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The Reverend Clovis Jones invited Texas Buddha to services one Sunday morning. Watching out of the corner of his eye, the Reverend noticed Texas Buddha singing the hymns with gusto and even saying the Apostles Creed.

At Luby’s Cafeteria after church, Rev. Clovis remarked, “I was surprised to see you reciting the creeds today. Did you believe what you were saying?”

After finishing putting sugar in his iced tea, Texas Buddha responded, “Creeds represent the best and worst of religion. At their worst, creeds are like the words we teach a parrot to replace the song of its own heart. At best, a creed sets the song of our hearts into harmony with the cosmos and with each other. At best, a creed is a hymn calling every bird into the one vast sky. At worst, a creed only teaches the dutiful parrot to make peace with its own cage.

Justin Feldman has an article in today’s Counterpunch that claims Cesar Chavez was “virulently anti-immigrant.”

“Last Sunday was Cesar Chavez’s birthday. The United Farm Workers, founded by Chavez in 1962, marked the occasion by organizing five pro-immigration reform marches throughout California. Other groups organized Cesar Chavez Day events in San Antonio and Phoenix that shared the pro-immigration reform theme. The irony is that during most of his tenure with the UFW, Chavez was virulently anti-immigrant in his public and private lives. He led his union to campaign for the deportation of undocumented workers and, at times, even green card holders became targets.”

I have included the article below, but my point I mention it only to consider whether the whole idea of tying movements to heroes might itself be reactionary. Does a statue of Dr. King run the risk of serving as a substitute for his own revolutionary spirit?

When movements are identified with individuals, critics need merely find some human flaw in that hero to discredit the movement. So, if Martin Luther King can be shown to have had a problem with sexism, or Cesar Chavez can be shown to be anti-immigrant, or if Jefferson can be identified as racist, then some feel justified in dismissing the movements with whom their names have been identified.

But tying grassroots movements to heroes runs a greater risk. When grassroots movements are tied to individuals, they die of contradiction. We cannot be grassroots and also submit to a leader. We cannot fully respond to the present crisis through the eyes of heroes who are dead. When we gather in the name of any hero of the people, we hold up their corpse and renounce their own revolutionary spirit.

Bertolt Brecht put the following words in the mouth of Galileo:

“Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”

I confess my articles and sermons are peppered with quotes from hereos. I doubt that I will ever completely drop that practise but, for that very reason, I must also remember the risk of such homage and tie every call to social justice not to a personality but to a principle.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/03/reinventing-cesar-chavez/

“What is modern propaganda? For many, it is the lies of a totalitarian state. In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl and asked her about her epic films that glorified the Nazis. Using revolutionary camera and lighting techniques, she produced a documentary form that mesmerised Germans; her  Triumph of the Will cast Hitler’s spell. She told me that the “messages” of her films were dependent not on “orders from above”, but on the “submissive void” of the German public. Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? “Everyone,” she said.” -John Pilger

Noam Chomsky has said many times that democracies are dominated not with violence but with propaganda. We humans are creatures of trance. If we do not declare our lives to be an endless struggle against external and internal deception we will melt into illusions we will think of as our own viewpoints. Even those who weave the spiderwebs of conspiracy theories, melt into a helpless study of past “deceptions” instead of questioning their own ideas of the nation state, or of capitalism, or of the religion into which they were born.

The quote above fascinates me. One of Hitler’s propagandists says she did not need to be told from above what lies to tell. She needed merely appeal to the human need to feel certain and safe. Appealing to vauge fears and aspirations of the people was all it took for the masses to fall into the arms of their leaders.

Notice her statement that the liberal and educated elite were not above the trance. According to her, everyone was a potential victim of propaganda. So we might ask, what are the lies we are telling ourselves this day to feel safe and certain? Looking back, were the “pride” of Reagan or the “hope” of Obama actual political programs, or were they appeals to our “submissive void?”

One way out of the propaganda maze is to leave our answers and return to our questions.  Buddha was once asked the secret of enlightenment. He said, “swim upstream.” For our purposes, “swimming upstream” means learning from sources that make us feel uncomfortable and shake our confidence in what we have been told.

John Pilger’s article on social media and propaganda, linked below, might be one uncomfortable way to stir a question or two.

http://www.alternet.org/media/how-digital-technology-has-helped-unleash-devastating-new-era-propaganda

I believe the word is “shadenfreude.” It is that strange enjoyment one gets at seeing the misfortune of others. In the following clip Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingram heatedly disagree on gay marriage. But I am not sharing the clip for reasons of shadenfreude. I am fascinated by how some conservatives are disentangling themselves from earlier positions that have become unpopular. Immigrant and gay bashing were a staple of the far right not long ago, but now that the polls have turned, the admirals of animus must figure out how to abandonship without appearing to flip flop. In this case, O’Reilly sees ending the assault on the GLBT community as a practical political necessity. Most interestingly, he denounces the use of scripture as authoritative in civil discourse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/oreilly-laura-ingraham-argument-thump-the-bible_n_3002860.html

Abby Zimet from Common Dreams reports that news from the Arkansas pipeline spill just got a lot worse. It turns out an obscure law says that, because the pipeline is carrying diluted bitumen, not oil, Exxon will not have to pay for the clean up. Now we can understand why our politicians were so unconcerned about the environmental consequences of pipelines bringing “oil” from the Canadian tarsands. It’s only considered oil if its in the pipeline. If it leaks, it’s diluted coal not covered by the law. So such human and environmental disasters as happened in Arkansas aren’t Exxon’s problem.  The law as written will give big oil companies and their political toadies a free ride to untold wealth; and the public, once again, gets stuck with the check.

I’m not sure how widespread such laws are, or if Abby Zimet is right that Exxon will get off so lightly, but her article is definitely a wake up call.

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/04/02-2

I love Loren Eiseley. Reading his meditations on science gave me early evidence that the gulf between religion and science can be bridged by humble ambassadors of both camps. I was so happy when Gaye Koppas shared the following reading in our Tuesday Bible Class.

“I am treading deeper and deeper into leaves and silence. I see more faces watching, non-human faces. Ironically, I who profess no religion find the whole of my life a religious pilgrimage.”

“The religious forms of the present leave me unmoved. My eye is round, open, and undomesticated as an owl’s in a primeval forest — a world that for me has never truly departed.”

“Like the toad in my shirt we were in the hands of God, but we could not feel him; he was beyond us, totally and terribly beyond our limited- senses.”

“(Humankind) is not as other creatures and. . . without the sense of the holy, without compassion, (our) brain can become a gray stalking horror –” -Loren Eiseley

By the word “religion” Loren Eiseley surely did not mean religion in any orthodox sense. He did not believe in any kind of God, but he did not hide his sense of reverence for fear that someone would accuse him of supernaturalism. He was a living expression of Epictetus’ saying that the rational soul must not only think of its source, but also sing of it.

Rabbi Solomon, Imam Kabir and the Rev. Clovis Jones were dear friends. After dinner they began a pretended theological dispute over who should wash the dishes. “I should not have to wash the dishes because I am from the chosen people,” said the Rabbi. The Reverend protested, “But your prophets were really predicting Jesus so I should not have to wash the dishes.” Finally, the Imam shook his head and replied, “But even Jesus said that God would send another after him, which is the Prophet Mohammed.  Surely I, as his follower, should not be asked to do the dishes.”

Turning at once, the three holy men stared at the Texas Buddha waiting for his excuse not to wash the dishes. After tying a trash bag, Texas Buddha stood smiling and pointed to the stack of pans waiting to be cleaned. “There are two ways in which one might say a religion is unique. One can say it is the great pan that holds all the others, or that it is the smallest pan that excludes all the others.

If one chooses the smallest pot, religion will only be capable of making little sauces and gravies to put on an otherwise unchanged world. But if one chooses the greatest pan, religion can handle anything life  dishes out, and it includes the smaller pans besides.

Nodding in agreement all four friends began to wash the dishes together.

Someday America must face the unpleasant truth that white supremacy and patriarchy are not only in our culture, they are our culture. They are part of the invisible background we all take in when we mindlessly watch television or read a newspaper. They are the poison we swallow when we hear history presented as the story of brave European men civilizing a primitive world. More and more Americans are willing to look at the painful parts of our history, but few indeed are willing to look in the mirror and face one hard fact. It’s not history if we are still doing it.

Senator Eric Adams has testified under oath that the New York Police Commissioner told him that the department focused its “Stop and Frisk” program on youths of color because he (the Commissioner) wanted to instill fear in them that, “every time they left their homes they could be stopped by the police.”

According this AlterNet article:

Over the past decade, the NYPD has stopped upwards of 5 million people, nearly 90% of whom are Black or Latino.

When the Senator protested to the program, Commissioner Kelly and he reportedly had the following exchange:

The article also asserts:

Though stop-and-frisk is supposed to be used to uncover illegal guns, less than one percent of stops actually do.

 Texas Buddha and the Rev. Clovis Jones were passing through Amarillo when they ran across a preacher yelling on the street corner, “This town is going to hell in a hand basket!”

Clovis ran up to the preacher and said, “You must not get so upset, you will make yourself sick!”

“Look around you!” the preacher growled. “There are illegal immigrants, homosexuals and Muslims everywhere!”

Calvin answered, “My friend, you must not let your judgments of others rob you of the Christ-like love you are trying to teach.”

“I am not judging these people,” the preacher exploded, “God’s word is judging them. And I am being loving! If I don’t rebuke these people they will all go to hell.”

Returning to their truck, Clovis asked, “How do some Christians get so mean?”

“It is very sad, but not uncommon,” Texas Buddha sighed. “He became so focused on saving the souls of others that he has lost his own.”