Journal Entries Gone Public

07.04.21.lt
I am becoming numb to the killing. The Virginia Tech massacre crossed the threshold. Killing is reported via the local, national and global news on a scale that is truly incomprehensible even when presented in the horrifyingly intimate now. The perceived value of life is plummeting even as the Supreme Court superficially attempts to restore it. No partial birth abortions, baby, but the carnage wrought by sinful Evil still escalates exponentially by the day. As a people we are guilty of criminal negligence on a more widespread basis than ever before (yes, there is a correlation between the increasing population and the decreasing reverence for all life of which Albert Schweitzer spoke) but this is okay as long as it somehow falls under the pro-life banner. How hypocritical can we be to feign concern for the unborn while systematically killing the already born? The incredibly apocalyptic eye-for-an-eye insanity which is being promoted by the Christian Right is neither.
07.05.05.lt
Mary and I have just viewed The Frontline/American Experience production of The Mormons on PBS and found it powerfully moving. I had been taught that the Methodist church in all its developmental variations closely paralleled the evolving United States of America government in its political structure and conduct. The Mormons, however, makes a strong case for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints being a uniquely American faith tradition that borrows heavily from traditional Christianity and then presumes to take it to the next level of contemporary revelation. The irony here may be that that while the Mormon expectation of others to accept an incredible and miraculous prophecy as true, it seems unlikely that the LDS would not be highly skeptical of such an expectation aimed toward them requiring acceptance and practice of a hypothetically even more recent claim of prophetic revelation. There is a great (and curious) spiritual hunger emerging globally and The Mormons does an excellent job of showing how this particular culture is satisfying that quest for a growing number of people. Now if we can just figure out the part about letting our selves be drawn to the dynamically powerful I AM without succumbing to the static but equally powerful temptation to organize and institutionalize It.