Inauguration Blessings

January 22, 2009

I’ve just gotten home from my third surgery. Yep. Third surgery in seven months. Fourth if you count oral surgery, which I don’t. I guess only for anesthesia. Are we done now? Have I learned the lessons I was supposed to learn from all of this? Probably not – there are always so many things to learn. But I do believe I’ve had a major breakthrough or insight. I was given the grace to have a blindspot illumined.
Short version: I cannot keep leaving my body out of all the spiritual growth. All the efforts I’ve made to come to know and walk with the Divine have been in my head and heart. Intellectual and some emotional. But we have bodies, as has been made immanently clear to me. Mine has asked politely to be included. It has whined, and then it began screaming non-stop. My response has been to shut it out even more completely. I’ve made some attempts here and there to be kinder and more inclusive; to feed it better, get more exercise, etc. And we’ve gotten along better when I’ve made those efforts. I’ve come a very long way in terms of hating its looks and being verbally abusive or mentally brutal to myself in that way. No more “ugly, fat” taunts all day long.
But I am not conscious of this vessel my soul chose for a house. I don’t listen to it, to its needs and desires. The more it hurts, the more I tune it out, the more I consider it an irrelevancy. That was wrong. I believe all these surgeries, this cascade of problems is/are the result of that shutting out. Not in a punishment or blame sort of way, just cause and effect.

I have begun to integrate my body, this temple of god, into my spiritual development plan. If I don’t, it will continue to break down and it will hold back my intellectual and psychological development. So, yoga it is, as soon as I’m able. I’ll give you some of the model Turlington’s insights later; they really struck home and inspired me.

[Lots of detail about the inauguration of President Obama]
I was surprised by Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the Invocation. But once again, it shows his shrewdness, his ability to look past his personal preferences and reach out to those who call themselves his enemies; to think about what would be good for the country as a whole. If he hadn’t been balanced by Joseph Lowery, I’m not sure Warren would have been good for the country, though. Rick Warren is hugely popular. Not just among the wing-nut ultra right, either, like Falwell. But all those who made his “Purpose Driven Life” a best seller, the millions of moderate, middle-road Christian consumers. My issue with him – like most – is his open anti-gay stance. He preaches intolerance rather than love. Plus the other tell-tale signs that he’s not a man who walks the talk. He’s fat, for example, and loud. His coloring suggests a life of indulgence in food and drink with no exercise – like most Americans. Expecially those with money. No self-discipline or control. Well, I simply cannot trust “men of faith” who claim to have God’s ear who have no self control. The proof of a relationship with God and a true, deep spiritual maturity that provides authority to teach and preach is in the LIFE.

Warren sits in judgment on others. He believes he has every right to – when he’s living in a glass house and has logs in his eye. . Choose your metaphor. So I was wary of his selection and what his prayer would be like. After 8 years of hate-mongering disguised (thinly) as the Lord’s word, I wasn’t sure what to expect. He did a better job than I feared. He did end with the Lord’s Prayer, which is pretty dang exclusive, but he also worked in the Shema and parts of a Muslim devotion, calling god “The Compasionate and Merciful.” He said right after that “and you are loving to everyone you have made." Which could be taken as a reference to LGBTs in that context.

He said quite a lot about our need to work together, stop fighting, and restore justice, freedom and equality. But the way he did it reflects the problem I see in much of mainstream American Christianity; even while trying to lay down the law, set the tone or stage for Obama’s sober message; even while attempting to call our attention to our failings and need for change, he said, “When we focus on ourselves, when we fight with each other, when we forget you, forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity are ours alone, forgive us. When we . . . . forgive us.” These are all excellent things to point out that we are guilty of. But what about repentance? What about sincerely turning away from what we know to be wrong? In addition to forgiveness, how about some help in changing the behavior? None of that was even hinted at, which just leaves this feeling of, “Okay, this is great. In this religion you do what you want, indulge in a bout of remorse (which feels good) ask for forgiveness, and go back to doing what you want.

Maybe I’m the only one who heard the prayer this way. But I don’t think so, judging from the behavior of the vast majority who identify as Christian. And the studies into what Americans actually belive about God support this. He’s much more like Santa Claus than Yahweh, and c’mon, is Santa really going to put coal in a cute little child’s stocking?

Reverend Lowery’s Benediction had all the elements missing from Warren’s. Maybe I’m being a spiritual snob, but as I was saying to J (my sister), if you cannot trust your inner voice to recognize who is truly plugged into the Divine and Absolute Spirit, then you cannot trust anyone, and you are lost.
Lowery doesn’t have to try. He doesn’t have to seem tolerant, to appear loving, to make it look like he knows what God wants to hear from us. He is in utter comfort and familiarity when he opens his mouth and speaks hard, difficult truths. But is equally certain when he calls on God’s help when we try to change. It doesn’t hurt that his voice is lyrical. Listen:
“And while we have sown the seeds of greed – the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.” See that clear difference? Not just “Oops, forgiveness please? Thanks, bye.”
And he wasn’t near done. He went on naming the things we needed help with – choosing love over hate, inclusion over exclusion, tolerance over intolerance, holding on to the spirit of fellowship. “We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won’t get weary in the difficult days ahead . . .” And my favorite:
“Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.”
So amazingly cool. I’m crying again. I just can’t get over how far we’ve come.

March 2008

March 13

[Ok – now this is getting silly. I am blogging about my journal, which here is an entry about the blog I created to record my journals!]

1994 is really hard to release without commentary. It is just so clear to me now that I wanted to be a Christian, wanted Christianity to be true, largely to please my parents and make them love and accept me – which is not to say they didn't already love me.

But it didn't take long at all for the questions to arise, for me to become uncomfortable. I persisted for a couple more years – in a very serious way – because I was determined to make it work. I gave it the fairest shot I was capable of giving. And what came out of it for me was again more guilt. More pain. More inability to measure up. Where others are able to find forgiveness, I just keep finding condemnation. Standards set impossibly high. Each of my rounds with Christianity is flavored with anxiety, guilt, shame, and fear of being excluded, left behind, and rejected.

Part of that is my own personal pathology. Since my father is (was) a minister, my ideas about the Christian God will forever be entangled in my impressions, conceptions and emotions about my Dad. As others have argued before me and about gods in general, my picture of Yahweh is one big Rorschach test. Clearly I have long had issues of desperately wanting to please my father but never being able to. A great fear of being rejected by him, being unloved. An uncertainty about how my actions will be interpreted, but deep anxiety that they my intentions will always be misread. And those fears are writ onto my image of god.

But I don't think all of these feelings and ideas are personal, or ideosyncratic, I think they are a result of this kind of theology. If you posit a heaven and hell, for example, or any system of eternal rewards and punishments based on a single life – to which no one can know the outcome until they are dead, you are going to create anxiety in people.

I have written a lot in my life about the difficulty in reconciling the Yahweh of the Old Testament with the Loving Abba Jesus mentions. Well, the presence of the one ought to produce a little confusion in anyone who's paying attention. There are just too many places where Jesus himself says things that can only be interpreted as exclusionary. So you have to decide that a) he didn't really say them, b) he didn't really mean them, or c) he's preaching something different than you thought he was.

In some ways I hate this dredging up, because I really am tired of arguing with Christianity. Why can't it just go away? I mean, out of my head. I don't want to have to keep explaining why I don't practice that faith. But that's the key argument for doing this. Put it all out there on the blog – warts and all, and then my family and closest friends will know how I think and why I think that way and I will never have to explain it again.

We may have some cool discussions, and maybe even some arguments or debates, and that would be wonderful and welcome. Certainly, if anyone has the stamina to wade through the whole thing, there is no way anyone can claim I haven't thought about my position.

March 30

I haven't mentioned I'm reading Wicked, which is wonderful. Concealed as a fairytale about the backstory of Oz' Wicked Witch of the West, it's really a treatise on the nature of evil. He explores the struggle to explain and deal with evil among followers of folk religion/superstition, pagan worship of elemental and creator gods and forces, organized religion and its bureaucracies and ties to the state (and thus its interest in maintaing the status quo), and secular humanism, with its potential for revolution or democracy or anarchy; moral relativism.

Super good. He's just had a character say that evil always precedes good in folk tales. Is that true? "There once was an evil witch . . . " Or a cruel giant, an ogre, etc. Peasants and earlier, didn't care where evil came from, he argues. They just assumed its existence. Is this true universally? In Europe? In agricultural societies?

It is at first an appealing argument. One wants to accept it at face value. But the Mbuti? Do they have stories of "evil beings?" I don't know. Surely they must. How else to explain the urge to be stingy that comes over people? For them the Forest is Mother and Father, source of Life and all good things. But evil things might live in the forest. I just don't know.

The !Kung have evil beings in the myths. Or they have beings that behave evilly. Hyena, for example. Of course, Hyena is only following his nature, just as Rabbit is only following his. It isn't necessarily considered "evil" by them, the way we would consider it, any more than the scorpion is evil for stinging. So I'm doubting this hypothesis that evil always precedes good, universally. As we've defined it. Which actually is what another of Maguire's characters says, "It is at the very least a matter of definitions" p.231.

One thing I wonder about – in societies with religions like Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., where the philosophy is non-dualist, or monistic, is it only the monks and priests and ascetics who really get that? While the masses go right on believing in devils, witches, demons and ogres? It seems the latter is more true, because look at the rich and fascinating body of evil (and good) deities, heroes, spirits, legends and magical creatures throughout Asia. Or do people kind of believe both things simultaneously, even though they contradict each other? As Holland et al quote somebody (and I cited in my dissertation but can't remember right now who said it originally) – one of the key hallmarks of human thinking is our ability to believe two or more mutually contradictory things.

This reminds me that I need to write more, soon, about the new stuff I've been learning about how brains work, which is not in a linear, analog kind of way. All our ideas about us being like computers are basically wrong. What I began to see awhile ago, about thinking metaphorically, is actually true. Means a lot of our thinking is non-linguistic, which has serious implications for how I conceptualize and how I teach about the development of language, cognition and emotion. Oops – almost to Detroit so I'll have to expand this later.

Spring 2008

February 20

On the way to New Orleans, but I've got some things to say about Genesis. Did I tell you about Biallas' interpretation? I'd forgotten it, all this time, or had forgotten to let it affect me. A lot of what I learned in my religion courses in college I've continued to apply to all religions BUT Christianity. Hmm – fair treatment, huh?

Biallas points out, much in line with my insights in Dec/Jan, that the "fruit of the Tree of Knowledge" and the Serpent's tempation are gifts – boons to humankind. When we analyze that story, of course it is obvious that if God is omnipotent and omniscient, then he put the Tree there, He created humans with a thirst for knowledge, and he had to know what would happen. Hard to argue with.

The problem is with interpretation and how we see the serpent. Christians – building largely but not wholly on Jewish tradition, have chosen to see the Serpent as an evil being, and the temptation as a test that we fail. So we need to be punished. This is an archetype – we keep acting out this story; it tells us our nature and our relationship with God.

What if instead you read the story as one in which God, knowing humans as he does, knows the best way to get them to do something is to forbid them it? So He sets up the whole situation to entice us into a world of intellectual stimulation, moral responsibility and choice, instead of just sitting on our butts enjoying the good life? The result isn't punishment – its growth. Yahweh isn't vengeful; he's an Intelligent Designer, pushing us toward our greater consciousness.

OK, so I read and thought all of that over break. Now I want to report some new stuff.

I'm reading The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn. Wonderful! Will fill in plot later. He discusses two rabbinic commentaries on the creation story (and others) in Genesis; That of Rashi and of a modern scholar, Friedman.

Two points. One, his own excellent question as a child – why does knowledge come on a tree? Why not a river? A flower? A stone? He ends up concluding it has to be a gowing, living, developing thing, like learning itself. Still, why a tree and not a flower? Tree has longevity and statliness I guess, is not frivolous. But there are an awful lot of flowers that one could hardly accuse of frivolity.

Two – All rabbinic commentators apparently accept that it was a fig tree, because Adam and Eve wrapped themselves with fig leaves! That flummoxes me. Where is the logic? Rabbis are supposed to have laid the groundwork for symbolic logic, logical reasoning in general in the West. And maybe Mendelsohn is overstating. But Rashi, widely considered one of the greatest, wisest, most important commentators, he says about the fig leaves: "By the very thing with which they were ruined, they were corrected." Since God made clothes for them. But maybe the Tree of Knowledge had tiny leaves, so they had to use a different tree . . . right? Geez! Else why would one be called "fig" and the other "Tree of Knowledge"?

Earlier, Mendelsohn points out something super important in the whole "origins" arguments. The Hebrew text of the beginning of the Torah is not "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth" What it says is:

Bereishit bara Elohim et-hashamayim v'et ha'aretz.

"In the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth . . ." That little change in emphasis is just gigantic.

March 1

I've just finished Lost. Last night and many times while reading it I had to put the book aside and weep. Mendlesohn's story is interspersed with his musings on the Torah. More correctly, on the parashah, the weekly readings of Genesis. Thinking about what happens, even just from the Creation through the birth of Jacob, I do not see how one can conclude that Yahweh is a "good" God.

Clearly the stories are meant to tell his people, his followers, who He is and what He expects of them. Let them know what kind of God they've got themselves mixed up with. And it is the story of a very specific relationship; this one god watches and chooses this one man, and tests him, and decides he has the right qualities. The qualities this particular god is looking for. So he makes a covenant with him. Forevermore, Yahweh and Abraham will be bound together, along with all of Abraham's decendents.

The Torah is a record, and an explanation, and maybe like a manual. Like a book you would leave for your successor about how to get along with a cranky and persnickety boss. And for a very long time, neither the Jews nor anyone else claimed it was anything more. You have your gods; we have ours. You have your ways; we have ours. No claims to universal truths and righteousness. Just deep intimacy and relatedness, trust and interdependency. Why will we get the land of Canaan? Not because it is the "just," the "right" thing to happen, but because Yahweh is our champion and is more powerful.

If you read the Torah in this way and in this way only, can you remain untroubled. Because if you are looking for Yahweh to be just, kind, fair or good – forget it. Even to be consistent. The only way in which he is consistent is that he demands obedience and loyalty. He is always a jealous god. But he is absolutely horrified that Cain killed his brother Abel. One human murdering another is such a terrible abomination. Then just a little while later he's commanding Abraham to murder his own son. Of course he prevents that, but inbetween, Yahweh himself has annihilated all of humankind except Noah and his family (even babies, even children), and has killed every living being in Sodom and Gomorrah. Again, there had to have been innocent infants and children in those cities.

So if these stories are myths to teach us the nature of God, I think they teach that Yahweh is/was a partisan of the family of Abraham, who insisted on loyalty and defined goodness as obedience to himself – much as people generally did define things at the time. In other words, a God of the time and place. A god created for and by the people. A god that should never have been taken out of that context and made universal. Not without a serious makeover.

Then we come to the horrors of the Holocaust. No. I do not believe a living Yahweh, who had really Chosen these people, would stand by and allow that to happen. If he would, he's not good. A god who intervenes in history – Egypt, Canaan, Jericho, Jerusalem, etc. – choosing NOT to intervene in Germany? There is no possible sin big enough for a good god. These were children. All of them. Even the elderly. They were innocent as infants in comparison to what was done to them. No one with even half a tiny bit of goodness would allow it, who had the power to stop it.

So if there is no Yahweh, there is no Jesus. Not as Savior. Which I already believed. But its amazing how deeply rooted the habit of such belief is. And I guess its that no matter how much I want to just walk away from monotheism altogether and stop thinking about it, I can't. I live in a culture in which there is no escape. One is constantly and incessantly bombarded with it.

January 2008

Here's an old one while I'm busy. Just two more after this one. Then what will I do for a quick fix?

January 9, 2008

I've just finished Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials" trilogy. There has been a lot of talk about the books and the movie they've already made of the first one. I was attracted to it when I first saw the trailer; it looked like a fun fantasy. I had no idea what the story was. Then came the talk about banning the books, or reserving them for adults only (he wrote them for teens, tho he can't have been aiming for much younger than 14). A school district in a nearby city pulled them from their library for a time. I think they put them back. But the Archbishop for this region said he thought they ought to be required reading.

When our friend (whose books I first started reading, as she was visiting) first told me some of the story, she only told me the most simple levels of the story. And I suppose that is the level at which many readers will read them. I assumed from her description that the trouble was over the fact that in the world he's created – or one of them – the humans all have daemons. Now, he's doing something far different here than Davies or anyone else I know of has done with the concept, but in fact it so resonates with what I myself was just writing and thinking about. Pullman's daemons are not "other." They are a part of us, a physical manifestation of our spirit. We find out later in the story that humans have three parts – body, spirit and soul. In Lyra's, the heroine's world, spirits take animal form, usually opposite sex, so they are also kind of our anima/animus.

So, since the folks in the film all speak with British accents, they pronounce the word more like "demon" (according to my friend), and the idea that every human has a sort of guardian demon, rathen than a guardian angel, and that demon's aren't all bad – too much for the "Christian" public to handle. Plus the church is portrayed in a negative light, tho not too terribly so in the first book. Or is it?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I thought the hullabaloo was about daemons, and it may have been, so far. If and when they make the rest of the movies, there'll be some serious banning and book burning going on. Why? First, let me say I think the books are extraordinarily well done. A truly fascinating, plausible, intriguing, thought-provoking story with characters so finely drawn I feel I really love them. And it has complicated physics, philosophy and theology, and it is written such that teens can understand it. And it is ballsy as hell. Literally.

The central argument of the books is that God, if he exists, has done terrible things to us, and must be destroyed. All of history has been a battle between wisdom and stupidity, with God using his power and the power of his church (es) to keep people stupid. God is petty, mean, envious, and cruel. He must be overthrown. Lyra's father assembles an army from many worlds for the second battle for heaven. As it turns out, God turned things over to Metatron long ago, and God himself is a frail, befuddled ancient of days, who falls apart into atoms as soon as he's exposed to air.

So what was god? Was he the creator of the heaven and eath, etc.? Not at all.

January 10

The world(s) were created, came into being, in an unexplained way. Probably thru the big bang or a similar process, and life began in the way modern evolution describes. But Pullman posits an element that in some worlds is called Dust, some Shadows, and in ours, Dark Matter. It is conscious. And where consciousness arises, or minds capable of it, Dust is attracted – created even. I'm still not completely sure which comes first. Anyway, long before there were humans in our universe, there were beings made of pure Spirit, or consciousness, or something. Angels. Made of something quite different from us, in that they have no real bodies, tho they do have forms, and as the Bible faithfully records, they were able to take the form of humans later and come and mate/have sex with human women.

One of the earliest angels, and smartest, was able to convince the later angels that he had created them – a bald faced lie – and therefore had authority over them. He claimed credit for having created everything – not just the angels but the universe and all that was in it. One of the other early-born/come-into being angels knew that for the lie it was, and she gathered a force around her who rebelled against the self-proclaimed Authority. Of course they lost, but they were not destroyed, and they've been fighting an underground, guerilla war for Wisdom and freedom ever since, against Stupidity and Authority/control. Since the Authority, God, won, he can place his people in all the positions of power, and thus all rulers (secular and religious) ultimately are on the side of Stupidity. Even if they are engaged in research, it is with one eye closed and one hand tied behind them, because they can't really search for the truth, seeing as how all their power rests on a lie.

The books, therefore, are deeply heretical. To any and all religions. They teach children to doubt whether there is a god, to wonder, if there is, if he might be a bad guy, and they encourage children to mistrust all agents of all churches and governments. And there are homosexual angels, good witches, and the idea that Eve's Fall is the greatest boon to all humankind. A wonderful trilogy! I think all teens should read it.

Not because I want them all to be little atheists, but because they should all have at least one time in their lives where they are given an opportunity to seriously question their faith. They ought to have some tools, some complexity, with which to do that.

In the meantime, I read Connie Willis' Passages, about near-death experiences, and it also spurred some new thinking. Right now I'm reading Annie Proulx's Postcard's. But I have got to get to work.

Why I Don't Know My Body

I've been putting off writing this post. I think its because the subject could get so bogged down in the history of Western thought. I mean, the splitting of the mind/soul/body has long roots in Western philosophy and culture. But I don't necessarily want to go there. Can we take that as read?

Of course that is an important part of my cultural training. What's a body? Who cares? It is just something to cart around your soul, which is the only part that matters to God, and houses your mind. Of course, the body can get you into all sorts of trouble, and is a source of sin, if anything. Sure, there are references in Christianity to the body being the temple of God, but except for its use in exhortations to quit (or never take up) smoking, avoid promiscuous sex, exercise restraint in use of alcohol - in short, don't allow the body to lead you into sin - I don't recall anyone ever taking the "body as temple" thing too seriously.

And then in my parents I had examples of downplaying or outright ignoring messages from the body. Dad thought orange juice ought to cure whatever ailed you. He is one of those people that just never gets sick; I think the first time I ever saw him with even a head cold he was in his fifties or sixties. Mom is a different story. She has had so many different kinds of pain - severe pain - that she developed her own methods for dealing with it. One never knows what is in another's head or heart, and I don't know for sure how she coped. But to me it seemed that she coped mainly by just powering through. The lesson I learned, whether it was what was intended or not, was definitely an overwhelming "IGNORE THE BODY - IT IS IRRELEVANT". If it gets in your way - if it is weak, or painful, or sick, or deficient, just ignore it. Push it away and pretend it isn't there. That's what I took away.

More - I saw Mom turn inward and "upward" - turn to God for assistance with her pain. So what it looked like was that one should kind of retreat from the body and ask God for help in dealing with it. The idea of making friends with the pain, or even with one's body was never introduced to me. To be fair - that could be because the notion is so obvious to both parents that it never occured to them to say outloud. But I never got that message.

So, between the deep philosophical divide provided by our culture, the religion and the socialization provided by my parents, there was a pretty strong foundation for pushing away unpleasantnesses of the flesh.

Then I was molested. And then I was raped and beaten. These events drove further wedges between my self and my body. For years afterword - more than a decade actually - I did not feel that I even lived in my body. It took a lot of work in therapy just to inhabit my skin, to know that gnawing pain in the belly meant hunger, or to notice that my arm or leg had been asleep for some time.

That killed any athleticism I might have had, too. I was going to say that I had never had any attraction to sports, or had not a single athletic bone in my body. But that isn't true. I reveled in the suppleness and strength of my body as a child. I loved riding horses and hiking and swimming. I was on the swim team, in fact. I roller-skated with passion. I loved to ride my bike; I mean loved. I remember the feeling of balance and speed and grace that both bikes and skates provided. But the development of breasts and the dark attraction of evil men stole that innocent pleasure away, and I never regained it. Pleasure in the body turned to deep, deep shame.

So really it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that I deal with pain by ignoring it, and that I do not feel like my head, soul, heart, mind, breath, body, identity and self are integrated into a complex and complete whole. It should not be shock to anyone that my search for wholeness took place almost totally in my head. Come to think of it, except for extremists, what role does Christianity have for the body? In Catholic ritual there is at least kneeling, but in Protestant worship services the closest one gets is standing and sitting. I do remember one of the 12-step groups I went to introduced me to the idea of kneeling, which I found very useful. But where has that idea gone in American Christianity? There is no prostrating oneself before the Lord in public or in private. Do any children still kneel by the bed to say their prayers? I was not taught to kneel; we said our prayers laying down. But I digress.

I came to Hinduism - or the Sanatana Dharma - in ways that are familiar to anyone who has been reading this blog. All through scripture and study and pondering and thinking. And there is room for that - that's fine. Plenty of respect for study of scripture in this religion, and a whole path - jnana yoga - dedicated to pondering (in the mind) the difference between the self and the Self. But somehow, I guess for all the reasons I've detailed here and maybe others I haven't figured out or spelled out, I kind of forgot, or just plain skipped over, this fact:

As I studied all of the different paths, karma, jnana, bhakti and raja, and tried to determine which was for me, or how best to combine them in ways that fit my self this life - I noted that all presuppose certain things, like adopting or practicing the yamas and niyamas. But I conveniently just didn't see or notice that all paths presuppose the practice of pranayama and asana, too. Of hatha yoga, in other words. How? Now that I can see it, it is so hard to understand how I could have NOT seen that!!

I had been going around for a month thinking about blind spots. Since Christmas I had been praying for God/brahman to show me whatever I needed to see about my self that I couldn't see. And there in late January, all of a sudden it hit me, and it was an epiphany, a revelation. Yoga! I am supposed to be doing yoga!

I guess that was even before I had surgery, because I had gone to the library and checked out a few books. And it was standing in the library looking through the selection that I realized another reason that I had avoided the conclusion that I should take up asana practice (asana = posture) as part of my overall spiritual development: there is a tremendous amount of junk out there.

I have to be really careful about being a spiritual snob; I realize that wisdom can come from the strangest and most unexpected places. For example, one of the best books I got first was written by a fashion model!!! Shock! I forced myself to give it a try just because my first instinct was to snort and boy did I get taught a big lesson. Christine Turlington has certainly done her homework and she knows a lot more about hatha yoga than I will for a long, long time. I wanted to be picky with her about some of the other parts of her book - like the history and scripture parts - but there wasn't that much to pick at, really. Moreover, I learned a lot about grace and humility; learning to love one's body for what it is, healing and peace.

That was an exception. There were so many books on the shelf about "power yoga" and "speed yoga" and "yoga for executives" and other titles that just struck me as oxymorons. Opening them, they were utterly stripped of everything meaningful. They were teaching yoga poses - marginally - if you stretch the term past its meaning - but nothing else about what yoga is. Is it yoga if your sole purpose is to lose weight or make money, and you have sped it up so that there is no time for reflection or contemplation? Why bother? Why not just stick to aerobics?

I guess the search for yoga lessons and teachers is a whole 'nother post.

What's relevant for now is that I had finally seen the light. I'd woken up and realized that there was a way, had always been a way right in front of me, interwoven into the very scriptures I read every day, to connect with my long-lost body, befriend it, and begin to be whole. That there might just be a path to true health for me, a way for mind, body and self to procede together rather than fighting against one another. It really did feel like coming home.

April 25-26, 2007

I wish I could say I had truly mastered some of the things I figured out and wrote in this journal entry nearly two years ago. As I sit here today, trying to recover from the latest and by-far-the-hardest surgery, I am not finding it too easy to avoid labeling pain as "bad" and non-pain as "good." I've also gotten pretty bad about wishing the weather would change. The winters seem to go on and on, and I am so eager for spring to come, and to create flower and vegetable beds and watch green things grow. So it is good to re-read the Gita and my own thoughts about it. To remember that I once was capable of accepting things as they are. And then I'm going to order seeds, because there is nothing wrong with making plans - right? And some of these little guys can get started 8 weeks before the last frost : )

April 25, 2007

Fourth Teaching

In stanza 12, Krishna promises to devote himself to those who seek him. He then moves to a discussion of action.

I desire no fruits of actions,

And actions do not defile me;

One who knows this about me

Is not bound by actions (karma).

He acknowledges that the whole thing is confusing and obscure, but promises to reveal its meaning.

A man who sees inaction in action

And action in inaction

Has understanding among men,

Disciplined in all action he performs.

So, one who understands how people can act – go thru daily life – and not attract or accumulate karma, as well as those who, sitting quietly refusing to move – if undisciplined are still acting/attracting karma, is the person we want to be.

"When his plans lack constructs of desire" v. 19 that's a helpful phrase. It answers the question "How does one plan for the future, work toward goals, without there being some desire, some preference for one outcome over another?" Planning is okay, we somehow just need to not build desire and preference into them.

Verses, or stanzas 20-22 are helpful too. They provide a more detailed picture of what one should be like. More correctly, what wisdom looks like. But it seems impossible to attain! How can I teach myself to have no hope? No hope that J gets a job? No hope that my students learn from me? Perform actions only with my body. I think I see what that might mean, but cannot imagine it. v. 22:

Content with whatever comes by chance,

Beyond dualities, free from envy,

Impartial to failure and success,

He is not bound even when he acts.

It is one thing to be content with the weather. It actually took some work on my part, but I no longer complain about the weather, even inside. I take each day however it is and enjoy it, appreciate it. And there are some other areas I'm getting better at accepting whatever comes. But my Dad marrying someone he barely knows, my husband being rejected once again? These are hard! I'm learning not to label pain as bad, and to move beyond dualities in other arenas. But Bush and the horrors he's perpetrating in the world. Or even if we just looked at what his administration had done to science! I still strongly see them as "bad". Very bad.

Envy is not my biggest sin, but I do still feel it – about houses and clothes, and honors/awards/recognition. This brings me to that last one, about being impartial to success and failure. Wow. How does one ever get to that place?

The answer, reading the rest of this teaching, appears to be in sacrifice. Krishna explains all the different ways one can sacrifice. One can do it through ritual, the ancient fire rites of the Vedas. One can do it through contemplation – jnana yoga. One can do it through the discipline of raja yoga. One can become an ascetic, forgoing all earthly pleasures. Or through the discipline of breathing, or through fasting.

v. 32 Many forms of sacrifice

Expand toward the infinite spirit [Brahman]

Know that the source of them all

Is action, and you will be free

Know it by humble submission

By asking questions, and by service;

Wise men who see reality

Will give you knowledge.

It does seem like it would be a lot easier if I had a teacher, a wise person to whom I could turn, and to whom I could offer my service. But look at me – would it make any difference? I have wise teachers in books, who all tell me the same thing. Meditate!!!!! And yet I keep finding/making excuses for not doing it.

I think I am waiting for the end of the semester to get serious about it. Well then, I better make a promise. I believe in it. I believe it will change my life. I can think of it as an act of devotion. A real sacrifice that I can make that will move me closer to the person I want to be.

April 26

Today I'll complete my contemplation of the fouth teaching (for now). The great question of how to keep acting without incurring debt, without huring the earth or other people. But I am not feeling satisfied, or compelled to read and study. Maybe it isn't what I'm having the most trouble with? What am I struggling with most? With discipline. And with accepting what is, living in the present. And there have been words that speak directly to me about these issues, and offer some help.

Remember Krishna was explaining that one moves toward contentment, thru/beyond dualities by sacrifice. He listed all the ways we can sacrifice – tie that together with the earlier ideas about seeing God in everyone – all of one's small acts of kindness through the day, acts of love and service toward my husband and even those I don't like are all sacrifices, made in devotion to Krishna.

Striking how similar it is to Christianity, isn't it? The Christian saints and mystics knew that peace comes from making one's whole life a sacrifice. Offering up every thought and deed to God. And of course it is the same in Islam, too, and Judaism.

Krishna says, "Sacrifice in knowledge is better than sacrifice with natural objects" in v. 33. What exactly does this mean? It is followed by the exhortation to find a teacher, and submit oneself to them, as I noted yesterday. He means jnana knowledge, which is the knowledge of how things Really are, who oneself is. And offers such hope:

Even if you are the most evil

Of all sinners,

You will cross over all evil

On the raft of knowledge.

Just as in Christ's teaching, no one is lost.

There is no one and no sin that is unforgivable. But instead of asking for forgiveness, the answer and hope Krishna provides is that you can save yourself through knowledge. The only way one can get this knowledge is through meditation.

No purifier equals knowledge,

And in time

The man of perfect discipline

Discovers this in his own spirit

Faithful, intent, his senses

Subdued, he gains knowledge;

Gaining knowledge,

He soon finds perfect peace.

This might be jibberish if I didn't have other knowledge. What I believe he is saying is that the knowledge of jnana yoga is that the self is the Self; knowledge = knowing and identifying with one's eternal spirit, knowing one is god and has access to all the love, power, knowledge and skill of God, within one's Self.

But the only way to reach this understanding in anything but an intellectual way is through one-pointed contemplation, dedicated mindfulness. Meditation, in fact. If one is disciplined enough to practice this one-pointed mindfulness, one will discover one's Atman, the god-inside. It isn't a matter of faith or belief, if you are disciplined, this will happen.

Be faithful, not in terms of believing, but in doing. Faithfully meditate, every day. Be intent, mindful, concentrated, use effort. Subdue your senses – they do not need to be in charge – suggesting you should scratch, eat food, listen to a car going by, etc.

So sever the ignorant doubt

In your heart with the sword

Of Self-knowledge, Arjuna!

Observe your discipline! Arise!

When will I heed the call? I want what is promised – when oh when will I sit myself down and take it?

July 25 – Nov 27, 2007

Spring Break is over, and I've got a lot going on again. I'm going to have a CT scan this Friday to determine if I need surgery right away. Lots of pain, life has felt like a struggle. I'm grateful for yoga and for the Gitas. By the way, big sister, I got the Mitchell translation of the B. Gita this week : )

For now, here is some old stuff; there are only about four more of them.

July 25, 2007

One of my other books from the library is The Gospel According to Judas, by Jeffrey Archer, and no, it is not the Judas Gospel. It is a novel, written in the form of a gospel. But it is an attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of the red-headed apostle. Unlike the actual gospel, this novel does not have Jesus ask Judas to betray him, to set free his spirit, or begin his transformation, or whatever. No, instead he has Judas as first a disciple of John the Baptist (which is from the Gospel of John, I believe).

Following John the Baptist's advice, he joins Jesus, believing him to be the Messiah who will lead them in kicking out the Romans. Over time, as Jesus refuses to amass an army or wealth, or even to publicize his being the messiah, Judas has doubts. He believes Jesus is a man of God, but not the Messiah. He doesn't want Jesus to get into trouble, and through the trickery of a Scribe who pretends to want also to save Jesus, he agrees to identify him. He believes the Scribe will help him hustle Jesus out of the city and keep him safe. He is horrified at what actually happens, and at the cowardice of the other apostles. He doesn't hang around, and so he doesn't know, but does not believe that Jesus rose from the dead, doesn't believe he was either the Son of God or the Messiah, and denies all of the other nature miracles.

In my opinion, it wasn't very well done. It didn't add much in the way of new understanding; didn't even include or make as much use as it could have of things in the gospels that would have supported the story. Very disappointing. I'm intrigued, though, by all of the energy and effort that is currently going into reinterpreting Judas.

July 26

In Brother Odd (Dean Koonz), finished yesterday around 1:30, there is a physicist who penetrates below the level of quantum foam and finds that reality is constructed of thought waves. God's thought. So he makes a machine that reads his thought waves and produces a hideous imitation of life, instead of getting that we ourselves create reality, as we are God's mind, God's thought waves – with our thought.

And in Ghostwritten [David Mitchell – well-crafted first novel that is hard to describe. You'll have to check it out for yourselves. It weaves together the stories of several seemingly random lives – scattered across the globe – brings multiple cultures to life, all of them glaringly up-to-date, enmeshed in the world of today and not buried in some nostalgic yesteryear; characters were real even when we only saw them briefly – I guess what I'm trying to say is that he never reproduced stereotypes] I came across a passing reference that made it clear that it is au currant to have conversations with new acquaintances in which the similarities between Eastern philosophy and quantum physics are established. Apparently "everyone" knows this now. So why not wholesale conversion?

Probably because people don't actually spend that much time thinking about it. Especially in Great Britain where the Church of England is almost a secular institution and people attend out of patriotism and a sense of nationality, not faith. I'm sometimes surprised to find out how little even the members of my own family think about these things. Maybe I am really a weirdo.

August 20

Have a great deal of pain. I haven't felt like writing at all. Just get up, meditate, wait for the pain meds to kick in, and go to work, where I stay until I'm too exhausted to do any more. Come home. Rest.

September 1

I don't know if I'll take up writing regularly here or not. I haven't seen the point lately at all. With 8 am classes twice a week, I'll have to get up and go, and it is more important to do the spiritual work. I can read the Gitas and Upanishads without writing about them. In fact, I think it might be better for me to read them without writing about them for awhile.

I did this for the first two months of the semester – read and meditated each morning. But as the days got busier and busier, and my work load got heavier, and the pain and stress grew worse, I dropped the reading, and I began to miss meditation sessions here and there. I forgot to rely on the mantra quite as often . . .

November 27

1:30 am. Can't sleep. Can't possibly catch you up and am not even going to try. But as I lay here, a thousand thoughts spinning around at least 30 poles, it occurs to me that I am going about some things in a very wrong-headed way. Well, it has occurred to me before. Now I am convinced. Maybe writing it will give me peace enough to sleep.

First, where has the spiritual gone? How much of the day is given over to joy? If I make no room for miracles and joyfulness, how can any enter? I must get back to daily meditation and nightly reading of scripture. My spirit is about sucked dry.

[Rest is all course-related]

Jesus in Context – April 6, 2007

Things are moving along slowly here – it is bitter cold, but we haven't had much more accumulation. I have been spending most of my time typing up these old journals; my I used to write an awful lot every day! How did I find so much time? I suppose now I just waste that same time each morning. Anyway, this next installment is missing several pages of its beginning – I've looked all over and can't figure out what I could possible have written on. Sorry! The next journal begins with a statement that I'd already been writing for 4 hours that morning, and then I still went on and on . . . well, you'll see.

April 6, 2007

[First part missing, as I had to switch to new journal]

What context was Jesus born into? If he was one of many wise souls that for whatever reason – perhaps living many lives, perhaps never having fully parted from the Source, whatever – he was born wiser than other men. But instead of being born into a context of shamanism – where he would have believed himself able to communicate with spirits – or Hinduism – where he would have believed himself at the end of many lives full of learning, or Buddhism – where he would have believed himself less attached, or Taoism – where he would have felt himself in closer harmony with the Tao, he was born into the context of Judaism. And Judaism would have – did – provide him with a history of prophets who spoke for Yahweh, who had come to be understood as the One God, one that had a special relationship with the Jews. And he would have been taught the tradition of the Messiah, one who would come and save the people.

And so when he came to understand himself as different, when he saw answers to dilemmas so clearly, when he felt his close tie to the Source, the Infinite Absolute, he would have interpreted that through the tools given him by his culture.

The compassion he felt for others was surely the loving God he'd been taught to adore. Being a wise soul, close to the Source, he knew the same things Sidhartha, Lao-tzu, Patanjali and the other Hindus knew. He had the same vision of what people were and what they needed to do, how they needed to feel. They all say the same things because they are all right. They are just seeing it through different filters, and they are only able, or they choose, to communicate that same message in culturally appropriate ways.

To bring this rambling discussion home to where it started, the text (Tao te Ching, 72) says "Therefore the Master steps back so that people won't be confused. He teaches without a teaching so that people will have nothing to learn." So there may be many other people born close to the Source, but they lived their lives and were examples to those they met, but they never collected a following, never had their sayings recorded, because they didn't say anything. They knew not to provide the people with anything to learn.

Jesus, in addition to being born into a time that sorely needed some direction (maybe – but there were other times that were worse) was born into a tradition in which those who spoke to god
said they did. Where god's talking or connecting to someone was interpreted as a lesson. There must be a reason for such a person to exist. So Jesus would "naturally" have understood his closeness to God as a reason for him to speak to people.

I also think this fits with my image of Jesus from the gospels as someone searching for his identity. Why was he so close to God? Why did God's love pour through him and out to others so easily? When he asks "Who do you say that I am?" I believe he's trying to understand himself, not teach a lesson.

So is it a bad thing to have a teaching? Looked at objectively, I think you have to conclude "yes." Look at what's happened as a result of Jesus' teaching. So much blood shed. So much hatred spewed. So much knowledge lost. Of course Christians will say that is highly regrettable, and some will say "but Jesus words must be followed!" And of course, each are referring to a different set of words. And don't forget, there will be rewards in heaven for those who were mistreated or faithful despite their spilled blood. Does the good done in Jesus' name make up for it? I kind of doubt it, because, as Lao-tzu says, if you just leave people alone, they'll mostly be good. People would have had these generous, kind and loving impulses anyway.

To be fair, Jesus may have ralized that. He didn't write a book, after all. He didn't give people verses to memorize. Or even rules to follow! Wow. No, he left a group of people that he had taght. And in fact, he tells people that others will convert because of your example, not your words. He said he left himself in the people, as they would now love one another and be close the Source themselves.

And it seems like the apostles really tried. They did live in communes, sharing equally. Their love for one another and their peaceful co-existence drew converts. They taught without a teaching.

Who was it who decided to travel around spreading the word? The very first was probably some one else, because a lot didn't want to just live quietly; it was Good News and they wanted to share it. But there is no argument that it was Paul who did most of the spreading. He is the one who wrote letters, who made it a "teaching." And his friend then wrote more of the history. Paul, who never met Jesus. Paul, who was hungry for the Truth, but perhaps never really knew it. If this is even remotely true, it is really sad.

Another thing, though sages are supposed to be silent, some in each tradition haven't been, or we wouldn't have any of their sayings. But – I think because of the tradition within which it was interpreted, not what Jesus actually said – the teachings of Jesus have inspired more hatred and diviseviness than any other holy text. That's partly because of scale – more people have read or heard the Bible than, say the texts of Zoroaster, which I haven't read but I get the impression might inspire quite a lot of division.

But think of the Pali Canon, the Tao te Ching and the I Ching. The Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita and the other Gitas, the Upanishads. Except for the story parts, all of these texts say "See for yourself." It is only the Semitic texts that claim they represent the ONLY truth, that you must believe them on faith alone, and that if you don't, you are utterly outcast. And only the Christian interpretation says that the punishment is for everyone and will be eternal.

The teachings of all the other close-to-the-Source people say or imply that there are other paths to the center, but this one works. How do you know it works? Because you try it. This is why I believe Jesus' words have been changed. Even when I consider his context, and the fact that he, like Buddha Gotama, may have considered himself the only one close to God/It. Even so, I think Jesus believed the others could become like him. I believe that from the words we have, reputed to be his, from the texts. If he hadn't believed in them, and in the power of his message, why would he bother trying to teach them anything?

So with a verse like, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life . . . "I believe Jesus meant the above. By that point he was a bridge. But he wanted them to BE like him in the important ways, and he wasn't saying there were NO other ways. He might actually have said "there is no other way to the Father but by me," and meant there is no quick way, no short cuts, because he knew human nature, and knew we would want something easy.

The translator's notes [for the Tao te Ching] say: "Therefore the Master steps back"; he doesn't act as guru or Messiah, because he doesn't want to keep people dependent on him, and thus spiritually immature. When people start to treat him like a holy man, he nips their adoration in the bud and points them to their inner messiah.

Ha! I'm so smart! I'd have to check the gospels, but it seems to me that some of the things Jesus said might be interpreted that way, if you can strip away the interpretation in which they have been embedded which assume he's a Messiah.

I mean, if a different group of people, non-Jews, were told the exact same things and treated the exact same way by Jesus, would they have come up with the idea that he was a savior? Or would they have seen him as a teacher like the Buddha or one of the Hindu gurus? I had that feeling this summer when I was studying the gospels. But I felt like I was trying to reach through smoky glass. Like there is a really different Jesus in there, but I couldn't reach him to pull him out.

Oh brother. That sounds like I'm trying be, or think I am Jesus' savior. If that were true, would that be one of those sins against the Spirit? I just mean that as I read the gospels I get the feeling that almost no one around him gets what he's saying. And like the Buddha, he gets a little frustrated because they just don't listen, or listening, they just don't hear. And I wonder if that's because he was saying a lot of things completely out of their experience, and since he was killed so early in his teaching career, he never really had time to explain it to them in a way they could understand. They just had to do the best they could, filtering what he said through their own knowledge and experience, their Jewish tradition and context.

Old Testament Families

Following up on what I said in my last post, I am getting bored with my old journals, and have decided to get pickier about what I post. I am mainly going to follow the path I set out on when I began a letter to my mother a few years ago – to try to explain what I believe and why I believe it and how I came to believe it. Those things that are particulary relevant to that path, I'll go ahead and type up. And if there are other things – like this book review and the thoughts it spurred, or other major things, I'll add those as well.

March 24

I have to talk some more about religion. Last night I finished Rachel and Leah, and saw that he was unable to tell the whole story so there will be a fourth book, Wives of Israel. I felt like this book was not as good at evoking and explaining early Hebrew culture as the last ones, but maybe he felt he'd already set up the context. I kept having the feeling that he was more interested in explaining how polygyny might work, and there was a note of justification. I ended up feeling this was less about Hebrews than Mormons. Some examples – the entire relationship between Jacob and all the relevant women except Rachel centers on the reading of the Holy Word, the writen scriptures. Now that is likely supposed to be the foundation of family life for Mormons, but we are talking about the grandson of Abraham. He is thought to have lived c. 2100 BCE. So call it 2000-1900, generously allowing the Biblical reports of Abraham's age at Isaac's birth.

I believe this is about when Egyptians are developing their heiroglyphics – I'd have to check about all those languages (Sumerian cuneiform, etc.). What is importat is that even the dogged believers in Moses having written the Penteteuch personally don't put the date any earlier than 1400 BCE. He might have used earlier sources, they say, but come on, Hebrews writing their own distinct language (not pictographic, by the way, but phonetic) in 1900 BCE? And they are already ancient, according to Card. How ancient could they be, if Abraham was the first Patriarch, first one to make people realize they needed any history, and you are only one generation between you and that Patriarch? It just doesn't make any sense.

It wouldn't be such a problem for the book if it was just an occasional reference to a few holy writings. But the story doesn't work without it. Jacob and Rachel's relationship develops through their common interest in herding. Leah, though, would have had no reason to even see him except Card makes the "birthright" of Abraham this large collection of holy books. Lean and one of her future concubines, Bilhah, come to Jacob to learn the scriptures, and they learn to read and write and Bilhah becomes a scribe, copying all the texts.

He, Card, uses these books as a way to explain what happens in the Biblical story such that the people involved are all essentially good. I re-read the relevant part of Genesis last night and it is as I recalled – full of trickery, deceit, betrayal, jealousy, bickering, competition and exploitation. Hard to tell it in such a way that the people are good and their behaviors justified.

I recall being troubled with the story in childhood, but I don't recall what my parents said, if anything, to help me understand it. It is hard to explain away. Jacob makes a deal with Laban for Rachel's hand. He works 7 years for her in brideservice, and then Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah, the older sister with weak eyes. Then Laban says he'll give him Rachel, too, if Jacob does another 7 years. And after that, Laban continues to change the terms of the deals he makes with Jacob – Jacob says "10 times"!!!

As a child, I of course would have been unfamiliar with polygyny and bridewealth to begin with, making it harder to get a grasp on this story, to tease apart what is cultural and what is people behaving badly. But as an anthropologist, I am very familiar with many different societies who practice either or both, and with pastoralist cultures in general. Pastoralist, patrilineal cultures wherein sororal polygyny is practiced and either bridewealth or brideservice is paid also generally have an economic system of balanced reciprocity. The idea of balance in exchanges permeates the entire ideology (in fact, that is at base what bridewealth is – compensation for removing the valuable bride and her future labor and children from her household) and makes possible all kinds of other ideological and symbolic exchanges like sacrifice. But the point is – you DON'T TRICK PEOPLE OR GO BACK ON YOUR WORD!!!!! Not if you care about your family's good name. Not if you ever want to do business or marry any one else in your family or graze your sheep or water your cattle, etc. I mean, this is an absolutely unheard of, terrible, wrong, evil thing to do. Ask anyone living in a pastoralist society.

So Laban is a sneaky, lying, exploitative man. But Jacob is no better – he lied and deceived his own father in order to steal his elder brother's birthright and inheritance. One might think he's gotten what he deserves.

But what about the sisters? What did they do to be punished this way? Poor Leah, who is unwanted but forced to marry a man who is in love with her sister. Poor Rachel, who was expecting to be the sole or at least first wife of her beloved, who loves her in return. Now she is second wife, and then Leah gets all the first babies as her consolation. The two sisters get into a pissing (well, birthing) match to see who can have most sons and therefore their husband's love. They throw their handmaidens at him and claim their children as their own, in a way. Rachel has to wait and wait for her first child, and then her second one kills her in childbirth.

Leah has lots of sons, and more through her servant, and yet as soon as Rachel has one, she gets special treatment, as does her son. All those sons grow up to be pretty nasty characters, infected with the terrible jealousy, bitterness and pain of ther mothers' competition. All but the youngest, Joseph, who is spoiled by his father (Rachel's child, after all), but becomes a decent human being.

This is a terrible story in so many ways. When looking at it from the sisters' point of view, one has to ask, why did this happen to them? In Judaism there is only ever one answer to that question: because God wanted it to. Humans have free will, but God, knowing their (our) personalities, sets things up in such a way that he knows or can guess, which way a person will choose.

Either: 1. People make absolutely free choices and God then works with that choice, or; 2. God arranges things such that they will happen a certain way. Either way, isn't God still interfering? Still guiding people's choices, and thus removing one's free will? If you want to defy the will of God, the Semetic religions say you can't, because God can turn ALL things to His purpose. Right?

What I am trying to establish is that no matter how you think of it, even to add a third choice, that people will attempt to discern God's will for them and will thus do it – Jacob married both Leah and Rachel because that is how God wanted it. Why? Why did God want this so badly that he was willing to destroy all these lives (or let them be destroyed), let terrible deeds go unpunished, etc.?

Well, look what happens next, what comes out of it. Ah, the sons of Jacob are the origins of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Wonderful. God uses those tribes as a way to organzie his people all the way through history, even up to today. And they figure somehow in the End Times, as seen in John's revelation. I can't remember the details. Priests of one of the tribes must be in silent prayer at the temple, or something like that.

Is that supposed to console Leah? Comfort Rachel? Maybe it does, so that might be fine. But when one steps back a bit, and asks questions such as, "What does this teach us about the nature of God?" "About the human condition?" "About what God expects of us?" then I feel like some very serious issues are at stake.

First, one common lesson Christians take from tales like this are that God uses even bad people and bad behavior to achieve His ultimate purpose. God turns all things to good. But that ignores the fact, or at least the implication, that god in fact set things up SO that people would behave badly. It is an echo of the Garden of Eden story. God tells people to be good, but then arranges things, playing on his knowledge of our weakneses (which He gave us), to elicit that bad behavior that He needs in order to further the story, or make His larger point. I just keep seeing Yahweh set people up and knock them down.

Why? Perhaps his ultimate purpose is so wonderful that it justifies this interference, this manipulation of his creatures so they do what he told them not to. I mean, what if Adam and Even had just obeyed him? No story, period.

I've asked many times what the Ultimate Purpose is. And maybe that's presumptuous. Maybe we puny humans aren't qualified to know that. But we have brains, so let's use them. The Old Testament is really the story of one family. Starting with Adam it tells the story of him and his descendents. In the New Testament, it's important to the writers to establish the link, to show that "Hey! This is the same family."

All the other people in the OT are just props, bit players. So God's ultimate purpose must have something to do with this family. For Jews, who are all part of this family, that's great. God started the world with this family and will end it with this family. For them, they can find much meaning – God's purpose is related to them going through all these struggles in order for . . . what? For them to finally learn to submit wholy to God's will? Mightn't they have done that sooner if god hadn't kept creating tempting situations? OK, so he's training them to never give in, no matter the temptation, so that they will one day be a holy people who usher in the Messianic Age, in which life is great for everyone and they are all obedient to God's will. Well, couldn't he have just created them that way to start with?

Maybe it is important to have a bunch of creatures come to be good and obedient of their own choice. Why? Back to the idea of a battle to fight with an Other, and God needs an army. I don't know. But if you stick with just the Jews, then what was the purpose of there being people with whom Jews would never have contact and some who would never even hear of them?

I mean, this whole universe created so one family can play out this story in which one (or two) creatures become many. Are given free will, make a lot of good and bad choices, but ultimately learn to be good. One family. Does that feel remotely true? Not to me. Of course, Jews also see their story as one that is meant to be an example to all humanity of God's existence, his love, his will, his plan. But what IS that plan?

I mean, the Hebrews and then Jews were never recruiters. They didn't try to convert people, they didn't and really still don't go out of their way to welcome those who want to join them, and they never tried really to prove that theirs was the only God to others. So they are just being a quiet example.

Christians are the ones who decided that the God of the Jews is the only god for all people. They were the first to have the idea that God's plan was to extend his relationship to others outside the one family. It is important to them to demonstrate that Jesus is a member of that family, that he is the heir to the kingdom the family has become. And he is the door that allows all humankind to be adopted by the family and his subjects in the kingdom.

So Rachel and Leah's suffering becomes meaningful in that it produced this kingdom and the heir to it so that all creatures might be saved, in a Christian interpretation.

For me, I've come to a place where this story just doesn't make sense in those ways. If god wanted all people to be a part of this family, why didn't he do it from the start?

But it's not as if all those other people out there don't have their own stories!!! They have stories about their own families, their own gods, and their own importance in the universe.

All the small societies in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, the Americas, the islands (the 'Nesias, as I always think of them), they have had their experiences with God. They have developed or been given by god their own rules. Maybe not written down as the Decalogue of the Jews, but Hammurabi had his codes, Egyptians, various groups of Chinese, Indians, Maya, Aztec, Inca, Medes, Sumerians, Babylonians, Akkadians, and many, many, many others DID have holy scriptures, messages and lessons and morality plays and poetry. And all of those thousands of cultures without writing nevertheless have and have had extremely sophisticated and complex religions.

More, they had their own experiences of God or Ultimate Source or wahtever they called it. God spoke to them, too. Told them THEY were the special ones. Walked them through difficulties, comforted them, punished them, all the same things that Jews had.

And then in some places people came to understand Absolute Reality in a different way. As NOT a person. And they did their work, and they devoted themsleves, and they had their own experiences of the Divine, or Absolute, which were earth-shattering, every bit as much as the voice of God was to the Hebrew prophes, as ecstatic as the followers of Jesus. And they had their own saints and wise men. Their own martyrs, too. People who were so good the world couldn't bear their example. These wise men (and women) created their own holy books full of wisdom.

I could go on and on. But the question I want to ask is this: Are we really to believe that all the wisdom of the world is nothing, because it isn't the same as the message to the Jews? Can anyone believe that God created the world, and the huge variety of people, and either left them entirely alone, or spoke to them differently, just so, at the end, everyone would chuck the beliefs that God either allowed to grow into complex philosophies that give hope and wisdom and comfort to billions of individuals, or that God helped them create these alternate philosophies by guiding and interfering to teach them lessons . . . . All of that just so at the end, everyone would throw it all away and adopt the philosphy and faith of the Christians? Would decide that actually it was the fate of one Jewish family that mattered? Would decide to abandon their own ancestors, their own rich traditions and history just because Christians have so generously opened the doors and allowed them into the Jewish family?

I cannot believe it. And so I can no longer believe that Yahwe is THE god. I can't believe that by following a different path I will be damned to hell. And yet I still feel pain as I write these words. The Bible says that Jesus spoke of one unforgivable sin, and that is to deny the Spirit. To reject the Spirit of God. I don't know what that verse means. And for the longest time, my inability to correctly decode it has kept me in fear of being damned to hell for eternity.

Even though I don't believe I am or have ever truly rejected any Spirit of God. So why am I still afraid to commit on paper to a stance that is outside what Christians would accept? I'm still afriad of going to hell, even though I haven't believed in its existence for a good 20 years! It is such a deep-rooted fear. Christianity has done such a good job of detailing it and making sure people know that's likely where they are going. Hegemonic discursive power, indeed.

And that makes Christianity unique of the major religions. None of the others suggest that the majority of individuals are going to hell. That fear of hell and how it is used was one of the first, if not the first, thing that made me question my childhood faith. How could a loving God use threats of eternal damnation to get people to behave? Even half-way decent parents know better.

Jews don't even have a concept of hell, and it is them God mostly talked to. Muslims believe all will eventually make it to heaven. Christians really are alone in this hell-and-punishment obsession.

I am not going to let fear stop me this time. I do not believe that Yahweh, as depiced in the Bible, is the one and only God. Or if He is, then Jews and their descendent religions have got it all wrong.

I don't believe in the exclusivity of it. I believe there is an Absolute Reality. I believe that the early Hebrews had contact with it, and that their story reflects their understanding of that contact. I'm certain some of their prophets were close to that Reality, touched it, and were filled by it.

And I believe Jesus also was filled with and close to it, and that Jesus and the prophets before him were trying to show people how they, too, could be close to it. And the Hebrews I think better understood that this was their contact with the Infinite. They could and did accept that without making any statement that other peoples couldn't have their own contact. I believe that other peoples did and do have contact with that same Entity/Presense/Thing/No-Thing, and that each of them interpreted that contact in their own way, according to their own history and cultural context.

I don't know exactly how it came about that Christianity took on such an exclusive and singular quality. I guess it began that way, in that Jews, Jesus' Jewish followers, all believed he was the Jewish messiah. They never suggested Jesus was there for all. In fact, I think that would (and did) freak some people out. How could their messiah be there for everyone? He's supposed to kick Roman butt, not save it!

Jesus' message was inclusive, except when he says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by me." But what did he really mean by that? Many (most?) Christians use that quote to justify the conversion of the rest of the world. "You must convert in order to save yourself from eternal damnation."

Is that what he meant? What if he really meant, "You need to follow my directions?" Like the Buddha saying "You must follow the same path I did in order to find enlightenment. There is no other way but the way I did it." I find this entirely possible.

So if Jesus was inclusive, who wasn't? The early Roman church. Peter and his entire group didn't think Jesus message was for the gentiles, so why bother telling them? Again a reflection of the fact that Jews believed their relgion was their own. Their messiah their own. Their God their own. Everyone else could have their own gods. So the early Jewish Christians are exclusive, but not because they believe their religion is the only one in the world; the opposite, in fact.

Oh. Weird. So the exclusivity of Jewish Christians in Rome led them to . . . well, do it the other way. It is Paul, of course. He's the one who believes this message, this gospel, is for everyone. It is his inclusivity that leads to the Church's later exclusive position. Paul believes all the world should follow Jesus. Not because he thinks everyone else is going to some future hell, but because he believes Jesus' gift of Life, his good news, is a gift for all. He wants to share it. He does believe Jesus is coming again, he does believe there will be a heaven, a utopia, a messianic age, and he wants all people to share it.

He clearly believes that theGreeks and Romans with their pantheons are wrong, and he does try to convince people of this, but still his prosletizing feels more like someone offering a gift, being as inclusive as he possibly can.

But over time that message changed. I think it had to do first with the conversion of the European tribes after Rome had adopted Christianity. Because then it was a question of the powerful, civilized, clearly "more advanced" people – the Romans – moving into, conquering and ruling over diverse peoples with their own tribal and band-level religions. Non-Christian meant non-Roman and thus backward, disempowered, and clearly wrong about everything.

Once that association was made, it became easier for Christians to believe their way was the only way, and having people convert to your religion was also to have them convert to your culture, your economy, your political system. Those seeds of exclusivity and superiority grew through the "dark" ages, and by the time of European expansion were in full bloom. What fertile ground these twin attitudes found when the first indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas were contacted. To the Europeans who met them, these natives were clearly backward, lawless, and amoral; clearly in need of saving. And they frightened them into conversion with gruesome depictions of hell. Not to mention all the carrots.

It might only have been in that lonely time, the thousand years after the fall of Rome, when Europeans were cut off from people of other religions, that the idea of only ONE religion having any truth or relevance could have been born and survived.

And so, why should I let irrational fear stop me from fully embracing the faith I do have? Why should I not follow my own path to the center with no guilt and no fear? There is no good reason.

More Taoist lessons in Feb '07

February 7
15
The ancient Masters were profound and subtle.
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it;
All we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful
As someone crossing an iced-over stream.
Alert as a warrior in enemy territory.
Courteous as a guest.
Fluid as melting ice.
Shapeable as a block of wood.
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.

Why are we (humans) always looking to the past as the perfect example? It doesn’t really matter, expect it makes me feel as if there is no one to turn to as a teacher today. Makes it seem less possible to achieve. Like it is all mythical, not a real objective. Anyway, all of these descriptions seem right to me except “shapeable as a block of wood.”

I can see – like in Christianity – being at the Universe’ disposal; saying, here, make of me what you will. So I guess I do get this. At first it seemed to contradict the lesson of trusting one’s own inner vision. But this isn’t saying to allow other people’s agendas to mold you, but to let Life shape you into the forms the Universe and Tao needs or wants, or , I guess, more like what would fit the pattern. Goes on:

Do you have the patience to wait
‘til your mind settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
‘til the right action arises by itself?

Oh! This is so what I want and need. I don’t have the patience. I’ve got to learn it. And I can only see one way to do it – practice. I have to find time – make the commitment and meditate, so I can learn this.

The Master does not seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting,
She is present, and can welcome all things.

Boy, this turned out to be a really good one. To sit quietly, both literally and figuratively, and make or let one’s mind become empty, and let one’s heart let go of its hopes and desires and passions. Until one has zero expectations. Then let the right action arise by itself, and one can welcome whatever it is. I need this on my wall as a reminder of what to do.

February 8
16
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
But contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe
Returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

The first couple of lines were an important reminder. My mind is full of turmoil as I think about all I need to do. And it is one of life’s biggest challenges, to watch the mess and pain of beings in this world and yet be at peace. Lao-tzu is saying that the way to do that is to remember that eventually all will find peace. As in Hinduism, it is comforting, and useful in daily interaction, to think that people are simply in different stages of their development, and that each soul that is a pauper today will in some life be a king. That what we’re seeing is that soul’s lesson. And ultimately, all will return to Oneness. As it says here, that return will mean serenity.

If you don’t realize the source,
You stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
You naturally become tolerant,
Disinterested, amused,
Kindhearted as a grandmother,
Dignified as a king.

Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
You can deal with whatever life brings you,
And when death comes, you are ready.

So true! When I forget the Source, as its called here – when I forget that we all come from it and will all return, I become overwhelmed with the sorrow of this world. The pain and terror are too great. It is a mass of confusion; it confuses the hell out of me, why such horrible things happen, why people are so cruel to one another, why everything in our own country is so broken. But all we have to do is step back, remember this is a journey we are all on together. That we need to be learning, not crying or beating our fists in rage. And if you can do that, then it makes sense that the rest of the stanza would apply.

I’m developing an idea of the One, the Source of all in this life. There is always the why question. Why did the Source spawn the universe? I think to learn. A super-intelligent, self-conscious being that is trying to understand what it is. So it can grow and improve. I don’t think I believe in an already perfect being. If God was perfect, what would It need us for?

February 9
We had a long talk about how we are actually better off than 90% of the world’s population in terms of income. I prompted that discussion, but it doesn’t take away my desire to be able to eat out, buy yarn, etc. And I worry about summer . . . As Jim pointed out, every time we are about to crash, something happens to save us. That is what we should focus on. And I am grateful for that. But I guess I‘m greedy, because I keep wondering why it is that we can only just barely make it. Why would it be so terrible for us to have just a little tiny cushion? I don’t buy the punishment idea. Lots of evil people are rich, and we aren’t bad people, even if we aren’t perfect.
I guess there is always more to learn about being hungry and poor, but I’d say Jim and I know more about it than most middle class people. And they have extra. I just don’t get it. I know life isn’t fair. But I’m asking for a pretty small thing in the scheme of things. Not to be rich, but just for Jim to have a job that pays above the poverty line. Above minimum wage, actually, but not by much.
Well, this is terrible. I didn’t wake up this way, but now I am full of bitterness about money. I need to cleanse myself of that. And I need to get busy.

18
When the great Tao is forgotten,
Goodness and piety appear.
When the body’s intelligence declines,
Cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
Filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos,
Patriotism is born.

Huh? I don’t get it. Maybe he’s saying – yes, I think so – that goodness and piety, cleverness and knowledge, filial piety and patriotism are not good things. Not good because they are pale substitutes for what really is good, or for what truly should be.

Goodness and piety – they seem like beneficial things on the surface. But they aren’t, because they mask the Truth, which is beyond the dualism of good vs. bad. Piety is unnecessary when you live fully immersed in the Tao. Similarly, cleverness and knowledge are poor substitutes for the wisdom of the body, that knows its limits, that is in tune with the seasons and the sun and moon and the earth. Filial piety is only there, only needed, when true love of one’s family, and harmony with them, is lacking. And patriotism – need I say more?

Okay, I get it. This is quite wise and makes so much sense. Especially when coupled with the next one, which I’m going to do, since I have a little more time this morning. On the next page Lao-tzu fleshes out this idea:

19
Throw away holiness and wisdom
And the people will be a hundred times happier
Throw away morality and justice,
And people will do the right thing.
Throw away industry and profit,
And there won’t be any thieves.

If these three aren’t enough,
Just stay at the center of the circle
And let all things take their course.

All of the institutions humans create, in an attempt to regulate and control the world, and the behavior and feelings/beliefs of people are misguided. You can’t legislate goodness. He’s right – and Jim and I were just talking about this – that people living in simpler societies, less economically or politically complex, do seem to have happier, more harmonious lives. And he lived at a time so much less complex than we do, so he’s really looking at foragers.

Well, we can’t go back to that. Not unless 7/10 of the world’s population was to die. There are too many people to feed to have anything but industrialized agriculture as the basis of our society. But might we not bend our technology toward truly making our lives simpler? Like in one of Card’s books, he has people who are far more advanced than us, but have returned to living in grass huts because it is easier on the environment, and they have designed electronics to be able to get wet, and to use less energy, etc. I mean, if that is what we valued, that’s the direction we’d be going.

If we were in tune with the Tao, we’d know how badly we were hurting the earth, the only earth we’ve got, and we’d care instinctively about every person in Africa the same way we care about ourselves.

You don’t need courts or preachers screaming about hell fire if people are living in the Tao, aware of their connections to the earth and other people. Now, if we threw out justice without throwing out industry and profit, people would not do the right thing and there would still be thieves. It all has to be done together, and then I think he might be right.

The problem is that these things – these requirements for following his suggestion, are not going to happen any time soon. I think we can try to work toward them, but in many ways our only choice is to do as he says at the end – stand in the center and let things take their course.

There is that fundamental contradiction again that I struggle so much with. Are we supposed to work toward a better future or sit back and let things take their course, be what they are, without even labeling them good or bad? My resolution of the conundrum for now is this:

We can work on ourselves. I can try inside myself to live in the Tao and not be pious, to not be taken in by cleverness, knowledge, or patriotism. Plus all the other things previously identified. And doing those things may/will be actions (non-actions) that might result in small changes around me. For instance, if I recycle, and agree to pay taxes for environmental causes, and vote in green ways then those actions, taken with others’ actions, might change some stuff. But I think overall Lao-tzu is saying, “don’t worry about the larger affects. Do what is right. That’s it.

Do what is right – which is a task hard enough to occupy all of one’s self for a lifetime. Do what is right and let the rest take care of itself.” Oh, and I forgot to say, do what is right and leave it. Don’t expect anything for it, don’t hope for things to come of it, don’t fear no one will notice it or worry that it won’t be enough. Just do it, and walk away, physically, emotionally, and mentally. And then let the world take care of itself. Let things take their course. Maybe enough other people will do the right thing. Maybe they won’t. but the great river, or Ocean of Tao will turn it all to something. Something beyond what I can imagine or see or articulate. Something beyond what we think of as good or bad. For me, the image that works is that of a being who learns something amazing from having had this experience, and then goes on to do the next right thing for it.

As I was saying yesterday, I am able to believe in that much more than in a god – an all-powerful God that yet is locked in battle with a creature he created, and whom he lets torture his more vulnerable creations. How does that make sense? Mom’s answer is always faith; that we don’t have to, and in fact cannot understand. And I agree, to a point. I can’t really understand what Brahman is, or the Tao, or the World-Soul. They are too big for my little human brain to grasp. But at least the idea of them makes sense to me. I can’t devote my life to an idea that not only doesn’t make sense, but seems wrong and repellent to me.

And sometimes people argue that in fact, if you look past this or that about the Judeo-Christian God, he really is very much like the World-Soul, or Brahman, or like Nirvana. Well, if that’s true, then why not just go with one of the others? No one has ever been able to explain satisfactorily to me why Yahweh created the universe and humans. The other religions don’t always clearly spell it out, either, but at least their versions are not incompatible with reason, logic, and their own tenets that there is no good or bad. It’s all about learning, for us, so why can’t or wouldn’t it be all about learning for It, for God, or the Absolute? I at least can wrap my head around that.

About meditation – I need to keep trying to carve time into my days for it. I only can think of going to bed earlier and getting up earlier, and then I’ll need to be sure I’m not spending too much time writing here. . .

While I was writing all that I thought of two things I want to write out. One was the reflection that I’m in the early summer of my life. It could be a useful meditation. I’m past that first pretty bloom, but that doesn’t mean the growing season is over – not by a long shot! The nutritious, valuable stuff is just now being planted. I may have 20-30 years of growing the corn, the beans, the wheat, the stuff of life, a long time before the harvest and the start of winter. It is a wonderful time of life – let me rejoice in it.