I recently saw a political play for power fostering ideas of a divided America. The McCain Palin ticket in concert with the GOP were avidly fertilizing the notion of separatism by pervasively propagating the premise of a “pro-America”. This pro-America was noted to be those indigenous folks who find themselves in small town and rural America. Fascinatingly, these pro-American politicians and pundits act like evangelists who claim to be the true patriots, protectors, and practitioners of the moral and nationalistic fiber of our democratic society. Those who think or live at variance with their stated ideology, it is intimated, are less than patriotic, potentially viral, and virtually anti-American. This is problematic and is an epidemic which will persist as long as conservatives continue to believe they - alone and exclusively - carry the holy grail of religion and morality. My question? “Where does this leave those who understand the moral obligation to develop the depth of intellect? Is there any place for a liberal soul in the heart of American and democratic patriotism?
There are those of us who for perhaps 2 hours a week find ourselves in religious engagement. In these moments, some of us are fueled with the hype of our own superiority. We have been promised to be the head and not the tail, above and not beneath. Fear has gripped us to the point we unconsciously crave some type of enemy. (Our theology usually requires us to have one – or two or three... ) It seems the promise of righteousness is the coveted caveat – a guarantee of someone being either behind us or beneath us. Whether it be church, temple, mosque or conclave, we give ourselves leave of the more established work week or our individualized living condition and claim entitlement to police morality . It is a good thing to recognize the need to awaken and nurture the spirit of humanity and even more beneficially to live in a continued awakened state. This, I think is the ideal aim or our weekly rituals yet I find myself wondering whether 2 hours is sufficient. It hardly proves to be enough when the notion of community rapidly dissipates. How does this happen? It happens by embracing the ritual benediction as a license to scatter into exclusion and separatism. Unfortunately for many Americans, the remaining 6 days and 22 hours which really hold our attention, represent our weekly diaspora from community rather than toward the community the benediction was intended to bless. We practice ritual where we should practice religion and religion in the place intended for ritual.
As for those who have roots in these “pro-America” parts of the country, I am one of them. I grew up in small-town Arkansas in a traditional and classical pentecostal church. However, it seems now, I find myself at variance with my own historic identity. If I am to believe the credibility of this ideology, I have to deny what I now find to be a more peaceful and fulfilling existence. For me, it has come to represent the process of spiritual and social maturation. And admittedly I find grave difficulty in managing and supborning moral exclusion when the beauty of living is found in the harmony of community and extended relations.
My beginnings were humble but pregnant with potential as I lived with a scholar father who necessitated the need for ritual and moral obligation. It is no secret that theological scholarship is not known to find its residence in the ecstatic tradition of Pentecostalism so in this respect, living in a small town and practicing a fringe religion, I was presented with the power to move beyond expectation perhaps even into exception. I was taught to appreciate the natural and evolutionary augmentations of spirituality and personal responsibility.
I was taught to attend church weekly (to put it mildly), and I even looked forward to the Sunday celebration. It was and continues to be the picture of fellowship and love for family both immediate and extended. So like many of you, I too found great comfort in the traditional form of 'praising God'. I was taught to do this and anticipated those Sunday-go-to-meeting extravaganzas. I am deeply in love with my roots, and I qualify to be a card carrying, bible toting member and cohort of pro-American conservative values. And as roots go, I find them best suited as a nourishment to life by being deeply grounded and perhaps sufficiently buried. After all, the life we celebrate is usually the life which lives above ground reaching into the sky and touching uncharted and perhaps unfamiliar Presence. This has now become the life I celebrate. It is the one which offers the joy of newness, openness, progress and evolution. It is the life I find beyond ritual in the span of 6 days and 22 hours – the time not spent in the designated slot for worship. It is in these moments that I fervently practice my religion.
What concerns me now among my peers and nostalgic contemporaries is how easily we remain attached to ritual without a larger connectedness to the deeper truths to which these rituals point. The old adage goes, “I pointed to the moon and all you saw was my finger.” It seems to me that this pro-America which is an often misguided, pious and overly conservative, finds the propensity to practice its religion only 2 hours weekly when, it would seem, the time to experience the beauty of Life and Love is in the perpetual development of relationships. This would be the relationships we form in the larger aspect of our mental devotion. We spend this time at work, at play, at home, and at school. This is when the fruit of ethics plays as a symphony, embraces the deference for diversity and distinguishes difference as the dynamics of beauty.
At least 2 hours out of the week, we can find a collective body of like minded individuals who will praise their God in a distinctly cultural and fervent way. But this praise is usually fashioned in ritual and seldom formidable in practice. It's a praise consisting of singing, dancing and, for some, screaming and shouting. In my religious heritage, we would scream and shout in ways that rivaled major athletic events. (If you haven't tried it, you should. It is packed with joy and excitement.) I liked it then and find great value in it now except for now I see more. Now I see the value praising beyond words into practice. This I do in the 6 and 22.
The practice of praise is not merely vociferous and clamorous shouts to Diety. It is, in truth, the (praise) recognition, and acknowledgment of Life and Living, Love and Loving. If we infantilize ritual, we will cheat progress and call evolution sinful or even anti-American. If we practice praise, by leaving childish things behind, we will bring incessant attention to the practice of Life and Love in all moments by spreading peace and prosperity similar to the way we see water seeking its own level with no discrimination to form.
The true practice of religion is a Doorway into the many more dimensions of the world of possibilities rather than and escape from the world in which we spend most of our time. The “pro-American” religious ideology is rapidly becoming bankrupt in its ability to provide for its followers the ability to live out its promise in the moments of actualization. Praising in the traditional sense keeps alive the deflection that has found its residence in too many of our lives. There is no legitimate benefit to saying “hallelujah” if it is not seen as an instruction to foster a living reflection which will attend to the presence of life and love in every breathing moment.
The practice of praise is best utilized in the 6 days and 22 hours of our week. This is our most interactive time of living. It is when ritual is supposed to give life to function and make the practice of Living the recreation of Loving.
