Reachin’ For Fireflies

Tags

Art, Bear, creationism, evolution, NCAA basketball, religion, Richard Dawkins, the meadown

I am not a good person.

I know that.

I took entirely too much glee in the Kansas win over Ohio State. Entirely too much.

I loathe Ohio State. It is not “THE” anything.

I loathe it because I am from MSU. I loathe U of M too. I dance on their graves.

I would root for satan in a match between them.

I am thrilled to squash their little heads in my hands until their brains squirt out.

I am not a good person.

But we all have our little quirks don’t we? 🙂

¶

I believe in God. I have a worked out theology that I’m comfortable with. I fit in pretty well in most of the mainline Catholic, Protestant theologies. We quibble around the fringes. I consider myself sane and reasonable, and frankly normal.

Much as I admire the intelligence of Richard Dawkins, he would not return the favor. He thinks I’m nuts, and I frankly don’t appreciate it. I saw him on Chris Hayes Up a week ago, and found him as I usually do, just a bit too insufferably arrogant. The problem was put in a nutshell by Quinn O’Neill from 3quarksdaily—the man cares more about eradicating religion than he does in keeping vacuous “creationism” out of school curriculums. And that is simply wrong in my opinion.

Dawkins actually now advocates outright, in-your-face ridicule of believers. He doesn’t differentiate between the knuckle-dragging fundies who believe the earth is flat and only 6,000 + years old and those who believe that the universe is the creation of a greater mind who nurtures life and encourages connection to a fuller life.

On the other hand, there are folks like Robert Wright, whose book I reviewed here, who take a very different tack. In his article at The Atlantic, Wright argues that such an approach is needlessly confrontational and creates enemies where none need be.

While I agree and have argued here, that the far far Right is unreachable by reason, that is simply not the case with a great many who hold anti-science opinions, simply because that is what they were taught at home and they’ve never had the need or reason to confront an alternative explanation. These people can be persuaded by real evidence, and that opportunity is missed when you come at them like a Rottweiler.

Both are worth reading.

¶

Which brings me to art. Now, I am not what you call art savvy. I know what I like and what I don’t like, and I’m not impressed with experts on this issue, because I think a piece either speaks to you, or it doesn’t and that is the point is it not? It says something about life, the human condition or you simply love the colors and it matches the sofa. I am thusly a live and let live woman when it comes to what makes you swoon artfully speaking.

That said, I saw a segment on 60 Minutes about the pop art of the day, and the unbelievable prices for which the stuff goes. Some of it is crap, and I wouldn’t want it sitting at the end of my drive way awaiting the trash collector. Other stuff I thought “wow, I’d love to have that!”

Except that I can’t. These art fairs are singularly held in the playgrounds of the rich and famous, and while you make look, you may not touch, unless you have at least $250,000 to plunk down for that rusty faucet dripping water, or that hoe with an entangled bunch of hose and some flamingo boas entwined in what can only be described as  “I found a way to make a million exercising only 1/10 of my brain cells” chic.

Yes, I’m well aware that there are little known “local fairs” with a bunch of local artist wannabes and a few genuine original geniuses possibly to be found, but I can learn to throw a pot too ya know. So my question is still valid.

My question?

Yes. Is there no morality to art?

Meaning–where are the artists who so love their work that they want the little guy to have a chance to own a piece? Where are the artists who refuse to let their pieces initially sell for more than say $50 or at least no more than 20% over the cost of materials? Am I whacked for even suggesting it? Is art only the play toy of the rich and famous?

You tell me.

¶

On a final note, a little help.

We are not looking for you to vote and decide for us.

But, we are entirely conflicted regarding our dog Bear. Some days we feel we should have him put down and bury him with Brandy, and at other times, he seems good to go. We don’t trust ourselves any more. It would be vastly easier to not take him. How much is this truth likely to push us in the wrong direction?

Here are the facts.

• He is incontinent either through dementia or just not giving a rat’s ass any more. We have to cut him off from water by 8 pm or face a clean up the next day.
• He is increasingly hard of hearing.
• He has some difficulty on some days getting up and down the porch steps (he had his leg badly broken as a youngster).
• He gags some days all day, a bit between gagging and coughing (which can be a sign of heart trouble or at least some growth)
• He is in his 14th year and that is really old for a border collie.
• He took Brandy’s death very badly and it took weeks before he pulled himself out of it. The trip would be disorienting and confining. He would be on a harness and leash for months.
• He’s always been free to roam and this meadow has been his home for 12 years.

On the other hand:

• He eats  fine.
• He seems to eliminate fine.
• He seems in no major pain, though we suspect he aches (he paces some nights)
• He still likes to go for a ride, and experiences some interest in sniffing around, if only for a short time now.
• He still seeks pets and affection.

We are thinking of taking him to the vet and having him checked out and let the vet guide us. Any other ideas we have missed ? 

Related articles

• Robert Wright promotes accommodationism, disses Dawkins (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
• In Defense of Dawkins’s Reason Rally Speech – Daniel Fincke – Camels With Hammers (richarddawkins.net)
• Christopher Hitchens: In Defense of Richard Dawkins (alwaysquestionauthority.wordpress.com)
• Kansas claws back to stun Ohio State, will face Kentucky for national title (cbssports.com)

It’s a Good Good Friday

Tags

Art, atonement, crucifixion, Jesus, religion, Zoology

I am aware of course that many of you are not believers, at least in a traditional way. And because of that, I try not to spend too much time on things having to do with faith, especially denominational faith. I leave that to my other blog, Walking in the Shadows. However I found this article so compelling that I thought I would share it with you, in keeping with the day.

I have for a long time not believed in what is referred to as “substitutionary atonement” or the tenet that God sent Jesus to earth with the express purpose of suffering and dying for our sins, the sin we carry from Adam’s original sin. It doesn’t comport with my view of God quite simply. As Kenneth R Overburg, SJ suggests, it takes Jesus out as Plan B, and replaced Him with the Word, foundational in creation, planned from the beginning to dwell among creation in the fullness of time.

It is the Incarnational model and centers Jesus as love offering, come among humanity at the right moment in time to offer the WAY to unity with the Godhead. Overburg writes a beautiful and compelling explanation of this interpretation which I think allows many who have rejected Christianity specifically because of the implications of the substitutionary atonement theory. Please enjoy, The Incarnation: Why God Wanted to Become Human.

♦

Isn’t he cute?

And aren’t they lovely?

Blessings to you all!

Well If That Don’t Beat All

Tags

Arizona, Art, birthers, climate change, Florida, gun laws, Herman Cain, high speed rail, Montana, President Obama, teabaggers, unions, Wisconsin

It’s not like I go out searching for this stuff. It just pops up before my ears with INCREASING REGULARITY.

It is my considered opinion, MY CONSIDERED OPINION, that the Tea Party will be defunct by 2012. The insanity emanating from these mostly uneducated, most STOOPID people is mind-boggling.

Normal folks are already beginning to see what hath teapartyism wroth. And it ain’t good.

We made mention of a few days ago, that Wisconsin’s Governor has re-introduced the concept of political cronyism by unilaterally dismantling the state’s collective bargaining rights of all state workers. Marches are occurring everywhere as we speak. The Governor has promised a swift response by the National Guard. Cuts have to be made he suggests, and it surely isn’t coming from the rich folk like himself. Similar measures are being looked at in Ohio and Tennessee, also run by Rethuglican governors.

***

In Montana, farmer/volunteer fireman, and teapartier Joe Read, House Rep, introduces legislation to declare that global warming is not man-made AND is beneficial to the state. By fiat, all Montana’s troubling problems are solved. Read, who apparently doesn’t, consulted no scientists, but relied instead on his “experience.” He said “global science is an ideal, not a true science.” Whatever the hell that means. Like so many of his brainless brethren, he suggests we “follow the money”.  Apparently he misses the fact that the anti-climate change “money” comes directly from big oil and gas interests and all the other major polluters.

***

Sen Ronald Gould (R-AZ) introduced a bill in his wacky legislature that would allow the carrying of firearms on college campuses and in all public buildings. Further, existing laws that make it a crime to not  respond “accurately” to a question about having a concealed weapon, would be changed to be “truthfully” allowing for “oops I forgot I had that!” Further, it would no longer to a crime to discharge a firearm in the city, but only if only if it could be proven that the person knew that the discharge could cause death or injury. (guns can kill? you lie!) And if you feel you’ve been unfairly harassed about your gun? You can sue, and if you win, you get a “municipal” vehicle as your prize.  

***

Rick Scott, governor of Florida, teabagger and fraud expert, refused 2.4 billion in Federal funds for high speed rail development. This action, left the work in progress and will put hundreds at least out of work. Rep. John Mica (R) and Sen Bill Nelson (D) are scrambling to undo the damage caused by Scott’s dull thinking. Meanwhile, California and New York, both living in the 21st century, are hoping the funds might come their way.

***

Chauncey De Vega has a scathing look at the darling of the crazy right-wing, Herman Cain. These, as I call them, house Negroes make a point of feeding the racism inherent in the uber right-wing, all the while providing them with their defense: themselves. Anyone with half a brain can see through the veil of course, but not the non-thinking Beckian hordes. No, Cain is perfect cover, allowing them to vilify all other African-Americans, especially the President, all the while claiming, “moi racist? surely you jest.” You are and we aren’t jesting.

***

If you hadn’t noticed, all GOPers use the same mantra in response to the question “do you believe the President is a citizen/Christian?” In unison, they report in robot-like fashion. “I take the President at his word.” If pressed, they say things like John Boehner, “It’s not my job to tell the American people what to think,” or like Michele Bachmann, “I think we have more important issues to address, like the budget.”

The reason why they leave this opened ended, which implies that the “jury is still out” on the President’s status, is simply this: polls suggest that the likely GOP primary voter tends to think the President is not either a citizen or a Christian. So, rather than come from a place of integrity, the GOP comes from a place, of protecting my personal ambitions and interests in higher office or re-election. That’s some kind of  leadership wouldn’t you say?

***

Oh, and on a note of civility and pertaining to the arts, Google has a new site up that promises to allow the viewing of masterpieces from great museums all over the world, in beautiful up close levels. Do take a look: at the Art Project.

Related Articles

• Florida’s Scott joins the anti-rail crusade (washingtonmonthly.com)
• Republican Fl. Gov. Rick Scott angers Republicans over refusing to accept high speed rail money (crooksandliars.com)
• Video: Herman Cain’s speech to CPAC (hotair.com)

Tripping the Light Fantastic

Tags

Art, emotions, life, Music, painting, Poetry, psychology

I’ve been thinking about poetry. In the end that got me to thinking about music and art in general. I’m sure you have found yourself thinking about them too. In case you haven’t, I’ll share.

I have always had a arm’s length kinda thing in regards poetry. I liked some (that which I could easily understand) and didn’t like some (that which I could not understand).  Pretty basic analysis.

I have no idea what poem the phrase “tripping the light fantastic” comes from, but I remember a high school teacher frustrated as all heck because we were bemused by her attempts to get us to “respect” poetry. We thought it all silly, and memorizing any portion of it, a sheer waste of time.

I was troubled by the poetry I didn’t understand, often written by supposed giants of literary ability. Well, no supposed about it, they were such giants, and I was terribly worried at times what I was missing and why. I thought to read it line by line and for all my efforts I still had no idea what was being said half the time.

As I said, some I did get. “By the shores of gitchee gumee, by the shining deep sea waters. . . .” That I get.

I learned that poetry was meant to evoke emotions, yet I still felt there must be actual meaning in the words themselves? Some code I was unable to penetrate. And so mostly I left it alone.

I’m thick headed about some things. Poetry must be one. I mentioned a few days ago, that a poem I read on a site which I linked to had spoken to me powerfully. It felt like someone had dug into my skull and spoke my deepest agonies, fears, sorrows, melancholia. I’m not sure what the poem was meaning, but I finally got it, I think.

It meant what it meant to me. It evoked feelings about my state in the this world. And to him/her it might have evoked feelings about something entirely different. It might have related to an event, a time, an experience quite different from mine, but the emotions were the same.

I’m not sure I’m making much sense, but I hope you are seeing what I mean in some way.

Music is the same. Musical compositions often have names, they define the subject matter of the composer, “The Messiah,” or the “Rodeo.” Now, common sense tells you that if you were unaware of the name and you were hearing it for the first time, you wouldn’t say, oh my he’s composing a piece about Jesus Christ. Yet, we are carried by the sounds with the title, and we reflect on Jesus, knowing that it is about Him, and we FEEL a kinship to the scriptures that talk of him.

Painting and sculpture are no different. Especially the more abstract kinds, but even those dubbed Romanticism and Expressionism also do this. They may depict more identifiable objects, yet they are distorted in some way that allows us to dig deeper, feel deeper, and connect with our spirit-soul.

At least that is what I think. That is why the arts are essential to our humanity. That is why we started to represent things in our own imaginings almost from the start. From the fertility goddesses we fashioned in the stone age to the cave paintings in Lascaux, France, to Monet and Picasso. We seek to speak the unspeakable and we seek to ask the world to understand what we cannot say.

Poetry is that. It speaks of what is not speakable.

And yet, I would not negate the poetry that tells the story. For it has it’s place. It is the journeyman’s way. It is what I write, and so many of us write, some better, some not so. But it is our ungifted attempt to speak of more than what we can utter in declarative sentence.

It is what caused Dorothy Parker to correct anyone who wanted to talk of her “poetry.” “No,” she would say, “not poetry, but my verses. I am no poet.”

Poetry is the Psalmist who cries for Jerusalem, yet, two thousand years later, manages to still speak to our condition as we cry for whatever is holy and seemingly withheld from our hands and hearts.

Camus suggests that true genius is accompanied by a requisite amount of banality. I have said more than once that every decent thought has been thought, we merely come up with them again and again, until such time as the other pieces are available and we can make something of them.

So poetry reminds us, in the end, of that timelessness. That the same hopes, dreams, fears, jealousies, hatreds are ever with us, no matter whether we awaken upon a mammoth robe or on 1200-thread count linen sheets.  It is all the same.

Nothing new here folks. Just an aging woman finally getting something through a puzzling mind. And I have yet to speak of war and scripture and things more marvelous still. But tomorrow is another day, God willing.

What’s Up? 07/02/10

Tags

Architecture, Art, brain study, economy, GOP, Internet, neuroscience, poverty, Sharron Angle, teabaggers, unemployment, wingnuts

It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep does for a person, especially one who is sadly having to give up on the idea that middle age is any more much of a descriptive phrase. Still, I think I can push old age to 75 doncha think?

I slept good last night, which is commendable and all around right, since the nights are so conducive to it–being both dark and cool.

I often get up in the night, around 12:30 am or so, and sit up with a glass of wine and watch the goings on in the meadow. Most of it revolves around the escapades of the cats. The dogs tend to lay outside to keep cool, and the cats rather saunter and swagger around like they own the place.

They tend to rush in and out, much as the Mad Hatter, stopping to splay out on the floor and take a quick bath before heading back out for more late night entertainment. It’s a rather glorious time of quiet reflective peace. I often write in my head at that time, my creative juices are all bubbly.

So, I’m ready to lay back, open the reader and see what’s going on. Oh and I should tell ya, I’m fallin’ in love with “Despicable Me” promos. I haven’t felt such a pull at my heart since that adorable little garbage dude in that other flick. Wall-E was it?

I don’t know much about architecture which certainly qualifies me for an opinion. I know what I like (love in the case of Art Deco), and what I don’t. Anyway, a bunch of snooty “experts” collected by Vanity Fair, for whatever reason, has named the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (that’s in Spain as I just learned) wins! The work of one Frank Gehry. They have a slide show where you can see his other stuff. This will all turn up on Jeopardy sooner or later, so it’s wise to at least know this stuff. In a word–the dude doesn’t like 90° angles, but he does like every other kind. Actually, I may have to do a full piece on this. One admirer broke into tears on visiting the Guggenheim, but I truly tell you, this stuff is simply awful!

I nearly lost my lunch on that lunacy, and I’m still woozy, but press on.

Things get definitely worse when you read this article in Prospect, claiming that the internet is rewiring our brains, and not for the better. Lots of neuro scientificy stuff here. I’m not sure whether I should be scared or insulted. I did find this quote from the Spectator from 1889 on the “Intellectual Effects of Electricity” to be mildly amusing:

 All men are compelled to think of all things, at the same time, on imperfect information, and with too little interval for reflection.

Little did they know of the spread of information!

We do seem a bit artsy today. I have read part of an art book, so I am superiorly qualified on this one. It seems, we are told, that the “new” art of today can be summed up in this self-promoting, self-defending mode:

 I know that the art I’m creating may seem silly, even stupid, or that it might have been done before, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t serious.

It would appear that batshit crazy has invaded the world of art as well as politics these days. I think the number of us who are certifiably sane is dwindling. No slideshow here, I guess they were mindful of my sensitive stomach.

Speaking of teabaggers, Sharron Angle is single-handedly making HarryReid’s chances of re-election look positively grand. The DailyKos has all the scoop on her latest inanities via “interview.” She is simply astoundingly stupid. She can expect a lifetime of Christmas cards from Harry I’m sure.

DCap has a rogue’s gallery of GOP remarks about how unemployment benefits are dangerous because people get used to them, and get too lazy to find work. Disgusting, callous, cold-hearted. That’s what they are, and they deserve our approbation. Shame on them and their psychologically distorted view of human beings.

Short Takes on the Day, 03/21/09

Tags

Alaska, American government, Art, bestiality, blogging, breast cancer, Brit Hume, Catholicism, civics, contraception, Florida, Glenn Beck, Media, religion, terrorism, Women's issues

It’s the beginning of March Madness, and we are deeply ensconced in the games. We are through the first round and today we begin the second. Being a graduate of MSU, I have a dog in the race, but of course many others I root for. The upsets have been fast and furious this year, much better than last, when the whole thing seemed a yawner to me.

No matter, this is not about basketball, but we are returning after a hiatus of sorts to the “Short Take” format. I never intentionally left, but it can be a tiresomely pedantic post to write, and I prefer the subject matter types.

A bit about how I do this, which has changed recently and will, hopefully explain why my visits to your blogs is a bit disjointed and irregular. (forgetting of course the week+ without computer capability and the oh so old story of dial up slowwwwwwness).

I use a reader, Google to be specific, and daily, I arrive to find 1000+ waiting for me. The reader doesn’t identify past 1000, so I have no idea how many really. I hit show all, and proceed to go through them as presented, latest first. I proceed in this manner, starring items that I find interesting but don’t seem to generate a full post in my head, until something does, and then write. What is starred remains for another day. As I run into a blogger friend, I read, and then bring up the website if I have a comment to leave.

I used to set aside specific time to read friends blogs, and leave comments, but found all too often that I ran out of time, and some people seemed to be perennially left out. If I’m searching for a blog idea, I start usually with the “political” ones and proceed. This meant I missed a lot of good “religious” stuff, and well, science and so forth.

This way, its indiscriminate and everything gets a fair chance to come across my eyeballs.  As I said, before, there were sources, yours and professional ones that I was consistently missing. At the end of the day, I mark everything I don’t get to as read, and start again the next day. That can be problematical. If you generally post in the early evening, you end up at the end of the list, since I clear at 5:30 Central DST. Thus, I may still miss you a lot, but never fear! Weekends are much better, and I can often get through everything! So hopefully, I’ll see you there if not during the week.

Anyway, I found my starred box getting full, so here’s a potpourri of stuff, some of which you might find interesting, informative or amusing. Some of it is just plain weird!

We start with the amusing and always snooty, Mr. Brit Hume, who was receiving a award (Wm. F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence) from the conservative group, Media Research Center.

Mr. “fair and balanced,” warned that as blogging increased, the idea of fair and balanced was errr, threatened? Gasp, we are in danger of being presented news that is biased? and presents only one “political point of view?”

Oh gosh, scary huh? I’m thinking that Hume should have been presented with the chutzpah award for “saying things with a straight face”. With thanks to Think Progress,  follow the link for all the details. And shake your head, I mean really Brit, you can’t really say that with a straight face can ya?

~~~

As long as we are on the subject of wingnuttery, and we were, don’t forget Glenn Beck, the new totally off the wall nut case at Foxy. It seems that the Missouri State Police worked up a profile of what an All-American terrorist might look like, and dang if it didn’t resemble some of our friends from the reactionary religious and otherwise right.

Well, Glenn got his shorts in a twist over that, and ponders what we are doing profiling honest Amarcans like that! Just another example of bad govement sneaking around and spying on good ole boys.

Glenn specializes in totally misunderstanding most of what he reads and then spewing it out as in his normal fear mongering way. Read this in full at Crooks & Liars.

~~~

If ya got some time, stop by Katie Schwartz’s blog. She received a “sisterhood” award. But she has a nice list of blogs that she adores. Many are old favorites and one’s a read anyway, but there were several I was unaware of, and Katie’s taste is well, good. So if you  want to add to the list of things you read daily, (and don’t we all) stop by and take a look.

I haven’t seen Katie posting a lot lately, but that may be more me than her. She is irreverent, witty and a great writer. Worth always reading!

~~~

Speaking of some of our favorite bloggers, Jennifer at In the Meantime . . . has some updates on the “Art Book Project” Paws for Charity, for breast cancer. Give her a look and see what you can do to help out.

~~~

If religious art is your thing, don’t miss the Episcopal Church’s Visual Arts online. This one features a favorite of mine, Tobias Heller, from In a Godward Direction. Tobias will direct link ya.

~~~

Okay, I promised you weird, and this would be the one. Alaska and Florida are considering banning bestiality by statute. Well, one we can see, I guess. After Sarah, we’ve all come to know that there are some might strange folks up in Alaska. As to Florida, hmmm,  does this have to do with dementia and failing eyesight? We aren’t sure, but seems both states are having epidemics of folks who are doing the nasty with animals, and some folks want ’em locked up.

I can appreciate that. I’t creepy in the extreme without considering the poor exploitation of the animal. Beware, though examples used were a guide dog ( how damn unthankful can a person get?) and a goat!.

Seriously, I guess there is some strong correlation between abusing animals and abusing people. Sick it is.

~~~

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute offers you a civics test. The results which they list are discouraging, Most Americans score 49% as an average, while even the college educated get only 55%. I’m gonna take it a bit later when I finish with this.  We thank Theology Web for the heads up.

~~~

Robert S. McElvaine, is the author of Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America, thinks its high time the Catholic Church impeach its pope and move into the 21st Century. He does examine a rather long list of gaffes,the latest of which has been lighting up the blogosphere.

Benedict, as you may have heard, has told the African continent, where he is on an official visit, that they should not use condoms because condoms only make the problem worse. This to a continent suffering terribly from the AIDS epidemic.

While I can follow the logic of Benedict’s argument, it is based on what everyone surely knows is simply not reality. People do not refrain from sex when faced with NO contraception. They do it anyway, and have since the dawn of man and woman. When the Vatican finally admits that NFP (Natural Family Planning) is nothing more than contraception under the table, offered to placate a congregation that was leaving in droves, then I might listen.

Whatever you might think, the article is worth a look. Even the Vatican is beginning to worry.

~~~

Fertile Minds

Tags

Art, evolution, fertility goddesses, God, God Gene, Human Biology, theology

Venus of Willendorf circa 13,000-18,000 BCE

I got to thinking about fertility gods the other day. Goddesses to be specific, for most, as you might expect are female representations.

I recall a couple of years ago, the Contrarian and I became quite engrossed in a public television series on art. The documentarian started with the most primitive of art, often found on cave walls in Europe, and moved through to more modern pieces. It was a real eye opener, and helped me in many ways to understand art better. As some of you may recall, I’m reading a coffee table tome on art history, and I recalled the IPT (Iowa Public TV) show, while reading of the prehistoric era.

To the point, I learned that when it came to fertility goddesses, they were pretty much the same worldwide. That means that if you found one in South America, it might look amazingly similar to one found on the Russian Steppes. That idea initially floored me. It still does, but I’ve had some time to let it sit and ferment as it were.

My analysis is as follows. Man and woman, as they contemplate their lives, recognize the importance of procreation. Children, early on, and up to fairly recent times, were not only blessings in and of themselves, but were also quite coldly, economic commodities. Boys and girls were essential to the family. They assisted in all manner of tasks, tasks that could not be accomplished simply by two adults.

Some where, early on, humanity determined that there were mystical beings, called gods, who directed human affairs, and a good deal of the natural forces we are forced to contend with. Rain, and snow, cold and heat were deemed the gifts of gods or their punishment. We began to offer worship to them to gain what we wished and to avoid that which we did not wish.

So, man and woman thought about how to improve their likelihood of having children. The began to envision a goddess of pregnancy and fertility. How would she look? As you can see from the photograph, a rather bulbous body was thought to denote perhaps a well fed woman? Huge breasts stood for the ability to suckle children successfully? The face was of little consequence, nor were the other limbs. Healthy fat women with big breasts seem to be everybody’s determination of what a fertility goddess should look like.

This suggests that worldwide the human race is pretty much genetically predisposed to view the world in the same manner. Or so I have concluded.  We deduce conclusions from facts in the same manner. I don’t know quite how to reconcile that with the fact that we seem to be at odds with each other on so many issues these days.

One would assume that the mind that can visualize a fertility goddess the same as another living very far away in entirely different circumstances, would mean that we were genetically predisposed to empathize with each other. Yet, it seems we are not. Palestinians seem unable to empathize with Israelis or vice versa. I am told that the animosities between Turkish people and Armenian folks have gone on for some centuries with little abatement.

I can only conclude that such loss of empathy has been a culturalization event. We have grown apart in our humanity by events and by folks who have chosen to interpret those events in ways that divide. It seems we have taken the division caused by competition for limited resources and never let go.

That of course begs the question of what limited resources. One would have thought that another herd of bison or woolly mammoth would be just around the corner. Yet compete we did, and somewhere in that, we lost our ability to empathize. It seems it must be taught again.

I can understand the fertility goddess thing as a result of evolution. No doubt it is useful to humans to view the world with rationality, and that leads to an increase in survival chances. We view the world with the same tools and come to rational conclusions about it. That makes sense.

But another issue doesn’t. There are those in the medical and biology field who now tell us that they have uncovered a “God gene.” The chief proponent of this work is one Dean H. Hamer, author of “The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes.” While many disagree and criticize his work, it positively sets the evangelical right on a path of apoplectic denial. God forbid that we are inclined to believe!

But that is not the point of Hamer’s work at all. What he says that several genes seem to be at play when Buddhists meditate or when nuns pray. There is a genetic predisposition to “transcendence.” This is not the same as God, but it does cause us to look outward, away from ourselves, to find meaning to the world around us.

That transcendence can cause us to empathize I would think with others, but of course, also to conclude that some greater force is at work defining our world, and controlling what happens in our lives. The first part makes sense to me from a evolutionary frame. Anything that causes us to empathize with others and to cooperate seems a good survival technique.

But I am constrained to figure out how belief in a superior deity is helpful to survival, or was deemed useful such that it was perpetuated in the gene pool as a valuable addition to our human condition. Perhaps there is just something I fail to understand about evolution.

Unlike the wingnuttery religious right, I don’t see Hamer’s and other’s work as some danger to religion. Of course, that is crazy anyway, since truth should always be our goal, not simply results that support our pet theories of the world.

Since, I don’t see the “God gene” as an evolutionary necessity or even a help, I can easily conclude that the God gene, is indeed that Spirit of God placed within all humans (whether it extends to all life is another question. I personally think it does, but that isn’t the issue before us.). I see the research as just as much supportive of that as it supports the notions of so-called atheists that it’s all a figment of our genetic soup.

I find the God gene, a comfort in fact. It suggests to me at least that we are all on a path to our Creator, though some of us know it not. We are all journeying,  however consciously or unconsciously that is occurring.

I’m sure there is more wrong with my analysis that right. I’m neither a geneticist nor an evolutionary biologist. I barely skim the surface of those disciplines in terms of knowledge. Yet, I am comforted, as I said.

Isn’t this more interesting to contemplate than to continue to argue about what the “real presence” means? Are we to be forever bogged down in issues of apostolic succession and women’s ordination, celibacy, homosexuality, and all this? Why oh why aren’t we celebrating our, should I dare say, God given ability, to share a world view of God’s presence? Should we not celebrate our ability to both see a mountain in the distance  or a stream jumping with salmon? Are not these the hallmarks of our unity?

Let us have the spirited discussions about all these sundry other matters, yet, on Sunday, let’s go to church and worship, setting aside all our utterly unimportant differences. On one thing we all agree, we are called to transcend our limited selves, we are drawn to that. Let us transcend and begin the process of healing.

May you dream of peace and understanding, unity and compassion, empathy and cooperation in this season of the Epiphany.

It’s just what I was thinking about yesterday.