God Is Not 3 Guys

As a writer about religions and spirituality, I have tried to avoid writing about politics, but right now I cannot get politics out of my mind. And when events become as momentous as those occurring today, politics merge with spirituality. A man whose foremost talent is selling himself, who aspires less to lead the country than to glorify himself, was elevated to the most influential political office in the world. As an American facing the world, I am embarrassed. I admit I rejoice that Trump’s approval rating is tanking. Maybe, I hope, maybe, maybe his supporters are beginning to discern the truth …………. At this point in my writing I started guessing which developments since the election might have opened the eyes of formerly deluded voters, but that’s a futile exercise. The signs pointing to Trump’s true character were quite evident before the election. As I go through my days, I console myself and fellow mourners with the astonishing image of the rising sun. A mentor/friend of m...

Parker Palmer offers a song   that can appeal to both religious and non-religious people. Scroll down to the lyrics of Sara Thomsen with the guitar.    I cried when watching this next video.  A young Arab-American sets himself up across the street from a Trump Tower, blindfolded with a sign saying that he trusts passersby, inviting them to give him a hug.   Nothing happens for a while, and then . . . I ended my reflection on nones by asking, “Why [in our increasingly secular culture] does our entire culture embrace the religious feast of Christmas?” Don’t we all love newscasts of people being exceptionally generous during this season? Don't we love stories of spreading love and cheer?  I do. I think we all need these stories even more because of growing secularism with its despicable focus on buying stuff to stuff people who already are stuffed with stuff. Spiritual values during the Christmas season provide relief from mandatory gift-g...

November 14, 2016 The number of religiously non-affiliated people, according to the Pew Research Center, is rising. In 2007 they comprised 16 percent of Americans. In 2015 their percentage rose to 23 percent. Meanwhile, the number of Christians fell from 78 to 71 percent. I do not mourn this, although I regularly attend Mass with Catholic religious sisters. Not all these nuns are so very different from nones. Both groups have spiritual values that transcend conventional bounds, but nuns express their spirituality in religious terms while nones express spirituality without religion. At the same time that I feel at home with nuns, I identify with nones’ getting more inspiration from nature than from God-talk. Like nones, I have lost respect for institutional religion. My biggest criticism of Christianity is its God-images turned into gods by patriarchal language imposed on churches by the Vatican. I hold it responsible for Pope Francis' lack of vision regarding women. I...

Soon after Pope Francis was elected and the refreshing changes in his leadership style were being celebrated, I wrote that he doesn’t get the issue of women . That became abundantly clear this last week when he again closed the door on women’s ordination. Yes, he’s a wonderful man. Yes, he’s humble and courageous in his determination to right wrongs, even to a limited extent on the treatment of women.  But he just doesn’t get it. He does not understand patriarchy; he does not understand its impact on human thought, attitudes, and expectations.  Francis is not uninformed, just unenlightened. He has not accomplished the shift in consciousness that is required to accept women in roles previously delegated exclusively to men. Christian God-talk keeps Francis and other good people from realizing what patriarchy has done. He needs a strong dose of Mary Daly (“If God is male, male is God”) and Rosemary Radford Ruether, whose book Sexism and God-talk motivate my writings and p...

We all need to get away from political garbage. To cleanse our minds, I offer the words of Parker Palmer, a spiritual leader whom Krista Tippett likes to interview for  On Being . [W]hen I went to Union Theological Seminary in New York City for a year, . . . God spoke to me and said he wanted me to get the hell out of the church.    Palmer does not trash religion or cling to religion. He recognizes its worth for some but knows that today he can awaken spiritual awareness in more people by not going through religion. He joined an intentional Quaker community where he was given the gift of understanding,  that the value of a person has absolutely nothing to do with status, power, income, leverage. . . . I made the exact same base salary as an 18-year-old coming to cook in the kitchen or work in the garden. . . Parker sees each of us having to find our own way to our true self. He calls this self the soul.  And if the word “soul” doesn’t work f...

Relief from Trump          October 9, 2016 Donald Trump’s vile words are no surprise. They unmask him as a sexual predator, but his predatory business dealings, also made public, should get equal attention. The predator turned presidential candidate disturbs me less than continued support given him. I can get trapped into arguing against an irrational partisan who backs Trump, but it doesn’t help me or her or anyone else. We all need to get away from the garbage. To cleanse our minds, I offer the words of Parker Palmer in my next post. Hillary and Donald            September 30, 2016 I’m watching the campaign with fear that the United States might actually sink into the morass of Donald Trump as president. I confess my obsession with this. It’s hard to think about much else. Marilyn wants me to tie my subjects of discussion to religion and spirituality. Very well. I observe my obsession as a personal challenge ...

Marilyn from Phoenix called me. “Jeanette, where have you been? Start blogging again!” She informed me that it’s been six weeks since my last post and told me to begin again. She seemed sincerely bereft so I offered, “You can read the posts in my blog index.” “I’ve read every one of them.” “I am impressed." But I didn't believe her. There are too many. "You couldn’t have!” “I read every one of them, some of them several times.” As proof, she told me when I started the blog—2007. I was speechless. “They’re interesting, wonderful, illuminating, just wonderful. Why aren’t you writing more?” After some stuttering, I listed the things that keep me busy. “Each post is an essay. It takes me a long time to write those, and I have so many other things to do.” Often a post I intend to dash off quickly turns into lengthy labor. I reminded her that I’m working on a memoir. She asked me whether I was thinking of not doing any more blogging.  I confessed that I w...