bring on the lovingoverthrow

I'm thinking I was so disturbed  growing up by the prosperity teachings I heard in Christianity that I developed an aversion to money itself.  I heard it taught that God wants people to have lots of money and uses money to reward faithful people and that was so awful that I felt money itself was unclean.  This was not the healthiest response.  It confused the subject for the teaching.  Over the years, I've struggled to see money more clearly as the tool that it is but I stilI haven't mastered the situation by a long shot.  One way my desire for further development in this area shows up is in how hard it is for me to fulfill my commitment to generosity and abundance.  I agonize too much and my agony triggers anxiety in other people and there we go with dampers on our spirits.

Lloyd sent me this quote from Dwight D Eisenhower:  

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

 

How I love to hear how well and beautifully others have said what I am trying to say.  How daunted I feel to realize that these powerful words from a powerful man were not widely heeded.  

1.  Overcome the notion that god has chosen certain people.  God embraces every one.  It is we who are choosing.  What shall it be?

2. Overcome the notion that god was forced to devise a brutal and bloody plan to save humankind from god's own judgement.   For myself, I can say that when, for the love of god, I refused the god being urged upon me by christianity, one far, far greater appeared.

3. Get over the notion the Jesus would've gone along with a plan like that even had it been made.  What happened to Jesus is what too often happens to those among us who call us to greater realization.  We don't want to wake up and face the mess we've made.  So we harden our hearts and somebody murders them.  Jesus accepted what happened to him, not because he was playing his part in a divinely scripted hostage exchange situation, but because he knew and rested in a god great enough to hold and heal it all.

because I got the chance to be a stand-up theologian.  Thank you Jupiter Business Women and long may you reign as the "leading advocate for working women!"

Back to kinfolk and lovers.  This is the heartbreak of waking up to the the fact that we've been roaming the planet for lo these tens of thousands of years and longer and still haven't figured out how to live together as one people on a living planet.  We are so out of touch with our kinship that even knowing we are same parent siblings doesn't guarantee we'll do right by one another.  I think people are awake to the reality of love big enough to embrace the planet and all life upon it.  Not to mention all creation backwards and forwards.  They just don't know how to move out from under the crushing weight of an empire in which even children can be taken hostage and claims of private possession are given greater consideration than all the gathered claims of justice.

Empire regards people as rivals or possessions - either way,  to do with as it wills including to use as cannon fodder.   Empire's latest iteration insists nothing can happen that's not for private profit and doesn't even pretend to be alarmed when the gifts of the generations are placed in auction before the masters of weaponry and war. 

I've been calling it a wolf-eat-dog culture and worrying it was too harsh.  Then today I was thinking of the children who are given over to the beasts that empire keeps for its entertainment and realized that I could call it a wolf-eat-children culture and not be exaggerating.  

Goodness, Truth and Beauty are lovers and kin of Wisdom and Compassion.  This is my unitarian trinity.  I know.  It gets messy.  Still, the sooner we start behaving as if all are lovers and kin, the sooner we'll sort out a decent way to live together in our planetary household,  nourishing the endowment and flourishing the legacy we share. 

I try not to take it personally or let my life be a monument to it though I'd rather wear it as a badge of honor than as a mental disease. I figure depression is a small price to pay for waking up early in a culture so full of meanness that anyone who gives the slightest damn is bound to get a  headache. If the town's on fire and no one can breathe shall we send them all to the allergist?  The point is, I feel lucky to have avoided psychosis. Those I've loved have not been so lucky. And I love every last one of them and pray that whenever they need convincing love is real, I'll have help producing the evidence.

Does greater love not appear every time something falls from our embrace? What's hard is that we sometimes demand proof of the obvious. If you and I are standing outside on a beautiful day and I demand from you proof that the sun is shining and the world is beautiful, what are you going to do? That's how it is when we need convincing compassion exists enough and more than enough  to satisfy every need. And wisdom along with it. One and the same. 

Any thing less has failed to account for all the data.

Denial is when we refuse to admit there is data needing account. 

Mama's please name them boys justice

Oh, please name them girls Mercy do!

Don't be afraid of them getting mixed up.

Love will find a way to get through.

Let them go laughing and singing.

Let them roam hand in hand. 

Where Wisdom is truly beloved 

They'll be welcome  too.

Goodness is bound to go with them.

Beauty won't be too hard to find.

Truth will never be Forgotten.

Compassion unfolds down the line. 

I got the chance to say this favorite of my teachings at the Jupiter Business Women's monthly dinner program.  The ladies and gentleman gave me such a lovely reception.  I got to offer lots of my favorite things - mostly my love of humanity and all the many ways we show up working for justice.