Season’s Thinkings

I’ve had a few interesting conversations with DP recently with regard to myths and the amazing impact they can have on the entire culture. It’s amazing what one can see in the holiday preparations of a city!

On our drive to work Thursday, I was talking a little bit about the holiday music for A Cathedral Christmas; specifically some of the lyrics of some of the music and that fact that they are difficult for me sometimes.

There is a Vaughn Williams suite of Christmas carols that we’re presenting, and the lyrics have been a challenge for me (an almost greater challenge is that the music is so absolutely magnificent that I can’t hate it entirely):

This is the truth sent from above,
The truth of God, the God of love;
Therefore don’t turn me from the door,
But hearken all, both rich and poor.

The first thing that I will relate,
That God at first did man create;
The next thing which to you I tell
Woman was made with him to dwell.

Thus we were heirs to endless woes
Till God the Lord did interpose;
And so a promise soon did run:
That he would redeem us by his Son.

The lyrics go on from there, and at dress rehearsal this week I found myself thinking a fair amount about their meaning. The idea of a salvation-based faith has always been strange and foreign to me. The very idea that a doctrine is being taught to millions and millions that it just doesn’t matter how you live, what your choices are, whether you make amends, whether you even follow your own religion’s doctrines (the ten commandments, etc.); no, all that really matters is that you accept salvation from Jesus. The very idea of it is anathema to me, it just baffles.

And so when I sang these lyrics and got to thinking, my mind wandered to the idea of it all. I presented it to DP a bit like this:

I don’t get it. I mean, you’ve got this amazing story of this loving father god. And he sends his divine light in the form of his son(sun) down to walk among us, to be a shining example of love, to tell each of us that we carry within us the spark of the divine, to remind us that no-one is above another, and that earthly riches are not the measure of the true worth of a person (“many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first”) and that, in fact, it would be nearly impossible for someone who is single-mindedly focused on material gain to achieve true Nirvana (“I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”)

We’re talking about a teacher who called into question the upside-down values of this world. Who tried to show the nature of true spirituality and brotherly love. Who took a look around and challenged the power of the priests, the wealth of the church, and taught that we didn’t need all that to be close to the divine. And, of course, this didn’t all go over so well with the authority figures, and he was executed. I’ll let what happens next to your personal faith and beliefs.

And, so, on seeing this the lesson – in many cases that I’ve witnessed, the single lesson – we take is “he died to save us from our sins” and that by affirming this, we can all be wiped clean of our wrongdoing and saved. Really?! All those meaty, lovely real lessons available to us, and it’s reduced to “god saw there was a problem, and he was going to have no choice but to damn us to hell, so instead of that he just sent his son to die for us and save us from ourselves by suffering in our place and it’s done and that’s that”. A sacrificial lamb to appease the angry god, and that’s it?!

First off, that doesn’t even make sense. But more than that, from where I’m standing, it looks like so much beauty and depth is being skipped over. Lots of people talk at length about the problems inherent in choosing bible verses to support ones favorite platform of the day, so I won’t go into that. I’ve seen the bumper sticker that goes something like “Jesus, save me from your followers,” so I don’t really need to go there either. I’m just saying that the words we’re reciting in this music are so very very empty. So very without power and depth. They affirm a helplessness (We can’t help ourselves and therefore had to / have to “be saved”) and a lack of accountability for our own spiritual growth. It gives me a nameless anger against institutions that take depth and meaning from people and give us empty promises instead. Maybe more sadness than anger.

To paraphrase DP, I’d actually prefer to think there’s actually a reason that we’re here – so meaning in our learning and (one might wish) advancement as human beings.  That we add something to the world with our choices and actions; that our learnings and our teachings add to the Universe; that the world is not just some collection of things to avoid or to be saved from. 

For me, there is so much beauty and love and so many centering principles available in so many religious paths. There is so much potential in the mythos surrounding Christ. It saddens me to see that beauty and depth lost and cheapened