Hey You! I Can't Stand You! Let's Do Coffee!

Ah, Facebook. Sometimes you love it, sometimes you, well...you know. Here's something that came across my news feed today. Read it, and then I have some commentary following it:


I am sharing this "inspirational quote" not because I like it, but precisely because I do not. While I agree that we should not live with regrets, the sentence, "So love the people who treat you right and forget about the ones who don't" is a very shallow love. If the whole world acts in this way, only repaying kindness with kindness and mistreatment with indifference or even hatred, we will not evolve very quickly. I think it's when you can say, "I don't understand you very much and I'm not even sure that I like being around you, but I honour you as my sister or brother, and let's do coffee to understand each other more," that we will see the expansion of love and oneness on our small planet.

At Christmastime, The Golden Rule In Multiple Religions

At Christmastime we hear people talking about peace on earth, goodwill toward humankind. Lately I have been witness to violence on earth, and animosity toward humankind, which has caused my mind and heart grief. What if we took the time to commit to only doing unto others as we would have them do unto us? What's more, what if we didn't see people as objects to be manipulated for personal gain or pleasure, but as people that we are at one with. May the words of my mouth be soft, may I be quick to listen. May I breathe in peace and release all violence as I exhale.

Christianity: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." ~ Matthew 7:1

Confucianism: "Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state." ~ Analects 12:2

Buddhism: "Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." ~ Udana-Varga 5,1

Hinduism: "This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you." ~ Mahabharata 5,1517

Islam: "No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself." ~ Sunnah

Judaism: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary." ~ Talmud, Shabbat 3id

Taoism: "Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss." ~ Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien

Zoroastrianism: "That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself." ~ Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5

Gov. Rick Perry & The Myth of A Christian Nation

Unless you've been fasting from your computer the last couple of days, you've already seen this campaign commercial from Republican Presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. If you have been fasting, here it is (and yes...this is real):



As I write this, this YouTube video has received a whopping 484,000 "dislikes" and has been flagged by many (myself included)as being inappropriate.

There are a few things I'd like to address. First of all, when Perry mentions gays, it's as if he's talking about criminals or terrorists serving openly in the military. He does nothing here to hide his disdain for the LGBT community. Give it up Rick, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is history and thankfully so.

Secondly, Rick gets on the soapbox about kids not being able to openly celebrate Christmas or pray in schools. Similarly, I've read several status updates on my Facebook news feed lambasting the use of the term "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings." I must admit that I'm a "Merry Christmas" kind of guy still, even though I am not a Christian as I was for 20-something years. Do I think that kids should be able to celebrate Christmas in their schools? Absolutely. But there should also be adequate teaching of other religious holidays that correspond with the timing of Christmas; Hannukah, Kwanzaa, the Toronto Maple Leafs being out of the playoff race (though they're challenging tradition this year.) And if Gov. Perry wants to bring back prayer in schools, he better set up special rooms for Muslim students to pray in 5 times a day.

Why, Rick? Because, sorry bro, America is not a Christian country. People may still speak about God in the Pledge of Allegiance, when singing God Bless America, or when they look at their dollar bill (In God We Trust, soon to be changed to In China We Trust), but America is not a Christian country.

What's more, it never was. It seems that people like Governor Perry think that America was founded by Christians with strong Christian principles and that it has been on a downward spiral for many years. The only problem is: The United States was founded mainly by, that's right, non-Christians.

Let's take a minute to read about some of America's founding fathers:

Thomas Paine: "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

George Washington, the first president of the United States, never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. Washington Championed the cause of freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion. When John Murray (a universalist who denied the existence of hell) was invited to become an army chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned Washington for his dismissal. Instead, Washington gave him the appointment. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance.

John Adams, the second president of the United States: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."

Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence, was a Unitarian, not a Christian. Thomas Jefferson created his own version of the Bible, removing every supernatural act within it. Were a politician to do this today, there would be marches in Washington.

Finally,James Madison, fourth president and father of the Constitution, was not religious in any conventional sense. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

So the idea that the United States was a Christian country who has been backsliding from the faith for years and needs to be re-claimed is utterly false. There may have been a time when Christianity was the most popular religion in America, but America is changing, just like my country, Canada is changing. America is a country of many faiths, and there's no going back. And while we're at it, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people are here, have been for a long long time, and the time for equality is now.

What are some other people saying about Rick Perry's ad? We have to start at the top. Jesus himself has released a video:

Jesus Responds to Rick Perry's "Strong" Ad from DC Pierson

Amber MacArthur wrote in yesterday's Globe and Mail, that, "The Perry video is an open attack on the gay community. He clearly implies that homosexuals should not be allowed to serve in the military, just on the heels of President Barack Obama's banning of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell.” As Obama stated in September, “Patriotic Americans in uniform will no longer have to lie about who they are in order to serve the country they love.”

When Perry declares that “there's something wrong when gays can serve openly in the military” he is, per the YouTube guidelines, demeaning a group of people based on their sexual orientation/gender identity. The Pentagon has declared zero tolerance for such discrimination, so perhaps the Google-owned video service should follow suit.

Aside from Perry's offensive political ad, there is a larger life-and-death issue at hand here. Each year there are reports of teens committing suicide, many of whom were publicly bullied about their sexual orientation. It is disheartening to see a grown man, particularly one who aspires to be President of the United States, contributing to such hatred and to speak out against what is a legal right (for gays to serve in the military).

It only takes YouTube a few hours to pull down a video if it features copyright infringement, so maybe it's time for YouTube to take a stand and defend the rights of the gay community, and pull the plug on this discriminatory Rick Perry rant."

In conclusion, this post is not about me being anti-Christian, though I take issue with much of the fundamentalist, evangelical version. There are many Christians who embrace diversity and working with other religions, AND who embrace the LGBT community.

Thankfully, I doubt that Rick Perry will even get the Republican nomination. That will either go to the past-philanderer Newt Gingrich, or Mitt Romney. I'm placing my bets on Romney to win over Obama, at which point America will be blessed by President Romney and his first lady.

And second lady.

And third lady.

By: Mark Andrew Alward

Secretary Hillary Clinton's Speech To The UN On LGBT Human Rights

Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
Tuesday, December 6, 2011

On Tuesday, December 6, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a historic speech at the United Nations in Geneva declaring that LGBT rights are human rights and human rights are LGBT rights.

Occupy Love: There's No "Other" In This Revolution

"This movement isn't about the 99% defeating or toppling the 1%. You know the next chapter of that story, which is that the 99% create a new 1%. That's not what it's about.

What we want to create is the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible. A sacred world. A world that works for everybody. A world that is healing. A world of peace.

You can't just say "We demand a world of peace." Demands have to be specific. Anything that people can articulate can only be articulated within the language of the current political discourse. And that entire political discourse is already too small. And that's why making explicit demands reduces the movement, and takes the heart out of it. So it's a real paradox, and I think the movement understands that.

The system isn't working for the 1% either. You know if you were a CEO, you would be making the same choices they do. The institutions have their own logic. Life is pretty bleak at the top too - and all the baubles of the rich are this phoney compensation for the loss of what's really important. The loss of community, the loss of connection, the loss of intimacy. The loss of meaning.

Everybody wants to live a life of meaning. And today, we live in a money economy where we don't really depend on the gifts of anybody. But we buy everything. Therefore we don't really need anybody, because whoever grew my food, or made my clothes, or built by house, well if they die, or if I alienate them, or if they don't like me, that's okay because I can just pay someone else to do it.

And it's really hard to create community if the underlying knowledge is "we don't need each other." So people kind of get together and act nice, or maybe they consume together. But joint consumption doesn't create intimacy. Only joint creativity and gifts create intimacy and connection.

You have such gifts, that are important. Just as every species has an important gift to give to an ecosystem, and the extinction of any species hurts everybody. The same is true of each person, that you have a necessary and important gift to give.

And that for a long time our minds have told us that maybe we're crazy, that maybe we're imagining things, that's its crazy to live according to what you want to give. But I think now, as more and more people wake up to the truth, that we're here to give, and wake up to that desire, and wake up to the fact that other way isn't working anyway - the more reinforcement we have from people around us that this isn't crazy. This is makes sense. This is how to live.

And as we get that reinforcement, then our minds and our logic no longer have to fight against the logic of the heart which wants us to be of service. This shift of consciousness that inspires such things is universal, 99% and the 1% and it's awakening in different people in different ways.

I think love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says 'more for you is less for me.' But the lover knows that more for you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings.

That's love, love is the expansion of the self to include the other. And that's a different kind of revolution. There's no one to fight. There's no evil to fight. There's no other in this revolution.

Everybody has a unique calling and it's really time to listen to that. That's what the future is going to be. It's time to get ready for it, and contribute to it, and help make it happen."

~ Michael Eisenstein

http://www.indiegogo.com/Occupy-Love

22 Years Later: Honouring The Women In Our Lives, & Remembering Those Tragically Lost

Today marks 22 years since 14 young women were killed in a Montreal college, just because they were women. Geneviève Bergeron, 21, Hélène Colgan, 23, Nathalie Croteau,23, Barbara Daigneault, 22, Anne-Marie Edward,21, Maud Haviernick, 29, Maryse Laganière,25, Maryse Leclair, 23, Anne-Marie Lemay, 22, Sonia Pelletier, 28, Michèle Richard, 21, Annie St-Arneault, 23, Annie Turcotte, 21, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, 31.

Fourteen women killed - just because they were women.

December 6, 1989.

Today is the National Day of Remembrance and Action Against Violence Against Women.

Let us look upon the special women in our lives with new eyes today, and honour them. And let us not turn our backs on those women in our society who are the victims of violence and feel so alone.

Remembering Those We Have Said Goodbye To At Christmastime

Christmas is "supposed" to be a time of joy, happiness, and laughter. However, for many who have had to say goodbye to loved ones, Christmas can be a terribly hard time of year. Tonight I attended an Angel Remembrance Service at my spiritual centre, and this poem was shared.

The Next Place That I Go

By Warren Hanson

The next place I go will be as peaceful and familiar as a sleepy summer Sunday and a sweet, untroubled mind. And yet it won’t be like any place I’ve ever been or seen… Or even dreamed of in the place I leave behind.

I won’t know where I’m going & I won’t know where I’ve been, as I tumble through the always and look back toward the when. I’ll glide beyond the rainbows, I’ll drift above the sky. I’ll fly into the wonder, without ever wondering why.

I won’t remember getting there, somehow I’ll just arrive, But I’ll know that I belong there and will feel much more alive than I have ever felt before. I will be absolutely free of the things that I held onto that were holding onto me.

The next place that I go will be so quiet and so still that the whispered song of sweet belonging will rise up to fill

The listening sky with joyful silence and with unheard harmonics of music made by no one playing, like a hush upon a breeze.

There will be no room for darkness in that place of living light. Where an ever-dawning morning pushes back the dying night.

The very air will fill with brilliance, as the brightly shining sun, and the moon and half a million stars are married into one.

The next place that I go won’t really be a place at all. There won’t be any season – winter, summer, spring or fall, nor a Monday, nor a Friday, nor December, nor July

And the seconds will be standing still… while hours hurry by.

I will not be a boy or girl, a woman or a man. I’ll simply be, just simply me, No worse or better than.

My skin will not be dark or light. I won’t be fat or tall. The body I once lived in won’t be part of me at all. I will finally be perfect. I will be without a flaw. I will never make one more mistake, or break the smallest law.

And the me that was impatient, or was angry or unkind, will simply be a memory, the me I left behind.

I will travel empty-handed. There is not a single thing I have collected in my life that I would ever want to bring, except the love of those who love me and the warmth of those who cared; the happiness and memories and magic that we shared.

Though I still know the joy of solitude, I’ll never be alone. I’ll be embraced by all the family and friends I’ve ever known.

Although I might not see their faces, All our hearts will beat as one, and the circle of our spirits will shine brighter than the sun.

I will cherish all the friendship I was fortunate to find, all the love and all the laughter in the place I leave behind.

All these good things will go with me. They will make my spirit glow. And that light will shine forever in the next place that I go.