Religion
The day the world changed
In 1996 some friends took me to the Hsi Lai Buddhist temple in Los Angeles. While we were there I saw something that changed me forever.
A major worldview shift is always terribly upsetting. Past beliefs collide with present experience like tectonic plates pushing against each other. The earth moves. Great cracks appear in what was thought to be solid ground. The landscape is forever changed. I’ve had a number of major worldview shifts over the years. The one I experienced at Hsi Lai was powerful. The emotion of it still washes over me from time to time.
Before I go further, you should know that my spiritual tradition taught me that Christianity was the only true religion. This is complicated by the fact that
The angel with the flaming sword
Human beings have always gazed with wonder at the world around us. Whatever people in the past saw was their reality. What we see now is ours.
The best instrument ancient humans had was their eyes. They lived in a flat world, a world probably no larger than a hundred miles in any direction. Most would never travel to those borders, and anything beyond that was in the realm of the unknown and unknowable.
Above them were lights. A large light by day and thousands of smaller ones by night. They watched these lights carefully. They were obviously embedded in some sort of dome that covered the earth. The patterns of movement they saw in the night sky were
Follow up to my last post
Well, I can tell already that I need to follow my last post with some words of explanation. You’d think I’d learn to predict when things I write will cause anger and hurt feelings. I can’t. I guess every writer is myopic in this way. If my words hurt someone’s feelings or insulted them, I’m sorry about that.
Because someone asked, yes there was a first piece, which was more angry. I suppose that was my own way of working some things out.
I consider what I’ve written to be in the spirit of a political cartoon. I have nothing against Catholicism. Heck, I’m a huge fan of Saint Francis, Thomas Merton, and Henry Nouwen. My artwork on this site is done by a Catholic brother. As a protestant, and a rather low-church one at that, I confess that the opulence of the papacy is beyond my comprehension. But I’ve not written about that.
But I do have a problem with the pope’s decision to go forward with such a public baptism. I mean, what is so special about this man? How many people does the pope baptize? Why was he chosen and why was this done in such a public forum? If the man wants to become a Christian, that could have been taken care of in the way that it happens 99.999% of the time. In a local church and not in front of the cameras.
I consider this satirical piece to be speaking against blatant proselytizing between religions. I’ve written about this before. I think the amount of violence that has historically taken place between Christians and Muslims and Jews is shameful. These three religions, all of whom claim Abraham as a father, need to learn to respect each other. We are moving into a new world. There are new challenges ahead.
I believe trying to convert each other is “Old World” behavior and it needs to stop.
My Second Pope Fantasy
The first involved me traveling to Rome and, among other things, dragging the pope down a flight of stairs. That fantasy could not be published, though I was tempted.
My Second Pope Fantasy:
“Yes sir, I’d like a private audience with his immanence, Pope John, or Leo, or Bene...Benny, Steve. Whatever the current name is.”
“Yes I know that, but it is MY fantasy, so you’ll usher me right in won’t you? That’s right. Thank you.”
The pope is sitting on a high throne, so high that his feet can’t even touch the ground. I’m intrigued by his pope hat and pope robes and little pope slippers, swinging gently back and forth.
“So you baptized a Muslim?”
“Yes.”
“And you chose to do this on Easter weekend, right in St. Peter’s Basilica, right in front of the whole world?”
“Yes.”
“You bragged about it, basically, right? You did it in a way to maximize the exposure and make world news?”
“Yes.”
The thing that amazes me about the pope is that he never really changes his facial expression. It’s like all the life has been sucked out of him. His lips move. I wonder if anything else does.
“You are aware, are you not, of the current climate of religious tension in the world? You do know that what you did infuriated thousands of Muslims around the globe.”
“Yes.”
“And this man is in danger now, correct? He and his family will have had death threats.”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do something like that? Okay, so the guy was never a practicing Muslim and wanted to become a Christian. Fine, that’s his right. But why make his baptism a public spectacle at this delicate time in history?”
“Yes,” he said gently, peering at me over his spectacles. “What can I do for you, my son?”
“Um, did you hear anything I just said?”
The pope slowly lifted his hand
“Benidicticus Liberonday Ulfimiquam Peridontitus Loonday.”
He finished speaking but his lips were still moving. I flattened my palm and passed it back and forth in front of his eyes. No reaction.
“Sweet Jesus, even my fantasy pope doesn’t seem to know what the hell he’s doing.”
rlp
A New Abraham and a New Earth
Have you noticed the great evil that comes from religious exclusivity? Whenever one group of people claims that they have some kind of special arrangement with the Creator and all previous ways of relating to God are not to be tolerated, evil inevitably follows.
Zoroastrians gained power in Persia and promptly threw out the pagan religion of the Magi. Christians threw out the Pagans in Europe after stealing most of their holidays. Mayday, Christmas, Halloween, Easter – it’s all spiritual booty.
Jews have hated Arabs and denied their right to live in the traditional Biblical lands. Arabs returned their lack of hospitality with as much passion. They all give as good as they get.
Christians march into places where primitive peoples practice ancient faiths, some of them not practiced anywhere else in the world. And we tell them to forget their traditional ways and give their hearts to Jesus so they won’t burn in hell.
The Taliban persecutes infidels and destroys ancient Buddhist statues by blowing them to pieces with their tanks.
Everywhere you look, the children of God wage physical and spiritual war against each other. The blood never stops flowing, and the rest of the world looks on in amazement. When will we learn that you can’t force people to change their ways of expressing faith and devotion to the Creator?
At some point your spirit or your gut or your humanity must speak to your theology. At some point you look at your holy book, and you look at all the death and terror and ugliness that comes from fighting people with other holy books and you say, “To hell with it. I’m not doing this anymore.”
A Religion of Denial
Back in the early 90s, a man named John was a member of our church. He was a professional man, with a wife and two sons. Sam was in high school, and Teddy was in middle school. Both boys played football. His wife Allison was beautiful and very involved with a number of local civic organizations. This was the life they had imagined. Things were working out just as they had planned.
And then a doctor told John that he had a large, inoperable tumor in his abdomen. Chemotherapy and radiation were options, but the doctor was not overly optimistic.
We who were his church were shocked and saddened. We prayed with John and Allison, hoping that the treatments would work and that God would grant them some kind of miracle. But as time went by, it became clear that the treatments were not working. The tumor did not decrease in size.
The people of our church are committed to prayer. Prayer is a sacred part of our spiritual tradition, and it is an important part of our covenant with each other. Even when do not understand what is happening, we give ourselves to the discipline of prayer. We put the best we have into it.
We are also aware that most of the time God allows things to take their natural course. When last I checked, the death rate was holding steady at 100%. So no matter how many miracles you name and claim, at some point your prayers for healing will be answered with a no.
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