Searching for God # 55

non-violently confronting illegitimate evil with common force….

From the last post….and I think I left myself out to dry on that phrase….what evil is not illegitimate? Aren’s they all and that’s what makes them evil?

Discerning evil, one of the most problematic of all human issues. Nevertheless, if the major religions, faith communities, have declared that a central tenet, in various forms of language, amounts to ‘do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you,’ that seems like a reasonable place to start.

It is the gap between declaring and embodying, promising and delivering, walking the talk or walking the walk…..that seems to be a stretch for many of us to deliver.

And then there is also the ‘gap’ between how ‘well’ we are delivering on this and other scales, as compared with others in our encounter. And it is in that gap, as well as the gap between what we promise and what we deliver that opens the path to judgement, critical self-judgement as well as judgement of others…..and from our perspective ‘we’ (in all cases “I”) am right in my judgement..How could I not be?

What I have seen, heard and interpreted from whatever has happened, is ‘my’ truth, even though in the abstract, I ‘know’ that my truth is only a part of the whole. Another gap, between what I presume and assume to be a judgement based on truth and the ‘rest of the story’ about which I know literally nothing. Nevertheless, we all have been raised in a culture that swims in the waters of both perception and judgement, as well as in the waters of our unconscious that nudges our perceptions, attitudes and convictions in ways that are elusive at best and incomprehensible at worst.

Another gap between our conscious and our unconscious that is so very unfamiliar to us, as to render a variation of parochialism even within our own psyche. The familiar, however it may have evolved and integrated into our ‘world view’ is comfortable, seems somewhat predictable, and readily accessible to draw from in our daily discourse. It is not, however, a stretch to posit the notion that there is both quantitatively and qualitatively as much undiscovered in our unconscious as there is in the multiple universes in astronomy.

And, in and through our imaginations, we interact both with the known and the unknown the empirical data points and the imagined extrapolations from our imagination. The intersection of those ‘factors’ the known and the unknown provides much of the energy and tension that keeps us on our pilgrimage.

And, if and when we ‘connect’ and ‘join’ some group, especially a faith community, there is always a set of traditional dates, events, personages, narratives, rituals, dogmas and outright expectations all of them having been acquired, enmeshed, embedded and memorialized as ‘the truth’ from the perspective of that faith community. To various degrees we are indoctrinated, exposed and even assessed as to the level of our ‘concurrence’ with whatever the tenets of the faith hold, among those with whom we are now ‘connected’. Some of those ‘tenets’ may well be somewhat familiar to us; others not so much. So formal instruction, and a process for formal membership is initiated.

Unlikely in that process, little if any time is dedicated to  comparing ‘our’ new faith community with other faith communities, except for whatever initial faith group we may be familiar with. And that process is usually a private, reflective and safe one, as our ‘interpretations’ are, at best tentative.

Omitted, either by choice or by neglect, also usually given little time and energy are the common ‘perceptions’ attitudes, and goals of other faith communities. Indeed, as a general rule, the superiority of ‘this’ faith group underlies and sustains much of the indoctrination. The almost imperceptible wave of cultural influences, with little if any acknowledgement, is inserted into the discussion. In this case, the ‘organization’s need for compliance is dominant, and the engendering of new ‘messengers’ (evangelizers in church talk) who may invite others to join ‘us’ is a primary, if not exclusive, pattern of growing the numbers.

Not incidentally, however, while in marketing and corporate relationships, the adage used to be that Eaton’s never demeans Simpson’s in the corporate belief that to do so would only sully the one stooping that low. Among faith groups, however, at least at the corporate level, and often too at the street level, such is not the case. Competition among ecclesial institutions, although quite discreet, unable to be tracked for correction, appeal or apology, is nevertheless rampant. Indeed, it could be argued that conflict between faiths has proven to be one of the most corrosive influences in human history.

Land, the nature of the divine, the legacy of myths and narratives that have come to embody the faith’s raison d’etre, the form of liturgy, the family connections, the training institutions and the hierarchical edifice are all bound in the ‘physical, literal, empirical as well as the envisioned ‘group-hope-aspiration-belief’ for those who are committed to the faith.

Missing from that equation, and I would posit that the omission is universal and applies to all faith communities, although the languages within each faith group would seek to prove me wrong, is the shared universal, human, historic and even meta-historic desire, wish and aspiration to continue to live on this planet, to breath clean air, drink fresh and clean water, earn a living, learn for its own sake as well as foundational for a profession or career, raise a family, have access to health care, and live free from all form of threats, intimidation, danger, and certainly military conflict. Decades of dialogue about ecumenism, inter-faith co-operation, attempts to build bridges between faith communities, have run parallel with other internal initiatives to reconcile deep and profound divisions between members of each faith…orthodox versus liberal, traditional versus reform, in the Anglican communion, red book versus green book,….all of this both literally and virtually having come to naught.

We continue to live at enmity with_______________, fill in the blanks….our neighbours, our townsfolk, our state/provincial competitors, our national competitors….all the while some of us continue to ‘adhere’ to the tenets and the rituals and the expectations of our chosen faith community. Conflict and tension have more magnetic attraction and provide more energy to the continual ‘flow’ of energies in the economy, in academe, in the professions, in the geo-political world of international relations, than their potential resolution, or even their monitoring and peace-keeping. Meanwhile, millions starve, millions more live without shelter, without health care, without hope and without a voice in the world’s counsels.

The gaps in perceptions, interpretations of truth and facts and date, twisted to conform to the public figures’ subjective and often political needs, desperations and aspirations also apply to the discourse among public figures….all of them supposedly acting as surrogates for millions in the charge.

If there is ever, and this is certainly not a safe bet, to be a lessening of the degree of hatred, contempt, bigotry, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, (never a complete erosion of those sinister and disease-like attributes of each and every one of us), one might at least consider seeding some hope and aspiration among those who profess to belong to, adhere to and live lives committed to a God, however that God is worshipped, envisaged, imagined, emulated, imitated, and revered.

And yet, the silence of those charged with hierarchical leadership in many church organizations, (recently the Pope has continued to echo his predecessor in opposition to fascism, tyranny, war and the deployment of food as a weapon of war) remains deafening. Strong men, characterized as such by their very bullying of the microphones and the news and editorial boards of mass media, as well as their seduction of the oligarchs among them all searching for special favours in return for their sycophancy, and we are watching a global slide into a full-body-and-mind-and-spirit insouciance, an arrogance, a narcissism, a dismissal of the ‘no-voice’ poor, indigent, starving, homeless, and a curtain that is closing on serious, co-ordinated, determined, disciplined, global, including religious ‘non-violent resistance to the evil that is swallowing up millions of bodies, minds, hearts, souls and oceans of hope.

Are the differences that have divided the church and faith groups for centuries more important as matters of identity, pride, hubris, and even organizational survival than the prosect of a world ‘going to Hell in a hand-basket’ while whatever Gods we purport to worship are either or both laughing or weeping so profusely at whatever has been unleashed in the name of God, the divinity, the Holy One, the  Messiah, the Brahmin.

It is not rocket-science to discern the grip of evil that is clutching the throat of the global attempt to exist collaboratively, co-operatively, compassionately, empathically, ethically, morally and politically, economically, environmentally, and even militarily….in favour of what?.....the ultimate, unchallenged and unchallengeable rule of a few self-appointed right-wing fascist bigots whose personal insecurity and neurosis or psychosis defines the depth of their shared desperation.

Hs the faith of millions of Supreme Court Judges, for starters, not embedded a sense of humanity, equality, and the sine-qua-non of all social contracts, respect all individuals before the law, without tilting in favour of the oligarchs and the tyrants? Have the corporate donors to church edifices abandoned their own faith professions as they wrote cheques to inflate a ‘list of elite sycophants to power, as ‘deals’ for favouritism for their corporate board members’ investment portfolios?

Have the university presidents and faculty surrendered the tenets of intellectual challenge of concepts and precepts that once defined their institutions, in favour of another form of intellectual (really political) sycophancy and in so doing, was their original family faith decimated, obliterated and obviated in the process?

I am a religious doubter, as well as an intellectual questioner…and both of those attributes reinforce, support and invigorate each other, in a case of mutual reciprocity….Each one needs the other, depends on the other, and can not survive without the other…

Non-violent resistance to evil with force is not restricted to an open political, ethical, moral and intellectual attack on ICE thugs who are deporting innocents with impunity. It extends to the teacher whose need for control abuses her/his students, or the coach to abuses his players, or the parent who physical, emotionally and/or psychologically abuses his or her child. It extends to the clergy whose theology is trumped by the need to remain ‘politically correct’ amidst a tidal wave of ignominy, tyranny, destruction of norms, conventions and legal restraints that have served the public for centuries.

It extends to the hypocrisy of leaders whose Sunday rituals include Mass or Eucharist or Communion on Sunday and then ‘screw’ their political, corporate or business enemies on Monday through Saturday. Indeed, it extends to the privacy of a straight-up-disciplined, determined, and conscientious self-critical examination of all of the evil we have each omitted and committed. The former may be more difficult to discern, to ascertain, to imagine and to bring to consciousness. We are al drowning in a tidal wave of the latter, personal acts, words, thoughts and beliefs that imposed evil on other…for which we have already been ‘found-out’ and shamed.

Indeed, the churches’ focus on shame, and the fear of its power, has been one of the more sinister approaches to evil in the West. Religion has blocked ‘a full life’ that is a promise from John 10:10:

The thief cometh not, but to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.

We can each by more conscious and aware of how, through complicity, innocence, ignorance, denial and a refusal to engage with evil, we leave the playing field to those committed to do evil and to do it with impunity and immunity if our absence permits and enables their reckless, wanton and sinister playbook.

And if our faith amounts to anything more than a few sacred moments in a liturgical ritual, however impactful that might be, and leaves the world starving, killing, maiming, neglecting and dismissing millions even from the most basic ingredients of a respected, decent, honest and honourable life and livelihood, can we really say that our faith is that important?

Bottom line, faith in a God, it seems to this little mind, enables us to stretch out from our comfort zones, into those areas that test us, challenge us and grow us into newly aware and newly hopeful and newly determined to listen to those inner voices which we have helped to remain mute.