Ghosting God, Ghosting Self
Day 55
On page 132 of God in Search of Man by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, he states: “In this sense, faith is faithfulness, loyaty to an event, loyalty to our response”. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, as we are approaching the 250th year of the Declaration of Independence, the precursor to freedom which we supposedly revere and can’t seem to be loyal to its calling to us, the same is true of the Constittution since it was ratified in 1787! It is also true for the ‘religious’ people who are constantly displaying their DISLOYALTY to the Bible, to the ways of Christ, to the words of Christ, to the thoughts of Mohammed and all of these disloyal ‘holier than thou’ ‘religious’, charlatans, idolators, authoritarians are reminiscent of the days prior to the destruction and dispersement of the Northern Kingdom, Israel and its inhabitants therein!
I am so enraged, righteously indignant, spiritually fighting about our current situation, which is not really new-just an extension of what was, what has been passed off as loyalty and, we the people in our “faithfulness” to the glory of our self-deception, are like guppies lapping up the lies, promoting the deceptions of society and our own self-deception. I keep asking WTF and I realize each time that living into TRUTH is too difficult for most people. It is anathema to the willful blindness many of we the people have come to cherish, relish rolling around in like pigs in slop! I experience the rage of the prophets, which all of them had to a greater or lessor degree. The inner sadness they experienced because we the people did not listen, believe, change as they spoke to them God’s words, God’s call: “RETURN” as they reminded us that “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely”(Hosea 14:5) and we the people in our smallmindedness, in our rejection of spirituality and spiritual, moral teachings/ways of being, caused and are still causing our own destruction. It is not “Why is God doing this to me”, which people ask and have asked for ages-my mother among them when she would look at me in my other lifetime:). It is not “God has a plan, God works in mysterious ways” bullshit either because, while God does work in mysterious ways, while we human beings will never fully know God nor understand God because God is limitless, God’s plan is laid out in the Bible, in the words of Jesus, whom David Brooks calls a “Jewish Radical”.
Of course being Jewish is being a radical, just as the prophets were radicals who kept pounding into the Kings from David on how to live in agreement with God’s principles rather than their own self-centeredness, their own false ego. Understanding that kingship was a privilege not an entitlement, that with this privilege comes great responsibility to BE LOYAL to God’s PRINCIPLES. Be it Christ who says: “If you love me, keep my commandments”(John 14:15) or reading the Bible where it states that to love God is to keep God’s commandments, We the People are constantly being called to BE LOYAL to “caring for the stranger”, to “loving our neighbor”, to “rebuking people when they are going off the path”, to “not run after the majority to do evil”, to “pursue Justice, Righteousness, TRUTH, Kindness” continuously. DUH PEOPLE!
Listening to the politicians who claim such fidelity with Christ go against the commandments would be a joke if it were not so serious! Listening the the Clergy preach the Gospels of Hatred, of Power, of Disloyalty to God’s Will in the Churches, Mosques and Temples across the globe is INFURIATING! Being in the midst of the current war amongst the Jews over how to love Israel, who is a Zionist, not just who is a Jew is so ridiculous, so reminiscent of the senseless hatred that, according to the Rabbis, caused the destruction of the 2nd Temple, that I am jumping out of my skin at this DISLOYALTY to principles, to faith, to Emunah-loyalty to God. That so many clergy, leaders invoke the names of Christ, Adonai, Allah to make their cruelty, their graft, their despicable behaviors “come from God”, as mike johnson likes to say, if you want to know my political agenda read the Bible-the fucking problem is johnson is NOT READING THE BIBLE, DOES NOT BELIEVE IN CHRIST! If he were doing either-his agenda would be so different, if the Republicans in Congress and across the land either read the Bible or believe in Christ, Trump and his thugs would not be in office and would not be encouraged to burn down the Declaration of Independence after 248 years!
Being loyal to God is to allow God to “heal our backsliding”, “to take us back in love”, to know that “God’s anger is turned away” from We the People. Being loyal to God is living a life based on the principles of the Bible, the ways of living in concert with God, the ways in which we take our rightful places being servants of God and not servants of our rational minds, of the liars and cheats, of the idolators and charlatans. IT AIN’T EASY and it is simple. I have been doing this for better and worse each day for the past 39+ years and the joy of being faithful greatly outweighs the rush of the score!
GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi Mark