Has it really been over a month since I've written anything? In the past few days I've received two messages from people who have read my previous entry and thought I was still in the midst of that hopelessness. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to worry anyone. That hoplessness passed quickly. I'm fine.
** Since I last wrote the Red Sox won the World Series, Joni Mitchell released her first album of new songs in ten years and I had a birthday. Win some, lose some.
** It's a bad sign when, on the way back from work you think to yourself, "Jeez...I wish I'd bought gas this morning."
**I had a student today who made an argument that accuracy in accounts of "history" are related to how soon after the events the chronicler "reports" them. Jeez. He was trying to make a case for the Gospels being MORE "accurate" than all other religions stuff because the Gospel writers wrote within 100 years of Jesus' death. What crap. The freaking Buddha was still ALIVE when his disciples were remembering stuff; Muhammad presumably wrote his OWN stuff (from the mouth of God of course). The Gospel writers all wrote on the basis of stories that were told to them by "witnesses." All hearsay if you ask me. I argued against him but want to returnto the issue on Monday with this example: The war with Iraq is VERY recent "history," and yet, the accounts of the events, reasons, objectives, and outcomes of THAT historical event are all very different and disparate. Which of them is "historically accurate?" And this is an event that occurs NOW and began only four years ago and there is no agreement about the "history" of it!
Another example (though admittedly, over the top): The Nazis went to trial right after the Holocaust. They had a direct view of the "history" of that event and yet, would you judge that their perspective and accounts were "accurate" simply because they were offered soon after the event?
** OnSunday I am giving a lecture at a Unitarian Church in Myrtle Beach. It's the third time I've been invited to do so. Since my best friend lives there, I'll drive up tomorrow morning, we'll hang out shopping and lunching and then we'll let her husband take us out for dinner. On Sunday morning, I'll go to the 11:00 service, do my thing and then some of the women in the group want to take me out for lunch. Not a bad gig.
I usually give them 5 or 6 topics from which to choose. This year they chose "Common Ethical Threads in the World's Religions." I thought this morning how appropriate the title I created for that topic... the world's religions' "ethical threads" sure seem to be unraveling. I'll examine the common ethical foundations in a few religions... and there ARE some believe it or not. Though you'd never think it to "look" at them, they include: an idea of the Oneness of (and interdependence of) all Being and, non-violence (hey, I said it lay in the "foundations," not necessarily the consequent construction), welcoming the stranger (ditto), alleviation of suffering and the protection of the weak and vulnerable.
