Taking A Break

I'm off again travelling on business, this time all week. 

Here's hoping I can manage to find a seat on the plane other than Seat 29E.

Helen is feeling better .. and in fine form

Helen Philpot was sick for a while and hadn't been posting much. Lord, I missed her.  For me she's kind of like a real-life Maxine, only politically edgier. She's back and in fine fettle.  Here's my favorite part of her latest post:

If you want to preserve Christian values you might start with living like a Christian and not some racist asshole who can’t stand how many Muslims have moved into your neck of the woods or what your neighbor is doing in the bedroom.  And if you want to preserve American values then don’t elect a President who condones torture.  But if you want to stop the globalization of nations and the blending of the world’s population then use a condom, support Planned Parenthood and legalize gay marriage.  Because those are the only things I know that actually don’t add to the growing population on this finite planet we call home.

Sunday Blessing

Today while eating lunch at our regular Sunday lunch spot, we watched a mother dolphin fishing with her tiny baby.  It appeared to me as though Mama was teaching baby to fish.  At one point, Mama was a bit distracted and the baby headed directly for the navigational channel. When the mother noticed that, she streaked off to herd the baby back to safer waters, where they resumed swimming in tight circles. (I noticed the escaping baby before the dolphin did and, in the manner of mothers everywhere, my heart skipped  beat.)

Unfortunately, I had left my camera in the car, so I didn't get a picture. Bummer.

But, I have the memory.  

Update: My First Month

This past week marked the end of my first month of working out at Curves For Women.  I have never in my life been so rapidly sold on something -- except maybe Ghirardelli chocolate or Mrs. Fields cookies (but, that is another story entirely). 

After working out three times a week for a month, this week was the dreaded "weigh-in".  Only I didn't really dread it because I could feel that my body was different, and better. I felt taller, stronger and more energized. I was surprised to learn that I only lost one pound on the scale.  

They broke it down however, and showed me that I had actually lost 3 pounds of fat.  What is more, I lost 6 inches.  I am not happy with what the scale says I weigh, but I am thrilled with the way my body looks and feels.  I can continue to lose one pound a month, or less, provided I continue to feel so energized when I leave the workout room and so comfortable in my clothes!  

When I first read about Curves, I thought it was another of those ripoff franchises that preys on women's insecurities about their bodies.  I was predisposed to be suspicious about the whole concept.  I was totally wrong!  It is all about empowering women and helping us to be the best we can be.  Very few of us will ever look like Catherine Zeta-Jones or Angelina Jolie (they are my idea of the two Most Beautiful Women in the World), but we can at least do the most we can with the bodies we have.  

For me it is not about looks (although looking good is a nice side effect).  It is about health (managing my weight and diet are important with a body that tends to manufacture a lot of cholesterol) and mental well being (my stress levels are off the charts some days and exercise is the best way for me to manage stress). 

I have never been one to pamper myself or to take the time to do all the personal self-care stuff that our contemporary culture tells us is important.  I resorted to therapeutic massage a few times at one point when I was in so much pain, but I hated the experience of getting naked in front of a stranger and spending money to have someone "pamper" me.  I quit as soon as the pain became bearable.  I have never had a manicure or pedicure.  I quit going to the hair salon almost a year ago: I cut my own hair. My attitude has always been that I have too much to do to spend time and money on girlie frivolities.

For the past 20+ years in one way or another, however, I made time in my life for exercise, mostly walking.  That was good.  It helped me manage my weight and was great for my mental health as well.  But, it wasn't enough for my post-menopausal body.  I would have given anything to find another alternative that did not require me to pay money and/or make some kind of commitment to add to all the other commitments in my life.  I couldn't find it.  So, I bit the bullet and signed up.

Working out at Curves requires me to leave the office earlier than I would ordinarily do.  That is annoying when I'm in the middle of something. It is a good thing because I need to not work as much as I do on my job (gives me more time for my writing, for one thing). It is a good thing, too, because it gives me an opportunity to practice self-discipline.  The combination of flexing my actual muscles and exercising dicipline over my rambunctious Will makes me feel good. It's all about that "control what you can" thing. I can't control anything in the world but myself.  I take full advantage of that little zone of disciplinary control.

In any case, I was motivated to work really, really hard on my susequent workouts this week, and came out feeling great. [Image: Rocky Balboa pumping air at the top of the stairs. Background sound: James Brown singing "I Feel Good"]

Now, it's time to get back to work.

 

Isolating People By Age

Recently my Dear Husband and I went to a concert at a 55+ community.   For those who don't know about these communities they are manufactured home communities with restricted deeds such that you have to be over 55 to live there. Most of the people are retired.  They have all kinds of community activities to keep the residents occupied, including a community chorus.  One of my husband's customers is in the chorus. She was supposed to do a solo in the concert and she invited my husband to attend.  He dragged me along. I didn't want to go, and didn't really intend to cooperate, but he guilted me into it, so I went.  

The concert itself was actually a surprise.  The choir was not as horrible as I expected and a couple of the soloists could even sort of sing.  The selection of songs was very good for the most part, and I rather enjoyed parts of it. The pianist was just fabulous, and  would go to one of her piano recitals anytime.  

But, the whole experience was jolting in several ways.

On the one hand, it made me miss singing in a choir. Singing in choirs is a whole lot more fun than listening to them.  When you're singing in a choir you think it sounds like the Robert Shaw Chorale.  When you're sitting in the audience you know it sounds more like the church choir on the Andy Griffith Show.

Nevertheless, I miss singing.  I want to figure out a way to bring singing back into my life.

On the other hand, I had mixed feelings about the whole show. It was a very well done production. The women who were in charge were probably music teachers before they retired.  All of the singers had probably sung in community choirs and/or church choirs for years. Their voices may have been somewhat ravaged by age, but they were very professional in their attention to the director. I thought it was cool that they spent their time doing something so healthy and creative.  I loved that.  

But, it was kind of creepy to be in a place where everybody was the same age.  I saw exactly one kid in the audience.  It was not surprising that somebody's grandchild would be there. What was surprising was that there was only one. The rest of the grandchildren were probably "up North" someplace.  The creepiness went beyond fact that there were no extended families there.  It was a little like The (Elderly) Stepford Wives.  The women all dressed similarly, within a certain range. There were the flashy old broads with the sequined shirts and the casual old broads in Capri pants and sneakers, but they all wore makeup and they all wore earrings (dangle earrings). Most of the men were wearing striped golf shirts, with white or khaki pants. I was creeped  out by the fact that these wonderfully talented and capable people had isolated themselves from the  rest of society.

As much fun as planning that concert was for them, it seems to me they might have done better by putting on a show at a nearby elementary school that would include the children, or entertaining at a hospital or nursing home.  

My bottom line is that I have a problem with people who wall themselves off in gated communities that amount to upper-crust ghettos.  

Blog Surfing Sunday

While procrastinating in order to avoid doing any actual creative writing of my own today, I wasted a couple of hours link hopping around the blogosphere. I found some potential kindred spirits (and a bunch of folks that left me scratching my head and wondering WTF?) ....

I just stumbled across this blog by Honey Pie Horse.  I might quibble a tad with her take on the Bible, but I totally agree with her take on religion in general.  I also agree with her take on The Devil Wears Prada (perhaps the only book/movie combo where I have liked the movie (much) better than the book. Of course how can you go wrong with Streep? [Leaving aside, The Bridges of Madison County, anyway. What was she thinking?])

The folks at BlogHer were a little lathered up about a recent episode of Oprah. Evidently a bunch of mommybloggers were on the show and the topic was mommy-angst. Here's an interesting post on that subject.  I should not comment because: (a) I did not see the show  [I think I may be the only person in America who has never watched an entire episode of Oprah.  Five minutes is probably the longest I have been able to stay tuned to her show.] and (b) I would not have continued watching it once the whining and sniveling started (see above on giving up on Oprah in less than five minutes). 

However, I am qualified to speak on the subject of motherhood from a blogger's perspective. I have been an at-home mom and I have been a working mom.  I am not exactly an Earth Mother, but I do the best I can.  

No doubt about it: Being a mom is not a Sunday picnic: Sleep deprivation during infancy; Establishing authority and consistency in toddler-hood;  The ups and downs of Elementary School; the horrors of Middle School, etc.  Being an at-home mom can be isolating, but it can also be seen as a blessed gift of alone-time to think and ponder and experience creativity from the inside out -- at least that was my experience.  Being a working mom can be exhausting, but it has its compensations as well; I like to think that it is good for my daughter to see me as a competent professional apart from being a mom.  

Motherhood. Marriage. Career. Life. It all involves juggling, making choices. Some days are better than others. Some days totally suck, in fact, but there are other days filled with love and wonder and glory.  Tell me that it is not worth everything when you kid or your husband gives you an unexpected hug and says, "I love you"!!

Writing about the bad experiences is fun and cathartic for those of us who express ourselves with words.  We exaggerate and turn into humor what may have been initially a painful experience.  What we write often originates with a kernel of a true experience, but storytelling and writing techniques take over, and the end result is a "story", not necessarily a factually accurate account of what really happened, but it may [we hope] be entertaining as hell, perhaps because it's just a bit scandalous.

Were those women really just sitting around pissing and moaning about how excruciatingly difficult it is to be a mom and confessing to egregious behavior .... or were they a bunch of writer/storytellers sitting around trying to out-do each other with their tales.  I betcha half of those stories could have started with, "Oh, yeah?  Well, listen to this...."  I'm guessing those women were engaging in intentional hyperbole and outrageous storytelling: perhaps even satire.  It was probably all supposed to be funny.  The problem is those daytime talk shows don't understand satire. They are all about people crying and spilling their deepest, darkest secrets for the entertainment of the masses. 

These women go on TV and tell outrageous stories that are supposed to be funny in order to plug their blogs, and people take them seriously?  Sad.  So. Very. Sad. 

Erma Bombeck is probably spinning in her grave ... or maybe she's knocking back a few at St. Peter's Pub with Molly Ivins and talking about what a bunch of twits women can be.

And besides, don't people have anything better to do than sit around and watch Oprah?  Um... or read blogs, for that matter.  [NIW puts head in a paper bag....]

 

What in the World Is Going On

I have commented often in the past that I have a very busy job, but I don't generally blog about it in detail for a whole lot of reasons.  The main reason is the fact that bitching about your job in your blog is not exactly a career-enhancing thing to do.  And, besides, about 99.9% of what I do is very confidential anyway. So the details remain vague of necessity.

This is not confidential and it's not about my job specifically, so I'm going to blog it: WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON? I used to think that it was just my job that was super-busy and crazy.  It seemed to me that other people had more or less "normal" working lives, some jobs were busier than others, but for the most part they were in the range of "normal" (whatever that might be).  In my work life, I have always walked on the high side of normal. I have come to the conclusion that is because as an employee, I'm kind of an Evil Knievel.  I like to push the envelope at work.  I like to see how much work I can do in the allotted time. After I left most of my previous jobs, the employer hired more than one person to replace me. They didn't ask me to be a crazy woman, I just am made that way. I'm probably every employers dream.

Lately, however, my envelope has been pushed to the outer edges of its tolerance -- and beyond.  I'm starting to experience small rips and tears.  I fear the big split if I am not careful.

What is more, every person I have talked to lately on the phone or via email -- which typically adds up to dozens of people a day -- has told the same tale of woe:  things are crazybusy; they feel out of control and frightened; there is no end in sight to the deluge of new work.  I have the sense that companies are trying to do more with less staff, and the remaining employees are stretched to the max. That is to be expected what with the economy in the crapper, I suppose.  

The part that is disconcerting is that the busy-ness is not due to "booming business".  That kind of "busy-ness" is thrilling and exciting.  The "busy-ness" these days is a lot about people being scared to speak up and ask for help.  I am going to start counting the number of times people say (or I say), "no matter how bad it gets, it's a job."   I hope the day comes when workers will no longer feel that they have to put up with such unhealthy conditions just to have a job.  That is sad.  I hope the day comes (soon) when employers will once again feel they can hire enough staff to allow the employees to have time to do their job to the best of their abilities, instead of just hanging on to a speeding train, doing the best they can and praying that they won't make some kind of unforgivable mistake. 

As for me, I feel reasonably safe in my job, but I am still freaked out by how busy I am. I am terrified that I am going to screw something up and lose it all.....

I've been in the workforce more than 30 years [oh. my. god!!!] and I have never seen things this bad.  I usually try to comfort people in my workplace (actually, I tend to play "Mom" because I'm old), but these days I have no comfort to offer, other than the totally unhelpful "consolation" that we're all in the trenches together.  

Easter Sneaks In

I have spent the entire six weeks of Lent reflecting and writing and otherwise observing in my own (twisted) way the passage of Lent.  I knew when Easter would come because I kept looking it up on my calendar to see when I could start writing fiction again. 

But, somehow, Easter still managed to sneak up on me and catch me unawares. Is that not the most appropriate and theologically profound thing that could happen???  No matter how prepared and "ready" I am for Easter, it still comes as a surprise, and brings me up short.  Oh, yeah!  

_________________________________

My Easter celebration is going to be a sort of unplanned and semi-spontaneous family affair.

On Friday evening Daughter Dear asked me if we were going to "do" anything for Easter.  Evidently Wonderful Boyfriend's family is doing a family thing and he has to work.  DD wondered if I was," like, cooking dinner or something."  (DD knows that typically I do not cook on Sundays.)   

I am always delighted when DD and WBF choose to grace us with their presence (they are usually way too busy to bother hanging out with her parental units). I said of course I would cook something.  I asked what they wanted. They want mac 'n' cheese.  That's all. I rarely make it because it's so high in fat and we all love it so, we gorge on it.

My Dear Husband gets irritated when I insist on making a huge meal for just the few of us.  He would be content with just meat and a starch. I usually eat only vegetables and the starch. For this meal, I should just make the starch and skip everything else, because our principal interest is in the starch dish. 

However, you see, I have a Southern Mother: that's kind of like a Jewish Mother or a Catholic Mother. [Come to think of it, my Southern Mother was also a Catholic so I got a double dose of guilt.] Anyway, in traditional Southern cooking there had to be two meats and three vegetables plus a starch, a couple of "sides" (such as tomatoes, slaw, or some other salad-like substance), plus assorted condiments (relish, chow-chow, pickles, crudites, chutney, etc.).  Desserts included both cake and at least one pie (more typically three or four different kinds of pies), plus some sort of "gooey" confection.  

On the one hand, it's no wonder we were fat and we all have high cholesterol.

On the other, I learned that cooks express love by feeding the people they love. I still do that. However, I do not want my loved ones to keel over with heart attacks at the  end of the meal. Therefore, instead of a whole ham, I bought a tiny (itsy bitsy and VERY EXPENSIVE) package of honey cured sliced ham.  With that we will have steamed green beans with slivered almonds, some leftover stir fried snow peas from tonight, sliced tomatoes, broccoli slaw, corn bread, and mac 'n' cheese. (My guess is most of us will eat mainly mac 'n' cheese. The rest of the stuff will become lunches and dinners for the week.)

Dessert will be mixed fruit and fat free frozen yogurt. (In the likely event we are too full for dessert, that will make good smoothies for breakfast next week.)

It's not my mother's over-the-top, 10,000 calorie holiday dinner.  But, it's my way of demonstrating my love for my family, both in preparing the meal with love and in trying to make it reasonably healthy.

May we all have a Blessed Easter, in whatever way we observe it!  

Fwd: On Holy Week / Practical Application

I have spent the Lenten observance reflecting on my life: my relationships; my work; my goals.  

I reread Every Day Sacred and identified some themes that were important to me, such as the importance of asking for what I want and knowing when I have enough.  I spent a lot of time thinking about the meaning and use of Sabbath time.

I gave up writing fiction as a sacrifice but also to free up time for these reflections.  

Holy Week is the climax of the entire lead up to Easter.   I thought about giving up writing altogether for the week. I decided instead to write mostly fiction this week.  After a five week absence, it's glorious to have the chance to write fiction again ... .

In that way, I'm participating in the Easter Myth by doing a little myth-making of my own. 

On Holy Week / The Meaning Of

I have done kind of a new twist on Lent this year, so I want to do Holy Week differently as well. Instead of groveling in the pain of the Via Dolorosa and Calvary, I want to experience Holy Week through Easter eyes.

I have written a lot on the liturgical year in the past. Here's   something I wrote several years ago when I was still involved in a church.  It contains a sentence which moved me to tears when I wrote it (at a time when I was feeling betrayed by people I thought were my friends): One of the sub-texts of Holy Week is that Jesus was stabbed in the back by his own followers before he was nailed on the Cross by the Roman soldiers.  I have a good idea which wounds hurt him more.

Being betrayed even in a small way by the people who are closest to you hurts more than almost anything.  For me, the entire story of Biblical salvation history amounts to the saga of God's efforts to get humans to understand that God loves them and will take care of them, and the humans' responses ranging from "not now, I'm busy" to crucifying God's Beloved Son. The Biblical story is the story of Creation turning on its Creator, over and over again, and the Creator forgiving and beginning again in love.  Any parent who has ever had a kid look at you with fire in their eyes and say, "I hate you" has experienced just the tiniest hint of God's infinite pain. Some of us are better than others at the forgiveness and beginning again part.

It is almost as bad when the kids fight among themselves. In the case of the Holy Week saga, the other children gang up and murder the Beloved.  God stands by and watches in horror.  

Christian churches have typically approached Lent as a six-week long ordeal during which we are supposed to identify with the suffering of Christ and feel deep repentance for our "manifold sins and wickedness."  The problem I have with contemporary Christian Lenten observance is that ... well, the whole thing just so freaking much more complicated than that!!!

Yes, the Story is about betrayal and sin.  Yes, the Crucifixion is a symbol of the worst evil humans can commit: the murder of God.  Palm Sunday and Holy Week stand as warnings of the evil that lurk in the darkness of our hearts.  It is important to look there.  Artists (especially painters, actors, and writers of words and music) have  leg up in that department because we look into our hearts of darkness for material.  We know "what evil lurks in the hearts of men" (and women) because we peek now and then.  It's nasty business, but it's necessary.

Contemporary Christianity, especially evangelical Christianity would have Christians live their entire lives in the shadow of the Cross. That is a distortion. Yes, we live in the shadow of the Cross, but we also live in the glory of Easter! Our Lenten observances need to somehow take seriously the evil and sinfulness of the Crucifixion in the light of Easter. Anything less gets us nowhere.

If we stand in the Christian tradition, we are Resurrection People.  We are called to a New Life, every day. We are not bound by our past or our present. Our future is open, and Life calls us to embrace it, freely and joyfully.  Our family is all of Creation.  The Holy is everywhere, both outside of us, manifest in Creation, and inside of us, often hidden deep in our hearts. Sometimes it hides underneath all that Darkness and sinfulness. But it is there.  

I ended the Holy Week reflection quoted above by saying that Jesus was never, ever alone. Even on the Cross.  At the very moment when he thought he had been abandoned by God, God took him in God's arms and loved him into life eternal.  I wrote in my Journal the other day that I have recently learned there is "no such thing as being Alone". I guess I forgot that I already knew that.  It appears my Not-Aloneness is one of those things about which I need periodic reminders.  

Even though we are never alone, we often feel alone, lost, betrayed and afraid.  As contemporary psych-babble would have it, all feelings are legitimate.  It sucks to feel alone and afraid, whether you really "should" feel that way or not.  The worst thing you can do when someone is afraid and miserable is to explain to them rationally why it is not necessary for them to feel that way.  The best thing you can do is to simply be with them and convey (preferably not in words) that you understand how awful they feel.  Instead of saying "don't cry," try saying "Come. Cry on my shoulder and let me hold you."  

The funny thing is that in that moment of blessing neither of you are alone anymore -- and healing can begin, usually for both people.  

We are in the world and we are very much of the world -- our world, today, right here, right now. Religion (Christian or otherwise) errs if it tells us otherwise.  Instead of groveling in the the passion and death of Jesus or focusing so much on his resurrection that we lose sight of the suffering and dying going on all around us ... or the resurrections. 

A lot of Church people will say that the Easter Event was qualitatively different because Jesus was the Son of God. Yada. Yada. Yada.  I have heard that story a thousand times.  I don't doubt that Jesus was the Son of God.  So is my husband and my boss and the mailman. What makes Jesus different was that he was a totally obedient child. They will say that the whole point of Christianity is to follow Christ.  I'll give them that, but my question is: follow Christ where? 

I don't want to go back to Golgotha every year.  We've been there and done that and we get the message!  I want to look forward not backward.  I want to stand at the foot of the Cross and look not at the "mud and the blood and the vomit" one person told me were necessary to contemplate in order to fully experience the Crucifixion, but at the hope of resurrection.  

Maybe fifteen years ago, on Holy Saturday I was at the church helping with some of the final preparations for Easter. We were hiding candy and plastic eggs for the Easter Egg Hunt and generally getting organized. It was remarkably quiet even with a crew of workers.  I remarked that Holy Saturday always seemed so empty and frightening to me.  I said I felt that something was missing.  One of the other ladies said softly, "Of course, Jesus is not with us."  Then she paused and winked and smiled, "But we know, he'll be baaaaaaaaaaack!"  Ever since then, I have thought that was the perfect attitude for Lent.

It is a tightrope walk.  Go too far one way and you could fall into the abyss of either sin or despair.  Go too far the other way and you'll fly away to some kind of religious la-la land that has no basis in any reality that is in any way helpful to anyone.  Keeping Lent requires a struggle to hold ourselves in a balance between past and future, sin and redemption, death and resurrection, or real-world reality and religious mumbo-jumbo. 

The struggle of Lent is not to go too far down any rabbit trail.  When we get too fascinated by the Cross, we need to hear the echoes of the Easter Alleluias.  When we get too carried away by the love and the blessing and the totally amazing aspects of Resurrection, we need to remember the only way to get there is by dying first.  When we get too focused on the life of Jesus, we need to look at the suffering of the contemporary children of God.  When we start feeling too helpless and hopeless at our inability to respond to the crushing need in our world, we need to sit in the Garden at the feet of our Risen Lord.  

This reflection is particularly scary for me because "balance" is a physical challenge to me (because I have inner ear problems), an emotional challenge to me (because I'm a workaholic who doesn't really "get" leisure) and a spiritual challenge to me because I am a person who likes to be totally committed ... this balancing thing is hard. 

On Revelation Distorted as Ideology (part 2)

The other day I mentioned a book called The Muslim Next Door.  I actually started writing my rant about distorted revelation before I started the book.  As I revised it, I'm sure some of the things Mrs. Ali-Karamali write must have bled in.  I want to get that out of the way. I was not intentionally plagiarising her work if I inadvertently quoted her.  

In a way it's more a case of picking up her book now because these things were on my mind already.  The book simply gave me a different perspective on things I was already pondering.  I think it more or less affirmed everything I've been writing about lately.  Religion is not bad in and of itself.  I believe Revelation happens.  It is when Revelation is misunderstood or twisted and used to push an agenda that it becomes so very dangerous.

People have done extreme evil in the name of every religion ever conceived by humankind, including but by no means limited to Islam.  The Crusades for example.  We need to get over the notion that Islam is totally evil and Christianity is totally good. We need to get over that now.

We also need to get over the idea that there is anything qualitatively different between what Bin Laden's people did on 9/11 and what Timothy McVeigh did in Oklahoma.  Bin Laden killed more people but  McVeigh did exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reason, and based on the same ridiculous notion that killing a bunch of innocent people to make some kind of point is something God wants people to do.  There is NO DIFFERENCE between Christianist extremism that kills and terrorizes in the name of Jesus or Islamist extremism that kills and terrorizes in the name of Allah or Jewish extremism that kills and terrorizes for the sake of its God-given Homeland.  

   

___________

The overwhelming impression I have from reading this book is that Islam (in its "ideal" form) actually sounds like Judaism or Buddhism or Christianity in their ideal forms: a way of attempting to grapple with words to try to understand the Holy.  As described by this author, who clearly loves her religion and is deeply nurtured by it, Islam shines forth as a vibrant and healthy and wonderful religion.  The fact that it has been interpreted, twisted and used by its adherents to push every manner of agenda does not change the fact that its core message is not that different from most other religions, at least the Religions of the Book. 

Islam has also been demonized for millennia by Christians and Jews, to the point that I think we in the West have such a distorted and skewed view of Islam we might be hard pressed to ever be able to relate to Muslims as equals. 

Part of that is due to Christian arrogance that holds itself up as the One True Religion.   Hell, I was an active, involved and committed member of the Episcopal Church for years before I stopped thinking of it as a bogus form of Christianity, thanks to my indoctrination by the Roman Catholic church.  I eventually was able to reach the point where I truly believed it was just as authentic as the RC church.  That giant leap for me allowed me to accept other Christian denominations as "real"  (whether I like them or not).  It also allowed me to accept the authenticity of other religions, Judaism and Islam, included. 

The other reason for our rampant ignorance on the subject is, I think, cultural "disinformation".  Mrs. Ali-Karamali is critical of the media but she is careful not to blast American culture too much. She has good reason for being cautious: the safety of her family, for one.  I'm white and (sort of) Christian, so I'll say this. The hatred of Islam runs so deep in the West it has infected the very heart of Christian teaching. The Crusades were religious wars to purge the world of the "Infidel".  Five hundred years later our media pundits feel free to opine on the subject of Islam, when they know nothing about it and their general attitude is still that Islam and its adherents are inferior.  The infinitesimal information that does seep into the schools about Islam appears to be virtually all incorrect, if not out and out disinformation.  [The main thing I learned from reading this book is that virtually everything I thought I knew about Islam beyond the fact that it is a monotheistic religion very closely related to Judaism and Christianity is totally wrong.]

I am sorry for the fact that I keep quoting show tunes in these ramblings, but I think the best description I know of for how the infection of racism (religionism  or any other bigotry) is given in a song from the play South Pacific. It is so good, I'm quoting the whole thing.:

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught! 

It is precisely that cultural indoctrination of bigotry from toddler-hood that keeps us from building bridges, or that causes terrified extremists to blow up the cultural and religious bridges built by people of good will. 

I ended my article on Sunday, worrying about how on earth we can turn things around and stop the madness.  This book makes me both more certain that we need to do that, and less optimistic that we will. 

I guess the good news is we live in a country where a person can publish a book like that for others to read.  The problem is that the people who really need to read it won't. 

On Interior Silence

How is it that I have such a deep well of interior silence and peace that sustains and blesses me, but I so often become frazzled and stressed out in my daily life?

Usually I don't write about issues until I've grappled with them long enough to have arrived at some (at least tentative) conclusions.  I'm making an exception in this case because this is important and I want to chew on it intentionally for a while.   

I often have direct experience of what I think of as the Deep Silence that underlies all the noise in Creation.  There is no way to describe it and I'm not going to even try. The impression I have when I encounter it is that it is a dark and still and enormously powerful.  It is what I think some other writers refer to when they write about the Void or The Abyss.  It may even be God.  I don't know. I can't know.  It really doesn't matter.  What matters is that it's really awesome and even brief encounters with it leave me feeling blessed, peaceful, joyful and, somehow, "rested".  I guess that's as close as I can come to describing the experience, too, so I'll leave it at that.  Keep in mind, that description totally pales in comparison with the real thing.  In any case, I come away from those encounters feeling centered and serene. I love that!

Interestingly, sometimes the Deep Silence reveals itself to me at the oddest times and places.  For example, I used to meditate a lot, and I found to my amazement I could do some of my best mediation on the bus on my way to work.  I eventually quit meditating when I realized that the experiences I had in meditation often came unbidden at random times during the day or, sometimes, in the middle of the night.  All I had to do was to be open to the awareness that the reality I can experience with my senses isn't all there is to Reality. There's a whole lot more going on than we typically see! Meditation practice may help to focus on inner reality, but I have neither the time, patience or desire for that. I'm very fascinated by the "other Reality" out in the world.  I learned that I could just kind of go through my days expecting to have encounters with the Holy and they just kind of happen.

I often find Silence in very crowded and noisy environments: sports venues, airports,  airplanes.  I remember once at a football game, where the noise was deafening (literally because we were sitting directly below a loud speaker and it was cranked up to full volume), the Silence welled up as though it was coming out of the ground and rose like a flood tide.  For a few seconds, the Silence engulfed me. While I could still see the crowd yelling and going crazy, I could hear absolutely nothing. I knew all that craziness was still going on, I also knew  there was silent stillness happening at the same time.  Best of all, that silent stillness was happening in me!  That was a moment of blessing and peace in the middle of an experience that typically freaks me out. (I have great difficulty coping with crowds and loud noise; the two together can be almost unbearable).

On the other hand, I often have difficulty noticing the Silence when I am alone and it is very quiet.  That may be largely due to the fact that when I am alone and it is very quiet, I am almost always either writing or reading, and, therefore, concentrating. Even when I am not concentrating on something, in a quiet setting the monkey-chatter in my mind goes crazy.  I may not be able to achieve the level of serenity I would like at those times, but I always know the Deep Silence is there. I can somehow "feel" its presence even if it chooses not to come too close.  

That is an important point. I know the Deep Silence is there, always.  How close it is or how deeply I experience it is not my choice.  The Silence chooses when to reveal itself and how much.  The experience of Deep Silence is not something I can control in any way.

  
If I can experience Silence in crowded, noisy places and if I can at least be aware of it in quiet solitude, why can't I be aware of it in the midst of my daily life, especially at work?  Why can't I operate from Silence when others are freaking out and stressing out, instead of joining them and making things worse?  Why can't I be a source of calm and reason for the high-strung, stressed-out people in my life, who really need a steadying presence?   Hell, I am often the one stressing out and melting down over what, in the big scheme of things, amounts to trivial BS.  The awareness that I do not have to behave like that makes me even crazier!

The Deep Silence that underlies the world's noise is sometimes so clear to me it is almost palpable, but I can't seem to access it at the times I need it the most. Why is that?

 Um ... consider the part about "looking for" and "being open to."

Oh, yeah. That. 

On Revelation Distorted as Ideology

This may seem off-topic at first, but stay with me.  In a recent post I wrote about revelation as private and applicable only to the person receiving it, and then I described canon law and secular statutory law as kind of institutionalized revelation.

I want to shift my perspective for a second. I recently read a small article in the newspaper regarding a proposal to shift U. S. foreign policy from a posture of preaching to other countries to a posture of co-existence and/or collegiality.  It said the U. S. should not try to tell other countries how to run their internal affairs provided the government is not engaged in genocide or other rampant human rights violations. In other words, the U. S. should respect the rights of other countries to govern themselves in accordance with the requirements of local culture and the will of the people in those countries.   

Everybody say: DUH!!

For generations, United States foreign policy has operated on the theory that our way of doing things is "right" and other countries should do things our way.  This is exactly what I was referring to when I said that prophets err seriously when they believe that revelation given to an individual should be applied to other people.  Revelation may be shared with others, and, if it resonates with them, they may make use of it.  When revelation speaks to a lot of people, there can be religious and political consensus which may result in local rules or even national (or international) legislation.  That kind of consensus arises out of sharing information that resonates with many people over a long period of time. It does not arise from bullying. 

For too long, the U. S. has seen itself in some kind of Messianic role in the world. America saw itself as the "City on the Hill" or "The New Jerusalem."  We behaved like the self-righteous preacher yelling at people on the street corner.  We incessantly bragged to all the world about how great we were, and contrasted our way of life with the "Evil Empire" of __(Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Godless Russia, Islamist Iran - fill in the blank)___.  That was bad enough, but after the fall of the USSR, which left America as the world's only superpower, America was the biggest, baddest kid on the playground, and it turned into a mean bully.  No wonder the nations of the world view us with such disdain.

That's what happens when prophets are convinced the private revelation should  apply to everyone.  Look at Ayatollah Khomeini or Pat Robertson.

I don't think religion is a bad thing per se . I know for a fact that religious communities can be wonderfully supportive places, and they do enormous good for their members and for their communities.  Where religious (and political) ideologues run into trouble is when they try to impose their personal revelation on others, who may have a totally different instructions from the Holy.

When religious revelation or even some kind of secular zealotry is translated into the political sphere, terrible things tend to happen.

Afghanistan.  Iran.  Uganda.  Cambodia.  China during the Cultural Revolution.  Nazi Germany.   Bolshevik Russia.  France during the Terror.  Russian pogroms against Jews.  The Inquisition.   The Crusades.  The persecutions of the Christians in pre-Constantinian Rome.  The  persecution of the Jews by Rome. 

Oh, that's enough.... I've made my point.  I guess I didn't realize when I started this how ubiquitous this kind of thing is, and how deeply engrained in the human psyche.  I'm afraid it will be very, very hard for us to stop.  

But, stop we must.  

More on Sabbath Time

I can't remember in what context I wrote the following sentence, but it was one of those statements that jumped off the page, took me by the front of the shirt and yelled, "This is freaking important! Listen up!" 

I wrote: Sometimes we need to take Sabbath time to revel in the creativity of others.

Typically I like to ignore messages that grab me in that manner, because they often require me to do something difficult that I don't want to do.   This one, however, is kind of gentle and innocuous.  It tells me that, while I may spend practically all of my waking hours most of the time working like crazy, either for money to support my family or for the purpose of my own need to create, it is important to stop once in a while to appreciate the efforts of others.

Once in a great while, I slow down long enough to read a good book or listen to wonderful music.  I stop and marvel at people doing amazing things.  I watch very little TV, but the shows I like the most are Modern Marvels  and cooking shows because both are about people creating amazing things, through a combination of passion and commitment.

Growing up in the Church, Sabbath time meant time on my knees in church, praying the prayers and singing the songs.  But, "Sabbath Time" has a broader meaning for me now. It is recreation, not just recreation as a "pass-time" as in sports and games (although it can be that).  It is totally  about Re-Creation: spiritual, emotional and even physical renewal.

Part of that process includes taking an occasional breather on my own Journey to tank up for the next burst of creativity.  That provides me with an opportunity to look around me and really appreciate the amazing and awesome things that others are doing in my world.

"Others" includes the amazing handiwork of the Author of Life. 

Sabbath time in church is about adoration, praise and thanksgiving.  Um, come to think of it, so is Sabbath time the way I practice it in my life today. I have been taking some forced time off from my own creative work for a few weeks. It has given me a greater appreciation for the work I do, and I have also tried to stop and appreciate the incredible work others are doing in my world.

That is a Lenten observance I can get into.

On Revelation and the Problem with "Ministry"

This is not so much a Burning Bush as it is a kind of "aha" moment. I understand something I've been mentally chewing on for a very long time.

Note: In this piece I am going to use the word "prophet" to refer to people who have received direct revelation in some manner, whether or not they are actually Biblical prophets.

Recently I have been writing about my newfound ways of expressing my spirituality outside the bounds of institutional Christianity. [I have given up the expression "organized religion". There's nothing organized about Christianity as I know it.]  The benefit of this way of living is that there are no middle-men with an agenda.  I have direct access to the Holy with every breath I draw, and the Holy has direct access to me.  "Wonderland" is my short-cut term for living spiritually naked in the Holiness of Creation, which appears to me to be a kind of alternate Reality from the day-to-day world as I usually experience it. My purpose in writing about this is to figure out how to reconcile the two Realities in my life.  I find the experience of living in Wonderland to be exhilarating and empowering.  The kind of interior solitude and stillness that goes with it is cool for me, too. 

I acknowledge and I understand that not everyone responds to the invitation to live in Wonderland with the same joy and eagerness that I do. (Come to think of it, I was sort of driven to the Wilderness originally kicking, screaming and swearing at God.) The Christian churches that grew the most rapidly in the last quarter of the 20th Century were the churches that had the most rules and the clearest teaching on what God was up to in the world and what God expects of people.  In the uncertain and frightening world we live in, people want certainty. They want answers.  They want someone to tell them what to do in order to have their ticket to Heaven punched.

We are not the first generation of folks who want a short, easy way to "do" spirituality. The Israelites, standing at the foot of Sinai, with the Lord's invitation to a direct  relationship still ringing in their ears, responded by asking Moses and Aaron to handle all that spiritual stuff for them. The Israelites wanted priests to deal with the Lord God. That way the people did not have to undertake the scary business of looking directly into the face of God. Thus was born the Yahweh cult, and Western religion.  God have mercy on us all.

People are hardwired to be spiritually schizophrenic, I think.  On the one hand, there is something in humans (that Gnostic god-spark, perhaps?) that yearns for the Holy; some people spend their lives eagerly exploring the Spirit world.  On the other hand, we also tend to be fearful and risk-averse and we too often want other people to do the really heavy lifting for us (spiritual or otherwise).  Religions are virtually all founded by people of the former type who wanted to help the latter type understand what they found on their Journey through Wonderland.  The problem is that too often the prophets who received Revelation misunderstood its nature. Revelation is intended to be personal and private.  What is revealed to me is true for me alone.  It does not apply to anyone else. Too often prophets try to make their revelation applicable to other people.

That does not mean there are not some things that might be broadly applicable.  "Thou shalt not kill" is a pretty good rule of thumb regardless of who received the initial revelation.  Actually, the Ten Commandments are pretty good rules across the board.  I personally like "do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your god."  There are a lot of excellent revealed truths.  It is important to understand that the initial revelation was personal and private between the prophet and The Holy.  The fact that others may find something that rings true for them in the revelation is totally and completely incidental.

If it turns out that a lot of people agree that a revealed truth is widely applicable, that revelation may become encapsulated in some kind of code of law, religious or civil.  "Thou shalt not kill" is incorporated into laws against murder in probably every country on earth.  In the U.S. and some other western nations we have tried to codify laws encouraging justice and fairness, equality under the law, and all those other good things that started out as revelations to individual prophets. That's not a bad thing. It's a good thing... provided we understand that we are doing it because there is broad consensus it is the right thing, not because God revealed it in a vision to Moses, or Jesus, or Mohammad.

Prophets (especially prophets who are already ministers in an institutional church) too often mistake personal revelation for Divine Directive.  Some revelation is so personal and so private it cannot be shared. Other revelation is so beautiful we cannot keep it to ourselves.  The key is that I share what is revealed to me not to instruct or encourage others to live the way I do or to understand the Holy the way I do.  I share it because it is too lovely and sweet not to share. I toss it out there for the enjoyment of those who might appreciate it and/or to encourage others to seek their own revelation.

I share what I learn because I have been encouraged and empowered by others who have passed this way before me, and I want to let others know what is available to anyone who chooses to look.  Maybe it's something akin to marking a trail for others to follow.  They may or may not have the same experiences, but I can at least break branches and drop bread crumbs to let them know that they are not alone in traveling the road.

My message is simple: Burning Bushes are everywhere.  They speak to me with words I need to hear at this point in my life.  Next month or next year they will probably say something quite different.  It is not important what they say to me. What is important is to let others know the Burning Bushes are there.  It should not matter to you what they say to me.  My message is : Go, see for yourself. Listen to what the Burning Bushes have to say to you. 

For me sharing revelation is kind of like the natural tendency people have when we see something wonderful. We turn to those around us, saying, "Look at that!" What "it" appears to be and what "it" means will be different for each person who bothers to look.

That brings me to the subject of ministry.  Based in part on the passage from Exodus and even more on my personal experience with an incredible array of incompetent, arrogant and abusive ordained ministers, I have long been very anti-clerical.  My focus and principal "ministry" during my church-lady years was the empowerment of the laity.  I was devoted to the notion that lay ministry would counteract the dreadful clerical bullshit that was, as I saw it, destroying the Church.  

Responses to the lay ministry movement varied.  Certain priests were so threatened  by it, they simply blocked all overtures from the laity; I found myself in a church like that once --  briefly.  Certain priests welcomed lay ministry, so long as we remained within the bonds of the church, and were willing to submit to the authority of the ordained priest-in-charge; I willingly played that game ...  for a while.  Some laity responded well, because they saw it as a way to increase their influence in the congregation. Some responded well because they truly saw ministry as a way to serve the people.  A lot of laity resented the hell out of it because it (a) put demands on them they did not welcome and (b) gave certain laity power over other laity.  

I sort of missed the nuances of that last point for a long time.  Years ago, a visiting speaker at our church tried to explain the dangers of lay ministry to me.  She said that, while the lay ministry movement may have originated from the worthy idea that we are a "priestly people" and therefore all called to serve God as we are called, the practical effect of the movement in most churches was to create another layer of ministers between God and the people in the pews.  Moreover it made the lay ministers second class priests instead of priestly people of God.  She said it was her opinion that lay ministry simply added a new layer to the church's caste system. She viewed that as a very bad thing.  Her comments pissed me off and hurt my feelings at the time, because I was devoting so much energy to the empowerment of lay ministry.  That entire conversation festered in my heart and never really healed.  

I think I now understand now what she was trying to tell me.  The Priestly People exists already.  We already have everything we need to understand and respond to the Holy in Creation. We don't need spiritual training or formation or classes or consecration ceremonies. We sure as hell do not need ordination ceremonies! Instead of creating layers of ordained, vowed, and consecrated ministers at various levels, we need to understand that none of that is necessary.  In fact all of it could be very damaging to the spiritual development of the people, because it robs us of the opportunity to develop our own spiritual muscles. 

What is worse, it makes the People of God dependent on professional or para-professional "experts" to take care of that which we should be doing for ourselves and, at the same time, puts the Ministers in a position where they are in danger of feeling superior to the people to whom they minister.  

In other words, ministry is a slippery slope for all concerned.