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Saturday, September 15, 2012

A Simple Prayer



Calhouns Cannons for September 15, 2012

Dear God, creator of Heaven and Earth, please, enough already with the Fundamentalists.  We got too many of them.
 
And they’re all running amok.  Political fundies who want to rule instead of serve.  They love thy rules, but as for loving thy people, eh, not so much.  Pinch-faced, purse-lipped, they forgot to read the part about eye’s of camels and loaves and fishes and doing unto the least of thy children. Instead we get tax breaks for the rich and food-stamp cuts for the poor. 

And Christian fundies?  Don’t get me started.  Take prayer.  Didn’t you have something in your Book about making a big phony show of public prayer?  Well, I don’t think they were listening and it looks like these, thy good children, will never rest until loud, public prayers to Jesus are mandatory in every square inch of the public square.  At supermarket openings, in the halls of justice, in schoolrooms, in city council meetings, with crosses or thy commandments manifesting anywhere there’s a smidge of space on a public building or on small and tall hillocks in the wilderness, until the only place to escape the Jesus flak will be to flee into a Jewish temple or a Buddhist retreat. And even there, don’t be too sure. The cross carpenter’s are constantly at work.

And what’s with their obsession with women’s private parts, anyway?  Instead of political debates we now have politicians competing to see how many forced vaginal probes they can stick into their state laws.  This isn’t governance, it’s obsession.  And sick obsession at that.  I mean, since the history of the world, Lord, did you ever think you’d see the topic of girls holding an aspirin between their knees served up during a Republican primary campaign?  Fundamentalists and now apparently Republicans are now all about the aspirin and tight knees. That’s a bad, bad combination.   

And don’t get me started on Muslim fundies.  They’re the perfect of example of fundamentalism squared, fundamentalism to the nth degree: unquestioning and rule-riddled, bound-up, blinkered, death-loving, women-hating, sex-fearing, life-denying, sad,  furious, frightened souls that even Mohammed (Blessings and peace be upon him) and his successful businesswoman wife (You go, girl!) would gape at in utter disbelief.

And there, Lord, is the problem.  You created a complex, fluid, ever-changing, beautiful, profoundly unknowable world.  And then you created humans with an overwhelming need to create what they think are safe, secure square boxes out of a non-squared, inherently unstable, constantly changing “reality.”  The result is human-created fundamentalism of all kinds – big, hard-edged, square, stick-in-the-mud boxes in the middle of a flowing river.  Then we hide in the boxes and delude ourselves into thinking they will offer us permanence and safety.

But instead of safety, those boxes turn into prisons.  Or worse: platforms of death.

So, enough, O Lord.  Time for thee to calleth thy own back home to thy loving bosom.  And don’t worry.  They won’t mind.  They have spent centuries making up stories about their wished-for, longed-for, blessed fiery ends – Armageddon! Tribulation! Rapture!  Holy Jihad! Paradise and Virgins!  So, you’ll be doing them all a huge favor.

And then maybe the rest of us can settle down into a saner world, a world of softer edges, kinder boxes filled with imperfect, more forgiving bunglers – human beings who have enough give in their world-view to know that the magic of the world is ultimately unknowable.  So there is no need to force ourselves and others into life-limiting made-up boxes.

Instead, I’m sure God won’t mind if, from time to time, we take off our new too-tight dress shoes and dance on the grass.  Or lie in the meadow to listen to the bees, smell the sweet clover and give thanks for the warm sun pouring down on us from heaven.  

 

 

7 comments:

Christina said...

Amen.

Ron said...

Ann writes:

"Pinch-faced, purse-lipped, they forgot to read the part about eye’s of camels and loaves and fishes and doing unto the least of thy children."

and;

"And Christian fundies?  Don’t get me started.  Take prayer.  Didn’t you have something in your Book about making a big phony show of public prayer?  Well, I don’t think they were listening..."

Makes ya wonder, huh?: Do those people read that book, or do they just wave it around?

Anne R. Allen said...

Hilarious and brilliant!

There should probably be something in there about the "I hate all other religions" fundies like the Coptic Christian and his white supremacist cohorts who made that sick movie trailer that has set the Middle East on fire.

One quote from that guy I rather liked, though. He said he hated Fundamentalist Islam because it's "penis-based religion." He's right. But so is ALL fundamentalism, whether it's those Republicans with their vaginal probes or the Catholic priests and Fundamentalist Mormon cultists who think Jesus (substitute "my penis") wants them to rape small children. I would say we need deliverance from ALL people who worship their own penises and give them the names of deities.

Alon Perlman said...

Thank you Ann, for a beautiful pair of blog articles.

Somehow “Mitts” and “accurate shooting” don’t seem to fit together, something even Sarah Palin knows.
Following back to trace the blur of the wagging tail of the dog, I circuitously came across this article;
http://washingtonexaminer.com/radicals-attack-us-embassy-obama-apologizes.-will-romney-speak-out/article/2507674#.UE_4DPU2geM
Read it America and weep, as dogs subsequently barked. Note also how the author of the article conveniently places Embassy attackers and Muslims offended by the films in the same “BOX”- “An apologetic statement released by the U.S. embassy expressed offense at those who might have upset Muslim sensibilities but did not express any outrage, or even disapproval, of those who would storm a U.S. embassy and destroy the American flagplaces.”
Then after the Ideation is planted, the Evidence is presented-
The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims -- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others. Source- The article in the examiner link.

Though I cannot confirm the quote, as the source statement; “egypt.usembassy.gov/pr091112.html” was pulled. Which is even more troubling, given that there is no apology, implicit or otherwise in the statement above. Problematic also, in that the chain of causality is broken by the statement’s absence. The statement was posted on 9/11 but apparently before the attacks at Benghazi and Cairo. But, not before attacks of some form given the film would had been expected.

One should never rely on a single news source or even the consensus news representing a single culture, even if "single culture" is as large as the conglomeration of the world’s largest religion, or the world's largest melting pot. After all, yesterday's Sam Bacile may be today’s Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, may be tomorrow’s someone else. As others point out, there are more similarities between the fundamentalists of different cloths, than there are differences between the “silent majorities” of the different clothes.

Still liking Anne R’s comment, it leaves me disturbed; as “Sam” self labels as an Egyptian Christian Copt. He seems nothing like an Egyptian Christian Copt I once knew, and even “white supremacists” as a group don’t do a particularly good job of representing each other. The man’s affiliations are at once suspect, irrelevant and crucial, as they are dropping into a world where many, not only “fundies with knotted undies” keep “blaming the goat” as the solution. Even the scenery chewing goat Terry Jones was drawn into this media frenzy apparently without cause. In a “real world” only the patrons of the cinematic arts would have had cause to protest the sacrilege.
So, back to Single Sourcing; http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/09/20129138381233110.html

People get the gods they deserve-

Attributed to Terry Pratchett, SF writer

Anonymous said...

there is no god.

but, as my friend jim washburn said, "There IS love and cookies."

much love and many cookies to you, dear ann.

donna

Churadogs said...

Love and cookies. Yes! and, I have another prayer, that everyone in America take a big deep breath and understand that what's happening in the Middle East isn't all about them. Like, Get Over Yourself.

What we're looking at an amazing mix of ancient history, modern history and many, many hidden agendas and cross-current local politics and power plays. America, as in DeathToAmerica! is merely a handy mantra to be used to get people distracted and riled up. The key thing to watch throughout the Muslim world is which groups end up gaining power in their respective countries. Whole lotta shuffling going on and America has little to do with it, except as a handy pretext. It's all slight of hand and audience distraction now, so people shouldn't be fooled by the flash 'n bang and so take their eyes off the pea-under-the-shell that's rapidly moving around the table.

Breathe, people, breathe. Time for much Coolth.

Nicole said...

Ann writes: "Pinch-faced, purse-lipped, they forgot to read the part about eye’s of camels and loaves and fishes and doing unto the least of thy children. " and; "And Christian fundies?  Don’t get me started.  Take prayer.  Didn’t you have something in your Book about making a big phony show of public prayer?  Well, I don’t think they were listening... " Makes ya wonder, huh?: Do those people read that book, or do they just wave it around?