote myself as God. My mistake was announcing my divinity through John the Proctologist rather than John the Baptist. I thought I’d reach more people at the mall than the Jordan. Who knew?

So Jesus had a head start, but I followed him around and tried to attract the Jews away from him. I showed up at the wedding feast in Cana with a gift of the finest wine, but Jesus’ mother met me at the door, took the wine, stuck a gift card from Jesus on it, and made sure he got the credit. Then I tried feeding people with loaves and fishes, but he sent out for baskets of food and I only paid for a Happy Meal (I kept the Tickle Me Herod doll that came with it, though my mother gave it away at the Massada Army charity drive). We both showed up at the stoning of the adulterous woman. Jesus wrote something on the ground and said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” I wrote on the ground too, “Fine Throwing Stones, Two for A Shekel.” Jesus had his Last Supper while I tried a Going Out of Business Sale. Nothing worked, and he was very convincing with all his healings.

Then Jesus got arrested and turned over to Pilate (the Roman Procurator not the guy who invented the exercise system). Well, I didn’t want to win this way so I got a bunch of Jews to go with me to Pilate and demand Jesus’ release. When Pilate asks me “Whom do you want?” (Romans are nothing if not grammatically correct. I think it’s because they had to learn Latin as kids.) I sarcastically answer, “Who you got?” He says, “Barabbas.” I sarcastically say “Right, we want Barabbas” and he gives me Barabbas. Romans have no feel for sarcasm.

Now I really felt bad, so I go to talk to Jesus while he’s hanging on the cross. I want to apologize for not rescuing him, and maybe get an endorsement. By the time I get there the guards think he’s dead. To be sure the Centurion in charge starts to poke him with his spear. Still trying to get close to Jesus I jostle the Centurion and accidentally push the spear into Jesus’ side. That did it. Dead for sure. I killed him.

That’s how it happened, and I feel really bad about it. So I apologize for the killing of Christ. It was my fault and mine alone. So please, people, leave the Jews alone.

So Sorry

The good people of Virginia voted last Wednesday to apologize for slavery. The Virginia House Rules Committee unanimously passed a measure expressing “profound regret” for the state’s slave trade and other injustices against African Americans and Native Americans. I think that is great. No, honestly, I do. Notwithstanding the fact that it is cheaper to apologize than it is to pay back wages for hundreds of years of slave labor, and that it is easier to apologize than it is to actually end racism, I was still touched by the gesture. In fact I was so moved that I wrote to the Egyptian President asking that he consider passing a measure apologizing to the Jews for centuries of Egyptian slavery. Here is part of the letter I received in return:

“While your suggestion is an intriguing one, I feel such a letter to your people would only be possible after the Jews first issued an apology to the Egyptian people for working with Pharaoh to strip the Egyptian peasants of their land and livelihood perhaps even forcing them leave their land and migrate to the cities as slaves in the time of your ancestor Joseph (Please see your Bible, Genesis 47:13-21).”

I wrote a similar letter to the King of Saudi Arabia asking that he issue an apology to the Jews for the Muslim role in fostering anti-Semitism, and received this in response:

“In the Name of Allah the All Merciful, your idea is ridiculous. But if such an apology were to come it would only be given after your people apologize to my people for your mother Sarah’s brutal treatment of our mother Hagar and her son Ishmael, peace be upon them. It was her inhumanity that started the feud between our peoples. She is your mother. Do something.”

As these letters are coming in, I learn that not everyone in Virginia is happy with the apology that was issued there. Virginia Delegate Frank Hargrove Sr., who, I was shocked to learn, is a white Republican, opposed the measure saying that blacks “should get over” slavery. He followed that up with (and I kid you not), “Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?”

Whoa! We did work with Pharaoh to destroy the Egyptian people, and we did send Hagar and Ishmael out to die in the desert, so on behalf of my people: I am sorry. Sorry, ashamed, embarrassed, and outraged at my ancestors and at my contemporaries who read these things year in and year out without being sorry, ashamed, embarrassed or outraged themselves. But the no more killed Jesus than the planes killed the Beast. It was the Romans in the first case and beauty in the second.

Yes there were Jews, especially the ruling class bought and paid for by the Romans who collaborated in his arrest, and were not sad to see him go (though very unhappy when he came back three days later), but neither they nor we killed him. Even pre-rehab Mel Gibson admitted that. So get it through you thick, white, Republican head Delegate Hargrove: chances are better that your ancestors killed Christ than mine.

Must Seer TV

Iraq has a new hit television show called Your Fortune. Hosted by two astrologers, Hadeel al-Bayati, who looks suspiciously like Monica Lewinsky, and her male counterpart Ali al-Bakri, the show fields calls and emails from all over Iraq.

I tried emailing the show myself, but I didn’t hear back. I am, however, being spammed by some group selling penis enhancing drugs for would-be martyrs: “If you don’t want them the remain virgins, you need Miracle-Gro.”

Since the hosts of Your Fortune are psyches I decided to contact them the old fashioned way—through telepathy. This proved to be very effective.

Rami: Thanks for taking my ethereal-net call, Ali.

Ali: No problem. What is on your mind which I say only to be polite since I already know what is on your mind being a psychic and no, Hadeel is not here.

Rami: Oh. Well. Listen, I have a question. Our president…

Ali: George W. Bush.

Rami: Wow, you are good. Anyway, our president thinks we need 21,500 more troops in Iraq. General Casey who is up for Army Chief of Staff says we need far fewer than this. Who is right, and how many do we need?

Ali: Yes, yes, let me see what the stars say. Actually your General Casey is right and you need fewer troops.

Rami: Really! How many fewer?

Ali: 21,499 fewer.

Rami: What? We only need one additional soldier in Iraq? Who?

Ali: Superman. He is really Clark Kent, but don’t tell anyone. It is a secret known only to Ma and Pa Kent and perhaps the Bat-Man.

Rami: You do know that Superman is a fictional character.

Ali: Yes, of course, but President George has been using fiction to run this war all along, so there is no problem. But Iran may be smuggling Kryptonite into Baghdad, so you should take out Teheran on the way over. Or, to be safe, may be to send entire Justice League of Great Satan, oh, sorry, of America, would be better. Wonder Woman would have to wear burka, however. Anyway, I must run. Just a warning: I could be wrong about the troops. Ever since Pluto was eliminated as planet everything having to do with Iraq and America is up Uranus. Good-bye.

Nothing to Fear but Fearful Lights Themselves

Boston shut down in fear last Wednesday (January 31) because a couple of guys hired by Cartoon Network put up blinking cartoon characters to hype a cartoon called Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

This is the second time in recent months that a cartoon has caused mass hysteria, the first being the cartoons of Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) published in Denmark. Now, I thought then that the reaction of Muslims to the cartoons was, shall we say, insane, but the response to this totally innocuous blinking light thing was absolutely mad.

The government has gotten us so jumpy with its Orange Alerts and Terror Toothpaste Rulings and Let’s Get Naked In Public X-Ray machines that we are ready to believe that Captain Crunch and General Mills are preparing a coup against the government. (Speaking of the new X-Ray machines, have you stood in an airport security lately? Unless you live in LA, Miami, or Bermuda, you don’t want to see your fellow travelers naked on the x-ray scanner. We are a nation of obese transfat fried coach potatoes who can barely fit in the narrow seats on the plane. I don’t want to see most people clothed, let alone naked. And that goes for me as well.)

So these guys put up the blinking lights in the shape of some 1970’s looking cheesey (hmmm cheeeesy…) video arcade game character and people jump out of their skin. The cops are called, the National Guard is turned out, the Minute Men grab their muskets, tea is tossed into Boston Harbor, witches are burned in Salem, and the great great great great grandson Paul Revere rides his Harley through the countryside crying, “The Blinkies are coming the Blinkies are Coming!”

The new Governor of Massachusetts, Deval(ution) Patrick calls it a “hoax.” Assuming Deval knows what a hoax is, this is not a hoax. This is a marketing campaign. A hoax is Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds. No, even that wasn’t a hoax. That was a radio show that proved in the 1930’s what the blinking lights prove in the 2000’s— Americas are scared shitless! A hoax is getting people to think that anyone you see during the first eight weeks of American Idol has a chance to become America’s idol.

What caused all this madness? Four calls to Boston PD around 1 p.m. citing USBCCs (unidentified stationary blinking cartoon characters) around the city. Of course the police should check things out. But was it really necessary to call in Homeland Security? And just when they were about to stop twelve billion Mexicans from illegally crossing into America to take jobs that Americans no long want to do (like putting up unidentified stationary blinking cartoon characters in American cities)?

We are a nation afraid of its own shadow. This is very dangerous. Things will only get worse, and we will use our fear to justify all kinds of evil. It is one thing to waste tens of thousands of dollars in the war against blinking cartoon lights, but this is only the beginning. Soon we will start rounding up, oh let’s say, Muslims just to be safe. I know you say it can’t happen here, but, yes, Mrs. Yamagoto, it can. I saw it on 24.

A Maccaca Moment or Biden His Time

Senator Joe Biden, would be Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 2008, gave even Paula Zahn a start when he said that Barack Obama, would be Democratic nominee for Messiah, was the first clean African American to run for the Presidency. Now, to be fair (if not balanced) Joe meant BO was “fresh,” “new,” or “forward thinking,” all good words when it comes to marketing a presidential hopeful. And maybe that is what he meant. I cannot judge whether or not this was Biden’s Maccaca Moment, the racially ugly Freudian Slip that sank whatshisname in the West Virginia Senate race. I can’t judge because I myself am racially colorblind.

I mean it. I never take race or color into account. I am so color blind that while I am certain I have friends who are African American, Chinese American, Japanese American, Latin American, Illegal American, and what-have-you they all look perfectly white Anglo-Saxon to me. You know, normal Americans.

Yes, there was a time when I noticed that some people were black. Virginia coal miners speaking to the cameras after a mine disaster, for example. But I knew that these people were really just like me. And I did have an African America friend with whom I worked at a bank in Boston, but I never looked at his skin color. Or rather I only looked at the color of his skin on the palms of his hands which was basically the same as mine.

So when Kramer goes mad with the N-word, I don’t get it. The fact that they hated his comedy routine had nothing to do with their race. Maybe he just sucked. Which brings me to homophobia. I am as homo-blind as I am colorblind. Not only do I not care which Slot B one inserts Tab A into, I don’t care if those with Slots have no truck with Tabs at all. In fact I think we should get over all this male-female nonsense and just talk about Tabs and Slots. And yes, Tabs are from Mars and Slots are from Venus, but you have to talk to L. Ron Hubbard to find out just why that is.

Anyway, back to clueless Joe and clean BO. I think Barack is clean in every meaning of the word. He looks well washed; he isn’t carrying a gun or wearing a wire; he is young and fresh; and he may be free from political baggage despite the fact that Hillary’s storm troopers have put out the word that Barack HUSSEIN Obama went to a Muslim madrassa as a young boy. What’s his name, again? Barack O-bomb-ah?

Politics is an ugly business, and the only winners are those who don’t mind playing in the muck. If BO is clean now, he won’t be by the time we get to vote for president in November of 2008. Which brings me to my suggestion for the 08 race.

Rather than move the primaries to late 07 and early 08, a tactic that only puts more power into the hands of the politic hacks of the two dominant parties, let’s hold the election before the primaries. That way we can vote for candidates before they devolve into pit bulls. And then I can vote for BO, whom I am told is black, before he becomes unclean.

Circles of Love

This morning in my God of Science/Science of God class at Middle Tennessee State University we explored anthropologist Barbara King’s new book Evolving God. The gist of our conversation centered on Dr. King’s notion that humans evolve toward greater and greater levels of belongingness at some point needing to belong to supernatural communities of gods, spirits, and God. Whether or not such realms exist is not Dr. King’s concern. Religion, she says, is a natural expression of the human need to belong.

King also introduced us to Karen Armstrong’s fabulous phrase “ethical alchemy.” For Armstrong religion at its best is the alchemical transformation of the human from concern solely with self to concern for others to concern for all others, human and otherwise.

When I read Armstrong in the context of King, I found that blending belongingness and ethical alchemy provides us with a scientific means for defining religion and measuring the spiritual maturity of any given religion.

Religion is the practice of cultivating compassion for more and more inclusive levels of being in order to facilitate more and more inclusive levels of belonging.

Belonging alone is not enough. One can be predisposed to belong and find your need to belong met by becoming a Nazi and hanging out with fellow Nazis. Compassion alone is not enough: Hitler loved his Eva and, so I am told, his dog. If however we take King’s evolutionary approach and assume that belonging to more inclusive communities is more evolved than belonging to less inclusive communities, and link that with Armstrong’s ethical alchemy of compassion we can say that the hallmark of a healthy and evolved religion is its capacity to nurture belonging to and feelings of compassion for greater and greater circles of reality: matter, life, mind, soul, and spirit (to borrow from Ken Wilbur’s Great Nest of Being).

This of course has nothing to do with creeds, sacred texts, rituals, symbols, holy days, and the like. These are also part of religion, and we can look at them through the lens of ethical alchemy, asking, To what extent does this book or ritual broaden one’s circle of love? The answer to this question is measurable and hence scientific, and can be used to rank religions and religious practices on an objective scale from less to more loving.

Needless to say I am walking on thin ice here. Yet the purpose of our class is to take a hard look at where science and spirituality can talk to one another to each other’s mutual benefit. Today I think we did just that.

PS: The God of Science and the Science of God class is part of the Mobius Center for Science and Spirituality, a joint project of MTSU and my One River Foundation. We will post this class on line over the summer. A second video-based project called “10 Questions” will explore students’ thoughts on religion and spirituality. This too will be available on the Internet. I want to thank all of you who have donated to Mobius and invite others interested in science and spirituality to help us as well. Email me if you want to learn how you can help.

God's Fool

Every once in a while I am blessed with the opportunity to act as God’s fool. Last night was one of those times.

Just prior to Thanksgiving I traveled to Israel with a small group of Nashville rabbis and Evangelical pastors. Last night we convened an open forum to discuss our first-of-its-kind journey with the community at large. Hundreds of people attended. For the most part we focused on a number of amazing moments of deep dialogue that occurred between us, and while it is my habit to play Devil’s Advocate in such settings, I kept myself under control, and happily joined in the Jewish-Evangelical camaraderie. And then I got carried away.

An audience member asked a question regarding the fate of the Jews in the Evangelical scheme of things. The pastors spoke passionately about God’s eternal covenant with the Jewish people and how the modern State of Israel was proof of God’s steadfast love of the Jews. As they spoke I kept waiting for something more. As I heard the question, the person was not asking about the political fate of the Jews in this world, but the eternal fate of the Jews in the world to come.

While I applaud and welcome Christian Zionism and its love of and support for Israel, I had learned, or thought I had learned, that in addition to their belief that God would resettle the Jews in Israel the relationship between God and the Jews was such that they had a special place in Heaven that did not require them to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I swear to Krishna I heard this from the pastors while I was in Israel.

Proud of my evangelical friends’ theological liberalism I took the microphone and shared that teaching with the crowd, inviting the pastors to affirm that I had heard them correctly.

Dead silence. A dead, dark, deafening silence that sucked the heads of my colleagues deep into their shoulders. The kind of silence neither Rachel Carlson nor Clarice’s lambs could never know. A silence so painful I smelled brimstone rising around my chair.

Suddenly our moderator, a Vatican Two Catholic who believed God, like Motel Six, left a light on for all people, said, “Well, I want to thank you all for coming. Good night.”

Really, that is how the evening ended. A ninety-minute Jewish-Evangelical love-fest ruined by five seconds of, “What, you still think I’m going to burn in Hell for all eternity? Damn!”

To be fair, one Evangelical panel member came up to me afterward and copped to being the one who told me Jews were going to Heaven, but admitted to being the odd person out theologically. I just heard what I wanted to hear. I do that a lot.

I am not proud of ending the evening on a down note. It was not my intent. In fact, I had intended the opposite. But if someone had to point out that the Emperor wore no clothes, I am glad it was me.

Proud to be an American

Barack Obama, whose initials alone will preclude his ever being elected president of the United States, announced that he is formally exploring a run for the presidency in 2008. Like so many others I love BO. True, I know little of what he stands for, but that doesn’t matter. He is young, handsome, cool, hip, and black. For the moment that is plenty.

But as much as I am happy to raise my arms and shout, I love BO (is this joke getting stale?), I am even more happy to shout “I love America.” I am so proud to be an American. Yes, we are screwing up royally in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Syria, Darfur, and probably a dozen other places of which I am unaware, there is something very exciting going on as we move into the presidential race of 2008.

Look at the likely candidates from the Democratic Party alone: Hillary Clinton, a woman; Barack Obama, an African American; Bill Richardson, a Hispanic; John Edwards, a WASP. What other country has such diversity? If we could get Joe Liberman to run again and add a Native American to the mix, you would have to vote Democratic just to make history. Of course you couldn’t vote for Edwards, but we could make him a secretary of something or other.

Can you imagine a Native American and Jewish Joe winning the White House? They could pay off our national debt through casino and bingo winnings alone. And I would love to see a National Totem Pole next to the Nation’s Christmas Tree and Menorah.

But I’m serious: what other country could do this? Sure, Israel had Golda, India had Gandhi, and England had Maggie, but none of them was Hispanic. The fact that we can field a diverse slate of candidates like this says more about us than any foreign policy madness coming out of the White House.

I am deeply saddened by and angered over American foreign policy. But I am proud to be an American. I don’t think we can or should promote American values in other countries; I do think we have to protect our civil liberties in the face of an emerging American fascism hiding behind fear of Islamic terrorism and insane notions such as The War on Christmas. And I am proud that we have not abandoned our true values— not the narrow minded heretic hunting witch burning values of the Puritans, but the liberal values of the Enlightenment that laid set in motion a country that is devoted to putting the ax to sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, etc.

With our values in place, I am confident we can survive the last years of neo-con madness with our souls intact.

Taming the Taliban

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. In an essay by Dinesh D’Souza entitled “The America Terrorists Never See” (USA Today, Tuesday, January 23, 2007), Mr. D’Souza says that the only reason Muslim terrorists hate us is because of our decadent American values. Democracy and capitalism are OK and Islam isn’t really opposed to them. What Muslims hate and what Americans have to stop exporting is our wicked culture. If we want to win the hearts and minds of Muslim s abroad President Bush must highlight the America not portrayed by Hollywood or the music industry:

“He should not hesitate to speak out against American cultural exports that are shameless and corrupting. And America should promote traditional family values, not feminism and homosexual rights, in international forums like the United Nations.

“If traditional Muslims realized that there are millions of Americans who go to church, take care of their families, and live by traditional values, they would be less likely to view us or our leaders as the Great Satan, and fewer of them would be tempted to join the camp of the Islamic radicals.”

I read this with stunned disbelief. What Mr. D’Souza is suggesting is that we portray a Taliban-like America in order to win over the Taliban-like Muslim. It would go something like this:

Hey, look at us; we don’t give our women equal rights either! We make the mistake of allowing abortion, but we are trying to correct that. And we still don’t pay them as much as men, so we really are on the right track.

And, don’t worry about gays; we hate homos as much as you guys do. In America, we don’t even allow men to hold hands, and the Saudis do that, so we are even more homophobic— no need to fear us (unless of course you’re a closeted gay Muslim in which case we will beat your ass to prove to your straight Allah fearing neighbors that we are as tough and God fearing as they are).

Yeah, and we hate Hollywood! The only TV we really love is House on the Prairie and 24 (and those Muslims on the show are evil only because they don’t realize that we Americans love God and hate gays just like they do).

And music? If it weren’t for those godless liberals we’d burn people like Madonna. Look it up, those are the values our country was founded on. Good Christian values like burning people at the state, and pillorying unbelievers in the stockade, and exiling heretics from God-fearing colonies like Massachusetts.

And we love church. Sure our preachers say that Allah is a false god and Mohammed is a pedophile, but you say Jesus isn’t the biological son of God, and we known that’s not true. So let’s not quibble about the fact that you are going to burn in Hell for all eternity.

Yep, America isn’t the Great Satan, liberals are. So if you are going to set off a nuke in America do it in LA just like you did on 24. And don’t worry, this time we’ll send Jack Bower after the ACLU.

The Power of Juan

If you want to make money in the religion business you have got to start your own religion. I am fishing for some good ideas, and praying for God to guide me in this venture. As if in answer to my prayer, as I was watching a trailer for the movie called One, the Movie, I was struck with a revelation. God may be calling me to promote the Power of Juan.

Since I was sixteen I was convinced that God is one. Not simply one numerically, but the only one, all there is. Some forty years later I realize that I was wrong. I am not called to teach that God is one, but the truer belief that God is Juan:

HEAR O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD, THE LORD IS JUAN! THE LORD IS JUAN AND HIS NAME IS JUAN! BLESSED IS THE JUAN FOREVER AND EVER!

At last I realize the truth. But intellectual knowing is not enough. We need a practice of realizing the Juanness of all. This practice I call Juandering. It is a walking meditation practice incorporating the repetition of the Divine Name, Juan, leading to the state of Juanness, the state of being aware of the Juan in, with, and as all things. In addition thrice-daily prayer will be instituted were we ask God to make us Juan with everything.

Every faith needs a clergy, so I am creating the Holy Order of Juan, members of which will be called Juanitas. A bishop elected by the community itself will lead each local Juanita community. The bishop will be called Don Juan. Juanitas and their Don will gather on Day Juan of each week (Sunday to pagans) to Juander together through their respective neighborhoods singing praises to the Juan.

To help deepen our lives we will imitate the lives of saints. Chief among these is Jesus who taught that he and his Father are Juan. All of us can realize this as well.

Since we are all Juan we do not discriminate against women, homosexuals, beings of other species, or nature as a whole. There is also no room for infidels or the damned. There is simply Juan way to live: Juanderfully.

Of course a religion without an enemy lacks drama and that may make it more difficult to sell since there is no one to sell it to, so I single out those who have not yet realized the Juanness of all things. These people engage life from the state of Tunis, that state of mind that is not yet Juan and whole.

To promote my new faith I plan to film: “Juan, The Movie.” In it I travel the globe asking great religious leaders to speak of the Juan. As it becomes clear that each of these sages is committed to the Juan, I am certain that viewers of the film will join my faith and proclaim a new day of Juanness for all.

If you would like to become a Juanita and help develop this faith our most immediate need is for a logo and t-shirt. Then we will need a martyr. Let me know.

Yours in Juan,
Rami.

Heaven and Hell

I received email today from a newspaper reporter requesting that I respond to a series of questions on heaven and hell for an article he was writing. Given the limits of space, I imagine that he will not be able to print the whole of my remarks, so I thought I would share them with you here:

Before I can answer your questions, let me be very clear about my definitions of the words I will use.

First, God. God is the Source and Substance of all that is. God manifests as and transcends all reality. God is not other than creation, nor is God limited to creation.

Second, Self. The individual is a manifestation of God. We are to God as rays of sunlight are to the sun. Sunlight is simply the sun manifest in time and space. It is not other than the sun nor is it all of the sun. You and I are rays of God. We are not all of God, nor are we other than God. This is what the Bible means when it says we are created in the image and likeness of God.

When you know who you are as the image and likeness of God you live from love with love. You embrace each moment with gratitude, and each being with justice and compassion. Living this way is heaven. Living any other way is hell.

So now let me turn to your questions:

1. Is there a heaven or hell?

Heaven and hell are states of mind. The first I call mochin d’gadlut, spacious mind, and the second mochin d’katnut, narrow mind.

When we are in spacious mind we are awake to God in, with, and as all reality; we identify with all life, and find ourselves embraced by and living from ahava rabba, infinite love. In spacious mind there is no Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free, saved or damned. There is only God manifest in infinite variety. In spacious mind we live freely, lovingly, fearlessly, with compassion and hospitality toward all we meet. This is heaven.

When we are in narrow mind we are locked in the prison of ego, and imagine ourselves to be separate from God and creation. We live in perpetual fear, and engage life without trust, love, and compassion. In narrow mind we divide and judge, calling some chosen or saved and others infidels or damned. In narrow mind differences, God’s infinite creativity, scare us, and we worship the idol of conformity. In narrow mind we imagine ourselves to be alone, afraid, and adrift. This is hell.

We move into and out of heaven and hell depending on our state of mind. The purpose of authentic spiritual practice is to open us to heaven and spacious mind. Too often, however, we worship at the altar of ego and end up in the hell of narrow mind. It has nothing to do with God rewarding or punishing us. It has everything to do with our willingness to see what is true.

2. Where do people go after they die?

The question assumes something about people that I do not assume: namely that we are entities separate from God and can therefore “go” somewhere. I do not believe this.

I am to God as a wave to the ocean. Each wave is unique and distinct, yet all waves are nothing other than the ocean in which they arise. Each being is unique and distinct, and yet not other than God who is all that is.

When a wave “dies” it simply returns to its truest nature; it becomes what it always was—the ocean. When I die, I simply return to my true nature, God. Do I “go” anywhere? No. There is nowhere to go. There is only God here, now, as me, as you, as all things rising and falling.

For people who believe that death is the doorway to heaven or hell, eternal reward or punishment, death matters. To me death does not matter. Life and how I live it matters. Death takes care of itself.

3. Why do you believe this?

I believe what I believe because of my experiences in meditation and prayer. I am not moved by doctrine or creed. I am not moved by another’s opinion, or by a teaching in a book, no matter how old or revered. There are many holy books and they say different and often contradictory things. How am I to choose which is true? I prefer to test matters for myself: to look and see what is so. In this I follow the advice of the Bible: be still and know. When I am still, when my narrow mind stops racing from distraction to distraction, I slip into spacious mind and know that God is all.

4. Describe your understanding of what is in heaven and hell.

Given that for me heaven and hell are states of mind here and now, what is in heaven is not different from what is in hell. The difference between heaven and hell is not content, but my relationship to that content.

In both heaven and hell, reality presents itself: there is you, and me, and everything else. When I am in the heavenly state of spacious mind I engage reality with absolute trust, love, compassion, justice, and equanimity. When I am in the hellish state of narrow mind I engage the same reality with absolute terror, anger, defensiveness, and violence. The reality doesn’t change. I change.

You can always tell when you and others are in heaven: you are fearless, loving, welcoming, and kind. You can always tell when you and others are in hell: you are afraid, cruel, divisive, and abusive.

5. Describe your understanding of who will be in heaven and who in hell.

We are all in heaven sometimes and we are in hell sometimes. To the extent that you know you are a manifestation of God, you are in heaven. To the extent that you imagine you are separate from God, you are in hell.

6. How do people get into heaven or hell?

We fall into the mind state of hell through ignorance of what is. We fall into the mind state of heaven by awakening to the awareness of what is.

When we are in hell we are like a man who wakes in the middle of the night to find a poisonous snake coiled next to his leg at the foot of his bed. All night long he lies awake, frozen in terror, praying with all his might that the snake not bite him. As dawn breaks he suddenly sees that the “snake” was no snake at all, but a belt that he forgot to put away when he went to bed. Once he knows the truth, the snake is gone, the fear is gone, and he is filled with joy and relief. This is heaven. The “snake” is the notion that you are other than God. Wake up and you are in heaven. Stay asleep and you are in hell. It is your choice.

Dalit Delete

Despite the fact that India’s constitution abolished the Dalit or Untouchable “caste “ (technically Dalit is not one of the four castes— Priests, Warriors, Merchants, and Laborers) in 1950, millions of Hindus still suffer the harsh indignities of Dalit membership. Within the Hinduism that supports the caste and out-caste system, the best a good Dalit can hope for is to merit rebirth as a member of a higher caste by submitting quietly to the horrors of Dalit life. This is a flawless system of social control.

While rebirth may provide hope for many Dalit, millions of other Untouchables have found a way of raising their status in this life: they are converting to Buddhism. Buddhism has no caste system, and by becoming a Buddhist a Dalit ceases to be a Dalit. Last October alone almost 200,000 Dalit Hindus became Buddhists thus saving themselves potentially countless lifetimes working their way up the Hindu ladder of success.

This got me thinking. If Hindus can by-pass the negative side of their religion by changing teams, why can’t the rest of us? If you are a Doubting Thomas Christian, for example, and just cannot be certain that your faith is strong enough to secure you a place in Heaven, why not become a Jew? As a Jew you can measure your success by tallying how many good deeds and religious obligations you do versus what a schmuck you are. A single good deed can tip an otherwise balanced scale and get you into heaven. Deeds, unlike faith, are something under your control; so make the switch.

Or if you a Jew who can’t shake the notion that Moses invented the whole commandment thing, why not become a Taoist and seek to live in harmony with nature? Or you may be a Muslim with a thirst for alcohol. No problem, become a Catholic and drink away. Or you could just skip the whole mess and become an atheist. If there is no God there is no need to placate him or follow his social mores.

All of this jumping ship suggests, however, that no religion or lack there of really matters. If we can change religions to avoid what we don’t like in one or prefer in another, we have to admit that it is we, and not God, who is deciding what is and is not true. Who would convert from the Truth and a seat in Heaven to swear allegiance to falsehood and get yourself damned to Hell? Yet people change religions all the time without ever really knowing which if any of them is true.

We choose to believe what we choose to believe because it makes sense to us to believe it, and not because we know for certain that it is in fact true. If this is so, and it is, you should take a close look at the religion you say you believe in and see if in fact you do believe in it. If you don’t, why not switch? But even if you do believe in the teachings of your religion, don’t take it too seriously: after all what do you know for certain anyway?

T-Shirts for the Apocalypse

Saturday’s Jesus t-shirts (see my previous blog) got me thinking: Why not market a series of religious t’s that would unabashedly promote specific religions as these two Jesus t-shirts promote Christianity?

The more I thought about, the more I realized that while I have seen t-shirts with symbols of other faiths emblazoned on them, I have never seen a shirt that actually promoted another faith. I went on line to double-check this, and while my survey was anything but scientific, I could not find a single shirt shouting, “Be a Sikh” the way so many Jesus shirts shout, “Be a Christian.”

So the only thing left to do is design my own. I have no real interest in getting into the t-shirt business, but I want to offer a little pump priming for those of you who might be so inclined as to create and market a line of in-your-face religious t-shirts. So here are some shirt ideas I came up with. Please feel free to add your own in the comments section of the Blogger version of Toto.

Shak-T (Pro-Hindu)

1. (Under an image of the blue God, Krishna:) “You don’t have to be bluish to
love Krishna”
2. (Under the same image:) “Go Blue!”
3. “Born again? Big deal! Why Not Be Born Over and Over Again?”

T-of-Life (Pro-Judaism)

1. “God’s Chosen. Can’t Beat That!”
2. “Jesus may be your Christ, but he’s my cousin.”

T-had (Pro-Islam)

1. “Submit! It’s What We Do.”
2. “Everyone comes to Allah Sunni or later.”
3. (Front:) “99 Names of God” (Back:) “and not one of them is Jesus”
4. (Under a picture of the Kaaba:) “Dare to be Square.”

T-Cup (Pro-Catholic)

1. (Beneath an image of the Holy Grail:) “Obey Your Thirst!”

Anyway, I hope you get the idea. If you come up with an award winning design and make millions selling it, just don’t forget to send me one.

Last Blog of 2006

I had thought that the blog I posted last night was my final posting of the year, but I’m sitting by the door of Hardback Cafe in Hastings, Murfreesboro’s bookstore, checking email, and a balding fifty-something guy has just walked in wearing a blue t-shirt with a giant yellow price tag printed on it that reads, “Jesus, the possibilities are endless. Get yours.” I don’t understand this shirt.

First of all, why the price tag? Is Jesus for sale? How much does Jesus cost? Can I get him on lay-a-way? And if I do get Jesus, can I return him if I’m not satisfied? What if he breaks: can I get a refund or do I have to buy an extended warranty? And how long would that extension be? Eternity?

Second of all, why is Jesus linked with infinite possibility, and how am I to choose among them in order to get mine? It can take me over an hour to choose which among two-dozen or so brands of toothpaste to buy. Can you imagine how long it would take to choose which Jesus among an infinite number of Jesuses (Jesi? What is the plural of Jesus?) is the right Jesus for me?

When confronted with so many consumer choices, I usually head for Consumer Reports. I figure they know best, and I usually buy their Best Buy. It would be very helpful if Consumer Reports did an issue on religion.

They could list religions according to what they claim to accomplish: salvation, enlightenment, tikkun ha-olam (world repair), liberation, submission to God, etc. Then Consumer Reports could rate religions against these categories. There would be several faiths or variations of one faith under any given heading. Consumer Reports would rate them according to the demands they make on you, their reported reliability, cost, and other factors. Then they would pick their Best Buy.

I have to interrupt what I am certain was going to be a very funny Consumer Reports gag, to bring you this breaking news: Another guy about the same age just walked in wearing another Jesus t-shirt. On the front of his white t-shirt is a blue circle containing six well-known religious symbols, also in blue: Star of David, Om, Buddha, Yin/Yang, Crescent of Islam, and a Cross. Underneath the circle the text reads, “Five Out Of Six Religions Lead To Dead Ends.” On the back it says, “Back the winner; Choose the Living Christ.”

The Infinite Jesus guy is standing about fifteen feet from me looking at Kiplinger’s Magazine. Not six feet to his left, looking at a copy Newsweek, is the Living Christ guy. So far they have not noticed one another. But what if they do? What of they compare shirts? How can the Choose Christ guy deal with the Infinite Jesus message of the other guy? How can he choose wisely if his choices are infinite? Why choose at all if the possibilities are infinite? And, if the possibilities are infinite maybe there are no dead end religions. Maybe Jesus is hanging out in all of them. This fellow will be paralyzed by the sheer enormity of his Christ options, and his t-shirt will fail him. This could lead to a violent class of Christian cultures. Maybe I should do something… Ahh, no need; Infinite Jesus’ cell phone just rang and he has walked away to take the call. Whew! That was close. Oh, by the way, Happy New Year.

Year End Close Out

Like so many who live an examined life (even if not a well-examined one), the closing of a year is a time for self-reflection. This, however, is not something of which I am particularly proud.

First of all, since the self is a construct, a story created for the sole purpose of maintaining the illusion of self in the first place, self-reflection is simply a meta-story, a story about a story that simply reifies the illusion.

Second, since the self is a work in progress, it is impossible to reflect it as it is but only as it was. What I am actually doing is recreating the self to fit whatever craving haunts me at the moment. So it is more self-refraction than self-reflection.

And third, there is the problem of who is doing the refracting. If there is no self to begin with, who is creating it? If I say “me” the answer begs the question. If I say “God,” the answer not only begs the question but adds a dimension of abstraction that does nothing but further distract. Better not to ask the question: the real point of my comments is not to explore who is doing the commenting, but to take note of what I notice when I do the commenting. So on with comments:

This has been a good year in so far as my university teaching goes. Solid classes, great students; I love teaching religion and planting seditious seeds of spiritual anarchism. It has also been a good year for workshops: to my surprise I continue to be invited to speak in communities around the world. But neither teaching nor lecturing sets me on fire. On my tombstone I would not feel moved to carve either Teacher or Lecturer.

What does set me ablaze me is writing, and it has been a good year for that as well. Two books came out this year (The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness and The Ethics of the Sages); I have a contract for a book on angels in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; I now write a regular spiritual advice column for Spirituality and Health Magazine; Toto seems to be well received; and the First Annual Path and Pen Writers’ Conference that my son, Aaron, and I hosted in Nashville this past fall was a great success.

More than anything else I do, it is writing that excites and fulfills me. What I write about matters, but not as much as the process of writing itself. I love the magic of words, the alchemy of meaning (hmm, nice title for a book). I love watching as a blank screen fills with black letters that become words, sentences, and paragraphs reflecting back to me the thoughts that skitter across my mind.

So as I examine my life this year I am grateful for the gift of writing, and want to thank all of you for reading my books, column, and blog. And if I die this year, please have “Author” carved on my tombstone along with all the titles of my books and a functional “Click Here to Order” button that is linked to Amazon.com/.

Person of the Year

Person of the Year. I am still in shock, but from the moment I picked up Time Magazine with my face on the Mylar cover announcing that I had been chosen as 2006’s Person of the Year I knew they had made the right choice.

I mean I can’t be the only one who thinks about me all day long, others must be aware of how important I am. Yes, people publish and purchase my books. Yes, Spirituality and Health Magazine has hired me to do a regular column called Roadside Assistance for Your Spiritual Journey. Yes I recently did a segment of Hallmark Channel’s New Morning show, but these pale next to the honor of being chosen Person of the Year. Can a Nobel be far behind? Seriously, can it?

While some may call this narcissistic, I find it perfectly normal and take my inspiration from Rabbi Hillel: If I am not for myself who will be for me? The implied answer is, “no one.” So, to bring Hillel into the 21st century: If I don’t put myself on the cover of Time Magazine, who will?

Of course Hillel seeks to balance his song of the self with, “If I am only for myself what am I?” I think the real answer to this is, “focused.” Who has time to be for self and others? Honestly, being for myself is a full time job. Look at any marketing book on building a successful brand and you realize that brand YOU is all-important and totally time consuming.

The thing that surprises me, however, is that Time didn’t notify me in advance of my being chosen. Then again, neither did God when He picked me for His Chosen People award. If Time had let me know I would have feigned surprise, humbly accepted, and then recited a speech I had written years ago entitled, “When Chosen as Time’s Person of the Year:”

“I want to thank the board of Time Magazine for this incredible honor. While I knew that this would happen one day, I am shocked and humbled that it is today. I realize that your choice identifies the one person who for better or worse has most impacted the world during the previous twelve months. Having reviewed my behavior over this past year I am still wondering about which category into which I fall. For every kindness I may have done, I can think of one or two times where I have been the source of someone’s pain. And then there is the nagging awareness that I really haven’t done anything on my own. Everything I have, think, and feel is really the product of forces outside my control. While I am responsible for what I do, I never act in isolation. So there is no real person here at all, no one independent will that should be credited with anything. There is just an infinite complex of events that I reduce to a manageable story that I call myself. So maybe the choice shouldn’t have been me but us, not I but the entire system of I’ing that is the universe. And while I do mean this, I want to make it clear that if there is a check involved in this award, placing my name alone on the recipient line is just fine. Thank you.”

The speech went undelivered, and no check has arrived in the mail, but being Time’s Person of the Year is reward enough. If you haven’t already done so, pick a copy of the magazine and see me on the cover. I promise it will be worth it.

Bigotry Lives

First Dennis Prager and now Republican Representative Virgil Goode (R-VA): there is something offensive to many Americans about a Muslim congressman (Rep. Keith Ellison, D-MN) being unofficially sworn in as a Congressman using a Koran rather than a Bible.

Mr. Prager isn’t bothered by the fact that Congressman Ellison is a Muslim, but he is troubled by the fact that he will use a Koran rather than a Christian Bible in his unofficial swearing-in ceremony. The implication seems to be that if you cannot be sworn in on a Christian Bible you have no right to be a member of the American government. He believes that America is morally founded on this document and that it rather than a Jewish Bible, Koran, or any other text should be used. As Prager said to Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, “My belief that the Bible should be present at any oath (or affirmation) of office has nothing whatsoever to do with the religion of the office holder…”

In other words it doesn’t matter if the person swearing on the Bible believes in the Bible as long as he or she goes through the motions. Does that make sense to you? The whole point of swearing on a Bible is to make the oath all the more sacred. If the book upon which you are swearing is not sacred to you swearing on it is an empty act.

Where Prager is worried about the Bible, Representative Virgil Goode is worried about Muslims, warning America that if we don’t do something about immigration it will only be a few years before America is ruled by the Taliban (the Muslim Taliban not the Republican Christian Taliban that rules Texas [read the Platform of the Republican Party of Texas]).

It doesn’t matter that Representative Ellison traces his American roots back to the 18th century; it doesn’t matter that having to use a Christian Bible seems like a blatant violation of the Constitutional position against having a religious test for the holding of public office; it doesn’t matter that using a book in which you do not believe is promoting hypocrisy not virtue— what matters is that these people are spouting frighteningly anti-American bullshit. (It isn’t the BS that bothers me but the anti-American aspect of it.)

If I wanted my government officials to swear on an ethical text that is not compromised by violence and God-sanctioned immorality as are both the Bible and Koran, I might suggest the Tao te Ching I or the Dhammapada.. If I wanted something less religious I might suggest Goodnight Moon, but if I really want to be outrageous let me suggest that they hold a copy of the Constitution of the United States.

I don’t care if Rep. Ellison upholds the Koran. I do care that he and everyone else in government upholds the Constitution.

The Real War On Christmas

I know, I know, just a couple of weeks ago I declared the end to the war on Christmas. Wal-Mart is greeting shoppers with “Merry Christmas,” the Seattle rabbi who threatened to sue unless the Seattle-Tacoma Airport put up a Hanukkah menorah next to its biggest Christmas Tree has backed down and (though I cannot confirm this) gone into rehab to find out why he is so enraged by tinsel-strewn trees. It seemed to me that America had finally come to accept the fact that it is a Christian Nation devoted enough to God to spend itself into debt hell singing “On the fourth day of Christmas my banker gave to me: four credit cards, three fixed loans, two dunning calls, and no chance to live debt free.”

So you can imagine my surprise that just when I thought it was safe to celebrate the birth of Christ by buying a plasma screen TV I discover that the true enemy of Christmas is not the Jews, humanists, and Muslims, but the nation’s founding Christians.

The Puritans fled England because (all right, partly because) they couldn’t stand Christmas. Christmas in merry old England was a cross between (pun intended, clever, no?) Deep Throat and Friday the 13th, Part Whatever with Brits cavorting in ways that would make Jack the Ripper cringe. And besides, the Puritans knew what every good Druid knows: Jesus wasn’t born in December, and Christmas is just a pagan holiday hiding behind a thin veneer of Christianity.

According to the myth as I remember it, Jesus was supposedly born shortly after the Great Pumpkin visited Linus and Snoopy which happens each year in October (usually on a Wednesday around 8pm ET, 7pm CT). The Bible, however, says that the birth of Jesus was announced by a star seen by shepherds. That would mean Jesus was born in springtime when shepherds are shepherding, not in December when most shepherds tend to take part-time jobs indoors at the local grog and gruel hall.

Celebrating Christmas was a crime in early America punishable by a fine. In fact the US Congress stayed in session over Christmas. While there is much evidence to prove this, the belief that they took the Fourth of October off as Deism Day, celebrating the day God finished winding the clockwork of the universe and moved into an assisted living facility in Miami, is much harder to prove.

The only reason America’s Christian leaders couldn’t crush Christmas was because the people just had an itch to party. Borrowing trees, Saint Nick (who was a Byzantine Christian saint and thus not really Christian at all), and eggnog from Europe America’s sinful masses turned their backs on their Christianity and made merry.

It wasn’t long before some enterprising capitalists realized that horny drunks are apt to buy things they don’t need at prices they cannot afford, and thus the true American Christmas was born. So what do we do? If we’re true to our founding faith we should do away with Christmas once again. If we want our Christmas we have to jettison our Christianity, or at least reinvent it to suit ourselves. Hey, let’s do that! It wouldn’t be the first time.

Please Fence Me In

I am in San Jose, California at the moment, and have recently heard about a controversy happening at the other end of the state in Venice, CA. The controversy is over an eruv, a temporary fence of sorts that surrounds a Jewish community on the Sabbath.

The need for an eruv comes from the challenge posed by Sabbath observance in the Torah. The Torah prohibits working on the Sabbath and considers carrying something between a public domain and a private domain on the Sabbath to be work. Torah does allow you to carrying things within an enclosed "private" area. So you can carry a pizza from the kitchen to the dining room in your house, but not from your house to a neighbors house. Since half the fun of the Sabbath is to visit and share food with friends this law needs to massaged a bit. The solution is an eruv.

The rabbis of the Talmud developed a means to render a public area a private domain by surrounding it with an eruv, Hebrew for joining together. An eruv integrates a number of private and public properties into one larger private domain so that people within an eruv district can move objects from one area to another.

So are so good. In Venice, however, proposals to erect an eruv puts the Orthodox community at odds with ordinances that restrict blocking the view of the ocean and protect the flight paths of birds. The eruv, opponents of the measure argue, does both.

The proposed eruv would use 200 pound fishing net, and I can see how this would restrict my view of the ocean (though to be honest with all the nearly naked people walking around Venice I hardly notice the ocean at all), and pose a danger to birds. But there has to be a way of freeing the Sabbath observant from their homes without inconveniencing beach-goers and birds.

Here is my suggestion: I propose that some enterprising rabbinic scholar team up with an enterprising fish net maker and create personal eruvim (plural of eruv). People could wear them like giant mosquito nets covering their bodies. Wherever you went you would be within your own eruv, and thus able to carry things freely from place to place. This way the only person whose view of the sea would be inhibited would be the Jew wearing the eruv. Since we are basically a desert people anyway, what do we care about seeing the ocean? And as for the birds, unless they intend to attack they will not have any problem flying over eruv-wearing Jews.

Of course there may be some reason why portable personal eruvim aren’t kosher. I am not a halachic (Jewish legal) scholar. If there is no legal objection, however, I am offering this idea free to anyone wishing to make and market it.

PS: After knocking the idea around a bit more, someone here in San Jose suggested that I might create a eruv shooter that would shoot web string from place to place ala Spiderman thus creating an eruv as you go. This might be a big hit with Orthodox kids, but firing the eruv shooter might violate the Sabbath law against work, so we would need a ruling on this first.

Another helpful soul said I could market hula-hoops as eruvim. People could walk with their hips swiveling the hoop getting both a halachic and an aerobic workout at the same time. This too sounds a bit like work, and we would have to check that out, but I appreciate the seriousness with which people are taking this idea.

I am sure that with a little imaginative effort we can create Sabbath law that is good both for the Jews and the birds.

Still Embarrassed

Yesterday I wrote how ashamed I was over the Seattle rabbi who, by threatening to sue unless the Seattle-Tacoma Airport put up a Hanukkah Menorah next to its biggest Christmas Tree, triggered the removal of all the Christmas Trees in the airport. Today CNN reported that the trees are being, ah, resurrected, and are fully operational once again. Coincidence? I think not.

You might imagine that this success would turn my shame to jubilation, but alas this is not the case. I am even more ashamed today. The source of my shame is the participation of Satmar Hasidic rabbis in the Iranian sponsored conference on the Holocaust. This gathering of anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and madmen bent on nuclear Armageddon is a stain on humanity, and to have Satmar participate is just insanity.

Of course the Satmar do not deny the Holocaust. They attended the conference to lend support to the anti-Zionist fascists who, like the Satmar, would like to see the end of the State of Israel. The Satmar are anti-Zionist because they believe that only the Messiah can bring about the legitimate return of Israel. Until then the Satmar are willing to side with those who await the Mahdi to destroy the Israel we have. This is madness. And this must the season of madness.

Whatever happened to “Peace on earth and goodwill to wo/men?” Oh, I forgot, the peace symbol is now said to be a broken cross and anti-Christian. Religion has gone mad.

Embarrassed

ITEM ONE: Some days I am embarrassed to be a Jew. Today is one of those days.

I am watching the morning news and discover that some CHaBaD rabbi in Seattle threatened the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with a lawsuit unless they permitted him to erect an eight-foot Hanukkah menorah next to the tallest of their eight Christmas Trees. Rather than risk the expense of a court case, the airport dismantled all eight trees. A blow for religious freedom! A blow for religious tolerance! Hooray for the Jews of Seattle, they have made their city safe for religious idiocy!

What was this guy thinking? “Hey, if I threaten to sue, I bet the airport will honor Jews with a menorah.” No, that doesn’t make sense. Maybe this is what went through his head, “We killed their god, now we take their trees—damn you goyyim!” No, that probably isn’t it either. How about this, “I bet the Christians of Seattle-Tacoma will respect their Jewish neighbors all the more if we fuck with their holy day.” No, again. Honestly, I can’t imagine what was going through this guy’s head. All I know is he probably set back Jewish-Christian relations in Seattle twenty years.

You want a menorah in the airport? Ask the airport management in January, don’t threaten them in December. But we seem to be beyond asking anymore. You want what you want and you will sue in order to get it. I don’t think there is a war on Christmas, but I do think there is a war on sanity.

If I were a rabbi in Seattle I would be appalled by my colleague’s actions. I would put a Christmas Tree on the front lawn of my synagogue with a bit sign saying, “Merry Christmas from the Jews of Seattle.” Seriously. If you know any rabbis in Seattle pass this on. It is a good idea.

ITEM TWO: Some days I am embarrassed to be a Muslim. Today is one of those days.

True, I am not technically a Muslim, but I do believe that Mohammed is a prophet of God and that the Koran does contain the same universal Truths as the Torah and New Testament, so I am a proto-Muslim.

What embarrasses me is the protest of tens of thousands of Muslims in Pakistan over the changes to rape laws instituted by the Women Protection Bill passed last month.

Under the new law a rape victim no longer has to produce four male Muslim witnesses to back up her claim. Further, if a woman fails to prove her case she is no longer convicted of adultery and sentenced to life imprisonment or death by stoning.

What embarrasses me (beside the obvious need for this law in the first place) is the idea that women could actually produce four male Muslim witnesses to prove she was raped. These men must have witnessed the crime, so why didn’t they stop it from happening?

What has religion done to our basic humanity? Some days I am embarrassed to be religious. Today is one of those days. Merry— oh, forget it.

God Abuse

[I am sitting in a local WiFi hotspot typing as quickly as I can in order to capture what the guy at the table next to mine is saying. I offer this without comment.]

Didja hear O’Reilly on that atheist little girl? Man, that’s child abuse, teachin’ yer kid ta hate God that way. O’Reilly said there ain’t nothin’ ta be done about it, since it’s a parent’s right ta teach their kid what they want, but, man, it seems like child abuse ta me. In fact it is child abuse an’ I’ll tell you why.

When that child dies and goes to Judgment God is going to send her ta Hell ‘cause a what her father taught her. He’s the guilty one, and he’ll be burnin’ too, but so will she ‘cause she was taught to deny God. Now that is abuse, pure and simple.

And it ain’t only atheists doin’ this. I mean right here in Murfreesboro we got us some Hindus who teach their kids that God has the head of a elephant. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine Jesus wearin’ a elephant’s head? Nobody woulda taken him seriously. Anyway, they teach that an’ those kids are going to Hell.

My grandson in the fifth grade tol’ me there’s a kid in his class who prays to Kirshner or some such god, an’ he has pictures of this god an’ the god is blue. Blue! Man, that is just too much. An’ my grandson tol’ me that the teacher asked the kids if they believed Jesus was God an’ this kid says no an’ when the teacher asked him why he didn’t believe Jesus is God the kid says that he can’t be God ‘cause God is blue an’ Jesus is white! That sounds like racism to me, but the teacher just let it go which is wrong since everyone with an ounce of brains knows God is white cause His Son is white.

That is just abuse in my book. This little kid’ll go ta God and say you ain’t God cause you’re white and God’s blue an’ God’ll have no choice but to send him to burn in Hell for all eternity an’ it ain’t really the kid’s fault but his parent’s fault.

An’ then a’course there’s Muslims and Jews. I mean the Muslims believe in some desert demon Ayllah so they’re goin’ ta Hell, and Jews just reject God so they’re goin’ ta Hell.

I don’t care if a adult wants to believe in a blue god, a Jew god, or a demon god, I mean that’s their right, but to teach that to their kids is to condemn ‘em to Hell an’ that’s abuse.

O’Reilly says there’s nothin’ to do about it. But I called child services an’ told the lady about it an’ she said it was legal. I asked her if she thought it was abuse an’ she sorta whispered ta me that I should call my pastor an’ tell him to do something.

So I told Pastor we ought to have an innervension like with drug addicts, but he said you can’t do that. So I asked him if he thought it was abuse ‘cause God was gonna burn these kids forever in Hell ‘cause of what their parents teach ‘em, and he said God visits the sins of the fathers on the children for generations so it ain’t really abuse, but God’s plan. So that’s that, I guess. God’s plan. Damn it sounds like abuse ta me.

Hope and Fear

[This is a condensed version of a talk I gave on Thursday, November 30th regarding my recent trip to Israel.]

Having recently returned from a weeklong visit to Israel with a group of rabbis and evangelical ministers, I am filled with both hope and fear regarding not only the Middle East, but also the future of our own nation and the planet as a whole. Let me share one example of each.

The hope: My Orthodox rabbinic colleague (we have been asked not to use the names of our fellow travelers) introduced me to a friend of his, Jacob, who ran a kosher pizzeria in Meah Sha’arim, the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood just outside the walls of the Old City. An elderly Hasid in his seventies, Jacob was one of the founders of Zaka, the Orthodox Jewish volunteer organization that collects human remains, from body parts to spatters of blood in the wake of terrorist bombings in Israel in order to bury victims with as much dignity as possible.

Jacob told us of a lecture he gave to on liberal and largely anti-Israel college campus in the United States. He related the story of Zaka and took questions. One Palestinian woman demanded to know what Jacob did with the body parts of the suicide bomber. “All humans are created in the image and likeness of God,” Jacob said. “We gather the bomber’s body up with the same respect and compassion we offer his victims.”

The woman was moved. “Keep up the good work,” she said. A local imam then rose to offer Jacob financial assistance and support from his Muslim community.

The fear: Even as many evangelical Christians are making room for the Jews in their theology of salvation, arguing that God’s covenant with Abraham and the Jewish people is eternal and distinct from the covenant He offers the gentile world through the birth, death, and resurrection of His Son, they are hardening their hearts against Islam, insisting that Allah is a false god and Islam an intrinsically evil and violent faith. Islam is clearly the enemy of God and those who love Him. This can only lead to more violence and destruction.

A Tennessean article published on the fourth day of our trip fed on this notion opening with the Arabic proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The writer’s message was clear: Jews and Christians have a common bond because they share a common enemy. Friendship contingent upon shared fear, anger, and violence is not the foundation upon which to pin much hope. While it may be expedient to make the enemy of my enemy my friend, when that enemy is defeated, my so-called friend will quickly become my newfound enemy.

Not surprisingly, Nashville’s Muslim community found nothing to praise in our journey. I don’t blame them. Being labeled as the enemy in a community where you are a small minority must be frightening. As much as some of us may fear Muslims, Muslims have a right to fear us as well. America has a very checkered past when it comes to those it fears, and to read that Nashville’s Jews and Christians are linking arms against Islam, can only be cause for anxiety and anger.

Yet the notion of a shared enemy had nothing to do with our visit to Israel. We went to learn from one another, to try and tap into each other’s love of the Land, and to build a friendship based on that shared love and not on a shared enemy. But love and forgiveness sell fewer papers than hate and fear, so the real meaning and message of our mission was lost.

Hope is fueled by compassion rooted in the recognition that human life, regardless of the labels one chooses or has foisted upon one, is sacred. Fear is fueled by ignorance rooted in the false notion that God’s love and saving grace is contingent upon having the right enemy. The fear lies with those who live by abstractions: theologies, creeds, dogmas that are human artifacts often designed to exploit human weakness. The hope lies with those who live by the simple fact that we are all God’s children, created in the image and likeness of the One who is all.

So, if hope rather than fear is to win out; if the prospect of a century-long conflict with Islam is to be avoided, what can we do? I could offer a list of obvious suggestions: dialogue among Jews, Christians, and Muslims; joint programming around our respective cultures focusing on art, music, and food; and much of this may already be happening in Nashville. But instead of this, let me focus on one somewhat radical suggestion.

I would like to see local Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clergy and lay leaders come together to study their respective scriptures in order to identify and reject those passages that advocate and condone violence. The Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and the Qur’an all suffer from passages that have God calling for violence and even genocide. These passages cannot come from a God of justice and compassion, and need to be rejected as false teaching. We must break free from the notion that scripture is infallible, and recognize that alongside timeless truth there sits much time-bound bias masquerading as truth. Unless and until we free ourselves from the delusion that God condones and even commands the murder of human beings, religion will always be a catalyst for evil even as it claims to be the ultimate repository of the good.