Red, White, and Truth

I grew up in a very religious family. Every Sunday we went to church. My favorite memories were eating donuts after the service.

One day when I was nine, my mother drove us home from the doctor; it was August, and it was hot. The announcer on the radio station said that there were reports Jesus would return the next day. I remember looking at the sky, a glorious shade of blue, wondering how would a man fall from the heavens to the concrete here on Earth without a scratch.

Jesus the man has fascinated me far more than Jesus the myth. The Jesus Papers by Michael Baigent explores the theory that Jesus didn’t die on the cross - and that there are actual letters written by Jesus after he was supposed to have been crucified.

The Jesus Papers also explores the ‘lost years’ of Jesus’ childhood. Baigent says that he spent time in Egypt, studying under an Essenes sect that believed in the equality of men and women - and that the answers live within.

Imagine a world where traveling within is the path desired. Where the wealth of the internal landscape manifests as the beauty surrounding. I think for the most part it’s backwards in this reality.

If the Vatican says Jesus died on the cross to save our sins, what happens to those sins? Do they just disappear? That idea makes karma seem non-existant.

I wonder if Jesus walked into the Vatican today, if anyone would even care.

For more on The Jesus Papers, click here.

“The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved.”

Emma Goldman said this. I first heard of her about six years ago. Her books are a staple in my purse for the long train ride into work. She is perhaps the clearest thinker, leader, I have ever read.

In our society, when someone hears the word ‘Anarchist’ - the first images that come to mind are destruction of stability - the antithesis to the order we live in today.

If ‘order’ just keeps the status quo in places - not allowing the movement of truth to flourish, ‘disorder’ is just the natural progression to right place.

A 40-hour work week might seem long for some of us - but until the late 1800’s, American had no true labor laws. The industrial revolution proved undeniable profitable for the corporations - but the workers more often than not lived in squalor. Karl Marx believed that when people were required to work in factories to survive, the creative spirit of the community became virtually non-existent. I don’t believe in the idea that no one should have private property which is a staple of Marx’s Communism - but I do believe that everyone should have a property that sustains their families, that they can call home.

Emma always had a revolutionary spirit - and became interested in Anarchism following the aftermath of the Haymarket Trial.

May 3, 1886: After striking workers met their near the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. plant, a fight broke out on the picket lines as replacement workers attempted to cross the picket line. Chicago police intervened and attacked the strikers, killing four, wounding several others and sparking outrage in the city’s working community.

The next day local anarchists held a rally to protest the killings at Haymarket Square, then a bustling commercial center in Chicago. August Spies (a leading anarchist) spoke and said that the rally was meant to be peaceful. Some time later the police ordered the rally to disperse and began marching in formation towards the speakers’ wagon. A bomb was thrown at the police line and exploded, killing policeman Mathias J. Degan. The police immediately opened fire. In all, seven policemen and at least four workers were killed in the riot.

Eight people connected directly or indirectly with the rally and its anarchist organisers were charged with Degan’s murder.

The jury returned guilty verdicts for all eight defendants, with death sentences for seven.

The trial is often referred to by scholars as one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in United States history. Most working people believed that Pinkerton agents provoked the incident. On June 26, 1893, Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld signed pardons for Fielden, Neebe, and Schwab after having concluded all eight defendants were innocent. The governor stated that the real reason for the bombing was the city of Chicago’s failure to hold Pinkerton guards responsible for shooting workers. The pardons ended his political career.

You can see why a young woman’s revolutionary spirit would awaken as a result.The next 54 years of her life were spent at rallies, in prison, speaking the truth of what the world really is - and being hated to the point of receiving several death threats on a regular basis. She was human - she loved and felt deeply.  She saw what really happened with Communism in Russia and was horrified.  She knew violence was not the answer; evolution and truth are.

Her tombstone reads “Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to Liberty.”

I wish Emma were alive today.

To purchase her book ‘Living my Life,’ click here.

Haymarket source: Wikipedia

I began to learn about Vietman in college by reading Dispatches by Michael Herr. A glimpse of war reflected the brutality, the hope, and the misery as though you were right there.

But I wasn’t.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to have chaos everywhere. One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. The lines between good and evil - they are so thin, you can barely find where they begin.

The war in Iraq has cost us over 425 billion dollars. It’s a number so big I can’t even begin to grasp what it means.

If we take that money away from the business of destruction, and direct it to the bridges that can be built, so much can be healed.

For 425 billion:

• We could have paid for 56,770,871 children to attend a year of Head Start.

• We could have insured 256,658,883 children for one year.
• We could have built 3,859,324 additional housing units.

Imagine all the people who lost their home in Hurricane Katrina - getting that shelter back.

Or the millions who have lost jobs as a result of our current economy - getting help to make ends meet.

Sometimes we are led to believe that the darkness in our country can’t possibly transmute into Light.

We are led to believe this because those who live at the very top of the structure don’t want us to see how life could really be if the money that fuels their lives - is given to the people who need it the most.

For more, check out The Cost of War.

I used to live in a world more defined by black and white. One side held the truth, the other hid the light.

As I grew up, events of my life shattered the pendulum that took me from left to right, and I found myself standing in a new place surrounded by beautiful shades of gray, in the middle of it all.

What I’ve found is a mixture of beauty and darkness - right behind the secrets lives our potential as individuals and as a country. Perhaps that’s what scary to look beneath the surface. The universal truths live there - as do our own.

This world is often a maze of twistations - truth is called conspiracy, conspiracy is called crazy, and the people in power, well, if you take away the structure, really aren’t that powerful at all.

I believe we have more in common that polls and polarities give us credit for.

In this blog, I hope to share truths about current and past events and spotlight people who are working to make a better world.

Like Tesla. And Emma Goldman. And the guy in Louisiana who feeds the homeless every day.

I hope to shed new light on old beliefs and imprints - and add new seams to the fabric of our dreams.

It won’t be partisan or strictly politics.  I will share my attempts at doing yoga. And trying to work various appliances. Like the fax machine I’ve had on my desk for 2 years. Still have no clue how to use it.

Laughter is a beautiful thing.  Being able to laugh at oneself is like drinking a cold beer on a summer day.  It soothes the soul.

We are all human.

Truth is everywhere.

Thanks for reading.