T-M-I from T-I-M

How much does spirituality cost?

I posted my recent blog post on the spread of spirituality on another blogging system and I received a really interesting response:

I find at least in my country of birth there is a lot of resistance to these supposedly spiritual ideas by people who simply can't afford to have them. Firstly, just like many middle-to-upper class indulgences, there is the whole factor of language that you mention. It does build walls. The fact that a lot of people are charging tons of money for all of this builds more walls. There is an "abundance mentality" that runs strong through much of the "spirituality movement" which says something to the effect that if you believe that you are worthy, abundance will come to you as you deserve. Bullshit, I say. I think this is muddying the waters of spirituality with some very dangerous and ultimately alienating ideas. Try inviting your local pizza-assembler who works for under six dollars an hour to a three hundred and fifty dollar weekend course, and see how far it gets you. Oh, and apparently it's their fault they are working for that little... they don't think they deserve more. It's a circular argument in which the people who have less get less because they don't get exposed to this idea in the first place because... you have to have money to find out you deserve even more than the privilege you already have. 

He's right.  In fact Dr. Wayne Dyer, whose one of my favorite authors, either just spoke or is due to speak in SF soon.  The cost to go see him speak was almost $300. 

I didn't go.  I don't begrudge him earning money for his appearances.  In fact, he's stated that he gives a good portion (if not all) of his money away.

But it still begs the question:  Did Jesus Christ ever charge for speaking?  Did he sell books?  By the way, no, I'm not suggesting that Wayne Dyer or Deepak Chopra or even the Christian speakers who make millions are Jesus Christ. 

I guess I'm wondering to what level they ensure that people aren't excluded.  Even if they aren't, I wonder how their message of spirituality sits with someone who is homeless.  And if it does exclude at some level, what does that mean?

It's at least worth considering.

Crumbling Separation Between Church and State

First of all, for whatever reason, nothing gets me more focused than a blog post categorized as religion AND politics.  Not that I feel giddy or happy, but it's almost always going to be worth discussing.

I just read that Father Anthony Mercieca (a catholic priest, of course) admitted to fondling Representative Mark Foley 4 decades ago (he was between 13-15).  I'll stick with my same story, now is not the time for judgment, let's try to get to some understanding, because I really need some.

Check out the quotes from Father Mercieca (should I still be calling him that?):

"See abuse, it's a bad word, you know, because abuse, you abuse someone against his will. But it involved just spontaneousness, you know?"

"Let's say it was 40 years ago, almost 40 years ago, so why bring this up at this late stage?" Mercieca asked. "Anyway, he will overcome it, with a psychiatrist you know. Mark is a very intelligent man."

I did not embellish them.  A few things come to mind.

First, we may as well live in a churchstate or statechurch or whatever.  It appears that the leaders in the catholic church are the same group of myopic spin-masters that run our country. 

Next, I cannot see how someone whose job, no calling, it is to judge swiftly without cause has found a way not to judge himself.  Seriously, he actually believes in right or wrong but doesn't think it's wrong.

Then, I started thinking how Mark Foley must feel.  I think this just makes things worse for him.  Yes, he will be spared the full force of judgment as its turned towards the priest.  He's left with trying to make sense of how he could ever have earned that lot in life.  On top of it he's probably now seeing what he did in a different light.  I bet the kids think that he thinks he did nothing wrong.

It's REALLY hard for us to stay calm and compassionate at these times.  I don't think re-hab or sensitivity training work here.  I need to find the purest love in my heart and send it out to all of them.  This doesn't mean that it gets that priest off the hook from explaining himself, he MUST.  I would bet the NPV of my tithe for the rest of my life (0) that he was abused.

Let's just get to it.  Church and state are now exactly the same thing.  Giant organizations that survive and rely upon our collective apathetic, pathetic collective existence using fear to take a ton of money from us and still ALWAYS need money, one run by men who think they are God's chosen ones and the other run by Bishops,  the Pope and priests (at least the ones who haven't abused children sexually).

Is spirituality spreading?

I've had a number of discussions lately with friends, business associates and others about spirituality.  Particularly in the context of what it means and whether its spreading.

Often my partner in discussion will refer to the growing numbers of experts or leaders whose words are spreading exponentially.  30 or 40 years ago we didn't have Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Eckart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, Pema Chodron, etc. (in fact 40 years ago we didn't have me, and as I'm sure you know...it's all about me!).  Now for those of you who don't read a whole lot of the spirituality stuff, these names are some of the thought leaders in the movement (although I suppose calling them "thought" leaders is probably inaccurate, maybe they are first in or something like that).

I remember when I first started to read about all of this stuff.  Candidly, it was very intimidating.  I didn't know any of those names and in fact when one of my friends mentioned them, I always felt awkward because I only knew Deepak Chopra and only because I had heard people make fun of them.

For me, I believe that's the one of the big things inhibiting progress of people understanding that they have to discover their own truth and have the power to do so (what I would call spirituality).  Even if you have heard or read about spirituality and you don't know the lingo it's still intimidating. 

The first time someone said to me "I'm present to..." I was waiting for her to hand me some type of award.  And the first time someone referred to an approach for helping one's self as a "technology" I figured it was a hand held video game.  That language approach which is used freely between the crowd that follows it but feels scary to someone not in the game. 

I also believe that what many folks classically refer to as "Eastern" philosophy isn't spirituality either.  The fact is being Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Jewish is no different in my eyes.  Whatever divides ultimately leads to conflict.  So, I don't accept that spirituality is an eastern thing.

So what's the metric to measure sos (spread of spirituality)?  I suppose it's some kind of stat that measures how many people love themselves.  A by-product of that should be a more peaceful world, or at a minimum strong messages that it's on the way and that doesn't ring any bells of mine right now.

Here's the deal.  I love Wayne Dyer, he's awesome.  I've enjoyed learning from Eckart Tolle and Pema Chodron (whose book, The Wisdom of No Escape was my first one).  There are even approachable novels like The Celestine Prophecy or Conversations with God that are cool and I learned without even knowing it!

I know that if we all looked into our own hearts and souls for our truth, we'd find it.  To me, while there are more people seemingly following a version of this path in their lives.  However, it feels like I am building walls between those who aren't on one that's similar (regardless of whether it's working for them or not).

My biggest concern for myself (and anyone else) is that when we are ready to, individually, try it out and we ask friends or family about it, someone may risk getting hurt because of a misunderstood intention.  And when I started to open my heart to it, it was awful tender.  Luckily I have language skills to adjust, but others may not.  If they open once and get shut out, it will be hard to open again

One thing that is most certain by the way:  Several people have made ENORMOUS amounts of money talking about all of this which is fine by me.

So is it spreading?  I think it is.

Is it spreading in such a way that there's a big wave about to hit shore?  I don't think so.

Grace: what does it mean?

Lately, the word grace has been appearing in my life frequently.  It got me thinking, what exactly is grace?  I fought the urge to google it and look at its definition because I want to feel it out.

Yesterday I was at a local meditation center looking through their bookstore.  The salesperson is a sweet, peaceful older lady who I see there frequently.  So I asked her what she thought grace was.

She thought for a minute or so and said it's a divine blessing.  Which felt unclear and hard to understand and I asked her to expand.  She said we could be here all day and we laughed.  And then she just sort of threw out "Whatever it is, it's unearned."

That really touched me.  Grace definitely does not feel like something that is "earned". 

To me, grace is the soft, peaceful presence that is there to embrace myself or anyone else at any time. 

What do you think grace means?

First morally bankrupt, now financially bankrupt

I read that a diocese in Davenport, Iowa recently went bankrupt because of its ongoing efforts to settle lawsuits against priests who molested children back in the 1950's.  Apparently, church leaders also tried to cover them up (can you believe that??).

This is the fourth one to do so (seems Portland, OR and Tucson and Spokane, WA also declared moral as well as financial bankruptcy). 

Iowa also recently got a new bishop to replace the 75 year old one who was their.  This diocese paid an amazing $10.5 MILLION dollars so far on the lawsuits.  Even more astounding was that I read that nationwide, the church has paid a dizzying $1.5 BILLION dollars so far for these lawsuits.

I'm sure the numbers will continue to climb as more cases come to light from post 1950's to today (yes, I'm sure there are still examples of priests still doing this today...).

But here's what I can't understand:  What were they planning on doing with the millions or BILLIONS of dollars that they had either sitting around or perhaps in some type of insurance policy that they were paying premiums on (btw, if this is really insured that would be REALLY disturbing)?

I guess I can't quite get how christ like retained earnings are.

And perhaps even more interesting, I wonder how the good people of these dioceses feel about their money paying for past pedophilic priests.  It's bad enough their tax dollars have to pay for Mark Foley to IM our future (but still yet of age) leaders of the US.  Now their tithe is paying for Father Loveboy's uncontrollable urge to use his illusory position of power and influence to ruin people's lives.

God talks about creating human beings

I had this thought the other day:  If I were god, how would I describe the making of humans?

I would begin by describing how I created it.  Yes, I would call human beings it, because they are one.  Honestly, it wouldn't have been much fun if I created one being that is both male and female at all times.  In fact, I would just be creating myself.

I'm omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, but I'm not narcissistic (actually, come to think of it, when I say I'm the omni-3 it does seem a little bit like I'm lake gazing, but I digress).

So I split me in half and created it in my image.  I had to give it a chance to like multiply and survive, and asexually reproducing by fission is just like....I don't know...weird. 

To be completely candid, when I did it, it was sort of like when that guy invented SIM.  He just put it out there and let it become.  I was a bit curious myself to see how it all turned out (actually I've always known, but hey I've seen Titanic a number of times and I always hope that Jack and Rose will survive!).   

I decided to make one half of the it be the gateway for new humans.  They seem to get creation and can think as well it decided to call that "female".   (BTW, isn't it interesting that for that half, they got the name of the "FE"males, fe is the sign for gold, so I guess they are the gold males, making the males, just males).

The other half, is a little tricky.  They've used their brains from the very start in a way that was completely unintended. They've even gone so far to suggest that humans were created by God (that's me...except I don't capitalize my name, they (or should I say he) did) in "HIS" image. 

Think about how silly that is.  If humans were created in "his" image, then wouldn't that mean that all females would look like mid 70's East German Olympian female swimmers (yes, I get the whole gold thing and the swimmers, but I don't need to work the obvious to get a laugh....)?

Men....can't live with them, can't have an everlasting cycle of lives of suffering and illogical group decision making perpetuating illusory divisions and never ending conflict without 'em.

I guess it's not all bad.  I mean men created religion, governments and sports and, ummm, ummm, LOOK there's Marilyn Monroe!

Someday it will get it, it's so close! 

Yes, I created it in my image, the male and the female, but they're one, not two, just like me.  Let's face it whenever they, you know, really become one they call out for me all the time.

Yes, I bless them, but every moment, not just when they sneeze or when the US prints money.

And numerous others. 

But the thing is, if I can't even rely on men to stop for directions or put the toilet seat down, how can I possibly get it to realize that it is me?

For the love of me!  For my sake it's so simple!  I guess I'll just have to continue to let them make their me-forsaken decisions, call them mistakes and design religions around that to make money off of their guilt. 

Human beings, you gotta love 'em!

Priest: Cheeseburger and Fries...Drones: And also with you

I actually can't quite identify why I've been bursting to share this story.  It certainly demonstrates how meaningless religion can really become, in this case Catholicism.  (Yes I do consider my Catholic phase of my life a "case".  I suppose if Pat Boone can go leather, MC Hammer can go thug, Shaq can go actor or Ann Coulter can go....actually what does she do exactly I can at least say my Catholic phase was equally unsuccessful and I didn't need to wear leather, parachute pants, a genie outfit or skirts that look more like thin oven mitts...so it ain't that bad!)

Around my 16th year of existence on this earth I was at church and REALLY bored.  Not like the normal bored.  I mean so bored that I entertained the thought of taking my pants off just to get kicked out (of course in the C-posse's case instead of getting kicked out I probably would have ended up with dozens of dates with the priests to talk development and vino...).

And then it happened.  A priest (in this case Fr. Yast, one of the few interesting priests I ever met in my life....) said something new and interesting.  And it's this and what comes in a bit what I remember and nothing more.  Because it was either the same readings and sermon like...52 weeks ago...to the day!

On a side note, sermon comes from the Latin root of discourse...not!

Oh yeah, and how about these 2 definitions of it (American Heritage Dictionary...and the US invented English right??):

1. A religious discourse delivered as part of a church service.
2. An often lengthy and tedious speech of reproof or exhortation.

I bet if someone put those two definitions in front of me, with nothing else.  I would come up with ? for #1 and SERMON for #2!

So that day he decided to take us to task (did I mention I was Catholic??) because we never pay attention.  He said he could say anything and we were all sort of like Pavlovian robotic drones (ok, I came up with that) and we'd just respond without thinking.

Sure enough, as mass headed into the home stretch (know as sharing our peace by shaking hands with fellow flockers while mustering up a fake smile saying "Peace be with you" if we didn't know them, "Did you see the game????" if we did) Fr. Yast played his ace. 

Typically he says, actually I should refer to ALL the priests, not just Fr. Yast...wait a minute they're all dudes...

Typically he says "May the peace of yadda yadda yadda be with you all"

We respond with the type of effervescence usually heard in any high council of any sci film (Star Wars..etc.)..."And also with you".

Well, my man said "Cheeseburger and Fries".

Same number of syllables...close enough....it's our turn "And also with you."  we all responded.

I remember how his body and could picture what his face looked like, but we were in the back and they hadn't put in jumbotrons yet.  (See we typically got in line, grabbed a wafer, got the necessary face time with the priest and walked straight out.  A sign that we were there and had stayed through the point at which they got our money...it's all good.  So it wasn't uncommon for me to be munching on the last remnants of the body of Christ in the car, all immediately attentive, silent and interested, because we usually caught Casey Kasem's long distance dedication...yeah baby!)

My bet is he felt like he was looking out into a sea of morons, did they seriously just do that.  Sort of like how Tom Hanks' character felt as the back up catcher got ready for the big game..."You're killin' me Alice...You're KILLIN' me."

I'm sure he was thinking, seriously, can't they think for themselves?  Aren't they engaged or at least worried enough about how I will treat them if they screw up?

Other than the times when one of my other brothers farted and because of the pews and their amplifcatative nature was always loud and would get into trouble and the non-caught (not guilt free, just non-caught...) brothers looked on giggling uncontrollably, it was the only thing that I remember vividly about the masses I went to.

After a year or two they all sound the same and muscle memory (for standing, kneeling, etc.) and judgment conditioning (for, like everything else) got me through it and like the priest could have said "Cheeseburger and fries" and I would have said "And also with you".

In this case, actually, I didn't.  Not because I'd learned my lesson, rather because I wasn't paying attention because I was, like REALLY bored.

More on Jesus: Water to Wine is a strange first miracle

I guess I'm on some sort of Jesus vibe today but nevertheless, I have been pondering Jesus' coming out miracle if you will.  As documented in the Bible (John 2:1-11), Jesus' first miracle occurred at a wedding.

There was a party at the Galilean village of Cana for a wedding that Jesus, his mom and his disciples were at (I suppose you could say the JC posse was in the house).  The wine ran out.

They set 6 "very large stone water-jars" each holding TWENTY GALLONS on the floor and filled them "to the brim" with water.  They did and Jesus said take some to the MC, they did he tasted it and it was all good.  The man called out to the bridegroom:

"Everybody I know puts his good wine on first and then when men have had plenty to drink, he brings out the poor stuff. But you have kept back your good wine till now!"

Fair enough (btw, I guess the women weren't tipping it back, I suppose if they couldn't be priests back then then it stands to reason they shouldn't be able to drink).  Notice that it's clear that at this point in the party it's standard to bring out the swill (now this cat must have already have run through all his swill (because they were out) or perhaps not bought swill at all) which means that it was really time to get that party started because people were getting drunk.

Jesus saved the day by turning 120 GALLONS of water into wine to drink.

I guess what I was thinking was isn't that sort of an unusual coming out miracle?  Serving good wine to a bunch of people who already had plenty to drink? 

And consider that his SECOND miracle was the healing of an official's dying son.

Here's the thing, yes, it was a miracle that he apparently changed the water into wine.  It's also a miracle that it was the good stuff.  Now, who knows how knowledgeable an already wine'd up pallete acutally is (I'm sure it was not the inspiration for the movie Sideways or anything like that) but that is somewhat beside the point.

And it also got me thinking what if he had turned the water into like just ok wine, you know like bargain basement stuff.  Would it still have been a miracle?  Or would it have become urban legend or just like this really cool parlor trick?

I am not at all doubting that it happened, I'm sure it did.  I'm not even suggesting it's not a miracle which when it did it was. 

I guess I'm wondering why a religion of the scope, size and shear power of christianity and all it's wonderful derivations would publically celebrate serving great wine to already inebriated wine guests as the miraculous coming out party.  And that at said party we're relying on accounts that were either delivered first hand or validated by people, many of whom woke up hung over the next day.

Interesting fodder for the imagination, eh?

Cheers!

What religion would Jesus be?

I had a lovely dinner with a friend last night and we were discussing what religion we thought Jesus would be.  My friend Theresa suggested that Jesus might belong to some type of Unity church devoted to peace and love and understanding.

I thought about that a bit more and believe that if I were to actually see Jesus at a Sunday service the most likely celebration would be the Gilde Memorial Church in San Francisco.  I went there about a year ago and it was nothing short of magnificent.  (Actually I don't really care what (if any) religion you might be going to Glide in SF is as important as seeing Alcatraz.  I remember the time I went as I walked in to see several hundred people (like 600-900...) in the church and hear a beautiful choir of about 200 singing What's Goin' On by Marvin Gaye, yes, I started to cry it was so beautiful.)

Nevertheless, it's sort of odd to consider that Jesus couldn't really be a Christian, because, after all what denomination would he be?  My bet is that if Jesus came back he would respectfully and lovingly choose no religion thank you very much.

10 Questions: The "R" Word

I felt the urge this morning to go with the 10 question format looking into one of the most confusingly venomous affinity groups in the world, religion.  I presume that most religions are based on love (in the members frame of reference) not hate (directed at non-members and their heathen frames of reference).  I also presume that most religions have some level of service to fellow human beings as part of the gig.

Well, I just don't quit get how religions make sense.  As such, I have 10 questions I would like to submit (any and all reps of any types of groups may respond):

1. What difference is at the core of the Middle East conflict?
2. What difference is at the core of the conflict in Northern Ireland?
3. What difference is at the core of our war with Iraq?  (Ok except for the oil reserves)
4. What difference was at the core of the India-Pakistan Kashmir conflict?
5. Other than politics, what is the other topic that people recommend you don't speak about in social groups?
6. What one thing do you know about Scientology?  (perhaps a certain star actor???)
7. Does love include fear?
8. Does love include guilt?
9. Does love include shame?
10. If religion = fear, guilt and shame (not to mention a couple dozen wars...but hey, who's counting?), then how can religion = love?

I wonder how things would look if religion disappeared.  I think it would look like....heaven.