A Kind Reconsideration of the Abrahamic Faiths In a Difficult Time
A KIND RECONSIDERATION
OF THE ABRAHAMIC FAITHS
IN A DIFFICULT TIME
I
I am interested in Moses,
the baby in the bulrushes
who eventually was able
to speak truth to power and
delivered his people to a
promised land
I am interested in Saul and
David and Solomon and a just
administration of a precarious
culture under Yahweh or El
in a dangerous location in the
antiquarian world
I understand (intellectually) the
desperate need during Babylonian
captivity for bringing folk tale and myth
and political history into a culture-specific
definition of law for the wandering
shepherd, the tiller of land, and the
unyielding monotheist whose Covenant
with God made some people right and
other people wrong!
II
I am interested, too
in a brown-skinned man of fiery
intelligence from the City of Nazareth who,
though an ordinary Jew, managed eloquently
to speak truth to power about spirit
and duty, about service to all, and unconditional
love, and shattered the framework of codified law,
be it Jewish or Roman, in a dangerous location in
the antiquarian world
I am sorry for the way that his messages
were gathered, re-worked and distorted, codified
and written as an alarming New Testament with
an unfathomable trinity and the adornments
of empire making some people righteous and
other folks wrong and trapping so many souls
between heaven and hell!
III
I am also interested
in the merchant of Mecca who saw in his
people the uplifting potential of a civilization
grounded deeply in the guidance of a merciful
God in a dangerous place in the antiquarian world
The impetus to “recite” led to unity of tribes
through the codification of “final” revelations
from the “seal of the prophets” that made some
people right and other folks wrong as the good
word of Allah was spread from the Atlantic to
the borders of China, from the savannahs of
Africa to the steep southern slopes of the
mountains of Europe
IV
The powerfully seductive
Abrahamic religions, bound by
“The Book” of Tenakh and New Testament
“sealed” by Quran, have comforted many
since their explosive beginnings in the Sinai,
the Judean, the Arabian deserts that were
dangerous locations in the antequarian world
But the codification that renders the law
understandable to the many, but makes some
people right and so many people wrong can easily
lead us to isolation and conflict, to conquest and
oppression, an uncomfortable confinement in
doctrine and ritual that splinters humankind into
the spiritual antithesis of the one shared breath our
animistic ancestors thought united all life!
Perhaps the global transmission of folk tales
and myth and political history about spirit and
duty, about service to all and unconditional love
can be available to all without the codification
of doctrine and ritual that make us righteous
and isolated soldiers of god when all of us could
be such determined disseminators of kindness,
cooperation and love for one another and stewards
of the life giving forces at hand
V
The entirety of this planet is a dangerous
place in contemporary times when
a capricious, arrogant and dangerous presence
patrols the streets of my beloved community with
its vicious attack dogs Carbon, Climate-Change
and Covid, who menace my neighbors without
mercy or constraint
But the human condition is a slowly evolving
divine work of art, a sacred creation, a spiritual
journey in a numinous place, and its cumulative
voice is a gospel ensemble assuring ourselves that,
Abrahamic or not, our good stewardship is gonna
rise up and shine, gonna do the right thing,
gonna make it alright on this contentious blue
sphere where we thrive and survive!
If there is a creator and benevolent mentor
even half as engaged as these well-meaning
religions vehemently and desperately proclaim,
may it respond to our prayers and offer
us guidance in these difficult times
on how to do better than we do!
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