Separation of Church and State For Real

I want to remind you, dear reader, that I'm an ordained Interfaith Minister of Spiritual Counseling.  It is most particularly in this capacity that I'm deeply troubled by the increasing lack of separation of Church and State.  One’s personal faith, or lack of it, legally and, yes, morally, should have no place in how government or business operate.  Religious fundamentalists, whose political influence is extensive and disturbing, would have citizens and government believe otherwise.  They are legally and, yes, morally, wrong.

Nonetheless, recent presidential elections – most starkly in 2000, but it’s been going on for longer than that – have taken on a dangerous and onerous religious undertone, overtone and shocking role as a necessity in a candidate’s persona and policies.  Regrettably, there is little genuine understanding (by politicians, the public and the press) about the Constitutional proviso for “Separation of Church and State.”

It is ironic that during the 1960 presidential campaign, there was wholesale concern that John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism would play an inappropriately active role in his governmental leadership.  Now, the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction, there is wholesale concern that a leader who does not bring strong personal religious belief to the political table will lead us straight to hell.  How times do change…

This week, President Obama announced that all employer-provided health insurance plans had to pay-in-full for women’s contraception, including those plans offered by secular institutions administered by religious organizations – including the very rich and politically powerful Catholic Church, with its many universities, hospitals and charities.  The Church,  the Republicans, and some members of the media (including a few on the Left) responded as if the President had just ordered the slaughter of all first-born male babies.  The Democrats and others who are presumably Left of Conservative Everything, have, as unfortunately usual, done nothing to present a cohesive rejoinder.

Here is what the First Amendment of the Constitution says about religious freedom: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… (the remainder details all that pesky free speech and free press stuff).  President Obama’s regulation regarding the limits and responsibilities of religious employers who provide health care coverage does nothing that breaks this law.

There is a great piece in today’s New York Times Online “Opinionator” section by Linda Greenhouse entitled “Whose Conscience?” that I earnestly hope you’ll take a look at, since she covers more legal ground and cogent observations than I have room for here.  Suffice it to say, however, that this latest brouhaha over the relationship between government and religion and its impact on all citizens (regardless of their religion or lack of it) brings into uncomfortable relief the fact that there has been far too much overlap for far too long.

As Ms. Greenhouse points out: “The regulation doesn’t require anyone to use birth control.  It exempts any religious employer that primarily hires and serves its own faithful, the same exclusion offered by New York and California from the contraception mandate in state insurance laws…  Permitting Catholic hospitals to withhold contraception coverage from their 765,000 employees would blow a gaping hole in the regulation.  The 629-hospital Catholic health care system is a major and respected health care provider, serving one in every six hospital patients and employing nearly 14 percent of all hospital staff in the country…  These institutions, as well as Catholic universities – not seminaries, but colleges and universities whose doors are open to all – are full participants in the public square…”  In other words, when the Church ventures into the public secular arena, it is obliged to play by public secular rules.

Let’s forget for a moment that numerous statistical sources show that 98% of sexually-active American Catholic women have used contraception at some point in their reproductive lives.  The larger point is that until now, the same insurance companies that routinely pay for men’s erectile dysfunction medication do not pay for women’s contraception, a disconnect that would be laughable if it weren’t so serious and downright discriminatory.

The fact is, all women who want contraception, regardless of the religious strictures of their employers, should be able to get it free of charge.  The alternative is an $800-$1200 out-of-pocket annual expense that is an extreme hardship for many women and therefore a clear path to more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions.  How Church or State can justify this is beyond me.

Rediscovering George

I’m pleased to take a welcome break from discouraging politics to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed the new documentary portrait of musician/singer-songwriter/film producer George Harrison, entitled George Harrison: Living in the Material World.  It debuted on HBO this month, and if you are or ever were a Beatles fan, not to mention a Harrison fan, it’s really worth seeing.  It features some familiar Beatles footage as well as Beatles material I’ve never seen, and, a lot about (and with) George individually.  Directed by the indefatigable Martin Scorsese and produced by him and George’s wife of 30 years, Olivia Harrison, the film also offers interviews with her and their son, as well as an assortment of music and film notables, including old friends and family.

I must admit that after the Beatles broke up, I didn’t pay much attention to Harrison’s ongoing career (I was wrapped up in John & Yoko), nor did I realize how many popular Beatles songs were written by him, rather than the famous Lennon & McCartney duo – among them “Here Comes the Sun,” “If I Needed Someone,” “Blue Jay Way” and “Something (in the way she moves)”; I did recall “Don’t Bother Me,” “I, Me, Mine,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Savoy Truffle” and of course, “Tax Man.”  Apart from the Beatles, Harrison released numerous albums and generated such hits as “All Things Must Pass,” “Beware of Darkness,” “Wah-Wah” and “My Sweet Lord,” to mention a few.

I also forgot that it was George Harrison who produced “The Concerts for Bangladesh” – the concerts, the album, the film – which was the very first rock- star-studded event to serve a charitable cause, pre-dating “We Are The World,” Live Aid, all the other Aids, and all of Bono’s good work.

Now all this may say more about my foggy memory than George Harrison’s show biz prominence, but I also forgot that it was he who assembled The Traveling Wilburys, which began as musical fun among friends: he and Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.  I knew he had produced Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, but I didn’t know he mortgaged his house to do it, or that he formed a film company that produced other Python movies, along with an impressive list of other well-respected films.

I knew it was George Harrison who discovered Hindu spirituality for himself and turned the other Beatles onto it as well.  I didn’t realize how strong a part it played in his life right up to the end, long after his band mates left it behind, or to what great extent his musical teacher, Ravi Shankar, was his spiritual teacher, as well.

Despite all I’ve written here, you’ll find much more to learn – and admire – about George Harrison, the man and the artist, in this new documentary.  It’s a reminder of how much the Beatles gave us, together and individually, how much we’ve lost – and how much they left us.

Anniversary Greetings From the Tower

This blog is two years old today. If it were a person, it would just be learning to walk and talk. I know that feeling. I’ve been writing since I learned how to “letter,” in fact I clearly remember learning how to print and then how to write in script and finally how to type, not in the proper “asdf–jkl;” way, but in my own haphazard combination of touch-typing and looking down at the keyboard, which is what I still do, at about 60 wpm – as fast as a sentence needs to go. I used to walk better than I do now, but I’m working on it. And I talk just fine; some would say too much, too directly, but I ignore them. I have learned to listen – and also how to tune out when necessary.

I began this blog because I wanted to express my opinions about…everything; to write for myself, which in my 35+ year professional writing career I had done too little of; and to speak out on behalf of Smokers’ Rights and Fat Acceptance.

I still believe in Smokers’ Rights, but I’ve thrown in the towel on that one. Smokers have no rights and never will again. Not in the foreseeable future, anyway. I also still believe in the FA movement, but I haven’t made any friends within it, because I have this silly idea that being fat is often connected to what and how much one eats. Those aren’t the only reasons, but they play a big role; just ask anyone who starves on a regular basis in order to not be fat. But my sister and fellow FA-ers choose to focus on the genetic and other legitimate physiological factors that cause/maintain obesity, because they think that “it’s not our fault we’re fat” is the only pathway to Fat Acceptance.

I disagree. I consider “size-ism” to be a legitimate social- and civil-rights issue, regardless of how and why fat people are fat. Human beings come in all shapes and sizes and this should just be accepted as fact, but it isn’t. Many people who are not fat regularly discriminate against people who are, and they’re often downright hateful about it. But I no longer believe there is a pathway to Fat Acceptance. Those of us who are fat are going to have to fight this battle forever while knowing we can’t win. It’s about having self-respect and self-esteem in the face of rejection/recrimination and standing up for oneself instead of apologizing for who and what one is. I think that pretty much defines life for people of all sizes. And while I still see the need for/value in pointing out discrimination and ugly attitudes toward fat people, I no longer believe it’s going to result in Acceptance. People who are not fat will always think that people who are fat and are not doing everything possible to change, are crazy. Like I said, I’ve learned to tune out when necessary.

So now, as MizB VIEWS FROM THE TOWER enters its third year, I’m more interested in and concerned about the broader social and political issues – local, national and global – that have a genuine chance in hell of resulting in change for the better.

These issues include: racism, what and why and how it’s still a very real part of the American psyche and needs to be examined and changed; feminism, what it is and what it means in the 21st century and how modern feminism should be an integral part of larger social struggles (and vice versa); poverty and homelessness, which are increasing in fact but decreasing in public awareness and concern; American politics and economics, both of which are in trouble, outmoded, and fail to serve the common good; climate change and the environment, because the upheaval in nature has been stupidly politicized and insufficiently addressed; immigration and our collective failure to recognize the karmic legitimacy of the changes in our population; religion, its dangers and its blessings, and the inability of those who rightly reject those dangers to recognize the existence and value of a more peaceful, loving, less structured and essentially generic kind of spirituality; the gifts and thefts of technology, which are creating a more interconnected world but, ironically, are also resulting in less real communication; and contemporary culture, its banality, ignorance, aliteracy, social amnesia, tawdry values, and descent into barbarism.

If there’s time, I may also add beauty and decorating tips.

Ms-Communication

One of my dearest girlfriends is in the process of returning to her childhood roots of traditional Judaism and is becoming more conservative/orthodox in her religious beliefs and practices – and getting a lot of flack about it from her other friends. The lion’s share of their objection and surprise is based on their understanding of Jewish orthodoxy as misogynistic, and my friend is a smart, independent, professional woman, a liberal and a feminist who co-authored a seminal book about the history/dangers of illegal abortion in America, and for a living is a corporate trainer specializing in sensitivity workshops about racist and anti-woman behavior/ policies in the workplace. Her response is to explain that the charge of misogyny is incorrect, that, in fact, women are revered in the many forms of Orthodox Judaism, that they are regarded as the keepers of the spiritual flame and deeply respected as the stabilizing core of family life. (Those interested in learning more about modern orthodoxy may want to check out chabad.org.)

As a Jew, an Interfaith minister, a feminist, a crone [wise-woman aged 56 or older], and a lifelong believer in calling a spade a spade, I find this all very interesting – especially considering the emergence of Sarah Palin, which has prompted a fierce debate among women about the meaning of feminism, preceded (for the last 30 years or so) by a return to more traditional forms of Judaism by the several generations that have come of age since the Baby Boomers.

Before I get into Jewish specifics, I want to say that for quite a long time, I’ve believed that 20th century feminism (from the early-century suffragists to the nouveau pioneers of the 1970s) has lost its footing in the 21st century; that in our legitimate effort to liberate/empower women and create opportunities outside the home, we have created a serious gap in the structure of modern family life, and in the dynamics of intimate relationships between women and men. I never would or could advocate a return to the bad-old-days, when a man’s home really was his castle, and women were given the life options of housewife/mother, nurse, teacher, secretary, or whore. But if feminism is to continue to grow and maintain a meaningful, positive impact on social change and interpersonal dynamics, we’re going to have to acknowledge – and address – the fact that the freedom and advancement of women has created new and different problems, chiefly a lack of cohesion in family life and outright hostility in men.

Traditional Judaism, from the conservative to the orthodox (and there are many forms of both) is rooted in family strength, guiding faith, study/erudition, service to one’s fellow man, and the power of ritual. This is not a bad recipe for a happy, meaningful life. But the trouble with maintaining ideas and practices that developed thousands of years ago is that they can be incongruous (if not downright unnecessary and undesirable) in modern times.

For example, it made sense for the Jewish culture that lived in the desert 5,000 years ago to use completely separate wooden and porous clay crockery for meat and dairy; there is no underlying hygienic necessity for classic kashroot today. Similarly, it was probably a good idea, back in the day, for a woman to take a cleansing bath at the end of her monthly menstrual cycle, and making a ritual out of it (the mikvah) didn’t do any harm. But today, when women bathe regularly before/during/after their periods, adhering to the idea that women are “unclean” during menstruation can reasonably be regarded as offensive.

The separation of women and men in many aspects of traditional Jewish practice – for example, in synagogue, in school, and at large social occasions like weddings – can understandably be perceived as segregation/ prejudice to the modern mind; the fact that this is done to prevent men from being “distracted” by the innate power and allure of women doesn’t make it any less so. Indeed, “protecting” men from the power of women – the same reason that women are shrouded in virtual tarps in many forms of Islam – seems like plain old lack of self-control and mature socialization on the part of men, in this day age. Even more important, the only real role for women in traditional Judaism is as wife, mother, and homemaker. Valuable to be sure, but, where are the options for women who don’t want to take on this role, or for gay women and men whose existence is not even acknowledged, let alone accepted?

I think it would be a good idea for people, Jewish and otherwise, female and male, who seek the comfort, familiarity and stability of traditional practices, to just say “This is what I want, it works for me,” rather than try to find contemporary explanations/justifications for ideas that are in fact out of sync with modern life. And I think it would be a good idea for society, secular and religious together, to acknowledge the inevitable disruptions that accompany radical social change and look for practical, equitable solutions. Meanwhile, people who choose religious orthodoxy should be left the hell alone by those who don’t – and very, very, vice versa.

The Power of Prayer

Last night was both the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the eve of what would have been my late mother’s 85th birthday, so I lit a Yahrzeit [Jewish memorial] candle in honor of both and thought about the power of prayer.

We’re at an unfortunate spiritual crossroad in America right now, a conflict between believers and non-believers that, in my opinion, is based on a skewed notion that rational faith is an oxymoron. The hubris of Fundamentalist Christianity has come to define all of Christianity in the minds of non-Christians, and Fundamentalist Christianity combined with Islamic Extremism has come to define the idiocy and danger of all religion, especially when it runs sufficiently amok, in the minds of those who call themselves Rationalists.

Very ironically, the Rationalists have something important in common with traditional religionists (extreme and otherwise), in that they believe in the letter of their dogma, which will not concede a difference between spirituality and religion, or that a person can be very much a rational, thinking, even intellectual, person and still engage in some aspect of spirituality. I think that's a very limited perspective.

A religious person fully ascribes to the tenets, scripture and mythology of a particular religion, a person who, as the Rationalists say, believes in the all-powerful bearded man in the sky and stories like the one about the talking snake in the Garden of Eden. I grant that there are billions of people who take this approach to religion and that since the dawn of time it has wreaked havoc on the world. But there are also people who believe in the basic principles of a religion and even enjoy some of its trappings without buying into its fairy tales, who gain personal strength and comfort from their faith and feel no need whatsoever to claim that theirs is the one and only true faith, and damn (or kill, or both) anyone who disagrees. They may not comprise the religious majority, but they exist and they’re a very different ball of religious wax from the norm.

There are also people who aren’t attached to any religion in particular, but put faith in their sense that powers exist that are both different and greater than ourselves, that science cannot explain every mystery, that the world is more than the sum of its evolutionary parts, that life is energy and energy does not die it relocates, that the part of us that feels instead of thinks is what can be called a soul, that history has produced a few particularly remarkable individuals with the power to effect positive change by the quality of their example and these role models are worth honoring (not worshiping, honoring), that what some people call God is a descriptor for a combination of love, kindness, fairness, honesty, compassion and service. Nothing about these ideas is in conflict with rational thought.

Prayer indeed has power that works in several understandable ways. For one, it is a classic example of the placebo effect: if you believe it’s true, you make it true. Give a sick person a sugar pill that he believes is a wonder drug and his body may actually heal. What we don’t know about the power of the mind/body connection could fill an ocean. Second, to pray is to clearly direct concentrated thought and thought is energy, it’s a real thing that exists even though we can’t see it, just like electricity. Humankind has learned how to harness electricity, we’ve learned a lot less about how to control the power of our thoughts, but occasionally we register a blip on the screen nonetheless. So a bunch of people focusing their thoughts on the same thing at the same time can indeed create an energy shift that can be expressed in many ways. In this sense, prayer is a form of quantum physics. Lastly, prayer is an idea that comforts, it can lower blood pressure, relieve anxiety, lessen fear, loosen muscles, measure breathing; prayer is a form of meditation.

To dismiss mysteries and unexplained phenomena is to reduce the complexities of life to the three-dimensional meat and potatoes of who-what-where-when, with mixed regard for how and little curiosity for why. That’s not rational, that’s pedestrian. Art and music and elegant language are spirit. The beautiful appearance and intricate machinations of nature are spirit. The non-verbal, unconditional love between people and their pets is spirit. Enthusiasm, optimism, contentment, gratitude are spirit. Service is spirit in action. I have faith in spirit.

And in that spirit, and in the name of the Mysteries of the Universe, I wish you a healthy, Happy New Year. May all your needs be met and some of your desires realized. Rest in peace, Mama.

Easter Musings

I associate Easter with my childhood and the one time of year that my father tried to assert his Christianity. I can recall attending an assortment of Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday church services with him; Palm Sunday was especially beautiful, with everyone holding their bright green fronds and Easter Sunday was always like a fashion show, with everyone in their spring finery, including now-anachronistic enormous bonnets. I remember the year that the priest (Episcopal) gave what I thought was a particularly annoying sermon, I forget about what, but he invited anyone who disagreed with him to stand up, which I tried to do, but my father held me down in my seat. That was the year I was ten and I’d been given a hot-pink spring coat with big, fabric-covered buttons (I loved that coat). I was in my 20s before I attended an Easter service again, by which time I’d learned to behave and keep my protests to myself.

As was always the case in my childhood home with holidays normally steeped in religious significance, we made Easter mostly about food and fun: chocolate bunnies and coloring Easter eggs and making a pretty Easter basket. My Yiddisha Mama always baked a nice glazed ham studded with cloves, draped with pineapple slices, dotted with Maraschino cherries. The first year I was taken to the Easter Parade on Manhattan’s famed Fifth Avenue, I felt totally ripped off: no marching bands, no flags and uniforms, no nothing, except dressed-up people, especially women with even more outrageous hats than the church ladies wore. Someone should have warned me.

When I was older, I better understood the concepts of redemption and resurrection so integral to Easter, and as a Spiritualist I don’t entirely pooh-pooh the idea that Christ may have genuinely risen from the dead, but the whole idea was (and is) too tied up with Christian miracles for my taste. I was even older when I learned about the pre-Christian history of Easter as a pagan spring fertility celebration (ergo the eggs) and something to do with a Greek goddess and her pet rabbit that laid eggs. I like this idea better.

This year, I am focusing on secular thoughts (both personal and political) of renewal/rebirth/a New Beginning. I’m looking forward to the warmth and blooms and happy possibilities of spring. Wishing you peace, joy and whatever renewal you may need at this lovely time of year. And to paraphrase the song White Christmas, may all your bunnies be white.

Faith and Reason

In an episode of the classic 70s sitcom, All in the Family, bigoted and conservative Archie Bunker has an argument about religion with his liberal son-in-law Michael (aka The Meathead). After fracturing chapter and verse to make his point about the existence of God and the literal truth of the Bible, Archie blurts out in exasperation: “Faith is believing what nobody in his right mind would believe!”

Around the world, we are in the midst of a great social divide about religion, a grudge-match between the Rationalists and the Believers. The Believers are represented largely by fundamentalists of various religions who accept the poetry and mythology of their sacred texts as literal gospel instead of fables and metaphors intended to illustrate prescribed values. In parallel contrast, the Rationalists eschew all aspects of religion, embracing instead a combination of history, science, civics and cynicism that omits any aspect of belief in universal mystery.

Before I continue, let me explain where I stand. I am a cultural/intellectual Jew who was raised in a religiously-mixed home (Jewish and Episcopalian) by parents who side-stepped all doctrine in favor of common sense, common decency, cultural literacy, honor, honesty, kindness and assorted holidays featuring nifty presents and great food.

I became a Spiritualist as an adult because I believe that all life is energy and energy doesn’t die, it’s transformed. I believe the essence of personality survives after physical death and that it is possible to commune with spirits. I don’t believe in a personified deity, in heaven or hell, or the seven levels of existence put forth by traditional Spiritualists. I bypass all the pretty, pat ideas that are intended to make the unknowable manageable. Instead, I accept that there are many things I will never know or understand and that I believe what I believe because it feels right to me and comforts me. I don’t know if it’s true and I don’t care. I also don’t care what anybody else believes. I have no need for others to believe as I do. I claim no justification. I make no apologies.

Lastly, I became an Interfaith minister for three reasons: I was spiritually curious; I wanted some measure of legal protection as a sincere Tarot counselor in a culture that regards everything occult as bullshit and bunko; and I wanted to supplement my income by performing weddings. My ministry, which I admit is currently under-used, is about communication and service. It feels right to me and comforts me – and through it, I try to comfort others who ask to be comforted.

Over the last several millennia, billions of people have believed in a burning bush, a man living inside a whale, immaculate conception, happy meals for thousands made from a couple of loaves and fishes, and everyone’s favorite: the 71 eager virgins who await martyrs in heaven. I wouldn’t have a problem with these or any other religious fairytales if it weren’t for the fact that millions of people have also been killed for not believing one or another of these stories. I also don’t like the blurring of the secular and the spiritual in politics, science and the collective constructions that support a pluralistic society.

So I find myself on the fence between the Rationalists and the Believers, recognizing the importance of resisting coercion by missionary believers in things that nobody in his right mind would believe, while still seeing the value of an unstructured sense of spiritual wonder to counterbalance our sensible pragmatism, as well as our soulless materialism and worship of mediocre celebrity.

The universe often communicates with me through television (because the wisdom of the ether seeks you out where you spend the most time). The other night, I saw the Sandra Bullock movie Premonition, which wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but which featured an interesting exchange between the Bullock character (a young wife plagued by premonitions of her husband’s death) and a priest. In trying to explain what might be happening to her, the priest talks about a concept called “the dangers of the faithless.” “It’s based on the idea that nature abhors a vacuum, even a spiritual one,” he says, adding that without faith, one is an empty vessel and susceptible to being taken over by forces greater than oneself. “You have to believe in something beyond yourself, even if it’s just hope,” he says. The woman is not consoled. “I don’t know what to hope for.”

In these very frightening times of global violence, radical climate change, economic crises, enormous social upheaval, and the general feeling that it’s all going to hell in a hand basket, it’s not hard to understand why many people are grasping for the most simplistic of religious beliefs. They’re scared shitless, reaching out to a reassuring God like a frightened child crying for its mother. On the other hand, it’s equally easy to understand why the voices of secular reason are screaming to be heard above the din of illogical religious fervor.

Any way you look at it, if we are to survive in safety, sanity and freedom, each of us must find an assortment of reasonable things to hope for and a cushion of private faith that is personally sustaining.

To Everything a Season

In a few hours, when the sun sets on the East Coast, North American followers of two of the world’s primary religions will begin the observance of their holiest time of the year: Judaism’s spiritually sober yet celebratory New Year, Rosh Hashanah and Islam’s month-long period of sacred reflection and daytime fasting, Ramadan. These holidays are, in tone and intent, akin to Lent in Christianity.

As a Jew, Rosh Hashanah has personal meaning for me, a rich blend of childhood memories and comfortable ritual that enriches the importance of this holiday. As an ordained Interfaith minister, I regard the confluence of these two holidays as a powerful divine command to take stock, reassess and atone, as well as reflect, rejoice, renew and restore. And coming on the heels of the September 11th anniversary, I appreciate the equally-strong secular imperative to slow down and look within, instead of zooming about in our usual frantic manner of behaving like human doings rather than human beings. This is a time for sincere beingness, lest we lose sight of who we are and what we’re doing.

As a Tarotist, I enjoy the fact that both the Jewish and Muslim holidays are based on the lunar calendars that chronicle these religions. In the Tarot, the Moon is the 18th card in the Major Arcana and, not incidentally, 18 is the number that corresponds to the Hebrew word chai (life) and Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar (and 2 x 9 = 18…). The Moon represents the life of the soul in darkness and in light; it stands for what is hidden and the necessity of revelation. Ramadan calls for “the spiritual cleansing of the soul through restraint” (by fasting and sexual abstinence); Rosh Hashanah, which literally means “head of the year,” initiates a period of spiritual growth and redemption.

It may be a cliché to say that true faith and humanity should express itself through peace, forgiveness and unity, especially at this time of the year, but cliché or not, that is what’s so and it’s worth repeating until it sinks in. Whatever your faith (or lack of it) may be, I hope you will join me in expressing a heartfelt wish that all of humankind will use its beliefs and intelligence to make the spirit of Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan a functioning reality every day of the year.