Books, Reviews, Short Stories, Authors, Publicity, a little poetry, music to complement...and other stuff including politics, about life... "Books, Cats: Life is Sweet..."
Showing posts with label Frank Schaeffer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Schaeffer. Show all posts
Some managed to unify the Ego with their Self. “I and the Father are one."(John 10:30) comes to mind.
The Self has left signposts all along our history to guide us on the “Straight and Narrow.” This expression refers to the state of balance, which we must sustain to preserve the relationship between the Self and the Ego. As for this relationship, it simply refers to the balance between what is good for one, and what is good for all.
Ego — is intended to protect the advantages that our reality offers to each individual, human or otherwise, to each living creature that can create diversity. It deals with building blocks of our phenomenal reality.
Self — is the guiding light that leads the Ego to conduct itself in a manner that will result in good for all. Both sentiments are necessary for the preservation of the phenomenal reality. For the world that Ego recognizes as real.
At an individual level, this is superbly expressed in King David’s Psalm 23, which I offered at the beginning of this series “In Search of Secular Ethics,” inspired by Dalai Lama. (3)
~~~
Stanislaw Kapuscinski is, I am sure, the most brilliant of the authors with whom I've become friends, through his words--sharing words that were, often, so above my level of comprehension that I had to sometimes read over and over until I understood. Of course, a total new lexicon, at least to me, didn't help the absorption of the knowledge being shared... I have found, when dealing with a potential "advancement" in our world of knowledge, I, and many writers, want to "create" words to differentiate, to ensure the reader knows that this may be something new to the reader. Working on a university campus, I had met and interacted with many of those whose brilliance was brought to the realm of instructing our future leaders. But reading the words of an individual through a book allows readers to really begin to actually know an individual.
Stan, for instance, is a man who wants to share what he has learned. He wants to have you feel comfortable with him even though he will be talking about things that, at first, you may not comprehend. So, he writes by simply breaking his real name down so that you will be more comfortable with your new teacher--Stan I.S. Law. To me, he set the tone for his many books, some written under his own name, other with just Stan as the author name. Stan is an approachable man, even though he writes of things unknown, at first glance... But, there is, oh, so much to learn!
I believe that I was led to move to Stan immediately after introducing Tim Speiss, to illustrate what I think God wants us to immediately realize. We are a specis created in His image and as such, there is so very much potential for growth, for knowing more and more of God, of the universe, ever striving to expand and move upward, forward...grasping a bit of new knowledge from this purpose or advancement in life, absorbing that information into our "Ego," and allowing it to influence our very own set of accumulated experiences, to, in turn, create new thoughts as a means to expand and grow our contribution to the phenomenal reality...
Consider, this, as somewhat of an example of how my Ego has responded... For example, Psalm 23, for me, is a song, a song that can be sung together with many different notes to create an entirely new song. I remember that my choir director said she knew 22 different versions of the song. I sang a little of the one I had learned different from the one we were practicing, and she immediately laughed, 23... Yes, there are at least 23 different versions of the 23rd Psalm as it has been set to music. And, as found in the video, many words can be updated or emphasized by the individual singer who creatively has heard the original and wanted to share them more passionately and with words he or she preferred... Sometimes at night, when I sing on my way to sleep, I will sing one version and then another that I've learned... Different, yet the same words because of course I had sung them so often I had them memorized... So, we, in turn create our living Ego and contribute to God's world, gaining a bit of learning, merging, adding perhaps, or changing the words, or, also the ingredients to a recipe--all for the betterment of mankind.
So, that, during my own life experiences, when I read Black Hole in Stan's book, I immediately thought--Star Trek! Yes, I am a Trekkie from way back and I was always captivated by what the future held as created by Gene Roddenberry... So, now, of course, my Ego began to immediately merge Stan's words into a vision of a Black Hole, which, by the way, the Captains of The Enterprise always escaped... now being used to, perhaps, speak of...Hell???
I was led to Stan and this specific book, after I had written the latest page of my open memoir. I've read several of his books, although, I know I should read more...especially after having read Self Ego Virus. Stan is one of the most well-read men in the world, honing in on the sciences and religion--the latter words used is my attempt to make this understandable for me and those of us who have no background in the study of either.
You see, folks, I realized as I was reading that what I had written yesterday was not totally accurate. It was accurate for that moment in time as I wrote it. Which then changed as soon as I had read Stan's book. I learned a major key for understanding "me." How can I say it to make sense of it? What I was being reminded of was that there would not be any one book, or any one author that would have all the answers I've been seeking as a Christian. I would always need to continue to read...and...learn.
On the other hand, Stan's book explained why... But to do that, I think I must translate Stan's words into my own... and, of course, add music, book and movie references from my own "Ego..." In the book, the person I think of as Me, Glenda, would be that part of my body called Ego. More importantly, that part of my body in which His spirit resides is called Self... For me, I've normally used the words "Holy Spirit" from my understanding of the Holy Trinity... It's exciting to me to learn that we are all, really, scientifically, pure energy and that the Ego, me, is free to act as I choose, but with a constant monitoring by Self. I think of the Star Trek era movies which included a large flying ship controlled centrally, while people were "absorbed" into the ship from other ships and tied into a central consciousness. The Borg! Of course, in the movies, that was always fought against because we humans wanted to retain ourselves as individuals... But what if we could do both? Stan explained about vibrations--yada, yada, yada (a scientific explanation)... I did finally get the gist of it and immediately thought of a song! Of Course!
Self, that is, would be good vibrations--all those creative thoughts, dreams, actions which my Ego produces which helps, self, others, the earth, the universe...
But Stan points out that, while Ego does indeed retain my own individuality, sooner or later, if I, as part of the whole (Love Thy Neighbor as Ourselves), do not creatively add to the total body of energy that makes up "Earth..." that's when our bodies will begin to deteriorate sometimes pushing the Ego's "bad vibrations" to the point when we are no longer using our energy toward the betterment of mankind. Think climate control and those who refuse to believe and do anything about it! They'll be going into...a Black Hole... (again, version of Hell?)
Notice Virus as part of the Title... Egotistically, we hated to think about the loss of life during the Covid Pandemic. However, when you are looking at it in a good way, we find that families were brought home, brought together to protect each other. It allowed our bodies to regenerate, even if our minds and hearts were concerned, we acted, to the best of our ability to ensure the virus was stopped! Or did we?
It has been too recent that the pandemic was in full growth and spreading. In fact, I got my latest shot just this week! And, immediately, we had learned that there were many in America who refused to be vaccinated. First, I'm not talking about those who decided for specific scientific or health reasons that they did not agree to take them. In my mind, that decision did not lead to the common good for all that I totally believe in at this point in my life. No, what I am talking about was the incitement of a president who, while, at least, moving ahead to get pharmacies working on a vaccine (even to the extent to also admit to Bob Woodward, for his book, that he chose not to share all information needed to make good decisions... or whatever rationale he thought of at that time). What he did do was use it as a campaign prop! And most of his followers refused to even consider vaccinating! How very cruel...
And then Stan provided the "twist to the plot," the answer to the mystery! Could it be--could it really be that while those religious leaders who were making a deal with the devil, which resulted in complete chaos for America, with the incitement of hate, bias, prejudice, that God really also had a plan? I have to admit I've been smiling ever since I read it... And I'm confident that Stan will not mind my sharing that twist, while also highly recommending that you use this particular book to read now, even if you've not read this author before. I truly believe that if you are a concerned citizen, you need to begin to understand your own role in that grand scheme we call...living in America.
Ask not what America will do for you,
but what together we can do
for the freedom of man.
--John Kennedy
You see, the key to this short book, just 44 pages, for less than a dollar(!) was reading the book in relation to what has been occurring... Consider, for instance, that much of what the past president ultimately did was to move us backward in knowledge, advancement and NOT for the good of mankind...
In fact, it was the wishes of the conservative republican religious leaders to place judges that would do harm to many. Because of course, nothing could be done except for it to be completely radical. Don't say gay, Ignore being woke, put women back into the kitchen having babies, climate is not a problem that we could heal, and most of all, don't even talk about taking guns away, even if babies, school children, and innocent adults are being killed on an ongoing basis!
Well, this single Christian woman has been woke all of my life, it seems, and every single thing that the past president was doing, I was watching, knowing, wondering what to do... Because, I knew what was happening was not by God's guidance. I've recognized Self within me for over 50 years, even when I may have chosen my own will of Ego....
And, thankfully, I am no longer wondering...
Imagine a man who, practically singlehandedly, exposed the iniquity of a corrupt government; who exposed the selfishness of all members of the ruling classes that worshiped money above all else? Wouldn’t people hate such a man? Or at least most people? And yet... he isn’t hated. He’s still admired by many. Has he done so on purpose... or accidentally? Although the vast majority of people would have no idea what he was attempting to do. Perhaps he is no more than an instrument, completely unaware of the import of his mission. It often looks like that. Perhaps his mission is too great, far too great, for an ordinary man to comprehend. Surely nature, let alone the Omnipresent Consciousness, would be very selective in choosing the instrument for such a mission. Perhaps, a suitable man would be so involved in his own Ego as to be completely unaware of the true reality? And yet, possibly due to such an instrument’s inadequacy, yet to help him in his titanic endeavor, the Omnipresent Consciousness invaded his unconscious and, in Its infinite wisdom, planted a pernicious virus, somewhere, far away, that could assist him in destroying the “disease of materiality” that denied the intent of the evolution of the whole world. He needed help in his seemingly Sisyphean commission. He’d have to destroy the mindset anchored in material reality, reduce the overpopulation of the whole world, get rid of the most inept members of our species, members who never contributed, nor were likely to contribute, to the wondrous miracle of the phenomenal reality. The list goes on... With luck, unbeknownst to him, humanity might realize that we are no more than visitors in this illusory reality. That this world isn’t real... unless we make it so. That we are not placed in the magnificent constructs of our bodies to make money, but to restore the Paradise that this world once was. By the time such a man carries out his task people will realize that unless they learn to think for themselves, their lives would continue to be governed by idiots; by ignorant, self-centered sycophants. This is what the Age of Aquarius is all about. Those who survive the Pluto Effect must learn to enhance their own states of consciousness. They must at least try to raise the rate of vibrations of their Ego to get closer to the Self that supplies them with the wondrous experience of life; the experience of Becoming. Perhaps, once again, we shall recognize that we are not only our physical selves but merely visitors of these magnificent bodies engineered over billions of years, which might, just might, generate ideas, which would add to the diversity of the reality we call our world. Our phenomenal world. Our Garden of Eden.
~~~
Hopefully, before we, too, get kicked out of the Garden of Eden for something that does not improve our world, we will begin to see and respond. The above video may or may not be true about Trump being kicked out of a church. I didn't take the time to double check. Because it is not the only example of what is NOW happening where women, it seems, in particular, are speaking out against Donald Trump.... Think very, very, very bad vibrations moving toward his part of the Black Hole...
Dare we recognize that the United States has indeed become too materialistic, even while also saying that this is perhaps a symptom that could be avoided quickly. I think of people, for example, going overboard in Christmas shopping. While doing little, if anything, to celebrate the birth of our Lord... For, after all, Christmas was a purely Christian Holiday, until Santa Claus was added... Can it be both religious and secular?
I remember when Christmas came in my home during my early years, there was little money to even consider buying gifts. Yet my mother would work, skrimp and save so that she would get, perhaps, one big gift for her four children. I remember one year it was a croquet set that, even though it was December, we all went out, set it up in our big yard, and played most of the day. My Mom, by the way, gave me the most precious gift--ensuring I learned of Jesus.
Will the movement of Donald Trump into the Black Hole be the solution? Of course not, but the impact of what has happened to the "religious" world as a result of his presidency and subsequent actions, will certainly continue to be part of the knowledge, the awareness, within our combined Egos, that just may result, if Stan is right in his assessment, his proclamation, that America will slowly move forward again--toward Becoming what we were intended to be.
Perhaps by Stan's books, by Tim Speiss' books, or by all of the other writers who are speaking creatively to the world, expanding awareness, knowledge, and passions, we can work to positively support our phenomenal reality.
"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
(Neil Armstrong)
Popped up when I was looking for a specific video;
Instead I diverted. These men are also ones working to serve mankind...
One final note: I woke up around 5 and was going to continue to read, but "write" was clearly in my mind. Now, I was going to end with Awesome God, but my eyes were drawn to this song...
Readers, this is your/my time. We are all being called by God to, figuratively, lay our bodies down for our nation, our world. Forget about thinking whether Biden is too old, forget about your chosen political party, we are nearing a black hole caused by soooooooo many egos expelling bad vibrations of hate, evil, murder, prejudice, and, lies declaring "god" as being served by these horrendous actions...
Let me ask you... do you feel good vibrations about what is happening in this world today? Then consider what Stanislaw, Tim, and Frank have been talking about! Open your mind, instead of listening and following. Think, Think, Think... Look for Truth, Truth, Truth. Truth will lead us forward. We are merely "Egos that have been given total free Will. It is up to each of us to live because... (now His selection)
This has been a presentation of my creative ego
to serve self...Merging information acquired over decades with a desire to improve...mankind...
And isn't it fun to do so?! LOL
Creatively Start Living Again! What is Your Passion?
Look for New Group of Security professionals, Retired Military Staff, et.al.,
Speaking Truth!
Note: I will be adding relevant supportive videos as we are now also in a war--Against Trumpism...
Free America from Lies, Prejudice and Violence!
~~~
It was a hot and sultry July afternoon deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where cellphone signals can’t penetrate and sun-faded Confederate flags fly. I was part of a sweating crowd listening to a preacher. We sat in a big white tent with the sides rolled up, the type of tent religious revivalists might use when they’re crying out to the Lord to save us sinners from eternal hellfire. But this preacher was very different from that stereotype. In fact, that stereotypical pastor probably would have tried to exorcise what he would consider the demons possessing the crowd I sat with. And he would have started with our preacher — one Nadia-Bolz Weber, all six feet of her, dramatic streaks of gray in her dark hair, and a big Mary Magdalene tattoo on a bicep muscular enough to make Michelle Obama jealous. She is a Lutheran minister who says crazy things like sex is good. Even if you’re not married, even if you’re gay or trans or bi. A preacher who asks, “Isn’t forgiving abusive men over and over what keeps battered women battered?” A minister whose congregants don’t fit the cookie cutter that my Holy Roller preacher — and a lot of conservative Christians — would try to make us all fit into. No, her flock included straight, gay, trans, the newly sober, the-trying-to-be-sober, the eternally — and humanly — imperfect. As she wound up her talk, the crowd stayed with her, cheering and clapping. And then she said, “C’mon up and dance with me!” My new friend Jes, her asymmetrically cut hair swinging, a wicked glint in her eye, grabbed my hand and pulled a hesitant me out of my chair. “Okay, Kate, let’s go!” she said. And we ran up to the stage together, joining dozens of others as the loudspeakers blasted Prince’s Kiss. There I was dancing and singing, surprised at how many of the lyrics I knew by this artistic genius who transcended conventional boundaries of gender, sex and identity. It was the perfect soundtrack for this crowd, some straight, some gay, some transgender, some Christian, and some, like me, not Christian at all. Whatever I had expected of a progressive Christian festival, this was definitely not it. I had had no idea of what I’d be getting into when I’d left my triplex apartment on Manhattan’s deep blue Upper West Side two days earlier. I’d taken an early morning flight out of LaGuardia to Atlanta, then boarded a zippy little Bombardier for the quick hop to the Asheville, North Carolina, airport where I picked up a rental car. Driving out of Asheville, I wound north and west on US-25, my rented Chevy Spark's feeble but valiant engine laboring up the first hills leading into the Blue Ridge Mountains, That’s when I lost my internet connection for the bulk of the weekend. My route took me through a green-as-a-tropical-jungle landscape, occasionally passing a weather-beaten house with a tattered Confederate flag rippling in a hot breeze. C’mon, man, I thought, having internal monologues with the owners of homes flying those flags. It’s been more than 150 years! You lost! Then I realized we’re still fighting that battle. And I was headed toward a very different rebel enclave, one that fights against all that that flag stands for. My destination: Hot Springs, North Carolina., so named for the 100-degree-plus mineral springs that have attracted people for centuries. It's a small town that's a handful of one- and two-story buildings on one side of a railroad track. On the other side, the Hot Springs Resort & Spa and a giant campground. That big campground was the staging area for the Wild Goose Festival, part Woodstock, part Burning Man, part South by Southwest (SXSW) and 100 percent progressive Christian.
It’s a place where you see banners like “Who Would Jesus Torture?” and “Recovering From Religion.” Another intertwined hearts and the words “Jesus and Darwin” in a line drawing of a fish used to symbolize Christianity. Religion has always wrestled with sex in this nation. Sex is something that tempts you, gets you in to trouble. So if there were anywhere in the country where I would hear a minister talk about the joy of sex, this was it. And Bolz-Weber did not fail me. She is the founder of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado, which caters to those on the margins, and a New York Times best-selling author. She gave a deliciously profanity-laced talk about her latest book, Shameless: A Sexual Reformation. Martin Luther must be spinning in his grave! I’d thought when I first saw that title. Her take on sex and Christianity was music to my ears. Christianity, in my experience, has always had a big problem with sex. You need it to propagate the species, but it’s just a little too much fun to be good on its own. At the festival, Bolz-Weber did a major league deep dive into talking about the joys of shame-free sex, cutting the bonds that religion has tied around the joy of sex. Some parts of her talk were painful. That was when she described the end of her marriage and the start of a relationship with her new boyfriend. One reason she ended her marriage was because of sex. Or rather, lack of it. Or not enough of it. I actually can't remember exactly what she said because, instead of her voice, I heard my soon-to-be ex-husband’s voice telling me roughly the same thing about our sex life and that he had no more time to put into it. Or our marriage. That hurt. Because I had put so much time and effort into that marriage. And into him. And that included trying to revive our sex life. Because I love sex. In high school, my wiry, blond, Norwegian Lutheran boyfriend and I had torrid make-out sessions in his red Barracuda on county trunk roads up on the Ridge, hills that ringed Sparta, the small Wisconsin farm town where I grew up. We’d drive up Highway 71 towards Norwalk or Highway 27 toward Cashton, two little villages, passing barns, farmyards and fields of corn and hay. Heading uphill to the Ridge, the highways pass through stands of scrub pine and oak trees and then to the top, where the roads travel along the spine of the Ridge. It’s a stupendous view of seemingly endless sky, rolling farmland dipping down into forested valleys, with the occasional Amish horse-drawn buggy clip-clopping along. Of course, we weren’t up there for the view. At the drive-in movies, we were horizontal in the front seat and making out before the previews had ended, oblivious to whatever the couple double dating with us was doing in the back seat. His older sister let us use her apartment! Major score for high schoolers! I’d bought some book packed with ideas like squirting Reddi wip on each other for a little additional fun during oral sex. It made us both giggle. We were two small-town kids too afraid to buy condoms at the local drugstore, which sat on the main intersection of downtown Sparta next to the town’s only stop-and-go light. My family’s next-door neighbor ran that drugstore. So, blow jobs and oral sex were as far as we would go. There were more boyfriends after that, in college, in the small town where I had my first full-time job as a reporter, in Aspen where one of my best friends from college and I spent a season ski bumming and, finally, grad school in New York. There, I dated a couple of Columbia College English majors looking for their Molly Bloom, heroine of James Joyce’s Ulysses. It seemed to have been a core part of their curriculum. One of them thought he’d found her in me. Except that once I discovered what I thought was the high calorie count of seminal fluid (it’s apparently fairly low in calories, I’ve since learned), I started to spit it out. A very un-Molly move, he told me, laughing. I was also very un-Molly in that I only took one lover at a time. Finally, at a party, I met the guy I would eventually marry. He was slim and tautly muscled, olive skinned, with curly black hair and gorgeous hazel eyes. He was funny, sarcastic and totally unlike any of my other boyfriends. We met once and then, not again, for months. But we became part of an informal group of twenty- and thirty-somethings who loved concerts in Central Park, hiking, skiing, cooking, eating and drinking. I called us the Outdoors Sports and Photo Op Club because we’d have parties to look at photos after our weekend adventures in those pre-digital photo days. And, boy, was he an emotionally armored guy. But when we first kissed in his apartment, I stuck my tongue in his mouth. I got his attention. He already had mine. I loved him, blindly. We moved in together and bought our first apartment. I bored my coworkers as I rhapsodized about him and my adventures with New York real estate. It was fun and wonderful. There were lots of evenings of stopping for a bottle of wine on the way home from work and cooking dinner together before crashing into bed. I loved sitting at my desk at work and smelling his musky maleness on my skin. It came from a quick morning tumble that dictated a too quick shower that couldn’t quite wash away his scent. Years went by. Marriage, kids, mortgages. I had always felt that sex in the morning would guarantee a solid marriage. I just hadn’t factored in the exhaustion of work, freelance writing, cooking, lick-and-a-promise cleaning and getting kids to skating lessons, swimming lessons, horseback riding lessons, Hebrew school and on and on and on. The result? Those encounters didn’t happen nearly often enough. And it wasn’t just kids, too many hours at work, too little time at home and not enough money. It was all the baggage we all carry. Things can be falling apart and you can still have good sex short term. But sooner or later, what’s happening in other parts of your relationship catches up with sex and overtakes it. And that is what had happened between me and the driven, sexy, funny, depressed, angry and, in his deepest depths, terrified man I’d married. Those memories kept playing in the back of my head as I listened to Bolz-Weber. A lot of what she said went straight to my wounded heart and made it feel better. She talked about an ex-boyfriend who would routinely insult her — and then worry that the squirrels in a park wouldn’t have enough to eat. I knew that bewildering combination of cruelty and kindness all too well. This talk riveted me. Bolz-Weber was fearless enough to talk — and write — about her abortion. In one of her books (I read Shameless and Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People over the weekend and on my flight home, and Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and a Saint as soon as I got home) she wrote about how she had always loved babies...
Kate Rice is a runner, ex-ski bum, java junkie, loyal Green Bay Packer fan and a rock’n roll singer and stand up comic who performs mostly in the shower but sometimes on stage. She is a prizewinning reporter and an activist who believes that to be a citizen of this great country is both a gift and a responsibility. ~~~
After I finished this book, I thought if I ever won the Lottery, which, of course, I wouldn't ever because I don't believe in gambling... well, anyway, if I had the money, I would buy a copy of this book for every woman and teen girl in America. While the title is somewhat misleading--it's not all about politics--and when it is about politics, it's a good book to read...LOL
Actually, much of this book is a memoir, much like I've been doing in writing my own... That is, Kate Rice travels all over the world as a reporter and activist. She writes as a secular liberal, which you may have a hard time actually knowing what that means, as you read. For, like most of all, Kate Rice grew up in church but when she begins to talk about sex, she talks exactly as I might, or you, and you, and, yes, you.
Christianity, in my experience, has always had a big problem with sex. You need it to propagate the species, but it’s just a little too much fun to be good on its own. At the festival, Bolz-Weber did a major league deep dive into talking about the joys of shame-free sex, cutting the bonds that religion has tied around the joy of sex...
And that's about when I perked up and wanted to learn more, right? Because America is so filled with sex--sexual movies, books, even ads for bread can have a sexy woman holding the slice of bread, or maybe even, spreading it thick with honey, licking her lips as she tells us that Wonder Bread is the best bread ever! Or, seriously, do we really need a female in a short skirt, dancing around a golf course, right where the ball is supposed to go in... Yes, there is such an ad, and I have no idea what it is supposed to advertise. Neither does the man's wife who takes one look at what her husband is staring at through his binoculars and walks away...
And, to me, that's exactly the point... When something involves some type of sexual innuendo, most individuals either walk away, turn the TV off...OR, sit down and watch! How many of you would say that you've never watched anything in which sexuality is part of the program? I certainly can't. Me, I'm even old enough to see how television, in particular, has moved more and more to include sex as openly as possible... So here's the basic question. If you are white, single and find yourself turned off of a church because, while chastity is the only course for teens, at the same time you hear of those in the church, who are acting on their own sexual interests, while, say, the same preacher or priest is counseling abstinence? Or you see your parents involved in parties where somebody might get a little drunk...and...
Or, is it the issue that some have a different type of preference of who to love and , heaven forbid, that individual is your own daughter or son? Do you hide in shame, refusing to accept that child or allow them to be what they tell you that they are? Homophobe?
This man was part of the original planning group of Evangelical Christians...who walked away when he saw what was planned... Is Now
an Activist!
~~~
Well...
Seriously, can any of us really believe that any teenager watching television will accept religious training that claims that there is to be no sex prior to marriage? Or that if you've realized that you see yourself different in any way related to your sexuality, you can bet that you will be ostracized, perhaps even physically hurt or killed--in the name of religion?
Kate Rice, early in her life, did what many young people who have and are doing daily. Turning away from the church. But that doesn't stop her from going where things are happening--strange things! Like, the attendees may be addicted to drugs or alcohol, or they are gay and with their spouses, or they are secular, but interested? Well, as you can see above, Kate went to visit what was to be a Christian event. One that she soon realized was not in any way what she had thought it would be--especially those who had gathered there! And, especially, what was discussed there!
The Love of Jesus for All...
I was once again reminded of the recent book which proclaims that Jesus does not judge (things of the earth) He loves us as we are, whether we've made bad decisions or even decided to reject some things that they had been taught in their old home church, which they had left or, perhaps, had never even been inside a church in their lives, but merely wanted to listen and maybe get a little food or fellowship...
And as I continue to explore, just as Kate Rice is doing through traveling--mine through books--(My next read is Jesus and John Wayne!) I am finding that there are many patches of those who are trying to do what they believed was their mission. To spread the word of the love of Jesus...
Rice tackles Racism, White Nationalism, Anti-Vaxers, Sexuality--various issues, Progressive Christianity and more... She writes in the first person, often adding personal anecdotes of the people who she met along the way and who added "more color" to her own perceptions and opinions. As we move toward the close, she hones in on the topic of the Evangelical Exodus. Indeed, this topic might not have been covered if it wasn't for Kate meeting Kayla Cannon who she met as they sat in a jet waiting...
Kate remembered that she was lost in thought thinking about proceeding to write this book, but then realized that the woman sitting by her wanted to chat. All of a sudden, Kate was thinking to herself, "God, did you arrange these seating arrangements?" Well, you all know that I would have called this a God Incident. But then, since Kate considered herself a secular liberal (LOL), I chuckled when I read that internal question to God...
Kayla was on her way to a business conference, leaving her baby for the first time, yet happy to have a little time for herself. As they talked Kayla openly told that she had been an Evangelical Christian, but had rejected it.
She talked freely about her horror when ICE conducted a raid and people she worked with at a restaurant in Telluride suddenly disappeared. Anyone with half an eye in any resort area knows how many workers are Hispanic and may be undocumented, or afraid of exposing a friend or relative who is undocumented. I sat up in my seat. “ICE conducted a raid in Telluride?” I was equally horror-struck. ICE is a constant in New York, packed as it is with people of color and immigrants. But in a remote mountain town like Telluride? Only 2,500 people live there. But it is a blue enclave. People in Cortez, which is seventy miles away and also blue, but surrounded by a lot of red, talk about the Telluride hippies — although in a town where the median home price is about a million dollars, you’ve got to be a pretty capitalist hippie. ICE strikes tactically — resort towns and meatpacking towns as well as in big cities, which usually have far more diverse populations. It’s all part of its strategy to terrorize and intimidate. Kayla wasn’t afraid to talk about that, or anything else, as it turned out. Going to a secular high school and American University clearly opened her eyes to a much broader world than the one she’d been raised in. Early on, she had begun questioning the credos she’d been taught. She had an outgoing personality. She wanted to run for student council, but her conservative brethren talked her out of it. Why? She was a woman. That kind of leadership position was for men. She was realizing that “I’m a strong woman who does not fit the biblical interpretation of what a woman should be.” She pushed her parents to let her go to Rutland Public High School in Vermont because the religious school she attended did not offer the advanced placement courses she wanted to take. When she won her scholarship to American University, her parents were supportive. But, she said, they clearly worried about her move to a liberal school. Once she began attending American University, which is in Washington, D.C., she found herself intensely studying bills that were going before Congress. “Being Republican was against everything I stood for and cared about,” she realized. One of her first friends at American University was flamboyantly gay. Her religion had taught her that it was her job to tell him that his lifestyle would land him in hell. She did not. And then there were the gaping holes in the theology she’d been raised on. “The Bible talks about divine intervention,” she told me. But in a world where children starve and can be sold into the sex trade, she saw no divine intervention at all. Growing up, expressing any kind of doubt was forbidden. To doubt was to sin. She quit going to church while at college, although she continued to believe in God and still identified as a Christian. Then came the 2016 election and the swell of support among evangelical churches and their congregants for Trump. “The way the Church championed Trump, that was when I could not associate with Christianity. Period. I was also angry at how many of my friends and family didn’t talk to me for supporting Hillary,” meaning Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. Kayla lasted only two years at American University. She had long been plagued by anxiety and it peaked while she attended college. Her evangelical upbringing had taught her that everything, including things like anxiety and other emotional distress could be overcome by prayer. If she was suffering, it was because of her personal failure to fully embrace her faith. She left American to stay with a cousin attending a conservative religious school, to try praying her mental health problems away. There she met her future husband, who was attending the school. His calmness and rationality helped her enormously. They fell in love and planned to marry. He went home to Telluride, Colorado, and she returned to her family in Vermont, where her anxiety spiked. And there, with her mother’s support, despite evangelical doctrine, she finally got the professional help she needed. She and her husband continued to wrestle with faith, personally and as a couple. She sees this a lot among millennials, and some are leaving their churches. “They are sick of having to hate because of their church,” she said. And here is the problem for the religious right. Once these young people question one thing, the whole house of cards falls apart. Because, as Kayla sees it, conservative Christianity is based on absolutism and blind faith. So once there is room to question one thing, everything is open to debate. Kayla stopped associating with any kind of religion and considers herself agnostic. She is not alone. Her best friend, whom she met at a Bible school she attended, has also renounced organized religion. Twitter is a great way to find this community, she told me. Just use the hashtag #exvangelical. That hashtag reminded me of Rebeca and Charlie Seitz and their podcast, Freevangelic. These are two more people who told me the same thing. Once you ask one question, a torrent follows. I found Rebeca and Charlie on Instagram just before I went to Wild Goose. I had been using social media to connect with Wild Goose attendees, but we didn’t manage to meet during the festival. Having been reminded of the podcasters I missed at Wild Goose, I contacted Rebeca through Instagram. She is a blast, funny as hell. She can find the humor in terrible things. She told me how her parents became evangelicals. By age nineteen, her mother was married for the second time with two kids of her own plus stepchildren. It was a rough situation, Rebeca said. Neither of her parents were churchgoers, but Rebeca’s mom found a conservative church that gave her a much-needed framework to help her handle her chaotic life. Her mother does nothing halfway, Rebeca told me. She quit wearing shorts. Makeup was verboten. Rebeca compared it to someone going on a diet and throwing out everything in the pantry that has sugar or carbs. In her mom’s case, it meant every book in the house was about religion and every song she sang was religious. “My mom’s finding faith was never going to be Lutheran,” Rebeca said. This embrace of a very conservative religion startled Rebeca’s father. So he went down to the church to give that pastor a piece of his mind, or maybe even a punch in the face, according to the family story, Rebeca said. Instead, the pastor converted her father and baptized him. It was such a drastic change that it alienated almost all of Rebeca’s relatives. But it was the world into which Rebeca was born, and she knew nothing else. Rebeca grew up memorizing the Bible. When she hit adolescence, her mother handed her a book by the right-wing guru James Dobson, Everything You Need to Know About Adolescence, and it was all about female subservience, Rebeca recalled. ) You may recall, I've reviewed another of his books, Dare to Discipline, where he encourages use of physical punishment for children.) You can’t call boys or ask boys out. You can’t wear anything low cut. Your makeup has to look natural. There was an emphasis on your body because it was the temple of the Lord. But your sexuality was not about women, it was about how women related to men. Rebeca matured physically early. “I was very well-endowed from sixth grade on,” she remembered. Ultimately, she had a breast reduction. But throughout her childhood and adolescence, her family lectured her on her appearance. “Don’t put on lipstick; don’t look like a hussy.” A man sexually abused her when she was eleven. “What were you wearing?” her mother asked when Rebeca went to her. And it happened again and again, in high school and in college. The response was always something to the tune of “you probably asked for it...”
And, of course, Kate had to include the personal thoughts of the Reverend about the time when Trump had protestors gassed so he could have a photo op...
Rev. Gerbasi was there. She had been on St. John’s patio, which had become a refuge and an aid station for demonstrators. She’d been handing out water to demonstrators when riot police descended upon her, chasing her from her own church. Shortly after the incident, she talked about her experience in an interview on Unholier Than Thou. This was a podcast produced by Crooked Media, originators of Pod Save America, whose politically savvy (they’re former Obama staffers) and bitingly funny hosts have had some fun remembering times when Democratic candidates have clumsily tried to assert that God guides them. In that podcast. she told host Phillip Picardi about her anger. She was coldly angry about the way Trump subverted her church and I think she epitomized the anger driving many Christians who are outraged at how the right has co-opted Christianity. Gerbasi trained first as a lawyer and had to overcome a lot of interior resistance in order to become a priest — it sounds as though one part of her dragged the other part of her kicking and screaming into the holy orders. I think it was that same voice that Sylvia Clahchischilli heard, the nilch’iyazhi. Gerbasi described those conversations as talking with God, who, she said, has a sense of humor. Hey, I like that!
There is so much we don't know about our God Almighty! But there are many people talking, writing and sharing about what their personal experiences have brought into their lives. And, many, like Kate Rice concluded, Jesus is Not Republican.
Carolyn Baker, Ph.D. was an adjunct professor of history and psychology for more than 10 years and manages her website at www.carolynbaker.net. She was a psychotherapist in private practice for 17 years and is a student of ritual and mythology and has continued her personal mediation practice for more than 30 years. Carolyn offers life coaching both locally and internationally. She is the co-author with Andrew Harvey of Return To Joy(2017) and author of Dark Gold: The Human Shadow and The Global Crisis (2016); Love In The Age Of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating The Relationships We Need To Thrive (2015). In 2015 she also co-authored Extinction Dialogs: How To Live With Death In Mind with Guy McPherson; and in 2013 she published Collapsing Consciously: Transformative Truths For Turbulent Times which is preceded by Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition (2011) and Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse (2009). She lives in Boulder, Colorado. Her other books include: U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You (2006); Coming Out Of Fundamentalist Christianity: An Autobiography Affirming Sensuality, Social Justice, and the Sacred (2007); The Journey of Forgiveness: Fulfilling The Healing Process (2000); Reclaiming The Dark Feminine: The Price of Desire (1996).
Many of those who are connected and follow me on various platforms, mostly for book reviews, know that I have had much personal turmoil as a result of the merge of Evangelical Christianity with the Republic Party. In fact, it has led to internal family conflicts that have been both worrisome and... frightening for me... How did all of this happen, I wondered... Was it only because of the infamous video where we heard that our immediate past president thought nothing about grabbing the genitalia of women, and claiming that he could get away with it because he was a star!?
Yeah, that did it for me! I had been involved with concern for women's rights for many years during my working career at a land-grant university. We were required to follow federal laws regarding Affirmative Action, Equal Employment Opportunities...and more... On a semi-work, personal level, I had been voted in as one of the first Staff Council representatives for campus-wide secretarial and clerical employees...and served the maximum terms. I then was appointed to the Council for Women's Concerns, a university group established to study and work to improve the concerns of women, and how the work environment could be improved while they worked at the university. I also served as sexual harassment representative for my department. I had also served in various offices, including president for the, then, National Secretaries Association, and then joined professional organizations related to my upward movement into technical and management activities. For at least 30 years of my career, I actively worked to improve my own skills, as well as respond to the needs and personal development of women in their careers as well...
I share that now, because, from those 30 years of involvement, I became immediately attuned to what Trump was all about...and it was not good! I knew it... so why didn't everybody else know it? Especially, my family...
Realizing it was because I was not a republican really caught me off guard! Especially when I was told that all Christians are Republican... at least in my family, I had to assume...
I was immediately seen as an outsider by a number of the family...and still am! You know, Jesus was also denied by those who were of His religion... I had to think long and hard...do I follow what my family said...or did I follow what I felt the Holy Spirit was telling and guiding me in? Either way, I realized that I was caught in something that I didn't create. I had not changed... So was it the Republican party and Evangelical Christians that had changed?
One of the online speakers I started to follow was Frank Schaeffer, the son of an evangelist who was popular during the years that Billy Graham was active. I didn't remember hearing his name, but I knew his family history and his work now were relevant... It was Frank Schaeffer's video posting which explained how, as he participated, Evangelical Christians made a deal with Trump... There were a couple of requirements that they asked for...and then he could do anything he wanted, no holds barred! The following is just one of the many videos and books available by this author...check him out if you, too, are looking for answers...
It was the above video which introduced me to the latest book that I am now reading. Within the first 30 pages, I had learned so much historically and politically, that I decided to go ahead and talk about it with others! I highly recommend the book! Given the credentials of Dr. Carolyn Baker, I believe we can trust what she has to say...and report...albeit, no matter how scary the cover of her latest book is for many of us!
I had already seen it on television, but Dr. Baker quickly points out in the video and in her book that the use of political terms are used so loosely and pejoratively, that we are all caught in a chaos of not being able to talk--to understand the meaning of what others are saying!
Bottom Line:
Fascism + Religion = Christofascism = The Republican Party
Schaeffer writes in his Foreword:
As Baker writes in this brilliant book, “I have come to believe that evangelicals do not comprehend what they are reading when they read: ‘I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things’ (Ecclesiastes 7:25). Because fundamentalist Christianity is so thoroughly obsessed with ‘knowing,’ there is little room for appreciating or savoring wisdom. Wisdom is not acquired through knowledge or intellect but through the soul. The soul is the crux of our humanity, and all fundamentalists acknowledge that fact, but they view the soul as something that must be ‘saved,’ rather than the mirror image of the divine within us that we did not acquire and that we cannot ‘lose.’” Concentrating on belief rather than on inner character leads some people—whether atheist or religious—to get stuck on the rules. That is exactly what all fundamentalism is: people mistaking rules, and myths, to enforce a false manmade spiritual goal. And because the mistake is a massive one, all sorts of cruelties and fictions are used to reinforce this and endless training for a salvation… that never comes.
Enter post-9/11 “Christians” stalking the grieving families of soldiers killed in our wars, desecrating the solemnity of their funerals with screams of “God hates fags!” and “God hates America!” and enter Trump’s followers. Enter those willing to even turn wearing masks and getting a lifesaving vaccine into culture-war fodder to “own the libs” at the cost of life itself. There is only one defense against the rising worldwide fear-filled fundamentalist tide seeping into religions everywhere: the embrace of paradox and uncertainty as the virtuoso expression of life-giving humility. Our egos must be curtailed by what we do not know, which is far more than we do know. This humility is rooted in a fact: we are at the beginning of creation and don’t have any clue as to how things will grow and change...
Baker Starts immediately in the Introduction to lay out the issue:
At this moment American constitutional democracy is sitting on a knife’s edge between maintaining a democratic republic or succumbing to the tidal wave of authoritarianism that appears to be engulfing numerous nations globally. Enabling this terrifying trend is the Religious Right in America whose members identify as evangelical or fundamentalist Christians. This movement not only threatens the American republic but has served to traumatize countless numbers of its followers who have joined its ranks in order to make sense of the dizzying changes and daunting challenges of our time. A path to healing and sanity for individuals and the culture is offered in this book. As investigative reporter Sarah Posner wrote in Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship At The Altar of Donald Trump, “in Trump, the Christian right sees more than a politician who delivers on promises; they see a savior from the excesses of liberalism.”
Many of you may have heard that the number of those who identified as evangelical has moved from about 30% to 70%... It is important to note that the majority of the 70% do not attend church, but considered themselves Far Right in their Political and Religious Fundamentalism. For me, that was a critical point of knowledge. Having been involved with the church for the majority of my life, I could not understand how the church had changed... Well, it really hasn't, perhaps? I don't know. My health, including Covid restrictions, has prevented me from attending church routinely.
Then I remember the man with the horns, and no shirt, that was a leader in the January, Insurrection, lifting his hands and leading his peers in prayer while they stood in violation of the constitution in trying to stop certification of the nation's election of Joe Biden... Seeing the willingness for violence in support of what they believed?? Or what the cult of Trump had mandated??
Baker speaks of the January 6th Insurrection:
In fact, some leaders of the Republican Party have launched a massive campaign to suppress voting in numerous states and to conduct new election “audits” of votes in the 2020 Presidential election. These efforts constitute an ongoing insurgency movement to undermine the democratic process and the 2024 Presidential election. What is more, the Republican Party has rejected a Congressional vote to investigate the January 6 insurrection, forcing the Speaker of the House to ultimately create a select committee of investigators with subpoena power. Now, in mid-2021, 53% of Republicans do not believe that Joe Biden is the legitimate President of The United States. Of those, three out of five white evangelicals contest the reality of Biden’s victory. Alongside their doubt of Biden as President, many evangelicals are embracing the conspiracy cult of QAnon...
Whatever QAnon is... Don't you wonder how supposed Christians are now conspiracy theorists following a group with no known leader or purpose???
If the alliance between these zealots
and the government succeeds,
it will snuff out the last vestiges
of American democracy.
—Chris Hedges
Post-Truth is Pre-Fascism.
—Timothy Snyder
What Specifically is Fascism?
There is much more to consider, but I wanted to include a list of what can be identified as a part of Fascism... Interestingly, Baker then chooses to include specific actions by former president Trump to clarify those points, although not included here (I can certify that everything she used was known to me as being factual accounts of Trump's actions during his presidency, and after...)
1. Conjuring a “mythic past” that has supposedly been destroyed (“by liberals, feminists, and immigrants”). These myths rely on an “overwhelming sense of nostalgia for a past that is racially pure, traditional, and patriarchal.” Fascist leaders “position themselves as father figures and strongmen” who alone can restore lost greatness. And yes, the fascist leader is “always a ‘he.’”
2. Fascist leaders sow division; they succeed by “turning groups against each other,” inflaming historical antagonisms and ancient hatreds for their own advantage. Social divisions in themselves—between classes, religions, ethnic groups and so on—are what we might call pre-existing conditions. Fascists may not invent the hate, but they cynically instrumentalize it: demonizing outgroups, normalizing and naturalizing bigotry, stoking violence to justify repressive “law and order” policies, the curtailing of civil rights and due process, and the mass imprisonment and killing of manufactured enemies.
3. Fascists “attack the truth” with propaganda, in particular “a kind of anti-intellectualism” that “creates a petri dish for conspiracy theories.” Hannah Arendt, who was a German political theorist living in exile during Hitler’s reign, wrote that fascism relies on “a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth.” She described the phenomenon as destroying “the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world…. [T]he category of truth verses falsehood [being] among the mental means to this end.” In such an atmosphere, anything is possible, no matter how previously unthinkable.
If you don't yet want to apply these attributes to Trump, then consider his "bro," Putin, as he is using violence of all kinds to kill primarily women, children and those who cannot fight for their democracy... He has bombed children's hospitals and more to kill and try to demoralize those in the country. Then, stop and really think what Trump is now doing...applauding Putin for his genius... "Nuf Said..."
I am so very thankful that our President is Joe Biden, who has led us back into a NATO relationship of working together to solve the world-wide problems that have been created by another fascist authoritarian...
Like with most nonfiction books, I'll be reading this book along with others I have started... When I finish I'll tell you more...but, like I said, I can already attest to its being well researched, providing a historical perspective with comparative analysis to today's America... Get this book if you need any more evidence that we must work, just as the Ukrainians are doing... to fight for our democracy!
