Spirituality and Religion

Bubbling up are ideas and sentiments. In my mind. Same ideas with slight differences continue to plague my thinking process. Not clogging the process, just plaguing it. Here are a few that may give you pause as they did me:

From Abraham Lincoln:

“The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”

From a Cherokee Prayer:

            “Oh Great Spirit who made all races,

             Look kindly upon the whole human family

             And take away the arrogance and hatred

             Which separates us from our brothers.”

From Nelson Mandela:

            “Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid,

             It is man-made and can be removed by the actions of

             Human beings.”

From Anonymous, that great and wise human being who knows few bounds:

            “You don’t need religion to have morals.

             If you can’t determine right from wrong,

             Then you lack empathy, not religion.”

From Drew Avril on Facebook:

            “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

             Well no sh_t.

             We want mandatory safety courses for people, not guns.

             We want more thorough background checks of people, not guns.

             We want stricter negligence penalties imposed on people, not guns.

             If you’re stupid enough to think activists are pissed at guns,

             You’re too stupid to own one.”

From Matt Damon, the actor and son of a union teacher:

            “There’s been a war on unions in general this last decade.

             To break up unions, and pay less and provide less rights,

             Is definitely not the answer.”

Each of these quotes has relevance to us today. A week or a year from now they will still have relevance. They are ideas that niggle at the mind and keep us fretting or thinking. They remain important to us if conditions exist that challenge the core idea. And we have such conditions today, don’t we?

First, Lincoln is considered a central American thinker of history. To read he was not an adopter of the Bible or Christianity surprised me. He was not alone of course. George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, to mention only a very few, had similar notions on religion. We should remember they did not reject spirituality or religion – on the contrary, they supported it. Their complaint, I think, is the ‘organized religion’ part. To get organized mankind placed its fingerprints all over it. Religion, however, is a God thing, a prophet thing, a spiritual thing. All important. All transcendental to the individual, not from individuals. Mankind is not the spiritual font of wisdom. One must take care to separate the guidance from the transcendent message that is in the spiritual realm.

The Bible stands on its own but is not the sole authority. Look at all the other great religions of the world and their core documents of faith. Although similar and with some shared roots, these documents make different conclusions. Their advocates herald differing practices and dogmas. Some dogmas require death to others for their beliefs.

No. Lincoln was spot on. The Bible as guide, and Christianity as a systemic process of guidance, are both good but not alone. There are others. And wisdom of the ages helps us see that more clearly. As well, too, as logic and conclusions based on fact.

The Cherokee Prayer is priceless in its universality. Their spirit based culture sought answers and acceptance to all worldly existence. They practiced inclusion not separation. They believed in the ALL, not the PARTS. We white Americans missed that boat long ago. I still doubt we received the message! The horror of what we did to native Americans is chronicled in our history. What a loss. What a travesty!

And Mandela reminds us that conditions of life on earth are not nearly as natural as we think of them. They are mostly man-made and thus are healed and replaced by the efforts of man-kind.

Empathy is caring about things outside of me. Empathy is needed to move toward understanding other people and their conditions of life. Serving them – helping them – is the first step to understanding them. Building bridges toward that end is productive; building walls – enclosures – is not.

The tragedy of guns in our culture is what we do with them, not the gun itself. The people who own and/or use guns are the issue under consideration. The NRA and gun owner groups needs to focus on this one problem:

How do we reduce gun deaths in America to one-tenth of what they are today? Reduce from 10,100 annual deaths to 1000 annually? This would be a great start. How do we accomplish this? Respect the Second Amendment (whatever it means in full) but how do we reduce the slaughter of innocents?

I don’t own a gun. Never have and hope never to. I have ideas on how to handle the problem of America’s high death rate from guns when compared with other developed countries around the globe. But gun owners and their spokespersons have a lot to say. What are their ideas and solutions? Stop with the tired rhetoric and come up with workable solutions.

And the whole union discussion is long overdue. They are necessary to our sense of American justice. Why this current war against labor unions?

The New Year beckons us to work new ideas. Lots to do. Let’s make our efforts count this time around!

December 28, 2012