Food for Thought at Mudgie's

This morning over coffee, I floated an idea that I read on Pushing Fifty Gently that Barak Obama chose Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation in order to force a national discussion on gay rights. My parents believe this concept is entirely plausible and that Rick Warren would go along with it. Barak often mentioned Enlightened Self Interest during his campaign. The Rick Warren choice may very well be an example particularly since they both support AIDS work in Africa, albeit for different reasons.

During the same conversation over coffee, my mother passed me a section of the Houston paper folding it so that an article by Rev. Matt Tittle, a Unitarian minister in Houston, regarding the Sermon on the Mount. He corrects the often misunderstood idea that Jesus told us to be pussies. Not so. It's all about justice and non-violent resistance. Rev. Matt writes:

Today we see and hear these passages through a particular lens, but they are also acts of radical non-violent resistance . . . Jesus was advocating justice, not violence. Today we seemed to have blurred the distinction between the two.
By turning the other cheek when we have been assaulted, we offer the offender the opportunity to offend again, thus increasing the risk that they will be judged and brought to justice . . . By going the second mile, one was putting Roman soldiers at risk. They were allowed to enlist citizens to carry their packs a certain distance, but no further. If you go the second mile, then they are at risk for requiring what they cannot.
And even if all of these acts are simply acts of goodwill and humility, they achieve the same purpose. They take away power from those who would wield it over you and remind them that all people have worth and dignity. All are welcome.(Keep the Faith, Houston Chronicle, Dec 27)

So we see that Turning the Other Cheek or Walking the Extra Mile does not make one a pantie waist pussy. It's a big, fat Fuck You to the Romans. Anyone who listened to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Four Way Street heard Steven Stills saying that American needs to remember that Jesus was the first non-violent revolutionary. No matter what your religion - and I include Atheist as a Religion since no god is still a theology - few people think Jesus himself was full of shit. Most everyone agrees the Christians are the problem. Poor old Jesus gets hauled in to all sorts of ridiculous shit.

Just the other day, I was talking about the vein of insanity that runs up the Texas/Louisiana border with my sister-in-law. We can't determine just how wide this vein of insanity is. Could stretch as far west as Dallas. And there are certainly other veins of insanity in the world. We just know about this one along the Texas/Louisiana border because our families originated there. She told a story about some Crazy-assed Christian family who was on the way to the Rapture. Twelve or so were crammed into a sedan the size of a Ford Taurus - all butt naked driving through the Texas countryside when they were stopped by local law enforcement for having too damn many people in the car. Imagine the constable's surprise to find twelve naked Christians on the way to the second coming. Apparently they had to divest themselves of all their worldly goods but figured out a way to keep the car until the exact moment of the rapture. They blamed the whole thing on Jesus.

Which brings me to Paul Tillich and Grace. I finally read Tillich's sermon, "You are Accepted," and was surprised to discover I've been living in a state of grace for some weeks. Dissed, a reader from Georgia, pointed it out to me when I was feeling very sad and isolated (Internal Characters and Hurricanes, Stonerdate Dec 6, 2008). I wouldn't believe it, though. That's how it is with Isolation and Acceptance, which is pretty much how Tillich defines sin and grace.

I first experienced Grace back in the looney bin. Victor, an 18 year old street thug from the Bronx, was telling the group about how he never really felt like his mother loved him. He didn't know how to get her affection. Listening to Victor, I was hit by the realization that he and I were exactly the same despite the differences in our demographics.

Nice lady from Central Park West + Street Thug from the Bronx = profound human connection.

That connection, as I understand Tillich, is the beginning of Grace. Knowing you are accepted by something greater than you - even if it's just the You that lives inside you - that's grace. Spreading the connection is also Grace. That's what Dissed was trying to tell me. Grace again.

So here we all are, fooling around on the internet, establishing human connections. Some people think blogs are a pathetic attempt to declare our puny existence. Maybe that's true.

Menopausal Stoner Existentialism II: Miserable, inept humans that we are, we struggle to connect with others to combat the isolation and despair confronting us all. Sometimes we accidentally succeed.

Tillich wrote that sermon back during World War II. Back then, people were getting smacked in the face daily with Man's Inhumanity to Man and Nature. We still see that inhumanity today - maybe in Christians like Rick Warren.

It's a lot to ponder - this idea of being separated from your Self (which can be G*d if you want. Personally, my religion is one of those pagan based Spark of Divinity in everyone and everything religions kind of like Disney Princess Pocahontas') So Self being separated from Life vs Acceptance and Connection.

There is a resounding, "DUH," echoing in my head. When you're feeling it, it seems very simple - but when you're sad, isolated and profoundly lacking in human connection, it sounds like pop song claptrap. Just like Pocahontas herself singing, "Colors of the Wind."

In any case, I'm still down here in Texas up to my ass in fucked up Christians who think that finding a good parking place at the mall proves Jesus loves them more than everyone else. To them, I'll quote a bumper sticker my mother has hanging in the game room bar.

It is a little known fact that you can sing Amazing Grace in its entirety to the tune of Gilligan's Island. Try it right now - you'll never hear either song the same way again. I first experienced that Grace before dinner at the Hippie Dippie Quaker Camp in Vermont that Velvet attended for years. If that's not Grace, I don't know what is.