Christian Rationalism

Webster's dictionary defines "Christian": a person who believes in thedoctrines of Jesus and acknowledges his divinity. And what, you may ask, are the doctrines of Jesus? The first doctrines of Jesus are found in the gospel of Matthew.Here are some of his teachings, documented in the sermon on the mount: Blessed are the gentle; for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. In everything. . . treat people the same way you would want them to treat you. . . "You cannot serve two masters; either you will hate one and love the other, or you to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." Now I don't know but it seems to me that the politics of wealth and power has herded some of my Christian brethren into some delusion called "chri****n nationalism". Furthermore. . .A few years after Jesus' Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, his appointed apostle Paul wrote:  ". . . and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Well, my Christ-transformed, renewed (in 1977) mind, along with His Word and His Holy Spirit, prompts me to reject this so-called "chri****n nationalism." I'm stickin' with that Chistian rationalism that Paul had advocated, the "renewing of (my) mind" . . . and furthermore. . .my "born again" mind tells me that the message of Jesus, spoken in his sermon on the mount, has nothing to do with supporting nationalism of any kind, and especially not that version that's been amped up by the prince of maralago and his insurrectioninary proud bouys and oathbleepers. No! And certainly not the bellicose, magamaniacal destructive warmongering by which trump now destroys (illegally, having no Congressional advocacy) the Middle East!

I'm going with the One who chose to be nailed to a cross before conceding to the magamaniac zealots.  King of Soul

Ravenous War

Once upon a Thursday dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, over many a weird and dubious story of worldwide news,  while I wondered, totally confused, suddenly there came a report, as of someone lighting up a world war fuse.

Just some fake news, I muttered, aiming to confound our American feast. Only this and nothing more. Presently I found myself confused; trump's lit up some world war fuse. I can't figure out this situation; it's looking like trump has gone off the deep end; he's lit up some world war conflagration! Deep into the streaming news I then descend; I begin to wonder at the conflict which to my mind appends. Who's the good guy and who's the bad? Why's the oval occupant so mad? Cahn says he's trying to save the Jews; maybe so; but with so many innocent school girls dead, he's blasting innocents to get ahead.  Seems to me like overkill; is this some kind of magamania thrill? Back into my streaming, turning, all my soul within me yearning to make some sense of this bellicose attack; now I see talking heads talking flack."Surely," said I, surely this impetuous act will soon subside; the smoke will clear; Israelis and Iranians will again abide. Let Israelis and Iranians just settle down; let 'em now rebuild their towns. But now the news, getting worse, still is creeping in a Persian hearse toward some global battle; we feel the world peace rattle. All eyes on the seething middle east, preparing now some vulture feast! The news casts shadows of some demon dreaming, while we sit here clueless, streaming. Now I ain't no Israeli and I ain'it no Shia Muslim; but when I get to heaven, Jesus said we'd all be cousins! . . . if you'll just follow him instead; you won't be eternally dead. Now if you think that heaven is just a wishful thinking, you'd better reconsider before war flashes find you blinking! If you think all is well; you might be a candidate for hell. Now I don't know but I have faith, that Christian love defeats religious hate. And I told him dat! Smoke

Dover Droning

(with appreciation for poet Matthew Arnold, Britain, 1847) Our nation is stormy just now. The reds are bullies; the blues seek fairness, to straighten the crooked maga crimps. In the Persian gulf the drones fly off and on; trump's war drones on and on, glimmering and fast, in what used to be a tranquil gulf. We grok the web; fraught are these times. But from the droning cloud where the news meets our troubled minds, Listen! you hear the grating roar of old wars which the memories wave up, and fling, at their return,

up the silicon strand, beginning, ceasing, and beginning again, with perilous violence mad, to bring the magamania madness in. Solomon long ago spotted it in Zion, and it brought into his mind the turbid ebb and flow of human vanity; we find also in the buzz, a meme, now, a ruminating on the distant fuse, Hormuz. But our Sea of Faith was, back in the day, spread full around the world like the mantle of an empty shroud on the Resurrection morn. But now the strand brings melancholy news, slung in silicony roar, repeating in the airwaves of the night-wind, down the vast edges and naked circuits of the world. Ah, citizens, let us be true to our ancient roots; for the world, which seems to spin around us as some whirlwind of our dreams, so various,

sometimes beautiful, sometimes new, has neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help now pain - or so it sometimes seems.  We hear droning rain as a belching train, swept with predirected blight in the struggle and the fight, while robot warriors drone in flight. Smoke

Al Aqsa and Temple

Here's a scene from my first novel: Glass half-Full:

Beneath a cold, clear, azure sky the city of Jerusalem lay stretched upon the mountains and valleys like a fuzzy glove upon God's hand. People from all over the world had gathered here to unearth evidence of God at work among the people of the earth. Some sought a temple that no longer exists. Some sought a mosque where a prophet entered heaven. Some trod upon the cobblestones of ancient, holy real estate, pleading for reconciliation, seeking atonement for the human condition. A man wandered beyond the dome, past the blocked-up eastern gate; curving around northward, he noticed a large open area beside the mosque. Was this where the former temple had stood? What a beautiful mosque. Could not the owners of this hill sell the adjoining, vacant acre or two to those pilgrims who, standing daily at the wall below, were wailing for their wonderful temple? Why not make a deal? Such a deal. Cousin to Cousin. Temple and Mosque, Mosque and Temple…Mosque Shsmosque, Temple Shmemple. Such a deal. Everybody happy. You pray your way; I pray mine. A man traveled outside the wall, beyond the ramparts of human religion-building, pushing the envelope of mortally human strife… through the Kidron Valley below, to the vanity-laden valley of struggle, along the groves of Gethsemane; he trod among the graves of the prophets; he ambledalong the graftings of the profits. He wept. Mankind, like a flock of fluttering chickens in a barnyard, clucking, headless…why can't we get it together? A man walked up the other side of the valley, through Arab neighborhoods, to a Jewish cemetery. Oh wailing trail of human history, why allowest thou such holocaust? Turning around, he looked back across the valley, to the mountain where he just had been, with tears: Sons of Adam, argue all you want about real estate on your holy hill. "I'll be over here on the other side," thought he.But the walk was over now. It was time to go to work.  Glass half-Full

Lincoln Legacy

Two centuries and fifty years ago our founders brought into this world, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal. Now we are engaged in a dubious foreign war, testing whether this nation or any nation allied with us, and so dedicated, can proclaim itself the bully of the world. We now report upon an aggressive, ill-conceived, illegal war in which 127, or more, of our American soldiers have been laid upon the altar of modern warfare. It is altogether appropriate that we acknowledge their brave sacrifice, although it is also appropriate that we question the unauthorized deployment of our soldiers by a rogue president who deploys our officers, our soldiers, our ships, our aircraft and our defensive resources without any Constitutionally-mandated declaration of war from Congress. But in a realistic sense, we find ourselves unable to adequately appreciate or consecrate their sacrifice in the Persian gulf. The brave men, living and dead, who answered their duty call, have consecrated our American legacy, our struggle to protect and defend the freedom and dignity of all men and women who live and breathe and live their lives in this fallen world.

Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg battlefield, 161 years ago.The world will sometimes note, and maybe even remember, what we Americans try to do over there. . . over there, or anywhere we go in the world while trying to liberate oppressed people, or to impose our way of life on foreign nations that are motivated by religions and ancient customs that we do not understand. The challenge is for us, the living citizens of the earth, to be dedicated to the unfinished work of peace and safety - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion - that we highly resolve that those dead shall not have died in vain, and that our nation, United States of America, shall adapt a new awareness. . . in the fog of a presumptuous president's unauthorized actions. . . and that our governance by the people, through our Senators and our Representatives, shall not perish from our nation's governance. Glass half-Full

King of Soul

May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio Why is this happening? Why had he come here? Why had he followed Kevin all the way to damn Ohio, to see this? Donnie didn’t want to see this; yet he stood numbly, transfixed by the horror, surrounded by these other people, people he didn’t know, strangers, all strangers, and yet bound together now, estranged together in some otherworldly covenant, the shedding of blood, the covenant now, unspoken, unspecified except for the wailing of the witnesses, the onslaught of the rage of these onlookers and now he was there with them in this. . . sacrifice, holy moment, passing of this soul into beyond. Someone called him Jeff. Ahead of him and to the right, a group was attempting to lift a big guy who had fallen and was trying to right himself, but futility, futility, and the259 helpers were powerless to upright him and so they desisted and the young man lay on the ground, still breathing, moaning, suspended in a state of agony somewhere between life and death, somewhere between heaven and hell. This must be hell. Cousin Will was dying, but surely he would not go to hell, because he was — he didn’t look — like a man who would be in hell, he looked like he didn’t belong in this state of suspended between life and death. And there were others. But Donnie did not want to see. He had had enough. His feet began to move, walk. Shuffling, he wandered away, away from the noise and the pain and suffering and the death, away from the death, away from the strangers gathered in their strangeness; let them have it, let them have it all; dragging feet carried him through the parking lot, across grass, past cars, past people yelling, crying, going on, going away, going going gone.

On a sidewalk, moving along on the sidewalk, here’s a street, cars going by, he’s in a town, a strange town, never been here, shops, normal places stillexisting on the edge of this uncommon tragedy, how could these normal places still be . . . traffic lights changing red, green, yellow. Red. He would never forget the Red. Sleepwalking on the sidewalk, unfamiliar people, faces, here’s a dime store, there’s a clothing store, drug store, here’s a church. Door open, a church. Donnie lifts his feet, lifts his eyes, ascending the steps, nine steps up and now he’s in the church, sleepwalking between wooden benches, floor slick and polished, scent of wood, wax, candles burning. Donnie is traveling through the pews, along the aisle. Ahead, there’s unclothed man hanging on the cross up above, with thorny crown of kingly blood, soul tortured by the state of this world. His face in agony, it appears as that face Donnie had just seen, only minutes before in the parking lot,. Same bloody sacrifice. He is as a lamb, slain, because of what we do. What’s it to you? http://www.careyrowland.com

Blue Windows and Stars

There it was, back in the day, probably about 1963, a record album in the hands of best friend Johnny. His older brother, a navy man, had brought it from across the ocean. It was a 33 rpm LP record album . . . a collection of songs, old songs, what was called folk music, sung by a girl, Joan Baez, whose mission in life was to retrieve these melodic stories and circulate them into the hearts andminds of Americans. The album notes, on the back cover of the record sleeve, had been composed by some fellow named Bob Dylan. I remember this phrase: “In my youngest years, I used to kneel on the hillside beside the railroad track and tear the grass out of the ground. . . and the sound of her voice. . .” It doesn’t make sense; I guess Bob was moved by thesound of Joan’s vibrato voice, and her heart beating with the tunes and stories of antiquity. . . from England, from across the ocean: “before you step on board, sir, your name I’d like to know. . .oh, they call me Jackaroe.” But all that changed one night; while laying in bed at night, listening to thetransistor radio, when I heard these words: “She was just seventeen; you know what I mean; and the way she looked. . . was way beyond compare. Now I’ll never dance with another, since I saw her standing there.” What it was was the beginning of Beatle era. Volumes could be written it, how they had listened to old 45’s of Little Richard and a host ole black folk of the deep south, where I just happened to be growing up. But this life is not really about music. It’s really about life and death. When it comes to death. . . there we were all in different places. . . November 22, 1963, my place was in a 7th grade classroom in Baton Rouge, when the Catholic school principle, Sister Georgia, came in and told us that President Kennedy had been shot. I just had to put that in here; I don’t know why. . . except to say that life takes a tragic turn sometimes, and we remember. . . Dallas Nov22 dealey plaze. . . 9:11 World Trade Center. Our parents’ generation had their own tragedy to deal with: World War II. But getting back to the popular music. Back in our parents’ generation, they had the big bands. . . Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, with all their brassy big band arrangements, and crooners, like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald. In my g-generation, things were different. Radio waves were dominated by Elvis, and then along came Bo Diddly, then the Motown sound, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes. . . And then along came, for us folky types, Judy Collins, singing “There’s a young man that I know; his age is 21; comes from down in southern Colorado, Just out of the service, and he’s looking for . . .someday soon. . . going with him someday soon.” Well, Judy’s fellow, “just out of the service” was probably one of the survivors from Vietnam, which was a big deal, back in that day. In 1970, my freshman year at LSU, the US Defense Dep’t initiated a draft lottery. My number was 349. Many others were not so lucky. My friend Johnny — whose brother had had the Joan Baez album — he did go to Vietnam. Thank God he came back. At the end of my freshman year at LSU, June 1971, I took a job with the Southwestern Publishing Company (of Nashville Tennessee), selling dictionaries, door to door in southern Ohio. One weekend, my sales manager drove us up to Columbus, Ohio, where we watched a movie, “The Strawberry Statement.” The movie was about students protesting at some university. I think it was Columbia University. There was a scene in the movie that, for whatever reason, sticks in my mind, even unto today. I don’t know why. Maybe it wasthe imagery, the night-time imagery, or maybe it was the sound track, the song that was sung . . . the high voice of Neil Young. . . “Blue blue windows behind the stars. . . yellow moon on the rise. . . big birds flying across the skies, throwing shadows on our eyes”

I don’t know why the scenario in Neil’s song resides so vividly in my memory. It must be related, in some funky or providential way, to the album I made years later, which featured — not a blue window and big birds — but a golden window and an angel. . .

It’s funny the tidbits of life you remember in this long trek (my 74th year) from birth to the other side, whatever that is. . . from birth to . . . as Dr. Martin Luther King had said on the night before he was assassinated in Memphis. . . ”But I’m not worried about that now; I’ve been to the mountaintop, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with ya (the “promised land”)” That “promised land” of which Martin spoke was the freedom promised to all American citizens by our Constitution and by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Dr. King knew he would be going to one “promised land” or the other. . . the promised land of America (with its Constitution, Bill of Rights and Emancipation Declaration that President Lincoln had declared) or, farther along. . .the the Promised Land of heaven, the place where Jesus went after the powers-that-be had executed him on a cross and laid him in a tomb. Just believe that there are, indeed, blue, or golden, windows beyond stars where we who believe in Jesus’ Resurrection will be taken into eternal life with Him. King of Soul