Please Read These Words

Alright.  Here it goes.  The Muslims and the Jews and my ancestral Catholic Baptist Protestant Christians are a bunch of fucking assholes.  Sometimes.  People who call themselves devout followers are following a path leading to destruction.  History continues to repeat itself as buildings and children burn in the wake of obnoxious egotism masked as holy righteousness.  I renounced watching the news, reading most national newspapers, and most widely published magazines; yet I still victimize myself with a “yahoo homepage” that shoots me in the face with the days latest carnage.  What a fitting title for an internet engine facilitating and tracking the goings on of human beings–yahoo… for a bunch of fucking yahoos. 

These words are indeed scathing and judgemental, and I hope my message is read in context.  I do not want to come across as merely glib or cute–like many parts of Bill Mahr’s indictment of world religions in his film, Religulous.  I occassionally try to get messages across that are more than just “personal therapy.”  I know I get self-indulgent and plenty self-righteous, but as Henry Miller said, “Fuck-a-duck.”   

What is great about Bill Mahr’s message is that it is one of non-violence, cross-cultural understanding, tolerance and love.  And I’m not talking about love–the nebulous concept of poems and Hallmark, Inc.  I speak of the love in actions.  I speak of service to others.  I speak of Martin Luther King’s and Gandi’s love.  Love with boundaries so wide that unspeakable acts of violence and human viciousness could not remove the forgiveness from their hearts.  They saw God, Jehovah, the One And Only, The Enlightened Voice, Whatever…  and acted accordingly to uphold the truth that is life itself.  They knew that love was not a state of being.  Love is in what happens between people and countries and cultures when life is affirmed.  It happens when we see what joins us rather than what divides us.  Wow, that sounded so Obama!

We all need to feel safe, eat, drink the water of life, and play in the dirts, sands and streams of this mysterious creation.  No one has it right, and our insecurity about life’s unpredictable turns too often turns to a fear and suspicion that kills.  I’m sure I’ll be accused of  oversimplifying current matters, but it seems that world conflict is rooted in the generational need to pass down suspicion and fear of the other, of the neighbor, of THAT religion, or OTHER culture…  Of course this fear is often rooted in very real experiences of being totally fucked over by this OTHER, but maybe we could take some time to learn about the other OTHERS!  Peoples who don’t teach their people about other people–who don’t communicate in a world where the miracle of instant communication is real–are destined to help destroy the souls of ”their” people, and the souls of “other” people to whom they’ve closed their eyes and ears. 

Lay down your guns, or condemn your offspring to insanity.