Quote the day, Camille Dungy - how our society supports the wealth of the few

In the interview of Camille Dungy in the June, 2018 issue of The Sun magazine, the interiewer Airica Parker says to Dungy,  "Speaking of glorifying the wealth of the minority, you write that in 1860 only around “5 percent of the Southern population owned even one slave, and a significantly smaller percentage owned more than twenty.”

And Dungy responds in part,  "My point is that most white people didn’t have the kind of wealth that the institution of slavery was protecting, just like most people today don’t have the kind of wealth protected by tax codes that allow a billionaire to write off a private jet but don’t allow schoolteachers to write off $250 worth of school supplies. It’s sometimes difficult to accept the fact that whole portions of our society were built up — are still built up — to support the wealth of just a few."

Editor's note: 
It is interesting how the 99% support the wealth of the 1%. What kind of a system is this that we have created here in the United States?

Is the resentment of this fact being manipulated by a billionaire President to fuel further racism and authoritarian policies to further enrich the 1% by encouraging one group of the 99% to hate another group of the 99% to distract them from realizing who the real culprits are who have rigged the system for their favor?

This rigging of the system is in violation of UUs second principle, "justice, equity, and compassion in human relations." It is also something which Jesus consistently pointed out - the unfairness of the treatment of the poor by the wealthy minority. Jesus never censured people for sexual behavior, but He constantly advocated for a juster system for the poor in society.

Are you misunderstood?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations, but what they fail to explicitly acknowledge is that most things people think, say, and do are ridiculous.

Here is a fact of life - As soon as you say something it will be misunderstood.

People interpret statements according to their own minds. Most people's minds are biased; they are ridiculous.

This fact is not rocket science. It is very apparent. We experience it hundreds of times every day, and yet we continue on oblivious, impervious.

Most people's minds are fast asleep. They are sleep walking through life, conditioned by cognitive and emotional processes they have no awareness of.

Most people live under the illusion that they have free will. This is what the ego has tricked them into believing so that the ego can stay in charge.

Ask yourself or someone else, "What makes you tick?" Most people have no idea. They are not the least bit mindful. The want, and cling, and hide their sense of lack as they strive to attain whatever it is that they think will make them satiated and whole.

This striving is a sad thing to watch. It is a fool's errand based on fear.

Psychologists tell us that the biggest problem with people addicted to social media in our digital age is FOMO - fear of missing out.

No where is the phenomena of misunderstanding greater than on social media.

It has been described as "ridiculous."

It is time to turn off the path of the ego, and ridiculousness, onto the path of the spirit and peace.

This turning takes forgiveness. We can forgive ourselves for our ridiculousness and others and it is this act which makes all the difference.

Quote of the day - Where did America's wealth come from?

"America would not be the wealthy country it is without slave labor. We would not have our power or wealth if we had not, for a very long time, depended on the unpaid labor of millions of human beings. I feel like I shouldn’t have to spell this out, but maybe I do. America was built by the labor of enslaved men, women, and children. Cotton wasn’t king just in the South. Many of the most productive cotton mills were in the North, as were the insurance companies and other industries that profited off those mills. Without a lot of unpaid labor, those profits would have been significantly less. And we are still depending on the unpaid or underpaid labor of millions of human beings — from prison workers to immigrants to foreign labor. The question of slavery is still with us. America has a legacy of harming other human beings and justifying that harm by glorifying the wealth it brings to a few. Thankfully America also has a legacy of resisting that impulse."

Camille Dungy, The Sun, June 2018, p.7

What do you have faith in?

Osho says,

"In fact, the moment a child is perfectly conditioned by you, you are very happy; you call it 'religious education.' You are very happy that the child has been initiated in the religion of his parents. All that you have done is you have destroyed his capacity to know on his own. You have destroyed his authenticity. You have destroyed his very precious innocence. You have closed his doors and windows. Now he will have an encapsulated existence. He will live in his inner darkness, surrounded by all kinds of stupid theories, systems of thoughts, philosophies, ideologies. He will be lost in a jungle of words and he will not be able to come out easily.

Even if he comes across a Master, if he meets a Buddha, then too it will take years for him to unlearn - because learning becomes almost your blood, you bones, you marrow. And to go against you own knowledge seems to be going against yourself, against your tradition, against your country, against your religion, It seems as if you are a traitor, as you are betraying. In fact, your society has betrayed you, has contaminated your soul." p.217 "Ah, This!"

Rev. Galen Guengerich, the pastor at All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City describes, in his book, God Revised, how when he left his conservative Mennonite community in central Delaware to go to Princeton Theological divinity school that his family and friends were afraid he would lose his faith. Guengerich said, in fact, he didn't lose "his" faith, he lost "their" faith, and now was free to find his own.

Spirituality, unlike religion, is not taught to a person, or given to a person, it must be found by the person as part of his/her own experience. Spirituality is not a creed, a set of beliefs, or the practice of special rituals, or adherence to traditional activities. Spirituality is the experience of the Divine within and among the Divine's creations.

Most of religion appears on the path of the ego. Spirituality appears on the path of the spirit.

What do you have faith in? What informs and gives your experience of your life meaning?

What does it take to be spiritual?

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and knowledge.

People are not aware that knowledge is not truth. Knowledge is borrowed. Truth is personal.

Religion is not knowledge. Religion is experience.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that knowledge is spiritual. Knowledge is counterfeit spirituality. For a true spiritual experience, knowledge has to be set aside. Knowing about swimming and actually swimming are two entirely different things. In the same way, knowing about religion and being religious are two different things.

As David Francis, the Unitarian pioneer said, we need not think alike to love alike.

Spirituality, in the Christian tradition, is walking in Love. That doesn't take knowledge. It takes forgiveness.

What books do for us

UU A Way Of Life podcast, Episode #10 - Spiritual growth