2012.08.29 To Organize or Not To Organize?

My son John quipped the other day,  “Where is John the Baptist when we need him?”

(Today happens to be on the  liturgical calendar to remembering the beheading of John the Baptist, the biblical prophet who organized the people around sin, repentance and a new way of life. Good idea, not good for the powers of his day who preferred the status quo: despair and poverty for the 99%, power, money and isolation for the 1% with the egos.) 

Let’s get organized! hollered John the Baptist.  I think I shouted that to my young family, or if I didn’t I thought it loudly.  It seemed to me that in our family of six we needed to find a way to go in the same direction at the same time at least once a day—other than to bed. 

I wonder if Godde conjured that divine thought in Her mind just the instant before the firmament split-seconded out of control and Creation burst through—disorganized as hell.

Well, my family never did get organized much—except in heart.  We managed to stay in love despite internecine wars, divorce, suffering, geography, illness, alcoholism, sex, and even religion. We kept the vision of each other’s faces in heart and mind and memory. We occupied each other.

Occupiers recently occupied their vision of economic justice with their bodies. They sat down and stood for the shear voicing of truth.  AND I want them to get organized so that voice won’t fade out and whoosh off like so much sage brush in the desert.  I want them to keep screaming   like John Baptist. I want them to influence voters who have privacy in voting booths to vote, not according to external ideologies but according to their highest values and their spirituality— especially women who may be afraid to stray from the “herd” or think that they are better off kept in a patriarchal world.

To be blunt I want them to vote for the vision they occupied.  Republicans right now are organizing around a vision that compartmentalizes and categorizes human beings, envisioning an either/or nation, and excluding those who don’t fit their criteria.  Some Christians agree. I shudder.

President Obama envisions a both/and, bipartisan nation, organized and occupied by all for all. 
He could use a little more John the Baptist chutzpah but his vision bears my spirituality and will get my vote.
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What about ORGANIZED RELIGION? — which is currently thought heinous.

The early seekers and followers of divinity realized there was more to this messy life than human effort. So they organized themselves and drew a community together to worship a Mystery they couldn’t know except by faith. Awestruck and wonderstruck they uttered prayers. It all began in astonishments and a vision.
And then they organized, the inevitable next step to preserve what they held most dear. This is true for families, nations and religions. 

Of course organization can kill if it gets encrusted in mere habit and when it isn’t occupied by flesh and blood and soul. Let’s face it: Love, by its nature, is impossibly disorganized.  But not abandoned if the people keep hold of the vision: love, peace, justice and equity for all earth. 

So I want our church and our nation to re-organize, to re-occupy a vision of common good, love divine and human, sacred and secular.

 So where IS  John the Baptist when we need him?

2012.01.18 American Dream?

The American dream of liberty and justice and all good things available to all citizens has turned to pablum, spooned out to the unawares, and the ignorant, and the too-busy-scraping-basic-livelihood-together-to-notice.

The so-called dream has become a lie.

There is less available than ever before to a greater number of citizens than ever before.

Paul Krugman in his NT Times commentary on Jan 16, Martin Luther King day, wrote: “Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in 'quiet rooms.' There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. [They said it about women, too, and still are.] Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet. And we should follow their example today. For the fact is that rising inequality threatens to make America a different and worse place — and we need to reverse that trend to preserve both our values and our dreams.”

James Forbes, retired minister of the Riverside Church in NYC, said without hesitation years ago when asked what he thought the next great sin America would have to face: CLASSISM.

Years ago too I saw a cartoon image that stayed with me. It pictured a fat cat capitalist type with a top hat and dressed in a tux. In the top of his tipped hat were a small bunch of people cheering and waving money around, while numbers of others spilled down over his belly landing on the ground below. Splat! 99% of us is falling fast.

Studies indicate that the more economic inequality a society has the less mobile it becomes. People can’t move. And stasis is death.

The Occupy Movement has called attention to the problem most recently. I pray its fervor doesn’t fade away.

What will the Church say? Not a whole lot I’m embarrassed to note. This is no time for religious people to be squeamish about the word SIN. One of the better definitions of sin is disconnection from the good in God, self and neighbor.
Our country is living, no wallowing, in SIN. And the Church is seemingly allergic to its mention.

Republican Mitt Romney calls for a retrieval of the SOUL of America. What is that?

I only know one path to get back in touch with one’s lost soul and that is to pray, turn back or repent, and ask forgiveness of God, self and neighbor BEFORE we seek ways to change—sell a few homes, for example. But this can only be done in company with other citizens of church and society. And it starts with confession.

Please let’s STOP dreaming!

2011.12.14 Occupy and Organize

Let’s get organized! I think I shouted that to my young family or if I didn’t I thought it loudly.

I wonder if Godde conjured that divine thought just the second before the firmament split-seconded out of control and Creation burst through.

It seemed to me that in our family of six we needed to find a way to go in the same direction at the same time at least once a day—other than to bed.

So I have admired the Occupiers very much, for their cause, their zeal, their endurance, their shear voicing of truth, and their non-violent ways. AND I want them to get organized so their truth-voice will not fade out and whoosh away like so much sage brush in the desert.

So I say to Occupiers: Don’t get lost. Don’t lose your vitality. OCCUPY YOUR IDEA. Get organized and take your voice to the halls of executive and legislative power. Politics is a hard go, but GO.

At Christmas Christians celebrate anew the God who OCCUPIES human flesh in Jesus, and in you & me too! This idea took hold and held on in spite of many attempts to evict and convict it.

A five year old named Sharon told the old story to her poet father John Shea who wrote a poem about his daughter’s solemn retelling of the ancient story. Sharon’s response is the only possible one to such a gloriously preposterous idea:
“Then the baby was borned.
And do you know who he was?
Her quarter eyes inflated to silver dollars.
The baby was God.
And she jumped in the air,
whirled round, dove into the sofa, 
                            
and buried her head under the cushion 
                            
which is the only proper response 
                            
to the Good News of the Incarnation.”

This Occupy movement may hold hope for what is currently thought heinous to so many: ORGANIZED RELIGION.

The early seekers and followers of divinity realized there was more to this messy life than human effort. In time they organized themselves and drew a community together to worship a Mystery they couldn’t know except by faith.

Religion’s journey began in relationships of mutual caring among human beings who shared inklings of intuitions of the Beyond, the More. They were intimately connected by their fears— and their awe. Wonderstruck they “dove into sofas” and uttered prayers. It began with astonishments and a vision. Only later did they get organized in writing and practices and, heaven forfend, structure.

Of course the impulse to organize can go awry but not if the people keep hold of the vision: love, peace, justice for all earth— because of an OCCUPYING GOD.