Thursday, September 25, 2014

Abraham's Adultery and Islam

Do the world's three religions branching from the tree of Abraham really differ so much in what they believe creates a peaceful place for families to thrive?
Abraham was not a strong man. He used his wife's sexuality to save his own skin. While married, he fathered a child with a servant girl, and allowed the servant and his own first-born son to be sent to the desert to die. Why is it that the three religions constantly killing the mothers and children of each other in bloody wars, insist on calling a man with Abraham's type of behavior their Patriarch? The descendants of the first-born son are still attempting to reclaim their birthright, and until all are willing to admit to the wrong done to Ishmael and his mother, I can't see that we have a chance of peace on earth.
It seems to me that Moses, with the Ten Commandments streamlined a way for the sons and daughters of the earth to create peace among themselves.This peaceful "place" was to be called "Israel," and exists wherever people honor the rules of living in peace with each other. These same rules seem to be at the core of what all humans want in creating communities.
This is what I believe Jesus came to say, "Taking care of each other and the less strong is what's important; the rules are for forming committed communities." I also believe Jesus came to model the way humans can manifest The Eternal, Universal Sacred Spirit of responsible, committed compassion in our own actions on earth. This Sacred Spirit is available to all with ears to hear and eyes to see. I find it most obvious in the eyes of a baby, just after birth and in the eyes of the dying as they long to see their goodness in the eyes of another.
In my opinion, Abraham should not be the role model for how husbands treat the most vulnerable in their lives.Maybe we need to let Abraham go finally to his grave, so we can stop sending so many of his children to theirs.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

To the Pro-LIfe Liars

Why is it that no religions are based on being awake and available to our own children? Why is it that we worship those who act as if children are to be seen and not heard? What is the attraction of the majority of religions to the philosophies spouted by those who spend their time meditating on issues other than the ones in the lives in which they manifest in physical forms?

I am sick, almost unto death, of those who spend their time seeking nirvana while ignoring the eyes, voices, and cries of their own children and the children of their neighbors. I am sick, almost unto death, of those who attribute sainthood to those who bear the most babies, with no ideas of how well the mothers and fathers have paid attention to their own children's individual needs.

Homo sapiens should not be brought up in litters, unless we want the offspring to simply manifest as feral animals. The fallacy of the religions that promote large families is that no human mother (or father) is able to nurture another child properly without sufficient time between births. The religions pretend that "the church" will make up the difference, but this is simply not the reality.

How many individuals will willingly give up their free time to console the colicky baby, not their own? How many will stay up all night, sober, to make sure that the teenagers of others are safely tucked in after their explorations? How many will live responsibly in order to show the example to the young, for as many years as it takes to bring homo sapiens to fully human adulthood?

Every homo sapiens child deserves to be born into a family and community of responsible, committed, compassionate fully human adults. If their conception can't lead to this, we shouldn't be surprised that the new homo sapiens turn out to simply be feral animals.

I am sick, almost unto death, of the hypocrisy in humans. Humanity takes many years to nurture one  homo sapiens animal into a full human. To all who are against conception and birth control: Either put your own time, resources, and love on the line, or shut up, go home, and stay quiet.


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

What's Tugging at My Heart

What is tugging at my heart is the inability to find common words to describe The Sacred Spirit, as embodied in our universal experiences.

Some call this energy love, but what is love? To many it is synonymous with sexual attraction; to others it is an emotion similar to longing; in the understanding of others it is the willingness to suffer for another. In my world, love is shared committed action toward a common goal, right here on the physical plane we share in this lifetime. Not very romantic, is it?

Religions have all sorts of names for this universal energy. Seemingly, the most long-standing common term is "god(s)" or "God." In my 63 years on earth I have encountered so many explanations of what people commonly call "God" that I know they can't all be talking about the same being. It seems more like the elephant and the blind men. Depending on which small part you encounter, you describe it as a different being.

I am increasingly uncomfortable with the tendency to believe that whatever we see in our own communities is the only way that people should live. I understand the desire for stability, but not at the cost of continued life. Any living organism that stops growing begins losing its individual existence.

The only way I believe we'll get past the "tribal" impasses that our ancestors have inflicted on us is to open our eyes to the difference in homo sapiens as animals and those that are full humans. Full humanity is the only higher plane we can use to change the future of our earth. If we don't adapt, we die; this includes our understanding of The Sacred.

If we can't even find a universal word for the Spirit of Full Humanity, what hope do we have for communication and cooperation? My spirit longs for a word or phrase that defines responsible, committed compassion for our present and future universe, one that is free for the taking. I have been calling this life force that I feel "The Sacred Spirit." I'd love to hear other suggestions for an all-inclusive term for what enables us to be the best we can humanly be.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Purification of the Physical Process.

It seems odd to me that so many communities frown on speaking of conjugal bonding, even among responsible, committed, compassionate couples. Where did those who call themselves religious miss the many references in their own accepted sacred scriptures, the comparisons of the ultimate in Eternal Love to the love making of humans?

I am so tired of being an outcast, a "scarlet woman,"so to speak, in the company of women who call themselves mothers of the churches and temples. This problem is greatly exacerbated by the attention I draw from the males who can see that I am often in agreement with their points of view. I have tried almost everything, short of killing or crippling myself, to break this curse laid on me from the time before I could speak. Nothing has worked, so I keep mostly to myself.

My mother told the story of how "You trained your father when you were nine months old." According to her, after my father hit me, I turned over in my crib to avoid looking at him for three days. According to her, from this time forward, he never hit me. I believe this to be true...not only because I knew he wanted me to look at him, but because I also know he never again hit a crying girl. My mother always admitted that she was jealous of me for this "control" I had over men, especially my father.

Don't focus on why a father would hit a nine-month-old baby and why the mother of the baby would, not only stay married to him, but bear seven more children with him. Focus on the fear that others have of a woman-child with the ability to stop a dragon in his tracks. Focus also on the number of women who have come to me to back down the dragons in their lives, only to shun me in order to please their dragons or their dragon's offspring.

Being a dragon slayer without encouragement to brag on one's successes in love or in war is the loneliest existence for a woman. Would that I had been born a man, except for the blessing of the one man who neither worships nor seeks to control me. With him, I have discovered the divinity in sacred bonding. I only wish we had a group with which to share our ecstasy without invoking jealousy, which leads to competition, rather than community celebration.

Even Adam and Eve chose jealousy over contentment. Isn't it time to stop following in their footsteps and form footsteps of our own. The "sins of the fathers" stopped being passed on when the joyful Jewish Jesus was walking the earth.  Pentecost made it possible to celebrate without ancestral guilt, jealousy, greed, retribution, and mindless competition. The Sacred is in what we celebrate in the physical manifestations we were given. It is the purpose of each of us to continue purification of the
physical process.



Saturday, September 13, 2014

Families of Faith and Religion

I respectfully submit that it is time that we draw the real line between faith and religion.

It seems to me that religions have always been about rituals and rules for behavior. Whether or not the people in the religious communities actually shared the same faith was, and is, immaterial. Religions, at best, create civil societies that can trust each others actions and commit to the same rules of bringing up offspring. The punishment for crossing the boundaries, at best, is banishment and restitution to the those harmed in the community.

The worst of religion is the formation of tribes who will watch as other members break all the boundaries of responsible, committed compassion and go to any means necessary to keep the community together. It is easier to hide the perpetrator than to admit that the hypocrisy of this behavior will destroy the bases on which the religions were formed. This is especially true when the leaders of the "tribes" are, in plain sight, the ones breaking the rules.

It seems to me to be okay to form community around any rules one wants, as long as the rules are consistently enforced. If a church doesn't want sex to happen outside of marriage between two opposite sex married-in-the church people, that is their prerogative, as long as all are held to the same, "no sex outside of church marriage" rules. The only way this should become a civil issue is when the religion is receiving support, in any form, from the civil society in which they operate.

One of the cardinal rules of civil disobedience is that those engaging in it must be willing to suffer the civil societies' rules for restitution.  There are too many hiding behind religious immunity while breaking the rules of the civil societies that are supporting them. This is the hallmark of hypocrisy.

Families of faith are something altogether different than religions. Families of faith share value systems by which they openly live their lives in community with like-minded others. It seems to me that our United States is becoming more a family of faith in the value of fairness as it moves away from religious self-righteousness. The beauty of democracy, as we purport to live it, in our country, is that anyone can become an entrepreneur and write their own rules for fairness in hiring and trade.

My faith is in the ideal of fairness, and those who treat each others in that manner are the only ones I wish to call family, friend, and fellow citizen of this earth.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Healing Wounds From Our Ancestor, Abraham

Wouldn't it be a nice move toward world cooperation if we divided the Sabbath into the three days that coincide with the three religions that seek to honor them?

Businesses could give Muslims the day of rest on Fridays until just before dusk (perhaps beginning on Thursday at sunset). The same businesses could give Jews the day of rest between just before dusk on Friday until nightfall on Saturday, and the Christians would be given their day of rest between nightfall on Saturday and dusk on Sunday.

In this manner, each of the branches (spiritual cousins) of the family of Abraham would be able to take the serving places of each other on the individual's Sabbaths. This could also be the case on the holy days celebrated by each "sect" of Abraham's religious descendants.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Good-bye to Gods and Goddesses

Nothing angers me more than the people who take for granted that my daughter will watch me die as they simply sign checks for my medical care. My daughter studies long and hard to be a professional, award-winning teacher of children, not a nurse's aid. She will not give up her vocation to tend my body as it turns to earth's fertilizing ash.

I hate goddess mythology almost more than I hate god mythology. The problem, as I see it, is that both women and men refuse to be fully understood, so they are always seen as something other than human. I want to be neither adored nor enslaved; I want to be known and loved as I really am.

My husband used to complain that all the neighbors who had lived beside him for years when I met him never even invited him in for a cup of coffee, though they all came to tell me what a hero he was as a doctor. It occurred to me that this was because they saw him as above them, a god, not a flesh and blood human being. Gods really don't need anything, and what we have to offer would surely be too inferior to be accepted.

Gods and goddesses have no needs. They are magic beings that can pull fulfillment of the wishes of others out of the air. It is so much easier to believe this myth than to watch for what a person really hungers for in his or her life and seek to partner with him or her in filling the most basic desires.

I have had husbands who treated me as each, within different marriages; I will not settle for either way of treatment in this last partnership in my life. I want my husband to be my life partner, as I have been to him, in every way humanly possible, including the shit, piss, and blood of my illnesses and old age.

We have convinced ourselves that there are gods and goddesses outside of us that need our sacrifices and adoration, while ignoring the cries of those who carry The Sacred Spirit in their earthly bodies. How convenient it is to imagine that there are births without blood and god babies without dirty diapers! Only a bunch of celibates and royalty with slaves to serve their real bodily needs could dream up such drivel.

I never saw my menstrual blood as sacred, as I'm sure any women who don't deeply desire motherhood would not. Neither do I see semen as sacred, where wasting a drop is sacrilege. We are all simply animals with the choice to be more than creatures of our genetics and histories. Making these choices is what turns homo sapiens into full humans

I want nothing more than to be treated as an equal in relationships, balancing my weaknesses and strengths with those of my partners. Is this too much to ask while I remain on this physical plane called our earth?

Monday, September 8, 2014

Fear-Free Faith

I recently finished reading "Unbroken" in which religious zealotry replaced PTSD. Does psychic/spiritual peace require that we erase what we know, that which we wish to forget? Must we deny what we heard with our own ears and what we have seen with our own eyes?

I also recently went, with a lifelong friend, to see the movie "The Giver," in which a utopia was developed where only one person in the community was allowed to remember anything. I, for many years, held this position in the lives of many family and friends. How convenient it is for others to confess their pain and/or sins to one person and simply walk away, unburdened.  I can attest to the great burden it is to be the sole crier in the wilderness of denial. Is there any thought to how heavy the baggage of the confessor has become?

Prophecy comes from insight into the past. Anyone who believes that prophecy is a gift has never been the one to whom that ability was given. Those who wish to deny their past memories will kill the prophet rather than face the inevitability of repetition in those who will not remember. I wonder if prophets wish they could shake off what they know and awaken with innocence, once again? I know I wish that I could. Maybe a lobotomy is in order.

How will homo sapiens ever stop repeating the stories of our past murderous mistakes unless we are willing to look squarely and honestly at all of them? Because the history of humanity continues to circle back on itself, in generation after generation, doesn't mean that we are doomed to act as simple-minded animals, following the blind faith of our fathers and mothers. In order to save The Sacred Spirit in our universe, we must all stop and critically look at what we have become and how we got where we are.

Religions that enforce rules with inflicting fear have been the norm since the beginning of what we know of homo sapiens. Isn't it time that we stop confusing awe in The Almighty with fear of a punishing father (or mother)?

The Pharisees and those that came from them believed in a spiritual life, as well as a physical life, while on earth and for eternity. Religious practice was bound by rules and rituals, but these rules and rituals did not necessarily bind or define the spirits of the adherents. The spirit of every act we inflict on another is carried into the generations that follow us, not only in eternity, but on our shared earth. How many more generations of hatred and war will it take until we "get it"?

I seems imperative to me that we stop looking for The Sacred Spirit outside of what we see and hear in each other and our physical earth. This would be the best way to honor The Spirit that is perishing for lack of our understanding about our earth. What we have and what we see and hear is a part of the continuum of creation. What we bind here is bound in eternity; what we loose here is lost in eternity. Our negative actions may be denied, but their consequences are not loosed with the denial of our painful memories. The energy infects our earth and spreads.

I have been bound by fear for much too long; I have loosed my fear in favor of awe in what I see and hear all around me. It is not with fear, but with great sadness that I observe so many who insist on dragging others to "faith" through fear. In my belief system, there is no death; there is only metamorphosis, so there is no fear of the end of this manifestation of my energy on earth. My energies, both positive and negative will go on in the universal entities that I have impacted. My hope is that what I give will be received as more blessings than curses, for many generations in the future.

It is very freeing to fear not life or what others see as death. I also have no fear of my future in this physical manifestation or whatever manifestations come next. My mission is simply to be available, if and when called to be a blessing. I am finally free from religion and have found fear-free faith!




Friday, September 5, 2014

What if We Women...?

What if we women raised traditionally could take a year off from being anybody's anything and find out who we really are underneath all the "shoulds"? Who would we be? How would we act?