But I Say Unto You: Rami's Proverbs

While waiting for a meeting to begin, I picked up a book from the office coffee table and started reading. The book is called "Life's Lessons: Words of Wisdom to Help You Lead a Better Life" by Howard Wight. It was a lovely collection of nauseating cliches. I took some notes and began an edited version of my own. Once I started I could not stop. I now opened another blog called "But I Say Unto You" that features by proverbial wisdom. Please feel free to add your proverbs to my own. Here is a sample of what you can find on the new blog:

1. "When you stop doing, you start dying." When you start dying you at last start living.

2. "There is no right way to do anything." There is only the way other people think is right.

3. "Success is about making a difference." So is failure. Everything makes a difference, so stop worrying.

4. "Doing less often means doing more," but only if you don’t know what doing less means.

5. "Time is money." Unless you try to cash your clock at the bank in which case it isn’t.

6. "If you are going to make a difference in the world, make it now," then you can loaf until you die.

7. "Repetition is the mother of learning." Also of madness. You’re call.

8. "Practice what you preach," unless what you preach is wrong.

9. "The best is yet to come." Of course that is what you said yesterday as well.

10. Expecting success only makes failure all the more painful. Expect reality instead.

Cui Bono/Who Benefits?

I’m always looking for some foolproof way to analyze theological issues. Most people focus on the dichotomy “True or False:”

The world was created in six days. True or False?
Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. True or False?
A dog has Buddha nature. True or False? (Or “Mu” for you Buddhists out there.)

Assessing theological claims in this way is useless. You either end up with the vapid and vacuous, “Well it may be true for you, but it isn’t true for me;” or with the equally unhelpful and silly, “All beliefs are equally valid.”

If truth is relative to the believer, and all beliefs are equally true because they are equally unverifiable, then truth is just opinion backed by passion and, maybe, bombs and bullets.

I would like something a bit more useful than this, and I may have found it in the Latin phrase “cui bono,” who benefits. Rather than asking if a claim is true or false, ask who benefits from promoting it and believing in it. For example:

The Jews are the Chosen People. Cui bono? The Jews.
Only Born Again Christians go to heaven. Cui bono? Born again Christians.
The Qur’an is the only uncorrupted revelation from God. Cui bono? Muslims.

But so what? Just because some one or some group benefits from a particular theological claim doesn’t make the claim false. Fair enough, but neither does it make it true. True and false are irrelevant if you take the CUI BONO approach to theology.

My thinking is this: Jews are never going to say that the Senegalese people are God’s Chosen; Evangelical Christians are never going to say that Muslims can get into heaven; and Muslims are never going to say the Gospels are the uncorrupted word of God. In other words, all theological claims are self-serving, and than makes them suspect.

If a theology serves the theologian, then it is nothing more than apologetics or propaganda. I am not impressed when a political candidate tells me her plan is the best plan; what else would she say? I am impressed when she can show me what is right and valuable in the other person’s plan, and how she can take those good ideas and build on them to create something even better. This doesn’t happen in politics, and it certainly doesn’t happen in religion. Why? Because religion and politics are winner-takes-all games. There is no room for real cooperation.

So if you ever hear a claim that benefits more than the claimant, (the teachings of Krishnamurti, for example, or Ramana Maharshi) then you may have heard something of value. Until then, stay skeptical, and keep asking, CUI BONO?

The Kids Are Alright

A new study on teen literacy released this week has the usual subjects up in arms about the dumbing down of America. But I wonder if we aren't making much ado about a tempest in a croc pot.

While I agree that to have a common culture one has to have shared knowledge of the touchstones of that culture, I wonder if these touchstones are not in perpetual flux. Are the touchstones of 17-year-old Americans the same as those of their parents and grandparents? I came up with two ways to test this out.

Way One: I could take a questionnaire on cultural touchstones written by my college students to see if I would turn up just as ill-informed as they appear on questionnaires written by people my age. Of course to find out I would actually have to leave my computer, get some students to create this thing, and then actually bother to answer their stupid questions. Since I have no intention of doing that, let’s just assume I would fail their dumb test, and move on to Way Two.

Way Two: Check on line for older questionnaires to see how I fare when taking them. This was much easier to do, especially when I couldn’t find any. So for the sake of balance, let’s assume I would pass these questionnaires with flying colors.

This of course leaves us at an impasse. But, for all I know, this may be the way sociological studies work, so I'm not going to get upset about this. On the contrary, I'm going to break the impasse by inventing Way Three: I will imagine what questions might be on ancient questionnaires and see if I can answer them. This is harder than it sounds, so I deserve some serious credit for this scientific research. Here are some of the questions I imagine would be on ancient questionnaires:

1. What did the Mogul hordes actually hoard?

2. Who designed the togas worn to the Crucifixion by Mary Magdelaine?

3. How many people were chained in Plato's cave, and how long did he keep them there?

4. What was the longest running pop song in pre-Israelite Canaan?

5. Which samurai warrior endorsed the best selling Japanese sword of 1246?

If you are like me (and you should be), you can’t answer any of these questions. Does that make you stupid? Should we worry that our civilization is going to hell because you didn’t know that the answer to Question Two is RobesPierre, and the answer to Question Four is “Stay Down Moses”? I don’t think so. These questions are irrelevant to our current culture. So let’s stop asking 17-year-olds about the Bible and classical literature, and focus more on questions that matter to them, like “How many days did Britney Speaks spend in rehab in 2007?”

[By the way, if you do know the answers to Questions 1, 3, and 5, post them here. I didn't know them, and expect sociologists from the ends of the flat earth will be checking this site to find out, and don't want to disappoint them. Thanks.]

Science and Religion, A Greater Unity

I read Philip Meyer’s essay on science and religion in USA TODAY (February 25, 2008) with a great deal of sadness. “Religion,” Mr. Meyer wrote, “is about the mystery. Science is about figuring out what works in the material world. There is no danger that science will ever deprive us of the mystery.”

Mr. Meyer’s uses the analogy of a circle to explain his position. Draw a circle on a piece of paper. Everything within the circle is the realm of science. Here we use the scientific method where we seek to validate or disprove various ideas and hypotheses. Everything outside the circle is the realm of religion. Assuming an infinitely large piece of paper, as the circle of science and reason grows, the outside mystery remains in tact.

The problem with his analogy and with his reasoning is that he limits religion to the realm of unreason, and, as the circle of science grows, it is saying that the realm of religion is actually the realm of ignorance or the not-yet-known. While Mr. Meyer’s analogy does allow religion to continue, it does so only in the area of that which cannot be known. Religion is reduced to pure fantasy and speculation, forever retreating against the advances of science.

This kind of thinking lumps religion with every pseudo-science and wacko theory people can think of. While some may find it comforting to place Christianity, for example, outside the circle of knowledge, others will be troubled that Christianity is forced to share its realm with astrology, Scientology, ghost hunters, and psychics. As bad as this sounds, it gets worse.

To make his point clear, Mr. Meyer shows how a young earth creationist who believes that the Bible shows the earth is only 6000 years old can get along with a geologist who can prove that some rocks are 3.8 billion years old. All the creationist has to say is that when God created the earth 6000 years ago He made the rocks 3.8 billion years old. Since the geologist cannot prove that God didn’t do as the creationist says He did, the science of geology is no more or less valid than the theology of creationism. This is insane.

If the only criterion for determining what is true is the inability of science to prove it false, then all untestable ideas from astrology to the Flying Spaghetti Monster are equally valid. And while this may salvage religion, the religion it saves is a joke and largely irrelevant to life.

Science and religion can work together. Science can help religion see what is; religion can help science see what it might mean. Meaning and wisdom are the focus of religion, and these need reason no less than science. Splitting religion and science into two camps does a disservice to both.

Pray or Prey: Take Your Pick

I was listening to NPR the other day and learned of a prayer movement called Light the Highway that runs prayer vigils along Interstate 35 from Texas to Minnesota. The group asks God to do away with systemic poverty, drug addiction, and hopelessness, along with other plagues like homosexuality and abortion. I have no idea how much poverty there is along I 35, nor do I know for a fact that it more ridden with drug addicts, gays, lesbians, and nihilists than any other road in America. As for how many people have abortions on the highway, that too is a number I cannot glean. Nevertheless I like the idea of bands of young people praying for bands of drivers traveling from Laredo to Duluth. Here are some reasons why.

First of all, I can’t imagine driving from Laredo to Duluth, so let us pray for those that do. Second, anyone desperate enough to have an abortion while riding in a car needs our prayers. Third, gays, lesbians, bi-sexual, and transgendered people fleeing from Laredo to Duluth in hopes of finding a safe haven from bigotry are sure to be disappointed, so they too need our prayers. But the best reason for supporting this effort is the one provided by Pastor Steve Hill of Heartland World Ministries in Irving, TX: “What would you rather have? A group of young people praying on I-35 or a group of young people dealing drugs on I-35? Take your pick."

You can’t argue with that. In fact the more I pondered the pastor’s logic the more convinced I became of its validity. So I am writing to encourage you to take Pastor Hill’s logic to heart, and use it to garner support of a host of civic-minded projects. Here are some possible programs and the rationale behind them:

1. To promote a program centralizing drug dealing in your city, offer this argument: Which would you rather have? A group of young people dealing drugs on the highway or a group of young people shooting passersby on the highway? Take your pick.

2. To limit the murder rate in your community, try this: Which would you rather have? A group of young people shooting passersby on the highway or a group of young people shooting students in our elementary schools? Take your pick.

3. To support the ghettoizing of homosexuals and homosexual activity, use this: Which would you rather have? A group of homosexual young people fornicating in one well run, well policed, and well-heeled neighborhood, or a group of homosexual young people fornicating in our churches and community centers? Take your pick.

And if all of this bothers you, think of it this way: Which would you rather have? A group of young people getting politically active and working to eliminate poverty or a group of young people standing on the sidelines praying that God do it for them? Take your pick. The logic is unassailable.

Cafe-au-Pray

According to THIS WEEK magazine (February 22, 2008), “Catholic authorities in Croatia have opened a coffee shop that lets customers pay for drinks with prayers.” The Zagreb café is called Jedro, and its prices range from four Our Fathers for a cappuccino to five Hail Mary’s for a Coke.

Now this is a religion that works. Everybody likes coffee, but fewer and fewer of us can afford the cash prices. So if we can pray instead of pay, who would drink anywhere else?
You gotta hand to those Catholics!

Now I know a good thing when I see one, and I want to bring this idea to America where I plan to expand it beyond thirsty Catholics to include all the world’s religions. So here is my plan. If you like it and want to go in on it with me, just send money. We’ll work out the details later.

Anyway, here is the plan. We will call the franchise Café-au-Pray, and I have already figured out a way to improve the process. Time is money, right?. And it takes time to say those Our Fathers and Hail Marys. By my own reckoning, it takes me ten seconds to say one complete Hail Mary. That means it would take fifty seconds for me to pray for a Coke. Not too long, but every second counts. If I could quicken the process without cutting the price, I could move people through the line even faster. How to do this? Enter the Tibetan Buddhists.

Tibetan Buddhists use a prayer wheel to pray rather than actually saying the words. You just spin the wheel and as the words go round you get credit for having recited the prayer. Cool, right? Yeah, it is.

So this is how it will work: You walk into your local Café-au-Pray and choose your preferred Prayer Wheel from the Wheels of Fortune display. Every major religion would be represented, as well as wheels with prayers from smaller religions if the demographic of the neighborhood warrants it. You choose your wheel, place your order, spin the prayer, and pick up your drink, returning the wheel to its place on the rack for the next person on your way out of the store. What could be easier?

You can actually spin a prayer wheel with the Hail Mary printed on it in two seconds, which means that you could pray for your Coke in ten seconds, a timesaving of 80%. That means we can handle far more customers in far less time than our wheel-less competition in Croatia. Of course people aren’t actually paying in cash dollars so more of nothing is still nothing, but if you send me enough start-up money I’ll see if I can find a way around that.

Final Exam

I was talking with an elderly Christian man the other day who told me, “When you die and go to heaven there is no Pearly Gate with Saint Peter sitting at a welcome desk. No, sir, when you die Jesus comes to you at the last minute and asks one question; he says, ‘Who do you say I am?’ If you answer right and without thinking about it, then you get into heaven. If you hesitate you are damned.”

Of course the conversation quickly turned to what I would answer Jesus. I explained that I thought Jesus was a God-intoxicated Jewish mystic whose teachings often contained the deepest truths when understood in their historical context—first century Roman occupied Palestine—and when you included not only the canonical Gospels but also the Gnostic texts with special emphasis on the Gospel of Thomas.

“Do you think that will satisfy him?” I asked the man.

“The correct answer is, ‘You are my Lord and Savior.’ I have no idea what you just said, and neither will Jesus. I’d pray on that, son.” So I did. And what I got in return was a very different scenario.

When you die Jesus does come to you, and as your last breath leaves your body he does ask questions: four to be exact. The questions are asked in quick succession leaving no time to think, and hardly enough time to respond. Jesus is in a hurry. You are not the only person dying at that moment, and he has to quiz them all. Here are the four questions that I think Jesus will ask:

QUESTION 1: Is the following shape convex or concave: ) ?
QUESTION 2: When you turn your steering wheel to the right with both hands are you pulling the steering wheel or pushing it?
QUESTION 3: When you toss a ball in the air is it going “up” or “out”?
QUESTION 4: When you say, “It is raining” to what does the “it” refer?

I’m not going to supply you with answers to these questions because that would be cheating. Even having the questions in advance may be against the rules, but since that other guy had his I figured it was OK to share. Anyway, I am pretty sure that if you can figure out not only the answers but the deeper meaning toward with the questions point you will be OK. If you can’t, fall back on Lord and Savior. Maybe that other guy was on to something.

Dressing as Jews

Lent can be a trying time for Catholics. So I understand why Catholics would invent a Carnival holiday featuring foods forbidden during Lent. In Vilnius, Lithuania where Carnival is called Uzgavenes, it also features a Halloween like atmosphere where people dressed up as and mock Jews and Gypsies.

Yes, the very people who participated in the Nazi extermination of Jews and Roma find mocking their victims a fun way to let off steam after Lent. People also dress up as devils, goats, and monsters, though, regardless of what costume you wear, wearing one at all is called “eiti zydukais,” which means “going as Jews.”

Reducing Jews and Roma to demons, monsters and animals is bad enough. Doing so in a city and a country that murdered most of its Jewish and Roma populations is frightening.
Lithuanians, however, find it fun.

Now, before I get on my high horse and condemn these fun loving Jew and Gypsy murdering folks for wanting a little joy in their lives, let me say that we Jews too have our version of Carnival. It’s called Purim. And we too dress up; most often as characters from the story of Queen Esther. The difference is that we don’t identify, stereotype, and demonize a people in the process. (We have the Bible for that.)

Imagine opening your door to Halloween candy seekers to find a gaggle of kids dressed up in costumes that reflected stereotypes of African Americans or Native Americans. You would be shocked and offended. Or at least I hope you would.

On the other hand, we Americans continue to use Native American names and stereotypes for our sports teams, and this is similar to what happens to Jews and Roma during Uzgavenes.

Europeans almost exterminated Native Americans the way Nazis and their collaborators almost exterminated Jews and Gypsies. Having reduced these peoples to a fraction of their numbers it is easy to promote and then appropriate for other uses a mythic, stereotypical image of them.

In the case of the Native Americans it is the myth of the Warrior that attracts sports teams to Native Americans. We call our teams Chiefs or Braves in the unconscious hope that we will magically appropriate the courage and nobility we assigned to the Amerindian after their slaughter. In the case of the Jews and Roma in Lithuania it is a magical attempt to ward off the feared Other who still haunts their dreams, nightmares, and political fantasies even after murdering millions of them.

What are the Jews of Lithuania doing about this practice? Nothing. They smile weakly and wait for Uzgavenes to pass. Why? Because they know first hand that it is a short step from mockery to murder, and they would rather put up with the former than provide a catalyst for the latter.

How about all of us giving up demonizing people for Lent? And then continue it for the rest of our lives as well? There’s a holiday I could get behind.

Don't Delete My Dalit

I wish I could find just one religion without its violent wackos. I’ve long given up on the Abrahamic faiths, and Japanese Buddhism during World War II rules them out. So how about Hinduism?

Sure it was a Hindu fanatic who killed Gandhi, and who knows how many Muslims have died at the hands of Hindu extremists, but that was then. How about now? Doesn’t Hinduism value ahimsa, nonviolence? So how about it people? Peace anyone?

‘Fraid not. During this past Christmas season Hindu fanatics burned down 55 churches and 600 houses owned by Christians. But, as Ramesh Modi, a leader in the World Hindu Council, which promotes Hindutva or Hinduness, these Christians, really brought the violence on themselves.

Their crime? Illegally converting Hindus to Christianity. Forced conversion is illegal in much of India, but there is no evidence that Hindus are being forced to abandon Kali for Christ. On the contrary, millions of Hindu “Untouchables” doomed to a life of misery by the officially illegal yet culturally unstoppable caste system are freely choosing the Cross of Christ to the cross of caste.

This is not to say the evangelical passions of Christian missionaries do not lead them to vitriolic attacks on Hinduism and Hindu Deities, but this is still not conversion at the point of a sword. Whether dalits (“untouchables”) are becoming Christian because of a genuine love of Christ or because they see it as a way out of an unjust and oppressive caste system is beside the point. People should be free to choose their own religion.

As usual it is hard to separate politics from theology. Like politicians everywhere, using a minority to whip the majority into a mindless frenzy, is often good for business. Just as the political success of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat is attributed in part to its involvement in anti-Muslim violence, so other Hindu groups hope to win votes on the heals of anti-Christian persecution as well.

Defenders of religion will tell me that this is the manipulation of faith at the hands of politicians. They aren’t wrong. But if the faith wasn’t ripe for such manipulation it couldn’t be done. Religion is not innocent in these matters, even if it is not the instigator of them. Even as seemingly inclusive a religion as Hinduism still suffers from the us versus them mentality that poisons all religions.

People are naturally oppositional. But religion should challenge that tendency rather than feed it. Where is a real religion of peace, justice, compassion, human rights, women’s emancipation, and environmental sanity? Unitarian Universalism, anyone?

Apocalypse Soon

We are coming into a time of apocalypse. Gaia is about to shake us to the core, and demand that we get about the work for which she grew us. A scarcity of water and other natural resources is going to plunge our world into war after war. Famine will expand, and plagues will ravage us. This isn’t punishment, but karma. We are about to reap what we have sown. It will be a horrible time, but also a promising one. We are going to be brought face to face with the evil we have created that we might own it and end it. Or, if we don’t, to have it end us.

The word apocalypse comes from the Greek apocalypsis, meaning to unveil. The coming apocalypse will be a great unveiling of our greed, ignorance and fear, and the havoc these wreck on the earth. The apocalypse is a wake-up call, a last chance to realize our true gifts and genius. It is coming to confront us with horror of our own madness that we might, as the Bible says, “turn from evil and do good.”

I believe the universe is intelligent. I believe that evolution is in the service of consciousness. I believe the universe wants to become aware of itself, to love itself, in all its complexity and diversity. And I believe that on this planet we are, among other things, the way our world feels (and causes) injustice and suffering; and because we feel it, we are also the way our world seeks to correct it. The apocalypse may be our last chance to achieve our true potential for it will bring us to the brink of destruction that we might step back and do differently.

The apocalypse grows in proportion to our denial of it. It will widen and deepen until we can no longer escape the world’s pain and our responsibility for it and to it. And if at last we feel the world’s pain as our pain, and if there is time, we will do something to alleviate it. And if there isn’t time? We will do what we can to comfort one another as the planet mourns our destruction and seeks another way to the heart.

Will we face the truth in time? I doubt it. If current events are any guide, rather than cultivate cries of compassion, we will shout ourselves hoarse with cries of war. Rather than open our hands to lift one another out of poverty and injustice, we will tighten them into fists to pound those who are already down, a little further down. Rather than drop the insanity of competing tribes, nations, and religions we will circle the wagons of tribe, nationality, and faith, arm ourselves to the teeth, and make war in the name of our gods and our greed, our ignorance and our fear.

We need to weep, to grieve over our lost potential, and then to see together what we might yet become. But that cannot happen before the apocalypse does, because it will take the apocalypse to wake us up. We cannot avoid our karma, we can only embrace it with fearless love.

What Is Interspirituality?

[Here are my latest musings on the nature of the work I do in Interspiritual dialogue.]

What Carl Jung is to dream, and Joseph Campbell is to myth, Interspirituality is to religion. Just as Jung uncovered and revealed the deep archetypal structures of human dreaming, and Campbell uncovered and revealed the deep psycho-spiritual structures of human mythology, so Interspirituality should seek to uncover and reveal the deep structures of human religion and religiosity.

This is very different from interfaith for which Interspirituality is inevitably mistaken.
Interfaith is a conversation, sometimes benign, sometimes helpful, sometimes necessarily and sometimes unnecessarily confrontational, between people fully ensconced in their respective faiths. The goal is to help one another understand each other’s position, but not to change it or take it to a new level or depth of wisdom. Interfaith “dialogue” is in actuality a series of separate uni-faith monologues, and there is nothing really “inter” about it.

Interspiritual conversations are something else entirely. While articulating and clarifying faith traditions may be the starting point, the goal is to move beyond our respective camps into a place of not-knowing where we explore together what may be true, regardless of what our respective religions say is true. This can only happen among people rooted in their respective traditions who are also dedicated to going deeper; dedicated to the proposition that there is something deeper, and that by sharing with one another we can probe into that deeper unknown to shed light not only on our separate faiths but on the very nature of faith.

This is far more than an exercise in “compare and contrast.” This is something radically different than a series of monologues, “We Hindus believe… We Jews believe…” Interspiritual dialogue has to be done in the spirit of fearless, compassionate, and respectful inquiry. Each participant has to be ready to say— in light of what may come up in conversation— “My tradition may be wrong about this;” “My religion may have to rethink and change this;” or even “My religion knows nothing of this and should adapt what your religion sees that we might see more clearly ourselves.”

There can be no defensiveness, no boundaries, no settling for “we agree to disagree.” Where we cannot see any further we have to humbly wait for the Spirit to show us the next step. That is why Interspiritual conversations must be rooted in silence, not-knowing, humility, and contemplative practice and inquiry, unlike conventional interfaith dialogues with are too often rooted in official dogma and approved chatter.

In Interspiritual conversation participants must be radically open to the other. Not that we find a generic faith that trumps individual faiths, but that we continually point to the fact that religions are like the proverbial blind men describing the elephant. Each has a piece of the picture, but even the sum of the parts does not yield the whole.

I am more than willing, in fact I am compelled, to say that my own tradition, Judaism, is, to borrow the Buddhist phrase, a finger pointing to the moon and not the moon itself. Interfaith dialogue focuses on the fingers; Interspirituality should focus on the moon.

To do this participants in Interspiritual conversations need to learn the core teachings of the various faiths represented in a larger context. Without a larger container for our conversations all we end up with is a potpourri of spiritual platitudes and a pseudo-universalism rooted in the false notion that all religions are saying the same things. All religions, just as all dreams and all myths, draw from the same pool of human needs and nature, but what they do with these is shaped by their unique histories and cultures. Interspirituality needs to direct our attention to that shared pool, identify the needs that are driving things, and then try to articulate the greater truth seeking to speak through the diverse voices of the world’s religions.

This does not negate the notion that there is something divine involved here. But the image is not of God revealing religion to humanity, but of humanity seeking to reveal God through religion. If we assume that our respective faiths are given by God, and are therefore True, Complete, and Perfect in and of themselves, there is no need for Interspirituality at all; interfaith will do just fine. Interspirituality, as I see it, is not rooted in God, Tao, Dharmakaya, Reality but in humanity’s search for This. As such all religions are human in origin and limited by human nature. I realize this goes against the grain of revealed faiths, but unless we can make this Copernican revolution in religious thinking we have nothing to offer but a refinement of interfaith tongue wagging and head butting.

Relics "R" Me

Did you know you can buy Christian relics on eBay? No kidding. You can buy strands of hair from Saint Therese of Lisieux, and bone fragments of Saint Philomena, the 13-year old who was martyred for refusing to marry the Roman Emperor Diocletian. You can even bid on slivers from the Cross and thorns from the Crown.

I admit I was tempted to bid on the latter, but then it hit me that the real money isn’t in buying relics, but selling them. After all the bidding on a saints hair starts at just under fifty bucks, so there really isn’t that much return on one’s investment even if you plucked the hair from Saint Therese yourself. So I’m going to buy one of those books on how to make a million on eBay and start my own relic business.

First off I’m selling chips from the Urim and Thummim, the oracle jewels worn by Aaron the High Priest. Then I’ve got slivers of the original Ten Commandments, the one’s Moses broke in his anger over the people and their worship of the Golden Calf. The big pieces Moses picked up himself, but the little ones he left in the desert for us collectors. And speaking of the Golden Calf I’ve got gold flakes from that as well. And salt that was once the body of Lot’s wife. Salt from different body parts of Mrs. Lot will sell for different prices. I’ve got lots of salt. It’s kosher salt, too: what a miracle!

Most of my relics will sell for well under $50, but I intend to make up in volume what I lose in price. But I will have a few rare items as well. I actually have the actual tunic that Potiphor’s wife ripped off the actual body of Joseph the Hebrew stud muffin (her words, not mine) that worked for her husband. And if hair is your thing, I have almost the entire head of Samson’s hair, both the strands cut off by Delilah and the ones God grew back. I’m not claiming that these strands will give you Samson’s strength, because I can’t afford the FDA screening process, but you never know.

And then there are the few flakes of skin from Miriam’s arm after God gave her leprosy as punishment for dissing her little brother Moses. These I will sell encased in Plexiglas so as to avoid any contamination.

But I think my most treasured relic is the foreskin of Moses’ son Gershom that his wife Zipporah cut off when God was about to kill Moses for neglecting the rite of circumcision. The bidding for this will start quite high I’m sure.

Of course there are skeptics who claim I am manufacturing these relics myself, but that is foolish. How do you manufacture a foreskin? And how to do manufacture shards from the original Tablets? Or salt body parts of Lot’s wife? God made these, so there is no way to fake them.

And anyway, the power of the relic is in the faith of the believer. Which is why the motto for my eBay store will be, “If you’ve got the faith, I’ve got the relic.”

Millennial Spirituality

In the February 4th issue of USA TODAY Stephen Prothero, whose book “Religious Literacy” deserves a wide readership, writes about the religion of the millennial generation, Americans born between the late 1970s through the 1990s. His somewhat patronizing look at millennial spirituality is at odds with my own experience.

I have been teaching this population for the past few years, and find that millennials are looking for a dogma-free faith that honors diversity and life in this world, something they don’t find in conventional churches and synagogues. As one of my students put it, “I can’t reconcile the narrowness of my birth-religion with what I am learning about other religions. It seems that my religion is afraid of the world, but I’m not afraid at all.”

While it would be easy to dismiss millennial struggles as the vague ramblings and rebellion of youth, I think that would be doing them and religion a grave disservice. My students are serious about religion, even if some of them reject religion. What they desire is Wisdom and a Way to experience it for themselves.

What they are finding in their churches and synagogues is hollow harangues about hellfire and tribal loyalty that just don’t speak to them. What they are offered is a worship service that mistakes emotion for spirituality, vapid poetry for meaningful discourse, and a temporary high for a more transformative mystical experience.

Millennials are not lazy, but they do lack direction and guidance. If priests, pastors, and rabbis could speak to the genuine millennial search for universal wisdom rather than denominational dogma, and transformative contemplative practices rather than cheap thrills or nostalgic musings, many millennials would listen with open minds and hearts.

When asked my students will share mystical experiences they have while painting, or writing poetry, or walking in the woods. They will speak about the shrinking of the “I,” the ending of time, and the sense of connectedness with, and love for and from all things. They may or may not use the word “God,” but the sense of the divine is present in their words and their experience.

Millennials are seekers just like the rest of us used to be (and maybe still are). They find Wisdom in literature, art, myth, poetry, and nature. They understand love at least well enough not to pollute it with violence and eternal damnation. They don’t accept the reduction of myth to fact, of parable to history, of metaphor to science that seems to be the way of conventional religion. They know that Wisdom is universal even as the ways we express it are particular. They know that love leaves no room for hate, and salvation is not limited to some self-proclaimed elect. They see through the lies, if yet the Truth.

The fact that conventional clergy can’t get these people into the pews is a sign of hope not horror. If it were up to me I’d put a warning label on every religious institution saying, “Warning: This institution contains ideas that can lead to insensitivity, violence, fear, and trauma. Use with caution if at all.”

Roamin' Catholics

I often give talks highlighting the differences between Judaism and Christianity. One of the points I usually make is that Jews are not called to convert Gentiles to Judaism, whereas Christians are commanded to convert nonChristians to Christianity.

As soon as I make this point someone in the audience usually raises a hand to interrupt saying, “While that may be true of many Protestants, it isn’t true of us Catholics. Our missions around the world are humanitarian and do not focus on proselytizing.”

I’m not a Catholic, and I find it politick to acquiesce to people who know more about their religion than I do, but now I will have to challenge my Roman Catholic dissenters. On December 14th, Pope Benedict XVI (16) [Why do Catholics insist on using Roman numerals; it makes the pope sound like a Mazda?] said that Catholics should aim to convert people and not limit themselves to good works. So as Roman Catholics are roaming around the planet they should try harder to save souls, and not just feed bodies.

This really shouldn’t surprise anyone. Eight (VIII) years ago the Pope said that Catholics alone have “the fullness of the means of salvation,” so it is only natural that they would want to share that fullness with the rest of us. As Father Agostino di Noia said on Vatican Radio (which, I suspect, only plays music sold by Virgin Records), “The fundamental problem is a pluralistic theology of religion, which essentially states that all religions are equally valid in leading a person to salvation.”

He’s right. If any old religion can get you to salvation, why join one that is still using Roman numerals?

While I can’t prove this, and in fact have no evidence what so ever to back it up, I think the reason that Protestant churches are making so many converts in formally Catholic dominated countries is that they use Arabic numerals. Of course I also think that it is because America is a predominantly Protestant country using Arabic numerals that so many Arabs hate us. If we hadn’t stolen their numbers they might have made it into the 21st (XXIst) century without us have to bomb them into the 12th (XIIth) century first.

One good note to this story is that the new Catholic conversions will be nicer than the old ones. According to the Vatican, today’s Catholics must “safeguard the freedom and dignity of the human person” they are trying to convert. In the old days they gave us Jews two choices: refuse to convert and die now, or convert and die later. Today we have the option of converting now or burning in hell for all eternity. Oh well, VI of I, half dozen of another.

White Penis

If you take the pundits seriously, I, as a white male Democrat, am adrift politically. It seems, now that white male candidate John Edwards has dropped out of the Democratic presidential race, that we white males have no one for whom to vote.

Women vote for Hillary. African Americans vote for Barack. But we poor white males have no one who looks like us to vote for. Neither do Hispanics, of course, or Asians, or Native Americans, but no one seems to care about them. Or maybe the pundits assume that these other groups have the intelligence to vote their values rather than their race or gender.

White men are a different breed. We vote for ourselves or….. Or what? Come to think of it we never had this problem before. We have always voted for people that looked like us: white males. So, it’s true, I feel betrayed by my party.

[By the way, it never was my party before. I have been an independent all my life, but in order to vote in the Tennessee primary I had to declare allegiance to one marketing team or another, and I chose Democrat. I wanted to vote against the nasty way Billary Clinton has been running their campaign. It smelled of racism to me. But it wasn’t an easy choice. I really like elephants and feel nothing at all for donkeys, so the logo issue was very real for me, especially if I picked up one of the canvas bag from the party’s headquarters. Walking around with an ass on my bag seems really uncool. Elephants are cool. Sure I could cross over to the Reds and vote for McCain, and, as the saying goes, “better Red then dead,” but I can’t stand the thought of four more years of an anti-science, pro-war, homophobic, and misogynist agenda which is what I fear a Republican win will bring with it regardless of the personal feelings of the winner. So that is why the Democrats are, for this election at least, my party.]

But what really irks me is the notion that I can’t vote for a person of color or a woman. How stupid we white men must be. I imagine my fellow wmv (white male voters) walking into the voting booth murmuring to themselves, “Where is the white penis? Where is the white penis? How can I vote if no candidate has a white penis?”

Well I want to go on record that white or black, penis or vagina I’m voting Democrat. Unless, of course, Bloomberg runs. Then there would be a white penis in the race. And not just a white penis but also a Jewishly circumcised white penis. Now that is my kind of candidate!

Dead Folk Don't Work

Sometimes you just don’t feel like going to work. But how often can you call in with the flu or a dead relative? So, if you are like me, you are always on the lookout for a new medical excuse. This morning I came across a beautiful one. It is called Cotard’s syndrome, after Dr. Jules Cotard (1840-1889) who first described the syndrome during a Paris lecture in 1880.

People with Cotard’s syndrome think they are dead.

Imagine this: You wake up in the morning and just can’t drag your butt out of bed. So you convince yourself that you are dead. There are several things that dead people do not do. They don’t talk, tell tales, or wear plaid. And they don’t go to work.

So you call your office and tell them there has been a death in your family. Now save this one for a special occasion when you realize that you have already called in about the deaths of everyone else in your family. You can only claim your own demise once. Anyway, you call in and say there has been a death in the family. When asked who it is who died, you simply say, “I did.”

Don’t hang up. The person on the other end might think you are about to commit suicide and call 911, which would ruin your day. So stay on the line and explain that you are already dead and just making this call out of courtesy. Then hang up.

Now the day is your own, but you have to stay dead. After all what if your boss sees you walking around? Not that you have to stay inside. You are dead, you can do whatever you please, just remember that you are dead. People can’t see you or hear you. So if you do run into your boss, don’t acknowledge her. Not even a nod.

If you make a mistake and do nod or wave, don’t panic. You are dead; start waving a lot and making oooooooooo sounds, and “float” around your boss. Don’t scare her, say nice things about how you admired her when you were alive—just incase you get resurrected or reincarnated, and have to go back and ask her for a job.

The more I think about this syndrome the more I like it. If I were dead and yet could still walk around and do stuff it would be the best of both worlds. Of course if I really had the disease I would eventually starve to death under the illusion that dead men don’t need food. So I plan to write myself a manual for the dead that will tell me that the dead need to eat three meals a day, exercise, and cross the street only when the green man is illuminated.

Whenever I talk about diseases I always get mail from people who actually suffer from the disease. So if you have Cotard’s syndrome and find my remarks offensive, please remember that while the dead do read blogs they never ever comment on them.

Farting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

My philosophy of human nature is simple: people are tubes. Stuff goes in at one end and comes out at the other. We can be cruel tubes, altruistic tubes, creative tubes, even spiritual tubes, but tubes are what we are. Even the great Sufi poet Rumi said this, though he used the more poetic term “reeds” rather than my more prosaic “tubes,” but the idea is the same.

I have been saying this for so long that I considered suing You-Tube for misrepresenting my idea. But hubris is replaced with humility when one’s tubeness is understood, and I decided not to make a stink. And that is what I want to talk about for a moment.

The older one gets the more obvious one tubity becomes. The secret to being a humble tube is acceptance of tubessence, more commonly known as farting.

You know you are an old tube when you bend over to tie your shoes and fart. You know you are an old tube when you fart as you laugh. You know you are an old tube when you fear you may die from burping and farting at the same time.

My mother’s mother was such an old tube that the mere act of walking set off a stream of farts that, in the cold New England winter months, made one suspect she was driven by a gas combustion engine with a single exhaust. I myself am a HEMI.

Now some people are embarrassed by their tubeness, and the body’s involuntary expression of it. These are usually adolescent tubes who wish to deny their tube-like nature. The youngest tubes find the wonders of farting to be sidesplittingly amusing, and not only when it is an older tube that is doing the emitting. As in so many things, we would be wise to let the little children lead us. Farting is funny. Regardless of who does it, farting is funny. It is liberating, it is honest, it is what tubes do.

It is also poignant. The older you get the more you fart. The more you fart the closer you are to death. No, I have no scientific evidence of this, it just makes sense to me. So farting reminds us of our mortality, and that reminder requires more than laughter.

My suggestion is that we find religious response to hearing, smelling, or producing a fart, just like many people do when they hear about a death. When Jews fart, I suggest they say, “Baruch Dayan haEmet, blessed is the True Judge.” When Christians fart, I suggest they make a large sign of the cross with an open hand to both honor the meaning and disperse the message. I’ll leave other traditions to your own imagination.

Farting reminds us that we are going to die. Farting reminds us that both farter and fartee share the same fate. Farting is a gift from the Almighty Tube in whose image we are created. I truly believe that if we were more humble with our farting we would be less violent with our living. So please, celebrate farting as one of life’s little pleasures; and remember the dead do not fart. Baruch Dayan haEmet.

Reincarnation American Style

Newsweek ran an article on reincarnation this week that begs comment. The impetus for the piece was the suggestion, denied by the Church of Scientology, that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’s daughter Suri was the reincarnation of sci-fi author and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Having hooked the reader with the reference to Tom, Katie, and Suri, the article goes on to tell us that 40% of Americans between the age of 25 and 29 believe they will return to earth in a different body after they die.

To explain this finding (though not the odd demographic) the article’s author, Lisa Miller, turns to Stephen Prothero, professor of religion at Boston University, and author of a great book called Religious Literacy. According to Prothero, as life in America gets better the idea of having only one crack at it seems unfair. So we want to come back for more as if life were an all-you-eat buffet.

I understand this theory. Whenever I go to a restaurant with an all-you-eat buffet I tend to go back and back and back for more and more and more. I want to make sure I have tasted everything I want to taste, and gotten my money’s worth.

Taking my metaphor further, we can see why mainstream western religions have to offer a fabulous heaven for the true believer. They are saying, “Look why go back for more of the same old fare, when you can die and pig out at God’s Bar and Grill in Heaven?”

Prothero is quoted as saying, “Americans are becoming more Hindu.” I don’t buy this idea at all. While it is true that Hindus believe in reincarnation, it is also true that pray for the day when they die and don’t come back. The whole idea of reincarnation in Hinduism is to work your way up to a point where you achieve moksha, liberation, from the wheel of birth, death, and rebirth. When a Hindu reincarnates they say, “Damn!” When an American reincarnates they say, “Let’s get busy!”

Reincarnation in America is an extension of the ego’s desire for more: more food, for stuff, more sex, more adventure, more money. We are so selfish that we cannot imagine making room for a new soul to come to the US to taste the goodies we so highly prize and worship: “No way! Let those newbies start out in Calcutta. I worked hard over many lifetimes to get a Platinum American Express card and I’m not going to limit my shopping spree to one lifetime.”

The religion of America is Consumerism. The god we trust is the Almighty Dollar who so loves us Americans that he sent his army of preachers, politicians, and soldiers to secure our place as the glutens of the globe. Of course we want to come back; there just isn’t enough time to get it all in one life. This is so sad.

Personally, I don’t want to come back. I’ve done enough damage as it is, thank you very much. I prefer to become mulch.

A Godly Constitution

If elected President of the United States Governor Mike Huckabee plans to bring the U.S. Constitution into alignment with God:

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."

I couldn’t agree more. My only problem is that he doesn’t go far enough. Why stop with amendments ending abortion and limiting marriage to one man and one woman? There is so much more to be done. If the Governor becomes President let’s do this right. Here are just a few suggestions:

The First Amendment allows for freedom of religion and speech, but the Bible doesn’t. God revealed the one true religion (Judaism) and secular and priestly establishments to enforce it. We need to make Judaism the official religion of the United States, and tear down the churches, mosques, temples of anyone who insists on worshipping otherwise. And as far as peaceable assembly goes, God slaughtered Korach and tens of thousands of Israelites who challenged the anti-democratic leadership of Moses and his brother Aaron (Numbers 16). Clearly “Don’t Mess With Moe” was God’s motto and the First Amendment has got to go.

The Sixth and Seventh Amendments guarantee you the right to trial by jury, but that isn’t biblical, either, so let’s get rid of these. The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery, but God specifically sanctions it in Leviticus 25:44; and the Nineteenth Amendment gives women the right to vote, where God isn’t in favor of voting at all. So we must repeal all of these amendments right away. And this is just the beginning if we are to bring this country and our Constitution in line with God and God’s Word.

Governor Mike is right: it is easier to change the Constitution than it is to change the Word of God (unless of course you’re Jesus and then all you have to say is, “But I say unto you.”). And let’s be clear, when Governor Huckabee talks about the Word of God he means the Torah. Jesus doesn’t say anything about abortion or gay marriage.

I am planning to vote for Mike Huckabee, and if he wins I am glad to say it will be the last vote any of us will ever have to make again. God bless America.

Nobody's Perfect

Governor Mike Huckabee put aside politics for the pulpit the other Sunday, and preached a sermon on what it takes to get into heaven. As we all know the Governor is a Baptist minister and it would be silly of me to complain that he limits access to heaven to those nonMormons who believe in Jesus as the Son of God. Besides, I don’t believe in heaven in the first place, so for me, worrying about who gets in to heaven is like worrying about who gets to ride a unicorn. Of course if you deny heaven and believe in unicorns this analogy doesn’t work, but I trust you get my point.

According to the Governor it isn’t enough to believe in Jesus to get into heaven, you also have to be perfect as well. Wow, now that is saying something. I’m not a Christian theologian but I often drive behind people who are, and I read their bumper sticker testaments. According to what I read, Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.

I always admired this about Christianity. If God is love as Christians say he is, then how could he not forgive? If God is love, and Jesus died for my sins, aren’t I perfect enough? Or is less-than-perfect the same as imperfect?

And what does it mean to be perfect, anyway? I mean a behaviorally oriented religion such as Judaism at least gives you hard and fast rules against which to measure your perfection or lack thereof. You either light your Shabbat candles in time or you don’t. You either wait the prescribed hours between eating milk and meat or you don’t. You can keep score and know exactly how close to perfect you are at any given moment.

Of course perfection is impossible, but Jews don’t care about this because perfection is not a prerequisite for getting into heaven (assuming you believe in heaven). According to Judaism all a person needs to get into heaven is to have one’s good deeds outweigh one’s bad deeds. Notice you are allowed bad deeds, just not too many. So perfection is irrelevant.

Christianity, at least Governor Huckabee’s understanding of it, however, is about faith rather than works. What does it mean to be perfect in faith? Does it mean being without doubt? Is that possible? What if something horrible happens to you or someone you love suffers some aweful fate, and just for a moment your faith falters—are you doomed? Are you damned?

And then there is the notion of would-be President Huckabee. Do I want a president who believes that most Americans are going to hell? Do I trust a president who rejects science? Do I feel good about a president who prefers Bronze Age morality to rational, ethical inquiry? Oh, wait; we already have one of those.

Maybe I am being too judgmental. After all, nobody’s perfect.