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<\/a>In my last post we looked at the men and women who are risking their lives to speak out for justice against the powers of our times. Their stories show us that it\u2019s no less daring to walk the Christ Path today than it was 1,700 years ago.<\/p>\n
So what are the issues that Jesus would speak out against today?<\/p>\n
I can think of a number of them \u2013 and any one of them is worth our complete attention and commitment. And just to name them, I think, is important: to know that there are people and groups working in all of these areas today to be the prophetic activists and voices and strategists; to know there are so many dimensions at which the work of justice and compassion gets done.<\/p>\n
You see, Jesus wasn\u2019t just shouting his whole life; he was also an artist. He was a parable maker, creating memorable stories. And he and his followers were creating meals, bringing people together who wouldn\u2019t ordinarily get together.<\/p>\n
That was a deep part of his strategy: it\u2019s not all about shouting. Art has a deep role to play always, in speaking the truth and unmasking violence, especially when it tries to cover itself up.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s consider some areas where the prophetic voice is being called out today\u2026.<\/p>\n
Of course, our broken economic system is one. Who can deny that Wall Street has raped Main Street in our lifetimes? And now Wall Street is doing very well and Main Street for the most part is still limping along terribly.<\/p>\n
So are we capable, as a species, of creating an economy that works for everyone in the world? Not for Wall Street, not for the 1% or a few, but for everyone?<\/p>\n
I believe the answer is Yes!\u00a0 <\/em>Insightful, eloquent people are devoting their lives to this kind of work \u2013 for example, David Korten \u2013 and they are being ignored. I don\u2019t know if the current administration in Washington has ever invited David Korten to advise them on creating a a new economic vision, rather than putting Band-Aids on Wall Street\u2019s system of exploitation that\u2019s ruining the middle class.<\/p>\n Now, when I talk about an economy that works for everyone, I don\u2019t mean just the two-legged ones. I\u2019m talking about an economy that recognizes the value of healthy, living ecosystems\u2026an economy that will work for the forests and the oceans and the soil and the plants and the animals that are going extinct at rates that we have not seen since the dinosaurs and so many other species vanished 65 million years ago.<\/p>\n So I think Jesus would also be revolutionary about the whole issue of ecology. He\u2019d be interfering in it, in whatever way he could.<\/p>\n And of course there are the issues of poverty and joblessness. Who\u2019s defining work for us? Look at the work of the artist, for example \u2013 we don\u2019t count artists when we count workers. You can see that whenever there\u2019s a budget crunch in our high schools \u2013 as there is everywhere today \u2013 and out goes the theater department, out goes the music department, out goes the art department. You\u2019re on your own. I know all kinds of artists who would be more than happy to be contributing, but they are not part of the conversation.<\/p>\n And this leads to the issue of education. When our politicians talk about education, they always talk about more technology and more science. Well, what about art? Art is where values get passed on.<\/em> Einstein said values do not come from the intellect \u2013 they come from intuition and feeling. And if that\u2019s not the work of the artist, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n To the extent that we are cutting back on art as an integral part of our way of living on the earth, we are in fact cutting back on values. And I see it everywhere today, especially in education. E.F. Schumacher wrote, \u201cThe bottom line in education is values.\u201d Education is about passing on values<\/em>. And well, folks, I know our educational system pretty well. I\u2019ve been working within it for 40 years as an adult, and values are never raised at the accrediting conferences I\u2019ve attended. Education today is not about values. It\u2019s about anal-retentive bean counting. You don\u2019t dare bring values up. The whole thing is rotten, I think, rotten to the core.<\/p>\n The best answer is to reinvent the whole damn thing\u2026which is what I\u2019ve been trying to do for 30 years! Of course we need science and technology, but we also need beauty and values and meaning and feeling, and what counts, and what doesn\u2019t count. You need intuition and<\/em> critical thinking skills, both! And so we bring in art as an integral part of the work of the intellect.<\/p>\n Jesus, as an artist, would interfere here, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n And then look at our political systems, which are collapsing all around us. We\u2019ve had this democracy thing going on for a couple hundred years, and it had a lot going for it, but it\u2019s clearly not enough today. As Thomas Berry says, \u201cThe non<\/em>-two-legged ones don\u2019t have a vote at the United Nations.\u201d The forests aren\u2019t represented, the whales aren\u2019t represented\u2026 the future of the earth as a whole and living planet<\/em> isn\u2019t represented in our anthropocentric versions of democracy and politics.<\/p>\n And of course there\u2019s what happened just this month with the gutting of the Voting Rights Bill \u2013 when you add that to the so-called Citizens United nemesis of a few years ago, it seems to me that our one-time democracy is just rushing down a path to oligarchy, the rule of a small, rich and powerful clique that will be very well paid by supporting an even smaller clique. It seems our politics is racing to that end, and I can\u2019t imagine how we should not be up and doing something about this.<\/p>\n Look at what\u2019s happened in Houston, one of the biggest cities in America \u2013 Rachel Maddow broke the story that one white area had 6700 voters and one voting booth, and a black area has 67,000 voters and one voting booth \u2013 that\u2019s 10 times more voters, and this was before this latest decision by the Supreme Court! You don\u2019t have to be black to be upset about this. You have to be a human being, someone who wants to believe in democracy, to be not only upset but outraged.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where the prophet begins \u2013 with that kicked-in-the-gut feeling of outrage. And I repeat, outrage! \u2013 That is so unjust! <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Being ignorant and in denial is a choice. Thomas Aquinas says that to be ignorant about what we ought to know is a deadly sin \u2013 a mortal sin. In the Hindu tradition, this is what sin is \u2013 it\u2019s about ignorance, ignoring, choosing to ignore.<\/p>\n Of course there\u2019s the issue of how women and girls are still being treated around the world. They\u2019re second-class citizens in so many places \u2013 obviously this is not sustainable, it is outrageous. Of course in our country women have been waking up and organizing for decades, but still we\u2019re not there, even in our country. And of course it\u2019s getting worse in other countries where there is so much sexual slavery and repression of women and girls.<\/p>\n But the problem isn\u2019t limited to the abuse of individual women. It\u2019s about consciousness too, about the whole patriarchal idea that a certain gender or a certain group of any type has the right to lord it over others and to define God in its image exclusively, for example, God as a male. It\u2019s not only a pernicious and subtle way of telling women they\u2019re inferior, but also of preventing a larger balance.<\/p>\n For example, patriarchy has been defining education for 400 years in the West. And while our educational system offers knowledge, it\u2019s missing Wisdom<\/em> \u2013 the feminine. It simply doesn\u2019t register. That\u2019s why politicians and educators don\u2019t see that wisdom and art are just as important as technology and mathematics.<\/p>\n So there\u2019s no shortage of issues to light the fire in all of us, the kind of fire that lit Jesus\u2019 teaching.<\/p>\n So now you may ask \u2013 how did he use this fire for justice and change in his time \u2013 and how can we, in ours? Stay tuned; I\u2019ll be exploring these questions in my next posts.<\/p>\n ________________________________________________________<\/p>\n To register for the \u201cCosmic Christ and Youth: The Occupy Generation,\u201d the next Christ Path Seminar weekend taking place 10\/11-13,\u00a0 featuring Adam Bucko as guest speaker, and based on Matthew Fox\u2019s and Adam Bucko\u2019s groundbreaking book, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation<\/a>,\u00a0 see http:\/\/www.christpathseminar.org\/ai1ec_event\/cosmic-christ-and-youth-the-occupy-generation\/?instance_id=99<\/a><\/p>\n To order the complete 12-DVD set of recordings from the first Christ Path Seminar weekend, \u201cCosmic Christ and the New Humanity\u201d\u2013 including Dr. Fox\u2019s delivery of the Saturday afternoon lecture from which this post is clipped, see http:\/\/www.christpathseminar.org\/participate-by-dvd\/<\/a><\/p>\n