I'm always sending prayers to help our goofy king and
asking for the blessings of some heavy hitters to
grace his life. By the way, have any of you asked for
the grace of all your spiritual teachers and mentally
bowed to each of them before you meditate? A whole new
world!
--- Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> from Dr. Robert Svoboda's blog.
>
> September 17. 2005
> Visiting Ram Dass at his Maui home I noticed that
> (as had been
> rumored) he does keep a photo of George W. Bush on
> his altar. That
> photo reminded me, as it does him, that it is
> essential for all of us
> to pray that the current "world's most powerful man"
> will be guided
> to make the best decisions possible. In fact, it
> behooves all of us
> to strive mightily to entreat the Celestial
> Powers-that-Be to render
> astute our head of state.
>
> Perhaps it would be too much to request Providence
> to encourage those
> of our "leaders" who actively identify themselves as
> Christians to
> actively follow the path that Christ laid out for
> his disciples, e.g.
> to sell all that they have and give the proceeds to
> the poor, to turn
> the other cheek at every slight, and the like. Jesus
> advised us not
> to judge, lest we be judged, and being myself no
> paragon of Christ-
> like virtues I have no business judging anyone (even
> W). Of course, I
> also try to keep my personal beliefs private, rather
> than trying to
> drag Jesus into politics the way many of these
> "leaders" do; and this
> current politicization of Christ (a problem which
> has dogged
> Christianity almost since its inception) does I
> believe warrant comment.
>
> For example, how can one simultaneously claim to
> follow the Golden
> Rule ("do unto others as you would have them do unto
> you") and also
> actively promote the doctrine of "preemptive war"
> ("do unto others
> BEFORE they do unto you")?
>
> Or, consider the words of Jesus as reported in
> Matthew 5:43-44:
>
> "Ye have heard that it has been said, thou shalt
> love thy neighbor,
> and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your
> enemies, bless
> them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
> and pray for them
> which despitefully use you, and persecute you."
>
> I freely admit that, as of yet, I have been unable
> to love all my
> enemies, and to do good to each of those who mean to
> do ill to me. I
> have however found it immensely worthwhile to set
> these principles as
> my goals, and try to live up to these high standards
> that Jesus
> instructed us to attempt to meet-norms that make it
> injudicious for
> anyone (even W) to condemn anyone else (even W).
>
> Which forces me to ask the question of why, when we
> have been thus
> unmistakably directed to love our enemies, is so
> much hate being so
> publicly directed toward those who are currently our
> enemies?
> (Setting aside for the moment the issue of, if Osama
> & Saddam were so
> clearly evil, what caused us to support them as
> "allies" for so
> long.) If we pray for our foes, why have we not yet
> had a national
> day of prayer with an Osama focus? Why before Saddam
> was overthrown
> was he routinely demonized, rather than "loved" and
> "blessed"? Why is
> the "do good to them that hate you" option never
> even hinted at by
> the "Beltway born-again" in the context of
> fundamentalist Islam?
> Shouldn't such a clear directive receive at least a
> public hearing
> among "public Christians," if only to offer
> counterpoints to the
> Muslim-baiting agitprop that has become so popular?
> Couldn't this
> option also present a positive Christian perspective
> that would be as
> comprehensive in its compassion as the
> ultra-sectarian Muslim world-
> view is comprehensive in its detestation of all
> non-Muslims?
>
>
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