People's march in Manhatten for positive world changes in climate change policy on 09/21/14

Is weeping a spiritual practice?

Linda McCullough Moore tells a poignant story in her book of short stories, This Road Will Take Us Closer To The Moon, entitled, "Freeing Spirits". This is a story about attending a rememberance ceremony at the college in the narrator's town where they are freeing the souls, after sixty years, of the people we killed at Hiroshima by making floating laterns which they launch out on the water.

Moore writes, "I'm thinking that if it's that simple, why didn't they do it sixty years ago?"

I'm thinking, why did America do this to begin with?

And I am reminded once again of our Unitarian Universalist second principle of justice, equity, and compassion in human relations and weep.

Weeping. My spiritual practice for today.

Can you find the truth trying to teach pigs to sing?

Bob was called into his supervisor's office and asked, "Have you stopped stealing from the company yet. Just answer me 'yes' or 'no'. I don't need to hear justifications, explanations, rationalizations!"

Bob said, "I can't answer 'yes' or 'no' the way you have asked the question. If I say 'yes' it implies I have stolen from the company in the past and have stopped, and if I say 'no' it implies that I have stolen in the past and continue to do so."

"I don't want any of your smart mouth and double talking," said the supervisor. "I just want to get to the bottom of this situation where things are missing and our accounts are short every month."

"I can't help you," said Bob.

"You're a liar and a thief!" shouted the supervisor. "You're fired."

And Bob being a Unitarian Universalist believed in the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, but this was not the way to go about the search. Bob said to his supervisor, "You can never find the right answers if you don't ask the right questions. With the kind of leadership you are providing to this company, it will go down the drain eventually. It can't survive with its current managerial mind set and practice."

"That's right, college boy, you're the smart one who's got all the answers. We'll be better off when you're gone," said the supervisor.

What's the moral of the story? As Jesus said, "Don't throw pearls before swine." As a wise friend of mine said, "Did you hear the joke about the farmer who tried to teach his pig to sing?"

"No, I haven't," I said.

"Frustrated the heck out of the farmer and annoyed the heck out of the pig."

We both laughed vigorously. I think they call it  "guffawing."

Literacy in the world

I'd rather be used than be alone.

In her ninth story in her book of short stories, This Road Will Take Us Closer To The Moon, Linda McCullough Moore tells the story of a woman dating a man she met on line whose wife has died and who takes her into his dead wife's bedroom to show her his dead wife's clothing.

The title of this story is "Something about darkness; something about light." The second paragraph reads as follows, "Any chance of some light?" I say. A half-burnt votive candle, a boy's flashlight, a bent match. Perhaps a drawn-out flash of lightening in the summer sky. I am not particular."

It is a poignant story about grief and sadness, loss and sorrow witnessed by a woman considering this man as a possible next partner.

The story ends this way:

"He slides the dresses on the hangers down a pole, takes one out, replaces it, and then another. He picks a third and holds it up critically, then turns and holds it out to me.
     'This one,' he says. 'Try this one first.'"

The end.

And you are left wondering can she be the replacement? Will she be the replacement? Should she be the replacement?

Life is like that, right, where we try to avoid the acceptance of loss by replacing the person or thing we were attached to. Don't worry about putting your 13 year old aged dog to sleep. We can go to the pound and get a new one next week. Or can we?

This might work if you will wear her old clothes. And for approval and acceptance we are willing to turn ourselves into something or someone we're not to get the other person to like us. As a young teen age client told me about her promiscuity, "I'd rather be used, than be alone."

How not to be ignorant about the world

According to studies most people are ignorant about the world because of personal bias, outdated facts, and media bias. It seems that on many topics the media supplying the facts are most ignorant of all.

The major misconceptions that people have are that things are getting worse, inequality between the rich and poor is increasing, the rich come first and then social uplift, and that what the media tells us to fear because those things are dangerous give us a skewed and inaccurate view of the world.

It turns out that the opposite of our misconceptions are more likely to be accurate. Most things tend to improve, most things move to the middle not to the extremes, social uplift comes first before enhancements for the rich, and most of the things that the media focuses on because they are sensational are not as dangerous as other things the media doesn't, or rarely, mentions at all.

The problem is that skewed facts and people's intuition (common sense) is often wrong because causality is attributed when there is merely correlation, and causality and correlation are two different things.

It is important for us to ask experts, "What are your most important facts that the public doesn't know?"

Stupid people think they know when they really don't. Their hubris and arrogance often create problems for the community and public. This kind of ignorance might be considered a new form of sin where the community is negatively impacted by stupidity. Unitarian Universalists are a people of faith who believe in skepticism and who encourage the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Amen. May it continue to be so.

If your mother beats you stay away from her or they will put her in jail.

The eighth story in Linda McCullough Moore's book of short stories, "This Road Will Take Us Closer To The Moon" is entitled "Mother's Helper." The narrator, an eight year old little girl tells the story of visiting her mother's friend who has two teen age daughters one of whom tells the narrator that the narrator's mother is going to jail because she hits and beats her children. She is further told that she can keep her mother out of jail by not allowing her mother to hit her which she does by running from her when her mother is angry and likely to hit her. The narrator says:

"I told my brothers and sister that our mother could be put in prison for beating us and so to be on guard and always run away. I don't know if they did or not. You can't remember anybody else's childhood, sometimes not that much of your own." p.100 - 101

I loved this story because at age 68 I still remember well avoiding my father out of fear that he would lose his temper and hit me. I got very good at perceiving his moods and either being hypervigilant if he was in a bad mood or allowing myself to be a bit more relaxed when he was in a better mood.

My brother, one year younger, didn't seem to have the same perceptive skills I had developed and would walk into my father's furry and beat on a regular basis while I was able to side step it. I have felt guilty for this my whole life and angry at my brother that he never seemed to develop the same level of empathic skills to read other people's emotions and manage them for them so he could keep himself from getting hurt.

I remember he and I one time left the house and got the crossing guard on the corner to come to our house because we were afraid that my father was getting out of control and would beat my mother. I certainly became my mother's little helper, and when older her surrogate husband, and the protector of my younger siblings.

There are a lot of children who grow up being what we call "parentified children" because they play the role of a third parent when the parents are out of control or negligent.

In Unitarian Universalism and other religions domestic violence is often ignored or rationalized. God, after all, wanted His own son sacrified and crucified to appease God's anger at human sinfulness. So, I, and millions of others, have grown up with a perverse belief in submitting to and accepting abuse as a necessary atonement for our sins and a sacrificial martyrdom on the behalf of others.

Of course this myth is perverse, dysfunctional, and leads to much human suffering. As a 68 year old man, I no longer live in fear of my father's abuse, but I continue to be leary of sadistic, angry types who seem to get their jollies from taking their frustrations and insecurities out on other people. Those who would lead nations to war, torture "terrorists", and administer capital punishment under the guise of justice still scare me the most. I refuse to help them, and wonder what would happen if more of us also refused? What if our leaders called for war and no one showed up?