Racist Arizona

I know that no government accurately represents it's constituents, representative governments only succeed in representing themselves. So I'm in no way suggesting that all of the residents of Arizona are racist, but the government is being taken over by Lou Dobbs' army of "anti-illegal-immigrant" crazies. The trouble with modern racism is that it's so darned unpopular, you have to talk to the klan to get some actual racial epitaphs these days. If you ask these politically correct supporters of the Arizona Anti-Immigration Law SB 1070, they will stress that they are only against "the illegal ones". But a deeper look shows a truly complex issue on both legal and moral grounds.

Of course not all illegal immigrants are from Mexico, or central or South america, some are overstaying their visas from European countries, and every other country in the world. The Arizona law requires police to ask any person who looks like they might be illegally in the country for proof of citizenship, so that could be anyone of any color. The law literally requires the police to stop everybody in Arizona and ask them for their papers, EVERYONE. But ask the white residents of Arizona if they have been stopped and asked for their papers, they have not. Why is Washington State not adopting a similar law to keep those pesky Canadians out of our country?

I know it's not a popular argument to suggest that much of our richest territories of the southwest were wrongfully acquired from the independent nation of Mexico, maybe this is because it's true. But it's no more popular to suggest that no land in the Americas we're legally or morally available to the descendants of another hemisphere, only through genocide could it be occupied. If those who were so passionate about immigration issues would follow their ideologies to their ultimate conclusions they would be packing up and heading for their ancestral homelands.

Most Americans fail to see the complexity of the race issue within Mexico, they only see "Mexicans". Mexico has a similar history in relation with it's indigenous populations except for the fact that it still has a significant proportion of indigenous to non-indigenous peoples. We think Mexican=Brown but there are significant portions of the country that pride themselves on their white skin. You might think they could have some interesting conversations with the members of the klu klux klan, but oh yes, the language barrier. Racisms' first and longest lasting target in North America has been it's indigenous people and there are still many Americans who feel that old hatred for their red brothers.

Just as the racism of yesterday is no longer en vogue, the racist campaign maligning native Americans can no longer find a champion to carry the cause. But wait, look closely at those "Mexicans" coming over the border, they're not the light skinned ones. Those are indigenous and mestizo people (or people of Euro-Amero blood lines), they're indians, Native Americans, why should they not have the right to traverse the land that is their cultural inheritance? The concessions we've made (or agreed to make but fail to follow through) to those tribes from the territories now within the boundaries of the US government, are concessions to sovereign peoples, don't the other tribes of Indigenous Americans deserve some concessions considering the devastating effect our Nation has had on their lives?

Throughout history there have been many people who pray to a Lord Jesus while simultaneously holding a hatred for Jewish people and their ways, not realizing that Jesus was not a Christian but a Jew. Obviously Jesus's spirit has long transcended the boundaries of religion and it seems silly to call him a Christian or a Jew, but if he is to teach us something it should be about transcending these cultural boundaries to see in each other our spiritual equal, our true selves. Jesus was a dark skinned man with two thousand years of airbrushed skin tone adjustments to make his white fans more comfortable. Many Christians are anxiously awaiting this Lord Jesus to make his big come back, and who knows, maybe he will. His spirit is trying to come back again and again in every color, but racism chases him away.

The cross we all must bear.

Some people believe that Jesus did not die on a cross but escaped into exile, perhaps ending up in France, Spain, or England. Fact or crucifixion? We may never know whether he was or was not crucified. We do know the practice was widely used at the time and the symbolism of the cross is rich for spiritual mining. And with all of the added religious symbols and themes there could hardly be a more dramatic image to conjure up when one feels crucified in a figurative way as John Lennon did when he wrote "...the way things are goin' they're gonna crucify me"

For my purposes here the religious symbolism only clutters and clouds the more pure spiritual symbolism that should be apparent to all with minimal contemplation. Incarnating into the physical realm is a process ripe with tension, pain, suffering and a life of fluctuating stress. This is partly due to the fact that physical bodies require so much in terms of food and shelter and are never completely safe from harm. Ideally, as children we're protected and fed and can remain pure and innocent for many years. But once we leave the nest and start paying our own bills and rent and buying our own groceries we begin to see the world very differently.

Obviously the cruel world isn't always that cruel and some people are never really flying without a net and can get what they need with a simple phone call to Mommy and Daddy. But for most adults and many children the world (or at least the market place) is a cruel game of give and take with very clear winners and losers. One must learn to use what one has to get what one needs and the deal is rarely if ever a fair one. Most people are asked to make compromises every day of their lives in which they give something of themselves in exchange for something they require, usually money.

The cross that we all must bear is the intersection of spirit and matter, heart and mind. Our spirit may not wish to kill another organism for any reason, but our bodies simply must eat something to survive. Our hearts may not want to take money from people who can barely afford to eat, but our minds are trying to run a business here. We carry this heavy burden with us until the moment of our passing back into the spiritual realm, so we can feel as though our whole lives are spent nailed to a cross waiting for the mercy of death. Simply being born is to play out the Robert Johnson song "I went down to the crossroads, I fell down on my knees".

The modern day traffic light shows us the energy of the cross and what is required to survive in this world. Whether it's a stop light, stop sign, or yield sign one route must stop so the other can go. Stop lights are programmed so that all of the lights will never be green at the same time so that one route is always blocked by the other. Red lights are stressful to conform to but we understand why we're stopping, even if we're in a hurry. This symbolism can be easily observed in all spheres especially politics which is (or should be) the process of reconciling the intersections of cross purposes and opposing agendas, interests, and issues.

Almost every time we personally, publicly, or politically weigh our options there is a sense of right and wrong with our spirit and heart on one side asking us to "do the right thing". On the other side is our hungry body and calculating mind working together to make sure that all of the bodies in your family are well fed well into the future. But the true essence of this intersection is not about the mind, heart, spirit, or body; instead it's a much more subtle polarity constantly pulling us in opposite directions. It is love that wants us to take no more than we need and give all that we can, and it is fear that wants to take care of our "own" and short change the other at every opportunity. And when you put it in those terms the answer is clear.

The Birds and the Bees and the Gods

Among the spiritual but not religious crowd there is a wide belief in the presence of a Goddess, demonstrating why many spiritual people cannot find a home in a major religion. In fact all of these religions including Buddhism have long and sordid histories of oppression of, not just women, but femininity in all it's forms. It could be concluded once again that these hierarchal institutions have always been the tools of men to dominate women and other groups. This creates the soul crushing choice for women to fall in line with one of these abusive dogmas or be forever banished from that pearly gated community in the sky. That women aren't marching out of churches in droves shows the continued effectiveness of this threat/incentive.

If the belief in a Goddess makes one a Pagan, then I and many of my acquaintances are modern day Pagans. I have found that few Pagans have a "creation story" nor do they feel the need to tell one. To look around the world and see all of the plants, animals, and humans, is to know why we are here. There is room for contemplation of all things but there's no need to be told a story, especially laden with untruths and half truths. But there is a story to tell, and if you listen the world is telling it over and over with each passing day. Though it may sound very familiar to you, it's radically different from those creation stories of the major religions.

In the context of the Greek Gods playing out their tawdry soap opera in the heavens, monotheism seemed like a much cleaner, simpler story to tell. But to go from many Gods who love and make love with each other, to a single masculine entity that does it all, is over-correcting in my humble opinion. Those who believe in the presence of a Goddess believe also in the presence of a God, hmmm, Mama and poppa. If men could have babies without any help at all from women, I might be prepared to believe that one great father in the sky could be responsible for everything. But understanding the birds and the bees as intimately as I do, I'm simply not satisfied with the single shooter theory of creation.

Simply put, I believe in a God and a Goddess who together create. Furthermore, I believe that we are created in the image of the creator, and this means that we are all creators. This also means that what we create can itself create and take on a world of its' own. And that our creators have creators, and their creators have creators, and so on. In this story you can apply everything you know about your family to your God family, because there really is no difference. If God (and Goddess) are in all things then what is the difference between a "God" and a "Human"? Are we not Gods that create miracles, considering the miraculous nature of nature itself?

We all have access to God consciousness, I believe this is what Jesus was trying to demonstrate so that others might follow his example. Jesus did not want an institution to exploit his name and twist his words to fill the coffers of greedy and bigoted men. Those men who sought to oppress and enslave the hearts, minds, souls, and bodies of there fellow men, did not want anyone to follow the example of Jesus, who represented great instability to the system that made them rich and powerful. So they orchestrated a convenient story in which no body would ever have to follow in his footsteps because he already did it for you. Those men of that empire and their modern equivalents are correct to fear the real Jesus, any one experiencing God consciousness could spark a rather glorious chain reaction.

Spiritual, but not religious...

Arise spiritual slackers and come forth to create your destinies in a world of mass confusion. Those devotees of the major religions call us atheists or secularists, but we must define ourselves if we wish to be accurately addressed. In conversations with others I often utter this phrase "I'm spiritual but not religious" and more and more people are agreeing with this description of their own deeper belief systems. It's too easy for major religions to see those souls not assigned to one of these clicks as somehow "Godless" or devoid of spiritual validity, they do the same to each other. We know that our default mode of spiritual orientation is not only valid but older and truer than any clubhouse style religion.

We are like Indigenous people in the summer Olympics, excluded from participating in the field of events. As though Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism were corporate sponsors for a spiritual Nascar race in which the winner gets to sit at the right hand of God. All of these religions are hierarchal institutions not unlike governments, and like governments the institution is only as strong, as moral, as righteous as it's weakest link. Institutions are just vehicles of power, all of the power of the institution becomes a weapon when the driver is intoxicated or just plain corrupt. Throughout history the crimes of both churches and states look so similar that it becomes necessary to delineate the true culprit: Institutions.

Needless to say you won't find a much more radical world view than that of the anti-institutionalist. Most people defend institutions giving them full credit for the deeds accomplished by people who fought against those institutions simply because the leaders of institutions sometimes cave in to sufficient public pressure. Satisfied with making baby steps in the arch of justice they see anarchists as people who would throw out the baby steps with the bath water for instigating revolution against oppressive institutions. But as soon as someone like George W. Bush sits in the driver seat he can put every progressive victory in reverse until all of the struggle is for not and more must fight and die for the same small gains.

It may be difficult to imagine a world without institutions but that was what John Lennon was asking of us and that is what another hippy, peace activist asked of us a long, long time ago: Jesus. It may come as a shock to many Christians but Jesus was not a Christian, he was born a Jew. And like many Jews he was unsatisfied with the institution of religion and began imagining something radically different. He didn't say "forget about god and spirituality because religion is tainted with corruption.", instead he spread a message of a God who could not be contained inside of church walls, and a spiritual authority that one needed no intermediary to interpret, a direct spiritual experience.

So why did a start up company called Christianity claim this radical, liberal, socialist, anarchist, peace activist, anti-institutionalist, Hippy, Pagan Jesus (The original Jesus freak?) as it's composite character, it's poster child, it's demented crucified logo? This was simply an attempt to cap a leaking well of spiritual individualism but it merely succeeded in confusing and dissembling an otherwise clear and powerful story of a man who saw the institutions for what they were: groups of corrupt individuals who would stop at nothing to increase their wealth and power. If they did not turn this man into a God, we would make obvious connections between him and others like him, people who dedicate their lives to bettering the lives of the down trodden, oppressed peoples of the world.

Because Jesus is "Lord" we don't think of him as an "activist", we don't see the epic struggle of a spiritual man in a land being crushed by a military empire. We don't see a "socialist" so we can be simultaneously preached "Jesus is Good" and teached "Socialism is Bad". We can't make that link between an angry Jesus overturning the tables of the moneychangers and protesters marching in the streets against corrupt corporations and banks. Jesus is a God afterall, those people out there are just a bunch of eco-terrorists and commies. The overwhelming double standard of those who claim to believe in Jesus as Lord but adopt values that directly contradict the word and deed of Jesus the man is frustrating to say the least.

This is the reason the WWJD (What would Jesus do?) movement is so popular, everybody knows what Jesus would do in any given situation and we can clearly see the hypocrisy of those who do not follow in kind. Who would Jesus bomb? The question is snarky but simple and powerful enough to make the point, Jesus would not bomb anyone. Who would Jesus preemptively strike? Didn't Jesus say that even when one strikes you, you are to turn the other cheek so that they might strike it as well? I don't think Jesus said that we are to do unto others before they do it on us. Though Jesus spoke highly and spoke often of "God" he was by no means a bible thumper, and his definition of "God" could be the same as mine as far as any Christian knows.

It's time for Pagans to take back Jesus, not as a "God" but as wise and passionate man.

...activist, protester, liberal, etc...