Thursday, June 28, 2007

Time for Truthtelling

You know, when I go the doctor, I want to know the truth. I don't want the truth hidden from me. Funny, we almost all feel that way on a peronal level, but when it comes to our behavior in the aggregate, oh no, don't get in the way of my money, convenience, or cherished but inaccurate ideas about the physical universe.

Hi all, I hope to be very provocative here. I want meaty responses, too. Thoughtful ones that show a willingness to keep digging deeper. Flamers will not be welcome. Say what you mean strongly, yes, but with decency and some willingness to help me and others see what you base your thinking on.

For starters, I want to say that I grew up in a mainstream episcopal church household. Dad was an engineer. We were familiar with the bible and learned to take it in very deeply as the set of teaching stories we believed it to be, not as an unerring document. So I feel an acceptance of Spirit, and in many other expresiions, too. I guess I would say I am a distinctivist, not an exclusivist in my approach to Spirit.

I also fiercely believe in the rights of people to live unencumbered by nosy neighbors and prurient government.

The lower classes of our world, in an economic sense, are basically wage slaves for the better off. This has been built on the increasing availability of cheap and easy to use energy over the last century and a half. Each american has the energy equivalent of 300 slaves! Not in Bangladesh or even Colombia, Mexico, Poland, or India.

When energy availability starts to decrease, what do you thionk will happen as people see their imagined entitlements go away. What about the bitterness of billions of people who know they will never see a piece of the pie and that their children won't either.

Not a recipe for peace, I think.

Well, taking a biblical view of prophecy, which is, and always was, a way of calling the attention of the people to their own situation, not a foretelling, sometimes using imagery of the past, or future, to emphasize a meaning.

Here is my feeble effort.

The US is the New Babylon and George W Bush and gang are the High Priests of Mammon and Moloch. They have led by example and continue to encourage us and our children to look at money first, not values. Shouldn't the right thing to do in a situation trump the saving of some money or convenience?

This placing of wealth and convenience above decency and neighborliness is the worship of Mammon.

Though I don't know for certain, I don't really believe that these people are consciously demon worshippers, but that is the effect of their behaviors. And we should be able to name what we see without fear. Avoiding that 'calling a spade a spade, or a heart a heart' prevents us indiviually and collectively from doing what is good and decent and pushes us willy-nilly into the circus of greed.

Sending our children off to an inexcusable war is exactly what worshippers of Moloch did, in a very different way. They put their first-born on the red-hot arms of Moloch to die in fiery pain so that they and their riches would remain safe.

The answer is not really to focus anger at the administration or captains of industry, though they should be held accountable.

The real news is - We all should be held accountable! We have all snitched a little more than our fair share from the cookie jar one way or another, we haven't given our neighbor room to be an imperfect human nor have we made sure that we keep the world safe for others including the other creatures of all shapes and sizes.

The increasing range of insect borne disease due to warming global temperatures is an example of the mechanism of justice. For Hubris always meets its Nemesis.

Rather than other directed anger and hostility it would be helpful to cultivate an attitude of saying 'enough' to more for ourselves, and gentle forgiveness of others for their old die-hard bad habits. It is not as though we don't have any of those ourselves.

Go slower, look at ALL the life around you, marvel at it, or at least enjoy it. The enlarging of your heart will let the answers to all this that are yours free to be expressed.

Who knows, maybe YOU are the one that can help the Washington crowd see the world a little differently and become life enhancing people instead of lovers of death.

Talk to me people. Let's work this out.

molineux

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