Hush
Hush by Meilin Wong
I was just playing around, finally experimenting with the idea of using stationary in my email program. I like Meilin Wong’s digital art, and I sort of stumbled into this image.
What Do You See?
Here is an interesting photograph taken by a friend of mine. We are looking for responses and descriptions of what you notice or see about this photograph. It was taken at Magnolia Bay in southern Gloucester, Cape Anne, Massachusetts, USA.
Comments are invited!
My God, Your God
Here is a poem I first started in January – I’ve revised it a bit, but it still doesn’t quite capture the feeling or the argument I’ve intended. Comments are welcome.
My God, Your God
The god I could believe in
is not the god I hear described
by you and other heartless folk,
who in lust with judging
cast your judgments
up up up to the sky
to form the ultimate authority.
My god models
the ultimate spirit –
compassionate and loving,
nestling me in warmth
like a baby in the womb.
My god guides me
into ecstasy –
that being outside myself
beyond language,
and still holds dear
what makes me unique to him –
or her – or that beyond gender
that so confounds our imaginations.
My god is beyond
our human understanding,
so that everything we know
about friendship and love
is just a pale reflection
in comparision,
and yet these things
best teach us and train us
revealing to us the beginning steps
toward loving wisdom.
If there is an afterlife
I would ask then
to be enlightened
(and endarkened?)
having already absorbed
what I needed to learn
from the joys and sufferings
of embodiment and materiality,
thereafter to dwell in spirit
as the spark in me
reenters the warp and woof
of the cosmos.
My god is beyond
the highest thought that we can think,
but my god is also very simple –
the ultimate source and
definition of love.
You cannot explain even rhyme
to an ant, and likewise
we are limited by the terms
of our own perceptions
and our own becomings.
Yet I believe that worship
breathes through us all at times
through kindness, through smiles,
through forgiveness, through actions,
through refraining from actions,
and through the myriads of thoughts
and feelings and behaviors
that all of us, down deep inside
already know.
We already know.
There is that still voice deep inside
of the kingdom yet within us.
And if there really is a god,
and not our wish-filled dream
then I invite this god to manifest
in and through me, and to raise me up
– the metaphor of upness incomplete –
to the supreme processes of love.
Yes, I welcome all benevolent deities.
But if there is no such god as this,
and even if your god is the "true God,"
capital G and all,
I judge your god as wanting
and I defy your so-called god.
Have you stopped to ask yourself
to whom do you belong?
"Which god do you obey" –
a lyric so seldom received
as an actual question.
The daemonic voice of The The
asks it too, though slant:
Whose voice is it – after all –
that whispers unto you?
You fundamentalists have lost
the thing most fundamental.
Pharasees again, in code
have lost or burned the message.
You fanatics worship manmade creeds
that will undo us all
And YOU, you terrorists of all religions
your gods will make us fall.
Yes I confess this deep deep flaw,
this remnant of rigidity,
scar-tissue of self-righteousness,
torn open yet again.
Yet one must speak from where one stands
and this is what I know.
I have no room left in my heart
for love toward you to grow.
The evil that your god incites
in you and o’er the world,
stains for all time our histories,
we all pay for your sins.
I guard compassion jealously
held selfish in reserve
for the ones you hurt so deeply
and whose stories aren’t heard.
I name you and yours false prophets
because you do define the phrase,
you lead the would-be faithful
always far and further astray.
Placing demon masks
on the faces of our kin,
undoing all the fragile good
that lets us breathe again.
Shepard, you’re a predator
who leads your singing flock
straight into the meat grinder
after having drunk the blood
of our precious human dignity.
Yet they still see not the fang,
of sadists grinning, grinning
puffed up in polyester gray.
You use your sacred freedom
to deceive the the trusting ones.
Do you still know what you do
or is it buried in the money trail?
"Make no mistake" is what you say –
(I say "be not misled")
I do mean what it is I say
Or your god may strike me dead
It’s just as simple as can be
I’ll say it "blunt and plain"
See, I would sooner trust a flea
than allow you to preach to me
about god.
And I am tired, suddenly – just
take your god and ….
get behind me.
Take your god and go.
Religious Truth
Well, I updated my site and blog – I was getting tired of the darks and purples and decided to go for a serene combo of blues and teals with just a little glowy green in homage to the virus. Still have to make some banners and such, but I like the overall look – less clutter. I’m still trying to figure out a better way to handle navigation. I just have so many pages!
Still reeling from a pretty nasty comment on the blog – didn’t really expect it. We "liberals" are the new "commies", so I guess I shouldn’t be so disappointed. It seems a simple thing that God can’t be the property of a political party. I’m always terribly suspicious about people who claim God is on their side anyway. As a former Jehovah’s Witness I remember too well how very comforting it was to believe that everyone who made you uncomfortable wasn’t on the "good list" with God. On the other hand, I’m pretty grateful to be beyond that point in my spiritual growth.
I heard a theologian from South Africa on the radio the other day. I wish I had caught his name – he had been involved in the Truth and Reconciliation effort that granted amnesty for those who told the stories of what really happened during apartheid. One thing he said that seems so basic but that never fails to move me is the insight that truth is something that, religiously, one strives toward, not claims. He called it the lowest possible form of religion that creates divisions. Isn’t it interesting to see religion-based hatred springing forth again here, in the land of the free, at the beginning of the new century – a mirror of the other divisions in the world. These really are the new "Crusaders" (read some history of the Crusades for a sense of some of the things that were motivating them – or read about "Manifest Destiny" as a doctrine and a set of effects)- I really hope not in the sense that the extremist Muslims on the other side think. We’ve not yet sunk so low.
Billionaires for Bush
This satirical site is hilarious! Find a local billionaires chapter, read the manual, join the action network, get campaign materials, read the blog, learn how to spin the issues, and more. There are lawn signs, ads, a photo gallery. Read position papers on such topics as legislation as a lucrative investment – see the actual numbers for investment and return! Leave no billionaire behind! Hands off Hilliburton! Blood for Oil! Small Government, Big Wars! Bomb the Arabs and Steal their Oil!
A sample quotation:
"Now there are some, even among billionaires, who criticize George’s fiscal policy as dangerous. They say you can’t cut taxes during a war and a recession, and simultaneously massively increase spending on weaponry and corporate subsidies in the Medicare and energy bills. They point to our huge deficit and massive future debt. But these people miss the point. We have nothing to fear from debt and deficit — it’s all owed to us! The government has borrowed money from us to give back to us in tax cuts and subsidies, and now it will be the joe-taxpayer who will owe us big for the next 30 years. The icing on the cake — we can now use the debt and deficit to justify slashing spending on social security, health care and all those other terrible New Deal programs that put people before corporations."
Billionaires for Bush! Government of, by, and for the corporations.
Christianity Rant (a poem)
Christianity Rant
You think that you’re a monotheist
but you believe in Jupiter-Mars
with Osirus for dessert
You say that there is only one God
but your own commandment merely states
you must worship "no other god before me"
Do we worship him first
then move on to his children
(Perhaps there is one other)
And where is our mother hiding?
Who was your god talking to
when he created in "our image"
And why is it writ plural, the name Elohim
A corporation from the start
they had an organizational chart
Never mind for now the ring around
the rosy of the father son and ghost
What about God’s Angels?
Oh, not the ones you see now
The real ones aren’t human souls
I mean Angels, the messengers, the spies
principalities now forgotten, strange seraphim
and cherabim, and cyberbim and more
Of the one be not afraid
but from another flows
death and destruction
The vengeful warrior god (part 1)
needs to grow up
and stop punishing you
for failing to meet his impossible goals
Your god makes you schizo
with constant double messages
Really – isn’t he just a mirror
Of your own pathologies?
Your god (part 2) resurrects you one day
a zombie vampire to frighten away
nonexistent children of the future
if you only have faith
and forgive as you would be forgiven
But who among you really believes
This good news of the kingdom?
You can only define goodness as membership
in your fake community, bounded by
collective hatred of any other
Your devil is designed
for fear and conversion and control
He misses his days as Pan
cloven hooves dancing, pipes playing
and plenty of wine,
that you’ve turned into the blood
of the good guy.
But even your sa-tan, the liar the adversary
was part of the system, the lawyer
travelling about, he took time out
to manipulate your god into Job’s torture
You would kill your messiah again today
between terrorism and the Patriot Act
Oh, yes, he’d think Bush was a jerk
but I don’t think you’d like him either.
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