By CHARLES ANDREWS
NOW, HOLD ON…
Before you blow a fuse and frantically start looking for the phone number for The Mirror, and the Mayor, and the Pope, let me assure you I am trying to be completely respectful here.
Of Jesus. Not the clubs (religions) launched in his name, after he was gone, by men who seemed much more interested in how they could use his popularity and teachings to enhance their own standing, for power, notoriety, control, and wealth.
But how is that even possible, when Jesus preached peace and love for your fellow human, the “brotherhood of Man”?
Are you kidding? Wiley, dishonest humans have always known you could tell people almost anything, and if you say it often enough, with certainty, they will believe it. Won’t even fact-check it, an easy thing to do nowadays. But how much easier to con folks in a world with no quick communication or even travel, and when almost everyone was illiterate.
But humans evolve, and advance both our good and bad traits and discoveries. So now with instant worldwide communications available to everyone, the cons are embedded in daily life, having a field day. As facts and truth become compromised for so many, reduced to your personal perspective and prejudices, the wickedly wiley improve their methods, and the rest of us have to be on alert everywhere, from a nationwide election to an email about fraud to a knock at the front door.
And so we now have again, or still, those who, like the Pharisees Jesus spoke about, pray very publicly, invoke the names of Jesus and their God, and do all in their power to make sure everyone is forced to do the same. Conformity and allegiance to the homeland is one thing, but to God Almighty, well, don’t resist.
“INSANE”
A couple of columns back, I wrote about that, trying to find, as I am here, some tool we could use to make sense of this current chaos and insanity, and a way forward. I have always felt our progress and problem solving is bogged down and waylaid, intentionally, by getting us to argue and fight about distinctions that don’t matter. We have to negotiate over how to handle those subsidies for health insurance… No! Not negotiable. Insane. Millions of Americans will lose their health coverage, and many will die. 72-86% of Americans favor greater restrictions on background checks, safe storage, licensing, and red flag laws. But we get nothing from our NRA-cowed “representatives” in Washington, and now guns are the leading cause of death for our children aged 1-19. Monsrously insane.
So how about this? Borrowing from the so-called religious folk, let’s try this sane shortcut:
WWJD – What Would Jesus Do?
Not advocating for any one religion. By my observation, there are a whole lot of people who call themselves Christians, especially in politics, who are anything but. They like to hit you over the head with their label, but they do not walk the walk. Many times, I wished I still believed in Hell, so those self-righteous, judgmental hypocrites would get quite the surprise when they hit the pearly gates.
I was raised a Catholic, attended catechism on Saturdays and mass on Sundays, middle and high school with the nuns and priests. So I know something about this, first hand. But I have learned so much more lately from two online experts who know the Bible backwards and forwards, and warn of the dire threat to our founding freedoms from the Christian nationalists. I should, but can’t recall the name of the man I used to listen to a lot, soft spoken and scholarly. The one who pops up on my feed lately is MONTE MADER, red hair, piercings, long black fingernails, rapid speech, and smart and informed as… hell. She was raised a Christian nationalist, so gives inside information. She speaks of what Jesus said and preached, as noted in the Bible, and rails against the distortion and co-opting of those who twist it for political means.
So for those of you, Christian or not, who have some notion of what he preached and stood for, try using WWJD on the next issue that comes up. What did he say about strangers (immigrants)? Children? The poor, the hungry, the sick? Mercy/retribution? We need to take the high road, but also throw the bankers out of the temple.
Charles Andrews has lived in Santa Monica for 40 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com
