Crossroads

Posted on by a quiet walk

We stand at a crossroad. A political, and soul crossroad.  I do not know which one we will take but the choices we make will be the most important ones we will ever make.  I say this with caution, sadness, and with hope. I am not going to tell you how to vote or what to believe, only you can make those choices.  But I am going to ask that you think hard and look deep within before you make your decisions. 

There are questions you need to ask yourself that only you can answer.

  1. What kind of world do you want to live in?  I am not talking just about your neighborhood, state, or country, I mean the world. 
  2. How do you see yourself, or your children, in 50 years?  Do you expect your world to be just as it is now? Because if you do you are sadly deluded.
  3. Do you expect your children and your children’s children to have a better life than you have today? Because if you do you are sadly deluded.
  4. If you are white do believe you will continue to be that privileged group where everything just comes to you?  Well it does not happen today so why the heck do you believe it will be happening in 50 years?  Are you that stupid?

Our world is changing and how we change with it will determine what this world, locally, nationally, and globally will become. Those of you who are afraid of change can fight to stop it, but it will not work, the world will change any way and you will be left behind.  You see we have reached a tipping point environmentally, socially, and politically and the world is never going to be the same no matter how much you cry in your beer.

People of color, culturally different people, people with differing beliefs, the differently gendered, and most of all womxn will no longer accept the white, protestant, Western European, and male world view.  We believe justice, compassion, and kindness, and political and religious freedoms are greater than hate, divisiveness, and political and religious manipulation, and domination.

The majority of people have begun to see the nonsense taught by political and religious leaders for the last three or four millennia for what it is, that one small group of people can protect us from ourselves is a lie. We who are different, who have different skin colors, different genders, and different beliefs from our white male dominators are striking out on our own. We will stand up for each other, we will protect each other, we will walk hand in hand toward a future that will leave our manipulators and dominators behind. Those of us believe in a faith that honors justice, kindness and compassion will change this world and unless you change your ways it will not go well for you.  I am a follower of Jesus, the Carpenter from Nazareth, not everyone is and each culture and belief have their own stories.  My stories come from Jesus and Jesus once told a parable of the rich man and a poor man.  Do you, who claim to know the bible remember it? Since I doubt it let me refresh your memory.

“There was a rich man who feasted sumptuously every day. At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table, but the rich man would give him nothing. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died, buried, and was delivered into Hades, where he was tormented with fire.

The rich man looked up into heaven and saw Lazarus sitting beside Abraham. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, Lazarus in like manner evil things yet you failed to comfort him. Now Lazarus is comforted here, and you are in agony.

The rich man said, ‘Then, Father, I beg you to send Lazarus to my father’s house for I have five brothers let Lazarus warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘I know Father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ Abraham replied to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”  (Luke 16:10-31)

Just as the rich man was taught the laws of Abraham, we too have been taught by the words of our own prophet Jesus and you who claim to follow this carpenter have failed to do so. Now those of us who are tired of receiving your scraps from your table are banding together and doing what we have been taught some by Jesus, some by Muhammad, some by Moses, Some by the Buddha, and there are many more. We have been taught to do justice, love kindness, walk with our God, however that may be described. We will feed the hungry, care for the poor, the imprisoned, the elderly, the young, and the stranger amongst us.  Everything you have not done.  We will see the divine in the eyes of each and everyone one of us no matter their gender, their beliefs, their skin color, or their culture and we will honor them. We will do everything you have not. 

However, we will do one thing more. We will forgive you.  But while our forgiveness is free it does not relieve you of your responsibility or accountability for the evil you have done in this world.  You who have done so much to the poor, hungry, and homeless. You who have ignored the stranger and abused those who were different, female, and young will have to admit your wrongs.  We will not let you go free, to travel on blithely without punishment for that too is wrong. So, like the rich man your time of abusive domination is over. 

Ruth Jewell, ©October 18, 2020

A History Lesson

Posted on by a quiet walk

Since the beginning of civilization humankind has been willing to delegate their responsibilities to one small portion of the community.  That small group became the “elites” who in time thought nothing of using the majority for their own ends, including enslaving them. The elites discovered the best way to further their ends was to use religion (priests were part of that elite group) to control the majority by justifying cruelty, abuse, and war.

 Constantine followed the pattern when he realized the potential of Christianity to control and manipulate the population.  He and those who followed him used the young catholic church to take the teachings of Jesus, twisting them until they became unrecognizable. The Catholic Church destroyed the simple commandments of the Carpenter from Nazareth to keep their place in the government. For 2000 years the church has taken scripture out of context to justify slavery and other acts of abuse and violence. All because it benefited them by keeping them in power and providing the church, and those they served, with a workforce they didn’t have to care about. They twisted, and simply ignored, the teachings of the Carpenter of Nazareth to define those who were weaker, of different color, or from a culture who didn’t believe as they did as less than human.  The Carpenter never taught such rubbish.

When the white Slavic (that’s where we get word slave) peoples was depleted the ruling elites turned to others they could demonize. In 1441 the Portuguese began the African slave trade and it was the Portuguese who developed the idea of racism. In 1492 it was the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere who were enslaved. In 1619 the first African slaves were brought into the Western Hemisphere.  All to further the elitist, privileged, so called rights, of white Europeans.

Human slaves were cheap and therefore even a poor white person could “own” a human being and feel superior.  Yet those same poor whites abdicated their own rights and privileges to others and so ‘enslaved’ themselves, they just didn’t know it. The sad part is even peoples of color owned slaves, people of their own ethnic groups or groups from other cultures. Slavery has always been part of the culture of human history. This is history, this is the reason we must read history. Without history we can’t understand today or change tomorrow.

The only way to change, and repent, is to change our culture of one group ruling, dominating, lording it over other groups. Until we begin to see each person as valuable for who they are, not what they can produce for a small group of human’s changes will not happen.  Many have tried to change us, to awaken us but we humans don’t listen.  Maybe it’s in our DNA now, maybe we will be unable to change.

But unless we figure out how to be a community where the worth of each person is not based on a bottom-line that benefits only a small number of people nothing will change.  You can throw all you want at social programs or try to change all kinds of political and social groups all will fail, it always has, and always will. Our culture of elitism must change and until it does nothing will change.

Humanity has been given many opportunities to be the best we can be. Moses told the Hebrews “Choose Life” (Deuteronomy 30:19); Zechariah said  not to oppress the widow, the orphan, and the stranger (Zechariah 7:10); Jesus taught what we do to the oppressed we do to him (Matthew 25:35-40); The Prophet Muhammad tells us to care for the strangers, the needy, and our neighbors (Quran Sura 4:36); and the principle of treating others as you want to be treated is part of many other faiths traditions, Buddha and Confucius both taught we are to treat others as we want to be treated. The Indigenous peoples of this Hemisphere also taught how to behave in society. For example the Shawnees taught “Do not kill or injure your neighbor, for it is not him that you injure, you injure yourself. But do good to him, therefore add to his days of happiness as you add to your own. Do not wrong or hate your neighbor, for it is not him that you wrong, you wrong yourself.”

Humanity rarely listens to those who come to off a way towards change. We are stubborn and believe only we are right. We are wrong.  It is time to change. Civilization will not survive if we do not learn to listen to those who have called us to change. It doesn’t matter if it was 8000, 3000, 2000 years ago, or yesterday we need to listen to them.  If we do not learn from  those who speak wisdom, those who came to teach us how to treat each other as we each want to be treated. If we do not learn to value each person for who they are regardless of their gifts, their skin color, their social economic status, or their culture then we are a lost people, our civilization will fall, and rightly so. We will not deserve to survive.  I only pray we do not take the rest of creation with us.

Ruth Jewell, ©June 15, 2020