MIND POLLUTION

/3 Comments/in , , , , , , ,

Paranoia, Fear, Prejudice…what are they?  They are very simply, negative EMOTIONAL states.  The rational mind is frozen, led by the nose by the “instinctive run or be eaten” part of our primal brain that our very distant ancestors needed for survival. 

For a moment, for years, or for a lifetime, it can rack the minds of its owner and worst yet, collectively, a whole population (ie., the mob mentality).  The ‘us vs. them’ mindset is the perfect atmosphere for charlatans and ego-centric politicians to whip up supporters, with sound bytes as rallying cries.  I’ve already talked about the tea partiers in another post, so we won’t go there.  But this mind pollution has tentacles.

In Arizona, they’re pulling people over who look Hispanic, just in case they might be illegal immigrants  (which is absolutely nuts as there is an overwhelming population of Hispanic Americans residing in that state).  The same people who are screaming about our taxes are now cheering as we pay law enforcement big bucks to play “Big Brother” to fight against the illegal “aliens”.  And they don’t find this shoveling “you know what” against the tide? Us vs. them will not work.   

Osama Bin Laden must be gleeful.  The politicians and other pundits have gotten us riled about over the Islamic Center in Manhattan.  He planted the seeds of terror and we ourselves are watering them.  He doesn’t even have to tend the horrifically evil garden he planted.

It was our founding fathers’ explicit wish and was thoughtfully constructed in our Constitution, by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, that our nation would be a place where everyone (Christians, Jews, and Muhammadans (as John Adams refered to them) could have houses of worship and practice as their conscience dictates (never mind community centers).  Us vs. them will not work.

We moderates better be careful.   When we sat by and thought the lunatic temperance movement would pass, we got Prohibition (There would have been no wine for Nun Tuck) . Over the years, paranoia has gotten us McCarthyism, interned Japanese Americans, racism, classicism, sexism and every other ism. 

I’d like to close this frustrated rant with two excerpts from a RATIONAL editorial by John Buchanan in the Christian Century (Sept. 21) :

“In his New York Times column (August 22), Nicholas Kristof wrote about the controversy over the proposal to build an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan: “For much of American history, demagogues have manipulated irrational fears toward people of minority religious beliefs, particularly Catholics and Jews…Today’s crusaders against the Islamic Community Center are promoting a similar paranoid intolerance, and one day we will be ashamed of it.”…”The most tragic dimension of that irrational fear is the way it is exploited by politicians.  I cannot comprehend how otherwise sane and thoughtful people can conclude that an Islamic community center two blocks away from Ground Zero is inappropriate-not to mention dangerous.  It’s not a mosque and it’s not on the site of the World Trade Center twin towers, but even if it were, the right of all Americans to pray and worship how and who and where they choose is one of the most important rights and values of our nation.  It is not negotiable.”    

Who are we REALLY…as a people, as a nation?

A WHIRLING DERVISH

/5 Comments/in , , , , , ,

Lately I’ve been feeling like a whirling dervish…except that I’ve been getting dizzy.  If you’ve ever since those Persian/Turkish dancers with their high hats, loose slacks, and robes spinning in unison, you may think, well, of course they’re getting dizzy.  But the aim is ironically the opposite; they’re surpassing dizzy.

Dervishes are like Christian Orders.  Among the Catholics, there are Franciscan Friars (which I would have been if I had been male), Dominicans, Jesuits, Paulists, and Benedictines.  The Sufis (the mystics of Islam) have their fraternal orders as well and these are called Dervishes.  Among some of the more important dervishes are the Qadir, Rifa’i, Shadhili, Suhrawardi, and the Mevlevi.  Like their Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist (known as sadhus) counterparts, individuals within the discipline of a dervish are practicing asceticism or a chosen simplicity and poverty, what the Sufis call tariqa (the path, the way to God).   

All dervishes do not whirl.  Each order follows the practices of its founder.  The Franciscans follow St. Francis of Assisi,  (the charismatic nobleman and soldier who gave up everything save God), wearing rough, plain garments, they live completely by alms, and serve the poorest of humanity and the needs of animals.   In Egypt, the Qadiryya dervish, also live humbly and give to the poor, but what sets them apart, is they are mostly comprised of one profession, they are fishermen.  Interesting to note, the more we are different, the more we are the same.  There was another famous fisher of men in Galilee, a Jesus of Nazareth, whose apostles were also fishermen. I guess you could say in some ways, that Jesus was the founder of his particular dervish.

But the dervish that whirls is the Mevlevi dervish. Founder Mevlana Jaladdin Rumi (1207-1273), the renowned mystic and prolific poet included the trance-like dancing as part of his practice of tariqa.  Rotating in a precise rhythm, the dance is part of a sacred ceremony.  The dancer represents the earth revolving on its axis while orbiting the sun.  The purpose of the ritual is to empty oneself of all distracting thoughts. Entering a meditative state, the body conquers dizziness.

There is intention.   When I am spinning my wheels, with a to-do list that is attacked like putting out a fire, tangled up in a lengthy fire hose, un-intentionally wrapped around myself like a boa constrictor; I have not entered the dance mindfully, but rather stumbled onto to the dance floor befuddled.  “Music is to develop the consciousness, poetry is wisdom”, said the prophet Muhammad.  Music, an essential accompaniment to whirling, is repetitive and rises to a crescendo of spiritual oneness, the blurring and blending of the material and cosmic worlds.

It is also about the breath.  It is bringing the body and mind just to the present.   

One of the many reasons that Rumi is known and loved across faiths and cultures is that his prolific writings speak to the timeless life of the Spirit. His message speaks of NOW:

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen.  Not any religion, or cultural system.  I am not from the East or the West, nor out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.  I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.  My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless,  neither body nor soul.  I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know. First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human. (Rumi Poem, Only Breath).

Always, a returning, a turning back, no matter how many times one has strayed.

WHAT DOES BEING ‘SPIRITUAL NOT RELIGIOUS’ REALLY MEAN?

/in , , , , , , ,

On March 19th, my blog post was entitled The Top Ten Religious Words that the Spin Doctors Doctored. Under #6 was the word ‘religion’, I wrote: “I don’t want to beat a dead horse here.  I mean, after all, hasn’t this word been bludgeoned enough.  But, this word, which has come to represent difference and divisiveness, was originally just a verb, religio, meaning ‘bringing together that which is separated.’ So, all I’m gonna say is, huh?”

My intention in this post is not to try to get you to go to church or not go to church, but to think about the implications involved in the personal belief statement of being “spiritual but not religious.”

When I’m at a party, the gym, at a school function…and I hear, “Oh, I’m spiritual not religious”, I always ask what the person means by that.  Usually, the answers are a combination of the following,  “I didn’t agree with a lot of what the xyz church that I grew up in believes”, “I don’t get anything out of going to church”, “Religion is a construct created by the powerful to appease the poor and downtrodden”, “They’re so hypocritical, the church leaders and so many people I know that go to church”, and so on. 

You know what, I agree with a lot of what they tell me.  There has been a lot of “unholy alliances” between individuals, governments, and church bodies.  Much of what they articulate about why they don’t go to church or practice a faith or why they feel disillusioned or skeptical about much of what is essentially dogma (a good working definition of dogma being, “a corpus of doctrines set forth in an authoritative manner by a church”), are all things I can give a hearty Amen to.

So when people say they are not religious, they mean they have chosen not to limit themselves to the reduced definition of religion as a particular church, synagogue, or mosque with its doctrines, its own definitions of sin, salvation, and exclusions.   

When they do express some of their spiritual practices or ways of experiencing the spiritual, there is also much to concur with. My Buddhist friends use a variety of meditations, both alone and in groups.  And while some will agree that using the original meaning of religion, they are indeed religious. While  others, on principle, still detest the idea. They prefer to call it a philosophy of thought. Here, again, semantics do indeed shape and inform our worldview. Whether it be early bad experiences with a “religion” that has scarred or the in-your- face fundamentalists whose fanatical zeal causes one to recoil…the result is the same.    

Some friends are in 12 step programs, recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, and their loved ones. One of the principles of these programs is that they are a spiritual not religious program.  Again, meaning they are asking you to discover for yourself “God as you understand Him or Her” and to turn your life and will over to the care of this “Higher Power”.  However, this is not done alone, but rather with the aid and support of the group.

When I get a vague answer about trying to be a good person, they often add how they don’t need a church to become one (agreed). Most of the people who say this, I know to be good people, caring and true.  So, when I ask them if they could be a bit more specific, they say things like they go weekly with their family to volunteer at a food bank or they are a part of quilting bee that creates blankets for those undergoing cancer treatments.    All of the above examples include a component of community as part of the individual spiritual framework.

“My own kind of prayer” and “being in nature” (responses I often get) are also spiritual experiences and are vital parts of the equation, but are not complete without the balance of others.  I too often find a  centering while walking in the woods, a wonderful “un-lonely” solitude, that feels a communion with God. Yet it also feeds me so that I can help, serve, and nurture others and that I am able to receive the same from them.

In closing, an excerpt from A House for Hope by John Buehrens and Rebecca Parker:  

“Is it really preferable (0r even possible) to be religious alone?  Or, is there an importance to religious community life that need to be claimed anew, while protecting against the liabilities and dangers that community life can pose?  I strongly believe the answer to the first question is no and the answer to the second is yes.  We need life together, and we would be wise to invest in rebuilding the walls of community.  My suspicion is that religious conservatism has grown not because its theology is more inspiring than that of liberal theology, but because conservatives in recent decades have been better at creating and sustaining religious communities that offer people meaningful connection with one another and support in enduring life’s trials and tribulations.”

 So…I am back, congregants of the blogosphere!…new job…yada yada.

I HEAR YOU STEPHEN HAWKING, AND…

/10 Comments/in , , , , , ,

How serendipitous! The BBC news agency published an article on Sept. 2nd relating that Prof. Stephen Hawking, in his latest book The Grand Design, has concluded that God was not necessary to create the universe. Among Hawking’s statements: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch-paper and set the universe going”…”The Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics”…and finally, and for me, most importantly, “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.”

In my August 31st post entitled “Awe…some”, I was offering a different way to think about God, using new language to include God in the discussion with a wide swath of people with variant viewpoints.  It was not the anthropomorphic construct of a Father or Lord with flowing, shimmering robes and a long white beard.  Rather it was “God as the ultimate mystery of things, as the serendipitous creativity manifest throughout the universe…through which new forms and configurations of reality and life have come into being.” (Thank you Gordon Kaufman).

Spontaneous creation says Hawking, Serendipitous creativity says Kaufman.  Scientist, Theologian.  To my way of thinking, the more that one wants to separate these two fields of inquiry, the closer they appear to fuse.  Science and Religion are compatible. They need not be at odds with one another. Whether we are referring to either science or religion, we must be willing to expand our vocabulary, to open our minds to ways of seeing the world, the universe, in ways that to previous generations seemed unimaginable.  This takes both a willing faith to jump into the unknown as well as all of our faculties of reason to make sense of our new discoveries.

The prevalent worldview is that there is only “this”-the space-time world of matter and energy and whatever  other natural forces lie behind or beyond it.  This modern, nonreligious construct has no foundational place for tradition notions of God.  It thus makes the reality of God problematic.  For some, it leads to rejecting the reality of God, or at least to serious doubts about God, and thus to atheism or agnosticism.

And for those who continue to believe in God, it changes how God is thought of.  Many Christians basically accept the modern worldview’s image of reality and then add God onto it.  God is the one who created the space-time world of matter and energy as a self-contained system, set it in motion, and perhaps sometimes intervenes in it.  God becomes a supernatural being “out there” who created a universe from which God is normally absent.  This is a serious distortion of the meaning of the word “God”.

For me, God always points to something greater,  a “More” and an “And” . Why can’t God be Creator, Spontaneous Creation, and Serendipitous Creativity? We can live out of our imaginations. The vision of reality emerging in postmodern physics does not settle our understandings once and for all.  Religion and postmodern science alike both point to a stupendous “More.”  

 People throughout history and across cultures have had experiences that seem overwhelmingly to be experiences of the sacred.  There are also the quieter forms of religious experiences that happen in the dailiness of our lives.  We witness natural disasters and unmitigated tragedies, and we then we see nature growing and returning to burned forest or flood damaged lands. We hear stories of hope and compassion, beacons of light that rise up when the odds would bet otherwise.   While these experiences can’t be quantified, they can be qualified.  Existence refuses to quit creating.  This experiential base of religion is quite strong; it is ultimately what I find to be its most persuasive ground.

In closing, some words from Marcus Borg: “Finally, no story can be told about the truth of God. It can’t be argued or televised.  And witnesses can’t prove it exists.  Yet the truth of God brings peace instantly.  There is only one unchanging truth about anyone and everyone.  None are left outside of the warm assurance and gentle rest it offers, because God’s truth is Love.”

AWE…SOME

/1 Comment/in , , , , ,

If you like the idea of adventure, if you don’t want to spend your days floating in a tiny boat called “My Knowledge,” and are willing to risk jumping into the vast ocean containing “Infinite Mystery”…then I’ve got a mooring for you.  Here is where God resides, with an anchor weighty enough for firm grounding and yet light enough to change course gracefully.

Today, I wanted to look at an understanding of God as “the ultimate mystery of things, as the serendipitous creativity manifest throughout the universe…through which new forms and configurations of reality and life have come into being.” (Gordon Kaufman, God, Mystery, Diversity.)

Now, before your eyes glaze over and you exit the post, stay with me a minute.  While this idea is different from our  traditional views of God as Lord or Father, we are not talking about mystery here as some far out, non-rational construct.  Harvard theologian Kaufman treads carefully upon the word mystery, stating the word “in its theological employment should be taken as a kind of warning that our ordinary ways of speaking and thinking are beginning to fail us and that special rules in our use of language should be followed.” 

When we start our conversations about God, with an air of mystery, instead of an attitude of already knowing, God can emerge in dialogues with those from many cultures, dogmas, and religions, without fear of judgment. In lieu of God being perceived on the model of property (in other words, something that an authority figure has, that is passed down as a possession to another party, who receives and accepts it), God is liberated from our absolute and exclusionary conceptions that most of us have inherited. 

 Beliefs like: “I ‘get’ God and you don’t”, “God is on my side and not yours”, “God is saving me and not you”, “God is all loving but he doesn’t love certain groups of people”,  etc.etc.) have no sea legs in mystery.  They need walls and divisions to prop them up.  

Without an agenda, God becomes the Vehicle that brings us to newly created ideas and truths that emerge in free conversation with one another.  Conversation and not conversion becomes the paradigm for engagement with one another and a commitment to allowing the process to unfold, trusting that God will be continuously and serendipitously creating; and it is good.   

The beauty of this concept is that God is presented as something that everyone has access to.  The final outcome of any open dialogue is part of the “serendipitous creativity”, and this cannot be encapsulated by one stream of thought, as all participants contain but a fragment of the ‘truth’.  They are fully engaged in working on expanding their consciousness together; with faith that what will emerge (which has no explicit directive) will be something greater, something more.

 This fellowship of commitment to creative communication “about things seen and unseen” must be sharply distinguished from simply a fellowship of a common perspective.  It is certainly more uncertain than a hierarchical approach to truth.  But it allows God and humankind, in Mystery, the constant joy of creative expansion.  This dialectical model “encourages criticism from new voices, and insights  from points of view previously not taken seriously.” (Henry Wieman, The Source of Human Good)

  

SPIRITUAL NOTES TO MYSELF

/1 Comment/in , , , , , , ,

Hugh Prather, whom the New York Times has called “an American Kahil Gibran”, wrote a book with the title of today’s blog.  In it, are anecdotes, observations, and  spiritual wisdom that Prather has collected and absorbed for himself in over 30 years as minister, lecturer, and counselor.

You may have notebooks or quotes on your memo board that speak poignantly to your heart.  Or perhaps, they are there in way as a reminder for spiritual or emotional hopes you have…the person you would like to be at your best.

Also, there are literally thousands (probably more like millions) of books on meditation, prayer, affirmation, every religion since the dawn of time, and spirituality…practices, techniques, and thoughts.

I have more than a few of them myself.  I also keep several notebooks full with quotes, ideas, and prayers that inspire, teach, or bring comfort to me.

However, I tack a few up on my cork board beside my writing desk for several months at a time.  After absorbing their wisdom, I rotate in fresh ones . Here’s what’s up there right now:

“I will not die an unlived life.  I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.  I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.  I choose to risk my significance, to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.”  – Dawna Markova   

“For things that you believe in, pray like a preacher but fight like the Devil”.

“If we hold resentments toward the people who let us down, we’ll be exhausted.  It’s better to focus on the ones who have been there for us”.

The content of two fortune cookies are pinned up there: “Everybody feels lucky for having you as a friend” AND “We are made to persist.  That’s how we find out who we are”.

“In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”- Edith Wharton

A note that my beloved Dad (who tragically died too young) had written me many years ago:

 “In case you’re depressed today and feeling lonely: You are pretty!  You are smart!  You are vivacious! You have a warm smile!  You have an interesting personality!  You are a little wacky!  Five out of six ain’t bad, Love, Dad xxx” 

These thoughts make me laugh, give me a spiritual shot in the arm, and keep me reaching towards my Higher Self, the one God wants for me.

These are fitting thoughts as my little/big chicks fly the summer coop: one off to another year of college in Rhode Island, one on a year’s adventure, first in Paris and then to Senegal, and the “baby”, 6’1″, driving a car, writing his own music, towering over me, teasing me, “his little mama”.  

In closing, a gem from Mr. Prather: “Our children can see us.  They can’t see God.  Our function is not to describe God’s love or to talk endlessly about it, but to reflect it so that it can be seen.” 

 

A RELIGION FOR GREATNESS

/2 Comments/in , , , , , , ,

Prelude:

Friedrich Schleirermacher (1768-1834), considered by many to be the “Father of Modern Protestant Theology”, in his Addresses on Religion (1799), remarked:

“Religion is the outcome neither of the fear of death nor the fear of God. It answers a deep need in man.  It is not a metaphysic, nor a morality, but above all essentially an intuition and a feeling…Dogmas are not, properly speaking, part of religion: rather it is that they are derived from it.  Religion is the miracle of the direct relationship with the infinite. Similarly belief in God, and in personal immortality, are not necessarily part of religion; one can conceive of a religion without God, and it would be pure contemplation of the universe; the desire for personal immortality seems rather to show a lack of religion, since religion assumes a desire to lose oneself in the infinite, rather than to preserve one’s own finite self.”  

 Consider this:

There is a universal religious experience that crosses all time and culture.  It dissolves illusions of individual separateness. It is that which Clarence Skinner, 20th century Universalist minister and social activist, deemed “radical religion”.  Radical in that it returns religion back to its primary roots, which from the earliest recordings of human existence has been to  “lift man out of his isolation into union with powers and influences greater than himself.”  

By way of example, Skinner (in his classic A Religion for Greatness) relates the findings of looking through a spectroscope on the farthest star: “We get a series of light bands informing us of its chemical composition.  Turn this same instrument on man and we find the same light bands, indicating the identical chemical composition!  What does that prove?  Precisely this, Man and the universe are one.”

 The extent to which this Reality can be lived out in a way that brings lasting positive transformation in the world depends on a commitment to be “continually cleansed of self-centerdness.”  Selfishness, greed, ruthlessness, or deceit expose a “contractive organism that clutches and holds things to itself.  The source of its unsocial attitudes and conduct is the tension centering around the ‘I’.  Ease the tension and you lessen the unsocial complex…Contemplation thrusts us from our tiny thrones and renders us subjects of a greater kingdom.”

The great mystics of centuries past have discovered this Truth. The sense of division between the individual and the other is a major cause of  perpetual suffering.   Lest we think this is simply thinking left to those living in the stratosphere of theological  idealists, Skinner includes that religion, like other institutional endeavors “must yield to emergency and must bend itself to the tasks of alleviating the suffering of the intensely now.” He takes into account the fact that the “frame of reference in which most of us live is that of the immediate.” However, there is a time when instead of hurriedly trying to “fix” this or that issue; it is imperative to expand our ideas of inclusion (even when our first thought is to turn away). 

 A closing meditation:

“My life is not so much mine as a particle of the Infinite life encased for a passing moment in a frame which houses it in fragile solitariness.  It is the drop of water lifted for a brief day by the lotus leaf from the pool.  Soon the drop will fall back into the source whence it came- merged in water which is common not only to the one pool, but with all water everywhere.”

WORSHIP IS A LOT LIKE COMMUNITY FARMING

/1 Comment/in , , , , , , ,

In my last post, I ended the questions “what is worship?” and “who is it for?”

Well, worship is a lot like community farming.  You come together and grow as a group. You have your own individual patch of ground, but what you are cultivating is part of the greater whole.  There is a sense of purpose that is larger, loftier, spiritually speaking, than the albeit satisfying task of raising your own vegetable garden. Both are good, but they are very different. They both feed you, but community farming includes, the community!

Week after week, sowing seeds, tending to the fragile shoots, rooting out weeds in tandem.  As in worship, you develop a kinship with one another over time, in the shared weekly rituals. You are joining forces to rejoice in creation, the Creator, to create.  It doesn’t happen overnight and takes patience. Much of it happens in the darkness of the soil you are tilling and you trust they while you are not in the control of the process; it is worthy of your time and devotion.  In worship, you are growing a soul and that can only happen in relationship.  

The etymology of worship which dates back to the 13th century, Old English.  “Wor” comes from the word worth and “ship” means to shape.  Simply put, worship means to shape worth.  In worship, people come together to affirm, ordain, and revere what they believe to be worthy.  The vast majority of houses of worship in the world (churches, synagogues, and mosques) are worshipping God. Yet while the God they are each pointing to can differ vastly, their concepts of God reflect what they consider as a community to be the most vital, important beliefs to have in life  and instruct their most dearly held values. 

There is joy in devoting yourself to the work, but it can be hard and arduous too. There are big and little sorrows that cry to be heard.  As well, it is good to talk with one another about what’s working and what’s not in your daily efforts, and whether your prayers for rain or sunshine have been answered.  You listen to a trained expert in the field, but then you have to go out and live it each day, gathering knowledge in your heart and mind but bearing the fruit of it only by lived experience.  You find rocks in the garden, stumbling blocks in your own personality, that you would have never known were there, save for the friction that digging deeper and risking the rough and tumble that goes along with being in community.    

When you are in awe of a spectacular sunset or marveling at the vast splendor of  a deep forest, you may indeed have a spiritual experience or a feeling of Unity with Creation.  But it is not worship.  Worship is an outward expression of the love and appreciation we have for the Highest Good it AND it involved a commitment on our part to frame our life around that love and appreciation. Worship may be to God, but it is for us.

A NICE GOD

/in , , , , , ,

The Christian Century‘s August 10, 2010 cover story, entitled “Our God is Too Nice”, contains a survey conducted by the National Study of Youth and Religion on what today’s Christian American teenagers believe.  They created a new term to describe this loosely held set of beliefs, “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”.  Here is a condensed version of the findings:

“1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.

2. God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3. The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.

4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to solve a problem.

 5. Good people go to heaven when they die.”

Hmm.  Here are my thoughts (in no particular order):

Having three teenagers myself, I see their struggle between the adult rising within them, with complex ideas and  accompanying responsibilities, and their desire to revert back to simple, more comforting, childlike roles.  Teenagers are not quite a grown up, not quite a kid.   With that as a backdrop, I can see how some of these notions would fit the age.  It is reassuring to believe that someone else is in charge and that someone will take care of us (only if and when we ask them). It is certainly assuages our human fears of death and/or hell.  If we are good, if we behave, we will go to heaven.  

However, I asked my own children (19, 18, and 16) to respond to the above list of basic concepts of “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”. My kids are typical American teenagers in many ways, but they are unusually deep and perceptive thinkers. (I know; I’m their mother, so of course I think they’re brilliant; but just indulge me). In addition, they were steeped in church life since infancy and have the privilege of being well-educated.  Here are their answers to the above 5 points:

1.  “God created the world, yes/ puts in it order, perhaps, but don’t forget about evolution’s role as well/ watches over us (hope so, but more likely is within us and around us in the world, actively participating in our joys and sorrows, not Mr. Fix it).”  One stated that “the jury is still out if there really is a God.”    

2. A resounding yes, “this is just common sense, what it means to be moral and ethical.” “Sounds overly simplistic though.”

3. A qualified no….being happy is good and feeling good about yourself is important, but they are not the central goal of life.  While none of them was sure what the central goal of life was, words like “love, service, growth, and relationships”, were included.  “Feeling good about yourself was necessary to be happy, but happiness is a byproduct, not a goal, and what about the people in Darfur and Afghanistan?” “This belief of the goal of life being personal happiness isn’t even Christian.”  “This is just our consumerist culture.”

4. “Won’t even answer this, it’s too ridiculous.  Who believes that?? It’s like a genie in a bottle.  This is the same kind of personal deity who saves some people on a plane (and that proves to them, there’s miracles) while allowing others to die, including babies (and they say that’s God’s will).”  

5. (Note: This is what they were all taught as children in the Catholic Faith).  Here are their 3 very different answers:

a.” Yes”. 

 b. “I believe good and bad people go to heaven, all our welcome, a loving God takes everyone.” (My Universal Salvationist).

c.”I don’t know if there is a heaven, I don’t believe in hell, but I’m starting to think they are both just human constructs or metaphors pointing to something else”.

The writer of The Christian Century article, Kenda Creasy Dean, is rightfully discouraged by the wave of “MTD” sweeping the churches.  It certainly does reflect how our predominant culture has infiltrated even our views about God and the role of religion in our lives.  And she is right, this milquetoast of a faith won’t stand up against the pain and suffering that besets every human life.  REAL religion, whatever it is, has to be solid enough to provide a firm foundation and clear enough to utilize in our daily lives. Superficiality and vague platitudes don’t have the substance when it’s time to just hold on.  If your faith doesn’t provide spiritual sustenance, perhaps the place to begin is to ask the questions, “What is worship?, “Who is it for?”

THE MAD HATTERS AT THE TEA PARTIES

/3 Comments/in , , , , , ,

You know, with all the ranting and raving that runs the airways these days, the predictably controversial talking heads of radio along with their shouting and outright rude counterparts on television “news” (and I do use the word lightly) programs, one would think we have become a nation of adamant nonsense. What I hear sounds more like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland and less like the lofty ideals imagined by our Forefathers (and Mothers) . The Red Queen ordered shrilly, for any provocation or for none at all, the command “Off with their heads!”… before finding out whose head or why. It was and is a little scary. 

So please let us not confuse our diverse nation with its 50 states and about 310 million individuals and their variant needs and goals with the so-called Patriots, continuing to foam at the mouth, who either:

A. Stir up the pot using self aggrandizing slander of anyone or anything that SEEMS to oppose their fanatically held sound bite views, with the nuance, subtlety, and thoughtfulness of a brick through a plate-glass window. I will not mention any of these personalities by name as I do not want to give them any more free press than they already get.

 B. This group is similar to those of the above, except for instead of making millions by being media pushers, they are politicians.  Sure, money and fame are two of their goals, but their drug of choice is power and staying in it, no matter the cost or without care to their constituency, that has  them shouting, “Foul!” to any idea that “appears” to come from the other side of the aisle.  I say “appears”, because as the non-contrarian media continues to do its job, we find many of these ideas were first proposed by them!! 

C.  Which leads us to the last, and most unfortunate of all of the screaming mimis, more than a few (although not all)  Tea Party members.  When our Boston revolutionaries threw that tea into the harbor, they too were as mad as hell and weren’t going to take it anymore.  Luckily for them, they didn’t have groups A and B using them as pawns and puppets for their own selfish ends.  Many of the members of the Tea Party have legitimate concerns and articulate them, if not convincingly, at least soundly. 

But too many have joined a movement, fiery and passionate, that perhaps gives them a sense of purpose and connection, but it is more like a “loud gong signifying nothing.”  They are being used by those feeding them alarming bits of information WITHOUT CONTEXT. The somewhat sly and charismatic rabble rousers, rich and powerful, know that it is Fear and not Fact that motivates a mob.  

Mark Twain cleverly defined a Patriot as “The person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.” How true, wise words from our favorite American humorist. Let’s heed them.  Except for the unavoidable and universal childhood stage that we all must go through and that hopefully passes with age (not dubbed “the terrible twos” for nothing), NO should be something more than a knee jerk reaction to any new idea. Might it be more patriotic, never mind more helpful, to learn to curb our childish impulses to respond to anything, reasonable or not, with NO? 

We may very well be a nation of natural-born contrarians. I love that we can argue about things that matter, in private and in public.  It’s sometimes fun to argue just for argument’s sake to pass the time with friends and family. (Although it’s annoying to be with those who seem to take the opposite opinion in every discussion).  Just the same, we are blessedly free.  With that comes the responsibility to think, to openly weigh both sides of an argument, to be willing to change our opinions. 

So, let’s go to our tea parties and leave the mad hatters with Alice; they may be exciting but they are too damn exhausting.