“Love like Jesus, but wash your hands like Pilate” – an early Covid post forwarded by one of my sisters.
When my alarm radio went off this past Friday, I heard the announcer talking about Juneteenth, while Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” was playing in the background.
--check out the description that accompanies this video
Not familiar with the term “Juneteenth” (wasn’t part of the whitewashed version of history that was fed to me), I looked online and found this.
Accept (my version of) Jesus – or Die!
Here’s another tale that was never told truthfully back in my day:
Dave Matthews Band - Cortez, The Killer (from The Central Park Concert)
--even more amazing guitaring from Warren Haynes
Similarities between Amazing Grace & Cortez the Killer
Listening to these lines from Neil Young’s tale:
“And I know she's living there
And she loves me to this day
I still can't remember when
Or how I lost my way.”
…reminded me of John Newton’s words:
“Amazing grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
Was blind, but now I see.”
“You decide which is real and which is an illusion…a delusion…” (Moody Blues)
“What doe$ it profit you, if you gain the whole world and forfeit your $oul$?”
--Mark 8:36
White men can’t jump, but they sure can conquer and enslave
Cortez’s conquest of Mexico - Another humanitarian effort from the Spanish church and state empires, the folks that also gave us their version of the Inquisition (sorry, to keep a somber tone to this post, I won’t give you a link to the Monty Python version).
Evidence, as some have said, that after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313 AD, the Church abandoned its preferential option for the poor and aligned itself with the top: power, control and money. Since their uphill climb, it’s been downhill ever since. A convenient overlooking of Jesus’ “You can’t serve G-d and money.”
But, as the prophet Robert wails, “you gotta serve somebody…”
Video images are drawn from the mystical traditions of several spiritual systems, predominantly the Jewish Kabbalah.
Here's another version by Natalie Cole - uploader added very appropriate images...
And one more by Eric Burdon, formerly of Eric Burdon & the Animals...
Systemic Evil showing its face...
As I’ve began noticing the depth of deception, corruption and abuse of power in corporations, governments and religious institutions, I’m starting to believe more in the presence of systemic evil – a larger evil that’s behind and way bigger than the smaller evils we see in individual people. Perhaps, as the spiritual traditions describe and all great myths confirm, there is an on-going battle between what we call “good” and what we call “evil.”
More to come.
BONUS TRACKS
The Eric Burdon video contained info about a project that was done with and for Amnesty International - Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International