Alternative Thanksgiving

On the surface, it appears the current obsession in the Modern World is evaluating and coming to terms with the past, mostly the shameful parts. This is useful in so much as it is important to cast off the polite fictions we use to convince ourselves of inherent superiority, manifest destiny, or self referential virtue. However, as C. S. Lewis said, "It's not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad archangels."

Looking closer, it becomes more obvious the current obsession is judging the past in terms of the present, and especially taking a biased selection of past events to confirm present narrative.  It's true that much of public education glosses over, or ignores anything other than signal events. We learn that the Pilgrims came to New England, but we don't look at daily life for Native or Euro-Americans.  We learn that the Civil War was about States Rights, specifically the right to own slaves, but we don't hear much in the voice of former slaves, or  drafted Union soldiers, or immigrant New England housewives back home for that matter.  However, all this so called hidden information is actually there if we look.  The issue isn't that it is being suppressed, but that it is being ignored.  The problem isn't that it is dangerous to teach it, but that it is easier to not pay attention, not in favor of some dominant power structure, but simple distraction, at all levels, including those who hold fashionably negative views about the colonial past.  Thus just as manifest destiny and inherent superiority did two centuries ago, narrative masked as justice fills in now.

The reality is this oversimplification of understanding, in-group favoritism as defined by whatever the fashion of the day is, and corresponding rejection of those who are not "in" combined with ignorance of history to justify current bias is nothing new.  The Greeks and Romans, and the Egyptians and Sumerians before them had their iconoclasts, cultural awakenings, and progressive regimes seeking to usher in a utopia, as has every other long lived mass civilization to our present day.  Meanwhile, a glance at history simply confirms this. 

A glance at history also confirms the futility of these efforts.  Even though the arch of progress is positive, the down trends carry away far more lives the higher up it goes.  Just look at the signal events, which are mostly related to wars.  However, we must look past signal events here too to see the whole story. 

The further truth to refute the dangerous notion of inherent superiority is fairly simple for the majority of us to find if we simply look at our own families.  It is a fortunate and possibly non-existent person who, growing up, had no bad experiences, was never disappointed by parents or siblings, does not have an aunt or uncle who is broken in some way, does not have criminals in the extended family to name a few banal examples.  Going farther back, in every culture, in every period in recorded history to include the current one there were rapists, murders, slavers, drunks, prostitutes, war criminals, abusers, womanizers, oppressors, losers, outcasts, slaves, and even sacrificial victims.  Many of these people had children.  It is staggeringly likely that all of us carry the genes of such ancestors, if not in living memory, at some point in our family story.  Jesus certainly did, and they are named in His genealogy. 

We are all, at some point the product of those who have done evil, who have contributed to those down trends in the arch of progress, and certainly from their victims as well.  If we look even closer, we will find we too fall short of any sort of ideal imaginable.  We have all hurt, been hurt, manipulated, been played, and carry scars, regrets, pain and disappointment.  Suffering, though more spectacular for some than others, is a universal human experience, and so is committing evil.  

However, here we are.  Some better off, some homeless alcoholics.  Some freeing the oppressed, some recovering from trauma.  Some trying to mend their wrongs, and some still ignorant of theirs.  We substitute narrative for reality to make sense of it.  To bring purpose to the pain and suffering.  But it is a delusion when it doesn't attempt to take into account as much of reality as it can.  If we aren't careful, we descend into vengeful, petty, self centered, and self imposed suffering.  The alternative is freedom, as no one can compel us to to respond any other way than we will to a circumstance. 

Thus the narrative I substitute for chaotic evil is one of thanks.  It is a powerful narrative because I am the one in control of it.  Though I am the product of suffering, and evil, though I have fallen short of any ideal, both through my own choices and the actions of others, I am thankful, and I have the choice to be thankful.  I am thankful because all these variables have contributed to my life, and to my current moment.  These inputs have given emergent rise to non-linear potential.  Potential that every human life shares in its basic substance, even the homeless alcoholics.  Even you. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

   

A Few Nights In Bangkok

Walking the streets of a metropolis. It could be anywhere in the world. This time it's in Southeast Asia. It was The City of Angeles to be specific. For me, the mystique of the exotic, other, different has long since worn off. It could be Los Angeles at this point. It could be anywhere because I am struck now by the visceral understanding of what I have intellectually known for some time. Strip away birth place, opportunity, privilege, life experience, a few few good choices and a few bad, and there is not that much different between anyone, from the street beggar dangling a bit of rice to draw a rat out of its hole to the frat boy chugging a nati light at whatever elite institution. They are both filling a void. There isn't that much different between the Hi So socialite speeding down the way in whatever European Sports Car, and the street prophet in San Francisco preaching of the end times. They both live for the spotlight. Even when survival is at stake, we seek meaning above all else.

Then there are the harder workers too. The prostitutes, many supporting their children. It seems most people anywhere will do anything for their children. Then there are the street children themselves, capable of sophistication and manipulation that would make a politician blush. Never assume youth means lack of intelligence. There are savants in every slum in the world, as surely as there are child prodigies getting into elite institutions.

There are the street walkers, the poorer country refugees, bar girls/boys, the tourists for sex and to discover themselves. The homeless, the well off. The men and women doing hard work to bring a better future. The men and women chasing away the pain, and those just floating through. 

I walk on by observing everything, and trying to admire nothing. And then I hear it, and in the way it always comes as a small enough voice, but one that I imagine echos across eternity. "I am here. I am love. This is my world, and you may say this is my Father's world". And just like that, the visceral understanding hits. 

Strip away cultural biases, historical context, language, upbringing, experience, everything else that differentiates, and there it is. Everyone from the street hooker, homeless drug addict, single mother, gang member, government official, religious leader, academic, CEO, etc, we are all made in the image of the Creator. Everyone you meet is made in the image of Creator, including you. 

Now consider that same Creator never left. That Creator was our Father and our Mother. That Creator made a point of entering the world as creation. That Creator had skin in the game. That creator died. 

And He is Risen

The Near Side Of The River Styx

The one thing we all share in common regardless of what age or status we were born to is that we all entered the world alone, and we will all leave it equally alone.  Much has been said for nature verses nurture determining the course of our lives between the two poles of loneliness.  Some are born to high status.  Some into garbage dumps.  Some die surrounded by loved ones, and some die on the street corner completely alone.  Regardless, we were all born and we will all die.  What happens between the two is not so much about the conditions that the one started and the other ended, but more about the choices we make between the two.  You see, of all the things out of your control, you will always have control over your own reaction, if you so desire.

Freedom is a choice.  It is a choice to accept the position as a single individual who is solely responsible for his or her actions.  The tempest of reality brings its force to bare on all.  It is always your choice how you will respond.

All humans suffer.  The degree to which we suffer depends on the station to which me were born, but all suffer.  To negate this is to ignore reality.  To the degree that you suffer, make it meaningful.

Be that dark figure on the near shore who catches those who can't pay the fair across the River Styx.  By that one to talk to the homeless alcoholic on the street corner.  Be that one to care.  Be the single individual who is willing to be the change you so desire.

Be truly human.

The Original Sin

It is common, and perhaps even an ingrained habit of the human condition to confuse symptoms with underlying causes. The real issues arises when you start exclusively treating/avoiding the symptoms and ignore the causes. Who ever heard of the black mold infestation in your shower going away because you just didn't go in there, or the check engine light fixing itself just because you stopped paying attention to it?

However, we do the same thing with much more serious issues all the time. We stay in jobs we hate because we lack courage to know what we truly want, and so we medicate the symptoms of our depression with all manner diversions. We stay in bad relationships, or avoid them all together because the status quo is less fear inducing than dealing with why we cannot love ourselves in the first place. We triangulate the pain and trauma of lingering emotional and spiritual injury away into surface conflicts with family, friends and the general public, or we medicate the pain away with whatever addiction so suits our fancy, preferably something that shadows the deepest longings of our hearts and deepest wishes of our psyches, which was what was injured in the first place.

The deepest human fear is not death. It is not being known. And yet to avoid the pain of disappointment at taking the risk to be known and possibly failing, we do all we can to avoid it in the first place, and instead substitute a shadowy approximation of who we think we are. We pose.

Because posing is ultimately an outgrowth of insecurities our deepest psyches cannot shake, the pain never really goes away and the need to medicate the symptoms continues. Apart from those who are simply and truly evil in that, due to brain damage, they have no moral compass, the vast majority of deviant behavior is nothing more than a symptom of the great divide between who we really are and our fear and shame of the same. 

The original sin is not the horde of external symptoms, and lascivious fleshly desires, whatever those are. The original sin is allowing false dichotomies to divide and fragment our living souls. It wasn't in black and white called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for nothing. Of course there is good and evil in the world. I would not be writing if it were not so. However, the embrace of the same in favor of embracing life causes a fragmentation of our hearts and minds, which is only satisfied by either further fragmenting and  compartmentalizing the vast majority of reality to protect that which is seen as good, while that which is seen as evil seems never to fully disappear, kind of like the black mold infestation in your shower, or one can embrace life and thus address the underlying root cause of the issue. This however, requires courage and acceptance of who one truly is. It is only after this step is taken that whatever perversions have posed in your place can be corrected to their original form, which was is not perverse. 

We are ever presented with the option to stay backstage posing as players in some shadow of existence, or step out from behind the curtain and go live. 

The War On Poverty 50 Years Later

Today marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Baines Johnson declaring war on poverty. Over those 50 years the percentage of people living in poverty in the US has declined from 19 to 15 percent. At the same time the actual population of people living in poverty has risen from 36 million to 47 million today because of the population increase over the last 50 years.

Now, it is a simple thing to declare this something of a success with the perennial qualification of "but there is still much work to be done". At the same time, those on the other side of the political spectrum can just as easily claim it to be a Pyrrhic victory  because, for all the financial, political and emotional resources that have been expended in this "war", a 4 percent decrease is indicative of a waste of time.

It has already been shown from all that has gone before that neither side will win an argument as to the validity or even the existence of victory in the eyes of the other. However, this has as much to do with how the problem of poverty has been framed and it's supposed solutions derived as it does with partisan opinions. 

Poverty is and has always been a serious problem and a stain on the honor and conduct of any nation that has willfully allowed practices that dispose people to it. Although it is also true that poverty in much of the rest of the world is relatively and actually far worse, it is none the less the case that to the degree to which it exists here, it is unacceptable.  These are high ideals and high ideals are required if a society wishes to aspire to something greater than it is now. However, as always, what goes unseen is more important than what lies on the surface. 

Poverty, and the so called war on it has become nothing more than a convenient rallying point for differing political positions to gain legitimacy by seeming to do something without doing anything at all. This is not an indictment of any politician or political position in specific, but simply a description of what has been the case as long as people have appealed to mass society in order to gain favor. A four percent decrease over 50 years is not indicative of a dysfunctional government hampered by partisanship, but rather that the programs in place have maintained the status quo at best and kept people in poverty at worst. 

It is far easier to appear to be doing something when the measures of success are unclear or non-existent than it is to actually do something meaningful that lasts. As has been said before though, even those with the best intentions in the current system are and will be restricted by the nature of the system itself. In a world of finite resources in which a zero sum game is the regime, zero will always be the sum. No amount of policy and legislation will solve something as deep as human suffering. Thus it is better to stop waiting for such to come about and campaigning for it as if it were a life and death struggle. It is better to actually act on supposed personal ideals and do something. 

Doing something does not require quitting your day job. It does not so much even require going out of one's way. What it does require is putting words to action. The poor are closer than you think. Many of us avoid their neighborhoods on our way home every day. Many of us ignore them when we pass them on the street corner. Many of us claim we are too busy to pay attention, or too broke to contribute to legitimate organizations dedicated to providing for those in need. 

Until we start fighting the war on poverty one individual at a time, why should we expect something as systematic and machine like as the government to do a human's job? Some may complain about freedoms being limited. The freedom to have compassion is not, and it benefits all who take advantage of it.  

LBJ did because he experienced it first hand

Christmas

Good intentions are not the same things as good results. The actual result of something is more important than the form that thing took. Likewise, wisdom is vindicated by all of her children.

The modern world has a way of confusing ultimate and lasting good with what makes you feel good right now. Though there is nothing wrong with immediate pleasure and comfort, the experience is non-benign if divorced from deeper realities. It is this disaggregation of our surface experiences from deeper realities, and subsequent compartmentalization of different aspects of our lives that leads to many of our personal and relational problems.

At the same time, good results must be recognized for what they are. This is all a roundabout way of getting to the point, which is that despite all of the stress, chaos, confusion, and sometimes loneliness, solitude and depression that are a part of this time of year; despite the rampant materialism, political correctness, and loss of perspective as to the original meaning of the season, even if the original meaning was a week of festivities dedicated to the god Cronus, the ultimate result is what matters. 

The preponderance of us are drawn closer to those we love and care about, and are given cause to reflect on that which we consider meaningful. There is joy, there is happiness, even if there is sorrow. 

It is for this last point it is most fitting that some of us celebrate the coming of the Divine in human form on this day. In the midst of pain and suffering, joy and hope, not apart from the darkness, but in the midst of it. The light does indeed shine in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it. It is beyond a name and does not require recognition to be vindicated in all of our actions, for all of our actions that are good find their ultimate source and meaning in It. There is only one circle of love, friendship, happiness, hope, peace, and joy in the Universe. That circle finds its form in what I call the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. It is on this day I remember this circle of all that is good taking on human form in the depths of human suffering and brokenness. 

It is still here. He/She is still here. The Divine came irreversibly into the world over 2000 years ago and remains present in all those who allow It to live through them. It lives through you and I if we allow it it to. That circle of good many of us find ourselves drawn into is a step in the right direction.