We are grieving the loss of still more young life at the hands of a young, 22-year-old, killer.
Politicians’ hands are bloody when their rhetoric and demagoguery appeals to hearts full of hate and inviting violence toward LGBTQ persons. And the capitalist media support them because fear and hate sell their product (ask the late and very rich Rush Limbaugh and his many clones such as Alex Jones).
And the NRA and politicians in bed with the NRA who hide behind the second amendment to resist legislation that can restrict weapons that can and are used to murder people. Lots of bloody hands to go around these days.
But the murders at the gay club in Colorado Springs is not the only bad news about young death in America this past week. Three college football players were shot to death by a young man at the University of Virginia for reason still unknown. And four college students were viciously stabbed to death in their beds while sleeping at a college in Idaho.
Such tragedies are not solely due to the young people doing the killing. It is also a sign of a failing society where the elders are missing and the adults are confused and where adultism reigns.
Adultism is where older ones resent the young (often unconsciously) instead of committing themselves to the best ways to serve and raise the young, offering healthy learning about what it means to be a human being and how to develop habits or virtues that guide one to become the best versions of themselves that they can be.
Not only healthy education, but healthy religion or spirituality is often missing today. Religion that is not self-serving and hypocritical seems to be rarer and rarer to many young people today. The latest scandals of child abuse coming from the Catholic church and its Opus Dei sponsors of fascism so well represented on the Supreme Court are reminders of such abuse.
But so too are the revelations from the Jerry Falwell family and its Liberty University which prides itself on being “the largest Christian university” in the world. It and the Evangelical church has not only been preaching the MAGA philosophy vociferously, but its president and his wife have been involved in super-charged sexual escapades of hyper hypocrisy.
Also facts are coming out about decades-long sexual abuse cover ups in the Baptist church and the Mormon church. All of it is a story of abuse of young people and its cover-up and religious hypocrisy.
Accompanying it too is the abuse of the name and person and teachings of Jesus.
See Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp. 267-332.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: Vigil of solidarity in the wake of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, Minneapolis, MN, 6/12/2016. Photo by Fibonacci Blue on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you handle the revelations of hypocrisy in religion of our times? Do you think that reality has a lot to do with young people turning their back on organized religion in favor of spirituality? Do you see it as a response to adultism?
Recommended Reading
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
6 thoughts on “More on Grieving the Loss of Young Life”
Matthew, Today we continue to grieve the loss of still more young life at the hands of a young, 22-year-old, killer.
And you state that: “Politicians’ hands are bloody when their rhetoric and demagoguery appeals to hearts full of hate and inviting violence toward LGBTQ persons.” But then you say, “But the murders at the gay club in Colorado Springs is not the only bad news about young death in America this past week. Three college football players were shot to death by a young man at the University of Virginia for reason still unknown. And four college students were viciously stabbed to death in their beds while sleeping at a college in Idaho” But then you say that “adultism” reigns. Adultism is where the older people resent the younger ones. I’ll give you an example: I go to the doctor and walk away saying, “She’s not even as old as my daughter!” We adults should be practicing Eldership, where older ones offer healthy learning about what it means to be a human being and how to develop habits or virtues that guide one to become the best versions of themselves that they can be. Then you end with a litany of sexual “sins” which are being mirrored before the young by Catholics, Mormons, and Evangelicals. So it is not just money and power. Its sex, money, and power !
Stephen Jenkinson spoke, “Tend to the vineyard, knowing you will never drink the wine.” Mathew spoke of this vineyard as one’s own heart, mind and soul… and all that lies there within oneself. Tending to this is the inner work of self examination and self reflection… the deep shadow work of kenosis, the letting go… which also includes the letting be and becoming the fruit of compassion. This fruit of compassion will be hard pressed, pushed down, and crushed by deeply feeling, reflecting and articulating what it is to live within the tension of questions with no answers and uncertainties without solutions. Yet in the midst of all of this painfilled suffering, grief and sorrow; there is also the wonder, awe, reverence and joy of glimpsing something eternally sacred… desiring to unfold, evolve and emerge… longing to become free from within. What comes to my remembrance are the words of one of the Desert Mothers, whom said something along these lines… “As one begins to tend to one’s own vineyard and kindle that which lies there within… there is at first, much smoke and many tears.”
I don’t believe there is any simple answer beyond the broad brushstroke response that human society is in crisis due to evolutionary transition. The world in many ways is breaking out of its past structures with a more level playing field for greater numbers of society. We are no longer told how we must be and act but free to determine that for ourselves. It is a time for self-responsibility and the inner voice of heart and conscience to guide us through these perilous times.
Misuse of religion and abuse by power seekers have always been with us. The Doctrine of Discovery edicts by several Popes thousands of years ago, resulted in the genocide of Indigenous peoples in the land foreign settlers “discovered”. Each of us can be sources of light and love in each of our daily interactions regardless of what those around us are doing .
Today’s video interview of author and elder Stephen Jenkinson, “Becoming An ‘Elder’,” reminds me of what I tried to express yesterday evening in my Comment about the shadow side of American history and society. Our history of patriarchal/egocentric/materialistic/violent/racist values has led to a modern culture of lack of spiritual elders to model and teach the young about the importance of being compassionate and seeing/treating self, others, Nature, and Life as Sacred….
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It is well to remember that religious hypocrisy, especially related to abuse, is not limited to the RC church–it is just bigger there because of sheer numbers and because there is a hierarchy of protection. In my take on Jesus as reported in the Bible, even if much of what he reportedly said was added after his death, he saved his scorn and disgust for hypocrites. The word, I believe, comes from the Greek for actor. I agree with Matthew that humble and thorough self examination is lacking in so many leaders, who are more interested in their fake appearances and words. But are our religious institutions or educational institutions even teaching this necessary discipline? The ability to discern the truth amongst close to half of the U.S. population that bothers to vote is gone. How else could certain politicians even run for office and actually win? How else could the state of Georgia actually be having a run-off between a senator who is actually a practicing Christian and pastor and a man who sounds as if the years of playing football seriously damaged his brain and who has paid for who knows how many abortions?