Juan

 Juan, lives in a poor village in Mexico, every day he sees his family go hungry, he sees them get sick and not be able to get proper medical care, he sees then without proper shoes, he sees them suffer every day because of a lack of basic needs. Juan loves his family and seeing this breaks his heart. He believes in God and he knows God would want him to do whatever he can to help his family.

He realizes there is little he can do in that small poor village, but that if he went to America he could get work that would pay enough that he could send money back home to his family, money that they could use to improve their lives. He knows there are jobs in America for men like him, Jobs picking the vegetables you eat, mowing your lawn, and doing other things you need done, but don't want to do. So he goes to speak with the government of the United States, and tells them he wants to come to America to work, so he can help his family. They hand him a paper, and tell him to fill it out. Once it is processed you can come to America to work, they tell him. How long will that be he asks. Oh eleven, or twelve, or thirteen months, go home and wait and we will let you know when you can come to America.

So Juan goes home to wait, but his family is still starving, still getting sick, still suffering, and Juan knows in his heart he can't make them wait if there is any other way. So Juan goes to America without those processed papers. He goes and gets a job, a job picking the vegetables you eat, mowing your lawn, and doing other things you need done, but don't want to do. He finds other men like him and they all rent an apartment together, The sleep in sleeping bags on the floor eleven, or twelve, or thirteen guys, so they can save as much money as possible and send it home to their families. None of them have processed papers, because none of them could wait. Because of that you say they are illegal and think they are bad people. The fact is they are actually heros, for doing what they had to do to take care of the people they love,

Yellow Brick Road

 When I was a teenager I would go through phases with the music I listened to, sometimes this meant I would listen almost exclusively to a single artist. Linda Ronstadt, Fleetwood Mac, and Elton John were a few of these artists. While eventually I stopped listening much to their music these artists remained near and dear to my heart. I didn't always pay a lot of attention to the words of the songs I listened to, I would just listen without much thought about what was being said. Goodbye yellow brick Road by Elton John was one such song. I loved the song but didn't really pay much attention to what was being said. Oh I know it talked about an airplane and and owl and a horny backed toad, as well of course a yellow brick road, it might have been about the Wizzard of Oz or maybe not.

I had my own yellow brick road I was looking for, though I never made the connection between Elton saying goodbye to it and me wanting to find it. That really wasn't language I would have used. I grew up in a sleepy little agricultural town, and really couldn't see my future in such a dismal place. My deepest fantasy was to move to New your, make a lot of money and marry a fashion model. Practical issues however kept me from ever getting to New York, I didn't even get out of town, but ended up attending college at a liberal arts college in my home town, and while there were no New York fashion models at the college. There was a girl from New Jersey who looked like a model, and had even been told she should become one, but who didn't because her parents wouldn't approve. I married that girl and started down my own yellow brick road. It lead to Florida and retail management, but my career didn't have a lot of success, because it wasn't really what I was made to do. As time went by the virtues of that sleepy town I was from, began to be more apparent. The significance of agriculture to a healthy planet did as well. Eventually my journey down that yellow brick road started to feel like a mistake.

I had moved on to other music, one of the artists I listened to was Sarah Bareilles, and I heard that she had covered Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and as Elton John was near and dear to my heart for having been someone I listened to back as a teenager, I wanted to hear it. I looked it up on You Tube and found it, and then played it, and as Sarah sang that song I heard it and what it was saying for the first time. It was as if someone had pried up a brick from that road and hit me upside the head. I had to actually look up the lyrics of Elton's version to see if he really had said those things.

Even though I didn't actually live on a farm, and my Dad who was an electrician, wanted me to “Do something better with my life” I should have stayed there in that small town. The words to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road are these.

When are you gonna come down?
When are you going to land?
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man

You know you can't hold me forever
I didn't sign up with you
I'm not a present for your friends to open
This boy's too young to be singing the blues

So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough

Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh, I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road

What do you think you'll do then
I bet that'll shoot down your plane
Than it'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again

Maybe you'll get a replacement
There's plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain't got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground

So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough

Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh, I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road

Yes, Elton really did say all those things, and as I listened I could almost hear him saying, “I told you so”

A secret in plain sight.

Much debate rages over the Bible's Creation account, many Christians insist it must be taken literally and that it teaches that the Universe is about 6000 years old. Others claim that this cannot be and that the fact that the Bible says this shows that it cannot be true. Then other Christians argue that the text is not intended to be taken literally and that it in fact not saying the Universe is young. While libraries of books have been written on this subject. To me however there lies in the Creation an account of a secret, about how we are to be living in the Creation, I call it a secret because no one seems to notice it, though it doesn't seem very secret to me at all

This secret might be one that Alan Watts speaks of in “The Book” when he says, “There are indeed secrets in the Bible and some very subversive ones, but they are all so muffled up in complications, in archaic symbols and ways of thinking,”

To me the message is loud and clear, as if sirens are going off and lights are flashing, this is perhaps the single most important message in the entire Creation account, whether you take the account literally or as an allegory it does not matter, the message here is the same either way, it is a call to action that to my knowledge no Church even has noticed. A picture of what the Earth was designed to be, and what we should be working to make it.

This secret is primarily contained in just three verses, and they are not even next to each other. This certainly contributes to it being missed. The Chapters and verses, not in the original, but added much later, tend to affect the way we view the text, it turns it into a collection of thoughts and can cause os to miss grand themes that are in the text.

The first of these verses is, Genesis 1:28 “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Mankind was to go out from that spot and fill the earth, Populating every corner and subduing it and having dominion. Now often subduing and having dominion is taken to mean exploiting or destroying, but this is not what is intended. Rather it is living in harmony with the Creation so that man fits into the ecosystem and has his needs met by it.

Then the second verse comes in the next chapter, Genesis 2:15 “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” The filling of the earth and the subduing it was to start in the garden, a place specifically prepared for man to start, a place that would serve as a model for man's dominion over the earth. The existence of the garden implies that there were places that were not the Garden, that the garden conditions did not cover the earth'

Finally in the third chapter, we have this, Genesis 3:23 “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.” Man is expelled from the Garden because of his disobedience. Again this also implies that the garden was limited to a specific part of the earth and did not extend to every part of it.

So then going back to the first verse, where man is commanded to fill the earth if man had done this without the disobedience that led to expulsion from the garden, wouldn't he have had to leave the Garden? After all the garden did not cover the whole earth. How could man reach every point on earth without leaving the garden, but why would man be required to leave the garden except for disobedience? The only way mankind can cover the earth, without leaving the garden, is to extend the garden as mankind moves out into the earth. This is plan A for the planet, to be filled by mankind, and for mankind to live in harmony with the earth and the rest of the Creation. To live on earth in a manner that bring abundant life, instead of in the current extractive way that is slowly destroying life. This is the message we should be spreading about the creation account, not arguing over how old the planet or the Universe is. The age of the earth is mere trivia, a distraction from what really matters. No one lives or dies because of on opinion or another over how old things are, but people die every day because man lives in an extractive, consumptive. selfish way. Very few people in the Church even notice. Most in fact buy into the very economy that is built on death and exploitation.

A Crisis of Faith?

 335 miles, not a huge distance in terms of the globe, but far enough. Far enough that two people separated by that distance might never meet. That is the distance between my Mother's hometown, and my Dad's, but obviously since I exist, my parents met. The event that brought them together was that after she graduated from college, my Mother's first job was to be the church secretary at my father's church. She made the trip from Muskegon. Michigan, to Mattoon, IL by train, and my Dad, A WW2 veteran who had made it into the late 1950s without finding "the one", finally found her. They of course raised me in a Christian household and took me to Church. Sunday School classes, vacation Bible school and all the rest. I became well versed in the teachings of the Church, and into adulthood, I continued, even at one point holding a job that included being ordained as a minister.

But I tend to see things that others miss, or maybe see them deeper than most, for I think lots of people see these things. To those who are open to it, the church often, actually usually might be a better word, fails to teach a way of living that supports and promotes life. It is not that the truth isn't in the Bible, because it is. The Bible teaches love and compassion for others. We are taught to follow Jesus and Jesus spent His time, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and clothing the naked. Oppression of the poor and the weak is condemned and dire consequences are prophesied for the oppressors, but these lessons are largely spiritualized so they don't have to be dealt with. A few verses about submission to the government are used to justify a radical patriotism reminiscent of the patriotism of Nazi Germany in the 30's that led to millions of ordinary Germans supporting the most vile of atrocities. The Church should be the most vocal opponent of the culture of death and violence that grips the United States and the West. Instead, it is often its most vocal proponent.

Often when someone brought up in the Church, sees these things it brings a crisis of faith. They see that truth seems to be found not in Christianity, but rather in other religions they have always been taught are pagan. How can these other faiths have the truth? To me, when I realized this, it was more revelation than crisis, and that revelation was relatively recent, and I am still working through it. I prefer to think of these other faiths, not as pagan religions, but as Creation religions. The Bible itself says that the attributes of God are found in the Creation. For thousands of years various people have seen these divine attributes have developed traditions and rituals to give expression to the divine. There is much to be valued in these expressions. There is much to be valued in the Bible as well. A balance of the two will lead us to the truth. The truth of a way of living that brings hope and healing to the Earth, That can take us into a glorious future.

The Way of Life

 The Way of Life

There is a way that leads to life and another that leads to death. Life on Earth involves a conflict between these two ways. Death itself, what we think of when we hear that term, is actually two very different things. Death is a part of the way of life. Creatures are born, they grow, then they die and fall to the Earth, their bodies decay and decompose and the nutrients return to the soil to be resurrected in new life, this is the cycle of life, and it brings forth even more life, it brings life abundant. This death is not the same as the death that is part of the way of death.

The death that is a part of the way of death is a death that is final. A death that ends life forever, from which there is no rebirth, no resurrection. It is a death of extraction, the end result of exploitation. We can compare a forest to a wheat field farmed with modern industrial agriculture. In the forest death exists, but that death leads to new life, The forest floor is covered with the remains of organisms that were once alive and thriving in the forest, not they are breaking down, their nutrients becoming free to become new life. In the wheat field there is life in the wheat, for a time until it is harvested and removed, but the soil is dead, having been destroyed by pesticides and other chemicals, to produce a crop it has to be fertilized with chemicals that have been stripped from other places, without the constant input of fertilizers and pesticides the field produces nothing. The death of the field is final, it does not lead to life, and the only way to keep the wheat alive is through the “life support” of external inputs.

The whole of Western society is built upon an exploitative death-based approach. Those who promote it tell us it is the only way, but it isn't. It is wrong and there is an alternative. There is a way that leads to life and life abundant. A way of peace and love and healing. This way will win out in the end, the way of death is self-destructive, it is unsustainable, it is doomed to fail. Those who care about doing what is right, need to learn to embrace it, learn to recognize the lies and deceptions that those who profit from the way of death have told them, and begin to live in ways that bring life and not death.