Wrens and steer skulls

I call my study the center of the universe. That is very American Indian. In their cosmology wherever they are is the center. It is a beautiful concept. I am in my study now, typing thoughts as my muses forward them on to me. I am surrounded by three walls filled with books and artifacts from the American Indian mixed in with momentous from my grandparents little ranch in West Texas; branding irons, steer, bull and longhorn skulls. Georgia O’Keeffe would have loved my study.

I am trying to concentrate on writing by am almost mesmerized by what is happening outside my window. One wall is solid glass leading out into my private patio. Above a wagon wheel is a steer skull where a pair of wrens nest each year. They are there now, flying in and out, with nest materials and “following their bliss” in Joseph Campbell’s phrase. I like that.

If we are true to ourselves we move toward our highest enthusiasm, a word that means “the god within”. This is what it means to be alive and “follow your bliss.” The month that I spent with Joseph Campbell put this in focus for me and changed my life. You really can stop worrying, or being concerned about, whatever it is that other people and the rest of the world are doing and thinking, as well as whatever it is that other people want YOU to be doing. You can actually do what you feel is right and good for you.

The most tragic divorce in life is for an individual to become divorced from him/herself. The majority of us spend our entire lives in cages prepared for us by others. We try to please everybody, we let others determine how we shall live, how we shall think, and we end up losing our souls. We get to thinking that there is some kind of a prearranged plan that we must live by, a plan that others have set for us. Always ‘others’…The ‘others’ can be biblical literature, parents, peers, friends, relatives and almost anyone. When you let this happen to you the “God within” you is dead and you have lost your bliss as well as your soul.

One of the jewels in my files is this statement by Methodist Bishop Robert Raines when he walked away from the Christian ministry.

“All of my life I have been a kept man…a slave to others opinions…to public affirmation…to public approval. It’s a mirage. In chasing the mirage of public approval you always lose your own soul.”

As my wrens live the life that wrens were meant to live…listening to their “God within”…they remind me to continue living my life…following my highest enthusiasm, my bliss, the life that I was uniquely born to live.

The sin of omission

There is a sin among a large segment of the Christian clergy that I find despicable. It is the sin of omission. It is the sin of not sharing with a congregation what you know to be true about the bible and Christianity. It is the sin of promoting what you know to be false in order to hold your job. Those graduating in religious studies from every major university in America, as well as every major theological seminary that is independent of Christian financial pressure, know certain facts to be true. They know that:

1. the entire bible is saturated with common mythological themes, from the creation and flood myth, to virgin birth and resurrected hero mythology.
2. the stories of the patriarchs in the Old Testament are known as “temple legends” to enhance the history of the Hebrew people and are mostly fiction.
3. the Gospels were not written by anyone who knew Jesus personally, and are to be read only in the context of legends.
4. the “Christ” myths and formulas are direct copies of Zoroastrian and Egyptian myths adopted by the Jesus sect.
5. these facts, with others, have been known for years, and taught, by scholars who are respected internationally in major universities world wide.

Religiously educated clergy, through the sin of omission, yet continue to promote superstition. The Senior Minister of one of the largest churches in this area said to me, “Edelen, I can’t talk about those things to my congregation. I would lose so much financial support I could not keep the church open…I just play the game they want.” 

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Religious laughter

A number of years ago “Playboy” magazine had a picture on the cover of Jesus, with his head thrown back, laughing. The Editors said that in all the years they had been publishing the magazine they had never received so much hate mail. Complaints poured in over the picture of a laughing Jesus. Isn’t that revealing as to how many Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals must have been reading “Playboy” magazine.? Can you imagine hate mail from any other source.?

Fundamentalists have no sense of humor, none at all. Life is a burden to them while they wait to go to some fantasy called heaven. As H. L. Mencken put it: “the Christian fundamentalist has the awful fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

Of all the worlds great religious traditions, Christianity and Islam are the most grim, thin lipped, and humor-less. Of course there is no humor or laughter in the bible. There is no joyful laughter in the New Testament, and in only one or two places in the Old Testament.

The two major failures in biblical literature is the total lack of eros and humor, both vital for the growth, health and development of the human species. The only eros and amor in the entire bible are found in the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. And the only really humorous scene is in the book of Genesis, the dialogue between God, Abraham and Sarah. God told them they were going to have a baby. Abraham rolls on the ground, laughing, and says to God…”can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old..and to a woman who is 90 years old.?” God gets real mad at Sarah who also is laughing and God says..”you were laughing”…and Sarah says…”no..honest…I was not laughing.” Rather pathetic, don’t you think? The only scene in the bible that approaches humor.

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