beautiful monsters

Tags

Beiruit, Paris, peace, prayer, terrorism

1457:   As I sit here by the open window, I’m struck by how global we’ve become…because of technology, I am acquainted with roughly the same number of people living in or around Paris as I was with people in New York City 14 years ago.  The sun streams in, and I listen to the tennis tournament across the street at the park and the cars speeding by on our “quiet” end of a local thouroughfare (all things are relative, “quiet” is about 60-80 cars a minute on 4 lanes on a Sunday afternoon); the night before last I was waiting up late to see if one our forum members (the last person I knew that I hadn’t seen or heard was okay) had checked in–not only was he in the area, but the concert venue was right up his alley.

I’m drinking tea and listening/half-watching to Lindsey Stirling and Katy Perry on YouTube (kids choice, not mine) while bread bakes and the hubby cleans the kitchen.  Its about time to make dinner…chicken cordon bleu casserole with rice and broccoli, and I have a cat that alternately wants to walk on my keyboard or knaw on my screen as I look at overnight oats and smoothie recipies on Pinterest.  It seems very much at odds with the aftermath of terror, both in Paris, and Beirut the night before, and in the countless places around the world.

1615:   But of course one cannot simply sit and blog, uninterrupted…this is why I seldom get more than one blog post a week out anymore, and sometimes none.

I wonder, while I go about my day, if someone is learning that a coworker or cousin or childhood friend was killed because there are people whose idea of god is so small that they seek to destroy everything that (by their own holy book’s admission) he created that doesn’t agree with every warped interpretation they’ve cherry picked out of it. I think occasionally of the families–parents, children, partners, right now raw with grief over the pain of having their beloved mother|father|sister|brother|husband|wife|child ripped from them too soon. I wonder angrily how people will politicize this one…what seed of hatred that they harbor in their heart that they will dredge out to bloom in the name of righteousness.

The first of Chickadee’s backpack tags for her little group of friends (one of them is from Paris).

I live in incredible privelege. Some of it economic, some of it is societal. When my kids ride the bus, I wait at a bus stop chatting with a Muslim mom in a niquab who drives her neighbor, a Hatian mom who speaks very little English to pick up their kids every day…another mom is from England, and two other occasional bus rider parents are a Chinese grandma and a stay-at-home dad (I’m going to miss this diversity when we move). Its a lower-middle/middle class neighborhood with one of the handful of good schools in the city, and a large park with a great playground. There’s some crime, but anything more than the occasional overnight car break in is unusual. My kids have never known violence…they’ve never even seen The Hubby and I get in an arguement that wasn’t fake and/or silly. How do you explain this to a kid whose playmate is Parisian, here for a couple of years because of a parent serving abroad?

1849:  Sometimes I forget that my empathetic little pop tart can be remarkably pragmatic–we have now been elbow deep with perler beads making “France hearts” for a while. My job is the ironing.

On Friday night, I read a sentence in a comment by another member that hit me–Wisdom is scattered in the wind, and no man is able to assemble it.  Immediately, my response was this:

But we can try.

And indeed we must.

…there is, after all, only one other choice.

To go give up and give in. I’m all for knowing when to bend—when bending is the strategy that will achieve eventual effective results.

If insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then call me insane. I will tilt at windmills and rage against the dying of the light, that one day those of us fighting to piece together the wisdom of humanity and live within the dictates of compassion will be a vocal majority.

Because that one day will come.

But not today.

Today we are still beautiful monsters…capable of depravity and terror in equal measure with kindness and nobility. And I have faith that we can still answer the former with the latter.

 

1931: Biology has had a controversial hypothesis that goes by the moniker of the “hopeful monster”–a term used to describe an event of spontaneous change (the specific changes probably aren’t important here, but just as an FYI, they are mutation, saltation, and speciation) in an organism that positively promotes new evolutionary groups. The name was created by the originator of the now defunct idea, Richard Goldschmidt (occasionally the term gets trotted out again for other ideas like punctuated equilibrium), but it has always stuck with me as a description of ourselves as a species.

We may not be undergoing speciation events, but our cultural evolution works at a pace that biological evolution will never emulate. As a species, we are beautiful and tragic hopeful monsters, full of depravity and virtue. Giving up because sometimes the former seems too much to overcome with the latter is not an option.

When we look at the big picture of human history, it becomes clear that Theodore Parker and Martin Luther King are right–the arc of the moral universe bends slowly, but it bends towards justice. But it only does that as long as the we are guided by the better angels of our nature and as long as we do not allow evil to flourish by doing nothing.

2057: Exactly six hours since I started this…

I think I’ll close with a prayer I came across on the internet a while back.

Let the rain come and wash away
the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds
held and nurtured over generations.
Let the rain wash away the memory
of the hurt, the neglect.
Then let the sun come out and
fill the sky with rainbows.
Let the warmth of the sun heal us
wherever we are broken.
Let it burn away the fog so that
we can see each other clearly.
So that we can see beyond labels,
beyond accents, gender or skin color.
Let the warmth and brightness
of the sun melt our selfishness.
So that we can share the joys and
feel the sorrows of our neighbors.
And let the light of the sun
be so strong that we will see all
people as our neighbors.
Let the earth, nourished by rain,
bring forth flowers
to surround us with beauty.
And let the mountains teach our hearts
to reach upward to heaven.

(Rabbi Harold Kushner)

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Maxim Monday: Have respect for suppliants (Ικετας αιδου)

Tags

#delphicmaxims, #paganvalues, behavior, civility in religion, interfaith, interfaith etiquette, maxim monday, prayer, religion and politics, religious freedom, respect, tolerance

Its been a while since I’ve done one of these (at least a year, I think), but I came a cross a spot-on blog post on a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and I thought it might be time to bring back Maxim Mondays (not every Monday to be sure, but more often than not at all!).

Originally, I had something of a slightly different tenor in mind.  Something lofty, something about being our best selves, something about respecting the individual and collective search for truth of all people, even those we disagree with. Because I think that having respect was something that should be self-evident among a majority of reasonable people. Because I think that religion has become the scapegoat for the behavior of people who are just assholes.

Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.
~Rumi

Because, when in the presence of the prayers of persons belonging to a religion that is not my own, I take a moment to bow my head, close my eyes, and think of bloody England out of good manners, and respect so that they may have their moment of reverence.   Because I was raised to think that a certain level of civility in public discourse is essential to a diverse society and that most people understand that it takes the cooperation of all peoples to maintain that civility.  Because I think that we should respect the person as a person, even if we disagree with their beliefs.

In fact, I even had it written and scheduled to post tomorrow morning.  And then I deleted it all.  Because I’m sick of some people use their religion as a shield for being an asshole. (really, you should go read this, because the entire post is going to be a rant about it)

Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.

~Teddy Roosevelt

Let me first say that this event comes as no surprise (particularly after a similar event a few weeks or so ago).  Let me secondly say that I strongly feel that religion has no part in governance, not even in invocatory prayers.  If you need to pray to do your job, do it on your own time like every other wage earning member of the public is forced to do.  But, with that being said, if we are to acknowledge and continue the tradition of invocations in the legislature, or any other place of civil governance or official state-sponsored event, then it must be open to everyone.

Sure, those who disagree with an invocation certainly have the right to walk out or turn their back or heck, to stand upside down and sing a song. Actually doing so makes them an asshole with no manners.  And, in this case, an asshole with no manners using their religion as the scapegoat for their bad behavior.  If you are a Christian that feels the need to turn your back in protest for an interfaith prayer, you are not “being like Jesus” or showing strength of conviction, you are only showing that you are so insecure in your beliefs that you can’t manage basic civility, and you look like an ignorant bigot.  You’d have been better not to show up at all (and hold your own prayers privately.

If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.

~Gene Roddenberry

Religion is a tool.  It can be both beneficial and benign, but it can also be destructive; it all depends on the heart of the person using it.  When one’s heart is bound with hate and darkened with ignorance and fear, religion becomes a tool that divides and destroys. Respecting someone’s expression of their religion does not mean allowing bad behavior to pass without comment.  Respecting religion does not mean tolerating incivility and intolerance.  Respecting religious freedom is not a free pass to allow ashattery to run unchecked.

If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

~John F. Kennedy

I don’t care what name (or names) are used to address what one believes to be divine in this universe, how our how often one prays, what books one reads, holidays one celebrates, or what dogma (or lack of it) they claim represents that power; I care that one treats others with the same compassion and respect that they would wish for themselves from someone whose beliefs are different from their own.

And if they can’t manage that, then they should at least learn to use some good manners.

Hallelujah, Mr. President

Tags

politics, prayer, president, religion, speech

“As we speak, around the world, we see faith inspiring people to lift up one another — to feed the hungry and care for the poor, and comfort the afflicted and make peace where there is strife. We heard the good work that Sister has done in Philadelphia, and the incredible work that Dr. Brantly and his colleagues have done. We see faith driving us to do right.

But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge — or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon. From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith, professed to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it. We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism — terrorizing religious minorities like the Yezidis, subjecting women to rape as a weapon of war, and claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions.

We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic, a rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Europe, so often perpetrated in the name of religion.

So how do we, as people of faith, reconcile these realities — the profound good, the strength, the tenacity, the compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religious for their own murderous ends?

Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Michelle and I returned from India — an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity — but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs — acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation.

So this is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith. In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance. But God compels us to try. And in this mission, I believe there are a few principles that can guide us, particularly those of us who profess to believe.

And, first, we should start with some basic humility. I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt — not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.”

(snip)

“And so, as people of faith, we are summoned to push back against those who try to distort our religion — any religion — for their own nihilistic ends. And here at home and around the world, we will constantly reaffirm that fundamental freedom — freedom of religion — the right to practice our faith how we choose, to change our faith if we choose, to practice no faith at all if we choose, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination.

There’s wisdom in our founders writing in those documents that help found this nation the notion of freedom of religion, because they understood the need for humility. They also understood the need to uphold freedom of speech, that there was a connection between freedom of speech and freedom of religion. For to infringe on one right under the pretext of protecting another is a betrayal of both.

But part of humility is also recognizing in modern, complicated, diverse societies, the functioning of these rights, the concern for the protection of these rights calls for each of us to exercise civility and restraint and judgment. And if, in fact, we defend the legal right of a person to insult another’s religion, we’re equally obligated to use our free speech to condemn such insults and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with religious communities, particularly religious minorities who are the targets of such attacks. Just because you have the right to say something doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t question those who would insult others in the name of free speech. Because we know that our nations are stronger when people of all faiths feel that they are welcome, that they, too, are full and equal members of our countries.”

(the entirety of the President’s remarks)

 

Unfortunately, it comes to no surprise that in a 5 page long speech, the so-called Christian conservative pundits so-often featured on Faux News centered a week’s worth of outrage on two sentances taken entirely out of context…

It is unfortunate that such close-minded and close-hearted individuals are so lacking in integrity and intellectual honesty. It is even more unfortunate that so many buy their crap. Putting your head in the sand regarding one’s own history when pointing out the atrocitites of others makes one a hypocrite.

Personally, I though it was spot on (even if I’m not entirely fond of the venue or the religiousization of politics).

thanksperience

Tags

#paganvalues, blessing, Pagan Values, prayer, thanksgiving, unconventional faith

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

~Meister Eckhart

Thank you, thanks-giving, thanking, thanks… What the heck is a “thank” anyhow?*

I’d like to imagine a tangible (and sniffable) “thank” would look something like this.  Chickadee thinks that a “thank” might look like a big, fat, fluffy white cloud floating in the blue sky…or a fuzzy pink and purple ball.  Sharkbait thinks that a “thank” comes on a stick and tastes like chocolate milk.

A “thank” from nature, I think, looks something like this:

Thanksgiving is generally touted as a day to give thanks for the things we are thankful for, whatever they may be.  And that’s fantastic…giving thanks and recognizing our blessings, are (at least in my humble opinion) pretty darn important.  Heck, as days of thanksgiving (to a particular deity) are the basis for an incredibly huge chunk of Pagan holidays and the act of giving thanks (to a particular deity/pantheon) is a major part of Pagan religions, we should all be down with the idea of the ability and active participation of giving thanks to be a quintessentially Pagan value.

But I think that sometimes we can be ungracious (regardless of our religion or faith) in receiving thanks.  We forget to really hear the thanks that are directed our way–both the “thank you” that is explicitly stated, and the ones that are more subtle.  To put it bluntly, we wouldn’t know a “thank” if it was pink and fuzzy and tasted of chocolate milk on a stick and was handed to us on a silver platter.

The world around us creates a thousand thank yous, if only we know how and where and when to find them.  It is in the curve of a baby’s smooth cheek and the bright giggle of a squirmy preschooler wrapped in a fluffy towel after a beach afternoon.  It might be in a meal, or a book, from a grateful look, or a hug, or an audible “thank you”. Thanks are everywhere.

Just because we didn’t hear it in a form that we understood through our narrow filter of the world didn’t mean it wasn’t there.  Really look, and listen, and feel for a change.  Find the thanks that are all around us.

And perhaps in our finding of thanks, we can learn to create our own to share with others (even when we have nothing tangible or direct to thank them for), everywhere we go.  When was the last time someone thanked you just for being you?  For just being there?  Maybe you didn’t notice, because its not something that people usually say with words.

Imagine a world where everything that everyone created was a “thank”.  Imagine a world filled with heart-shaped lavender hand warmers, sea foam and white fluffy clouds, hope-filled pink and purple fluff, and (most importantly) chocolate milk on a stick.  Imagine a world where Thanksgiving wasn’t just a day, or a phrase, but was embedded in our every experience.

Now get off your keester and make it happen…handmade heart-shaped lavender hand warmers aren’t that hard to make.

If the only prayer you ever hear is a thank you, you have been blessed.  And if you didn’t hear it, maybe its because you were listening for mere words.

~thalassa

*(What a “thank” really is–or at least where it comes from, etymologically speaking.)

A Pagan Lectio Divina

Tags

contemplatio, devotional, lectio, lectio divina, meditatio, oratio, pagan, paganism, prayer

We currently have a thread on Pagan Forum about the use of devotionals as a personal practice, which is how/why I was inspired to write this thread on my own devotional practice, which is loosely based on the Catholic Lectio Divina.

If you aren’t familiar with the term devotional, it describes a short, often daily, religious practice that is used to help an individual grow in their relationship with the Divine, which generally involves some sort of reading and/or prayer.  If you are familiar with the term from a Christian standpoint, you may have seen or read a book or magazine which often takes a Bible verse, illustrates it with someone’s story or lesson, and ends with a prayer, which is called a devotional.  Often Christian devotionals are oriented to a particular subset of Christians–either by denomination, or gender, or age, etc.  (despite these books widely being referred to as a devotional, the use of them is only one type of devotional practice).

From a Pagan perspective, the purpose of devotional practice isn’t much different, though I think we have a lot more diversity when it comes to what we consider Divine.  A polytheistic devotional practice, for example, might focus on particular individual deities or a particular pantheon, while a pantheist or even a naturalist might choose to focus something like the elements, the natural world or the universe-at-large.  Since our views of Divinity are so varied, our individual devotionals are bound to be equally diverse.  If you haven’t established a personal devotional practice, but are interested in the idea, a good Pagan introduction to the idea can be found here, and a good conversation on devotional prayers can be found here.

My devotional work follows the structure of the Lectio Divina (which means Divine Reading in Latin), though its (obviously) not about Jesus and its quite a bit less structured/more free form.  The Catholic Lectio Divina dates back to the 6th century and was developed as a monastic practice by St. Benedict, while the format that exists today was established later (more info on its history).  The Lectio Divina has four parts–Lectio, Meditatio, Oratio, and Contemplatio (which translates to  reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation)…and really, the devotional structure found in contemporary (and generally non-denominational) devotionals is based in part on this form.  A good walk through of the Lectio Divina from a Catholic perspective can be found here–its an excellent description of the process in general, if you can overlook the Christian bits.*

My version of the Lectio Divina goes something like this:

• Lectio–Read/watch/listen.  Using some piece of material that speaks from the Divine to you, intake the material from a non-judgemental perspective.  Try not to assign meaning to the material, just soak in the message.  The message might come from a reading, but it could also come form a song or a clip of video or a picture.  The key here is to absorb every scrap of meaning you can wring from it, without judging it or formulating your own response to it (yet).
• Meditato–Meditation on the message (or messages).  How does it fit as an expression of Divinity, Humanity or the cosmos (or not)?  How is Divinity speaking through this message? What does it mean in terms of a message from or about your gods?  What does it mean in terms of how you go about your day, or how you live your life?
• Oratio–Conventionally, this would be where one enters into a conversation with the Divine–otherwise known as prayer.  Sometimes for this part I pray…but its more about a personal active expression of the message (it could be getting off your rear and dancing, singing, painting, writing, etc, or it could be the more conventional prayers) that is based on the message you received (which may or may not be true to the text itself).
• Contemplatio–Resting with the gods in silence (however you see them), open meditation, etc, opening your mind and heart to their wonder (or the wonder of nature/the universe/etc), and re-centering yourself in the present.

The material I use for the Lectio portion is pretty varied.  It includes everything from Bible verses (I’m a fan of Ecclesiastes 3 1-8), to the Homeric hymn to Gaia, to poetry the poem Mending Wall (by Robert Frost) to the excerpt of Mary Oliver I posted recently, to this song by Sara Thomsen, to each of the Unitarian Universalist 7 principles, to the picture at the top of the post, which is a picture of the Rose Window at Chartres Cathedral next to a cross section image of DNA often called the Rose Window.  Anything that speaks to one’s inner self or offers divine inspiration is, at least in my opinion, fair game.

What about you?  Do you have a daily practice (or at least a regularly occurring one)? What do you find inspiring on a soul level?

UPDATE: I just opened up another blog, which I *oh-so-creatively* titled Pagan Devotionals, specifically to post inspiring bits of this and that for anyone that is interested in starting their own devotional practice, whether it be reciting prayers or adorations or undertaking the Lectio Divina.

*Normally I wouldn’t have felt it necessary to point out that beneficial spiritual practices and beliefs can exist in other religions…even Christianity, and that we should keep an open mind to both the origins and intent of specific ideas as well as their modern interpretations.  But then I read (mostly via Facebook and other blogs–so if you missed the debate, count yourself lucky) some recent debate over this particular blog post (which I thought was spot on), purely over what commenters thought the specific terminology meant (and I’m pretty sure most of them only read the title anyhow).