jimrigby.org

Please realize if someone runs government like a business you will someday no longer be a citizen but only a customer.

The purpose of a government run like a business will be to make as much money as possible off of you. And- because you allowed the civil rights of marginal communities to be stripped- you, too, will someday stand naked before a merciless law.

Only your vanity convinced you that sharks would take pity on you because they flattered you when they needed your vote. You will soon wish you had stood up for others so there would be protections for you against the lying and greed you have enabled.

The old saying still holds: if someone will cheat WITH you, they will cheat ON you.

One of the greatest gifts we can give the world is to live from our own roots.
Living from our own roots means trusting the creativity within us more than the hymns and creeds of the religion we have inherited.
The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart asked the following question: “What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the child of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.”
Living from our own roots means not believing what a scripture or clergy person says until we can find its meaning in our own experience.
Living from our roots means treating whatever we read on the internet, or hear from the mouth of a friend, as provisional until we have personally verified it from at least a couple reputable news sources.
It is not enough to read Lao Tzu, I must discover the “Way” running through my own place and time. The Buddha cannot enlighten me unless I am willing to sit under my own version of a bodhi tree. The resurrection of Jesus has not happened until I rise from my own dead endings and enter the common life of all in this present moment.
Again, one of the greatest gifts we can give the world is to live from our own roots.

It looks like I’m through the woods for now, but when I was in the ER and the staff was trying to get me through the night, I was amazed at how peaceful and happy I felt.

Part of that peace came from a lifetime of honoring the Stoic teaching not to regard any fate as belonging to me. But the peace came even more profoundly from believing that my sense of separateness is an illusion. Albert Einstein is often credited with this quote, but I believe the true author is Daniel Christian Wahl, who said:
“A human being is part of a whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. (We) experience (ourselves), (our) thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of (our) consciousness.”

I want to always remember that the universe did not owe me life. My existence has been a free gift. I have flowered out of the depths of the universe, either as the result of an ultimate being, or of a cosmic process. Either way, why should I not trust the circle of life when my eventual tomb will be born of same creative principle as my initial womb?
One thing I know is that I want every moment from here on to be full of gratitude. No matter what my fate, I want to be grateful. I hereby resolve that when that last moment comes (hopefully, many years from now) the last utterance that passes through my lips will be the word “yes!”

Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister and a lifelong Republican. By 2007, the party had changed so dramatically that Fox & Friends aired a segment where one of the hosts said Fred Rogers was “an evil, evil man.”
According to Snopes the commentary to the FOX segment said:
“These experts are saying that the kids of today who grew up with Mr. Rogers were told by him, ‘You’re special, just for being who you are.” Well, here’s the problem [that] gets lost in that whole self-business, and the idea that being hard and having high issues for yourself is discounted. Mr. Rogers’ message was, “You’re special because you’re you.” He didn’t say, “If you want to be special, you’re going to have to work hard,” and now all these kids are growing up and they’re realizing, ‘Hey wait a minute, Mr. Rogers lied to me, I’m not special — I’m trying hard, and I’m not getting anywhere.’”
Joanne Rogers, Mr. Roger’s widow said of the MAGA movement, “We have somebody leading us right now who is not a forgiver. His values are very, very different from Fred’s values – almost completely opposite.”
I can understand how rabid capitalists might claim that mercy is a weakness and that diversity, equity and inclusion weaken the nation; but, for the life of me I cannot understand how any Christian could make those claims without blushing.
Loving those who are different and redistributing the world’s goods are ESSENTIAL teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. In Luke, the Beatitudes not only comfort the poor, but also warn those who have hoarded the world’s goods:
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.” Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
I believe the Beatitudes were Jesus’ way of assuring the oppressed that they were loved of God and warning those who did not do justice to their entire human family would discover themselves to be to be hungry of heart and internally bankrupt.
Jesus taught a love that does justice. The church becomes an Anti-Christ when it mocks as “woke” who would care about justice in our day. Donald Trump is tragically wrong and Mr. Rogers is eternally right. Love must grow into justice because the entire world is our neighborhood.

These are brutal times. It is easy to become discouraged and want to drop out of the struggle for a better world.

It can be helpful to remember the bright souls we have known who refused to be defined by their political era and so gave birth to new possibilities for an age to come.

Living in Texas, I have met some remarkable feminists and womanists. It was probably from these “steel magnolias” that I learned not to let political victory or defeat define us. Like anyone, these champions got discouraged and needed to rest, but they were fully committed to their causes and had each other’s back.

I remember sharing coffee with some of Ann Richards’ pals at the State Capitol. They had given their lives to make conditions better for women, the LGBTQ community, the working poor and the children of Texas. I could not believe how much love and joy they expressed for each other as they danced through some of Texas’ most brutal struggles. The deck was rigged against them, but they seemed unflappable. Their joy came, from not from political victories, but from serving their highest values in a beloved community. For these brave women, despair was energy out of harness.

People who give their lives for their highest values cannot be evaluated in terms of political wins and loses. They are like lanterns burning in the window through humanity’s midnight times. Their faithfulness reminds us of our own best selves.

It is easy to despair as we listen to gloating politicians who believe that might makes them right, but it is no small thing to give our lives as lanterns of love and justice shining in the window through humanity’s midnight hours. If we can remember the fierce and gentle souls who refused to be defined by the struggles of their time, perhaps we can remember the gift we give the world simply by refusing to be anything less than fully human.

(Originally published in May of 2023)

Nothing in church history has done as much damage as the idea that Jesus is the only way to salvation.

No one can count the families torn asunder, the innocents tortured as heretics, nor the minorities oppressed because the church thought they would be tortured eternally if they did not convert to sectarian Christianity.

The church honors itself, not God, when we say God has only spoken to us. I cannot imagine a blasphemy more arrogant than to boast we are the only tool in God’s toolbox.

When Jesus said salvation could only be found through himself, I do not believe he meant through the Christian religion. When he was “the way, the truth and the life” I do not believe he was speaking as the leader of a religious sect. I do not even believe he was speaking as a human ego. Instead, in the tradition of mystical Judaism, I believe Jesus was speaking poetically as the creative heart of life itself.

My guess is that Jesus was referring to the radical and universal love which he had embodied in his life and in his death. I believe he was saying that only that radical and universal love would take the disciples to where he was going. It seems to me he was telling his soon-to-be heartbroken followers that, deep down inside, they already knew the way home.

Some people like to reduce current events to a struggle between liberal and conservative opinions. The implication of such framing is that politics is essentially a sharing of opinions and that sanity is always meeting somewhere in the middle.

The “two sides” narrative masks the fact that power isn’t an opinion. Passing a law that imposes my point of view on you is no longer just my opinion, it is an attack on your agency. Nor is it just an opinion if you impose your viewpoint on me. We both have a right to our opinions, but neither of us has a right to impose opinions on the other.

Justice and injustice are not topics of an abstract discussion where there can be an honest disagreement between two equals. In matters of justice there aren’t “two sides” as there are in discussions about opinion. Poverty isn’t just an opinion. Dying of preventable diseases isn’t just an opinion.

When all the power is on one side, balanced political discussions can actually mask the oppression that is happening. Freedom of speech means little to someone shackled economically and politically.

Providing logical reasons why someone should not have the same rights as I is still injustice no matter how persuasive my excuses. Sometimes the people most affected by oppression aren’t even invited to the “debate” to defend themselves.

Again, there aren’t “two sides” in matters of justice because compromises in justice are still injustice. Moderation in our passions is a virtue, but being “moderate” about someone else’s human rights is still injustice. People are either getting their needs met, or they are not.

We have a duty as human beings to get past abstracted discussions about our political views and to work for a standard of human right that applies to every person on God’s green earth. Justice also demands curbing hoarding of property and power so that no one anywhere on earth has the power to deny others the rights they claim for themselves.

Why is it that clergy who most often speak for Jesus are the least likely to apply anything Jesus actually said in the Sermon on the Mount? Why must they “prove” their cruel form of Christianity by referring to other verses of scripture Jesus never said?

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount ”judge not,” yet these clergy preach that America will be destroyed by an angry God if we do not sit in judgement of the LGBTQ community or whoever they are currently using as scapegoats for their anger.

Jesus said turn the other cheek” yet these clergy call nonviolent men “beta” and say Christian men must seize power over this land. And, even though they are conservative in insisting on first-century ethics, they are equally liberal in allowing for the deadly weapons of today to force the “love” of their god upon the world.

While Jesus specifically said he had come to preach good news to the poor, these clergy attack any call to economic justice as “woke” or even as “communist.” Their God is nationalist and capitalist but is no friend to the poor like Jesus’ was.

It is time for every Christian of good will to leave any church that preaches judgment and cruelty. When Jesus called God his “parent” he was also affirming that humanity was his family. If the world is to be saved, it will not be by judgmental churches but by communities that walk the path of love.

And justice is simply love applied to everybody.

When I use the word “religion” please know I am not speaking of any one religious practice or sect. To me, the word “religion” refers to a shared sense of reverence before the cosmos and a shared sense of being intimately connected with all that is. Just as I want to reject the worst of religion (superstition, hierarchy, etc.), I also want to learn from the best (reverence before nature, a sense of unity with all being, etc.). Here are some moments when my idea of religion became bigger thanks to other world scriptures.

1. When I was a child my parents had a few books of Jewish wisdom tales. I fell in love with the rabbinic method of using tall tales to teach deep insights. It was in those mystic stories I learned to read miracle stories, not as magic tricks, but as parables of the miraculous nature of life itself. It was from Judaism that I learned love must grow into justice.

2. My school once went to a museum displaying Christian art in early colonies. The art was so horrible that I snuck off to take a peek at an exhibit of Egyptian hieroglyphics. The hair on my arm instantly stood up when I entered a room filled with the pictographs. Some deep place within me instantly recognized I was seeing a coded message from the past. I had no way of decoding the message at that point in my life but I could tell the pictures of human-animal hybrids were not about fantastical beings but about the deeper transcendental tie that binds plant, human, animal, and stars together.

3. In college I took a class on Homer that further widened my horizons. The classics professor unpacked the Odyssey as a parable of the human pilgrimage through a wonderful and terrifying world. Once again, I learned to hear scripture, not as history or science, but as a coded pilgrimage into my own deep and unlit psyche. Homer was using a story about a wandering hero to illumine my fear and courage in my own human heart.

4. It was in reading the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism that I first began to realize that the “I Am” sayings in the Gospel of John could be understood as a profound call to the heart of being instead of a superficial call to sectarian exclusivity. The “I” being spoken came from the heart of every being. The Gita was a song that helped me hear the song of life in me and in all those around me.

5. The Tao Te Ching is a wonderful scripture from China that taught me to recognize the sacred in natural processes instead of invisible beings haunting our human melodramas. It was from Taoism I learned that the sacred is found in the ordinary.

6. The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali taught me that any practice could become my “yoga” if it helped me settle my mind and realize my basic nature. I realized there is always a vast peace in the space between my thoughts.

7. The Sufi Islamic mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan taught that life is a kind of music. He taught that singing the song of life in harmony with others can be the beautiful heart of religion. Sufis taught that dance, or any great art, can be an expression of the sacred.

8. Finally, while my Atheists friends don’t usually consider their words to be sacred, it was from Humanists and Naturalists that I learned “I don’t know” is often the most reverent answer to give when questioned about life’s mysterious source. If was from Agnostics and Atheists that I learned to make my peace with life’s fundamental ambiguity.

Prophecy is not magically predicting future events. Prophecy is understanding the present in terms of its ethical implications for the future. Prophecy is considering what our actions mean to those yet to be born. Authentic prophecy is not about visions, but vision.

Prophecy is about taking those who have been scapegoated or discounted back into the equation. Prophecy is politics as through everyone counts. Prophecy must destroy every unfair hierarchy, cast light on every unexamined authority, a deconstruct every sense of special privilege.

Prophecy is loving one’s own beloved group enough to be called a heretic by our own beloved group for speaking truths they don’t want to hear. Prophecy is being brave enough to risk being called “traitor” by our own beloved country for extending justice to those beyond our own boundaries and interests.

False prophecy is revealed by its narrow mindedness, defensiveness and cruelty. False prophecy makes excuses for the crimes of its nation and sees its own group as the exception to any common norm of behavior. It tells the nation what it wants to hear and so poisons the people with the narcissistic cancer believing of that its might makes it right.

All of us are prophetic sometimes, none of us are prophetic always. In the strictest sense, there is no such thing as an individual prophet. Prophecy is always about the message, not the messenger.

The mind of all true prophecy is an honesty willing to face any truth. The “heart” of all true prophecy is a love so expansive it demands justice for all. Authentic prophecy calls us beyond the narrowness and self-interests of any one group into a greater and fairer communion with all humankind and into an atonement with the larger web of life of which we are each but a thread.