So This Is Christmas

...so what have you done?

We live in terrfying times: terrifying men who do terrifying things with terrifying consequences. Our economy is on the brink of disaster. Our world about to crumble around us to satisfy the greed and lust and jealousy of small people. And there is precious little you or I can do to prevent this from happening. These events are larger than we.

Luke 2:10-11 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Today, we must cling to whatever faith we have on this planet, whether it be Jesus or Yahweh, Buddha or Mohammad, Triple Goddess or the Protector.

Today, we must remember that it is vitally important that, in our own lives, we live the examples set forth for us.

When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying...

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

We dedicate our lives to live in the Graces that Jesus has stated so clearly here, and that others before and since have reminded us since time immemorial.

No sardonic cynical "thousand points of light" can persuade us to be the kind of people we want to be. It is in our nature to be kind, just as it is in our nature to be evil.

And we feel small against the world, so who could blame us for wanting vengeance against those who have taken this world from the collective soul of its people? The frustration of that vengeance mounts as we learn that we may never collect that pound of flesh.

Instead, we must turn our light on, and welcome those who, like us, travel these treacherous roads filled with bandits and bastards, and shine the path ahead for them, as those who have come before us have shined their lights for our feet to follow.

The essence of goodness within us flows from us, but also to us, restoring our souls. It is not God who maketh us lie beside still waters, but the pieces of God within all of us who have prepared the table and the road.

There will be those who would take advantage of your goodness. Let them. Learn from them. Unwittingly, they have given you a gift far more valuable than the purse they have stolen from you.

Money can always be made, but lessons cannot be unlearned. The lesson that generosity is its own reward is one that will be tested and tested again. The trouble with our society is its objectivity. We measure based on a demonstrable scale or dollars and cents, but our lives are lived in a far more precise mode: we each know the balance between what we have, what we need, and what we want. Gnothi Seauton. Know Thyself.

It is those whom mock and antagonize us to live a different lifestyle who will not inherit the peace that we inherit when the time comes. They win by making us forfeit that peace.

We win by refusing to give in. To thine own self be true. You have a value to yourself that far exceeds any riches you are promised "if you just buy this car". Who you are, what you know, is enough. You have all the tools you will ever need to live the life you want to live. You are enough.

Those who would call you unChristian you may mock, for it is written:

Mathew 6:6-7 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

You are not alone. We who strive for grace are all around you, praying in secret as the Lord commanded. It may not seem that way, when all around we hear our faith being trampled by those who would warp and twist the Word for their own use. Their hearts are hardened.

Ours are not. We are the willows in the winds of time. We will stand against this storm, just as we have stood against all storms of the past. And we will pass along what we know to a new generation, and seed the ground, inches at a time.

This is what we have done. This is what we shall do. May peace be with you all, my friends.

The Curious Quiet

(image courtesy wallyg at Flickr.com)

I want you to close your eyes and imagine you are standing in the middle of Church Square of the blogosphere, at the junction of Piety Avenue and Judgement Boulevard.

Still your mind for a moment. Take a deep breath and exhale completely, and now, listen.

Did you hear it?

The sound of utter, embarrassed silence.

I think we've just witnessed the death of the Christian Coalition. There are, of course, many causes that this can be attributed to: the death of Jerry Falwell had to take a lot of the starch out of its sails, to be sure, but more, I think the marriage of Christianity to the GOP agenda created a monster that ultimately Man could not control.

So Jesus stepped in.

The signal to me that Jesus stepped in was the event of the week in politics: the self-debasement of Senator Larry Craig of Utah Idaho (frikkin' Mormons...always got their Mitts on everything...). Republicans from all across the narrow strip of right wing fascism denounced one of their own, vociferously, loudly, with few objections (curiously, most objections were voiced by liberals, who wanted no part of a rush to judgement).

The evangelical church, the backbone of the Republican-church pairing, was strangely silent. Where was Pat Robertson? Why wasn't he denouncing this "abomination" of a man the way he accused lesbians and witches of causing the terror attacks of September 11?

Where was "Dr." (psychology, not divinity...shame on you, pastor!) James Dobson, the head of "Focus On Family," the organization that just last year skewed research to "prove" that gays and lesbians make bad parents? Larry Craig has received a 100% approval rating from the Christian Coalition, an organization Dobson claims to be a major force in...why is he suddenly silent? He had no qualms about speaking out against Rudy Giuliani.

Where are all those "countless" American Catholic bishops who threatened to excommunicate John Kerry for respecting the rights of women who aren't Catholic and don't necessarily agree with the Catholic Church regarding abortion? After all, the Bible condemns homosexual behavior according the the church, right alongside abortion...and if anything, is even more specific about homosexuality than abortion.

Where they at?

I think what we're witnessing, and not a moment too soon, is the death of the Religious Right as a political force. So many things have piled up over the past two years-- Catholic priests as pedophile, Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, David Vitter, as well as Larry Craig and the death of Jerry Falwell, not to mention the absolutely tragic Bush presidency and the waning influence demonstrated during the 2006 midterm elections-- that I think the Religious Right has chosen to sit this one out.

In fact, I'd posit that the major reason Karl Rove left the White House was he realized he'd never be able to duplicate the "perfect storm" that created the Bush presidency in the first place, then managed to eke out a re-election. He knew he couldn't sell yet another load of manure about a Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani, and expect that constitutency to figure out how to put enough ketchup on it to make it palatable.

That was the most intriguing part of the Rove strategy: that he found enough suckers willing participants to sell manure as a gourmet meal, such that more than half his work was done before the talking points left the building. He'd pass the points along to select "clergy"men, who would pass them along to legitimate clergymen, who passed them along to pastors and deacons and priests and ministers, who declaimed them from the pulpit, all in the name of keeping America "normal".

Note that only the first wave of prelates got any stroke out of the deal. Your local church only saw the grateful words of those above it.

As a liberal Christian, I can begin to imagine the disllusionment many of the flock are feeling right now: to sit and defend behaviors they find even more abhorrent than the blow jobs they were violently and vehemently protesting just ten years with their "allies" in the GOP must be enormous, and their embarrassment even more so.

After all, they donated money to these men, just like they donated money to Christ. In their minds, these men were the equivalent to Christ for that reason. They must have felt it was that important.

In my heart, I feel for Senator Craig, too. Not completely. Not enough to want to see him not get punished for his comments and votes against tolerance and his hypocrisies. But I can imagine the humiliation he and his family feel, and I feel for them for that. We've all walked a mile in those shoes, most of us never had to walk them on the front pages of the tabloid news with flashbulbs popping in our faces.

And I feel for Senator Craig in another way: how much it must hurt him to hate who he is.

The Poster Girl For The Estate Tax

(hat tip to Hieronymous Bosch XIV for the image)

Mat 6:24-33 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

For after all these things do the Gentiles seek: for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

This is the Word of God. Amen.

The right wing Mammon-addicted economic royalists and their co-dependent Religious Right have long had a way of turning economic issues into "moral values." Take welfare, for example: it's immoral, because God talks about labor from the sweat of our brow as our birthright from Adam. Heaven forbid we should assist someone in dire need!

Or, a man lives and struggles (don't get me started!) all his life, and at the end of his days, as his body is lowered to its final rest, the taxman stands graveside, plundering his miserable earnings eked out across his life...assuming he stowed away more than $5 million dollars, minimum.

Most of that money having been untaxed during his lifetime, I should add.

The truly cynical aspect of all this is that, in an attempt to lure suckers for tax cuts like moths to a flame, or more appropriately, addicts to a crack mountain, the Republicans have foisted upon their bases, the numbnuts who don't read the newspapers and the others who read the Bible only, to believe that this makes sense: giving more money to the rich, because one day, "you too may be this wealthy."

I was listening to the radio this week and heard a commercial for a seminar on how, you too can avoid the estate tax! Just a few hundred dollars is all you need to learn the secrets the really rich use to avoid paying any estate tax at all! GRATs! Family LLCs! Generation skipping trusts!

And I wondered how many people who are worth over $5 million dollars don't already have an estate plan--...oh!

Right. This isn't about them. This is about the morons who will never, until their death beds, get that $5 million is a LOT of money, and they never even achieved 20% of it...and they're now being ripped off by the bottom feeders who see the scam the Republicans pulled off and want a piece.

But Paris Hilton gets a pass because of this cynical abuse of the American greed. When she garners her inheritance, the only people who will see any portion of it are a couple of drug lords in Colombia, her boy toys, and now, the LA Sheriff's Department.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The judge who sent Paris Hilton to jail called a hearing for Friday on why the hotel heiress was released early and placed under house arrest in a move swiftly challenged by prosecutors and local politicians.

Hilton, 26, a symbol of privilege and the excess of American celebrity culture, was released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for unspecified health reasons on Thursday after serving just three full days of her original 45-day sentence.

Hilton, whose term the sheriff already had reduced to 23 days citing state sentencing guidelines, was fitted with an electronic ankle bracelet to track her movements and ordered confined to her lavish home in the Hollywood Hills house for the next 40 days.

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said her "reassignment" from an 8-by-12-foot cell to house arrest was carried out after "extensive consultations" with doctors at the jail and others, including the sentencing judge.

But a court spokesman said the decision was made without the approval of Judge Michael Sauer, who later set a hearing on a request by prosecutors to send Hilton back to jail for the remainder of her sentence.

Forget about the fact that she's famous merely for being famous. Forget about the fact that she's fabulously wealthy in mammon. Forget about the fact that her soul is about as deep as the gene pool at a hillbilly family reunion, Uncle Dad.

Let's focus on what she truly represents: idle wealth creating nothing in this country but headlines and tabloids.

Jesus promised us that God would take care of us. Who cares if we have no clothes, no food, no shelter? If we believe, God will provide what we need. Let's face facts though: at some point, man was making enough mammon to be able to help his fellow man.

Maybe He said, "OK, I can slack off making rainment appear out of thin air. They seem to have things under control there."

At some point, He looked down at the bountiful harvests that man was growing and said, "You know what? They seem to have this feeding thing knocked out, as well. *Whew* Because it was getting hard making manna drip from the sky!"

At some point, He saw our builders and engineers making these massive houses and structures like churches, and God said, "OK, now, I guess I can stop strewing branches and reeds on the ground! Well, maybe not. Other animals use them. But these men got it going on!"

Don't you think He might, might, get a little miffed at the creation by our society of a Paris Hilton, who wastes our time, our money, and His resources with her antics, particularly since they are validated and by extension endorsed by our inane fascination with her lunacies, but moreover, our financial support by our tax code?

I'm thinking Jesus' job gets harder and harder the more and more Republicans get elected.God Will Provide, Paris!

My Easter Sermon

You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believed it

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

Much has been made over the past ten or so years about wearing your heart out on your sleeve if you're Christian, and you had better have the right heart (pun intended) or you'd be savaged in the media.

In truth, although 85% of this nation identifies itself as "Christian", most of us probably are closer in philosophy to Bono than to Robertson. The rigid dogma of the Religious Right is fading finally, although I expect one or two more paroxysms of "true faith" rearing its ugly head before it finally dies once more.

I say "once more" because American history, indeed, world history, is filled with periods of this dogma orthodoxy. Usually right around a milepost like a millennium.

Then things go back to normal for two reasons: one, it's pretty pointless to worry about the end times and two, people grow up a little.

Part of why I titled my own blog "The Non-Rapturist's Guide To The Galaxy" is to dissuade people from thinking that all Christians are loons. Jesus informs my beliefs, He shapes my faith and my life, but He doesn't own it.

Which brings me to what this post is about: Living life in grace.

See, the secret to life is to live in truth. Truth is grace. Truth is the force in which we can find our grace, and in truth, we can find what we are looking for.

To live in truth is to acknowledge that a higher being lives within us, whether you want to call that being Christ, Astarte, the Force, Buddha, whatever. He (or She) sees truth, then speaks truth, then does truth.

And the truth is, we all live on this planet. We all suffer the same fate as everyone else, the same indignities, the same tribulations and the same joys and triumphs. What connects me to you, is what connects you to me, and connects us both to everyone and everything else here and in the universe. ("For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.")

Which is more true than you can imagine. The air you breathe now was once breathed by Socrates, by Napoleon, by George Washington, by Joan of Arc. The water you drink today has passed through Hitler and Jesus, through Julius Caesar and Mother Theresa, possibly even through me.

Sometimes, all we need to do is ask and we will receive. Sometimes, we ask and we don't receive, or don't think we did, because sometimes no is as good an answer as yes. But we also must give when others ask, or else the whole thing falls apart.

And I think this is what my Lord, my Jesus, not the Jesus of Pat Robertson and John Hagee and Ann Coulter, will ultimately judge me on for heaven: did I live in His Grace on earth? Did I understand that what I do, what I ask for, what I give, affects everyone else on this planet? And that life is a zero-sum game, in that what I get means someone else gets less, so its incumbent upon me to give back to that equation?

So what to make then, as a Christian, of Christ's gift? How much must we give back to equalize our part of the equation?

A lot more than we do, I think. A whole lot more. Fortunately, we have the rest of our lives to do it. Seek, and ye shall find, but ye shall find it within you. You are enough.

Happy Easter to you, if it applies, or even if it doesn't.

And don't forget: support me for (not)President!