Pitch Perfect

Yesterday the Paris Community Choir performed our spring concert.  I have so enjoyed singing in a choir once again.  There are some really good singers in this choir, far better than I.  There are a few scattered among our alto section who have near perfect pitch.  I try to stand by one of those.  I have often stated, “I’m not always on the right pitch, but at least I know when I’m off.”  When I know I’m off tune I start lip singing until I find the right note and rejoin the choir.

It seems to me this idea of perfect pitch also applies to personal integrity.  As with singing, I may not always be “right on,” but I usually know when I’m off and usually have the same response: I hunker down, shut up and try to find the right key once again. 

Like now.  I’m off and I know I’m off.  I feel confused, disturbed, out of sorts--not quite in tune.  I don’t feel entirely comfortable in my own skin and suspect I am projecting out there something other than is true in here.

Nothing, in my experience, feels better than authentically and confidently standing tall in my own boots, let the devil take the hindmost!  But, alas, it can’t be faked!  Faking integrity is an oxymoron; it just won’t preach.

So recently I’ve been going through the motions, hitting a few wrong notes, trying to find my way.  Fortunately, this is not my first rodeo!  I know I’ll find a newer, truer path (to mix metaphors), a new song that expresses who I am becoming.  In the meantime, you might want to cover your ears.

Church

My true work, both within myself and with others, is based upon my belief and experience that each of us is “gifted” from God with an inherent, intrinsic wisdom that can be trusted.  Call it the Holy Spirit or deep intuition or the Voice of Loving Kindness or the Inner Teacher.  I don’t much care what you call it. What matters is that we find it, access it, consult it and trust it

The practice of meditation or contemplation is a gateway, an entry point to inner wisdom.  Art, nature, dreams, yoga, guided meditations, walking alone can also be invitations to revelation.  So can honest, truthful conversation with another person.

I am saddened by the thought that millions live their entire lives looking for clues “out there,” not realizing there is a pool of love and wisdom “in here.”  It isn’t my pool or your pool; it is our pool.  It is not hidden but must be discovered.  For most of us, someone had to point it out to us.  Jesus repeatedly pointed the way; the kingdom of heaven is within. So many other teachers have as well from various religions, traditions and spiritualties.

Finding this inner knowing is merely the beginning; learning to trust it is a never ending journey.  How to describe the tremendous resistance that confronts us once we have dipped our toe in the pool? Thus the need for companions.

Fortunately, I am blessed with two sisters who can and often do remind me to return to my Source, to look within and wait.  My husband as well is a consistent voice for remembering and reminding me of the reliability of the truth within.  Other companions chime in at various times and from sundry places.

Any 2 or 3 people gathered for the purpose of accessing and sharing loving wisdom is a church.  Any gathering of people, large or small, who will not accept pat answers, outdated revelations, unloving commandments or dictates, no matter how revered the source, are a church.  With this understanding, I love to go to church; I love to invite church into my home, lunch with church, take walks with church.  I often get to lie in bed with church.  Texting church is helpful as is discovering church on Facebook.

If you know or even merely suspect that within you and every human resides an unbreakable connection to a loving source that is wiser and more loving than you can imagine…let’s meet for church.

Jesus

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.  No, no.

Jesus loves me this I know.  End of sentence.

No difference...

By the time I reached puberty I had been carefully taught God’s expectation of girls and women.  I understood what God approved of and what he (yes, he) disapproved of.  I had no reason to argue; as a ten year old I had no quarrel with God’s requirements of girls and women.

How can I describe then the confusion, anxiety and shame that came with the growing realization that I could never be acceptable to God because of who I am, intrinsically?  As I matured it became increasingly clear that I am not and never will be demure, submissive, quiet or restrained.  I do not conform to my childhood religion’s definition of Godly femininity.  I am loud, outspoken, opinionated and domineering.  Can’t help it…believe me, I’ve tried.  That last thing I wanted to be was displeasing to God.

The years following my shocking and heart wrenching divorce from my good Christian husband were painful indeed, but so, so necessary for me to finally acknowledge that God loves and accepts me, just as I am. God does not love me so long as I work every day to be quiet and submissive and seek therapy to “straighten” out my personality. God does not love me provided I do not act out my inclination to speak my mind, express myself, and disregard male authority. No siree bob!  God loves me because I am God’s creation, whole and holy.

You see where I am going.  I know how it feels when people claiming to speak for God tell me I am flawed, less than, imperfect, sinful and weak. It took years of work and study for me to accept God’s unconditional love after so much guilt and shame.  So, if there is anything I can possibly do to shorten the healing period for any other child of God who was mistakenly taught that he/she is displeasing to God because of who they are, I want to do it.  Holy Spirit, send me.

As a student and teacher of God, I know in my heart of hearts, down to my toenails, that God adores LGBT people, just as they are; they don’t need to be straightened out; fixed, rehabilitated or forgiven…not for being gay.  They spring from the same loving Source I do, we all do.  I don’t need a bible verse to convince me; I will not argue bible verses with anyone, ever. 

There are thousands of young men and women who sat in church pews their entire childhood being taught that gay folks really, really disturb God. Then they reach puberty and have that horrible realization that they are attracted to the same sex and thus are themselves an abomination.  A good Christian kiddo one day, an abomination the next.  What follows that horrifying, secret realization breaks my heart; I can’t stand it.

Christian people, Christian churches, wake up!  Repent.  Change course.  We are literally killing and spiritually maiming good people for no good reason.  I cannot participate in any Christian community that declares homosexuality to be displeasing to God, much less an abomination!  Thank God, I am not alone.  A young woman recently wrote to me that she would not cross the threshold of any church where her friends are not openly welcomed and affirmed. 

There are multitudes of churches that stand on The Holy Bible and declare who the sinners in this world are.  The time is way past due for every community to have at least one Christian community that opens the doors to all God’s children with no caveats, no restrictions, no judgment.

Division

Division

Differences

Disagreements

Discord

In the name of tribe, nation, country, religion

In the name of God.

Thus saith, thus saith, thus saith

Thus saith the Lord

Thus saith Allah

Thus saith Jesus

Stop it!

Stop quoting scripture to me

Stop it

I cannot hear it

Your scripture, his scripture, their scripture, our scripture

Take your finger off the page,

And look up, look within.

Don’t come at me with a book, an oracle,

Quotations and more quotations.

Come at me with your authentic self,

Come at me knowing who you are.

Shout at me if you must, but

Don’t read to me someone else’s revelation.

Stand in your own knowing

Proclaim your not knowing

Trust your source.

If I am wrong it is not because I disobeyed

But because I lost sight of my own internal Voice

Given me by my Creator.

If I am wrong it is not because I misinterpreted

Someone else’s inspired truth

But because I misinterpreted my own.

An American Bible - Ingersoll

Where has Robert Ingersoll been all of my life?  I'd never heard of him before I discovered An American Bible.  I've been reading The Gospel According to Robert Ingersoll, a man who lived during the Civil War and was known as "the great orator," and as the "preeminent agnostic of his day."

Because I share much of his cynicism concerning traditionally accepted Christian creed, doctrine and dogma I find much of his writings to be breathtakingly refreshing.

Consider the following:

"By this time the whole world should know that the real bible has not yet been written, but is being written, and that it will never be finished until the race begins its downward march, or ceases to exist...(the real bible) has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood.  It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true."

"We do not need the forgiveness of gods, but of ourselves, and the ones we injure.  Restitution without repentance is far better than repentance without restitution."

"We know nothing of any god who rewards, punishes or forgives."

"Religion is supposed to consist in a discharge of the duties we owe to God.  In other words, we are taught that God is exceedingly anxious that we should believe a certain thing.  For my part, I do not believe that there is any infinite being to whom we owe anything.  The reason I say this is, we can not owe any duty to any being who requires nothing--to any being that we can not possibly help, to any being whose happiness we can not increase.  If God is infinite, we can neither give, nor can He receive anything.  Anything that we do or fail to do, can not, in the slightest degree, affect an infinite God; consequently no relations can exist between the finite and the Infinite, if by relations is meant mutual duties and obligations."

"Let us forget that we are Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians or Freethinkers, and remember only that we are men and women.  After all, man and woman are the highest possible titles.  All other names belittle us, and show that we have consented to wear the collar of authority--that we are followers."

"An infinite God ought to be able to protect Himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures.  Certainly He ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep Him from being laughed at.  No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment...Surely politicians could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the literary reputation of the Jewish God."

"The pulpit should not be a pillory.  Congregations should allow the minister a little liberty.  They should, at least, permit him to tell the truth."

"As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man.  The Bible was not written by a woman...In the Bible will be found no description of a civilized home.  The free mother surrounded by free and loving children, adored by a free man, her husband, was unknown to the inspired writers of the Bible."

"Religion has not civilized man--man has civilized religion.  God improves as man advances."

"In the republic of mind, one is a majority.  There, all are monarchs, and all are equals.  The tyranny of a majority even is unknown.  Each one is crowned, sceptered and throned.  Upon every brow is the tiara, and around every form is the imperial purple.  Only those are good citizens who express their honest thoughts, and those who persecute for opinion's sake are the only traitors.  There, nothing is considered infamous except an appeal to brute force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty and joy."

I am far more of an agnostic than I supposed!

An American Bible

Recently while going through my mother’s things I found a treasure.  At first glance I mistook it for an old leather bound copy of the New Testament and planned to sell it.  While trying to decide how to price it I looked at it more closely and saw that the actual name of the book was An American Bible, published in 1911 by Alice Hubbard.

The book is a compendium of writings from 8 men of American antiquity: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Robert Ingersoll, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Elbert Hubbard.  I am currently reading in the Thomas Paine section, having completed Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

Each section of the book is titled, “The Gospel According to…” These men were incredibly astute, and compared with the statesmen of our day, they appear absolutely brilliant.  My how far we have strayed from the ideas and ideals put forth by these founding fathers!

Consider the following:

Ben Franklin says of the various religions, “I respected them all, though with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mixed with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another.”

“The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.”  Thomas Jefferson

Is America meant to be a Christian nation?  Thomas Jefferson again, “Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting the words ‘Jesus Christ,’ …the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan (sic), the Hindoo (sic) and Infidel of every denomination.”

I leave you with Thomas Paine, “When it shall be said in any country in the world, My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness;--when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government.”

I’m looking forward to The Gospel According to Walt Whitman.