THE POINT ABOUT US

WHAT IS THE POINT ABOUT US?

Perhaps the most perplexing questions we are faced with concerns who we are and discerning the purpose of our lives on this speck of dust floating through the vastness of the universe.  

 What about us?  Why are we here at all?  What's the point of our being?

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We cannot give a definitive answer as to why we exist any easier than we can answer questions regarding the existence of God.  In the  unanswerability of such questions, however, is the connection between God and us.  As such, the history of our being is the history of God's being.  

That may sound as if we humans invented God, but that would be missing the point entirely because there is a point at which our ontological questions have no point, where the question as to our existence simple becomes  the question of "What is the point of us?

This interconnectivity between the existence of God and we humans is referenced in the Psalms, "For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?"  (Psalm 6:5) and "Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave?or thy faithfulness in destruction?" (Psalm 88:11).   The point of these questions is to posit the question, "If we don't exist, does it matter if God exists?"  

I am sure this is an uncomfortable question to many religious people because the answer is clearly "No."   It doesn't matter.   If we don't exist, then God or a creative force by some other name does not matter as the Psalmists clearly points out.  So the point of our existence is, in part, to proclaim the existence of God and places some importance on our being.  Our being is the proof of a creative force unimaginably bigger than the sum of us or the sum of an ever expanding creation

* * *  

The only way religion has been able to express this truth is through its mythic imagination telling our story with God from an imaginative outside perspective. This imaginative perspective is not make-believe, but rather a perspective garnered from our collective life experiences within the world of our making which extend back to our prehistory that prompted our ancestors to find meaning and purpose in them in order to orient ourselves to world in which we live.  Without these stories we have difficulty understanding who we are and why we do the things we do.  They help explain our experiences to this day. 

Cast in theism these mythic stories tells us that the life we experience is the life that proceeds from God's kenotic creativity; of God expending self to expand SELF.  While God is unlike us, we are connected to God by and through God's kenotic creativity; God's desire to be and, in particular,  God's desire to be known.  In most religions this desire to be known is associated with the human emotion of  love.  

For example, "God is love," is Christianity 's  fundamental creed.  To feel unloved, is to feel a profound absence, a hole in one's being that will seek something to fill its void.  The absence of love in one's life is the loss of connection with God who nevertheless continues to love the one feeling unloved because we are of God and God is love.

* * *

The truth is we matter to God, regardless of who one is, what one does, or what one fails to do.   This  truth is something that transcends our sense of justice within the world of our making.  There are times that I feel we, as a whole, are striving to value every human being's worth as something we humans can accomplish on our own.   Seeking to value every human being and every form of life we encounter  is not a "Christian" endeavor but rather a human endeavor that is present in almost every religious and non-religious ideology.  It hearkens back to what I have written earlier blogs on the primary impulse of religion (of bringing us together in shared beliefs) is the fundamental realization that we need each other.  

In the world of our making, however, the ability to differentiate has caused us to see the most subtle nuances in an other as a barrier to this value of every living thing.  This is particularly challenging in the differences we see in our fellow human beings.  In Abrahamic monotheism,  this nuance is captured in the mythic story of Adam and Eve, our first parents who differentiate themselves based on sexual appearances.  

In my reading of this story, I do not find a "fall" from God's grace but rather a fuller engagement with it.  Gifted with the ability to choose, we opted to know good and evil like God,  Since we cannot know as God knows, we were summarily tasked in our dualistic understanding of good and evil to  make a world of our own amidst the diverse world of God's creating.  Our story from that moment onward is a story of dealing with the paradox of God's being and God's creation.  

Where we see dark and light, good and evil, God only sees light and the goodness of the creation God loves.  Where we see difference, God sees none.   Difference makes no difference in the light and love of God.  What we perceive as paradox in the world of our making is the sign of God's presence in it; that Oneness and Singularity from which all things proceed and dwell in.  

* * *

Ours is a struggle with the temporality of our existence and the limitations which hinder our ability to experience the ultimate fulfillment of what we seek in our creative endeavors.  Nothing symbolizes this than the monumental structures we leave behind us to serve as a reminder to those who follow us that we made a difference in the world of our making and that they stand upon our shoulders and, at the very least, owe us recognition.  We are haunted by our perceptions; that whatever knowledge we possess will never be enough; that our ending will be much as our beginning, an emergence into the nothingness from which we were born.  

* * *

The point of our being is to be alive; to give, in the short span of our existence, acknowledgment of the God we seek to know in full.   God's delight in us is never-ending even though we cannot comprehend it or understand the paradoxical love of God.  The point of our existence is to engage the love that brought us into being; to be that love in the world of our making; to love ourselves, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and, paradoxically, love that which we find unlovable, our enemies. 

* * *

The point about us is that we matter to God, otherwise we would not be here.  God needs us to need God; to give recognition to the giver of life whose desire to be is expressed in our being.  Understanding our being is central to understanding God's being.  

We are not God, yet God shines through us.  God is evident in us as we are contained in and sustained through the being of God.  We proceeded from God's kenotic desire to be; to expend self to expand SELF.  We are, in part, that SELF of God expressed in and throughout the entirety of God's creation.  

In the shortness of our life-span, we give evidence of the plentitude of God's creating grace.  At the end of this transitory life, one can only hope that the life force of one's life, the totality of one's soulfulness returns the one who made us living souls.  We were made of love, made to love, and it is hoped that this love will return to LOVE, to God.

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

ONE PLANET, TWO WORLDS

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.   Genesis 1: 1-5

GOD

As I have mentioned in other posts, God is a kenotic action; God (BEING-NESS) expending self in order to expand self.  Theologically speaking, God is the Singularity (God is One) from whom or from which all creation came into being.  To put it into the language of Act 17: 28, God is that being in which we live and move and have our being.  

Given that expansive understanding of "God," we human "earthlings" have difficulty understanding our  place in its immensity.  While it is no longer difficult for most to accept that the Earth is not the center of the universe,  it remains difficult to avoid thinking of ourselves as the crowning achievement of God's creation.  

IN THE BEGINNING

If one is talking about the need of Christianity to have a Copernican type of revolution, a revolution that orientates us to a right perspective of our relationship to God and our place in the Universe, one must start at the beginning. The five verses quoted above from Genesis 1 is the starting point we are given in the Holy Bible.   It is important that one does not gloss over them but pays particular attention to them.   To begin with one must understand that the canvas of scriptures paints a picture of us in relation to our Creator via the intimate brush strokes of individual stories within the framework of a particular story of an interrelated people referred as the Chosen People by which to depict our true nature as being embodied in that Being through which and in which we exist.   

Remarkably, the creation story in Genesis intuitively depicts an evolutionary process.  It confirms that there is a process to creation which, in Genesis story,  began with the conception  (the idea) of heaven and earth.   The term "In the beginning" (an a priori a sense of time)  the proto-earth or the idea of earth is conceived as a formless and void of any particular meaning.  According to Genesis, measurable time doesn't occur before light is separated from darkness by which to measure earth-time in terms of its having days and nights.  Broadly speaking it also hints at the temporal nature of our known universe.  

A point before time begs the question of whether such a point is eternal.  What does "in the beginning" tell us about God?  Did God exist before the beginning or does "In the beginning" denote an ever-present nowness of God's potential (or creative force) in which there is no sense of linear time, no measurable dimension of being?  

In Genesis, time has a starting point and therefore our scriptures talk about its ending point.  From its starting point to its ending point time is conceived as a linear measurement of both past and future. One could say that time measures anticipatory decay; as in, the past giving way to a future whose presence  quickly becomes the past, as each present moment instantaneously dissolves into a past that no longer exists as it gives way to the future in a nanosecond.  

One may ask why this is important.  Its importance is that  the world in which we currently live, what I refer to as the world of our making, is undergirded by an incomprehensible cosmic now, a constant that has no past or future but is briefly recognizable in the brevity of a present moment.   It is against that incomprehensible constant backdrop that the world of God's creation proceeds including the world of our making which resides on this specific speck of dust called Earth. 

OUR PLANET HOME

Earth is called "Earth" because that is what we call the skin of our planet home in any number of languages. We know today that life on earth has existed for a long time.  Relatively speaking, human life, is the new kid on the block.  We literally stand on the remains of distant,  one-time living worlds that are part of God's ongoing creation that goes as far back as when the first single cells plants and animals emerged from the chemical soup that this planet produced and housed. 

It is from that primal soup that we humans eventually evolved or as Genesis describes as being made in the image of God.  In essence we are cognitively aware that we embody the both the physical and animating force of God's creation.  For most of human history the Earth was understood to stand at the center of God's creation and humankind was understood to be the pinnacle of the animated life on it. The Sun, Moon, and Star all revolved around us.   

This notion of centrality, both of place and being, remain intact in the human psyche.  Even though science has long ago proven that our planet is not the center of our solar system and much less the center of the universe, we humans largely continue to consider ourselves as the pinnacle of God's creation and Earth its brightest gem.   This will remain true until such time there is proof of intelligent life beyond the Earth and even if that were the case such intelligent life will have to demonstrate to a more advanced intellect than we humans before we will lose the idea of our centrality.

For the present, we are the only known planet on which intelligent life exists, which brings us to the concept of a world.  The word "World" has many meanings.   Generally, it refers to various domains of human interest; such as, the world of animals, the world of plants, the world of sports, the world of business, and so on.  For the purpose of this post, as noted throughout this blog, the term world is used to describe two perspectives of life on this planet; the world as God's creation and the world  of our making.  

THE WORLD OF GOD'S CREATING

"... in the place where the beginning is, there the end will be."  -The Gospel of Thomas*

 

In the Gospel of Thomas the above teaching of Jesus is in response to his disciples asking what will happen to them at their ending.  Thomas does not give the reader any sense of the context in which their enquiry is made.  We do not know if it is reference to the Last Judgment, which seems implied, or whether it is about the end of life.  

Unlike the canonical Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas directs them to go back to the beginning, to Genesis to find what they are looking for.  In other word, to know one's ending, one must know one's beginning.  The open ended aspect of this teaching of Jesus is what makes the Gospel of Thomas so intriguing.

The world of God's creating is the structural foundation upon which the world of our making rests.  The world of making is like the earthy skin of our planet.  It is a surface covering of something more substantial and foundational.

If we consider the two creation myths of Genesis; the creation of the Cosmos, the Earth, and all the living creatures on the Earth found in Genesis 1 and the formation of humankind in Genesis 2 in the Garden of Eden, we should come away with the understanding that Eden is more than a geographical place, it is a metaphor for the world of God's creating, a world that exists along side of and beyond the world our mythical first parents were tasked with creating as they were cast from this garden state.   

It is the world of God's creating that God judged as being very good.   As the Gospel of Thomas points out if you want to know our ending, go back the beginning because that primal judgment of God's creation is God's final judgment of it.  Eden is the term I use as a synonym or metaphor for world of God's creating, what Jesus referred to as the Kingdom of God. 

All of us have our roots in Eden.  It is motherland of our being.   It is the metaphorical home we long for, the Kingdom of God that Jesus said is at hand.  

* "A New New Testament: A Bible for the Twenty-First Century" (Copyright 2013, Hal Taussig. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, New York, New York.).   

THE WORLD OF OUR MAKING

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Words shall not pass away" - The Synoptic Gospels

The world of our making is (for the lack of a better word) a byproduct of the world of God's creating.  The world of God's creating is foundational to the world of our making.  The world of our making could not possibly exist without it.  

That being said, there is, in a manner of speaking, a world of difference between these worlds; in that, we differentiate in the world of our making.  We are obsessed with differences.  Please understand that by differentiation, I am not being critical of seeing differences but  acknowledging them as a fact of life in the world of our making.  Our ability to differentiate, like most everything else we do in our world has both good and bad aspects; hence, the mythic story of Adam and Eve being dispelled from Eden.  Knowing difference helps us to be imaginative, how things compliment and contrast each other.  According to Abrahamic religions it is an aspect of being made in the image of God.  We could not be artists of every kind, builders, inventors, idealists, etc, without the ability to differentiate.  

This ability to differentiate, of course, has an evil side.  It seems for every good thing we humans do, there is an evil aspect that can be derived from it.  In the realm of God, differentiation does not exist.  Light and dark are both alike to God, our Scriptures says Psalm 139:12.   In Matthew 5:45, Jesus points out that rain falls on both the righteous and the unrighteous.  In the world of God's creating good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness are non-issues.   Difference makes no difference to God.   Difference is clearly a human issue.  We cannot escape difference in the world of our making.  It proceeds from our ability to make choices.  In order to chose, one must have the ability to differentiate.

In the world of our making, this non-difference between that which appears and feels different is understood as paradox; when two contradictory things or points of view come into play simultaneously.   Paradox is considered a sign of God's presence, the sign of Christ which will be discussed in later posts.  In contemplative circles, paradox is embraced as non-dualism; that is, achieving or striving for a sense of equanimity about all things and seeing the interconnection between all things created and the Creator.  

In the world of our making, however, paradox is perplexing.   That opposing elements or entities can be at play at the same time disrupts our sense of certainty; in particular,  the certainty that there are absolute truths that are unchangeable within the world of our making.   Most of us fail to understand or refuse to understand that our sense of difference is a product of our making; a product of the choices we have made since the beginning of our history. 

Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of God is at hand, which is to say that the world of God's creating is present within the world of our making.  As Paul reminds us, however,  we see it as if looking through a dark lens.  What, for the time being, preoccupies us is the illusionary surface world we have made that occludes the immensity of God's kenotic Being.

The world of God's creating is the "cosmic now" of God, the cosmic center of all that is.  A center that knows no boundary or as the hymns, John Mason wrote of God in the 17th century, "Thou art a sea without a shore, a sun without a sphere, Thy time is now and evermore, Thy place is everywhere." That is the world of God's creating the kenotic world of God expending self in order to expand self, the unbounded center of all things.

The earth and the world of our making are only a minuscule part of the world of God's creating; a part that is a temporary manifestation of God's creative expansiveness.  The heaven and earth we know is merely an experience with impermanence.  Death is a necessary facet of life within time.  

Mass and energy may always exist in the Cosmic Now of God, but how it is manifested; how God is expressed or manifested through it is subject to what God told Moses, "I am that I am;"in other words, "I will be what I will be." God is undefinable as a being as God is BEING.  Christians take note:  God cannot be differentiated or given a specific image that we shape either through the imagery of matter or the limitation of  our language.  We can only express our imaginative depictions and thoughts of God, but such imaginative depictions and thoughts are simply that and nothing more. We cannot not comprehend the fullness of God in or through the world of our making.

In the world of our making we have power, but our power is limited by the ability to differentiate.  As such we only have the power to make and the power to destroy.  This dichotomous, either/or ability, is manifest in our many achievements and in our many wars.  As great and tremendous such power is in the world of our making, it does not compare to paradoxical power of God.  We do not have nor can we ever possess the creative power of God that both expends and expands simultaneously.  

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

 

SET ABLAZE - A Homily

This homily was delivered at Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, South Dakota on Sunday, August 14, 2022.

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Luke 12:49-56

Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 

From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:  father against son and son against father, mother against daughter
and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" 

(the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA)

* * *

 In the Name of our loving God.  Amen.

We’re not as familiar with the Jesus depicted in this reading - a Jesus who is not peacemaker - a Jesus who causes division.

Christianity has a tendency to distort the image of Jesus; in that, it downplays his being a human like us.  We say Jesus is true man and true God, but let’s face it, of the two descriptions, the one people have been banking on for the past 1800 years is Jesus as true God.  It’s time we reorient ourselves to the true man of that credal equivocation in order to properly understand the power of the Gospels in our lives, because what is true for Jesus is true for us.  He is one of us and we need to be one with him.

* * *

During Jesus’ ministry, the Gospels make it clear he struggled with getting his message about the Kingdom of God across to people. Jesus encountered the difficulties all prophets encounter when speaking truth to those who don’t want to hear it and opening our eyes to the ignored obvious taking place around us. Perhaps the best description of Jesus, the man, is the one the early Church found in the writings of the prophet Isaiah:

He grew up as a tender shoot in a harsh environment.  There was nothing majestic about him; nothing about his appearance that would attract attention.   He was rejected by most.  He experienced suffering and understood grief.  He was despised as someone who didn’t count.  (Isaiah 53:2b-3, paraphrased)

Jesus was not the auburn haired, nordic type we see depicted in paintings and stained glass windows. The Jesus of Jesus’ day would have looked more like the Palestinian of today.  At times, the Gospels depict him looking unkempt from being pressed by the throngs seeking to be healed and looking crazed when passionately preaching about the Kingdom of God;  At one point his mother and brothers even planned an intervention to prevent him from making and spectacle of himself.  What attracted people to Jesus was his passion for healing the incurable, forgiving the unforgivable, and loving the unloveable - his human touch.

* * *

  

What was a day in the life of this man Jesus like?  Luke 11 and 12 record one day in the life of Jesus’ ministry, the day from which this reading is taken.

 

After teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus healed a man rendered mute by what was believed to be a demon.  As a result, Jesus was accused of being able to do so because he was in league with the prince of demons, Beelzebub.

Then he was invited to dine at the house of a Pharisee.  Jesus, in state of fatigue and hunger, headed straight to the table without performing the usual washing up ritual before eating which his offended his host.Then there was the man who wanted to use Jesus as his personal agent to Bible-thump his brother into sharing an inheritance he felt entitled to.  It is no wonder that Jesus would take off in the middle of the night to get away from it all and  seek the solace of the night’s silence and pray.

* * *

Jesus was a suspected troublemaker in his day; a threat to the status quo, not only by the religious authorities of his day, but also to the Romans who were all too ready to crucify anyone causing trouble. People were divided over Jesus because they didn’t know what to make of him.  We’re still divided over Jesus.  

Conducting an online search regarding how many Christian denominations exist today, I found there are 45,000 different Christian denominations worldwide. In the US, there are 200 Christian denominations, but If one asks how many non-denominational Christian churches there are in the US alone, the answer, as of 2012, is over 84,000. What I see dividing Christians are the various teachings we have about Jesus; teachings that have largely dispensed with the teachings of Jesus.

Understanding Jesus as one of us prompts us to take a closer look at his teachings, which are vital in dealing with the world of today.  Unless we are immersed in the fiery baptism of Jesus’ passionate ministry and his love for all that God loves, we really can’t claim to know Jesus because we haven’t carried on his work and be like him, the daughters and sons God called us to be at our baptisms.

* * *

At the close of this reading, Jesus challenges us, “You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

I’m not so sure we’re good at interpreting the appearance of the earth and sky nowadays; much less, interpreting the present time.  The challenge for us today, as it was in Jesus’ time, is to avoid hypocrisy; acting as if we know the mind of God, thinking that by claiming to be Christian our thoughts must be God’s thoughts on the issues we are confronting today.  Isaiah reminds us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).  

Nothing makes this more apparent than the table-turning teachings and ministry of our brother Jesus who sheds a new light on our darkening world, who bequeathed us his ministry of healing those who are hurting, forgiving the unforgivable, and loving the unloveable; a visionary ministry that would set our world ablaze with the purgatorial fire of God’s love that would burn away the chaff of our selfish desires to expose the pure grain of our God-made selves. 

May such a fire burn within us today and always.    Amen. 

* * *

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm  

CARING FOR ONE'S SOUL - A HOMILY

 This was the homily I prepared for Sunday July 31.

* * *

Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, `What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, `I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.

(The New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA) 

* * *

Jesus’ parable about a rich man, a well-to-do farmer who has experienced an huge bumper crop of grain, that exceeded the capacity of his current grain bins and who is laying in bed thinking  to himself about how he can maximize this harvest to his benefit is a bit odd.

Let’s be honest, could anyone of us sitting here in today’s world blame him for thinking this way?    It’s his grain.  He planted it.  He sowed it and he reaped what he sowed.  Isn’t he entitled to enjoy the fruits of his labor, the blessing of such a great harvest?  Why not build better grain bins?  Why not enjoy the thought of being able to sit back, eat, drink, and be merry? 

* * *

Was Jesus just having a bad day?   What got Jesus so riled up that he shouts, “Take care!  Be on your guard against all kinds of greed because one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possession!”

One could say that Jesus was having a bad day, which started back in Luke 11, the chapter that preceded today’s reading, where after healing a man of demon possession was accused of casting out demons by the prince of demons, Beelzebub. Then Jesus was being chastised for not properly washing up before dining by the Pharisee who invited him to dine.  Finally, there is this man who wants Jesus to tell his brother to share the inheritance that was left to his brother, as if  Jesus’ primary role was to fix the mundane issues of the world we created.

* * *

Yes.  Jesus was having a bad day but not as bad as the day the people who were being trite, who were caught up in their self-righteousness, their sense of self importance; who failed to see the goodness of God working through Jesus for them and  who couldn’t see God’s love within their own souls; in that, they were caught up in what Jesus described as every form of greed in which the small self of egoism shaped their limited perspective of life’s meaning and purpose.

To address this limited perspective and to get them and us out of our mundane comfort zone,  Jesus invited them - invites us - into this parable in which he reveals the inner thoughts, the inner dialogue between this rich man and his own soul on the very night this man’s souls, his very life would be required by God.  

In Genesis 2, the soul is described as the totality of our being, shaped by God’s own hands and breathed to life in order to bear the image of God within the world of God’ creating.  The problem that Jesus is addressing in this parable is the failure to recognize what we just recited in the Jubilate; “Know this: The Lord himself is God; he himself has made and we are his….”

The man in the parable had forgotten who made him, whose he was.  He fell victim to that deceptive idea of the self-made person, the person who has pulled oneself up by one’s bootstraps, who owes no one anything, even God.   This becomes apparent when he says to his soul, as if he alone owned it, “`Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” 

It was at that point in the parable that God speaks to the man directly, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

Jesus ends this parable by saying, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”  Through the use of the stark imagery of this parable Jesus is stressing the need to take care of our souls by keeping in mind who made us, whose we are, and  that our life’s purpose is not to make the most of our lives by through the acquisition of things, but to present in our lives the righteous image of God.

Unfortunately, the lectionary left out of today’s reading Jesus’ explanation of the parable and gives us a clue how to be mindful in caring for our souls which I will paraphrase:

After this parable, Jesus said to his disciples, “Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will wear.  Life is more than eating well and looking good.  Look at the birds: they don’t sow or reap, they don’t have storage bins. God feeds them.  If God feeds them, God will feed you. 

There really is enough for everyone if we stop being anxious about things that really don’t matter.

Do you think worrying about acquiring more than you need will add a single hour to your life?

If being anxious about such things won’t add an hour to your life, why bother with such things?

Look at the wildflowers that grow in the pastures.  If God clothes the grasslands with such beauty, God will clothe you because you are a child of God, made in the image of God,  

Trust God!  Stop worrying about what you think you need to acquire in order to live a good life in the here and now.  God knows what you need.  Rather, seek God in your life; find the image of God within your soul.  Be the child of God that you are and you will find that your soul’s truest and deepest desires will be met.”  (Compare original text in Luke 12: 22-31)

To which I can only say -  Amen.

* * *

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

MORALITY, CHOICE, ABORTION, AND JESUS

 

The vast majority of those opposed to ROE V. WADE are largely representative of that political entity known as "the Christian Right." As I have addressed the Supreme Court's majority opinion in DOBB VS. JACKSON WOMEN'S HEALTH (DOBBS) in my previous post, I will not do so here, but rather respond to those individuals and their religious communities who opposed ROE V. WADE as a matter of Christian principle.   

It is curious that Jesus is rarely, if ever, brought into the abortion debate.  That many of the people who opposed ROE are Christian and the six justices who overruled ROE are not only Christian but are associated with Roman Catholic Church, an outspoken critic of abortion, unfortunately frames Jesus as also being anti-abortion. That the Court's majority opinion cited in their ruling the "moral question" surrounding abortion as a basis for overruling ROE.  As such, it begs the question what Jesus would have said regarding their ruling; especially, amongst those of us who take Jesus seriously.  

There are some issues that it is easer to leave Jesus out of.  Jesus' way of forgiving people and accepting people for who they were as children of God like him, regardless of what they had done or failed to do can be down right annoying when one insists on preserving one's sense of moral outrage over a particular issue.   If one claims to follow Jesus, then one must measure one's sense of righteous indignation and moral outrage against the teachings of Jesus.

That Jesus forgave people out-of-hand without questioning their personal life choices is relevant to how Jesus viewed perceived moral questions as a whole.  Jesus didn't see a need to quiz people about their moral choices because he was the omniscient Son of God who knew everything there was to know about everyone's sins.  Jesus forgave people, out-of-hand because he wanted to remove any sense of guilt or culpability they felt which most believed caused their infirmities and suffering; a belief many religious people (including some Christians) still believe.  Forgiving sins as his first order of business was Jesus' way of removing any mental and spiritual obstacles in order to open people to healing their suffering.

MORALITY 

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?   You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.  Matthew 7:1-55

One general observation about Jesus that needs to be said is this:  

JESUS NEVER LEGISLATED MORALITY, BUT JESUS WAS CONSISTENT IN POINTING OUT THE HYPOCRISY OF THOSE WHO DID.   

That the recent Court's majority opinion in DOBB's presented its ruling as an answer to what Justice Alito stated was a  "moral question" should give every follower of Jesus reason to pause.  How might Jesus have responded to those who, in his name, opposed women having a right to seek an abortion on moral grounds alone? 

We cannot know for certain what Jesus' response to the issue of women seeking abortion would have been.  The topic was never brought up in the Gospel and we can't be sure Jesus was aware of abortions being performed during his time, but we do know something about how Jesus treated women in general and, in particular,  those who were considered of questionable character.   

We also know that Jesus was, himself, treated a questionable character by the religious authorities of his day.  He was regularly accused of breaking Sabbath laws because he healed on the Sabbath, and in one notable instance deliberately snubbed his nose at such laws by walking with his disciples through fields of grain and plucking heads and eating them as they did so. [See Mark 2:23-28]  In today's world we may not think much of Jesus doing so, but in Jesus' day and time his behaviors were outrageous to the religious scholars and authorities.  He was largely viewed as an unrighteous law breaker.

Jesus' treatment of women is well documented in the Gospels, which is remarkable given the fact that Jesus conducted his ministry in a part of the world that was and remains patriarchal.   We know that men talking to women in public was usually done only if there was a clear need to do so, mostly to address some woman's infraction of religious or social norms.  

Women and children were largely treated as the property of their fathers, their husband, or some male figure in the family.  If they didn't have an adult man in their life they didn't have much of a life.  To be a widow or an orphan without a male figure to protect them was a virtual death sentence, which  the led prophets to specifically address their needs.  

Women were expected to keep to "their place," which meant the kitchen or tending their children.  One can only imagine the shock of the men Jesus was dining with when a woman approaches Jesus and washes his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair or, in another instance, when woman pours an expensive, perfumed ointment over his feet and wipes them with her hair.  What was going through their minds during such flagrant displays of affection?  What would go through our minds today if we saw a woman doing something similar to man?  

* * *

One of the most poignant stories about the legal rigidity women had to navigate their lives around in such a cultural setting is the story of a women with a chronic menstrual issue.  In essence, she was in a constant state of ritual impurity because the bleeding never stopped long enough to meet the required purification period.  Any one she touched or touched her while she was bleeding or within the period of purification would be considered ritually unclean. If she touched a man while she was bleeding, the man would become unclean as well.   How could Jesus heal her without touching her and becoming unclean in the process?  If she would have deliberated touched his skin or if he would have touched her or even sat on chair where she sat, he would have been unable to touch and heal others for a considerable period of time and she would have been accused of deliberately defiling Jesus.  Her solution was to merely touch the hem of his cloak and hope for healing.  This she did and she was healed.  Jesus praised her for the risk she took and the faith she exhibited. What gets lost in its telling during a Sunday morning sermon is the risk she took in making the choice she did.  [See Matthew 9]   

One could question whether her choice to approach Jesus who was surrounded by a crowd and the crush of people trying to get close to Jesus risked exposing them to her "uncleanliness" was a morally correct decision or if it was an act of selfish desperation that risked breaking the purity laws.   Her story resonates with women who in years past risked their health to preserve their lives and livelihood, whose solutions to the choices they and/or others made placed them in an untenable situation like this woman.  That Jesus praised her desire to live her life to fullest extent possible and made a choice that risked exposure of a mentally and physically painful condition is telling and relevant to women who, like her, are trying to live their life to the fullest extent possible.

* * *

Perhaps the story that provides the clearest understanding on Jesus' treatment of moral issues is the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery who was destined to be stoned to death.  The legal experts and religious authorities decided to bring her to Jesus to see whether he would condemn her also because there was no denying that her being caught in the act of adultery was a capital offense in Judaic law that regularly resulted in both the man woman being stoned to death (See Deuteronomy 22:22-24).   In this story, the missing element in this "being caught in the act" is the man.  Why is there no mention of him, as he had to be caught in the act if this woman was?  

We can only speculate as to why there is no mention of the man, but in a patriarchal society where women were easily accused of wrongdoing, the possibility exists that she was considered the reason for the act and the man was either excused, escaped, or allowed to escape because they had their victim. 

When this woman's accusers presented their case against her Jesus appears ambivalent,  neither recognizing the women or her accusers by looking to the ground as he doodled in the dust.  When the legal experts and religious leaders pressed him for an answer, Jesus says, without looking up, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."  

Since this event took place in a very public setting just outside of the Temple precinct, those who were oldest (who knew they had during their lifetime committed offenses punishable under their laws) began to drop their stones and walk away, with youngest accusers leaving last.  When everyone left, Jesus looks up and asks the woman if there was no one left to accuse her.  When she answered that there was no one, Jesus responded that he didn't condemn her either and sent her on her way with his liberating absolution, " Go and sin no more."  [See John 8 1-11] Without saying a single word about immorality, Jesus exposed the hypocrisy of the men who brought this woman before him.  

"Go and sin no more" is not a moral indictment.   The lack of specifically saying "Go and refrain from committing adultery in the future" would have been an unambiguous moral statement, but Jesus broadens the statement that reflects his ethical perspective on personal conduct that leads the individual into trouble with others.  God is always forgiving.  People are much less so.  

CHOICE

“Woe unto you, (legal experts and religious authorities - nw), hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.  Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."  Matthew 23:27-28 

Abortion is a legitimate medical procedure which is designed to protect the lives and the livelihood of women that becomes threatened by an unwanted pregnancy.  Abortion, like any medical procedures is surrounded by ethical issues.  The life that is taking shape in a woman's womb demands ethical considerations and there are personal moral issues that a woman or a husband and wife often struggle with in the case of an unwanted pregnancy, whether it poses a risk to the mother's life or risks having a child with debilitating genetic defects that would result in a life of misery for the child and the child's family.

I am confident, however, that Jesus would not have condemned a woman seeking an abortion any more than he would not condemn a woman who was caught in adultery.   In a world that condemns sex outside of marriage, women, more often than not, are vilified than men when it pertains to issues of sexual conduct for the obvious reason of women literally bearing the brunt of perceived sexual misconduct should a woman become pregnant.  In that regard sex is not treated equally.   As in the story of the woman caught in adultery we often hear nothing of the man who was involved in the affair.  John 8:1-11 is emblematic of the hypocrisy that exists in the United States and fomented by the religious right in the name God, if not Jesus. 

* * *

In a speech in Nashville Tennessee on Dec. 27, 1962. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless."   While Dr. King's comment was made in relation to the civil rights movement, it underscores the reason why seemingly personal moral choices should be legalized.  Because once legalized, personal moral issues are removed from being treated concretely as strictly right or wrong matters.  When legalized they become issues the are contingent upon the conditions under which people make the choices they do and the outcome of their choices on their lives and the lives of others.  Regulation, in this sense, means having guidelines and  engaging in  ethical discussions, which is what  ROE led to.   

The question Dr. King's statement begs is which Court, the one that that ruled in ROE or the one that ruled  in DOBBS proved to be heartless?  Undoubtedly that is a debatable question, but Dr. King's statement recognizes what the current Court failed to recognize; that morality cannot be legislated.  What is implicit in his recognition  is that legislating morality ultimately reduces complex issue being solved by a one-size-fits-all solution which in the case of DOBBS remanded the moral question around abortion  to individual individual States to figure out an answer.  This majority's ruling in DOBBS  is both an act of judicial cowardice and willful ignorance regarding the Constitution.  If the Court felt ill-equipped to answer the moral question they posed, what makes any of us think that States are more equipped or that the American public in general are better equipped to do so?  

As I have stated in previous posts, Jesus was an ethicist in applying the concept of loving one's neighbor as oneself to include the whole of humanity and the whole of creation; an ethical perspective that  recognized the interdependence each us has on the other.  None of us understand the complexity of our personal lives; much less, those of others.  Unconditional forgiveness and love was not just a frivolous ploy to avoid issues but rather became for Jesus the launching pad by which to address them.  Jesus' unconditional forgiveness, like his unconditional love is a powerful tool in finding solutions to the difficult questions we face today that avoids finger pointing and blame games.  Reconciliation is giving breathing space in an environment of love.  Moral condemnation of the personal choices regarding one's personal lives meant to improve the quality of one's personal life, in the parlance of Jesus' teachings, serves only to bury that life under a mound of guilt and shame.  

ABORTION

For it was you who formed my inward parts:you knit me together in my mother’s womb.   I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works that I know very well. Psalm 139: 13-14

‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’  Jeremiah 1:5

Biblical literalism is problematic for fundamental evangelicals and the political religious right.  Just as abortion is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, abortion is not mentioned in the Holy Bible.  The concept of the "Pre-born" is likewise not mentioned in scripture. 

The two scriptural verses taken from the Psalms and the Book of Jeremiah, are often cited as supporting the concept of the "Pre-born" or as cause for prohibiting a woman from obtaining an abortion.  These verses, however, are a reflection of the person who had a natural birth and who felt called to serve God in a specific way.  Psalm 139 is a psalm attributed to King David who sees his life as something preordained from the moment of his conception.  Jeremiah goes one step further by saying that he was known by God before he was even conceived.  Neither one of these verses were intended to apply to all births or are in any way a definitive ruling on the concept that sentient life, the life of these who wrote these verses, begins at conception.  

In David's case, the thought of formed to be knit together by God and to fearfully and wonderfully made is in reference to his becoming the King of Israel.  For Jeremiah to say that before he was conceived, God knew him and was consecrated before his birth as a prophet is less exciting as it resulted in Jeremiah leading a life of misery and persecution and it is conceivable that there were times that he wished he hadn't been born.

For those of us living, we can arrogantly attribute the blessing of life the life we enjoy as God's plan for us and the world.  But what of those who consider their lives a form of living hell, who are born into extreme poverty, hunger, homelessness, and vulnerable to violence in a multitude of form, who never wanted the life they are living and who wish they were never born? 

Consider the story of Job who says in the Book of Job, "... why was I not buried like a stillborn child, like an infant that never sees the light? "  (Job 3:16)  The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes writes, "A man may beget a hundred children, and live for many years; but however many are the days of his years, if he does not enjoy life’s good things, or has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he." (Ecclesiastes 6:3) These scriptures speak of the quality of one's life; that if happiness and joy are not a factor it were better to not be born than to have a life of misery.  

Perhaps the most illustrative understanding of the pain associated with giving birth to a stillborn child is recorded in the Book of Numbers; in the story of Aaron and Miriam, the brother and sister of Moses who spoke against Moses for marrying a Cushite woman.  As a result, God is said to have become angry with both and cursed (as is usual in a patriarchal setting) Miriam with leprosy.  Aaron goes to Moses and pleads for her, "Oh, my lord, do not punish us for a sin that we have so foolishly committed.  Do not let her be like one stillborn, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its mother’s womb." (Numbers 12:11-12).  

The horrible imagery of woman having to give birth to stillborn (dead) fetus which had started to decompose in the womb had to add to the trauma of giving birth to dead infant.  What would a woman back then have given to be able to abort such fetus in those days if the means to do so was available like they are today?  

Life, according to the scriptures, begins at birth when the infant left the womb.  There are any number of verses in the Bible to substantiate that:  "Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast." (Psalm 22:9) and "Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you." (Psalm 71:6)  Job's lament as noted above also demonstrates that he considered life beginning at birth.  In scripture the life of an individual begins at birth, when life is viable outside of mother's womb.  Up until that point the life taking shape in the woman was considered part and parcel of the woman; in that, the embryo and fetus are one with the woman until birth when the infant begins his or her life journey as an individual. We know that what effects a woman will effect the life forming in the woman's womb.  Life "begins" at conception but a beginning cannot be equated as having a life until that beginning life reaches a stage where it can survive on its own and is not longer dependent nor a part or parcel of the mother's life.  

As mentioned in my previous post, modern medical science is increasing the viability of a fetus living outside of a woman's body at a much earlier point in a pregnancy than in times past, but until viability is reached,  the fetus is part and parcel of the mother who is carrying it and is dependent on her and is affecting every aspect of her life, just as every aspect of her life has an affect on the fetus' development.  Whether a pregnant woman wants to be pregnant or wants the pregnancy she is experiencing is something she can choose and whether a given State where abortion becomes illegal will not afford her a legal choice, she retains  the ability to choose, either by seeking a State that permits an abortion or reverting to back alley abortion procedures or home remedies for causing an abortion.  As such the court's ruling in DOBBS served only to be an unnecessary moral obstacle that reveals an immoral objective to burden women who are choosing an abortion to prevent them doing so.

We live in a much different era where medical procedures are much safer.  While the idea of ending a pregnancy may be repugnant to women and married couples who want children and choose to have children, there are situations where a woman or a married couple may wish to end a pregnancy that is unwanted for a variety of reasons.  

* * *

I am a father of two beautiful daughters.  My wife had difficult pregnancies with both girls and there was never a question in our minds about wanting those pregnancies to go full term.  Her first pregnancy ended in the premature birth of our eldest daughter and we almost lost her due to the timing of her birth and numerous complications that occurred within the first couple of days of her new life. It was heart wrenching and the thought and possibility of losing her was more than either of us could bear.  That things suddenly changed around was nothing short of a miracle.  

My wife and I love children.  My wife and my children are my life.  Fortunately, my wife and I were not faced with the difficult decision other married couples sometimes face.  I know that my wife's life was my first concern throughout each of these pregnancies and if her life would have been threatened because of being pregnant I would have saved her life even if it meant experiencing the pain of going through an abortion in order to do so.  

The reason is simple.  The love I have for my children directly proceeds from the love I have for my wife.   They are a living testament of that love and they embody the love we have for each other and for them.  We were advised to not have more children due to the risks pregnancy posed to my wife and we followed that advice and our lives are full with joy.

* * *

There are moral values that can be attached to literally everything we humans do, from choosing the food we eat to one's choice of sexual activity.  Food and sex have become the control levers by which many religions keep adherents under their thumb.  The decision to end the right of woman to choose an abortion falls under the category of the Supreme Court bending to such religious control lever have over the choices people make; the type of control issues Jesus defined as hypocrisy.

* * *

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

Norm

  

DENYING CHOICE - SCOTUS' OPINION IN DOBBS VS.JACKSON WOMEN'S HEALTH

As anticipated, the Supreme Court of the United States overruled ROE V. WADE in its majority opinion on June 24, 2022.  On this Fourth of July, 2022 - Independence Day celebration,  I feel compelled to make a few observations regarding the Court's decision on DOBBS V. JACKSON WOMEN'S HEALTH (DOBBS) which overruled ROE V. WADE (ROE) and CASEY V. PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA (CASEY).

After reading the majority's opinion, I found it largely framed within the context of morality as demonstrated in the majority opinion's closing statement written by Justice Alito:  

 "We end this opinion where we began.  Abortion presents a moral question.  The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion.  Roe (1973) and Casey (1992) arrogated that authority.  We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives."

* * * 

I encourage all readers of this post to read the majority's opinion.  To begin with ROE had its weaknesses.  It could have been stronger on a woman's or mother's rights as opposed to what this Court's majority opinion called" a State's interests in the 'Pre-born.'"  The ruling failed to explain what a State's interest might include and in what way a States' interests in the "Pre-born" outweighs that of a pregnant woman's right to choice regarding her body. 

ROE  could have and perhaps should have pointed out that the Fourteenth Amendment states that it is persons born in the United States or become naturalized citizens who have rights under the Constitution.  Doing so would not have ended the debate regarding a fetus' viability as a benchmark for allowing or denying an abortion, but it would have cleared up that it is persons born who have Constitutional rights. 

The viability of a fetus born prematurely is constantly evolving due to advances being made in medical science.  Viability of a fetus to exist outside of woman's womb certainly raises serious ethical questions that require ethical and legal guidance.  The Court in ROE and in CASEY addressed viability that recognize medical and psychological conditions that necessitate abortion being a legitimate choice a woman should be allowed to make under medical guidance regarding her wellbeing and in heart-wrenching cases where the well-being of child whose birth would result in a life of misery due to severe genetic deformity and cognitive impairment.  None of these important issues are addressed in the Courts ruling on DOBBS. 

THE MORAL QUESTION

What caught my attention, however, was the word "moral" that should be irrelevant when making a finalSupreme Court ruling.   Justice Alito rightly admitted that it was not only very relevant in deciding DOBBS, but also determinant in overruling ROE when writing, "We end this opinion where we began.  Abortion presents a moral question."  

Morality is a subjective issue. As such, it is a largely understood as a personal or a religious matter.  The Court does not exist to determine the morality of law, but rather its Constitutionality.  The 1973 decision in ROE took abortion from being a back-alley or backroom life-threatening, unsanitary, and barbaric process for ending an unwanted pregnancy to being a safe medical procedures performed within certified clinics and hospitals by licensed medical doctors.  Neither the earlier Courts' rulings in ROE and CASEY were attempting to base those decisions on a moral grounds but rather on the Constitution which in ROE established the right of a woman to privacy in matters pertaining to her person under the Fourteenth Amendment. 

The question of whether the 1973 Court ruling in ROE is moral can be debated within religious bodies and personal conversations ad infinitum, but judicial decisions are based on the the applicability of the Constitution, not moral speculation.  There are moral issues surround almost every decision the court makes, but the Court, to my knowledge, never specifically cites morality as a reason for making a ruling.  

That the current Court's majority opinion admits its ruling was shaped by abortion posing a moral question exposes a severe lack of objectivity on the majority's part.  By saying the majority viewed abortion as a moral question, in what way did the Constitution guide them in wading through that murky waters that question presents?  

Where in the Constitution is the word moral found or morality discussed?  Like God, morality is never mentioned.  

By saying abortion is a moral issue did the majority mean to say they didn't have a sincere interest in weighing into it as such, as implied by remanding the question back to the States?  If so, then why not dismiss DOBBS from the start?    

Or is it a case that the conservative justices on this court are so enamored with the Constitution being a dead document, that they are loathe to cite the Constitution itself  in overturning ROE and therefore had to rely on spurious moral arguments and the existence of current political views that support their doing so?

For conservative justices to posit an argument against ROE on the fact that abortion is not specifically addressed in the Constitution and to then fundamentally base their arguments for doing so on the spurious premise of quelling the moral divisiveness ROE created is blatantly hypocritical.  To then introduce another term not found in the Constitution, "the Pre-born" and attach it the the vague notion of a State's interests the "Pre-born" is (to use the majority frequent go-to word) an "egregious" error.   While in a number of States abortions will end and Planned Parenthood facilities shuddered, the divisiveness will not end and is likely to take on new life.

* * *

There are tremendous pitfalls in attempting to legislate morality.   We, in the United States, only have recall the Prohibition Era, the War on Drugs, and War on Crime to understand that morality cannot be legislated. To outlaw something ultimately places whatever is outlawed out of reach of the law to do anything constructive to mitigate illegal behavior beyond locking offenders up. 

Most democratic republics have learned their lesson in trying to legislate morality by focusing their laws on ethical approaches when it comes to dealing with what are considered personal moral misconduct.  In most democratic republics law enforcement sees their primary duty to help people rather deal with personal issues than lock them up for moral transgressions.  It is no wonder the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world.  

We, in the United States, are poised to start locking up women and doctors thanks to the moral and obvious political inclinations of this court.  One is left wondering if this Court is attempting to reinstate a modern day version of the 15th century Spanish Inquisition.

It does not take a stretch of the imagination to understand the effect this ruling will have on women of color and the poor in particular, in spite of the majority opinion's argument to the contrary. While the majority's opinion will hold for a long time, time itself will tell if this Courts' conservative inclinations serves to preserve elected conservative official's positions at the local, state, and federal levels when elections are held in the next decade or so. 

HIDING BEHIND A TOMBSTONE

Conservative members of the current Court are largely adherents to The Dead Document doctrine, which was promoted by the late Justice Antony Scalia. This fallacious doctrine basically states the Constitution's meaning cannot change over time, as it was meant to impose rigid rules that cannot be altered except through constitutional amendment. 

The trouble with this fallacy is that legislative bodies make laws that run up against the Constitution; such as a Texas law did in ROE.  If the Court cannot apply what is written in the existent Constitution to laws made at every level of government within this country because said laws utilize terminology not found in the Constitution and would necessitate that Congress and State legislatures make and ratify Constitutional amendments that address such language before the Court can do so, do we need a Supreme Court? 

The very existence of the Court elucidates the framer' s intent that the Constitution be treated as a living document that is not only amendable by legislative process but also is to be applied and clarified by judicial proceedings of the Court as the situation and times require when laws are brought into question before it.  The Dead Document Fallacy only serves to eviscerate Constitutional processes in order to provide a tombstone for conservative judges to hide behind when overturning laws and previous court rulings based on vague moral and conservative political perspectives of the time rather than the Constitution itself.  

STARE DECISIS

Much of the majority's opinion waded through history as most Court opinions do.  Tradition and historical reviews often play a role in helping the Court to understand the issue brought before it, but rarely does history or tradition dictate how the Court rules.  The majority's opinion in ROE also engaged in historical research of laws and tradition.  The opinion in DOBBS spent an inordinate amount of time doing so to establish that the judicial principle of stare decisis does not apply to the 1973 Court's opinion in ROE.  Stare decisis is the practice of respecting and following previous rulings of the Court unless such rulings are later found to violate some judicial process. It is important to note the Chief Justice Roberts upheld the principle of stare decisis regarding ROE and dissented its being overruled.

The majority's opinion placed emphasis on 16th, 17th, and 18th century English laws regarding abortion. It gave particular attention to a section on abortion found in the English jurist and judge William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (7th edition 1775).   Blackstone made a rather interesting application of murder laws to determine criminal intent in a case in which a person is killed by accident due to the suspected murderer's intent to kill someone else but accidentally having killed someone else.  Regardless whether the person killed was the intended victim, because murder is a crime,  killing an unintended victim shows criminal intent.  Blackstone made a comparable conclusion of a physician giving a woman a "potion" to abort a fetus which ends up killing the women would also constitute intent to commit murder, not because the physician intended to kill the mother but because abortion itself was against the law, even though the crime of abortion might have been treated as a less punishable offense.  

It is ludicrous to think that an 18th century English understanding of law regarding abortion is being cited as a reason to deny stare decisis' application in ROE.  Such reasoning in DOBBS is disturbing as it may justify States which are already intent on making abortion not only a crime but also a capital offense.

PHILOSOPHY 101 

The majority's opinion then ventured on to eviscerate CASEY by engaging in semantic arguments over terminology found in 1992 Court's opinion.  In particular it took issue with terminology, such as, "undue burden," "substantial," and "unnecessary" to say that CASEY was too vague in the use of these terms by failing to define to what extent a burden was undue, how substantial is substantial, or necessarily why something is consider unnecessary.  

Instead of pursuing the naivety of their semantic quibbling, I will only say that any first year philosophy student is likely to understand that the use of descriptive terminology (adjectives or adjectival phrases) in law is defined by the situation in which it is applied.  The Court in Casey could not possibly have addressed the multitude of issues and contingencies that would meet the condition of being an undue burden or rising to the level of being substantial or unnecessary.  These are undoubtedly debatable terms that must be weighed against the evidence pertaining to a specific case.  The legal profession exists for this reason to define when such terminology has merit.  Such terminology in legal documents offers legal parameters to determine a law's applicability.   Such terminology is common language found in most court rulings.  Are we to assume that going forward, this conservative Court will abandon the use of these terms in future opinions? 

EMULATING PILATE

As expected, the majority opinion in DOBBS  attempted to avoid blood stains on its hands by overruling ROE by leaving it up" to the people and their elected representatives" to bloody their hands by killing it through their State's trigger laws.   Some States will allow abortions to continue and be protected for the time being.  In other States they are prepared to make all abortions a capital offense which would then exceed the punishments or having or performing and abortion in 16th and 17th century England.   

If, as the majority opinion in Dobbs claims, ROE divided the nation, it is hard to see how leaving it up to each State will lessen divisiveness in this country.  In fact, this conservative Court shows little interest in attempting to "form a more perfect union," upon which the Constitution premised.  The majority's opinion risks throwing this nation back to what it was prior to the Civil War.  

* * *

In 1973, the majority in ROE understood the firestorm it would create amongst the religious entities, given the stance the Roman Catholic Church had taken against all forms of birth control, a position other Christian denominations also shared.  Nevertheless, it demonstrated the courage to apply the Constitution to overturn a state law that violated a woman's constitution rights. 

While acknowledging the historical treatment of abortion, the 1973 Court recognized we are living in far different times in which women had been given their voice in the right to vote and in recognizing that women are contributors to the well-being of this nation not merely as mothers and housewives but as individuals who have a Constitutional right to be treated as such; to make choices regarding their lives and their bodies and to be afforded the same rights as their male counterparts under the Constitution.  In doing so ROE set a precedent for the importance of individuals to make personal choices regarding their lives and their bodies. 

Independents and Libertarians, in particular, should take note that the Court's majority opinion in DOBBS ironically sets the stage for interfering in peoples personal lives based on moral principles that are not established in the Constitution.  While the majority's opinion in Dobbs cited numerous judicial decisions unrelated to the topic of a woman's right to choose in order to deprive ROE of its stare decisis status, it virtually made no reference to the Constitution itself in overruling ROE and why a woman's right to privacy and making personal choices is contrary to the Constitution, apart from abortion not being mention in the Constitution itself. Their failure to do so is not only damaging to the integrity of this Court but also to the Constitution itself, and more importantly to the concept of liberty.

DENYING CHOICE

While the topical issue in DOBBS was abortion, abortion only serves as a cover for what is really at stake in this Court's majority opinion.  That abortion is medical procedure is not really being questioned as the Court allows for States to make laws regarding it as they see fit.  That life begins at conception has never been an issue nor was denied in either ROE or CASEY as obviously demonstrated in their respective discussions on the viability of that life during various states of a pregnancy.   The core issue in ROE, CASEY, and DOBBS is a woman's right to make personal choices regarding her body and her life.

While the majority's opinion in DOBBS claims that their ruling will not have application in deciding other cases that are likely to be brought before them, like Gay Marriage and LGBTQ+ rights, Justice Thomas, on the day of the Court's majority opinion being promulgated, offered a public dissent to that statement in advocating that Gay Marriage and Rights should be brought before the court for the purpose of overruling previous Court rulings that secured such rights.

The majority's opinion in DOBB has set a dangerous precedent by which the rights of individuals to make private choices regarding their personal lives can be overruled on moral grounds alone.  If personal choice regarding one's personal life and life-style can be denied on moral grounds alone, liberty no longer exists in these United States.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm  

CHOICE AND ITS MYTHIC ORIGiNS

I am writing this post on the cusp of a Supreme Court decision that is poised to overturn the controversial ROE V. WADE ruling made by the Supreme Court in 1973 which legalized the right of women to obtain an abortion in the United States. That ruling created a moral firestorm in the United which became politicized as a rights issue in which two camps emerged; those identified as being in the Pro-choice camp which supports the right of a woman to choose an abortion and the Pro-Life camp which promotes the idea that an embryo or a fetus is an individual entitled to protections under the law. What ROE V. WADE and the impending Supreme Court decision in DOBBS V. JACKSON WOMEN'S HEALTH delve into are fundamental issues regarding life, choice, and privacy.    

The 1973 Court specifically took issue with a Texas law that prohibited abortion; the only exception being, when it was medically determined by two doctors that a pregnancy threatened the life of the mother. The Court concluded that the Texas Law was too vague; in that, it failed to protect a woman's right to privacy  under the 14th Amendment.   In a 7-2 decision, the justices declared the Texas law unconstitutional, thus making most state laws prohibiting a woman from obtaining an abortion unconstitutional. The Court's decision resulted in giving the right of a woman to make decision regarding her body.  In legalizing abortion, the court made it possible for women to seek safe  medical procedures. 

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ROE V. WADE serves as a backdrop to engage a deeper discussion on the connection between life and choice. The debate over a woman's right to seek an abortion revolves around a single word; not abortion, not life, but choice.  

There is no doubt that life begins with a single fertilized egg.  When the ruling in ROE V. WADE was made, it was not blind to when life began.  Justice Blackmun's majority opinion clearly states the understanding that life begins at conception.  The ruling  never questioned that fact.  The question is when does that life become capable of independent life outside of a woman's womb.  In other words, from a Constitutional point of view,  the question became at what point is a fetus capable of being born as separate individual?  

Premature births occur rather regularly..  A premature infant born in the United States that has the capacity of living independent (breathing and surviving on its own outside of a woman's womb) has, under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, the rights given to all citizens born the United States.   So when life begins was not the issue when ROE V. WADE was decided in 1973.   

Abortions happen.  They happen naturally as miscarriages or as a result of the fetus dying in the womb that has to be aborted to preserve the life of the mother.  Intentional abortions have happened ever since women were faced with an unwanted pregnancy.  This post is too short to delve into that history, but it is safe to say that abortions is not a modern phenomenon and abortions have been medically performed prior to ROE V. WADE in order to save the life of mother as was clearly stated in the Texas law that was overturned.  Abortion, as such, is not the issue because it has been around since the beginning of human history.   

The issue ultimately being debated involves a woman's legal right to choose what happens to her body as a result of becoming pregnant.  Should the current Supreme Court overthrow ROE V. WADE, women will continue to seek abortions. Much is at stake if ROE V. WADE is overruled.  

If overturned, the decision to do so will ultimately become a ruling on the right of people to make choices regarding their bodies and their personal lives.  It will set a legal precedent that is likely to have an impact on other issues involving the right of people to make personal choices about their lives.  For example,  although gender identity is not a matter of choice, choosing to live openly as LGBTQ+  and to openly love and marry the person one loves regardless of their biological sex is likely to find its way back into the Court like ROE V. WADE  

CHOICE

What is it about choice that makes it both appealing and appalling?   What exactly is choice and why do we feel both liberated and frightened by it? 

To answer such questions, one has to look at the history of one's culture and specifically at the religious cultures that throughout history have dictated what being considered moral or righteous involves  and the role such cultures  have played in deciding who is entitled to make legitimate choices.  The Right to Life camp is largely composed of Christians who don't see abortion as a choice women should have and there are a number of mostly Christian women who agree with that position; who would deprive themselves and other women of that choice on the premise of saving the life of the unborn. 

While life begins at conception, being an individual begins at birth.  There is no denying that there are serious ethical considerations regarding abortions or any other medical procedure.  Our choices have always led to ethical discussion, but where there is no choice there is no discussion and such considerations grow dark.  

Euthanasia is another issue of choice.  As with abortion, there is great opposition to people making an informed rational choice to end their suffering and the burden their suffering is causing the people they love by ending their lives medically.  If someone decides to end life peacefully because they wish to end their suffering which will culminate in one's painful death and one has made an informed well-reasoned choice to do so, who am I or any one of us to judge a person making an ethical decision that has the merit of being hopeful in ending one's suffering and the suffering it causes the people one loves.  

I would contrast that with someone who is not rational and is suffering from severe depression, and is incapable of making a rational and well-reasoned decision when there are psychiatric means to end their depression and the suffering it causes.  The ethical responsibility in such a case is to help that person medically and psychologically.  

Since I was raised a Christian and am a follower of Jesus' teachings, I find the mythical origins of choice in the Holy Bible revealing.  Such stories are our stories.  They frequently reveal how something we take for granted, like choice,  actually has a mythical explanation regarding its existence.   In Genesis, the concept of choice is present from the beginning of creation and is present in the words, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth,"  which represents God's desire (God's choice) to become manifest through the creation of the universe.

Since I have talked about the role of myths in the Holy Bible at length in other posts,  I'm not going to repeat myself here.  Where choice enters the domain of human experience is talked about at length in the story of Adam and Eve, our mythical first parents.  Myths, in general, are stories that are not prescriptive but rather descriptive about things we experience in life.   Myths often deal with abstract concepts that impact our lives but are hard to trace their origins, thus,  the creation of our myths. We take such concepts for granted without ever questioning their origins simply because they are so applicable in our daily lives.  Choice is one such abstract notion.  What follows is closer look at the role choice plays in the mythic story of Adam and Eve and their encounter with the mythical Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

THE MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHOICE IN THE HOLY BIBLE

In the creation myth of Genesis 2, the first thing God does after forming Adam in God's image,  is to warn Adam not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which God places in the middle of the Garden of Eden.  The location of this Tree in the middle of the Garden  has metaphorical significance.  Consider the implications God planting the Tree of  Knowledge of Good and Evil at the center of paradise.  Was it God's intent to make finding the Tree difficult or was it to ensure that it would be found?  

After warning Adam about the Tree,  God tasks Adam with naming the animals God brings before him.  According to this story, God did so because God saw that Adam was lonely and needed a helpmate to keep him company and tend the Garden of Eden with him.  In being tasked with naming the animals God wanted to see if Adam would chose a helpmate from among them, but Adam didn't chose a helpmate from what God already created.  

What is interesting in this brief scenario are two things.  The first is that we can assume Adam didn't know he was lonely.  God did because while Adam could tend the garden and name animals, he didn't seem to get excited about what he was doing or exhibit a volitional desire to do what God asked him.  He simply did what he was told to do. 

Adam acted more like an automaton than an independent human who reflected God's image.   In other words, he needed help to become volitionally energized.  Since animals didn't provide a helpmate, God created something better.  God created from a rib taken from Adam's side Eve, Adam's literal soulmate. 

Adam and Eve were in full conjunction with each other.  Proceeding from Adam, Eve knew all that Adam knew at that point, including God's warning not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but Eve brings out a different side to Adam, one that perhaps demonstrates better than Adam did by himself; a being made in the image of God.  Eve has a willful, curious aspect that demonstrated an ability to desire. 

As a complimentary soul to Adam's,  Eve reflected the desire of God and thus was capable of making choices.  If  there was nothing for either of them to choose from, however,  there was no friction to spark desire and ignite the fire of love that God created them for.  In fact, Adam and Eve didn't really love each other because they really didn't know each other as an" other" simply because there wasn't anything that differentiated them. They were, in essence, one person in two bodies.  They were in every sense the same being.

God introduced the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil  precisely to instill in Adam the ability to choose.  God didn't hide the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil from him.  Instead, God warned Adam not to eat of its fruit because they would die.  

But what did that warning mean to someone who didn't know what good or evil was or never experienced something dying?    

When the wise and equally curious Serpent approached Eve about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Serpent piqued her curiosity by saying that if she ate the fruit of it she would become like God, knowing what is good and what is evil. Eve told the Serpent about God's warning, but the Serpent dismissed it because Eve, at that point, had no concept of what was good or evil.  Disobedience wasn't on her radar at that point.  In other words, she was innocent of knowing what her choice meant one way or the other.   

Christians have been taught to think that Eve was engaging in sin by being disobedient to God's command, but as stated earlier disobedience wasn't on her radar because she had no way of knowing whether it was good or evil or indeed what good and evil even meant. The truth is she didn't want to be God, she wanted to know things like God.   Is that bad or evil?  We have been told it was, but the story doesn't make a strong case for that conclusion.

The fact is, according to the story, when she ate the fruit she experienced feeling good.  This first sensation of feeling good that led her to share it with her soulmate Adam because she wanted Adam to feel  good also, but good and bad resided within the fruit of knowledge. When Adam ate the fruit, the two sides of the fruit became manifested and they experienced a sense of separation from each other. They became separate individuals. 

Upon until that moment, all Eve and Adam  ever knew was what we call peace, the absence of that which disturbs or disrupts.  Their newfound ability to choose disturbed them and disrupted that peace because when Adam ate their eyes were open to a feeling of difference and disobedience.  They saw that they were not alike they and had to hide their small  physical differences that suddenly overwhelmed them.  They felt not only separated  from each other but they felt compelled to hide from God.   Until their peace was disrupted and disturbed, they didn't know they had it.  In the emotional friction caused by losing their sense of peace, the fire of desire was kindled to regain what was lost as was the nascent ability to overcome the differences between themselves and God and  to love that which was different.

Was this God's plan all along?  Was God giving our mythical first parents  a test to see if they possessed the divine spark of desire, the creative force that brought everything into being, an ability to return the desire and love that brought them into being?

The Serpent was right, God didn't kill them on the spot for the choices they made.  Instead, God allowed Adam and Eve and (by extension) all of us to know good and evil in our lives and to experience death and all that would disturb and disrupt us throughout life.  In this mythic story God, banishes Adam and Eve from the paradise that God created to a world that they would have to create.  Knowing good and evil would require them to use the ability to constantly choose in creating it.

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The point of retelling this story in the light of both Eve and Adam having no knowledge of what was good or evil, no sense of their choices having an impact on their lives for good or evil is to differentiate it from an interpretation in which Eve is blamed and Adam is portrayed as an ignorant side-kick who didn't have the sense to refuse.  Paradoxically, neither of them had a choice but to make a choice.  It was only a matter of time before they would have done so. Regardless of what they would have chosen in that moment, it is clear that it was God's intent for them to choose.

In western culture women, like Eve to Pandora, have been blamed for the troubles we humans have  encountered, but if our myths are read correctly, we find that is not the truth.  Mythologically, wisdom is defined in feminine terms. To be wise is to understand good and evil and experience despair and hope.  The Holy Spirit, conveyor of God's wisdom  is in Hebrew and Greek a feminine construct.  Yes, women bring human life into the world, but according to our mythic stories they also exercised choice in doing so.   Choice and life are inseparable.   Choice begets choice, just as life begets life.

The scriptures of the Holy Bible talk about the choices confronting us.  In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Children of Israel to choose life as they are about to enter into the Promise Land, to embrace all of its moments of hope and despair.  Joshua does the same once they enter the Promise Land.  He asks them to choose who they would worship, the God who brought them out of Egypt or the gods and goddesses of the indigenous Canaanites who lived there.  When Jesus asked people to follow him, they were given a choice and some did and others choose not to.   Jesus never held those choosing not to follow him to be unworthy of his love.

As the truth of our mythic stories continue to unfold in the world of our creating, the choices we make continue to proceed from the moments of our despair and our hope.  Our creativity, for good or for bad, is a matter of choice.  For good or for bad, the world we make and live in is built upon the conglomeration of  choices we humans have made since we came to dominate the planet we live on.  

CHOICE IN THE WORLD OF OUR MAKING

There are good choices and bad choices, moral choices and immoral choices; personal choices made from hope and choices made out of despair.  What is clearer perhaps in today's world than at any other time throughout human history is a simple truth:

Deprivation of personal choice regarding one's life leads to the imprisonment of the human soul (the mind, the body, and the human spirit).  

There is no small amount of irony and hypocrisy in the United States when it comes what is becoming acceptable to choose.  To deny women making a personal choice to have a safe medical abortion as a means to end an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy is set along side the right of anyone in most states  to choose to buy a military grade weapons capable of killing hundreds of living individuals in a matter of second should they choose to do so.  What is particularly disheartening are the politicians and those who claim to be "Pro-life" who would deprive women the right to make choices regarding their own lives are the same politicians and likely the same group of  people would protect the rights of owners and manufactures of to sell AR-15s to kids under 18; the weapon of choice in almost every mass killing in this country which, along with other firearms,  is tragically leading cause of children death in the United States.

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When abortion was made legal, it led to ethical and legal discussions regarding at what point in a pregnancy an abortion could be performed, the need for counseling in obtaining an abortion, etc.  Once abortion is made illegal in most states, any ethical considerations will end and women and any doctor trying to provide an abortion in a state prohibiting it will be faced with criminal charges that are punishable.  Some state politicians are already promoting the idea of putting an abortion on par with the capital crime of murder in their state. 

Who does that really serve other than the politicians who want to maintain their position of power and the those who want to ensure their ticket to heaven?

The reality is that if made illegal, abortions will continue to be performed.  Legislating personal morality never works.  It creates illegal market places for people who feel they have no legal choice; those who feel publicly damned if they do and personally damned if they don't.  It will criminalize women for being women who exercise choice regarding their personal lives. 

We in the United States should know better.  We should understand this, but many act as if they don't.  Many  choose to be willfully ignorant of the misguided steps made throughout our history;  that in judging the personal choices of others without regard or understanding the reasons for the choices others make open themselves to being judged for their choices they will make at some point.   In our country people still have a right to privacy, but that right,  along with other right,  is slowly being eroded  by the religious and political right.  

There are other options to abortion, like birth control, but most in the religious right are alright with companies that refuse to pay for insurance that word allow their female employees access  to birth control and women's health.  Deprivation of such options through monetary means unduly burdens the women who can least afford health care and protective measures. 

Too many moral issues have become politicized and and  are increasingly being policed rather than understood. The question is whether reversing ROE V. WADE will lead to a total war on women's rights and by extension gender identity rights and everyone's right to privacy regarding their personal choices.

We don't need morally based wars. All such wars have resulted in a giant step backwards into a dead past that is lifeless and for all practical purposes never existed.  The war on drugs, the war on crime, and the "Just say no" initiative to prevent premarital sex were proven to be self-defeating as they were are all based on moral fallacies.   

Abortion, birth control, and euthanasia, are and should be deeply personal and private issues.  They involve choices that do not come lightly.  They exist because of the choices others have made throughout history.  The choices we make today are built upon a mountain of choices people have made since the dawn of human history and the choices we and others make that affect our lives will impact the choices made by future generations.  It is only to be hoped that future generations will be wiser than the generation that is willing to deprive individuals of personal choice.

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm