My Creed

“ The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers!”
Thus spoke the excitable plotter in Shakespeare’s “Henry VI.” The character of “Dick the Butcher,” makes this bold suggestion as stage one in the overthrow of what is perceived as a corrupt and unjust system of government. But Shakespeare got it all wrong when he exhorted us to rid ourselves, once and for all, of what he perceived as the biggest blight on our peace of mind and well-being. If he had really wanted to strike a serious blow at what ails us as human beings, he would have urged us to get rid of an entirely different profession: the Priests.
It is nothing new to blame religion for a healthy portion of the world’s ills, but I would draw an important and fundamental distinction here between religion and deism. Religion, which derives from the Latin: re-ligo,-ere: to tie-back, is all about our desire to reconcile the aloneness of the human condition with the eternal, “ONEness” of existence. It is the way in which we tie ourselves back to the Garden of pre self -conscious innocence. Religion is a state that, if one listens carefully enough, is natural to us. Since we first recognized the rhythms of the seasons, the ebb and flow of nature, we were a part of it. The woodsman, the hunter, the ocean fisherman all live a religious existence without effort. Subject to the uncaring laws of nature, being a part of the majestic symphony of LIFE, we can live a perfectly religious life. It may be harder in our modern, urban, civilizations, but if we really listen hard enough, it is possible.
The problem is that somewhere along the way, a long time ago, someone decided that there HAD to be someone pulling the strings. There had to be someone OUTSIDE this ONEness that made it happen. The first, and most obvious candidate, was the sun. Without its light, we had night: without its warmth, we had winter. It certainly seemed that when the sun was absent, all life paused, slept, chilled: then, when it rose again, life resumed, brightened and warmed. Powerful ju-ju! Right then and there someone had a brilliant, but fatal notion: he stood at the cave’s mouth and sang a song as the sun rose. It was not hard for him to convince the rest of the tribe that he was singing TO the sun and greeting it. He confirmed his special relationship with this GOD by singing it farewell at the end of the day. This was your first Priest. In no time al all he was speaking for the sun. He expressed its anger, its pleasure, how to win its favor and how to lose its love. With careful study of the sun’s movements, moods, and rhythms, our priest could manipulate it to tell his people when and against whom to fight, how to dress, how to eat, how to govern. His power was paramount. Even the Chief listened to his advice. Of course, it wasn’t long before other tribes in other caves came up with their own priests who interpreted the sun’s moods very differently. HE wanted the tribe to wear red paint on their faces, not blue. HE wanted them to live by the river and destroy the “unbelievers” who occupied that prime spot. The battle of wills between Priest and Chief, Church and State has marked centuries of bloodshed and politics. Both sides seek power and both sides sacrifice the tribe in its quest. The Chief may lead us into battle for territory, pride or a family squabble but the Priest exhorts us to take up arms in the name of a vengeful and capricious God. Each is as bad as the other and each has condemned our planet to an unending story of genocide, wars, injustice and misery.
Deism, this idea invented by the priests, by its very nature, separates us out from the Divine. It makes us “outside” his love. We have to win it back through worship and sacrifice. The rules for this are written by the priests, naturally enough, and each priest has his own rules for his own GOD. The tragedy is that we ARE already a part of nature, an integral part of that Divine. Our religious practices remind us of this “belonging” and indivisiveness. We truly are ONE. We are all part of the stuff that made the stars. There has been nothing added or subtracted since the Big Bang, so we are indeed part of the same stuff. We are, in fact, the stars made conscious. You could say we are the stars trying to figure themselves out. What could be a more religious notion than that?! We are God and GOD is us. That’s what the first stirrings of consciousness told us. We must listen to this message that is carried on every breeze and in every living thing. We must reject the false GODS presented to us by self-serving priests in their quest for power. This cult of Deism will destroy what chance for peace we have and leave us eternally separated from each other and from the GOD that we are.