A Pope of hope

**As a born again atheist, I have less than little regard for the theology of the Catholic - or any - church. A church can do good without having any theology because doing good is an end in itself. It's what people do, not what they profess, that matters.

That's why I am impressed with the the Catholic Church's latest Pope. When I saw this report, cited in my Twitter feed from ThinkProgress.org, I knew I had to say something about it. The story is about how Pope Francis "Sneaks out of the Vatican at Night to Serve the Homeless." He is accompanied by his "almoner," the guy who hands out the papal charity. And he doesn't do this with a press release and a gaggle of media. Instead he goes out dressed as an ordinary priest and just walks the Christian walk.

Can it be that the Catholic church will finally do what no leader of any institution has done: show the world by example what it means to be a caring human being? Will the power of the huge institution of the Church force the hands of those hypocrites who profess to be followers of Jesus while rejoicing in the their worldly accomplishments. Tellingly, Francis has said:

How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?

The answer is that the Christian Right, and the Right in general in this country, makes up the obstructionist faction known as the Republican party. The "party of business" is also the party of religious hypocrisy, the lapdog of the 1%, enemies of women and the largest constituent of Faux News' audience. This is not to say that some on the Left are not like them - many are liberals in name only. But at least the Left aspires to the the ideals that the Pope demonstrates in daily life. The Right, on the other hand, screams about "small government," while insisting that government stick its nose and other probes into the bodies of women; that jails pot smokers for years while letting politicians off for smoking crack; that cuts off aid to poor people while awarding bonuses and tax breaks to the very institutions whose greed oppresses poor people and wrecks the economy.

For over 30 years I was a loyal member of the Christian Science church, a bastion of the kind of hypocrisy that Pope Francis repudiates. Though I never acquired the Republican attitude, I and a few other Liberals had to sneak out of the church to do what seemed the Christian thing to do in the style of this Pope. If not always overtly political, the leaders of the church at that time were mostly of the Republican mind set. They were fond of describing their form of charity as above the messy materialism of ordinary do-gooders because they worked in the realm of thought where "knowing the truth" meant convincing yourself that nobody was really poor, or sick or oppressed. This easy cop-out enabled them to appear charitable because they doled out some of their money to charitable causes. But you would never find them at a homeless shelter or in a soup kitchen or in a hospital or jail. And more than a few church members adopted the attitude that they needn't contribute filthy lucre because they gave all their charity to their own church.

For the sake of the world I do hope this Pope manages to stay alive long enough to turn Catholics - and especially my right-wing-nut relatives - into more genuine Christians who will join a revolution that restores democracy in the world. It will take a long time, but I hope the transformation has enough time to develop into a potent force. This is not merely a tentative hope on my part, but a reasonable doubt, especially if the Church starts to lose lots of members because of him. The last Pope who tried to restore humanity to the Church, John Paul 1, managed to die mysteriously, to be replaced with more typical leaders.

Moosical - the beginning

**

Here's the first installment of the video version of the previously mentioned musical in defense of a free and open Internet. Get the whole story and 17 songs at www.themoosical.com

At my age, "Why a Moosical…?"

**I take great pleasure in and gratitude for two young people who are living with us for a few weeks. Grandson and his girlfriend are in their mid-twenties and have been luxuriating in the freedom to travel the world. Having spent the summer in Australia and New Zealand they are on their way back to Detroit, which seems to be a kind of staging ground for their next set of adventures. Because of scheduling problems they were not able to spend these  last few weeks in Hawaii as planned, and sought a mainland alternative. Quite a downgrade, from Hawaii to here, but the timing couldn't have been better. They arrived the week I went into the hospital. My Friend and Producer (more later) and I had planned to spend four or five days alone together here to work out some of the major issues about the Moosical (more later), while Wife traveled to NYC to help nanny the kid of a friend's daughter. Would have been a nice arrangement. But the day before she was to leave, Wife ordered me to the ER, whence began that series of scary adventures that have left me sitting quietly at home typing, while my body tries to recover from the ordeal (see previous post).

Friend/Producer arrived the day I was released from ICU and we spent a couple of days working in a limited fashion. That's when the nosebleed part of the saga began (see previous post.) F/P's wife arrived on schedule midweek and somehow we managed to get work done. Including downing a couple of glasses of heart-healthy red wine.

Since their departure, grandson and grandgirlfriend arrived to take up the guest room, and to supply what feels like 4-star Celebrity Rehab Spa service. This has taken some burden off of Wife, who has been quite stressed, but competent, throughout. They prepare mostly veggie cuisine, which in conjunction with the "heart healthy" low-sodium/fat/fluid/flavor diet the docs put me on, has been nutritionally adequate. (I'm resigned to being a non-foodie from now on.) They walk with me on my somewhat slower excursions, and talk with me about everything from video games to the details of the Moosical (still coming), and and even manage to spend some quality time with each other, it seems, enjoying our patio against the often salty backdrop of duffers golfing away their retirement years. Grandson has even recorded a few bits for the Moosical (story begins now).

www.themoosical.com

In 2009, my Friend/Producer, upon learning of my songwriting passions, urged me to write a musical based on the seemingly abstract premise of the "net neutrality" debate. I've put up a placeholder website that explains some of the issues and presents the songs I've written (18 so far). The subtitle is "In Defense of a Free and Open Internet."

After lying dormant for a few more years, the project was reopened when friend came for a visit in 2012. We wrote more songs and continued thinking about how to design the project. This is when my "Friend" added the role of "Producer" to our relationship. With his strong guidance I've been able to keep on track and the project has blossomed into a full-time job (my retail job functioning basically as hobby and social therapy.)

This post initially addressed the issue of "Why a Moosical" for someone who if lucky, will be 73 years of age this December. All the other people in my age group, and even younger people within the family, have graduated to being grand-things. Some even go the travel route, and some even play golf . I, on the other hand, between visits to the various tentacles of the medical establishment, claw my way to my studio to write, produce and edit these songs; maintain the website; discuss the project with F/P and graphic artist (from Scotland); and embark on creating an animated video of the program. Sometimes I am too tired to do very much, so I write things like this, which don't take much energy but do use up the time.

I don't easily slide into grand-thing roles. My kids and grandkids live thousands of miles away and their visits are few and far between, though most manage to stay in touch via the media. I have no social life. Most of my neighbors appear to be Republicans (at least they frequently fly their flags for no apparent reason). And most of the friends I had when I was in the good graces of the Church are distant and mostly silent. My part-time work life keeps me in touch with general, if upscale, humanity, and I enjoy most of my co-workers, half of whom are younger than grandson. If my body wouldn't keep failing me, I'd consider myself a happy person, doing what he loves with greater involvement than ever. This passion had to be kept in abeyance all those years I was trying to live the idealistic life of a devoted religionist, practitioner and teacher -- ascending the scale of the Mother Church hierarchy. Being a big fish in a small pond seemed sufficient, especially in light of the ideals of being a magical healer and inspiration to others. But I now see that it was the exact opposite of what I believed was my motivation. It was mostly for fame and "success." Unfortunately fame took the form of notoriety after the tragic and needless death of a friend's 11-year old boy who was placed under my deluded "care." And success came in the form of being booted out of the church headquarters for being on the wrong side of a political issue. Success, in that it landed me here within a few months and this phase of my life began.

It's the only life I feel I have left, and as of a few weeks ago, it seems shorter than I ever imagined.

So, again, why do I work so assiduously on this odd little "Moosical?" Mostly because it allows me to use the resources I already have (talent, tools, experience) and continually add to my store of knowledge and expertise by learning to master in some degree whatever new thing stands as an obstacle to progress on the project.

This is my notion of "living:" continual learning, acquisition of vision and expertise, production of something worth leaving behind. That's called "Legacy." Since I can't take it with me, it should be something worth leaving behind for other people to examine and use if and as they see fit. There's no "heaven," no afterlife, no more to my story. I know this is it, have known it for some time. But the swift kick in the chest of mortality has made me a possessed man. Sorry if I'm not a good grand-thing. Sorry if I'm not a good neighbor. Sorry if I've become less than what others might have expected of me. Sorry if I'm not the best husband and father one might wish for. I work on a crazy "Moosical" because no one else could or would. Because when I finish any part of it, I have the satisfaction of knowing that something now exists in the universe that wasn't there before.

Small potatoes to be sure. Others are known for their great compassion, patience, generosity and unselfishness. And these are worthy ideals to strive for, Wife being the supreme example among them. But I'm finally having to admit that my body is older now than it was ever designed to be and that I may be only one little mistake or twist of fate or unrealized technological improvement away from being dead and gone. No one will have me as tangibly as this silly little Moosical and dozens of other songs I've managed to introduce into the universe since leaving the thrall of religion.

Call me Lazarus…

**The trouble with explaining near-death experiences is that they're so much like other experiences. We've all felt faint, had fantastic dreams, been knocked unconscious or had limbs fall "asleep." NDEs can feel like some combination of these. And that's because they all involve more or less the brain's sensory apparatus, which is susceptible of all kinds of tricks rendering unreality "seemingly" real.

From what I've been told, there was a moment recently when my heart stopped pumping. It was the moment a surgeon threaded a tiny catheter, a long wire inserted in an artery in the groin, into a a main artery feeding the heart. The opening was at the time 99% occluded, meaning it was only 1% of its normal size. This apparently had been causing me some problems with chest pain and shortness of breath because the heart itself was not getting enough oxygen. The introduction of even the tiny catheter into this space produced a 100% blockage, which caused the heart to shut down, its lifeblood literally choked off. Mind you, this is only my very ignorant layman's interpretation of what I've been told, but as far as "near-death" this was as close as I've ever come.

When all the alarms went off, apparently the crew switched to resuscitation mode and eventually brought me around sufficiently to continue with the installation of three stents.

These tiny metal mesh tubes prop open the artery so that blood can flow through normally. I was flushed with a powerful diuretic, so much so that the only thing I can remember of the experience is that of drowning. Nurses in the ICU told me that my color was completely grey when I was wheeled in. There was so much diuretic that I voided over 5 liters of urine in the next 24 hours. And there was still fluid in my lungs, prolonging the experience of drowning and suffocation over the next few days that I could not get to sleep. More diuretics were prescribed and the problem eventually eased up enough for me to get some sleep.

The serious part of this experience came only a few days after leaving the ICU. Apparently, I had a susceptibility to nose bleeds in my left nasal area. When one has the kind of coronary procedure I had, powerful blood thinners help to keep the body from attacking the stents and forming clots. The problem with this of course, is that blood can no longer clot normally. In other words, a "normal" nosebleed turns into a life-threatening torrent of blood that takes extraordinary measures to stop. Three trips to the ER managed to stem the tide, for awhile but the solutions were all temporary -- and ugly. I had a bloody plug protruding from my left nostril for several days. I was sent to an ENT who introduced exquisitely painful cautery and inflatable nasal tampon.

This involved shoving a tool into my nose, around the septum and into the sinus cavity whereupon it "burned" the susceptible blood vessels causing them to scar up and thereby strengthen the area from further breakages. Then a long nasal tampon shoved into the area and inflated so as to form a strong compress against the blood vessels that had been rupturing. Aside from the area being naturally sensitive to pressure and burning, the expanded plug generated much more pain as it worked to allow the affected vessels to heal. This remained in place for five days. Five days of headaches so bad that a strong painkiller had to be used every 4-6 hours just so I wouldn't scream. (It also helped me get a little bit of sleep.) It also produced a shiny dark red "tusk" of hardened fabric that protruded from my nose like a killer booger. After the five days the object was removed and I got a few minutes of relief as I breathed normally for the first time in a week. But that pleasure was soon thwarted in favor of more precautionary measures to ensure that the area wold heal strongly and not be the site of future catastrophic nose bleeds. Yet another fabric object was insisted far up into the sinus, coated with some kind of coagulant gel, and I was asked to live with the resulting pain for another five days. Today promises to be another bright one as I have the last of these invasive object removed. My strength has been coming back and my spirits have brightened since I haven't had to take the painkillers. I can finally sit down at a keyboard and type up these even-now-receding memories of what is has been like being a heart patient for the first time, and a near-death survivor.

To be sure, there's nothing "spiritual" about this experience, either the dying or the recovery. Ten or fifteen years ago these techniques were unknown and people died quickly. Only the relentless pursuit of knowledge led to this kind of healing. All the breathing techniques, herbal teas and goop, all the positive thinking and prayers cannot substitute for this plodding path of progress. I still have people telling me I am in their prayers, that they are praying for my recovery. I don't have the heart to tell them that their prayers affect only themselves, make them feel there is some larger force acting on their requests. I don't have the heart to tell them that if prayer were such a potent tool, it should have been used BEFORE any of these harrowing events and not after.

It's true, being alone without a big Imaginary Friend in the sky, is not the most ideal world one can imagine. That kind of idealism belongs to fools who attribute their great luck to it. But it is the real world, and for all their many faults, those in the medical profession, have my respect for the relentlessness with which they pursue their chosen art. It's senseless to imagine that there will come a time when all of this concern for health will be obviated by a 100% perfect system. But having lived from the perilous perspective of Christian Science and the "alternative healing" schools of medicine I would rather any dear friend of mine have the best medical care they can find and use "spiritual means," like prayer, as a kind of pain killer and comforting reality distortion field. Any connection between spiritual means and healing is purely conjectural, driven mostly by a pathetic need to affirm one's beliefs in front of others. I'm one of the lucky ones, the very lucky ones. I had the luck of a wife's insistence on checking me into the ER in an era when so many life-saving techniques are available. A brother-in-law who dropped dead a couple weeks after having received a perfect physical exam, wasn't so lucky. Doctors didn't know what to look for twenty years ago. He's dead, fully dead, and I'm alive, though having been momentarily dead, all because of good timing. Two brothers are also alive because of the advancing progress of the medical establishment. One had a bypass several years ago, and the other had a procedure similar to mine (but without the bloody apocalypse).

Again I continue to support the right of anyone to delude themselves with whatever idealistic theories give them any comfort. What I don't want is anyone suggesting that if I took up their delusions I'd be more lucky than I am.

What friends they have in Jesuses

** As I'm about to read Reza Aslan's latest book, "Zealot," I go in armed with Harry T. Cook's latest essay in which he says:

Aslan may be right about a Jesus having been a zealous revolutionary. Crossan is almost surely right about a Jesus being, as he put it, a "Mediterranean Jewish peasant" who may have been at the same time an "itinerant sage." The liberation theology people may be right in saying that a Jesus was a socialist at heart. And I may be right in saying that the Jesus may be a composite of all of them.

I normally would not have looked into Aslan's book but for a positive review by BW, my atheist friend,  and the rotten treatment he got on Fox "news" by a twit who couldn't get off the subject of a Muslim writing a book about Jesus. His detailed explanation on MSNBC that it was his job as a scholar to write about it didn't faze her but gave him more credibility in my eyes as someone who was not entering into a merely partisan argument.

I don't doubt that someone (probably Paul of Tarsus) cobbled together a mishmash of myths and claims about several guys to form an actual religion out of one guy. It served to construct an empire that continues to this day. Again, the story (true or not) has power.

The New Atheists are, for the most part, illustrating that one needn't believe in fantasies to live a good and useful life. this is a hopeful sign that humanity is evolving out of the need for infantile parental figures to give meaning to this accident of human life.

Religion poisons the world

**Despite some of his political positions, I still agree with Christopher Hitchens that "religion poisons everything." That's not to deny that some religious organizations and some religious people are antidotes to various poisons. But in general, the higher religion is esteemed in a society the worse it is for that society.

Much of the current oppression of women and minorities is impelled by religious dictates based on ancient texts written when cultures were uninformed, paternalistic and misogynistic. That these survive with a segment of the population in 2013 testifies to the tenacity of the irrational side of human nature.

What is now the United States was formed in order to rein in the extremes of religion. Harry T. Cook, still one of my favorite commentators from the "religious" field (because he's not very religious). His most recent essay (available via email subscription) is "An Argument for the Secular State," in which he reviews the inception of American democracy. He cites a response from Jefferson to an inquiry about religious freedom:

Jefferson answered the question thus: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

And yet he notes that the "present Congress is known for the overtly religious enthusiasms of some of its members." Since these legislators have awesome power to affect vast millons of citizens it's frightening to think of what we might have to live with (and through) if these fanatics hold sway.

Climate-change deniers eagerly support the coal and oil lobbies against the known fact that carbon emissions are poisoning Earth's atmosphere to the point of no return. Why? Because they believe (or say they believe) Yahweh's après-flood promise depicted in Genesis 8:22: While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. That pious hope is coupled with the earlier Genesis passage -- which those honorable members of Congress take literally -- to the effect that God gave dominion of the Earth to His human creatures, so drill, baby, drill.

Among the other poisons he cites are efforts to pass laws suppressing reproductive rights, and creationism/intelligent design advocates who insist that "the biblical story of creation is fact and therefore 'in all fairness' must be taught in the nation's public schools as long as modern science is taught."

It's not "fair" to ingest a certain amount of poison when you have the opportunity to exclude it. And using the dictates of an invisible and unproven deity to force it on the public mind and body is suicidal for any society, especially one built on the premise that such tyranny should not be allowed.

He concludes with a restatement of that wise maxim: "freedom of religion must logically include freedom from religion."

Fortunately (unless it's too late) the rising generation of millennials is not so dogmatic and seems less susceptible to the arguments for a religious state.

Unbelievable

***One of my favorite bloggers is Harry T. Cook. I've been receiving his essays by email for several years now, on the recommendation of a friend of mine who is also a former religionist. What I like about Harry is that despite decades of education and faithful practice as an Episcopalian priest he eventually came to the realization that religion as mostly BS. I don't agree with him completely in that I would go further and call it poison.

In a recent essay, "Believing, We Do Not Believe, he begins with

    "Among the many readers of these essays are a number of older, mostly retired members of the clergy. They are Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, several rabbis [former Christian Scientists like me] and others who can no longer identify fully -- if at all -- with their religious pasts."

 ...
    A few of them have become convinced that, for example, most of the Bible is pure myth. I think they are wrong about that, but the point is that they had to deal with biblical passages for their whole ordained ministry and evidently felt constrained to treat many of them more or less as historical reportage. Some of them express relief at no longer having to put on such an act week after week.

Speaking from experience I can say that the acting doesn't come on suddenly. It accrues over many years, and for too many years before the spell is broken life is more or less an agony as the disparity between profession and understanding becomes wider.

I'm one of those who have concluded that the Bible is mostly a pack of myths, propaganda and outright lies. What isn't in those categories is pretty good, but doesn't need the Bible or theistic agencies to give them credibility. They are constituents of what might be called secular humanism in drag. As the billboards say: we don't need a god in order to be good.

Harry goes on to recommend a book by Elaine Pagels, which I have read, where she cites an experience she had walking into a church during the depths of her faith crisis. Even though she had known that church doctrines were unsupported by science or reason, she "fell in love" with that church. I think the import of his statement is that the church provided something essential to her as a human being, a kind of comfort that helps some people bear up under their disillusionments. I have heard this also from many others who claim that the true value of religion, and its churches, is to provide that comfort regardless of the challenges life presents them.

Just as most drugs have various degrees of negative side effects, the drug of religious comfort has costs to the believer. Those costs are too high for some of us, while others struggle to bear up. Regardless, the problem is that religion always wants to point to a deific source for that comfort instead of recognizing that human nature is complex and susceptible to many influences. So many of the recent studies on the brain illustrate that susceptibility and the wide range of influences —  none of them deific. To some of us, the blatant unreasonableness of spiritual concepts is untenable, to the point of causing extreme anxiety and bizarre behavior. Maybe stalwarts like Cook can stand being in the same room with believers and their proclamations. I can't.

As I've stated before, it's not that I have found an exact replacement for the drug-induced comfort of religion. Indeed, I would have to say that the pains of living without that drug are sometimes overwhelming.

Recently I attended a funeral for a dear friend of mine. The service was held in the Unitarian church that for decades I would see from the parking lot of my Christian Science church directly across the street. Sometimes I'd deride that sect for being wishy-washy for having no real god to believe in. And yet, my recent experience at that church, and my contact with the pastor, were so comforting that I said to her: In another context this would be the church I would attend because it provides comfort without exacting a profession of faith in an unreal supernatural being.

As a person of reason I can't bear the hypocrisy of eloquence in defense of bullshit, which I think was one of my special talents during those personal Dark Ages. These days, this blog is my main antidote to the poison I spread for 30+ years as a Christian Scientist. I really don't want another platform from which to rail against religion. I don't have time for it at my age. And besides, religion is doing a very good job of poisoning itself.

I like Harry and recommend him to real thinkers both within and without the ranks of religion, spirituality or whatever label applies to belief in things that are unbelievable by nature. But unlike Harry, I would claim to be Unbelieving, We Still Do Not Believe.