A Very Bad Choice

A very bad Choice
[thoughts from   ~burning woman~  ]

Without thinking much about it, it seems that in my mind I’ve taken this time, this summer, as a time of reflection. That exercise has caused me to come face-to-face with continuing aspects of my thinking, and consequently expressing, that I often literally despise. I chose, because it is always the easiest path, to engage aspects of “this world” that I know I should have been done with long ago.

Do I really want to engage the various political, economic and even religious aspects of the so-called pandemic? No, I do not.

Do I really want to engage the many unsavory aspects of America’s president and join the choruses that chant his demise? No, I do not.

Do I want to belabour the point of those “working” Canadians who choose not to return to work because they are getting a temporary COVOD-19 relief from their government and it’s beach season? No, I do not.

Do I want to carry the heavy personal burden regarding victims of war, refugees, and the deaths by famine continuing to plague this world? No, I do not.

Do I want to live with visions of genocide and the plight of migrant workers in my mind? No, I do not. 

There are many other such questions to which I could also reply, No, I do not, and I base this on my personal inability to do anything about the things brought to my mind by the media, acquaintances, other bloggers, friends, even clients.

If you demonstrate that you are a conscientious person, those around you will want to engage you; will want to know how you respond to the questions that plague us all.

What if I have developed a real conscience? What if I hold to myself that being a compassionate person is the highest any sentient can ever hope to achieve? What if it is more than a belief; what if it is demonstrated to me in both, positive and negative ways, simply by the way I respond to a query, to a crisis; how I engage it; what I’m willing (or not) to invest of myself in these? What if they are brought to my attention but remain beyond my reach to intervene?

I haven’t had much to say lately. Some off the cuff remarks here and there about man’s ongoing, repetitive follies and their drastic consequences, but of substance? None, nothing. When I was seriously religious, these dog days of summer were called the dark night of the soul. I think they should more appropriately be thought of as the dark days of the mind.

I have not been “religious” for some decades now, and I certainly do not miss that aspect of my life… except for the teachings that came with it, that uncomfortable aspect of religion that most faith cling-ons as a general rule refuse to consider.

In Christianity there is a central teaching called “the gospel” found, not surprisingly, in the synoptic gospels purporting to tell the story of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, in which he lays out the personal costs that will always be demanded of those who chose to walk that particular path.

Two things I know now. One, I left Christianity, not because it was difficult but because it was impossible to not be in it except as a complete hypocrite. Two: when I encountered “the Teachers” it became clear to me as they expounded on how to live a human life that much of what they presented me with I already knew because, again not surprisingly, I had, read, studied and learned much of it from the biblical gospels.

I was reminded that the foundation of a human life is to become (you must become before you can be) good, kind, humble, a peace maker without exception, patient, gentle, inclusive and of course, compassionate. These were not “extras” you had the option to practice after you were baptized, after you voluntarily and with a clear mind, literally gave your life to Jesus. The proof that  you lived thus would be stamped on your admittance ticket. If they were not, profess away, it would avail nothing. 

Something terrible has befallen man in these last days, something unthinkable. The creature has chosen to fall from grace, not the grace of discipleship to a god, but the grace that accompanies living the life of a real human. Our world is sick; our civilization is imploding; our religions are compromised and corrupt beyond any hope of redemption – all of them, no exception; our moral values have plummeted into the negative wherein vices are more often than not accounted as virtues.

Currently our world is being driven to the edge of its abyss by greed, felony, perversion of justice, lies stacked upon lies, reviling and mocking, and finally murder; mass murder. Life holds no sanctity because the morality that, even if weakly, supported our social institutions some years back, instead of being built upon, was smashed down with utter abandon, as if ridding society of all moral constraint was the guarantee that society would improve.

Well, don’t take my word for it when I say that people, as a collective, have made a very bad choice. Just look around, and do a little reading, a little studying.

I close by saying that I have never been so disappointed, dispirited and disgusted by myself, first and foremost, and by my fellow earth walkers as I am during this time of reflection.