By now, I am assuming people who want to know the truth are reading people like Heather Cox Richardson or It’s a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese or Robert Reich. I have posted their sage words many times and could again and again, for they report on what is happening in this nation with truth and integrity and big hearts for the people of America.
Some days I can barely stand to read what is being allowed to happen on our watch — our poor, poor children — what a mess we are handing them, that is, handing them if and should we continue to exist. For those people who either can not give up their false idols or who prefer an alternative reality that more suits their ego, or who just want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend things are not as they are or that there is nothing they can do, or that “they just want to enjoy their lives” — I pity you, I truly do. And while I still feel so very angry that so many are allowing this nation, and the religion of Christianity, and the planet to be destroyed by their own ignorance, greed, fear of the other, power-hunger, or frankly for some, absolutely their evil intent, I also feel such sorrow for them; they have “given up their souls for profit” as the Good Man says, and given up their humanity and human dictate to care for the world in exchange for power and the illusion of happiness with more and more and more money. Some of their idols are obviously and literally insane — stark raving demented and insane. And still they never see the truth or that “money can’t buy you love” and that you cannot “worship God and material greed”.
I feel such sorrow that on this our 250th birthday, we have slid down the slippery slope of uber-capitalism and empire so very far. I feel such a sense of shame by association and wonder how some people can feel no shame.
I am grateful for those still speaking truth. I am grateful for those who still believe in the idea of America and that we can be what we set out to be, 250 years ago. I am grateful to my depths for the brave people who have claimed the same religion I have for so long and who are sharing what that religion actually teaches, and who are speaking up for Jesus the Christ and for our sense of who a loving God is — “a God and a Christ who loves all humans — no matter what their background or identification”. as St. Paul taught us God and Christ love. And how I pity those people tied to a religious instutition that pays them to continue to tell people what they do here doesn’t matter — that all that matters is whether you go to heaven — something Jesus never, ever said. “The Kingdom of God is within you — here. Now”. …… Or it’s not.
Okay — ranting, I know. Sorry. I honestly day after day, just can’t get my head around it.
But here is my hope — — today, on my jog, as usual, I pick up other people’s trash. This is my Father’s World and my Mother’s Breast. One day a couple thanked me and said, we teach our grandkids to do this and we make a game of it. There is my hope and encouragement. Today I will try my best to teach my students to write and read and think critically and ethically and spiritually — they are all in high school but very few schools seem to encourage this any more. But there are some who do and many parents who do, and these young people — they can take over from us any time in my opinion. There is my hope and anticipation that we — they — can turn this ship around. And today, I will tell my family and friends and the early morning workers at the end of my street who gather to find work to feed their families that I love them, and be safe out there, and I am grateful for your lives. And I will tell the bees in my lavender, and the lizards on my sidewalk, and the tree in my front yard, and the blue, blue sky — “I love you. Be safe out there. I am grateful for you.” I will hold all these lovely things and these other human souls in my heart and will send them thoughts of joy: “You make my heart glad and hopeful. Thank you for being wonderful, amazing you”. And even if sometimes I wonder where God is, or why He doesn’t “do something”, I will pray the only prayer I know: “I love you. Make me a being of Love. Please help us”.
And there is my hope. Because I know there are lots and lots of people out there who are truly loving. And some are Christians, and some are Hindus, and some are Muslims, and some live in Iran and some live in Ukraine and some live in Palestine, and some live right here on my little street in SoCal. And Love is the most powerful force in the universe. “Now these three things will remain, “Trust in The Good, Hope despite the circumstances, and Love for all — but the greatest of these is Love”. (St. Paul).
My hope is that little bits of Light and Love will overcome the darkness and hatred of this dire hour. I end this not with anger or hopelessness, but with determination to do my part — to be the light and be the love. And I have hope because I know enough people who are doing that same thing. And to quote another great saint, MLK, the “arc of the moral universe will bend toward justice” and we little Whos in Whoville will be heard by the One Who Loves and Who hears us, and “we shall overcome”. May it be so.
By now, I almost want to stay numb and depressed, but I am still just stubborn enough, I guess, to not want to give evil , insane, war-mongering, greedy, immoral, or just plain foolish people what they want. And every day I am reminded that there are good people in the world, and that the planet is ours to save, and that America really, honestly, needed to change anyway, so if it has to change by a trial by fire, so be it, I will keep working with the fire brigade as best I can.
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So you know that awful feeling when your leg and foot fall asleep — the numb, painful tingles? and how it is excruciating to stand? Well, I remind myself that even though both legs, arms, and my mind are numbed and in pain, tingling with disbelief, anger and sorrow, I remind myself that the house is on fire, so I gotta keep getting up and keep moving toward The Way, toward Goodness and Light. Folks, the fire is raging, but despite our desire to give in to the numbness — we gotta vote for democracy and a return to reason, vote with our dollars, yell, move, and stand and deliver, ya’all.
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And those of us who have tried, failingly to be sure, but have tried, to walk The Way with the idea that the God of the Bible and Jesus have the most loving, gracious, justice-freedom toting message of all — meaning Love above all and for ALL — we need to speak out and more importantly LIVE OUT, what God is really like and what Jesus really taught and lived. Because what those greedy warmongers, foolish fear-mongers, judgmental non-thinkers, and sleight-of-hand shysters in the halls of power, both under the guise of American and Religious powers, are trying to sell you are selling you fire policies for houses underwater, not Life Policies for Houses built on The Rock of True Life.
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May your numbness be not more than you can bear to carry today. May you let your anger make you determined, your sorrow make you compassionate, and your numbness let you know that we need each other and we are not alone. Then, unlike the person mentioned in this article — Think about others and as The Good Book advices, when you can, “think on these things: whatever is true, right, pure, honorable, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praisworthy.” (Philippians 4:8)
We are numb, we are afraid, we are angry and sad, but lastly remember — no matter what the end point is — Hope is free and Love is forever.
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This is from a long, hard read about just the latest insanity in America, but it sums it all up with facts. It is from a great newsletter you can find on Facebook and Substack called: Oregon’s Bay Area, by a mother/ daughter team, the Geddry’s.
Here is a quote near the punchline of this article: “That is the connective tissue between Trump’s redistricting brag, his openness to sending National Guard or ICE to voting locations, his terror of a Democratic House with subpoena power, and the GOP’s willingness to keep funding the whole circus. They are not waiting for Trump to become normal. They are trying to preserve power long enough to make normal voters irrelevant.
HCR also ties the economic story together: the Iran war, Trump’s ballroom, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the rising debt, and the larger question of what Republicans are doing with public money. That question may define the summer. Americans are being asked to pay for the war, pay for higher gas prices, pay for the debt from tax cuts for the rich, brace for cuts to programs they rely on, and somehow also pay for Trump’s vanity projects and personal legal escape hatches.
Trump said he does not think about Americans. Today’s news is the receipt.
Fuel prices are up and the war bill is climbing, but Americans are not on his mind. The Pentagon dodges questions about munitions and costs, but Americans are not on his mind. Iran retains most of its missiles and the Strait stays closed, but Americans are not on his mind. He boards Air Force One with billionaires and flies to Beijing to open markets for corporate America, but Americans are not on his mind. His Justice Department quietly explores a settlement that could immunize him from financial scrutiny, but Americans are not on his mind. His party rigs maps, dodges oversight, and works methodically to make democratic accountability harder to enforce, but Americans are not on his mind.”
And so — instead of THAT kind of mind — “Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”. (Paul) “Let your love extend to all beings” (Buddha) “Love is the ultimate truth at the heart of creation”. (Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita) “Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the LORD’s house as long as I live.” (Psalm 23 from Hebrew Scriptures)
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Jesus as recorded in Matthew 22).
In the past couple days there is evidence of several amazing world events and leaders that give me hope — they just aren’t in America sadly. (Let’s hope that there is a “yet” to that first sentence.) Hungary — Wow! Canada and Prime Minister Mark Carney — Wow. Wow. Pope Leo — WOW! WOW! WOW! These three examples alone of moral integrity and truth spoken with love are lights in a dark time. This is unlike the haters and foolish, dark-minded people currently in our nation’s administration, congress, and in the ranks of their supporters, (either openly or behind the scenes), who are running our nation into the ground. They instead are gleefully filling their coffers or excusing those who are using them for their own enrichment while offending everyone, creating fallacious conflicts that kill innocent people, and ruining not just America’s and the world’s economy, but creating decades of dire problems for our children and our planet. This is overwhelming enough but add to that the continuous drip, drip, drip of blaspheming or changing beyond all recognition what some of these people say they believe as a world view, Christianity, and that they even say they want to be our national “religion” (something our nation considered a dangerous oxymoron) but a belief system if when looked at honestly, stands against everything that we see coming to horrible fruition today; a Faith which is truly and in actuality the moral imperative good people of all religions or just all good humans are called to follow. We have slid down the slippery slope the oligarchs and capitalism have long been slipping on.
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But despite what we are hearing: Exceptionalism isn’t individualism, it is holding oneself to an exceptional standard; leading without morality isn’t leadership, its narcissm; and empathy is not a weakness but the best way to understand the onus of the greatest power the universe knows — Love. I know there are enough people in America who remember what we are called to be at our best — caring, sharing, accepting, just, truthful, and free. There is always light, no matter how dark it may seem, if we look hard enough. Keep looking ahead; keep looking around you; keep looking for the helpers. And keep hoping. Be the Light you are called to today.
Dichotomy vs. The Divine: There is Plenty of Amniotic Fluid for Us All
By Jane Tawel
January 8, 2026
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We have created a false dichotomy-ridden world — my team vs. your team, your politics vs. my politics, my god vs. your God, us vs. them. Our dichotomization of the world we live in extends to our philosophy, theology, worldview, plan for living — whatever you would like to name that which claims you and how you think and how you behave. We give these various worldviews names so we can contrast them, own them, follow them, when facts or life seem to intrude on the mysterious truth of our Meaning. We feel we must have something to fight that gives our achievements the savoring quality that metaphorically, a plain diet of bread and water does not fulfill. Competition becomes the spice of our lives whether we know it or not and creates sound-proofed walls around our religions, our national loyalties, our genders and races and economic statuses, and around our football teams. But here is the thing I have been learning, small little nibble by small nibble, in the works of people like Walter Wink, Paul Tillich, Richard Rohr, and Marcus Borg among others: our dichotomies have almost severed our relationships to other humans and to The Divine. We are hanging by a thread to the Real, which some call God or Spirit or The Divine or the Universal. There are several causes of this, and I am sure I am not at all smart enough or aware enough to know them all, but the number one cause, I think, of our estrangement from God is that we see God as the distant over-seer of a dichotomized belief-system. And what God says over and over in the Hebrew Bible, in the Christian Testaments, in the Quaran, in the Hindu Vedas, and in the glorious, achingly beautiful scriptures of the Natural World is this: God/Spirit/ Divine/ Creator wants loving, compassionate, truthful Relationship with every human being — a relationship as close as our heartbeat, as close as our breath, as close as a lover, as close as Mother’s womb.
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Imagine if we thought of every immigrant, every Palestinian, every person of color, every unhoused person on our streets, every differently gender-identified person, every person from the other team as swimming in God’s Womb with us? Picture it: Here we are floating along together in Mother’s care and there is plenty of amniotic fluid for all of us. Or imagine that we begin to see God as a Father who doesn’t love any of His kids any more than His other children? And this God-Father, that allows us to call Him, “Daddy”, “Da-da”, always sees us as His little innocent baby who really can’t talk all that well because our words are limited, and really can’t think all that well because we can’t see much past our own little toes and we can’t reach much further than Da-Da’s Face as He holds us, and as Daddy places us in Mother’s arms, which are the same as His arms, we can’t really get nourishment from anything other than God-Mom’s ever-flowing- with-Life-giving-nourishment Breast. Is this not what all the teachings of Truth, True-Truth, try to show us with metaphors and parables and myths — all those human creations that struggle toward those Realities beyond the material and beyond our egoic-minds and beyond the struggling wrestlings with the limits of language that give us just an inkling of our own created creativeness in the image of the Creator?
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Let’s be honest: relationships can be tough. I don’t know about you, but I have never had any kind of relationship: friend, spouse, child, parent, relative, co-worker, boss — you name it — that has proceeded in a lovely little straight line forward, like a smooth road with no hills, no bumps, no muddy potholes. And some of these bumps and potholes are frankly of the other person’s making and lots and lots more of them are of my own making. But if you commit long-term to being in a relationship as I have been privileged to do with my hubby, my children, and a few close companions on The Way, then you can see the trials as part of being a human being who is meant, like all in and of this lovely Creation/ Nature, meant to let go in order to hold on to something new, to get lost and seek in order to find, and to, just as the trees who lose their leaves to grow new ones do, to die daily to our old sense of self in order to be reborn to new life. And to find a more intimate loving relationship with Another that without those bumps and trials and vulnerable achings would not have been possible yesterday.
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When I read what now I have come to think the Bible was supposed to provide for us — stories about real people’s struggling relationships with The Divine Real (God) — I realize that much of my life and hence, my belief system, has been about making God into my image. God is so often only close if I think of God as an “It” that can fit in my heart, kinda like Jesus, and be used as needed. But God is also so often been at the same time, a distant figure Who has dichotomized the world into haves and have-nots, thems and us-es, good and bad, my religious team against their religious team, and heaven-bound folks against the hell-bound. God has been for most of my life a powerful patriarch of my own religious views that I need to beg for what I want, that judges my every action and thought, and that I hope will forgive me enough to allow me as I am to live forever as I am, while sending to hell the people whom I deem unworthy. And then I throw Jesus into this mix as someone who was God but died and “paid up” all my debts so I don’t have to worry about my connection with God any more because Jesus had a special relationship with God on my behalf. And when you put it that way in words — it sounds as crazy and insincere and messed-up as it is. Right? Because what The Divine/ Creator / God — whatever you can still with love call Spirit in and of, but also beyond and above this material existence — what Parent-Spirit wants is not our sacrifices, not our offerings, not our achievements — but our loving hearts connecting to THE IAM Loving Heart.
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As a parent of four adult children, I can confirm: when I am filled with true love (compassion, desire, care, obsession, commitment, adoration) of my four children, now adults — when I am full to the brim of That Which Loves and Only Loves — then all I want is to Be with them, in relationship, in relationship, in relationship. Why can not I trust, have faith, that God in the Purity of His Grace, wants this with me, Her child?
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There is this old rock and roll song and one of the lines about the romantic relationship between the two lovers has stuck in my mind all these years. It is partly because I grew up when you had to figure out the lyrics to songs by hearing them over and over on the radio or sometimes on the LP you had bought. Ah, life before computer screen immediacy of information — how sometimes I do miss it! So, for this song that we heard on the radio, the important line was a bit hard to understand, and we had a friend one time riding in the back seat of mom’s car with us, and she was adamant that the catchy line was: “For you are Amanda and I am Steve”. And you know that works for what I am trying to say about God. God wants to be our Amanda or Steve to our Steve or Amanda, depending on which gendered name we want to identify with. The Divine wants to be as close as a lover in the act of loving the beloved — God wants to name us and be named — and this understanding of God is all over the Bible texts and many other spiritual texts as well. But the true lyric of this song, which eventually we preteens in the back of that car finally figured out, reveals something also true about what The Divine wants us to understand about Her which is also metaphoric and anthropomorphic, because of course God is incomprehensible and beyond our human understanding, despite our centuries of boxing Him up and defining Her in controllable, bite-sized bits. We still laugh today about our confusion about what the lyrics actually were to that song, which were: “For you are a magnet, and I am steel”.
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Today I am on a journey by way of, not fighting, not running or even walking, but of Being — being in the kind of relationship with what I call God, that people throughout history have sought with The Divine Mystery/Reality. I am letting go of my striving in small moments as well as I can to find: “resting”, “cradling” and “hiding in”. I am asking The Divine Creator to “create in me a new heart”, to “hide me in the Rock”, to be the “Mother Bear to my cub-ness” to let me be the “chick to Her Mother Hen”, “the son returned to the Loving Father”, and the “little lamb to the Shepherd who lives among us sheep”. These are all metaphoric relationships found in my primary Scripture, the Judeo-Christian Bible, but they are true to all True-Truths throughout our known history of humankind. We just have either forgotten or neglected that Truth and chosen to set up the golden calves of our preferred individualistic idols that have led us, like the lost sheep, astray.
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The next time I feel the old dichotomies of us vs. them rise-up in me, I will try to remember that in Christ there is no us and them. The next time I want to cling to the black and whites that seem to build a foundation for me I will remind myself they are foundations built on sand, and like the sands of Time, they melt away in the Flow of Eternal Truths — beyond space and time and where black and white are forever, only Light. The next time I feel what I call God is distant, needy, controlling — a monarch to be feared and to whom I must beg — I will lightly touch my breath and pray, “Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me and breathe into me Your Life”. The next time I feel angry or alone, I will let God know how I feel, just as I would my most intimate lover and I will trust that my relationship will grow through honest vulnerability to He Who Loves me. The next time I despair at all I think or fear all that I feel, I will thank my Mother-God, that She holds me safe in Her Womb, safe in Her arms, and safe in Her Love. In fact, she “holds the whole world — tree, rock, lizard, bee and my enemy — in her loving hands.
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And I will ask Love to let me begin to see the Universal Christ not as a small, locked security-deposit-safe, but as a free-flowing Ocean of compassion for all — not just enough, but so much that it breaks our nets of prejudice, and spills out of our baskets of miserly grasping, and runs to our prodigals with forgiveness and joy and connection — just as our Father runs to embrace and welcome us.
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Relationship. Scary, isn’t it? Yes, one hesitates in any relationship to be vulnerable. But I have found that a life of putting on the armor of constant battle is exhausting, confusing, and leads to a life of negativity. I am trying bit by bit, to unshackle myself from old ideas, and to free myself from the battlements I have let my thoughts create. I ask The Divine, to create in me Her Spirit, and to be unarmored except with the “the breastplate of faith and love, and a helmet of the hope of salvation”. I appeal with no small amount of trepidation but also quite a bit of excitement at what I might discover about the Lover of My Soul and That which longs to live not just with me but within me. And I can call this “Other that is All and is My Truest Self” God — or I can call it Mother, Father, Divine Spirit, Creator — or I can call it Amanda or Steve. True Lovers have lots of names for each other. But no matter what names we use, I want to learn, day by day, hour by hour, breath by breath, to be the longing heart of Steel to the Magnet of Universal Compassionate Truth that draws all the world, all of us, to The Pulsing Heart of the Eternal Lover.
Minnesotans: You are amazing. “You have been called for such a time as this!” * I used to hear this prophetic word used, usually quite erroneously because it was used as self-congratulatory hogwash and egotistical justification for someone in power in the temples of a staid and self-complacent Christianity. But it was first said to a Hebrew woman named Esther, who while a queen, had all the power that women of her day had, which is to say, Zilch! Zero! None — that is compared to the great powers of the Persian Empire in which she and other Hebrew exiles lived in. * Are you all feeling as I am, that we have been exiled from our homeland? * So Esther did what Minnesotans are doing today, and other people across America and the World are doing — she fought for social justice and a moral worldview through peaceful resistance. That is also, by the way, one of the number one teachings of Jesus: “Turn the other cheek. Treat your enemy with love — the only thing that can change the tide of hatred. Of course, we never imagined that our enemy would be our own government and not some other nation’s; and we never imagined our own primary religion of Christianity would be used by so many to support a worldview that is so antithetical to the teachings and life of its founder or its God, but of course, that too, is what happened to Jesus. * Minnesota: I am awed, I am proud (especially as a born and raised Midwesterner). I am astounded at the collective and communal peaceful, ethical force of the Minnesotans understanding that Truth, Justice, and People matter and being willing to risk everything for it. This is what the prophet in the ancient book of Esther tells her: “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for your people will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14). That is YOU, Minnesotans. * My words fail me but I thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul for standing together for all of us in this dire and tragic time. I am so sorry you have had to go through this (And I don’t know any one else who is so hardy and strong they could do it in sub-zero temperatures!) But I thank you for answering the call and leading the way. I mourn with you, and for your many martyrs, including the horrendous and very public murders and martyrdom of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
In my little patch of the greater Los Angeles area, I am not only praying and lifting you up daily, but trying to do my small part, though I fear I have not one particle of the heroism so many of you show daily. We kindred souls weep for each and all of you and we cheer for you. We thank you for rising to the challenge of the position you have, through no actions of your own, been placed. Like Esther, you are risking your very lives for the lives of others. Like Jesus, you are risking your very lives for the lives of the least and lost. * I hope the rest of the world sees that YOU, Minnesotans, are what Americans are, want to be, and can be. I applaud the actions and words of your Governor and Mayors, even the Republican senator who said he could. no longer take part in the evils of his chosen party — but most of all, I am awed by the small actions of the anonymous daily warriors of truth, justice, peace, Midwestern common sense, for Pete’s sake, and love for each other and for your neighbors — and what may seem like small actions have created a Red Sea Flood that will overcome the soldiers of Empire and evils of this hour. Justice will roll down like waters! * I rejoice that little did this foolish federal administration know, they had chosen the wrong people for this evil fascist empire experiment. Minnesotans: “YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS”. We love you for your strength to save us all.
Today I am struggling with this conundrum. I grew up in a pretty different American Christianity and very different America — in the “heart-land”, “Bible-belt” of the Midwest (for you Coastal folks, that’s still your fly-over zone). Were there problems? Yep. Was there error and misunderstandings about Christ’s life and message? Our Mea Culpa. But there was one phrase — (God bless whoever first came up with it) — that became a reminder, words of instruction and wisdom along the way, and shorthand for everything we were supposed to do to walk in The Way of the Christ. People had bumper stickers and acronyms on necklaces and t-shirts and for those of you young-ones watching the insanity today of people claiming Christianity as their belief-system or you who did not ever hear the catchy Catch-phrases of a Christianity once trying to live like Christ, this is what we thought was really the basis for, as Francis Schaeffer once wrote, “How we should then live”. What we said to ourselves and each other in moments of decision was this: “What Would Jesus Do?” WWJD? * I was so very happy to see the priests, and pastors, and rabbis, and imams gather in MN — coming from near and far, just as the Magi did — to stand for what Jesus would have stood for and did with his life here on Earth. I am heartened to see so many people, in Minnesota, in Maine, in Los Angeles, in Oregon, and throughout Europe and Canada and the world — who may have never really heard much about Christ and also those who have a different doctrinal worldview or what we call “religion” and who are standing up for what all people of God believe in: Love above all, Sacrifice for Truth and what is Right, and treating others as you would want to be treated. And of course, for some, that includes What does God want me, as a human being who loves and serves Him, do with this one small life of mine? WWJD? * If you have never read about what we know about Jesus and what he taught and did, it is worth a look — some even believe it is worth risking their own lives for, as Renee Good did and as many who have been abused and beaten by the long arm of an evil empire are doing today throughout the world and in our own backyard. I am trying to take a new look in my own life, at what this very intriguing and unique person, Jesus, actually did and said and thought. He had a different kind of wisdom about how to live and I think it had a lot to do with “how we humans should now live” according to what is not just God’s way, but Our true and best way. Smart guy in a strange kind of “smart” Way. Rumors have it he was even the Son of God. So it makes sense if you know about him and think he had any valid points to ask yourself: What Would Jesus Do? WWJD? Right?
* And so I ask some of you who I think you think you still “believe” in this idea of Christianity and of Jesus as The Christ — beyond what you believe — what do you think you should DO? Are you saying you are no longer of the opinion that when you see someone murdered for standing up for what Jesus called “the least and the lost” that Jesus would condone that and support it? Are you saying when you hear the words of hatred, racism, violence, and verifiable and endless lies and you repeat them and give them credence that you can say that is what Jesus Would Say? When you see children, the children that Jesus said “let them come unto me” and whom Jesus said that “unless we become like little children we cannot enter the kingdom of God” — are you saying that Jesus would say that’s okay because he didn’t mean that color of chlld, or a child of those kinds of parents, or…. ? Please forgive me but I am just so confused about what you say you believe. WWJD? * You can see, my mind is truly boggled. Because I sat in your pews, and I ate at your tables, I taught and thought and bought it all — and I talked the talked with the best of them. But I just didn’t realize that we were not Jesus’ disciples, but the “blind guides” and dead cemetery stones, just like the Pharisees and Sadduccees of the days of Jesus’ own history here on Planet Earth. Mea Maxima Culpa. But I thank God, that I left “Christianity” in time to hopefully find Christ. I hope you can too, my friends. I really do. * Maybe it is too hard for some of you to admit you were wrong. We used to have another belief in the Christianity of my youth: “If you will confess your wrong -headedness (sins) and turn from your evil (broken, mistaken, selfish) ways, you will be forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness (misguidedness, greedy, self-centered, egotistical or just plain foolish choices)”. I know it to be true, because as a great “sinner” myself (broken, wrong-headed, miss-stepping, tripping over myself, ego-driven, and weak-spirited, and very, simply struggling, learning often the hard way, Human Doing), she who has “sinned much” has been forgiven much.
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It took only a handful of people to spread the Good News of the human being we call Jesus (for you young ones, that was before internet, cellphones, and Tik-Tok. Yes, I know, it’s going to be okay — have your parent get you a cold glass of water and lie down for a while. You’ll get over the shock.) I hope and pray that today’s “handful” of people who are trying to turn this Titanic around will succeed — I believe it has been done before and so I have to believe it can be done again. The Davids of this world have defeated the Goliaths before. It happened during the civil rights movement. It happened when the Berlin wall fell. It happened in a stable in Bethlehem. But for the rest of us — maybe for some of you reading this far — I just have to ask…
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What Would Jesus Do? * Can we try to recalibrate our beliefs and hop back on the Narrow Way? Can we start making popular again in our pews and synagogues and mosques the idea that we should be asking not what we should believe but how we should now live? And can some of us, who at least maybe when we were children, used to ask ourselves What Would Jesus Do? Can we ask it — and mean it — and start to step out in faith doing it?
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I am not proselytizing, so please hear these words differently than you may have heard them before from people who want to “save” us but don’t want to suffer with us as Jesus told us to do; as Jesus did. He suffered with us. But he also partied with us. He experienced everything we did in life and still came out believing in a God of Love and that all we had to do to live the right way was to Love. So I ask this with humbleness of those who don’t know Jesus and those who say they do: Who is your Jesus? Who is your “Savior”? Maybe it isn’t the man we know as Jesus that some call The Christ. Maybe it is but by a different name in a different culture in a different part of the world. Maybe it isn’t any one you can name or think of or even believe in. But if you are feeling that today, in your world, in your life, you need someone to show you a different, better, more sustainable, wise, caring, peace-giving and love-promoting way; if you are feeling that today, you need some kind of radical and very different kind of Hero, than the wanna-be saviors and heroes today masquerading as emperors with no clothes or rich people with no souls; then I have a humble suggestion. I am finding it enlightening and wonder-full (full of mysterious Wonder) in an anxious, fearful, sorrowful world to read about the life of one man who was called Jesus and to ask myself moment by precious moment:
I like traditions — well, many of them I do, (not a real fan of having a colonoscopy every 5–10 years, but I do it). This is one of the most tradition-full seasons of the year, at least in America. And yet, America and other kingdoms on earth are now undergoing, as never before perhaps, a time when traditions are being bucked to a rather outrageous and dangerous degree because truth and love are being bucked to a dangerous and insane degree. But one of my long-held traditions, as many of you have, has been writing a letter to friends and family that wish you felicitations for the season we call Christ-mas or Holy-days and to encourage you to have a good year in the next reincarnation of our calendars. And so it is this year, that I write again.
Sometimes I don’t feel like writing, especially when this season’s exceptional story of God’s Love seems so far from the religions and nations that claim it to be true; but I do appreciate all the traditions that try to keep this story alive — the nativity sets, the fragrant Ever-greens, the car rides to see neighborhoods decorated like electricity was free this time of year in honor of The Light of the World; the candy and cookies and sleigh bells ringing, the carols about Peace on Earth; and songs about St. Nick, giver of gifts to rich and poor alike — all the symbols that speak of joy and community; and of freedom, and kindness and generosity and care; of sacrifices for future generations and humble righteousness defeating power and greed for the benefit of humanity and the human good; and of love that has no barriers, no agenda, no judgement — because it is the love told and symbolized in the story of a helpless baby and his struggling mother and father. It is a Love that endures this life’s suffering and pain because of anticipated joy. I was incredibly blessed to go through the pain of child-birth four times, and let me tell you, there is nothing, no pain as agonizing as letting a new little human being struggle her or his way out of your body into the world — but the anticipation of going through that pain to the absolute joy you experience when it is over is worth every excruciating moment. I love that this season centers around that pain leading to joy because of love: the universal, very human story. As a long-time Literature-Geek, perhaps most of all, I love the symbols and metaphors and True Truths of stories and story-tellers that have those themes and unseen, but not unrealized, truths that transcend the place, time, and culture in which they were written and become ever-living testaments to what all humans seek and all wise ones find. And this season has some of the best stories ever written which can point us to True Truth — if we know how to listen with our hearts.
For me, though, the best part of this season has always been the anticipatory aspects of it; I love Advent. Traditionally, this year, my hubby and I gave all our adult kids Trader Joe Advent calendars. I have squirreled away stocking stuffer gifts from “Santa” and look forward to the family opening their stockings on Christmas morning (sometimes more like noon now by the time they can gather from their homes), and some of “Santa’s” gifts will be met with the surprise of “Oh, I love this!” and some will immediately mentally go into their “To be regifted later” pile. I don’t care; it’s the journey to the opening that counts. The house is decorated with all the traditional things in “hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be here” — the tree has ornaments the kids made in Sunday School, although some of the stars are missing a point, and the glitter ratio on most is diminished; I have the little ceramic table-top Christmas tree that lights up that a neighbor gave me years ago which reminds me of the one my Grandma Gladys used to have; and the nativity that my Mom gave me my first Christmas as a mom myself; and a ratty old four-foot stuffed Santa I have had since I was a one-year-old whose stuffed body has seen better days (as has mine, which is maybe why I like it so much). But my favorite tradition that I keep year after year, despite the fearful rumblings in the world, despite the personal trials or tribulations, despite my age, or despite the suffering of people I know and of those I don’t know — the tradition I keep despite any of that, despite my very own self — is the tradition of Anticipation. At odd times, like when I am doing the dishes, or lying in bed wondering if today will be the day the world’s insanity stops and we will all choose to turn it around in time, or when I am convincing myself that “yes, I do really want to head out at dawn again for my run”; or when I am snuggled up next to Raoul thinking about not a whole lot except how glad I am to have him with me all these many years and also just in this very present moment — sometimes — out of the blue — my heart will start pounding like a little drummer boy, (and at my age, you do worry when that happens); but then I remember — that is how one’s heart feels when there is a sense — not a thought — not a belief — not a doctrine — not a law — not a government instituted program — but a Sense — that something Good is coming. When the heart flutters like a butterfly taking flight, it is a sign that wherever and whenever human beings still anticipate that good things are just up ahead, that no matter how dark things may seem, that the Light of Truth will “Dawn” and that a Star will always dispel the darkest night, and that the truest symbol of all our truths can be found in the story of a mother giving birth to a New Life. When we can trust that the Heart of Love never lies then we can anticipate that tomorrow will shine forth with what a little baby-in-a-manger story teaches us — that Love wins. Love always wins.
Happy Advent: the season of the heart. May the stories of this season, and the examples of all those who came before us bringing truth, goodness, peace, and love, fill you in unexpected times and inexplicably joyful ways, with hope and peace — enough for you to give birth to your own renewed, and eternally-blessed Love.
May we live in the hopeful expectation that just around the proverbial corner, one day we shall have Peace on Earth and Good-will for All. May your hearts flutter at unexpected times with a sense beyond words, beyond explanation even, that God is Good and that we small, little specks in the Cosmos, we here and now and on-call-today human beings have what it takes to bring heaven to Earth, because somewhere deep inside, just like the story of heaven incarnated on earth in the manger scene, we each have the divinely-given desire and capability to Love. And Love always wins.
Back where I am from there is a saying “She’s a ‘Beaut, Isn’t She?” (Pronounced “Byoot”) Translated out of Midwestern or Southern dialect, one might say, “That is very Beautiful” or “She is a Beauty”. Calling something a “beaut”. is often used when referring to a new purchase like a car, or a baby crib, or a cow. There is another saying that may have come to some minds when they read my title, another “B” word that we often link to Karma. It is a word which, as a woman, I dislike intensely and try never to utter. But then also, I have come to connect Karma not with the idea that many Westerners do, which is a type of justice or just deserts (pronounced as in “desserts” with two s’s although spelled with one “s”). Karma is the idea that every action — good, bad, and neutral — have logical and unerringly correct consequences. It goes along with the other spiritual teachings and all true historical worldviews, and along the lines of “Do good and good will come to you”; “You reap what you sow”; poetic justice and just deserts; and so forth. “True Truth, Karma is”, (said in the voice of that wise one called Yoda). Then there is the karmic connection that one can not help but come to mind when I have seen the latest news and social media hype about a person who died last week, and that karmic saying really often does feel like it deserves the other “B” word: “you live by the sword, and you will die by the sword”. Or in America, translated as, “You preached that everyone should be allowed to own and use a gun whenever and however and now you have been killed by a gun that someone had the freedom to use because of people like you.” Karma is often, indeed, if not the “B-word”, oh, so situationally ironic.
I know there are people who are sad about the death of this man who was killed by a gun. In this country, as perhaps in many Western countries, there are several problems surrounding this. The first is that we deny the fact of death and the very real reality that everyone is going to die. So we are just super-duper shocked when someone actually dies. And what with the uber hype of social media and the talking heads that claim they are giving us “news” (Definition of “news” according to the dictionary: newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events.) Hence, I try these days to skim headlines, just to make sure I don’t have to pack my car for the next SoCal fire or to inform myself on what I might expect to find (or not find) at my local grocery, and I move on to more important things — like reruns of “Columbo” on Netflix. Otherwise I can lose whole decades and globs of hair I tear out obsessing about the latest machinations and tweets of crazy people.
The second thing that social media does to skew our view is to make us feel we “know” people that we don’t actually know. I am very glad I never knew anything about — not even the name — of this man that was killed by a gun this past week. He is possibly rolling in his grave to hear that, but there it is. I try my darnedest to spend my valuable and rapidly running out days left on this earth reading about people past and present who matter and who share or increase my understanding of what I, as a little human being, have been called to do (or not do) while I exist as matter on this earth so that in some way, I might matter — not because I am great or famous but because I love. And I believe one thing when I can’t seem to believe anything else, and that is that Love never dies. Love is in some way, some how — Eternal. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that every one, whether they know it or not, lives according to a WORLD- VIEW. I believe my greatest task left to me is to walk that so-called, “narrow path”, The Trustful, Truthful Way, the Tao — and to try my best to stop doing harm, to spread light and love, and to find the peace that passes my current understanding, with trust that God is Good, and that no matter how many times the Earth is destroyed or we destroy it, that Life, and True Life will keep regenerating from our ashes.
Thirdly, there are so many people in this country, and maybe the world, who have no idea what sorrow is and how to grieve. In fact, we deny being sad (we are depressed); we deny grieving (“mama is in heaven now so be happy”); and we deny the fact that we have allowed violence and injustice to thrive in this nation in the name of some idiotic idea that it means we have freedom. In fact, in America, we have taken the word and idea of “freedom”, and made it into a prison of selfish individualism in a nation that cares nothing for its citizens but only for the illusory chimera of wealth for the few and the “bread and circus” promises of winning the lottery for the majority.
Now I am, after having read more headlines about this man who was killed this past week, actually very, very glad I had no idea who he was until recently and that I have no history with ever hearing any thing that came out of his mouth. And please, can we be clear? This man was not “assassinated” like people who were actually killed for speaking up about justice or racial inequity, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This man was not a martyr for his ideals, like Ghandi. This man was murdered by someone who was simply exercising his Second Amendment rights — according to the man who was killed. Do I rejoice in his death? Absolutely not. But not because of him, but because, as that beautiful Christian poet, John Donne, who suffered and sorrowed much, especially over the death of his young son, I believe that “every death diminishes me”. However, do I think this man’s death warrants the hoopla surrounding it. Nope. So, stop reading here if this offends somehow your sensibilities or if you feel that not faking sorrow for a man who did not live in goodness or love for others is a bad thing.
I will tell you about a few of the people that I do not know that I actually do mourn. I mourn the twenty INNOCENT children and six teachers who were murdered at Sandy Hook. (Those children didn’t know that a crazy man was just exercising his Second Amendment rights.) I mourn the deaths of the fourteen students and three staff members killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. (I once lost a job at a Christian school, in part because I allowed my class to participate in the six minutes and twenty seconds of silence for the first “March for Our Lives” national movement day. Long after the scars have healed over, the irony still catches my breath.) I mourn the wives and mothers killed by gun violence in their own homes because their spouse or partner is allowed to keep a weapon despite the fact he is a known domestic abuser. I mourn Trayvon Martin and George Floyd; I mourn Matthew Shephard and Harvey Milk; and already and still — despite the fact it is not the current hot news du jour, I mourn the twenty-nine deaths and sixty serious injuries from school (SCHOOL!!!!) shootings in America in 2025 so far. (When did we stop being shocked by school shootings? That must be the day the soul of America truly died.) And if you get me started on some parts of the rest of the world where children are left to starve and innocent civilians are killed, I will probably implode with disbelief and sorrow to the point I will never stop mourning. “Every death diminishes me”, but the death of innocent children and the death of the innocent reduces me to a pool of sorrow.
Eckhart Tolle has helped me see the current state of many countries in the world, and especially my own nation of the, now seemingly ironically named, “United” States of America. Remember the Corona Virus (for those of you who still believe in science)? Well, we currently have, as Tolle brilliantly sees, a serious mental virus. I would, along with Jesus, be so bold as to call it a spiritual virus as well. That is the only way to explain the absolute insanity of what our government (and others); and some non-government leaders (like those in churches or synagogues or schools); and some random, known and unknown, citizens are believing and “preaching” and doing. It is — no other word for it — INSANE INSANITY. And just as Germany woke up after years of murdering innocent people and labeling people as less than human during the fascist regime of the past (not the current ones). And just as the nation I have loved and long lived in, woke up after we burned women for being witches at the stake because they were strong and outspoken and healers; and woke up after we stole human beings from their land to use as slaves, deeming them less “human” than we were because of their color; and just as we woke up after realizing that women were smart enough to vote and have their own money and property — we might still wake up in time. We might wake up from this horrible nightmare of our own creation in time to save our nation. We might even wake up in time to save other parts of our world, as America has often rallied and risen-up to do. We may even have the guts and righteous reasoning to save our planet.
But we may not.
And with each passing, fearful day, I begin to think perhaps this Insanity Virus, that so many in my country seem to have been infected with, will not be recognized in time and that we will not have the strength or the truthfulness to diagnosis the real problem we have and to turn to the Healers and the Helpers.
And it is, I regret to point out, in great part because we keep breathing in the toxic fumes of people like the man who was murdered this past week. And of course, we keep sucking in the nuclear waste of the supposed leaders who react and mourn this guy who died but not the actual recent assassination of Minnesota Representative Melissa Hotrman.
And we keep denying we have become sick to the point of spiritual death by caring more for what we have (or think we once had) than what we are called to BE. And we think somehow there is not enough to go around, when there is plenty if we are willing to share. And we believe in some future “good” when what we need to do is believe the Truthful Ones, like Jesus, who said, “The Reality of Heaven is NOW, not Then and not Someday. Live Light now, for you are the Light of Awareness and Truth and Love”. And if we lived that way, then we really wouldn’t have to fear death. We could mourn the loss of those who die without losing the sense that as individuals we are impermanent but when we live together in Oneness as part of The One, then death is simply transformation.
When I was in high school, I memorized some scriptures whose meaning has morphed as I have aged and has definitely morphed since I began to see my nation, my world, and myself in different ways. The shock of 2015 for me was that any one who claimed to know or want to know Jesus, the Christ, could ever catch the insanity virus. I thought the “Jesus-Worldview” would make any one immune to worshiping hatred and greed and lies. But as I saw people worship not the Golden Calf of the ancient Hebrews but the Golden Pig(s) of this Uber-Capitalistic Oligarchy, masquerading as supporters of “democracy” and as I witnessed people who would never say a swear word, blaspheming the name of God with their misrepresentation of what we have been told about The Way, and corrupting the ideas of the Judeo-Christian belief system — I realized — people really can go crazy without realizing it. People really have gone insane and I can not imagine they realize they have caught a deadly mental disease. “What does it profit a person if they gain the world (or the Congress or the White House) and lose their soul?”
So here are some things that continue to help me and why I don’t mourn some individual man who spread the Gospel of Hate and whose name will be forgotten in a few years, if not a few weeks. Here are my musings and my meditations on Galatians 2: 20,21)
“I am crucified with Christ”, (that is I die to ego and selfishness and greed and prejudice — and all those things that make me a prisoner of hate and fear) and I am crucified in the way Jesus accepted the reality of suffering and even death and I accept all suffering as crucibles and ultimately the way to Rebirth and Resurrection. “Nevertheless, I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me”, (I seek to know my true “Beingness”, my Soul, my Deep Self that Jesus knew and that God gives all who embrace the “holy spirit”; I seek to live in the Spirit which overcomes not only evil, but also overcomes death. So, when I die to ego and hate and greed and fear, I truly find Eternal Life.) “And the Life which I now live in the flesh, (while I still have a body and still have “stuff”), “I live through the faith of the Son of God” (I trust that I am, as Jesus was and is in a new form, a beloved Child of God), (and so are you, and you, and you, and you and yes, so is even that man who died by a gun and those men and women who are frantically and selfishly intent on destroying our world — we are all beloved children of God) (And so, there has only been and will always be only one Real Reality — and that is Love). (Jane’s current paraphrase of Galatians 2: 20–21)
I will share with you this paraphrased prayer, because I just don’t know what else to say to give you hope, except: May the peace which passes understanding, give you strength to keep fighting and to keep sorrowing and to keep loving to the End of Time and then Beyond Time.
So yes…. Karma is indeed a ‘beaut. Because just as the followers of Jesus wrote, quoted above (albeit in Jane “strange-speak” language), the amazing, wonderous, awesome thing about being a human BEING is that we can, if we choose to, elect to change our overall karmic arc. There are just so many examples of those who have changed their karma — the trajectory of their lives — through one intentionally good action at a time — So many little and great human beings have changed the moral/ karmic arc of their own lives and of history, that the pages in The Good Book can not hold all their names. “We can not all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love”, as that Good Karma Saint, Teresa taught us. And maybe, just maybe, if each one of us allows the Light of Love and Truth and Trust and Hope, to shine through our dense selves, then we will Light a path for those who choose darkness over light, those “blind guides” who choose to lead with hate and fear rather than love and faith. As the children’s song says, “This little light of mine. I’m gonna’ let it shine. Won’t let Satan blow it out — No! I’m gonna’ let it shine”. God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I will.
I went to a funny little concert a few weeks ago, outside in a big park here in SoCal (SoCal — epicenter of the war waged from afar on justice and kindness). And at the last song of the concert, everyone got out their cell phones and turned on their flashlights and waved them around. Back in the day, we all had lighters to do that, even if we didn’t smoke, and the symbol of a little blaze of fire waving around in one’s teenaged hand was a more complete metaphor back then because of, well, fire. But still, at my recent concert, as you looked around and back and in front and on the overhead screens, you saw a vast ocean of waving lights. All it took, was for this one person to bring the light, and then that one person to bring the light, and then that one, and that one, and that one…. Fear not, my friend and stay strong. And Bring the Light.
You are the “Light of the World”. Let your Light so shine before all human beings, and someday, when you are “going towards the Light”, in those final moments, well, we don’t know what happens next, not really, but if we “do not walk in darkness, we will (for certain) have in hope and in fact, the Light of Eternal Life”. The Great Teachers have pinky promised us that; and I am going to trust them on that promise. One precious moment at a time.
Jane Tawel 