The Manger A VISION OF INCLUSION AND EQUALITY
By TET GALLARDO. Delivered at the meeting of the Unitarian Universalists of Q.C., Oct 25, 2009
(These are excerpts from a book I’m tring to write of the same title.
I tried to merge the preface and the introduction here. I apologize for some incoherence.)
We can no longer talk about good without going into the plans to operationalize it. It is futile to say we honor people and yet remain passive accomplices in institutions that cause suffering, or perpetuate belief systems that indoctrinate people instead of introducing choices to them. We cannot remain without action against oppression, persecution, and social exclusion, or sustain the beliefs that foster needless heirarchies, dynasties, and oligarchies.
It is evident that pointing fingers at the government while losing convictions among friends is becoming shameful. It should be. We must learn to engage our enemies, not as grandstanders hiding in a noisy throng, but as principled friends, cradled by a consensual process and a working justice system.
Why fight foes far away while paralyzed with unprincipled groupthink in our own movements? Why publicly display principle and be smitten with conformity among our comrades? Why appear like fighting a Goliath while happily getting along with Philistines in our own forum?
Hegemonies have been established to subjugate the truth that equality, uniqueness, and giftedness are ordinary. Whole populations have been forcibly rendered homogenous in fear of exposing this. People have struggled to capture power to set themselves beyond scrutiny, answerable to no one, and therefore free from engaging among equals.
The Devil has been used to renounce our own thought exploration to make us accept that the Pope is infallible and therefore inscrutable or beyond scrutiny. The Devil has been used as self-censorship. In the Catholic Church, the devil has been used to quell questions against dogma. The Devil and dogma are two sides of the same coin; both are used to control questions. How can a religion so supported by universities all over the world be unable to muster enough questions such as, “Why only men in the pulpit?” They have simply mastered the science of psychic rewards and punishments using dogma and devil.
Why God would call only men to the pulpit can only be answered by the fact that the deciding body is composed only of men. Alpha males have always been scared of sharing their power with other men, moreso with other women. This is why organizations that are centrally-governing, putting too much power in the hands of one or a few, tend to have steep access rules. They put in the path to leadership, so many rules as hurdles, not to ensure the presence of pluralism, engagement, mediation and facilitation, or diversity. No. The rules are made up of two things only: capacity to memorize and promote dogma and capacity to preserve the status quo.
Opposition is freeing. We cannot expose and appreciate the truth without opposition. Light seems worthless unless related to the dark, and vice versa.
When there is no need to fear opposition, there is no longer a need for sameness. There is no longer a need to proselytize the masses into a single market or a majority demographic for glittering generalizations. Profiling a person into a category does not help us appreciate the fullness of the human being. When there is no longer a need for sameness, there will be a celebration of truth. And this celebration can be as quiet as peace, with a familiarity that comforts.
Countless human sufferings have begun with the “crowding out” mentality mentioned above, the objective of if which is the highest regard (“greatness”), to put oneself above all others. For many, to be great is a goal worth dying for, living for; for many still, even killing for. Many are given to loathing and unforgiving scrutiny of fellow human beings in order to feel greater.
If personal greatness is hard to achieve, there is always group greatness, race greatness, national greatness. To that end we make less of those who are not us, or different from us, thinking less of others, justifying lesser care for others — lesser regard, lesser resources for others. Everybody knows, regard equals access and from this springs up the race to moral ascendancy to monopolize credibility. It is very easy to discern that many religious persons have benefitted from this, and it is therefore worth the time to scrutinize their use of social capital.
Jesus charged the Pharisees with cornering places of importance in social functions. They loved to be called rabbi, to emphasize their stature. Against this system, Jesus fought to usher a new truth, that it takes you to be no one to move people to betterment.
Often we say, “I am unimpressed,” as we readily offer our assessment, setting the standard that sets us apart as an “elite” above many. We can certainly dress in the armor of critical thinking — or is it over-critical thinking? From whom are we setting ourselves apart? We are sanctifying ourselves above the Ordinary. You can tell that those who need to belong to the cream of the crop have a morbid fear of being ordinary. They have no idea how in fact it is more difficult to be common and mundane, to be unmarked and insignificant.
The Pharisees took extra precautions against being ordinary adherents of the Law. They wanted to raise the bar and be better than the law. If the law said, fast 2 days, they will fast 3 days; if the law said give a hand, they will give an arm. They sought to set themselves as better than the law, “to build a fence around theTorah (law)”. And through their fences, very few could enter. Yet, Jesus admonished the Pharisees the most in the Bible — for hypocricy, among many other faults.
The story of Jesus in the manger has become legend because it is a place to look at people as equals again, stripped of any standard or merit. “All have been deemed unworthy”. The manger was a place to honor humanity, as there, it has been told was where even a God deemed honorable to become a human.
In a sense, Jesus, as the story goes, was given to human beings, just as the Pharisees were given to scrutiny.
The myth analyst Dr. Pinkola Estes said that some stories are enduring because they mirror universal human experiences and beliefs. Thus, stories of God stripped of glory in swaddling clothes reverberates in many religions.
Although, such god stories have been used to suppress the ambitions of the masses for equal treatment with royalty or have been used to aggrandize poverty, the consistent lesson is that material wealth can be disempowering. When Jesus said, “blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God”, he probably meant that the absence of opulence can help people focus on their personal power and intrinsic ability to realize freedom and self-fulfillment.
It is time to get to know not the human being, but human beings — all of them, more in number than the 256 milllion colors in a prism. Not one human perfect perhaps so that none can fail.
The most prolific men of God would often quote Jesus, “few are chosen”. Do you really believe that God would mean for it as a license for us to discard many and esteem a few? Let us go back to the story of the manger where rich and poor were given equal places in a cataclysmic historical event. The story goes that God deemed it an honor to be human and supposed that there is redemption in the human experience, with all its whims and wanton aggression and destruction.
No one is immune to loathing; who is spared? Oppressors will reason all they want to justify lesser regard of certain people. What heinous crimes can be committed to the ordinary! “For all have sinned and have fallen short of the Glory of God”.(Rom 3:23) .
The world is hungering for fellowship. The world is already conscious of the arbitrariness of failing. In this global recession, you will see that industries such as communications, entertainment, charities and religion remain resilient. People are thirsting to be fond of one another and reach out to know their neighbor.
We all want to know what makes us human and how we can change our world for the better. Resources are not scarce, the potential is limitless if we set free the power of people to be useful to each other and to like each other.