Happy New Year!

      Rang in the new year with family and good friends, good food and drink, great conversation and fun games (what song reminds you of me???).

Today, went sledding with the kids, B. made amazing pizza for supper (after having his scalp split a snowboard), and watched “Hairspray,” which is a much better movie than I expected — having fallen in love with John Travolta as a young girl in his “Welcome Back, Kotter” days.

Here’s a thought from the Rebbe: “We don’t say a person ‘will be going to heaven.’ We say this person is ‘a child of the world to come.’ Heaven is not just somewhere you go. It is something you carry with you.”  Our faith is something we wear; not something we wield.  Or, at least it should be.

Why is it that people who tend to judge easily noisly bawk when the light is turned toward the inconsistancies in their own lives?

That’s all for now.

“Uncomfort and No Joy”

So at a recent family gathering, I read this on a young man’s tee-shirt:

“Global Warming has nothing on Eternal Burning.”  Wow.

Like, we have to choose?  I know that’s what much of the Christian community believes.  If we don’t have to worry about the environment (because, after all, nothing matters but the afterlife), we have little responsibility for our actions right here, right now.  We can ignore taking care of the planet we’ve been given, and laugh at any information that comes out that doesn’t agree with what we personally believe, right?

Never-mind that the Bible says we were left as stewards — people responsible for what we’ve been given.  Never-mind that Jesus said we are not to worry about what is to come — that we should live each day we are given, because “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” right here, right now.  Never-mind that a statement like that smacks with religious arrogance that makes people outside the four walls of the church roll their eyes and slams doors shut on conversation and understanding.

You know, I see it all the time.  The majority of people in religious leadership talk a good game, but their lives do not reflect a real concern for outsiders.  Honestly, if you consider yourself a Christian, how many “un-Christian” friends do you have?  Ask yourself that question right now.  Not family members, but good friends you’d hang out with.

How dare people use a time like Christmas — supposedly a time to celebrate Jesus’ birth — to wham-bam and slam people who don’t believe like them.  That in any way, shape or form Christians can think alienating others is the way to spread the gospel?  Does anyone in the church really, truly take the words of Jesus seriously anymore?  Do people really think being “in the world and not of the world” means being ignorant of what’s going on in the world?  That we can deny responsibility for the here and now because of the “great beyond?”

Sorry. 

Look, I’m not saying the world’s going to end in five years because of global warning.  I’ve never been an alarmist in any areas of my life.  But I think we have a responsibility to do what we can.  And we especially have a responsibility to not tear other people a part because they don’t agree with us.  Again, take seriously the cliche, “What would Jesus do?” and don’t limit it to your one-sided understanding of the regurgitated Scripture religious leaders offer.  Read it for yourself.  Meditate on it.  Don’t be afraid to go outside your limited realm to hear what other people say.  Put their thoughts against your belief, and become stronger and more open to actually caring about people.

And don’t let what your micro-cosmic Christian culture puts on tee-shirts steal your voice to the world.

Oh, P.S.  Yeah, the “world” puts whatever they want on tee-shirts.  But don’t you have another objective?

More “unoriginal” thoughts

    Doing a lot of reading these days.  The following is from a work of fiction: Tom Robbins, “Skinny Legs and All.”  Thanks to “R” for the funny — and poignant — read:

“Early religions were like muddy ponds with lots of foliage.  Concealed there, the fish of the soul could splash and feed.  Eventually, however, religions became aquariums.  Then, hatcheries.  From farm fingerlings to frozen fish stick is a short swim …

“…religion is a paramount contributor to human misery.  It is not merely the opium of the masses, it is the cyanide.  Of course, religion’s omnipresent defenders are swift to point out the comfort it provides for the sick, the weary, and the disappointed.  Yes, true enough.  But the Deity does not dawdle in the comfort zone!  If one yearns to see the face of the Divine, one must break out of the aquarium, escape the fish farm, to go swim up wild cataracts, dive into deep fjords.  One must explore the labyrinth of the reef, the shadows of lily pads.  How limiting, how insulting to think of God as a benevolent warden, an absentee hatchery manager who imprisons us in the “comfort” of artificial pools, where intermediaries sprinkle our restrictive waters with sanitized flakes of processed nutriment.

“A longing for the Divine is intrinsic in Homo sapiens.  (For all we know, it is innate in squirrels, dandelions, and diamond rings, as well.)  We approach the Divine by enlarging our souls and lighting up our brains.  To expedite those two things may be the mission of our existence.

“Well and good.  But such activity runs counter to the aspirations of commerce and politics.  Politics is the science of domination, and persons in the process of enlargement and illumination are notoriously difficult to control.  Therefore, to protect its vested interests, politics usurped religion a very long time ago.  Kings bought off priests with land and adornments.  Together, they drained the shady ponds and replaced them with fish tanks.  The walls of the tanks were constructed of ignorance and superstition, held together with fear.  They called the tanks ’synagogues,’ or ‘churches,’ or ‘mosques.’

“After the tanks were in place, nobody talked much about the soul anymore.  Instead, they talked about spirit.  Soul is hot and heavy.  Spirit is cool, abstract, detached.  Soul is connected to the earth and its waters.  Spirit is connected to the sky and its gases.  Out of the gases springs fire.  Firepower.  It has been observed that the logical extension of all politics is was.  Once religion became political, the exercise of it, too, could be said to lead sooner or later to war.  ‘War is hell.’ 

“Thus, religious belief propels us straight to hell.  History unwaveringly supports this view. (Each modern religion has boasted that it and it alone is on speaking terms with the Deity, and its adherents have been quite willing to die — or kill — to support its presumptuous claims.)

“Not every silty bayou could be drained, of course.  The soulfish that bubbled and snapped in the few remaining ponds were tagged ‘mystics.’  The were regarded as mavericks, exotic and inferior.  If they splashed too high, they were thought to be threatening and in need of extermination.  The fearful flounders in the tanks, now psychologically dependent upon addictive spirit flakes, had forgotten that once upon a time they, too, had been mystical.

“Religion is nothing more but institutionalized mysticism.  The catch is mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization.  The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence.  Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed.  Or, at least diminished…not only is religion divisive and oppressive, it is also a denial of all that is divine in people; it is a suffocation of the soul.”

Wow (again).  Here’s to being a “mystical fish” in a pond of discovery.  May the aquarium of the soul never again enslave me.

“One Continuous Mistake”

Not a lot original to say.  But I’ve been reading from Gail Sher’s book, “One Continuous Mistake.“  It’s a “zen” writing book.  Since I hope to be a “read” writer someday, I study it a lot.  The following chapter continues to haunt my soul:

The Kiss of the Asp

“Describing the bell-ringing ritual that precedes dokusan (a private interview with a Zen teacher), Philip Kapleau-roshi says:

…how the bell is struck tells the roshi, who can hear the sound in his room, whether the student is a beginner or a more advanced student and what the condition of his or her mind is.

‘How’ we do anything tells us the same thing. 

‘Always do what you are afraid to do,’ Ralph Waldo Emerson’s visionary Aunt Mary advised him.  We tie ourselves in knots to sabotage the energy that might be unleashed if we move resolutely ahead.  The risks of making changes are great … especially great changes.

Actually, the risks of not making changes are are great.  We risk missing our lives. 

Sometimes writers (I think this goes for all dreamers – gl) don’t move resolutely ahead because they fear that once they start, they’ll never stop.  Like an anorexic who refuses to eat because her hunger is so deep, if she lets herself, she could eat forever — well, couldn’t she?  If a writer finally lets herself write, without any artificial boundaries, couldn’t she writer forever?

Yet there is a difference between addiction and practice.  Regarding God, for example, Paramahansa Yoganada said, ‘It’s OK to be addicted [to God].’  It’s OK to be addicted to God means that it’s OK to use the energy that drives an addiction to fuel one’s personal relationship with God because the latter will not (as a true addiction will) drain the psyche; rather, it will fill it.  Writing will also.

Korean Zen Master Soen-sa-nim was adamant.  ‘Zen means believing in yourself one hundred percent’  To do so requires knowing yourself, standing up for yourself, ‘0wning’ your fears and weaknesses.  This is hard for a writer – to keep owning her fears and to still write.  If you try to tackle it with your mind alone, you’re likely to stop writing (or dreaming – gl).

Yet succumbing to fear is worse than taking one the thing feared.  It removes you from reality by creativing an artificial focus.  You waste your strength fighting an endlessly elusive battle.  Derailed, tipped off-center, you walk through your days like a ghost.  The solution for a writer who fears she will never stop writing once she starts is simply to attend daily writing periods.  The beauty of writing periods is that they have a be3ginning and an end.  You attend them, and that’s all.

We say we aren’t writing (listening to ourselves) in the name of consideration for others.  But this is a false premise because we can’t listen to others (really) until we learn to listen, exquisitely listen, and to abide by our own heart.”

Wow.  There is so much depth their for my own spirit, that I continue to re-read it.  Coming face to face with my fear — the fear of never really living my life the way God intended — is huge.  It’s so easy to substitute someone else’s life for my own, because it seems “their way” is so much more acceptable.  But it’s also accepting a lie.

“You waste your strength fighting an endlessly elusive battle.  De-railed, tipped off-center, you walk through your days like a ghost.”  This describes how I feel many, many days.  Walking through someone else’s life.  Not totally.  And definitely not when it comes to my family.  But the day to day doings of life.  And I ask myself, “What must I do to be saved?”

The majority of the “battles” I fight really don’t matter, because they are with an organization that is slowing strangling itself.  The things I do really don’t matter — aside from the relationships I maintain and the people I love.  So again, as I’ve been doing, this realization helps me take one more step back.

Most of it is just beginning, you know?  So today’s resolution is to write.  Write even when there’s laundry (it will still be there later).  Write even when the kids ask questions (I can answer them from my station, and return to the task immediately).  Write even though I see no purpose or end save an arbitrary time limit (so I don’t get lost in the words).

I Walk the Line (again)

Mood?  Ambivalent…

Today, sitting the the structure’s meeting, I reviewed the day’s gamut of emotion.  I started by feeling apprehension — I was teaching the senior high class, a position I’m not normally in.  It flew to extreme sadness at the realization that many of these “good” high school kids are traveling the same path of complacency and mediocrity that their parents seem to settle for.  Service was full of no surprises, except the littlest one and B. sang at different parts of the show.  Same old, same old … and I fell deeper into the realization that, just because people say they believe in the “power of God,” most often their lives don’t reflect that belief.   It added to the sadness.

Following the show, I spent brief time coming close to crying with a dear friend, sharing the joy of the unknown with a kindred spirit, and loving on one of the most amazing young men I’ve ever known — next to my own kids, of course!  Feelings spiraled from sadness, to excitement, to admiration, to disbelief in the corruptness that says different things to different people, and somehow maintains they are “following God’s will.”  I know, I’m a broken record, but I keep holding out hope, as stupid as it is.

So, I come home and my husband informs me (trying as politely as he can) that we have to cut my family’s side of our Christmas celebration short for — you guessed it — structure stuff.  Add that to more dishonesty surfacing from that place … I was teetering on the edge of simply losing it.

Fortunately, my dad is with us today, so I had to hold my composure and breathe.  And after a while, I told B. it wasn’t him … there was just a flood of feelings that threatened to wash me out to sea.  Then, I open up the blog to find my favorite friend asking me if I’m “rediscovering” myself.   Wow, what a loaded question.  Most of the time, I’m not even sure who I am.   And on days when I let emotions fling me around, I’m absolutely sure I’m no where to be found.

So today, I walk the line between what is and what should be just a little closer.  Between who I am and who I need to be for the other people in my life.  And although I “live here” a lot, and I know it’s my choice (so don’t read this as complaint; it’s simply reflection), today I am just being.  In fact, because the weather is so iffy here right now, we’re not going to a play and hour or so away.  We’re hanging tight on the home-front, and simply being … a few good cookies, a movie, and quiet reflection on life.

Reaquainting …

     …myself with an old friend.

My sixteen year old is taking an American Lit. class this year.  Instead of buying a program, I’m basically writing one, combining what I had in high school and college.  While making tomorrow’s assignment, I realized I had yet to expose the poor boy to one of my favorite American writers — Henry David Thoreau.

Anyone who knows me should not be expressing any surprise at this point.  But after re-reading “Civil Disobedience” for the first time in years, I smiled inside, knowing this man influenced my youth in ways I’d forgotten.  Let me share some quotes from this amazing essay:

“I was not born to be forced.  I will breathe after my own fashion.  Let us see who is strongest.  What force is a multitude?  They can only force me who obey a higher law than I.  They force me to become like themselves.  I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men.  What sort of life were that to live?”

“Statesmen and legislators (or anyone in positions of “power”) standing so completely within the institution never distinctly and nakedly behold it.  They speak of moving society, but have not resting place without it.  They may be men of certain experience and discrimination, and have not doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits.  They are want to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency…”

“There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived and treats him accordingly.”

There were many more highlighted, but it’s far too late in the evening to write them all.  Suffice it to say that the person I am comes from a long heritage of “civil disobedience,” and sometimes I forget that.  I think I am come of late to the winds of change, but that’s just not true.  Sometimes, I need to remember “old friends” who speak from my past, telling me I have been groomed for “such a time as this.”  Melodramatic?  Maybe.  But somehow, it gives me reassurance deep inside that the person I am has been a long time in coming.

Just When I Thought I was Over It …

     So last night, B. and I spent an evening visiting people from “the church before” we left about four years ago. 

A little background … we had been there 10 years.  Two of our children had been born there, and we basically grew up in ministry there.  We also had a God-awful experience leaving there.  I don’t really want to go into all the gory details, but let’s just say it left me disillusioned, wounded, angry and I had a lot of “crap” to work through.  It’s take four years, and I thought I was over it.

But last night … I’m still processing it.  Honestly, I thought it would be no big deal.  We’d been back there many times, and each time I’d been just fine.  Last night was different.  We had a great time.  The people we talked to were lovely … busy catching up in our lives, genuinely interested.  The food was good, and we sat through a mediocre “Christmas” program.  We then spent some time with old friends and new, playing Wii.

On our way home, though, after not really thinking about it too much, I turned to my husband and said, “All those people … and none of them stood up for us during that horrid time.”  I was quiet the rest of the way home.  I was confused, because honestly, it came out of nowhere and hit me hard up side the head.

I broke down a little talking to some friends tonight about it.  My friend V. asked, “Maybe it was just that you miss that life.”  I dunno.  I might mourn the innocence.  I might miss the ignorance I lived in — when life was simple, because I blindly believed in the innate goodness of people — and I offered my fledgling trust to people who abused me over and over and over again.  But there’s nothing that would get me to go back.  Like V. said later, “Once your eyes are opened, it’s impossible to ever go back again.”

So here’s to the lie of “emotional healing.”  I’m always looking for meaning in all things, and I feel frustrated that there’s no “sense” in my head concerning most of these events.  I have “forgiven,” and honestly, I don’t “live there” ever.  So this blog is my most recent cathartic experience.  I’ll be over it after a good night’s sleep.  And before long, it’ll be just another memory. 

Here’s hoping — again — it never rears its ugly after this.

What If…

    Sometimes, isn’t it fun to just imagine the world different?  I’m not talking cotton candy and roses, but just imagine what it might be like to really be free.  To not be chained to the capitalism, living from paycheck to paycheck?  To work on things that would really, truly bring a living legacy to your life?

There’s a lot of different ways people can perceive that dream.  For some, it’s all eternal … heaven and streets of gold.  For others, all they can imagine is right here, right now.

Me?  I think maybe it’s both.  And one way that we can add to the legacy of the here and now is to think a little differently.  Question — “why” is one of the most powerful words in our language (along with love, forgiveness, etc.).  “Why” is the question authority is afraid of, because if a person questions, they are thinking for themselves.  

I don’t know a lot, but something that history has shown me is that people who question are the ones who really make a difference.  Sometimes they pay the ultimate price.  Sometimes, they make a lot of people mad — alienate people they love and care for.  But at the end of the day, those people who stand up and think a different way are the ones that change the course of history.

If you’re interested in a piece of culture that I’m sure you’re not overly familar with, check out this website:  http://www.submedia.tv  Be forewarned; it’s probably going to be offensive to some people.  It’s associated with a loosely grouped organization called CrimeThink, INC, and while I don’t subscribe to what they believe carte blanc, I think they give you a lot to think about. 

I’m a person who questions by nature … call it my journalistic bent.  But this organization opened my mind up to posibilities I’d never considered.  Again, I’m not saying this is the way I totally think.  But I am saying that maybe, just maybe, if we all stand up and ask “why” once in a while, the world might just be a better place.

A Sad Day in History

   Today is the “anniversary” of the first declaration of the Crusades in 1095.  While it may be true the Crusades began as an attempt to preserve western culture from the likes of Vikings and Muslims, it’s interesting to me how the stage was set for this “invasion” of the Middle East.  Read this excerpt from MSN Encarta:

In the 11th century the balance of power began to swing toward the West. The church became more centralized and stronger from a reform movement to end the practice whereby kings installed important clergy, such as bishops, in office. (See also Investiture Controversy.) Thus for the first time in many years, the popes were able to effectively unite European popular support behind them, a factor that contributed greatly to the popular appeal of the first Crusades.

Furthermore, Europe’s population was growing, its urban life was beginning to revive, and both long distance and local trade were gradually increasing. European human and economic resources could now support new enterprises on the scale of the Crusades. A growing population and more surplus wealth also meant greater demand for goods from elsewhere. European traders had always looked to the Mediterranean; now they sought greater control of the goods, routes, and profits. Thus worldly interests coincided with religious feelings about the Holy Land and the pope’s newfound ability to mobilize and focus a great enterprise.

It’s interesting that it took a merger of religious and economic factors to allow Europe the opportunity to “take” the Middle East.  The article goes on to say that these Crusades set the stage for colonization that still sends rippling effects throughout the world today.

It makes me wonder why the modern church doesn’t take more responsibility for “what we have wrought?”  Where did the early Popes garner their unchecked power to call people “in the name of God” to do unspeakable atrocities to other lands and peoples?  Blindly, believers followed the words of their leaders, striking out in fear and feelings of superiority.  Able to view “them” as faceless pagans, Christians could easily invade, destroy and mutilate a culture that was (if we believe our own doctrine) also created by God.

I know I’m oversimplifying a historical event.  But the similarities I see in many of the things we do today “in the name of God” doesn’t escape me.  And, being an amateur student of history, I wonder why we can’t see the similarity in our patterns of behavior today?  Unquestioning loyalties?  Guided thinking patterns?  Religion and economy illicit bed partners, begetting bastard policies and doctrines?

And I have to wonder if we’ll ever get it right?

Take a few moments today, and ask God to forgive the terrible things we’ve done in his name.  Mourn the ignorance that has driven us away from what we claim we believe.  And resolve to no longer sell your soul for oversimplified, fear-filled belief that makes you feel comfortable.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

  I have this long-time friend.  Last week, she moved out of her house, leaving her husband of 25 plus years, and two grown children, plus a daughter that’s still in high school.

“Alice” (not her real name) is so happy — relieved — about this situation.  Her high school-er ever told her, “I’m glad you left.  I haven’t seen you this happy ever, and I don’t want you to go back to dad.”  I’m a little dazed and confused, because in my “understanding,” the only reason she was unhappy in her relationship was that she was unfulfilled.

Alice came from a traditional church background.  Born and raised in a evangelical community, she met “John” (again, not his real name) soon after he was “born again,” and they were married and became a part of their church.  Work, children, and life followed, and while things weren’t perfect, they were “normal,” by any definition of the word.

A few years ago, Alice’s father died suddenly.  This sent her for a tailspin, one from which I don’t think she’s still fully recovered.  I think this event opened her eyes, a bit.  Her dad had kind of lived a “double life,” presenting one image at church, and another at home.   He wasn’t abusive or anything … he was just very, very selfish and stubborn and unloving.  Funny thing, Alice is a lot like him (and will tell you that herself). 

I’ve kind of lost touch with Alice, because we’ve moved and she went on to work full-time.  Her kids have struggled with various things, but it seems like the family is on an “upswing” of sorts.  Then, the news that she decided to walk out on John the week of Thanksgiving …

I know we never “know” anyone’s story from the outside.  And please don’t think I’m judging Alice at all, because I’m not.  But this whole experience has me shaken a bit.

Alice said her one daughter is struggling, and I know why.  We’re taught that marriage is “for better, or worse.”  We’re taught that marriage has little to do with us, and more about how we serve and love another.  We’re told that staying with the person we marry is the way to keep society running smoothly — for the kids, etc.  And, while there are many cases where divorce is “acceptable” (cases of infidelity or abuse, etc.), in my sheltered definition, this isn’t one of those times.

What brings a person to this line, then pushes them over it?  How can someone walk away from a half a lifetime with someone, simply because they don’t feel appreciated, or fulfilled, or “financially stable” (which means she doesn’t have as much money as she wants — they have a house, three cars, remodeled kitchen, etc.). 

Part of me is angry.  I also know John, and think he’s a great guy.  Yeah, he’s very passive.  But that’s given Alice all kinds of freedom.  In fact, she has blamed him for many things that she herself has let happen.  And he’s always errored on the side of peace, you know?  I’ve also seen her undermind him when he’s tried to make decisions that he thought would help the family.  So, he’s resorted to passive-aggressive behaviors that have hurt her.  But in this relationship, she’s the one who’s taken very little personal responsibility.  In fact, she’ll tell you she stopped trying, because he didn’t “do” what he should have known to do.  And I understand that … my husband and I have similar conversations.  But to walk away from the man because he can’t read my mind?  OK, I have a lot of guy friends.  There are only a few who I would call perceptive, and even they struggle with their own wives!  It just “is what it is,” you know?

I know divorce is a reality of life.  But I also know when the proverbial “shit” hits the fan, I want to fight for the investment I’ve made in my marriage, not walk away.  (OK, we all think about it at times, but to actually DO it?).  This event has been a long time in coming in Alice’s life.  It shouldn’t have been a shock to me — she’s been very open in discussing the whole thing.

But it has shaken me to the core, just the same.