Good vs Evil ... No Equivocation!

There are those among us who even now would salute Hitler; but they are in reality a fringe trying to survive against the moral tide of History. There are those who would resurrect the fascism of Mussolini; but they inevitably find themselves marginalized and eventually swept aside by the thrust toward a more equal society and a better world. The putrid stench of slavery lingers in the air we breathe. The Ku Klux Klan still lives among us despite the desperately vicious history they represent.

The forward march of History gains impetus when we identify and call Evil by its name… That which seeks to destroy the will to achieve the common good. The establishment of the common good is the goal of our civilization. It is a foundation of the kind of Peace which issues from the triumph of the forces of good over the presence of evil.

We understand civil society to be a function of the recognition of each other’s right to the pursuit of our highest human potential regardless of circumstances of race, gender, sexuality, religious persuasion, or the socio-economic circumstances of one’s birth. When we appropriate to each other as a human right the ability to thrive in ways that are non-obstructive to the strivings of our fellow persons, we regard that as a good thing.

To live at peace with each other by the establishment of equity among us is good. We know beyond equivocation that there have been, and that there remain among us persons and influences that do not share the values implicit in these notions. They foster in their own lives, and seek to foist upon others, the inequity that serves their twisted sense of being. They create misery. They are agents of chaos.

The heroes we celebrate in our individual and corporate lives are those who stood in firm opposition to the forces of evil. There must be no equivocation; those who represent the expression of evil must continue to bear the eternal rebuke reserved for them. They must either repent, or be relegated to the hell they would create for others.

Of Bogeymen and Saviors

Let us be clear about the profound immorality of those who love to use Karl Marx as the bogeyman of our time, while they pay lip service to the life and work of a Nazarene now called Jesus. 

Marx lived twice as long as Jesus and eventually died of pleurisy. He has been vilified by many for calling the workers of the world to unite against their exploiters. Jesus was murdered in his early thirties for calling out the inequities of his day and those who perpetuated it. 

All efforts to theologically sanitize his murder aside, the fact is Jesus was NAILED to a rough wooden cross which he was forced to carry on his back to the hill where he would be further brutalized. Like many who suffered a similar fate he was tortured while many looked on, and hung there till he was dead. His was the kind of fate that the theologian Bonhoeffer aptly described in his declaration that:  "When God calls a man, He bids him come and die." This for Bonhoeffer was "the cost of discipleship".

Those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo have always sought to demonize the voices that declare in favor of the poor and the disadvantaged. Popular Christianity is a reflection of the prevailing moral and political values in our society.  In this context those who act out in contravention of those values are invariably isolated and targeted for elimination. 

The false equivalencies that we witness from the mouths of the servants of this status quo are nothing more than attempts to muddle the consciousness of the uncritical among us. These preachers and politicians mouthing off about the assault on their fictitious  “Savior” by those who seek to address the persistent inequities in our society are for the most part just charlatans “making a living”.

And so the poor continue to perish while political opportunists and their lackeys spook the people with their visions of the ghost of Marx. And for this "Jesus wept". 

The struggle continues...

Anodynes

“Creative rhymes…
Potent anodynes…
Analgesic tones…
Somnifaciently affected sounds…
Words that heal…
In combinations we feel…
Anesthetic formulae
And stupefacient lies
Won’t change our need for realistic treatise…

Preachers and teachers
Singers and speakers…
Sermons and lessons
Songs and mass visions…
Come now before us
Sounding so spurious
Because they are devoid of real truths…

Thoughts obfuscated
On minds opiated
Will…finally…do us no good—”

Excerpt From: Roy Alexander Graham. “Of Scattered Seed and Broken Souls.” Figtree Enterprises, Inc., 2012. iBooks.
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Immortal

Forever
Like a wind traveling through time
Across many stages…
From everlasting till now…we are…
And will be still
Through all the ages…of time…

And forever
Like a raindrop moving through space…
Returning again to its origin as air…
Through heat and cold
Becoming water
Again…and again

Forever and forever
We are like the wind
Becoming clouds
That fall as rain
To return again
To its form as spirit…

We are the immortals…of the Immortal
Which was…
Who is…
That will be
Forever

Excerpt From: Roy Alexander Graham's  “In My Element.” Figtree Enterprises, Inc., 2012. 

Where does your "god" stand on the matter of Justice?

There is in fact a well established and very meaningful orthodoxy which declares that it is utter nonsense to talk about our fascination with gods we cannot see, while we foster a culture of inequity. The propagation of injustice is a direct contradiction of our claim to obedience to any loving God. It places our faith on tenuous ground, and nullifies all attempts, rhetorical and liturgical, to validate our stated beliefs.

Theological exercises that do not affirm the experiences and the needs of our common humanity are a gross misuse of physical and mental energy. Worse than that, they are potentially dangerous. To profess our love for, and our commitment to celestial beings while we actively antagonize one another is to live a lie. Lies have a tendency to erode our potential to live in authentic relationships. This is as true for each of us as it is for all of us. Lies negate and erode the life-enhancing potentials of individuals and of nations. A meaningful faith is one which finds expression through the cultivation of real equity in our stewardship of Earth and its fullness. Another word for equity... Justice.

In the physical, cultural, and political spaces in which we live out our lives we often have to confront the incongruities between the ideas that we have come to define ourselves by and the challenges that are inherent in the realities of our being together. The tensions herein are real and ongoing. Our efforts to resolve these tensions underline the necessity to engage philosophically with our selves and each other. The honest philosopher comes to acknowledge a truth that is universally affirmed: "There are more questions than answers; ... and the more we find out, the less we know". The less we know for sure that is.

Ultimately the most consequential question that we must answer is not about the nature of God. The responses to that philosophical piece are too subjective to be universally useful. We can agree that that question is indicative of a certain functional genius, and it most definitely has its place in our philosophical resumes. But the more pressing query is: Who is my neighbor, and am I his/her keeper? An affirmation of the wisdom and the duty implied in this question clears the path to the salvation we and our societies seek… and need.

Trump... A Clear and Present Danger to Civil Society

It has been declared that politics is about life. I want to expand and expound on that: Politics is about our lives together. 

Beyond our individual interests and the group interests that are at times used to divide and rule us; there is that greater imperative that calls us to build the kind of national and international community that will secure our mutual interests and bolster our collective security. The leadership that this vision of our lives demands is what we are constantly  being called on to bring into being. 

Donald Trump is NOT the kind of leader our country and the world needs. His lack of moral acuity, his demonstrably horrible temperament, his ill-mannered attitude toward others - these traits are antithetical to everything we should be working toward as a society.

One does not have to look far in order to find the reasons that disqualify Mr Trump from holding the highest office in the land. Any casual observer of his conduct can, without much effort, identify a host of such reasons. His unapologetic divisiveness. His crass abrasiveness. His activist appeal to the racist underbelly of a nation still scarred by its history of bigotry. His disrespect for women, and for immigrants who are not white and rich... and corrupt. Add to all this his obvious inability to intelligently address any of the issues of critical importance in our national life and we have the ingredients for a national crisis.

Trump has demonstrated a lack of intellectual curiosity about our world that, in an otherwise uncorrupted process, would disqualify him from leadership of any corporate entity - much less the United States of America. His careless disregard for those with disabilities among us is a marker of the kind of warped amorality that those concerned about the health of our nation find detestable. His history of exploiting the economic system to benefit himself to the disadvantage of others is the primeval scream of a corrupt economic soul. 

When we add to all this Trump's careless disregard for truth, we have nothing less than the recipe for a national disaster. His propensity to promote violence against those who do not share his worldview calls the civilized among us to engage in the necessary constitutional measures to preserve our democracy. His ludicrously inconsequential bravado is matched only by his disrespect of those who have served in our military. 

This man is a clear and present danger to the further establishment of civil society here in America, and in the world. 

Building Blocks Of Hope

Though we may disagree, there is no need to try to invalidate the perspective of the many of us who look back and conclude that times have gotten worse. To be sure, there has certainly  been an erosion in our sense of security. Truth be told though, the “good old days” weren't all that good for most of us. There is real progress going on all around us, and we are being called to be part of that progress. Our challenge, and we must choose to accept it, is to find ways to partner with each other across the divides constantly being highlighted amongst us.

Beyond the superficial national, regional, ethnic, and religious boundaries that divide us, we are constantly being called to reach out and touch each other in recognition of that deeper connection which is our common humanity. That reaching out must be defined by a coupling of the needs we share, and the resources available to us. A little from the many will go a far way in meeting the needs of multitudes.

The development and propagation of dynamic technologies, bring us closer to each other in our world. These technologies avail us of opportunities to break out of the isolationism that partners with ignorance to breed a pessimistic outlook on life. We are now able to reach out and touch each other in ways never before possible. The revolution in information technologies facilitates the  sharing of our lives and concerns in ways that were once impossible. In large measure it is now up to each of us to develop the resourcefulness to take advantage of every opportunity to empower ourselves and each other.

A greater sense of hope can be realized in the normal day to day circumstances of our lives. It comes when we live into the greatest calling of Life - the call to enter each other's lives in transformative ways. The seeds of hope are sown whenever we open up our hearts and minds, and make whatever resources we have available to enrich the lives and circumstances around us.