Oneness. Please.

Yesterday, I posted a video on Facebook. It was one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen. And strap in, because I feel like we have a lot to unpack. Here's the link to the video if you're so inclined:

Christian Nationalist Decree

I've had a day or so to think about what more I want to say about this. I know for a fact that people I respect and love are upset (to some degree or other) by posts like this because they truly believe somehow I'm saying something anti-Christian, or trying to convince people that all Christians are bigots.

No.

I am a Christian. Jesus is just alright with me, I need him in my life, and I call on him every day for help and solace, and to put in a good word for me with his Father. I also call on J's Mother. And his partner, in teaching and in life, Mary the Magdalene. And the Archangel Michael for protection. And the Archangel Raphael for health and wellness. I could go on and on. If it weren't for Saint Anthony, I'd never find my phone or my keys. If it weren't for Saint Jude, I'd believe there's no hope when all seems to be lost, but because of Saint Jude (my granddad was very into him), when the shit hits the fan, I turn to him, because I remember how Papa did.

But ladies and gentlemen, that's ME. That's just little old nobody me. That's MY faith. And not for one single second do I think it needs to be yours. 

For you, it could be....it could be anything else, or nothing at all. It could be Kwan Yin (I do love her). It could be the Buddha. It could be Krishna. It could be what you'd rather refer to as Allah, with Mohammed as his prophet. It could be the Great Spirit that the Indigenous People revered and loved and in whom they lived and moved and had their being. It could be the Great Goddess and all her legions of helpers. It could be the nature spirits of the forests. It could be any number of ascended masters, avatars, angels, saints. It could be your great-aunt, your grandmother, the person who used to cut your hair and hear all your joys and woes and highs and lows. It could be your fifth grade teacher, smiling down on you from above the way she smiled on you in her classroom and made you feel seen and loved and so so smart. It could be what you feel like is your higher self. Or it could be any moment that there's love and joy and kindness in your heart that makes you feel like there's something so good in existence that you just can't quite describe it in words. It could be sunlight rippling on water. It could be that you believe in none of the above, and choose to live your life according to what you know to be right and kind and good and loving. (PLEASE feel free to describe what it is for you in the comments, and feel free to tell me if it's absolutely nothing, because it all counts, it's all valid...and it's not just me who says so...a quick glance at the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution backs me up on this.)

But the biggest thing I want to say is, if you look at that paragraph above, and add in your Jesus, your Marys, your Yahweh, your Jehovah, your Father/Son/Holy Spirit....here it comes, my heresy, my blasphemy:

They are all the same thing. THEY ARE ALL THE EXACT SAME THING.

The blindness, the hell on earth that we've come to know, comes from any insane, tiny-minded notion that there's a damn bit of difference between my God the Father and your Great Spirit or your Great Aunt. And the most frustrating part of it all is, THAT is what's at the core of all systems of faith, Oneness. Oneness. Oneness.

Oneness, for fuck's sake! ONENESS!

The video I posted says things that oppose oneness. They insist on a single version of truth and beauty and love and righteousness, and to hell with anyone who does not subscribe. I submit the following exhibits pulled from the video referenced above.

 

I have questions. What's the Great Commission? And what makes you a Watchman? What are your rights and powers as a Watchman? I don't believe I've ever had opportunity to vote for a Watchman, or a Great Commission. (Makes worried, skeptical face.) Next:

You are? Says who? And as churches are not required to even pay taxes (kind of like super rich people), I'm not sure this is valid. And it's all the earth now, is it?  Quite bold. Moving on:

Well, these feel a little hard to verify. I'd like it in writing. Preferably notarized. And then they wrote:

Anyone have Margaret Atwood on speed dial? Our judicial system should be biblical? I learned on an especially poignant episode of The West Wing that, according to the Bible, if you plant different crops side by side, the penalty is death by stoning. If I were a farmer, I'd get a good helmet. Next:

Ah this is a fine one. When the alt-right refer to the sin of "wokeness," it usually means their general disdain for anything with a whiff of "hey, let's make sure People of Color and LGBTQ+ people in our nation get to have all the same civil rights and humane treatment under the law as the rest of us." Was "wokeness" specifically banned by the framers of the Constitution? I'm not sure how I could have missed it.  As for the occult, if you can't find me, I'm in a safehouse with my collection of crystals, tarot decks, pendulums, and Beatles albums. Onward:

WTF are the "Seven Mountains," you ask? They apparently stand for family, religion, education, the media, entertainment, business, and government. So by their decree, this group intends to permanently control these proverbial mountains by divine right. It's so funny how I've read the Constitution and I just can't remember a reference to these dadgum mountains. Don't google this stuff right before bed. Let's see what more good news they have for us:

Whoa Nelly. Well, this is a tough one. The blood of Jesus was spilled by his political and religious fanatic opponents (why does that sound so familiar) all the way up and on top of Golgotha. It certainly covered a good portion of that piece of land. But I've read a little about the teacher from Nazareth, and the very idea of his torture and murder by conquering tyrants and religious leaders who felt threatened by his influence making us Americans special and "separate" as a nation seems just a leeeeeetle antithetical to what the fellow was all about. Very off-brand. His teaching was straight up on the subject: "Are you a sinner? A leper? A tax collector? A foreigner? A prostitute? An unclean woman in the middle of her period who the elders say should be socked away in a dark room? Come sit by me." So please. Just please, with this garbage.

 

 

Well...these two are tricky. First of all, that confounded first amendment separating church and state...is it possible that these people are so horny over the second amendment that they overlook the first? I'm just looking for answers here, I'm a problem solver. Moreover, is it Judeo-Christian values we're talking about here? Because I'm no Muslim, but I know a few, and they'd claim that particular "one true god" as their own just as hard as we Christians and Jews do. Read their book, it starts with a Q, easy to remember. Furthermore, it brings us back to that pesky judicial problem again. Jews celebrate the Sabbath starting sundown on Friday through sundown on Saturday, Christians don't get theirs until Sunday. So what days can we work without getting the death penalty? These are important questions, people!

There's more unpacking of this fucking mess that I could attempt, but I'm exhausted, and I expect you are too. 

All I can think of to add is that there's a pretty big difference between being (1) "anti-Christian" and (2) "anti-Christian theocracy."  Number (1) is bigotry. Number (2) is patriotism and human decency. And if freedom in that "shining city upon a hill" is what we all yearn for, for ALL people (because we are NOT there yet), we need to know the difference. 

So, what the hell, how about just love one another. Even the terrifying zealot bigots who want to rule the world. (I didn't say "excuse" them...just try and send love to them...it can't hurt...)  And thereby maybe we'll make it another few centuries and take the poor, the marginalized, the disenfranchised along with the rest of us this time around.

All my love,

Yours In Blasphemy,

TMS

RvW

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I had a boyfriend. Actually, no, according to him, he was not my boyfriend, I was not his girlfriend, and he would never love me with a capital L, but he'd be willing to keep me around if I helped him with home improvement projects.

Why did I sign up for this and let him reel me in, hook, line, and sinker? I was eighteen and in love. Eighteen-year-old females in love are, in a few words, and I'm trying to be kind here...stupid as fuck.

He was nine years older than me, and I had a crush on him. He had no business entertaining that crush, but he was emotionally stunted, and so to my elation (at the time), he did entertain said crush. And there was a LOT of entertainment going on, if you know what I mean. Completely consensual entertainment, make no mistake. It was a good relationship that way. I mean, REALLY good. 

Unfortunately, the good didn't really go much beyond the bedroom (or wherever...back deck, front yard, kitchen counter, outdoor gazebo, suspended from ceiling beams in the den in a fairly impressive feat of engineering but I digress). 

I had some kinds of maturity when I was eighteen. I was smart, well-read, starting at a fancy schmancy college, high achieving...but when it came to my emotional stuff, and mental health, and self-esteem, that was all in the crapper. I didn't see a lot of value in myself, and didn't expect anyone else to see any either. In fact, when "not-your-boyfriend" (we'll just call him NYB from here on in) liked to remind me of my worth, NYB would quote from my very favorite Shakespeare play, and tell me, 

"Sell while you can, you are not for all markets." (As You Like It, Act III, Scene v)

NYB thought that was very funny. 

Speaking of funny, here's another one of his "jokes." NYB used to tell me, often, about how it would go if I were to accidentally become pregnant. "You'll pay for an abortion for yourself, because I can just wipe it off my thighs and get on with my life, or I'll throw you down a flight of stairs and get it done that way." Isn't that hilarious? I think I would actually giggle...I'd be going for coy but achieving, at best, nervous. Because guess what. I believed him. 

So I was very careful. And very lucky. I was always the one of the two of us who had to hit the pause button to make sure we were safe. I always made sure. Of course, no matter how sure you are, there can be an oopsie-daisy, but like I said, I lucked out. I would have had a hard time coming up with the funds for the procedure as a student, would not have been able to tell my parents EVER, and didn't have a lot of good faith in the throw-me-down-the-stairs method.

What's the point of this, quite frankly, bummer of a story? I'm not sure how to say it right, but I'll try.

I was in this tenuous position when the overturning of Roe v. Wade wasn't yet a gleam in the eye of SCOTUS. Oh, many would have liked it to happen, but it wasn't an immediate threat then. The court had yet to be stocked with just the right number of fundamentalist psychopaths who care about babies' lives just about the same way most of us care about the lives of flesh eating bacteria. The "throw me down the stairs and see what happens" method would have been the one most likely used on me in the event of an accidental pregnancy, had there been no other options. 

It makes me wonder how many eighteen-year-old girls who don't yet know their infinite worth as human beings will get fucked by their abusers, then thrown down the stairs.

Sorry to be so ineloquent. 

Actually, I am not fucking sorry. I'm grateful to be alive, and to now have children of my own, planned and wanted and nourished and cherished from the depths of my soul, because I wasn't ever thrown down the stairs by a cheap megalomaniac who didn't like complications in his high-and-mighty life. 

I ended up dumping NYB after seven full years of being in his thrall. What happened? I grew up. It was that simple. I started seeing a therapist, got a first-time look at what I'd allowed to happen to me, the blinders fell off, and that was that. That growing up I did--that was a problem for him. I realized after tons and tons of healing and self-examination that I'd been sleeping with a man who didn't know how to have a relationship with an adult. When I became one, in my head as well as my chronological age, I said "buh-bye, don't ever darken my doorstep again." He could NOT believe it. The unmitigated gall! Oh the songs and dances, the sturm und drang that followed...suffice it to say, I'd taken away one of his favorite playthings, and he did not go gently...and all of THAT can be a story (tome) for another day.

For today, I'll just say this: Because I was lucky, I didn't have to choose between an abortion and being thrown down the stairs. But if I'd been unlucky, at least I'd have had the choice. I'd have scraped up the money, lied and said I needed it for textbooks, taken a page from Baby's scam in Dirty Dancing, somehow I'd have gotten the cash. But more to the point, lots of girls still fall in with their own NYBs, become playthings to narcissistic man-children before they've grown into their understanding of how precious they are. And now, a lot of them won't make it to the other side of that creaky, rocking, splintering bridge.

So in closing, congratulations SCOTUS. If it had been up to you in the late 80s, I might have been dead by now. I made it, barely. Now, many won't.