RAMBO JESUS CARTOON: Will of Rambo Jesus Revealed – Protect The Fodder-land

May 11th, 2018 Filed under: Anti-War, Free Stuff, Peace, Political Cartoons Add Comment

I’ve always been dumbstruck how Christians so easily justify violence, especially since there is so little in the Gospels that can be fodder for envisioning a violence-advocating Jesus. Violence always strikes me as a deathly perilous game of “means” and “ends.” You know, live by the sword, die by the sword. Perhaps most importantly, institutionalized violence is dreadfully prone to benefit elites, who are generally not combatants, and kill approximately 10 civilians for every combatant killed. Those hurt by violence most are way more likely to be the most vulnerable people on both sides of a conflict. At the heart of every true religion is compassion and care for the most vulnerable –you know, widows and orphans. The seduction to violently impose won’s will on others strikes me as the opposite of authentic religious sensibilities. Of course, if following Jesus was easy, everybody would be doing it. OK, calm down, don’t get cross…

In the spirit of American Christianity and its ridiculously easy acceptance of violence, I bring you this RAMBO JESUS CARTOON: Will of Rambo Jesus Revealed – Protect The Fodder-land.

Feel free to browse my peace and anti-war designs.

Tags: Acceptance, Cartoon, Christianity, Compassion, Conflict, Funny, Heart, Humor, Jesus, Parodies, Religion, Religious, Satire, Violence, War

FREE POSTER: Who Would Jesus Masturbate In Front Of? American Evangelical Apologists for Sexual Predation Reach a New Low . . . And Keep Reaching

November 15th, 2017 Filed under: Free Stuff, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

I am sickened by American evangelical so-called Christians serving as apologists for sexual predation. There is a seriously dark evil engulfing Christians who profess conservative sexual morality and also serve as the first line of defense of sexual predators, whether this takes the form of not listening to victims of sexual assault or minimizing the endemic trauma women must endure in our rape culture. This free poster goes out to all Christians who don’t defend women from sexual harassment and sexual assault: Who Would Jesus Masturbate In Front Of? American Evangelical Apologists for Sexual Predation Reach a New Low…And Keep Reaching.While this may be the most far out “What Would Jesus Do” design I have done yet, I have a whole collection of WWJD designs from a leftist, social justice perspective:

POEM: Technicolored Jesus

July 3rd, 2016 Filed under: Peace, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Is it time for one of those
Come to Jesus moments
Wear there is skin in the game
Beyond black and white
Word
And what surrounds
Words
Becoming flesh
Another flood
In a see of
Red between the lyin’s
More than throwing the book
At smacking
Of the full lips of won’s savor
A forgiving fodder
All the wile preying too
Knowing not what due
Holy discriminating
No the color of blood
Know more
Technicolored Jesus
A mine blowing Palestinian Jew
Borne and razed
As soul
Property of another religion
Slaves to shedding
That which is
Indistinguishable from their own
Pooring into the world
Seedlings multifariously soiled
Converted to a cross
Saved fore Christ
Only knot
Apprehending
With due convictions
Buy red letter Christians
Drinking from rose colored glasses
As white as know
Giving him hail
King of the Jews
As a sign of the tines
In tongues speaking
Reportedly above cross
As fallower remains
Intent disciples
Paving the highway to hell
Trod by poor soles
Back in black
And who
Suspects
In America
As when roamin’ umpire
If a man is hung from a tree
He’s black
N conceivably
Some thing other

This poem is about a Jesus for all, black and white, boringly straight and fabulously technicolor. This poem is about the violence and racism present in American Christianity. If Christians must be black and white, the evidence points more to a Black Jesus than a White Jesus. A nation built on slavery still undergirds contemporary lynching, parently paling in comparison in present-day whitewashed White supremacy. Of course, America has ambitious rule beyond its boarders. The imperial American rule of the world and its concomitant violence has been condoned, even blessed, by American Christianity. A Palestinian Jew is inconceivable to most. Perhaps this explains the prevalence of virgin birth doctrine. We are all pink inside, and for some strange reason, the fruit of this seems to only be conceive Abel by shedding won an other’s blood. May we reach a stage of enlightenment where we can live together as one humanity, or at least not use the crucifixion of one as rationale for the crucifixion of an other.

Tags: America, Blessed, Christianity, Doctrine, Enlightenment, Hell, Holy, Humanity, Jesus, Nonviolence, Palestinian, Poems, Poetry, Poor, Present, Racism, Religion, skin in the game, Slavery, Soul, Time, Violence

POEM: Loving Your Enemas

April 19th, 2016 Filed under: Anti-War, Peace, Peace Signs, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

The legal lists
Were longing
With who hurt
And who not heard
Attesting too
How much they love
They’re enemas
Only wading
For sue a side
As eminent just us
And inevitably knot
Passing the smell test

This is a poem about the intractable mess of trying to love your enemies and kill them as well. American Christianity generally considers pacifism a quaint way of life, tolerable in direct proportion to its relegation from the halls of power in church and state. American Christianity has bought rather wholesale into war as a practical necessity — the necessity of evil, that is. Wince again, the necessity defense is the greatest offense. Is the oneness of humanity to be cleaved by the body of Christ? For badder or worse, the inconvenient truth of dying for one’s enemy reliably leaves American Christians more than cross. At best, nationalism, and at its worst, imperialism, become the legal ism for such a knotty morality. And if any prophets may bedevil such an undertaking, their fate is bound in the hands of a certain high priest, possessed buy inescapable logic: “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (John 11:51) Yep, to gain the world and halve the whole world parish. American Christians all to often worship a bastard son, pax Americana, a modern day roamin’ umpire, overruling with just US, and as per fuming so extravagantly that we don’t even realize we fail the smell test.

May awe of US unearth humility enough to execute amorality, in a creation fit for all — for Christ’s sake!

Check out more pacifism designs.

Tags: Amorality, Awe, Christianity, Church, Creation, Defense, Enemies, Evil, Humanity, Humility, Imperialism, Life, Logic, Love, Modern, Morality, Nationalism, Pacifism, Poems, Poetry, Power, State, Truth, War, Worship

POEM: A Brother Lying

March 23rd, 2016 Filed under: About Top Pun, Anti-War, News, Peace, Peace Signs, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Prey fore the dead
In the name of Jesus
In resurrection of those soully asleep
Getting a phallus rise
Out of Christianity
That is, US
More sow then radical Islam
In violate fundamental lists
Dissembling faith, hope, and love
As our trinity project
Our won God triumph a writ
With a Cain due attitude
Over awe that is Abel
To spill the good word
Buy blood crying out
Too me
From the ground
A brother lying
Knot knowing
The hollowed meaning
Of I am
One’s keeper

I often write about stuff triggered when I hear the news. I listen faithfully to Democracy Now on weekdays. It’s not unusual to stop in the middle of a show, or even a news story, to write a poem about something that touched me: a phrase worthy of seeding a poem, an issue baffling human kind, or simply a heartfelt emotion.

The literal life and death issues of war and peace, militarism and pacifism, have been close to my heart my whole adult life. The latest flavor of this is the unending war on terrorism, which easily commiserates with virulent patriotism, nasty nationalism, presumptive racism, and irreconcilable religious bigotries. Our unconscious privilege, convenient distance, and well-earned ignorance of world affairs is complicit with any easy alliance of violence as a lazy alternative to costly self-sacrifice as the true weigh of incarnating justice for all. Nominal Christianity and its state-sponsored sheep, hawk a cheap grace bound only by an unequaled military budget and unquestioned reverence for a mercenary class.

I have a more generous perception of a frightened citizenry in deed resorting to violence in an increasingly secular, postmodern worldview. Violence seems inevitable, certainly unendurable, without a resilient weigh to measure the sacred worth of an other, a brother human, who peers threatening. I have a less generous view of normalizing violence by those aspiring to be religious, deeply commuted to any of the major faith-based worldviews represented by the world’s religions. In the case of the U.S., the purported rock of our moral lives is Christianity. I assert that an honest appraisal of American Christianity regarding its world military domination is that it is ruggedly cross. American Christians quiet reliably in efface of violence, instead of bearing the rugged cross, demand the blood sacrifice of “others” as their savior. To this I can only say, “Jesus Christ!” Whose image due we bear?! What about state violence has to do with the heart, life and death of Jesus — other than the fact that it was state violence that executed Jesus.

To add insult to injury, the budget-sized war we christen as terrorism, we blame on Muslims, or worse yet, on the sacred tenets of Islam. The real competition may be about who has the shallowest understanding of their religion: nominal Muslim terrorists or nominal Christian war apologists. I strongly suspect that the farces of Christianity have killed more people than the farces of Islam. Regardless, the age-old story of Cain and Abel, shared in the sacred texts of both Christianity and Islam, plays out over and over: brother kills brother and denies the essential nature of their kin relationship and how family should care for one another. May people of faith lead the way in ending violence between all peoples. This goes triple for “People of The Book” (Jews, Christians, and Muslims).

Browse anti-terrorism designs.

Tags: Attitude, Awe, Christian, Christianity, Competition, Death, Democracy, Domination, Faith, Family, God, Grace, Heart, Hope, Image, Islam, Jesus, Justice, Lazy, Life, Love, Meaning, Militarism, Military, Moral, Muslim, Muslims, Nationalism, Nature, Pacifism, Patriotism, Poems, Poetry, Privilege, Racism, Radical, Religion, Religious, Resurrection, Reverence, Sacred, Sacrifice, State, Terrorism, Violence, War, Worldview

POLITICAL CARTOON: CEO Jesus Retirement Plan

January 28th, 2016 Filed under: About Top Pun, Free Stuff, Poems, Political Action, Political and Philosophical Musings, Political Cartoons Add Comment

CEO Jesus: You Had Me At The Retirement Plan

After a long hiatus, CEO Jesus is back. This comic was inspired by a poem I wrote recently:

At Jesus, Inc.
I came for the love and mutuality
I stayed for the retirement plan

This poem and political cartoon is a parody of the often namby-pamby, first-world Christianity that passes for following Jesus these days. I sometimes joke that I wish there was a religion where the founder was a nonviolent rabble-rouser crucified by the state, perhaps even as their fellow clansmen stood complicit. That’s a leader to which I could relate. I occasionally wonder what Christianity would look like if we amped it up so that, say, 1% of Christians were killed as a direct result of their radical love challenging the powers that be of this world. What if Christians seriously risked destitution or death for the cause of love more commonly than building “secure” retirement plans? These are the kinds of questions that haunt me and in which I find little traction or resonance within the walls of American Christianity. Ahhh, for a Church that boldly embraces such questions; this is the Church I long for…

Peruse more political cartoons featuring CEO Jesus, General Jesus, Comedian Jesus, Dr. Jesus, and Palestinian Jew Jesus

Tags: America, Cartoon, Christian, Christianity, Church, Comics, Death, Jesus, Joke, Love, Martyrdom, Nonviolent, Palestinian, Poems, Poetry, Political, Power, Powers that be, Prophet, Questions, Radical, Religion, Revolutionary, Risk, Security, Short Poems, State

POEM: Albatross Necklace Futures

June 10th, 2014 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

I stared at the world
I could have built
Had I
Grasped more
Farce fully
A stock pile
Awe but reaching
Heaven
Falling short
Of mature stature
Leaving behind
Child’s play
The ripe now
And not trading in
Futures
Of albatross necklaces
Adorned by all

This poem is a tip of the hat to the story of the Tower of Babel, where mankind tries quite literally to build a stairway to heaven. This ancient tale of vanity is perhaps even more true now than when it was first told. With advances in science and technology the notion of building a socialist paradise that saves humanity from its own perennial moral dilemmas seems all the more possible, and therefore, tempting. Of course, knowledge is no sin; but, the hubris to think that you can cheat reality is. There are no technological means to bypass courage, faith, and compassion or love. Humans are the proper instrument for courage, faith, and love. Any worldview that negates humanity by pretending that humanity can somehow be bypassed, along with its unavoidable moral responsibility, is idolatrous. Idolatry is simply constructing the foundation of one’s life (whatever you consider authoritative) on images of reality rather than reality itself. Simply put, humans cannot create a world where they no longer need to be good, that is make moral choices, with their commensurate values or “costs”, which include courage, faith, and love

Any ideology or social system can function idolatrously, if it is considered an end not the means to something greater. Such rigid, graven images impair proper human functioning, which is relational, not simply a “thing” to be better sculpted. The something greater is dynamic living relationships. In religious terms, the great commandments are relational as loving God and loving neighbor. Unfortunately, humans are quite adept at over-concretizing spiritual truths and settling for worshiping the stone images (e.g., ten commandments) printed word (e.g., Bible), or any system of thought, rather than the reality to which they point: God and neighbor. Inasmuch as we stop and settle for an image of what our relationships should be, we actually step outside of that living relationship and kill it. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (the “People of the Book”), God keeps it very simple by declaring to Moses to tell the people only “I am who I am” (or, “I will be what I will be.”) The rest involves having a relationship with the “I am who I am.” Of course, in modern secularism, this is epically avoided by denying even the existence of “I am who I am.” Not surprisingly, the “I am who I am” residing within us all gets short shrift and humanity is left to define itself simply by its material aspects, limiting it’s nature to “I am what I am” — which I call the Popeye fallacy. The Popeye fallacy omits a dimension of our being, leaving us a mirror caricature. Much alienation in modern Western civilization is rooted in mistaking humans as “what” not “who.” People are not things, at least not things alone. To add to the irony and epic misdirection, legal fictions like corporate “personhood” are considered “human,” while humans have difficulty mustering such status. Such battles over what a person is, a who or a what, may very well define our age. May we have the wisdom to know the difference!

Of course, this poem frames the epic theme of idolatrous hubris on a more modest, individual level. Hubris often hides in the “humble” context of the individual, with a built in rationalization that one person cannot make the difference. This itself is an amoral or immoral act. Morality always plays out among individual moral agents. This is the very point of what is often avoided by shifting agency onto society, deflecting moral agency altogether, or claiming that “the devil made me do it” (insert ‘terrorist’ for ‘devil’ to upgrade to “modern” worldview).

Lastly, moral agency is played out in real time, the now. Respecting the relational process of being human, which is inherently subjective, must favor the present over some conception or image of a future end. More simply put, humans are ends in themselves, not to be subjugated to another’s systems of images of the future. Keeping it real means honoring humans as sacred participants in this process, always valuing who people are more than what they are, or even what they may be. I suspect that faith in God, the “I am who I am,” is trusting that the greater is lived out by focusing on who, not what. This may very well be the inseparable nature of loving God and loving neighbor, each reinforcing one another in blessed mutuality. May it be so.

Tags: Ancient, Awe, Bible, Blessed, Choices, Christian, Christianity, Compassion, Courage, Evil, Faith, Farce, Future, God, Heaven, Hubris, Humanity, Ideology, Idolatry, Image, Irony, Islam, Life, Love, Modern, Moral, Morality, Nature, Play, Poems, Poetry, Present, Rationalization, Reality, Relationships, Religious, Respect, Responsibility, Sacred, Science, Society, Spiritual, Status, Technology, Time, Trust, Truth, Values, Vanity, Western Civilization, Wisdom, Worldview, Worship

POEM: Guarding God

March 23rd, 2014 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

He stoutly guarded God
From an unruly world
An unreveling creation
And in such earnest
He, and millions others, were
Relieved of their doody
Perhaps only a small relief
For God above
Yet for such bellow
Refuse-ing
To be passed so easy
As some foul gag
Unyielding unearth
As unheavin’
A feudal gesture
In such an unholy rupture
Leaving behind
All the crap in religion
Until vomit us

Does God need guards or protectors? Is God unable to fend for God’s self? Can God create such a mess so big that even God can’t clean it up?

It seems to me that God and godliness are incarnated by our lives reflecting what is good, as opposed to enforcing precepts or ideas/beliefs. I view means and ends as inextricably linked. How else could it be? Love begets love. And God is love. Violence begets violence. And while many might be skeptical of love, of God, few doubt that “means” lead to “ends.” It strikes me that the separation from living in the foundational nature of God, that is unconditional love, is the beginning of sin. Similarly, trying to take shortcuts to God’s reign by “enforcement” strikes me as the birth of idolatry, wanting to lord over others. This approach strikes me as feudal! This approach is futile in the same way that expecting violence will end violence is foolish. Both our materialist and spiritualist aspects can unite around this necessary order. Unless your view of reality is wholly absurd, there is lawful order in the universe — certain things lead to other certain things. Now, not everything is certain. But uncertainty is not a license to ignore those things which are certain. For example, you can ignore the law of gravity, but, quite predictably, this will not serve you or others well. Likewise, you can ignore the laws of love, or violence, but don’t pretend that such lawlessness will bring greater order and harmony in the world.

Back to this poem’s theme of “all the crap in religion.” Organizing love can be a perilously backwards approach, since love is the prime mover. Trying to franchise God — that is, franchise love — will fail inasmuch as: 1) love is not what we preach, and 2) we don’t practice what we preach (regardless of what it is that we preach). The first is being on mark with the purpose of religion. There is plenty of disagreement here, on what love means. The second is about authenticity and authority. Authority is undermined inasmuch as you preach one set of rules and live by another. This perilous law is where law-giving and law-preaching most commonly fail. Preaching lawfulness while practicing lawlessness, well, just doesn’t do much for lawfulness. The Lord of all has authority because God’s nature is unconditional love, manifest in grace, generosity, mercy, patience, and joyful freedom. In Christianity, Jesus is lifted up because he came as a servant leader. Jesus is the way inasmuch as Jesus melded the sacred nature of God as unconditional love fully into his way of living. That’s the kind of leader worth emulating. And all who stand against this, will fail. But like gravity, the law of love seems weak and slow, particularly in narrow contexts and short time horizons. Still, gravity, as love, will work its way, its purpose, in a sure and steady way. Ignore such laws at your own peril.

Tags: Authenticity, Authority, Christian, Christianity, Creation, Foolish, Freedom, Generosity, God, Grace, Harmony, Idolatry, Jesus, Joy, Law, Love, Materialist, Mercy, Nature, Patience, Poems, Poetry, Reality, Religion, Rules, Sacred, Spiritual, Time, Universe, Violence, War, Work

POEM: Less Than Eternal Question

March 7th, 2014 Filed under: Health, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

The Rev. Medley
Had risen
To the highest position
He would ever
It was only down from there
An awe too common
Occupational hazard
Of moderate irony
And accumulating lessens
Just falling short
Of making one cross
Facing that less than eternal question
If only Jesus
Had bothered to develop
Better retirement plans

Here is a poem that I wrote before the Lenten season, and now that we are in Lent, I realize that it is an appropriate Lenten poem. I have always admired Jesus for being “all in” this thing called life. While Jesus’ way of being in the world raises difficult questions, his life powerfully juxtaposes finding meaning in life with finding meaning in death. Lent is a time for Christians to reflect on such things. For years I have often joked that I have given up Lent for Lent. More to the truth, my ascetic tendencies and frank goals of living simply leave me in a sort of permanent Lent. In practice, I see that Buddhists seems to model better than Christians simple living and prudently avoiding attachments to material goods. Materialism has such a powerful and normative presence in Western civilization, that Christianity, at least as practiced in Westernized communities, seems to have accommodated rampant materialism quite well. I see the divide between serving God or wealth (worldly power) as primary in my understanding of the message of Jesus’ life and death. The conventional wisdom of sensible retirement planning, as alluded to in this poem, seems second nature to what is considered the good life in modern times. I have witnessed way too many fear-filled discussions in church settings about more financially secure appointments, health coverage, and retirement benefits for clergy. In sharp contrast, I have found little traction for providing a living wage to janitors, secretaries, and many other employees of churches or faith-based organizations. Church folks are too polite to crucify you for suggesting providing a living wage to low-wage church employees, but the resounding silence kills nonetheless.

In reflecting on the often lukewarm leadership of professional Christians, often called clergy, outsiders are at little risk of ever guessing that the founder of their movement was publicly executed by the state for his revolutionary, uncompromising life. In sharp contrast, outsiders have little difficulty understanding that religious elites were complicit in Jesus’ murder.

I admire the Buddhist spiritual practice of meditating on your own death. This practice seems like a powerful way to elicit the value and importance of life in the context of death. Followers of Jesus have a profound leader who made such meditations an incarnate reality. Jesus is the way. But the retirement plan is a killer.

Tags: Awe, Buddhist, Christian, Christianity, Church, Conventional Wisdom, Death, Elite, Faith, Fear, God, Irony, Jesus, Joke, leadership, Life, Living Simply, Living Wage, Materialism, Meaning, Meditation, Modern, Murder, Nature, Power, Questions, Reality, Religious, Revolution, Revolutionary, Risk, Silence, Spiritual, State, Time, Truth, Wealth, Western Civilization, Wisdom

POEM: Wolves in Elephants’ Clothing

February 3rd, 2014 Filed under: Health, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Wolves in Elephants’ Clothing

Somewhat sheepishly
She whispered
Beware of wolves in elephants’ clothing
Lurking about
Only looking
Like they want
To kick some ass
Though you can skulk in style
If you have
A grand
Old party
Securing your plush seat
At the table
Loaded
With elephant guise
Rather incestual sycophants
At their I’m potentate parties
And if you are well, off
They will take you
To a tee
Spouting about
King George I and King George II
And unjust taxes
More dear than all the tea in England
And buy George, they’re not satisfied with a billion
Let alone a third
Perhaps some fresh prince all over
A newly-minted crime scene
Unseemly blind to any lackey of evolution
Yet there is no ruler
To measure their monkey business
Their trinity
Cheering with pomposity
Throwing monologues on the fire
And stalling
Having perfected the nationwide holdup
A three wring circus
And we are left
With what’s in the stall
The elephant dropping
All that is fertile
For phony fossils
Making evolution impossible
A lessen they never forget
With a mellifluousness Abel
To capture the common man
A cleanliness next to godlessness
Their hoods white
For shadowing their golden daze
In an urbane jungle
Leaving behind poor gramma
Spelling her downfall
GOP opposed to GOD
Having fallen
Down
And can’t get up
Leaving students
With nothing but a prayer
Leaving workers
With a free market they can’t afford
Leaving US
With life after death
And perhaps before birth
Still
All the wile between
Sent to our gloom
To be
Or not to be
Borne again
That is the quest in
Whether it is know buller
For in the mine to suffer
The blings
And ere rows
Of outrageous fortunes
Oar to take alms
Against a see of troubles
And by opposing thumb end
Overcoming any
Hitch
Hiking what’s left
As necessary
Sew much more than
Evolution
One of the scarce things
They can’t seem to buy
Their con science
Of what
They know longer nose
Inescapably figuring
Somehow elect by birth
Perpetual SNOBS
Where the N is usually silent
In their civil war
Inevitably impaled by their mortal compass
Spinning north and south
Feigning uprightness
Disavowing any revolution present
Captivated by fanciful futures
And realities passed
And still
What goes around
Comes around
A choice truth
Either buy
Ballads or bullets
We all have the write to choose
To ward off electioneer death

This poem is a thinly veiled anti-Republican party exposition. Profoundly ironic, Republicans are as sure proof as you are going to find that evolution doesn’t exist, and, as Gandhi never said, “Be the lack of change you want to see in the world.” The Republican party appears quite comfortable with greed as the primary human motivation. Perhaps worse yet, and even more disingenuous, is the ease at which Republicans embrace anti-science views, of which anti-evolution and climate change skepticism are its hallmarks. For the so-called religious expertise that Republicans claim, they certainly manage to brand religion as anti-science, which it need not be. Even within the hallowed halls of religious territory, Republicans manage to bring hypocrisy to ever-new heights. With their specialty Christianity, Republicans paint a picture of Jesus as if he were a white, suburban-living, English-speaking American, preaching some prosperity gospel. For God’s sake, Jesus wasn’t even a Christian, he was a Jew, and a Palestinian Jew at that! If such a poor, dark-skinned, Middle-eastern, non-English-speaking, peace-loving, giver of free health care showed up in America, the Republicans would have reserved seating at his crucifixion. Of course, they would contract out the actual killing, though a carpenter driving in those nails would not likely be a member of the carpenters’ union. Plus, the Republicans definitely wouldn’t bother paying a “living” wage for such low skilled tasks, however unpleasant.

The larger theme in this poem is about the tension between electoral and non-electoral politics. The two-party duopoly of Republocrats offers only a narrow range of possibilities deemed politically feasible. This leaves the electorate, barely even a majority of eligible voters in many elections, to ratify the predetermined candidates from a relatively narrow ideological pool. In my view, this electoral desert leaves little room for the kind of robust responses that the current world begs. Our slow and limited responses to climate change and energy use demonstrate this best. Even a well-managed end of civilization as we know it is a poor substitute for saving humanity. Of course, the “ballads or bullets” dichotomy is somewhat hyperbolic for effect. Nonetheless, without nonviolent revolution, or much-speeded evolution, our current body politic will experience a much more violent demise. I am rooting and working for a nonviolent revolution. The driving force of this revolution will almost certainly originate outside formal electoral politics. As history teaches us, such robust change does not come without personal sacrifice, and it demands courage. The Republicans would be well-advised to learn from Jesus, who showed us a different way. And who better than Jesus would know that just because you are a carpenter doesn’t mean that you have to see everything as a nail!

Tags: America, Business, Change, Christian, Christianity, Climate Change, Courage, Crime, Death, Elections, Evolution, Experience, Free market, Gandhi, God, GOP, Greed, Health Care, History, Humanity, Hypocrisy, Ironic, Jesus, Life, Market, Nonviolent, Palestinian, Poems, Poetry, Political, Politics, Poor, Prayer, Present, Rage, Religion, Religious, Republican, Revolution, Sacrifice, Science, Skepticism, taxes, Truth, Voters, War, Work

POEM: A Forgetting God

November 3rd, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Remembering God is almost as hard as God forgetting us

Remembering God can be difficult. Remembering God can be particularly difficult if we are not trying to remember God. I believe that we all experience God, though some of us may not name it that. Most simply put, God is love. If we remember love and imbue our life with these loving experiences, then we will be well on our way to living Godly lives. Every healthy relationship is reciprocal. While remembering God may be difficult at times, recalling occasionally that it is even more difficult for God to forget us can bring comfort and serve as an invitation to a deeper relationship. God’s call is better characterized by the woo of a lover — Love itself! — than a jilted lover in an unreciprical relationship, waiting by the proverbial phone for a call back.

I wish that traditional religion would harness this metaphor of lovers, the wooer and the wooed. I think this meets resistance because some people think that it may imply some type of equality of humans with God; though most religious conservatives don’t necessarily see a reciprocal equality in human sexual relationships as an ideal anyway. However, perhaps most importantly, institutional religion seems to have real issues with sex and sexuality. The story of the virgin birth is perhaps the pinnacle of this disconnect: God has sex without really having sex, or daring to imbue a human sex act with divineness. Then, Jesus is overwhelmingly seen as some asexual being. My view is that these narratives are massive barriers to Christianity embracing a healthy human sexuality. Jesus is purported to be fully God and fully human, yet the Christian narrative is notably silent on how Jesus manifests divinity as a human sexual being, except for not engaging in sexual acts. I don’t consider total, lifelong (in Jesus’ case until age 33 at his death) abstinence as a feasible model for the perpetuation of the human race, or as particularly helpful for most people’s lives on earth. Surely, there is a fuller picture that can be drawn. Intimate sexual human relationships strike me as fertile ground (time to pull out the big puns!) for experiencing deep love, which is the stuff of God. I pray for a way for Jesus to better redeem sexuality, which would go a long way to redeeming Christianity. And the Church said, “Woo!”

Tags: Christian, Christianity, Church, Conservative, Death, Equality, Experience, God, Human Race, Jesus, Life, Love, One-line Poems, Poetry, Puns, Relationships, Religion, Religious, Resistance, Sex, Sexuality, Time

POEM: A Lousy Take on Lao-Tse

October 1st, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

A Lousy Take on Lao-Tse (Tao Te Ching 38)

When Tao is lost
There is virtue
When virtue is lost
There is morality
When morality is lost
There is propriety
Yet oddly
Even when
Awe is lost
Tao remains
The eternal rest
Giving rise to awe

The Tao Te Ching is the ancient Chinese sacred text of Taoism. The authorship is attributed to Lao-Tse, which may have been an individual or a group. There are many English translations of the Tao Te Ching, which seem to differ greatly. The above poem is my take on chapter 38, which seems to have stuck in my mind. I was struck by the truth of the progression, or deterioration, from the ineffable unity of Tao to virtue, then morality, then propriety, which is the beginning of chaos, with propriety being the shallowest foundation for life. While the Tao Te Ching is necessarily perplexing, “the Tao that can be described is not the Tao,” this foundation which escapes our grasp is the very foundation which secures our hope. No machinations, cruelty, nor any power on earth can overturn it or control it. This irreducible hope persists as an untouchable in a world bent on holding and controlling way more than called for. This irreducible hope gives rise to awe!

The Tao Te Ching is more of a comprehensive series of hints than a textbook. I view it as an essential companion for any mystic. Of course, I see mysticism as the heart of any true religion. The Tao Te Ching is very short read, especially when compared to the Christian Bible, the Muslim Qur’an, or especially the Hindu Vedas! Plus, unlike perhaps most other religions and their sacred texts, a devoted Taoist would probably suggest burning your sacred text at some point! This speaks of a truer reverence than the all-too-familiar Bibliolatry of Western civilization. As a child of Western civilization, I would heartily recommend the Tao Te Ching as an antidote for many of the imbalances acutely present in modern society. Western civilization’s addiction to scientific reductionism makes us hellbent on focusing on one thing in isolation, pressuring us to ever narrower contexts and ever greater specialization. Central in the practice of Taoists is complimentariness, Yin and Yang, that the myriad of things that comprise our world, though arising from the unity of Tao, can only be comprehended by their opposites. Perhaps the greatest formulation of this in Christianity is Jesus’ command to love our enemies. Only by reconciliation with our enemies can we become whole. Any demonization of the other necessarily degrades our own humanity. We are defined by our enemies. If our enemies don’t define us, then we are free, and in accord with Tao. May it be so…because it is so…

Tags: Addiction, Ancient, Awe, Balance, Bible, Chaos, China, Christian, Christianity, Control, Cruelty, Demonization, Enemies, Heart, Hindu, Hope, Humanity, Jesus, Life, Love, Mind, Modern, Moral, Morality, Muslim, Mystic, Mysticism, Opposites, Poems, Poetry, Power, Present, Propriety, Reconciliation, Religion, Reverence, Sacred, Scientific Reductionism, Short Poems, Society, Tao, Truth, Unity, Virtue, Western Civilization, Yin and Yang

POEM: Synctretised Swimming

September 29th, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Synctretised Swimming

Unearth as it is in heaven
Land and see
The evolution
Of God’s creation
And learn
Who or what
Our teachers be
In theology schooled
Like fish in water
Expounding on thirst
All the wile
Shitting where they drink
Considering it a symphony
When just one movement
And by miracle
Pinching loaves and fishes
Feeding scores
Still
Some live on bread crumbs
And what will follow

This is one of those poems that came to me in the middle of the night, and a few lines quickly grew into a full poem. The poem’s title, “Syncretised Swimming,” is most apparently a pun of “synchronized swimming.” Probably less obvious, is the reference “syncretised” which refers to syncretism. “Syncretism is the combining of different, often seemingly contradictory beliefs, while melding practices of various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merger and analogizing of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths.” Religious purists view syncretism as some form of error or heresy. This poem speaks against such religious purism.

So, why the “synchronized swimming” reference? Schools of fish swim in perfect synchronization, moving the same way instantly, in a way that science cannot explain. This mystery is used as a parody reference to the three seminal lines: In theology schooled/Like fish in water/Expounding on thirst. Trained theologians, awash in mystery, manage to move in surprisingly similar ways, apt to expound on a set of similar abstract truths that may engender blank looks like when trying to explain thirst to fish in water. Theology undertakes the humbling enterprise of trying to make mystery a science. Of course, mystery cannot be fully explained by science — that’s why it’s mystery. To try to reduce mystery to a science would deny and kill mystery by pretending to banish it. My objection to religious purists and the issue of syncretism is that ultimately there are things that we cannot know, in principle! Philosophers and theologians call the discipline of what we can and cannot know, epistemology. The heart of theology is ultimately unknowable in any modern scientific sense. This rubric of theology builds in an irreducible amount of hubris for any absolute claim. This is why I see a necessary foundation for spirituality is openness, especially if one is looking for a living God that moves.

The reference to evolution evokes a popular conflict between scientists and some religious people, most heated between those scientists who don’t understand epistemology and religious folks who don’t understand science. I don’t think that there is a conflict between religion and science. Rather I view religion and science as complementary fields which need to give proper due to one another. I intend the analogy of evolution more specifically as a context for my mixed metaphors. Most poignantly, the line “Shitting where they drink.” For humans, generally understood to be more advanced than fish, “shitting where you drink (eat),” is an obvious and palpable example of short-sighted and self-destructive behavior. For fish, not so much. The difference is context. I think that religious purists tend to view syncretism in a limited context, perhaps not worthy of the unfathomable depth and diversity of God’s creation. As a biologist, I look at human culture as analogous to ecosystems. There are countless possible configurations of thriving ecosystems. I see human culture as similarly adaptive; though human’s seem to have an accelerated trajectory of epic successes and epic fails. What this ultimately means is appropriately a theological question. Nonetheless, I have perhaps a more synchronous view of religion and science, whereby they are both judged by their fruits; what is produced, what works, what follows. Of course, the most intriguing questions are not about mere utility and manipulation, but what constitutes a good end or state of affairs. In this case, theology trumps science. Which is fine in my book, as long as it doesn’t thump science.

I get a chuckle out of how God can take our impure, zigzagged paths and sanctify them. I get somewhat less of a chuckle out of how we humans can seem to take credit for this through our various programs of sanctification, none of which are very pure. As a former United Methodist, I chuckle that John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement never envisioned as separate denomination but desired only to be an Anglican – of which he lived, breathed and died. Of course, the Anglicans, the Church of England, is a sooty descendant of the Roman Catholic church which had irreconcilable differences with a King over divorce. Even further, Christianity, at times claimed solely by the Roman Catholic church, is founded upon Jesus, a Jew who never wanted to be anything other than a Jew. Yep, Christianity is a Jewish sect. Thank God for syncretism, holding it all together amidst our unholy messes!

Tags: Analogy, Catholic, Christian, Christianity, Church, Conflict, Creation, Culture, Diversity, Epistemology, Evolution, Faith, God, Heart, Heaven, Heresy, Holy, Hubris, Jesus, Jewish, Metaphors, Modern, Mystery, Poems, Poetry, Questions, Religion, Religious, Science, Spiritual, Spirituality, State, Theology, Truth, Unity

POEM: Infectious Hope

August 5th, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Hope is a blood-borne pathogen
The seed of martyrs
Inflaming that allergy to injustice
Present in us all
Infected by a singular epiphany
Of friend and foe
Alike

I see hope as an irreducible reality in human nature. Just like “Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again” (William Cullen Bryant), hope is rooted in a realm that mere brute force or violence cannot destroy. Even in the face of deep despair and generations of disappointment, hope finds its way into our hearts. Hope rises like an infectious weed, out of control of the powers that be that rely on violence to grasp onto control. Trying to describe hope reminds of the description of love in the movie Shakespeare in Love: “Like a sickness and its cure together.” In this poem I use an analogy and metaphor of hope as an immune response by reality to injustice. Of course, viewing hope as an antidote or a poison or pathogen can be a matter of perspective. In the face of objectively crappy situations, hope can be viewed more cynically as Pollyannish. The blood of martyrs can be seen as a tragic waste or as fuel for hope and resistance to injustice. Hopes indefatigable nature can elicit respect and well…more hope. While I posit that hope has a mystical quality to it that cannot be banished, perhaps the closest I can get to capturing its essence is the last three lines of this poem where people are “infected” by a singular awareness that friend and foe are one, “alike.” I see hope emerging and growing where this epiphany takes root. For instance, I consider “Love your enemy as yourself” as Christianity’s greatest commandment. Jesus upgraded the Old Testament’s “love your neighbor” with this greatest of spiritual challenges:

“You have heard that it was said, `Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48, NIV)

This is the greatest spiritual genius that I have ever seen! This strikes me as the most straightforward and simple way to encapsulate one of the most basic tensions in life: balancing self-interest with others’ interests. By explicitly linking these two, Jesus harnesses, leverages, and even redeems, the powerfully dangerous psychological dynamics of egocentricity and selfishness. No doubt, the trinity of hope, faith, and love is called upon to dare confront such a powerful challenge. Of course, the genius and simplicity of this formulation doesn’t make it easy. Though in it I find much hope, even infectious hope!

Tags: Analogy, Awareness, Bible, Christian, Christianity, Control, Cynical, Enemies, Evil, Faith, Genius, Hate, Heaven, Hope, Human Nature, Injustice, Jesus, Life, Love, Metaphors, Metaphysics, Mystical, Nature, Perspective, Poems, Poetry, Power, Powers that be, Present, Psychology, Reality, Resistance, Respect, Shakespeare, Short Poems, Simplicity, Spiritual, Truth, Violence, War

POLITICAL CARTOON: CEO Jesus – Birthers

April 8th, 2012 Filed under: Political Cartoons Add Comment

CEO Jesus Arises to the Occasion!

CEO Jesus really rises to the occasion this week of Easter! What could be tougher than answering the difficult and often inane questions put forth at a press conference? In his first go around, Jesus’ public relations department really had a big gaffe by sending two women to witness the resurrection. In Jesus’ day, women were not considered reliable or viable witnesses. What was he thinking? Of course, the modern-day CEO Jesus understands the complexities of oppression in Western civilization. These days, proper paperwork and avoiding getting bogged down in innuendo are the armor and shield of modern management. There’s no question that many modern folks doubt the actual physical resurrection of Jesus. For me, that’s less the point than addressing truth in an upfront and Jesus like manner — actually living a life that witnesses to the profound truth that life is stronger than death. In these modern times, with all of our science and technological sophistication, obfuscation of the truth is as old school as ever! This week’s parody is on the birthers. Who needs facts when simple doubt will do? Why accept evidence when such realities don’t suit one’s biases and bigotries? When Jesus appeared before Pilate, Pilate mocked the irrelevancy of truth, with his classic rhetorical question, “What is truth?” In the end, Pilate just tested the political winds and gave the mob what they wanted. Some things never change.

Interestingly, modern day evangelical Christians seem more interested in proper documentation through theological litmus tests and dogmas of belief in whether one should receive the proper credentials of being “born again” than the incarnate power of Jesus boldly witnessing to the reality that life is stronger than death, and good is stronger than evil. Rather than exchanging résumés of belief, I would suggest that they will know we are Christians by our love, not our doctrine. Unfortunately, for human control freaks, the way of love is way too wild and free. By reducing deep spiritual truths to belief and dogmas, institutional religion is born, again, and competition for brand control become the preeminent reality. Jesus rocks, quite literally on Easter, but I find that Christianity often gets in the way of following Jesus. Wherever you are entombed in your life, come out! Hmm…is that Jesus calling?

Tags: Cartoon, Change, Christianity, Comics, Competition, Control, Death, Doctrine, Dogma, Evil, Facts, Funny, Inane, Jesus, Life, Love, Modern, Oppression, Political, Power, Questioning, Questions, Reality, Religion, Resurrection, Science, Spiritual, Truth, Western Civilization, Women

Blessed are the Peacemakers

March 27th, 2012 Filed under: Anti-War, Peace, Political and Philosophical Musings, Top Pun Design Commentaries Add Comment

Blessed Are the Peacemakers – Jesus Quote–BUTTON

Blessed Are the Peacemakers – Matthew 5:9 – Jesus–BUTTON

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This quote from Jesus from Matthew 5:9 is probably one of the most famous and well-known Jesus quotes from the Bible. Though, however common the phrase blessed are the peacemakers is, you’d be hard-pressed to figure that Christians took this seriously, given how many Christians are in the military, in many a nation (often opposing nations), and how much counsel and comfort is given to those manning, and occasionally womaning, military enterprises. Of course, many Christians would argue that war-making is a form of peacemaking. I think that this was a popular argument in 1984. Or, well, it’s a real job creator for theologians to figure a way out of loving our enemies, and allowing us to kill those that we hate. This is one of those areas where I find that Christianity gets seriously in the way of following Jesus. Many people do not realize that in the early Christian church, pacifism was the prevailing norm. Refusing military conscription was a common form of martyrdom in the early Christian church. Of course, later, when Christianity cozied up to the state, particularly in the fourth century when Constantine made Christianity the state religion, Christianity mysteriously came up with new ways to justify warring on its enemies. This co-option into the ways of the world is as common as it is unjustified. Just reflect on Jesus’ words for a moment. Really, what blessings do we see reaped by the peacemakers? In worldly wisdom, these so-called blessings are secondhand fodder for the weak, the lowly pacifist. I don’t think that it was a mistake that Jesus’ words recorded here as part of the beatitudes, added for emphasis that peacemakers would be called the children of God! he was trying to make a point! This is a title reserved for the blessed peacemakers in Jesus’ list of who is blessed. Most people stop reading the beatitudes soon after this because they are insane enough to suggest that those who are persecuted for righteousness sake are also blessed. I also like to Luke version which mentions as one of the woes as all people speaking well of you, for this is what our ancestors did in speaking of the false prophets. It seems that a common thread of the many rationalizations I believe stray from Jesus true message concerns avoiding a cost for our actions. Some days I just wish that we had a courageous Messiah that spoke boldly and prophetically to the powers that be in this world, and they wouldn’t back down, even to the point of death by the cruelest means. I can tell you one thing: they didn’t need to torture Jesus to get the truth from him. However, the fact that Jesus was willing to put some skin in the game, all of his skin, speaks truth deeply. Like they say, talk is cheap. What would you be willing to sacrifice for peace? And what blessings would you reap from this?

Tags: Argument, Bible, Blessed, Children, Christian, Christianity, Church, Co-option, Conscription, Conventional Wisdom, cool design, Courage, Death, Enemies, God, Hate, Jesus, Job, Martyrdom, Military, Nonviolence, Pacifism, Peacemakers, Powers that be, Quotes, Religion, Sacrifice, skin in the game, State, Top Pun, Torture, Truth, War, Wisdom

POLITICAL CARTOON: Comedian Jesus – Love Your Enemies

March 18th, 2012 Filed under: Anti-War, Peace, Political Cartoons Add Comment

Comedian Jesus Speaks!

Welcome to Comedian Club Jesus! This is the latest installment the Top Pun series of comics that run on Sundays, featuring CEO Jesus, Free Market Jesus, Country Club Jesus, General Jesus, Comedian Jesus, and who knows what other incarnations! This is the first appearance of Comedian Jesus, but he will undoubtedly return again! Comedian Jesus knows how to make them laugh! People have taken Jesus way too seriously in the past. Seriously, how may times do you have to read the sermon on the Mount to realize that Jesus was just being sarcastic. My best guess is that the person recording the sermon was laughing so hard that their handwriting must have been abominable, and confusion was bound to follow. Of course, experience with the classic joke of this week, loving your enemies, is enough to ascertain that Jesus was joking. Trust me, just tell someone to love their enemies and wait for the punch line. Of course, the punch line being an actual line of people waiting to punch you, either literally or figuratively for suggesting such a ridiculous notion. Of course, my guess is that this is not the biggest disappointment that Jesus had. For instance, Jesus was probably really bummed by having to be crucified rather than just having an arrow shot through his head. But comics, particularly jesters, often have little control over how things end for them, or how they are interpreted. I’m guessing that some people are really hoping to for some new material in his second show…

So, until next Sunday, with the next edition of Comedian Jesus, CEO Jesus, Free Market Jesus, etc., talk amongst yourselves or let me know what you think.

Tags: Bible, Cartoon, Christian, Christianity, Comics, Control, Enemies, Experience, Free market, Funny, Jesus, Joke, Love, Market, Pacifism, Parodies, Political, Satire, Top Pun, Trust, Violence, War

POEM: In God We Trust? Money Speaks!

March 5th, 2012 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

In God we trust?

A graven image

We never leave home without

Good

For all debts, public and private

When miss taking goods for good

The most note worthy tender legal

By George, Abe, Alex, Andy, Ulysses, and Ben

Close impersonal friends

Treasuring some denominations more than others

Speaking for itself

Silencing those without

Trust

In God

Wee

It is hard to imagine anything much more ironic than engraving on our money, “In God we trust.” In a so-called Judeo-Christian nation, the irony is even much deeper. Jesus tells us that “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Luke 16:13, NIV) Perhaps, the intent of engraving, “In God we trust”, on our money is to remind us that we are supposed to trust God rather than money. However, this also just seems to play into the irony. Of course, this irony has reached the point of the surreal in recent times in the United States, with the US Supreme Court declaring that money is free speech and corporations are persons entitled to rights formerly reserved for human beings. God has created human beings, and human beings have apparently created some other form of persons. In Wall Street speak it would be some form of human derivative. Wall Street is a modern-day Golden calf, creating idolatrous graven images. The reason such activities are considered idolatrous is because it violates the natural order of things. Humans are to serve God and one another. Corporations are legal fictions created to serve humans, a man-made technology or tool to be subservient to human needs. Corporate personhood is a derivative of the modern-day Golden calf, the worship of Wall Street, its so-called best and brightest, and, in the end, the worship of money. Money is a tool. People who worship money become tools, dehumanizing themselves and others. Wall Street brings us to a very sad state: we put a precise price on everything, yet lose our ability to value anything other than the almighty buck — deer me! We must not get caught staring into the bright headlights of unrestrained capitalism and its well funded propaganda trying to convince us that we are helpless against the idolatrous idea that serving money is inevitable and that we cannot do better. It strikes me that living in this surreal and cynical situation requires that real people speak out freely against this dangerous fiction of corporate personhood and money as free speech. Otherwise, corporations will rule us rather than the other way around, and money, concentrated in the hands of a few, will drown out the true speech of the people and we will be robbed of our democracy. This is all just a fancy legalistic way of the richer telling the poorer to shut up. What say you?

Tags: Bible, Capitalism, Christian, Christianity, Class Warfare, Corporate Personhood, Cynical, Dehumanizing, Democracy, Free Speech, God, Hate, Idolatry, Image, Impersonal, Ironic, Irony, Jesus, Love, Modern, Money, Play, Poor, Propaganda, Religion, Rich, State, Supreme Court, Surreal, Technology, Trust, Wall Street, Worship

Homophobia – Now That’s a Choice!

March 2nd, 2012 Filed under: Gay, Top Pun Design Commentaries Add Comment

Homophobia – Now That’s a Choice BUTTON

Homophobia – Now That’s a Choice – Rainbow Pride Bar – BUTTON

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Homophobes like to focus on the idea that sexual orientation is chosen, at least homosexual orientation! Funny how if you ask a heterosexual person when they chose their sexual orientation it seems like a stupid question to them. Strangely some heterosexuals think that homosexuals choose their sexual orientation. Well, this double standard or hypocrisy is made even more surreal by focusing on what actually is a choice, that is whether to discriminate on persons based on their sexual orientation. Discrimination is a choice. Tolerance and acceptance is a choice. Fear is a choice. Sexual orientation is not a choice. Sexual orientation is something we are born with; it is God-given, a gift.

Of course, condemning people for something for which they have no choice is cruel at best. Nonetheless, it seems that homophobes have to believe that being gay is a choice. It makes no sense to speak of something as moral or immoral if there is not a choice involved! Now, sexual behavior is a choice, but holding that persons of homosexual orientation cannot act in any way on that orientation is absurd. First, sexual orientation and identity is way more than simply sexual acts, it is a fundamental way in which we relate to romantic partners. To deny this aspect for another human being is denying that human being a basic human right. Most anti-gay bigotry comes from religious traditions. In the United States, the anti-gay bigotry comes largely from Christianity. All you have to do is start reading the Bible in Genesis to see that it all starts out so good, good, good, good, good! The first thing in the Bible that is declared to not be good, is that Adam is alone. To insist that the only way that somebody can be moral is to be alone and unable to choose a life partner violates the very first principle that God laid out in the Bible concerning how we were created for one another and how God meant for us to live in partnership. I think the Bible got it right in Genesis.

Tags: Acceptance, Anti-Homophobia, Bible, Bigotry, Buttons-Pins, Christianity, cool design, Discrimination, Fear, Funny, Gift, God, Heterosexual, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy, Identity, Life, Moral, Pride, Religion, Religious, Romantic, Stupid, Surreal, Top Pun

Birth Control as a Human Right – Toledo Protest

February 6th, 2012 Filed under: Health, Political Action, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

On Friday, February 6, about a dozen protesters gathered outside St. Anne’s Hospital on Secor Road in Toledo, Ohio. This protest was organized by the Toledo Chapter of the National Organization for Women (see Toledo NOW facebook page), it also supported by Occupy Toledo. The purpose of this protest was to advocate for birth control is a human right. This was triggered by the recent decision by the Obama administration to require that organizations owned by religious groups must provide birth control as part of their health insurance plans. This rule does not require that religious groups themselves must provide birth control as part of group health insurance plans to their employees, only to those employees that work in organizations owned by religious groups, such as a Catholic hospital.

Anita Rios, President of Toledo chapter of N.O.W., demonstrating for birth control as a human right (photo courtesy of The Toledo Blade).

I went to this protest. When I pulled into the massive empty parking lot of St. Anne’s Hospital, I was greeted by two of their security guards. They immediately asked, “Are you from Occupy Toledo?” Indicating that I was there for the protest, they told me that I could not park there. Now, that’s what I call radical hospitality! I recognize the right of private property, but I can’t help but find it ironic, that respecting the right of a woman to be the steward of her own body and her own life is trumped by a claim of religious freedom. Personally, I consider conscience and religious freedom, the stewardship of one’s soul, the most sacred thing in which we are entrusted. Also, I recognize that conscience and the functions of the state will inevitably come into conflict at certain points. The only question I would ask, that when religion and the state comes into conflict, can one tell the difference between a religion and the state. I find nationalism as a religion is completely repugnant and patently idolatrous. I will stand against such idolatry every opportunity I am afforded. In the same vein, when I find that religion functions largely as just another interest in society, it profoundly diminishes its sacred role in society. So, how does one tell the difference between a religion and the state? I would submit that a willingness to sacrifice one’s own interests for a larger good, and ever larger good, is a way of sacred living that points to the ever “more” that God is. Of course, with nationalism, that ever larger good comes to an abrupt end at our geopolitical borders and a rather crass commitment to our national interest ( as opposed to a global interest, or an interest in protecting creation). With religion, the demarcation of giving up on an ever larger good is usually at the boundary of that religion’s institution. This is where conventional wisdom takes over. In the case of Christianity, the gospel becomes foolishness. The profound and mystical sacred texts that speak about dying in order to be born anew are too large to be held within the boundaries of an institution. In more practical terms, this is seen as sacrifice, self-sacrifice, giving up something of lesser value for something of greater value. I am eagerly waiting to see the Roman Catholic Church’s response to this conflict between church and state. If, in fact, the reality for the Roman Catholic Church is that its doctrine is sacred, then I would expect that they would be willing to pay a large price in order to see that its doctrine becomes manifest in the world. Let me be clear. When I say being willing to pay a large price, I mean that they themselves are willing to pay a large price, not forcing others to pay a large price. The latter is simply the ways of the world, conventional wisdom, bad news. If the Roman Catholic Church is willing to take on huge fines to witness to the importance and value of this doctrine that they hold to be true, then they will earn a commensurate measure of respect from me.

Birth Control as Human Right Protesters in Toledo, Ohio

Toledo Protesters Demonstrating for Birth Control as a Human Right

Defending and promoting one’s values is costly, typically in direct proportion to the value of those values. I was delighted to join a dozen or so protesters who were willing to put a little skin in the game, invest a little time, enter the fray, risk ridicule and misunderstanding, etc. to demonstrate how much they value birth control as a human right. May many more join the fight for this and other human rights!

Tags: Birth Control, Catholic, Christian, Christianity, Church, Conflict, Conscience, Control, Conventional Wisdom, Creation, Doctrine, Events, facebook, Freedom, God, Health Insurance, Hospitality, Human Rights, Idolatry, Ironic, Life, Mystical, Nationalism, Obama, Occupy Toledo, Political, President, Protesters, Protests, Radical, Reality, Religion, Religious, Religious Freedom, Respect, Risk, Sacred, Sacrifice, Security, skin in the game, Society, Soul, State, Stewardship, Time, Toledo, Values, Willingness, Wisdom, Women, Work

RAMBO JESUS CARTOON: Will of Rambo Jesus Revealed – Protect The Fodder-land

POEM: Technicolored Jesus

POEM: Loving Your Enemas

POEM: A Brother Lying

POLITICAL CARTOON: CEO Jesus Retirement Plan

CEO Jesus: You Had Me At The Retirement Plan

POEM: Albatross Necklace Futures

POEM: Guarding God

POEM: Less Than Eternal Question

POEM: Wolves in Elephants’ Clothing

POEM: A Forgetting God

POEM: A Lousy Take on Lao-Tse

POEM: Synctretised Swimming

POEM: Infectious Hope

POLITICAL CARTOON: CEO Jesus – Birthers

CEO Jesus Arises to the Occasion!

Blessed are the Peacemakers

Blessed Are the Peacemakers – Jesus Quote–BUTTON

POLITICAL CARTOON: Comedian Jesus – Love Your Enemies

Comedian Jesus Speaks!

POEM: In God We Trust? Money Speaks!

Homophobia – Now That’s a Choice!

Homophobia – Now That’s a Choice BUTTON

Birth Control as a Human Right – Toledo Protest

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