I suppose this habit of reading the world's newspapers in the morning is not a great idea from the standpoint of keeping happy. Too many bombs and dead babies for me and quite a lot seem to be the result of the actions of my homeland. I keep hoping someday to read about a person, maybe of the people, certainly it's unlikely to be a wealthy person, but one who is working with the sick, helping families and not taking a dime for their efforts. Silly of me, actually, to expect a myth to come into being like that. But even now in India wealthy men at a certain point in their lives give up all their worldly goods and go sit somewhere to mediate and occasionally find some food in their bowl. Can you imagine George Bush wanting to give up his wealth and power to meditate on life while enjoying from time to time some rice placed in his bowl? It would restore my faith in American men is just one wealthy individual did something like that. Hell, it's not a bad thing to go think about life rather than slave to get more money. I used to meditate until the sitting began to hurt too much. I've begged on the street for coins so I could buy fish and chips to share with the other homeless people. Here's a lovely story of faith should work: I was hitching rides north to visit a friend. It was in Oregon and a truck pulled over full of migrant workers and their kids. I squeezed in the back and settled down. None of the kids spoke English and my Mexican was all obscenities. As I sat there a little brown skinned girl, about 7 or so, reached into a bag she had and pulled out a piece of white bread. She handed it to me solemnly and I tried to pronounce "gracias". That little girl handed me three pieces of bread out of her stash of food and we didn't even speak the same language. We didn't even have the same gods. But she fed me until I got out of the truck to move down a different highway, always on the prowl for Newness. But isn't the giving of food a gentle way of reminded us that we are all children of the Divine?
Yesterday I watched a baby cardinal follow its mother from branch to branch, fluttering and chirping, asking for food. It was on the same branch as some ripe berries but didn't know how to eat them, or simply preferred it's mother to feed it. We're a lot like that: able to help ourselves but preferring things to be handed to us. With the birds it is different, though. The mother is not only feeding her child, but teaching it how to feed a baby. For humans it's similar but we seem to learn that it's easier to take from others. Granted the offering of a gift should have been a part of that thought, but mostly we seem to grasp that we got something for free.
One of the first deities worshiped by we humans was the Bird Mother. We gave Her credit for hatching the universe as well as us. Her eggs sustained us, Her feathers adorned us and kept us warm. Her flesh was easy to eat. If you thought that birds were physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit you would try not to screw up their world, wouldn't you?One of the things that always struck me about Yaweh was that he seems more of a real estate salesman, giving out the Holy Lands to the faithful, making deals on lands currently occupied by the unfaithful. None of which can be kept, though. Eventually you die, see, and then the land stays behind while you go to where land is insignificant. Makes me wonder why they kill so many over there, fighting over wells like it was the 2nd century. The Israelis bulldoze ancient trees which bore olives to sustain the people, which gave wood for fires to cook pots of birds, which shaded the weary road traveler. Now there is firewood but no food to cook and no water to boil eggs from birds which have fled the destruction of the trees. As an old fashioned guy I see this as sacrilege. It's not at all nice, too.
Yaweh was a volcano god at one point, giving fertile ashes for growing trees and crops, but occasionally exploding and tossing molten earth around, killing all life in the immediate area. Then little buds appear in the ashes and new trees grow. Somehow people started worshiping the mountain rather than the life that it sustained. They were more impressed with the destruction of the beasts rather than Her great strength in opposing Him. Life is quiet and easily missed, but it's a greater miracle than the lava flowing into the valley, because after the lava cools and the mountain sleeps, life returns and She gives us food for our hungry and songs for our souls. I would rather bow to a pheasant and offer my thanks for it's song and flesh than pray to a mountain and ask that it not kill my family and friends. Different kind of relationship, wouldn't you say?
Yesterday I watched a baby cardinal follow its mother from branch to branch, fluttering and chirping, asking for food. It was on the same branch as some ripe berries but didn't know how to eat them, or simply preferred it's mother to feed it. We're a lot like that: able to help ourselves but preferring things to be handed to us. With the birds it is different, though. The mother is not only feeding her child, but teaching it how to feed a baby. For humans it's similar but we seem to learn that it's easier to take from others. Granted the offering of a gift should have been a part of that thought, but mostly we seem to grasp that we got something for free.
One of the first deities worshiped by we humans was the Bird Mother. We gave Her credit for hatching the universe as well as us. Her eggs sustained us, Her feathers adorned us and kept us warm. Her flesh was easy to eat. If you thought that birds were physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit you would try not to screw up their world, wouldn't you?One of the things that always struck me about Yaweh was that he seems more of a real estate salesman, giving out the Holy Lands to the faithful, making deals on lands currently occupied by the unfaithful. None of which can be kept, though. Eventually you die, see, and then the land stays behind while you go to where land is insignificant. Makes me wonder why they kill so many over there, fighting over wells like it was the 2nd century. The Israelis bulldoze ancient trees which bore olives to sustain the people, which gave wood for fires to cook pots of birds, which shaded the weary road traveler. Now there is firewood but no food to cook and no water to boil eggs from birds which have fled the destruction of the trees. As an old fashioned guy I see this as sacrilege. It's not at all nice, too.
Yaweh was a volcano god at one point, giving fertile ashes for growing trees and crops, but occasionally exploding and tossing molten earth around, killing all life in the immediate area. Then little buds appear in the ashes and new trees grow. Somehow people started worshiping the mountain rather than the life that it sustained. They were more impressed with the destruction of the beasts rather than Her great strength in opposing Him. Life is quiet and easily missed, but it's a greater miracle than the lava flowing into the valley, because after the lava cools and the mountain sleeps, life returns and She gives us food for our hungry and songs for our souls. I would rather bow to a pheasant and offer my thanks for it's song and flesh than pray to a mountain and ask that it not kill my family and friends. Different kind of relationship, wouldn't you say?
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