bring on the lovingoverthrow

Watch and I'll bet you smile . . . Go to youtube to watch it in high definition. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to do it here.

Here is a story about some scholarship that, if we are lucky, and, if we are diligent, could help save the world.   I've just ordered the book and can't wait to write more about it.  You read it too and tell me what you think!

George Carlin died yesterday.   His humor was raw and also prophetic.  I was a great fan.  This is one of my favorite pieces and it happens to be very timely in my life right now as I try to get my "stuff" from here to there. 

I can't possibly fully reflect upon the significance of this passage right now, seeing as how we are packing and I'm trying to attend Ministry Days and GA, but . . . I preached my last sermon at the Palm Beaches yesterday.  It was actually the worst sermon I've preached in months.  I got the timing of the day all wrong and ran out of time.  But, no one seemed to notice.  It was a feel-good day.  The sanctuary was extremely festive due to the efforts of the wonderful DRE and her collaborators who brought in, at least, a dozen giant cranes.  When the children and choir sang, "Let there be peace on earth", members of the congregation waved the cranes!  Then to top it off, the Music Director sang the most beautiful song "For Good" which is from the musical "Wicked".  I'm still reeling and, of course, that is just the top layer!

 

I was very pleased that so many people said they appreciated my Memorial Day sermon.  Several people asked for copies so I am posting here a very cleaned up and fleshed out product from my notes.

______________________________________________
“Truth is Love’s Doorway” 

 

Recently, I’ve been studying up on relationship skills both for my own good and because I am looking for better ways to teach and talk about the practices that help us be with one another in powerful, healing, creative, even transformative ways. As human beings, we can choose how we want to be with one another. And, the religious life is about learning and practicing ways of being with and relating to one another that produce these greater goods.

 

Click to read more ...

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."  Thomas Jefferson

We thought we had won the battle for the separation of church and state.  What is clear now is that victory won't be secure until we also secure the next one - the separation of corporations and state. 

Our founders were well aware of the dangers of church/state enmeshment but the dangers of corporate/state enmeshment were not fully distinguished and could not be fully distinguished until the undue influence of an established church had been eliminated.   With the church elite out of the way, the money elite set about taking control of the state and made such large and immediate gains toward accomplishing their mission that Thomas Jefferson was able to recognize and decry the danger even in his lifetime.

What I want to know is this.  If it is not okay for the state to impose religious doctrine, why is it okay for it to impose economic doctrine?  If democratic government needs protection from the corruptions of religious influence, how much more does it need protection from a the corruptions of corporate influence?  Especially since all those no longer believe in God still very much believe in money?  Why should we, at this point in history, be less concerned about the influence of the institution whose job it is to ruthlessly pursue the private good of a tiny few than our ancestors were about the influence of the institution whose job was to pursue the common good?   

It is the extremely degraded condiditon of our laws and government, brought on by the influence of corporations that  has people so desperate and so little educated that they are willing to tear down the separation of church and state and let the critical functions of government be operated for the private profit of the moneyed few.

The only thing short of a new revolution that can save democracy now is the elimination of the abominable fiction of corporate personhood and a reinvigoration of the understanding that corporations exist, first and foremost, to serve the public good and only secondarily, if at all, to create private wealth.

An entity that can not starve or thirst or sicken from exposure to toxic waste or die from lack of adequate medical care is not a person!

 
(The church and state cartoon is by Barry Blitt and was published in the NYTimes.)
 

 

This video is probably not terrifying to anyone who has concluded that the threat of global warming demands significant unified action.  To such people, it might prove useful and, thus hopeful.  Watch it and see. 

I haven't been keeping up-to-date here with the work of IVAW and our new generation of Winter Soliders. I didn't post about how they testified before Congress and were ignored by the national media.   When I experience myself as confused or ineffective in living responsively to life, I am sometimes consoled by these words from J. Krishnamurti;  "It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society".

Chris Hedges has a new book which supports and further contextualizes the reports of the Iraq war Winter Soldiers.  Here is brief review and excerpt. 

Because there are a few folks who are graciously browsing this site in lieu of receiving a more traditional portfolio from me, I gave it a brief appraisal tonight from a marketing perspective.  My conclusion is that it is clearly not a marketing tool and isn't likely to be one any time soon.  On the other hand, I did upload a new picture of me and give some better context to a few of my wilder proclamations.

Thank you for being here, pallas

People often ask me for copies of my sermons and, because the text I work from is never the text I end up speaking, I always put them off. An unprecedented number asked me for my sermon on friendship which I gave on New Member Sunday recently. Since I did relent and give it out - after extracting promises to treat it as a draft and not circulate it, I decided I might as well post it here. After all, one beauty of a blog is that you can post things that you don't consider ready for real publication.  Anyway, here it is:

The Necessity of Friendship

I can’t count the number of times that one of you has told me that friendships are a big part of what makes this community meaningful for you. So, you can imagine how deeply I’ve pondered the fact that I often hear from ministers and church consultants that frequent mentioning of the importance of friendship can be a red flag indicating that a congregation is functioning more like a country club than a religious community. I don’t know who coined the term but “a country club church” is not considered a good thing. A country club church is a church that exists primarily for the benefit of its members. It is inwardly focused. The opportunity to spend enjoyable time together with like-minded people is the point. Personalities rather than principles set the tone of meetings and other events. There are cliques and in-fighting. There is the expectation that staff and officers will serve the needs of members, keep them comfortable, and certainly not lead them outside their comfort zone.

While I have experienced the dynamic of the country club in every congregation I’ve ever been associated with, I find I can’t agree with the implication that friendships are a faulty foundation for building religious community. The Buddha said that the whole of holy life is association with good friends. In the West, the idea that friendship is necessary dates at least to Aristotle and modern theologian Thomas Moore wrote “. . Friendship is a necessity.  If we neglect it we will feel its lack as a morbidity of soul.”

So, what do we make of this talk of friendship as a red flag?

Well, clearly, we need to distinguish between the “good friends” that Buddha was talking about and the country club friends that the ministers and consultants are warning us against.

How do we know if the friendships we are cultivating are good for our souls?  Here are some questions we can ask?

Does my friend expect me to be my highest and best self?

Does she help me forgive myself when I am not?

Are we creative together?

Does our friendship serve anyone other than ourselves?

Does our conversation regularly take us into our depths?

Does it reveal to us our tender and growing edges?

Irish poet and philosopher, John O'Donohue, author of a book called Anan Cara (Gaelic for “soul friend”) asked about it this way. “when is the last time that you had a great conversation, a conversation which wasn't just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation a lot in this culture. But when had you last a great conversation, in which you over heard yourself saying things that you never knew you knew. That you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you thought you had lost and a sense of an event of a conversation that brought the two of you on to a different plane. . . . a conversation that continued to sing in your mind for weeks afterwards, you know?” He goes on to say, “And I've — I've had some of them recently, and it's just absolutely amazing, like, as we would say at home, they are food and drink for the soul, you know? “

You probably remember the old slogan from the United Negro College Fund. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Well just as the human mind will not come to fruition without proper cultivation, neither will the human soul. I know some people will balk at the word soul. But there is something in the human being that can rightfully be called soul and it is the presence that emerges when the gifts of mind and the gifts of heart are fully integrated. That integration doesn’t happen without work and true friendship is a place for that work. One writer has said that a soul-friend is a lovingly stern companion to whom you can, in stringent honesty, unburden your heart as you move toward enlightenment. So, this kind of friendship, soul-friendship, is a discipline.  It requires attention and courage. It is necessary for all those who wish to grow a soul.  And it is the most proper foundation of religious community that I can imagine. It is a foundation upon which a truly transformative community might emerge.

And, here’s the truth, dear people. Truly transformative community is what the world needs you to be. I don’t know if we are holding our breaths our breathing a collective sigh of relief as we wait for regime change in November, but which ever it is, it is not enough. As Howard Zinn suggested in his recent analysis of media coverage of the campaign, nothing good has ever happened simply because we got a new president. There always had to be the grass-roots demand for change.

So, if you are a people who long for justice, and I believe you are, if you are a people concerned about more than your own needs, and I believe you are, if you are a people who want to leave a legacy of hope to young people, and I believe you are, if you want to put your most precious values into action, and I believe you do, then be soul-friends to one another. Let your friendships raise you up in understanding, in courage, in creativity, and in compassion. Let me go from here telling a different story about what it means when people say that friendship is what their congregation is all about.