Day 5...Continuing the format, we'll be considering our personal and the larger society's (mis)treatment of...scapegoating of the "strangers among us"...
ACT ONE: The Sun shines on EVERYONE...It doesn't make choices...
BUT FIRST...I'm offering us a music- and mantra-full message from the woman whose words opened the door to my soul's "music room" in my Kundalini yoga classes at Echo Park in West Hempstead. In "other places" in this blog, I've previously told of this transformative period...So, here's the short story version
[Remember this - I can be brief : ))) ]
To continue my yoga practice at home, when I'd play Snatam's songs at home, "Yogi YouTube" would offer suggestions in the right frame.
There are many versions of this in the universe's online "yoga space"...Today, this one's thumbnail called my name...
The Sun Shines on EVERYONE...It doesn't make choices...
As I started to say above, my selection of this particular version of Snatam's tune was...
"Gratefully" influenced by the important role that children have and continue to play in my transformation...
And by my relationships with people from different parts of our sacred world...Key among them are these two here in my backyard. I've previously posted about their influence as we share our lives in the sacred spaces of their living rooms, around their dinner tables, in state parks and other outdoor places...
ACT TWO: Ain't No Time to HATE...
"It's the same story the crow told me, it's the only one he knows
Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go
Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait
Wo-oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?"
--"Uncle John's Band" - Grateful Dead
Same song...new singers...
FIRST, a high energy, low key, acoustic interpretation...
Grateful Dead 12.26.1969 Dallas, TX Acoustic Set SBD
As I see it "with two good eyes"... "12/26/69" - this is from "the second day on Earth" of two saviors: Jerry & Jesus...There were and are more...and will be until we learn AND PRACTICE their message:
"Love One Another"
NEXT, an Indigenous...Multicultural Interpretation...
"It's the same story the crow told me..."
"He's come to take his children home..."
ACT THREE: SEEKING SHELTERS FROM THE STORMS...
Dylan's words are used to reflect the plight of people who fight a tyrannical leader in the aftermath of a devastating plague. In a post-apocalyptic world where "it's doom alone that counts," the survivors find "shelter from the storm" in the form of an elderly woman who seeks to rebuild a democratic society. [A comment on this site]
ACT FOUR: The REX FOUNDATION - GRATEFUL DEAD GIVING BACK
ACT FIVE: Perfect LOVE Casts Out Fear
Richard Rohr names how fear diminishes our ability to love and forgive:
Jesus came to resolve the central and essential problem of hate. We’ve produced so much utopian talk about Jesus and love, we’ve forgotten Jesus had a very hard time getting to the issue of love. First, he had to expose and destroy the phenomenon of hatred. Once he exposed the lie and illusion of hate, love could show itself clearly—and it did.
The pattern, unfortunately, remains the same. Hate, it seems, is the ordinary, daily agenda. Love is the way out of this ordinary programming. The Gospels present the dilemma in a personal narrative that grounds the whole issue in history and in one man’s enlightened response to the human situation. Jesus accepts the religious and social judgment of hate and publicly bears the consequences, but in an utterly new and transforming way that reveals new patterns and possibilities. For two thousand years, he has remained the most striking icon of a possible new agenda. His death exposed the lie and the problem. His risen life tells people their lives could have a different story line. He didn’t just give us textbook answers from a distance; he personally walked through the process and said, “Follow me.”
I believe fear is almost always behind hate. Sometimes it looks like control, but even then, people are usually just afraid of losing something they think they have. It is almost always unrecognized or unaddressed fear that justifies hatred. The best and most convincing disguise for fear is seeming virtue, or godliness. Then it never looks like fear. It looks like reason, prudence, common sense, intelligence, the need for social order, morality, religion, obedience, justice, or even spirituality. It always works. “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14, NRSV). What better way to veil vengeance than to call it justice?
Only people who have moved beyond their wounded ego and the need to control all outcomes, only those practiced at letting go, can see fear for the impostor that it is. To be trapped inside of our small ego is always to be afraid. Great religion tries its best to free individuals from the tyranny of their small and fragile selves. It always points toward a larger identity that we call the Godself, the True Self, the self “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), the trustworthy Lover. Healthy and true religion, like Jesus himself modeled, tells us there is Someone we can trust. [1]
Jesus came to reveal and resolve the central and essential problem—humanity’s tendency toward fear and hate. Love is the totally enlightened, entirely nonsensical way out of this pattern. Love has to be worked toward, received, and enjoyed; the first move is to recognize our deep capacity for fear and hate. But remember, we gather around the negative space quickly, while we “fall into” love rather slowly, and only with lots of practice at falling. [2]