NEWS FLASH
As I paused in writing this early morning to check out the television news, the guide showed a half-hour program with Garner Ted Armstrong. What a whiplash of consciousness for me! I hit that channel button out of curiosity; just how old would be the video? Might they be replaying his tapes from the sixties when I was in college and hung on every word he spoke? When I played basketball with him and marvelled at the many tattoos emblazoned on his body? Or would they replay video from the seventies leading up to his excommunication by his dad? Or would it be from the last decade of his life, long after I had seen him and had lost all interest in his product? But what I found instead was a replacement infomercial about better abs! Fitting, I would say. Take care of your body; you'll be better off in the long run!
But to continue my earlier writing - -
Subservient! Such a demoralizing idea, handed to us by tradition and ages of servitude to something greater! Such a difficult way to live, always assuming the worst about ourselves and our very tentative existence, all the while struggling to please something beyond our grasp. Beyond our sight. Humanity could be great! But we waste so much energy on traditional nonsense.
My friend, Dr. John Bennett, writes of the magnificence of the cosmos and a healthy reverence humans might pay to the greatness of all that exists - to be better caretakers and stop destructive wars and pollution. His science is all about energy and a proposed new law of energy. His philosophy, rather than making worms of humans, shows us that we are indeed small in stature when compared to the amazing, ever-expanding universe, but that we may well be the keepers of the record of life and are probably the greatest product of the awesome forces of evolution. Each human could be glorious while still human, rather than struggling against ourselves for all our lives to somehow, with great humility and hope-beyond-hope, perhaps qualify to become some other form in another life - finally, maybe, by the skin of our teeth and through ascetic self-denial, becoming glorious.
Personally, I try to be glorious pretty much daily. Failure to manage this every day is inevitable, but trying is as simple as starting each day with a positive attitude instead of begging on my knees for help because I am so weak and worthless! Many days, because I am happy to serve other humans without being subservient, I accomplish a decent amount of glory. Sometimes I even allow myself a bit of crowing about it! Typically though, I am quietly pleased with a day's outcome and go to sleep contented. Never again will I see myself as a worm, and never again will I waste morning and evening time on my painful old knees to satisfy some foolish, age-worn concept of humility called subservience. Not to an invisible supreme being nor to visible, greedy people who see themselves as worthy to be served. To the Trumps of our society who expect to be served!
In reading the words purportedly spoken by a Son of God, that one should serve others, Christians have turned that into meaning one should be a slave to a belief, to be subservient to the ultimate guide, the supreme being. The tendency then is to be subservient to the various vicars of that supreme being.
Why are most of today's religious Americans part of the political right wing? Why do they readily follow along with Republican policies? Easier for me to understand now than it was ever before. In fact, I could never grasp it in any way prior to my epiphany. [ I'm interjecting here that none of this means I hate Republicans or Christians. Rarely do I even experience hate; seeing my wife suffer pain - that I truly hate. Humans, no. I happen to love some folks who are of both persuasions, Christian and Republican, and I respect vast numbers of people who are both or either of the two. All I ask is that people look inside their own traditions and habits with a healthy skepticism about the rightness of all their handed-down beliefs. ]
The religious are taught from the cradle to be followers of strong lords. If these believers ever stoop to being entangled in governments of this world, who represents the most powerful vicars to be followed within a government of man? Naturally the wealthiest and most powerful. Why would so many within the 99% of our nation, in financial terms, be so willing to support and cater to those wealthiest who keep gaining ever more wealth by their greed and their purchased control of our elected representatives? I believe now it is a simple thing: they are living vicariously through these lords and have some vague hope of becoming the lords themselves - much the way I was an aspiring "God" back in my Christian days. Our sect taught us to believe we would eventually be part of the God family! That we would rule our own worlds, that of the increase of His government there would be no end! Is it not understandable, within the framework of this heavy concept of belief in a hoped-for next life, that once a person tries to flee the madness of one small sect, his sight would turn to new lords and not to self-assertion and independence? Just ponder the question.
Please understand me here, dear Reader; I am not talking politics. I am talking, I suppose, sociology in some way, though as an untrained sociologist. I hope those young students of the discipline such as Joy who writes in that other blog mentioned, will take up where I am incapable of expounding and will do some serious research. I am philosophizing free-style here. That's what free-thinkers do. And don't get the idea I am some kind of bleeding-heart liberal, as a friend named George recently branded me. I am in fact, extremely liberal. I am a free thinker! Far too liberal and free to be labeled a Democrat! I am truly democratic in my way of seeing the world; egalitarian to the max. The far-right agenda sickens and angers me! I see us as a nation, trudging surely to that theocracy concept that so infects the masses of our planet. That stifling world of subservience exhibited by our sadly unenlightened Middle-East brothers belonging to faiths that gladly throw human life to the wind, killing insanely. Where is the difference, really? Any theocracy is as dangerous as the next. And who wants to live under a theocratic form of government? Christians do! And what group of people could supply enough votes to sway our nation toward theocracy? Christians. It explains finally to me how our electorate could put back into office, in 2004, a complete incompetent who was far worse than just a buffoon. He was a menace to the world and had already proven destructive to the American and democratic way of life. The first president in our nation's history to attack a sovereign nation in an unprovoked war must have come across as powerful to religionists - and don't overlook the subliminal tendency Christians would surely have had then to vote for the guy most fiercely attacking that other huge religious group over there!
And apparently Christians loved our international embarrassment who masqueraded as a leader! They appear to think a lot of his new clone who struts in the same Texas manner while running for office and scares the crap out of those of us who love democracy.
So the two problems I have with today's Republicans (remember, I liked Ike!) are: 1.) They have sold themselves to the rich and powerful, and 2.) They have dragged Christians along with them by using the above described proclivity for the religious to follow the highest power available. Now that these factions have formed their unholy(!) union, they appear determined to take us further down that road to a theocracy, to a restricted life, even as they try to use the word freedom in their appeal to the populace. Throw in those social issues of when does life begin and is it okay to be gay, and you're all set to grind unbelievers into the dust of history. And the 1% will gladly pay for the continued demise of democracy in the name of capitalism. They destroy both. And by the way, they don't really give a damn about your beliefs, Christians!
There will one day be no freedom left in the home of those not willing to be brave and not willing or able to think for themselves. Again, I am not speaking politics here except as it applies to the trends that have been set in motion. As a fierce independent, I detest any form of tyranny over the mind of man, including theocracy!
markman
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Epiphany Expanded
As I paused in writing this early morning to check out the television news, the guide showed a half-hour program with Garner Ted Armstrong. What a whiplash of consciousness for me! I hit that channel button out of curiosity; just how old would be the video? Might they be replaying his tapes from the sixties when I was in college and hung on every word he spoke? When I played basketball with him and marvelled at the many tattoos emblazoned on his body? Or would they replay video from the seventies leading up to his excommunication by his dad? Or would it be from the last decade of his life, long after I had seen him and had lost all interest in his product? But what I found instead was a replacement infomercial about better abs! Fitting, I would say. Take care of your body; you'll be better off in the long run!
But to continue my earlier writing - -
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Mini Epiphany
Some events of the past week have conspired to awaken me to a simple truth about humanity. At least it's something that appears to me to be true - your slant on it may be quite different.
First, there was a planned march last Saturday (Oct. 15) in Palm Springs that linked up on
Occupy Together and other websites to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Since my financial status places me in the lower, fat middle of the probably pear-shaped middle-class diagram, I felt it was time for me to register my complete dissatisfaction with the way our financial system's overlords have mismanaged our economy. It's time to tell our controllers that greed is not the basis of democracy. I marched in protest - for the first time ever.
Several days later, on Thursday, I attended the funeral of a friend. No connection, right? Absolutely right. But during the throes of another half-sleep early morning mental montage session, I came upon something that hit me as though someone suddenly turned on a light. Not entirely different from that moment back in 1963 when I was suddenly overwhelmed by some need to become a devotee of Christian fundamentalism while watching some emotional evangelist pace the stage at a tent meeting, his arms flailing and pages of his open bible flapping in the quick movements and night air. That was what I have referred to elsewhere as the night I "saw the light." It was a blinding light I had to extinguish with much effort thirteen years later - I chose not to be blind any longer.
No sudden light came to me during the funeral this week, and to be very strictly honest here, the person being honored at the ceremony was a woman I had not actually met. She was a lady in her fifties, and I knew her by name only. But some members of her family I have known for all of my adult life, and it was chiefly due to this younger sibling's crippling disease and her living arrangements away from the family that I had not met her nearly fifty years ago. My desire to show respect for the deceased, but more to express friendship to her sisters and one brother whom I know pretty well, placed me in that funeral chapel. And put me there at the grave site in a vast, sprawling memorial garden at the family plot. This was a rare event for me, indeed.
Bear with me as I say only a few brief things about the service. It is important to lay the groundwork for my epiphany, but I dare not ramble on as I am wont to do over religion and its mysteries.
The more years that pass between my rare visits to that arcane world of religious mutterings that are the requisite syntax of ceremonies such as funerals, the more I am mystified when I hear the mouthings again. It was part of my responsibility for eight years of my [misspent] youth to conduct these ceremonies and try to somewhat sooth the hurt being felt by loved ones of the deceased. But in the particular denomination to which I gave my obedience, it was also my instructed responsibility to preach the gospel to unbelievers. Yes, it was told to us as the young tentacles of that little sect, that it was at funerals where we had an opening and a moral duty to speak truth with forceful directness to perhaps reach into the hearts and souls of some of those attending a service who may never otherwise be within earshot of the gospel. A captive audience, in other words. Hit 'em hard!
Following the graveside service on Thursday, the minister came around, being friendly to all and shaking hands. Since he had been of the amiable sort when we arrived prior to the service at the chapel, had made the effort to approach me and offer his simple, first-name introduction to me, I felt I could cut him some slack. I told him he did "a nice job." He didn't need to know (but perhaps could read me a little and had some questions about what I really thought), that my compliment was extremely qualified. "Nice job" meant in my mind that within the accepted, traditional framework of his responsibility to make soft sounds and utter empty promises based solely on biblical blatherings, he was okay as an officiant. He did as his beliefs instructed him. At least he was somewhat personable and had a decent talent for walking that line between being somber and light in his delivery.
The guy was practiced too in his stagecraft. He was theatrically capable. But something that irritated me in his graveside speech actually helped me toward my moment of clarity early this morning. He quoted the last lines of the beautiful song, The Rose. Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows - lies the seed that with the sun's [love], in the spring becomes the rose. "Love" is placed here in brackets because, even though it is the word chosen by the lyricist, it was replaced in the ceremony by the word "warmth."
Why? No way did he forget the actual lyric; he made the change purposely. (Reminds me of those days long ago when I had to re-learn some old hymnal staples to be sung with changed words approved by the lyric arbiter of that little sect which had its divergent beliefs.) My assumption here is that by saying "sun's love," the man might have felt he would be in some way practicing sun worship. He had to have been subliminally asserting that it's only God's love that grows those flowers, not some ethereal "love" passed along by the inanimate sun. (Surely the beautiful song's gifted composer will forgive this tiny correction!) The man spoke as he had to speak, was afraid not to speak! I far more respected my friend, the older brother of the deceased, who plainly spoke of questioning why things happen as they do. He was honest and thoughtful.
So - my epiphany.
To help me reach it, something I myself had written earlier in the week was a spark. My facebook account on Friday flagged me to a comment on my wall post. So I went to read the comment and perforce, read again my own post, seeing it differently somehow. here it is:
Cutting in here is ragged, but I am ending this part of my insight, my epiphany at this point, having gotten long-winded and gone into more extensive philosophy as I tried to wrap this up. My next post will pick up where this one leaves off. For today, I will go about my routines feeling far from any routine I've followed in a long time! I saw the light!
markman
First, there was a planned march last Saturday (Oct. 15) in Palm Springs that linked up on
Occupy Together and other websites to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Since my financial status places me in the lower, fat middle of the probably pear-shaped middle-class diagram, I felt it was time for me to register my complete dissatisfaction with the way our financial system's overlords have mismanaged our economy. It's time to tell our controllers that greed is not the basis of democracy. I marched in protest - for the first time ever.
Several days later, on Thursday, I attended the funeral of a friend. No connection, right? Absolutely right. But during the throes of another half-sleep early morning mental montage session, I came upon something that hit me as though someone suddenly turned on a light. Not entirely different from that moment back in 1963 when I was suddenly overwhelmed by some need to become a devotee of Christian fundamentalism while watching some emotional evangelist pace the stage at a tent meeting, his arms flailing and pages of his open bible flapping in the quick movements and night air. That was what I have referred to elsewhere as the night I "saw the light." It was a blinding light I had to extinguish with much effort thirteen years later - I chose not to be blind any longer.
No sudden light came to me during the funeral this week, and to be very strictly honest here, the person being honored at the ceremony was a woman I had not actually met. She was a lady in her fifties, and I knew her by name only. But some members of her family I have known for all of my adult life, and it was chiefly due to this younger sibling's crippling disease and her living arrangements away from the family that I had not met her nearly fifty years ago. My desire to show respect for the deceased, but more to express friendship to her sisters and one brother whom I know pretty well, placed me in that funeral chapel. And put me there at the grave site in a vast, sprawling memorial garden at the family plot. This was a rare event for me, indeed.
Bear with me as I say only a few brief things about the service. It is important to lay the groundwork for my epiphany, but I dare not ramble on as I am wont to do over religion and its mysteries.
The more years that pass between my rare visits to that arcane world of religious mutterings that are the requisite syntax of ceremonies such as funerals, the more I am mystified when I hear the mouthings again. It was part of my responsibility for eight years of my [misspent] youth to conduct these ceremonies and try to somewhat sooth the hurt being felt by loved ones of the deceased. But in the particular denomination to which I gave my obedience, it was also my instructed responsibility to preach the gospel to unbelievers. Yes, it was told to us as the young tentacles of that little sect, that it was at funerals where we had an opening and a moral duty to speak truth with forceful directness to perhaps reach into the hearts and souls of some of those attending a service who may never otherwise be within earshot of the gospel. A captive audience, in other words. Hit 'em hard!
Following the graveside service on Thursday, the minister came around, being friendly to all and shaking hands. Since he had been of the amiable sort when we arrived prior to the service at the chapel, had made the effort to approach me and offer his simple, first-name introduction to me, I felt I could cut him some slack. I told him he did "a nice job." He didn't need to know (but perhaps could read me a little and had some questions about what I really thought), that my compliment was extremely qualified. "Nice job" meant in my mind that within the accepted, traditional framework of his responsibility to make soft sounds and utter empty promises based solely on biblical blatherings, he was okay as an officiant. He did as his beliefs instructed him. At least he was somewhat personable and had a decent talent for walking that line between being somber and light in his delivery.
The guy was practiced too in his stagecraft. He was theatrically capable. But something that irritated me in his graveside speech actually helped me toward my moment of clarity early this morning. He quoted the last lines of the beautiful song, The Rose. Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows - lies the seed that with the sun's [love], in the spring becomes the rose. "Love" is placed here in brackets because, even though it is the word chosen by the lyricist, it was replaced in the ceremony by the word "warmth."
Why? No way did he forget the actual lyric; he made the change purposely. (Reminds me of those days long ago when I had to re-learn some old hymnal staples to be sung with changed words approved by the lyric arbiter of that little sect which had its divergent beliefs.) My assumption here is that by saying "sun's love," the man might have felt he would be in some way practicing sun worship. He had to have been subliminally asserting that it's only God's love that grows those flowers, not some ethereal "love" passed along by the inanimate sun. (Surely the beautiful song's gifted composer will forgive this tiny correction!) The man spoke as he had to speak, was afraid not to speak! I far more respected my friend, the older brother of the deceased, who plainly spoke of questioning why things happen as they do. He was honest and thoughtful.
So - my epiphany.
To help me reach it, something I myself had written earlier in the week was a spark. My facebook account on Friday flagged me to a comment on my wall post. So I went to read the comment and perforce, read again my own post, seeing it differently somehow. here it is:
Cutting in here is ragged, but I am ending this part of my insight, my epiphany at this point, having gotten long-winded and gone into more extensive philosophy as I tried to wrap this up. My next post will pick up where this one leaves off. For today, I will go about my routines feeling far from any routine I've followed in a long time! I saw the light!
markman
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Reality - Really?
No, it must be spelled realety. Who knows? When people don't care enough to actually think about the words they are attempting to say, what difference does spelling make?
This is a brief gripe session about my profession and the lack of respect my own kind pay to our industry. Day after day, I must hear people destroy the word realty. As well as Realtor. My own company's founder and owner for four decades uses these foolish terms continually as do all the other Realtors in my office except for the daughter of the boss. She's now the managing broker as her dad moves into semi-retirement (an expression that always makes me picture a truck driver retiring his old semi!). Anyway, the daughter who grew up hearing the awful pronunciation of her dad's profession, somehow trained herself to say it correctly, so now she and I are the two of our group who know how to say "realty."
Above, I said that this strange, non-word must be spelled realety. The fact that most people (even many who know how to pronounce nuclear) say real-i-ty must be a bi-product of their ease of saying realestate, run together in this way as though dealing with one word. So it follows that a company that practices realestate would place the word realety in its title. And those agents working there are Realetors. If people would stop and write down what they are saying - which Realtors do every day but use the actual spelling of realty - they should notice that the way they pronounce it does not match up with the way they write it. They write two syllables and pronounce a third one that isn't there. Now if they were to carefully sound out the manner in which they are speaking the word realty, they would probably have to write reality. Why would they then not notice that in reality, they are speaking an entirely different word? And why would anyone who uses these terms daily not only know how to pronounce them but also be instructing others (at least by example) in how to say them?
So if you call my realestate office and anyone other than the managing broker should answer the phone (yours truly does not answer phones at the office), you'll hear, "CherryValleyRealety; how may I help you?" Hopefully you will answer, "Oh, well, in reality I was hoping to reach a realty office!" Of course you wouldn't do this, and as a courteous person, neither do I. But it always requires discipline on my part to not hold an impromptu class in simple pronunciation logic.
It occurs to me that a professional Realtor would have reason to say either Realtor or realty somewhere between 20 and 40 times per day - over the course of a year, perhaps 10,000 times. So in consistently saying Realetor and realety instead, the four-decade professional fellow mentioned above has waisted around half a million syllables and made people like me want to stop and correct him half a million times. Hard to find any logic to this common foolishness.
But it does give critics like me a chance to feel superior!
This is a brief gripe session about my profession and the lack of respect my own kind pay to our industry. Day after day, I must hear people destroy the word realty. As well as Realtor. My own company's founder and owner for four decades uses these foolish terms continually as do all the other Realtors in my office except for the daughter of the boss. She's now the managing broker as her dad moves into semi-retirement (an expression that always makes me picture a truck driver retiring his old semi!). Anyway, the daughter who grew up hearing the awful pronunciation of her dad's profession, somehow trained herself to say it correctly, so now she and I are the two of our group who know how to say "realty."
Above, I said that this strange, non-word must be spelled realety. The fact that most people (even many who know how to pronounce nuclear) say real-i-ty must be a bi-product of their ease of saying realestate, run together in this way as though dealing with one word. So it follows that a company that practices realestate would place the word realety in its title. And those agents working there are Realetors. If people would stop and write down what they are saying - which Realtors do every day but use the actual spelling of realty - they should notice that the way they pronounce it does not match up with the way they write it. They write two syllables and pronounce a third one that isn't there. Now if they were to carefully sound out the manner in which they are speaking the word realty, they would probably have to write reality. Why would they then not notice that in reality, they are speaking an entirely different word? And why would anyone who uses these terms daily not only know how to pronounce them but also be instructing others (at least by example) in how to say them?
So if you call my realestate office and anyone other than the managing broker should answer the phone (yours truly does not answer phones at the office), you'll hear, "CherryValleyRealety; how may I help you?" Hopefully you will answer, "Oh, well, in reality I was hoping to reach a realty office!" Of course you wouldn't do this, and as a courteous person, neither do I. But it always requires discipline on my part to not hold an impromptu class in simple pronunciation logic.
It occurs to me that a professional Realtor would have reason to say either Realtor or realty somewhere between 20 and 40 times per day - over the course of a year, perhaps 10,000 times. So in consistently saying Realetor and realety instead, the four-decade professional fellow mentioned above has waisted around half a million syllables and made people like me want to stop and correct him half a million times. Hard to find any logic to this common foolishness.
But it does give critics like me a chance to feel superior!
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