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.
*
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.
*
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.
*
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.
*
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).
Dichotomy vs. The Divine: There is Plenty of Amniotic Fluid for Us All
By Jane Tawel
January 8, 2026
*
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.
*
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?
*
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.
*
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.
*
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?
*
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”.
*
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.
*
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.
*
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.
*
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.
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.
*
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…
*
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?
*
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:
Jane Tawel 