Enjoying the mystery of last year's sycamore leaves

falling away to make room on trees for new ones coming soon 

 and this year's hummingbird nest with two eggs laid just last weekend.

Je suis toute l'humanité

Acknowledging Up Front:  This is a rant, a confession, a promulgation, a declaration… perhaps a rationalization or resignation… It is not an apology… It’s an acknowledgement that I am disgusted and dismayed that a significantly large bunch of people mostly clustered in groups scattered all over the world say with straight faces and believing eyes that a powerful god expects them to commit horrendous acts of violence against people who behave in ways that displease the particular god. This past Saturday, January 10, 2015,  Boko Haram, a Islamist militant group in Nigeria, killed as many as 2,000 people… in the name of Allah.  Later the same day in another Nigerian village Boko Haram jihadists strapped a bomb to a 10-year-old girl and sent her into a marketplace where at least 20 people were killed and 18 were injured when it was detonated.  These atrocities happened in the same week the Charlie Hebdo office was attacked in paris. 

The fact that such dangerous nonsense exists at all anywhere directs my attention inward to my own cultural patterns… to my own belief system… to my personal sets of behaviors. I can’t begin to understand the individual or group thinking and behaviors of fundamentalist Muslims whose goal it is for the whole world to be brought under Sharia law,... but I can analyze and understand my own affiliations and my own behaviors to determine if there is something in my patterns that should be changed.

My closest family and friends are not dangerous to their neighbors or to strangers.  They are gentle. They are careful not to hurt people, even people they don’t know personally. I meet regularly for coffee and conversation with friends, and I never hear anything from any of them that suggests they wish misfortune on other people.  We inquire about the health and well-being of each other’s families.  We express genuine sadness when we learn of illness or troubles.  We offer help.  

I go to church… partly out of habit, not grumbling but celebrating being alive… almost always wondering if a time will come when I can no longer find a reason to do it. I am not a member of the church I attend. It’s a cathedral with at least three parishes meeting regularly in its close (Methodists use “campus” instead of the Anglo/Catholic term “close” to describe the architectural collection of buildings).  If I were required to make a statement of religious beliefs in any of the parishes, I would be considered a heretic. I like the architecture of a cathedral, and I also like the look and feel of a small parish church. I like temples and mosques and synagogues.  I enjoy the quiet beauty of the vaulting sanctuary in the Mission Valley cathedral church and I find the quiet smallness of a little chapel to be restful … and I like music… Some of the rituals and ceremonies are meaningful and comforting, such as baptism of children even though some of the people participating in the ceremony assume there may be a bit of magic in the sprinkling of water. For me the power of the ceremony is in parent and community commitment to giving children a moral and ethical sense in relationships. I understand the symbolism and the liturgical forms exercised in the church I attend, but I am not comfortable with conjuring so I don’t participate actively in rituals that require magical thinking.

The church I attend continues to overlay outdated, archaic language onto Twenty-first Century realities.  Obviously, the fact that the earth which is my home, and the solar system in which it is fixed in one of billions of galaxies stretching out into what may be one of many universes can’t fit the description of “the creation of everything” found in Judeo-Christian “holy” scriptures… but I’m not offended by the stories that fit even slightly a historical context if they are acknowledged to be literature originally composed to teach lessons about appropriate moral or ethical behavior, and I like some of the familiar myths that were presented as historical facts when I was a child, if they are not meant to be thought true accounts of events that actually happened. 

…and it’ not just fundamentalist, jihadist Muslims who commit atrocious crimes against humanity. I know enough history to be aware that some people in the past who called themselves Christians committed crimes against “unbelievers” as atrocious as those that happened in Paris this week, and I also know that outrageous violations, crimes against humanity, even now are perpetrated by people who say they are Christians.  I witness the barbaric cruelty of some people who call themselves Christians when I ride my bicycle along the route of the Gay Pride Parade and see the cluster of people who hold up big signs declaring “God Hates Gays.” One of the biggest, boldest signs last year said GOD WILL BURN YOU IN EVERLASTING HELL… These were Christians… not Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists or Jews but Christians hoisting high their crosses and signs while “Christians” with megaphones shout their message that god hates all of us who are marching or riding in in the parade.

Religious groups must be challenged compassionately but firmly to undo all rules, even suggestions, that demean or limit participation by groups or classes of people in the full life of their communities, including all sacraments and employment opportunities.  Perhaps the most cruel discrimination is that which comes from "friends" who say they themselves are not bigots or prejudiced in any way against, for example, homosexuals; but hide behind the institutional church and its book of discipline as if institutional failure excuses individuals from personal responsibility.  Anyone participating in moral and ethical educational programs in the church should be held to the highest standard of acceptance of all people.