I'm a Male

I’m a card-carrying, dues-paying, chrome-plated member of the most destructive culture on the planet: I’m a male. Who is most likely to start a war?  Who is most likely to commit rape, murder or assault?  Who is most often on the internet hacking passwords and writing destructive viruses for fun and profit?  Who must possess women or slaves?  Who is it who most often tortures people and ruins lives for political gain, cultural tradition or religious dogma?  It’s us, the males. Who is it who is too stupid to see that the weapons industry is stoking our masculinity and propensity for violence so they can bank billions of dollars in sales?  It’s us, the males. I’m not saying that women can’t be criminals too.  I’m just saying that men are better at it, perhaps because at this time we’re the dominant gender. (“Worst case of testosterone poisoning I’ve ever seen.” Claudia Christian’s character, referring to a ship’s captain heading for disaster in an episode of Babylon 5.)If I were the television-evangelist type I would say that God is going to “come down here” and strike down all the out-of-control males.  But I don’t believe that God is an interventionist.  I don’t think that God is inclined to break God’s own laws of natural order so that I can have some kind of personal satisfaction or relief.  Instead, I think there are natural consequences, which I like to call the flow of God’s will, for our actions. If the man-culture has its way the planet is going to become a smoking ruin – and in fact it is many male religious leaders who are most out front, saying that just this thing is God’s will. Not so.  I believe that God’s will is echoed by Jesus’ call to repentance, a call also of John the Baptist, and all the prophets before who demanded that we change our way of thinking and strive for restorative justice instead of retribution, and the giving of self ahead of the preservation of self. I don’t believe that we become stronger by taking from others and decimating creation.  I think instead, that the community and the planet become stronger when we give of ourselves, and become part of a healthier, more spiritual, culture.  Make it so. 

Thin Places

It’s only been five years or so that I’ve been consistently fed spiritually in a Christian congregation - not just incidentally, but consistently.  I’ve experienced lots of good sermons, lots of thoughtful discussions.  Challenges and conflicts have become opportunities for growth. One subject has been brought up more than once and it comes out of Celtic spirituality, which defines what it calls “thin places.”  Thin places are locations in space or time where the barrier between a person and God is “thin,” and she or he is suddenly and unexpectedly granted a view.  I’ve read about this from Christian theologians and I heard it again recently in a sermon. It’s an experience sometimes described as an “overwhelming rush of love out of nowhere,” and it most often happens to children.  Never solicited, it is soft, bright, and powerful.  It happened to me twice and those incidents left permanent memories, memories to which I frequently return.  They have defined the personhood of my Higher Power and left me with a powerful hope. And I miss them.  It’s been a long time. One explanation for the lack of this experience for adults is our tendency, as we age, to take on innumerable distractions. We also indulge ourselves in prejuduce that makes life easier and sadly, cheaper.  Prejudice shuts out the open heart that is necessary to be close to the Creator.  If that is true then we are inclined to deteriorate spiritually as we age. But I wonder if there may be another possibility.  We all need love, but perhaps different manifestations of it as we age. Closeness, warmth, physical and spiritual bonding are universal for all ages, but as we grow in knowledge and wisdom perhaps God is expecting us to exercise our adult powers in showing that love to others.  Perhaps in the inspiration we exercise in our words, our art and music, our craft, our actions, we are dispensing that same pure love we may have experienced as children and in the very act of giving, we receive.