I’ve begun to think that maybe we desperately need to have an idol? … and a ‘physical’ one at that

… that maybe we’ve created “God” in our own image to substantiate and justify our very subjective world views … that we participate in institutionalized religious activities primarily to abate our own insecurities? … to try shift our shaky and subjective views as far away from their desperate subjectivity as possible by joining together with others who seem to share our beliefs … or at least a fairly similar perspective?  …joining together with others who seem to affirm the views and values we hope are true, … those who encourage us and make us feel good about ourselves and our frail choices… the ones we really never chose for ourselves, but that which we picked up from our own social and cultural contexts?

… and that maybe we are indeed profoundly frail … and that possibly we know deep down that our perspective is merely guess work at best

… but this is so extremely frightening for us, … some unmentionable

so we flock together…

just in case?

… and that it’s not really worship of God we seek to participate in and be part of, … but rather a grasping to hopefully obtain a sense our own ‘worth-ship’? .. as we stumble about, trying to make sense of our existence and the meaning of it all

… but maybe it’s all ok?

maybe God’s not so upset about this?

maybe God really is omniscient?

who amongst us would have guessed that?

and maybe God’s okay with it because at least we are searching … and hopefully asking questions?

and hopefully this is true?

… can I get an ‘amen’?

.

it’s nothing less than tragic to think that tomorrows leaders are following today’s leaders right now…

what was that about the blind leading the blind?

as radical as it may seem to the vast majority of us … perhaps for tomorrows leaders to shake off their own blindness it may well be greatly advantageous to start by stopping, go by staying, start questioning rather than obeying, learning by actively unlearning, programming by deprogramming and courageously walking untrodden paths… and perhaps even to not desire that others follow them at all?

outrageously also, perhaps to radically reinterpret the practical meanings of honour, respect, integrity, ethics, fairness, integrity, honesty, selflessness and dignity as these ideas might also be a most necessary initial step?  …  let’s face it,…  maybe only one in a million of all the leaders alive and active today display even a remote trace of any of these attributes

… and could it be that any righteous leader of tomorrow may well be categorized as anarchical, radical, rebellious and perhaps even profoundly irrelevant and dysfunctional … if judged by present standards?

instead of falling into a ditch along with those who illegitimately claim the high and lofty seats of power and influence in our world today – should we not be thinking of doing another form of ditching?

the scars of life are real makeup

superficial beautification

and cosmetic surgery

is no more effective than polishing a corpse

turned furrows of pained failure

bring deep beauty to the surface

cracked, exposed earth

ushers in a kiss

…the breath of life

a broken heart

beats more tenderly

and though it limps it knows full well

that remaining untouched and inside

brings no reward

for real life to begin

death must first knock

but if the door remains shut

who can speak of fellowship?

to paint the bows and never set sail

is like locking the rudder

in a becalmed sea

for to be painted

requires the boat to leave the water

rather to have loved and lost

than to live with abandoned desires

rather to walk with a limp

than to run swiftly in half forgotten dreams

and/or or not

so, not satisfied with an unlimited imagination we ventured headlong into the game of deceptive charades … it’s not that the indecision was emphatic, it was more that the next steps were backwards… so we watched and studied others like flies on a wall … and not having a life of our own we found directionlessness in the vicarious apparition before us and this we celebrated as reality

slavery is when one is captured against their will and forced into subjugation

… when one gives up their own freedom, essentially surrendering themselves under the control of another it is something completely different

… it’s called “democracy”

so if one unwittingly plants a tree in times of folly it is twice as foolish when the season of fruit arrives to curse the farmer

http://www.news24.com/Multimedia/World/Boston-Marathon-blasts-20130415

I don’t know of any other species that viciously and randomly destroys its own kind just to publicise some inane point of sub-cultural political opinion

even in nature one species preys on another species for survival but very seldom if ever on their own kind

only possibly in extreme instances of desperate survival will the predator turn on its own kind yet this seems to be a most salient characteristic of modern humans

we speak of peace and truth, harmony and love, saving our planet and protecting the innocent ones… and if they won’t listen we will kill to make ourselves heard

amazingly it has been suggested by scientific research that even with all the violence in our day we are nevertheless living in the most peaceful of era’s in the history of mankind

but violence has shifted subtly in this age of information and great intellectual achievement

… each and every day corporate business and the pervasive practice of the frenzied global religious epidemic we call Capitalism and Free Market Enterprise methodically bombs us all to bloody pieces as we make the daily marathon to the commodity stores

saying or even thinking that religion is the answer is delusional denial at best

if anything religion is very possibly the seedbed at the forefront of this kind of violent sectarianism and self-hatred

and as far as we know animals are mostly instinctual

we humans on the other hand seem to possess the unique ability to think about our thinking…

some call it our soul, or our spirit

some believe we are the noblest of all the creatures

so we think about things

and we act

like this

and we thinkers decide who will think over us … and for us

we call it Democracy

they say they listen to us, but they lie

and we listen to them

and we copy them

we follow them

we even worship them

we celebrate the greats amongst us

and especially those who commit the most violence against ourselves

and themselves

because violence against one is violence against all

for we all are one

whether we think so or not

…one of the other things that I think we have been deceived in/by (whether intentionally or not) is that we are told as an act of worship that we must intensely pursue the desires of our “heart” yet from the pulpit in virtually every church worldwide we are essentially bombarded with presentations of sensual gratifications of the eyes of the flesh (money strategies, offered prestige, power (church leadership positions (aka ministry) etc), spiritual and social strategies, promises of and methods towards marriage and personal growth, various spiritual concepts, rights and privileges, etc)…

even from the get-go we are presented with a “gospel” that promises Jesus as our servant – we are preached from the pulpit that “God will give us” … and that we will “be given” salvation for free, that “we will get” eternal life, eternal security, healing, peace, a new sense of community, love, better jobs, more success, etc, etc, ad nauseum) when in reality we have all these things already. … and it is only our blindness and unbelief that keeps us separated from such realities

the real message of the cross to my mind is that in order to be ‘restored’ to where we were previously (i.e. pre the fallen state as per the metaphor of the garden in Genesis) we are presented in the recorded story of the Christ with an example and a teaching as well as a clear methodology to “put to death” the so called “deeds of the flesh” and to walk daily for the rest of our time left on earth with this “cross” on our shoulders, … placed there by ourselves and with the constant reminder of the stench of our own death filling our own nostrils as well as any in our presence

this real gospel is not preached anywhere from what I can tell… indeed if it were it would reap the same reward as displayed in the story of the Christ

… the messenger will be betrayed and crucified by friend and foe alike and at the end will have no followers save a mere few trembling who are the only ones who truly understood anything at all

imagine that gospel being preached every Sunday?

today Sunday had no sun
we didn’t do much but the day was fun
the clouds clouded and the rain reigned
and shady puddles trickled down the drain

tomorrow is a day of sorrow
for those who have little life to live
but for some of us with stuff to do
there’s always plenty still to give

In the Genesis account of the garden of Eden it is said that there were two trees in the centre of the garden. One was the tree of life and the other, positioned in the centre of the garden right next to it, was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – a tree that seemingly bore fruit that if eaten would achieve in the devourer of the fruit the apparently fatal ability to distinguish between good and evil.

The story declares that mankind desired the fruit of this forbidden tree and after having partaken of it something seemed to be opened up in their understanding that wasn’t there before. It was as if a Pandora’s box was opened and this act of rebellion facilitated the spiritual death and degradation of all creation.

In this day of superior knowledge and self proclaimed sophistication we now seem to celebrate as a virtue of sanity the same attributes and ability that the account of the garden of Eden presented as death inducing.

Perhaps we need to ask the question, “how sane is our sanity?”