Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, Nov 18, 2009

Too many moralists begin with a dislike of reality.

- Clarence Day, writer, born on this date, 1874

Do you remember (if you are old enough) the TV program “Life with Father”? It ran from Nov 1953 to July 1955. It was based on a Broadway play written by Clarence Day about his father, Clarence Day Sr., and his family, first printed in the New Yorker magazine. Leon Ames played the Father (he was perfect!) and Lurene Tuttle played the Mother, Lavinia. It was a picture of upper middle class life in Manhattan in the 1880’s. “Father” Day was a total stuffed shirt. I loved it! The father’s “stuffed-shirtedness” was parodied – but the nice thing was that his family loved him in spite of it. And their love helped him to see his behaviour and – somewhat gruffly – to see his folly. (In 1955, I was 9 years old; I don’t remember if I saw the originals or reruns.)

Clarence Day Jr.’s quote is right on. People who get on their high moral horse, railing against whatever “vice” they disapprove of, very often “begin with a dislike of reality”. That dislike completely erases any sense of compassion and sympathy for their fellow human beings. Once compassion is gone, so is basic humanity. Morality degenerates into self-righteousness, which is always callous and un-self-aware – the basic ingredient in the inability to understand the Golden Rule.

Take anti-abortion supporters. In my view, they claim high moral religious ground. But they ignore, “dislike”, reality. They ignore the reasons why many women seek abortions. They ignore the continuing subjugation of women in patriarchal American culture, and the many ways in which women are denied equality. They ignore the woman as a person and the hardships many must suffer. No one, including myself, likes the fact that abortions happen. But harassing women who seek abortions and even murdering doctors who perform abortions without trying to understand why so many women feel they must have abortions will never resolve the issue. Only looking reality in the face – the continuing oppression and inferiority of women – will result in a resolution of the abortion issue.

Ignoring reality always leads to treating persons as abstract objects. It demands that we suppress our hearts. The inevitable result is the infliction of pain in the service of a desire to dominate and control masquerading as morality. You know the consequences. We live in a World suffering terribly because of the choices we have made to “dislike reality”.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, Nov 17, 2009

There have been many rebels who have chosen to defy their gods.
Without this option, there can be no true devotion to a holy concept.
For devotion is only valuable when a conscious decision is made to
follow that course, even in acknowledgment of the difficulties ahead.
Choosing to be a devout person is good. Choosing to defy the gods is
also good, for it reaffirms the basic ability of human beings to make
choices. We cannot support religions which say there are no choices.

- Taoist thought

“Gods” must always be “defied”. No religious institution which rejects this power should be given any allegiance. And you all know what those institutions are. They stand out like the proverbial sore thumb. They view their devotees as slaves, their desire is to control, and they range over every dimension of religion.

I feel that we must be able and free to choose our Deities, because yes, “devotion is only valuable when a conscious decision is made”. We must be free to affirm those qualities of Divinity that we know in our hearts to be consistent with Compassion and Truth – and to reject those that are denigrating of authentic Divinity. God is Love. Genuine Love is centered in deep desire that others lives be blessed.

Defy everything about yours or anyone else’s God that does call us to live in Divine Compassion. It’s simple.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, November 13, 2009

The word translated as “faith” in the New Testament is the Greek pistis …..
which means “trust loyalty, engagement, commitment.” Jesus was not
asking people to “believe” in his divinity, because he was making no such
claim. He was asking for commitment. He wanted disciples who would
engage with his mission, give all they had to the poor, feed the hungry,
refuse to be hampered by family ties, abandon their pride, lay aside their
self-importance and sense of entitlement, live like the birds of the air and
the lilies of the field, and trust in the God who was their Father. They must
…. live compassionate lives ….

- Karen Armstrong, “The Case for God”


You never know, do you? And it is amazing the things that don’t come to your attention until the time is “right”. Here I am, 63, and a priest for 36 years, and finally Karen Armstrong simply and clearly enunciates what I have always “known” was the truth.

The 3rd century church, and the emperor Constantine, decided to make Jesus “God”. But as Dr. Armstrong says, “he was making no such claim”. And my heart knows that Jesus wasn’t. Fr. Tom Harpur made the case for this so plainly in "The Pagan Christ" – using Augustine and Kuhn – but Armstrong crystallizes it perfectly and so sensibly.

I didn’t know, either, that Jerome used “credo” from the root “cor do” – to “give the heart”. “Belief” was a giving of the heart, as Jesus asked, not an intellectual assent to questionable theories – a 17th century change of definition. (“Belief” is related to the early German “belieb” – offering Love.)

Think about it! Now we are on a different path in thinking about Jesus. I urge you to read Armstrong’s book. It will give you endless reams of material for meditation and prayer and contemplation. Here is an opportunity to grow and deepen. (Yes: you can download it to your Kindle!)

Wishing you fruitful Journeying!


Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009

Disapproval of homosexuality cannot justify invading the houses,
hearts and minds of citizens who choose to live their lives differently.

- Justice Harry Blackmun, born on this date, 1908


We Gayfolk chose – if we have not been tyrannized by religion or culture or family - to live our lives differently because we must. We must be authentic. We must “listen to God”. We must listen to our hearts and spirits. In the end, to deny our reality is to deny all that makes us authentically human. And, I might add, faithful to “God”.

America is a lie when it comes to (1) separation of church and state (2) equality under the law and (3) respecting the humanity of ever human being and (4) the Christian Gospel which many Americans claim as its moral foundation.

We confirmed that slavery was wrong; but we continue to organize society prejudicially. We confirmed that men and women were equal, at least under the law, though we continue to discriminate in society and business. Will we not learn? When will we eradicate judgmental prejudice against Gayfolk, when all experience belays its basis in fear and prejudice??

More and more, Gayfolk choose to live their Truth. God rejoices! We pay the price - more than the legal system is willing to admit.

Bless all of you who are willing to have your “homes” invaded.

It makes our society more loving, more caring, more just, nore compassionate.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009

Turn off the spell-check. It can't replace what you
learned in Woodland Public School.

- Allan Joseph McHugh, my estimable and only
brother, born on this date, 1947 (he is 62, I am 63;
we are now both “retired”.)

My brother is a good person. He is fair, just, thoughtful, kind, introspective, sensitive. We are, at least in my perspective, very “different”, as brothers often are. We ran in different “circles”. And, I left home, really, when I “went to college”. And then I left Canada to become a monk, age 21. I would guess that I have seen my brother in the last 43 years about 40 times, for very short periods. So, I can’t say that I know my brother very well. My estimation is based on what I have seen him “be” over the decades, from afar. What I can say is this: he exhibits qualities that I admire and value in a person. He’s a much more irenic person that I am. Not religious in the institutional sense. He’s the kind of person I think blesses the World.

Yes, we went to Woodland School. And he’s right. We sat in rows of 8, 40 to a classroom. And we learned solid, useful, valuable things about how to deal with Life. How to grow up. The most memorable moment for me was Grade 1. We were all ushered into the Library at a strange hour, and we got to watch the coronation of Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Wonderful – surrounded by glass cases of stuffed birds! Woodland School was organized, in the Quebec of the 50’s, around teaching good basic human qualities – for which I am grateful.

I’ve been an Episcopal priest for over 36 years – I think that my brother is the proverbial ”salt of the Earth” –the kind of person from which the Earth greatly benefits, far more than from me.

Happy birthday Al!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, Nov 9, 2009

God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.

- Anne Sexton, poet, born on this date, 1928


God how I love poets! How grateful I am for them! Especially when one speaks of “God”. I get SO sick of all the talk of “God” by theologians and clergy, and especially by the religious nuts of our weird land. The religious atmosphere of America is getting more and more toxic as the weeks go by. I literally wept when I heard that the House vote on Health Care required an agreement on an abortion clause which clearly relegates women, as far as the government is concerned, to the status of slavery to men and to less than second-class inferiority. It made me sick to my stomach. So much for Government constitutionally not partnering with any particular religious tradition.

This is shameful. Utterly shameful. That people in this land can only get the right of health care by agreeing to the subjugation and inequality of women and to the denial of their equal rights! My mind reels at what feels like the political and theological Fascism of this country. As much as I want health care justice, I hope that if this issue comes to the President with that abortion clause attached, he vetoes it. And I shall urge him to. He won’t, of course. I sense that even Barack Obama – whom I SO hoped was different - is willing to sell his soul “to gain the world” for corrupt political prestige. As the Biblical writer pointed out: “what shall it gain a man” – and it is always men and politically seduced wo-men like Kay Bailey Hutchison and Margaret Thatcher who choose the acquisition of corrupt power over Just Compassion.

Out of the mouth of Anne Sexton’s brown-voiced, soft, “full of beer God” revealed in Jesus the Christ, lies the revelation of True God, to my sense, as poet Anne sexton rightly has experienced “God”. This is the God who would never make such a bargain with the Devil.

May the God of the soft brown and beery voice prevail.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: The Weekend, Sat, Nov 7, 2009

Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands,
a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven
itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

- from the “Letter to the Hebrews”, chap 9, by an unknown author

What/Who is “Christ”? “Christ” is the outpouring of the energy of Life into each of us. “Christ” is the assurance, spoken into our longing hearts and minds, at the moment of our “awakening”, that we have been invited into a glorious, magical, ecstatic Journey.

What is the “sanctuary”? It is the sacred metaphor or symbol for that “place”, mystically speaking, where our flesh and our spiritual energy meet and live/join together. This “place” is a place of power, of wonder, of amazement, of “leaping forward”.

What is “on our behalf”? What is its meaning? It tells us that there is no negative energy which can rob us of Life. Nothing which can defeat our arriving at our fullest humanity. Christ is the Promise of Liberation, of Freedom, of Renewal, of the rising from “Death” to “Life”.

All that is required is for us to say ….. Yes. To embrace Death in order that we may Live. To embrace the Mystery.

I see all of us rejoicing at the loveliness of Life and singing to “God”.

Brian+