Leaping into the Procrustean Bed

If it weren’t for the occasional leaps in logic, I swear, some of us wouldn’t get any exercise at all. OK, nobody knows my name at the nearby health club, either; but I do try to give my brain a workout several times a day. In fact, right now it’s running wild with speculation over how the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will react this week to the "proposed guidelines for ministering to homosexuals."

According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, when America’s Roman Catholic bishops convene in Baltimore for their annual fall meeting, they will review new guidelines that absolve gay Catholics of any obligation to try to alter their sexual orientation. That’s a big step. But, while the bishops who drafted this proposal appear to acknowledge that homosexuality is an orientation, rather than a choice or a lifestyle, they’re simultaneously recommending that the Church continues to stress that same-sex relationships are immoral.

I really should rest my brain after that impressive workout. Leaping is one thing; bungee jumping is quite another. With the little strength that I have left, I absolutely positively must ask:

1. If same sex orientation is something that
one cannot change,
2. The Church will not obligate anyone to even try
to change,
3. Then, why is same sex orientation considered
immoral?

Is it because Leviticus said so? Are these upstanding Christians saying that Leviticus’ hate-filled laws trump Jesus’ good news? Judge not, lest ye be judged.

The answer cometh with rapid speed:

“We are trying to find a language that does not betray the teaching of the Church, but will perhaps express it in ways that are not so offensive,” the Tribune article quotes Chicago's Cardinal Francis George, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, as saying.

Further muddying the waters, he reportedly added, “The conclusions are the same. The language will be less painful than sometimes the language has been in the past.”

Have mercy! I shouldn’t have scrimped on those stretches before I began this ecclesiastical workout. And for rest, they offer me the comfort of a Procrustean bed. In fact, Procrustes is probably gleefully flattered that they’ve imitated him so well.

Don't remember Procrustes? He was a rather sinister fellow in Greek mythology, a proverbial nightmare to weary travelers whose route took him near his place. Appearing to be a hospitable gent, Procrustes would invite them to lodge at his place. In exchange, they had to do nothing—except fit in his iron bed. I mean, literally fit in his iron bed: If they were shorter than the bed, he’d stretch them to its length. If they were taller, he’d chop off their head or legs. Of course, no one ever truly fit it, because once this diabolical charmer spotted them from a distance, he’d simply adjust the length of the bed. That gave birth to the term “procrustean bed”: an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced [emphasis added].

When a church body believes that God is forceful, punitive and judgmental, rather than powerful, forgiving and the grantor of free will, it promotes policies that reflect their belief, as evidenced by two other proposals the bishops will consider this week: One forces gay couples to agree to raise their adopted children Catholic, otherwise their parish might not allow the children to be baptized. The second lays a foundation that would make it easier for clergy to deny holy sacraments to Catholics at odds with the church (baptism, confirmation, communion, confession, holy orders, marriage, and last rites), thus forcing parishioners to be in lock-step or be locked out. Among those targeted: politicians who call themselves Catholic.

The procrustean bed. A most fitting foundation on which the good bishops should begin this week’s meeting in Baltimore, and as painful on the 21st century stage as it was in ancient myth.

Power vs. Force

I’m not one who likes to watch news about tragedies. It’s probably all those years I spent producing and reporting TV news that makes me scream, “Enough is enough!” After seeing only a few minutes of a report on the Amish schoolgirl murders in rural Pennsylvania, I’d certainly seen enough—enough to be moved to profound admiration for these people whom most consider a little odd. When you think about it, I guess it is a bit odd for Christians in America to actually practice Christianity. But these people do. And they do it unflinchingly, naturally, and with conviction.

In the face of unspeakably demonic horror, most of us don’t stop to ask, “What would Jesus do?” Members of this Amish community didn’t either. They didn’t have to. They knew the answer and they revealed it to the world: Jesus wouldn’t respond with rage or retaliation. He would not be bitter and he would not lose his faith in God. From everything we know about Jesus, we know that he would unflinchingly and naturally forgive; and he’d do it with great conviction.

As Rita Rhoads, a local nurse and midwife who had delivered three of the young female hostages, told NBC News’ Ann Curry, “God said, ‘I will forgive you as you forgive others’ And we truly believe that.”

Obviously, the rest of us don’t. Many of us believe that forgiveness is not freely granted. There is a cost. It is a reward for meeting our conditions: “I’ll forgive you if… I’ll never forgive you because…” That’s the position we take when someone violates or betrays us. And we decide to punish them by withholding our forgiveness for hours, days or forever.

When we plant seeds of forgiveness, we reap forgiveness. What do we reap when we withhold forgiveness? So who is really being punished when we refuse to forgive? Do we really understand what “Forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us” means?

This Amish community obviously understands that extremely well, as evidenced by those who went to the home of the murderer’s family—to comfort, not condemn. One of them reportedly held the murderer’s father in his arms for an hour, and told him, “We will forgive.”

Ms. Rhoads summed it up quite nicely, “There are two things that happen with your faith: Either you let it go and you get bitter, or you grow stronger. We’ll grow stronger. When you have Christ in you, that’s what happens.”

And what happens to those of us who think that God and Christ are far, far away, rather than an accessible source within?

The answer is clear. We have tons of technology in the world surrounding the “plain people” in that rural Amish community. But what this heartbreaking human drama revealed, more than anything else, is that we don’t have nearly as much Power.

Why Bad Things Seem to Happen to Good People

If God doesn’t cause or sanction human suffering, how do we explain 9/11 and other tragedies that visit truly wonderful people?

I’ve been pondering this question, since receiving word the other day that a longtime friend was recuperating from breast cancer surgery. She’s the latest in my circle of really awesome friends to encounter this experience.

Like any red-blooded spiritual sleuth who fervently believes that the Universe is orderly and that everything happens for a reason, I couldn’t resist the urge to search for the reason that bad things sometimes happen to good people. The only thing I knew, for sure, was that the reason was going to be a good one.

Where to look? I had two options: Either I could peer through the easily accessible “God allows bad things happen to good people” theater glasses, or I could make that arduous climb into the balcony, where I keep my panoramic “God is good all the time” lenses. It was a no-brainer. You can only see part of the picture through those earth-bound theater glasses, so I clambered into the balcony.

Wow, what a spectacular view! It never changes. No matter what time of day or night, it’s always the same; so reliable, it’s absolutely comforting.

I mentally focused on a scene that would correlate to the challenge my friend was experiencing. I was drawn to the image of one brilliant soul. Like the others, its radiance completely overshadowed the physical body it was wearing; but I knew that this one had something special to share with me. I scooted back in my seat and waited for more. Gradually, the story began to unfold.

I watched this beautiful soul leading its body through a transformative experience.

“Why?” I asked.

“Balance,” it told me. It was offering her an opportunity to be still, to focus on her inner Light, to listen to her inner self—listen, rather than think. Listen, rather than speak. Listen, rather than work.

Ultimately, it said, all physical illness presents us with an opportunity to embrace ourselves with unconditional love, to see and feel dysfunction, and love ourselves anyway. Love is one of the most potent healers in Life.

I thought about that. When we’re busily flitting about the planet, working on this project, solving that problem, helping this organization or that person, our minds are totally focused on images and circumstances outside of ourselves: the work, the people, the bills, the traffic. Even when we look in the mirror, we are looking outside of ourselves. We barely know ourselves, and rarely love ourselves.

We’ve been misled into believing that we’re bodies, merely imperfect impermanent bodies. Unfortunately, Loved Ones, the creators of that tale thought the world was flat, too. They treated animals and people barbarically, and justified it by saying that God behaves the same way. I don’t know about you, but that raises a credibility issue for me.

Until someone offers evidence that disease, murder, accident, or even terrorism can end our invisible eternal lives, or that paramedics or surgeons can save our lives, I will maintain th belief that the only thing that can be terminated or saved are our bodies, the constantly decaying costumes that our invincible souls wear from time to time.

We hold a lot of inexplicable beliefs about ourselves. Some of us, for example, believe that we are going to take our physical bodies when we leave the physical world. Surely we’ve noticed that physical bodies only function in this atmosphere. If they were transportable throughout the galaxy, astronauts would wear polo shirts out there.

Some of us refuse to be cremated because we want our bodies to be intact when God “returns” to Earth. We believe that our bodies are going to reconstitute, blood is going to suddenly start rushing through our veins, and our unused muscles will flex and push open the lids of caskets weighted down by six feet of dirt.

I’m not mocking these beliefs; I’m merely suggesting that they might actually prevent us from feeling the presence, experiencing the comfort and taking advantage of the wisdom of God in the here and now.

For example, most of us believe that the things we experience in life are circumstantial, happenstance. We think that things happen to us, rather than for us. We think that something outside of us governs everything that happens. If something “good” happens, something outside of us has blessed us. If something “bad” happens, something external is working against us.

That’s one way of looking at the world, but it never really leads us to the answers or the growth that we seek. What if we, as souls, are in total control of everything that happens to us, individually and collectively? What if whatever we experience was designed to serve our holy souls—our true selves—in a mighty, mighty way? What if we could ask our souls to reveal the blessings and the lessons that are woven into the fabric of our experiences?

It’s difficult to fathom that we have any control over what happens to us, isn’t it? It’s so much easier to credit or blame a distant God or Satan. But that’s only because we truly do not understand how much power lies within us, and how much God lives within us.

Something within you resonated with the words “God lives within you,” didn’t it? You felt it in your solar plexus—around the spot where you get that “gut” feeling. Right? Pay attention to that. It’s the beginning of practicing God’s presence. Next you’ll progress to embracing it, then surrendering to it, and finally, relying on it for direction.

God is where we are; yet when we reference God’s name, we often look into the sky. Why? We say that God is omnipresent, which means God is present everywhere, not somewhere. And that presence is equally distributed. There’s as much God in you as there is in the most heinous criminal, as much God in the richest person in the world as there is in the penniless orphan. It’s the same God. Nothing and no one is outside of God’s presence, no matter what they own, lack or how they behave.

We readily acknowledge that God is Love, God is Spirit, and God is Life. But when we reference God’s name, we often say “Him”, as if omnipresent eternal spirit is defined by and confined to the gender classifications of the animal kingdom. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines gender as “the sex of an individual, male or female, based on reproductive anatomy”. Does spirit have reproductive anatomy? Is air male or female? What about water?

It appears that we’ve done what Jesus said cannot be done: We’ve put new wine into old skins. We’ve poured the New Testament’s unconditionally forgiving, ever-present God of Love into the skin of the spiteful, wrath-filled, jealous and unforgiving Superhuman who “walked” the Earth in Genesis. We’ve created a bi-polar God that’s difficult to relate to or trust, let alone communicate with or rely on in times of trouble.

There is only one God; and It is good all of the time. Not only are all things possible with God, it’s impossible to be without God. God doesn’t turn “His” head and allow innocent people to be killed and pedophiles to harm children. God doesn’t control any soul’s drama. If anything, karma directs the actions on the Earth stage. We are not unjustly blemished at birth by someone else’s sin or extremely and sadistically punished for our own. Love would not do that. If anything, we fairly experience the reciprocal return of our sins. We reap what we sow.

Most of us have no idea why we’ve jammed our eternal spirits into a physical body right now. Why did we choose this place? Why did we choose this time? Why did we choose these experiences? Our reasons are not the same. The paths we’ve chosen are not the same. The lessons we’re learning are not the same. What we're balancing is not the same. Our goals are not the same. Our karma is not the same.

Some of us came here to see how much money we could amass, how much money we could give away, how much peace or how much chaos we could create. Some of us wanted to see how many people we could heal. Others came to help kindred souls repay their karmic debts—all different reasons that, when combined, create the non-stop drama for which this planet is known.

Through the “God is good all the time” lenses, all is well. There is no good or bad. Those are judgments we’ve imposed because we’re looking through theater glasses. We’re not seeing the eternal Truth about ourselves.

You are not destructible. This is not reality, and it certainly is not Home. This is just a fleeting experience in Universal timelessness. No one has ever come here and stayed.

Remember, God is not outside of you. All paths inward will lead you Home.



I love you deeply.

What Scares You?

Several months ago, my friend Elaine introduced me to a free online subscription to receive thought-provoking quotes from John-Roger, a prolific metaphysical author. One of his books is entitled Loving Each Day; the daily emails carry the same name. Frequently, I save some of these powerful quotes in a special folder on my computer. Several weeks ago, I not only saved one, I printed it and posted it on my desk:

Nothing here is designed to hurt or harm you. It is all for you to use to lift yourself into Spirit. It all points you toward God.
It is all for your benefit.

I was reminded of that quote several times this week, as I walked through the Chicago and San Antonio airports, observing yet another inconvenient shift in the air travel experience. I had to check in my carry-on bag--something I've avoided like the plague for years, since spending my entire Hawaiian vacation without my luggage. I also had to trash the potentially refreshing bottle of water that I received at the front desk when I checked out of my hotel. These were annoyances; but they didn't bother me nearly as much as a word that I heard repeatedly throughout my trip:

"Travel has gotten so scary," they said. "Times are scary. The world is a scary place." Nearby, eyes rolled and heads nodded in solemn agreement.

From where I'm sitting, it's not the travel or the times or the world that's scary, it's our thoughts. It's our universal inability to fully comprehend how Life works, and our proclivity toward separating and judging everybody and everything, based on our religious beliefs. And, our religion is the only one that's right. Of course.

Let's take a look at that, shall we? A careful investigation reveals that no matter what rituals, regulations, restrictions and rules the world's religions wrap around their beliefs about what God is and what God does, all of them seem to agree on a few key principles that not only make the physical world less scary; they paint a totally different picture of Life and consequently, God.

Author Jeffrey Moses spent a decade traveling around the world, studying its religious scriptures, and he made an interesting discovery. All of them shared some basic Truths. His research culminated in a simple little book entitled Oneness--Great Principles Shared by All Religions. It's one of the favorites in my spiritual library.

A quick glance at Moses' table of contents reveals a few of the pearls that he found in practically every holy book; wisdom that too many of us have lost. A few are quite applicable right now:

The Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.)
There Is One God.
God Is Love.
Man Is Created in God's Image.
Heaven Is Within.
Conquer with Love.
Blessed Are the Peacemakers.
Do Not Harm Anything.
Judge Not.
As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap.

Let's come to a screeching halt at that last one. It's the one that I call "the karma memo", the one that asserts that life is round: whatever you do circles back to you. For me, it's the one that declares that Life is not only fair, navigating through it is dramatically simple.

I can't help but notice that the message of the karma memo syncs up with several other Life principles shared by religions as diverse as Christianity and Confucianism: The Golden Rule, Do Not Harm Anything, Conquer with Love, and Judge Not. They all say the same thing in different ways, just in case we didn't get it the first time. There appears to have been a concerted effort to drill this into our brains.

Ironically, even though these principles have been making the same declarations for centuries, we're still choosing to do to others what we would not want them to do to us. We're still harming others. We're still trying to conquer through violence. We're still judging without the expectation of being judged. We're still waging war, fully expecting it to result in peace. Utterly fascinating.

Thousands of years have passed, and we still don't get it. We still don't understand that if the world is scary, our enemies didn't make it that way; we did. We have planted and fertilized beliefs that Life is unfair and that God has announced a plan to torture us sadistically for eons, if we behave like humans and make mistakes.

It's no surprise that our world appears to be a scary place. What we are looking at, Loved Ones, is the harvest of our own terror.

We've made it a ritual: Every morning we rise and take our places in the service line at a virtual buffet of fear, plates in hand. We ingest each mouthful, savoring each morsel. We keep our spiritual digestive systems in constant motion.

Unlike the rest of the stuff that seems to find its way into and out of our bodies, fear attaches itself to our inner being, keeping us always on the defensive, always ready to attack. We never seem to eliminate it from our systems, as evidenced every time we burp, "The world is scarier than it's ever been."

As fast as we can say "Jiminy Christmas", others are nodding in solemn agreement. And the buffet table is instantly refilled for our next feast.

Ancient wisdom says that what we sow, we reap; but we're too scared to be clear-minded enough to choose a peaceful, joyful harvest. Instead, we have agreed to let others dictate just how frightenened we should be at any given time. They play us like a kid's xylophone, by color, until we're scared enough to leap head first into the quid pro quo "you started it, so I'm going to finish it" abyss. We've allow ourselves to be chased right smack dab into the Dark Side, where the so-called terrorists lurk.

It's not exactly the itinerary we thought we had booked. Oh, but we certainly did it. We just weren't paying attention. We weren't monitoring our thoughts. We weren't questioning our beliefs. We weren't listening closely to our words. If we were, we'd notice that we constantly give voice and life to our fears.

Fear wails bloody murder at such a high decibel that it rattles the very core of our being. All that racket prevents us from discerning a single word of wisdom that our omnipresent "still small voice" is trying to impart.

When we believe that we're merely vulnerable physical bodies, unworthy in the sight of God, everything is potentially threatening. When we believe we are insignificant beings that are separated from a very distant and heinously punitive God who intervenes capriciously and lets bad things happen to good people, everything is potentially terrifying--from flying in a plane to falling in love.

Fear is truly a bad actor, the prototype for the ridiculously spoiled child who can't be controlled by her parent. Fear has an absolute hissy fit until we agree to believe that the Golden Rule, Do unto others ONLY that which we want others to do to us, applies to everybody else.

Fear makes us believe that we must retaliate when someone violates us. It makes us forget that what is done to us is precisely what we've done at some point in our souls' eternal life. It's always stirring up mess, urging us to punish rather than forgive; then it plays the nut role when the circle becomes full and someone retaliates against us, rather than forgives.

This pitiful drama has encored ad nauseum, and will continue to do so until we learn some simple and ancient Life principles--or at least read them with some level of comprehension.

Fear insists that we should control the time and circumstances under which our enemy gets his or her due; and we should take care of that piece of business immediately, if not sooner. By contrast, faith in the fairness of Life (and God) makes it easy to remember that we should control nothing but our own consequences, knowing that our every action naturally meets its own joyful or painful karmic come-uppins--and so will our enemies'.

Many of us don't understand karma, what it is and how it works. Most of us dismiss it as woo-woo and opt for woe-woe. I explain the concept quite simply in one of my other favorite books, EARTH Is the MOTHER of All Drama Queens.

Here's the short version: Karma is the natural consequence of each action; it establishes natural balance. For example, you hurt me in some way. That pain might show up on the surface as my pain, but in reality what you've really done is sign a virtual requisition for someone to hurt you. You can't see it with your physical eye and Lord knows, I certainly can't--what with my crocodile tears, my whining, wailing, and that annoying runny nose.

Even though I might feel vulnerable, maybe even weak, in reality I have the power to make a life-altering decision. My decision is not going to change your life, it's going to change mine. Problem is, I have to make this critically important decision under extremely stressful conditions.

What I know is that you will naturally attract someone to hurt you as deeply as you have hurt me. I merely have to decide whether I will be the one who puts that hurting on you.

If I understand that retaliating puts my signature on a requisition for someone to hurt me again, I will make the choice that doesn't causes me more pain: I will choose to allow you to reap the natural consequences of your actions, instead of bumping my head in the karmic clothes dryer with you.

The problem is that when we're stressed, we really don't think clearly, do we? Our reactions are knee-jerk, habitual. We almost have to re-program ourselves, practice choosing joyful consequences with the small violations we encounter on a daily basis: smiling at the woman on her cell phone who almost ran into our lane, showering blessings the co-worker who makes our work day miserable, forgiving the dude in the express line with 30 items.

With enough practice, as I suggested a very nice woman earlier this week, we'll be able to tackle the Biggies: I imagine that she will actually be able to send Light and Love to the friend who stole her husband and is trying to be mother to her kids. She will generously give both of those souls loving allowance to reap what they've sown--and back away.

We are not bodies. We just think we are. Our bodies are merely costumes we wear over our eternal spirits. And we don't know our spirits' histories. We don't know if a situation is, as I like to say, "karma created or karma completed." But we don't have to know.

All we really need to grasp is this: Forgiveness transforms all of our consequences. It keeps us on the air conditioned side of the karmic clothes dryer. On the cool side, nothing is unforgivable.

Forgive your trespasser. Forgive yourself. Free yourself. Let the buzzer on the dryer announce that this karmic cycle is finally done. Hop out of that joker, empty out the lint basket, and keep it moving.

Or you can keep spinning. That's what free will is all about. We get to choose our consequences. No one's taking score. No one's going to punish us for millions of years for human error--no one that calls itself Love, anyway. And, excuse me, no one else counts.

From the balcony of Earth's theater, we can see so clearly that the track records of everything we've sown and all the consequences we naturally reap travel with our eternal souls, not our finite bodies. Planet Earth, physical life, the stuff and the people we're looking at, this fascinating world that seems light years from God, is an illusion, pure fantasy. We think it's real because it's all our physical eyes can see.

See this: The physical world is constantly changing. Absolutely nothing here is absolute. Nothing here remains unchanged. Nothing here lives forever.

Real Life, on the other hand, is eternally the same; nothing changes. The rules apply evenly, for every soul. Not one escapes the consequences of its actions--ever.

Real Life is always fair. Physical life, by contrast, is always fear. We can't plant seeds of fear and expect a harvest of faith. We have the freedom to believe, as John-Roger says, "Nothing here is designed to hurt or harm you. It is all for you to use to lift yourself into Spirit. It all points you toward God. It is all for your benefit." Or, we can believe that others can harm us without harming themselves; that it's up to us to settle the score; that the world was designed to be painful and scary; and that in another place, far, far away, lives a God who gives us the freedom to make choices and sadistically punishes us for...making choices.

Plant your seeds wisely; choose your thoughts, actions and reactions with a real understanding of how to stop your personal cycle of pains, big and small. And if you must be afraid, be afraid of forgetting that.

Know that I love you.

Slamming the Door on Summer (and Space) Travel

If you’ve noticed that the balcony has been eerily silent for the past eight weeks, it’s because the Loud Mouth has been traveling exhaustively—and staying in places where folks really make noise: hotels. Day or night, I was frequently jolted out of a dead sleep or deep thought by a slamming guest room door. Blam!

At home, we generally don’t slam doors near other folks’ bedrooms. Why do we do it when we’re on the road? Do we forget that hotel rooms are bedrooms, too? Blam! I haven’t the slightest idea. My guess is that they haven’t read the karma memo: Whatever you do will be done to you. When you disrespect others’ peace, you’ve written a spiritual requisition for your peace to be disturbed. Blam!

After weeks of enduring this annoying racket in a variety of gorgeous hotels, I decided to do my part to help my floor mates avoid their karmic fate. If you’re ever in a hotel room and someone has slipped a handwritten note under every door saying, “Thanks for not slamming your door! ( Your neighbors appreciate you”, just smile. The Loud Mouth is probably down the hall trying to get some sleep or write her next book.


Being on the road really makes me appreciate being home! Right now, I’m watching people lined up to board the Tall Ships. I’d love to join them, but it looks like rain. Obviously, they didn’t spend most of yesterday in a hair salon, as I did. So I’ll just watch the ships pull out of the harbor from the comfort of my desk chair.

Never mind. A few umbrellas just popped open. Watching people get drenched is not exactly my idea of great entertainment. Guess I’ll catch up on the news, instead.

Here’s a goody: Did you see today’s Associated Press report about life on Mars? How time flies. Apparently, it’s been ten years since scientists announced the possibility of Martian life. Looks as if a few of them have green cheese on their faces. After a decade of studying the evidence from a 4.5 billion year old meteorite that fell onto Antarctica, most scientists now agree that the claim doesn’t hold water—even though billions of years ago, Mars did.

Now that it’s quiet enough to think deep thoughts, the Loud Mouth is compelled to ask, “What’s up with that, my scientist brothers? Can we pull out to the wide shot a little bit, embrace Life as well as…uh, life?”

Chicken Soup’s Mark Victor Hansen tells this fascinating story about being with his grandmother when she made her transition. Doctors had just weighed her before she passed. They also weighed her immediately after she stopped breathing. Hansen noted that his grandmother weighed less; and he concluded that the Life within her must have weighed something.

Hey, I’m not a scientist; but I don’t think that breath has weight, does it? On the other hand, I think that Hansen was onto something by making the distinction between his grandma’s body and her Life. Was she the lifeless shell that stayed on planet earth—or the part that left the body? It’s a distinction that few of us make.

Life is always defined in terms that we know: physical terms. Bodies and other visible organisms are physical. But are they Life itself? It’s the kind of stuff Spiritual Sleuths love to explore.

I began my search by looking at how many definitions we have for the word “life”. What struck me were the wide variations. The 10 definitions in Wikipedia’s Wictionary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life) dramatically illustrate this point:

1. The state that precedes death and follows birth or conception.


2. In biology, a status given to an entity including animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and sometimes viruses, etc, with the properties of replication and metabolism.


3. In philosophy, the essence of the manifestation and the foundation of the being.


4. In phenomenology, the subjective and inner manifestation of the individual.


5. In Christianity, the essence of God, its own revelation.


6. A worthwhile existence. e.g. He gets up early in the morning, works all day long, and even on weekends, hardly sees his family. That's no life!
   
7. The world in general, existence. (in life you should remember...)


8. Something which is inheritantly part of a person's existence, such as their job, their family, their loved one, etc.


9. (colloquial) A sentence imprisoning a convict until his or her death. More formally phrased life sentence.


10. The duration during which something operates, e.g.This light bulb has a long life.
    

Clearly, each of us views the word differently, depending upon our vantage point, our beliefs, and whether we’re sitting in the orchestra section or the second balcony of the world theater. Up close, we view life as only that which we can detect with our senses or microscopes. Our perception is limited to our relationship to the physical world. Those in the nose-bleed section, however, can see much more, frequently, they can even peep behind the curtain. Which is the grander, more comprehensive picture? Which puts everything in greater perspective?

A couple of years ago, when Florida was being battered by one hurricane after another, I called my friend Phil in Tampa to see how he was faring. As often happens during conversations about extreme weather, we speculated about the cause of it all. Mankind has been doing this for centuries. According to renowned theologians, that’s how we developed the myth that violent weather was punitively inflicted on us from a wrath-filled, vindictive killer who “lives” in the sky.

I wasn’t going to entertain that limited notion of God as a satanic fiend; so Phil and I considered the possibility that space exploration—and residue from the gases, fuels, and other debris spewing from the spacecraft—might disturb the atmosphere enough to spawn deadly storms.

“What gets me,” Phil said, “is that they’re up there looking for life on other planets, and they never find anything.”

“Really?” I wondered. “How do we know they haven’t found life on another planet? Granted, the astronauts and their cameras don’t see anything; but they’re looking for water, plants, and conditions that would sustain physical life.

“Frankly, I think life is invisible and takes many forms. What if life, in its invisible form, was chilling on another planet, guffawing at the dude in the Michelin Man suit, and wondering what in the world he was looking for?”

Phil laughed; but I was serious.

Is there life on Mars? The late Carl Sagan thought so ten years ago. A few experts still believe it, including NASA biochemist David McKay, whose NASA scientist brother thinks he’s dead wrong. That has to be the worst indignity, don't you think? Your scientifically credentialed brother doesn't even believe in you.

I contend that there’s life everywhere because I believe that God is everywhere—omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. Yeah, yeah, I know that most folks think that God is sitting on a throne in the sky, heinously throwing down bolts of lightning, stirring up hurricanes and tsunamis, instigating diabolical ways for His kids to kill each other with pre-emptive attacks, devising gruesome, sadistic ways to punish His surviving kids, and engaging in the mind-numbing, never-ending job of keeping a scorecard of all of His kids' sins.

Frankly, none of that sounds quite Godly, to me; but to each, his own. For me, God is Life and Life is eternal. You can annihilate bodies, planets and all physical things. Try to destroy Life. Just try. Long after Earth, Pluto and Mars cease to exist, Life/God will remain.

The next time we send a crew into space, looking for signs of Life on a distant planet, I hope they consider that their physical eyes have physical limitations. As scientists I hope they take into account that organisms are merely one of the many forms that Life takes.

And, in deference to the peace they find when they arrive on those faraway planets, I hope the crew doesn’t slam the door when they leave.

What's Going On?

Overshadowed by the consuming war theater in the Middle East, a quiet little drama is quietly playing in Africa that has captured very little attention or critical acclaim. Unquestionably, it’s a battlefield in the global war against terror; but this skirmish adroitly demonstrates how to intelligently confront the enemy.

“For only love can conquer hate.”

The Christian Science Monitor is among the few who have given any attention to this particular show. That’s where a colleague discovered the story, and passed it on to me.

The scene is East Africa, which has witnessed its share of terrorist attacks. In 1998, Al Qaeda bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. From there, the group has also attempted to shoot down an Israeli airliner, and sink oil tankers and US Navy vessels in the Red Sea.

“We don’t need to escalate…”

In 2002, more than 1,500 U.S. troops were deployed to the area to root out followers of Al Qaeda. They found none. What to do? They launched a pre-emptive attack to stem the growth of Islamic militants among this largely Muslim population.

I’m not sure if someone noticed that the violence on the big stage was merely spawning more violence—or if, in the stillness of the East African countryside, they heard a small voice that whispered, “Terrorist recruitment flourishes when there’s discontent with living conditions, whether it’s in Djibouti, East Africa or Detroit.”

“We've got to find a way to bring some understanding here today…”

For whatever reason, the soldiers put down their guns and picked up construction tools. Since 2002, they have built more than 30 schools, 25 clinics, and a number of new wells and bridges in mostly Muslim areas.

“One place we went to, they considered the U.S. to be warmongers,” 96th Civil Affair Battalion sergeant Richard Crandall told the Christian Science Monitor. “We built a school; and when we left, they said they considered us friends.”

“…Don’t punish me with brutality”

How do you stop terrorism? I dunno. Acting as if you came from a country where most of its citizens claim to follow the Prince of Peace clearly seems to have some merit.

"We are trying to dry up the recruiting pool for Al Qaeda by showing people the way ahead. We are doing this one village, one person at a time," Maj. Gen. Timothy Ghormley, commander of the joint task force based in Djibouti, reportedly said. "We're waging peace just as hard as we can."

What’s going on?

From where the Loud Mouth sits, it appears that the great Motown sage, Marvin Gaye, has ascended. Once a soloist with backup singers, he’s now a 1,500 voice choir. Go, Marvin! Go, Marvin!

Selfish is Good. Really Good.

If I see that photo of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s lifeless blue face one more time, I think I’m going to barf. It was on the home page of the Yahoo! news section. It was on the front page of the newspaper outside my hotel room. Sitting at the airport, I was treated to the big screen version.

Who decided that the world needs this graphic evidence? Pity the folks who were trying to digest food while watching the news.

Let’s be clear, I’m not a fan or mourner of Mr. al-Zarqawi. I do, however, understand why he was here--and why he’s not.

Big picture: When the casting call was announced, his soul eagerly chose the role of heartless killer in the world theater. Unfortunately, he didn’t slow down long enough to read the one and only stage direction: “Whatever you do will be done to you. Now, go act your heart out. See ya when you get back.”

Most of us think that Life on Earth is a lot more complicated than that. I don’t. We think there’s a long list of rules to follow and hoops we must jump through to please God.

Let me ask you: Is True Love hard to please? Would an unconditionally loving parent punish you eternally and sadistically for not following directions? Jesus certainly didn’t think so. But he was a bit radical. To him, the vindictive judgmental God portrayed in Hebrew Scripture bore no resemblance to the God he knew. Our vision of God reflects in the way we treat others.

The God that Mr. al-Zarqawi and legions of Christians and Jews profess to know frequently solves problems by vengefully killing and torturing those who do not agree or obey. That God, according to ancient scribes, favors some of his children over others, and is prone to genocidal rampages. It’s easy to see why al-Zarqawi and other followers of this God believe that brutality is the “right” way to handle large and small scale disputes. Like Roman pagans, these people gloat about their kill by putting it on public display. They judge their killings as justifiable and holy; the identical act by others is evil. Fascinating stuff.

My guess is that these folks have either acclimated themselves to the heat and head-bumping in the karmic clothes dryer, or they simply haven’t noticed that their behavior is not divine. A wise teacher once admonished, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. Condemn not, that ye be not condemned.” On another occasion, he rephrased it, “All those who take up the sword perish by the sword.”

In 21st century Loud Mouth-speak, all of it translates to, “Whatever you do will be done to you.” If Mr. al-Zarqawi knew that, I wonder how it would have affected his choices? More important, how will it affect yours, moving forward? I’m not talking about some of your choices, but all of them. I’m talking about making a conscious decision to be really selfish. Make life all about you.

Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re a really selfish person: You want to be treated well; you want others to respect your property, your person and your relationships, want folks to be generous, loving, patient, and forgive you when you’ve been an absolute creep. How can a selfish person achieve these results? Treat others well, respect their property, their person, and their relationships, be generous, loving, patient and forgiving. You can’t protect your best interest without protecting the best interest of others.
You don’t want anybody to steal from you? Don’t steal. You don’t want anyone to cheat you? Don’t cheat. You don’t want anyone to harm you? Don’t inflict any kind of pain upon others. Take selfishness to new heights.
Remember, whatever you do comes back to you. Don't take my word for it. Ask Mr. al-Zarqawi.

Remembering to Count It All Joy

At 3 o’clock on Memorial Day, in collective consciousness, we remembered, honored, thanked, and mourned those who are no longer physically here with us. Among those with the most heartbreaking memories were the 1,600 children who’ve lost a parent in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Nearly 150 of those children gathered this weekend at a grief camp to share their stories and to relieve some of their pain. They drew pictures, wrote stories, talked, and cried, letting go of their anxieties, their anger, their fears, but not their memories. Who can imagine a child's struggle to understand death, when she barely understands life?

Children’s imaginations are so powerful, so vivid, and so transformative. I suspect that their imaginations, as well as our imaginations, also have the power to heal, which explains why therapists encourage us to be creative when we’re working through painful issues such as loss.

What if we could use our imaginations for a moment? Ever seen a photo of the solar system? Envision it now, and choose a planet to visit. Pretend that this planet has an observatory where we can watch all of the action on Earth.

Think of it. It would be as if we were sitting in the audience, watching a bazillion personal dramas performed 24-7.

Look! Some of the theaters over there are decadently opulent; and their players perform in elaborate costumes, surrounded by luxurious props. Others don’t even have rooftops. Players are dressed in rags and recite their lines on stages with dirt floors. Some are deliriously happy. Others are miserable. Some have magnificent physical bodies; others have been ill from the day they arrived on the planet.

Why? Why not, if it’s just theater, if it's not real? And, just for a moment, let’s just suppose that’s exactly what the Earth experience is: Theater. It certainly has all of the necessary theatrical elements: There’s this constant stream of souls in human body costumes carried onto stages in little blankets. Some time later, each one is carried off in a rectangular box. Not one of the actors stays on the stage forever. Never have. Never will.

And what characters they play! Some of the roles last a short while; others stay onstage much longer. Have you noticed that most of the actors become so engrossed in their personal dramas that they actually think the theater is Life itself—the Alpha and Omega? It makes sense that whenever someone exits the stage, they think that character has ceased to exist.

But have they?

What if Earth is not Home, but simply a place to act out an infinite number of melodramas, murder mysteries, sci-fi adventures, tragedies and love stories—then move on?

What if the building you’re sitting in is merely an elaborate prop in a gigantic theater created by you and billions of other souls as a place to grow, learn, love, and play?

What if your body is merely a costume that you are wearing; and the real you is on the inside, looking out?

What if the people who play major roles in your life agreed, a very long time ago, to share the Earth stage with you at strategic times to add some tension, comic relief, love, even denouement to your drama?

What I’m suggesting is the possibility that your physical life is just a fraction of your total existence; and that your personality is just a role, a character you’re playing right now. I know these possibilities might be difficult to grasp. In fact, you might find them downright goofy. That’s OK. We’re simply using our imaginations to go somewhere we’ve never been, remember?

Think about the times you watched a stage play or a television show and became caught up in the drama as it unfolded. You probably screamed when you were frightened, cried when one of the characters died, and cheered when good won over evil or when the star-crossed lovers finally united. You had honest emotional reactions, even though you knew it was theater. You can only imagine how emotionally involved you’d become, if you weren’t aware it was theater.

Sitting on another planet, with a broader perspective of the Universe, could make you wonder if life on Earth is actually an opportunity to learn something—and every person in your life is there to teach you. Sometimes we’re too close to a situation, too caught up in the drama to see the lesson in it. From the audience, however, it’s clear as day.

Do we dare step outside of our personal dramas to view the stress in our lives, the pain we cause ourselves and others, the despair and feelings of victimization from a different perspective? Can we use our creative power, our imaginations, to open ourselves to receive answers to age-old questions: Why does life seem so unfair? Why am I here? Why did my loved one die? Is there a God? Why did this horrible thing happen?
Maybe you’ve asked these questions. I certainly have. What I’ve noticed is that the answers were revealed to me, in proportion to my willingness to receive and understand them. As they say, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Who are the souls that have agreed to come onto your stage to teach you about love, about Life, about appreciation, about pain, about integrity, opportunity and failure? Who demonstrated powerful lessons that sent you scurrying to find the strength, the God within you? Who helped you to know yourself?

You asked them to teach you. Imagine that. Did you learn the lesson, or will you have to call in another teacher? While you're at it, think about what your performance has taught others?

What if everything that happens in your experience here is part of a plan to move you closer to the Divine? Would you see everything and everyone differently? Would you judge experiences and people as good or bad—or merely part of the journey?

Eventually, children who have experienced the death of a loved one will learn that light and darkness cannot occupy the same space. Maybe they'll even learn to ask: If Life is eternal, what is death, really?

Stepping out of the drama, sitting the audience, you might discover that Life is always fair; God is never far; Death is not The End; and absolutely nothing is unforgivable.

Perhaps that is why the Bible suggests that we “Remember to count it all joy!”

Busting “Da Code”

If you think that the uproar over The DaVinci Code has nothing to do with you, think again. Do you think that folks are jumping up and down, screaming and waving their arms wildly, simply to alert the rest of us that a novel shouldn’t be read as non-fiction?

Are there any literate adults out there who don’t know the distinction between fiction and non-fiction? If so, don’t worry about learning it now; it’s much too late. In the meantime, the rest of us Christians will forgive this brazen insult to our intelligence.

Let’s face it; each of us creates our own reality, anyway. And that’s really what’s at the heart of this backlash against Dan Brown’s murder mystery: man’s incessant proclivity toward controlling others’ thoughts and dictating their beliefs. Historically, we have marginalized or murdered those whose beliefs or behaviors have disagreed with ours.

In this case, we have a novel published in these United States, where the very first amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, the press, and religion. Dan Brown exercised his First Amendment rights and created a novel in which the search for a murder motive led to the unmasking of an ancient secret. Sounds like the ingredients for great drama, huh? That’s just the half of it.

The ancient secret in this fictional tome, for both of you who haven’t read or heard about it, was that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children. That’s when the real drama began. The audacity of Brown to concoct a fictional story that not only depicts Jesus as human, but reveals how and when he transcended humanity and became a deity. Mesmerizing stuff.

I have hundreds of books in my personal library; very few of them are fictional. Not one of them was a murder mystery, until my daughter convinced me to buy The DaVinci Code. She insisted that as a journalist and a seeker of truth, I should make this exceptional murder mystery an…OK, exception.

She was right. I devoured this book—and more. As a journalist, I had to know: Did the novel accurately portray the Roman Emperor Constantine and the decisions of the Council of Nicea that have impacted—no, dictated for nearly 2,000 years—what we Christians believe to be the absolute truth?

Within a very short time, I located a wealth of reference material, dating back centuries and written by Bible scholars and theologians. They make some of the same claims as The DaVinci Code.

Have you heard about any protests against these non-fiction books? Don’t you find that fascinating? It would appear that calling attention to this scholarly research would put these issues in the public domain and raise some tough questions that many don’t want to answer. So it makes sense that they would freak out when Brown had the temerity to expose this obscure research and put it in the hands of millions who’ve read it on buses and in bedrooms.

Don’t get me wrong. I fervently believe that those who love God should be protesting just about now. If we could just find someone to lead us. No one has organized a boycott against the Bible writers or publishers, even though this book portrays God as exhibiting unholy vengeance and wrath. Am I the only one who is pained that God is depicted in the Bible as bi-polar, inhumane, indecisive, hypocritical, and possessing the conflict resolution skills of Atilla the Hun? Where’s the picket line?

How in the world can anyone one explain all of inconsistencies—including the Good God/Bad God character? The very first chapter has so many conflicting facts that Bible purists, literary buffs, and proofreaders should be gnashing their teeth.

Jewish and Christian Bible scholars have demanded a vetting of the Bible’s narrative for centuries. In our lifetimes, the reasoned cries of Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong, the Rev. Marcus Borg and others have been virtually drowned out by hysteria such as we’re witnessing now.

There's no traffic jam on the path to Truth, by any stretch of the imagination. Most of us own Bibles; few of us have noticed any irregularities in the narrative. Even a casual perusal would reveal some trouble spots.

Quick—how many of each wild animal species was on the ark? One male, one female? The answer is yes…and no. The number changes several times. Why?

How many days did it rain—40? Yes…and no. It depends upon which verse you’re reading in the same chapter. How many days passed before they got off the boat? Pick a number. After saving animals' lives, what's the first thing Noah did when he got the all-clear? The answers to straightforward questions shouldn’t change, whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, but they do in this book. The DaVinci Code revealed to many of us, for the first time, the reason why.

“How did I miss these contradictions?” I wondered. Others ask the same thing when I suggest that they read the Flood Story for themselves.

I’ll tell you how we missed it: We let preachers read selected portions of the Bible to us and we nod our heads and say, “Amen.” The other reason we missed these nuggets is what I call the Fear and Intimidation Factor. Many of us are afraid to question or even acknowledge these obvious factual inconsistencies because we’re afraid we’ll accused of having no faith—or worse, that we’ll be labeled an atheist. Name-calling isn’t exactly a Christian value and neither is judgment, which segues nicely into something else that demands protest: the Bible’s character assassination of God.

Anyone who has read or studied the Bible has noticed that the Old Testament God is diabolical; the New Testament God is divine. Card-carrying Christians have a simple explanation: God "changed" His mind and consequently, "changed" His behavior. Yeah, right.

If God is absolute, He doesn’t change. He’s either good all the time—or never. So what really has changed since the ancients’ perception of God was captured in writing? It is the culture, the era, the politics, the motivations, agendas, and the religions of the human hands that wrote, re-wrote, improvised, hyperbolized, added to and subtracted from, and inaccurately translated this anthology.

God changed His mind? The only mind that seems to change is ours—with the wind. Those of us who call ourselves Christians claim to see God in the same perspective that Jesus (not his real name, by the way) saw God. Then, we inexplicably reach back into the Old Testament and quote scriptures depicting a God that Jesus viewed as too unforgiving, too unloving, too violent, too vengeful, too homophobic, too sadistic, and too unfair to really be "Our Father".

Anyone protesting that? Nope. Anybody figured out yet that we have to choose which God we believe in—the sadistic, genocidal one or the Prodigal Son’s Dad.

How ironic is it that protesters who demand factual integrity demand that we have blind faith in writings that clearly malign the integrity, the compassion and the unconditional love of the God that Jesus believed in?

They also insist that we have blind faith (emphasis on blind) in illogical stories that claim, on one hand, that a pregnant Mary knew that she was carrying God's child, the Messiah. Despite that, she raised him to be a carpenter; and years later, she and her other kids were mortified when Jesus launched a ministry and preached that God was the polar opposite of the one in Jewish scripture? According to the Bible, Jesus’ mother and his sibs wanted him to come home and sit quietly somewhere.

How quickly did Mary forget the angel, the star in the East, the magi, and those wonderful gifts? She raised her son to work with wood, not wisdom; and then she and his sibs begged him to stop talking about God in public. It doesn’t add up. But who’s challenging these ancient details when Dan Brown is a much easier target?

I haven't heard any of Brown’s critics vilify New Testament claims that Jesus was born twice, either. Now remember: to fulfill Jewish scripture, the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem. Two strangers—Matthew, a Jewish scribe and Luke, a Gentile physician—neither of whom was a disciple or an eyewitness to anything Jesus did or said, crafted conflicting birth scenarios attempting to establish that Jesus was the Messiah.

One writer claimed that Jesus was born in a barn and placed in a manger after Joseph inexplicably made a very pregnant Mary travel by foot and ass from Nazareth. (You remember Joseph. He made that cameo appearance in the Christmas pageant, never to be seen or heard from again.) The other gospel clearly mentions no journey; Joseph and Mary lived in Bethlehem, and Jesus was born at home.

I know, “How’d I miss that?” You’re wondering.

Which story is the truth? Those who believe that the Bible is inerrant say that it's different parts of the same story. And they’re protesting fiction. Let a novelist create a character that was born in two places, and these nit-pickers would flip out. But I digress.

You might also recall that Jewish scripture predicted something else about the Messiah: he would be a descendant of King David. The Jewish writer’s birth narrative certainly didn't forget this. He painstakingly traced Joseph’s lineage back to David. Of course, this little detail implies that Joseph, rather than God, is Jesus’ biological father. Oops.

Has anyone protested against this non-fiction writer’s blasphemous egg-sperm genesis of the baby Jesus? Nah. Matthew can claim that Jesus was fully human; but they’ll pummel Dan Brown for daring to say it in a work of fiction. Curiously, not of these 21st century protesters is offended by Biblical quotes hinting that Jesus of Nazareth was actually illegitimate.

Won’t anyone decry this apparent lack of family values in the books that are called gospel? Nope, what riles these protesters most is the claim that Jesus might have been a family man with a wife and kids.

Strange, isn’t it? Maybe not. These same folks attend church on the pagan’s day of worship, rather than on the Bible’s Sabbath. Ditto for celebrating December 25. It, too, is rooted in paganism: the tree, the gifts, the date itself. None of it is related to Jesus’ birthday; yet none of these protesters has proposed that Christians separate themselves from pagan rituals. But let a novelist write a murder mystery and appropriately do his historical research so that the narrative framework is strong enough to hold his fictional storytelling, and these folks scream bloody murder.

Personally, I like the idea of a fully human Jew who received the divine revelation of what God really is, and who walked throughout the countryside teaching that we are One. It inspires me that someone with flesh and blood demonstrated that the Holy Spirit is within us, that we should love each other as we love ourselves; we should judge not, fear not. We should condemn not.

It’s a much more powerful story when a man reveals that through love, we can heal ourselves, heal each other, and heal our world. If only half-Spirit, half-egg beings can achieve inner peace, treat others with divine love, and enjoy a truly life-altering relationship with God, how can we egg-sperm created humans do it?

Is it more important to worship Jesus as half-egg, half Spirt—or to do what he urged us to do: follow him, i.e. do what he did. On no occasion did try to squelch others' beliefs in favor of his. He made no attempt to start another religion. He was born and he died a Jew—a Jew with a grander vision of what God is and who we are, as Sons of the Father.

Saying you're a Christian only reveals what you believe. By contrast, Christ-like reveals how you behave. Too often, they are mutually exclusive, used as a wedge to separate and denigrate others. Excuse me; is this what the Prince of Peace would do?

I sincerely believe that the Dear Ones who are protesting this novel and movie have a passion for Truth. I also believe that if they applied the same Truth barometer to non-fiction as they do to fiction, their passion for Truth would send them circling in front of religious bookstores, instead of movie theaters.

I can only imagine what would happen if the zeal that they’ve focused on The DaVinci Code were channeled into busting the real code—the code that has inflamed unloving, judgmental behavior for more than 2,000 years and continues to contradict the teachings of the Prince of Peace that these activists claim to follow.

O X Y MORONS, You're Killing Me!

Why is that whenever you buy a new car, suddenly you notice more cars on the road that are the same make and model? After writing about X and Y chromosomes, more news reports about them are catching my eye.

One of my favorites was truly a breaking news story: scientists have linked X and Y chromosomes to the REAL reason women and men think so differently. (Duh.) On the heels of that revelation, I spotted globetrotting journalist Kevin Sites' insightful article on mud pie-eating Haitians—and the nutritional value (not) of Haitian dirt.

The combination of the two articles made the Loud Mouth ponder the dual mysteries of mud and men. You, too? Or am I the only one who’s ever wondered…

• Why original man was created twice: first out of dirt, then minutes later, out of clay?
• When you breathe into dirt (or clay, for that matter), what happens?
• Does dirt have ribs?
• Or lips and a larynx?
• So, can dirt ask for a companion or talk to snakes?
• Have you ever tried to tempt dirt?
• Do you expect to give dirt directions, and it will follow?
• Is dirt smart enough to know right from wrong?
• Which chromosomes can be found in dirt: XX, XY, or Uh Oh?

Is it just the Loud Mouth, or have you also wondered whether a certain bestseller is accurate history—or something much more significant? And what are we missing by interpreting it literally?

Pass the ribs!

Moments ago, a friend sent an innocuous email entitled: "Fwd: Interesting History Info from Cecelia." I'm still not sure why I opened it; but I'm glad I did.

The email contained a link to a story on the BBC's website, Genetic 'Adam Never Met Eve'. If this isn't a drama, I can't imagine what is.

As this story unfolds, a group of scientists from eight countries traced mankind's genetic family tree. They did this by studying the variations in the Y chromosome of more than a thousand men from different communities around the world. (If you've been away from a biology class as long as I have, you'll need to be reminded that men carry the Y chromosome and the X chromosome. Women carry two X chromosomes.)

In earlier studies, fossil evidence revealed that modern humans originated in Africa 150,000 years ago, then slowly spread across the world. These scientists' research confirmed the decades-old "Out of Africa" hypothesis, which was based on studies of mitochondrial DNA, the segment of genetic material that is inherited exclusively from the mother. These studies determined that our most recent common ancestor was a woman who lived in Africa some 143,000 years ago, the so-called "Mitochondrial Eve".

Not content that they found "Eve", the latest group of scientists launched an exhaustive DNA search for "Adam". Voila! They found him. He was a man who lived in Africa around 59,000 years ago.

Did you do the math? Uh huh: There's an 84,000 year gap between Adam and Eve.

Pass the ribs, please. Reading this story on Earth Day made me see the entire planet in a new light. It was solely populated with women for 84,000 years? How on earth did they procreate?

Of course, the astute scientists have an explanation for this: They've concluded that the human genetic blueprint evolved as a mosaic, with different pieces of modern DNA emerging and spreading throughout the human population at different times. What does that mean: the first humans were male and female, not either/or?

Wait a minute! These scientists didn't mention a word about mankind being created from dust. And their women-first theory takes a plug out of our all-time favorite story of Adam's rib.

There's only one thing to do: We'll have to give these heretics a time-out; march them into their labs to stare into their Petri dishes until they can emerge with some more palatable answers.

What we really want to hear is that science is in synch with what we already believe: Man was here first. He was made from dust--and he was made from clay. Since the earth is nearly five billion years old and everything was created in a week, they will have to establish human life on the planet five billion years ago. And then we want them to explain how and why mankind regressed intellectually. After all, cavemen didn't have language, but Adam was able to develop the sophisticated nomenclature for every plant and animal soon after birth.

I might be pushing my luck, and maybe this is outside of the realm of science. But I wonder if the researchers can tell us why we didn't get a Savior for hundreds of thousands (maybe even billions) of years, since God seemed to be pretty fed up with us quite soon after our arrival on the planet.

One thing for sure, before these wise guys are allowed to release any more scientific evidence about the origin of man, they are absolutely positively going to have to stop locating the Garden of Eden so far south of Europe!

Another Drama of Biblical Proportions

Where's a ghostbuster when you really need one? Judas Iscariot has come back to haunt us—just in time for Passover. The man who added "the kiss of death" to our vernacular has returned...a hero.

That's the story told in the recent release of the nearly 2,000-year-old Gospel of Judas—determined by every scientific method available today as an authentic document. By all accounts, this book had all the elements to be the third century's DaVinci Code. It claims that Judas did not betray Jesus. In fact, it asserts that Jesus asked Judas to point him out to authorities—knowing that he was considered a heretic. In that day, anyone who held religious beliefs that did not conform to the mainstream was inhumanely persecuted.

Judas, according to this gospel, was Jesus' closest friend; and he claimed that Jesus told him, "You will be cursed by the other generations.... For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."What does it mean, exactly, to "sacrifice the man that clothes me"? Rodolphe Kasser, one of the world's preeminent scholars of Coptic Christianity and a translator the document, explains that Jesus wanted someone to free him from his human body, and he preferred that person to be a friend rather than an enemy.

"Heresy!" screamed religious leaders 2,000 years ago, when they read The Gospel of Judas. They found it abominable to regard Judas as anything other than a traitor. And they refused to include his gospel in the New Testament.

"Heresy!" screamed religious leaders 2,000 years later, when they read The DaVinci Code, a fictional book that unveiled so much factual data about Christian history that it spawned an ill-fated lawsuit from historians who accused him of plagiarism. How dare Dan Brown or any novelist write fiction based on theological research!

One of the nuggets we discovered in Brown's epic was the contentious process that brought us today's New Testament. In 300 AD, after Christianity was no longer a Jewish sect, a committee of religious leaders decided which, among the numerous accounts of Jesus' life on earth, would be read by future generations. The committee favored the often conflicting accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Centuries-old research reveals that none of these writers had a relationship with or even knew Jesus.

The writer of Matthew was not the reviled tax collector who walked with Jesus. Bible scholars aren't sure exactly who the writer is, but contextual clues date the book of Matthew two or three generations after Jesus' death.

Mark, the oldest New Testament text, although it appears second, was not written by one of the 12 disciples, either. Biblical scholars date the writing of this book 60 to 70 years after Jesus' death.

Experts say that the book of Luke, as well as Acts (still believed by many to have been written by the Apostle Paul), were written by a Gentile physician, rather than a Jewish disciple of Jesus. Scholars date Luke's accounts between 60 and 100 years after Jesus' death. Both Luke's and Matthew's accounts of Jesus' life draw heavily on the Book of Mark, and dispute each other in varying details that do not appear in Mark at all.

The Gospel of John is dated between 90 and 120 years after Jesus' death; and although scholars argue about the identity of the author, they agree that it was not the Apostle John, as many assume. So, despite no proven connection to Jesus of Nazareth, these men's accounts of his life were declared the gospel truth. However, Judas' account was tossed completely.

Fascinating stuff. I'm particularly intrigued by the fact that Judas' gospel claims that Jesus wanted to leave his body. There's evidence elsewhere in the New Testament, John 6:63 most directly, where Jesus very clearly expresses little regard for the physical body. "The Spirit gives life," he says, "The body is of no account."

Oddly enough, those who formed our beliefs about Jesus, his life, and his death, believed that the physical body is everything. To them, the body is who we are; when the body dies, we cease to exist—views that depart sharply from Jesus'.

This might be a heretical thought; but, as one who taught by example, would it have been out of character for Jesus to seize an opportunity to teach us a dramatic lesson about what Life really is and who we really are? What if he publicly left his body, then reappeared to demonstrate that "The Spirit gives life. The body is of no account?"Wow. That would be the kiss of death to many of the beliefs that we hold dear.

Researchers say that you don’t have a prayer. Now what?

One of the ministers at my church is fond of saying, “Prayer doesn’t change things; it changes us.” Now, an exhaustive $2.4 million study on the healing power of prayer may have revealed just that.

The study, conducted at six venerable medical centers, including Harvard University and Mayo Clinic, divided 1,800 patients into three groups. All were recovering from coronary bypass surgery. Strangers—all Christians—prayed for patients in two of the groups. The prayer was simple: a speedy recovery with no complications. One group knew that prayers were being offered for them; one did not. None of the strangers prayed for the third group; and the group was none the wiser.

Did those who received prayer support fare better than their cohorts? Actually, no. In fact, what stunned the medical researchers was that patients who were aware that others were praying for them had more complications than the others—including those who received no prayer support.

For a great many of the faithful, particularly New Thought Christians, this comes as no surprise. It’s not that these Christians don’t believe in prayer. They simply have a different view of what prayer is.

This worldwide non-denominational group that adheres to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth identifies more with spirituality than religion. Consequently, they generally don't read or teach any version of the Bible in isolation. They typically supplement holy scripture with ancient, theological, or scholarly texts that help them understand the languages and idioms of ancient people, as well as the historical, cultural and political climates in which Biblical scribes lived and wrote.

Like Jesus, New Thought Christians hold a non-theistic view of the Divine. In other words, they don't view God as a supreme or supernatural Being that resides outside of us and manipulates events externally. To them, God is within us, constantly present through the Holy Spirit.

While that thought is not “new”, and neither is the movement, it's certainly a more modern view of God than that of early man who struggled to define the Divine. As former Roman Catholic nun Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God, explains in her most recent book, A Short History of Myth, “Humans have always been mythmakers.”

Unable to explain certain natural phenomena, Armstrong says, early man created myths about gods and goddesses who looked and acted very much like humans. They had a gender, a physical body, personality traits, and they shared the same range of emotion as humans—from absolute calm to vengeful, sadistic rage.

Early man also believed that, like themselves, the unpredictable temperament of the gods and goddesses could be appeased. With the proper set of words, actions, or living sacrifices, man could calm their rage and consequently control or even halt the occurrence of natural disasters.

These beliefs were passed down as oral history for thousands of years. Today, many still believe that, through prayer, they can convince God to scrap His plans, and adopting theirs. Most are not aware that these petitions actually reveal a lack of trust in God to solve problems for the highest good of all concerned.

In this case, the researchers and petitioners assumed that what they desired for these patients was what the patients or the Holy Spirit within them desired. For some of these souls, complications from surgery may have been their “exit strategy” from the body, in perfect accord with their established timetable. Let's face it; no soul has ever intended to stay here, evidenced by the fact that no soul ever has.

Prayer doesn't change things. It changes us. Prayer time is an opportunity to consciously connect with the Divine within us, listen, and trust that It already knows our desires and will unfailingly resolve everything for our Highest Good.

If someone were to ask a crowd of people if God had ever granted their prayers, most, if not all of them would say, “Yes.” However, the same people could also cite many prayers that were not granted. This leads us to the ancient and, I believe, erroneous conclusion that God is unpredictable or capricious, rather than absolute and unchanging. Tomorrow they'll talk to a friend or they'll read a book that will advise them that they didn't say or do the right thing to convince God that their desired outcome was the perfect outcome. After all, it's all about what we want, isn't it?

Perhaps this is what they spent $2.4 million to determine. Unfortunately, this costly study unwittingly rested on ancient myths that if we behave a certain way, God will say, “Eureka! I hadn't thought of that solution. Let's do it your way.”

Does this study prove that God is inconsistent or that prayer doesn’t always work? One could certainly conclude that. Alternatively, one also could conclude that what really doesn't work is any attempt to control God.

There's no dispute that prayer always works when it is in alignment with God's will, rather than our own. A generic prayer such as, “I release this problem to God, knowing that it will be resolved for the Highest Good of all concerned” creates that alignment. It says, “God, I trust You to work this out perfectly. I detach myself from the outcome and allow Thy will to be done.” The outcome might not be what we hoped, but we can be assured that it is the perfect outcome.

Now there's a new Christian thought: How about creating more productive ways to spend $2.4 million than testing the all-knowing, all-powerful, ever present Holy Spirit?

Is War Just--or Is It Just War?

This is America: land of the free, home of the brave, the forceful, and the myopic. Where else can we speak our minds without fear of censorship, incarceration, or bodily harm? Where else can we send mixed messages and not be viewed as illogical, confused, or just plain duplicitous?

That's why I love and appreciate this country. Periodically, I am reminded of how precious our liberties are—like today, when I stumbled upon a fascinating column on one of my favorite websites, Beliefnet, authored by the Reverend Richard Land. It was entitled “A Christian Defense of the War in Iraq.”

On the surface, there seems to be something blatantly oxymoronic about Christians defending war. Followers of Jesus’ teachings don’t engage in war, let alone defend it. So I figured there must be something more than the eye could see here. After all, Rev. Land is a highly respected theologian, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. (Southern Baptists are the nation’s largest non-Catholic Christian denomination.) He’s also a magna cum laude grad of Princeton who holds a doctorate from England’s venerable Oxford University. I was open to the possibility that I could learn a few things from him.

Is War Just—or Is It Just War?

Rev. Land’s first lesson was that judging, condemning, attacking, and imposing America's will, beliefs, and form of government on others is not only right, noble, and just; it's obligatory for a Christian nation.

“I believe [America’s] Declaration of Independence, which says that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Rev. Land asserted. “The Iraqis have the same right to freedom.” And war apparently was the only way to liberate them.

More than 15-hundred years ago, St. Augustine became the first in a series of religious scholars and teachers who have tried to justify war, and the bloodshed and destruction associated with it. First, they devised rules that would allow a war to be considered “moral”. Those rules have evolved into what’s now known as the “just-war theory”, which weighs factors such as proportionality (the gains outweigh the suffering and loss of life), self-defense, collateral damage, and other moral issues related to combat. It should be noted that the “just-war theory” trumps both God's “thou shall not kill” commandment and Jesus’ edict to “love your enemies”.

According to Rev. Land, protecting or even introducing others to their unalienable rights is reason enough to invoke the so-called “just-war theory”. In fact, he says, America is obligated to uproot any dictator who is denying his people the rights endowed by their Creator—sometimes, anyway. There are a few exceptions.

“North Korea comes to mind,” he told Beliefnet's Holly Lebowitz Rossi. “We certainly would like to help the North Koreans obtain their freedom, and there are certainly ways in which we can put pressure on the North Korean regime. But military action is not an option because it would not pass the test of proportionality.”

In other words, we could lose Big Time, because they have verifiable WMDs. Consequently, the North Korean people are not eligible for “just-war” liberation.

Last time I checked, machetes were not considered WMDs. And Rev. Land acknowledged that the gruesome murders of 750,000 Rwandans certainly passed the denial of inalienable rights and proportionality tests. Ditto for the ethnic cleansing rampages in Bosnia, Kosovo, and more recently, Darfur. He supported American intervention in each of those cases. But, he says, America needed the support of the international community. Without that support, our nation couldn’t act alone. Let me play that back for you: Without international support, America couldn’t justify war.

I have to admit, I am quite disturbed by Rev. Land's rationale for the uneven application of the “just-war theory”. On the other hand, he has the right to defend any war—for any reason. And he can call it anything he likes.

But for Jesus' sake, let’s not call it Christian, OK?