Solemnis Solitaire: #3
By Staff Writer: Paganus Greybeard
Faith.
Faith and Belief.
Belief in a Being You cannot see, hear or physically sense or detect
in any known way.
Belief in a Being ‘higher’ on the ‘evolutionary’ path than You -
a mortal human.
Belief in an Original Primal Creator Being.
You cannot detect - by any currently developed or known device or
means - ‘God’.
Yet You accept that ‘God’ has, does and will continue to exist.
You ‘believe’ in Your selected Divine Divinity.
You have ‘faith’ in Your ‘God’.
You also - by logical extension - have ‘faith’ and ‘believe’ in the
righteousness of Your chosen clergy. Whether You be Catholic, Protestant, Methodist,
Episcopalian, Buddhist, Taoist, Jewish, Lutheran or even Sikh, Hindu & Muslim - You
are expected to accept and follow the tenets, teachings and precepts of Your ‘religion’. You
are told what to think, how to think it, and when and where to think it by Your ‘church’s’
‘clergy’. You are a member of a congregation. You do as You are told.
You do what the ‘congregational’ group does because You are part of
that group.
You sing the Hymns from the Hymnal. You pass the offering and drop a
dollar a dollar in.
You are a member of Your chosen ‘religion’ and You do what is expected
of You to do.
Sitting in Your pew, listening to the Sunday Services sermon in Your
neighborhood ‘church’,
You are not alone. You are just a single member of a single, ‘local’
congregation. In Your ‘Denomination’ You are Your communities ‘local branch’.
You are part of a very large and diverse ecclesiastical membership.
Membership in such a ‘Denomination’ can be considered as is a
double-edged sword. Such a sword cuts both ways.
You can cut on the forward stroke as well as on the return stroke.
Membership in such a large ‘Denomination’ can be both positive and
negative. Recently, in the newspapers and broadcast news reports,
‘Denominations’ and their ‘Congregations’ have been noteworthy.
There has been the increasing turbulence after political cartoons of
the Muslim Deity Muhammed. According to the news reports, Muhammed
is not to be visually depicted at all.
This has reportedly caused strife and discord. Bombing and burnings
have ensued. Embassies and Consul offices have been attacked and
destroyed. Yet - as has also been repeatedly pointed out and reported
in the media - this are the results of a small, vocal and very
physically and spiritually violent micro-sub-set of the Muslim ‘faith’.
There have also been accounts of ‘heresy’ and ‘criminal abuse &
misuse of authority’ trials. These ‘church’-based ‘trials’ examined a
Catholic Priest in Southern California for what was described as
‘heretical thoughts, actions and teachings’ and a ‘refusal to
accept the ultimate, final temporal authority of the Pope’ .
A female Priest of the Episcopalian ‘Dnomination’
was tried for conducting gay weddings. She was acquitted. The ‘trial’
determined that She was following the guidance and dictates of Her understanding of the
teachings of the ‘Holy Spirit’.
No ecclesiastical ‘crime’ was committed. The Catholic Priest was not
nearly so fortuitous.
He was excommunicated and ‘removed’ from the Church.
These were - and are - Catholics and Episcopalians.
I am neither Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, Muslim, Hindu or
Taoist. I am not now - this day - a member of any of these ‘Denominations’.
I am Pagan. I now follow a very much older and somewhat fundamentally
different path and tradition. I have also not always been - or considered myself to be -
Pagan.
I am 48 years old. Somewhere in the hazy mists of semi-forgotten
personal time, space & history I was once very different. Around 25 to
30 years ago I was Lutheran. - Missouri Synod.
This was the time I served as ‘Candle-Lighter’ for my local,
neighborhood church. I last sat in a church pew somewhere between 1976 and 1982.
I have written that my personal change was slow. IF my
Memory is to be even partly trusted it has been a 30 year process.
Faith and Belief in a personal and intimate Deity & Divinity is a matter for the individual alone.
It is not - no matter how many times it is taught and ‘preached’ as being so - fundamental to a congregation. For what is a congregation but a disparate collection of individuals?
‘Churches’ - in and of innumerable sects and denominations - are
critically dependant upon the unity and collective cohesiveness of their assembled congregations.
It is through the congregations that the national and multi-national ‘churches’ exist and survive. It is the mundane political, social and economic power and influence that
ensures their continued survival. IF enough of the ‘faithful’ simply stopped showing up on Sunday and stopped giving/dropping their ‘voluntary contributions’ into the entirely
unsubtle ‘offering bowl’ where would the denominations, sects and
churches be? The money would dry up and the political power and
influence would wither and die away.
‘Church’ and ‘Denominations’ - since their inception thousands of years
ago - are not nearly so much about Deity and Divinity as they are about mundane, temporal
Political, Social and Economic Power. ‘Churches’ are now - and they always have been - multi-national corporations.
Deity and Divinity runs a far distant fourth or fifth place
following Politics, Social Change and Reform and the monthly Profit
Statement. While by law ‘church’s’ can be - and are - classed by
the Revised Tax Codes as exempt non-profits - it is indeed profits that is one of
the twin driving motivators for the development and continued existence of any ‘church’ or ‘denomination’.
For this very much former Lutheran I find the never-ending emphasis
on the Power and Profit motivators disturbing. Even before I last
attended a service I knew ’something’ was wrong.
I was not old enough, well read or experienced in life enough to know
what could be wrong.
I just knew and could very clearly sense that ’something’ was wrong.
Certain theological and ecclesiastical questions were strongly
discouraged. One was - why is it so necessary to be here -
in this building - every Sunday? This is ‘God’s House’. But if God is
God - can’t He be anywhere?
Of Course. He is Omniscient and Omnipresent. Then why can’t I go
commune quietly and personally with Him in the park under My favorite
tree? I never did get much of an answer to that one!
Even as I lit the Candles I was thinking. Thinking My own thoughts
for Myself. In a local ‘congregation’ where ‘you go along to get along’ was constantly spoken
of and acted upon - I was already unknowingly starting to seek, find and walk My own path.
I clearly remember a moment downstairs in the ‘Sunday School’. It was a conversation
concerning ethics. The ‘official line’ was that there was only one (1)
kind of ethics. For all conditions and situations - there was just this one (1) kind,
type, form of ethics. ‘Situational Ethics’ was not only derided - it was described and
coloured as something distinctly ‘evil’ and ‘You do not want to even think of going there’…. Thinking for One’s Self was thusly therefore implicitly, strongly discouraged. ” ‘God’ has the Answers. Just ask ‘God’ ” was the de-facto motto and mantra. Even as a child and later as a teen I had some very severe problems with that kind of non-thinking non-response to Spiritual as well as mundanian, temporal, everyday reality.
I have never been good at taking commands. Direction, Guidance and
Instruction are not only accepted but welcomed and encouraged.
Commands are not. You know the situation.
The Child’s - ‘Why’? The Adults - ‘Because I said so’…. That never
worked well with Me.
It still does not work well with Me. Dealing with an imperious
imperator of an employer is one thing.
Dealing with the ‘Holy, Apostolic, One, True and Only Real’ ‘Church’
makes My skin itch and crawl.
Because life is complicated, confused, conflicted and contradictory
a simple ‘one size fits all’ form of ethics is unmanageable and unworkable.
An at work situation is far different than that of one at home with the family and kids.
A Supervisor to Employee behavioral approach cannot
be expected to work at home when you are mediating brother and sister.
Or the classic one we discussed - and never were able to get a consensus decision on - is the
lifeboat scenario.
There are only supplies and room for 6 people in the boat - there are
seven people to save.
I came up with a solution. One person hangs onto the boat and swims in
the water. And to extend supplies You eat fish. Simple solutions.
Simple, basic, practical, functional ‘real world’ solutions. The Others
were off busy debating the nature of the lifeboat and the ‘moral’ qualities of
the people involved. Are they Catholics, Jews or Buddhists? I had no interest in that
metaphysical trivia. Life is Life. Save them all I did. I did ‘get real’. The Others still
missed the point. At least that’s how I remember it!!
Even as a child and later as a teen in High School I could see that ‘one size fits all’ won’t work. Later - in my very brief and very much abortive mis-adventure at the Seminary - it was so very much worse. I was there - IF memory is even
remotely accurate after 30 years - no more than 5 weeks. It may have been far less than that.
It was clearly not the place for me to be.
‘God’ - for the ‘churches’ and their attendant ‘denominations’ - is not so much a Deity
and Divinity as He is a Product to be marketed and sold. Catholics
light a Candle for prayers. Very fundamentally good idea. Basic candle magick. For the
Candle another of the seemingly endless ‘voluntary contributions’ is required. Remember the
‘Sales of the Indugences’? Many fortunes were raised with that im-pious moneymaker.
There is not a ‘church’ that does not - in some way or form, to some degree - sell ‘God’, ‘Faith’, or
‘Salvation’. It’s a multi-billion dollar a year Business. Even the online ULC does it. Yet the Universal Life Church seems to be a bit more open and straightforward about it. Want or need to do a Wedding? There are packages for that. Counseling? Sure. Packages exist for that too. ID?s,
Credentials and even music, books and proper ‘reverential’ garb is offered. I have no problem with this by the ULC. They are clearly offering a service. A service at a nominal cost. At no time have I read anything saying that not buying something from them will harm your karma or damage your eternal soul. This is quite unlike many of the TV-Evangelicals and even some of the more ‘mainsteam’ ‘’denominations’.
“BUY! GOD! NOW! or Die the most gruesome, hideous death possible"..?
There is a popular bracelet amoung the ‘Christians’ and ‘Evangelicals’ - WWJD?
What Would Jesus Do? It is an excellent question. What would the Christos do?
As early as approximately 50 years after the ‘Death’ and ‘Resurrection’
of the Christos His teachings, have been re-interpreted, re-cast, re-imagined,
re-structured and re-formed into something quite un-’Christian’ and un-recognizable.
He spoke to the individual.
He spoke to small groups. His was an intimate and personal message and
ministry. It was not until the writing of and ‘publishing’ of the ?Acts of the
Apostles? and the Letters of Paul that the nascent ‘Christian’ ‘church’ began to take
shape, find a function and develop a social, political and economic viewpoint. It was - even at
that early date - a ‘Christian’ ‘church’ in promotional name only. In practical,
functional reality it was ?religion? as usual with only a new ‘product’ to produce, market and
sell.
It was not many decades later that ‘God’ was being used as an
‘insurance policy’.
‘Buy Jesus or Die and Go to Hades’. ‘Redemption or Destruction’. Just
how would the Christos feel about being used and sold as the ‘hammer’ in an old-style
‘vigorish’ scam?
While the Sicilian Mafiosi may have earned their darkly deserved image
and reputation for their organized crime Families and Brotherhoods - the ‘organized’,
‘mainstream’ ‘Church’ - irrespective of sect or denomination - makes
their extortive hardball tactics look penny-ante in relative comparison.
The Chistos spoke of love, compassion, hope, faith and charity. In
a certain box - opened by a certain young woman - the last thing in the box was Faith, Hope and Charity. The box - that legend and myth says should never have been opened - was
closed before Faith, Hope and Charity could escape and be lost. The
Christos was a ‘fisher of men’ - not a cheap, hustling, scamming
shyster. I am reminded of the sequence in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’
where He cleans out the temple. The ‘Church’ and ‘Religion’
has indeed turned a ‘House of Prayer’ into a ‘Den of Thieves’. {Really
cool song - and really rockingly performed as I recall!} Had Paul - who
once was Saul - known his very personal and intimate letters
to the seven (7) tiny and nascent ‘churches/congregations’ would be
copied, assembled and bound together into a ‘New’ Testament - he might
have had second - or even third thoughts - on writing them
had he known the in-intended and un-forseen uses they would eventually
be put to.
The Temple Lyrics
Artist: Jesus Christ Superstar
Album: Jesus Christ Superstar Soundtrack
Moneylenders and Merchants
Roll on up – for my price is down
Come on in – for the best in town
Take your pick of the finest wine
Lay your bets on this bird of mine
Name your price I got everything
Come and buy it’s all going fast
Borrow cash on the finest terms
Hurry now while stocks still last
Jesus
My temple should be a house of prayer
But you have made it a den of thieves
Get up, get out
My time
Is almost through
Little left to do
After all
I’ve tried for three years
Seems like thirty
Seems like thirty
Crowd
See my eyes I can hardly see
See me stand I can hardly walk
I believe you can make me whole
See my tongue I can hardly talk
See my skin I’m a mass of blood
See my legs I can hardly stand
I believe you can make me well
See my purse I’m a poor, poor man
Will you touch, will you mend me Christ?
Won’t you touch, will you heal me Christ?
Will you kiss, you can heal me Christ
Won’t you kiss, won’t you pay me Christ?
Jesus
Oh, there’s too many of you, don’t push me
Oh, there’s too little of me, don’t crowd me
Heal yourselves!