Ghosting God, Ghosting Self
Day 13
Listening to Pete Hegseth last week as he testified, under oath, and gave so many misleading, misdirected, not on point responses to the questions of the Congresspeople, I was struck with how this ‘fine, upstanding, christian man’ could use subterfuge, innuendos, attacks to hide his incompetence, his hubris, his NON-FAITH, NON-COMPLIANCE with what Jesus says in the New Testament, with what is taught in the Hebrew Bible and call himself a ‘man of deep faith and commitment to ‘christian values’! Yet, he does, as do so many of the mealy-mouthed Republicans like Lindsey Graham, Mike Johnson, J D Vance, Marco Rubio, et al. While this behavior is practiced on a national stage, it is also performed on a local stage, it is happening in families all over this country, in Israel, in Europe, etc. The family is the breeding ground for racism, antisemitism, islamaphobia, religious bigotry and hatred, etc, as well as the rich soil for love, kindness, oneness, caring, compassion, forgiveness and learning the “Spirituality of Imperfection”, a book by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketchum. Our modern society, with all its technological advances, is ignorant and willfully blind to the essence of being human; treating one another with love, with kindness, with rebuke when necessary, with truth, with generosity, caring for the poor, the needy, proclaiming Freedom to ALL the people who live in the land, etc.
There have been liars in power forever, AND, the assault on the TRUTH for the past 11 years by Donald Trump and his band of merry LIARS, has been relentless and a generation of young people are growing up not knowing what is true and what isn’t, adding in AI, now none of us know what is real and what is fake when we see something on social media, in our emails, etc. “The war is over…but we are sending more of our troops into harm’s way”, “We annihilated their nuclear capabilities…but we had to go back a year later because they were days away from a nuclear bomb”, and some of we the people still buy his BULLSHIT! The Republican’s control of Congress is propping up his lies, mainly because they don’t want their lies to come out and they lose their jobs, their meal tickets, they don’t want the spigot of their grift and graft to be turned off! Again, these ‘fine christian folk’ lie, cheat, abuse the poor, the needy, the stranger, abuse justice and righteousness, and proclaim their unswerving allegiance to Jesus Christ, and the Orthodox Jews like Kushner, et al proclaim their absolute faith in God, in Chabad…! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!
How is it possible that so many people, the ones who elected DUMP TRUCK in the first place and the 35% that still think he is doing a great job? Yet, this is where we are at, ⅓ of the people in this country believe the lies, are willfully blind to the truth, celebrate and revere people who go against the major teachings of the Bible, the Prophets, Jesus and fervently believe they are ‘doing god’s will’, just not the God Jesus describes, not the God the prophets describe, not the God the Bible describes much more than the ‘god of war, vengeance’ that, in my learning, was added in.
The reason this is happening goes back to the call of the prophets: stop ghosting God! Stop kissing up and shitting down. Stop putting self-interest ahead of doing the next right thing. All of these messages have been ignored by many of we the people! Rather than stand up for what is right, we have learned to “go along to get along”, we have adopted the societal norm of following the majority to do evil instead of the prohibition of the Bible NOT TO FOLLOW THE MAJORITY TO DO EVIL! Just as in the times of the prophets, in the times of the destruction of Israel, the conquering of Judea, the destruction of both Temples, senseless hatred, hard-heartedness were the tools of those in power so we the people would not band together, rise up, allow a Moses to lead us and it still works!
Martin Luther King Jr., as a flawed human being, was a Moses for so many black, white, brown people in this country, as was Nelson Mandela, Elie Weisel, John Hancock, the Adams brothers, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and who is the Moses to lead We the People out of our current slavery to societal norms, to mental cliches? Each and every one of us has to feed and nurture the Moses that resides within us, each and every one of us has to tame and transform the energy and power of the Pharaoh that is within us, each and every one of us has to renew the vow at Sinai-We will DO and then we will understand. This is the challenge, this is the job.
ACTION STEPS:
1) Each day recommit the challenge, the job of feeding your inner Moses and taming your inner Pharaoh
2) Every day write down how you “kissed up and shit down”, accepting ugly and cruel as ‘just part of living’
3) Discern the truth you lived into each day and the lies you worshiped
4) Each day, Celebrate the ways you STOOD IN TRUTH!
GOD BLESS and Stop Ghosting God, Ghosting Self, Rabbi Mark