Ranting Rex

It’s Christmas again. It’s the time of year I spend skiing with the rest of the pagans at a resort in the western United States. I never have been much for the regular trappings of the holiday since I reached adulthood. I don’t have children, so I have never seen the need to carry on that part of the tradition. However, living in the mountains does have the advantage of bringing back my inner child, or at least my inner teenager. Really…I’m going to have to go with teenager. Children don’t get together to do what we do after a day of skiing. I’ll leave some of the “what” I do up to your own imagination.

I will spend some of this time sitting by a fire with friends, and companions, reflecting on the year’s events, and eventually bidding good evening, and in some cases, carrying some companions back to their rooms after too much eggnog. Really…I have never met anyone that actually drinks that stuff. In this case, let’s just call the wine eggnog.

Needless to say, this is a great time for me. The last few years have been very stressful, so taking this time out is just what the doctor ordered. I know many of you feel the same way about your own stressful lives, and are happy to take what time you have to spend with friends and family.

So take this ranting as my bidding to you to have a wonderful holiday season, whether that be Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, or your briss. OK…maybe not briss. Let’s face it…the only people happy about that are the spectators. However, I would be more than happy to send some wine to dull the pain.

Either way, way the holiday bring you joy and gladness to the next year. I love you all, and I look forward to writing more in the near future. However, right now they’re reporting 5ft of snow in my area, and I’m taking full advantage of it!

Happy Whatever!

Rex

About 15 years ago I was working in Crested Butte, Colorado, at a local resort. While there I met quite a woman who had this crazy notion that the United States was on the road to another Civil War. She was just a little crazy. Most of the people in that small town had strange ideas about class, class warfare, and the economy. When you’re in a community with no middle class, you also tend to find ideas which rarely meet the middle of the road. Crested Butte is an interesting place. You have millionaires, and you have the poor. There’s no inbetween.

After all this time I think I’ve come to the conclusion that Crested Butte is a microcosm of the rest of the country. After all, there are only a few hundred people who live there year around. The rest own vacation homes, and have little care about the community. They have no vested interst in the daily affairs of the lower masses. While they have great influence on the laws and the economy, they have no regard for the people.

I was thinking about all this the other day when I rememberd a few things about the history of rebelion. Louis XVI ascended to the throne in France during enormous financial strife. The country was bankrupt. After many poor financial decisions, and a foreign war which drained the budget (namely the U.S. Revolutionary War), it was time to make major changes. However, due to political prressure Louis was able to do little to help the country move back from failure. The nobility held great power, and felt they had no responsiblity to provide for the country, and with political pressure ensured any financial burden be moved onto the lower classes. In addition to this stress, pamphlets and other materials were distributed throughout the country, spreading rumors, and unsubstantiated inuendo on the daily activities of the monarch. The purpose was to gain traction for revolution. This had the benefit that, by 1789, France was in all out war with itself.

By 1861, the United States entered its own Civil War. While the most popular reason given for the war has been slavery, the more accurate would be economic. When Lincoln was elected in 1860, the south was losing all political power. The north had built a large agrerian society, and most emmigrents moved to the north. While the south, and their ways were failing, they saw the north as a threat to their ideals and way of life, blaming their failures on the north and “New Comers.” The north was becoming more modern, metropolitain, and liberal. All this combined with the south’s economic and moral failures (namely slavery), the increase in political rhetoric, and the lack of compromise, led to our nations most tragic war. When northern Senators blocked the sale of slaves to the western states, what started as a war in the Senate, soon became all out bloodshed when the first shots were fired at Fort Sumner.

Now when I look back at our history, and the history of the world, I wonder if we aren’t moving toward another Civil War. We entered into foreign wars which have drained our financial resources. We have politicians who want to turn back the clock to our old ways, as if they were better. We blame our problems on the “New Comers.” We have a speaker of the house who wants to not only repeal healthcare, but to also repeal the 18th amendment (the one that made slaves citizens and not 3/5ths a person). The economy is in the gutter, and there’s a fire being fueled by pundits on both sides which is driving a wedge so deep between us that we can’t even see there’s another side.

So it’s been 15 years since I walked away from that woman thinking what a nut she was. Now I’m not so sure. Perhaps she wasn’t crazy. I’m thinking she might have had some insight on the world, which I was not aware. It makes me wonder. We are definately moving through dangerous waters. Maybe she is like most prophets, just a little ahead of her time.

I was raised Lutheran.  ELCA for those in the know.  I was also extremely close to my father’s mother who was a Jehovah’s Witness.  My mother wanted her children to understand other religions to ensure that we were accepting of other beliefs and other faiths.  It was very common that on any given Sunday or Saturday we would be taken to a Church or Synagogue and given an education on how ideas could be different, but the people were all the same.  Even in my own Lutheran Church guest Pastors, Priests, and Rabbis were often present to help teach us about their respective religions.  Therefore, it’s safe to say that my religious upbringing was, shall we say, diverse.  

Modern Christianity seems to have strayed from the ideas and morays from my childhood.  I was taught that my ultimate goal was to be like Christ, not to just worship Christ.  The idea was like Jesus, I was to be in service to others, not myself.  My salvation was strictly determined on that premise.  Today however, self-proclaimed Christians have turned from the gospel they claim to cherish and bastardized it into a prophecy of profit and self-indulgence.   No more are you to be in service to others but you’re taught if you pray and believe you’ll be rich and powerful.

In addition to the modern Christian value of self-importance, it seems to have taken on a very dark side where you’re supposed to hate the other.  “I love him but hate his life” is a common refrain.  Christianity has become synonymous with racism, sexism, child abuse, sex abuse, and misogyny.  The idea that you can claim to be a Christian and at the same time have zero tolerance or aspire to have power over others is completely missing the point of the religion you claim to follow.  I’ve seen nowhere in the New Testament that I’m supposed to hate pregnant women, minorities, other faiths, or the struggling.  Yet, here you are…killin it!

If you have read the Bible it is very hard to criticize Christ.  However, it is very easy to criticize Christians.  The hate and bile that is constantly spewed from the pulpit makes it look more like a Klan Rally than a fellowship of souls.  People seem to spend more time focused on how others should change their lives rather than looking inside and changing their own hearts, which, really, was what the founder of this proclaimed faith was trying to get everyone to do.  

I’m not saying I’m perfect by any means either.  My grace stops at my doorstep.  Outside of my family unless you’re a child or a dog, I could give a fat rat’s ass about who you are or what you do.  I have little patience for people who think my hard work and time are something for which they should profit.  However, I also know that’s an attitude that flies directly in the face of Christianity and really every other religion on the face of the earth.  But I’d rather go to hell as an honest man than go as a hypocrite.    

My grandmother was someone, more than anyone, who taught me that being Christian wasn’t about me, it was about others.  She walked the walk and if you asked would talk the talk.  Sure, she was that person who knocked on your door Saturday morning, but she would also quietly walk away if you showed little interest in what she had to say.  She also left your door with an unshakable belief that what she was doing was what she was called to do, which was , as the scriptures say, to “spread the word.”  Faith, true faith neither requires your approval, nor your acceptance.  It just is.

So why am I now an Atheist?  I lost my faith when my grandmother died.  I was so angry at a God that could be so callous as to remove the center of my world.  Since then, it has died repeatedly by what I’ve witnessed in this world from people who claim to be the faithful.  It’s the thousands of cuts after the initial thrust that has killed any faith I have had in God, or man.  It is so rare in my existence to see anyone who like my grandmother, could show such compassion to so many, even those who wronged her, working to understand and not to judge.  If more people adopted that philosophy rather than trying to figure out how to get even or how to punish, or how to get rich, maybe my faith would still be intact.  

But don’t bet on it.

Rex 

I can no longer take part in what society is doing to itself.  It’s like trying to stop a fast-moving train with your own body from hitting the car on the tracks.  It’s futile.  You can either commit suicide or report on the carnage.  I have chosen the latter.  I recently landed on a George Calin interview where he described my already formulated perspective.  It’s the only way to keep sane.  I no longer have a vested interest in the outcome, but I’m free to report on the irony and hypocrisy.  I’m paraphrasing what Calin said, but you can see the interview excerpt here.  

“I’ve begun to develop a different perspective.  I’ve found a very liberating position for myself.  I gave up on the human race.  I gave up on the American dream and culture and Nation and decided I didn’t care about the outcome.  That gave me a lot of freedom to watch the whole thing with a combination of wonder and pity.  I love people as I meet them one by one, if you look in their eyes, you can seen the entire Universe.  You really can.  They are fascinating.  But as soon as they group, they begin to change.”  

George Carlin

That pretty much sums up my perspective as well.  To quote Agent K “A person is smart.  People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”  Once people group they become morons.  I was going to say they become more unpredictable and reactionary but really, they are even more predictable.  You can pretty much predict exactly what will happen in any situation with “panic” being the common theme.

When I take a step back and look at what is happening in this country and the world it’s extremely easy to determine the cause.  Sure, you can say that religion is the problem, race is the problem, or the rich are the problem, or that even the poor are the problem.  None of that is true.  The problem is humanity itself.  Our needs, wants, perspectives, prejudices, and personal experiences make us all culpable.  We want to blame others, or the other group for our challenges, but really it’s just us. We are the problem.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t comedy along the way.  Even in chaos there is laughter.  So that’s where you will find me, at the center of the great American hurricane, laughing my way through.  As you make the attempt to travel through the flood of madness, I’ll be easy to find.  I’ll be in the eye of the storm where the sun’s shining, the guy in the lawn chair with the umbrella and a sweet tea on the side of the road telling you where its flooded only to watch in amusement as you ignore the advice to turn around and drive through anyway.  

Rex