The Dynamic Tension of the First Amendment

The separation of church and state as provided for in the First Amendment keeps us united in freedom. It is clear that James Madison and those of our founders who voted for its ratification sought to create a secular democratic republic and not a religious one based upon Christian theology. However, their intention must not be misinterpreted to mean that they were attempting to divorce religion from our political process.


Rather, what they sought was a guaranteed protection from the hegemony that results when one group or way of thinking gains too much power. If we thought about it we would realize that there are always those people, religious and non-religious, who would love nothing better than to prevent others from living as they see fit or from even thinking or speaking as their conscience dictates. Separation of church and state simultaneously creates and enforces a dynamic tension between all divergent points of view assuring each one their right to have their voice heard. This is a precious freedom that I fear most of us take for granted.

2001-3001 My Spiritual Odyssey

3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The late Arthur C. Clarke is one of my favorite science fiction writers and 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on an earlier short story of his, The Sentinel (1948), has always been something of a spiritual experience for me, even though I am not prone to spiritual experiences. But, given the prescient depiction of the moon and our galaxy in those pre-Apollo mission days, both film and book are breathtaking.

For this current generation reared on CGI animation and blockbuster special effects and IMAX, it’s hard to articulate the feeling of this Clarke/Kubrick classic as it moved across the big screen. There was a certain indescribable feeling – a breathless, “whoa” at the end of the film as the screen went dark and the theatre lights came on. No one in the auditorium moved to peel ourselves off the uncomfortable seats. It was a hot summer day and the air conditioning had died halfway through the movie…yet nothing mattered.

This was my experience in 1977, nine years after the film’s release, and I had already seen both Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which were special effects wonders in comparison. There was just this weird feeling that something happened. The 11 year old that I used to be had just had the second of only two real theophanies I would ever have…the first one occurred when I was six years old.

Unfortunately, the lingering eager naiveté that accompanied my pleasure over 2001 and even 2010 (I was a high school senior when both the novel and the movie were released) could help 3001 measure up to the first two. But, then at 44 I am a bit more jaded then when I was a geeky and easily awestruck teenage science fiction nerd. My expectations were perhaps unrealistic. Nostalgia can break your heart.

3001 is still compelling. The breadth of Clarke’s imagination has never failed to astound me as he takes current scientific knowledge and extrapolates the future world and fate of humanity. Just as in Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was broken into four components (the symbolism of 4 appeared throughout the film), Clarke has broken up his literary odyssey into four distinct novels that are not typically linear storytelling.

As the final story opens we are a thousand years into the future from where the failed Discovery mission ended with Frank Poole being ejected from the spacecraft by Hal and the transformation of Dave Bowman into the star child. Heywood Floyd, Dr. Chandra and the Russian crew of the Leonov are also long gone. The earth and our small galaxy are different places…almost unrecognizable. Jupiter has been transformed into Lucifer, a dimmer version of our own sun, and it shines down on the evolving Europa.

It is this future time that the 100 year old body of Frank Poole is found floating out in the outer reaches of the galaxy…frozen, but apparently not dead. He is miraculously revived and comes full circle in an odyssey of his own as he resumes his life in a world and time far removed from the early 21st century. As Frank adjusts to his life in this new world it would seem that the monolith is become active again. Soon Halman – the merged consciousness of Dave Bowman and the computer HAL – is being spotted again in various places. Soon he has an ominous message for his old friend Frank Poole.

Clarke manages to tell a great story and retain an element of mystery about the powers or intelligences behind the monoliths, although I think he does a much better job of this in his Rama series, which are both technically and artfully his more superior works. But, those of you who share my sense of wonder over the world of the monoliths, Dave Bowman and Hal will still find something worthwhile in 3001 The Final Odyssey.

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The Odyssey as Maturation Process

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
~George Moore





I have often heard Mr. Moore’s pith teaching stated another way. The only wisdom you find at the top of the mountain is the wisdom you brought with you. Indeed, but nonetheless the journey or the ascent up the mountain is still necessary. The journey is the process of discovery whether it is an outwardly geographical one or an interior one. Sometimes they are both.

It’s no accident that the ancient Greeks often depicted the pursuit of wisdom as an odyssey, a circular journey where you end right back where you started. Odysseus is the quintessential spiritual hero when viewed in this light. So, too, is his son Telemachos although in Homer’s epic poem his journey is not explored in great thematic detail. Nonetheless it is there for those who posses both the insight and imagination to divine it.

The journey or the ascent up the face of the mountain (I think of John of the Cross’s Ascent to Mt. Carmel) is the maturation process, the refining of character that is needed to access the wisdom that we possess innately.

In the past when people have slyly advised me that my outward searching will get me nowhere because “I could find everything I need right where I am” I smiled and politely pretended to acknowledge their oh-so-advanced-wisdom, while ignoring it completely. Just because you have a personal insight or spent $1,500.00 to get your first degree Reiki mastership doesn’t mean anything. We often just think we are wise. After 20 years of meditation I am less of a master then when I started.

The only think I know for certain is that I am ignorant. The more I learn the more I realize how little I truly understand. Wisdom and serenity and just about all spiritual attributes we hope to obtain require hard work, sweat, blood and sometimes a near death experience (literal and /or metaphorical). Even Grace requires learning how to recognize and accept it.

The late 19th century novelist and occultist, Dion Fortune, once described the spiritual journey as an arduous climb up the side of a cliff to get to the holy temple. Once you arrived the quest is still not over. The true dangers are still before you. You must penetrate the temple until you get to the inner sanctum where the Holy of Holies, behind a gossamer veil lies. Once you rend the veil you find the chamber empty and a thin, quiet voice whispering to you seemingly out of nowhere, “It was you the whole time.”

Sure sometimes we mistake running from our troubles as part of the quest, but in its own way it truly is part of the maturation process. Sometimes staying where you’re at is just hiding. And that too is part of the maturation process. None of us are in a position to claim knowledge of a how a person should grow. The truly mature among us know that. It’s the immature that often feel inclined to offer pat phrases wrapped up in spiritual packaging. “Look,” they say, “See how wise and spiritual I am compared to you?” That doesn’t mean your sponsor or spiritual mentors are without value. They have tremendous value. But, their value lies in their openness and their maturity

At the end of the odyssey the hero always returns to his or her point of origin. That is the point after all. A treasure hunter may circumnavigate the globe in search of a great treasure only to find it under their floor when they return home. But, it is the experiences along the way that teach them where to look when they get home. It is the journey or climb itself that allows one to truly appreciate what they find waiting for them. Without it all you have is another worthless artifact.

Postscript

As a postscript it seems apropos to note that well traveled people are often more wise, compassionate and possess true knowledge far and above those who don’t travel as much. This seems especially true of those who actually live for periods of time in new places – even if it is within their own countries.

The Friend of Silence

This statement seems patently false to me.


We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.


Mother Teresa

It smacks of spiritual fantasy. I don’t doubt that given a serene and bucolic setting I can find myself drawing closer to god. But, the demands of my life make this unrealistic. It seems a false sense of mysticism. If I find God amidst the clamor and chaos of the city, if I can draw closer to him and feel his presence among the thousand shouting voices, crying souls, gunshots and screeching tires than I am truly centered.

Moments of silence are nice. They are even necessary for mental health and spiritual growth. But, anyone can cultivate silence sitting against a tree near a babbling brook. It’s finding that silence in the heat and passion of daily life that makes for great silence and even greater spirituality.

When you have the luxury afforded to the religious of making regular retreats (in the Catholic Church all members in religious orders are required to withdraw at least once annually) then you have the luxury to experience what Mother Teresa is talking about. Hell, go camping in a national park for a couple of days when you can.

God is the friend of silence, but he is the friend of chaos too. In the Judeo-Christian tradition he created by passing over the void and calming its tumultuous nature. Perhaps, God is silence itself and in order to be experience one must become consciously aware of god’s presence.

Zen Humanism in a Nutshell

In a nut shell Zen Humanism is the resolution of our psychological and emotional conditioning that prevents us from seeing the world as it really is. It is the examining of the way we have been conditioned by our culture, our parents, our religions and various political worldviews to the exclusion of all other possibilities. It puts the needs of people above god, religion, nation and politics. It maintains a reverential attitude toward our ecosystem and the world at large, but it is not pantheism. There is nothing to worship. Worship is an ego driven need. 

It is the latest stage in my personal development combining my experiences from practicing a form of Buddhist meditation (although I am not a Buddhist necessarily) and as a religious humanist. I am an atheist with a pious attitude toward life and the universe. I see the world a certain way and it often blocks me to the pain of my fellow humans an all sentient beings...I must resolve these barriers.

Zen Humanism is pro-human, pro-ecosystem and pro-life (not to be confused with the inappropriately named anti-abortion movement). Any religion or ideology that does anything other is detrimental to life on this planet and anti-human. Finally, Zen Humanism, having no essential creed or dogma, seeks to remain open to new revelations in psychology and science and to allow them to inform the decisions we make. We seek to prevent our tendency toward dogmatic thinking.

The Dynamic Tension between Capitalism and Socialism

I am equally as suspicious of socialism as I am of capitalism. But, I see no solid evidence that socialism is any less destructive then capitalism or more beneficial. The states that have the most success with socialist type experimentation seem to be democratic style governments that exist in a state of dynamic tension between capitalist interests and socialism. Proponents of either economic theory (theories, really) accuse the opposite camps of relying on outdated and discredited ideas. It seems to me that both Socialists and Capitalists are guilty of such behavior.

Buy success I should clarify that I am speaking of Western Europe, where the populations are smaller and more stable then they are throughout the rest of the world. China is the last great bastion of Marxism of any great significance and they have taken to experimenting with free enterprise, the most basic tool of capitalism. Ideologically they are seeking to beat the western world at its own game, but the reality is that pure socialism simply does not provide the necessary economic stability needed to ensure a nation’s long term viability. Sadly, China seems to have not learned much from the west’s failures with capitalism. They understand capitalism’s advantages, but they are seeking to prevent the wrong failures. Countries such as Cuba are basically failed states.

I currently believe that the answers we seek to stabilizing our economic future is to be found in exploring the dynamic tension between capitalism and socialism rather than in the fierce polemical debate that seeks to eliminate one over the other. Conservatives in America in their ignorance and unwillingness challenge those on the left by stating “socialism hasn’t worked anywhere.” American socialists point to countries such as Norway (that is enviable in both economics and lifestyle, although Oslo made Forbes list as the 2nd most expensive city to live in throughout the world) without seeing some of the challenges it faces as well.

Such a blanket statement is hardly true. I would agree that pure socialism doesn’t appear to have worked, at least as far as my current knowledge to date indicates. But, that doesn’t mean it is completely unviable as a working theory. Secondly, American conservatives seem to be confused as to a definition of what socialism really is. They point to Germany (of all countries) and rant about socialized medicine. Germany doesn’t have socialized medicine. It’s a complex hybrid of for profit insurance and single payer. Canada also doesn’t have socialized medicine. It is largely single payer. Neither system is perfect. Both systems have issues of sustainability and affordability. But, then so does the United States, which is 100% free market, for profit.

Fear of socialism in America has been rampant since FDR unveiled the New Deal Programs. It seems that post modern conservatives are still stuck in the cold war where our ideologies clashed with the Soviet Union. They are still operating on such old definitions. They have not seen that the West won the cold war. The epitome of Marxism collapsed in the late 1980’s and in the years that followed Western Europe has curtailed socialist policies in favor of mixing them with capitalism to ensure a more vibrant economic life. Yes, some places that has worked better than others.

Capitalism and Socialism do not need to be mutually exclusive except in the erudite world of academics and the polemicists who defend their favored horse. I for one love free enterprise. But, I also respect the idea of single payer health insurance. The problem is the terms we use. We need a new working theory. A theory that takes the best of both and seeks to eliminate the failures and find a way of compromising on those aspects which would clash and prevent any new theory from working properly, after all you can’t have a football game when both teams are playing by separate sets of rules. That would be chaos.

We need to stop thinking in terms of capitalism and socialism. How this will look I am not yet certain. But, if we don’t start moving toward the center our extreme polarization will prevent us from affecting the change we need. If we continue on our present course we will fail to reach consensus or even define the problems adequately before it is too late.

Clear Lake, WI Not Scary, but will Cure Insomnia

Clear Lake, WI


(2009)

Starring: Dustin Booth, Morgan Simpson, Grinnell Morris, Shi Ne Nelson and Carla Toutz

Director: Brian Ide

Writers: Morgan Simpson and Grinnell Morris



2 Screams



Peeeee youuuuuu! This film stunk up my living room something fierce. This film was recommended by Netflix because I had watched The Crazies. But, this movie was hardly scary except for a moment when the married couple was surprised by a startled cat. My girlfriend shrieked in my ear causing me to scream. Our dog looked at us like we were both nuts. That was the only real shocker during the whole 92 minutes of running time.

Fifteen years before the story begins the town of Clear Lake, Wisconsin is evacuated by the CDC because of a mysterious illness killing town folks. The disease is traced back to a toxic chemical spill in the lake. No one has been within the town’s borders since.

During the panic preceding the evacuation, 13 town locals disappeared. It is discovered that it is the due to the work of a mysterious clergyman known as “The Minister,” who was really just the high school basketball coach filling in for the real minister after he fell ill, and a group of his teenaged followers who refer to themselves as the Warriors. These young people helped kidnap, torture and murder these hapless “sinners” whom the Minster (Michael Madsen) sees as the cause of the plague that he interprets as God’s wrath for the town’s unbelief.

The Minister is off his nut and seriously believes that he is trying to save the townspeople and the kids are totally enraptured by his depraved message. A totally clichéd background story if there ever was one. The Minister eventually pleads guilty and goes to prison for life. His teenaged followers miraculously escape prosecution and end up scattered across the country to live tortured, unhappy lives until young PBS documentarian Kyra Sannhet decides to tell their story.

In horror film circles this is known as a really bad idea. Despite being warned off by former Clear Lake sheriff, Joe Dietzer (Paul Ben-Victor) who is inexplicably in a wheel chair, Kyra believes her project will do some good. She has the large doe eyes of a young idealist who hasn’t lived long enough to develop common sense. She won’t either, but this should not be a surprise. Sherriff Dietzer tells her that “she doesn’t know what she is dealing with” during an interview at his home. But, young idealists are crazy, especially sweet faced, pretty and earnest young idealists. Kyra somehow manages to convince four of the warriors to return to the abandoned town to relive their past in order to get at the mystery behind the events.

The problem is there is no mystery. A toxic spill caused an illness, a sociopathic basketball coach gets religion and uses his teenaged disciples to kidnap and punish sinners. The big question Kyra tries to get the answer for is why? Why would these seemingly normal, good kids suddenly fall under the spell of an authority figure that they turned to in a time of fear and uncertainty? Oh…wait a minute…

Don’t worry fans of unrelenting and unseen killers. Clear Lake has one of those too except that it’s so obvious that you are yawning the whole time the filmmaker and her subjects get picked off one at a time. Actually, rather than building suspense by stalking each victim after stranding the group with no way to leave, he sort of rounds them up and makes quick work of them in the high school.

Normally, I try to avoid spoiler alerts, but I am hoping to avoid you losing 90 minutes of your life you won’t ever get back. The killer is the crazy one. They’re all a little crazy, to be sure, and who wouldn’t be after what they went through 15 years ago? But, the killer is a bit of an asshole and a little crazier then the rest. He’s also impotent. When he gets his chance to get a little ass from Beth, the girl he has longed for since high school, while checking out the church he flips. Potential serial killers should always avoid sex. It seems to trigger homicidal rage.

Speaking of homicidal rages this film is so bad it will trigger a homicidal rage in you providing that you don’t fall asleep first. The real mystery in Clear Lake, Wisconsin is not the horrific events in the past, but how Michael Madsen and Paul Ben-Victor, both competent actors, agreed to appear in this film. Perhaps, just as Lawrence Olivia and Burgess Meredith who appeared in Clash of the Titans, they just needed the work. Sending children to college is expensive. The film has one redeeming quality. Watch it if you have trouble falling asleep. Avoid it if you are depressed otherwise you will find yourself sticking your head in a gas oven just to make it all stop.

The Double Whammy of American Economic and Climate Illiteracy

As far as the general population goes, Americans are poorly informed on the issue of climate change – a neo con term coined to help cast doubt on the issue of global warming. Thanks to a successful campaign of misinformation the public seems to believe in great numbers that scientists are still debating whether or not global warming (climate change if you prefer) is happening. They’re not. Among climate scientists the number of researchers who debate its reality is pretty close to zero.


There is truly no debate among researchers as to the reality of global warming. It’s here. It’s happening. It poses a real threat to the survival of our species. Part of the neo-con misinformation campaign is the very real fact that climate change is a part of our planetary history. This is correct. It many ways global climate shifts are inevitable and we can do little, but adapt.

But, and this is the part they want you to forget about, our species plays a huge role in the hastening of these processes. Our contributions we can do something about. But, that would mean radical change in many ways. We have to change our approach to energy, agriculture, transportation, and industry. The neo-con love of capitalism actually blocks the innovation they believe it fosters. The necessary changes will be costly and it will erode profits making it hard for the true innovators to implement new technologies. Yet they would profit immensely in the long run if they would get behind it.

Sadly, Corporate America and our government fail to understand that they are costing us our competitive advantage. In the future, should our species survive the United States will not be on the top of the economic food chain. Rather than our capitalist system being the source of innovation and prosperity it is the seed of our destruction. It actually kills competitive edge and innovation in preference for the unhealthy accumulation of wealth and “easy profits” made through the manipulation of currency and other questionable investment devices.

In addition to being poorly informed on global warming, the majority of Americans are economically illiterate. This includes those who are currently elected to office and those aspiring to be there. How often does the economic advice or warning of economists go unheeded in congress? The so-called budget crisis created by the GOP found conservatives ignoring conservative economists warning that cutting federal budget in a recession is problematic and unsound. Spending in a recession is important to recovery and the stablilizing of a wounded economy.

This double whammy of illiteracy – on climate change and economics – is the proverbial writing on the wall. Our past prosperity was based on the abundance of cheap fossil fuels, which are quickly approaching peak production if we haven’t already, and accelerated by the destruction of the European infrastructure following World War II. In the 1950’s the United States was in the inevitable position to take advantage both technologically and politically, which we did with aplomb. Then we were without peers. There will be no tears shed for the U.S. There will be cheers from our enemies and anger from those who have come to rely heavily on us, as our end spells their end as well.

The real nightmare isn’t the present situation we are in. The nightmare is that we have the technological know how. We have the ability, the talent and the capital to move forward and make the changes that are needed to ensure our survival and prosperity. We just lack the collective political will. Progressives and conservatives shout each other down across lines created by pure ideology and status quo. This problem is exacerbated by the mass media proliferation of talk shows and bellicose pundits who simply offer their opinions as if they were facts (as I do here in many ways). Truthfully, I am presenting you with my best educated guess as to what our future will most likely hold.

The problem is actually political. We have the smarts to come up with the innovations. That is really not the problem. It never has been. If it was we would not have been a successful species. It is human nature expressed as politics that is killing us. “Politics” ties us to the polis - our social clumps. It is an expression of human nature and unless we can find a way to change our nature dramatically and soon, or at least override these impulses long enough to affect change we are in big trouble.

I know of no real political solution. Americans have grown soft and complacent because of our long term prosperity. Even as it is threatened many of us are still doing well enough to do little else, but carry on as usual and bitch and moan along side our favorite talk show hosts. We have lost our thirst for adventure first hand. We have little pioneer spirit. It’s always the pioneers that innovate, not the moneyed few who finance them.

We are certainly intelligent enough and clever enough to survive and prosper. Whether or not we will stop bickering long enough to do so remains to be seen making my unpopular observation about democracy actually impeding progress the larger and more diverse a population becomes seem like the real threat I believe it to be.