I’m sixty-three. Just a few days ago, it seems, I was twenty-three. A day or two later, I was thirty-three and got married. A day later, I was forty-three and yesterday, fifty-three. I’m sixty-three and have a grandson and those two little girls I had are colleagues now. Sometimes, I ask myself how all this happened and so quickly?
I remember asking myself as a young man how the world got so crazy. The nuclear arms race, the Cold War, Vietnam, pollution; where in hell were the adults and how could they let this happen? Then, POW! JFK is dead. POW! MLK is dead. POW! RFK is dead. Then, like I said, four days or so go by and I’m sixty-three and have a grandson pushing three! What will I tell him when he asks the inevitable question: “Pa, what did you do while the soils were being destroyed, while the water and air were made foul, while the corporations responsible for it were given complete control of the Republic, while the poor were left to suffer and die without insurance and the medical care it provides? What did you do, Pa, while the sick egos of old men brought the government to a standstill, while the cowardice of others vacillated and procrastinated while the country languished and lurched toward fascism? Pa, what did you do when the Great Man, the black Abraham Lincoln was made powerless by the stubborn and petty will of moral midgets, persons in miniature? Pa, why did you let them ruin my world? Did you know about it? Did you do anything? Did you care? Did you just hide in churches and temples and refuse to hear the cries of the weak and the helpless? What about the Prophets, Pa? What about me, Pa?
What do I say when he asks me if I have ever heard this song by Bob Dylan?
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Come gather ‘round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a changin’
Tell me Mr. Boehner, Mr. Cantor, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Lieberman, Mrs. Bachman, Mrs. Lincoln and all the rest of your liars and cowards… What will I tell him? You’ve made a hell of heaven Sarah Palin! Tell that to Jeeeesus! What will I tell him? What will I tell Jesus?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
We've Been Betrayed
Isn’t it a form of treason, really, this collective lying policy on the part of the Republicans? The Constitution which is not yet owned by them has certain clearly articulated roles for the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judicial Branch. The gang of five on the Court has recently ratified the sale of our election system to the corporation and now, the duly elected President and duly elected majority has been stopped dead by these legislative equivalents of Brown Shirts. They have taken a vow to uphold the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of all the people, by all people, for all people. Instead they have stopped the functioning of government for all the people. How have they done this?
Had it been done by brilliant people formulating brilliant policy, one would have to conclude that their creativity has won out, fair enough! Instead, they have created individual and collective lies which are their only policy. I saw Mr. Boehner sitting to Obama’s right on t.v. the other night. It was a joint meeting of one kind or another. The look of hatred and disgust on Boehner’s face told the whole story. They’ve made it clear; the only goal they have is Obama’s failure. Obama is our President. Hatred, thinly disguised by a veneer of political policy is my definition of fascism. Sale of the electoral process is corporatism in Mussolini’s definition of fascism. We have been betrayed by the Court operating in collusion with the Republican party. How many times have you heard this question about Germany in the thirties: How could it have happened? This is how it happened. No person or party has the right to stop the government. We’ve been betrayed.
We’ve been pretending, and I include the President here, that the Republicans have a different set of principles and policies which makes them come up with different conclusions. That would be nice if it were true but it simply isn’t. The agreement to lie is not a policy; it is a lie! Obama is a truly gifted person brought forth from us to lead us. The rest of these sneering and smirking pretenders are clever if that… but only clever if that.
We’ve been betrayed by those who have betrayed our Constitution. The Democrats are sick with cowardice and the GOP is rotten with lies. We’ve been betrayed. Why be in either party? What is the point?
Had it been done by brilliant people formulating brilliant policy, one would have to conclude that their creativity has won out, fair enough! Instead, they have created individual and collective lies which are their only policy. I saw Mr. Boehner sitting to Obama’s right on t.v. the other night. It was a joint meeting of one kind or another. The look of hatred and disgust on Boehner’s face told the whole story. They’ve made it clear; the only goal they have is Obama’s failure. Obama is our President. Hatred, thinly disguised by a veneer of political policy is my definition of fascism. Sale of the electoral process is corporatism in Mussolini’s definition of fascism. We have been betrayed by the Court operating in collusion with the Republican party. How many times have you heard this question about Germany in the thirties: How could it have happened? This is how it happened. No person or party has the right to stop the government. We’ve been betrayed.
We’ve been pretending, and I include the President here, that the Republicans have a different set of principles and policies which makes them come up with different conclusions. That would be nice if it were true but it simply isn’t. The agreement to lie is not a policy; it is a lie! Obama is a truly gifted person brought forth from us to lead us. The rest of these sneering and smirking pretenders are clever if that… but only clever if that.
We’ve been betrayed by those who have betrayed our Constitution. The Democrats are sick with cowardice and the GOP is rotten with lies. We’ve been betrayed. Why be in either party? What is the point?
More thoughts on gay rights...
Recently, I had the occasion to watch a show on the History Channel called “The History of Sex.” The first 1.5 hours I saw would be more accurately called, “The history of sexual confusion and hypocrisy in Christianity.” It was accurately noted that in the Gospels, Jesus makes few mentions of sexuality and when He does, it is to express non-condemnation. He makes no reference to homosexuality whatsoever. So called Christian teachers on sexuality are drawn from Paul’s letters and a convenient “cherry picking” reach backward into the Hebrew Bible with little to no attempt to embrace the larger truth of Hebrew tradition regarding sex and procreation, in a single word, “blessing”.
Homosexuality as an “abomination” presents itself again and again during periods of time when homosexuality overran the priesthood. At those times, prostitution was not only tolerated but at times encouraged in the hope that it might stem the ride of homosexuality. At times, either or both homosexuality and prostitution overran the Church, reaching all the way to the Papacy. In my own experience of being born and beaten up Catholic, I took the “abomination” teachings to heart. They were underwritten by a feeling of revulsion for homosexual behavior. I argued that homophobia was a misnomer in that I felt no fear or samesex-ness! I felt disgust. Homo disgust seemed more accurate. Well, I had a genuine awakening upon finishing the History Channel show.
This awakening has come in three parts. The first came over me when I wrote Chapter Twenty-Nine in my book The Modern Christian Mystic. The second came when I wrote in my Godblog about considering homosexuality “at the species level”, a term coined by Thomas Berry. The third came following the above-mentioned History Channel experience. As I sat in the dark thinking, my thoughts came like this: “Well it’s clear that the Christian Church has zero authority regarding sexuality and clearly never has had any. I am grateful to have Gene Robinson as a Bishop and when I saw him the other night on MSNBC with Rachel it was clear what a good guy and genuine teacher he really is. But what about that gut feeling of revulsion? It really does feel like an abomination! Wait a minute! It is an abomination if you are truly a heterosexual; it’s repellent in the way that trying to force two positive or two negative poles of a magnet is repellent. But… what if at the species level there are two kinds of men and two kinds of women?”
I’ve had gay men who were hitting on me trying to convince me that “heteros” were in denial, that we are all gay but some of us repress that truth. “Heteros” like myself who tell them again and again that they have never had a homosexual encounter… nor have they had even a single homosexual fantasy even when no one else would know. We “heteros” all the while want to gag with the thought of having a sexual encounter with a buddy… literally, want to vomit! What if we have all been wrong because we are projecting our own experience on others?
In that case, it would not be an abomination when two samesex people male or female are drawn together into love, sex and marriage not would it feel like one. It would be as natural for them as it is for men and women to enter into bothsex unions. The problems lies in thinking that the experience of the other sort of human is as our own.
So here’s the deal. I am asking all my gay brothers to please not try to convince me that I’m in denial when I tell you that I have no interest in you sexually. I have deep, very deep, friendships and it is precisely the absence of a sexual motive which makes them such a comfort. In return, I will not think of your sexual behavior with other samesex men in the way that it would be for me as a “hetero”. If we can both do that, we can accept each other as different and equal. If that boundary became secure enough, we could be friends. In any case, at sixty-three, I am convinced that samesex unions are not abominations. They are a different form of human love.
Homosexuality as an “abomination” presents itself again and again during periods of time when homosexuality overran the priesthood. At those times, prostitution was not only tolerated but at times encouraged in the hope that it might stem the ride of homosexuality. At times, either or both homosexuality and prostitution overran the Church, reaching all the way to the Papacy. In my own experience of being born and beaten up Catholic, I took the “abomination” teachings to heart. They were underwritten by a feeling of revulsion for homosexual behavior. I argued that homophobia was a misnomer in that I felt no fear or samesex-ness! I felt disgust. Homo disgust seemed more accurate. Well, I had a genuine awakening upon finishing the History Channel show.
This awakening has come in three parts. The first came over me when I wrote Chapter Twenty-Nine in my book The Modern Christian Mystic. The second came when I wrote in my Godblog about considering homosexuality “at the species level”, a term coined by Thomas Berry. The third came following the above-mentioned History Channel experience. As I sat in the dark thinking, my thoughts came like this: “Well it’s clear that the Christian Church has zero authority regarding sexuality and clearly never has had any. I am grateful to have Gene Robinson as a Bishop and when I saw him the other night on MSNBC with Rachel it was clear what a good guy and genuine teacher he really is. But what about that gut feeling of revulsion? It really does feel like an abomination! Wait a minute! It is an abomination if you are truly a heterosexual; it’s repellent in the way that trying to force two positive or two negative poles of a magnet is repellent. But… what if at the species level there are two kinds of men and two kinds of women?”
I’ve had gay men who were hitting on me trying to convince me that “heteros” were in denial, that we are all gay but some of us repress that truth. “Heteros” like myself who tell them again and again that they have never had a homosexual encounter… nor have they had even a single homosexual fantasy even when no one else would know. We “heteros” all the while want to gag with the thought of having a sexual encounter with a buddy… literally, want to vomit! What if we have all been wrong because we are projecting our own experience on others?
In that case, it would not be an abomination when two samesex people male or female are drawn together into love, sex and marriage not would it feel like one. It would be as natural for them as it is for men and women to enter into bothsex unions. The problems lies in thinking that the experience of the other sort of human is as our own.
So here’s the deal. I am asking all my gay brothers to please not try to convince me that I’m in denial when I tell you that I have no interest in you sexually. I have deep, very deep, friendships and it is precisely the absence of a sexual motive which makes them such a comfort. In return, I will not think of your sexual behavior with other samesex men in the way that it would be for me as a “hetero”. If we can both do that, we can accept each other as different and equal. If that boundary became secure enough, we could be friends. In any case, at sixty-three, I am convinced that samesex unions are not abominations. They are a different form of human love.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
John McCain Owes us an Apology
When it was clear that John McCain would run against Barack Obama, I thought to myself, “Can’t lose on this one.” Prior to that, I always felt the opposite, that I couldn’t win given the nature of Presidential choices election after election. I’d seen how McCain had done in the Republican Primary here in NH and how he was treated by George W following it. George, following his father’s example with Willy Horton... In my mind, McCain was a real Republican in the tradition of Eisenhower, Ford and even Nixon. Was I ever wrong!
Choosing Sarah Palin for VP was even worse than George H.W.’s choice of Dan Quail. Recently, we have been treated again to the intellectual vacuum that is Sarah Palin. Even when interviewed not by Katie Couric but by Glenn Beck of all fascists! She didn’t know the name of a single founding Father and this, following the realization that she had no idea why there is a North and a South Korea or what the Fed does in the US government!! This is junior high civics class for God’s sake! The fact that the Tea Baggers worship this cutie is even more scary when it becomes as obvious to you as it is to me that these people pose the threat of a peculiar and recent form of American fascism. They are small-minded and cruel. They are ignorant but without humility.
Senator McCain, your inability to “gracefully surrender the things of youth” has caused you to frantically grab onto your hold on power. To do so, you were willing to insult us all, but especially women, in your attempt to equate a cheerleader with Hillary Clinton in your desperate attempt to wrest power from Mr. Obama. As it was said to Dan Quail, “I know John Kennedy and you sir are no John Kennedy,” so it can be said of Sarah Palin: “We know Hillary and ma’am, you are no Hillary”! Sir, you’ve almost placed us in the position of watching as a completely inept person supported by a group of American fascists take over the Presidency of this country should you face cancer or worse for a third time. Shame on you! You owe us a sincere apology Senator McCain.
Choosing Sarah Palin for VP was even worse than George H.W.’s choice of Dan Quail. Recently, we have been treated again to the intellectual vacuum that is Sarah Palin. Even when interviewed not by Katie Couric but by Glenn Beck of all fascists! She didn’t know the name of a single founding Father and this, following the realization that she had no idea why there is a North and a South Korea or what the Fed does in the US government!! This is junior high civics class for God’s sake! The fact that the Tea Baggers worship this cutie is even more scary when it becomes as obvious to you as it is to me that these people pose the threat of a peculiar and recent form of American fascism. They are small-minded and cruel. They are ignorant but without humility.
Senator McCain, your inability to “gracefully surrender the things of youth” has caused you to frantically grab onto your hold on power. To do so, you were willing to insult us all, but especially women, in your attempt to equate a cheerleader with Hillary Clinton in your desperate attempt to wrest power from Mr. Obama. As it was said to Dan Quail, “I know John Kennedy and you sir are no John Kennedy,” so it can be said of Sarah Palin: “We know Hillary and ma’am, you are no Hillary”! Sir, you’ve almost placed us in the position of watching as a completely inept person supported by a group of American fascists take over the Presidency of this country should you face cancer or worse for a third time. Shame on you! You owe us a sincere apology Senator McCain.
No Forgiveness for Buddhists?
(First, a brief aside...)
Keith Olbermann has demeaned himself and his listeners with regard to his childish gloating over the personal failings of Tiger Woods. While he’d never use this word, Olbermann is a prophet when he does his commentaries. Real prophecy is the willingness to speak truth to power and Keith certainly does that -and- with the eloquence associated with great orators such as Obama, Kennedy, Churchill, Lincoln and others. However, he demeans himself and deeply discourages me when he ridicules people like Tiger for the weaknesses we all have in common. He makes himself no better than the Religious Right when he does so. Truly, for Christ’s sake, stay on the high road, Keith! We need you.
-----
A couple of weeks ago on Fox News, Brit Hume commented that Tiger Woods would be forgiven his sexual recklessness if only he would abandon his Buddhist practice and become Christian. What? God doesn’t forgive Buddhists now? You can get a better deal with Christianity? What is this Christianity which isn’t really Christianity? This thing that began with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and others really isn’t Christianity at all but in fact, stands Christianity right on its head. And where are the Catholics? The Orthodox and the Episcopalians and the Protestants? Are you too lazy to speak out? Too lacking in faith to stand up?
This whole obsession with the sexuality of Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods and others, conservatives and progressives alike, is precisely what Jesus of Nazareth said NOT to do. Don’t judge he tell us because the judgment comes back upon you. There’s a reason why the silly tattle-tale Christianity has come about. In the 10th century, the Roman Catholic Rite, largest of twenty or so Catholic rites, became celibate in order to swindle the inheritance of married Catholic priests away from their children. At that time, celibacy was certainly the norm for monastic life but it was not for diocesan priests. Once celibate, the priests took a stand against the life force present in each and every one of us, and the number one threat then for the celibate was not hypocrisy, was not injustice, but was the fear of sex. Thus, sex became the number one sin in Christianity and displaced hypocrisy, judgmentalism, and injustice as well as the lack of compassion and the lack of peacemaking which Jesus stated as the number one sins. Jesus mentioned sex twice. The first time was with regard to divorce law and the second was to comfort the woman caught in adultery. (Where was the man? Last time I looked, it took two!) In doing so, he tells her clearly that he does not condemn her. We are non-Christian when we do what was done to Clinton and Woods who are in fact textbook sex addicts suffering from a disorder. We are non-Christian when we overlook hypocrisy, judgmentalism, injustice, inequality, condemnation, racism and the like. And Buddhism? Gautama Buddha, like all great teachers, had a number of favorite sayings among which was this one: “Pursue your salvation with diligence.” If, as is held by the Gospel of John, Jesus was the Incarnation of the Light which emerged in the Big Bang, then the whole cosmos, Earth, life and culture, all cultures and Scriptural traditions are expressions of that One Light. Whether or not Jesus of Nazareth ever went to India is irrelevant. Buddha was an expression of the Light, the same Light identified by Christians as the ChristLogos. The Third Millennium Christian will follow Christ, whether they do so as Buddhists or Christians or whatever else.
Keith Olbermann has demeaned himself and his listeners with regard to his childish gloating over the personal failings of Tiger Woods. While he’d never use this word, Olbermann is a prophet when he does his commentaries. Real prophecy is the willingness to speak truth to power and Keith certainly does that -and- with the eloquence associated with great orators such as Obama, Kennedy, Churchill, Lincoln and others. However, he demeans himself and deeply discourages me when he ridicules people like Tiger for the weaknesses we all have in common. He makes himself no better than the Religious Right when he does so. Truly, for Christ’s sake, stay on the high road, Keith! We need you.
-----
A couple of weeks ago on Fox News, Brit Hume commented that Tiger Woods would be forgiven his sexual recklessness if only he would abandon his Buddhist practice and become Christian. What? God doesn’t forgive Buddhists now? You can get a better deal with Christianity? What is this Christianity which isn’t really Christianity? This thing that began with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and others really isn’t Christianity at all but in fact, stands Christianity right on its head. And where are the Catholics? The Orthodox and the Episcopalians and the Protestants? Are you too lazy to speak out? Too lacking in faith to stand up?
This whole obsession with the sexuality of Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods and others, conservatives and progressives alike, is precisely what Jesus of Nazareth said NOT to do. Don’t judge he tell us because the judgment comes back upon you. There’s a reason why the silly tattle-tale Christianity has come about. In the 10th century, the Roman Catholic Rite, largest of twenty or so Catholic rites, became celibate in order to swindle the inheritance of married Catholic priests away from their children. At that time, celibacy was certainly the norm for monastic life but it was not for diocesan priests. Once celibate, the priests took a stand against the life force present in each and every one of us, and the number one threat then for the celibate was not hypocrisy, was not injustice, but was the fear of sex. Thus, sex became the number one sin in Christianity and displaced hypocrisy, judgmentalism, and injustice as well as the lack of compassion and the lack of peacemaking which Jesus stated as the number one sins. Jesus mentioned sex twice. The first time was with regard to divorce law and the second was to comfort the woman caught in adultery. (Where was the man? Last time I looked, it took two!) In doing so, he tells her clearly that he does not condemn her. We are non-Christian when we do what was done to Clinton and Woods who are in fact textbook sex addicts suffering from a disorder. We are non-Christian when we overlook hypocrisy, judgmentalism, injustice, inequality, condemnation, racism and the like. And Buddhism? Gautama Buddha, like all great teachers, had a number of favorite sayings among which was this one: “Pursue your salvation with diligence.” If, as is held by the Gospel of John, Jesus was the Incarnation of the Light which emerged in the Big Bang, then the whole cosmos, Earth, life and culture, all cultures and Scriptural traditions are expressions of that One Light. Whether or not Jesus of Nazareth ever went to India is irrelevant. Buddha was an expression of the Light, the same Light identified by Christians as the ChristLogos. The Third Millennium Christian will follow Christ, whether they do so as Buddhists or Christians or whatever else.
A Cultural Therapist
I’ve asked people over and over again and I ask you listeners to do me a favor- when you call in, please do not call me a liberal. I am neither a liberal nor a conservative- the whole left/right, Liberal/Conservative thing is a burnt out absurdity which ultimately describes nothing at least with respect to me. What it does is to offer sanctuaries of vitriol to both “conservatives” and to “liberals”, safe houses of hatred to hurl insults at each other. So what am I? I am a citizen of the United States of America and as such it is my right and my responsibility to listen to all the voices in the political cacophony and try to make good choices with my vote. Again, I am a native born citizen of the United States of America and I pledge my allegiance to Truth.
So again, others have asked… What is this thing you’re doing, your books and talks and radio show and the like? I thought about it deeply and concluded that I’m a CULTURAL THERAPIST. A What? A Cultural Therapist, one who contemplates his or her culture and tries to sponsor the ideals of that culture while trying to heal the denied and repressed issues that distort the truth and destiny of that culture.
So again, others have asked… What is this thing you’re doing, your books and talks and radio show and the like? I thought about it deeply and concluded that I’m a CULTURAL THERAPIST. A What? A Cultural Therapist, one who contemplates his or her culture and tries to sponsor the ideals of that culture while trying to heal the denied and repressed issues that distort the truth and destiny of that culture.
Republican Neti Neti
Republican Neti Neti
There is a profound practice associated with Hinduism called Neti Neti. Roughly translated it means, “not that, not that.” The idea behind it is to reject every definition of oneself until one realizes the state of kenosis or sunyata: being emptied of partial definitions of oneself. Examples in my life would be: I’m a father… neti neti… I’m an author… not that, not that… I’m a radio talk show host… neti neti. The definitions can go on into the hundreds or even thousands of defined roles until, all of them being exhausted, I realize- PING! I’m a dimension of the Divine Mind, a child of God. Without further definitions, the Hindu would just say, “THAT Thou art!” It’s not that the rejected roles were not true… I am a father, an author and a radio talk show host. The point is that the definitions limit my realization of being-ness, divine-ness.
So, every day the Democrats present ideas for this nation. Literally, with one voice, the Republicans scream, “Neti Neti! Not that, not that!” Okay… When do they come to, “that we are”? Does that day ever come -or- do they continue to cling to the collective Republican ego at the expense of the truth of the Constitution of this great nation? Laura Ingraham makes a lucrative career of being not-Obama. Neti Neti… not that. Okay- then who is Laura Ingraham? Who art thou Laura?
There is a profound practice associated with Hinduism called Neti Neti. Roughly translated it means, “not that, not that.” The idea behind it is to reject every definition of oneself until one realizes the state of kenosis or sunyata: being emptied of partial definitions of oneself. Examples in my life would be: I’m a father… neti neti… I’m an author… not that, not that… I’m a radio talk show host… neti neti. The definitions can go on into the hundreds or even thousands of defined roles until, all of them being exhausted, I realize- PING! I’m a dimension of the Divine Mind, a child of God. Without further definitions, the Hindu would just say, “THAT Thou art!” It’s not that the rejected roles were not true… I am a father, an author and a radio talk show host. The point is that the definitions limit my realization of being-ness, divine-ness.
So, every day the Democrats present ideas for this nation. Literally, with one voice, the Republicans scream, “Neti Neti! Not that, not that!” Okay… When do they come to, “that we are”? Does that day ever come -or- do they continue to cling to the collective Republican ego at the expense of the truth of the Constitution of this great nation? Laura Ingraham makes a lucrative career of being not-Obama. Neti Neti… not that. Okay- then who is Laura Ingraham? Who art thou Laura?
Saturday, January 30, 2010
On the Recent Supreme Court Ruling
Like many Americans, I was deeply concerned and alarmed by the recent Supreme Court Ruling on corporate contributions to political campaigns. Please check out this video to hear my feedback on what this means for our country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaSxwqgYmYc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaSxwqgYmYc
A Unitive Look at Same-Sex Marriage
My teacher Thomas Berry used to tell me over and over again, “In the present context, humans as a species must learn to think with their genes rather than with their brains.” Another way he put it was, “We’ve got to learn to think at the species level.” What might he have meant?
The brain has three major sections or cortices. The newest on the scale of evolution is the neo-cortex, responsible for, or rather the locus of the cognitive processes. Thought is the most obvious “voice” of that cortex; the most obvious function is cognition. Beneath the neocortex and enclosed within it is the paleo-cortex or old mammal brain. It is the locus of feeling functions and within it is the brain stem or Reptilian cortex, which is the locus of instinctual functions. Thomas Berry’s advice is to bypass all three functions and to think in categories which are common to our own species, the other species, and ultimately the whole community of life called the biosphere. It is in my opinion our inability to follow his advice which plagues our attempts to understand why same-sex marriage just doesn’t “feel right” to heterosexuals, including the one who writes this.
Constitutional thought is one of those products of the cognitive cortex as is all legal thought. The same can be said of sociological, psychological, theological or any other thought. It must be stated that if marriage is a legally guaranteed right of the Constitution, then same-sex marriage must be made legal. US citizens must share equally in the protections of the US Constitution whether or not same-sex marriage feels the same as both-sex marriage does in the gut.
---but---
In the gut, where species level thinking finds a voice, another sort or category of knowing presents itself. We have called this category “Thinking at the species level.” So, what about same-sex marriage at the species level? The historical, archeological and anthropological facts seem to indicate that marriage is the way in which humans come together in a relationship of committed love to have and to raise human young. All species have mating rituals and all human cultures do as well. Marriage is the cultural/religious expression of a species level fact called propagation. We have done a pathetic job of our mating ritual in these past few decades, but, it is still what it is at the species level. Whatever else same-sex marriage has in common with both-sex marriage, this one thing is clearly different; two men and two women cannot propagate.
Or can they?
What if at the genetic or species level it was clear that our shoddy job of parenting, the result of our shoddy job of commitment, whether due to the war-orphaned or divorce-orphaned, neglect-orphaned or abuse-orphaned, or earthquake-orphaned or tsunami-orphaned, or however orphaned, what if the species mind is calling upon the same-sex couples to rescue these children and provide for them where both-sex couples have not? What if the same-sex family is emergent as a species-level rescue mission for both-sex failure or inability to rear human young? That emergence reflects a species-level response to emergency faced by so many human young. Maybe same-sex marriage is a parenting partnership with both-sex couples in response to the plight of all human young.
But again, in any case, if the US Constitution in fact guarantees equal rights regarding marriage, same-sex couples have the right to marry period! It feels different in the gut, but the Constitution is the Constitution for all US citizens.
Want to explore more of my thinking on same-sex marriage? I went into much deeper analysis in Chapter 29 of my book The Modern Christian Mystic.
The brain has three major sections or cortices. The newest on the scale of evolution is the neo-cortex, responsible for, or rather the locus of the cognitive processes. Thought is the most obvious “voice” of that cortex; the most obvious function is cognition. Beneath the neocortex and enclosed within it is the paleo-cortex or old mammal brain. It is the locus of feeling functions and within it is the brain stem or Reptilian cortex, which is the locus of instinctual functions. Thomas Berry’s advice is to bypass all three functions and to think in categories which are common to our own species, the other species, and ultimately the whole community of life called the biosphere. It is in my opinion our inability to follow his advice which plagues our attempts to understand why same-sex marriage just doesn’t “feel right” to heterosexuals, including the one who writes this.
Constitutional thought is one of those products of the cognitive cortex as is all legal thought. The same can be said of sociological, psychological, theological or any other thought. It must be stated that if marriage is a legally guaranteed right of the Constitution, then same-sex marriage must be made legal. US citizens must share equally in the protections of the US Constitution whether or not same-sex marriage feels the same as both-sex marriage does in the gut.
---but---
In the gut, where species level thinking finds a voice, another sort or category of knowing presents itself. We have called this category “Thinking at the species level.” So, what about same-sex marriage at the species level? The historical, archeological and anthropological facts seem to indicate that marriage is the way in which humans come together in a relationship of committed love to have and to raise human young. All species have mating rituals and all human cultures do as well. Marriage is the cultural/religious expression of a species level fact called propagation. We have done a pathetic job of our mating ritual in these past few decades, but, it is still what it is at the species level. Whatever else same-sex marriage has in common with both-sex marriage, this one thing is clearly different; two men and two women cannot propagate.
Or can they?
What if at the genetic or species level it was clear that our shoddy job of parenting, the result of our shoddy job of commitment, whether due to the war-orphaned or divorce-orphaned, neglect-orphaned or abuse-orphaned, or earthquake-orphaned or tsunami-orphaned, or however orphaned, what if the species mind is calling upon the same-sex couples to rescue these children and provide for them where both-sex couples have not? What if the same-sex family is emergent as a species-level rescue mission for both-sex failure or inability to rear human young? That emergence reflects a species-level response to emergency faced by so many human young. Maybe same-sex marriage is a parenting partnership with both-sex couples in response to the plight of all human young.
But again, in any case, if the US Constitution in fact guarantees equal rights regarding marriage, same-sex couples have the right to marry period! It feels different in the gut, but the Constitution is the Constitution for all US citizens.
Want to explore more of my thinking on same-sex marriage? I went into much deeper analysis in Chapter 29 of my book The Modern Christian Mystic.
American "Collective Narcissistic Disorder" (CND)
While there are still serious reporters like Jim Lehrer, Wolf Blitzer and other Walter Cronkite types, most of the cable “news shows” are peopled by multi-million dollar narcissists who, whether on the left at MSNBC or on the right at Fox News are more involved in keeping their fellow CND sufferers in the news. There is nothing newsworthy about Sarah Palin and sadly there never was. She’s way off to the right but who keeps her in the news, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and other so-called lefties. They keep Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, Bachmann in the front page of the MSNBC engines. And their willing counterparts? The above mentioned Foxies do the same for them. I’m not saying they agree to this as though contracted to each other, I’m saying that consciously or subconsciously, they keep each other in their multi-million dollar seats. What do they sell us? ANGER! They sell us anger from their multi-million dollar perches while we feel greater and greater antipathy toward each other and widen the chasm that threatens to swallow our country, Constitution, and all. The anger is addictive and like all addictive substances, even while we know it is destroying us, we somehow arrive in our seats every night, remote in hand waiting for a fix.
I’ve begun an experiment. Each night I go from MSNBC to Fox to hear the double-sided narcissism and then I watch the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and compare the tone. Try it!
I’ve begun an experiment. Each night I go from MSNBC to Fox to hear the double-sided narcissism and then I watch the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and compare the tone. Try it!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
E Pluribus Unum
On our American dollar it says: e pluribus unum, out of the many one. I would like to talk about the exact opposite: out of the One, the many. What I’m going to try and do is to establish an integral and integrative understanding of who we are as a people in relationship not only to ourselves and our two-party system but also to the other cultures, to the other species, and to the life systems of the Earth in which we find ourselves embedded. If we don’t come up with a viable spirituality, a spirituality that sees as its deepest moral dilemma the relationship to life itself, and if we don’t come up with a politic that expresses that integral relationship, then we really do go on doing exactly what we’ve been doing. And in my mind, that may just be okay. That just may be the way the world is.
In Chapter 27 of my book, The Modern Christian Mystic, I talk about a moral relationship with life itself at every level- not just human. The politics of decency are an attempt to really stretch what that means. Not to try and transcend the separation between church and state but to affirm it and say that no religion has the right to dominate because our Constitution guarantees the right of freedom of religion to all walks of faith. The separation has nothing to do with a moral relationship to life itself. All religious traditions assert that moral relationship between humans, between the human and God and between the human and the life systems of the planet. I’ve laid out a nuts and bolt look at these three relationships in chapter 11 of my book Cultural Addiction.
Out of the many, One: we, as Americans, are the experiment of God for a unified planet because we have every creed, race, every opinion, etc. We are all gathered in this one place to try and work out the protocols for what we must do in order to survive. Remember what I said: we are one planet ecologically, one planet economically, one planet technologically, yet we are medieval culturally. We are still not understanding the interior, the soul of each other both individually and collectively. This is where we need to go. We are still operating out of true ignorance towards the other cultures. What do we really know about the Chinese and their experience? It’s not enough to call them Communists. They are also the Taoists and the Confucians that have a deep and magnificent cultural history that spans millennia, not two hundred years. When we look at India, what do we see? A people who worship cows and have millions starving to death? Well they have a tradition in Hinduism and Buddhism and Jainism that reaches back into pre-history! It goes beyond what we can even record! To be making decisions about these cultures with no understanding of the depth and profundity of what these people have to say is truly to operate in ignorance. We don’t know what makes these people tick. If we are to embrace our role as God’s experiment in oneness, we must delve deeper… perhaps this blog, this radio show, my work and yours, can help achieve this goal.
In Chapter 27 of my book, The Modern Christian Mystic, I talk about a moral relationship with life itself at every level- not just human. The politics of decency are an attempt to really stretch what that means. Not to try and transcend the separation between church and state but to affirm it and say that no religion has the right to dominate because our Constitution guarantees the right of freedom of religion to all walks of faith. The separation has nothing to do with a moral relationship to life itself. All religious traditions assert that moral relationship between humans, between the human and God and between the human and the life systems of the planet. I’ve laid out a nuts and bolt look at these three relationships in chapter 11 of my book Cultural Addiction.
Out of the many, One: we, as Americans, are the experiment of God for a unified planet because we have every creed, race, every opinion, etc. We are all gathered in this one place to try and work out the protocols for what we must do in order to survive. Remember what I said: we are one planet ecologically, one planet economically, one planet technologically, yet we are medieval culturally. We are still not understanding the interior, the soul of each other both individually and collectively. This is where we need to go. We are still operating out of true ignorance towards the other cultures. What do we really know about the Chinese and their experience? It’s not enough to call them Communists. They are also the Taoists and the Confucians that have a deep and magnificent cultural history that spans millennia, not two hundred years. When we look at India, what do we see? A people who worship cows and have millions starving to death? Well they have a tradition in Hinduism and Buddhism and Jainism that reaches back into pre-history! It goes beyond what we can even record! To be making decisions about these cultures with no understanding of the depth and profundity of what these people have to say is truly to operate in ignorance. We don’t know what makes these people tick. If we are to embrace our role as God’s experiment in oneness, we must delve deeper… perhaps this blog, this radio show, my work and yours, can help achieve this goal.
Third Millennium Christianity Part I
Even while school children lay trapped in concrete tombs, with their companions dead and composing in 90 degree heat- even while five stories of a hotel trap 150 UN workers in another tomb- even while people walk in circles dazed, with broken bones, head injuries and missing hands and limbs- even while others lay agonizing with severed legs- even while the dead were stacked like cord wood on the sides of the streets and roads- even with a lack of water and with starvation looming on all sides- and even now as the rats begin to devour human flesh in plain sight- even then the Christo-fascist Pat Robertson suggested that they brought this on themselves by making a deal with the Devil. Even then the bloated caricature of an intellectual Rush Limbaugh used these naked agonies to assail President Obama’s outreach to the Haitian people, and even encouraged us to withhold our monies. I’m not sure what the rest of the people in miniature had to say, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, Ingraham, but I hope they find the decency to at least maintain a solemn silence in the face of such utter horror.
The moral bankruptcy of the Right has never been so obvious. The pathetic alliance between the Right and the once great Republican Party, has reduced it from the solid elephant of the GOP to a rodent. Follow rats and you become one. Follow the morally bankrupt and you become them. Profit from liars and well-paid liars at that and you become People of the Lie. Winston Churchill sounded ridiculous warning against fascism in Hitler and so also did Pope Pius XI. Cruelty is at the core of all tyranny… cruelty wrapped in a thin veneer of religious rhetoric… cruelty wrapped in a thin veneer of economic and political policy. The same cruelty which would deny healthcare to the vulnerable here at home would question the political motivations of helping alleviate the horrors of Haiti and other places. Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, Ingraham, Hannity, and all the Tea Bagging Republican leadership are all rodent wannabes. Sarah Palin is a parasite on the gluttonous wealth generated by the whole yellow journalism industry which keeps people like herself and Beck and Limbaugh in their multi-million dollar seats. “What are the ideas they have with which you disagree?” asks my dearest and oldest friend. None… they have none… what they have are self-centered and self-serving cruelties which they market under the guise of ideas, under the guise of political and economic policy. As the poet W.B. Yeats put it in his poem “The Second Coming”: “The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”
The moral bankruptcy of the Right has never been so obvious. The pathetic alliance between the Right and the once great Republican Party, has reduced it from the solid elephant of the GOP to a rodent. Follow rats and you become one. Follow the morally bankrupt and you become them. Profit from liars and well-paid liars at that and you become People of the Lie. Winston Churchill sounded ridiculous warning against fascism in Hitler and so also did Pope Pius XI. Cruelty is at the core of all tyranny… cruelty wrapped in a thin veneer of religious rhetoric… cruelty wrapped in a thin veneer of economic and political policy. The same cruelty which would deny healthcare to the vulnerable here at home would question the political motivations of helping alleviate the horrors of Haiti and other places. Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, Ingraham, Hannity, and all the Tea Bagging Republican leadership are all rodent wannabes. Sarah Palin is a parasite on the gluttonous wealth generated by the whole yellow journalism industry which keeps people like herself and Beck and Limbaugh in their multi-million dollar seats. “What are the ideas they have with which you disagree?” asks my dearest and oldest friend. None… they have none… what they have are self-centered and self-serving cruelties which they market under the guise of ideas, under the guise of political and economic policy. As the poet W.B. Yeats put it in his poem “The Second Coming”: “The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”
Saturday, January 16, 2010
A Buddhist Purgatory?
I remember all too well the mad clowns of my boyhood who called themselves "Brothers of the Sacred Heart" and/or "The Christian Brothers". In between beatings and molestations, they terrorized me and the other little boys in their "care" with hideous visions of Purgatory and eternal damnation in hell. I knew even then that if there was a Purgatory or hell, it was their schools and I was already in it. But I loved Jesus Christ then and I still do.
Graduating in 1965, I fell into the toxic swamps of the "sixties" and I staggered around until 1969 when I encountered the Tao Te Ching which had recently been translated by St. John's University NYC.It set me on a journey, a forty year journey through the eastern scriptural traditions and then back to Jesus Christ with a whole different vision of the "Guru of Gurus", the great Teacher from Nazareth.
Recently, my wife bought me the "Bardo Thodol", a Tibetan Book of the Dead. This particular illustrated edition of the ancient scripture is published by Metro Books New York, NY. It was compiled and edited by W.Y. Evans-Wentz who also offers the most amazing introduction one can imagine. Sadly for you and me both, Evans-Wentz died in 1965. What is this book about? It is a Buddhist tourist guide through what the Church used to call Purgatory, the place of purgation of one's shadow self.
Buddhism, like all religions, has an exoteric Trinity- Buddha, Dharma, Sangha: The Buddha Mind, the path of teachings, and the gathering or brotherhood. We could call this Trinity the Trinity in Time. Wentz notes that there is also a Trinity in Eternity, the "Source Trinity" for the "reflected Trinity in time". The Eternal dimension is Dharma-kaya, Nirvana-kaya and Sambhoga-kaya. Wentz notes that while the Catholics were forming heresy panels to burn "gnostic heretics", the Buddhists were explaining eternity in a pre-spatial, pre-temporal Trinity of Being. While the good brothers were terrifying little boys with threats of hell engendered in their midsts, the Buddhists were charting the map past and through such states of being. That new rock band called "Sarah Palin and the Tea Baggers" know all about heresy panels and can be reached for more information at www.frompurgatorytohell.com. Or, you can contact Brit Hume at Fox News. Mr. Hume is a Buddhist master who converted to Christianity. He's in the know!
Graduating in 1965, I fell into the toxic swamps of the "sixties" and I staggered around until 1969 when I encountered the Tao Te Ching which had recently been translated by St. John's University NYC.It set me on a journey, a forty year journey through the eastern scriptural traditions and then back to Jesus Christ with a whole different vision of the "Guru of Gurus", the great Teacher from Nazareth.
Recently, my wife bought me the "Bardo Thodol", a Tibetan Book of the Dead. This particular illustrated edition of the ancient scripture is published by Metro Books New York, NY. It was compiled and edited by W.Y. Evans-Wentz who also offers the most amazing introduction one can imagine. Sadly for you and me both, Evans-Wentz died in 1965. What is this book about? It is a Buddhist tourist guide through what the Church used to call Purgatory, the place of purgation of one's shadow self.
Buddhism, like all religions, has an exoteric Trinity- Buddha, Dharma, Sangha: The Buddha Mind, the path of teachings, and the gathering or brotherhood. We could call this Trinity the Trinity in Time. Wentz notes that there is also a Trinity in Eternity, the "Source Trinity" for the "reflected Trinity in time". The Eternal dimension is Dharma-kaya, Nirvana-kaya and Sambhoga-kaya. Wentz notes that while the Catholics were forming heresy panels to burn "gnostic heretics", the Buddhists were explaining eternity in a pre-spatial, pre-temporal Trinity of Being. While the good brothers were terrifying little boys with threats of hell engendered in their midsts, the Buddhists were charting the map past and through such states of being. That new rock band called "Sarah Palin and the Tea Baggers" know all about heresy panels and can be reached for more information at www.frompurgatorytohell.com. Or, you can contact Brit Hume at Fox News. Mr. Hume is a Buddhist master who converted to Christianity. He's in the know!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Welcome to the Blog!
Welcome friends!
Some of you may know me personally, others may have read my books, heard my lectures on the road through Cross Country University, or have only come to know me through my radio show on WCRN 830AM on the dial (Worcester, MA). For those of you who don't know me, my name is Albert and I am an author, a psychologist, a teacher, a radio talk show host, a poet and more. I have been involved in the study of world religions, human spirituality, psychology, addiction, ecology, cosmology, and more for the better part of four decades. This blog is a way to share with you some of what I am working on, for those who may wish to familiarize themselves with my work. If you would like to know more about me, feel free to visit me on Facebook, listen in on Sunday nights at 8:00pm on WCRN 830AM on the dial or stream live at www.wcrnradio.com, or check out my publications on Amazon.com. My most recent pieces in include The Way of Christ: The Gospel of John Through the Unitive Lens; The Modern Christian Mystic: Finding the Unitive Path to God; Cultural Addiction: The Greenspirit Guide to Recovery; and The Architecture of the Soul: A Unitive Model of the Human Person (all published by North Atlantic Books, distributed by Random House.)
I plan to use this blog as a place for dialogue- if you have questions or insights about my radio show, responses to reading my books, questions about what I am up to these days or upcoming lectures and events, please feel free to contact me or post on the blog. I welcome your feedback!
Peace,
Albert
Some of you may know me personally, others may have read my books, heard my lectures on the road through Cross Country University, or have only come to know me through my radio show on WCRN 830AM on the dial (Worcester, MA). For those of you who don't know me, my name is Albert and I am an author, a psychologist, a teacher, a radio talk show host, a poet and more. I have been involved in the study of world religions, human spirituality, psychology, addiction, ecology, cosmology, and more for the better part of four decades. This blog is a way to share with you some of what I am working on, for those who may wish to familiarize themselves with my work. If you would like to know more about me, feel free to visit me on Facebook, listen in on Sunday nights at 8:00pm on WCRN 830AM on the dial or stream live at www.wcrnradio.com, or check out my publications on Amazon.com. My most recent pieces in include The Way of Christ: The Gospel of John Through the Unitive Lens; The Modern Christian Mystic: Finding the Unitive Path to God; Cultural Addiction: The Greenspirit Guide to Recovery; and The Architecture of the Soul: A Unitive Model of the Human Person (all published by North Atlantic Books, distributed by Random House.)
I plan to use this blog as a place for dialogue- if you have questions or insights about my radio show, responses to reading my books, questions about what I am up to these days or upcoming lectures and events, please feel free to contact me or post on the blog. I welcome your feedback!
Peace,
Albert
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