jimrigby.org

The text of this week’s sermon was Psalm 150, but we also heard from Picasso and other great artists. My point was that great art is the universal or elemental expressed through the personal. When we read Homer, we aren’t just reading personal stories, but revelations about who we humans are in the cosmos.

So when the Psalmist tells us to “praise God with drums and lyres” we need to translate the symbol “God” as a not as a revered object but as a mysterious source. To “praise” or “glorify” does not mean to flatter an invisible being, but to express or manifest our primordial ground through whatever art opens our heart.

I said in the sermon that art is what makes justice compassionate because I cannot possibly empathize with your pain if I cannot feel my own pleasure. Furthermore, it is art that teaches us which of the potentially infinite facts of science are meaningful for our human lives. We closed with a call to remember and return to the childhood art that once expressed who we are as humans dancing in the cosmos. I closed with the following quote:

“Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the ‘creative bug’ is just a wee voice telling you, ‘I’d like my crayons back, please.” -Hugh MacLeod

The Nobel Peace prize was politicized years ago. Such recipients as Henry Kissinger and a young Barack Obama reveal that the prize does not go to peacemakers in the mold of Gandhi, but to utilitarians who seek peace within the context of Western domination.  One might suggest, for the sake of honesty, the award be renamed the NATO Peace Prize.

This year the award has been given to the group inspecting Syria’s chemical weapons, with no such demands on Israel and the U.S. to destroy their stockpiles on the same schedule. Many Syrians are outraged, feeling that their struggle and the masses that died by conventional weapons are being swept under the rug.

Many thought the prize would go to young Malala Yousafzai, who has spoken so courageously for the worldwide education of women, even after she was shot in the head by the Taliban in an effort to silence her.

The Taliban continues to threaten to kill her. Malala was on Jon Stewart who asked what he would say if a Taliban approached her again. She said, “I would tell him how important education is and that I would even want education for your children as well. That’s what I want to tell you, now do what you want.”

Come to think of it, the NATO peace prize has become a joke any way. This young woman of 16 doesn’t need the affirmation of the powers that be. Her reward is the gratitude of people all over the world that recognize her as a peacemaker.

“Facing a shortage of supplies for lethal injections, US law enforcement officials have begun executing prisoners with an animal anesthetic that has not been approved at the federal level, with the first such execution coming this week.”

http://rt.com/usa/death-row-inmates-drug-cocktail-017/

“The Pentagon has been holding phony “arrival” ceremonies for fallen soldiers at a base in Hawaii for over seven years, according to recent statements made by the United States Department of Defense to NBC News.

For nearly a decade, military personnel transported flag-draped coffins containing the bodies of troops killed in action from seemingly just-arrived cargo planes during ceremonies near hangar 35 at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

In reality, however, the remains of those soldiers may have spent upwards of months in military custody before being paraded out during partially-fabricated ceremonial presentations carried out by the government’s Joint Prisoner of War Accounting Command, or JPAC.

Bill Dedman, an investigative reporter for NBC, said that the Pentagon confirmed this week “that no honored dead were in fact arriving, and that the planes used in the ceremonies often couldn’t even fly but were towed into position.””

http://rt.com/usa/pentagon-arrival-ceremony-hawaii-071/

Howard Thurman was an inspiration for Martin Luther King and many others in the civil rights movement. Here are three wonderful quotes on finding our direction in life:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.”

“There are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. The 1st is ” Where am I going?” and the 2nd is “Who will go with me?”

If you ever get these questions in the wrong order , you are in trouble.”

The Libertarian Party seems like a Rip Van Winkle living 50 years out of time. What is the point of overthrowing the state, if our goverment is also a captive of corporate capitalism? It would be like a prisoner trying to escape Alcatraz by avoiding co-operation with his fellow prisoners instead of breaching the walls that actually enslave him.

Glen Beck had a very strange outburst recently where he said parents need to intimidate their kids into knowing that their rights come from God.

“Well, they’re going to cry, it’ll hurt their feelings. Push them! Because if you don’t do it now, it’s going to be much worse when they’re pushed and they’re shoved and they’re shot. Push them! Teach them! The need to know the truth and the need to be pushed up against the wall once in a while so they know they can defend themselves.” -Glenn Beck

One wonders how many people share this vision of the world where, if a child speaks of human rights without a direct reference to the Judeo-Christian God, the parent should push them against the wall and yell at them until they can “defend” themselves?

To see the video, click below:

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/10/glenn_beck_scream_at_your_children_until_they_believe_in_god/

10 Commandments of Activism

1. Victory does not consist in winning the struggle but in doing our duty.

2. Be a radical- that is, live from the roots of nature and from your humanity. Never allow your character to become a bargaining chip.

3. Never become so focused on fighting suffering and evil that you forget the ideal point of our struggle is for all people to be happy, including you.

4. Remember that there is always something of your opponent in you, and something of you in your opponent.

5. Put every drop of your righteous anger into harness doing the work, or it will poison your very blood.

6. Never despair in times that seem hopeless. Remember that people were doing this work before you were born and people yet unborn will build on whatever foundation you lay.

7. Balance your inner peace and outer activism as you do your breath. Let your inner work be as if you are breathing in, and your outer activism as if you were breathing out.

8. You must love people enough to risk them not loving you.

9. Whatever else happens, remember that actism will reveal to you your true family, the lovers of humankind and citizens of the world.

10. Never forget that to be servant of all you must be slave of none.

Okay the title is grandiose, but it got you to read this. This list was really done off the top of my head. Send more suggestions and I’ll improve the list. I know I’ve heard the 10th commandment somewhere, but I don’t remember where. If anyone knows where it comes from, let me know so I can attribute it.

10 Commandments of Activism

1. Victory does not consist in winning the struggle but in doing our duty.

2. Be a radical- that is, live from the roots of nature and from your humanity. Never allow your character to become a bargaining chip.

3. Never become so focused on fighting suffering and evil that you forget the ideal point of our struggle is for all people to be happy, including you.

4. Remember that there is always something of your opponent in you, and something of you in your opponent.

5. Put every drop of your righteous anger into harness doing the work, or it will poison your very blood.

6. Never despair in times that seem hopeless. Remember that people were doing this work before you were born and people yet unborn will build on whatever foundation you lay.

7. Balance your inner peace and outer activism as you do your breath. Let your inner work be as if you are breathing in, and your outer activism as if you were breathing out.

8. You must love people enough to risk them not loving you.

9. Whatever else happens, remember that activism will reveal to you your true family, the lovers of humankind and citizens of the world.

10. Never forget that to be servant of all you must be slave of none.

Okay the title is grandiose, but it got you to read this. This list was really done off the top of my head. Send more suggestions and I’ll improve the list. I know I’ve heard the 10th commandment somewhere, but I don’t remember where. If anyone knows where it comes from, let me know so I can attribute it.

“Feature films are the most powerful and insidious shapers of public perception, because they fly under the radar of conscious exclusion.

This film is going to bury good people doing good work, at exactly the time that the state is coming down on their heads.

It is going to smother the truthful version of events, at a time when the truth is most in demand.

As justification it will claim to be fiction, but it is not fiction. It is distorted truth about living people doing battle with titanic opponents. It is a work of political opportunism, influence, revenge and, above all, cowardice.” -Julian Assange discussing new movie about WikiLeaks.