Thinking About Christianity on Christmas Morning, December 25, 2011

The Wartburg room where
Luther translated the New Testament
 into German. An original first edition
is kept in the case on the desk

I'm trying to think of something to say for Christmas Day 2011 that will not be a complete waste of reader's time.  However, maybe everything I say is a waste of reader's time.  I don't know.  I thought that maybe a few words about Christianity might be appropriate. I also think it's appropriate to think about one's Christian beliefs on holidays like Christmas and Easter, if not any other time.

I am a Christian, not just because I was born into this tradition, but because I have read and studied other religions, and have objectively chosen Christianity as the one that I think has the most to offer me.  However, my background may also have something to do with that.

I think it's a really hostile and a hurt person who denies their own religious tradition.  This reminds me of James Joyce, who left Ireland, turned his back on his country and religion, but then wrote about nothing else and still always went to church on Easter.  Although I have considered the idea of becoming a Catholic and even took classes at St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC to prepare for becoming a Catholic, I never did.  The classes only confirmed to me that I was really deeply Protestant.

One really amazing thing happened this last year.  While on Ancestry.com, I learned that Martin Luther was my 15th great grand-uncle.  His father, Hans, was my 16th Great Grandfather.  Since learning that, I have been reading and studying Luther.  I've always been more of a Calvinist, who are more radically liberal than was Luther, but in studying Luther, I have changed my mind on some subjects.

1.  I always thought that infant baptism was ridiculous because a baby can't know what is going on.   Baptism is a symbol of God coming into one's life, but that's something that is subjective.  You can't make God go into someone else's life by dabbing water on it's head.  Accepting God is a psychological process mostly done by adults.

I now believe in infant baptism.  Mostly, because I can't see any harm in it.  I also think it establishes in the child when he grows up and knows that he has been baptized some feelings of belonging and tradition.  I think having these kinds of feelings is important and helps in self-esteem and feeling that one has a place in this world and is not just a drifter.  I also think it is comforting for the parents to know their child has been baptized and that will give him some Christian roots.  Luther was much more into outward symbols than was Calvin.

2.  Most Protestants, especially the Calvinists and people like the Mennonites, are against religious statues which they think are symbols of idolatry.  Mennonite churches are also bare rooms.  They have no religious icons or statues because they associate this with idolatry.  Religion is something that comes from inside.  God comes to us through the spirit, not through praying to some statue.

I no longer believe that anything is wrong with praying to a statue, if it makes the person feel better and closer to God.  I don't see anything wrong with seeing art objects in churches.  I think people understand that the statue is only a symbol for the spiritual.  The statue, or whatever the material object is, can serve the purpose of getting oneself out of being entirely introspective.  I think introspection can be carried to an extreme.  Objects in reality can keep us more balanced between the inside world and the outside.  I don't believe in entirely denying the outside world, like Monks.  Cutting oneself off from the outside world in order to get closer to God, I think too easy.   The people I admire are the people who become part of the world and try to make it better.  Not the people who find it so unsympathetic to their nature that they feel they can't live within it.  These people are usually people who have been deeply hurt in their lives.

Luther's Writings

Martin Luther as an
Augustinian Monk

3.  My changed thoughts about the Eucharist.  I always believed that the bread and wine in the Eucharist ceremony symbolized the body and blood of Jesus.  This is the traditional Calvinist belief.  After all, Christ is is up in heaven sitting next to God, which is a picture that many if not most Protestants have in their head.  Luther said that this isn't right.  That when Jesus said that the bread and wine was his body and blood, he didn't mean it symbolically but literally.  It's rather hard to tell when Jesus is being reiterated in the Bible, if He should be taken literally or symbolically.  Catholics and Evangelicals take Him, and everything else, more literally than do the Protestants.  Luther was more religiously conservative and closer to the Catholics than Calvin.  Luther was an Augustinian Catholic Priest before his revolt again the Catholic Church.  However, his revolt was only against everything he saw as corrupt in the Church, not most of it's basic Augustinian philosophy.   (1) this idea that Jesus is sitting some place next to God is entirely anthropomorphic.  It's making God and Jesus both appear as people in one's mind.  Neither are people, they are spirits.  Both God and Jesus are everywhere and part of everything that exists, therefore they also exist literally in bread and wine.  I think the main purpose of the Eucharist is to remind us that God and Jesus are everywhere and in everything around us.  I also think that when one is taking the bread and the wine, that if they feel that is literally and actually Jesus's body and blood that the experience becomes much more meaningful.  

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, whatever you may believe, but believe.  

St. Teresa of Ávila

St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

I just started reading The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of 
Avila.  Also she called St. Teresa of Jesus.

One reason I think this book is relevant today is that she writes a lot about money and people's relationship to it.  In this time of material hardship what she says may sound unrealistic to the secular mind, but I don't think it does to the religious mind.  In my mind it's the absolute truth.

Although I'm not a Catholic, I study and read a lot of what the Catholic writers and saints have written, because it's so good and true.  I believe in studying different religions and I learn from all of them.

St. Teresa lived during the life and rise of Martin Luther and really puts the Lutherans down as lost souls.  It's true that the first Protestants in Germany had a very rocky beginning.  However, I think other things she says in this book are great.  I consider myself essentially a  Protestant, but a Catholic in many philosophical ways.  I can't accept authoritarianism of any kind--if it comes from man--not when it comes from God.  However, I've also been studying Martin Luther who despite his rebellion against the Catholic Church was still very authoritarian.  Despite his rebelling against the Catholic Church, he thought it wrong for people to rebel against their governments or secular rulers.  He didn't believe in being a protester.  Luther thought that the peasant uprisings in his day were bad, and that their being slaughtered was justified.  In our time, that's something very hard to understand.  I think because we have seen more of history since the 1500's, our hindsight provides a longer historical view.  Luther believed that the kings and men in power were put there by God and their authority should be accepted.  Luther's rationale was that Jesus didn't protest, but endured and suffered his enemies and died on the cross.  However, it seems to be that in his life, before his dying episode, he did do a lot of protesting, which is basically why he ended up being crucified.  He was crucified because he protested against the society in which he lived and the practices of Judism.  Jesus's main objective was reforming Judism.  He also thought that the Roman's were scum.  If he had just accepted everything, he wouldn't have been crucified.

[Since I discovered that Martin Luther was my 15th great grand uncle, I've been studying him, although I was fascinated by him before I even found out this fact.  This I think shows that discovering one's ancestors can be of value.  It has stimulated my interest in history tremendously.]

St. Teresa on the materialistic side of life (quotes from her book)--[St. Teresa addresses her sisters because she was a Carmelite nun.]

Let us not pray for worldly things, my sisters.  It makes me laugh, and yet it makes me sad, when I hear of the things which people come here to beg us to pray to God for; we are to ask His Majesty to give them money and to provide them with incomes--I wish that some of these people would entreat God to enable them to trample all such things beneath their feet.  Their intentions are quite good, and I do as they ask because I see that they are really devout people, though I do not myself believe that God ever hears me when I pray for such things.

I totally agree that God does not hear when you pray for money.  When I ask God for something that is spiritual in nature, I'm blown away by how fast he gives me an answer.  Even when I've prayed for some relief of some physical ailment, I'm been cured quickly.  However, when I've prayed for money or to better my sustenance, which is how I phrase it when I pray, nothing happens.  That's because I'm praying for the wrong thing.  I believe that if you pray for something that God in his infinite wisdom doesn't think that is good or right for you, he will ignore your prayer.  Anyway, that's how it has worked in my life.

...and are we to waste our time upon things which, if God were to grant them, would perhaps bring one soul less to Heaven?  Mo, my sisters, this is no time to tret with God for things of little importance...

Do not think, my sisters, that because you do not go about trying to please people in the world you will lack food.  You will not, I assure you:  never try to sustain yourselves by human artifices, or you will die of hunger, and rightly so.

...For the love of the Lord, let us not forget this: you have forgone a regular income; forgo worry about food as well, or thou will lose everything.  Let those whom the Lord wishes to live on an income do so: if that is their vocation, they are perfectly justified; but for us to do so, sisters, would be inconsistent.  Worrying about getting money from other people seems to me like thinking about what other people enjoy.  However much you worry, you will not make them change their minds nor will they become desirous o giving you alms.  Leave these anxieties to Him Who can move everyone, Who is the Lord of all money and of all who possess money...

The irony is that she talks of poverty and its importance and the evil of material concerns while at the same time saying that Lutherans are lost souls who will burn in hell.  Luther revolted against the greed and material concerns of the Catholic Church.  The same thing that Avila is against.  Luther revolted because the Catholic Church was selling "get out of hell" cards for money.  The Catholic church owned castles and land in many countries, and these countries sided with Luther because they wanted their land back.  The way that Avila writes about poverty, she seems to totally disregard the practices of her own Church.  She seems to think that rebellion for any reason is a great sin that will cause a person to go to hell.  However, it is true that some of Luther's followers went too far and undoubtedly ended up in hell, but they were probably there to begin with.

I also don't agree that the best way for a religious person to find God is to remove oneself from society to help avoid temptation and the wanting for the material aspects of life. That seems too easy to me.  I don't believe the best way to solve a problem is by just removing oneself from the situation.  It seems stronger to me to stay and change things.

However, I agree with her that she offers a path to perfection, which is her goal.  If you feel that you are on that path, I would recommend this book.

The world is but a dream


On Amazon.com I wrote a review of a book called "Start Where You Are" subtitled "A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chodron, who is an American Buddhist Monk.  Her main thesis was Don't take yourself or life so seriously because it's only a dream anyway.


Around 1567, Saint Avila wrote :  

Now it seems to me that, when God has brought someone to a clear knowledge of the world, and of its nature, and of the fact that another world (or, let us say another kingdom) exists, and that there is a great difference between the one and the other, the one being eternal and the other only a dream;...

Pema Chodron, an American, rejected Christianity for Buddhism, but as of yet I haven't found one idea in Buddhism that doesn't exist in Christianity, except Buddhists don't believe in God.  I think the reason for that is that the Buddhists can only think of God in anthropomorphic terms, and they reject Christianity because they think that is the way all Christians see God.  Christianity is far more metaphorical than Buddhism, and people who have trouble understanding metaphors seem to like Buddhism better.  I also think that people who reject the religion of the culture into which they were born, comes from deep hurt from people in their culture.  They knew people who professed to be Christian, but were mean and terrible, so they reject Christianity altogether as worthless.  But every religion has people who are mean and terrible, because they have no understanding.  It isn't the fault of the religion.

This idea that the world is but a dream, or a shadow, of the real world, which is spiritual and eternal, comes from Plato.  Although I think that many people, most likely Saint Avila, probably come to this conclusion on their own and have never read or heard of Plato, but Plato was the first in literature that I know of who expounded this idea.  The idea may have existed before Plato, and I'm not just well-read enough to know about it.

Jane Austin and Myself on Our Respective Postal Systems

A Sketch of Jane Austen

I just finished reading Emma by Jane Austen.  Austen began writing Emma in 1813, and it was published in 1814.  While reading, I became exceptionally aware of certain comments on how great their postal service was in rural England.

It's mentioned in Austin's novel twice when a character not only states how fast and reliable it was, but how nice are the clerks in the post office.  This surprised me, because I wasn't aware that England had postal service back then.

When I first started reading Emma, I thought that when someone received a letter--something that happens often in this novel--that it probably had been delivered by the sender's servant on horseback, until I read the comments about the postal service, which take place in a conversation between two people.

In Austen's novels, letters often play a crucial role, as in Pride and Prejudice, in which a letter totally turns the story around.  Novelists often use letters as a literary device.  I did that myself in my own novel That Smooth-Faced Gentleman.  It's a convenient way to deliver information in a different way--adding variety.  It's also a way to change a character from the third person into the first person voice.  I've totally gotten off the subject here, which is supposedly the postal service, something that obviously has quite a history.  Did America adopt the English postal service as a model when we were starting out?  I wonder from when the USA postal service dates from.  I will have to Google this.

I don't see why we need post office delivery service on Saturdays.  I can't think of anything that has to be delivered on a Saturday that couldn't wait until Monday.  If something has to be delivered on a Saturday, the person could use a private delivery company.  The USPS needs to reduce real estate and workforce.    People who insist upon being a computer illiterate need to be encouraged to learn computer technology at least to the point of sending and receiving emails.  If the price of sending a letter skyrockets, perhaps that would encourage them.

Newt's Opinion on Children Working

Kids like having a lemonade stand to earn money.
This kid is working in the Farmers' Market in NYC's Union Square on Saturdays,
but I can't see any different than this than having a lemonade stand.
It gives him work experience and installs in him the work ethic. 

I find Newt Gingrich detestable; however, I agree with him on his controversial opinion about children working.  This comes from my own family background as well as my experience of growing up in the 1950's.

In the middle to upper-middle class society where I grew up, back in the 1950's, women who worked were looked down on as inferior to women who didn't have to work.  The ethos back then was that women worked only because they had to, not because they wanted to.

I hated this way of thinking and revolted against it.  I saw getting a job and working as my avenue to independence, especially from my family.

Gingrich talks about poor kids who don't have any work ethic.  I grew up among upper-middle class kids who hadn't any work ethic.  One of the upper-middle class values back in the 1950's was that working kids were looked down as being lower class.  At least this was how it was in my neighborhood.  This is just the opposite of what Gingrich was saying.  In the environment of my youth (generally the West Los Angeles area) it was the poor who worked and the upper-middle class who didn't.  People presumed that the reason the kids worked was because they came from poor families.

Many liberals are saying that Gingrich is advocating children being janitors and cleaning out toilets.  He never said anything about making children clean toilets.  He only said it wouldn't harm them to pick up a broom once in a while.  I totally agree with that.  I think children should have regular duties they perform at home, too, and it wouldn't hurt to have a small duty like this to perform at school.   I was also raised by my grandmother, who never gave me any household chores to do, and because of that I was turning out very irresponsible.  My school picked up and that, and I was given a little job at school of ringing the bell after recess for everyone to come in.  This helped me.  When I was in Junior High School, I also got a job of working in the cafeteria at lunch time.  In return for this I got a free lunch.  They gave me this job because I was always arriving at school without a lunch or lunch money.

 My mother was never strong enough to become financially independent from her family, even though she was a well-trained secretary who earned a fairly good salary.  She put up with all kinds of emotional abuse (even physical) because she never could be financially free from them.  I didn't want that to happen to me.  I started working as soon as I could by making things and trying to sell them and babysitting.  The day I turned 16, I went to Santa Monica and got my social security card.  The next day I got a part-time job at a five-and-ten cents store in Westwood Village, where I worked on Monday nights and Saturdays for the next year.  My mother never encouraged me to work and said that back home in Kansas, girls who worked in 5-and-10 cent stores were looked down on.  Even though this hurt, and I never forgot it, I was smart enough to pass it off as being insane.  I started working full-time at the age of about 18 and became financially independent.

At 16, my mother was incarcerated in the State Mental Institution by the State of California, and I went to live with a family of a screen/TV writer in Bel Air.  This family had exactly the same set of values as my mother.  Women who worked were inferior to those who didn't.  No one could understand a woman working unless she had to for financial reasons.  The only socially acceptable avenue for a woman was marriage.  They wouldn't listen to any idea I had for my future except to marry and become a housewife, as this woman had done.  Successful women were looked down on even more.  As though they were putting all their energies into working because they couldn't get a husband.  I still revolted against this line of thought and it made me not have much respect for my new family.  In this family, I felt that the man felt that if his wife worked, he wouldn't feel needed any more.  The male aspect of this ethos was that men had to support their family entirely in order to feel needed and important.  They saw their wife working and earning money as a possible threat.

However, in a way I did buy into this ethic of women who worked were inferior, because I never took classes in high school that would help me to earn a living once I got out, nor even when I went to City College.  Girls who took vocational classes, in my social set, were looked down on as being intellectually inferior.  Fortunately, I did at least take a typing class which gave me my in to the corporate world where I always managed to get a job.

In my later years, after I moved to Staten Island, I came into contact with an entirely different group of people that I never knew existed before.  In the USA, there is an entire level of female society that start having children when they are 16 and start being supported by the government.  They have no intention of working, nor did they ever, but keep having children, because with each one they get a little more federal or state money.  These girls come most often from families where their mother did the same thing.  Nothing more were never expected from them so they quit school as soon as they can.  I have no idea how to cure this social problem, except maybe by the educational system.  There is a male counterpart to this kind of thinking.  Once a middle-aged man told me that his father told him that working for a living (something he had never done) was really dumb.  This cycle of government dependence has to be broken.

However, to say that all poor people are like this, or all people who live in poor neighborhoods, are like this is not true.  I live in a poor neighborhood and I've never been that way, and people all around me are working.  The neighborhood I live in is full of immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Latin America, who are anxious to work, and who work all they can.  I can't see any reason to be against these immigrants (illegal or not) who will work at anything, and to support all these Americans who think it's stupid to work.  It's also stupid to think that anyone can find a job who really wants one.  After I turned 50, I really had a hard time finding work even though I had good skills and was trying every minute.  I was a much better employee, with much better skills, than when I was a pretty young girl, but I couldn't find work like I could when I was a pretty young girl.  My working experience was always in the corporate world--I only say this as to reference my frame of mind.

It has always amazed me how some people live their entire lives by some stupid thing that their parents told them (i.e., working is dumb) as though it never occurs to them that maybe their parents were wrong.  I still run into this kind of thinking all the time.  I hate it when people say "Well, that's how I was raised," as an answer to why they do something that is not beneficial or bright.  I've always detested people who never learned to think for themselves.

The Bifurcation of America

The Republicans and the Democrats

Mark 3 [24]  And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. [25] And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

We only hear from the religious Christian right but not the religious Christian left--maybe because there are so few of us, but here I am.  Alone again.   In visiting the OWS crowd in Zuccotti Park, I've noticed that they sometimes have meditation and a Buddhist's service, but not Christian.  I don't really know why that is.  However, I think Christianity and the extreme form of Capitalism that the protesters are against are lumped together.  I've studied Buddhism and like it, and have gotten much from it, but my roots are in Christianity and I think it's a much deeper religion than Buddhism.  Also I deeply believe in God which the Buddhists don't.  I've never met a Buddhist who had any real understanding of what Christianity was all about, except for maybe Thich Nhat Hanh--however I never met him, only read him, but he understands Christ.

Although I read the Bible most every day, I don't take it literally.  The Bible is a spiritual guide, not a history book.  Also the Bible wasn't written by God.  It was written by people.  People who were influenced, not just by their spirituality, but by their backgrounds and the environment of almost 2000 years ago.  The Bible was also severely edited by people who chose what to include in the Bible and what not to include.  However, it's the best spiritual guide we've got.

I think Newt Gingrich is a walking plague on this country.  He's an ego maniac, which is a person who can't be touched by criticism.  A person who thinks he's smarter than his audience.  His little speech about the Occupy Wall Street protesters was terrible.  He said the protesters should go get a job.  I think he missed the point.  The point is that they can't find a job, which is the point of the demonstrations.  He seems to think these are just a bunch of lazy no-goods.  Even if that were true, then why are all these people organizing and demonstrating at this time in history--this hasn't happened since the 1960's.

I was a demonstrator back in the 1960's for civil rights and against the Viet Nam War.  I was arrested for demonstrating in a civil rights demonstration.  Back then we were demonstrating against one aspect of American life--racial prejudice and then the ongoing War, which is a lot different than the demonstrations that are going on now.  The present demonstrations seem to be in response to the entire social and economic system. And it's what is going on in this system that has driven the most politically sensitive people to the streets.

The USA has bifurcated between the have and have-nots, the rich and the poor, which is a very bad thing.  I blame the Republicans for this state of affairs.  We can't cure the economic situation in America without raising taxes on the people who can afford to pay more.  The country needs more revenue coming in as well as the tax cuts.  I feel that most of the tax cuts should come from the military.  This idea that we tax less the people who provide the jobs so that they will provide more jobs is bogus.  People who have a lot of money only think about making more, not in spending their money providing jobs.  Taxing big business won't keep them from expanding and hiring more people.  It hasn't kept any businesses from growing or expanding so far in our history, even before the Bush tax cuts.  Our problem is not with businesses expanding, it's keeping them from getting to big to fail so that they have to be bailed out by the government.  That's also a form of irresponsibility.

I agree that some of the demonstrators, both back in the 1960's and presently with OWS, are mentals and are just using the demonstrations to let loose their own personal anger, but that's the way it is in all groups.  I'm sure it was that way during the French Revolution, too.  I'm sure the Tea Party has some intelligent people as well as nut cases.  What counts is the overall message.  However, people like Newt, only wish to dwell on the nut cases and characterize the demonstration by a minority.  The whole point is why are all these people taking to the streets at this time, which hasn't happened since the 1960's.

Jesus Ate Meat?

Mark the Evangelist by Frans Hals

I started listening to these lectures on DVD on the New Testament and also reading it at the same time.  I'm only on the Book, or gospel, of Mark.  The following are some of my own thoughts and observations on my reading  Mark,  which according to the lectures* I'm listening to was the first book written of the New Testament. (*The Great Courses on DVD: The New Testament by Professor Bart D. Ehrman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

I was pretty surprised to read that Jesus ate meat. At least according John Mark who is credited with writing the Book of Mark.  However, maybe since John Mark ate Meat he just assumed that Jesus would eat it, too.  Who knows.  I would have thought Jesus would be a vegetarian.  The Book of Mark was written 30-40 years after Jesus lived, so it's hard to determine what is true and what is heresay.  It could be that in Mark when it says that Jesus sat down to meat, it just mean't he sat down to dinner.  I also think that maybe food was so scarce back then that people ate whatever came their way.  To be able to choose your diet seems to me rather a luxury from a prosperous society.

[Mark 2:15 "And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him."]

In the Old Testament is a story (quite possibly apocryphal) about how God originally made man to be a vegetarian, but man wanted to eat meat so badly that God relented and said "Well, okay.  I'll give you that."  I paraphrase. [one can only paraphrase God--or Jesus.]

Another astonishing thing I found in reading Mark: often after Jesus heals a person he tells them not to tell anyone of what he just did.  As if he wants to keep it a secret, but, of course, they do tell everyone and the word gets out.  I wonder if Jesus said not to tell anyone only because he knew that would make them do the opposite.  Maybe Jesus was the first person documented to use reverse psychology.  It's impossible to believe that he didn't know men's minds well enough to know that they were going to tell people no matter what he said.  [Mark 8:36 -- And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it:].  I've just found out that this only occurs in the Book of Mark.  In Luke, Jesus doesn't say that at all.  It's just the same story told at different times by two different men.

For me, the biggest message of the Book of Mark is how the mind controls the body, which is something I've always thought anyway.  In Mark, Jesus heals people by getting rid of their demons (a metaphor for sin and guilt).  He actually kills their demons, which is just another way of saying by making the person understand that their sins have been forgiven, it removes the guilt from their mind.  This removal of guilt is what heals the body.   All through the Book of Mark it says that Jesus killed the sick person's mental demons and then the person was healed of their physical affliction.  As soon as Jesus healed the person's sick mind, their body was healed.  People with healthy minds are always physically healthier than people with sick minds.

In the Book of Mark it also tells about how Jesus sent out his disciples to teach and to heal people.  I think this shows that anyone can learn how to heal people.  Jesus certainly wasn't alone in religious history for being able to do this.  It's just a matter of realizing that the mind can control the body.  That the spiritual can be more important than the physical, but a person must believe this in order for it to be true.  And having demons means that a person is so full of sin and the resulting guilt that he can't believe that.

[Mark 3:14-15    "And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, [15] And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils"]

Another thing I learned about Jesus from Mark was that Jesus had a rather liberal attitude about keeping the sabbath.  (Mark 3:24 -- And the Pharisees said onto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? [picking and eating corn]).  [3:25] And he said onto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? (Mark 3:27 - And he said onto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:  [28] Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.)  This also indicates that Jesus could read.  I don't know if that was common for a carpenter in his day or not, but I have my doubts.  However, maybe because John Mark could read, he made the assumption that Jesus could, too.

The Book of Mark wasn't written until at least 40 years after Jesus died.  It would be impossible to quote Jesus exactly after that amount of time, and yet the New Testament is full of Jesus's quotes as though these were his exact words.  People didn't go around writing down everything that Jesus said.  There is so much in the Bible that is out of time sequence do to the fact that it was written so much later after the fact.  It would be like writing a story that took place in the 1950's and talking about people consulting their computers.

Another important point that the Book of Mark makes is that a whole person doesn't need a physician.  Obviously, because a spiritually well person also has a healthy body.

Jesus Renames People


Mark 3:16-17
"And Simon he surnamed Peter; And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder:"

The above reminds me of the American Indians who gave names to people like "Thunder Cloud" and "Little Feather," etc.  Buddhists and Catholics (but not Protestants) do the same thing.  When Catholic women become Nuns, they often take on a new name.  It must be a common trait of all religions to do that.  People like having a moniker to indicate that they have undergone a big change from what they were before.  People can't keep things to themselves.  They have to show the world, because, I believe, we are social animals.  However, I always thought it a symptom of spiritual superiority when people didn't care what other people thought about them or have a need to impress other people.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Rome's Expansion in Territory vis-a-vis the USA's invasion in the Middle East.

One reason that Rome was so intent on expanding it's Republic is that they thought that since they were the most civilized civilization at that time, that they it was their duty to bring civilization to the rest of the world.  They saw every other civilization except themselves as being backward.  After all they weren't the most powerful nation on earth for no reason.   It reminds me of the United States during the Bush 2 Presidency.  Bush thought it was the duty of the US to bring our brand of democracy to the Middle East.  Not only it would make them a better place, but how could they not want to be free and more like us--the strongest nation on earth.  After all our democratic government is what has made us the most powerful country in the world.  This seems to be an underlying philosophy of all countries who invade others.  Of course, the Romans, spreading their superiority in government organization to weaker countries, didn't keep them from looting other countries.  The same as our wanting to spread American Democracy doesn't mean when won't take their oil or view the country for a new market for American business.

Both ancient Greece and ancient Rome had Democracies, but like American Democracy, their brand of Democracies favored the rich, and in Rome the landowners especially.  I don't think it's possible to have a Democracy that doesn't favor the rich.  The only way to mitigate that is what the Republicans would call socialism.

Marcus Antonius
(my 63rd great grandfather*)

The way I understand it, Marcus Antonius (known in English as Mark Anthony) fell madly in love with Cleopatra and he married her and they had a child, Marcus Antonius Creticus.  However, Rome didn't acknowledge marriages made outside of Rome, so this marriage was never officially recognized.  Also at this time Grandpa Marcus was having trouble with his co-emperor of Rome (although his title wasn't emperor since the Roman Empire was still under the delusion that they were a republic) Octavian.  Octavian was emperor of Western Roman Empire while grandpa Marcus was emperor of the Eastern part, which is how he met that vixen Cleopatra--with all her makeup and perfume.  Octavian and Marcus got in a big fight and one thing that Marcus had to do to appease him was marry his sister Octavia.  He had two children by Octavia.  Octavia wore no makeup and didn't use perfume.  Was the perfect housewife.  Devoted to husband and children.  She was the "good wife," standing up for her husband no matter what he did, because that was her duty, but Marcus couldn't stand it. He went back to Egypt and Cleopatra.  He and Cleopatra had this idea of making Egypt and Rome one, but the Romans couldn't stand that idea.  Grandpa Marcus wanted to move the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Alexandria, but that was the last straw for the Romans.  Octavian invaded Egypt and captured Marcus.  Marcus committed suicide.  Then Octavian wanted to bring Cleopatra back to Rome and have her march in his victory parade.  She didn't see that in her future.  She got someone to bring her an asp and had it bite her so that she would die.  The Egyptians had this myth that if you died by being bitten by an asp that you would be immortal.  That seemed to work.

Three of the main reasons that Rome fell were:

1. Economic problems caused by so many wars always going on
2. Lack of strong leaders
3. Malfunctioning Senate
4. Clashes between social classes because of large gap between the rich and the poor

Gaius Julius  I Caesar (100 BC - 44 BC)
(my 64th Great Grand Uncle*)

Gaius Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul extended the Roman world to the Atlantic Ocean. Caesar also headed the first Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC. After the Roman ruler Pompey decided not to keep him on as head of the Roman army in Gaul, Caesar appealed to his troops and told them that they were being given a raw deal. He and his troops marching into Rome, crossing the Rubicon River, and began a civil war against Pompey. Pompey eventually fled to Egypt where he was killed by the Egyptians and afterwards Caesar met Cleopatra (wife of my 63rd Great Grand Uncle). They had a kid and came back to Rome where Caesar was eventually made dictator for life, but refused the title of king. Rome was still proud of being a Republic even though under Caesar they now had a dictator for life. Some of the Senators (60) didn't like that and stabbed him to death. The Senators were also worried about having their own power eroded.



*According to Ancestry.com.

Iphone Goes Into Space

In the latest issue of "The Economist" today, I read about this website called "Brooklyn Space Program" where these people in New York put an Iphone in a box, and then in a balloon, and sent it up into space.  It's a great video.  To watch it go to http://www.brooklynspaceprogram.org.  The balloon went up 19 miles before bursting.  The phone had a parachute attached to it for if and when the balloon burst.  The phone had a GPS added to it so that it could be found after landing back on earth.  It landed only 30 miles from where it went up.  The GPS on the Iphone is something that will appear on Iphones in the future.

Demonstrations Impact

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- George Orwell [1903-1950]


 "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." ...George Orwell

I think the sign portraying 1% rich and 99% poor is an exaggeration.  Most people in the USA are not living in poverty.  They are neither poor nor rich.  However, I do think the disparity between the poor and the rich in the USA is too extreme.  The only way to control that in a capitalistic society is through government intervention.  Every capitalistic philosopher I've read believe that capitalism to work must have government controls.

"House GOP Leader Eric Cantor decried the protests that started several weeks ago in New York, and have spread to major cities across the country. Cantor said in a speech at the Values Voters Summit in Washington that he is 'increasingly concerned' about the 'growing mobs' represented at the protests."

I'm glad to hear that Eric Cantor and others in the 1% are worried.  That only shows that  protests are not totally for nothing.

Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that 

 some men should be happier than others.  ...Oscar Wilde

Occupy Wall Street Demonstration

"We got sold out, banks got bailed out" 

Yesterday, Oct. 5, 2011, went down to the financial district to join in demonstration which has the title of Occupy Wall Street. I mainly just took photos and made a video that I posted on YouTube and on my other blog One American Mind.  Demonstration very big, but needs to be bigger and all over the country.   The public outrage is growing as is my outrage.

When the tour buses passed by the demonstration, many people on the buses stood up and gave the demonstrators the peace sign or waved to indicate they sympathized.  Below are some of the signs I saw.

While Reading the Bible

On my computer, I downloaded the Kindle from Amazon.com and then I downloaded the King James version of the Bible.  I have lots of Bibles at home, but I didn't have one copy of the King James version which is the version I like the best.  This kindle is a wonderful tool.  I love how you can just right-click on a word and get the definition, because I'm the type that looks up words as I read and that takes up so much time if you have to thumb through a dictionary or even look it up online.  Anyway, back to my main subject the Bible.

I started reading Genesis.  I don't understand how some Christians can take this literally.  I think that the people who take this literally are people who take everything literally.  There are people who are incapable of understanding metaphor, therefore they are incapable of seeing hidden meanings, the meanings that can only be expressed by Metaphor.  Christianity is so entirely metaphoric, in comparison to Buddhism which isn't at all.  Understanding Christianity takes much more imagination--because that is what it takes to understand metaphors--than Buddhism.  Buddhism is the only other religion that I feel I have more than a cursory knowledge besides Christianity.  I like Buddhism, but I like Christianity better.  I think it's deeper.

I think people forget that the Bible was written by men, spiritual types, but they were still just men.   Genesis says that Adam and Eve ate bread, but that would be impossible, since crops and wheat hadn't been born yet.  In Genesis it said that God punished the snake by making him crawl on his belly and eat dust the rest of his life, but snakes don't eat dust.  They eat small animals.  However, a person writing this without any scientific knowledge, and a primitive mind, might think that was what they eat, because they hadn't any kind of zoological knowledge at that time, nor had the person ever observed a snake closely.

Dietrich  Bonhoffer

I still love the Bible, but I love the book of Psalms the most, because I've gotten the most real spiritual help from that book.  My spiritual hero, Dietrich Bonhoffer, said that one could devote all their religious studies to that one book.  I think he's right.  Everything that a person needs to know about God and about Christianity can be found in that one book.

About Reading "Ulysses"

My own stream of consciousness:

This guy takes dental floss out of his pocket and cleans his filthy teach.  I didn't know they had dental floss back in 1904.   Dental floss seems typically American, but I guess I'm wrong.  If the English and Irish had dental floss why such bad teeth.  It's funny that they would use dental floss but not brush their teeth.  By Joyce's writing, I can't tell who it was who was cleaning their teeth in front of other men, but I think it was professor MacHugh because he was the last name mentioned.  Newsboys were so poor in the Ireland of 1904, they didn't wear shoes.  Speaking of not wearing shoes.  That reminds me of a family photo of my ancestors that I found on the Internet.  This seems like a good place to ad a photo for interest.  I digress.

George Washington Vaughan (my 1st cousin 4x removed) with Grandchildren
GWV born 1820 in Hawkins, TN, died 1901 in Tishomingo, MS
the kids look dressed up but they don't have shoes.


September 28, 2011

I was reading a little more of Ulysses today and I was reminded of  e-mail talk.  When Joyce  shows that the person is screaming, he put the words in all caps.  Just like in email.  Other writers usually write something like "Oh shut up!"  Arnold screamed at his mother.  But Joyce, using his Ulysses style, would write OH SHUT UP, and he doesn't even say who is saying it.  The reader is just suppose to know, if he's paying attention.   In Ulysses, Joyce threw away the convention of "he said, she said."  


Joyce also abbreviates words and writes how they sound like rather than using conventional spelling.  It's as if he discovered computer language abt 100 years before computers, and everyone called him a literary genius for writing like that--breaking new ground as they say.  LOL    I rather enjoyed reading Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, but I'm not enjoying Ulysses as much.  I'm not interested in reading about it when anyone sneezes or takes a crap.  I'm only on page 130 so maybe I will feel different about this book by the end.  Joyce uses lots of Latin phrases in it, all of which seem to have to do with Catholicism, which shows one advantage of a Catholic school education--you get to learn Latin. 



I have another post called "Ineluctible Modality of the Visible" on another blog of mine that you might find interesting.  In it I try to explain what I think that phrase means.

History Becomes More Alive for Me

Viking Ship represents Denmark's King Valdar (the Mild) Hroarsson, [547-568]
my Viking 41st great-grandfather  

Alfred the Great (849-901)
my 34th Great Grand Uncle

As I've written before, I've been on Ancestry.com tracing my family roots.  This has been one of the most interesting experiences of my life.  It's life altering.  Seeing the broad scope of all my history has given me a completely different outlook on life.  I now see myself as part of a long chain.  I'm not isolated, but a part of something bigger than myself.

I traced my family history back through England to France to the Danes and the Vikings and found out the Vikings migrated to Scandinavia from Afghanistan.  Before Afghanistan they were the Trojans.   Since I found out that King Sceldwea of Troy (born 20 B.C.) was my 65th Great Grandfather, I'm suddenly so interested in Trojan history.  Can you believe.

The most ironic thing happened in doing my family research:  Since I started this blog, I've had the ad for "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius (the 16th emperor of Rome) on the right side of this blog because it's one of my favorite books.  Then today in researching my family on Ancestry.com, I found out that Marcus Aurelius (86 -161 AD) was my 56th great-grandfather.  Constantine, who brought Christianity to the Roman Empire, was my 50th great-grandfather.  My mind has a very philosophical bent.  Now I'm wondering if that bent is something that could be in the genes.

Marcus Aurelius, Author of "Meditations"
My 56th Great-grandfather

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
― Marcus Aurelius

Edward III  (1312-1377)
 King of England
My 18th Great-Grandfather

The point of all of this is that by finding out that you have some kind of relationship to an historic character makes you that much more interested in history.  At least that's how it affects me.  As I read about my ancient ancestors, I'm increasing my knowledge of history more than when I just read out of history books that I feel no connection to.    If children knew about their family history before studying history, it would help them better to relate to history and they would find it that much more interesting.

If all of these people are related to me, that would also mean that they are all related to each other.  As I got into the Romans on Ancestry.com, I found lots of misinformation.

Marcus Antonius (aka Mark Anthony)
(January 14, 83 BC – August 1, 30 BC)
 Roman General
My 63rd Great Grandfather

Would Hillary Have Been a Better President?

This seems to be a question that people are thinking about out of disappointment with Obama.  It's like what if I would have done this instead of doing what I did.  What would my life have been like.  A person can drive themselves nuts thinking about things like that.  It's an area of thought that should be avoided.

Even though we are now, and I hope temporarily, disappointed in Obama, we forget his positive qualities.  One reason he got elected over Hillary, who had a much better resume, was that Obama could make wonderful speeches, much better than Hillary ever could.  Hillary never said anything that was really inspirational.  Obama's speeches inspired the entire world and helped repair all the damage in our foreign relations that Bush instigated. Foreign countries hated the Bush administration. I think the reason President Obama got the Nobel Peach Prize was just because he gave such good speeches.   Obama has taken out the American hubris in our foreign policy, which was badly needed.  Would Hillary have been able to accomplish that?  Obama is now being looked on as weak, but did Hillary ever come off very strong?  Before being elected President, he came off stronger than she.  It's doubtful that she would have gotten stronger as President.  In his post President years, Bill Clinton has really distinguished himself.  If his wife had gotten elected President, I wonder if he would have done the good same things that he has been doing.

Hillary probably would have received just as much prejudice for being a woman that Obama has received for being mixed race.  Hillary had the advantage of already knowing all the leaders of countries, but that advantage was best used in her being Secretary of State.  That is another good thing that Obama did--he appointed Hillary Secretary of State.  Most Presidents are not that generous to their former adversaries.  He was trying to follow Lincoln's example, which is a good prototype to go by.  Biden has also become a popular and admired vice-president, as Cheney was never able to do.  That was another good pick from President Obama.

This morning on Morning Joe they talked about Obama not having any business experience.  That all he knows about economics and business is what he has read in books.  Hillary never started a business either that I know of.

More About My Ancestors

The Luther Family Coat of Arms

Every day that I spend on Ancestry.com working on my family tree, I find something totally amazing.  Today was my biggest day yet.  Are you ready for this.  Maybe you should sit down:  Martin Luther (1483-1546) THE Martin Luther, THE German Priest who founded Protestantism, was my 15th Great-Grand Uncle.  There is probably no person in history that I admire more.  Like my lineage to William the Conqueror, this also comes from my mother's side of the family--the Johnsons--the Texas farmers, whom all the rest of my families looked down upon because they were poorer than all the other relatives.

I think I inherited Luther's religious gene, because I'm extremely religious, too, but not so hot on the Catholic Church or organized religion, which is a little ironic because most of my favorite thinkers have been Catholics and I have the Catholic mindset.  I wonder if how spiritual a person is could possibly be in their genes.  No one in my immediate family was religious, but I know it was just in me from the very beginning.

Luther wasn't against Catholicism.  He couldn't stand the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church.  Jesus didn't intend to start a new religion, he just wanted to reform Judism, likewise Luther didn't want to form a new religion, he just wanted to reform the Catholic Church.  There's no one in history I admire more than Martin Luther (not counting Jesus, Plato and Kierkegaard), so it blew my mind to find out he was an ancestor.  I think it's also interesting to learn that a branch of the German Luther family immigrated to England and then after a couple of generations came to America.  I figure they liked the American ideal of religious freedom.

Martin Luther--my 15th Great Grand Uncle

Hans Luther--father to Martin, 
and my 16th  great-grandfather

Margarete Lindemann--Martin Luther's 
Mother and my
16th Great Grandmother

Katharine von Bora--wife of my 
15th great grand uncle Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) 15th great-grand uncle
Hans Luther (1459 - 1530) Father of Martin - 16th great-grandfather
Jacob Luther (1490 - 1571) Son of Hans - 15th great-grandfather
Johannes Luther (1517 - 1584) Son of Jacob - 14th great-grandfather
Johann Jacob Luther II (1537 - 1558) Son of Johannes - 13th-great grandfather
(immigrated to England from Germany)
Johann Jacob III LUTHER (1561 - 1597) Son of Johann Jacob - 12th-great grandfather
Capt John Samuel Luther (1595 - 1644) - Son of Johann Jacob III - 11th great grandfather
(immigrated to Massachusetts from England)
Elizabeth Luther (1626 - 1687) Daughter of Capt John Samuel - 10th great-grandmother
Abraham Weeks (1625 - 1691)  Son of Elizabeth - 9th great-grandfather
Francis Weekes (1653 - 1715)  Son of Abraham -  8th great-grandfather
Elizabeth Weekes (1678 - 1751)  Daughter of Francis - 7th great-grandmother
George Goodloe (1701 - 1741)  Son of Elizabeth  - 6th great-grandfather
Mary Goodloe (1731 - 1790)  Daughter of George -  5th great grandmother
John Quarles (1746 - 1789) Son of Mary - 4th great-grandfather
Lucy Quarles (1786 - 1854) Daughter of John  - 3rd great-grandmother
Moses J. Johnson Jr. (1832 - 1900) Son of Lucy  - 2nd great-grandfather
Harrison "Hal" C. Johnson (1854 - 1922) Son of Moses J. - my great-grandfather
Raleigh Homer Johnson (1885 - 1952) Son of Harrison "Hal" C. - my maternal grandfather
Frances Louise Johnson (1919 - 1983)  Daughter of Homer - my Mother
Gayle Manning Alstrom (1942 -     ) Daughter of Louise - Me