205. SEE BRAIN RUN. RUN BRAIN RUN!

From the Archives

(March 2006) Solomon Pomenya, a fifty-two-year-old Ghanian doctor who witnessed the total eclipse of the sun yesterday, said,

I believe it's a wonderful work of God, despite all what the scientists say. This tells me that God is a true engineer.

I love that we humans respond to beauty and mystery by searching for higher meaning, that we find inspiration in the natural world and its wonders, but do wonder why we must attribute such beauty to a higher being.

Inspiration, for me, seeps out as poetry or music or art, as some attempt to express in a tangible way what my senses and mind and soul absorb and process.

This means that, when I read a statement such as Dr. Pomenya’s, I substitute “creative spark” for “God.”

•

The philosopher Umberto Eco taught himself to eat and walk and shave and live and write faster in order to get more work done.

Eco says

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

I share this suspicion yet obsess about meaning.

Eco studies semiotics, a field in which philosophers analyze the complex meanings of cultural/pop products: Michael Jordan bobbleheads and that stupid bucking chicken commercial and Bond. James Bond and Brangelina and the whole American Idol phenomenon and that vapid Barbara Walters television show in which seemingly intelligent women say such things as “Well, I call other women bitch. Sure I do, and don’t tell me you don’t either.”

(This MUST be some male producer’s idea of what women do when we are alone together—when we’re not tying each other up in knots and fist-fucking each other to earth-trembling orgasms, that is).

So what is it about Americans and our cultural products, our stuff, that makes us max out our credit cards and pay exorbitant interest rates just to garner more stuff?

Are commercials really that persuasive or do we lack some core meaning that would keep us from going on such mad spending sprees?

Why do so many of us prefer to be consumers rather than citizen activists?

Jon Stewart riffed on the genetically altered “healthy” omega-3 hogs on tonight’s Daily Show.

Scientists have apparently altered them to match the naturally healthy but rare Iberíco hogs (which North Carolina’s Cane Creek Farms raises and sells to organic restaurants).

Stewart asks “Why should we eat in moderation when a scientist can just change an entire species’ genetic make-up to benefit our fat asses?”

Why indeed.

And why do we prefer poison to spots on our apples? Epcot to the real thing?

Don’t Americans want to know why so many foreigners despise us, how other cultures live and change and deal with consumer products?

(Wait. I know the answer to that.)

Perhaps our lust for consumer products and our isolationist tendencies are the natural by-products of Americans’ fear of our own emptiness, are the result of our inability to move beyond the Puritanical workaholic ethics that our culture has handed down to us.

What, besides God, would help us find meaning?

Eco says

I'm not saying there's no difference between Homer and Walt Disney. But Mickey Mouse can be perfect in the sense that a Japanese haiku is.

Ponder that one.

199. A NEW DARK AGES, OR, REMEMBERING AWE

From the Archives

(Monday • 6 March 2006) I’m thinking about faith.

Many of my progressive Catholic friends miss the rituals and mysticism of their faith but cannot in good conscience participate in what they describe as a repressive and greedy organization. These days, their evolving spiritual practices include worshipping the moon or Spiderwoman weaving this big world. Others have joined Unitarian Universalist fellowships. And others use energy work and meditation to fill the void.

I once worked with a group of radical Catholic activists who rented whole floors of apartment buildings that we used as stealth offices. Priests’ or nuns’ bedrooms were off limits, but everyone otherwise walked freely between apartments, setting up women’s pottery collectives in Nicaragua; acquiring, organizing, and delivering humanitarian aid to Central America; writing inclusive non-hierarchical lectionaries and responsorial psalms; working to end the death penalty and to free Mumia; working to include women in the distribution of holy sacraments; editing and creating an inclusive non-hierarchical Bible; thwarting the anti-choice movement and the many sexist bishops who oppose women’s equality.

The founders of this organization—a Jesuit priest and nun—have since been excommunicated, but their work goes on.

One of the many things I learned as we ate our hummus and bean sprout sandwiches was that the now rabidly anti-choice Catholic church actually allowed abortions until the late 1800s, when the pope conveniently declared abortion an excommunicable offense just as France’s diminishing birth rates threatened its ability to maintain a strong army.

(Not coincidentally, the emperor declared the pope infallible soon after this decree.)

Matthew Fox, another radical Catholic, said

There are two Christianities in our midst. One worships a punitive father and seeks obedience at all costs. It is patriarchal, demonizes woman, the earth, science, gays, lesbians and deep thought. It builds on fear and it supports empire-builders. Its theology includes a Punitive Father in the Sky and teaches original sin.

The other Christianity recognizes the Original Blessing that all beings derive from. We recognize awe, not sin, not guilt, as the starting point of true religion. We recognize a Divinity who is source of all things and is as much mother as father, as much female as male. We honor creation and diversity. When God created everything, He pronounced it all good. We are here to make love to life. Yes, we are here to make love to life… Delight in creation and take your dreams into our politics and institutions….

We live in the midst of a suicidal economy, motivated by love of money. We have reached a dead end. What we need to turn it around are hearts in love with life. How do we do it? We first must move from domination to partnership and we begin by educating our young in awe and wonder, not how to take tests. Awe leads to reverence which leads to gratitude which will reinvent our species. This is the task of our generation, to regain awe. The 3 R’s need to be balanced by the 10 C’s; contemplation, creativity, chaos, compassion, courage, critical consciousness, community, celebration, ceremony and character.

I don’t recognize a divinity as the source of all things but do recognize that it is possible that we, plants and animals and people alike, could make up a larger soul (but not in an icky Borg way).

And we certainly make up boocoodles of matter and antimatter.

I also favor the notion of honoring creation and diversity, and appreciate the notion of being here to make love to life and delight in creation and take our dreams into our politics and institutions.

As Barbara Kingsolver says,

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what to hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can't say it. Elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers or the destroyed. That's about it. Right now I'm living in that hope, running down its hallways and touching the walls on both sides.

LISTENING TO: Ferron (Beware you sagging diplomats for you will not hear one gun, and though oceans lie between us, we will not be undone. And it won't take long . . .)
READING: Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes
BEST-OF SPAM: A cure for every disease!

84. McFAITH

From the Archives

(April 2005) I was stuck on a looooong phone call and so took a religion test while the guy blabbed on. It’s at Tickle.com, if this kind of thing appeals to you, and is ostensibly designed to help me find the faith that fits my beliefs (although it seems to actually be designed to get me to pay for summaries of various faiths that I can find for free elswhere on the Web).

THEIR SPIEL: Ever wonder if you're practicing the right religion for your beliefs, or if there's a faith out there that's really right for you? It's possible you might be compatible with more than one religion since many religions share similar takes on certain subjects. In fact, it's possible that you're more compatible with religions other than the one you believe in. Want to know which religion you're most compatible with based on your belief system? Take the test now!

Here are the questions. I was frustrated by how many had no answers with which I agreed—but hey, who’s shopping for the divine at Tickle.com anyway?

1. Life is full of little miracles. (A) Strongly agree, (B) Agree, (C) Disagree, (D) Strongly disagree. ANSWER: A

2. The way I behave in this life will: (A) Directly affect my next life, (B) Determine whether or not I go to heaven, (C) Only affect what happens to me in this life. ANSWER: PROBABLY C, BUT THAT'S UNKNOWABLE, ISN'T IT?

3. When I pray, I would most like to be: (A) In or near a religious building, (B) At home, (C) In a sweat lodge, (D) In nature, (E) Meditating, (F) I don't pray. ANSWER: F. I DON'T PRAY. I WRITE & TAKE IN AS MUCH AS I CAN & TRY TO APPRECIATE THIS AMAZING WORLD & THE MANY AMAZING CREATURES, HUMAN & OTHERWISE, THAT INHABIT IT

4. For the most part, people are inherently: (A) Good, (B) Sinful, (C) Ignorant ANSWER: A

5. Which is more important: (A) How one behaves, (B) What one believes. ANSWER: A—BUT BOTH ARE IMPORTANT

6. Before I die, I most hope to have: (A) Contributed to the world, (B) Loved and been loved, (C) Served my God, (D) No regrets. ANSWER: B, PREFERABLY WHILE DOING A

7. I'd feel most comfortable with a religion that: (A) Encourages an individual investigation of truth, (B) Confidently answers life's most important questions. ANSWER: A

8. It's important to me that my work: (A) Serve a higher purpose, (B) Enable me to make generous charitable donations, (C) Give back to the community directly, (D) Inspire others to use their personal gifts, (E) Aid humanity's progression. ANSWER: C. ALSO A, D, & E ... & NOT OPPOSED TO B EITHER. SEE WHY I HATED THE SAT, GRE?!!!!

9. I most like to feel: (A) Protected, (B) Inspired, (C) Led. ANSWER: B

10. When I die, I hope to reach: (A) Heaven, (B) Paradise, (C) Nirvana, (D) Enlightenment, (E) A higher level in my next life, (F) The next phase of my life in the spiritual plane, (G) A peaceful and final conclusion. ANSWER: G, BUT D WOULD BE COOL TOO

11. I believe that I have lived past lives. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: I DON'T BELIEVE OR DISBELIEVE IT BECAUSE THIS IS ESSENTIALLY UNKNOWABLE. SEEMS UNLIKELY THOUGH.

12. I believe that Adam and Eve carried out the first sin, the original sin. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: B. I DON'T BELIEVE IN SIN.

13. God is best described as: (A) A single entity, (B) The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, (C), A divine essence that is both one with the universe and transcendent, (D) Many gods and goddesses, (E) Non-existent. ANSWER: C COMES CLOSE, BUT E IS MOST LIKELY

14. Do you believe that there is only one true God? (A) Yes, absolutely, (B) I believe there are multiple gods and goddesses, (C) I believe in a spiritual force, not an Almighty God, (D) I have serious doubts about the existence of God. ANSWER: D (BUT DO BELIEVE IN DIVINE CONNECTION)

15. What happens after we die? (A) Our souls are absorbed into the cosmos, (B) Our souls are reborn or freed from the birth-death cycle, (C) Our souls wait for judgment, (D) Our souls transition to the spiritual plane and continue to live, (E) When we die, that's it, (F) I don't know. ANSWER: F

16. I believe that the death penalty: (A) Is warranted in some extreme cases, (B) Is not a justifiable punishment for any crime. ANSWER: A (SEE BLOG ENTRY "SITUATIONAL ETHICS" FOR EXPLANATION)

17. I am morally responsible because: (A) It makes my life more fulfilling and pleasurable, (B) Being that way will help me after I die, (C) I'm not particularly moral. ANSWER: A, BUT ALSO BECAUSE THIS REMINDS ME TO RESPECT OTHERS AND MYSELF, OUR CONNECTION WITH EACH OTHER AND THE WORLD

18. How do you feel about lying? (A) You should never lie, (B) You should only lie to avoid hurting others, (C) A little lie now and then is necessary, (D) I lie when I want to, without regret. ANSWER: B

19. I believe that mine is the only true religion. (A) Strongly agree, (B) Agree, (C) Disagree, (D) Strongly disagree. ANSWER: D

20. If I see someone running toward the elevator I'm in, I: (A) Hold the door open for them, (B) Let the door close on its own and hope they make it, (C) Push the "close door" button. They can catch the next one. ANSWER: A, OF COURSE (UNLESS I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO PEE)

21. I will be reborn into a higher social position if I build good Karma in my present life. (A) Yes, absolutely, (B) It'd be nice, but I'm not sure if I believe it, (C) I don't believe that. ANSWER: B. FUNNY HOW GOD IS ABOUT MONEY & SOCIAL POSITION IN A CAPITALISTIC WORLD

22. I believe that Jesus was: (A) Our savior and son of God, (B) A prophet, (C) A wise teacher of religious ethics, (D) A fictional character. ANSWER: C

23. My religious faith allows me to feel deeply thankful. (A) Strongly agree, (B) Agree, (C) Disagree, (D) Strongly disagree. ANSWER: A, ALTHOUGH I'D REMOVE THE WORD "RELIGION" FROM THAT STATEMENT

24. I believe that Muhammad was the last true prophet sent to Earth by God. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: B

25. When someone hurts you, do you wish them harm? (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: NO, FOR THE MOST PART, BUT I HAVE SLUGGED PEOPLE BEFORE SO MAKE OF THAT WHAT YOU WILL

26. I believe that: (A) Evolution is the only explanation for the origin of the world, (B) Creationism is the only explanation for the origin of the world, (C) Evolutionism and creationism are not mutually exclusive. ANSWER: I SAID A BECAUSE IT’S CLOSEST TO WHAT I BELIEVE, BUT ALSO RECOGNIZE THAT WE DON'T KNOW ENOUGH TO BE CERTAIN THAT EVOLVING IS THE ONLY WAY WE GROW & ADAPT, ESPECIALLY GIVEN NEW EVIDENCE ABOUT THE LITTLE MUSTARD PLANT THAT "CORRECTED" ITS FLAWED GENES.

27. Mediums who claim to communicate with the spirit world are: (A) Gifted spiritualists with insightful messages from beyond, (B) Communicating with demons, (C) Frauds. ANSWER: I SUSPECT MOST ARE C

28. When was the world created? (A) Long, long ago, (B) It is always in the process of being created, (C) The physical world is an illusion. ANSWER: B

29. I prefer to worship: (A) In a group, (B) In solitude, (C) I don't worship. ANSWER: I FEEL CLOSEST TO THE DIVINE WHEN I’M ALONE IN NATURE OR MAKING LOVE BUT FEEL MORE CONNECTION WITH HUMANITY WHEN I'M INVOLVED IN SOME MEANINGFUL COMMUNAL RITUAL

30. A religion could encourage its members to find their own spiritual truths while unifying around the basic values held by all religions. (A) Yes, I like the idea of an open-structured religious organization, (B) No, all of the members should all believe basically the same thing about God. ANSWER: A

31. I believe that the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross was necessary to save us from original sin. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: B

32. You pass someone on crutches when they drop their bag. You: (A) Double back to pick it up for them, (B) Keep going on your way. They'll manage. ANSWER: A (WOULDN’T ANY DECENT HUMAN BEING?)

33. My hope is that humankind will unify as one race in a single, global society. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: NEITHER BECAUSE I BELIEVE RACIAL VARIATIONS TEACH US USEFUL THINGS ABOUT EACH OTHER—BUT I DO HOPE WE BECOME A MORE UNIFIED GLOBAL SOCIETY THAT APPRECIATES OUR DIFFERENCES SOMEDAY

34. Where can you discover the ultimate authority of the universe? (A) God, (B) Nature, (C) The divine essence of all things, (D) Within yourself, (E) Communication with spirits, (F) There is no universal authority. ANSWER: F (ALTHOUGH NATURE DOES HAVE ITS RULES)

35. If a genie granted me a single wish, I would wish for something that benefits: (A) Myself, (B) Someone else I know, (C) My community, (D) The world as a whole. ANSWER: I HOPE THE ANSWER IS D & NOT A

36. I believe there is an opportunity in the afterlife to fix earthly mistakes, even for the most sinful. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: THIS IS ESSENTIALLY UNKNOWABLE BUT I SUSPECT WE'LL JUST BE DISPERSED MATTER & ANTIMATTER THAT COULD CARE LESS ABOUT ALL OUR ULTIMATELY INCONSEQUENTIAL HUMAN FUCK-UPS & INSECURITIES

37. My relationship with nature is inseparable from my religion. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: A

38. I like to pray: (A) Many times each day, (B) One to two times per day, (C) Once a day or week, (D) Primarily at major festivals, ceremonies, or other religious occasions, (E) I pray rather infrequently, (F) I don't pray. ANSWER: F. I DON'T PRAY, BUT INSTEAD TRY TO TAKE IT ALL IN & JUST SIT WITH IT & APPRECIATE IT INSTEAD OF TALKING WITH SOME ESSENTIAL UNKNOWN THAT HAS SOME THEORECTICAL POWER OVER ME

39. Communication with the dead is: (A) Impossible, (B) Something I believe to be possible, (C) Scientifically proven. ANSWER: B. COMMUNICATION CAN BE SELF-GENERATED & IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO REALLY KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION, SINCE THE PERSON IS DEAD, BUT I COULD STILL EXPERIENCE SELF-GENERATED CONNECTION, SO....

40. Your religious beliefs in this life directly affect where you will end up in the afterlife. (A) True, (B) False. ANSWER: B (PROBABLY)

41. The best way for me to be closer to the Divine is: (A) To live according to the moral laws of my belief system, (B) To accept Jesus Christ as my savior, (C) To perform ceremonies and rituals for the gods and/or goddesses, (D) To communicate with the spirit world through a medium, (E) I don't know. ANSWER: A. I TRUST THE SANITY OF MY VESSEL. . .BUT ALSO WANT TO KEEP REACHING OUT & GAINING NEW INSIGHTS THAT EXPAND THE BORDERS OF MY BELIEF SYSTEM.

42. Our Savior: (A) Has come in the form of Jesus Christ and saved us from original sin, (B) Has yet to come and will bring world peace (C) I don't believe there is a Savior. ANSWER: C

43. Why do bad things happen to good people? (A) Personal suffering can help make people better, (B) Everything is a gift from God and sometimes the gifts must be surrendered, (C) It is our perceptions that cause suffering, not the events themselves, (D) People's bad actions in a past life are catching up with them, (E) No reason, sometimes bad things just happen. ANSWER: E. ALTHOUGH SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST MAKE DUMB DECISIONS THAT COME BACK TO BITE THEM IN THE ASS

44. How would you like your religion to view divorce? (A) Divorce is sometimes necessary and permissible, (B) Divorce should be discouraged, but permitted, (C) Divorce should be absolutely forbidden. ANSWER: A

45. Homosexuality is: (A) A special blessing that warrants reverence, (B) A completely natural sexual orientation, (C) A sexual tendency that should be discouraged and overcome, (D) A sinful and perverted sexuality. ANSWER: B (AND A GIFT)

46. Why are we here? (A) To find salvation from sin, (B) To prove our loving surrender to God, (C) We're on a journey to escape the impermanence of human existence, (D) We're on a journey to attain true wisdom and enlightenment, (E) To show our love for God by following his commandments, (F) To live in harmony with earth, (G) Because we evolved from lower life forms. ANSWER: NONE OF THE ABOVE. WE ALMOST CERTAINLY EVOLVED FROM LOWER LIFE FORMS, BUT “EVOLVE” COULD BE THE WRONG PROCESS, ULTIMATELY, ESPECIALLY GIVEN NEW EVIDENCE INVOLVING THAT MUSTARD PLANT (see earlier blog entry). I TRY TO LIVE IN HARMONY WITH THE EARTH, BUT CAN’T SAY THAT THAT’S WHY I’M HERE EITHER. IF ANYTHING, I THINK WE'RE HERE TO LOVE EXTRAVAGANTLY & LIVE AUTHENTICALLY, TAKING IN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, DESPITE EVERTHING THAT INHIBITS OUR ABILITY TO DO SO

47. Why do bad things happen? (A) To test my faith, (B) To punish my wrongdoings, (C) To give me a chance to suffer piously, (D) To show me that my perception of "bad" is merely an illusion, (E) It depends on the situation, (F) They just happen. ANSWER: MOSTLY F, BUT SOMETIMES BECAUSE PEOPLE MAKE BAD CHOICES OR ALLOW OTHERS TO INFLUENCE THEM TO DO SOMETHING THAT FEELS INAUTHENTIC

48. I prefer to explore my spirituality on my own, holding private rituals and sharing only with those that I have selected to bring closer to my religious self. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: A

49. Politically speaking, I am: (A) Liberal, (B) Moderate, (C) Conservative. ANSWER: A

50. The further I distance myself from the clutter in my mind, the closer I will be to the Divine. (A) True, (B) False. ANSWER: A

51. My biggest challenge is to: (A) Let go of pain and suffering, (B) Overcome wicked urges, (C) Continually increase my spiritual education, (D) None of the above ANSWER: SOMETIMES A, BUT MY BIGGEST CHALLENGE IS TO LIVE IN A STATE OF AWARENESS & CONSTANT LOVING-KINDESS, TO BELIEVE NONSTOP.

52. I like the idea of creating my own symbolic rituals to connect with the power of nature and the Divine. (A) True, (B) False. ANSWER: A

53. My religion should have a strong emphasis on organized social action around the world. (A) True, (B) False. ANSWER: A, BUT NOT AT THE SACRIFICE OF YOUR SOUL.

54. When a baby is born, s/he: (A) Is pure and free from sin, (B) Is born with a sinful nature, (C) Brings burdens from a past life into this one, (D) Is ignorant and imperfect. ANSWER: NONE OF THE ABOVE. A IS CLOSE, BUT I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE CONCEPT OF SIN

FREE SUMMARY: MEDEA, your belief system is best suited to religions that value open mindedness.

Ya think?

74. WELL WITH HER SOUL

From the Archives

(April 2005) Yesterday was a long hard day.

My friend and former publishing colleague Florence, an incredibly kind, seemingly healthy and intensely driven woman, was diagnosed with nonHodkins lymphoma eleven months ago and has been in treatment ever since. Her treatment just ended and she had tests this week to check its effectiveness.

Florence grew up in the mountains with a hard father.

We talk about that sometimes.

She says, When people ask you how you turned out so functional (well...), tell them that you had a kind grandmother.

See, Florence’s theory is that, even if you have a hard childhood, you’ll turn out okay if you have at least one good person in your life who is kind to you and loves you unconditionally.

Many Christians make me break out in hives but not Florence, who really does try to live Jesus's teachings and whose beaming face I remember so vividly from my same-sex wedding.

Florence sent the following on the same day that I was at the hospital with Louisville for her cancer follow-up tests.

I read it, thought about how hard her's and Louisville’s and Lynne's treatment were, about how much they just wanted to live and be healthy and loved, and felt like the most vacuous person on the planet for getting annoyed by traffic when I’m alive and healthy and able to see a blooming vibrant world every day.

Florence wrote:

Dear Family,
I go tomorrow to get the results of the CT scans. I desperately want to hear the words “cancer free” and to be placed in the category of patients who are in full remission. I still plead with God, on a regular basis, to leave me here until my children are grown and married, with babies of their own so that I can love them, hold them, spoil them. I want to grow old alongside my husband, to retire from working and to travel all over this country in an Airstream, possibly doing mission work, definitely doing volunteer work. I want to build a new home on our land and have dogs, cats, horses, goats, maybe even a llama, but always enough room for any who need a safe place to sojourn, to rest, to regain their footing. I want to keep living and to be healthy, strong and full of joy.

In the last 11 months, I have been on an incredible journey that has been all uphill. I didn’t really want to travel this particular path but found Jesus was there, right in front of me. He has taken every step I have, but always one step ahead. And when I have kept my eyes on Him, my journey has been an easy one; I have barely been tired. But in the times when I have taken my eyes off Him and looked down, instead, at my own feet, I have stumbled and fallen. I have called out to Him and He has turned and offered me His hand. He has pulled me up and He has guided my steps over the areas on this path that I could in no way traverse on my own. I have been in the presence of Jesus these last 11 months.

I have become accustomed—in fact, almost comfortable—with the uphill climb and the pace, the feel of the burn in my soul. I want to keep climbing, for I have a very long way to go to become the person that God intends for me to be. I do not want to become complacent, or even worse, to start the descent back into the darkness. I want to continue to be in His presence, I want to be brave enough to follow.

So, I want to say on this beautiful day that, whatever I hear tomorrow, I know and I believe that it will be okay. Whatever is ahead, I want, more than any of my other wants, to find myself exactly where He wants me to be, within His will for my life. Because I believe, whatever God has in store for me next, He will walk with me, uphill, through it, and He will give me the courage, strength, grace, peace and joy to continue putting one foot in front of the other, one step at at time. And wherever this journey may take me, please know, that it is well, it is well, with my soul.

Trusting and believing,
Florence

And, after 11 hard, hard months, the news was good. Florence has no growths, her blood work and scans are good, and there’s no indication that she’ll have a recurrence any time soon.

So now it’s time to grow her hair back so I can teach her how to spike it with product!

41. RADICAL INCLUSION

From the Archives

(March 2005) Just read this piece by Unitarian Universalist minister Marg Grigolia, who talks about her “shared commitment to radical inclusion.” I like that.

For me, a former Baptist trained to go directly to the source, I have never believed that Jesus died for me or for you. As a child the source was God; now it is our shared ground of being, consciousness beyond archetype, where I unburden my heart: hurts, shortcomings, vulnerabilities, deepest yearnings and questions. I still do not believe that Jesus died for me. And yet I have seen that deep change—change of the heart—usually happens because someone is suffering: When we realize that we have hurt those we love, our heart breaks open to their suffering and we are able to see beyond our individual walls.

This Easter, I am still looking for common ground ... looking to the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus as a call to come back to that wounded place in ourselves, that from which we usually turn away, where we wound others and continue to wound ourselves. For George [a former Catholic minister and friend], it is the bedrock of his faith, calling him into relationship, into deep truth-telling about himself and his limits.

I perceive a danger in dwelling or identifying with wounding or limitation, a danger in seeing salvation (wholeness) coming only through another, outside of oneself. For me the resurrection story is still metaphor, as concerns Jesus. Yet it also offers deep truth for each one of us. This story exhorts us to enter into the suffering we cause, so that we may experience resurrection by opening again to the unchangeable fact that we are part of one another and part of something much larger. Here in this wider heart may we be resurrected.

2. SITUATIONAL ETHICS

From the Archives

(March 2005) My friend Petra got mugged leaving work Wednesday night. A man rushed her as she walked to her car, grabbed her purse, and began punching her in the head.

Petra is a small woman with scant upper-body strength. She’s also an actor who knows how to project, and so she screamed ... and tried to run away ... and pushed him off of her ... and pounded on her office door ... and screamed some more ... and finally managed to break free and run.

She eventually made it back inside her office, but her jaw is broken, one eye is swollen shut, her forehead has goose-eggs all over it, and a shoulder is scraped and badly bruised.

Her husband Lee, a lawyer, said he can hardly bear the thought of one of his colleagues defending his wife’s attacker. He wants to ask that the man’s lawyer be appointed from another district.

If they find her attacker, that is.

Petra counsels addicts and is fairly certain that her attacker is a client in her building.

On Thursday, a bunch of us creative types met Lee and Petra at a pub where theater types hang out. We shared some vino, celebrated her escape, and offered support as best we could to someone who is trying to adjust to living in a different world.

Petra said she went into counseling because she wanted to make a difference in the world but, these days, she just feels jaded. Most of her clients never escape their addictions and their children grow up just as damaged as they are, to mostly repeat their parents’ lives.

She works grueling hours on a state employee’s salary and cares enough to stay late—which, frankly, she said, just leaves her vulnerable to attack.

She has resigned herself to the fact that she will probably not make a difference in most of her clients’ lives.

Dennis, who works with Petra, once opposed the death penalty in all cases. But then he met a boy who pounded a claw hammer into an eighty-year-old woman’s skull just so he could show off her Cadillac to his pals.

He's met too many people just like that boy—children with pop someone for a joyride or fifty cents—and so has come to doubt some people’s humanity (although he does recognize that their world may not provide the possibility of their humanity).

Now, if the evidence is overwhelming and the murderer is found guilty by a true jury of his or her peers, then Dennis believes that we ought to just go ahead and give the foreperson a gun and get it over with—save us and the criminal from himself.

(Wonder what he’ll do with the fact that, yesterday, the US Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for minors?)

•

I realized some time ago that I am the only one among my immediate circle of friends who cannot say with absolute conviction that I am always opposed to the death penalty.

I struggle with this issue. Sure, I understand that our justice system is blatantly racist, that innocent people sit on death row and that some of them will be executed not because they’re guilty but because they were born poor and could not afford decent representation.

I know that guilty people who can afford good representation can get away with murder because the hoards of people working on their cases are able to devote the energy required to find the inevitable technicality that spells freedom.

And I know that plenty of people are in jail because they grew up angry at a world they have every right to be angry at and then, not surprisingly, became the embodiment of that Audre Lorde poem about the disaffected teenager who becomes the ticking time bomb that will come due.

I know that, in the twenty-first century, there is money to be made from privatizing prisons and locking up whole segments of the population, and that this despicable form of social control is allowed to happen because, as a society, we have decided that some among us are expendable.

I know that plenty of businesspeople are happy to perpetuate this system because it allows them to rake in those privatization dollars. And everyone knows our rehab programs are a joke.

But here’s my problem with being 100 percent opposed to the death penalty: I have listened to cassette tapes of women being tortured to death and have stared into the eyes of the man who tortured them—a man who was, incidentally, wearing a Mork and Mindy T-shirt; someone who, in another circumstance, might be the guy behind you or me at the isolated all-night gas station. I also observed one of his victims' autopsies.

This man had already served a seven-year sentence for cutting a woman’s nipples off with a butcher knife when he kidnapped the woman whose autopsy I observed.

He raped and tortured and abused this woman over the course of several hours, then left her body in a field for wild dogs to eat.

This animal was fascinated with pain—which I suppose explains why he chose to tape-record her pleas and screams and sobs and gasps as he cut off her digits one knuckle at a time before skinning her alive. That was apparently not enough pain for him though, so he proceeded to pour salt onto her newly exposed skin and recorded her response as she lay there gasping and howling and bleeding to death in the dirt.

Later, he replayed those tapes, remembering.

I recognized his eyes the moment they caught my own. They’re the same eyes I saw when I visited my mother in the violent wards of mental hospitals. Goat eyes. One-dimensional eyes. Gone flat.

Those eyes scare the living shit out of me—especially when I see them on people walking freely down the street.

Some people on the violent wards are obsessed with their excrement—hurl it against the walls or fingerpaint with it. They bang their heads into the iron bars until they’re put into straitjackets, then bark and howl and reach through the bars for you as you walk by.

And, sadly, in some cases, whatever it is that makes most of us compassionate empathetic human beings is just permanently gone.

Maybe their violence is an outward projection of their own self-hatred or the hate their parents or the world projected onto them. Maybe they inherited the worst of both parents. Maybe they saw too much violence. Or maybe people were just too mean to them. Or maybe (to paraphrase a country song) they were just born bad.

And maybe medicine is never going to help.

Whatever the cause, some of us will always lack connection and will, instead, embody an unquenchable will to violence. And, if someone is unfortunate enough to encounter this person at an inopportune time, then she or he will become this person’s next victim.

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The first thing colonists did when they settled a new place was build a church and a jail. They recognized how fragile communities are, the necessity of creating institutions that sustain and protect our fragile human connections. They recognized that some actions are so threatening to our connections that the people who commit these acts must be separated from others in order to protect the whole.

I read seventeenth-century English literature because I believe that we are at a similar cultural juncture. And I'm a poet who is prone to think in symbols and microcosms.

I imagine our country as a microcosm, a single colony of disparate but interconnected individuals existing in a fragile and destructible world where the violent results of unquenchable rage can damage and eventually un-tune the whole friggin’ spheres.

That's the Holocaust. That's Revelations.

My objection to the total elimination of the death penalty has nothing to do with revenge or the cost-to-profit ratio of the appeals process versus permanent incarceration, or the quest to understand what brain or hormonal or emotional abnormality destroys the human component of the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world.

Instead, I worry about the potential Machiavelli or Hitler in the rest of us. I worry that the risk a torturer’s potential escape poses to our society, the potential havoc he can wreak on our fragile connections, on our faith, is too great a threat for us to allow for that possibility.