I can’t shake the notion that President Bush has hired George Orwell as his speechwriter. In a news conference held in the White House Rose Garden (I guess some people are promised a rose garden after all), the President commented that we can expect the coming months in Iraq to be bloody ones. American and Iraqi casualties will rise. And that, surprisingly, is the good news.
I always thought that winning a war meant our casualties go down while the bad guys casualties go up. But in the lexicon of Bushspeak the more attacks on Americans the more our strategy must be succeeding. By that logic we won’t have won until we have run out of soldiers to send into the field. Is anyone buying this nonsense?
The point of the surge as I understood it was to overwhelm the enemy and clamp down on violence, not to give the enemy more of us to shoot at and bomb with no lessening of violence. While I was not in favor of the strategy, I did recognize it as a legitimate idea.
As far as I can tell it isn’t working out the way I thought it was supposed to. Violence is up. American casualties are up. Al¬–Qaeda is thriving. How is this winning?
Bush is positioning himself for a no–lose response to General Petraeus’ report on the war this coming September. If Petraeus reports that violence is down, the insurgency is weakening, the civil war is lessening, and peace is coming then the President can declare victory for his strategy. If Petraeus reports that violence is up, the insurgency is strengthening, the civil war is intensifying, and peace is years away then the President can again declare victory for his strategy by claiming we are pocking at the eye of the enemy so, of course, they are stirred up. The President can’t lose. But the American people can.
This is why I suspect George Orwell is writing George Bush’s speeches and talking points. If you want to know what is going on in America today don’t rely on CNN, Fox News, or even NPR. Pick up a copy of Nineteen Eighty–Four.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Voting Christian
Forget about voting Democrat or Republican in 2008, I’m voting Christian. This way I know I am voting for a person of character, and, even better, a white male person of character. The Democrats are pitting gender and ethnic groups against one another. There is Senator Clinton, a white woman, and New Mexico Governor Richardson, a brown Hispanic, and Senator Obama, a Hawaiian. If I want to see a woman as president I have to vote against other groups I would like to see as president as well, like Hispanics and Hawaiians. So, rather than choose along gender, race, and ethnic lines, I will choose along religious lines. And since there are only Christians running, I will vote for the most Christian among them.
I thought it would be easier to vote for the Best Christian than to vote for the person with the best ideas. I find it impossible to discern where any candidate stands regarding war, poverty, immigration, energy, terrorism, homeland security, and the like. No one seems to gives a straight answer on any of these issues, but they are all pretty sure they are Christians. As it turns out, however, this isn’t so clear either.
Simply saying you are a Christian isn’t good enough. Mitt Romney says he is a Christian, but Rev Al Sharpton put the kibosh on that. Fred Thompson says he is a Christian, but uber-Christian James Dobson says no. Hillary Clinton claims to be a Christian, but most Evangelicals I know are not even sure she’s American. John McCain is trying to prove his Christian bona fides by showing how pro-fetus he has been in the Senate, but it doesn’t seem to be working among most Christians.
Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says a true Christian is one who puts Jesus first and turns away from his or her own desires. But it is hard to believe that anyone who desires to be President of the United States has put away his or her own work in favor of Jesus, so maybe there are no real Christians running for office.
If this is true I am back where I started: do I vote for a woman or a Hawaiian? I just don’t know.
I thought it would be easier to vote for the Best Christian than to vote for the person with the best ideas. I find it impossible to discern where any candidate stands regarding war, poverty, immigration, energy, terrorism, homeland security, and the like. No one seems to gives a straight answer on any of these issues, but they are all pretty sure they are Christians. As it turns out, however, this isn’t so clear either.
Simply saying you are a Christian isn’t good enough. Mitt Romney says he is a Christian, but Rev Al Sharpton put the kibosh on that. Fred Thompson says he is a Christian, but uber-Christian James Dobson says no. Hillary Clinton claims to be a Christian, but most Evangelicals I know are not even sure she’s American. John McCain is trying to prove his Christian bona fides by showing how pro-fetus he has been in the Senate, but it doesn’t seem to be working among most Christians.
Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says a true Christian is one who puts Jesus first and turns away from his or her own desires. But it is hard to believe that anyone who desires to be President of the United States has put away his or her own work in favor of Jesus, so maybe there are no real Christians running for office.
If this is true I am back where I started: do I vote for a woman or a Hawaiian? I just don’t know.
Monday, May 21, 2007
"Shumail the Shemale" or "Penis Politics in Pakistan"
This is going to get a bit complicated, so let’s take it slow.
Point One. Shumail Raj, a 31¬–year–old Pakistani male, used to be a female. Sixteen years ago she underwent sex reassignment surgery, and has signed a sworn statement to the Pakistani court that she is, and has been for most of her life, a he. A court-appointed panel of Pakistani doctors, however, denied his claim and said that he is a she.
Point Two. Shahzina Tariq, 26, has been a woman all her life. While her gender consistency may be laudable in Pakistan, just being a woman comes with its share of grief. In Shahzina’s case the trouble comes in the form of one of her uncles who wants to sell her off to pay for his gambling debts.
Point Three. To save Shahzina from a life of sexual slavery, Shumail and Shahzina got married a year ago. It seems that while an uncle can sell of his brother’s daughter, he cannot sell another man’s wife. And there’s the rub: is Shahzina another man’s wife, or is she another women’s partner?
Point Four. Given that the Pakistani court has ruled that Shumail, penis or no penis, is in fact a woman, and recognizing that same sex marriage is contrary to Islam, and seeing as how Shahzina’s father wants her marriage to Shumail annulled because it does violate said religion, it seems that Shahzina is once again for sale.
What is interesting of course is the fact that no one, not even Shahzina’s dad, is upset about selling his daughter into prostitution. Interesting but not surprising. When women are seen as chattel this is what happens.
So what shall we make of this? Is it simply an example of Islam’s madness? I don’t think so. The problem is not Islam but the medieval tribal mores that pass as Islam. While the case is extreme, the idea behind it, women as property, is not alien to strains of Orthodox Judaism or Fundamentalist Christianity. The problem Islam faces is trying to function under scrutiny of modern media. If there were reporters sharing the dirty sexual secrets of biblical Jews and medieval Christians we would find the same insanity.
It takes religion a long time to outgrow its tribalist mindset. Liberal and secular Judaisms and Christianities are very late on the scene, and Islam has yet to undergo such a revolution.
So we have two choices. We can invoke the Prime Directive and keep our liberal democratic noses out of another civilization’s business, or we can uphold a universal ethic and shine the harsh light of truth on all tribal insanities wherever they appear. I hope we opt for the latter. And in the meantime somebody please find a way to help Shumail and Shahzina move to Boston.
Point One. Shumail Raj, a 31¬–year–old Pakistani male, used to be a female. Sixteen years ago she underwent sex reassignment surgery, and has signed a sworn statement to the Pakistani court that she is, and has been for most of her life, a he. A court-appointed panel of Pakistani doctors, however, denied his claim and said that he is a she.
Point Two. Shahzina Tariq, 26, has been a woman all her life. While her gender consistency may be laudable in Pakistan, just being a woman comes with its share of grief. In Shahzina’s case the trouble comes in the form of one of her uncles who wants to sell her off to pay for his gambling debts.
Point Three. To save Shahzina from a life of sexual slavery, Shumail and Shahzina got married a year ago. It seems that while an uncle can sell of his brother’s daughter, he cannot sell another man’s wife. And there’s the rub: is Shahzina another man’s wife, or is she another women’s partner?
Point Four. Given that the Pakistani court has ruled that Shumail, penis or no penis, is in fact a woman, and recognizing that same sex marriage is contrary to Islam, and seeing as how Shahzina’s father wants her marriage to Shumail annulled because it does violate said religion, it seems that Shahzina is once again for sale.
What is interesting of course is the fact that no one, not even Shahzina’s dad, is upset about selling his daughter into prostitution. Interesting but not surprising. When women are seen as chattel this is what happens.
So what shall we make of this? Is it simply an example of Islam’s madness? I don’t think so. The problem is not Islam but the medieval tribal mores that pass as Islam. While the case is extreme, the idea behind it, women as property, is not alien to strains of Orthodox Judaism or Fundamentalist Christianity. The problem Islam faces is trying to function under scrutiny of modern media. If there were reporters sharing the dirty sexual secrets of biblical Jews and medieval Christians we would find the same insanity.
It takes religion a long time to outgrow its tribalist mindset. Liberal and secular Judaisms and Christianities are very late on the scene, and Islam has yet to undergo such a revolution.
So we have two choices. We can invoke the Prime Directive and keep our liberal democratic noses out of another civilization’s business, or we can uphold a universal ethic and shine the harsh light of truth on all tribal insanities wherever they appear. I hope we opt for the latter. And in the meantime somebody please find a way to help Shumail and Shahzina move to Boston.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Priests or Prophets
I gave a speech this weekend that stirred quite a bit of controversy. It wasn’t that I said something new, only that I said it to people who were nowhere near ready to hear it. I spoke about the need to free religion to be what it is meant to be, a finger pointing to Reality rather than what it has become, a self-referential system of doctrines and creeds pointing only to itself.
So many people told me I had insulted them and their religion, that I began to wonder why something I say could have so much power. After all it isn’t that they believed what I was saying. When I suggested that taking the Bible literally made it impossible for us to hear the Word of God speaking in myth and metaphor, no one who was angry with me agreed with me. So why get upset?
If I were attending a speech where the speaker spoke passionately about how 2 + 2 equals 5, I wouldn’t get upset. I would simply determine that the speaker was wrong and ignore him. I wouldn’t feel that my beliefs were challenged or that my faith in mathematics was threatened. So why, if I suggest that the Virgin Birth is not biology but mythology, speaking not to a weird genetic miracle but to the fact that the birth of Jesus is the birth of the extraordinary, do I find the devout so incensed?
When I attend a talk, as I did recently, where the speaker insisted that every time God is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible Jesus is intended, I don’t believe him, but I don’t get angry with him either. My faith is too strong to be shaken by someone else’s belief. On the contrary, I am so certain of what is so, that I relish the opportunity to hear what others hold to be just as true. It seems to me that the proper response of people of faith to the insights of other faiths should be curiosity, not vitriol.
Yet after my talk, no one said to me, “I found what you said to be totally false, but it was interesting to entertain the idea for a moment,” No one said to me, “You know I hold a totally different view of things, and your comments helped me realize how strong my faith truly is.” All I got was, “How dare you!” and “You have insulted by faith and my God.” Honestly, any god that can be insulted isn't really God.
My suspicion is this: people who are upset by my humor and my message are people who are not very certain of what they believe, or if what they believe is true. They want a speaker to either affirm their beliefs or say something so innocuous as to leave their beliefs untouched and their minds untroubled.
I want to trouble your mind. I want to confound your theology. I want to point out that the Emperor has not clothes, and that God has no religion. And I want to hear speakers and read authors who will do the same for me. Religion shouldn’t be comforting but discomforting. This is the difference between priests and prophets. The priest offers comfort, the prophet only discomfort. I am finished with priests. I seek only prophets.
So many people told me I had insulted them and their religion, that I began to wonder why something I say could have so much power. After all it isn’t that they believed what I was saying. When I suggested that taking the Bible literally made it impossible for us to hear the Word of God speaking in myth and metaphor, no one who was angry with me agreed with me. So why get upset?
If I were attending a speech where the speaker spoke passionately about how 2 + 2 equals 5, I wouldn’t get upset. I would simply determine that the speaker was wrong and ignore him. I wouldn’t feel that my beliefs were challenged or that my faith in mathematics was threatened. So why, if I suggest that the Virgin Birth is not biology but mythology, speaking not to a weird genetic miracle but to the fact that the birth of Jesus is the birth of the extraordinary, do I find the devout so incensed?
When I attend a talk, as I did recently, where the speaker insisted that every time God is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible Jesus is intended, I don’t believe him, but I don’t get angry with him either. My faith is too strong to be shaken by someone else’s belief. On the contrary, I am so certain of what is so, that I relish the opportunity to hear what others hold to be just as true. It seems to me that the proper response of people of faith to the insights of other faiths should be curiosity, not vitriol.
Yet after my talk, no one said to me, “I found what you said to be totally false, but it was interesting to entertain the idea for a moment,” No one said to me, “You know I hold a totally different view of things, and your comments helped me realize how strong my faith truly is.” All I got was, “How dare you!” and “You have insulted by faith and my God.” Honestly, any god that can be insulted isn't really God.
My suspicion is this: people who are upset by my humor and my message are people who are not very certain of what they believe, or if what they believe is true. They want a speaker to either affirm their beliefs or say something so innocuous as to leave their beliefs untouched and their minds untroubled.
I want to trouble your mind. I want to confound your theology. I want to point out that the Emperor has not clothes, and that God has no religion. And I want to hear speakers and read authors who will do the same for me. Religion shouldn’t be comforting but discomforting. This is the difference between priests and prophets. The priest offers comfort, the prophet only discomfort. I am finished with priests. I seek only prophets.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Walking Israel
[I wrote this last November while sitting on the steps overlooking the Western Wall of the Jerusalem Temple.]
I have just prayed at the Wall, slipping a number of tiny prayer sheets into the cracks in hopes that…
Wait a minute; this can’t be right. I don’t believe God is a being separate from the universe who hears prayers and grants or ignores our heartfelt requests. I believe God is the Source and Substance of all reality who manifests as and transcends creation.
I believe the power of prayer is its capacity to shift my consciousness from Mochin d’Katnut, narrow mind, to Mochin d’Gadlut, spacious mind; from selfishness to selflessness; from the part and partial to the whole and holy. I pray not to be heard, but to hear; not to be present to God but to be revealed as God, the One Who is all things.
I don’t believe in chosen peoples and promised lands. I don’t think God plays favorites or deals in real estate. But I do believe—no, I know, I experience— that there are certain places on this planet that hold deep promise for personal and planetary transformation and renewal. Israel is one of these places.
When I walk the streets of Jerusalem and allow the city to work her magic, shifting me from narrow mind to spacious mind, I walk with Solomon and feel the call to wisdom; I walk with Jesus and feel the call to love; I walk with Mohammed and feel the call to surrender.
When I walk the Baha’i Gardens of Haifa, I walk with Baha’u’llah, the 19th century Persian prophet, and hear the call to universal justice. When I walk the winding streets of Safed, I walk with Cordovero (1522-1570) and hear the call of the Ineffable.
For me, Israel is all about walking with God and God’s prophets. I am less concerned with the Israel of Ben Gurion and more with the Israel of Ben Abuyah (yes the first century heretic and iconoclast, there is nothing more Jewish than that). For me Israel is more about the Wall, the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Garden Tomb, and the Shrine of the Book than it is about politics, warfare, or the rapture.
The promise of modern Israel is the hope that it can live up to the promise of timeless Israel.
I believe that humanity is the early hours of a spiritual renaissance, and I come to Israel to hear the clock tick. I come here to be reminded of the new covenant promised by God in Jeremiah, a covenant written on our hearts revealing a God within calling us to godliness without.
I walk streets with diverse people some praying for the old times, others for the end times. I pray for the new times. So I walk and I listen and I hope that my next step will be my first step in God, with God, as God.
I have just prayed at the Wall, slipping a number of tiny prayer sheets into the cracks in hopes that…
Wait a minute; this can’t be right. I don’t believe God is a being separate from the universe who hears prayers and grants or ignores our heartfelt requests. I believe God is the Source and Substance of all reality who manifests as and transcends creation.
I believe the power of prayer is its capacity to shift my consciousness from Mochin d’Katnut, narrow mind, to Mochin d’Gadlut, spacious mind; from selfishness to selflessness; from the part and partial to the whole and holy. I pray not to be heard, but to hear; not to be present to God but to be revealed as God, the One Who is all things.
I don’t believe in chosen peoples and promised lands. I don’t think God plays favorites or deals in real estate. But I do believe—no, I know, I experience— that there are certain places on this planet that hold deep promise for personal and planetary transformation and renewal. Israel is one of these places.
When I walk the streets of Jerusalem and allow the city to work her magic, shifting me from narrow mind to spacious mind, I walk with Solomon and feel the call to wisdom; I walk with Jesus and feel the call to love; I walk with Mohammed and feel the call to surrender.
When I walk the Baha’i Gardens of Haifa, I walk with Baha’u’llah, the 19th century Persian prophet, and hear the call to universal justice. When I walk the winding streets of Safed, I walk with Cordovero (1522-1570) and hear the call of the Ineffable.
For me, Israel is all about walking with God and God’s prophets. I am less concerned with the Israel of Ben Gurion and more with the Israel of Ben Abuyah (yes the first century heretic and iconoclast, there is nothing more Jewish than that). For me Israel is more about the Wall, the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Garden Tomb, and the Shrine of the Book than it is about politics, warfare, or the rapture.
The promise of modern Israel is the hope that it can live up to the promise of timeless Israel.
I believe that humanity is the early hours of a spiritual renaissance, and I come to Israel to hear the clock tick. I come here to be reminded of the new covenant promised by God in Jeremiah, a covenant written on our hearts revealing a God within calling us to godliness without.
I walk streets with diverse people some praying for the old times, others for the end times. I pray for the new times. So I walk and I listen and I hope that my next step will be my first step in God, with God, as God.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Religion Is Made Up
Religion is made up; all religion, not just other people’s religions.
Religion is made up. God didn’t choose the Jews, have a baby, or ask Mohammed to recite.
Religion is made up, but Reality is not. Yet religion trumps Reality in the hearts and minds of millions, maybe billions of people.
Religion is made up, but Truth is not. Yet religion blasphemes Truth with self-serving tales of power and exploitation.
Religion is made up. Once you know this it is hard to be religious. You just can’t justify all the rules and ruckus. I know because I keep trying. I keep telling myself religion matters. But it doesn’t.
You know what matters? Love matters. Compassion matters. Justice matters. Peace matters. Humility matters. Nature matters. Truth matters. Reality matters. You matter.
So what do I do when I know religion is made up? First I remember that all philosophy and literature is made up as well. Second I remember that just because Plato invented the dialogues of Socrates, and Shakespeare invented Hamlet and Lear doesn’t mean that Socrates, Hamlet, and Lear don’t speak Truth. Fiction may preclude fact, but in no way does it obscure Truth.
Religion is made up. At its best its stories have the potential to capture our imagination and feed our souls by revealing the best to which we humans can aspire. At its worst it can strip us of our humanity and invite us to make real the darkest fantasies we can conjure. Torah, Gospels, Qur’an, and Gita contain insights of such power, grandeur and wisdom that we say them come from God. They also contain the obscenely violent, misogynist, and xenophobic rants of fearful frightened men climbing to power over the dead bodies of their enemies.
We can’t free religion of either genius or madness, but we can free ourselves from mistaking them both for the Word of God. How? By realizing that religion is made up. No one goes to war over the meaning of Hamlet. No one kills another to decide whom Shakespeare loved best.
If we admit that religion is made up we can enjoy it without being abused by it. If we admit that religion is made up we can honor myth without having to flatten it into fact. If we admit that religion is made up we can shake off the fear and violence it sanctions and address its one timeless message: do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.
Religion is made up. God didn’t choose the Jews, have a baby, or ask Mohammed to recite.
Religion is made up, but Reality is not. Yet religion trumps Reality in the hearts and minds of millions, maybe billions of people.
Religion is made up, but Truth is not. Yet religion blasphemes Truth with self-serving tales of power and exploitation.
Religion is made up. Once you know this it is hard to be religious. You just can’t justify all the rules and ruckus. I know because I keep trying. I keep telling myself religion matters. But it doesn’t.
You know what matters? Love matters. Compassion matters. Justice matters. Peace matters. Humility matters. Nature matters. Truth matters. Reality matters. You matter.
So what do I do when I know religion is made up? First I remember that all philosophy and literature is made up as well. Second I remember that just because Plato invented the dialogues of Socrates, and Shakespeare invented Hamlet and Lear doesn’t mean that Socrates, Hamlet, and Lear don’t speak Truth. Fiction may preclude fact, but in no way does it obscure Truth.
Religion is made up. At its best its stories have the potential to capture our imagination and feed our souls by revealing the best to which we humans can aspire. At its worst it can strip us of our humanity and invite us to make real the darkest fantasies we can conjure. Torah, Gospels, Qur’an, and Gita contain insights of such power, grandeur and wisdom that we say them come from God. They also contain the obscenely violent, misogynist, and xenophobic rants of fearful frightened men climbing to power over the dead bodies of their enemies.
We can’t free religion of either genius or madness, but we can free ourselves from mistaking them both for the Word of God. How? By realizing that religion is made up. No one goes to war over the meaning of Hamlet. No one kills another to decide whom Shakespeare loved best.
If we admit that religion is made up we can enjoy it without being abused by it. If we admit that religion is made up we can honor myth without having to flatten it into fact. If we admit that religion is made up we can shake off the fear and violence it sanctions and address its one timeless message: do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
I Believe in Victims; I Believe in Accidents
No victims, no accidents. That is what I heard over and again while attending a New Age fair in Atlanta, GA this weekend. The topic was the murders at Virginia Tech. The victims—oh, sorry, the volunteers—who died during Mr. Cho’s rampage had agreed to die (just as Cho had agreed to play the murderer) before they were even born in order to make some greater point that God needed made. And what is true of Virginia Tech is also true of deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the world. No victims, no accidents.
I believe in victims. A victim is a person who suffers from something over which she or he has no control, and for which she or he has no responsibility. Saying “I don’t believe in victims” is really saying, “You are responsible for whatever happens to you, and I don’t have to feel bad for or lend a hand to help you or anyone.”
I believe in accidents. Accidents are events that happen without intent. Note I didn’t say ‘without cause.” Everything has a cause. I knocked the class of orange juice off my writing table by accident. I didn’t intend to do it, but there were a number of causal factors in my doing it. I placed the glass too close to the table’s edge. I leaned too far across the table to grab a reference book. My elbow swung out and pushed the glass so far over the edge that gravity pulled it earthward. Lots of causes, no intent. An accident.
Intent, or rather the lack of it, is central to both victims and accidents. To say “no victims, no accidents” is to say everything that happens does so by intent. Everyone gets what they intend to get, good or bad, and there is no reason to be upset one way or the other.
One reason we believe in “no victims, no accidents” is that we, like Einstein, can’t stomach the idea that God plays dice with the universe. We don’t like chance; we want an ordered universe. But chance is not opposed to order. Toss a pair of dice one hundred times and you will get more sevens and elevens than twos and twelves. Guaranteed. What you cannot guarantee is what number will come up on any given roll of the dice.
Believing in order need not harden one’s heart to victims or close one’s mind to accident.
There are victims and we should feel deep sadness at their suffering. There are accidents and we should learn to live without certainty. Feeling sad and navigating anxiety open both heart and mind, and keep us humble. Living with reality is accepting what is, not excusing what is.
So many people I met this weekend wanted to be numb. They mistook this numbness for equanimity, even peace, even joy. They wore it like a badge of honor, a PHD in spiritual attainment. There is no suffering, there is no injustice, there is no horror. Everyone is simply playing out her or his agreed-to roles.
I couldn’t help noticing that everyone who told me this also told me that he or she had attained or was about to attain the American Dream of health, wealth, and happiness. It was clear to me that worrying about or feeling real sadness over the fate of others less fortunate then themselves was just going to muddy the waters of success, and they would have none of that. I can’t decide which is worse: a religion that robs us of mind or a spirituality that robs us of heart. Luckily in America we get to have both.
I believe in victims. A victim is a person who suffers from something over which she or he has no control, and for which she or he has no responsibility. Saying “I don’t believe in victims” is really saying, “You are responsible for whatever happens to you, and I don’t have to feel bad for or lend a hand to help you or anyone.”
I believe in accidents. Accidents are events that happen without intent. Note I didn’t say ‘without cause.” Everything has a cause. I knocked the class of orange juice off my writing table by accident. I didn’t intend to do it, but there were a number of causal factors in my doing it. I placed the glass too close to the table’s edge. I leaned too far across the table to grab a reference book. My elbow swung out and pushed the glass so far over the edge that gravity pulled it earthward. Lots of causes, no intent. An accident.
Intent, or rather the lack of it, is central to both victims and accidents. To say “no victims, no accidents” is to say everything that happens does so by intent. Everyone gets what they intend to get, good or bad, and there is no reason to be upset one way or the other.
One reason we believe in “no victims, no accidents” is that we, like Einstein, can’t stomach the idea that God plays dice with the universe. We don’t like chance; we want an ordered universe. But chance is not opposed to order. Toss a pair of dice one hundred times and you will get more sevens and elevens than twos and twelves. Guaranteed. What you cannot guarantee is what number will come up on any given roll of the dice.
Believing in order need not harden one’s heart to victims or close one’s mind to accident.
There are victims and we should feel deep sadness at their suffering. There are accidents and we should learn to live without certainty. Feeling sad and navigating anxiety open both heart and mind, and keep us humble. Living with reality is accepting what is, not excusing what is.
So many people I met this weekend wanted to be numb. They mistook this numbness for equanimity, even peace, even joy. They wore it like a badge of honor, a PHD in spiritual attainment. There is no suffering, there is no injustice, there is no horror. Everyone is simply playing out her or his agreed-to roles.
I couldn’t help noticing that everyone who told me this also told me that he or she had attained or was about to attain the American Dream of health, wealth, and happiness. It was clear to me that worrying about or feeling real sadness over the fate of others less fortunate then themselves was just going to muddy the waters of success, and they would have none of that. I can’t decide which is worse: a religion that robs us of mind or a spirituality that robs us of heart. Luckily in America we get to have both.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Witch Way for America
I recently read that the Department of Veterans Affairs has, after a decade of foot dragging, finally agreed to allow Wiccans who served in the US military to mark their graves with the encircled five-pointed star that is the symbol of their faith. I am happy for Wiccans and proud of America, but two ironies haunt me.
The first irony is that it took the most overtly Christian administration in American history to recognize the pentagram as a legitimate religious symbol. This is so cool, and so American. It shows what a secular democracy is all about. The Bible, of course, is not American, secular or democratic, “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18). Stoning and later burning witches at the stake was just doing the will of Allah, oh, sorry, YHVH, God, Jesus, Whomever. In this country burning witches is associated with Salem, MA which makes me wonder why a tobacco company would name a cigarette after it. When you light up a Salem are you symbolically reenacting witch burning?
[To find out, wrap yourself in thick iron chains and throw yourself into a lake. If you drown you are not reenacting Salem witch burnings. You are also not smoking. Or breathing. You are dead. So, on second thought, don’t try this.]
Actually the Hebrew of Exodus is a bit more nuanced than the English. It may mean, “Thou shalt not provide witches with livelihood.” In other words you don’t have to kill them, just don’t hire them. Which brings up the question why I see so many signs for local Tarot card and palm readers in my overwhelmingly Christian town. I wonder if people read the Bible, or only those parts that fit their opinions? Actually I don’t really wonder about this. I know we all edit the Bible in our own image, after our likeness, reflecting our madness, bias, and bigotry.
If you believe, as many of my neighbors do, that God wrote the King James Version of the Bible, you know that homosexuals and witches (not to mention shrimp, jumbo and otherwise) are abominations to God (see Leviticus 18:22; Deuteronomy 18:12; and Leviticus 9:12). Why focus on one and not the other two? (I am as guilty of this as the next person. I keep kosher and don’t eat shrimp.)
The second irony is that Wicca claims to be a religion whose central tenet is not harming other human beings. If this is true, what are Wiccans doing in the Armed Services in the first place? I served in the military, but my religion is not shy about smiting and fighting and marching behind a god who is a Man of War (Isaiah 42:13). Shouldn’t people whose faith tells to them to do no harm or to love their enemies refuse to serve in the military? I guess Wiccans are a lot like the rest of us: we don’t let religion get in the way of doing what we want.
Anyway, I am grateful to anyone willing to put her or his life on the line in service to this country, and I am pleased wiccans now have their religious symbol recognized by the government. I am only sad that they need to use it.
The first irony is that it took the most overtly Christian administration in American history to recognize the pentagram as a legitimate religious symbol. This is so cool, and so American. It shows what a secular democracy is all about. The Bible, of course, is not American, secular or democratic, “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18). Stoning and later burning witches at the stake was just doing the will of Allah, oh, sorry, YHVH, God, Jesus, Whomever. In this country burning witches is associated with Salem, MA which makes me wonder why a tobacco company would name a cigarette after it. When you light up a Salem are you symbolically reenacting witch burning?
[To find out, wrap yourself in thick iron chains and throw yourself into a lake. If you drown you are not reenacting Salem witch burnings. You are also not smoking. Or breathing. You are dead. So, on second thought, don’t try this.]
Actually the Hebrew of Exodus is a bit more nuanced than the English. It may mean, “Thou shalt not provide witches with livelihood.” In other words you don’t have to kill them, just don’t hire them. Which brings up the question why I see so many signs for local Tarot card and palm readers in my overwhelmingly Christian town. I wonder if people read the Bible, or only those parts that fit their opinions? Actually I don’t really wonder about this. I know we all edit the Bible in our own image, after our likeness, reflecting our madness, bias, and bigotry.
If you believe, as many of my neighbors do, that God wrote the King James Version of the Bible, you know that homosexuals and witches (not to mention shrimp, jumbo and otherwise) are abominations to God (see Leviticus 18:22; Deuteronomy 18:12; and Leviticus 9:12). Why focus on one and not the other two? (I am as guilty of this as the next person. I keep kosher and don’t eat shrimp.)
The second irony is that Wicca claims to be a religion whose central tenet is not harming other human beings. If this is true, what are Wiccans doing in the Armed Services in the first place? I served in the military, but my religion is not shy about smiting and fighting and marching behind a god who is a Man of War (Isaiah 42:13). Shouldn’t people whose faith tells to them to do no harm or to love their enemies refuse to serve in the military? I guess Wiccans are a lot like the rest of us: we don’t let religion get in the way of doing what we want.
Anyway, I am grateful to anyone willing to put her or his life on the line in service to this country, and I am pleased wiccans now have their religious symbol recognized by the government. I am only sad that they need to use it.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Booing the Bible
Can you imagine booing in church? How about blowing a raspberry in your synagogue or mosque? Well, that is what one Nashville rabbi is suggesting— oh, that rabbi is me; I’m suggesting we do this. For a moment I thought I worked for the New York Times. But it’s true. I think we ought to boo in church.
Imagine this: You are sitting in synagogue on a Saturday morning during the Torah reading. Imagine further that you actually understand what is being read, and, because you do, you hear the reader chanting, “When God brings you to the Land to possess it, He will thrust away many nations from before you…and you will smite them—you shall utterly destroy them… break apart their altars; smash their pillars; hack down their sacred trees; and burn their carved images” (Deuteronomy 7:1-5). And imagine that you realize that this is divinely sanctioned genocide, and that you are opposed to such genocide. So you boo the Bible. Out loud. Out loud loudly.
What would happen? They could throw you out, but so what? Your action might cause a few people to think about what they are reading and to Whom they are offering their loyalty and love. Or a rabbinic court might ban you from the community, and people will talk about what you did to deserve this. Or the rabbi might ask you why you are booing and you could engage the congregation in a dialogue about divinely sanctioned violence. Regardless of what happens you win, and, more importantly, sanity wins.
Or imagine you are in church and the reading is from the New Testament and Jesus is damning the fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season. Or he is threatening his opponents with eternal damnation. Or St. Paul is ranting about keeping women silent and in their place. And you boo. What is the worst that could happen? OK, eternal damnation, but what is the second worse?
Or imagine you are in a mosque and the Koran or imam is calling for the killing of the nonbeliever, or the fellow Muslim who believes a bit differently than the imam does. And you boo. What is the worse that could happen? OK, don’t think about that. Just boo.
Booing may be the key to freeing humanity from the insanity that passes for holiness in so many religious settings today. Booing is all-American. We boo politicians, comedians, and movie stars when they do or say things that offend us; why not boo religious texts, teachings, and teachers when they do the same? Booing what is evil or absurd in our religions might just free them and God from the madness that threatens to set the world on fire.
So here are three suggestions for fomenting a religious revolution: 1. Boo whenever you hear injustice and cruelty preached in your religious community. 2. Print and display bumper stickers that say, “Boo if you love Jesus (God, Allah, etc.).” 3. Use the video function on your cell phone to capture the mad teachings you are booing and post them on YouTube.
What do you think? Don’t boo me, now.
Imagine this: You are sitting in synagogue on a Saturday morning during the Torah reading. Imagine further that you actually understand what is being read, and, because you do, you hear the reader chanting, “When God brings you to the Land to possess it, He will thrust away many nations from before you…and you will smite them—you shall utterly destroy them… break apart their altars; smash their pillars; hack down their sacred trees; and burn their carved images” (Deuteronomy 7:1-5). And imagine that you realize that this is divinely sanctioned genocide, and that you are opposed to such genocide. So you boo the Bible. Out loud. Out loud loudly.
What would happen? They could throw you out, but so what? Your action might cause a few people to think about what they are reading and to Whom they are offering their loyalty and love. Or a rabbinic court might ban you from the community, and people will talk about what you did to deserve this. Or the rabbi might ask you why you are booing and you could engage the congregation in a dialogue about divinely sanctioned violence. Regardless of what happens you win, and, more importantly, sanity wins.
Or imagine you are in church and the reading is from the New Testament and Jesus is damning the fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season. Or he is threatening his opponents with eternal damnation. Or St. Paul is ranting about keeping women silent and in their place. And you boo. What is the worst that could happen? OK, eternal damnation, but what is the second worse?
Or imagine you are in a mosque and the Koran or imam is calling for the killing of the nonbeliever, or the fellow Muslim who believes a bit differently than the imam does. And you boo. What is the worse that could happen? OK, don’t think about that. Just boo.
Booing may be the key to freeing humanity from the insanity that passes for holiness in so many religious settings today. Booing is all-American. We boo politicians, comedians, and movie stars when they do or say things that offend us; why not boo religious texts, teachings, and teachers when they do the same? Booing what is evil or absurd in our religions might just free them and God from the madness that threatens to set the world on fire.
So here are three suggestions for fomenting a religious revolution: 1. Boo whenever you hear injustice and cruelty preached in your religious community. 2. Print and display bumper stickers that say, “Boo if you love Jesus (God, Allah, etc.).” 3. Use the video function on your cell phone to capture the mad teachings you are booing and post them on YouTube.
What do you think? Don’t boo me, now.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Lukewarm Sucks
If you ever wondered whether newspaper editorial illustrators actually read the editorials before illustrating them, wonder no more. Not that I have the answer to this question, just that it is a stupid thing to wonder about, so stop. I can tell you, however, that Web Bryant, who illustrated Michael Medved’s On Religion column for today’s USA TODAY (Monday, April 23, 2007) probably didn’t.
Medved wrote about the decision of the Jewish Theological Seminary to accept openly gay and lesbian students into its rabbinical program. The piece was called “Goldilocks’ faith serves lukewarm mush,” and Bryant was illustrating the lukewarm mush by showing us three bowls of porridge: one hot, one cold, and the other stabbed with a giant spoon sporting a large white Christian Cross. The drawing wasn’t that good, and the essay was predictable, but the Cross did make it memorable.
Michael Medved tells us he grew up in a Conservative Jewish home, but that he, two brothers, and his father have migrated to Orthodox Judaism, while another brother is a Reform Jew. Clearly the center cannot hold, which shows that Michael never read or understood Goldilocks.
In Goldilocks’ world the middle is just right not lukewarm. Goldilocks is a golden haired Buddhist following the Middle Way, or a blond Confucian adhering to chun yung, the Mean. In Michael’s world the middle is weak and wishy-washy. Choose damn you: hot or cold, hard or soft, big or small. Clearly when it comes to homosexuals Michael chooses hot, hard, and big. I don’t blame him.
I agree with Michael: “watered down versions of religious faith fail.” Where I disagree is over the implication that Reform Judaism is watered down. Today’s Reform Judaism is actually thickening up. Traditional norms, rituals, and Hebrew liturgy are making just enough of a comeback as to thicken Reform into Conservatism Lite. What I would say is that lukewarm religion fails, and that contemporary Reform Judaism is definitely lukewarm.
The original Reform Judaism of the late 19th century was ice cold. It had bite. It stood for something. You either loved it or hated it. It was either genius or heresy. Today it is long forgotten as Conservative and Reform Judaisms slowly merge into a massive blob of tasteless porridge, Orthodoxy is dynamic, creative, hot, hard, and authentic. It is also homophobic, misogynist, and medieval.
We need a new Judaism. One that is a icy alternative to Orthodoxy’s blistering heat. One that blends the Neo-Hasidic fervor of Jewish Renewal with the theological daring of Mordecai Kaplan, and the religious humanism of Martin Buber. We need a Judaism unafraid to be deeply spiritual, contemplative, postmodern, scientific, soulful, and blessedly anarchistic. We need a Judaism of which Spinoza and Einstein could be proud. We need a Judaism Michael Medved would be as passionate about rejecting as he is about the Orthodoxy he embraces. Michael is right, Goldilocks is wrong. Lukewarm sucks.
Medved wrote about the decision of the Jewish Theological Seminary to accept openly gay and lesbian students into its rabbinical program. The piece was called “Goldilocks’ faith serves lukewarm mush,” and Bryant was illustrating the lukewarm mush by showing us three bowls of porridge: one hot, one cold, and the other stabbed with a giant spoon sporting a large white Christian Cross. The drawing wasn’t that good, and the essay was predictable, but the Cross did make it memorable.
Michael Medved tells us he grew up in a Conservative Jewish home, but that he, two brothers, and his father have migrated to Orthodox Judaism, while another brother is a Reform Jew. Clearly the center cannot hold, which shows that Michael never read or understood Goldilocks.
In Goldilocks’ world the middle is just right not lukewarm. Goldilocks is a golden haired Buddhist following the Middle Way, or a blond Confucian adhering to chun yung, the Mean. In Michael’s world the middle is weak and wishy-washy. Choose damn you: hot or cold, hard or soft, big or small. Clearly when it comes to homosexuals Michael chooses hot, hard, and big. I don’t blame him.
I agree with Michael: “watered down versions of religious faith fail.” Where I disagree is over the implication that Reform Judaism is watered down. Today’s Reform Judaism is actually thickening up. Traditional norms, rituals, and Hebrew liturgy are making just enough of a comeback as to thicken Reform into Conservatism Lite. What I would say is that lukewarm religion fails, and that contemporary Reform Judaism is definitely lukewarm.
The original Reform Judaism of the late 19th century was ice cold. It had bite. It stood for something. You either loved it or hated it. It was either genius or heresy. Today it is long forgotten as Conservative and Reform Judaisms slowly merge into a massive blob of tasteless porridge, Orthodoxy is dynamic, creative, hot, hard, and authentic. It is also homophobic, misogynist, and medieval.
We need a new Judaism. One that is a icy alternative to Orthodoxy’s blistering heat. One that blends the Neo-Hasidic fervor of Jewish Renewal with the theological daring of Mordecai Kaplan, and the religious humanism of Martin Buber. We need a Judaism unafraid to be deeply spiritual, contemplative, postmodern, scientific, soulful, and blessedly anarchistic. We need a Judaism of which Spinoza and Einstein could be proud. We need a Judaism Michael Medved would be as passionate about rejecting as he is about the Orthodoxy he embraces. Michael is right, Goldilocks is wrong. Lukewarm sucks.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
There is No Morality Without God
There is no morality without God. Without Him we wouldn’t know right from wrong, or good from evil. Millions of Americans believe this, and I am one of them.
Without God I would have no idea that it’s OK to kill adulterers, witches, and wayward sons. Without God I would have assumed that selling my daughter into slavery was wrong, and committing genocide was evil. Without God it would never occur to me that Shi’ites have a moral obligation to murder Sunnis and vice versa. Slavery, too, would have been labeled immoral in my book had I not the guidance of God’s Book.
I need God to instruct me in His ways because left to my own devices I would probably choose a more live-and-let-live lifestyle, following the advice of Rabbi Hillel, “Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you.” He isn’t quoting God, just figuring things out for himself.
God also teaches us to love our neighbor and the stranger, to feed the hungry, and see to the welfare of the poor and powerless. These are great ideas, but I suspect I would have come up with these on my own. It is good to know God approves, but I probably didn‘t need Him to tell me to care for others in the first place. After all there are many godless societies that practice the Golden Rule. What they have to learn is how to wage genocide.
What I find troubling, however, is the fact that God didn’t want us to know good and evil. When Eve eats of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden she is not rewarded but punished. So is Adam for doing the same. If God wanted us to be moral He would have offered us the fruit Himself, but He didn’t. I can only draw one conclusion from this: God would rather us not be moral.
You see before Adam and Eve became moral they were naked and unashamed. As soon as they knew the difference between right and wrong they were ashamed and afraid. The fruit of the Tree didn’t supply them with moral insights, just a sense of guilt over having eaten from the Tree itself.
This is made clear when the First Folks leave the Garden and become the First Family, only to have their son Cain murder his brother Abel. If Adam and Eve knew that killing was wrong you would think they would have taught that to their kids, but Cain seems to be clueless in this regard. So the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was really the Tree of Knowledge of Shame and Fear, and I think this is why God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from it.
People who are naked and fearless are rarely a threat to others. If I don’t fear you I might get to know you. True, I might not like you, but I without fear I won’t try to enslave or kill you. Fear is the root of most evil for fear drives out love, justice and compassion.
So I am glad we have God to scare us and teach us how to be scared of others. Without Him I might not hate homosexuals, be obsessed with women’s hair and menstrual blood, or hope to kill an infidel now and again. Thanks God.
Without God I would have no idea that it’s OK to kill adulterers, witches, and wayward sons. Without God I would have assumed that selling my daughter into slavery was wrong, and committing genocide was evil. Without God it would never occur to me that Shi’ites have a moral obligation to murder Sunnis and vice versa. Slavery, too, would have been labeled immoral in my book had I not the guidance of God’s Book.
I need God to instruct me in His ways because left to my own devices I would probably choose a more live-and-let-live lifestyle, following the advice of Rabbi Hillel, “Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you.” He isn’t quoting God, just figuring things out for himself.
God also teaches us to love our neighbor and the stranger, to feed the hungry, and see to the welfare of the poor and powerless. These are great ideas, but I suspect I would have come up with these on my own. It is good to know God approves, but I probably didn‘t need Him to tell me to care for others in the first place. After all there are many godless societies that practice the Golden Rule. What they have to learn is how to wage genocide.
What I find troubling, however, is the fact that God didn’t want us to know good and evil. When Eve eats of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden she is not rewarded but punished. So is Adam for doing the same. If God wanted us to be moral He would have offered us the fruit Himself, but He didn’t. I can only draw one conclusion from this: God would rather us not be moral.
You see before Adam and Eve became moral they were naked and unashamed. As soon as they knew the difference between right and wrong they were ashamed and afraid. The fruit of the Tree didn’t supply them with moral insights, just a sense of guilt over having eaten from the Tree itself.
This is made clear when the First Folks leave the Garden and become the First Family, only to have their son Cain murder his brother Abel. If Adam and Eve knew that killing was wrong you would think they would have taught that to their kids, but Cain seems to be clueless in this regard. So the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was really the Tree of Knowledge of Shame and Fear, and I think this is why God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from it.
People who are naked and fearless are rarely a threat to others. If I don’t fear you I might get to know you. True, I might not like you, but I without fear I won’t try to enslave or kill you. Fear is the root of most evil for fear drives out love, justice and compassion.
So I am glad we have God to scare us and teach us how to be scared of others. Without Him I might not hate homosexuals, be obsessed with women’s hair and menstrual blood, or hope to kill an infidel now and again. Thanks God.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
What Is Spirituality?
What is spirituality? I am asked the question quite frequently, and my answer changes as I change. Which is to say, I don’t have one definitive response. But here is my answer for today:
“Spirituality” is best used as a verb rather than a noun. Spirituality is a practice, the cultivation of states of consciousness and traits of behavior that place the egoic “I” in the larger context of the transpersonal I AM. Spirituality is doing: meditating, chanting, praying, etc. The result of this doing is the maturation of “mochin d’gadlut,” spacious mind, that level of consciousness that knows all things to be part of the One Thing that is God, Tao, Allah, Adonai, etc.
Unfortunately most people use “spirituality” to refer to a feeling, though what that feeling is often differs from person to person. Regardless of the specific feeling to which one may refer, feelings themselves are fleeting. They come and go and are not directly controllable by the will. If they were you would choose to feel happy all the time, and the only people I know who are so happy are people who are ingesting products that are illegal. Since feelings are ever-changing, identifying spirituality with a fixed feeling set is setting yourself up for spiritual failure.
Luckily, spirituality is not about feeling one way or another. It is about cultivating that spaciousness of mind that allows you to feel your feelings (whatever they happen to be at the moment) without being blown away by them. When you are happy, be happy without wanting to be happy forever. When you are sad, be sad without worrying that you will be sad forever. Spirituality is cultivating the spaciousness of mind and heart that allows you to engage each moment with curiosity and compassion, seeking what is just and kind in any given situation, and doing it.
“I am spiritual but not religious” doesn’t tell me much; in fact I never really know what the person saying that really means, though I can’t help but suspect that the speaker is saying, “I would rather not do any serious practice, and am content to just grasp on to some vague feeling of something or other; but I don’t want to feel guilty about my inaction. Hence, I am spiritual but not religious.”
I don’t have a problem with people who don’t practice. I don’t have a problem with people who say they are spiritual but not religious. I just don’t expect too much from them. Of course I don’t expect too much from those who say they are religious either.
I do expect something from people who claim to engage in serious contemplative practice on a daily basis. I expect that they are continually growing in self-awareness and self-transcendence. I expect that they are continually glimpsing Self-awareness and embracing both Self and Other as the One and Only. I do expect that they are increasingly kind, just, humble, and engaged without the constrictive and conflictive baggage of a shadow-blind (and shadow projecting) ego. After all this is what spiritual practice is all about.
“Spirituality” is best used as a verb rather than a noun. Spirituality is a practice, the cultivation of states of consciousness and traits of behavior that place the egoic “I” in the larger context of the transpersonal I AM. Spirituality is doing: meditating, chanting, praying, etc. The result of this doing is the maturation of “mochin d’gadlut,” spacious mind, that level of consciousness that knows all things to be part of the One Thing that is God, Tao, Allah, Adonai, etc.
Unfortunately most people use “spirituality” to refer to a feeling, though what that feeling is often differs from person to person. Regardless of the specific feeling to which one may refer, feelings themselves are fleeting. They come and go and are not directly controllable by the will. If they were you would choose to feel happy all the time, and the only people I know who are so happy are people who are ingesting products that are illegal. Since feelings are ever-changing, identifying spirituality with a fixed feeling set is setting yourself up for spiritual failure.
Luckily, spirituality is not about feeling one way or another. It is about cultivating that spaciousness of mind that allows you to feel your feelings (whatever they happen to be at the moment) without being blown away by them. When you are happy, be happy without wanting to be happy forever. When you are sad, be sad without worrying that you will be sad forever. Spirituality is cultivating the spaciousness of mind and heart that allows you to engage each moment with curiosity and compassion, seeking what is just and kind in any given situation, and doing it.
“I am spiritual but not religious” doesn’t tell me much; in fact I never really know what the person saying that really means, though I can’t help but suspect that the speaker is saying, “I would rather not do any serious practice, and am content to just grasp on to some vague feeling of something or other; but I don’t want to feel guilty about my inaction. Hence, I am spiritual but not religious.”
I don’t have a problem with people who don’t practice. I don’t have a problem with people who say they are spiritual but not religious. I just don’t expect too much from them. Of course I don’t expect too much from those who say they are religious either.
I do expect something from people who claim to engage in serious contemplative practice on a daily basis. I expect that they are continually growing in self-awareness and self-transcendence. I expect that they are continually glimpsing Self-awareness and embracing both Self and Other as the One and Only. I do expect that they are increasingly kind, just, humble, and engaged without the constrictive and conflictive baggage of a shadow-blind (and shadow projecting) ego. After all this is what spiritual practice is all about.
Coo Coo for Cocoa Christ
Remember how upset we enlightened westerns were when the Islamic world erupted in outrage over cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him? How could they get so apoplectic over an image? How could they not understand the centrality of freedom of speech to democracy, and the centrality of democracy to everything we believe to be holy? They must be so medieval; so backward; so frightened of freedom as to be unredeemable.
Lucky for us we live in the heart of Christendom where such madness could never hold sway. Unless of course you happen to sculpt a nude chocolate image of Christ crucified.
This exactly what Cosimo Cavallaro, and Italian-American artist in Manhattan did, and the response was, well positively medieval. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League called it “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.” Cavallaro and his wife began receiving death threats—not from irate Muslims, but from, can it be, God fearing Christians. Yes the followers of the God of Love and Prince of Peace plot to murder the Willy Wanka of Christian iconography.
Can you imagine Sam Harris, one of America’s leading atheists, threatening to kill someone for making a chocolate nude of Marilyn Murray O’Hare? Religion is the breeding ground for violent nut jobs. If Christians demand moderate Muslims decry the madness of their fanatic co-religionists, I think it is only fair that Catholics come out and disavow the dark (chocolate) fantasies of Bill Donohue, and Protestants disavow any connection with or support for the chocophobes in their midst.
Personally I like the idea of a chocolate Jesus. It certainly makes the idea of eating his body far more palatable to me. Imagine a new faith with a communion of chocolate body and hot chocolate blood.
The fact is some 15 years ago or so, I wrote a novel, never published, entitled “Play Kaddish For Me” in which the hero, a psycho-P.I., battled a bishop of a new brand of Christianity that did in fact eat chocolate Jesuses at its communions. Actually, every believer who died was turned into chocolate and eaten by loved ones at her or his funeral.
Like I said, the novel never left my computer, so the Catholic League never tracked me down, and Protestant hit squads left me alone. I always hoped to publish the story some day, but after reading about Cavallaro’s experience I will reconsider. I might be willing to die for my faith, but I have no desire to die for someone else’s.
Lucky for us we live in the heart of Christendom where such madness could never hold sway. Unless of course you happen to sculpt a nude chocolate image of Christ crucified.
This exactly what Cosimo Cavallaro, and Italian-American artist in Manhattan did, and the response was, well positively medieval. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League called it “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.” Cavallaro and his wife began receiving death threats—not from irate Muslims, but from, can it be, God fearing Christians. Yes the followers of the God of Love and Prince of Peace plot to murder the Willy Wanka of Christian iconography.
Can you imagine Sam Harris, one of America’s leading atheists, threatening to kill someone for making a chocolate nude of Marilyn Murray O’Hare? Religion is the breeding ground for violent nut jobs. If Christians demand moderate Muslims decry the madness of their fanatic co-religionists, I think it is only fair that Catholics come out and disavow the dark (chocolate) fantasies of Bill Donohue, and Protestants disavow any connection with or support for the chocophobes in their midst.
Personally I like the idea of a chocolate Jesus. It certainly makes the idea of eating his body far more palatable to me. Imagine a new faith with a communion of chocolate body and hot chocolate blood.
The fact is some 15 years ago or so, I wrote a novel, never published, entitled “Play Kaddish For Me” in which the hero, a psycho-P.I., battled a bishop of a new brand of Christianity that did in fact eat chocolate Jesuses at its communions. Actually, every believer who died was turned into chocolate and eaten by loved ones at her or his funeral.
Like I said, the novel never left my computer, so the Catholic League never tracked me down, and Protestant hit squads left me alone. I always hoped to publish the story some day, but after reading about Cavallaro’s experience I will reconsider. I might be willing to die for my faith, but I have no desire to die for someone else’s.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
God Redux
“The only option if one is to be true to what we know to be true is to abandon the word “God” altogether.” This from an email responding to my essay on the God of Science and the Science of God.
It seems to me that this idea is too narrow. We have, in fact, three choices: We can maintain the ancient and medieval gods of our various tribes and competing religions and allow them to take us to war over and over again. Or, we can, as the emailer suggests, abandon all notions of God and find solace in a universal scientific materialism. Or, we can, as I propose, reinvent God and proselytize with a vengeance.
I don’t think people can do without God. The idea has been around almost as long as homo sapiens sapiens, but it has not always meant the same thing. What I propose is a new vision of God, one that transcends tribe, gender, ethnicity, race, etc. One that leads us beyond the politics of piety and its toxic mix of nationalism and religion. One that does away with reward and punishment, heaven and hell, and salvation and damnation.
This new image of God will draw heavily from philosophers such as Spinoza, theologians such as Tillich, and philosophers such as Whitehead. It will be unabashedly panentheistic, seeing God as that which manifests and transcends the world open to us through our senses and machines. Such a God does indeed incarnate as man, as many claim is true of Jesus, and also as woman, roses, oceans, bees, and bedbugs. The universe, indeed the multiverse, is God’s body. And it is forever changing for God is change as well as the changeless. God is paradox, and nothing less that the tools of paradox—quantum physics and Zen koans, to name but two—can help us realize God.
The prophets of this God are people like Amma, the hugging saint of India, Ramana Maharshi, Alan Watts, Sri Aurobindo, Toni Packer, and J. Krishnamurti. Erich Fromm (To Have or to Be), Aldous Huxley (The Island), and Ken Wilbur (Integral Spirituality) will be among our pundits. Einstein, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King will be our guiding lights.
My point is simple, people need God. They need a word that reveals the greater reality in which they live. I am not hung up on the word, and one is free to use any number of synonyms, but to abandon the idea of God in hopes of creating a better world is a waste of time. What we need is a fresh and relevant God-talk. What we have is idol worship among the conventional theists, and idol bashing among the conventional atheists. Both of these are silly.
No, the fearsome god of Abraham, the god who destroys peoples and planets and who demands blood sacrifice either of sons or his, will not die overnight. But if we can powerfully and plainly articulate a vision of a truer god (God itself being beyond knowing) the old god will eventually go the way of Zeus. I only hope this happens before his followers literally love bomb us to death.
It seems to me that this idea is too narrow. We have, in fact, three choices: We can maintain the ancient and medieval gods of our various tribes and competing religions and allow them to take us to war over and over again. Or, we can, as the emailer suggests, abandon all notions of God and find solace in a universal scientific materialism. Or, we can, as I propose, reinvent God and proselytize with a vengeance.
I don’t think people can do without God. The idea has been around almost as long as homo sapiens sapiens, but it has not always meant the same thing. What I propose is a new vision of God, one that transcends tribe, gender, ethnicity, race, etc. One that leads us beyond the politics of piety and its toxic mix of nationalism and religion. One that does away with reward and punishment, heaven and hell, and salvation and damnation.
This new image of God will draw heavily from philosophers such as Spinoza, theologians such as Tillich, and philosophers such as Whitehead. It will be unabashedly panentheistic, seeing God as that which manifests and transcends the world open to us through our senses and machines. Such a God does indeed incarnate as man, as many claim is true of Jesus, and also as woman, roses, oceans, bees, and bedbugs. The universe, indeed the multiverse, is God’s body. And it is forever changing for God is change as well as the changeless. God is paradox, and nothing less that the tools of paradox—quantum physics and Zen koans, to name but two—can help us realize God.
The prophets of this God are people like Amma, the hugging saint of India, Ramana Maharshi, Alan Watts, Sri Aurobindo, Toni Packer, and J. Krishnamurti. Erich Fromm (To Have or to Be), Aldous Huxley (The Island), and Ken Wilbur (Integral Spirituality) will be among our pundits. Einstein, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King will be our guiding lights.
My point is simple, people need God. They need a word that reveals the greater reality in which they live. I am not hung up on the word, and one is free to use any number of synonyms, but to abandon the idea of God in hopes of creating a better world is a waste of time. What we need is a fresh and relevant God-talk. What we have is idol worship among the conventional theists, and idol bashing among the conventional atheists. Both of these are silly.
No, the fearsome god of Abraham, the god who destroys peoples and planets and who demands blood sacrifice either of sons or his, will not die overnight. But if we can powerfully and plainly articulate a vision of a truer god (God itself being beyond knowing) the old god will eventually go the way of Zeus. I only hope this happens before his followers literally love bomb us to death.
Monday, April 09, 2007
God of Science/Science of God
What can we believe? This is the question that occupies my students and myself as we enter into the final hours of the course I created called “The God of Science and the Science of God.” During the past months we read over a dozen books, watched many video interviews with leading scientists, and wrestled with questions of enduring significance. Here are some of them.
Who is the God of science? The nondual consciousness that manifests all reality.
What is the science of God? Since God is reality, all science is in a sense a science of God. In addition there are disciplines that investigate this consciousness more directly: contemplation, meditation, neuroscience, and neurotheology to name but four.
Can those of us who take science seriously believe in God? Absolutely. The universe is not a random accident but the unfolding of a universal nondual consciousness. God is that consciousness.
Is God purposeful? Yes. God’s purpose is God’s nature, and God’s nature is to manifest a universe capable of knowing itself to be a manifestation of God.
Does God have a plan for my life? Yes. God’s plan is for you to realize your true nature as God incarnate.
Does God choose one people over another? No. The idea of chosenness is a sociological fiction and has nothing to do with God.
Does God save some and damn others? No. Salvation and damnation, heaven and hell, are manipulative tools of political power and coercion and have nothing to do with God.
What kind of religion works with science? One that is not afraid of myth.
What kind of science works with religion? One that is not afraid of mystery.
Where does this leave religious believers? At a crossroads. If we choose biblical literalism over science we must live in abject fear of truth. If we choose a mythic reading of scripture we are free to blend the knowledge of science with the wisdom of faith.
What is the key ingredient to the science-religion dialogue? Humility. Humility on the part of science as it learns to respect the mystery its own methods reveals. Humility on the part of religion as it learns to free God from the superstition of our ancestors.
Does the God you find in this class transcend and even reject religion and its creeds and competitions? Yes. This class doesn’t negate religion but it demands a new understanding of it, one that overthrows the triumphalism as the heart of the three Abrahamic faiths crumbles. The question is will these faiths crumble with it?
Who is the God of science? The nondual consciousness that manifests all reality.
What is the science of God? Since God is reality, all science is in a sense a science of God. In addition there are disciplines that investigate this consciousness more directly: contemplation, meditation, neuroscience, and neurotheology to name but four.
Can those of us who take science seriously believe in God? Absolutely. The universe is not a random accident but the unfolding of a universal nondual consciousness. God is that consciousness.
Is God purposeful? Yes. God’s purpose is God’s nature, and God’s nature is to manifest a universe capable of knowing itself to be a manifestation of God.
Does God have a plan for my life? Yes. God’s plan is for you to realize your true nature as God incarnate.
Does God choose one people over another? No. The idea of chosenness is a sociological fiction and has nothing to do with God.
Does God save some and damn others? No. Salvation and damnation, heaven and hell, are manipulative tools of political power and coercion and have nothing to do with God.
What kind of religion works with science? One that is not afraid of myth.
What kind of science works with religion? One that is not afraid of mystery.
Where does this leave religious believers? At a crossroads. If we choose biblical literalism over science we must live in abject fear of truth. If we choose a mythic reading of scripture we are free to blend the knowledge of science with the wisdom of faith.
What is the key ingredient to the science-religion dialogue? Humility. Humility on the part of science as it learns to respect the mystery its own methods reveals. Humility on the part of religion as it learns to free God from the superstition of our ancestors.
Does the God you find in this class transcend and even reject religion and its creeds and competitions? Yes. This class doesn’t negate religion but it demands a new understanding of it, one that overthrows the triumphalism as the heart of the three Abrahamic faiths crumbles. The question is will these faiths crumble with it?
Sunday, April 08, 2007
He Is Risen
“He is risen,” proclaimed a banner attached to the tail of a small airplane circling the skies over my head. “He is risen,” affirmed the billboard on the lawn of one downtown church as thousands of worships streamed into churches across the city. “He is risen,” shouted one pastor to his dancing flock, as I listened by a window to the joyous gospel choir echoing these words back to him.
“He is risen,” said the elderly black man standing in front of the Olive Branch Church on Main Street.
“Yes,” I replied sincerely as I made room for him on the sidewalk, “he is risen,” adding in what I hoped was an inaudible whisper, “but am I?”
Today is Easter Sunday, Christianity’s chief holy day, and I am walking through town and out to the river beyond it to sing my own praises to God. I am not a Christian and church holds little interest for me, but the question of my own resurrection does.
For Christians what matters this Easter is that Jesus is risen, for me what matters is whether I am risen—risen from the dead, from the past, from the old, from the safe, from the conventional, from the conditioned, from the known, from the tomb of my own convictions, story, and self.
For Christians the resurrected Jesus is the point, for me he is the pointer. “Follow me,” Jesus said. I take that literally. Jesus took the best of his Judaism, the love of God and neighbor (to which I would add love the stranger as well), lifted both out of the narrowness of tribalism, priestly purity, self-righteous piety, and religiously sanctioned jingoism, and pointed toward a religion of no-religion. I follow him as best I can: loving God, neighbor, and stranger beyond the boundaries of doctrine, creed, and tribe. For me, “He is risen” means that his message continues to slip free from the death grip of those who seek to strangle his message by turning the iconoclast into an icon.
“He is risen.” I visited the tomb of Jesus last November, and as I stood for a few moments inside that empty cave I felt the power of this 1st century Galilean Jew who defied both priests and politicians in the name of justice and compassion. In a world going mad with messianic fever, he preached the simple Torah of Hillel: do not do to others what you would not want others to do unto you. In a world where the simple faith of Abraham had become the property of priests and lawyers, he preached the prophetic call to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. I could never be a Christian, but I hope, given what I know of Jesus and the early Jewish radicals who followed him, I would have been a hasid, a disciple, of Jesus.
Our world is not unlike his world. Mad prophets manipulate people with fear. Would-be Caesars vie for power in the name of God. Church and state are the two pockets of corporate elites preaching a zero-sum game of have and ever more indebted have–nots. The pious proclaim, “He is risen,” and are then herded back into the tomb of their lives where fear rather than hope is the foundation of faith.
Yes, he is risen, but we are not.
“He is risen,” said the elderly black man standing in front of the Olive Branch Church on Main Street.
“Yes,” I replied sincerely as I made room for him on the sidewalk, “he is risen,” adding in what I hoped was an inaudible whisper, “but am I?”
Today is Easter Sunday, Christianity’s chief holy day, and I am walking through town and out to the river beyond it to sing my own praises to God. I am not a Christian and church holds little interest for me, but the question of my own resurrection does.
For Christians what matters this Easter is that Jesus is risen, for me what matters is whether I am risen—risen from the dead, from the past, from the old, from the safe, from the conventional, from the conditioned, from the known, from the tomb of my own convictions, story, and self.
For Christians the resurrected Jesus is the point, for me he is the pointer. “Follow me,” Jesus said. I take that literally. Jesus took the best of his Judaism, the love of God and neighbor (to which I would add love the stranger as well), lifted both out of the narrowness of tribalism, priestly purity, self-righteous piety, and religiously sanctioned jingoism, and pointed toward a religion of no-religion. I follow him as best I can: loving God, neighbor, and stranger beyond the boundaries of doctrine, creed, and tribe. For me, “He is risen” means that his message continues to slip free from the death grip of those who seek to strangle his message by turning the iconoclast into an icon.
“He is risen.” I visited the tomb of Jesus last November, and as I stood for a few moments inside that empty cave I felt the power of this 1st century Galilean Jew who defied both priests and politicians in the name of justice and compassion. In a world going mad with messianic fever, he preached the simple Torah of Hillel: do not do to others what you would not want others to do unto you. In a world where the simple faith of Abraham had become the property of priests and lawyers, he preached the prophetic call to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. I could never be a Christian, but I hope, given what I know of Jesus and the early Jewish radicals who followed him, I would have been a hasid, a disciple, of Jesus.
Our world is not unlike his world. Mad prophets manipulate people with fear. Would-be Caesars vie for power in the name of God. Church and state are the two pockets of corporate elites preaching a zero-sum game of have and ever more indebted have–nots. The pious proclaim, “He is risen,” and are then herded back into the tomb of their lives where fear rather than hope is the foundation of faith.
Yes, he is risen, but we are not.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Paradoxy
For the first thirteen years of my life my family identified as Orthodox Jews. Following my Bar Mitzvah the entire synagogue shifted into the Conservative camp in order to allow men and women to sit together in the sanctuary. When I entered rabbinical school I chose the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, and when I created my own synagogue I chose to affiliate with the Reconstructionist movement. Add to this the fact that I was the editor of the Journal of Humanistic Judaism for two years, and that I am a hasid of Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi founder of the Renewal movement, and you have a portrait of a multidenominational Jew. Yet people want me to identify with one movement or another so they can get a handle on who I am and what I believe. Since no one denomination is sufficient for me, I have decided to start my own: Paradoxy. From this day forth let it be known that I am a Paradox Jew.
To understand Paradoxy imagine the classic figure/ground image of the goblet and profiles. Looked at one way, the image is a white goblet surrounded by a black field, looked at another way it is the portrait of two black human profiles separated by white space. But what is the image itself when no one is looking at it?
Whatever this is I will call Truth, whatever we see I will call truth. To the see the goblet and not the profiles is not wrong or false, it is true, just not the entire Truth. To the see the profiles and not the goblet is also true, just not the whole Truth. The whole Truth cannot be seen, for the act of seeing forces us into a figure/ground dualism while Reality itself is nondual. Paradoxy is recognizing that all truth is partial, and that the Truth is nondual and beyond our ability to grasp with the dualistic mind. Humility not hubris is nature state of the Paradox Jew.
Paradoxy is not totally open-ended, however. Looking at our figure/ground image one cannot assert that the image is one of dogs playing poker. While Reality is beyond reason transcends reason it also embraces reason and its truths are open to scientific exploration.
Paradoxy encourages freedom of thought and expression. The Paradox Jew is one who can hold a variety of truths (no matter how inconsistent) at the same time. The Paradox Jew cannot claim that Judaism is True, only that Judaism contains truth. Hence the Paradox Jew is not limited to Judaism in her quest for truth, and can learn from and incorporate truths from all sources: religious, scientific, philosophical, etc.
Of course you might say that one who follows the Paradox Path need not accept any label other than Paradox itself. Why be a Jew or Christian, or Muslim if these are no more than aspects of a multilevel figure/ground Reality? The answer is, I don’t know. You want a label, pick a label. You want to label yourself unlabelable, fine. The point is that no label, including No Label, really matters.
So for those who care, I am a Paradox Jew. If you would like to join my new movement great. Dues are steep: consistency, surety, certainty, and the capacity to mistake truth for Truth. Get rid of each of these and you may well find yourself a member of the Paradoxy. Welcome.
To understand Paradoxy imagine the classic figure/ground image of the goblet and profiles. Looked at one way, the image is a white goblet surrounded by a black field, looked at another way it is the portrait of two black human profiles separated by white space. But what is the image itself when no one is looking at it?
Whatever this is I will call Truth, whatever we see I will call truth. To the see the goblet and not the profiles is not wrong or false, it is true, just not the entire Truth. To the see the profiles and not the goblet is also true, just not the whole Truth. The whole Truth cannot be seen, for the act of seeing forces us into a figure/ground dualism while Reality itself is nondual. Paradoxy is recognizing that all truth is partial, and that the Truth is nondual and beyond our ability to grasp with the dualistic mind. Humility not hubris is nature state of the Paradox Jew.
Paradoxy is not totally open-ended, however. Looking at our figure/ground image one cannot assert that the image is one of dogs playing poker. While Reality is beyond reason transcends reason it also embraces reason and its truths are open to scientific exploration.
Paradoxy encourages freedom of thought and expression. The Paradox Jew is one who can hold a variety of truths (no matter how inconsistent) at the same time. The Paradox Jew cannot claim that Judaism is True, only that Judaism contains truth. Hence the Paradox Jew is not limited to Judaism in her quest for truth, and can learn from and incorporate truths from all sources: religious, scientific, philosophical, etc.
Of course you might say that one who follows the Paradox Path need not accept any label other than Paradox itself. Why be a Jew or Christian, or Muslim if these are no more than aspects of a multilevel figure/ground Reality? The answer is, I don’t know. You want a label, pick a label. You want to label yourself unlabelable, fine. The point is that no label, including No Label, really matters.
So for those who care, I am a Paradox Jew. If you would like to join my new movement great. Dues are steep: consistency, surety, certainty, and the capacity to mistake truth for Truth. Get rid of each of these and you may well find yourself a member of the Paradoxy. Welcome.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Making the Cut
Yes, I know, I didn’t make the list of the Fifty Most Influential Rabbis in the US. I’m as shocked as you are. I went on Newsweek.com where the list was published and read it over and over again. I wasn’t on it.
Am I hurt? Disappointed? Disheartened? I might be if any of my friends made the list, but since they didn’t make the cut either I can ignore the whole thing. But I’ll tell you what really makes me feel better: I’m number 51. If the list had been a bit longer, even one rabbi longer, I would have made it. How do I know? I can’t imagine it any other way.
After all my poems appear in thousands of prayer books around the country. My books are studied in synagogues, colleges, and private homes throughout the English-speaking world. My seminars and classes max out, and I am in demand not only among Jewish groups but among a growing number of churches as well. How could I not be # 51?
True, when I called Michael Lynton, Chairman of Sony Pictures who is one of the three Jews who created the list, to confirm my status I was told that Mr. Lynton was unavailable. But when I called back for the twelfth time I was diverted to a voice mail message that said, “If this is Rabbi Rami please press #51.” When I did so I was disconnected from Sony, but the command to press 51 cannot be an accident.
So what will I do with my newfound fame? First I want to find out who was #52. This guy is a real loser. I mean it is one thing to be just one out, but two… please! I made my own list of who is below me. I won’t share it with you here because I don’t want to shame those who are on it, but between you and me, this is the more important list. I don’t really care who is better than me. I’m humble enough to admit that Rabbi Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, deserves to be higher than me on the list. It just makes me feel good to know that Rabbi Moshe Gross, director of Jamba Jews, an organization supporting Israeli citrus growers, is below me.
Second, I want to take out a full-page ad in the New York Times thanking Lynton and his friends for recognizing me as number fifty-one. I think this act of gratitude will not only please the makers of the list and influence them to bump me up a notch in their next list, it will also help increase my book sales and seminar attendance.
The problem is I can’t afford the ad. So I am turning to you, loyal readers, to help out. No, I’m not going ask you for money to purchase this ad. That will take too long. Rather I am asking you to take a black bold-point Sharpie to your local newsstand and write the following on page two of the Times: Thanks for Making Rabbi Rami #51. If it turns out that defacing the Times is illegal, and you are caught doing this, I will deny ever having said this. This blog will self-destruct in less time than it takes you to forget the fact that Hier is higher than me on the stupid list about which no one in his or her right mind cares about anyway. Stupid list. Stupid, stupid, stupid list.
I appreciate your help. Thanks.
Am I hurt? Disappointed? Disheartened? I might be if any of my friends made the list, but since they didn’t make the cut either I can ignore the whole thing. But I’ll tell you what really makes me feel better: I’m number 51. If the list had been a bit longer, even one rabbi longer, I would have made it. How do I know? I can’t imagine it any other way.
After all my poems appear in thousands of prayer books around the country. My books are studied in synagogues, colleges, and private homes throughout the English-speaking world. My seminars and classes max out, and I am in demand not only among Jewish groups but among a growing number of churches as well. How could I not be # 51?
True, when I called Michael Lynton, Chairman of Sony Pictures who is one of the three Jews who created the list, to confirm my status I was told that Mr. Lynton was unavailable. But when I called back for the twelfth time I was diverted to a voice mail message that said, “If this is Rabbi Rami please press #51.” When I did so I was disconnected from Sony, but the command to press 51 cannot be an accident.
So what will I do with my newfound fame? First I want to find out who was #52. This guy is a real loser. I mean it is one thing to be just one out, but two… please! I made my own list of who is below me. I won’t share it with you here because I don’t want to shame those who are on it, but between you and me, this is the more important list. I don’t really care who is better than me. I’m humble enough to admit that Rabbi Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, deserves to be higher than me on the list. It just makes me feel good to know that Rabbi Moshe Gross, director of Jamba Jews, an organization supporting Israeli citrus growers, is below me.
Second, I want to take out a full-page ad in the New York Times thanking Lynton and his friends for recognizing me as number fifty-one. I think this act of gratitude will not only please the makers of the list and influence them to bump me up a notch in their next list, it will also help increase my book sales and seminar attendance.
The problem is I can’t afford the ad. So I am turning to you, loyal readers, to help out. No, I’m not going ask you for money to purchase this ad. That will take too long. Rather I am asking you to take a black bold-point Sharpie to your local newsstand and write the following on page two of the Times: Thanks for Making Rabbi Rami #51. If it turns out that defacing the Times is illegal, and you are caught doing this, I will deny ever having said this. This blog will self-destruct in less time than it takes you to forget the fact that Hier is higher than me on the stupid list about which no one in his or her right mind cares about anyway. Stupid list. Stupid, stupid, stupid list.
I appreciate your help. Thanks.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
What Makes You Happy?
What makes you happy? It is an ordinary enough question, but the setting in which it was asked of me was anything but. I was walking in the Murfreesboro cemetery as I often do early in the morning, chanting and talking with God. Usually I am alone with the dead, but this morning there was an elderly man who’d come to place plastic flowers at the grave of his wife.
I nodded as I walked by, and that’s when the question was posed, “What makes you happy?” He smiled as he said it, and that was all he said before returning his attention to the grave and the memories he had of the woman he’d married.
I stopped and turned toward him thinking he wanted to talk, but he waved me on without lifting his head and said, “Just think about it.” So I did.
As I meandered among the graves, some dating from before the Civil War, or as we call it here, the War Between the States, I asked myself the question, “What makes me happy?” I didn’t agonize over an answer; I just walked and repeated the question until the answer simply appeared to me.
Six things make me happy: freedom, solitude, companionship, service, learning, and a space to call my own.
Freedom means freedom from the rigors of an 80-hour work week, and freedom to pursue my own bliss. Solitude means hours alone each day to think, meditate, and write without having to talk or smile or pretend I am interested in things that bore me. Companionship means being able to share ideas and intimate moments (physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual) with someone I trust implicitly. Service means doing something that benefits others, either one person or many persons, either through an act of kindness or through an act of brilliance. Learning means having access to great books and ideas, creative people and their passions. And a space to call my own means having a place that I can organize to suit my needs and decorate to reflect my interests.
Writing this down now I realize I could add a few more things like money, food, clothing and the other items on the lower end of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but these are necessities; not having them would make life difficult, but having them doesn’t make me happy. I used to have lots of money, I have and eat more than enough food, and I have all the clothes I want, let alone wear, and I used to have much more. Not to mention a three-bedroom ranch house, state-of-the-art stereo equipment, five guitars, and a Porsche— but I wasn’t happy with all those things. I just had them. I am happy now. More happy than I have been in a long time; maybe forever.
As I doubled back through the cemetery I noticed the man was gone. His question remains, however, so I will pass it on to you. What makes you happy? Think about it.
I nodded as I walked by, and that’s when the question was posed, “What makes you happy?” He smiled as he said it, and that was all he said before returning his attention to the grave and the memories he had of the woman he’d married.
I stopped and turned toward him thinking he wanted to talk, but he waved me on without lifting his head and said, “Just think about it.” So I did.
As I meandered among the graves, some dating from before the Civil War, or as we call it here, the War Between the States, I asked myself the question, “What makes me happy?” I didn’t agonize over an answer; I just walked and repeated the question until the answer simply appeared to me.
Six things make me happy: freedom, solitude, companionship, service, learning, and a space to call my own.
Freedom means freedom from the rigors of an 80-hour work week, and freedom to pursue my own bliss. Solitude means hours alone each day to think, meditate, and write without having to talk or smile or pretend I am interested in things that bore me. Companionship means being able to share ideas and intimate moments (physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual) with someone I trust implicitly. Service means doing something that benefits others, either one person or many persons, either through an act of kindness or through an act of brilliance. Learning means having access to great books and ideas, creative people and their passions. And a space to call my own means having a place that I can organize to suit my needs and decorate to reflect my interests.
Writing this down now I realize I could add a few more things like money, food, clothing and the other items on the lower end of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but these are necessities; not having them would make life difficult, but having them doesn’t make me happy. I used to have lots of money, I have and eat more than enough food, and I have all the clothes I want, let alone wear, and I used to have much more. Not to mention a three-bedroom ranch house, state-of-the-art stereo equipment, five guitars, and a Porsche— but I wasn’t happy with all those things. I just had them. I am happy now. More happy than I have been in a long time; maybe forever.
As I doubled back through the cemetery I noticed the man was gone. His question remains, however, so I will pass it on to you. What makes you happy? Think about it.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Surprise
[This is a summary of a recent talk I gave at a church in Michigan]
When was the last time you were surprised at church? When was the last time you walked through these doors and had no idea what to expect? For most of us it has been a very long time. Religion fears surprise, which is very sad, for God is all about surprise.
Moses asks God’s Name at the Burning Bush. God says, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh” which most English Bibles mistakenly translate as “I am what I am.” “Ehyeh” means “I will be” not “I am.” God says to Moses, “You cannot know My Name. Something named is fixed, static, unchanging. I am none of these. I will be whatever I will be and there is no way to know Me in advance. All you can do is meet Me in the moment.”
You cannot know God because knowing is in the past while God is in the present. You cannot name God because names are fixed and God is fluid. You cannot worship God because worship is aimed at the known while God is unknown. Religion isn’t about God but about an idea of God fixed in your mind, conditioned by creed, and managed by theologians, while God, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh,” is wild, free, and unconditioned. You know god-the-idea in the church and the classroom. You meet God-the-reality in the wilderness and the whirlwind.
Churches, synagogues, mosques, temples are the opposite of the wilderness. They are tame places where idols are polished but where God is rarely present. This is not the church’s fault. The church is what you make it, and you don’t want to be surprised. Jacob said, “God is in this place and I didn’t know it.” Why didn’t he know it? Because he was trapped in what he did know, and what he did know left no room for God.
Religion is the opposite of Unknowing. Religion is all about knowing, of taking refuge in fixed ideas and the armies of believers that uphold and enforce them. Religion documents the I Am and freezes it into the What Was leaving is distracted from the I Will Be that is the true God.
If you want to meet God in this place you must make it a wild place, a place of surprise.
If you want to meet God in this place you must enter with your mind empty of idols and ideas, and open to what will be.
If you want to meet God in this place you must abandon who you imagine you are and see what you come to be.
If you want to meet God in this place you must drop all you know, enter naked and see what is rather than what was.
How do you do this? If there were a “how” the result would not be surprise, but just another preprogrammed idea. There is no how. There is no mechanism or method for realizing God or being surprised. There is just you, here and now in the wildness of your life. When you are just with that surprise is all there is.
When was the last time you were surprised at church? When was the last time you walked through these doors and had no idea what to expect? For most of us it has been a very long time. Religion fears surprise, which is very sad, for God is all about surprise.
Moses asks God’s Name at the Burning Bush. God says, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh” which most English Bibles mistakenly translate as “I am what I am.” “Ehyeh” means “I will be” not “I am.” God says to Moses, “You cannot know My Name. Something named is fixed, static, unchanging. I am none of these. I will be whatever I will be and there is no way to know Me in advance. All you can do is meet Me in the moment.”
You cannot know God because knowing is in the past while God is in the present. You cannot name God because names are fixed and God is fluid. You cannot worship God because worship is aimed at the known while God is unknown. Religion isn’t about God but about an idea of God fixed in your mind, conditioned by creed, and managed by theologians, while God, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh,” is wild, free, and unconditioned. You know god-the-idea in the church and the classroom. You meet God-the-reality in the wilderness and the whirlwind.
Churches, synagogues, mosques, temples are the opposite of the wilderness. They are tame places where idols are polished but where God is rarely present. This is not the church’s fault. The church is what you make it, and you don’t want to be surprised. Jacob said, “God is in this place and I didn’t know it.” Why didn’t he know it? Because he was trapped in what he did know, and what he did know left no room for God.
Religion is the opposite of Unknowing. Religion is all about knowing, of taking refuge in fixed ideas and the armies of believers that uphold and enforce them. Religion documents the I Am and freezes it into the What Was leaving is distracted from the I Will Be that is the true God.
If you want to meet God in this place you must make it a wild place, a place of surprise.
If you want to meet God in this place you must enter with your mind empty of idols and ideas, and open to what will be.
If you want to meet God in this place you must abandon who you imagine you are and see what you come to be.
If you want to meet God in this place you must drop all you know, enter naked and see what is rather than what was.
How do you do this? If there were a “how” the result would not be surprise, but just another preprogrammed idea. There is no how. There is no mechanism or method for realizing God or being surprised. There is just you, here and now in the wildness of your life. When you are just with that surprise is all there is.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Who's Your Enemy
I recently received a call from a delightful evangelical Christian hoping to enlist me in a war against “our common enemy”— Islam. While I might ordinarily be inclined to respond to such calls by pretending to be my own answering machine, and thus avoid having to take the call at all, I opted instead to engage in a conversation about something that is very important to me: confronting the real enemy.
Islam is not my enemy. Nor is it yours. Yes, there are elements within Islam that are the enemies of freedom, and they, assuming you are in favor of freedom, are your enemy. But these elements exist in every religion, and labeling the enemy Islamofascist leads to the false conclusion that all of Islam as your enemy.
While I find the conclusion false, it was exactly the conclusion the caller expected me to make. Islam, because it denies the jingoistic chosenness of the Jews and the spiritual triumphalism of the Christians, must be against God who in fact chose the Jews and sent the world his only begotten son. When I suggested that the Koran and Islam offer a viable alternative to both Jewish and Christian interpretations of God’s will, I was met with the notion that the Koran, because it denies these claims, is by definition a false revelation coming from the Devil. I find such reasoning circular and meaningless.
Yet there is an enemy. The enemy is not Islamo-anything. The enemy is fascism in all its forms: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Secular.
Fascism technically began in Italy under Benito Mussolini and ruled that country from 1922 to 1943. Broadly understood fascism is an extreme authoritarian political ideology in which, according to Mussolini, “the state… governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life… For the fascist, everything is within the state and… neither individuals or groups are outside the state… For fascism the state is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative.” Or, to put it more succinctly in his original Italian: “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato/ Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
Statism is my enemy, fascism is my enemy, regardless which religion fascists choose to hide behind. Any group that seeks to subsume the individual beneath the state, and uses lies, violence, propaganda, and censorship to do so is my enemy. Any movement that seeks to shut down the individual’s right to choose her own way in life is my enemy. And Islam has no monopoly on this.
I am for the freedom of the individual to choose for him or herself how best to be in the world. While there are limits to individual freedom (one person’s freedom ends where another’s begins), and hence we must learn to negotiate with one another to maximize the freedom of all, I am opposed to any system that seeks to reduce the individual to a pawn in a game controlled by politicians or clerics. America is not safe from fascists, but the threat may be as much from those who claim to be fascism’s enemies then those these anti-fascists claim to fight.
Islam is not my enemy. Nor is it yours. Yes, there are elements within Islam that are the enemies of freedom, and they, assuming you are in favor of freedom, are your enemy. But these elements exist in every religion, and labeling the enemy Islamofascist leads to the false conclusion that all of Islam as your enemy.
While I find the conclusion false, it was exactly the conclusion the caller expected me to make. Islam, because it denies the jingoistic chosenness of the Jews and the spiritual triumphalism of the Christians, must be against God who in fact chose the Jews and sent the world his only begotten son. When I suggested that the Koran and Islam offer a viable alternative to both Jewish and Christian interpretations of God’s will, I was met with the notion that the Koran, because it denies these claims, is by definition a false revelation coming from the Devil. I find such reasoning circular and meaningless.
Yet there is an enemy. The enemy is not Islamo-anything. The enemy is fascism in all its forms: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Secular.
Fascism technically began in Italy under Benito Mussolini and ruled that country from 1922 to 1943. Broadly understood fascism is an extreme authoritarian political ideology in which, according to Mussolini, “the state… governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life… For the fascist, everything is within the state and… neither individuals or groups are outside the state… For fascism the state is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative.” Or, to put it more succinctly in his original Italian: “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato/ Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
Statism is my enemy, fascism is my enemy, regardless which religion fascists choose to hide behind. Any group that seeks to subsume the individual beneath the state, and uses lies, violence, propaganda, and censorship to do so is my enemy. Any movement that seeks to shut down the individual’s right to choose her own way in life is my enemy. And Islam has no monopoly on this.
I am for the freedom of the individual to choose for him or herself how best to be in the world. While there are limits to individual freedom (one person’s freedom ends where another’s begins), and hence we must learn to negotiate with one another to maximize the freedom of all, I am opposed to any system that seeks to reduce the individual to a pawn in a game controlled by politicians or clerics. America is not safe from fascists, but the threat may be as much from those who claim to be fascism’s enemies then those these anti-fascists claim to fight.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Keeping Pace
I am reading the Letters to the Editor section of Tuesday’s USA TODAY dealing with General Peter Pace’s remark that homosexuality is immoral (March 20, 2007). I disagree with General Pace’s assessment of homosexuality, but that is not the subject of this essay. Rather I want to comment on the comments in the Letters section.
Steve Friedberg of Lititz, Pa. writes, “Christian scholars have argued that morality comes from outside of mankind. Otherwise you end up with whole societies that condone immoral acts, such as those in Nazi Germany or the pre-Civil War South.”
By “outside” Mr. Friedberg means religion. Unfortunately religions don’t agree among themselves as to what is and is not moral. Killing in the name of God, Christ, and Allah have been deemed moral and immoral depending on whose God is being cited. Killing for Christ is moral to many Christians while killing for Allah is not. This is simply a matter of personal preference not absolute morality.
Furthermore religions often disagree within themselves. Mr. Friedberg mentions immoral societies like the pre-Civil War south. The problem is that the pre-Civil War south was committed to slavery as a moral act. God commands it. Christian pastors in the south taught that enslaving blacks to Christian whites is the way Africans got God. The supporters of slavery quoted the Bible no less emphatically than their abolitionist opponents. So having a Bible to quote and a religion to follow is no guarantee of morality.
So where does morality come from? Let me know if you figure this out.
Herb Stark of Massapequa, NY also supports General Pace and the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy saying, “As long as these folks [homosexuals] have volunteered for military service out of loyalty to this nation, then so be it. As long as their practices aren’t forced on other military personnel, I’m comfortable with that set up.”
Two things trouble me about Mr. Stark’s comments. First, what is the “it” to which his “so be” refers? Maybe he means as long as gays want to serve and die for their country then the military will have to let them do so? Second, his concern that homosexuals might foist their homosexuality on heterosexual military men and women is bizarre. While it is common in some circles for straight people to try and foist heterosexuality on gay people, I have never heard it go the other way. Gays and lesbians don’t want to redeem heterosexuals from the madness of inter-gender unions; they just want to be left alone.
The Letters disturb me because of the low level of discourse around important issues that they represent. Most likely this is always so, and I admit to being an elitist, but for the newspaper to give a forum to this kind of thinking just seems like pandering to the lowest common denominator. I can get that on Fox & Friends.
Steve Friedberg of Lititz, Pa. writes, “Christian scholars have argued that morality comes from outside of mankind. Otherwise you end up with whole societies that condone immoral acts, such as those in Nazi Germany or the pre-Civil War South.”
By “outside” Mr. Friedberg means religion. Unfortunately religions don’t agree among themselves as to what is and is not moral. Killing in the name of God, Christ, and Allah have been deemed moral and immoral depending on whose God is being cited. Killing for Christ is moral to many Christians while killing for Allah is not. This is simply a matter of personal preference not absolute morality.
Furthermore religions often disagree within themselves. Mr. Friedberg mentions immoral societies like the pre-Civil War south. The problem is that the pre-Civil War south was committed to slavery as a moral act. God commands it. Christian pastors in the south taught that enslaving blacks to Christian whites is the way Africans got God. The supporters of slavery quoted the Bible no less emphatically than their abolitionist opponents. So having a Bible to quote and a religion to follow is no guarantee of morality.
So where does morality come from? Let me know if you figure this out.
Herb Stark of Massapequa, NY also supports General Pace and the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy saying, “As long as these folks [homosexuals] have volunteered for military service out of loyalty to this nation, then so be it. As long as their practices aren’t forced on other military personnel, I’m comfortable with that set up.”
Two things trouble me about Mr. Stark’s comments. First, what is the “it” to which his “so be” refers? Maybe he means as long as gays want to serve and die for their country then the military will have to let them do so? Second, his concern that homosexuals might foist their homosexuality on heterosexual military men and women is bizarre. While it is common in some circles for straight people to try and foist heterosexuality on gay people, I have never heard it go the other way. Gays and lesbians don’t want to redeem heterosexuals from the madness of inter-gender unions; they just want to be left alone.
The Letters disturb me because of the low level of discourse around important issues that they represent. Most likely this is always so, and I admit to being an elitist, but for the newspaper to give a forum to this kind of thinking just seems like pandering to the lowest common denominator. I can get that on Fox & Friends.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Quit Dicking Around
This week The Week (March 16, 2007) features an excerpt from Neal Pollack’s book Alternadad. In it his wife and mother battle over his newborn son Elijah’s foreskin. Neal’s mother wants it cut off as a sign of Neal’s loyalty to the Jewish people. Neal’s wife, who does not belong to that people, wants it left where God put it. Neal’s account of the matter shows how insipid and insane Jewish life has become for many Jews.
Responding to Neal’s concern for his wife’s wishes, his mother says, “You’re wife is immaterial here.” Not only is his mother heartless, she is totally wrong. Neal’s wife has everything to do with this. She isn’t Jewish, hence baby Elijah isn’t Jewish, hence his penis is none of Bubbe Pollack’s concern.
True, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaisms allow for patrilineal descent, meaning that a baby born to a Gentile mother and raised as a Jew can claim Jewishness through the father. But, as will be evident in a moment, the Pollacks case does not apply.
What really matters to Neal’s parents is not Judaism but emotionalism. Bubbe and Zayde Pollack threaten to disown baby Elijah (at which point I would have told them to fuck off and hung up the phone), but they themselves don’t practice Judaism seriously, their son had a wedding that was in his own words, “deliberately, almost absurdly secular,” and they never seek out a rabbi to help with this matter. The real issue here is this: Who does Neal love most, his wife or his mother? While this alone makes clear how Jewish Neal is, it has nothing to do with Judaism itself.
As any Jewish boy will tell you, mama always wins, and Neal in fact has his son circumcised. But if cutting off foreskins made a boy Jewish millions of Muslims men would be Jews! Circumcision only matters Jewishly in the context of a bris (Covenant), a religious ceremony. The Pollacks, however, don’t have a bris and opt for a medical procedure instead, leaving them with a Gentile baby without a foreskin! The fact that they never had a Bris shows that they have no intension of raising Elijah Jewishly. All they want to do is make mama happy. And it won’t stop here.
I sympathize with Neal, but he’s a wimp. He stood for nothing. Baby Elijah will continue to be a political football that Neal’s parents will use to control him and isolate his wife. Neal’s marriage is doomed. I’m serious.
If Neal and his wife had come to me for advise I would have said this, “This is what you get for marrying spouses with living parents. You have only one hope. Sit down and work out your religion for yourselves. Become Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist, or make up something that is satisfying to the two of you. Decide on what is important to you, not to your parents. Then teach that to your son. And if your parents don’t like it, threaten to keep Elijah from them. They will fold faster than you did.”
Now you know why I left the congregational world.
Responding to Neal’s concern for his wife’s wishes, his mother says, “You’re wife is immaterial here.” Not only is his mother heartless, she is totally wrong. Neal’s wife has everything to do with this. She isn’t Jewish, hence baby Elijah isn’t Jewish, hence his penis is none of Bubbe Pollack’s concern.
True, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaisms allow for patrilineal descent, meaning that a baby born to a Gentile mother and raised as a Jew can claim Jewishness through the father. But, as will be evident in a moment, the Pollacks case does not apply.
What really matters to Neal’s parents is not Judaism but emotionalism. Bubbe and Zayde Pollack threaten to disown baby Elijah (at which point I would have told them to fuck off and hung up the phone), but they themselves don’t practice Judaism seriously, their son had a wedding that was in his own words, “deliberately, almost absurdly secular,” and they never seek out a rabbi to help with this matter. The real issue here is this: Who does Neal love most, his wife or his mother? While this alone makes clear how Jewish Neal is, it has nothing to do with Judaism itself.
As any Jewish boy will tell you, mama always wins, and Neal in fact has his son circumcised. But if cutting off foreskins made a boy Jewish millions of Muslims men would be Jews! Circumcision only matters Jewishly in the context of a bris (Covenant), a religious ceremony. The Pollacks, however, don’t have a bris and opt for a medical procedure instead, leaving them with a Gentile baby without a foreskin! The fact that they never had a Bris shows that they have no intension of raising Elijah Jewishly. All they want to do is make mama happy. And it won’t stop here.
I sympathize with Neal, but he’s a wimp. He stood for nothing. Baby Elijah will continue to be a political football that Neal’s parents will use to control him and isolate his wife. Neal’s marriage is doomed. I’m serious.
If Neal and his wife had come to me for advise I would have said this, “This is what you get for marrying spouses with living parents. You have only one hope. Sit down and work out your religion for yourselves. Become Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist, or make up something that is satisfying to the two of you. Decide on what is important to you, not to your parents. Then teach that to your son. And if your parents don’t like it, threaten to keep Elijah from them. They will fold faster than you did.”
Now you know why I left the congregational world.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Back the Bunny
A Jewish woman in Walnut Creek, CA managed to rename the Easter Bunny the Spring Bunny in yet another attempt to keep America secular. I find this offensive and want to run an Open Letter to Jews in various metropolitan newspapers. If you want to help, place the following Letter in your local paper. Please do so at your own expense, and do not associate me with the letter in any way unless people like it in which case you can post my address and invite donations to be sent to my Back the Bunny campaign. Here is the letter:
To the Chosen People of [Name of Your City],
Easter is coming, and with it bonnets, bunnies, and lots of chocolate. True, in medieval Europe Easter came wrapped in fiery sermons inciting the followers of Jesus to plunder, rape, and murder thousands of Jews, but even Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rants on both street and screen failed to galvanize American Christians to return to the Christian values of their ancestors. Easter is no longer a day for hiding from our Christian neighbors, and praying they don’t burn our synagogues to the ground with us in them.
Yet there are some among us who insist on waging war on Easter. This is a bad idea. First, we haven’t the resources to run a two front war, and our winter campaign in the War on Christmas is only eight months away. Second, the attempt to take the Christ out of Christian is going to force us to take the Jew out of Jewish as well. We will be a nation of ian and ish, and where is the fun in that?
Instead of “Happy Hanukkah” Wal-Mart employees will have to say, “Happy Winter Fire Lighting.” Rosh HaShanah will become Fall New Year’s; Passover will be renamed Eating Tasteless Crackers Made Without Leaven Week; Shimeni Atzeret will become… What is Shimeni Atzeret, anyway?
America is not a Christian nation, but it is a nation of Christians. Let them have their resurrection bunnies. Don’t complain when they commit symbolic genocide against rabbits by eating their eggs. Don’t make fun of their hats. And above all don’t pretend to have found the bones of Jesus when everyone knows both he and Elijah were taken up bodily into heaven leaving no DNA behind.
Remember the teaching of the poet: “First they came for Jesus and I said nothing. Then they came for Buddha and I said nothing. Then they came for Krishna and I said nothing. Then they came for Mohammed and I said nothing. Then they came for Emmanuel Swedenborg and I said nothing. Then they came for Joseph Smith and I said nothing. Then they came for Mary Baker Eddy and I said nothing. Then they came for Anton LaFaye and I said nothing. Then they came for Elijah Mohammed, and I said nothing. Then they came for Bill W. and I said nothing. Then they came for me, but by then I was too old to care. Screw ‘em. And who are “they” anyway?”
So, my dear fellow Jews, get a grip and back the bunny. Sincerely,
(Your Name Here. Your Name, Not Mine. Just Yours. Right Here.)
To the Chosen People of [Name of Your City],
Easter is coming, and with it bonnets, bunnies, and lots of chocolate. True, in medieval Europe Easter came wrapped in fiery sermons inciting the followers of Jesus to plunder, rape, and murder thousands of Jews, but even Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rants on both street and screen failed to galvanize American Christians to return to the Christian values of their ancestors. Easter is no longer a day for hiding from our Christian neighbors, and praying they don’t burn our synagogues to the ground with us in them.
Yet there are some among us who insist on waging war on Easter. This is a bad idea. First, we haven’t the resources to run a two front war, and our winter campaign in the War on Christmas is only eight months away. Second, the attempt to take the Christ out of Christian is going to force us to take the Jew out of Jewish as well. We will be a nation of ian and ish, and where is the fun in that?
Instead of “Happy Hanukkah” Wal-Mart employees will have to say, “Happy Winter Fire Lighting.” Rosh HaShanah will become Fall New Year’s; Passover will be renamed Eating Tasteless Crackers Made Without Leaven Week; Shimeni Atzeret will become… What is Shimeni Atzeret, anyway?
America is not a Christian nation, but it is a nation of Christians. Let them have their resurrection bunnies. Don’t complain when they commit symbolic genocide against rabbits by eating their eggs. Don’t make fun of their hats. And above all don’t pretend to have found the bones of Jesus when everyone knows both he and Elijah were taken up bodily into heaven leaving no DNA behind.
Remember the teaching of the poet: “First they came for Jesus and I said nothing. Then they came for Buddha and I said nothing. Then they came for Krishna and I said nothing. Then they came for Mohammed and I said nothing. Then they came for Emmanuel Swedenborg and I said nothing. Then they came for Joseph Smith and I said nothing. Then they came for Mary Baker Eddy and I said nothing. Then they came for Anton LaFaye and I said nothing. Then they came for Elijah Mohammed, and I said nothing. Then they came for Bill W. and I said nothing. Then they came for me, but by then I was too old to care. Screw ‘em. And who are “they” anyway?”
So, my dear fellow Jews, get a grip and back the bunny. Sincerely,
(Your Name Here. Your Name, Not Mine. Just Yours. Right Here.)
Friday, March 09, 2007
Mooning Jesus
I know you're not going to believe this, and I don’t blame you. But I’m going to share it none the less.
I walked into Wal-Mart earler this week, and wandered to the back of the store to see what the prices were on new flat screen TVs. The televisions were on, of course, and every set was showing the horror of the tornado-ravaged areas of the country. Special emphasis was placed on the high school where so many students died.
One reported spoke about tornado preparedness measures the schools had practiced and the screen filled with kids on their knees with their heads pressed to the floor against the wall. This was, I guess, a protective posture. The sound was off so I can’t say for sure, but a fellow standing just behind didn’t see it that way at all:
“I’ll be damned!” he said. “They’re teachin’ our kids to pray like Muslims.” He actually pronounced the word closer to “mooslims.”
I thought he was joking, and so I turned to him and said, “Yeah, they are worried that their insurance companies won’t pay if it’s an act of God, so they are preparing to argue that it is the will of Allah and hence insurable by any American company.”
Not only did this guy not think I was funny, he didn’t think I was kidding.
“If God wanted our kids to die in a tornadah that’s his business and I’m not goin’ t’say anything about it. But if Allah did this, then I think we’s got to do something and do it soon.”
“I was just joking,” I said. “These kids weren’t praying they were ducking for cover.”
“Same thing as far as I’m concerned. Jesus is the only cover you need, and you can’t get to Jesus rolled up like a Mooslim. If they’re prayin’ they should be on their knees with their backs straight, chins up and eyes t’heaven.”
“Different religions have different prayer postures,” I said seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was in over my head. “I’m Jewish and…”
“Listen, son. There is only one God and one Jesus Christ and one way to pray before him. I don’t know about Jews, but I’ve seen Mooslims prayin’ before with their heads down and their butts up. I know what they’re doin’. Their god Allah is a desert god so they put their heads down on the groun’ t’be close t’him. OK, but why raise their butts? That is to insult Jesus and us Christians. They’re moonin’ God, boy, don’t you see that?”
“Well, I don’t think…”
“That’s your problem boy, that and bein’ a Jew. You can fix the one. Don’t know about th’other.” Then he walked away. He was wrong of course; I can’t seem to fix either one.
I walked into Wal-Mart earler this week, and wandered to the back of the store to see what the prices were on new flat screen TVs. The televisions were on, of course, and every set was showing the horror of the tornado-ravaged areas of the country. Special emphasis was placed on the high school where so many students died.
One reported spoke about tornado preparedness measures the schools had practiced and the screen filled with kids on their knees with their heads pressed to the floor against the wall. This was, I guess, a protective posture. The sound was off so I can’t say for sure, but a fellow standing just behind didn’t see it that way at all:
“I’ll be damned!” he said. “They’re teachin’ our kids to pray like Muslims.” He actually pronounced the word closer to “mooslims.”
I thought he was joking, and so I turned to him and said, “Yeah, they are worried that their insurance companies won’t pay if it’s an act of God, so they are preparing to argue that it is the will of Allah and hence insurable by any American company.”
Not only did this guy not think I was funny, he didn’t think I was kidding.
“If God wanted our kids to die in a tornadah that’s his business and I’m not goin’ t’say anything about it. But if Allah did this, then I think we’s got to do something and do it soon.”
“I was just joking,” I said. “These kids weren’t praying they were ducking for cover.”
“Same thing as far as I’m concerned. Jesus is the only cover you need, and you can’t get to Jesus rolled up like a Mooslim. If they’re prayin’ they should be on their knees with their backs straight, chins up and eyes t’heaven.”
“Different religions have different prayer postures,” I said seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was in over my head. “I’m Jewish and…”
“Listen, son. There is only one God and one Jesus Christ and one way to pray before him. I don’t know about Jews, but I’ve seen Mooslims prayin’ before with their heads down and their butts up. I know what they’re doin’. Their god Allah is a desert god so they put their heads down on the groun’ t’be close t’him. OK, but why raise their butts? That is to insult Jesus and us Christians. They’re moonin’ God, boy, don’t you see that?”
“Well, I don’t think…”
“That’s your problem boy, that and bein’ a Jew. You can fix the one. Don’t know about th’other.” Then he walked away. He was wrong of course; I can’t seem to fix either one.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Marx Was Right
According to the January issue of Christianity Today, a recent study entitled “The Church vs. the Mall: What Happens When Religion Faces Increased Secular Competition?” shows that church goers are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, and less likely to attend church when statewide “blue laws” are abolished.
Blue laws make it illegal to open your business on Sundays and have been around since the founding of the original 13 colonies. Blue laws were in effect when I was growing up in Massachusetts in the 50’s and 60’s, and were repealed only when business people made it clear that the state was loosing tax revenue to neighboring Connecticut which had abolished blue laws and was open for business on Sundays. While some argue that blue laws fell because they violated church and state and forced non-Christians to rest on Sundays (I remember that The Crown Supermarket, the Jewish grocery, was open on Sunday in my hometown of Springfield, MA), it was economics not the constitution that killed the beast.
What is interesting about the study is not that it shows that when church has to compete with shopping, shopping wins, but that when Christians don’t go to church they turn to drugs and alcohol instead. Not all Christians, of course, but enough to make the fact a primary point of the study. Marx was right: religion is the opiate of the masses, and, given the chance, they prefer the real thing.
How to we get people back in the pews? If this study is any guide we have two choices. First, we could reinstitute blue laws and shut down all Sunday commerce except passing collection plates and church bingos. Just to be safe I would put people found not going to church in the stocks in public places. This too was popular in Massachusetts, though long before my time. If this sounds a bit harsh, churches could become more like malls, something many mega-churches are already doing. I would add bars and opium dens to the mix just to make sure all Christians feel called to come to church on Sunday.
If this works, and the aforementioned study suggests it will, mosques and synagogues might try the same thing. In Israel, of course, most Jewish businesses are forced to close on Saturday, which means that most Jews are shopping in Arab stores. I have only anecdotal evidence for this, but having recently returned from Israel, I did not get the sense that Jewish Israelis were flocking to synagogue. So maybe a bit of booze and hash would help.
The main point of the study however makes it clear that for many people religious observance is attractive only if the alternative is watching paint dry. Unless of course you are drinking and drugging while watching, in which case watching paint dry may be preferable to attending church.
I feel bad for all the good clergy who are loosing out to their parishioner’s preference for booze and drugs. They are doing their best but without legal sanctions they just can’t win. Thank God.
Blue laws make it illegal to open your business on Sundays and have been around since the founding of the original 13 colonies. Blue laws were in effect when I was growing up in Massachusetts in the 50’s and 60’s, and were repealed only when business people made it clear that the state was loosing tax revenue to neighboring Connecticut which had abolished blue laws and was open for business on Sundays. While some argue that blue laws fell because they violated church and state and forced non-Christians to rest on Sundays (I remember that The Crown Supermarket, the Jewish grocery, was open on Sunday in my hometown of Springfield, MA), it was economics not the constitution that killed the beast.
What is interesting about the study is not that it shows that when church has to compete with shopping, shopping wins, but that when Christians don’t go to church they turn to drugs and alcohol instead. Not all Christians, of course, but enough to make the fact a primary point of the study. Marx was right: religion is the opiate of the masses, and, given the chance, they prefer the real thing.
How to we get people back in the pews? If this study is any guide we have two choices. First, we could reinstitute blue laws and shut down all Sunday commerce except passing collection plates and church bingos. Just to be safe I would put people found not going to church in the stocks in public places. This too was popular in Massachusetts, though long before my time. If this sounds a bit harsh, churches could become more like malls, something many mega-churches are already doing. I would add bars and opium dens to the mix just to make sure all Christians feel called to come to church on Sunday.
If this works, and the aforementioned study suggests it will, mosques and synagogues might try the same thing. In Israel, of course, most Jewish businesses are forced to close on Saturday, which means that most Jews are shopping in Arab stores. I have only anecdotal evidence for this, but having recently returned from Israel, I did not get the sense that Jewish Israelis were flocking to synagogue. So maybe a bit of booze and hash would help.
The main point of the study however makes it clear that for many people religious observance is attractive only if the alternative is watching paint dry. Unless of course you are drinking and drugging while watching, in which case watching paint dry may be preferable to attending church.
I feel bad for all the good clergy who are loosing out to their parishioner’s preference for booze and drugs. They are doing their best but without legal sanctions they just can’t win. Thank God.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Thomas Jeffersonbergmanski
Is America ready for a Jewish president? The question came up at the last Presidential election when Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman was running, but it turns out to be a moot point. America has already had a Jewish president: Thomas Jefferson.
The New York Times reported last Wednesday (February 28, 2007) that “researchers studying Jefferson’s Y chromosome have found it belongs to a lineage that is rare in Europe but common in the Middle East, raising the possibility that the third president of the United States had a Jewish ancestor many generations ago.”
This explains a lot about the man. First his passion for books and writing, definitely a Jewish trait. Second, the purchase of Louisiana at far below retail prices. Third, his ambivalence towards slaves: hating it and participating in it at the same time. As an ancestor of Egyptian slaves, Jefferson would have a soft spot in his heart for the victims of American slavery. The fact that he had a black lover harkens back to Moses who married a black woman. Fourth, his founding of the Democratic Party, Jews are by and large liberals, and his invention of the “wall of separation between church and state,” who else but a Jew living in Christian American would come up with that idea? Fifth, his desire to build an American navy to take on the Arab pirates of the Barbary Coast who were capturing our ships and killing or enslaving our sailors. And finally his editing of the Gospels that recast Jesus as a Jewish prophet rather than a miracle working Son of God. So now we know.
I for one am pleased that Jefferson’s Jewish heritage is out in the open. I have always been a fan of his and resented the Unitarians for claiming him as one of their own. Of course lots of Jews belong to the Unitarian Church, so I have no problem with joint Unitarian and Jewish ownership of TJ.
I suggest is that we Jews really play up the Jewish Jefferson. We could make Jefferson’s yahrzeit (the anniversary of this death) a holiday: Yom Tom. We would read the Declaration of Independence and selections from his Gospel, and make a pilgrimage to the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. The fact that he died on the Fourth of July makes taking the day off that much easier.
I can’t think of what kind of food would be appropriate for Yom Tom, but I do think it would a good time to raise money for the United Negro College Fund. Jefferson created one of the first universities in the country, and left behind black children who couldn’t attend them. This might be a fitting act of teshuvah and tzedakah (repentance and justice).
So now that America has had a Jewish and a Catholic president, are we ready for a Mormon?
The New York Times reported last Wednesday (February 28, 2007) that “researchers studying Jefferson’s Y chromosome have found it belongs to a lineage that is rare in Europe but common in the Middle East, raising the possibility that the third president of the United States had a Jewish ancestor many generations ago.”
This explains a lot about the man. First his passion for books and writing, definitely a Jewish trait. Second, the purchase of Louisiana at far below retail prices. Third, his ambivalence towards slaves: hating it and participating in it at the same time. As an ancestor of Egyptian slaves, Jefferson would have a soft spot in his heart for the victims of American slavery. The fact that he had a black lover harkens back to Moses who married a black woman. Fourth, his founding of the Democratic Party, Jews are by and large liberals, and his invention of the “wall of separation between church and state,” who else but a Jew living in Christian American would come up with that idea? Fifth, his desire to build an American navy to take on the Arab pirates of the Barbary Coast who were capturing our ships and killing or enslaving our sailors. And finally his editing of the Gospels that recast Jesus as a Jewish prophet rather than a miracle working Son of God. So now we know.
I for one am pleased that Jefferson’s Jewish heritage is out in the open. I have always been a fan of his and resented the Unitarians for claiming him as one of their own. Of course lots of Jews belong to the Unitarian Church, so I have no problem with joint Unitarian and Jewish ownership of TJ.
I suggest is that we Jews really play up the Jewish Jefferson. We could make Jefferson’s yahrzeit (the anniversary of this death) a holiday: Yom Tom. We would read the Declaration of Independence and selections from his Gospel, and make a pilgrimage to the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. The fact that he died on the Fourth of July makes taking the day off that much easier.
I can’t think of what kind of food would be appropriate for Yom Tom, but I do think it would a good time to raise money for the United Negro College Fund. Jefferson created one of the first universities in the country, and left behind black children who couldn’t attend them. This might be a fitting act of teshuvah and tzedakah (repentance and justice).
So now that America has had a Jewish and a Catholic president, are we ready for a Mormon?
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Camp Coyote
Ever wonder what it is like to illegally cross into the US from Mexico? You read about the hardships these people are willing to endure to mow our lawns and kill our chickens, but print can’t come close the hellish nature of the crossing itself. Enter EcoAlberto Park.
Founded by the Hnahnu, an indigenous Mexican tribe whose numbers are shrinking as members make their way illegally into the United States, the park features a simulated border crossing experience. For $18 per person (versus thousands charged by real coyotes) you can spend five hours trekking through mud and evading US Border Patrol officers played by local actors.
While some critics complain that the park is a training ground for would-be illegal immigrants, the Hnahnu established the camp to convince their people not to risk the trip to America. If crossing the border seems romantic to you, you can check it out for yourself at minimal and see just how difficult and dangerous it really is. After five hours at the fake border you will think twice before tackling the real border.
It’s probably too soon to know if the park is slowing the number of Hnahnu leaving for the US, but the idea itself is worth pursuing in other venues.
How about a park that simulates the war in Iraq? I would make it a requirement that before you are allowed to vote for a war of choice lawmakers are required to go through battlefield simulation. Similarly, I would encourage parents to send their kids to the program before letting them or encouraging them to enlist. While I think it is noble to serve your country by enlisting in the military (I did it), I also think that doing so without the foggiest idea of what you are getting yourself into is nuts.
Here’s another idea: How about a month-long program living as one of the working poor? People could spend four weeks working three jobs just to max out their credit cards and slip deeper into debt. This program would have the added benefit of supplying employers with cheap labor while the Hnahnu finish up at their training camp.
A program that renders participants homeless and penniless for a week (my friend and teacher Bernie Glassman Roshi runs these in New York City) should be required of every official of every city in the US.
Or, how about a program that let’s you live as a gay man in openly homophobic parts of America. I can also imagine camps simulating the life of prostitutes, drug addicts, and homophobic gay clergy.
In fact I bet you could make a program for almost every kind of American there is, and find out in most if not all of them that their lives suck. Does anyone really think Donald Trump is happy? And, once we see that life is suffering, we can turn off Oprah (OK, she does seem happy), Dr. Phil, and Maury and stop whining about our lives and feeding off the misery of other’s lives.
I could say more about this, but the Hnahnu guy I’m hiring to mow my lawn just arrived.
Founded by the Hnahnu, an indigenous Mexican tribe whose numbers are shrinking as members make their way illegally into the United States, the park features a simulated border crossing experience. For $18 per person (versus thousands charged by real coyotes) you can spend five hours trekking through mud and evading US Border Patrol officers played by local actors.
While some critics complain that the park is a training ground for would-be illegal immigrants, the Hnahnu established the camp to convince their people not to risk the trip to America. If crossing the border seems romantic to you, you can check it out for yourself at minimal and see just how difficult and dangerous it really is. After five hours at the fake border you will think twice before tackling the real border.
It’s probably too soon to know if the park is slowing the number of Hnahnu leaving for the US, but the idea itself is worth pursuing in other venues.
How about a park that simulates the war in Iraq? I would make it a requirement that before you are allowed to vote for a war of choice lawmakers are required to go through battlefield simulation. Similarly, I would encourage parents to send their kids to the program before letting them or encouraging them to enlist. While I think it is noble to serve your country by enlisting in the military (I did it), I also think that doing so without the foggiest idea of what you are getting yourself into is nuts.
Here’s another idea: How about a month-long program living as one of the working poor? People could spend four weeks working three jobs just to max out their credit cards and slip deeper into debt. This program would have the added benefit of supplying employers with cheap labor while the Hnahnu finish up at their training camp.
A program that renders participants homeless and penniless for a week (my friend and teacher Bernie Glassman Roshi runs these in New York City) should be required of every official of every city in the US.
Or, how about a program that let’s you live as a gay man in openly homophobic parts of America. I can also imagine camps simulating the life of prostitutes, drug addicts, and homophobic gay clergy.
In fact I bet you could make a program for almost every kind of American there is, and find out in most if not all of them that their lives suck. Does anyone really think Donald Trump is happy? And, once we see that life is suffering, we can turn off Oprah (OK, she does seem happy), Dr. Phil, and Maury and stop whining about our lives and feeding off the misery of other’s lives.
I could say more about this, but the Hnahnu guy I’m hiring to mow my lawn just arrived.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Poetic License (Plates)
Standing in line to renew my car registration I couldn’t help notice the dozen or more license plate choices offered to me. For an additional fee I could replace the standard license plate with one that advertises my passion for an array of causes from save the bares to save the fetuses. While I waited for my turn to register my car, I began to think of other plates the state might offer motorists. Here are a few of my suggestions:
“Chose Death.” This plate would feature unlocked seatbelts in a circle with a slash through it. Money would go to support safe driving programs in high schools.
“Choose Hate.” This plate would feature a swastika (the Nazi version not the Hindu one), a Confederate Flag, and a Flaming Cross. Money would go to groups that promote anti-Semitism, racism, and homophobia.
“Choose Me.” This plate would have a clear plastic sleeve into which you can put a photograph of yourself. Funds would go to Narcissists of America.
“Choose Ignorance.” At the center of this plate is a large open book in a circle with a slash through it. This plate would support efforts to cut educational funding.
“Choose Peace” would feature a photo of Mahatma Gandhi. Money would go to peace education.
“Choose War” would compliment the Choose Peace plate and feature a mushroom cloud in the shape of a dollar sign. Funds raised from this plate would go to portable nuke research and development.
“Choose Sanity” with a genderless person sitting in meditation would be a good idea. Money would go to funding contemplative studies programs in local schools.
“Choose Something” would have no picture just text, and would support Americans In Support of Action. A balancing plate would read, “Choosing Nothing,” and would support the people who want to drop out of consumerist culture. Ironic, no?
“Choiceless,” featuring a portrait of J. Krishnamurti would be a hit with me. Money would support his foundation.
My final suggestion is an alternative to the standard Choose Life plate featuring a smiling baby. My design would feature a smiling young woman next to a blastocyst with the words YOU CHOOSE over them.
As always you are free to push any of these ideas in your state. And if you have ideas of your own please post them on the Blogger version of Toto.
“Chose Death.” This plate would feature unlocked seatbelts in a circle with a slash through it. Money would go to support safe driving programs in high schools.
“Choose Hate.” This plate would feature a swastika (the Nazi version not the Hindu one), a Confederate Flag, and a Flaming Cross. Money would go to groups that promote anti-Semitism, racism, and homophobia.
“Choose Me.” This plate would have a clear plastic sleeve into which you can put a photograph of yourself. Funds would go to Narcissists of America.
“Choose Ignorance.” At the center of this plate is a large open book in a circle with a slash through it. This plate would support efforts to cut educational funding.
“Choose Peace” would feature a photo of Mahatma Gandhi. Money would go to peace education.
“Choose War” would compliment the Choose Peace plate and feature a mushroom cloud in the shape of a dollar sign. Funds raised from this plate would go to portable nuke research and development.
“Choose Sanity” with a genderless person sitting in meditation would be a good idea. Money would go to funding contemplative studies programs in local schools.
“Choose Something” would have no picture just text, and would support Americans In Support of Action. A balancing plate would read, “Choosing Nothing,” and would support the people who want to drop out of consumerist culture. Ironic, no?
“Choiceless,” featuring a portrait of J. Krishnamurti would be a hit with me. Money would support his foundation.
My final suggestion is an alternative to the standard Choose Life plate featuring a smiling baby. My design would feature a smiling young woman next to a blastocyst with the words YOU CHOOSE over them.
As always you are free to push any of these ideas in your state. And if you have ideas of your own please post them on the Blogger version of Toto.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
HPV and Daughters of Faith
I have been listening to the fears many people of faith have over vaccinating their daughters against HPV, the sexually transmitted virus that can, in some forms, lead to for cervical cancer. The basic argument is that giving girls this vaccine will make them more inclined to engage in out of wedlock sex. While I don’t find this argument especially compelling, what is interesting to me is the unstated assumption these people are making about their daughters.
Parents of faith are not arguing against giving the vaccine to secular kids who are, given their lack of faith and morals, humping like rabbits. That at least would make sense, however immoral withholding the vaccine might be. Rather they are arguing against vaccinating their daughters of faith.
The unavoidable implication of the faith position is that if not for the fear of STD and cervical cancer, their daughters would engage in immoral sexual behavior much like their hedonistic classmates and neighbors.
Parents of faith just don’t trust their kids. I don’t blame them; when it comes to hormones versus holiness, my money is on hormones. That is probably why we have fear-based religion in the first place. Where it not for sex and death much of religion is simply cruel and unusual punishment.
Of course I would not insist a parent protect a daughter against cancer. If you wish to take the risk of martyring your daughter for your faith, it is your right to do so. But there may be an unexpected consequence of this decision.
It is wrong to think that girls of faith are caste until marriage. Look at the abortion rates in the religious red states and you cannot help but draw the conclusion that religious kids are learning about more than Easter from their beloved bunnies. As with homosexuality, sexual promiscuity among the faithful is just as prevalent as it is among the secular, it is just ignored. Ignoring HPV, however, could lead to the daughters of faith being unable to bear children, or even survive their childbearing years.
Without daughters to have babies, the numbers of religious Americans will decline while the numbers of vaccinated secularists will increase—something most people of faith would find disconcerting.
Hmm, maybe I should have kept quite.
Parents of faith are not arguing against giving the vaccine to secular kids who are, given their lack of faith and morals, humping like rabbits. That at least would make sense, however immoral withholding the vaccine might be. Rather they are arguing against vaccinating their daughters of faith.
The unavoidable implication of the faith position is that if not for the fear of STD and cervical cancer, their daughters would engage in immoral sexual behavior much like their hedonistic classmates and neighbors.
Parents of faith just don’t trust their kids. I don’t blame them; when it comes to hormones versus holiness, my money is on hormones. That is probably why we have fear-based religion in the first place. Where it not for sex and death much of religion is simply cruel and unusual punishment.
Of course I would not insist a parent protect a daughter against cancer. If you wish to take the risk of martyring your daughter for your faith, it is your right to do so. But there may be an unexpected consequence of this decision.
It is wrong to think that girls of faith are caste until marriage. Look at the abortion rates in the religious red states and you cannot help but draw the conclusion that religious kids are learning about more than Easter from their beloved bunnies. As with homosexuality, sexual promiscuity among the faithful is just as prevalent as it is among the secular, it is just ignored. Ignoring HPV, however, could lead to the daughters of faith being unable to bear children, or even survive their childbearing years.
Without daughters to have babies, the numbers of religious Americans will decline while the numbers of vaccinated secularists will increase—something most people of faith would find disconcerting.
Hmm, maybe I should have kept quite.
Short Takes
Let’s Be Frank
The House of Representatives is slated to take up a proposal to offer honorary citizenship to Anne Frank. How ironic!
Letters from Anne’s father, Otto, show how desperate he was to get his family to America. He, and thousands of others, were denied entry into America due to a combination of fear of German-born refugees, and homegrown anti-Semitism. Granting her citizenship now is somehow obscene. And, given the state of education in this country I can foresee students reading her Diary will and believing that she didn’t die at all, but made it safely to Long Island.
If we really want to do something to honor Anne Frank, why not pass a bill in her name that brings Iraqi war refugees into the US in numbers commensurate with the violence we unleashed in that country?
Century 21…. BCE!
Rabbi Pruzansky brought hundreds of Jewish families from New York and New Jersey together to explore buying homes in Jewish settlements on the West Bank. This is like Custer selling housing to whites on Indian reservations. Rabbi Pruzansky obviously finds the illegality of West Bank settlements irrelevant. “Peace is an illusion already,” the rabbi said in the New York Times (Monday, February 26, 2007). “We’re fulfilling a biblical commandment, God commanded us to settle the land of Israel. This is a very natural step.” Toward what? Armageddon?
Americans who buy housing on the West Bank don’t have to move there. They can rent their new homes to Israelis. That way the owner can have the nachas (joy) of having a home in the Promised Land without having to worry about a rocket attack taking out their living room. This reminds me of rich northern draftees hiring people to take their place in the Union Army during the Civil War. If you’re going to buy a house in Palestine I think you should be required to live among the Palestinians. I assure you that if Rabbi Pruzansky made this a requirement he would have few takers.
Korean Komics
“The final obstacle to success is always a fortress called Jews.” Though it sounds like a fortune cookie proverb, it is actually a caption of a comic strip showing a man climbing a hill topped by a wall plastered with a Star of David. The strip appears in a South Korean educational text called “Distant Countries and Neighboring Countries” designed to teach children about foreign lands. Needless to say Jews are angry, some Koreans are embarrassed, and the author, Lee-Won Bok, a college professor, is clueless.
The House of Representatives is slated to take up a proposal to offer honorary citizenship to Anne Frank. How ironic!
Letters from Anne’s father, Otto, show how desperate he was to get his family to America. He, and thousands of others, were denied entry into America due to a combination of fear of German-born refugees, and homegrown anti-Semitism. Granting her citizenship now is somehow obscene. And, given the state of education in this country I can foresee students reading her Diary will and believing that she didn’t die at all, but made it safely to Long Island.
If we really want to do something to honor Anne Frank, why not pass a bill in her name that brings Iraqi war refugees into the US in numbers commensurate with the violence we unleashed in that country?
Century 21…. BCE!
Rabbi Pruzansky brought hundreds of Jewish families from New York and New Jersey together to explore buying homes in Jewish settlements on the West Bank. This is like Custer selling housing to whites on Indian reservations. Rabbi Pruzansky obviously finds the illegality of West Bank settlements irrelevant. “Peace is an illusion already,” the rabbi said in the New York Times (Monday, February 26, 2007). “We’re fulfilling a biblical commandment, God commanded us to settle the land of Israel. This is a very natural step.” Toward what? Armageddon?
Americans who buy housing on the West Bank don’t have to move there. They can rent their new homes to Israelis. That way the owner can have the nachas (joy) of having a home in the Promised Land without having to worry about a rocket attack taking out their living room. This reminds me of rich northern draftees hiring people to take their place in the Union Army during the Civil War. If you’re going to buy a house in Palestine I think you should be required to live among the Palestinians. I assure you that if Rabbi Pruzansky made this a requirement he would have few takers.
Korean Komics
“The final obstacle to success is always a fortress called Jews.” Though it sounds like a fortune cookie proverb, it is actually a caption of a comic strip showing a man climbing a hill topped by a wall plastered with a Star of David. The strip appears in a South Korean educational text called “Distant Countries and Neighboring Countries” designed to teach children about foreign lands. Needless to say Jews are angry, some Koreans are embarrassed, and the author, Lee-Won Bok, a college professor, is clueless.
Is Talk Cheap
Is talk cheap? I don’t think so. In fact, talk, real talk—open unscripted dialogue among people willing to engage in deep silence as well as impassioned speech— is among the most costly things we can do. The real cost of real talk is our sense of ideological security, and without this we are thrust into an existential angst that most of us avoid.
This insight came to me as I sat in a meeting for a group I helped found in Nashville. The original intent of the group was to foster four weeks of dialogue around faith and politics from a liberal perspective. I had expected this to lead to some type of concrete action. What I discovered, however, was that the real action that is needed is more talk.
There are lots of action-oriented groups doing things, but no one has the time to really think through and talk through why they are doing them. And when we do talk, our talk is scripted, pre-digested, and boundaried by political correctness and ideological dogma. Everyone is required to tow the party line. This is not the kind of talk I crave.
In our search for an issue about which to take action, someone suggested immigration. The real topic was illegal immigration but saying so was politically incorrect. The assumption was that people of authentic (read liberal) faith would embrace the immigrant under the principle of “love thy neighbor” even if thy neighbor is occupying the house next door illegally. While I support treating all humans with respect, I do not think that respect necessarily translates into open borders.
Another member of our board suggested that the real issue underlying immigration is racism. Mexicans are brown and that says it all. Such thinking implies that only white Americans worry about illegal immigration, and that is patently false, yet to say so is to risk real dialogue and that is too costly. And besides, we were too eager to find something to do.
But what we really need to do was talk. We need to challenge our assumptions and assertions. We need to hear differing opinions. We need to learn how to dialogue with one another; how to listen and speak with open hearts and minds. We need to cultivate the courage to question our own opinions. We need community forums where we can hear speakers on different sides of an issue, and then break into small circles of inquiry to dig more deeply into what the truth might be. What I want are what I call “circles of inquiry” where people gather for unscripted talk arising from mutual silence and not-knowing. I want a topic placed before us with the assumption that we don’t know the truth of the matter and have to actually look together and investigate.
I had hoped that this is what yesterday’s meeting would lead to: the formation of an on-going forum where talk was dangerous and welcome. I don’t think that will happen with this group, but I still think it needs to happen.
This insight came to me as I sat in a meeting for a group I helped found in Nashville. The original intent of the group was to foster four weeks of dialogue around faith and politics from a liberal perspective. I had expected this to lead to some type of concrete action. What I discovered, however, was that the real action that is needed is more talk.
There are lots of action-oriented groups doing things, but no one has the time to really think through and talk through why they are doing them. And when we do talk, our talk is scripted, pre-digested, and boundaried by political correctness and ideological dogma. Everyone is required to tow the party line. This is not the kind of talk I crave.
In our search for an issue about which to take action, someone suggested immigration. The real topic was illegal immigration but saying so was politically incorrect. The assumption was that people of authentic (read liberal) faith would embrace the immigrant under the principle of “love thy neighbor” even if thy neighbor is occupying the house next door illegally. While I support treating all humans with respect, I do not think that respect necessarily translates into open borders.
Another member of our board suggested that the real issue underlying immigration is racism. Mexicans are brown and that says it all. Such thinking implies that only white Americans worry about illegal immigration, and that is patently false, yet to say so is to risk real dialogue and that is too costly. And besides, we were too eager to find something to do.
But what we really need to do was talk. We need to challenge our assumptions and assertions. We need to hear differing opinions. We need to learn how to dialogue with one another; how to listen and speak with open hearts and minds. We need to cultivate the courage to question our own opinions. We need community forums where we can hear speakers on different sides of an issue, and then break into small circles of inquiry to dig more deeply into what the truth might be. What I want are what I call “circles of inquiry” where people gather for unscripted talk arising from mutual silence and not-knowing. I want a topic placed before us with the assumption that we don’t know the truth of the matter and have to actually look together and investigate.
I had hoped that this is what yesterday’s meeting would lead to: the formation of an on-going forum where talk was dangerous and welcome. I don’t think that will happen with this group, but I still think it needs to happen.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Filming the Fringe
Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra’s documentary film, Friends of God, is airing all this month on HBO. The documentary highlights fringe elements of Evangelical Christianity, taking us into the world of Christian Wrestling, and showing a Christian miniature golf course where golfers putt through the empty tomb of Jesus. Needless to day, many Evangelicals are embarrassed and upset.
Coming as it does on the heals of Jesus Camp, Rachel Grady’s documentary on a Taliban-esque Pentecostal summer camp for 7-to-12 year olds in North Dakota, Evangelical Christians fear that viewers will see them as crazy people. The truth is they don’t need documentary filmmakers for that— there are enough weird televangelists to make many thinking people scratch their heads and ask, What Would Jesus Watch?
Evangelical Christians number between 50 and 80 million, and most of these people are normal, average Americans. But average is boring. The weird is what is worth studying.
If Pelosi and Grady claim that their films are normative, they are misleading their viewers and should be held accountable, but I didn’t get that sense at all. They are looking for the fringe elements of American Christianity, and they find it in abundance.
I sympathize with Evangelicals who cringe over these films. I feel the same when I see so-called kabbalists peddling bottled water guaranteed to bring immortality. But crazy Jews are out there, and they are far more interesting than the average Yid on the street.
The truth is I love religious nuts. They make religion interesting. I don’t care about the dozens of homophobic pastors, rabbis, priests, and imams who are straight. I want to know about the dozens of homophobic pastors, rabbis, priests, and imams who are gay. I don’t care about the decent, loving, and compassionate clergy. I want to know about the charismatic crazies who take the premises of their faith to the extreme.
I understand why people don’t like these kinds of movies, no one wants to look foolish in front of nonbelievers, but I think it is important that we see how insane religion can get. We need to be shocked by the power and madness of the fringes of faith.
Religion is not nice. It is not safe. It is not vanilla. Religion is raw, dangerous, and spicy as, well, spicy as hell. That’s why it has the capacity to transform people. If it turns them into saints, we applaud. If it turns them into apocalyptic madmen hoping to bring about the end of the world, we gasp in horror. And this is the way it should be. Religion is serious business, and needs to be scrutinized as carefully as any program that can lead to mass destruction whether it comes from a nuclear bomb or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
So watch these films and others like them. And watch those that depict religion in a positive light as well. Get to know both sides of religion. It may keep us humble. And that may be the true key to global salvation.
Coming as it does on the heals of Jesus Camp, Rachel Grady’s documentary on a Taliban-esque Pentecostal summer camp for 7-to-12 year olds in North Dakota, Evangelical Christians fear that viewers will see them as crazy people. The truth is they don’t need documentary filmmakers for that— there are enough weird televangelists to make many thinking people scratch their heads and ask, What Would Jesus Watch?
Evangelical Christians number between 50 and 80 million, and most of these people are normal, average Americans. But average is boring. The weird is what is worth studying.
If Pelosi and Grady claim that their films are normative, they are misleading their viewers and should be held accountable, but I didn’t get that sense at all. They are looking for the fringe elements of American Christianity, and they find it in abundance.
I sympathize with Evangelicals who cringe over these films. I feel the same when I see so-called kabbalists peddling bottled water guaranteed to bring immortality. But crazy Jews are out there, and they are far more interesting than the average Yid on the street.
The truth is I love religious nuts. They make religion interesting. I don’t care about the dozens of homophobic pastors, rabbis, priests, and imams who are straight. I want to know about the dozens of homophobic pastors, rabbis, priests, and imams who are gay. I don’t care about the decent, loving, and compassionate clergy. I want to know about the charismatic crazies who take the premises of their faith to the extreme.
I understand why people don’t like these kinds of movies, no one wants to look foolish in front of nonbelievers, but I think it is important that we see how insane religion can get. We need to be shocked by the power and madness of the fringes of faith.
Religion is not nice. It is not safe. It is not vanilla. Religion is raw, dangerous, and spicy as, well, spicy as hell. That’s why it has the capacity to transform people. If it turns them into saints, we applaud. If it turns them into apocalyptic madmen hoping to bring about the end of the world, we gasp in horror. And this is the way it should be. Religion is serious business, and needs to be scrutinized as carefully as any program that can lead to mass destruction whether it comes from a nuclear bomb or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
So watch these films and others like them. And watch those that depict religion in a positive light as well. Get to know both sides of religion. It may keep us humble. And that may be the true key to global salvation.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Here Come De Jesus
Jesus is back. He is a Florida preacher from Puerto Rico named Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda. Called De Jesus by his followers, he travels with three bodyguards. (Want to crucify Me again, you bastards? Bring it on!) De Jesus’ symbol is not the cross (Hey, why be reminded of the bad old days?) but a copy of the Presidential Seal of the United States that reads “Government of God on Earth.” In Spanish. Which really ticks me off.
I'm happy that Jesus has returned. I'm proud that He chose to do so in the United States. I have no problem with him being Hispanic as long as He is here legally. (Can you build a border fence between earth and heaven?) Even his message is fine with me: Christ merged with De Jesus in ’73, sin and Satan are no more, and everyone is predestined for heaven. But to make Jesus Spanish speaking is cruel to all of us who don’t speak Spanish. Especially me. I have trouble understanding Ricky on I Love Lucy reruns. There has to be a better way.
God starts out speaking Hebrew, not exactly the most wide spread language of its day. He thought to correct matters the next time around and opted for Aramaic. That was so dumb even His disciples switched to Greek as soon as they could. Admittedly choosing Spanish this time is smarter, but if You are going to come back as an American, God, why not do so as an English speaking American? After all everyone knows that the Bible wasn’t really HOLY until King James typed up a copy in his own English.
Something has to be done, and I am asking all English speaking people of faith to pray with me now, “Dear Father, Thou knowest it is in our hearts to love Thee, but Thou must makest English Thy Holy tongue lest we not understandeth Thee and stray from Thy ways. O Lord sendeth unto us speedily and verily in our day an English speaking Jesus that we may knowest that Thou art God who speaketh English above and English below. For Thine is the lingua and the franca. Amen.”
If we pray this daily and spread the word among our friends, coworkers, and nonSpanish speaking neighbors, we may at last get the Jesus we deserve so that the Horsemen of the Apocalypse not wreck havoc upon us crying, “Lucy, you have some splainin’ to do!”
I'm happy that Jesus has returned. I'm proud that He chose to do so in the United States. I have no problem with him being Hispanic as long as He is here legally. (Can you build a border fence between earth and heaven?) Even his message is fine with me: Christ merged with De Jesus in ’73, sin and Satan are no more, and everyone is predestined for heaven. But to make Jesus Spanish speaking is cruel to all of us who don’t speak Spanish. Especially me. I have trouble understanding Ricky on I Love Lucy reruns. There has to be a better way.
God starts out speaking Hebrew, not exactly the most wide spread language of its day. He thought to correct matters the next time around and opted for Aramaic. That was so dumb even His disciples switched to Greek as soon as they could. Admittedly choosing Spanish this time is smarter, but if You are going to come back as an American, God, why not do so as an English speaking American? After all everyone knows that the Bible wasn’t really HOLY until King James typed up a copy in his own English.
Something has to be done, and I am asking all English speaking people of faith to pray with me now, “Dear Father, Thou knowest it is in our hearts to love Thee, but Thou must makest English Thy Holy tongue lest we not understandeth Thee and stray from Thy ways. O Lord sendeth unto us speedily and verily in our day an English speaking Jesus that we may knowest that Thou art God who speaketh English above and English below. For Thine is the lingua and the franca. Amen.”
If we pray this daily and spread the word among our friends, coworkers, and nonSpanish speaking neighbors, we may at last get the Jesus we deserve so that the Horsemen of the Apocalypse not wreck havoc upon us crying, “Lucy, you have some splainin’ to do!”
Friday, February 23, 2007
Tough Questions
I am no expert on world affairs, but there are things that I read that just raise questions I cannot answer. I though I would share some of these with you here.
1. Why is it better that Americans die in Iraq than in the United States? Bush/Cheney says this all the time. Given that more Americans have died in Iraq than in the tragedy of 9/11, why is Iraq better?
2. Does the fact that we have not seen another 9/11-type disaster prove that Bush/Cheney’s policies are effective? How do we explain the lack of a 9/11 prior to Bush being elected? This sounds like selling whistles to keep wild elephants out of Salt Lake City. The fact that there are no elephants roaming the streets of Salt Lake City proves the effectiveness of the whistles. Does one thing have anything to do with the other?
3. Is it possible for Bush to lose the Iraq war? The British are withdrawing 1500 soldiers from Iraq, and Bush says this shows what we can do when areas of the country are pacified and turned over to the Iraqi forces. If the pullout of British troops results in chaos, however, the Bush administration will argue that this shows why we can’t withdraw from Iraq. He can’t lose.
4. Does anyone pay attention to what Iraqis say? Ahmed Abdullah, a 29 year-old Sunni casts doubt on the claim of a Sunni Iraqi women who says she was raped by two Shiite men, “I don’t believe that Iraqis will rape a woman. We don’t have such a culture. We might kill, behead or do torture, but rape—I don’t think so.” Well, that puts my mind to rest. I wouldn’t want to sacrifice American lives to save a culture that rapes. Beheading and torture, well, that’s much more American. At least if you watch “24.”
5. Are American soldiers really our “best and brightest?’ When I see how the government is continually lowering its recruiting standards to meet its goals, I wonder if many of our best and brightest actually avoid military service. I am not saying military folk are less bright, I am just asking if this phrase is anything more than silly rhetoric?
6. Is an all-volunteer military a good idea? If we had a draft and everyone had an equal chance of going to Iraq, I wonder if we would have ever gone to war in the first place. With an all-volunteer force we can abuse our soldiers and hide behind the phrase, “They knew what they were signing up for.” Bring back the draft. This would have the added benefit of easing our Mexican immigration problem as well. First, Mexicans could do the jobs that most Americans really don’t want to do—like fight in Iraq. Second illegal immigrants can replace illegal American emigrants who will slip into Canada to avoid the draft.
7. Would you have stayed on plane for 10 hours so Jet Blue avoid canceling your flight? I always try to sit in the exit row. I suspect I would have opened the emergency hatch and slid down the escape chute. I doubt I would have been alone.
1. Why is it better that Americans die in Iraq than in the United States? Bush/Cheney says this all the time. Given that more Americans have died in Iraq than in the tragedy of 9/11, why is Iraq better?
2. Does the fact that we have not seen another 9/11-type disaster prove that Bush/Cheney’s policies are effective? How do we explain the lack of a 9/11 prior to Bush being elected? This sounds like selling whistles to keep wild elephants out of Salt Lake City. The fact that there are no elephants roaming the streets of Salt Lake City proves the effectiveness of the whistles. Does one thing have anything to do with the other?
3. Is it possible for Bush to lose the Iraq war? The British are withdrawing 1500 soldiers from Iraq, and Bush says this shows what we can do when areas of the country are pacified and turned over to the Iraqi forces. If the pullout of British troops results in chaos, however, the Bush administration will argue that this shows why we can’t withdraw from Iraq. He can’t lose.
4. Does anyone pay attention to what Iraqis say? Ahmed Abdullah, a 29 year-old Sunni casts doubt on the claim of a Sunni Iraqi women who says she was raped by two Shiite men, “I don’t believe that Iraqis will rape a woman. We don’t have such a culture. We might kill, behead or do torture, but rape—I don’t think so.” Well, that puts my mind to rest. I wouldn’t want to sacrifice American lives to save a culture that rapes. Beheading and torture, well, that’s much more American. At least if you watch “24.”
5. Are American soldiers really our “best and brightest?’ When I see how the government is continually lowering its recruiting standards to meet its goals, I wonder if many of our best and brightest actually avoid military service. I am not saying military folk are less bright, I am just asking if this phrase is anything more than silly rhetoric?
6. Is an all-volunteer military a good idea? If we had a draft and everyone had an equal chance of going to Iraq, I wonder if we would have ever gone to war in the first place. With an all-volunteer force we can abuse our soldiers and hide behind the phrase, “They knew what they were signing up for.” Bring back the draft. This would have the added benefit of easing our Mexican immigration problem as well. First, Mexicans could do the jobs that most Americans really don’t want to do—like fight in Iraq. Second illegal immigrants can replace illegal American emigrants who will slip into Canada to avoid the draft.
7. Would you have stayed on plane for 10 hours so Jet Blue avoid canceling your flight? I always try to sit in the exit row. I suspect I would have opened the emergency hatch and slid down the escape chute. I doubt I would have been alone.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Belief
Last week in my God of Science/Science of God class we were exploring the neurological nature of belief. At one point the young woman leading the discussion asked us, “What is the one belief that you find the most difficult to give up?”
Before I go one, answer that for yourself: What is the one belief that you find the most difficult to give up?
As we went around the classroom answering her question most of us offered beliefs associated with faith: the belief in the Trinity, the belief that God is love, the belief that God loves me.
Dig deeper, I kept urging them, dig deeper. Then it was my turn. The answer had come to me as soon as the question was asked. The one belief that I find most difficult to abandon is the belief that I exist.
Like Descartes, I can doubt everything but the fact that it is I who doubts.
Intellectually I do in fact doubt the existence of an independent thinker. Intellectually I suspect that the “I” I think I am is an illusion, the by-product of the thoughts, feelings, and sensations generated by the firing of millions of neurons in “my” head. I am, quite literally, an after-thought.
I accept this self-as-after-thought as being an accurate description of reality, and yet I cannot surrender the feeling of “I” that the brain generates. After all, who would do the surrendering? And yet there are moments when “I” am surrendered; when grace overwhelms me and “I” am no more. These are moments of exquisite silence; the silence hinted at in 1 Kings 19:12 (Still Small Voice). “I” do not conjure these moments; there is no way for me to do so. They are a gift from God who is my true self. Yet I can prepare myself to receive the gift.
Even in class, as the answer to the question arises within me I sense an I behind the “I”, a field of awareness that is pure subject. As soon as I become aware of it, it vanishes, of course, as I have made an object of it and thereby hidden myself in the illusion of self. My practice, then, is to trace the “I” to its source, to see it arising, and to know that my true self is that source from which the “I” arises. This is what Ramana Maharshi calls self-inquiry. Of course this glimpse of God is lost as soon as it appears, for the “I” that sees it is not the I that is It. But something lingers of the true I even as I take refuge in the illusory one.
The Hasidic sage Reb Nachman of Bratslav calls this “rishimu,” the fragrance of scented oil that lingers long after the oil itself is gone. The fragrance of God permeates everything, hinting at a Presence even when It cannot be found. For now I am content to breathe deeply of the fragrance and let the smell remind me of the One I am.
Before I go one, answer that for yourself: What is the one belief that you find the most difficult to give up?
As we went around the classroom answering her question most of us offered beliefs associated with faith: the belief in the Trinity, the belief that God is love, the belief that God loves me.
Dig deeper, I kept urging them, dig deeper. Then it was my turn. The answer had come to me as soon as the question was asked. The one belief that I find most difficult to abandon is the belief that I exist.
Like Descartes, I can doubt everything but the fact that it is I who doubts.
Intellectually I do in fact doubt the existence of an independent thinker. Intellectually I suspect that the “I” I think I am is an illusion, the by-product of the thoughts, feelings, and sensations generated by the firing of millions of neurons in “my” head. I am, quite literally, an after-thought.
I accept this self-as-after-thought as being an accurate description of reality, and yet I cannot surrender the feeling of “I” that the brain generates. After all, who would do the surrendering? And yet there are moments when “I” am surrendered; when grace overwhelms me and “I” am no more. These are moments of exquisite silence; the silence hinted at in 1 Kings 19:12 (Still Small Voice). “I” do not conjure these moments; there is no way for me to do so. They are a gift from God who is my true self. Yet I can prepare myself to receive the gift.
Even in class, as the answer to the question arises within me I sense an I behind the “I”, a field of awareness that is pure subject. As soon as I become aware of it, it vanishes, of course, as I have made an object of it and thereby hidden myself in the illusion of self. My practice, then, is to trace the “I” to its source, to see it arising, and to know that my true self is that source from which the “I” arises. This is what Ramana Maharshi calls self-inquiry. Of course this glimpse of God is lost as soon as it appears, for the “I” that sees it is not the I that is It. But something lingers of the true I even as I take refuge in the illusory one.
The Hasidic sage Reb Nachman of Bratslav calls this “rishimu,” the fragrance of scented oil that lingers long after the oil itself is gone. The fragrance of God permeates everything, hinting at a Presence even when It cannot be found. For now I am content to breathe deeply of the fragrance and let the smell remind me of the One I am.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)