God Is Not Gendered

I don't dare proclaim what God is, but I have a strong feeling for what  God is not.

Common assumptions of God being male, Christian and white seem like shallow affirmations for hegemonic social systems such as the divine right of kings. Certainly we humans have had no trouble creating deities that support, guide and root for our side.  However this is not only not enough - it is immature and deadly.

God is not a misogynist, a racist, a capitalist and a homophobe. God does not want us to be fashionably skinny and rich. God does not want us to tear children away from their parents, imprison them in residential schools then beat and rape them in order to teach them "about His love". God does not support nuclear weapons. God is not cruel, wanting us to flagellate ourselves for having desire. And God does not want us to go to war to kill all those whose faith is different from ours.

Just because history reveals a series of beliefs that contradict themselves for the sake of maintaining the status quo, doesn't prove that God is a scam created for propaganda and control.  Humanity is very capable of doing that without God's help.

So what is God then if not that white bearded father sitting on a throne in heaven?

If I attempt to name anything like energy, mystery, or love, or the big bang,  I am struck down with my own limited understanding. Even to say that God does or does not exist is far beyond what I can ever know.

A United Church minister said, that for her, the presence of God is felt in those moments of inner peace when everything in the world feels right. Having had those moments occasionally, I am filled with tremendous gratitude and for a brief moment I feel everything connects and fits together. It is not a thought, it is more than intuition, more than spirit, more than light. And it certainly isn't he or she or Christian or Muslim or Humanist. It isn't limited by my personal knowledge or volcanic lava. It isn't the sum of all my experiences.

I am grateful for deeply meaningful relationships and experiences and not interested in arguments about whether God exists or not. What I am interested in is being part of a communication thread that elevates the mystery of life, to see in every being that they are deeper than what appears.

And needless to say, I am not satisfied with my attempt to say what God may be.

Politics is about Humanity Not Just Economics

The previous post arose out of two articles, one by Chris Hedges "The Great Flood", and the other by George Monbiot "How do we get out of this mess".

From this, I isolated five "actions": 

1. transform our politics to include humanity and not just economics
2. appeal to as many people as possible, crossing traditional political lines
3. create the story to resonate with deep needs and desires
4. explain the mess we are in and means by which we might escape it
5. ground it firmly in reality.

This post is about the first one as you can see in the title. I plan to do the same for each of the five.

Instead of using grandiloquent language, Naomi Klein writes (in everyday words) from her latest book (No is Not Enough), and her "instructions" arise out of her commitment to facts. 

"Here is what we need to understand in a hurry: Climate change, especially at this late date, can only be dealt with through collective action that sharply curtails the behavior of corporations ..." 

Klein refers to the ever increasing tax cuts for the richest while the poorest pay with their health, their homes and their lives.

"Climate action demands investments in the public sphere". New energy sources - wind, sun, public transit, light rail. After defeating the fascists that were destroying Europe, after so many of our loved ones were lost in that hell, the "free" world understood what was at stake if governments did not focus on creating stability for their people. 

Investment means paying attention to the lives that matter, creating equality and hope for all, and of course higher taxes to pay for infrastructure. 

What makes us who we are? Are we merely the sum of the ideologies that govern or are we more? Are we the sum of our hatreds, our beliefs, or are we more? Does the Left Wing vs. Right Wing binary serve who we are? Are we physical bodies who seek the spiritual, or spiritual beings inside a body? Are we citizens or consumers? Are we good or evil?

When political arguments are solely about jobs and the economy it means that people have been written out of the narrative.

Politics is the shared construct of who we are, and politicians are the ones who serve the people, or the ones who betray humanity. None of us have a right to abdicate this relationship. To be a cynic is not just a turning away, it's giving a free ride to those who seek power in order to abuse it.