All Nature Sings

i'm using what i write today to "think out loud" about some things i can't come to any conclusions about.  i'll probably never be able to have any finality about these matters, first because i lack the necessary scientific knowledge and second because these questions have no real answers.  i suppose there are lots of things in life that fall into that second category.  what i wonder is how necessary human life is to the continuation of other life on this planet.  would there be any great loss to nature on the whole if human beings disappeared from the earth?

we think of ourselves as somehow above the rest of nature.  those who take the bible literally remember passages that tell us we are to "have dominion" over the natural world, or that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made," or that we are created "a little lower than the angels."  christians think of jesus' words, "if that is how God clothes the grass of the field [speaking of the 'flowers of the field'], which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?," which suggest that human lives are superior to other natural lives.  but aren't we elevating ourselves because we have minds that do so?

if we think of ourselves as part of nature rather than something apart from it and slightly above it, we may not be so important in the overall scheme of things.  i wonder how dependent the rest of life is on us.  i think nature is much more necessary to us that we are to the rest of nature.  perhaps there are some organisms that wouldn't exist apart from us, bacteria, for instance, that are unique to human beings, but i don't know if that's the case.  on the whole, i don't see that we're all that essential to the remainder of nature.

certainly, there are some domesticated animals that would change radically, reverting back to their feral forms.  some food crops would disappear or evolve different characteristics because they are dependent on human cultivation in order to flourish in the way they do now.  we've developed new plants and animals that didn't exist in nature without our intervention by methods of hybridization.  we are now experimenting with manipulating genes in ways that were not possible in the past and have the ability to transplant genes from one form of life to another, thus changing the basic structure of dna.  we have the ability to clone and are not so removed from the horrors or huxley's brave new world.  but these "unnatural" creations are not necessary for the continuation of life on the planet.

our unique ability to think, to reason, to imagine sets us apart from other beings and causes us to believe that we are the only beings, that other life forms are inferior to us because they lack the intellectual powers that we possess.  the longer i live, the less i think that is the case.  i'm not so sure that many of the "lower apes" lack these mental capabilities.  when i look into the face of a dog that loves it master, i'm not so sure that this "inferior creature" is so inferior after all.  so many of the attributes we characterize as human may simply be mechanisms to insure the continuation of our species, such as our care in parenting our offspring or our ability to manipulate the natural world.  probably, we're not as special as we would like to believe.

may we not be afraid to ask "big" questions.  may we see ourselves as part of the natural order of things, and not such an important part at that.  may we show reverence for the natural world around us, not reveling in greediness that sees nature as ours for the taking.  may we honor nature in ways that insure our continuation as part of it, rather than destroying it because we think ourselves superior to it.  shalom.

In All Life Thou Livest

i've been thinking about the nature of God and what we mean when we use the word "god."  i wonder if we're trying to talk about and contemplate something that is so far beyond our comprehension that words are incapable of describing.  i wonder, too, if many of us who disagree about the existence of a god aren't really talking past each other because of the limitations of language.  are religious naturalists, adherents of various theistic and non-theistic religions, and even atheists and agnostics using terminology that ultimately means the same thing in their quest to understand life and our purpose in the grand scheme of things?

i struggle with how to refer to God.  when i pray, i usually being my prayers with the words, "o gracious God,"  but i could refer to God as the Great Mystery, Great Creator, Source of Being, First Cause, Divine Providence, Being Beyond All Knowing, or any number of similar appellations.  some avoid any name for God, using G-d, for instance.   but how does one verbalize g-d?  we can avoid thinking about how we came to be here and why.  we could choose not to think about such matters and live rewarding lives that are full of love and compassion.  for me, it is important to try to ken such things even if i can't get beyond the search for answers.

if that Great Intelligence did indeed create everything that is by causing that first creative impulse, perhaps whatever we mean by God, or whatever name we use, is a part of everything, every molecule, every atom, every fiber of every life.  perhaps all matter vibrates with the creative energy that we call God.  perhaps the collective consciousness of everything that exists, even those things that we don't think of as having "consciousness," is what makes up God.  perhaps God is a part of all things and all things taken together are God.  whenever we sense the presence of something greater than ourselves, perhaps that is God becoming known to us.  so many "perhapses."

may we seek truth, even though we are unable to fully comprehend it.  may we not be so eager to separate ourselves into our various clans and religions.  may we look for what we have in common rather than what divides us.  may we listen more than we speak.  may we value silence.  whatever we do, may we be filled with love and compassion.  shalom.

Touch Me and Heal Me

a few days ago i read an article written by a man whose father, a devout christian scientist, had died in terrible agony because he refused to see a doctor for a condition that could easily have been cured by competent medical treatment.  i thought then that i would write about the absurdity of christian "scientist" teaching, but then i began to think of the issue more broadly.  we humans are easily persuaded to adopt the most bizarre beliefs, choosing superstition over science so often.  it's easy to ridicule another's religion without a thought to the farfetched beliefs that are part of our own faith.

christians point to the ridiculous basis of scientology, with its teaching that the "thetan" that is the embodiment of one's true self lives multiple lifetimes both on earth and extraterrestrial planets.  we make light of the central role of mohammed in islam and the reverence his followers have for the koran.  the buddhist teachings about reincarnation and enlightenment are condemned by christians.  yet, we don't stop and think about how outlandish many central christian beliefs seem to a non-christian.

is it possible that the creator of the universe would cause a virgin to become pregnant and give birth to a child that is the embodiment of that powerful creator?  would a loving god require that "his only son" suffer the agony of crucifixion in order to atone for the sins of humanity?  are we to believe that "the son" who died in that way rose from the dead three days later and subsequently ascended into heaven with his disciples as witnesses?  when we examine orthodox christian teaching in this way, our religion doesn't appear any less fanciful than many of the world's other religions.  our willingness as christians to only see what we want to see in our own and in other religions puts up barriers between us that don't have to exist.

i remember as a child watching faith healers like oral roberts on television.  there in black-and-white reality were these charlatans who laid their hands on the sick and prayed for or commanded their infirmities to disappear.  the "cured" walked away convinced that a miracle had occurred.  my family watched these so-called religious services in fascination and disbelief, but we were drawn to watch them again and again.  as i think back, i am certain that the emphasis on miraculous cures in the gospel accounts of the life of jesus have led to belief in faith healing with disastrous results for those who are desperate for cures that medical science can't always provide, and indeed those who are convinced that jesus really did cause the lame to walk and the blind to see are often willing to substitute "faith healing" for medical treatment even when scientific medical practice could cure, or at the very least, ease their dis-ease.

may we examine our own beliefs dispassionately.  may we stop substituting superstition for science.  may we be willing to admit that faith in the supernatural is no panacea for what ails is, both physically and as a society.  if we believe in a god, may our belief be in a god that encourages us to use our minds rather than accepting illogical teachings that have been passed down to us, a god of logic and love.  shalom.

Family All Are We

in the wake of mass shootings in el paso and dayton coming on the heels of the recent shooting in california, it appears that racial animus is not only alive and well in our country but being encouraged by many of its leaders, particularly the president.  while the motives of the shooter in dayton remain unclear, the other shootings are hate crimes inspired by similar shootings elsewhere and by the perpetrators' hatred for non-white people.  some of the actions, or failure to act, on the part of the president and his supporters in congress include:

• refusal to close loopholes in gun laws that allow the purchase of weapons without background checks
• refusal to ban weapons that are designed to kill many people quickly, weapons that have no place in sport shooting
• blaming mass shootings on everything but the availability of such weapons and the incitement to violence by politicians, citing video games, the "breakdown in the family," violence in movies, mental illness, and same-sex marriage, among others, as causes for such shootings
•  making a joke out of calls to shoot immigrants at one of the president's political rallies
• glorifying people, like colby covington, who engage in violent racist rhetoric while vilifying athletes like colin kaepernick and megan rapinoe who disagree with the president's policies and public statements
• attacking elected people of color such as members of "the squad" and civil rights hero elijah cummings
• using disparaging terms when referring to countries with majority black or brown populations
• attacking the public media when it accurately reports racist statements by the president and others who support him
• describing immigrants as criminals, rapists, and murderers
• threatening to label members of the antifa movement as a terrorists while ignoring white supremacists
• saying that "there are fine people on both sides" when talking about the violence perpetrated by white supremacists at a charlottesville, virginia, rally

the list could go on.  while a few republicans are beginning to speak out in opposition to the party's and trump's racist pronouncements and actions, most have either supported him and their party or remained silent.  there is little doubt that trump's language has given the most vile racists in the country courage to speak out rather than doing their dirty work under the radar as they once did.  the richard spencers of the world are emboldened by the president's speeches and tweets.  racist nationalism is on the rise in places like hungary, france, germany, russia, myanmar, and the united kingdom, and we are all endangered because of it.  those of us who believe that we must work to end the scourge of racism around the globe and particularly in the usa must speak out against this hateful philosophy.  we must look in our hearts for the racism there and work to end our own racist tendencies.  we must vote out those who encourage and promote such vile ideas out of conviction or for their own gain.

may we look within ourselves for the courage to admit our own complicity in racist ideology.  may we support those who promote solutions to ending racism.  may we see beyond the color of another's skin and the religion or lack thereof of another to view the person who is like us.  may we love even the most hateful while condemning their despicable philosophies.  shalom.

As I Go Walking That Freedom Highway

when i was quite young, probably nine or ten, my maternal grandmother gave me "the talk," a lecture that most white children of my generation who lived in the south of the usa heard at some point in their lives.  now, my "mamaw" was a kind, considerate person, in most respects a political liberal, a believer in the role of government in improving the lives of the people it served, but on one particular point she, like many, perhaps most, adults in this country held views that were inconsistent with her other ideals.  she was a racist who felt it her duty to pass her beliefs on matters of race on to her children and grandchildren.

i well remember her saying to me that, while one must always treat black people with courtesy and kindness, "colored" people were our inferiors, incapable of the same mental development as whites.  she cautioned me to always remember that when dealing with a person of color.  she and my grandfather ran a mom-and-pop grocery store on the edge of the "quarters," the area of her town where most black people lived.  most of her customers were black, and i watched her and my grandfather as they waited on them.  true to her word, she always behaved with courtesy and kindness to each one, engaging in an easy banter with them as if they were old and valued friends.  part of this was, no doubt, because her livelihood depended on them returning to her store for their groceries and paying their charge accounts at the beginning of each month, but it appeared to me that she had a genuine affection for them, many of whom had been her customers their entire lives.

later in life as i looked back on my beloved grandmother, i wondered if she really believed the words she had expressed about the inferiority of people whose only real difference from us was that their skins were darker.  like many of her peers, she was able to hold two opposing views on the matter of race simultaneously.  she would have been among the first to decry injustice against a person of color, and yet she would have insisted one could view another as a human being without believing that other to be one's equal.  this notion has become ingrained in our national psyche, making it incredibly difficult to rid ourselves of its insidious presence.  this awful inheritance of the evil of slavery colors much of our country's life and politics.  no white person here can imagine what it must be like to be black in the usa.  many of us have worked our entire lives to rid ourselves of the racist thinking that has been pervasive for so many generations, but no matter how hard we try, we still have no idea of the black experience in our nation.

i look back over my life and remember instances when i have used words fraught with racist undertones in the minds of black friends and acquaintances and puzzled over why those words were offensive.  they were perfectly innocuous to me and had a completely different meaning.  for instance, in a conversation with a person of color, i used the word "minority" in the sense of referring to the opposite of majority.  yet to her, that word was a reference to her race, and she took exception to what i said.  in her mind, i was talking about exclusion, while in my mind there was no racial connotation at all.  it was as if we were speaking different dialects of our common language.  in another instance, i remember with shame intervening in a fight between some boys from my neighborhood with other boys who were strangers to the neighborhood.  the neighborhood children were white, and their opponents were black.  as i stopped the fighting, i ordered the black children to "get out of our neighborhood."  they stopped and stared at me, before running away.  as soon as the words came out of my mouth, i realized that what i had said was racist, though it wasn't my intention.  in the minds of the boys, both black and white, i was saying that the black children didn't belong here in a "white neighborhood," that they needed to return to the "black part" of town.  that incident continues to haunt me as a reminder that no matter how hard i work to rid myself of racist thinking, those words of my grandmother from so long ago still inhabit a dark part of my mind.  any white person in this country who believes that racism has been banished from his or her mind is wrong.  it is inescapable and the ugly outpouring of it that the election of donald trump has unleashed  should convince any person that racist thinking continues to be something that we must struggle to overcome.

may we be honest with ourselves when we consider matters of race.  may we work to see all people as our equals, regardless of the color of their skins.  may we recognize our shortcomings and seek to make amends for them.  may we see that we are all human, with good and bad residing in all of us, and that the bad can only be overcome by honesty and lovingkindness.  shalom

When the Storms of Life Are Raging

last sunday in the church service one of the hymns described what i would call a "transactional god."  the words were based on second chronicles 7:14.  the hymn says that "if my people . . ." "then i (god) will . . . "  i suppose that the hymn was included because it was based on a scripture passage, and the thinking was "if it is in the bible, it must be true."  of course, the hymn doesn't include the context of the verse on which it was based.  in this portion of second chronicles, king solomon has just completed the construction of the temple, and god appears to him to tell him that god accepts the temple built to be the sacrificial center of worship for the people of israel.  god goes on to tells solomon that when natural calamities befall the people, they can come to the temple with humbled, repentant hearts and god will hear their prayers.  god promises that so long as solomon follows god's commands and honors god as his father david did, then he and his descendants will rule israel in perpetuity.

there is much in the passage that i find disturbing, particularly the idea that the natural disasters named in it are caused by god in retribution for the sins of the people, but the central idea of the particular verse on which the hymn is based is one that has been adopted by evangelical christians in this country to suggest that all the suffering in the usa is the result of the nation "turning away from god" by allowing such things as same-sex marriage and the separation of church and state.  their idea is that we can "make america great again" by turning by the clock to an imaginary time when all was right, everyone went to church, schools were filled with prayers and bible readings, people of color "knew their place," people of british descent controlled government and commerce, and english was the only language spoken.  all that is needed is for those of us who live here to humble our hearts, to pray, and to seek god's face, resulting in god hearing our prayers, pardoning our sins, and healing our land, so the trump crowd of evangelicals believe.

in contrast, the semon, based on luke 8: 26-39, told of jesus healing a man who was called "legion" because "many demons had entered him."  in his sermon, the minister emphasized that the man had done nothing to deserve the cure he received, and, in fact, had asked jesus to leave him alone.  when the man begged to stay with jesus, jesus told him to go tell others "how much God has done for you."  the minister pointed out that god's grace did not depend on the actions of the man but the freeing of legion from his mental illness was a gift that was entirely undeserved.  in introducing the story, the preacher pointed out that jesus had traveled across the sea of galilee to the region of the decapolis, an gentile area that would have been avoided by orthodox jews during the time of jesus, but according of matthew 4: 23-25 many of jesus' followers came from this region.  it seemed to me that the point of the sermon was to counter the "if you, then i . . ." message of the hymn that had just been sung and to insist that the religion of jesus was one of inclusion, not exclusion.

i may not believe that jesus was capable of curing a serious mental illness by speaking a sentence or that people can be possessed by demons, but i can believe in a god who loves us despite our failings, a god who cares about our suffering.  i cannot believe in a god who causes suffering to punish our shortcomings, but i can believe in a god that is present with us in our suffering, whatever the cause, and i can be a follower of a teacher who tells us about a god of love and compassion.

may we abandon belief in a god who is more about punishment and retribution.  may we not believe in a god whose actions are controlled by our own.  whatever our belief about the reality or unreality of god, may we seek to love and respect others, to include rather than exclude.  shalom.

In the midst of faults and failures

a few days ago, i read a post in a blog that i check in on each week.  the posts on this blog are written by various authors, all of whom have rejected belief in anything supernatural and abandoned the christian faith, some of them having served as christian ministers, some of them continuing to serve in parish ministry despite their unbelief.  i understand their points-of-view and agree with much of what they say, but the post that i write about today (the jesus nobody wants)was one that i found troubling.

in it, the writer describes a "jesus cult" and says that jesus "remains a stained-glass phantom and caricature."  his position is that christianity is a sham because of the apocalyptic emphases that we find throughout the new testament, and he includes a quote from another author who describes jesus as a "failed apocalyptic prophet," citing evidence by way of quotations from the new testament, particularly the gospels, to support this position.  later in the post, the writer says that "the gospels are all about the theologies of their authors, culminating in john’s egregiously egotistical jesus."  for me this is the key to coming to an understanding of who jesus was and what is essential in his teachings as we find them in the gospels.

to reject everything that jesus is supposed to have said because of the apocalyptic beliefs of some of his jewish followers and many other jews of his time is akin to the current mindset of many who insist that we must do away with anything that honors some of the leaders of the american revolution because they did things are offensive to us now or because those who interpreted their lives to us in writings and artworks wrote and painted images that we now find objectionable.  we have to ferret out the totality of jesus' life and teaching, just as we have to come to an understanding of a figure like washington as a human being with faults as well as virtues.  can we know whether jesus was really an apocalyptic teacher who expected that the end of time was imminent or were these beliefs imparted to him by the biographers whose writings became part of the canon?  if jesus did believe and teach that god was soon to intervene in the affairs of the world to create a new order, does that negate everything that he taught, making all of his teachings less than credible?

the blog author says that "there is no way to reconstruct the real Galilean peasant preacher—if there was one."  i'm not certain that's entirely true.  as we look at the contents of the synoptic gospels, i think that certain consistencies emerge, and those who are skilled linguists with knowledge of new-testament-era greek and those who are authorities on the culture of palestine during the period can tell us a great deal about this jewish "peasant preacher."  those of us who are less informed and who struggle to understand who jesus was and what his teachings mean to us today do well to suspend judgment about final conclusions as we seek to be disciples of the man many christians honor as their teacher.  our job is to do the best we can to examine the teachings of the jesus of the sermon on the mount and see if we can use them to make life better for ourselves and those around us.

may we weigh all the evidence as best we can.  may we never stop learning.  may we not ridicule those whose beliefs are different from ours.  may we learn to live with doubt and uncertainty.  may we be tolerant and respectful of and compassionate toward those with whom we disagree.  shalom.