Truth Is Still Stranger than Fiction

This article first appeared in the August 2005 issue of Sharing the Joy newsletter, published by The Joy Cathedral, Seattle WA. www.thejoycathedral.org

I saw the funniest commercial the other day. It was a spot for DiGiorno frozen pizza. The scene: Geppetto’s cobbler shop. He’s scolding Pinocchio. Again.

“You’ll never be a real boy if you don’t stop telling lies!” he admonishes his son, who presents his Dad with a piping hot slice of pizza.

“Delicious!” Geppetto raves. “What pizzeria did it come from?”

Instead of saying he popped a frozen pizza in the oven, Pinocchio lied. (He wouldn’t be Pinocchio if he hadn’t, right?) And he didn’t stop, even as his nose jettisoned halfway across the room. Panicked that he’d been caught in another tale, Pinocchio’s head jerked one way, then another, his nose knocking everything in its path onto the floor. I howled!

I was still grinning when we returned to regular programming, remembering why this allegory was one of my favorite childhood stories. After 125-years, Pinocchio endures because it teaches cause and effect so powerfully: everything we do has a consequence.

Suddenly the thought occurred to me: What if a 21st century editor collected a bunch of wonderful stories that teach valuable life lessons, like Pinocchio, and published them in one volume? Two thousand years from now, would there be people who regarded this powerful book of wisdom as inerrant history? Would the Creationist theory be that humans evolved from wood, becoming flesh after they began to tell the truth and perform good deeds? Would non-believers be threatened that they will be “left behind” on planet Earth, where they’ll be planks in woodpiles higher than Mount Everest and set afire?

For believers, will the idea of being eternally human, rather than woefully wooden, make them feel so superior, so much closer to their God that they won’t value the lives and rights of those who don’t share their beliefs? Will they feel that they have Divine Right to dictate where and how others should live and whom they should love? Will they violently punish others, mirroring the modus operandi of their wrath-filled Creator?

Let’s all bow our heads in solemn reverence to truth that is still stranger than fiction. And while
we’re in that space, let’s ask ourselves: Is the value of powerful stories such as Collodi’s Pinocchio found in their life lessons or in their literal details?

Shall we teach our kids that their noses will grow longer than their arms if they don’t tell the truth? Or is our message that poor choices produce poor results? Do we tell them “an eye for an eye” means that they should respond to violence with violence? Or do we tell them to choose their thoughts, actions and reactions wisely because whatever they send out will ricochet back?

Unconditional Love has given us the freedom to make these decisions—and to learn the lessons that result from every choice. That Truth supersedes all man-made fiction.

Life is ALWAYS Fair

I'm an armchair computer geek, have been since I bought my first computer (a Commodore Vic 20) in the early 80s. I was one of AOL's first customers. In fact, I was online before you could charge down a entry ramp to the Information Superhighway unescorted; I used Prodigy as a gateway. "Blogging" is the latest online phenomenon to grab my attention. I'm utterly intrigued by the fact that anyone with something to say--a kid or a corporate CEO--can speak to the world, and the world can speak back. How cool is that?

I knew I had to do my homework, if I was going to do this blogging thing; so I dropped in on one of my favorite sites, Beliefnet.com, where a number of blogs, both conservative and liberal (as in generous?), reside. One blog called out to me: it was Swami Uptown's. I snickered. Was he related to the hilarious metaphysical comedian Swami Beyondananda? I couldn't wait to experience this Swami's wisdom.

Swami Uptown's June 27, 2005 post ("Size Counts--But We're Not Talking About Brains, Are We?") reflected on the un-Christlike behavior of the Christians who created the war in Iraq. This was not a blue-blood intellectual rant against the unenlightened souls who produced the mind-numbing, interminable war epic. Swami Uptown (brainiac journalist and author Jesse Kornbluth) wanted to know what's up with the rest of us:

"I have been saying for more than a year--to my great surprise, I seem to be the only one saying it consistently on Beliefnet--that the spiritual world is, like the real one, a small, closed system. The hatred you aim at me will, if it misses me, zing around the world and hit you in the back of the head. The depleted uranium we use in weapons overseas is blown by dust storms to our shores. The terrorist we do not convert with our goodness learns from our duplicity that it is good and just to strap explosives to himself and kill our children.

"It's the Golden Rule, just flipped. Jesus warned about this. It's at the heart of the Buddha's teachings. Really, it's central to all important religions: Do unto others...because what goes around, comes around."

As they say, and as the good Swami so eloquently illustrated, common sense ain't very common. We know about the Golden Rule; we've heard "what goes around, comes around" a bazillion times; still we don't believe it. If we did, we'd always treat others the way we'd want to be treated. Always.

Kornbluth--er, the Swami--postulates that we're looking for proof. After all, we don't always see folks getting what they deserve. (Where have you read that before?):

"Think of the truly awful people you have known who died, rich and successful, in their own beds. [However], more often than not, we see at least a flash of that law called karma."

Ah yes, the "k" word. We learned all about that in Drama Queens, too, didn't we? But, wait a minute. Did the Swami just say "more often than not"? Does he mean that folks can somehow elude the Universe's natural balancing act? If so, methinks the Swami wrapped his turban too tightly.

As we know, karma is the natural consequence of an act. It's the immutable "whatever you do comes back to you" law of the Universe. It operates whether we "see" it or not. And, oh my goodness, don't we like to "see" our villains get what's coming to them by the time the credits roll? We might even want to write and star in those scenes ourselves.

We voluntarily entangle ourselves in their drama (and their karma), instead of turning our cheeks and the rest of our body costumes in another direction, exiting the stage, confident that the immutable Law of Karma will write a more powerful ending to the painful scene than our meager brains could ever compose.

Part of the intoxication of Earth's drama is that when we're on its stage, we're so "in character" that we believe that we are our body costumes, rather than mirror images of the omnipresent spirit known as God. So we expect to see consequences crash down on bad actors by the time they leave the Earth stage. When that doesn't happen, we dismiss the Law as bogus, and conclude that Life is unfair. Arrrgh! It can even confound those who are more enlightened.

Kornbluth, for example, observed that the folks who brought us this war of Biblical proportions proclaim their love and devotion for a God who smites. (They should, he says, because they created that God in their image). On the other hand, by claiming that karmic law isn't consistent, Kornbluth seemed to forget in whose image they (and we) were created.

If we were made in God's image, instead of the other way around, that means that war architects and supporters who kill in volume, as well as more pedestrian murderers, thieves, spouse and child abusers, rapists, spammers, phishers, and other con-artists, computer virus creators, adulterers, and all who intentionally harm others are just as eternal as God is. Their "live-by-the-sword-die-by-the-sword" comeuppance might greet them in their current roles. Then again, it might not.

But before we conclude that karma is hit or miss, let's not forget that time is a manmade construct. In Spirit, there is no such thing; so it's never too late to repay a karmic debt. You can run out the clock by leaving your body, but you can't leave your soul, and you can't escape the long arm of Universal Law.

With all due respect to the dear Swami, I think the folks in the Bush Administration should be admired for their bravery. Instead of us squirming in the seats of this educational theater, waiting for the curtain to fall mercifully on this poorly planned and executed script, I think we should be on our feet, wildly applauding.

What a spectacular, karma-winning performance they've given! What a mind-boggling personal sacrifice each of them is making so that millions throughout the world can learn that violence begets violence. What a dramatic demonstration that whatever you do really does come back to you.

We should be grateful for the powerful lessons we're learning from the audience. Surely, we wouldn't want to be on stage with them. Would you want the karmic debt these guys are amassing each day as the body count rises, the poor get poorer, and the environment becomes more endangered? Better they than the rest of us, I say.

Bottom line, loved ones: All is well. We outlive our dramatic roles on planet Earth, but we don't outlive Eternal Law. Due to the Law's natural ricochet effect, Life is, was, and always will be fair. That's the first No-Drama principle. Number two: because Spirit is omnipresent, God is never far. Third, death of the body is not THE END of a soul's life. And finally, absolutely nothing is unforgivable.

A God who is Unconditional Love would have created this world no other way. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.