THE (NOT SO BIG) DEAL--The Senate's Quick Fix, Jan. 1, 2013

I'm writing this on the morning of Jan. 1, 2013.  The fiscal cliff has (possibly) been averted--The Senate has finally negotiated a deal, far from a grand bargain.  (It has yet to pass the Congress, but, pundits say, most likely will.)  Should we be ecstatic?  No.  We fell over the so-called cliff last night.  This morning we find ourselves on a precipice fifty feet or so below the one we fell from.  The abyss still looms beneath us.

Before I say a few words about the agreement, I want to make my position clear.  I consider myself a pragmatist; I am no ideologue.  I try my best to view the political mess in the United States with impartial eyes, not jaundiced ones.  That said, I readily admit that at present my view is more or less in accord with the view of Democrats, since the Republicans have moved so far to the right

One of the most serious problems in the United States, as I see it, is the inequality of wealth.  One percent of the population has about 40% of the wealth; half the population has only one percent of the wealth.  Income inequality has risen in most countries, but not like it has here.  (In the United States, the top one percent has a net worth 288 times that of the median; in Germany, for instance, where income inequality has also risen, the top one percent is less than ten times richer than the median.)  If this inequality continues, not to mention if it continues to increase, our democracy will be seriously threatened.  Do we want the rich to live in gated communities, islands in a sea of poverty, with each side terrorizing the other, as they do in some Latin American countries?  Already, America is no longer the proverbial "land of opportunity" where hard work is sure to guarantee one's passage from poverty to wealth.  Upward mobility is much more likely to occur in other industrialized countries than in the United States.  Our once shining identity is getting very rusty.

I don't expect life to be fair.  Those more endowed with talent and opportunity should--if we want growth to continue--and will be very much richer than those less talented and less lucky.  When the income inequality becomes so great, however, as to threaten our democracy, we're in trouble.  And I do believe that is what is happening now.

The bipartisan agreement raises taxes  to 39.5% from 35% for individuals earning more than 400,000 and couples earning more than 450,000.  (Remember both groups will be paying the lower rate on the first 400 thousand or 450 thousand, respectively.  Yes, the one percent will be paying more, but I don't think this will change the statistics much. (Since the Great Recession ended in 2008, 81% of the recovery went to the wealthy; this will probably continue.)

Unemployment insurance will continue for another year; this is good but will not improve inequality much either.

The Alternative Minimum Tax will be fixed permanently--This tax was passed to prevent the wealthy from lowering their taxes too much via numerous deductions.  However, it was never corrected for inflation, which has resulted in its current application to many middle-class tax payers, which the law never intended to do.  This will help, but  inequality will probably continue to rise.

The estate tax will rise to 35% (from 30%) on estates more than $5 million--The Democrats wanted it to rise to 45%.  Higher estate taxes help prevent the propagation of wealth from generation to generation, thus helping to level the playing field somewhat and thus encouraging upward mobility.  In my opinion, the 35% rate is too low--even the 45% rate is too low.

The worst part of the deal is that it is not a deal.  The 110 billion in cuts, half from defense and half from domestic programs, is merely postponed.  That means in two months a deal must be reached or the cuts begin in earnest.  It is almost a sure thing that President Obama will make  cuts in Medicare and Social Security, thus assuring that inequality will continue.

Republicans have won the debate.  When Democrats try to address inequality, the Republicans accuse them of class warfare, when, in fact, that is precisely the war Republicans have been waging.  Most Americans believe that the current crisis is one of national debt, when it is in fact a job crisis and, thus, an inequality crisis. Republicans claim to be budget hawks, but the cuts they recommend are only those that would make inequality worse.  Regarding taxes and defense they are budget chickens,  always intent on making the current pecking order worse.

What does the conservative within me--that person does exist--have to say?  There is a debt problem, but this problem should not be addressed while the economy is so weak; things, as experience has shown, will only be made worse.  However, the sad fact remains that in times of prosperity one ignores the changes that should be made.

How does the view look, now that this stop-gap arrangement has given us a slightly better perspective?  Yes, our ditzy lawmakers have made us feel slightly less dizzy--but the firm ground on which we should be walking on is still hundreds and hundreds of feet below.  

GOIN' ON A JOURNEY

I, like you, have a divided self.  One part of me says a human being is a composite of things; another part asserts that a human being is a conscious composite of thoughts and feelings.  One part of me claims that even the brain is merely a combination--albeit an amazingly complex combination--of elementary particles.  The other part believes consciousness is irreducible and may well have at least a partial, very important non-physical component.

My name is Thomas.  Thomas l (the rationalist) and Thomas ll (the believer) have been with me all my life. They were at loggerheads in the past, but now, calmed by age, they mostly get along.  Thomas l and Thomas ll are undoubtedly part of you, too, so you might be interested in reading about them.  Your story is different, yes, but not that different.  So let me introduce me, that is, you, and briefly discuss the two basic components of our divided selves.

Since the internal division I speak of is universal, I will dispense with the Thomases as being too specific.  I thought of renaming them Head and Heart, but this is a bit too direct, and sounds to me like the title of a bad poem.  So I decided to freely translate these terms, with a result that makes them sound like a couple of  lawyers arguing their case, which, I suppose, is exactly what they do.  Head becomes Breitkopf,  (wide Head in German--the adjective's hint of arrogance is appropriate), and Herzl (German for little heart--the adjective is also appropriate, denoting a humble person who has difficulty putting his insights into words.) I want to make clear at the beginning that although these "lawyers" have very different positions, they have never doubted that they are members of the same firm.

I will now proceed with a brief summary of the inner convictions of both Breitkopf and Herzl.

BREITKOPF

I, Breitkopf, am, like the Hindus--that is, Hindu sages-- a monist. I believe that reality is based on one thing, and one thing only.  In contrast to gurus, however, who believe that one thing is consciousness, I believe that one thing is matter.  I know of no irrefutable evidence that consciousness exists outside a material body, specifically a brain.  The Eastern school thinks that consciousness is everything and causes everything.   The claims are both irrational and wild.   The body is inert, consciousness is what gives the body life; it is an immaterial all-pervading essence which may indeed be conveyed by matter (that is, by a brain) but is nevertheless independent.  The modern analogy is that the brain is the receiver of consciousness, not its sender.  Yeah, right.
I am what I call a materialist-monist.  Everything is matter.  It is a fact that there is no atom inside the human body--and brain--that does not exist in the exact same form outside the body. Life, built from inert elements, contains no specific "life element." We are carbon-based life forms; the carbon inside us is no different from the carbon in an asteroid hurtling through space.  Our bodies consist of mostly water, molecules formed by two hydrogen and one oxygen atom.  The hydrogen of the water came into existence shortly--that is, 380,000 years or so--after the Big Bang, which occurred 13.7 billion years ago.  The oxygen of the water  (as well as all  the other elements in us) were forged in the furnaces of suns which, when they died in a supernova explosion, were spewed into space; the clouds from these explosions eventually became our solar system, our Earth, our bodies, us.   All through natural processes, of course!
Life began on our planet shortly after it formed.  But for over three billion years  life was unconscious life, bacteria.  Consciousness--at first, a very primitive consciousness-- began as more and more complex nervous systems arose, beginning with the Cambrian Era,  500, 000,000 years ago.  It culminated when the inexorable laws of evolution produced us, the most complex life forms that ever arose on our planet by far, so far.
I readily admit that consciousness remains a mystery.  I also believe that this mystery one day will be solved through materialist science.
The brain's complexity is enormous, no doubts about that.  100 billion neurons--as many approximately as the number of galaxies in the observable universe!  What is truly astounding is the amount of connections between these neurons, a truly astronomical number, estimated in the billions of billions of billions!
But complex matter is still--matter.  Consciousness is an accident produced by our genes; it permits us to survive better, and slowly, according to the laws of evolution, may even grow in complexity, helping us--if we mange not to destroy everything-- to reproduce ourselves more efficaciously.  There's nothing immaterial in this truly astonishing process,
Daniel Dennett, the materialist philosopher--a Breitkopf cultural hero--is of the opinion that consciousness is not qualitatively different from matter; the opposite assertion is nothing more than an illusion.  I share that opinion.  The materialist, empirical world view is responsible for all the amazing theoretical and practical achievements since the Enlightenment.  Where are the exceptions to this monist view of the world?  Nowhere; there are none.

HERZL

Herzl remains silent.


The next day, Breitkopf and Herzl, fused as Thomas Dorsett, are--that is, is--in his automobile, driving to a place where he will do some volunteer work.  He will be playing the piano at a senior center.  The last time one of the listeners suggested that he play a hymn.  Thomas replied that he didn't know any hymns, but he would order a hymnal and play them for all once he had the music.  The online department from which he ordered the hymnal informed him that it would take about a month for him to receive it--hymnals, he mused, aren't that popular.  In the meantime, how would he be able to quench the old people's thirst for a hymn?  Suddenly, the problem was solved. While he was playing the piano the night before, a hymn, words and music, came to him, out of the blue, as they say.
He arrives at the nursing home and sings the following hymn while accompanying himself at the piano:

GOIN' ON A JOURNEY
(alternative version)

Goin' on a journey,
it's all right;
I'm goin' on a journey,
it's all right--
As I leave this world behind,                        
Very soon I'll see my Friend
who knows what bright world I'll find?        
smiling at the tunnel's end,
Goin' on a journey,
it's all right.

Sister made that journey,
it's all right;
Brother made that journey,
it's all right--
I will have no cares at all                             
Mother, Father and my Guide
with friends and kin behind the wall;        
meet me on the other side;
Sister made that journey,
it's all right.

I have to leave my loved ones,
it's all right;
got to leave my loved ones,
it's all right--
It's hard, it's hard,
it's very hard--
I have to leave my loved ones,
it's all right.

Soon we'll be together,
it's all right;
we're gonna be together,
it's all right.
Soon we're gonna be together,
no umbrellas needed--EVER!
Soon we'll be together,
it's all right.

We're gonna be together, it's all right,
we're gonna be together, its' all right,
soon we'll be together, it's all right--
Everyone together: it's all right!

A few had tears in their eyes; everyone clapped.

On the way home the following dialogue took place inside Thomas's mind:

Breitkopf:  How could you compose such nonsense?  You have created something moving--but the music does not correspond to reality--and therefore has no meaning.  Are the words of your hymn to be taken  literally or symbolically?  In either case, it is emotional claptrap, what I call S.C.F.A., Santie Claus for Adults.  Grow up!  Accept the universe as it is.

Herzl: Your vast knowledge misses the one true mote that's essential.  You don't know everything.  I do; that's why I am silent.  And, by the way, the Hindus are right.

THE SUICIDE OF A SHAMED NURSE

1.

You all know the story by now.  Two silly Australian DJ's, a man and a woman pretending to be Prince Charles and the Queen, respectively, called the hospital where the  pregnant Duchess of Cambridge had been admitted for a severe case of morning sickness.  Despite their horrible accents, they were put through by the first nurse to Middleton's nurse, who gave a few bland details of the royal patient's very non-life-threatening condition.  The next day, one of the nurses, who undoubtedly felt more shame than she could bear for having been so royally duped, committed suicide.  Her name was Jacintha Saldhana, a reportedly excellent nurse; married; had a family, husband, son, daughter; gone forever at age 46.

It is important to note that she wasn't the nurse who gave the details about Kate's condition.  When the telephone rang, she answered as follows:

Hello, King Edward VII Hospital.

One of the pranksters, pretending to be the Queen, asked to be put through to her granddaughter.

Ms Saldhana replied:

O yes, just hold on, Ma'am.

Then the call was put through.

That's all she said--that's all!  For this was driven by shame into suicide.  It reminds me of poor kid I read about in an article the premise of which is that nowadays, unlike in  the past, suicides not infrequently occur at a young age.  The boy, age 7, hanged himself because of guilt.  He had clipped off the wings of a bug.

2.

What a horrible, unexpected--and preventable--tragedy!  I'm not going to write about the foolish DJ's who made the call, nor about  the society that paid them to act like spoiled kids.  I want to write about her.

Moved by such tragedies, I often fancy myself as being an Angel of Empathy--such is my vanity,-- able to travel not only through the air like Ariel, but also back in time, on the shoulders of  of a tachyon, to a person about to commit suicide.  Give me the gun!  You're thirteen years old and have no idea what you're doing!  If he didn't listen to my wise counsel--such is my vanity--I would get help or stay with him--or even restrain him--until the crisis passed.

I wish I could have talked with the young man, who had been one of my patients, as he got  ready to murder his parents and sibling.  I also wish I could have talked with Jacintha Saldhana, just before she decided to die.

 If I had been vanity-transported, I would feel like saying, almost in anger, "What is the matter with you!  You're 46 and the mother of two!  By now you should know that acute feelings of shame pass, like everything else.  How can it be that an educated woman has reached your age without perspective or a sense of proportion?  THINK OF YOUR CHILDREN--Do they deserve to be deprived of their mother FOREVER --for this?"

But, for her sake, I would remain calm yet say what I almost said in anger with understanding tempered by firmness.

She stares through me.  She doesn't even cry.  "For your children's sake, Ms. Saldhana, will you at least listen to what I have to say?"  She nods her head.

3.

You are an educated woman of Indian origin, thus by definition, a lover of Shakespeare.  Am I right?  She nods again.

Let me reacquaint you with Parolles, a cowardly blowhard from Shakespeare's All's Well that EndsWell.  He is corrupting the young, callow hero, Bertram, with his lies.  An older, wise gentleman throws this is Parolles's face:

Go to, sir.  You were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate.  You are a vagabond, and no true traveler.  You are more saucy with lords and honorable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry.  You are not worth another word, else I'd call you knave.

Bertram, however, continues to think highly of his friend.  A war is going on, and a plot is devised to trick Parolles into showing his true colors.  Friends of Bertram capture Parolles and blindfold him before he can identify any one.  In a hilarious scene, he is brought to a place which "the interpreter"  informs him is the enemy camp.  He hears a nonsense language all around him which he believes to be the native language of the enemy.  The interpreter informs him that he is threatened with death and torture if he doesn't divulge information about his country's army.  He gives them more information than demanded, and denounces his compatriots, including Bertram, the Count of Rousillon.  He reveals himself as a vile, backbiting coward, doing anything to save his life.  Then the blindfold is taken off and he looks into the faces of those he had just denounced.

Now that's what I call humiliation.  Was Parolles, who had talked on and on about being a hero, driven to suicide? Left alone by those pranksters who thought Parolles wasn't even good enough to be killed, this is what Parolles said:

Yet I am thankful.  If my heart were great,
'Twould burst at this.  Captain I'll be no more,
But I will eat and drink and sleep as soft
As captain shall.  Simply the thing I am
Shall make me live.  Who knows himself a braggart
Let him fear this: for it will come to pass
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
Rust, sword!  Cool, blushes and, Parolles, live.

If shame can't defeat a bad man, why should it defeat a good woman?

If that didn't work I'd tell her about the true story of a man who lost his only child and wife in an accident.  He was drifting toward suicide but somehow went on.  He couldn't imagine that life would ever be worth living again.  Seven years later he was remarried, the proud stepfather of two children who adored him.  No, the tragic hole in his life would never be filled--but a delightful country had risen around it.  Point is, people in the grip of despair imagine it will last forever.  They imagine a desperate future, and, quite frequently, are happily surprised with what the future can bring.  That is, if they survive the initial shock.

If that didn't work, I'd tell her about the times I felt humiliated and terribly small.  Yes, sometimes I feel like a weed.  Then, after some time, perhaps just a day, I really feel like a weed.  A weed accepts life and fights to survive with no less vigor than a redwood tree.  And we're not mere weeds.  True, we can be racked by despair, but we also are able , if we work at it, to make amazing progress in wisdom and love.

Did you think you were SuperNurse?  Did your ego suffer shame?  If I found that to be true, I would quote Whitman: "Nor do I criticize the tortoise for not being something else."

I would go on and on.

If nothing worked I would restrain her, as the sailors restrained Odysseus, until all the destructive Sirens were silent.

If shame can't defeat a bad man, why should it defeat  good woman?

3.
After a while she would understand. She'd think of her husband, she'd think of her children, and think how dangerous--and  ridiculous--it had been to feel such shame. She'd take off a few days, then return to work and be an even better nurse than before.

Such is my fantasy. For you sake, Jacintha Saldhana, I wish that my inner Walter Mitty, the great Empathy Angel, had been on the morning of December 7th, no fantasy; I wish help had been real as the sorrow we feel.

Another fantasy: a potential Jacintha will access this article on the Internet, which will help her realize that dark emotions are as volatile as the light, and that--even if she's no better than Parolles--she would have a good cry, have a good laugh--and live!

TOWARD A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY RELIGION OR CHERRIES AND THE RESURRECTION

TOWARD A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY RELIGION

Part a, No More Dogma or Cherries and the Resurrection

This is the first of a series of essays on the theme of "Toward a Twenty-First Century Religion."  The readers I am seeking are those who are completely estranged from religious dogma yet have a deep spiritual sense and are searching to give it content.  Oh, and if you're an admirer or practitioner of science, don't worry, nothing in these essays will contradict science.  My ideal reader is one who is a student of science and yet has a "still small voice" within that is convinced that what can be found without is not everything.  The four parts of Toward a Twenty-First Century Religion are a, No More Dogma or Cherries and the Resurrection; b, Living with Ambiguity or The Grand Inquisitor; c, A Ray of Hope, Almost Nothing and d, Conclusion. This first essay deals with the fact that a literal belief in dogma is impossible for a rational person in the twenty-first century. Dogma might provide consolation for many, but it can also be very destructive--the danger of literal religious beliefs both to the individual and to society is also a theme of this essay.  It will end with a ray of hope, which will be expanded on in subsequent parts of the essay.

1.  Literal Religious Beliefs Can No Longer Be Maintained

We will use a quote of Luther's to illustrate the dangers of dogma.  We could have chosen many other examples both in Christianity and in other dogmatic religions--examples abound.  The quote follows:

It is truly a sin and a shame, indeed a miserable plague, that the time should come in Christendom, not only in these days of the world’s last dregs but even already in the time of the apostles, yes, even among those whom they had shortly before visited and taught, even where they had shortly before planted and founded Christianity, that such a calamity should befall so soon, that some of them dared to arise, such as the apostles’ disciples, and publicly proclaim that there was no resurrection and no future life, and that those who professed to be Christians should deny and ridicule this article, although they were baptized on it and had become Christians by reason of this, the article on which also all their hope and consolation should be based. Thus they had forfeited everything with this and had believed, acted, and suffered in vain. For where this article is surrendered, all the others are gone too; and the chief article and the entire Christ are lost or preached entirely in vain.
                                                                                     --Martin Luther

This is a lengthy quote, but an important one: in it Luther clearly states the position that if the resurrection of Christ did not literally occur, Christianity is unsalvageable and should be discarded.  (If he were a Jew he might have replaced resurrection with  a literal belief in the covenant; if he were Muslim, he might have replaced it with a belief that Mohammad literally received the Koran from Allah as mediated by the angel Gabriel.  Which dogma one believes in is not of importance here; what is important is that dogma per se can no longer be justified.)  

Jesus of Nazareth did not, of course, rise from the dead in any literal sense.  For the modern mind, it is not even a possibility.  Luther wrote at a time when the scientific view of life was not yet fully established, having written the above statement years before the showdown between science and the Church which centered around Gallileo--The battle between science-based evidence and dogmatic beliefs accepted as facts is long over; science has won decisevely.  

In Luther's time--and for some time after-- one did not have to give up one's ability to critically reason to believe in dogma--after all, the great scientist Newton believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible.  Religious beliefs at that time remained largely unquestioned; it was axiomatic to believe in revelations(s) since the culture at the time was a  very religious one.  It was quite  possible to be a top scientist in the past and have a non-critical view of religion.  Today it is virtually impossible.  The vast majority of contemporary scientists know that dogmatic beliefs are completely unsupported by evidence, and therefore, invalid as being literally true.

Some reasons why the belief in the resurrection is unfounded:
.
1.  The evidence in the Gospels for this is rather thin.  Apparitions of the resurrected Jesus were allegedly seen by very few, the account of which was written decades after the so-called historical event.   The "evidence" for it is a weak case of hearsay. Just because a book has been cannonized by a church; just because belief in the stories of this book have become an integral part of past civilization, does not lift such beliefs to the level of, say, the proof that the three angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees.

2. Scientific laws do not permit a physical return of an individual from the dead.  There has never been a documented case of this in history.

3.  The dogma that the resurrection was a revelation--God's intervention into human history--is completely unfounded.  Anyone can claim something to be a revelation.   Just because millions of people believe something doesn't make it true. For a reductio ad absurdum,  I could believe that God intervened in human history by sending me a vision of Santa Claus.  If I could convince others to believe this, a new religion might arise, albeit an absurd one.  Christians believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead; Jews don't, Muslims don't.  On a literal basis,  it is no different from arguing whether Santa Claus is real or not.  Christian kids give up the belief in Santa well before puberty; it's time the adults, way after puberty, give up a literal belief in the resurrection, and other dogmatic formulations.

4. A group of Christian scholars, the so-called Jesus Seminar, do not think that the resurrection of Jesus is, in fact, a fact.

5. There is a cultural arrogance in believing the myth of your culture consists of facts while denigrating the myths of other cultures as products of fantasy.  

One could go on.  The point here is that a literal belief in the resurrection is completely unsupported by evidence, both historical and scientific. (One should recall that the audience I am seeking consists of those who already know this.)

Luther, as is well known, was a very anxious, perhaps even disturbed man.  He bravely went against a very powerful, corrupt institution.  He knew it was right to do this, but he must have felt very vulnerable.  He needed certainty; he could not tolerate the power vacuum once the divorce between him and the Mother Church had become final.  He doubted many things but was unable to doubt everything.  At least one  thing had to be absolutely true for him: the resurrection.  Without it, he thought, "all (our) hope and consolation" is in vain.  The whole world would collapse around him--figuratively, of course!  Life, which, despite all its sorrows, would become without this foundation hell overnight, with no hope of any morning to follow.  He therefore fought against doubt all his life; one can see that he did in fact doubt this belief at times.  If there was no doubt, he would not have written the above quote, which states that if this belief is denied, all is lost.  That at least allows the possibility of denying the resurrection. For instance, a mathematician would never begin a sentence with the phrase, "If 2 and 2 do not equal four" --as if this were a real possibility.

To believe in dogma Luther had to overcome doubt, which is possible; for the educated modern person to accept a myth as a fact, one would have to suppress the rational faculty, which is also possible,  but much more tragic.   Luther undoubtedly found consolation in literal faith.  And aside from offering consolation, dogmatic belief can be also very destructive as the following discussion of another quote by Luther makes clear.

2.

If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over with the words, "I baptize thee in the name of Abraham."
                                                                                                                       --Martin Luther

The bane of European civilization was for centuries anti-Semitism, from which it has only recently, to a large extent at least, recovered.  (Unfortunately the world learned about the horrors of anti-Semitism in the worst way imaginable.)  The above-quote shows a very dark, inhumane side of Luther; when he wrote it he was obviously virulently anti-Semitic.  This, however, was not always the case.  What caused this vicious view?

Luther, a rather anxious, perhaps even depressive, individual, needed security.  His conscience removed for him and for millions the authority of the Catholic Church.  As the first quote shows, he found this security in an unquestioned belief in the resurrection.  Since he believed in it literally, he claimed this "truth" as a necessary belief for all people, Jews, of course, as the only significant non-Christian group in Europe, very much included.

He could understand why the Jews were not admirers of the Catholic Church; after all, he was very much in opposition to it also.  This, he probably reasoned, was why they rejected Christ.  Luther had, in his opinion, ushered in a new era and it was time to begin anew.  All the Jews needed was to listen to an ardent believer like Luther to be convinced of the error of their ways.  So he set out to convert them "in good faith."  He might have won a few converts, but, as one might imagine, he was overwhelmingly rebuffed--mostly politely, I imagine, but rebuffed nevertheless.  

There are two reasons I believe this rebuff made him furious.  The first reason is that the Jews' response called the resurrection into question.  The second reason is a variation of the first.  He must have observed that the Jews, even under the duress of living among a hostile majority, were like anybody else.  He probably came in contact with some good, wise Jews and probably also, with ones who were less wise and less good.  They lived in law-abiding communities.  The degree of literacy was considerably higher than among Christians, who were largely illiterate.  How can the Jews be as good as Christians--How could they be good without a belief in the resurrection?

Luther then had two choices.  He either had to conclude that a belief in the resurrection was not at all necessary to lead a deeply religious life, or he had to conclude that the Jews were nothing short of being devils in human clothing  for calling this belief into question.  The above quote shows which path he took.  As stated previously, he would have gone mad without this belief.  It is sad that he maintained his well-being by demonizing those who were living proof that the foundation of his sanity was built on sand.

This aspect of Luther is very important, since demonizing those with different beliefs is still widespread, and for the very same reason.  Such demonization must have no part in a twenty-first century religion. 

This is the dark side of literal belief.  What about the good side?  Literal beliefs inspired Bach to compose arguably the most profound music ever written.  Dogma inspired Bonhoeffer and Dr. King to do good with vigor.  This is undoubtedly true, but the destructive tendencies of literal belief--fanatacism--have scarred past and present history which has caused and causes unspeakable suffering.  And, as mentioned earlier, literal belief is no longer possible for those informed by science, which makes the dark side of such beliefs all the more apparent.


3. Symbolic Resurrection


Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
                                                                      --Martin Luther

Here we have a beautiful quote by Luther, indicative of a symbolic interpretation of the resurrection.  It was not necessary for Luther, due to ignorance of science, to separate the literal from the symbolic.  We, however, can, and should.  I will finish this first essay with a treatment of the resurrection in the spirit of the third Luther quote. (I am not implying that religion is only symmbolic however, as future sections of this essay will make clear.)




CHERRIES AND THE RESURRECTION


If we were repelled by their pits as by
those in ourselves, who’d eat them?
Ripe cherries, hanging from trees, falling
before hungry squirrels; how they sit

braced on hindfeet, holding lush globes
with their paws, nibbling till nothing is left
save the pits, which they drop without thought
as they rush to the next, till they fill--

What is hanging from full trees for us?
When a child needs bread, which father
gives stones?  Ours?  Cherry stones,
all the fruit eaten by animals; left

only pits; I pick some up off the ground...
If one had only these, could one deduce
that trees, heavy with fruit, existed
just above, every one’s source, a whole field?

Yet faith knows throughout winter that pits
become trees, now at the height of grace,
each grown from a stone, each a new body
after its old flesh was chewed up or rotted:

exposed to teeth, left to disintegrate,
like them, after a long, dark eclipse,
we, too, shall grow skyward again; spring:
life after death breaks you down to a seed.


                                                             --Thomas Dorsett

HOW I GOT OVER

I.
During my son's first year of life--and later--I would periodically play a Mahalia Jackson record and dance about the room with little Philip in my arms, both of us laughing with delight. Her music, like all great music from Carnatic to classical, touched me very deeply. That was when I was middle-aged and he was an infant; now he is no longer young and I am old. The great gospel singer's music, unlike so many things that affected me then but leave me cold now, still can bring tears to my eyes.

One of her signature songs is the gospel song, "How I Got Over." The emotions--gratitude praise ecstasy--that she conveys in the song about overcoming the vicissitudes of life is astounding. My soul looks back in wonder, how I made it over...

I remember listening and dancing to this song many years ago; yesterday I listened to it again. The passage of three decades has deepened my experience of this music; then, "How I Got Over," probably had more of a context of having survived a difficult day; now, the deeper meaning, of "How I Got Over" a rather difficult life is joyfully apparent. Although I must say, along with the Spiritual, that "sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down," I am indeed still dancing, figuratively and literally. Not bad, not bad at all.

Some time after listening to that great gospel song again, I thought that those who "got over" might indeed have something to say to those who, as yet, haven't. That is the subject of this essay.

ll.
When my son was a little older, I took him to the Maryland Science Center. One of the exhibits there fascinated me a good deal more than him. When you pressed the bottom-most button, you were presented with a picture of a cohort of one hundred newborn crabs. Each of the upper buttons would have announcements such as "six of your siblings have been swept out to sea," "ten of your siblings have been eaten by birds," etc. until, at the top, only one of the original crabs survives--indicating a survival rate of only one percent! If crabs were able to sing gospel, I would imagine that they would all be singing in a minor key, say, Soon I Will Be Done With The Troubles of the World--very soon indeed!  My cohort, American males born in 1945, had an average survival rate at birth of 65 or so, my approximate age now. That means only one in two born then are still alive now--I am pleased, indeed, to count myself among them.
Nature is obviously much more wasteful with crabs than it is with humans. We are at the top of the food chain, very very rarely becoming an animal's meal--while we're alive, at least. We have much to pass on to our offspring to help them succeed in producing the next generation; for this reason, and perhaps others, nature permits us to have a longer lifespan, which, as modern science has amply demonstrated, can be increased considerably by human effort.

So it is nature and an extension of nature, human intelligence, that has helped us to live (relatively) long lives. It is, of course, also luck. Cancer, accidents, suicide, etc. will always cause the deaths--in increasing numbers, as time goes on--of some in a  cohort of people born in any given year. Sometimes it is a matter of pure luck to have escaped them. It is also a matter of genes. To my mind, the most significant factor--even more important since it is somewhat in our control--is the quality of life one leads. A good life tends to lead to a good old age. What matters is not just physical survival, but psychological survival: health is indeed very important, but a successful old age is more or less a matter of perspective, a matter of wisdom.

Wisdom--have you read the papers lately?--is always in short supply. Thus it is critical for all older people who are happier now than they were when young to reflect on the reasons for this, and to find ever better ways to pass on what experience has taught. That is why, I believe, human evolution fosters survival past the reproductive age.  This is especially true, as research shows, for individuals with a positive outlook on life--depressives tend to die at younger ages. Such individuals  are still here not only because they like being here but because they have an evolutionary task, that is, to pass on wisdom to the young so one day they too might say, "My Soul Looks Back in Wonder--How I Got Over!"

lll.
Cleaning up my blog, I found this draft fragment written a few years ago.  I don't have the heart to delete it and do, alas! have the folly to post it.  Life has become tougher and rougher--and that's with the help of a good wife and son! Yes, I am lucky, but I am now not as sanguine about the joys of old age in this world as I was then--except when around loved ones or friends, or when  I am writing or listening to or playing music.  (And, I am happy to say, I still do these things!  Still--)

For those who would like to listen to Mahalia Jackson's version of the gospel song, I have provided a link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVr0opLX9Fg

THE REAL ROMNEY HAS FINALLY STOOD UP

The real Romney has finally stood up.  Thank God the American people have voted him down!

On November 14th, Romney held a conference call with rich donors, during which he  mentioned the main reasons he thought their big bucks failed to buy the election.  He blamed Obama for a campaign that "made a big effort on small things."  He brazenly implied that he, Romney, dealt with the major issues, a strategy that lost out to Obama who "focused on giving target groups big gift(s)... which, by the way add up to trillions of dollars."

"The big gifts" he mentioned were free contraceptives for women; "forgiveness of college loan interest" for young people; the gift of Obamacare, which, he mentioned, allows young people to stay on their parents' insurance until  the age of 26; and reaching out to Hispanics with the Dream Act.  He stated that "the Obama health care plan's promise of coverage 'in perpetuity' was highly motivational to those voters making $25-35,000 who might not have been covered, as well as to African American and Hispanic voters."

What a horribly bitter exit!  Do the math: minus the groups Obama supposedly favored with free stuff--women, Hispanics, African Americans and the young, and what do you have left?  Older white men.  Older white men who don't need Obamacare, that is, rich older white men. And, of course, Romney never advocated policies that favored them.


The condescension!  He implies that Obama offered candy to children and all the kids said, "Whee! Yummy!  Obama's for me!"  Women and minorities can't be expected, of course, to vote for what they believe is best for their county. Only old white men are able to do that.  If a young women objects to the current tax mess, all you have to do is throw her a pack of contraceptives and she will start demanding--Heaven forbid!--some redistribution of wealth.


A brief description of Obama candy: The Dream Act allows for undocumented aliens who have lived in this country for years to become legal residents if they pursue a college degree and/or serve in the military--obviously good for the country.  Obamacare  is also obviously good for the country--otherwise why would every other industrialized  nation have mandated  comprehensive health care for their citizens?  Reducing the interest rate for college loans--obviously good for the county by helping out a terribly burdened group, freeing up income which will stimulate the economy. Free contraceptives--obviously good for the county, since many poorer women can't afford co-pays.  This policy is good for the country because the management of unwanted pregnancies is so much more expensive.

And what about Romney's enormous gifts which he proposed for the rich?  Yachts for his yes-men--is that good for a country where 93% of the benefits from the ongoing financial recovery has gone to the top 1%?

He wanted to keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy at a time when revenue is sorely needed.  He proposed keeping them while closing loopholes that would be revenue-neutral. The rich get richer the poor get poorer--let's call his policies for what they are: balancing an elephant-idol on the backs of the poor  I pledge allegiance to the oligarchy of the United States of America--Ain't freedom grand.

During one of my essays written during the campaign, "Romney and the Triumph of the Egg,"  I argued that Romney didn't have the personality to become president.  Too stiff; too undiplomatic, too prone to gaffes.  I thought I might have been too harsh, after the first debate, during which the mock sun shined.  Now tht the sun has set, I am convinced that he not only lacks the personality but the moral fiber as well.

The two states that knew him best, Massachusetts and Michigan, voted overwhelmingly  for Obama.  Now the United States is knows his number, too.
.
During his career, Romney, as is well known, has "been all over the map" on many important issues such as health care and abortion.  (Once he claimed that his position on abortion was to the left of Kennedy's!)  I realize all politicians--Obama included--have to say things on occasion that they don't really mean if they want to get elected.  But most politicians keep a central core of beliefs to which they remain true.  Not Mr. Romney.  I have never known a politician willing to say just about anything to get elected.  To be fair, he has always remained faithful to laissez-faire capitalism and to the "military-industrial complex" as the much more nuanced and better Republican, Eisenhower, called it.  But that's about it.  True, he had to adapt to a radicalized party--but what about those core beliefs that he should have had?  Is ambition that will adapt to anything in the best interest of our county?

We didn't--at least I didn't--know who Romney really was.  Now that the election is over, he has made his true colors known, white and clear.

We realize that he has been running for president for over a decade; the defeat was a big blow.  His ungrateful exit, however, reveals what a flawed candidate he really was.

It's not surprising that potential Republican candidates for 2016--Rubio, Jindal, Christie, Haley--have all distanced themselves from Romney's repudiation of every group except white men.  I am sure this will be the last Republican presidential election by and for Aging White Knights.  We need policy changes, however, and not mere outreach.  If the Republican Party turns into Aging White Knights with several divisions of rainbow-hued peons, it will surely lose again.

I'M RELATED TO A SAINT!

                                                                1.

It's true!  Well, the connection is not all that direct--she is related to me through marriage.  She is, however, directly related to my brother-in-law Jose, who is married to Mridula, my Indian wife's sister. (Jose is a Syrian Christian; his name does not rhyme with today but with nose.)  The name of Jose's blood relative is Sister Alphonsa, and since her cannonization  by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, Saint Alphonsa.  She was my brother-in-law's grandfather's sister's daughter. If you don't think she is thus closely connected to me, one must recall she is the only Catholic saint in all of Asia.  For a white guy to get a first prize in this, as it were, Asian lottery--what are the chances of that?  About five billion to one; not bad.

I didn't know who Alphosa was until, one night, during a visit to my in-laws in South India, I noticed, while eating my dahl and rice, the saint's picture on a key chain.  Who is that, I asked.  "My Aunty," Jose replied.

He then told me about his "aunty"--this term is used quite loosley in India.  She had had a hard life.  His blood-relative (that is, his grandfather's sister, Alphonsa's mother) died young, leaving her daughter in the hands of a character well known in fairly tales, the Horrible Stepmother.  When Alphonsa reached marriagable age, she had a terrible accident.  She fell into a ditch of burning rubbish, severely injuring her feet.  Rumor has it that she did this to avoid being married off, since no Indian male, she presumed--and was undoubtedly correct--would want to stroll down the beach beside a woman whose feet were gnarled up like the roots of a banyan tree

She got her wish and became a nun.  She was very sickly.  Rumors soon started that she was taking on the suffering of others, who became better as she became worse.  She had severe digestive problems and during the last phase of her life--this will be significant as this story progresses--she could only eat a type of very bland food called nul puttu.  She died (probably from stomach or colon cancer) at the age of 35.  

After her death, miracles began to pile up.  She became, as it were, The Podiatrist From The Other Side, having an understandable sympathy for those who where afflicted, as she had been in life, with deformed feet.  

By this part of my brother-in-law's narration, we had finished up our dahl and were slurping up lovely handfuls of pal paysam for dessert; I must admit, I was getting a bit bored.  The Doubting Thomas in me came to the fore.  I interrupted him and asked, Did she ever perform a miracle for you?

His eyes glistened.  Yes, indeed, he said.  I listened.

Alphonsa died in 1946.  The miracle occrued in 1948. when my brother-in-law was just a tambi, a little kid. He was out shopping with his mom on a day when the Kerala sun, which makes the land either hot, hotter or hottest, had reached the superlative form of the adjective.  They were miles away from home.  Poor little Jose had reached such a state of parch that he began to cry.  Bitterly he told his mother, "Aunty helps and cures strangers all over Kerala--she's my aunty not theirs.  Why doesn't she help us now?   I'm dying of thirst!"  

Immediately after he said this he had to duck a coconut which abruptly fell from a tree. (Now don't expect too much--a plastic straw did not fall down beside it.)  Jose's mother gasped then shouted, "Miracle! Miracle!"  Jose, being a little kid, thus believing that the impossible is not only possible but occurs with a frequency that elicits wistful smiles in adults, promptly ferreted up the coconut, brought it to the nearest coconut seller, who cracked  it open with his little scythe and gave it to Jose--along with a straw.

Well, doubting Thomas wasn't convinced.  Perhaps you, dear reader, scoff now, as he scoffed then, at such credulity.  I ask you, however, to read on, for the miracles do not end here.


                                                   2.

First I must digress a little and discuss the Indian rice-noodle specialty, nul puttu.  The dish consists of  patties made of  rice noodles which were, as mentioned previously,  the sole form of nourishment of Saint Alphonsa during the last few years of her life.    It is a very popular dish in South India; it is called nul puttu in Malayalam, idiyappam in Tamil and has one of the strangest names of all in Indian English.  Yes, even the so-called Anglo-Indians, remnants left over from the British raj, love nul puttu.  (They are a dying breed; you can recognize them on sight since they wear--the women at least--dresses that reach below the knees which can easily double as curtains on windows of Victorian bungalows; you can also recognize them by the sound of their affected, Victorian English.)  Anglo-Indians disdain the "local languages" and either do not wish to or are unable to pronounce things such as nul puttu or idiyappam.  Guess what word they came up with?  They call them string hoppers!  The first time I heard that word I laughed as hard as I did  when a colleague spoke about the 'eleemosynary concerns of the Health Department'.  I had been waiting all my life for a person to be sufficiently affected to use that word in a sentence.)

A few days after I arrived in India for the first time in 1977, Nirmala's mother made nul puttu and I fell in love with this delicacy.  It is not easy to make--at least at that time.  First, a servant would have to grind rice in a mortar and pestle on the floor.  (So-called lower caste Indians love to squat.)  Then the rice flour is mixed with water. The dough is then put into a stainless-steel cylinder; a piece with little holes in circular arrays fits into the bottom.  At the top is a handle; as it is rotated, the dough is pushed out.  Sort of like a meat grinder.  After steaming, the rice noodles are served with sweetened coconut milk..  It is really delicious.

I made sure we bought a nul-puttu-apparatus on our very first trip.  We didn't enjoy it very often, since my wife and I were very busy with our professions at the time.  Then somehow the handle got lost and we forgot about nul puttu.  Time to recount the second miracle!

It was the eve of my sixtieth birthday.  It is a tradition in our family to make a special birthday breakfast for all family members, depending on whose birthday it is.  I fell into a deep sleep.  Suddenly I saw myself floating down a tunnel into a room of white light.  And there she was, Saint Alphonsa, looking much like she does in the photo above, smiling at me with outstretched hands before a table that displayed the most delicious-looking nul puttu you could ever imagine.  Overjoyed, I screamed, "Noodles!  Noodles!"  I apparently not only screamed in the dream world, for my wife woke up, terrified.  We calmed down and went back to sleep.

The next morning I found an array of nul puttu on the kitchen table, looking much like the celestial nul puttu of the dream. From that day on, Saint Alphonsa has been  known in our family simply as Noodles.

I wanted to write to the Vatican but decided that those bureaucrats would not be all that impressed by Noodles having produced a magic coconut in 1948 and a magic breakfast in 2005.  I'm sure they're busy with more important things, such as proving that someone's leukemia was dispelled by another person's miraculous sneeze.  I gave up the idea.  Truth is, Noodles hasn't done much for our family since.

India has changed; nul puttu has changed.  It is now available  in the frozen section of every Indian grocery store that caters to South Indian tastes.  We began to have it quite often.  The fact that I began to call the dish string hoppers is a good indication that I was getting sick of it.  I didn't tell my wife this, since she loved to surprise me occasionally  with gobs of steaming nul puttu. We no longer had  it very often; she continued, however, to microwave the stuff for me on every birthday since that second miracle occurred.  On my last birthday, just last month, I had that dream again.  Noodles was now offering me a palmful of nul puttu much the same way a Hindu priest offers prasadam to a devotee.  I shouted out in my sleep, "Enough already! Noodles, be gone!"

The next day, I found on the kitchen table, unlike the nul puttu that I had on every birthday for the past five years, something different, thank God!  fried eggs.  Was this a secular miracle?  I don't know, but the eggs were divine.

Regarding Noodles' interventions, you, as well as the doubting Thomas in me, are probably not convinced.  We would need better evidence.  For instance: if, in a dream apparition, Noodles formed numbers out of string hoppers, resulting in my winning millions of dollars in a lottery.  Then, perhaps, I could with good conscience stretch my arms toward Heaven while my soul flew to the Lord, as it were, sporting six antinomian wings.

I imagine, dear reader, that you are now as tired of reading about string hoppers as I am of eating them.  Be consoled.  Only when the lottery miracle or its equivalent occurs--which is highly unlikely--yes, only then will Doubting Thomas conjure up (hopefully from Paris) intimations of glory from Noodles again.

Postscript: Doubting Thomas has no doubt that truth is sometimes odder than fiction.  I finished this article on a Sunday evening at about six o'clock. Writing about Noodles made me miss her.  I was looking out the window nostalgically when my wife entered my study.  She informed me that, since we both had a heavy lunch, we would be having something light for dinner.  Guess what we're having?  To paraphrase a famous saying, Noodles does  indeed work in strange ways.