Blog 2928 – 11.05.2023
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush
From about age ten till midway through my forties I attended church every Sunday usually twice if I did not have to work and most Wednesday evenings. But in the words of Don Williams song: “I don’t believe that heaven waits for only those who congregate, but I believe in love.”
Though most if not all the churches that I attended professed to be places where love abounded they did not live up to that creed. I remember even as a boy singing the song Gimme That Ole Time Religion that makes me love everybody that it seemed most folks I met had another kind of religion entirely, the kind that hated and judged all others as “less than.”
The founder of their faith Jesus had said both negatively and positively that if we did or failed to do certain acts of love to “the least of these his brethren” that we did them or did them not to him and that we were therefore either his true disciples or hypocrites.
Despite the scriptures clearly stating that God does not dwell in houses made with hands, the myth persists that churches, cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, and temples are holier than people, God is everywhere and in everything yet his favorite dwelling place, meeting place, is within the human heart. There is a line that Jesus spoke that anywhere two or three gathered in his name he promised to be there also.
I am reminded of the story of Abraham, arguably the first Jew, bargaining with angels sent by God to warn him that the cities where his nephew Lot and his family lived, Sodom and Gommorah, were going to be destroyed by fire from heaven. Ole Abe started with a large number asking if God would not be willing to spare the cities if such a number of good people were found and the lowering the number again and again. (Jewish people stereotypically have a reputation of all having good bargaining and business sense. It is not true, but part of a silly and stupid prejudice. Oh, and the Jews did not kill Christ either. The story goes that Jesus could have called ten thousand angels had he chosen to, yet instead gave himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of all men and women, boys and girls, Jews and Gentiles.) I was saying Abraham “jewed” or bargained God down to sparing Sodom and Gommorah if they could find even one good man. The angels could not, but decided for Abraham’s sake to save Lot and his family.
Churches, I think, present a rather skewed and limited view of God. Even the Bible, sixty-six books clearly written by very fallible men, offers such a view. Oh, there are glimpses of God to be sure as there are in all books those considered holy and the not so holy ones too. To quote Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah song: “There’s a blazing light in every word. It doesn’t matter which you heard, the holy or the broken hallelujah.”
What we believe about God, his or her plan for us, his or her house, should all be weighed with all our beliefs. I happen to think we should discard any and all beliefs that are no longer serving us. Time was when people washed their clothes on Monday, ironed their clothes on Tuesday… and went to church on Sundays, but these were habits based upon beliefs that no longer serve many people today.
Whatever one believes or does not believe should be of service to him or her and to the world. I believe in love and I believe in you.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L3Y0Nr2zo3cgsanUxPb1TqqCkB-FfLHd/view?usp=drivesdk
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush
DON WILLIAMS I BELIEVE IN LOVE
theencouragingword 