Whirlwind of Insanity

It's difficult to know exactly what to do in all this mess. The addictions we face in other people are fairly breathtaking. It's fascinating how Americans of all stripes are dividing into all sorts of camps. I don't really know where I fit, though I can't say I am comfortable standing in the question.

The loudest addicts out there are the religious wingnuts. "Wingnuttia" they're being referred to in the world of weblogs. They're being fairly brazen about their hatred of those who have any differing ideas, now coming just shy of advocating "juridicide." I could go on and on about what a bunch of violent crybabies these people are. I do feel troubled, but it's the same kind of troubled I felt when my Dad would come home from a crappy day at a crappy job. Alcohol was the thing he turned to as friend and lover. (Oddly enough, I'm listening to Tim McGraw's "Walk Like a Man"--"Your daddy's demons will call your name/don't you listen to 'em cause they got no claim/temptation may come that ain't no sin/you get stronger every time that you don't give in/The sins of the father are the sins of the son, you can't undo what has been done./You'll have to retrace his footsteps through the sand./And pray you find the love of a girl/and take her by the hand and walk on like a man...") And though I can only speculate as to what went through his mind, he got all twisty-turny on his own family and would wake up the morning after all ashamed and whatnot. But the addict got a deep hold of my dad, and as far as I can see, it's just been entrenched with the Alzheimer's. He's said some crazy crap to my Mom still to this day, living in ancient vindictiveness.

There's just a whole lot of pain across the Western world. A lot of it comes from the unnatural way we've all had to live our lives in civilization. But each of us adds to our misery in our own special ways, and it's amazing the mystery of how we can all get out of it if we just turn our focus inward. When we do that, when we feel the universal love of the Source-of-All-That-Is (aka The Star Goddess, as I understand Her), when we see that each of us is a material node of the Source and that each one of us has access to that universal love, fear really does dissolve like cotton candy. Oh, to be sure, there are certain entities that appear to be nonplussed that we have so found that place of peace. I have really pissed off a couple of entities that I know of, and the entity I encountered in Journey a couple of weeks ago ("Familios") wanted the light, drank it in, but boy did he feel pain. I could feel that pain myself. I feel pain when someone shows tenderness and gentleness with me. I like it, I need it, I crave it, and of course I want it to stop, and I try to stay with the tenderness till it's fully expressed, but I also feel that little soldier inside me wanting to bolt.

I see all these people out there inside their addictions, be they religious-belief addictions or economic-belief addictions or other forms of secular-belief addictions (as well as booze, drugs, sex, shopping, TV, etc.) and they're all defending themselves against ghosts who they have chosen to incarnate in some "Other." These people aren't really there. They're vectors of mechanized rage, astroturfing their way into newspapers and showing up armed outside the houses of judges. The language of that is particularly telling. They've latched onto the aspect of Judgment and they're attacking it even as they feel attacked by judgment. The religious wingnuttia out there have a particularly mixed view on the word "Judgment", longing for the "God who's taken their side" to sit in judgment of all those whose side the religious wingnut in his projected dementia has determined to be Them. And it all stems from a fear of their own darkness, a fear of their own imperfectly glorious humanity. Some of them really do believe in their heart of hearts that they are truly scum, but there's this childish notion that they'll still be "saved" because they've opted for the Plan A+ Spiritual Package.

There's no reasoning with people like this. For all intents and purposes I treat them like other alcoholics who are drinking. I try and stay out of their way, and if I need to deal with them, I bring a heavy load of detachment. It doesn't make sense to take whatever an alcholic says personally. What they're doing is spewing their self-hatred onto others. It's sad and it's transparent, and it's best to limit one's precious incarnated time with them as they refuse all assistance, and possess the deepest contempt prior to investigation. For the religious addict, the selections from Bible Verse or Koranic pronouncements or Talmudic Wrath is the booze. "Justified anger, it turns out, is the dubious luxury of those who don't have a problem with [addiction]." I've been noticing a certain sort of wooziness in the pundits and a breathless antsiness that makes me think of drunks who've not been able to get the kind of hit they got when they were 15.

Can we really detach from these people as they careen around the world stage? Or do we have to find a way to gently and lovingly intervene? But where are the political mental-health professionals out there who have a means to stroke the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of this world into World-Stage Rehab? How do we work that one? To be sure, if these radical clerics could wake up to their shortcomings and just say "This isn't working like it used to, and I have a real problem," that would be the heavens opening up and saying "God is with us all." And I'm sure there is someone out there who can do this. Or maybe it's several million someones who get together and say "Look guys, you've got to get yourselves together, and admit you're powerless over these toxic beliefs and that your life is unmanagable." To be certain, people like myself--witch, recovering compulsive eater, gay--I'm one of the people they would never in a million years listen to. But there are probably decent, caring Christians out there who might have a shot. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here. What do you think?