Holy smoke

When the magazine “Cigar Aficionado” made its debut the publishers expected it to do moderately well.

They were not prepared for the explosion in subscribers and news-stand sales. Nor were the major cigar companies prepared for the unprecedented demand for the quality tobacco in good cigar. Your world class hotels all over the United States are now hosting special “Smoker Nights” with fine wines. food and the best cigars. (The Ritz-Carlton’s, for example as well as Four Season hotels). These smokers are for both men and women.

One of the more fascinating subjects in my studies in Anthropology was the history of tobacco. It has been associated with the sacred for thousands of years in almost all primal cultures, as well as the far more sophisticated ones. Tobacco was divine and had magical powers. Smoking was one of the few universal habits in the Americas, from Alaska to the Maya/Aztec/Toltec area of Meso-America. The arriving Spaniards found the Mayas with tobacco being used everywhere by all ages. It was not only used socially for pleasure and relaxation but, even more important, had profound religious and mythological implications. It influenced their entire life, folklore and art. Over 600 words in American aboriginal languages and dialects have been used to designate tobacco.

The most important Mayan Gods in the classic stone monuments are smoking cigars. The Indians of Mexico were cigar, cigarette and pipe smokers. By contrast, the Plains Indians of North America were primarily pipe smokers. The pipe, with the smoke, was sacred. It was known as the “sacred pipe”.

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Religion’s roots reflect the land

In this month of Earth day I am thinking of the influence of the earth on the formation of religious doctrines and belief’s.
The pantheon of any particular group is directly related to the type of land and landscape they live with. An agricultural society has gods and goddesses for sun, rain, storms and the like, and above all for fertility. A rich, lush land gives rise to nymphs, satyrs and spirits of woods and water. The Northwest Indians lived in giant rain forests, dark, dreary and foreboding. Their world of spirits and religious mythology was all directly related to the landscape.

To those whose landscape was the Southwest, a Papago said it best: “We desert people have no rivers. All our water is in the sky.”

Taoism harmonizes beautifully with the landscape of much of China with mountains and mist, waterfalls and rich vegetation. The austere God of Judaism, Islam and Christianity came from the austerity of a bleak desert and a Moslem mosque is a stylized oasis.

There were different landscapes with different conditions for the Neanderthal theologian, Buddhist theologian Hebrew theologian and Greek theologian. Greek temples were built on hills overlooking the Mediterranean. The Greeks had a sense of nature, and the temples blended beautifully into the landscape.

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Impotent churches

The vast majority of Christian churches, in my fifty years of experience with them, are in desperate need of a Viagra type pill to stimulate blood flow to the brain.

Three examples, out of one thousand that I could write:

1. St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, in Palm Desert, very large with tons of money. Known as the church that the Nordstrom family built. I asked the Senior Minister this question one day: “Why don’t you invite in Bishop John Shelby Spong to give a series of lectures? He is one of your Senior Episcopal Bishops, and a solid scholar who wrote the best seller “Why Christianity Must Change or Die”. The Senior Minister of St. Margarets looked at me and said “My God Bill…if I did that I would lose half of the congregation and probably more than half of our financial contributions.”. I promptly wrote my next column in the Desert Sun about the fact that…quote: “St. Margaret’s had turned into a golf and martini club for the wealthy and had little or nothing to do with religion or Christianity or education.” One of my prized keepsakes is a personal, hand written note from the senior Nordstrom in the Coachella Valley saying : “thank you for your column. It was long overdue. I look forward to lunch with you in the future.”
2. The minister of the Church of St. Paul in the Desert, Episcopal, in Palm Springs, called and invited me to give the closing lecture in a Lenten series on “the future of Christian church.” I accepted gladly. About two weeks later the Chairman of their Board called me and said : quote: “our Board does not want you to speak. We consider you “outside” the orthodox beliefs of the church.” The Minister of the church called me three times in the days ahead with apologies.
3. The Hospice group of Sun Valley-Ketchum, Idaho, invited me to give a series of weekend lectures on “Death and Dying in World Religions.” Explain how they differed in the various traditions. They rented a large hall in the local Presbyterian church for the lectures. A week later the Chairman of their Board of Ruling Elders called me and said…and this is an exact quote: “You are not going to speak in this church about all of them foreign religions. We don’t want no foreign religions in this church…this is a Jesus Christian church.” I could hardly wait to reply. I said to him: “you have a foreign religion in your church every Sunday…Christianity is a foreign religion…the only true American religion is that of the American Indian.” Getting angry, he said to me..”Indians…!!! them savages did’nt have no religion.”

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