"Passive resistance is an all-sided sword, it can be used anyhow; it blesses him who uses it and him against whom it is used."

- Gandhi

 Try and penetrate with out limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.

Albert Einstein

WHAT IS THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT?

I was asked this question point blank some time ago by a close friend. The most complete answer I know of is contained within the pages of Bruce Bawers book, STEALING JESUS: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity. He explains in detail the background, development and current manifestations of the Religious Right, defining the movement as The Church of Law. To members of all legalistic Christian faiths ... what matters is that it be harsh, exclusionary, preached with zeal, professed without a hint of doubt, and regarded as the key to all truth and to eternal salvation.(p.244)

Bruce Bawer asserts that people who believe and live by legalistic Christian theology are by definition extremists who feel that the state should be run according to Gods law as they perceive it. Contrasted with the Church of Love, he says that the Church of Law ... encourages worshipers to play a passive role, listening obediently as the preacher tells them what the Bible says and what they are expected to believe, to do, and to condemn.

In addition to STEALING JESUS, by Bruce Bawer, another prime source for answering the above question is Chris Hedgess 1970 book, AMERICAN FASCISTS: The Christian Right and the War on America. (Both can be sampled extensively through Google on the Internet)

NIRVANA

On the very first page of Coritas 1968 book, FOOTNOTES AND HEADLINES, is this saying: he repeated the letters of the alphabet over and over, beseeching the Almighty to arrange them into the appropriate words of the prayers.

We all need an inner rosary or mantra, a verbal band of beads to make us worry less.

For me, such a mantra is breathing out the ABCs. I usually fall asleep that way, but I find that  the practice enhances wakeful meditation, too. It helps create a sense of patience and concentration during stressful activity like driving in thick traffic. Its not just a matter of mentally reciting the alphabet. Its a physical discipline, too, an act of blowing out, which Alan Watts said is the essential meaning of nirvana.

Our minds are usually, I think, full of chatter and concern perhaps as a result of too much news, or just the common daily blues. Peace of mind is eroded by nervous questions -- What should I be doing?, How am I feeling?, etc. The noise of such internal doubt must cease if we are to hear the still small voiceof divine wisdom and be restored to a condition of balance and calm.

Actively breathing out a series of basically meaningless letters or words may not immediately accomplish that objective, but it can only help and holding the breath will only make things worse.

Every moment matters. I may not like where any particular moment lands me. I may not find myself in the best, most productive mood. But this is where I am. Emotionally, I cannot be anywhere else.

The knot is tied, love blooms anew amid pledges of forever.

Meanwhile, the world rolls on through its own weird trajectory to who knows where. Me, I can hardly find time to tie my shoes. So Ive started wearing comfortable flip flops more often. And heading for the shade whenever I can.

My front yard of crawling wedelia is robust and green with little yellow flowers. Down below and up above (from a towering gold tree),

yellow blossoms everywhere.

- Bill Joyner

. . . it is we who have betrayed God. We have become a militarized nation of apostates and hedonists. We ignore the evil we commit, from the war in Iraq to the torture we carry out in our offshore penal colonies. We sanctify our own power and wealth as a final good We turn inward, ignoring our apostasy, and wonder why bad things happen to us. We are not called to avoid suffering. We are not promised a rational world. We are not offered explanations. We are called to act. There is no promise that this will be easy or painless or free us from suffering.

- - Chris Hedges

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ACCEPT LIVING IN A MORALLY NEUTRAL UNIVERSE?

Chris Hedges article A HOLLOW AGNOSTICISM in the current issue of the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. (accessible through Google) is, to me, a profound consideration of what it means to accept living in a morally neutral universe. Its something of a tough read, involving many scholarly references, but this piece is well worth the effort as it deals with basic existential matters such as how to reconcile the reality of human suffering with the concept of divine compassion. Heres a sample:

The question is not whether God exists. It is whether we contemplate or are utterly indifferent to the transcendent forces that cannot be measured or quantified, those forces that lie beyond the reach of rational deduction. We all encounter these forces. They are love, beauty, alienation, loneliness, suffering, good, evil, and the reality of death. These unquantifiable forces in human life are the domain of art and religion. ... God ... is that which works upon us and through us to find meaning and relevance in a morally neutral universe.

...

Detachment without withdrawal, Ecclesiastes wrote, is one of the secrets of wisdom. Death awaits us all. We must give up on the notion that one is rewarded for virtue, that we can save ourselves from our human predicament or that we can morally advance as a species. We remain trapped by human nature. The evil and the good endure the same hardships and blessings. But Ecclesiastes also reminds us that God has put olam into mans mind. Olam means eternity. It denotes mystery or obscurity. We do not know what this mystery, this eternity, means. And once we recognize it and face it, simplistic answers no longer work.

Know thyself is one of the wisest suggestions ever made, but, as C.J. Jung elaborates in his wonderful short book, THE UNDISCOVERED SELF, self-knowledge, though vital to personal and universal well-being, is extremely hard to come by. Karen Horney stresses the difficulty, as well, delineating the consequences of NOT resolving our inner conflicts, among which are:

a devastating waste of human energy, general indecisiveness and ineffectualness, inertia, a paralysis of initiative and action, unconscious arrogance, inability to take a definite stand, undependability, and an unholy host of rampant fears of exposure, ridicule, disregard, humiliation, and of changing anything in ones self.

From the Archives Autumn 2006 

CHICKEN FEED

According to a TV program, the Amazon rainforest is not getting enough rain these days to sustain its vital biological contribution to the earths ecological well-being. This ongoing condition of drought, they say, is attributable in large part to deforestation efforts made by growers of soybeans, the bulk of which are shipped overseas to be used as chicken feed.

Of course, its about more than just chicken feed. Its about planetary degradation! I hope Ill remember that the next time Im tempted to eat a chicken sandwich. After all, there is BURGER KINGs veggie burger and WENDYs baked potato with broccoli and cheese.The whole thing is, we dont really have to eat chicken, or any meat, at all! Such a simple concept, yet it would do a lot toward saving our world (the only one weve got).

Henry David Thoreau once observed the irony of a farmer loudly proclaiming that a man could not live on vegetable matter alone, even as he guided his huge vegetarian oxen on their laborious way. So, after all, you know, it could be done. Oxen can do it, mullets, too, and manatees. Most likely, I expect wed rather not think about eating meat at all, especially while enjoying our favorite chicken dish and, we may reason,  many of the animals and lots of fish are chasing each other down for lunch throughout the ecosystem anyway, so why not us, as well? And yes, you cant really beat the good taste of chicken or beef, so why not just chow down and enjoy!

 At one time in the South Sea islands of the Pacific ocean, cannibals had human meat markets, and the product was said to have a superior taste, a lot like chicken, I bet. But we have evolved beyond such cullinary cruelty. Perhaps eventually, if only because of environmental necessity, we will have to evolve beyond our current worldwide craze for burgers and chicken and such. We do not have to be addicted to chicken!