the rix mix

For me, the Christmas story is the back story of Mary & to a lesser extent Joseph.  The various authors of this fabulous, elaborate. touching, oriental tale were somehow pulled together into a unique narrative that transcended the traditional tales comprising much of it.

We view the Christmas story & the Nativity from a perspective long after the crucifixion & Resurrection events. We know what happens to Jesus,  what he does, & the growing movement established in his name.  Who is telling this story?  Jesus never told it.  Paul, through whom we learn the earliest beliefs & practices of the movement,  apparently was unaware of it.  Perhaps someone who heard Mary herself tell it?

It begins with Mary witnessing the worst possible thing that could happen to any mother: The public, painful, gruesome, unjust execution of her son. Roman law prohibits open displays of grief at executions; if you weep & wail, you yourself could end up on a cross. We ask, How is she able to endure the unendurable? & that is the question the authors of the Christmas narrative answer for us with wonderful insight into the characters of Mary & Joseph, the faith & courage of this extraordinarily ordinary couple. We especially learn Mary's heart.

When Jesus is born in the stable, only Mary & Joseph, Elizabeth & Zacharias, nearby  shepherds who saw angels singing,  plus some presumably Zoroastrian astrologers still enroute have any inkling of what is transpiring. Franciscan types are permitted to believe the local animals were also informed in their own fashion.

Labels: Christmas, religion

My trusted online friend Fran linked to series of paintings of the American Jesus that are at once really funny  but deeply disturbing. I always listen to Fran even when she going right over my head.
When I was young, as with a lot of protestants, Jesus was too human. That's important because the humanity, the human face, is the spiritual evolution in Christianity  allowing the Easter story to mean what it means. God is humanly comprehensible. The face is every human being, not the guy in the paintings. If you are of a Franciscan temperament, you include the face of the sparrow.

 Later, Jesus became a kind of intellectual exercise I went to whenever it interested me. As my body began reminding me  of my mortality  more than  my intellect did,  Jesus became more elusive & paradoxical.  But elusiveness & paradoxes can stir me up, intrigue me & disturb me, & I chase after them. I think Jesus is being the kind of Jesus I need right now. He has my attention & he's keeping it. He's still human but he's also being spirit, & you feel spirit & even channel spirit but you can't get hold of it.  "How  is it," this spirit seems to ask me, "that I know every subatomic particle in your body, & their history from the beginning of time, & your true name, & you don't know any of these things, much less where every sparrow falls? Yet I remain just as human as you are." He's not an so much an American Jesus as a Jesus who  know how to slip  between the second & third lines of  a haiku.

So what's the real deal from Jesus? It's that the abyss isn't necessarily there. It wasn't there when I was 13 &  looking at the dark winter sky on a bad night in my home & thinking, in some way,  "People die, & you don't get to say goodbye or find out who they really are."   It wasn't there when I was 25 & staring  into  one  believing I had come to the end of art. & it's not there now. But I still see it.

Labels: blogging against theocracy, Mahalo, religion

The cloistered nuns are furious,
 a man has bought the land
 next to their convent
 for his new office building
 with third story windows.
 Their convent garden wall
 is only two stories high. 

"We try to understand progress,"
says an old nun speaking with an outsider
for the first time in decades,
"but this development would ruin us." 

"I am not unreasonable,"
the businessman insists,
"but stopping this project
is beyond the realm of realism. 

Does the realm of nuns tending flowers
exist outside of their garden?
Is there a useful balm from Gilead
in the compassion of their wordless prayers? 

"This land is too valuable to stay vacant,"
the businessman explains.  

"Our dead are buried here,
we can’t move," says the nun.

Labels: poem, religion

My Dad's Jesuit high school teachers made him read great classic books to teach him to think for himself.

By the time he graduated he thought he didn't want Catholic priests telling him what to believe.

He walked out of the Church, never went back & never expressed a regret.

Labels: growing up, religion

A year ago someone concluded a knot in a small, stunted tree in West New York NJ was the image of the Virgin Mary. This being a predominantly Hispanic Catholic area, it immediately became an object of veneration, devotion, a shrine to the Holy Mother. People traveled hundreds of miles to gaze at it. Fresh flowers were placed around it every day, votive candles burned day & night. Some devotees left notes requesting favors.

Last week a votive candle ignited something, which spread to the tree, & it went up in flames. The sight must have been horrifying to believers, even demonic.

Labels: New Jersey, religion

Gave a buck & fist tap to the big guy on the front stoop, pronounced him my bodyguard. He's more likely to put it toward some 7-11 chicken wings than a beer. He also lives across the hall & one night knocked on the door because I'd left my keys outside in the lock.
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 Pre-pubescent daughter in B&H store commercial tells her wuss dad she has 700 FB friends, demands new computer, & calls him "so 20th Century."

The proper parental response is to say, "Technologically-speaking, I'm sending you back to the 19th Century."
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My a/c is trying. But I don't have a machine I expect to cope all that well with day after day of high 90s & not dropping below a humid 80 at night & never a gusty thunderstorm.
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Teed off on my Methodist pastor brother on FB today for posting a "Put back prayer in the schools. Share this if you agree" graphic.  I commented, "Sure, but them all pray; Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans. Let the atheists read something, too."   But even that isn't what I mean. Anyone can pray anytime, anywhere. There was always something wrong about compulsory Bible reading & the recitation of the Lord's Prayer to open a public school day.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, potpourri, religion, weather

It's a lot more difficult to be an atheist in America than to be Christian. For right wing Christians, being Christian would be only half the fun if they couldn't play the victim.

I reside in one of the most solidly Democratic areas of America & you probably couldn't be elected here without having some religion. On your website if not on your campaign literature. Preferably Christian or Jew, although a Hindu would be electable in a few places.

South Carolina Valedictorian, Rips Up Speech and Recites Lord’s Prayer He had a right to do it, but was inexcusably rude. A teenage hissy fit.  For his audience it was  like chanting "USA USA" at a NASCAR race. It is, after all, Pickens County South Carolina.

Labels: blogging against theocracy, religion

Newark archbishop allows priest who admitted groping boy to continue working with children  

. 

 He [Fugee] has attended weekend youth retreats in Marlboro and on the shores of Lake Hopatcong in Mount Arlington, parishioners say. Fugee also has traveled with members of the St. Mary’s youth group on an annual pilgrimage to Canada. At all three locations, he has heard confessions from minors behind closed doors. 

What’s more, he has done so with the approval of New Jersey’s highest-ranking Catholic official, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.

My attitude toward American RC Bishops ranges from indifference to contempt. Sometimes one of my Catholic friends mentions an  o.k. one.  Myers is not o.k.   Aloof, isolated, autocratic, inclined to speak to the hoi polloi through his cathedral office mouthpieces, this is not his first pedophile cover-up scandal. But it is showing some endurance in local media, & is slowly going national  The Star-Ledger called for his resignation in an editorial,  an unusual  act for a newspaper (although I'm sure it's happened elsewhere).  Parishioners at the church where Fugee was assigned are outraged, as are  the vast majority  of Jersey Catholics polled on this. Catholic politicians are calling for Myers to step down. Except our Governor, who says it's political "grandstanding." He will soon perceive the error of that statement.

I think Myers can be pushed or removed from office this time, if media stays on the story,  if pressure from New Jersey Catholics is relentless (following through on  threats of withholding tithes), & some of his fellow Bishops in Jersey continue refusing to support him. There's a new Pope. Eventually he'll hear about it, if he hasn't already.  Pope Francis can make an   example of Myers if he truly wants to  set himself apart from his two predecessors:  Esto termina ahora. This ends now.

Labels: blogging against theocracy, in the news, New Jersey, religion

Labels: holidays, postcard, religion

There were no "liberal" candidates for Pope. To elect the first American, first Latin American, first Jesuit & first Pope Francis is remarkable. I have no idea what he will do as Pope.

Been an interesting few weeks. Not for the speculation on the choice of a new Pope, but for seeing the amount of discomfort many people feel toward the Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholics, the process of choosing a Pope.  Except for the general tone a Pope sets, I don't see why most non-Catholics should care one way or another who the Pope is. I care mainly because the Catholics I know care. Only non-Catholics with fantastical, unrealistic  notions of change would think there could be a Pope  from the current collection of Cardinals with different views on abortion, marriage equality, & the ordination of women.

Argentinians still ask questions  regarding his dealings with the military junta during the "dirty war" of the 1970's.

What I hope for is a Pope more concerned with cleaning his house of the rancid Vatican Bank  dealings & sex abuse enablers than with disciplining nuns & college professors. A certain type of conservative Pope could want that, perhaps an Argentine  Jesuit who takes the name of Francis - Assisi or Xavier or both. Perhaps he can  help stem the flow of Latin Americans into charismatic Evangelical churches, which I see in my own city, & it makes me sad. Because the resources of the Roman Church when it attends to "least among us" are powerful, effective, global.. This must be  what many American Catholics want  their Church  to do. Stop trying to influence civil elections, or at least show some consistency with issues of life, which also include opposing war &  capital punishment, & the usual what would Jesus  do? stuff:  feeding the hungry, comforting the afflicted, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned.

Labels: in the news, religion

I have four trusted Roman Catholic friends, two I know personally, two I met online years ago through a KOS spin off site, Street Prophets:

A superb poet,  resides in my county,  a member of the Franciscan lay order.  Known her for 30 years, but became friends through Facebook.

A Notre Dame alumnus - with all the nuttiness that gives him, active in community, local politics, parish life. Married, one son. Listened to my WFMU show, found out we resided in the same town.

Office manager of an upstate New York parish, moved there when she married, leaving a  career in corporate Manhattan. Stepmother to her husband's daughter.

An employee of a silicon valley corporation on the West Coast. Active in a parish with  a large, poor Hispanic congregation. An out lesbian with a teenage son.

The latter two are in grad school studying theology.

All are in favor of marriage equality. I am not aware of their specific views on Catholic doctrine. All are taking a wait-&-see attitude toward the Papal election.

I also know ex-Catholics & lapsed Catholics. Some had their hearts broken, leaving the Church because they  were so unwelcome.

I listen to these four Catholics much more than I say anything to them about religion. Whenever I write about Catholicism, on my blog or at KOS, it is usually about Catholic practice, not doctrine, rarely the institutional Church of the Bishops. I would never  suggest a Catholic walk away from their Church, as some at KOS do. It is arrogance to presume an intelligent Catholic is not aware of the institutional failings, of their options, or to accuse them of somehow collaborating with child abuse cover-ups & Patriarchal oppression. We are all collaborating with evil. These Catholics do the best they can to steer their time, money & effort into missions of charity & compassion. Can't do that with tax payments. What keeps them in the Church, I believe, is the practice, the observance of Catholicism, its dailiness, the routines, their communities.  Their spiritual  calendar is not the one hanging on on the wall. Rather, it is a calendar of seasons & saints, of birth, death & resurrection,  of remembrance,  the celebration of things large & small. A day for blessing pets! Even protestants show up for that.  It is not onerous, as it was in many pre-Vatican II  Irish & Italian families I knew as a kid, attending churches with autocratic priests who knew all the secret sins of their  parishioners.  It can be a very sane way to order one's life. & it is difficult to duplicate outside of the Church. To my friends, it is their Church as much as it is the Church of Cardinals.

Labels: religion

No matter how shameful & stupid the behavior of the higher clerics, it absolutely does not justify anti-Catholic bigotry & the mocking of faithful laity.

Sometimes I think I'm the only protestant-by-upbringing, at least around KOS,   capable of explaining to non-Catholics what it is that observant Roman Catholics do & why they do it & keep doing it. Not the doctrine, not the theology, but the dailyness of Catholic practice. It's easier to hear it from me than from an offended Roman Catholic.

Labels: religion

Pope Benedict stepping down, cites poor health


The decrepit Pope John Paul II symbolized the Catholic Church's unwillingness / inability to honestly confront  & deal with the child abuse scandals wracking the Church. One asked the question, "Is anyone in charge here?" The answer was, "Sort of." The person  in charge was the future Pope Benedict behind the scenes. He dealt with it no better after becoming Pope.  The situation requires outrage hitched to unquestioned moral integrity.  Would the younger, vibrant John Paul II, age 59 when he took office, have used his authority to expose the tragedy & deliver justice? We can never know.

Pope Benedict at least recognizes that he does not want to become like John Paul II in his final years; an ineffectual shell.  He wants to influence the election  of his successor. Benedict is a cerebral man, an intellectual.  He can live out his final years comfortably, with limited mobility. He won't be bored.

The next pope will likely share Benedict's conservative  views.  The voting Cardinals were all appointed  either by him or John Paul II.  Occasionally (meaning rarely) the Conclave anoints a complete surprise; a man they thought they knew but didn't really, a "miracle" like Angelo  Roncalli, Pope John XXIII, the "simple priest," or one who is radically changed by the office itself.  Every new pope brings new possibilities.

The main open question now concerns the future pope's nationality. Will the next pope be from Africa or Latin America? If not this one, probably the one after. Or will this pope be the last hurrah of the European popes? Perhaps even an Italian pope for old time's sake.

Labels: in the news, religion

The long procession of Newtown funerals began today.

Every act of violence indicates a failure of some kind. Doesn't matter if it is a criminal act, the act of a senseless madman, self-defense, a state execution, a revolution, or a war.  We compound the failure by refusing to acknowledge it is a failure.

Any Christian who invokes God in the name of violence worships "The Great Deluder,' as theologian Walter Wink names this false deity.

First Moloch, horrid king, besmear’d with blood
 Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,
 Though for the noise of Drums and Timbrels loud
 Their children’s cries unheard, that pass’d through fire
 To his grim idol. (Paradise Lost 1.392-96) 

But it is equally mistaken to write, as one person did, that the "God of love" "does not allow violence."   God surely does allow violence as an expression of free will. The violence is perpetrated by us, not by God. God is not punishing anyone. We punish ourselves. In Dante's Inferno, the damned are not forcibly driven to the banks of the River Acheron, but drawn to it by their own perverse natures, a profound psychological insight for its time. Such is the attraction of violence, especially redemptive violence; the false idea that violence redeems & heals. Most Christians  never question the concept of redemptive violence, taken from the inaccurate history in  the Old Testament, a common misinterpretation of the Crucifixion, & long human experience of an unwillingness to see what occurs when one rejects it.

Labels: in the news, religion

White House is holding a Public poll to initiate and implement a law against the disrespect of Prophets of major religions i.e. Prophet Mohammad PBUH, Prophet Jesus A.S and Prophet Moses A.S. Please sign this petition ASAP , as they required 25,000 signatures till 17th October.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
outlaw offending prophets of major religions
To enact a law that prohibits any action or literature that offend prophets of major religions: - Moses - Jesus - Mohammad Such acts offend billions of people, and cause unrest in the world. Furthermore, acts like this contradict the essence of coexistence and peace among humans. Labeling these acts as freedom of speech is similar to labeling murder as freedom of expression! We all know the chaos such acts can cause, but it's difficult to answer the question: What do they contribute to our nation, or humanity in general?

The wording seems to ask that prophets themselves be outlawed. To clear up the another obvious misstatement, The White House is not "holding a public poll." The White House hosts the poll on a page where anyone or any group can initiate a poll. Apparently, if a poll receive enough votes within a certain period of time, some minor functionary at the White House reads it, sends it up the chain, & a bureaucrat submits a public response. It's how the White House beer recipes went public.

This poll taps into my personal fears that no extant form of Islam, even moderate factions, can really handle our First Amendment, given Islam's absolute need to defend the character of The Prophet absolutely, at any cost. Some idiot in America insults the Prophet, 10,000 Muslims riot in Pakistan & 100 Muslims are accidentally  trampled to death,, which incites even more rioting,   Death  fatwas are issued.

 A 14 year old girl just survived a fatwa assassination attempt by the Taliban. She didn't even insult The Prophet. She had the unmitigated gall to insist she had a right to an education. Which the Taliban considers an insult to Prophet Muhammad PBUH. So what offends the prophets & who decides what offends them?

 In America  (we have critics & mockers of all religions here) - we can only condemn their statements & request that they cease - Muslims decide it ought to made against the law.  Criticize The Prophet, pay a fine or go to jail. & just to show how fair they are, they're willing to extend the law to insults against Moses & Jesus. Why stop at them? There are so many other revered religious figures.  Why are only the three major Abrahamic faiths worthy of such protection?

Jews don't  lose sleep over insults to Moses, Abraham, of any other  prophet or patriarch. What keeps Jews awake are Holocaust deniers, threats to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, & the naked hatred of Jews - all Jews - taught & encouraged throughout too much of the Islamic world.

American Christians don't get bent all out of shape by insults to Jesus. One insult is calling him a prophet rather than the Son of God or simply Jesus of Nazareth.  He is either the Messiah or he is not, no in-between status.   Jesus is rarely insulted; it's pretty obvious that Christianity's  violence, excesses & prejudices don't originate with Jesus.  Christianity's  doctrinal foundation is the Son of God  humiliated unto slow death in a public crucifixion - it doesn't get much worse than what happened to Jesus, who then triumphs over  death in his resurrection.  Christian martyrs historically are of a different order than  current radical Islamic martyrs.  Quite simply, Christians do not believe they  go to heaven by committing suicide to kill non-Christians, or other Christians..  Although certain Christians in America are  busy denying civil rights to homosexuals, undermining women's rights,  mocking science, & attempting to subvert  public education, they go nose-to-nose arguing  with atheists & generally seem to grasp that in suppressing the First Amendment rights of others, they might  risk their own rights.  Instead, they buy up radio stations. build megachurches, write & publish  top selling books of religious propaganda,  & use their constitutional rights to full advantage by spreading the crazy idea that they are the victims rather than the people in control of one of America's two major political parties.

I often enough  sympathize with the purpose of laws constricting free speech, but I rarely support the passage of those laws.  If insulting the Prophet causes Muslims to commit murder, maybe it's time for Islam to change & stop committing murder in the  name of The Prophet. . Because you won't get away with murder using that as a defense  in The United States of America.

Labels: blogging against theocracy, religion

At the end of the day 9/11/01 I had an entirely different conception of "evil" than when the day began. Mainly, I was certain it existed in the world & one could not call it anything else.

Evil manifests itself through humans & our actions & institutions. I had been confusing evil with something else, something in the natural order of things. What I observed in nature could be a "fallen" world. But it wasn't evil.

I understood why theologian Paul Tillich, who repudiated supernaturalism, used the word demonic & used it quite often. He had experienced WWI from the German side & witnessed the rise of Hitler.

I haven't found the word to describe how 9/11 changed me. The term conservatism doesn't apply. Certainly related, but not in a political or even religious sense. Not how it's used in America.

Labels: in the news, religion, war more war

What happens now is obvious. Sikhs are one variety of otherness, so Wade Michael Page must also be reduced to his otherness: white supremacist, skinhead rock band, tattoos, "less than honorable discharge," a drunk, & of  course "evil." As if one has to be all those things to hate Sikhs. There you have it: lone crazy white male hating men wearing turbans & their families. Now we can all feel exonerated. Got news for you. The hatred isn't aberrant in America. Americans killing people we hate isn't unusual either. We had a guy firebombing synagogues in Jersey last year. Only reason he did it at night when the buildings were empty was he didn't want to be caught. They can't stamp "evil" on Page's forehead & make me believe he's truly exceptional. He's in the apple pie, too.
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If you ask someone about their unfamiliar religion, because you're curious, they're usually glad to explain it to you, at least all the surface features;  the basic history, style of worship, traditions & symbolism. I was fortunate to have worked with a Sikh woman at Pearl arts supply store. The store was owned by an Indian-American. This woman worked mainly to provide health insurance for her husband, a New York City taxi driver, & her family. Much of the day she sat at a table in the stockroom pricing doo dads for the craft dept. One day I asked about the necklace she always wore & she began telling me about Sikhism. It was pretty elementary & a lot of it was the dailyness of an observant Sikh wife & mother & her family.  But it was enough to  demystify Sikhism. She did mention I was welcome to attend a service, but I could even skip the service  & come  for the community meal afterward (I've received the same invitation from Unitarian-Universalists, Reformed Jews, & Bhakti Hindus) .   If you have a problem with religious people  that want you to be like them, you won't have any problem with Sikhs. Their problem - & the tragedy in their history - is that others try to stop them from being Sikhs. Even in Wisconsin.  Bad as that attack was, they've suffered so much worse. Horrifying persecution. Centuries of it.   Page was a stupid man. Page will disappear into the "mists of  history," but Sikhs will never forget those six people he murdered.
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I have read so many comments on NJ.Com, the Star-Ledger website, denigrating Sikhs  Hindus, Muslims, all these haters need is a phony  name to hide behind &  it all comes out of them. Then of course there's the so-called  "dog-whistles," the code words of bigotry Republican candidates must master in order to speak to the "base." Otherwise they'd never make it through the primaries.

Labels: in the news, religion

All the years I've lived in this neighborhood, I'd never done more than wave at & say "Hello Father' to the old  Russian Orthodox priest around the corner. He  pastors a beautiful golden dome church filled with wonderful icons, but a church that doesn't see much action except on major holidays. I've sat quietly for a few minutes  several times in a back pew when he had the doors open on weekday afternoons, so he knows I appreciate his church.  The priest resides across the street in an apartment above the social center. On warm evenings he sits out front on a folding chair. He used to plant &  tend flowers in large planters, but now he has to get around  slowly, bent over on a walker. Takes him five minutes to cross the street & more than that to go from one end of his church sanctuary to the other.

Last week I saw him wrestling a garbage can to curbside. I took it from him. It wasn't heavy - recyclables. I pointed at his walker & joked, "You should put a seat & a motor on that."

 He replied - the first words I ever heard from him, "Ah, then I'd be sittin' on my tukus all day."

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, photograph, religion

America 1930












America 2012

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, culture, media madness, religion, THE election

Barack Obama is no more our "first gay president" than Bill Clinton was our "first Black president." Obama is our first Black president. We've had a gay president, James Buchanan. The evidence is compelling in his personal behavior & his own words, & from what others in his own time wrote & observed. President Buchanan was known to be homosexual, although the word didn't  yet exist then (they had other terms like sexual inversion, perturbations).  Most American historians now accept this as fact. It's difficult to consider that America may have become more homo-bigoted in the 20th Century.

Mitt Romney, not Barack Obama, is strongly out-of-step with America.  True, most Americans still oppose equal marriage rights (by an ever-shrinking majority), but Americans know there isn't much the President can do to promote equal marriage rights. However,  a growing majority of Americans favor options like domestic partnerships & civil unions, including an increasing number of Republican insiders & operatives tired of writing off a large, affluent demographic over a losing cause. Mitt gains few votes by opposing all legal recognitions of  same sex domestic relationships. He does identify himself as someone drifting toward the edge of American mainstream culture. He has enough of a problem convincing Americans his rich kid, Mormon upbringing puts him in touch with the "average" American. Unlike George W. Bush, you can't even imagine having a beer with the guy.

President Obama in effect told us, "You knew I wasn't really opposed to equal marriage rights,  so let's stop the charade. Yeah, Biden pushed me to do it, but the why doesn't matter. It's all in the open now."

Labels: religion, sex with a Republican, THE election