I’m reposting an
edited version of this rant from last year. It seems more relevant today than
it did then.
I’d like to think I’ve mellowed, but lately I’ve succumbed
to the other side of old: disgruntlement. With all this unbridled hate from so
many Americans based on skin color and religion, I have to hold back a loud
screaming, “A pox on all your houses!” Some houses are worse than others, despite
the fact that many of them claim to be God’s house.
Unfortunately God, in all his or her guises, has been
imagined re-imagined, co-opted, adopted politicized, interpreted, and
reinterpreted to serve mankind’s baser instincts. The so-called “word” has been
translated into so many languages so many times no one really knows what was
intended, not even the folks who claim to have heard the word directly from
God’s mouth and transcribed it for posterity. Then again, what do we usually
think about people who hear “voices?”
What’s going on here and around the world really is a battle
of people afraid of knowledge and science, bound instead to superstition and
paranoia. They form gangs of often violent followers who demand you believe in
their made-up story, not the other guy’s. There has been and will be torture
and torment in nearly every land in the world because someone says Mohammed is
the greatest, another says Christ, another Buddha, another Ganesha (my personal
favorite).
Moses fits in there somehow.
And then there’s that whole Zeus-Jupiter dispute, not to mention the sun Gods. And
let me add: I think pantheists are vastly under rated.
There is enough confusion just in Christian circles. When I
was growing up, I was curious about the seeming unexplainable. A Catholic kid who lived a couple of houses
away learned that my family was Lutheran and told me matter-of-factly that I
was definitely going to hell. Only Catholics went to heaven. I told a young friend of mine, an evangelical
Christian, what my other friend said and he told me to stay away from Catholics
because all Catholic schools had guns in their basements and planned to kill us
all when the time was right. In my formative years I went to various churches,
places where bodies were dunked in water, eventually sputtering, coughing,
choking to the surface suddenly saved or reborn. I could do that at home, in
the bathtub, I thought. I’ve always had an independent streak. I could save
myself, thank you. I also listened to those souls who testified, in a state of
mind just short of a voodoo trance.
In high school, a group of us regularly met in a basement to
discuss such matters without resolution or agreement, but with mutual respect
and the enjoyment of a hearty discussion. In college, nearly every night of my freshman
year, often while playing euchre, we discussed the meaning of life, and sorted,
with my friends, through various philosophies, Eastern and Western. Despite my
focus on theatre and journalism, over the years I took elective courses in Western
Philosophy, Buddhism and Hindu. And like most folks of my generation, I dipped
into the popular and mysterious literature of the times, from Hermann Hesse to
Carlos Castaneda.
After sitting at a bar in Bloomington, Indiana with still
another group of intellectually curious friends, a young man whom I’d never met
and never saw again said that everyone searches for an epistemology. I sensed
truth here. Perhaps it was like hunger or sex. Something built in. I asked about him later and no one in our
little group heard from him again.
Perhaps he found his epistemology or perhaps he went off on a search. A
third possibility was that he thought the whole idea was foolish and that his
comment was far from an endorsement, more of a futile, disappointing
observation.
He may have been puzzled at the notion that we need a rulebook
at all. At the time, I thought that by
epistemology, he meant people needed a set of rules to live by. Most religions
had them, it seemed. That would explain this extraordinary and to me silly
dependence on so-called sacred text, no matter in what part of the world, or
when it originated. Nearly everyone may be looking for the official rulebook,
the one that would guarantee him or her not only an afterlife, but a damn fine
one at that. So imagine if you think
you’ve found it and you did your best to live by it, then someone comes along
and says you’ve been reading and abiding by the wrong rule book all your life.
You are going to get pissed. Why not just try to live a good life? You know how to do that. Do you really need a
book to tell you not to do harm to others?
There are more than 4,000 religions on earth, and more than
seven billion people, (a few more than can fit in a one-bedroom apartment in
San Francisco). So maybe we, at least here in the U.S.A., need to listen to our
founders who fled religious persecution and wanted religious freedom for all.
That’s who we are as a nation. Work to protect all our freedoms and not be pro
one religion and anti-another. So believe what you will, live as you like as
best you can in a just manner, and keep your rulebooks to yourself.
Incidentally, “epistemology is the study of knowledge and
justified belief,” according to The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. So we might want actual science to
play a role in the outcome of our endeavors.
A final note: We, in the U.S., are approaching elections to
determine who will represent American interests at home and abroad. Lately, we are
experiencing a major candidate who seeks office by tapping into our fear and
ignorance of other cultures and religions. He takes advantage of world events, reshapes
their meaning to ride the fear they have created. He skews statistics and
blatantly lies. His party would revisit the tactics of the Nazis and use them
on certain people they erroneously consider dangerous or inferior. His party
would reinstate pre-Selma voting laws that would prevent certain Americans from
voting. They would deny full rights to minorities based on little more than
unverifiable folktales.
Let’s put the bluster of modern–day Mussolinis to rest. Let’s keep the old-style Klan-inspired
segregationists a footnote to history. Let’s ignore those who believe this is a
nation that holds a single religious or philosophical belief. I don’t regard pride as something to seek,
necessarily. However the United States
of America should be proud of being a melting pot of the world. It has been our
single, most outstanding accomplishment. It has been the source of our entrepreneurial
energy and the inspiration for invention. With the possible exception of native
Americans — and they likely came from somewhere else, only much earlier — we
are a nation of immigrants. Many colors,
many languages, many faiths. Let’s not get caught up in the cynical attempts to
scare us into hate and discrimination.
3 Days In Havana – Though I’m sure some critics disagree, we
are treated to clever shades of noir in this short and twisty crime film.
However Havana is the star and makes this quirky, often wacky little film
worthwhile. Gil Bellows directed and starred in this
light-hearted, dark humored 2013 release. Most of the kudos go to the
cinematographers, Doug Schwartz and Blaine Ackerly.
Metro Manila – And now for something completely different. While there is footage showing the beauty of the
Philippines and while the film certainly reveals what life is like in the
Philippines, Metro Manila is, like
most great movies, a reflection of something universal. No matter what you
believe to be right what would you do if backed into a corner and you had to
feed your family? Sean Ellis, co writer (along with Frank E. Flowers) directed this 2013 film about a family no longer
able to eek out a living on a farm and who believe their only hope is the big
city of Manila. But the young farmer, his wife and two kids must start at the
bottom of the economic ladder. They soon
find themselves in a ghetto within a ghetto and scammed out of what little they
have by others more desperate and certainly more seasoned than they are. To
feed the children, she takes a job as a bar girl and he might have made a
friend who just might guide him through the perils of metro Manila.. Are things turning around? Might the family
be destined for a good life after all? Sometimes
the cards are stacked against those who only want to live a good and just
life. Jake Macapagal, Althea Vega
and John Arcilla head a talented
cast in this excellent international, award-winning film about the making of a
criminal. 
