Sunday, March 30, 2014

Homo Sapiens and Full Humanity

When we stay quiet in the face of abuse,
We are accomplices to the criminals.
The psychology set has renamed
This crime, as behavior, they enable.

When will we stop allowing the smart,
And the wealthy over-educated
To excuse their own evil actions,
And those of children they created?

Unless one is born with a damaged brain,
Or has suffered frontal lobe damage,
There are no humans who have
No ability to act as more than savage.

Even brain damaged children can be taught;
Most are still brighter than one's pets,
Because they can mimic the examples
Of one's human parental partnerships.

Society must stop excusing feral behavior
From animals that choose no self control
We have diminished the dignity of humanity
Pretending no choice against evil actions' pull.

Do we want a society where humans continue
To lock ourselves into ever smaller cages?
Drugs, alcohol, and greed are not diseases;
They are choices that a human freely engages.

We must stop running from evil actions;
We must take humanity back from psychology.
Religions have hidden behind sin for too long;
We must stop accepting their apologies.

We now have a society that pampers their pets,
While ignoring desperate human pain.
This is the wage that has been sown by those
Promoting that responsibility has no gain.

I applaud humans who bear no children;
They have heard the modern-day prophecies.
Homo sapiens, instead of blessing the earth,
Have become the earth's most fatal disease.

Rise up, all of you who believe in creating earth
As it is in heaven. We must stop waiting.
Fear of the future only paralyses humanity.
Earth is, in responsible compassion, for the taking.

The greatest scientists can no longer, all knowledge, pretend;
Princes, priests and prophets have become mystified.
Collaborative community across the universe is the answer.
That no one tribe can control the gods cannot be denied.

It is easy to continue looking back to lesser ancestors,
But humans have long-known that we are sacred vessels.
Eventually, all who accept this sacred position in life
Will live the story that Pentecostal wisdom tells.

Religions, their prophets and priests, have no control;
Full humanity is available to all those who choose it.
Humanity continues to choose our lesser animal instincts;
Un-exercised, our humanity, is in danger that we'll lose it.

Only responsible compassion defines us as human;
Protecting our tribal members is an animal instinct.
We must hold each other accountable for our actions,
No matter what our tribal members may do and think.

This is the way that humans have moved above instinct.
Free will to choose our own individual behaviors
Is the evidence of evolution in homo sapiens.
Humans are the only animals that can be earth's saviors.





Thursday, March 27, 2014

What We Believe

If God is who many say He is, I know He isn't true;
He has too many of the selfish ways that humans do:
He wants us to leave our children unattended to worship Him;
What we work so hard to achieve, He destroys on a whim.
He produces children to be sacrificed to assuage His wrath,
Allowing the cruelest rulers to lead us on His defined path.

Just as people are given hope to live in peace on earth,
He gives the reigns of earth over to a new era that is cursed.
The followers of His son are now guilty for His son's suffering,
And now must live through the punishment that this sin brings.
His humans were never meant to live in peace in this life;
We were created, to this hungry god, be eternal sacrifice.

Should we believe that any generation will be given the keys
That will finally this, eternally insatiable godhead, please?
I think not; I don't believe Eternal Sacred Spirit is a godhead,
Ancient symbols for what innocent humans were taught to dread.
I believe The Sacred Spirit is meant to be eternally mysterious,
Only manifested in the responsible compassion of all of us.

Religions seem to be created to limit our understanding,
So that we each, like cattle, accept their tribal branding.
This may have served before the fullness of humanity,
But this does not promote peace in global community.
I refuse to accept an eternal Sacred Spirit that is limited
By faces, and feats that human perception has permitted.

I enjoy hearing the awe of innocent children's discoveries;
I prefer to accept, as sacred, what the young child sees.
Children see no unacceptable colors or earthly anomalies,
Until their authority figures show that we're displeased.
When we stop allowing our fears to define The Sacred,
We'll, again, be in the eternal Garden of Eden, and naked.






Monday, March 24, 2014

One Person's Saint Is Another's Sinner

I have huge objections to the declaration of some people as saints, as I know from experience that one person's saint is another's sworn enemy. This was the case with me and my mother. I accept that I simply brought out the worst in her, as did most of her motherhood ministry. Woe be to anyone for whom she felt the responsibility of leadership! Even homemade exorcisms were not beyond her attempts to drive the demons out of those for whom she was responsible. For this, she was never without much "holy" water.

As a very strictly devout pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic, she spent her life ministering to all the poor and priests in the parish, in which, unfortunately, she did not include her husband and nine children. We were left to fend for ourselves as she filled our home with drug addicts, whores, and unwed mothers. Daddy would come home after weeks on the road with his job and find no room for him in his own bed. When any of us objected, we were banished, many to mental hospitals.

Banishment was consistent with her religion, as Roman Catholic hierarchy regularly denies the sacraments to those who displease them. They even claimed the power to either hold open or closed the gates of eternal banishment into hell, which closely resembles a mental hospital ward.

My mother was greatly honored by the archdiocese in which she lived for fifty-five years, even receiving a medal from them for her services to their religion. Though she will probably never be officially canonized, many in her church parish and beyond considered her a saint. I have had to protect myself and my children from her "ministry."

Mama rejected the idea that any of her children who had left the Roman Catholic religion after much abuse at the hands of priests and others of the church, could ever live as "Christians." This meant that she was going to her eternal reward in heaven with her "God" without most of us, and she was okay with that idea. Daddy followed her religion, even as he beat us until we bled to purify us to the standards that Mama thought we should live, as dictated by their religion. He would be in heaven with her, and without most of us. How does a mother live like this?

I accept that my mother's ministry to others sanctified her and brought much peace to those to whom she ministered. I even have flashes of times when, to me, she passed on some of her saintliness.I have flashes of memories of my mother in the kitchen that make me feel at home with her. I still see her joy when her wealthy relations sent clothes that fit me perfectly, and when her wealthy aunt sent her money for a brand new coat for me. We went shopping together, just the two of us, and picked out a black and tan herringbone pattern wool coat with offset large black buttons and a matching scarf. It was so elegant! I see her fitting me for the dresses she made for me the summer I was sixteen, before I went away to a Catholic summer camp in Ashville, North Carolina.

I learned to cook through watching her and made that into a way to make a living. I learned to dress elegantly from watching how she reacted to my attire, and used that elegance to draw much money and other ministry to many worthy causes. I brought up two children who serve others every day of their lives with their open arms and hearts, while still prioritizing their own families. In her eyes, all of this was simply arrogance because I did not attend her church and worship her jealous, vengeful "God."

My avoidance of my mother was not because I didn't see her saintliness; it was because she continually pointed at my father, me, and my siblings as barriers to her perfection in the eyes of her church. "How could such a devout mother have such a non-Christian family?" she would regularly ask of other adherents of her religion. We were simply crosses that increased her suffering with "Jesus." Motherhood was her entry into heaven, with or without her children.

I believe that saintliness is a personal thing that we pass on through service to individuals. I will never understand the inability to see and speak of saintliness in one's own family and friends without it being sanctioned by a bunch of people who never really knew that person. I will also never understand the resistance to singing the praises of those who do righteous things with their lives, while we are never at a loss for words about the evil people perpetrate.

I embarrass many with my enthusiasm for their goodness toward me. They seem to think that any acknowledgement on earth for their efforts somehow diminishes the price that they must pay in this life in order to cleanse themselves for the next. I simply don't understand why anyone would worship, or even acknowledge, a "God" who would make them for such a lousy life.

I don't care who the Roman Catholic Church says are saints; one person's saint was surely, toward many others in their lives, a sinner. Nobody is meant to know how the scales were balanced by each person by the end of their time on earth. I am simply sorry that what I often attempt to do as good makes so many feel so bad. My mother probably felt the same way while she was performing her "holy" water "exorcisms."







Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Protecting Our Progeny

At his mother's breast, he is infused with The Sacred, and in the reflection of himself in her eyes;
How brutally we rip the male child from her, as if her compassion for him should be despised.
He spends his life seeking another way to have his soul feel, once again, complete,
But those who manipulate his fears, for his strongest allegiances, compete.

Monarchs and gods demand that their subjects scurry to fulfill their every whim;
They make mock of every weakness and whores of their subjects' women.
"Here is your beautiful virtuous wife, covered in my strong animal scent.
You will bow only to my power; I am the god for whom your were both meant."

Their priests pronounce spells that are meant to keep you in the monarch's power;
Their prophets portend doom, if on any other, your affections, you shower.
"You'll not see god in your bond with your woman, and must offer your children
To the destruction of the power that mother earth exerts on her men."

The strength of a man in a woman's loving arms threatens my supremacy;
Your family will be brutally destroyed, if they exalt in anyone but me.
Leave your home to the women and children, as you fight in my wars;
Protecting the kingdom of your "god" is what a man is made for.

Your women and children are born to wait for your triumphal return;
You will strengthen yourself to fight with your passion for them that burns.
The bond of a man and a woman's love is the greatest of earth's strength;
It was this way in the beginning and has been ever since.

Gods don't want wise old women; they want our young children.
At their births, gods begin grooming the child to worship only them.
By age of eight the child's fate is cast, and their fear is greater than
Any bonds that they have formed to their first nurturing woman.

The making of gods on earth through blood sacrifice of our males,
Is the truth in what all our wars, and much of religion, entails.
When will we mothers stand and say, "Take me, but not my son;
There is so much more than your blood sacrifice he is to become."?

When will we mothers take our girls away from their fathers,
Instead of continuing the wretched fate we had as daughters?
If there is to be a blood sacrifice, let it be my own bloody death;
Only then will my own sacred mother spirit be at rest.















Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Strength of Spirit

I've learned in my spiritual seeking is that kindness requires no creed;
It does require compassion for others' talents, boundaries, and needs.
The fact that I'm not willing to give to you what you want from me,
May be because of some limitation that you aren't able to hear or see.

And if I offer more than you want or need, don't see it as disrespect
It is often that I seek to, from my own painful journey, you protect.
This is not to say that I see you as weaker or less competent than I;
It is often to offer you the understanding and support for which I cry.

Too many see others as too strong and wish to teach them humility;
They don't see the fear of abuse from which their hubris came to be.
Before the age of one, my father beat me, and I turned away from him.
After this time, even my own mother was afraid to be my friend.

I am not truly strong, as are the eldest children in most families.
Each of my parents' families, were, by me, most displeased.
I didn't look like their people and was not a delicate girl child.
They saw me, not as a gift, but one of their own life's trials.

The more they found fault, the more I attempted to learn;
Hoping that my abilities would quiet most of their concerns.
Ability and strength, in a woman was, unbeknownst to me,
Not an attribute that a female should let any suitor see.

I had been taught that sex appeal was desirable, yet sinful;
It was, for "catching" a husband, the trait most desirable.
I've continued, foolishly, opening doors, allowing myself to learn,
Though I know that my increased knowledge is reason to be spurned.

Why do groups of women act as if they all completely agree,
Rather than admit that we don't all, with the same eyes, see?
How hateful it is that there are women who join in rejection,
As if competition with sisters was every woman's predilection.

Don't we know that society can't change and stay the same?
Women continue to follow failed paths and accept no blame.
Praying, dancing, and singing together may build solidarity,
But this only begins our struggle for new ways of community.

A creed without an action plan leaves me rather cold.
How did we become women who expect only men to be bold?
How often our ways of bonding leave our own men out;
Division should not be what family partnership is about.

Humans very physical in the ways they bond with friends.
Women pet and pamper each other and barely touch our men.
Boys ripped too early from gentle caresses from mothers
Are taught shame about any gentleness they show to others.

We don't speak each other's language and laugh together;
Women and men like to be honored and enjoyed as clever.
We are entering an era where women and men communicate;.
We must encourage this behavior before it's too late.

There are few women who will not, from each other, turn away
When their men and children heed what another woman has to say.
Jealousy has been earth's curse since the dawn of humanity;
We will never have peace until, from this emotion, we're free.

Men and women, in separate rooms, for conversation
Is not the way to learn inter-gender communication.
Until strong people stop seeing each other as competition,
Family and community partnerships can't come to fruition















Friday, March 7, 2014

Me In Eternity

The bliss of ignorance, I wished I could, again, embrace;
Perhaps all the pain in my present would then be erased.
I attempted to sleep away all the painful memories;
In dreams, they kept returning, like pain of a chronic disease.

In running from hurt, my demons' strengths increased.
I accepted pain with pleasure, and my running ceased.
I turned and faced the truths of my troubled life,
Not realizing, in my own rebirth, I'd serve as midwife.

I finally stopped running from facing all that I know;
Though remaining alone in my past, causes the pain to grow.
I now accept pain and pleasure as two sides of a coin.
The pain slows me down; the pleasure keeps me going.

I will not seek pain as a cleansing tonic for the soul;
Neither will I feel that only pleasure makes me whole.
I will walk with both of them, as friends on my journey;
Both pain and my pleasure made, and make, me fully me.

I do not believe in karma that continues punishing
Each of us until we're only, in eternal bliss, living.
I do believe all the pain and pleasure that I share
Will continue in the lives of all who, for me, cared.

This is why I attempted to keep, to myself, my pain,
Wanting only pleasant memories of my life to remain.
I have come to understand that those who see my soul
Have always shared in the pain that makes truly me whole.

There is no way that I can ever make amends to them;
They don't expect me to, as they are more than friends.
They are my neighbors, my church, my true family
Those with whom I share The Sacred Spirit in eternity.







Saturday, March 1, 2014

The Family of Humanity

Are we to believe all sacred scriptures were already written
Before there was talk of equality between women and men?
The Sacred Spirit that preceded any Jewish definition of God
Surely, didn't with Jesus's Pentecostal coming, get tired.

Do humans accept that The Spirit that exploded into creation
Only spoke to males, denying any fertile female's mediation?
The earth, bearing children of god(s), we're told, is the mother;
Making all of humanity, by birth, equally sisters and brothers.

How did we come to accept that there are god(s) who deny
The children from their own mates? Didn't their mates even try
To correct the jealous, vengeful fathers of all their children,
Rather than, of only the strongest, making special friends?

I will not accept any god(s), because they are egotistical,
Refusing much of the sacred, in which the earth is full.
I prefer to continue sharing with others the everyday sacred
That happens, by accident, with those spiritually naked.

It grieves me that so many are uncomfortable with anger;
Great shows of strength are necessary to ward off danger.
There were so many vulnerable that looked to me for protection,
I have, long-since, sworn to accept religious society's rejection.

Religions masquerade as safe homes of simple community;
How many of them are, from perverse political power, free?
The minute any religion accepts any favors from "government"
The have accepted the seduction of the Garden of Eden's serpent.

The acceptance of a sacred power that began before Genesis
Was not, by humans, before the written word, something to resist.
This power was simply seen as embodied in all of nature;
It was a mistake to believe special humans possessed a cure.

Cures come from spiritual powers manifested in the physical;
I believe that in un-embodied spirits, this, our earth, isn't full.
I believe Jewish Jesus was clear that we must touch each other;
This is the human way to share The Sacred as sister and brother.

The wrong that Abraham and Sarah did to Abraham's first son
Has plagued humanity since shortly after Jewish history was begun.
Isn't it time that we all admit that our ancestors were wrong,
So that the family of humanity can be, against earthly evil, strong?