when both U.S. Political Conventions promote immoral--unjust agendas, Remember at a similar chaotic time, Fox spoke forth the LIGHT

When at least 100,000 humans have been slaughtered in the last few years, both U.S. Parties' 2024 Conventions promote immoral--unjust agendas, claim that what is first is America--
Remember at a similar chaotic tragic time, George Fox experienced a transcendent encounter and spoke forth the LIGHT!

At that horrid time in human history, events were far worse than our tragic, horrid present. The 30 YEARS WAR, the English UnCIVIL WAR, etc.

YET at that time, HOPE despite the terror and oppresion, arose.

To be continued...


In the True, the Good, the Just,

Daniel Wilcox

BRIEF HISTORIC explanation of CAUSES of current HORRORS in PALESTINE-ISRAEL

WHO’S to BLAME for murderous crises in PALESTINE-ISRAEL this month?
(in half a page! based on extensive histories by JEWISH and other historians)

1. The CORRUPT-INTOLERANT Ottoman Empire
2. The BRITISH AND FRENCH GOVERNMENTS—especially the BRITISH WHO IN 1917 PROMISED 2 COMPLETLEY DIFFERENT, CONTRARY GROUPS OF PEOPLE—JEWS and ARABS,
the SAME PIECE of LAND that the British had liberated from the Turks, ending the Ottoman Empire.!

PHOTO of Hamas MURDERER by Hamas of its attacks on social media. Photo: Israel Defence Forces via AP

3. The intolerant, anti-democratic, raiding MUSLIM PALESTINIANS who often ATTACKED and MURDERED INNOCENT JEWISH CIVILIANS beginning in the late 1800’s!

4. THE IMMIGRANT—often illegal refugee JEWS (from Russia, Germany, etc.) WHO FROM THE BEGINNING in ABOUT 1915 WROTE that THEY PLANNED to EXPEL ALL PALESTINIANS, and TAKE ALL THEIR LANDS for EUROPEAN JEWS.

5. The RIOTING MUSLIN PALESTINIANS WHO in the 1920’s and 30’s again MURDERED many INNOCENT JEWISH CIVILIANS (even Jews whose FAMILES had lived in Palestine for many centuries)!

6. The JEWISH TERRORISTS such as the IRGUN WHO in the 1930’s and 40’s bombed INNOCENT PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS and murdered British soldiers including their infamous BOMBING of the KING DAVID HOTEL in the 1940’s.

7. The CURRENT EXTREMIST ISRAELI GOVERNMENT WHO REGULARLY STEALS LAND, WATER, etc. from poor Palestinians, CUTS DOWN THEIR ORCHARDS, as DID the ISRAELI MILITARY of a CHRISTIAN PALESTNIAN FAMILY’S ORCHARD even though that family has owned their land since back when only about 5% of PALESTINE-ISRAEL was JEWISH!

And the EXTREMIST ISRAELI GOVERNMENT supports INTOLERANT, RAMPAGING EXTREMIST JEWISH SETTLERS when they torch innocent PALESTINIANS’ CARS, DAMAGE THEIR HOMES, CUT DOWN THEIR OLIVE TREES:_(((

8. INTOLERANT, anti-democratic MUSLIM HAMAS who constantly HAS INTENTIONALLY MURDERED MANY THOUSANDS of INNOCENT JEWISH CIVILIANS, even murdered their own Palestinian people!

WHAT IS the SOLUTION to this HORRIFIC TRAGEDY?

NO ONE KNOWS, just like no one knows what to do about the millions of refugees who now are without a home in the world today!

Guest Post: Fairly Objective Overview of the Tragic History of Palestinians and Israelis

Here is a fairly objective overview of the tragic history of Israelis and Palestinians in the last 120 years. It summarizes well the many, many books on that history.

FROM ALJAZEERA:

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced many millions of people and has its roots in a colonial act carried out more than a century ago.

With Israel declaring war on the Gaza Strip after an unprecedented attack by the armed Palestinian group Hamas on Saturday, the world’s eyes are again sharply focused on what might come next.

Hamas fighters have killed more than 800 Israelis in assaults on multiple towns in southern Israel. In response, Israel has launched a bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 500 Palestinians. It has mobilised troops along the Gaza border, apparently in preparation for a ground attack. And on Monday, it announced a “total blockade” of the Gaza Strip, stopping the supply of food, fuel and other essential commodities to the already besieged enclave in an act that under international law amounts to a war crime.
But what unfolds in the coming days and weeks has its seed in history.

For decades, Western media outlets, academics, military experts and world leaders have described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as intractable, complicated and deadlocked.

Here’s a simple guide to break down one of the world’s longest-running conflicts:

What was the Balfour Declaration?"

CONTINUE at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/whats-the-israel-palestine-conflict-about-a-simple-guide

Please hold the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Light.

Do what you can to help people see the real facts about this historic tragedy.

NOT the twisted and distorted ideological claims by both sides!

And support organizations that work for peace in Palestine-Israel such as Ramallah Friends School.

Review of the powerful, suspenseful biography of Timothy Leary by Robert Greenfield

TIMOTHY LEARY: An Experimental Life by Robert Greenfield

An amazing, detailed, suspenseful, excruciating biography and expose of Timothy Leary. While the tome is one of the best biographies I have read, my view of Leary has changed from thinking him a fairly benign 60’s LSD visionary and promoter and peaceful hippy leader to viewing him as a ruthless sociopath.

We discover at first, he seemed for the most part to be a rising brilliant leader of the establishment, even a West Point soldier/student, then a brilliant Harvard psychologist.

But then we learn, not only did Leary go very wrong like his own father, but became far worse.
Early on Leary was a constant womanizer/adulterer including wife-swapping parties while a psychologist at UC Berkeley, (which led to his first wife’s suicide), became a negligent-criminally-harmful parent to both his kids.

For instance, at one point he talked emotionally powerfully about a close loving episode he had with his son, Jack. Only the facts were that the event never happened. He seldom gave his son any attention or guidance, and they were alienated from each other for many years!

While Leary often spoke in glowing terms of his love for his son and daughter, it appears to have been empty words. He regularly failed to care for them, spend time with them, but instead was preoccupied with constant drug use and constant promiscuity. And he even encouraged them and led them to also do drugs, while they were still young!

Throughout his life, Leary was an almost sociopathic opportunist, constant liar and spinner of fallacious narratives, a brilliant charismatic carny-conman, who manipulated everyone from strangers to his wives and best friends.

Years later, after he escaped from SLO prison, (where he had been sentenced unfairly for 10 years because of a few ounces of marijuana), he rejected his promotion of enlightenment, peace, and love via LSD and mushrooms.

Because his escape was planned with the help of the Weather Underground and the mafia-drug-cartel, falsely-named Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Leary moved to Algeria and became an avid supporter of violent revolutionaries and terrorists, the Black Panthers, Eldridge Cleaver, the PLO, and worse.

Also, Leary became involved with Alister Crowley’s grossly evil beliefs and actions, continued to do constant drugs, even tried heroin. He met and praised other exiles, criminals and degenerates including Williams Burroughs, and, yet, all the while continued drawing millions to his immoral and unjust beliefs and actions!

In the 1970’s, Leary began writing and promoting weird conspiracy-apocalyptic-new-age claims such as his new book that claimed a nearing comet was going to reveal aliens and we humans were going to be transformed, and some of us humans were going to create a star ship to travel the galaxy!

When the U.S. government finally caught him in Afghanistan, incredibly, Leary created a new persona, denied his 60’s message, became a government informant and began to snitch on everyone he knew.

He even betrayed his devoted wife (who he had claimed to love with all of his being), betrayed the lawyers who had helped him escape from prison before, and many other 60’s best friends. He did this in hopes that all of these betrayals would get him out of prison! A self-centered, ruthless user!

Eventually sent to Folsom prison where his next-door cell mate was Charles Manson, Leary spent time conversing in a friendly way with Manson. Though I suppose if one keeps in mind that Leary had been a brilliant and famous Harvard psychologist, maybe he was only operating in a nonjudgmental objective psychologist mode, not really being friendly.

When I was in a therapy group, the psychologist did not once question the continuing adultery that a group member spoke of being engaged in. It’s one thing to not be judgmental when observing, entirely a different thing IF a leader conveys to individuals that their horrendous behavior doesn’t need to be changed! Of course, in the case of Manson, his prior evil actions of murderous slaughter had been far worse than Leary's minor drug arrest, promiscuty, aduldteries, lying, etc.

Throughout most of these chameleon changes ove they years, Leary continued to proclaim that all humans needed was to LOVE! Tragically and absurdly, his many years of actions had nothing to do with love, but only manipulation and using others.

Finally, after Leary abandoned his 60’s enlightenment, love and peace message, while in prison he asked Joanna to sneak a gun to him! He planned to kill his guards and escape. She was able to sneak a gun into him because she was so good at acting the bereaved wife, that the famous prison didn’t even check her when she came through lock-up with the gun in her waist pants! She also had two large knives in her high boots to use.

They rehearsed this plan over and over, according to Joanna. She had even, already, rented a house for them to hide in. BUT then Tim decided not to carry out their murders, not because he would feel guilty, but because he decided there were too many practical problems in such an escape attempt!

Obviously, it appears, that NOT one of Leary’s many thousands of idealistic pages and speeches for years of love and peace meant anything, not when he wanted what he wanted. Leray was the classic user. Heck, later after release from prison, when, Leary, again reinvented himself, he completely denied that he had ever been a druggie, ever advocated drug use, etc.

His new message was support for the establishment, anti-drugs, etc. But Leary actually continued a chaotic life, with promiscuity, major lying and deceit; he daily abused alcohol, chain-smoked, regularly took marijuana, a lot of cocaine, some Ecstasy, DMT, even a dangerous steroid drug for animals (because it had psychedelic results).

Leary emphasized that Hugh Hefner is a central hero of America and gave huge support to Larry Flint, the publisher of Hustler Magazine.

And Leary continued to draw young women into his upper-class social circle. He knew and hung out with many famous people including Johnny Depp, a Getty daughter, Tony Curtis, Liza Minnelli and many others in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and LA.

Finally, in his 70's, when Leary was diagnosed with inoperable cancer, many, many devotees came to his house to give him support and help. Some of them stayed and they cared for him since no nurse would any longer take the job. Major networks, magazines, etc. contested for exclusive interviews. There were often many people waiting outside of his rented house to be let in. Everyone from Oliver Stone to Larry Flint.

His strange life had become the Cult of Leary.

Earlier in his life, he had planned to have his body put in a cryogenic tank in order to be brought back in the future. But toward the end when the tank was brought into his room, Leary became angry at the cryogenic workers and cancelled it.

Instead, he talked repeatedly of possibly doing an online suicide, with cameras videoing him at his computer. But Leary later changed to a different plan.

One prison psychologist in his evaluation of two famous lawbreakers, Leary and Manson—wrote that they both had very elevated views of themselves—what is often the case of famous charismatic human leaders—but that while Manson was psychotic and evil, Leary was sane, however had little personal conscience.

So very strange for the apostle of enlightenment, peace, and love adored by millions.

Now, in the 21st century, there has been a return to the extremism and injustice that destroyed the late 1960’s. At least 84% of Evangelicals and nearly all Republicans avidly support the immoral, unjust actions and huge lies of Donald Trump, and the grossly wrong views of the leftists such as the BLM organization, violent protesters, and CRT. Extremism is accepted and promoted by major Democratic leaders, the National Educational Association, etc.

We seem to be, again, living in a time of massive delusion.

This powerful, suspenseful biography looks backward, and successfully shows the tragedy and absurdity of the charismatic Timothy Leary, of one of the 60’s most famous cultural heroes. Robert Greenfield shows how so much evil and darkness can result when multimillions of humans become avidly fixated to a morally dark leader.

It seems hardly any of us humans ever find the True, the Good, and the Just.

Evaluation: A++

Choose the Light, the Good, the Compassionate, the True,

Dan Wilcox

"So many gods, so many creeds..."

Seals and Crofts' "Intone...": Older Age Hope

A very powerful, inspiring song by Seals and Crofts.

Caution note: I've never been a part of the Baha'i religion, don't take kindly toward any literature or song lyrics that call humans "servants-slaves" or speak of ultimate reality as "lord." So many of the latter represent that which is worst about religion and ideology.

HOWEVER, some aspects of the more liberal parts of the Baha'i faith do represent ethics, justice, and inspiration at their best.

AND, most of the lyrics of "Intone" by Seals and Crofts are very powerful, describing many of the tragic aspects of our lives when we humans get older. Many studies have shown that the most lonely and saddest humans are the elderly.

The irony of when I first heard "Intone," listening to a new album by a new group that one of my buddies had just bought, I was only 24, in good health, and renting a nice apartment in Huntington Beach, California only a few miles to the beach.

But I could imagine and empathize with the individual suffering in the song--of the tragedies and losses of which the singers were relating. The song enthralled and uplifted me spiritually even though back then in 1971, I had few worries, and only the angst typical of young adults.

Besides the intense, lush instrumentation, I felt deeply the words of loss partially because at the time my mom was devastated by the early death of her father, the failing health of her elderly mother, and she was still grieving too vivid memories of her little brother who had gotten killed, run over by a car years before. As years passed, and my mom got older, she agonized even more over her little brother's death.

This song speaks so deeply and powerfully to all of that.

Yes, "Intone" posits holy writing from religion as a hope.

I don't think religions offer real hope. But some writings in religions do inspire. With a little revising, one can listen to this hopeful song, emphasizing what to do when encountering tragedy. (Hopefully, Seals and Crofts won't mind. I wonder where they are and whether or not they are living this song now in their old age.)

>>when everything is wrong...your friends are gone

Intone my [beloved], the verses of [the Light]. Intone my beloved, the verses of the Light
Let me hear you sing, let your voices ring
>>throughout cities of men's hearts...

Don't despair. Don't negate. Don't, for hope's sake, have a pity party (that you probably do deserve).

Instead, look to the wise words of great inspiration.

Seek hope, even when hope is missing.


In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

The Myth of Manifest Destiny, Tragic Results, and the 4th of July

To understand the myth and tragedy of Manifest Destiny, read Bear Flag Rising:

BEAR FLAG RISING
by Dale L. Walker
10+

What a historical tour de force!*

Walker gives us readers an amazing distillation of the U.S.'s invasion of western Mexico and manages to combine both extensive references to previous historians, plenty of facts and quotations, vivid metaphors and pictorial language, amazing and fun anecdotes, his own editorial perspectives, and, above all, riveting suspense.

The volume is never dry or ponderous. It reads almost as good as a suspense novel! (I actually stayed up over 3 hours past my bedtime last night because I just had to read a few more pages, again and again and again:-)

And now, having finished this excellent history of the Bear Flag Rebellion, I realize how drastically little I knew about the foundation of my own state, and, tragically, how even more immoral and unjust its founding was than I superficially knew.

Yes, I already knew that Abraham Lincoln opposed the invasion of Mexico, as did Henry David Thoreau, and many abolitionists and ethicists. It's just that I didn't know how thoroughly dysfunctional, immoral, and unjust the whole U.S. invasion was.

This powerful, vivid, biography-centered history of the conquest of California by the United States, shows how, mostly at the instigation of the new President, James Polk, the U.S. invaded and conquered, confiscating at the point of a canon almost half of Mexico! One of the first actions of the Bear Flag filibusters was the robbery of hundreds of horses. Remember, in the old West, horse theft was grounds for hanging!

What a travesty and tragedy of national theft and killing (though fortunately not nearly as many were slaughtered as in Texas).
And weirdly, how this evil of politics, this myth of Manifest Destiny, yet turned out in the long historical run to be for the better, since Mexico was such an unjust mess then, and has ever since up to the present not escaped from its own internal demons.

Historians state that the historical tragedy of Mexico’s dysfunction and injustice comes from the Spanish colonial system and worldview. So, again, as in other occasions of history, out of the U.S. evil actions, some good did come. Baffling how that works.

Walker’s lucid book documents the views of past historians, shares his own conclusions, and is packed with vivid historical vignettes, fascinating biographical details, and odd historical tidbits.

My own comment on the U.S. actions:
America can't be made "great, again" because, often in the past, it was unjust and immoral as in the cases of slavery, conquests, and national robbery and slaughter.

BUT on this 4th of July, we Americans, can seek to make America more good, just, and true, promising to stop supporting Muslim regimes, promising to no longer invade nations which haven't invaded us, etc.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox


*This short volume is even better than the fine histories and powerful biographies I’ve read recently on Texas and its leaders since returning from my historical journey through that state’s historical sites last month.

*Some of the Texas sites I visited included the grandiose San Jacinto Monument (taller than the Washington Monument), Sam Houston’s gigantic statue, the Sam Houston Memorial Museum, the site of the last battle of the Civil War a month after Appomattox (!), and the first battle site of the invasion of Mexico by Zachary Taylor (ordered by President Polk).

Loving Beauty

Not only seeking the True, the Good, the Just, the Compassionate...

BUT seeking the Beauty,
loving Beauty,
creating Beauty--

Creating beautiful works of art is another vital way toward
Transcendence
Ultimate Reality
God.

Yes, we seekers know that wily Fox, who quaked before God
347 years ago,
declared in righteous wrath against all art:
"...pluck down your images; I say, pluck them out of your houses, walls,
and signs, or other places, that none of you be found imitators of his Creator,
whom you should serve and worship; and not observe the idle lazy mind,
that would go invent and make things like a Creator and Maker..."
-George Fox

How tragically wrong!

But keep in mind, George Fox, bless his flawed discernment, spoke so harshly
because he was appalled by how art all around him--both religious and nonreligious, sacred and profane--
art, dance, sculpture, and literature of his time and place had twisted and distorted and destroyed.

Artistic images seemed to be keeping people from seeking the Light, the Transcendent, the Divine.

Like so many great seekers, reformers, revivers, and prophets, Fox often shouted in hyperbole, seeking to wake the spiritually and ethically dead in Britain, the Caribbean, the American Colonies, etc.

The famous spiritual novelist Flannery O'Connor of our time wrote,
“The reader of today...His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and
his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience
which is used to seeing them as natural;
and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means
to get his vision across to this hostile audience."

"...then you have to make your vision apparent by shock--to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”
-Flannery O'Connor, Collected Works: Wise Blood

In other words, when humankind and society and culture are caught down in the sewer of wrong, proclaimers of the Good and the True sometimes need to shout.

Here's a bit of history both con and pro art from the early Friends:

William Penn:"How many plays did Jesus Christ and His Apostles recreate themselves at?"

"What poets, romances, comedies, and the like did the Apostles and Saints make,
or use to pass away their time withal? I know, they did redeem their time, to avoid...
vain jesting, profane babblings, and fabulous stories."
--

“...early Friends frequently condemned non-Friends’ “vain fashion,”

The arts had a very late start among the Friends, compared to many other religious groups and secular society.

This puritanical resistance in general was partially because the Society of Friends was birthed in the Puritan resistance of 17th century England. Even when George Fox and other early Quakers very strongly rejected horrific Puritan theology, they kept the Puritan opposition to the arts.

Quakers, like Puritans, thought that the Royalist/Anglican/Roman Catholic focus on beauty in art, sculpture, and dress led to “vanity” and “pride.”

Also, “The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 brought a repudiation of Puritan plainness and morality and a new concern with ornamental fashion, as court aristocrats wore elaborate wigs, perfumes, laces, silks and satins, high-heeled red shoes, enormous wigs, and elaborate, laced, long sleeved coats. And these were male fashions"

"Women added paint and patches and wore seductive gowns that Quakers thought were too revealing. It was an era of sex and debauchery, and King Charles’ escapades with women and the resultant illegitimate children set the tone.”

Restoration stage plays promoted the immoral.

Plus, sculpture and painting were often associated with Roman Catholicism, which was considered false and destructive, and very contrary to the Truth.

Friends were very concerned to reject evil--“the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.” So they began to emphasize a strict anti-aesthetic outlook.

However, soon their holy witness turned into stringent “legalism” even “prescribing the size of buttonholes” in clothes!

Everything from meeting house architecture to furniture to clothes had to be lacking in artistic notice. Plain, plain, plain.

Though Margaret Fox Fell complained against such excessive plainness, and called this move to “legalism...a “silly, poor gospel.”

Oddly though,
...George Fox purchased good quality scarlet cloth for his wife, Margaret Fell Fox, to make into a cloak. Sarah Fell’s 1673 account book shows that the ladies of Swarthmoor Hall bought tartans, blue stockings, and red cloth.”
Quotes from Quaker Aesthetics by Emma Jones Lapsansky

So, even at the start, there were Quaker leaders who supported "Beauty," at least a little.

And much later, a minority of Quakers did paint, make colorful quilts, write poetry, and finally, even novels! But the arts had a very late start among the Friends, compared to many other religious groups and secular society.

But put yourself in the shoes of the early Quakers.

Reflect on how so much of modern art now is like the time period of the past, the Restoration which the early Friends stood up against, how our modern art--media, entertainment, movies, literature, painting, sculpture, clothing, and the Internet does focus, often extremely so, on glorifying
the grossly immoral,
the destructive,
even down-wrong evil!

SIDE NOTE example: Consider one famous modern novel. (I'll leave its title unnamed.) That particular book I was studying at university was gross--contrary to all that is good and true and pure. So when it came time to type my long essay criticizing the immoral novel, I majored in satire, typed the whole assignment up on a short roll of bathroom tissue paper:-)!
Our professor was impressed. He asked, "How did you manage to not tear the tissue?"

In all generations, humans can be diverted to the immoral, the unethical, and the unjust. Such was the case for early Quakers where the arts were used by religions to promote false beliefs, and used by secular society to glorify the immoral.

Quakers opted out, stood up against all of that.

Unfortunately in the process, a true love of beauty, and a philosophy of aesthetics was lost, only to be found much later.

To be continued--

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

How to Fall Into Blessing

On the mountainous Big Sur coastline 3 months ago, I ran up a steep blacktopped incline from the State campground.

In a huge hurry, I rushed to cross over California Highway 1, between speeding vehicles, to our parked Toyota Sienna on the other side.

Preoccupied, I didn't spot loose gravel, failed to remember the number one rule of hiking, keep an eye on the ground.

Suddenly, my feet flew out from under me, my knees bashed into the hardened blacktop, then the camera (around my neck) and my chest hit.

Lastly my rigid arms and hands smashed into the highway and my neck was jerked forward wrenching it, giving me a headache.

But instinctive action and my camera had stopped me from getting a concussion.

Today, I still have wide scars on my knees and vivid bruising. My knees look like Rudolph's nose.

But thankfully the pain and ache are gone.

And the broken Cannon camera.

Yes, a dangerous, though not serious, accident
because of haste (makes waste!) and lack of attention.

A bad fall.

So?

What's intriguing is this morning we were listening to a speaker talk of their efforts to help malnourished children in Nicaragua, and how they were going to conduct a silent auction of donated items.

Suddenly, I remembered my expensive telephoto lens back in my van.

What a blessing that would be for someone who could use it. Then the funds would go to the orphans in Nicaragua.

What a way to turn my bad accident, a negative experience into a blessing for those impoverished children.


I hurried out to my van and got the large lens and caps.
(Oops, hurrying again).

A blessed morning; not only did I hear great encouraging talks
and rousing folk music about how to turn negatives into positives,
I learned specifically how to turn a fall into a rise.

Yes, How to fall into blessing.

Of course, this was a minor accident, and my giving a lens an easy action.

But it's a new start for me.

Don't waste your accidents, disappointments, and heartaches.

Look and reflect what you might do to turn your negatives around
for even a little good for others.

In more severe, more tragic events,
it would be much harder to
fall into blessing.

Yet even in the worst of tragedies, there are victims who have turned
their horrific experiences into blessings for others.

Even in great loss,

Even in concentration camps,

Even when stricken with cancer.

How about us?

Especially when dealing with daily irritations, minor problems--
the things that are so easy to complain about and to worry over.

Are we going to focus on regret, worry,
and loss or turn
bad events into blessings for others?



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

They Glory in Their Shame

We very seldom watch TV, because we’re so busy, and are given to more in depth creative endeavors. Besides television shows in the past used to almost always leave me unsatisfied; too superficial. Even the news stations (with the exception of PBS) are given to quick sound bites, sensationalism, and not reflective understanding or historical perspective.

But I realize some people unwind after their own busy days by relaxing in front of the tube. No thinking required. Sort of like my reading a relaxing novel.

However, last night my wife and I decided we would catch the Country Music Awards, looking forward to hearing some of the ballads and rockers we had heard on our Maine vacation last month.

So I turned on the TV, but was turned off immediately. A show was finishing up talking with enthusiasm about strippers. Then Country Music Awards came on. Instead of starting with a stirring ballad or country rockabilly, the opening comedy routine of Brad Paisley narrowly focused on sex—not that that topic would be wrong if it were romantic or, I guess even steamy, in a good passionate sort of way. When has music ever been prudish?!

But what was disconcerting is that the MC dialog focused mostly—and blatantly--on the raunchy, the lurid, and the vulgar (including the term "full frontal").

Well, I thought, this is TV. It will pass.

NOT! (to rendition the old joke zinger of 20 years back)

In over 3 hours of viewing, the central focus of the awards seemed to be on the profane, the vulgar, the titillating/lewd/salacious…Millions of dollars to paint the sty, the hovel.

Well wait a minute, one award winner actually did sincerely “Thank God” for his win, Luke Bryant.

Yes, I know that country music has always had a vulgar underbelly—crass and coarse references, booze and partying…

But usually, there was also the upside.

When we turned off the TV, a verse came to me from out of the past, from back when I was a Christian and read my Bible regularly:
“Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame…”
Philippians 3:19

Rather tragic.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Tragic Nature of Duty, Honor, Country, and God

Duty, honor, country, God...aren’t these sacred nouns of what dreamed ideals are made?
What every good human seeks or should quest after?
How could such great exemplars possibly be the source of tragic, unmitigated evil?

In my childhood and youth, duty, honor, country, and God meant nearly everything to me. I still remember standing tall to receive my God and Country Award in Boy Scouts--months after many hours of preparation and achievement to earn the medal--then wearing it, proudly, on the green khaki of my Boy Scout uniform on important days.

The award hung there next to my merit badge sash emphasizing exactly those virtues of duty, honor, country and God. And hard work, reverence, etc., all those ethical characteristics of the Boy Scout Oath and Law: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”

But then all hell broke loose…

But before I explain what happened, wind back to one section of the past in U.S. history to get a more generic overview of these vaunted words—duty, honor, country, and God.

Consider the complicated, convoluted, tragic American Civil War in which two dutiful heroes stand out--Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant.

Take the latter first. Grant joined the war effort to keep Southerners from leaving the Union. Unlike Thomas Jefferson, Grant didn’t think Americans have a right to leave a government they oppose. Strangely though, he had previously violently supported Americans taking land from another country, Mexico, helping kill many for that right!

Oddly, also, Grant's family owned slaves and he worked them. From 1854 to 1858, Grant used the slaves of his wife’s father on the family farm. And Grant bought a slave in 1858, only three years before the Civil War but sold her in 1859.

His view of slavery may have been changing. However, his family didn’t free their slaves until after the Civil War ended and Missouri abolished slavery. So ironic that Grant was killing many Southerners when his own family back in Missouri still owned slaves!

While Grant gave partial support slavery, he seems to have been committed to an almost mystical vision of country, the United States. Like Lincoln, he didn’t think states had a right to democratically leave. “There are but two parties now, Traitors & Patriots and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter…”

So, like Lincoln, he was willing to abandon slavery if it would stop states from seceding. Grant said, “If it is necessary that slavery should fall that the Republic may continue its existence, let slavery go.”

Previously, Grant had served in the U.S. Army invasion of Mexico. New American immigrants to the area had wanted to bring slavery into its portion of Mexico, but slavery was outlawed in Mexico. Isn’t that the beginning of irony—that this Union which Grant so valued, was actually born of land theft, and that the U.S. had supported the importation of slavery into Mexico by Americans who had recently immigrated into Mexico!

Already, 15 years before Secession, duty is again shown to be morally twisted.

Isn’t it strange that Grant warred to support rebels who supported slavery against the Mexican Government, but opposed democratically elected states, who supported slavery from leaving the United States? What a moral tongue twister!

And Grant, himself, later recognized the wrong nature of the Mexican War. He called the latter war “unholy.” And said, the “Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican War. Nations, like individuals are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment..”

But as always with so many well-meaning humans, duty calls: According to Grant, “Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong, occupies no enviable place in life and history.”

I suppose some people will say, ‘At least in the Mexican War, U.S. soldiers fought dutifully against people in another country, who believed differently, and even looked different. But when duty called in 1861, it called for brother to take up arms against brother. Like the story in the Jewish and Christian Bible-- the senseless murder of Abel by his brother!

But, in the case of the Civil War, both sides were Cain, though, as the defender against invasion, the Confederacy less so, since they only wanted to go their own way, not invade the North. In fact, technically, the Civil War wasn’t a war about who controlled the nation, but about the North refusing to let Southern states leave after they had voted to do so.

Striking ironies. The Confederate general protecting Vicksburg from the invasion and assault by Grant’s troops from the North, General John Pemberton, was himself actually a Northerner. Two of his brothers, in contrast, joined the Union army, supporting the Northern invasion of the South! How tragic!

The rector at Vicksburg’s Christ Episcopal Church, the Reverend W.W. Lord, had also moved from New York 10 years before. He and his wife, also, supported the Confederacy!

So, hopefully, it is clear, that while a small group of Southerners, the ruling class of plantation planters, owned slaves, most didn't. Furthermore, most Southerners fought against the Union, not mainly because of slavery but because the Yankee army had invaded their homeland, their country.

This was exactly the case of Robert E. Lee. Known as the soldier’s soldier, Lee was admired even by his enemies. As a Christian and a Southern he followed duty and honor and country and God, enlisting in the Confederate Army even though he himself opposed Secession.

During his time at West Point, he got NOT one demerit, a very unusual achievement. For him, duty, honor, God and country were most important.

Lee had, at first, been offered command of the Union forces set to invade the South, but he said he wouldn’t attack his own state of Virginia. No, he would instead go back to defend his home.

Like Grant, Lee and his family owned and used slaves. Like his opponent Abraham Lincoln, Lee supported the freeing of slaves and having them emigrate to Africa. He did recognize slavery as a social evil that, hopefully, would eventually be ended.

Lee wrote to his wife in 1856, “In this enlightened age, there are few I believe but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any Country.”

Lee chose to obey the state government of Virginia (and other Southern states, rather than the northern states who had a monopoly in the U.S. government) He stated, “Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character." But weren’t he and his state rebelling against lawful authority?

Wasn’t Lee one of the “traitors” that Grant railed against? Not according to Lee and millions of other Southerners. They weren’t rebelling but withdrawing from a democratic voluntary association, just as Thomas Jefferson, also a Southerner, had said everyone has a human right to do.

Unlike many a human when violently attacked, Robert E. Lee didn’t hold to revenge. He even emphasized forgiveness. “We must forgive our enemies. I can truly say that not a day has passed since the war began that I have not prayed for them.” Not the usual image of the battle-hardened soldier in either historical tomes or popular media is his famous statement?

Yet here is the tragedy, the moral evil: Lee ordered hundreds of thousands of Americans into battle to kill other Americans, Christians to kill other Christians.

By following duty, honor, country, and God, Lee was directly responsible for multi-thousands of deaths. Of what use is it to pray for your enemies, and to forgive them, if you order them killed?

Keep in mind that some of his opponents in the Union Army were also Christians who believed in prayer, forgiveness, duty, honor, country, and God! Yet they invaded and killed countless numbers of Southerners, stole their produce and animals, confiscated and burned their homes and factories, causing untold suffering and anguish that lasted for many years!

Furthermore, many Northerners were racists, even in the Union army, and opposed Black equality. After the Civil War, racist Black Codes came into being in the South.

But racist codes were also evident in places in the North. And there were"Sundown towns" such as Hawthorne, California which had a sign outside its city limits in the 1930's which read, "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Set On YOU In Hawthorne."

So much for honor and that God loves everyone, "red and yellow black and white..."

What came of all this high-sounding moral code of duty, honor, country and God? Over 800,000 needless deaths, millions of wounded, the ravaging of half of America, untold suffering to civilians, unjust and immoral laws for over 100 years against Negroes, and die-hard racism.

One major secular philosopher, Immanuel Kant, emphasizes how duty shines above all, how duty is the highest call of humankind—the one true ethical act.

But not in the case of the very unCivil War.

The one good side effect of the war was the emancipation of the slaves, though when Lincoln emancipated slaves, he did so only for states in the Confederacy. Most historians say that Lincoln did this primarily as a war measure.

Slaves in the North continued to be enslaved until the end of the war! Lincoln's Emancipation didn't apply to them. So strangely, Lincoln freed slaves where he didn't rule, but enslaved Negroes where he did rule!

Then Lincoln also advocated that freed slaves should leave the United States. In March 1861, Lincoln said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

He further stated, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it…”

“I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” Etc.


Of what strange things are duty made, and the slaughter of others, and the hypocrisy of religion.


To be continued…

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Experiencing Ultimate Reality, Ultimate Friendship

I have never been satisified with the usual, the good, nor the better, not even the best, but have always yearned for the unseen perfect--
have been an idealist, an individual who always seeks beyond this current half-way good state of affairs
to the wondrous,
the mystical,
the transcendent--
to God,
Ultimate Reality.

And as I share below, God has, a few wondrous times, overwhelmed me with his Presence far beyond my wildest ideals and dreams.

HOWEVER,

so much of my life (and I suppose most other people's lives) has been lived and continually needs to be lived in the humdrum, the routine, the repetitious, the mediocre, the dull, the boring --yes the drudgery and sludge of the average day.

Yet I long for, like the Psalmist speaks of, thirst for the wondrous and the true and the good and the loving.

Recently, I came across an insightful quote that helped me in my daily quandary; it revolutionized my thoughts of communion with God, since so often I am disappointed with how shallow, even dry, my experiences seem on any given day, especially on days taken up with the hectic or the tragic.

"A friendship based on emotion is shallow indeed...
When you feel abandoned by God yet continue to trust him in spite of your feelings, you worship him in the deepest way."


When I first read this, it reached me in the deepest place. Now I suppose for many of you, the insight seems obvious, but for me, the vital truth came anew--
friendship with God is action,
not primarily feeling or experience.

Since I am an artist through and through (one huge nerve ending;-),
this is difficult. I want to feel, feel, feel...

And I do hope to experience God again and again, but for now I know more deeply than I have for a long time, what most counts is to act
for the ideal,
for the true,
for the Ultimate.

That's perfection come down.

But, tragically, later Rick Warren turned away from this good news and became a Reformed determinist:-(
How strange!
According to the Reformed, not only do millions feel abandoned by God, it turns out that billions of us were abandoned/damned/foreordained to eternal torture
by God before time began.

I refuse to accept such horrific theology.

Instead, I look back to one time I did experience God to an overwhelming degree--

Outside the Limit

Working the thursday graveyard shift
At 7-11, I stock cold shelves of 'cours'
Then write a college essay on dreiser
Of how all is thin surface, all negation;

But alert in the night, I pray in the stillness
While beyond the glass, the parking lot lies
Vacant, lit by the neon signs and street lights--
When so unexpected my mind transports.

I rise outside of self, see far beyondness,
Perceive myself sitting between the rows,
Observe the little ego in the skin and skull
My bodied self sitting with the staid cans and jars.

But now awash drowned in awe, the Personal
Luminousness aware beyond words vivid bliss
Blessed all encompassing exalting surpassing
Great parabled One Pearl of Being.

-Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in Flutter Poetry Journal


May you find the Divine in your daily giving actions and at least once in an overwhelming mystical experience.

In the Light,

Daniel