herbal sacraments or alluring perils

Hope
for those enslaved by discouragement or despair


by Bob Shepherd
Cottonwood CA

Alluring perils

or paths to healing?

My coming of age took place in the socalled 'turbulent' sixties,   the era of pot and protest, of beat poets and Bob Dylan and full-blown rock and roll. It was the era of Allen Ginsberg's Howl;   the era of the Black Panthers of Oakland; but also it was a time when Malcolm Boyd could wonder, "Are you running with me, Jesus?" ; it was a time when Martin Luther King could call out for social justice, and call for America to live up to the highest of its ideals. The great modern prophet invoked the Bible to challenge us: "America, ye must be born again" (See Dr. King's powerful sermon so titled.)

Chaos, hatred, strife, crime, terror, economic peril     We see crime everywhere. We see a world in chaos, a world divided by hatreds old and new. What is the solution? Malcolm X declared that racial divisions were so deep, that only God can save us. Much of the white world has lost its spiritual moorings. Spoiled by privilege and affluence, we are become all too materialistic, all too hedonistic, all too pampered. Standing in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King called on America to once again focus on the content of character, and rediscover the great values of our spiritual roots. We are heirs of great wisdom, but today that wisdom is often neglected.

America's highly touted achievements may be rife with termites, ready for demise
Almost half a century ago, radical writer Susan Sontag pounded home an unsettling message to us. She wrote: "The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone -- its ideologies and inventions -- which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself."

Of America, Sontag said, "America was founded on a genocide, on the unquestioned assumption of the right of white Europeans to exterminate a resident, technologically backward, colored population in order to take over the continent." And harsh as the words are, do we not see much that hits the mark, historically?

Blinded by Might.     A muscular "political" Christianity is often hardly Christian at all. It may be true that Western Man has evolved an impressive theology, but the theology is so intellectual, so rationalist, and much of it so speculative and abstract, that it is often removed from the difficulty and pain and needs of the real world, terra firma, right here in this earth. We forget our origins. We dishonor our roots. What Martin Luther King was calling us to was the simple gospel of our Judeo-Christian heritage. "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah 6:8)

The privileged elites prefer their theological ivory towers, where they pronounce that God is dead, and the founding fathers out of date. A Cupertino California school district went on record trying to ban Jefferson, ban the Declaration of Independence, and somehow make their schools a God-free zone. A Mississippi school board banned the Mogen David, the Star of David; might as well burn the Bible, too!

Walking the walk of service     Martin Luther King called on all of us to so live our lives, that our example itself would be the greatest sermon. Yet he also declared the importance of faith as a tool to empower us to that high task. Faith can give us strength to love. Faith can give us an inner power to overcome. Faith can fortify us to difficulty, suffering, and life's hardships. Each of us, in small ways or larger ones, is called upon to stand up against prejudice.

Time for a reformation : the simple roots of faith     Intellectualism and even academic brilliance alone are no answer. Nor is a purely theological religion. Malcolm X noted that even Billy Graham stressed that there is no spiritual help in the Christian religion. If Jesus Christ was anointed for our salvation (remember that in the original meaning, salvation is close to healing), Christianity is a far cry from Jesus Christ. It is as if MLK, and perhaps others like Malcolm Boyd or Desmond Tutu, were calling on us to return to the pure gospel of our moral roots. Simplify, simplify. Go back to genesis. Remember our kinship with the humble, with the weak. Do we not all have a tribal sub-conscious? Honor our lowly heritage, and remember from whence we came.

Learning from Malcolm X     Without humility, there can be no opening to the wonderment and grace of the sacred. Malcolm X zeroed in on the conversion component in a broader context than a single faith. "The truth can be quickly received, or received at all, only by a sinner who knows and admits that he is guilty of having sinned much. Stated another way: only guilt admitted accepts truth. The Bible again: the one people whom Jesus could not help were the Pharisees; they didn't feel they needed any help." [Autobiography, p 189] How true these word surely are, coming even from Malcolm X. Far more mainstream figures echo the same theme, laying importance on the indispensable necessity of honest confession, as a first step toward psychic salvation - or healing.

White man's religion.     Christianity has become, to its own hurt, all too much a white man’s religion. It has become all too euro-centric and pale-faced. Yet the original Bible is Shemitic, with Afro- and Asiatic roots. Out of Egypt have I called my son. "And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. Acts 7:22 Deeds are the proof of our progress. Our native ancestors taught us "Wisdom must be lived." And so it must. But does not white man's Bible teach us the same? See a KJV Bible site.

Rolling up our sleeves for this world     Be willing to get your hands dirty by living your values right in the here and now. Are you too good to know you need help? Not one of us created ourselves. Not one of us ordained the time and place of our birth into this life, or who our immediate parents would be. God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble. Western man flatters himself that he is enlightened above his ancestors, enlightened above the inferior races, enlightened above the foolishness of socalled heathen tribes with their superstition and totem and taboo.

Are we too "educated" to believe?     Rose Kennedy was asked by an interviewer if there were but one thing she could bequeath her children what it would be. Marabel Morgan quoted her answer. It wouldn't be wealth or lands or estates or privilege. It would be faith. Faith! (Rose F. Kennedy - resource) Rose Kennedy balanced sad and glad with faith.

Are we too good for something so simple?     White civilization has so often disgraced the very gospel that lifted them from their own barbarism and squalor. In beating down the meek, they shame themselves, and dishonor the Lord they claim to serve. See Quandra Prettyman's poem "When Mahalia Sings," how the contempt with which folks regard any religion of the heart is not founded on anything sound. The "lowly" folk worship with rhythm, with dance, with singing soul. But "God finds no worship alien or odd."

Are we too good to need the joy of the Lord?     We need strength to love. And strength to live. A religion that does not help us to live, that does not help us to die, that does not give us a song to sing, a service to perform here and now, is hardly a religion worthy of the name. Are we "high" on the Spirit of Jesus? Where - pray tell - is true joy to be found? The young German mystic Novalis pointed to the example of Spinoza, though rejected by the many, (Novalis said he was truly) God-intoxicated.

Getting "High" on Heels "Footsteps of Jesus that make the pathway glow. We will follow the steps of Jesus, where'ere they go." Follow the traditions of the people. Hearken unto the wisdom of the elders. Head-knowledge oft-times craves certainty, control, androcratic dominance. The way of the heart leads home. [Song lyrics by Mary Bridges Canedy Slade. Full song]

No easy street.     Taking on high ethical standards adds to a person's stress. But accepting any responsibility adds to one's stress. Yet is there not joy in the high calling? Psychologists call this positive, challenging stress "eu-stress" – as opposed to distress. Sometimes the two may feel indistinguishable. Does that make a believer a glutton for punishment, because he willingly takes on the yoke of service?

Birth and rebirth.     Did not our mothers willingly take on the physical pain of giving birth to us, and then the emotional pains associated with raising us, worrying about us, praying for us? I do not know of a single ethical system that does not, in some way, acknowledge the idea that out of suffering, good may come. Through difficulties we aim for the stars. God chastens the sons he loves.

Paul Tillich writes:
nobody can be liberated from himself unless he is grasped by the power of that which is present in everyone and everything -- the eternal from which we come and to which we go, which gives us to ourselves and which liberates us from ourselves. It is the greatness and the heart of the Christian message that God -- as manifest in the Cross of Christ -- participates totally in the dying child, in the condemned criminal, in the disintegrating mind, in the starving one and in him who rejects him. There is no extreme human condition into which the divine presence would not reach. This is what the Cross, the most extreme of all human conditions, tells us.

All life prays

All life breathes its prayer to the unseen world. The humblest forms of life know their creator, probably more than arrogant man does. Yet deep within us is a heart-cry. The white man's Bible tells us that the young lions become hungry, and pray to God. We as men and women, created (according to the Judaic and Christian tradition) in God's image, we all the more must recall our origins. George Washington, eyes brimming with tears, prayed for his suffering troops at Valley Forge. The sinner in the gospel parable smote on his breast and called himself unworthy, and somehow his cry was heard. Isn't this the core of intercessory deliverance? Of salvation itself? Who has any right to boast? Solomon wrote I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.... so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast. (Ecclesiastes 3:19)

REACH OUT TO JESUS

he's reaching out to you

When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best
When I lay me down to die
Goin' up to the Spirit in the Sky

That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best

Prepare yourself you know it's a must
Gotta have a friend in Jesus
So you know that when you die
He's gonna recommend you
To the Spirit in the Sky

Gonna recommend you
To the Spirit in the Sky
That's where you're gonna go when you die
When you die and they lay you to rest
You're gonna go to the place that's the best

Never been a sinner I never sinned
I got a friend in Jesus
So you know that when I die
He's gonna set me up with
The Spirit in the Sky
Oh set me up with the Spirit in the Sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best
Go to the place that's the best
U Y Z



Method to my madness?

or more madness than method?

Yes, we are debtors both to our native heritage, and also to the people of the Book - the Bible. Every one of us must own up to our tribal subconscious. And must we not also, in some way, come to terms with it? St. Paul called himself an heir both of the learned Greeks the unlearned Barbarians; both of the wise and of the unwise. (Romans 1:14)

Walt Whitman answered those who said he contradicted himself by admitting it freely. Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. (Song of Myself)

Pascal declared:
One does not show his greatness by being at one extreme, but in touching both extremes at once (Pensées, § VI, # 353)

And Eric Hoffer wrote:
It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites - opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity - where energies flow smoothly in one direction - there will be much doing but no music. (Reflections on the Human Condition)

Nietzsche
And the great Nietzsche, whom Martin Luther King as an academic opposed rather steadily, often quoted from biblical sources (though Nietzsche claimed NOT to believe in any God at all). In the Redeemer's formula 'Salvation is of the Jews' (The Anti-Christ, p 134).

Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, entheogenic plants, ganja, hash, weed, hemp, THC, cannabis sativa, 420, 4:20, joint. Huxley said that nothing was more curious, and to his way of thinking more important, than the role that mind-altering plants and chemicals have played in human history. Add to that William James's point that no account of the universe in its totality can be taken as final if it ignores extraordinary experiences of the sort he himself encountered through the use of nitrous oxide. (Huston Smith. Preface, Cleansing the Doors of Perception.)

Doors of Perception involve the interconnectedness of life on earth. The sacredness of nature. Native wisdom is not a top-down "revealed" righteousness, like whiteman scientific certainty, dogma. Rather, this wisdom is intuitive, and grows (as it were) out of the soil of the heart. Alan "Bear" Morsette. The native way seeks harmony with "father-mother" earth. Recommended: Plants of Power : Native American Ceremy and the Use of Sacred Plants, by Alfred Savinelli. See another ethnobotany resource.

Eldridge Cleaver (in Soul on Ice):
Song and dance are, perhaps, only a little less old than man himself. It is with his music and dance, the recreation through art o the rhythms suggested by and implicit in the tempo of his life and cultural environment, that man purges his soul of the tensions of daily strife and maintains his harmony in the universe. [p 185]

The author of Ecce Homo (presumably Paul Henri Thiery, Baron d'Holbach) wrote:
Baptism means cleansing, and fire means warmth.
How can warmth cleanse? The answer is that moral warmth does cleanse.
No heart is pure that is not passionate; no virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic.

Honor the traditions of the nation
Cherish the wisdom of the old ones
Preserve the life & lore of the people

Lifting the Veil: The Feminine Face of Science

Bob Shepherd in Y2K

 Lord have mercy on a boy
from down in the boondocks

Contact Information


© 2005 Bob Shepherd
All rights reserved
For more information email
robtshepherd@hotmail.com