A Short Post: How to Enjoy Religion

 My Friend Michael Said:


I used to yet and treat religion as a sort of non entity. It does not exist for me but I accept it as other individuals and collective's belief system. But more and more I am brought bear to witness the insidious and relentless nature of religion and its base nature of a contagion of sorts constantly trying to spread and reek havoc.


Then I said:

Hi Michael, I just finished a rant on another topic by another Michael you should check it out, and show your wife, she will appreciate it.  

What's wrong with religion..... hahahahaha.  

Where Im at with religion now, is that I think it would be great if people just accepted that it really is just us doing it.  If you think about the ecstasy and peace and love that people get from various and conflicting religions, and realize that there is nothing up there, that the thing they're talking to is an image or sense of another person inside themselves, and that their unified worship is mainly a worship of their collectivity, than religion is much more appealing.

They should stop believing in all the mythology, or at least accept that a belief is an ephemeral thing, a loose state of connections in our little heads, and though it can be a wonderful experience, it does not touch the world outside of us, and therefore cannot do more than be felt and contemplated.

Thanks to Jaime and Mercy-Release-Me for the Coca Mate. It's helping with concision.

Week 4: The First Friends of Whittier (Quakers)

Omens for the Godless, The Lady Next to Me.

I knew that Whittier was founded by Quakers, that the name comes from the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, and that the College I go to was founded by Quakers.

When I got back here last year, and me and Emma were struggling with each other and against each other, I tried again to get involved in something, activism, or just feeling like I'm not so alienated from the big picture.

I signed up for the Whittier Peace and Justice Coalition.  They meet the first Thursday of every month for a movie night.  I wasn't able to go, at first because of my class schedule, and then because of less believable reasons.

So it stayed in my mind, outside the list of official tasks, along with all the translations I'm supposed to do, and all the books I feel I'm supposed to read, and all the stories I feel I'm supposed to write.

It stayed in my mind and it was there when I stopped by Ralphs over by Hadley and Whittier.  My brother was buying stuff.  Emma was hungry verging on rage.  She was being extra patient.  Standing next to me, looking at real estate magazines.  I was looking for the writing magazines, which are increasingly rare in this city.  I had a bag of potatoes slung over my shoulder, one feel out, rolled over to an old ladies foot, and we started talking.  We started talking about how the dicks scaring everyone about healthcare reform are the same dicks who scared everyone about Kennedy, the Birchers and their many comrades.  And how Gingrich's clique in the nineties was looking to toss social security funds into the stock market, and how those people are always there, ready to push back.  Push it back as far as they can.  And how it's up to people like us to keep talking and keep doing what we can to fight back against them.

And I got the feeling that she must be with the Whittier Peace and Justice Coalition.  I knew it was time again to face the option.

And then she told me she was a Quaker too.  She invited me both to the movie night, and to her Church.

I Gain A Partner, Another Go At Family


H. wants to go with me every week.  After my dad died she was walled up in the house.  He told her, just before he died, that she had to remember that she was last on everyone's list, that all her brothers and sisters had their own families now that took precedence over her.

She cried and hid, afraid to go out.  Afraid to do anything, even the things she had to do every day.  Every thing she did highlighted the fact my father wasn't there.

Waking up announced the fact that he was gone.  Being invited out with me or with her family announced that she would have to go alone now.

She was severely depressed.

Now she's come out, decided to go on living and reach out to people, to try and get back into life.

So she's really excited about having the opportunity to explore a different religious meeting every week.

Participatory Church


The pastor told us that the room we sat in was designed as an embrace.  Rather than rows lined up in front of the stage, the seating is arranged in a little bit like a body with arms outstretched to hug.

The big idea about Jesus the pastor gave to us was that Jesus loved us and wanted more than anything for us to communicate with him, and return to his embrace.

What this meant in practical terms, was largely a return to the community of believers in the Meeting of Friends (Quakers.)

The number of parishioners at this church seem to have fallen.  There was definitely less people here than at the two Catholic churches I went to recently, but this may also be because of the fracturing tendency of protestants.

The idea of this Friends Meetings was that the pastor gave a little talk on the bible, children came up with her to sing a song, and then they had Communion.

Communion for them is not about 'macking on Jesus', but about actually communing with each other and with god.  They sit in silence and anyone who is moved to speak can do so.  There are microphones around the room for this.

It's kind of like just hanging out with fellow believers, but there's an official purpose of giving people a chance to say what the spirit is moving them to say, or anything else they feel is important for fellow believers to hear.

There wasn't a lot of sharing, only three or four people out of about sixty.

I guess their may be other meeting places, in other locations or other times with a more interactive group, eager to share.  But it's hard to get people to share what they're thinking in a large, formal group.

Despite the forum provided for them to share, the parishoners of First Friends Church are people who, like the rest of us, have been trained to be audience members, employees, and students.  We are taught to be either leaders or followers.

We are encouraged to vote for our leaders, give feedback to our professors and managers, and participate in meetings and classrooms.  But as children, we are taught that our participation is to occur within the boundaries set by teachers and parents, and our sincere efforts at socializing occurs almost exclusively outside the realm of adult supervision.

We often become ourselves in the meandering world of kids playing at recess, or in the backyard, or at the park.

When we get to adulthood, and often encounter professors with a desire to get us to all interact as a group, we look for what they really want of us, and do that so we can get back to our own lives.

When we start working and our bosses want ideas, we are most likely to consider what kinds of ideas they want us to come up with.

People who take policies of participation and equality, in the workplace or in school, seriously, are simply not practical people, they are not people who understand how things work, and they are people without common sense.

So I felt for the pastor and for those among the parishoners who were more 'into' the idea of it all.  What were they to do with their credo of listening and participation in a society of people reproducing and reinforcing the credo of knowing what to do, knowing what is expected of you, and being, in all things, appropriate.

You Can't Work With Someone Who Needs Nothing

The god the pastor told us about was a motherly god, and the pastor herself had a motherly air.  It would be great to feel this motherly presence hovering above me all the time, ready to forgive me and always calling me back home to be held, to be loved, and to be cared for.


But that feeling is a response to what I didn't have, but which I imagine I could have had.  The ideal of a mother who doesn't sometimes regret being a mother, a mother who does not need to go therapy, a mother who does not break down and leave us to fend for ourselves.  Their god is one who does not need our forgiveness or our understanding.

But if I had that Ideal mother, and even though I don't have that Ideal mother, I would want to help them, to know that I could do something for them.

Because that mother would be a human like me, rather than a projection of care and compassion.  The god that always loves me, never judges, and needs nothing, is one I can't do much with.

Just as anyone who never shows weakness, never shows fear, never shows want, is someone who I can't help, and can't be helped by, because anyone who has no wants, is someone who cannot be equal with us.

And anyone with no wants is someone who cannot be understood by us.  And we should never use this sort of being as a model for our own relations.  In fact, our mothers need forgiveness and understanding, help moving things, and help finding things.

Who is Calling Us To Where?

One of the pastor's main theme was that Jesus was calling his lost children back, back to him and back to the Friends Church.


And I assume she would say that people don't hear him calling because he gives them the choice not to listen.

And we all know that we feel all kinds of things pulling us in different directions.  We feel like we should do things, and we should say things.

It's no use adding another voice to the chorus of things calling us. 

What is more beneficial is for us to elucidate and understand that chorus, to understand what it is that we feel called to do, impelled to do, compelled to do.

Rather than focusing on supernatural forgiveness and love, we need to know how to handle the relationships we actually have with the people we love.  We have to deal with the issue of how we want to, or how we feel obliged to treat those we love.

I think it would be better to have time set aside to talk about our relationships with each other, rather than our relationships with god.

We'd be better off if we developed the ability to set aside time for talking about our economic relationships with  each other.  There is a lot we don't agree on in regards to our student-teacher relationships, and our relationships with our neighbors.

I think it would be better off if we accepted our own relationships and looked talked about what we want to do with them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Week 3: Xi Lai Temple (Attempted Meditation)

Buddha Hungry. 

Hanh canceled on me the night before.  Said she had an appointment to deal with her insurance after being rear ended a couple weeks ago.

So I was left alone.  Of course I asked Emma, felt compelled to sway her into accompanying me.  It's so natural to feel that she needs to go with me, whether or not I need her to go, she wants to go, or either of us care if she goes.

So I left, with a very small, distant sense of resentment.  I headed down Mar Vista, and made a left onto Colima  I knew something was wrong with my karma when I rolled up to the side of the temple.  It's in a rich neighborhood.  Up on the hill, immaculate lawns, every house six bedrooms. Buddha was all about getting out of the palace, not moving into palace-ville.  What's he doing here?

When I got into the temple's side entrance, I saw a bunch of Chinese men and women in military dress with patches saying US Army.  I don't think they were very military, though.  It's typical in China for security and parking lot attendants to wear military uniforms and camo. I don't know if they were Buddhists.  There's a whole group of these guys around the temples two entrances.  They all talk and like they just got here from the mainland.  I wonder if there's some kind of program to give Buddha visas to these guys.  They obviously weren't students, and I don't think you can get a work visa here to be a security guard. 

The guards didn't seem very buddha-like.  I asked them were the meditation hall was, but the only word I forgot how to say was 'meditation hall', so I asked "我问一下，我下次来这里听说每周日有meditation,九点到十点二十分。你们知道在哪儿吗”  They understood everything but 'meditation' so I just went on in and saw...

A long line of Vietnamese people, divided into groups with number signs.  I understood that someone in the front was calling out something about numbers in Vietnamese.  It struck me again as odd that there should be so many Vietnamese people coming here, considering this was a Chinese temple.  Someone told me it might be because they were Chinese-Vietnamese, but this doesn't seem likely to me.


But I went on up the stairs and in past the room where offerings were set out, and on into the main courtyard.  I checked the map to find where the meditation hall was, and saw that it was behind the main hall.  But when I got the main hall, I saw this:  A two row procession of young women wearing golden chains and jewelry around their head and on their hands, wearing dresses with purple, red, blue or green bordered in gold at the collars and shoulders, and rest of the dress was plain white.  In their hands they each held a plate of rice and imitation crab.

There was about twenty, in two lines, standing before the entrance.  Two my left there was another group waiting to take their place, in the same beautiful costumes.  In their hands they held a sort of imitation bacon.  It was a long rose and white striped ribbon, folded onto a plate.  Further to the left, around the corner of the temple, was another double line, this of slightly older women, dressed in pink hotel-receptionist looking uniforms. They held dishes of imitation steak.

Watching this made me aware that any man, be he ascended, a god, or otherwise, would love to have a procession of a hundred or so young women, and middle aged women serve/servicing him.  As for the food, though, I can't say as to who would want it.

But what was the point of this?  It was the Chinese New Year offering to Buddha. If you want Buddha to be good to you, you got to be good to him.  You don't know what kind of food he's into, so you prepare a bit of a selection for him to sample from.

Means Nothing To the Universe, Means Something to Us

While the procession went on, people were coming in and out of the temple, lighting incense and praying. As I realized that I couldn't find the meditation hall, I decided to go ahead and pray.

This was the best part.  I lit the incense and stood before the giant incense (urn?) thing and prayed for greater peace and understanding, I looked out over the hills and prayed for my brother, wife, and all my friends, to become closer, and to let go of the things that keep us walled from the world and each other.

I used to go pray like this at the Daoist temple by my house in Shanghai.  It is a powerful experience, as you feel the projection of your 'will', impotent though it may be in the face of the universe, over the rest of your mind, and the rest of your perceptual reality.

I hope there is something like pray we can do without any of the mythological baggage. And, of course, there is.  When I pray, I am not asking anyone for anything, I am just concentrating my experience of hope and merging with my experience of the wider universe.

And just as there is value in this sort of praying, so too is there much value in meditation.  After I had placed the incense in the ash, I stood around taking in the scene.  Eventually, I worked up the courage to talk to the only white people there.  Yes, despite being able to speak to anyone there in Mandarin or Chinese, I focused on the two white ladies.


We Above the Ignorant Herd

I guess part of it was that they were only ones who seemed like spectators, as they were moving their heads, pointing, and commenting to one another.  After a temple nun came up and talked to them, I made my move and asked if they came here regularly.  Only later did I realize that this seemed much too similar to a pick up line.

They said they attended the meditation services here and today there wasn't any because of the ceremony.  They told me all about what they had learned here.  The interesting thing was how they spoke of it.  Rather than describing it as getting something material, like many Chinese might, they discussed as if it was a philosophic sort of pursuit.  Buddhism was to them, a sort of means of acquiring understanding. 

And so it is with most western admirers of Buddhism/Daoism and other Eastern religions.  They admire the Buddha as a philosopher and spiritual being, rather than as someone to entreat for prosperity.  They admire the Dalai Lama as a wise man, rather than a god king to be worshiped.

They see in Daoism a means of grasping the universe, and don't see the fee based ceremonies or pantheon of saints.   Vulgar Daoism and Vulgar Buddhism have been just as prevalent as vulgar Christianity.  And when we contemplate the actual meaning of all three, we can not merely dismiss the vulgarity, for that is the central meaning, in terms of history and society.

If we are to accept the elevated understanding of religion, than we should do more than merely wave our hands at the vulgar mob.  For they are worthy of our enlightenment, if we think it superior to their own understanding.  It is clear why educated theologians and academics who have this elevated understanding of religion, without the superstition and dogma, spend more time pointing the shallow understanding of atheists than the shallow understanding of their fellow believers.  They think that the masses need this vulgarity.  It is pretty messed up to think your own truth is too much for your fellow humans to comprehend. 

And it is this vulgar religion, at least, that binds them, sucks their energy, their labor, their will, and aggregates in the form of the Chuch, the Temple, and the costume of mythology.

What We Should Do With Food.

It's fun to get dressed up, and it gives a heightened sense of meaning.  If we are to accept costumes such as religious ceremonies use, without finding it embarrassing or silly, than we should accept that it means something to us.

And if we are going to make all that food, than we should give it to someone or something that can eat the food, like ourselves, or those of us who can't get enough food.

I think we would all be happy if offerings were given to the poor instead of gods.  I think we would be even happier if we put our labor, energy and wealth into building places were everyone could live, were everyone would like living, were everyone could go to think of meaning in their lives.

We could make temple's everywhere, as what they really are, aggregations of symbolic value.  And we could set aside the symbolism of feeding gods, and put our focus on feeding each other.

Namaste!

Week 2: St. Cyprians

Let Us Do The Time Warp.

I was so nervous.  I woke up around five a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep.  I had arranged to go Catholic Mass this time, with Mercy's family.  This made it a lot easier, since I wanted to be on my best behavior and avoid offending these people who I care about and respect. 

The scary thing was walking into that den of suspension, where accumulated failed propositions still sit, banished from most of their previous domains.  The House of God used to be thought to actually contain some substance called god, and the communion ceremony used to be considered a substantial communion, like a warp key that took you to another dimension.  The soul was thought to move around, do things.

Like our immortal soul, god, the angels and the devil were all thought to have effects on this world, observable effects that we could record and discuss. 

The liturgy, the rosary, the candles, and the exorcism where all technologies used to deal with what was then the known world of the invisible. 

Then, as we know, the microscope, the telescope, the x-rays, and the satellites revealed none of this and we were left with a whole new world. 

Thus, we have all this stuff now about how it's all faith, a noble tradition, a separate magesterium, and untouchable by puny science. 

But, on occasion, we step back into that ancient world, the museum of theories now known to be absurd. 

And in this Museum of Absurdities we are asked to give our lives to the great Belief.  To believe in the Belief that guided European civilization into it's glorious phase of world domination and beyond. 

A Step Up From Last Week. 

But rather than contemplating a possible belief in god, most of the time I was trying to hold back insane, spasmodic giggles.  A couple of times I was touched, and, overall, I was impressed. 

What was most impressive was simply the production of the whole event.  My childhood attendance of Sunday Mass left with me memories of big cold rooms, a lot of esthetically questionable emerald green apparel, odd plaids and other patterns, hard pews, a droning voice heard all around me, joking with my brothers, and my mother and grandmother pinching me to stay awake. 

But St. Cyprian's puts effort into it.  They got a choir, with a great sound system, a lady on stage who was singing in counterpart to the choir, and she was singing good, and she was pretty.

I thought this was only for protestant Churches.  The song was done well (except for one parishioner who was having a hard time finding the note she had apparently left at home), but what they were singing about made no sense.

They were singing about 'when you hear the voice of god....' and I think the idea was 'when you hear the voice of god...' just go with it!  And when you hear it that means it's the real deal, and that means that the voice you hear is that of the Catholic god.

But the common experience many of us have of that internal sense of something we call god, or our ancestors, or the spirits, doesn't tell us much of anything. 

The internal experience we associate with religious experience doesn't say "Corinthians is mistranslated." "The book of Mormon is fifty-percent true."  "Jesus was the son of God." 

There is no voice inside anyone's head sending propositions about the invisible world only accessible by belief (faith), because the voices are coming from your mind, and that invisible world is your mind! 

All stupid jokes about insanity aside, we all hear sounds or voices in our mind at different times.  The brain reproduces auditory phenomena just as it reproduces visual phenomena. 

 The Good Stuff He Said, The Good Stuff We Did.


But it was a clear step up from last week.  Not just in the production, but also in the activities and the guy dong the sermon. 

Last time, I just sat there, and everybody was just sitting.  But this time, we did all kinds of moves.   We stood up, then sat down again, then kneeled, then sat down, then stood up.  We turned to the left, to the right, to the front and back, and side to side. 

I learned the value of this when I was teaching kids in China.  The more you move in tune with the lesson, the more likely you are to absorb what's being taught. 

And, even better than that, there were at least two times when we were all asked to stand up and interact with each other, first we said hi, and then we shook hands and said "Peace be with you."!  That's so nice.  There's like three hundred people in the Church, all being friendly with each other. 

Solidarity, friendship, and intimacy require commonality of experience and identity.  The context of the mass is great in that it gives all of us an excuse to let down the barriers that generally leave us emotionally and cognitively isolated. 

Helping us all feel relaxed was the attitude of Fr. Souza.  He was informal and came relaxed, even adding some passable jokes that aroused laughter in the audience. 

Better than that, he made some good points, before he strayed off into nonsense.  

He told us that giving up things for lent helps us to understand those of our loved ones who are going through struggles with addiction.  No kidding.  I have constantly compared my experience of loved one's addiction issues with my own compulsive behaviors.  Giving up those things I feel I can't give up, like yoghurt, carrying books around with me everywhere, always having lectures/podcasts/novels playing in my ear, always giving vent to the issues that drive me crazy when I hear other people mentioning them, gives me a sense of liberation and lets me feel at peace with myself. 

He told us of a saying, that worry is like a rocking chair, it's something to do, but it gets you nowhere!  That's like what I was always tell Emma, that we have to put our worry energy into planning energy, otherwise we'll get nothing done and just have more to worry about. 

Yucky Stuff
 
But most of the mass was focused on passages from the bible, that told us not to trust in people, but to trust in the lord.  (who just happens to be only accessible through people, hee hee.)  And told us that we are blessed if we hope in the lord.  And you're blessed if you're poor, but not exactly cursed if you're rich. 

What He Should Have Said

It would take effort to make the following message into a song, but blessed be ye who tries.  When you hear the voice of god, analyze it.  Sit with the experience and allow your mind to become aware of it. 

There is no reason any voice in your mind need be right or wrong.  First, and above all else, we need understanding.  

What a great jump it is to go from internal experience to thousands of prepackaged propositions concerning absolutely everything essential to our lives. 

When you hear the voice of god, calling you talking to you.  Accept first that you are having this experience, and accept that this is, initially, all you know.  Allow your memories and the rest of your mind to connect with and around this experience. 

Don't sustain fear or love of the experience, sustain only your awareness of it.  Beyond that, I want to tell you nothing else to do with the voice of god.  If you actually hear voices telling you to do things or believe things, then you ought to critique them harshly, doubt them, and contrast them with the evidence of the people and world around you. 

Whether or not you practice lent, you ought to consider the practice of giving things up. 

The things you feel you cannot give up, become tied into your identity, and restrain you.  Learning to cut off  the binds that link you to those petty desires can help you to form a freer and more peaceful identity. 

Freedom and peace are not separate, negative conditions.  They are positive values fulfilled through solidarity with other humans.  Learn to trust in others.  

I don't mean learn who you can never doubt, or learn who you can obey.  I mean learn how and when you can trust others.  The more you understand this about the people around you, the more you can achieve a greater identity through the relationships you form. 

When you can trust others, and they can trust you, you establish security.   This is something done in union with others.  Communion, community, and the solidarity of humanity coincides with our individuality.  Just as differentiation and integration are essential to knowing, so are they are also essential to our living. 

The End, no procession of new Catholics, no wafers and wine, no coffee and donuts.  I'm fat and out of shape, give me some tea and toast (just thinking of that makes me so hungry for a garlic onion bagel with lots of cream cheese!!!!)

Peace be with you. 

Week 1: Whittier Calvary Baptist

 MY REASONS, Ohhh My Reasons

So, you don't think there'd be much point for me going to church.  I never really believed in that stuff except when I was a seven year old, even though I struggled with the possibility that Buddhism or Christianity were true well into my teens.

But Church is a great thing.  The only real problem with it is the mythological aspect.

The things we can all enjoy about Church are the sense of community, the sense of peaceful contemplation (optional for churchgoers), the enjoyment of having a specialized venue for the purpose of thinking about the general issues in one's life, and the same sort of value we get from going to see a thought provoking movie, play, opera, or lecture.

Pastor John's sermon could have been a really insightful lecture.  How nice it would have been to dress up a little, go to the lecture hall, take a walk afterward with my friends and family,  over to cozy uptown Whittier, and sit outside Mimo's Cafe, eating breakfast and discussing what we thought of the issues presented.


Instead, what we thought was: what a bunch of freaky nonsense.  My wife was the most incredulous, as she grew up in a godless nation, where no one even thought it useful to talk about religion.  Imagine that, learning all the myths of your own culture, without being told they are real, or that people actually believe them.

The main myth that Pastor John focused on was something inconceivable to people born into an atheistic culture: Adam, Eve, the apple, and Jesus's loophole.

Before he got into the main topic, he started off good.  He started off by noting how we all blame other people for our problems.  That's a great topic, because we do it all the time, and it feels better when we can admit it in a group context without having to worry about other people using it against us.

But Pastor John wasn't saying that we should stop blaming each other, do a Michael Jackson, and start with the (wo)man in the mirror.  He was saying we should start blaming Adam and Eve.

That was the whole thing.  That means, two people, whose existence is unverifiable were immortal until they ate magic fruit.  Than they lost their immortality.  The man was punished by being made to practice farming, and the woman was punished by having to go through painful childbirth.

This is what we in the audience were supposed to use in explaining why we did bad things.

Rather than employing psychology to explain the choices we make, Pastor John appealed to a myth to explain our inborn nature.  Along with modern social biologists and previous environmental determinist, pastor John is bypassing the beautiful simultaneous complexity of our minds.  For him, the key is magic fruit.

This story contains an interesting parallel with a Chinese story about magic fruit and immortality.

When I noted this parallel in the pamphlet we were given, "Know Your DNA", and pointed it out to my wife, she started giggling and caused me to experience a laughing fit!  I was so embarrassed. Nobody really noticed, but still.  I couldn't stop!

              The Oriental Connection

What I had written was 长生不老， which is a phrase in Chinese for immortality, used in reference to traditional myths, and Daoist legends.  Next to that I wrote 苹果/桃子, which means apple/peach.

The Chinese story most similar to the Eden story stars Sun Wu Kong, the famous Monkey King.  Like the Children of God, he was destined to live forever.  After going to hell and wiping his name off the official scrolls, thus guaranteeing he could never be claimed by death, he went up to heaven and asked the Jade Emperor (the ruler of heaven) to hook him up.  The Jade Emperor gave him a job in a magic garden.


Now, the Monkey King didn't need a talking snake to tell him what to do, since he was a talking monkey.  He had heard about the magic peaches in the garden, and how, if you ate them, you would live forever.


Eventually, the Monkey King was put under a mountain by Buddha, in punishment for his disobedience of Heaven's laws.  But he got let out later, and no later generation of monkey's were punished for his sins.


Chinese kids learn a lot of these stories, they're just not indoctrinated into believing that they actually happened, that would be insane.

         What He Should Have Said

Rather than further indoctrinating these people into false solutions, here's a summary of the sermon he should have gave.

Everyone is always quick to point the finger.  We don't do it all the time, but everyone does it all the same.

Admitting your errors, and actively seeking your responsibility for the bad things that happen in your life, helps you to grow.

By grow, I mean it helps you to have a fuller acceptance and understanding of your world.  The need to point the finger is a fear based need.  It is a need to defend yourself.

But most of the time, there is nothing that can harm us in admitting that we are wrong, that we have lied to our friends, that we have used our anger as an excuse for insulting someone we care, that we have disagreed with someone merely because we were grumpy.

To point the finger at ourselves need not involve assuming false responsibility. There is a type of strength that we need in order to hold ourselves steady in the face of guilt, in the face of accusations from others, or in the doubt we have of our own motives.

To point the finger were your reason says it ought to go, regardless of if it points at you or elsewhere, is also a great act of leveling, of equalizing, of solidarity.  It is a great way to help reinforce the fact we are all equal in our capacity to sin, not in the sense of disobeying an object of belief, but in the sense of hurting others, acting stupid, and just messing up.

It is an act of solidarity because it takes us away from being better or worse, from being separate.  It brings us together by showing that we are all facing the task of trying not to screw up, trying not take advantage other, and trying to protect ourselves.  Letting go of the need to point the finger at others first, allows us to take our place among humanity and grow closer to each other.

That's the end of the sermon, then I would do snack time, rather than the wafers/wine thing they did.

            P.S.

Emma said "Those people must be crazy.  They go drink blood every weekend."  

Also, I picked up a little periodical in the entrance called "The Wonders Of Science."  The second paragraph begins "The opportunity to provide these youth with solid reasons supporting their faith."  That's what they mean by "Wonders."

Inside they have an article about Answers In Genesis and Ken Ham, who leads this group of people who claim to love science, just as long as it doesn't contradict the bible.  So silly!!!


One more thing.  Don't mention the blood thing to Emma, it makes her nauseous.