Musings

Original Zin

A few weeks ago I sat in the window seat of a jet flying at 37,000 feet, and watched the sun set over Montana. I fell into a sort of trance, gazing at the colors: black over navy blue over turquoise over effulgent streaks of gold above layers of slate gray tinged with orange and pink. I got to a point where I wasn’t just looking at the sunset. I was in it, and it was in me. I was fully engaged, fully involved, in that sunset. I went into a state of what I can only describe as bliss: an hour of pure joy, in which I found my mind repeating the words "thank you" over and over again, even after the sky went black over North Dakota. It was one of the rare moments in my life when I felt perfectly content in the moment, not needing anything else, feeling no push to do or think or feel something more. Time didn’t matter: I was experiencing eternity in the moment. I was so joyful that I didn’t even mind when the feeling passed and I went back to my more normal manner of experiencing things. Just writing about it, I am able to taste that experience again.

"The eye with which I see God is the eye with which God sees me." These words of Meister Eckhart, the 14th century mystical Christian priest, ring true for me as I recall that sunset. Not only are we made in the image of God, but we also share the inner eye by which we and God encounter that image. The soul is like the mantle of a gas lamp – a thin, ethereal surface where air, heat, and fuel meet to make light. The soul is where God, our selves, and the universe meet.

It is moments like that one at 37,000 feet that make it hard for me to accept the old Christian idea of "original sin". This doctrine presumes that human beings are fundamentally evil and thus in need of divine salvation through a bloody sacrifice. The good news is that Christianity offers an alternative to that time-worn concept. Christianity offers not only "original sin", but also "original Zin" – as in Zinfandel. It offers a chalice of wine to everyone: a chalice that establishes mystical communion between God and human beings. Original Zin means that the lips with which we sip the wine are the lips with which God sips the wine, too. Zinfandel becomes the medium by which we know our fundamental goodness, the sacred essence at the core of who we are.

Thank you, thank you, thank you: these were the only words that made sense to me as I communed with God through that sunset. And they are the words before the sharing of the wine and bread in the traditional eucharist, or communion – words called The Great Thanksgiving: "It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord..." At 37,000 feet in a plane, or 100 feet above sea level in a church – thank you, thank you, thank you.

To George: A Declaration

In Philadelphia in 1776, a group of Americans drafted a list of complaints against King George. It is worth remembering these complaints today, 228 years later:

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,…” George, you got half a million fewer votes than Al Gore in the last election. And your brother arranged for you to get enough electoral votes by a whisker in Florida. Is this the “consent of the governed”?

“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners,…” George, your response to 9/11 was to make it tougher for law-abiding immigrants to enter and stay and feel safe in this country, damaging the very wellspring of energy and creativity that has made America great.

“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices…” George, you propose judges for the federal judiciary on the basis of their opposition to abortion. Isn’t it time for you to uphold and defend women’s rights?

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” George, you have created a huge new bureaucracy to snoop on our people and deprive them of their rights to privacy. How is our security enhanced by spying on citizens who use our public libraries?

“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power…. For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:” George, America was founded on the principle that the government must be subjected to the rule of law, not the rule of the whim of politicians like yourself. You can’t keep holding over 10,000 people in military jails abroad without any rights to lawyers or trials. You can’t let abuses occur in those jails, like the ones that occurred this past year in Iraq. It is not, nor has it ever been, the American way!

“He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.” George, your war in Iraq, fought with your “coalition of the bribed”, was an ill-considered adventure that has set back the reputation and the interests of the United States, to say nothing of the damage to life and property. We need a sane, balanced, sustainable, and focused foreign policy that seeks freedom and justice and security for all, and what you did in Iraq works against this goal.

“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. “ George, it is time for you and the rest of the Bush dynasty to take your place alongside King George in the history of misrule. Let freedom ring!