When I was a kid, comic books had ads for glasses that could supposedly see through clothes. The glasses were called “X-Ray Specs”. Of course, the glasses didn’t really work. They were intended to embarrass people by making them think you could see through their clothes. As a young boy I didn’t know that. I saw the advertisements of people wearing X-Ray Specs and wanted the glasses desperately. It would do no good to pretend that I wanted them for noble purposes like medical research.
Many lonely people do not share their problems because they have an image of others putting on X-Ray Specs and piercing into their hidden secrets. They fear being undressed by a listener who pierces into their secrets and holds up an embarrassing insight—much like a magician producing coins from the ear of an embarrassed volunteer.
Unlike X-Ray Specs, the eyes of compassion do not look through other people but takes them at face value. Such non-judgmental attention has a healing property. After all, we all have a craving for attention. When that need is unmet our hearts dry out to survive in the desert. Most people get used to not being loved enough and go on with their lives. They do not know where their anger or depression comes from.
Listening to another without judgment is like exposing a flower to sunlight. Listening with compassion brings out the beauty that has been hidden in the dry shade. And when we listen with compassion, the flower also gets the moisture it needs to open itself. When flowers seem dry and ugly we know to give them light and water. Spiritual teacher have taught that the same wisdom applies to hearts.
When I was a kid, comic books had ads for glasses that could supposedly see through clothes. The glasses were called “X-Ray Specs”. Of course, the glasses didn’t really work. They were intended to embarrass people by making them think you could see through their clothes. As a young boy I didn’t know that. I saw the advertisements of people wearing X-Ray Specs and wanted the glasses desperately. It would do no good to pretend that I wanted them for noble purposes like medical research.
Many lonely people do not share their problems because they have an image of others putting on X-Ray Specs and piercing into their hidden secrets. They fear being undressed by a listener who pierces into their secrets and holds up an embarrassing insight—much like a magician producing coins from the ear of an embarrassed volunteer.
Unlike X-Ray Specs, the eyes of compassion do not look through other people but takes them at face value. Such non-judgmental attention has a healing property. After all, we all have a craving for attention. When that need is unmet our hearts dry out to survive in the desert. Most people get used to not being loved enough and go on with their lives. They do not know where their anger or depression comes from.
Listening to another without judgment is like exposing a flower to sunlight. Listening with compassion brings out the beauty that has been hidden in the dry shade. And when we listen with compassion, the flower also gets the moisture it needs to open itself. When flowers seem dry and ugly we know to give them light and water. Spiritual teacher have taught that the same wisdom applies to hearts.
Some people say I am not a real Christian because I respect the thoughts of other religions and atheists as equal to my own even in my sermons. Many come to our church and are disappointed not to hear the sense of Christian entitlement and the typical jargon which typifies much of what is called “faith.” But, as a Christian, I feel a duty to secularity.
Secularity was not born in this nation from a loss of faith. It was born out of the respect that one faith had for another. It was born of the realization that for my religion to be safe from other religions, they must also be safe from mine.
In my understanding of Christianity, “secularity” means obeying Christ’s command to love my neighbor. At the very least “love” means having the respect to allow my neighbor to see the world differently, and to live differently than I.
“Secularity” does not mean that we cannot bring our religion and values to the table, it just means that all voices must be equally audible, and not even one may be muffled. When people are afraid to be religious or irreligious in front of one another, I do not call that the “secular” but the “profane.”
Every religion has a duty to trim its sails out of respect for the other vessels that share the waters. For me, that is easy. I do not call myself “religious” because I belong to a particular sect, or believe a particular creed. I call myself “religious” because reverence is the fundamental fact of my life
A new study implies that atheists may be more motivated to help others for reasons of compassion than religious people. The study did not say that atheists are more likely to help than religious people, but it did seem to imply that the two groups help for different reasons.
As usual in studies like this, the word “religion” either goes undefined or is linked to superficial indicators, like whether one believes in a personal God. I think dividing people into any two categories is always suspicious, particularly when the division is based on an emotive word like “religious”. What is important about this study is the reminder that acting from a sense of duty can snuff out our feelings of compassion and leave us acting on autopilot. The study further confirms the belief that the true heart of religion must be love, not belief in God.
To read article, click here.
Glen Greenwald, Noam Chomsky and the Beaureu of Investigative Journalism have all reported that after the U.S. has targeted and killed people it considers to be terrorists, it also targets their funeral as a likely place where other terrorists will gather.
“…at least 50 civilians had been killed in follow-up strikes after they rushed to help those hit by a drone-fired missile” while “the bureau counted more than 20 other civilians killed in strikes on funerals.” -NY Times
To read Greenwald article, click here.
St. Augustine called poetry “the devil’s wine.” It wasn’t one of his more insightful statements. In some ways, the most important aspect of religion is its poetry. We have to outgrow the science and ethics of any earlier understanding, but the art of the ancients only grows more precious with time.
Many believers are more comfortable believing that religion describes reality exactly. When some first learn that religion is spoken in symbolic language, they may feel disappointed and betrayed. “If the stories aren’t true, then what good are they?” More importantly, they may feel if scripture is poetry, that we should abandon it for a description of life that is easier to understand? Their reasonable question is, “why doesn’t religion just come out and say what it means?”
We sometimes forget that words are invented and may not resemble reality much at all. Language can be a kind of trance that loses its relationship to the world as it tries to describes it objectively. Religious poetry is the homage words pay to the unspeakable depth of living. When we speak in the rhythmic language of poetry, our static world of ideas is reanimated by tuning to the deep vibrations of life. Poetry is wine alright, but it is a nectar that awakens us to that deep pulse under girding our lives and weaving us together with every other being into one electric web.
An interesting and disturbing Gallup poll reports almost half of those polled in the U.S. reject evolutionary science. The statistics increase the more people self-identify as religious. It also seems that, the more they identify as politically conservative , the more likely they are to believe in creationism. This does not bode well for our nation as we compete in science with the equivalent of one hand tied behind our back.
To read the poll figures, click here.
When I was young we used to gather to watch fireworks on July 4th. Somehow watching things explode was linked to a sense of patriotism. As drones become more a part of modern war, it was to be expected that wars would become spectator sports here in the U.S. The war in Iraq was presented almost as a video game. We got to watch as smart bombs closed in on their targets with little or no sense of the human toll. They were very expensive fireworks.
The President was talking to the NT Times a few weeks back about his secret kill list. Experts are expecting such talk about assassinating foreign enemies to actually help Obama politically. An American president always feels more patriotic to the public if he has killed somebody, somewhere. But what we call our war on terrorism is considered terrorism by much of the world. The CIA repeats its claim that civilian deaths are extremely rare, but the U.S. has set up a bounty on terrorists and is taking the word of informants on the guilt of the targets. This was the method used to fill the prisons at Guantanamo, and is perhaps the reason many of the prisoners were denied due process, we knew we couldn’t prove anything. Furthermore, the CIA does not mention that the US now has a policy of counting all casualties of military age as combatants. In other words, if you were close enough for us to kill you, you must have been guilty.
Our leaders, and the corporations for which they stand, count on public indifference to taking non-American forms of life, which is usually a pretty safe bet. So, this July as your neighbors wave flags and pop firecrackers, just remember that the real fireworks will be raining down on some wretched village across the planet. And if, somehow, you are one of the few who can still hear the cries of your brothers and sisters living in other countries, please speak out on their behalf during this coming season of patriotism and fireworks.
To read Guardian article on this subject, click here.
Tolstoy once wrote, “You want goodness, and you will receive it when you desire goodness for all.” If we transpose the word “happiness” for “goodness” we have one meaning of the beatitudes. “Beatitude” means “happy” or “blessed.” It is normal to want to be happy, but personal happiness is a very tenuous affair. If my happiness comes at the expense of others, I must numb my heart to their sufferings and such numbing diminishes my own happiness.
If I love those of my country but hate others simply because they were born on the other side of a river, my heart will be drawn and quartered by my own partiality. Less than universal love creates a civil war in my own soul. When we realize that our own happiness requires that we desire the happiness of others, many riddles are solved and a weary burden is laid aside. To desire the happiness of all is like rising above the clouds in an airplane, or like when a fever breaks and we remember what it is like to feel whole. As it grows, love rises above all partial viewpoints and lives in the unshakable peace of the whold.
St. Francis sang songs of universal happiness. In his hymns, woods and waters, people and animals were all happy. Legend says that, as a result of his mysticism, Francis acquired the stigmata, the wounds of love. Universal love which means to burn with a desire for the happiness of all is not without its pain, but such love transfigures even our wounds. The Beatitudes become clearer by rephrasing Tolstoy’s words, “You want happiness and will receive it when you desire the happiness of all”
It’s called “green washing.” A corporation wants to polute, but also wants to avoid penalties and backlash from the community. It therefore makes token efforts to protect the environment, and trumpets those feeble programs until they appear huge.
According to the Guardian:
“An analysis of 28 Standard & Poor 500 publicly traded companies by researchers from the Union of Concerned Scientists exposed a sharp disconnect in some cases between PR message and less visible activities, with companies quietly lobbying against climate policy or funding groups which work to discredit climate science.”
To read, click here.
