Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/religion-spirituality/page/78/)
Posts about religion and spirituality.
…it often takes an attentive recollection, review and retelling of one’s own story, an honest construction of one’s personal narrative, in order for any person to become aware of this kind of presence in their own life and to give it meaning…
For years, secular citizens and municipal authorities alike have turned a blind eye as ultra-Orthodox extremists – mirroring the Taliban – have imposed strict gender segregation and modesty rules in public spaces in Israel, forcing women off of sidewalks, banishing them to the back of buses and assaulting those who dare show tiny amounts of skin. However, after a recent Channel 2 news report on 8-year-old Na’ama Margolis and her heartbreaking story of trauma – a story of the gauntlet of abuse she suffers at the hands of ultra-Orthodox men on her walk to school every morning – few in Israel are turning a blind eye anymore. Indeed, it’s all the country has been able to talk about in recent days. The news report, which aired on Friday and shows Na’ama crying as her American-born mother shields her while walking to school, immediately galvanized the anger of a nation that for too long has been quiet on the issue of gender segregation and rising religious coercion. By Tuesday evening, that galvanized anger had suddenly and unexpectedly translated into a massive rally near Na’ama’s school in Beit Shemesh (near Jerusalem), where nearly 10,000 citizens from across the country chanted against religious extremism and offered support to those who, like Na’ama, were suffering at the hands of a tiny, yet powerful religious minority.
When our children were little and pressed their outsider noses against the lighted shop windows of Christmas, I decided we’d celebrate Hanukah. I wasn’t delighted that it commemorated a military event instead of “peace on earth,” but the children could join the season’s merry-making. Also, the tale of Maccabean rebellion is embedded with legendry appealing to children. The rag-tag Maccabees’ incredible victory over a mighty state, the cleansing and rededication of the great Jerusalem temple, the radiant image of a one day oil-lamp, miraculously glowing for eight days. So, I plunged into candle-lit monorahs, dreidles, fried potato pancakes (latkes), small gifts, and a child’s Hanukah story.
Nothing could be less celebratory than having to celebrate. Imagine someone holding a gun to your head: “Sing Christmas carols! And sing like you mean it!” Where does celebration come from? What does it mean? I’m inclined to think that any word connected to “celebrity” has to be suspect.
The dictionary, source of so much wisdom, tells me something unexpected: “to perform with appropriate rites and ceremonies; solemnize, observe, commemorate, sound the praises of, make known publicly.” No wonder we can feel it’s a heavy burden.
…The brothers are put through an episode that to the brothers must have appeared as a moment of paranoid psychosis on the part of the Egyptians, the whole family suddenly arrested and charged without any idea of what they have done. Is this not the experience of Joseph K, in Kafka’s The Trial? Is that not the unfortunate reality for oppressed minorities? Here, as a result of this dress rehearsal for the Kafkaesque reality of societal anomie, the brothers are now ready to face the real reality of a hostile society, by being used to working “beneath” the surface, in silence, going underground…
From my friend the Rev. Jim Burklo, of the Center for Progressive Christianity, a musing. Press Release: The Virgin of Guadalupe Speaks
For immediate release
At a press conference in Los Angeles, CA, La Virgen de Guadalupe, on the 480th anniversary of her apparition in Mexico, suddenly appeared, held up on a crescent by a little cherubic angel. With brilliant effulgence surrounding her, she declared her independence from the Catholic Church specifically and from the Christian religion as a whole. “I belong to all humanity,” she declared. “No exceptions!”
The Virgin of Guadalupe explained that she appeared to the Indian peasant Juan Diego on December 9, 1531, on a hill near Mexico City where the Aztec goddess Tonantzin once had been worshipped.
…the cultural choices one must choose between can be evaluated by criteria: by their effect upon the spirit.There are cultural and existential choices that bring hearts together, and there are those that lead to arrogance and aggression. The same great modes of thinking that bring about the greatest steps forward in human development can sometimes be accompanied by ideas that lead to the greatest suffering. Chanukka is meant to be about choosing the former, and rejecting the latter…
Chanukah was the first recorded national liberation struggle against Greek imperialism, and Christmas celebrates the birth of a hoped-for messiah to free the Jewish people from Roman imperialism. Both Judaism born of slaves in Egypt and Christianity born of a movement of the poor and powerless were in their times the “Occupy” movement that confronted the powerful and those who served them.
On Monday morning I awoke before dawn and somehow managed to crawl out of bed, fumble my jeans and boots on, and sling my drum and backpack – the one that has become the indefinite home for my first aid kit, a patchwork bag of herbal tinctures, a squirt bottle half-full of milk of magnesia, a bottle of bubbles, and some lavender essential oil – over my shoulder. As I checked my back pocket one more time for my ID and locked the back door, the clock on the microwave read 5:08 AM. By 5:39 AM, I was snaking through the dark streets of West Oakland in what seemed to me to be a much-too-small crowd, mostly quiet except the occasional heartbeat of a lone drum or the sleepy but hopeful cheer that rose up as we passed under the overpass of Mandela Parkway. It was somehow comforting to hear our own voices echoing off the walls – it helped us remember our power. You better believe I was asking myself the same questions that CNN, the Huffington Post, the BBC, and Mayor Quan had that morning: Why on earth are we doing this?
Lowe’s recently pulled its advertising from the popular television show “All-American Muslim,” bowing to the pressure of Isalmophobes. It is unworthy of our business as Americans who care about the stories of all American religious communities. We now need a new place to shop, as we approach the new year. Help us draft Home Depot to be the tolerant alternative! We are asking Home Depot to buy the spots on “All-American Muslim” that Lowe’s used to purchase.