poems of peace and love

I live in the South. It’s called the Bible Belt for a reason, it’s a very religious place. It is a birthplace of fundamental Christianity. Apocalyptic thinking is not new, Christ has been coming back since he left. It is been said that impeaching Trump would cause a Civil War because of the attachment of this president to that very apocalyptic thinking. It has been said that Trump has been “sent by God”.

When one thinks of the apocalypse, it therefore follows that there are two major figures in Revelation, the Christ and the anti-Christ. There are false prophets and various and sundry others, but these two stand out. Is Trump Jesus? Judging by what the two men are reported to have said, Trump is probably not Jesus. They seem to say opposite things these two, and Trump’s been here all along, so he could not have returned. Scratch Trump being Jesus. The other figure is the fourth horseman, the anti-Christ. Well, Putin does ride a horse, and Donald Trump doesn’t. This anti-Christ had been reported to be many people over the centuries. Could they be all wrong and it turns out to be some Russian interfering in elections? See what a web can be woven?
The separation of church and state and the First Amendment were meant to keep apocalyptic thinking out of politics. Religion is about faith and belief. We are asked to trade judgment and critical thinking for faith. When that type of thinking is placed in the political world or the scientific world it leads to chaos. Separating our two worlds, one of faith and one of logic, is a basic function of the human mind, a basic tenet of our lives. It was appropriate to separate them in our government.

Faith-based science doesn’t work. Pure logic doesn’t work with religion which requires suspension of logic. Both faith and logic have a place in our individual thinking, but we separate them. “Faith doesn’t repair the car, and logic won’t get you to heaven”.
Mixing religion and politics was not in the plan and is doing a lot of harm. When we put religion in our government, we also put politics in our church. When give unto Caesar becomes preach for Caesar, our religion is compromised. When we have to ask what faith is my government, we have to also ask what party is this church.

 

 

David Michael Jackson

They are scattered,

these magnetic spots I have created,

like leaves hidden in a vast forest,

these DNA words left in boxes

to find

in the attic

where boxes of words are kept

until some child of words opens the box

and browses the words

and

pauses

silent and not so alone

after all.

 

David Michael Jackson

I carried that sign,

I wish you could have seen me

Wake up wake up sweet darling

weep for me

tell me you care now and

tell me you were there,

the Challenger,

the Challenger roared

past dear dear Heather

into the darkness of our hearts

 

 

 Lost In America   wanted to be in this country

   can’t pay the dues

   the ground fees are too much

   one neighbor’s a racist

   the other’s a sexist

   couple across the way

   are homophobes

   politicians are for sale

   doctors are entrepreneurs

   ministers spew hate and fear

   a used car salesmen told me a lie

   so did a president

   people talk at me

   want me to be

   just like them

   my heart is a cage

   blood rats

   spinning the wheels

   but I’m too tired

   to feel rage

   had enough
       – Ken Peters

Moongate

April 14, 2012

We can move the church
and native graves out there
but we can’t move the
Rebel statue from the square.

And I didn’t know
what to say,
the correctness of the thing,
the oneness, or the
randomness of the thing,
in the morning,
in the evening,
in
nothingness,
which is where we end up when
we try,
or when we don’t
try
without hope,
which is why God
put
us
here

or more trivial
and evil by the connection,
lockstep,
or
stupid expression of
athiesm, or
what, stupidity?
What did we expect,
that the hordes would not rise?
One wonders
either way,
like the 200 nukes in Pakistan and India

If you cover yourself with manure
then radiation cannot affect
you.
The NUKES are sAFE mAN
nO pROBLEM
everything’s fine,
and if you happen to be from another galaxy and
find this
amid the fossil remains,
well,
we blew ourselves up.

The news is good and bad,
sometimes hopeful
Sometimes sad
it is like history,
a perspective,
a standard truth that sometimes is true
the news of a war from a cardboard speaker
the news of the child, a new child
from an email, magnetic spots on the screen
so we wait for news,
hoping for the best,
but it is often from afar
and we’re driving in our car
or the phone rings
and when it rings,
the news is history

My reaction to the defacing of a Mosque in my town gets me into trouble. I’m usually in trouble but trouble can be magnified in the south. Fears can be too. The crime was presented as a “Hate Crime” to wash the White Anglo Saxon Protestant Guilty from our lips, so we can speak of “lone wolf” mystery people writing “F%$k Allah” on a wall. We can say how bad that is and feel good in our caring.
We didn’t do it.
If a Muslim had done the same crime, it would be a “Muslim Defaces God’s House”. Let’s face it. If a White Angle Saxon Protestant robs a bank, he’s a “bank robber”. If a Muslim robs the same bank, he’s a “Muslim Bank Robber”. The Christian doesn’t get his religion pasted on to his crime. It’s been sanitized. It’s a “hate crime” and we are all against that.
We didn’t do it.

The Muslim is forever having to say, “We have bad stuff in our book, but most of us don’t go by archaic laws”. We Christians never have to tell our children, “Don’t do that.” because we “didn’t do that.” Our answer is, “A lone wolf did that deed and our archaic laws could never be used to justify violence. We teach love. That other religion, they teach hate.”
Be careful if you bring up the Inquisition at this point, or the Salem Trials, or any event where we loving White Anglo Protestants folks could have ever done anything wrong. Please don’t point out that we waved the Book in the air to justify slavery too loudly if you live in the south.
When we put people in groups, we put ourselves in them too. Have I lost my flag? Some group claims it, patriotism, the word patriot, and God as theirs. When we put “The Muslims” into their box, we put “The Christians” into theirs.
I was raised a Christian, checked that box when drafted. Is that something that I can be voted out of, like “patriot”? Both of these religions have archaic laws. Both can generate hate.
We shouldn’t expect “Christian defaces Mosque”, but we should be able to translate “hate crime”.