Blog Series: Sunday Sermon Podcasts- The Vicious Circle

This Sunday's podcast with the Rascally Rabbi Rami Shapiro is entitled "Vicious Circle: Theology and the Demonization of the Other" which was recorded back in March of 2012.Enjoy.

   
   
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"Boxes are everywhere. Once they're set and once we've agreed to live within them our notion of truth and what's right is pretty much fixed....The more locked in we are the easier it is for us to not simply lock the other out but to assure on a very deep psychosocial level that the other is actually evil."

I love listening to talks by Rabbi Rami because he introduces questions which I find helpful in sweeping the mind of our images and ideas of Reality (God, etc.). Are UUs a religion of neti neti? I'm not sure, but then how do you avoid the vicious circle? How do you escape other boxes while keeping one foot in new one ( the UU box)? Sound off in the comments.

Blog Series: Sunday Sermon Podcasts- That Rascally Rabbi: Holy Rascals

I am very fond of my old Religious Studies teacher, Rabbi Rami, so I decided that I would share podcasts weekly of his talks with the Unitarian Universalists of Murfreesboro I visited back in 2010. Today's podcast was recorded back in February 2012 entitled "Holy Rascals: Crazy Wisdom for Crazy Times."
   

   
   
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I've always enjoyed Rabbi Rami's storytelling style. I love the concept of breaking out of your "cage" and pursuing that place, whatever that place may be. So what do you think? Is there anyone else you would also consider a modern holy rascal? Rabbi Rami and his fellow holy rascals have been working on a film project for quite some time you can find here.

Naked Before Reality

"The point is that each moment of your life you're confronted with reality. And you have to do what seems to be right in that moment, but you won't know what that is until that moment happens. You can't prepare for it...that's not how it works. Life brings stuff that you're not prepared for, and then you simply have to confront the wildness of it, the madness of it, the horror of it, or the ecstasy of it." Rabbi Rami





Rabbi Rami Shapiro at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville 7/25/10

The wildness of reality is too much to bear at times which is why I believe some people turn to religion. But even when people clothe themselves with religion to guard themselves from the wildness of reality our hearts are still opened by our shared suffering.

"When you're suffering together love emerges."

Ganesh is Fresh!

I was able to catch an interesting program on To the Best of Our Knowledge from Wisconsin Public Radio today on my way home from church focusing on the intersection between Eastern spiritual tradition, religion, and culture with 21st century modernity.

[Ganesh is Fresh t-shirt is inspired by MC Yogi's new album Elephant Power.]

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For more info you can visit the To the Best of Our Knowledge website, or you can click here to listen and download the one hour program entitled New East, Old Wisdom.

Although I missed the first segment on William Dalrymple's new book, Nine lives, on the search of the sacred in India and a report on China's influence and shaping of lives in Tibet, I did catch the segments on MC Yogi and Stephen Batchelor's book, Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist. Although Batchelor's book on rethinking the life of the Buddha is intriguing (and is now on my ever expanding booklist) I found the segment on MC Yogi phenomenal! MC Yogi blends elements of hip hop with Hindu mythology. I don't listen to much hip hop myself and I know the blending of religious imagery with modern music has been done before but I find Hindu hip hop invigorating, or should I say fresh?

Enjoy the Pebble

I can't get enough of Alan Watts and I don't know if it's his voice or the way he presents his philosophy, either way I find it mesmerizing. Here's an interesting audio clip, whether or not you agree with his statements.



I've also stumbled upon Alan Watts Podcast which streams his recordings which have been preserved in the archives of the Electronic University. Of course there's always Alan Watts.com but I couldn't find anything there like this.



Are you enjoying the pebble?

ἀρσενοκοίτης

On Thursday, Rabbi Rami brought a guest speaker to our American Spirituality class to talk a bit about the Pre-Modern, Modern, and Post-Modern views on religion. Greg Bullard, senior pastor at Covenant of the Cross from Madison, Tennessee, began by stating he is a homosexual man, and as a gay man he had to not only wrestle with scripture but also with those who would use scripture to attack him. What I found incredibly fascinating is that he researched the original Greek words that referenced homosexuality to discover the meaning of the word and its use in the first and second centuries. Now I've heard many preachers do this to support their sermons or their cause but Greg went above and beyond researching homosexuality in Greek and Roman history, mythology, and literature.

ἀρσενοκοίτης (arsenokoitēs)
arsenokoitai: "arsen" means "man"; "koitai" means "beds."

Used in both 1 Timothy 1:9-10 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 this word has been translated as referencing homosexuality or sodomy. It is actually a feminine word in the Greek, someone who assumes the position of a woman. It is a sexual behavior and not an orientation issue. It is used 73 times outside of scripture, 44 times used to describe the buying and selling of slaves used for temple prostitution.
malakoi literally means "soft."

Used in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 this word has been translated as the effeminate, or male prostitute.

Pastor Greg goes into detail in a sermon podcast on his church's site, The Covenant of the Cross, entitled "It's All Greek to Me".




Very enlightening information on a topic that has become fueled by so much blind rage. Not many of us have the time or the education to research the original Greek, but what if we did? What if we uncovered something other than what we've been taught by the church and centuries of tradition? Would we fight against it and brush it off holding on to what WE BELIEVE instead of considering that church and tradition (both maintained by fallible men) may be wrong? To quote Pastor Greg "we just like an easy comfortable explanation for what we don't understand." As human beings I believe it is our duty to understand each other especially if we as Christians consider love and compassion to be at the core of Christianity. I thoroughly enjoyed his talk even though there were a few who were uncomfortable with his presence. Sadly, soon after I left class I overheard two of my fellow "Christian" classmates (the two most opposed and outspoken against Greg's talk) snickering over the fact that they knew he was gay as soon as he walked in the door. Fear and hate spreads too easily when it should be a terrible burden.

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Note: I'm currently in the process of moving back home to Chattanooga so it may be some time before my next post. Until then Peace and Blessings.