Monday, May 28, 2007

An Open Letter to the "Non-Believers" Who Aren't Really Non-Believers (in-case you didn't catch that with the quotation marks).

Dear Athiests:

You have no idea, or perhaps thousands of ideas, like me, about that thing we disagree on.
Or do we disagree with each other or within or about or because of it?
I often admire your faith, a faith rather silly and easy at times and other times drastically complex and profound. As consumed as we are in the same question with divergent answers, our processes of thought mirror one another. While the middle ground folks, namely moderate agnostics, claim their neutrality, we carry the books and banners of belief. Funny though, you assert what G*d is and choose not to believe, while we assert what G*d is not and choose to believe. Yours is the more rational choice of course: to create G*d in the image of all you know and to know it's bullshit (read: not worship worthy). I wish I was more capable, as you are, of knowing when I'm standing in mystery and when I'm standing in idolatry of the imagination. Unfortunately the difference is not always clear to me and further, I am not sure my brain is all there is (which is also the beef I have with religious fundamentalists who claim to know what G*d is by placing all faith in their ability to fully grasp mediated revelation).
What I have learned in the last two years is that some people need the idea of G*d just to survive. Though you softly critique this survival mechanism as 'weak' or 'crutch-like,' I beg to differ. A distinction must be drawn somewhere between religious belief as that which helps us keep keepin on and that which stifles our ability to engage critically with the realities of our lives in community on this planet. Simple stupid answers to serious suffering, phrases like "god has a plan" or "he never gives you something you cannot handle" are bad theology. In these cases we have the very god you reference and astutely cast out of consideration. I join the iconoclastic activity you take up in the face of this theological insufficiency. However, when someone (or some group) is facing horrific life circumstances and finds an outlet for their pain in prayer, song and communal ritual whereby they feel the strength necessary to keep breathing, iconoclastic activity strikes me inhumane and cruel. Further, don't we all have our 'thing' we need just to get by? Many of you critiquing the G*d of religion are quite content bowing down to the survival potential in substances of the temporary mind-numbing nature. So let's be honest: it's not so much who we make G*d out to be, or who G*d really is, but what we do (or don't do) to and with others with/out of these beliefs systems. If you want to be an athiest, fine by me. Just follow in the footsteps of Wade Meyer if that's the case because he's got it right.

Feel me?
Ejoye

Sunday, May 27, 2007

In the Adult Sand Box: Who's Pushing Us Now?

Just across the fire place and
generational divide sits a
white haired Indy 500 watching immigrant Italian
flanked by his chicken preparing wife whose
dressed in black and white linen, in the kitchen.

Today, after reading (rather poor) exegesis
on the book of Jonah by a Mennonite pastor
from Canada, I decided to go buy my own Bible
but I couldn’t find anything pocket size or
outside of the KJV genre (which Wade likes these days, but
I’m still suspect).

Last night, just across the country and
telephone line my soul mother
Maria reached her magic-wand fingers
into my desperately needy ears
and cleared the cobwebs of overly-cautious
pre-cancellation ideas away by saying
“swinging from deep disgust to complete
desire for union is what intimacy is.”

I peel potatoes for the black and white linen wearing
womyn in the kitchen after exiting the couch where
the recently purchased medium sized NIV sits turned to
the book of Jonah which took me by surprise
not by the whale
nor the unanticipated repentance and pardon of Nineveh,
but the untouched vine.
“It sprang up overnight and died overnight” saith the Lord.

Remember back in the sandbox
when those first few pushes between the shoulders
quickly propelled us to the highest of heights, both backwards and forwards?
Remember when those highest of heights, both backwards and forwards
were the moments we lived for, not the moments we froze in?
Our prayer then: please don’t let it stop.
Our prayer now: please make it stop.

Mario Andretti flips his car in the rain.
Lincoln calls from Dodger Stadium; they’re down 0-1 in the 8th.
The chicken in the kitchen smells soul-full.
These things sprang up overnight and will die overnight.
Such a swing set is this: this is what intimacy is.