WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
September 7, 2009: It's NOT Labor; If You LOVE What You Do
"Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the
bombardment of open cities. Love is not killing......Our manifesto is
the Sermon on the Mount, which means that we will try to be
peacemakers."
"Writing a book is hard, because you are "giving yourself away." But if
you love, you want to give yourself. You write as you are impelled to
write, about man and his problems, his relation to God and his fellows.
You write about yourself because in the long run all man's problems are
the same, his sustenance and love."-Dorothy Day
"People have so great a need to reverence, to worship, to adore; it is a
psychological necessity of human nature that must be taken into
account. We do not like to admit how people fail us. Even those most
loved show their frailty and their weaknesses and no matter how we may
will to see only the best in others, their strength rather than their
weakness, we are all too conscious of our own failings and recognize
them in others.
"The Catholic Worker, as the name implied, was directed to the worker,
but we used the word in its broadest sense, meaning those who worked
with hand or brain, those who did physical, mental or spiritual work.
But we thought primarily of the poor, the dispossed, the exploited."-The
Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day
All that being said; I am led to repeat myself:
The Stages of the Soul and How Religiosity/Fundamentalism is holding up Evolution "All
truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed, second it is
violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."-Arthur Schopenhauer
InHave you heard the true tale of the Bedouin named Mohammed Ali, Read more... I related the true tale of the Bedouin named
Mohammed Ali and his 1945 discovery of what has become known as the
Nag´ Hammâdi Library; a collection of ancient texts that were buried in
the wilderness under the cliff of Jabl al-Tarif in Egypt, just above
the bend of the Nile, north of the Valley of the Kings, across the
river from the city of Nag´ Hammâdi, near the hamlet of al-Qasr,
apparently for safe-keeping.
These
ancient compositions written in Coptic and Greek are now available in
most every language. These ancient texts offer NO new answers; but they
do provide us with a glimpse of Christianity at its very roots, and it
was most diverse indeed.
Many
of the texts were considered Gnostic and banned by the church Fathers
during the reign of Emperor Constantine and were ordered to be burned.
Gnosis is defined as knowledge discerned intuitively, and intuition is
anathema to fundamentalists who prefer doctrines and dogmas, easy
answers and who see black and white, but not shades of grey.
Today's
scholars agree that it is very possible the sayings in the Gnostic
gospels are closer to the words Jesus actually spoke than what is found
in the canonical gospels.
Two
thousand years ago, there was lively debate about who Jesus was, and
why he came. Churches before Emperor Constantine legitimized
Christianity were hot beds of individuality and not the institutions
that have become big business today.
Jesus
said he came that we would have life to the full; abundant life [John
10:10] and that takes deep thought, wrestling with The Divine and then
taking action.
"To
think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and to anger others; and
if you cannot tolerate this anger, you are wasting the time you spend
thinking deeply. One of the rewards to deep thought is the hot glow of
anger at discovering a wrong, but if anger is taboo, thought will
starve to death."-Jules Henry
The
first mention of Israel in the Bible is in Genesis 32, when Jacob
wrestled, struggled and then clung to the Divine being and was then
renamed Israel.
Jesus
also was never a Christian; in fact the term 'Christian' was not even
coined until the days of Paul, about 3 decades after Jesus walked the
earth as a man. Jesus was a social justice, radical revolutionary
Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up and challenged the
job security of the Temple authorities by teaching the people they did
NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock
to be OK with God; for God already LOVED them just as they were:
sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and
prisoners all living under Roman Military Occupation.
What
got Jesus crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman
Occupying Forces of his time, by teaching the subversive concept that
Caesar only had power because God allowed it and that God preferred the
humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees
and prisoners all living under Roman Occupation above the elite and
arrogant.
The
early followers and lovers of Jesus were called members of THE
WAY-being THE WAY he taught one should be; Nonviolent, a Peacemaker and
one who did the will of the Father. "What does God require? He has told
you o'man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord."
-Micah 6:8
We
are not just body and mind, we are also spirit; a trinity in one flesh
that will decay and whither away. When any part of the human trinity is
out of balance, so will ones life be. Life is a journey and the best
trip one can embark upon, is by going within and wrestling with The
Divine; and thus become Israel on the way.
"I said, you are gods: you are all children of the Most High God."-Psalm 82:6
It
has been said that evolution is being held up by fundamental
religiosity and the surge of such narrow minded and arrogant thought,
sends shivers through cynical atheists and mystics alike. The bumper
sticker actually did get it right: "We are spiritual beings having a
human experience."
According
to the 1987 classic, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace,
Dr. Scott Peck defines the spiritual life as fluid and that one may
pass back and forth repeatedly through any of the four-probably
more-stages of the soul.
Stage
one upon this journey -that begins from within-is essentially our
infancy in the spiritual life. Like a wild child, a person in this
stage reflects the inner chaotic and anti-social, unregenerate soul
that is interested only in its own self-satisfaction and ego, much like
the stereotypical spoiled child.
Stage
one people may claim to love others, but their behavior reflects they
love their own pleasure, money, power, prestige, and security above any
other. For stage one people, it really is all about them.
Stage
two souls seek to "let their light shine" and will live virtuous lives
and do many good works. They also can be judgmental of others,
self-righteous, rigid of thought, cold of heart, legalistic concrete
literal thinkers and may even be guilty of a lukewarm faith. They want
to do right and they even may desire to love and please God, but have
not yet fully opened up to the Inner Light, as Joan of Arc did when she
challenged church and state and persisted that she had intuited God
within -even while being fried.
Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." -John 8:32
Stage
two souls have not yet been set fully free and prefer the security of a
higher human authority than themselves for guidance. They submit to
institutions, scripture, dogma, ritual, ministers, or gurus. This is
the most appropriate stage for older children and most adults who live
busy lives just trying to keep bread on the table and a dry roof above.
The
difference between a stage one and stage two soul, is that a one
wouldn't even notice a neighbor in need, while the two has awoken to
the fact that we are to be our neighbor's keepers and they will respond
to a friend-and like the good Samaritan, even to a total stranger in
need.
Most
theologians would agree that the opposite of faith is not disbelief:
the opposite of faith is fear. Stage three souls have not just
fearlessly awoken, they have evolved! This evolution has led them to
the realization of what Christ was really talking about in the Sermon
of the Mount AKA: The Beatitudes which sound like crazy promises, but
are all about waking people up to The Divine.
About
2,000 years ago, when Christ was about 33, he hiked up a hill and sat
down under an olive tree and began to teach the people;
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."
In
other words: it is those who know their own spiritual poverty, their
own limitations and sins honestly and trust God loves them in spite of
themselves who already live in the Kingdom of God. How
comforted we will all be, when we see, we haven't got a clue, as to the
depth and breadth of pure love and mercy of The Divine Mystery of The
Universe.
God's name in ancient Aramaic is Abba which means Daddy as
much as Mommy and He/She: The Lord has said, "My ways are not your
ways. My thoughts are not yours." -Isaiah 55:8
Christ proclaimed more: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
The
essence of meek is to be patient with ignorance, slow to anger and
never hold a grudge. In other words: how comforted you will be when you
also know humility; when you know yourself, the good and the bad, for
both cut through every human heart.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled."
In other words: how comforted you will be when your greatest desire is to do what "God requires, and he has already told you what that is; BE JUST, BE MERCIFUL and walk humbly with your Lord."-Micah 6:8
"Blessed
are the merciful, they will be shown mercy."
In other words: how comforted you will all be when you choose to return only kindness to your
'enemy.'
"For with the measure you measure against another, it will be measured back to you." Christ warns his disciples as he explains the law of karma in Luke 6:27-38.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God."
In other words: how
comforted you will be when you WAKE UP and see God is already within you,
within every man, every woman and every child. The Supreme Being is
everywhere, the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Beyond The Universe
-and yet so small; within the heart of every atom.
"Blessed are The Peacemakers: THEY shall be called the children of God."
And what a wonderful world it would be when we all seek peace by pursuing justice; for there can be none without the other.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires, theirs is The Kingdom of Heaven."
And one fine day the lion will lie down with The Lamb and man will make war no more and that is the Kingdom of God.
A
stage three soul may well reject Christ as God, but often agree with
the philosophy of Jesus, which Thomas Jefferson laid out when he weeded
out the miracle stories from the gospels and clarified the teachings
and ethics of Christ in: THE LIFE AND MORALS of JESUS of NAZARETH
1. Be just: justice comes from virtue which comes from the heart. 2. Treat people the way we want to be treated. 3. Always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with COMPASSION. 4. Consider valuable the things that have no material value. 5. Do not judge others. 6. Do not bear grudges. 7. Be modest and unpretentious. 8. Give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid. 9.
Being true to one's self in more important than being loyal to one's
family...those who think they know the most are the most ignorant...
A
stage three soul will see that a neighbor is everyone on the planet and
not just those who think and look the same and are born in the same
geographical localtion. Stage three's are seekers, doubters, skeptics,
atheists, agnostics and frequently adults who grew up disenchanted with
institutionalized religion. Their inherent intellectual curiosity leads
them to seek their own way towards the Mystery of the Divine through
philosophy and the study of multiple faith paths choosing and
discarding according to their "inner light."
Stage
three souls often become activists for social justice and reform and
the increasing wave of humanitarian secularism verses the bondage of
religious dogma just may be the way to change the world as we now know
it.
It
has been said we are all called to be mystics in the market place and a
stage four, such as Thomas Merton and Rumi give voice to that
experience of the curtain being lifted and seeing through the glass a
bit less darkly.
A
mystic can best be understood as one who is in love with the divine
mystery and is viscerally connected to the unity of all creation.
Mystics are not navel gazers, they feel the pain of the world within
their hearts and grieve at what humans do to the other when they have
no clue that The Divine is within the other as much as within
themselves.
Mystics
have detached from their concepts of God-not by their own efforts, but
by the invitation and action of God upon a willing and simple soul in
love with Pure Being, AKA: God for lack of a better word.
The
mystic fool, Saint Francis, the leper kisser of Assisi, was so head
over heels in love with God in everyone and all of creation that most
people of his time considered him crazed, or at least, extremely
eccentric. One needn't be a mystic or move beyond stage two on the
spiritual journey to do what is good and right just because it is good
and right. On
that foundation alone people of faith, atheists and agnostics can
surely find something to agree upon.
Or would only a mystic see that? The
New Body of Christ: 5th in A Greater Awakening Series Read more...
Prophets, Doors, Walls: MLK, X, Lennon, Gaza and Thee
"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
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