When I was quite young, the church where my family and I were members held a "Deacon's Court" one fall Wednesday evening in the late nineteen fifties after Bible study to take issue with what my mother had obtained as employment. You would have thought that she was on trial for murder. Her only "crime" was that she had been employed by a radio station in town, and that radio station played Rock and Roll. My God! Those pagans had the gall to play Elvis! Mom was given an ultimatum to quit her job or quit the church. My parents needed the money that Mom's job generated and she refused to comply with the deacons' order. After she walked out, the pompous, self-righteous, defenders of the church tried to get my father and I to shun my mother. Much to his credit, Dad told the deacons what they could do with their church in no uncertain terms, specifying which orifice to use and how far to shove. Other than weddings and wakes, for very close friends and family, Dad never set foot in a church again. With her Spirit broken, Mom converted to Roman Catholicism several years later, and did her best to get me to follow. I did later when I fell in love with a young Italian girl while stationed in the Army at Ft. Leonard Wood. The romance didn't last as long as my conversion.
Everything boils down to money and Power. The Christian market sports a profit of several billion (that's with a B, folks) dollars. I have read that the Vatican rakes in more than most fortune five hundred companies. George Orwell had it pegged when he wrote 1984, but it wasn't the governments that he had in mind for the character of Big Brother, it was society itself.
You hear all of the current prophets and doom slingers bemoan the downfall of our country on morals and family values. But these same do-gooders are in the back rooms plotting how to get richer and take more power away from the general masses so they can be and stay in control.
Now all of this may sound like sour grapes and that I'm completely down on preachers and clergy in general. No this is not true. I know some genuinely fine examples of spiritual leadership who live their faith. Their task is made more difficult by the leeches of society.
People tend to run away from many wonderful sources of genuine Spiritual grounding as a result from being taken in by the dregs of human abuse perpetrated by these self centered self-righteous criminals.
No, I'm not down on anything more than the abuse of power that these so called pillars of community exercise. Anyone I have met that is living a spiritual life, doesn't care how you believe, just that you believe in something greater than yourself and leave the world a better place than you found it. I have never known one of these souls to dictate his or her beliefs to another person, but they will share them if asked.
If it weren't for souls like Father Dismus Clark, who helped many an alcoholic find his way back from oblivion, or Father Edward J. Flannegan, who helped to shape the lives of thousands of wayward boys. In fulfilling a vow made in answer to a prayer, Danny Thomas whose faith and gratitude sparked the foundation for one of the most potent weapons in the fight for the cure of cancer, St. Jude's Hospital, many people would be suffering today. Norman Vincent Peale showed us all how to 'Win friends and influence enemies'. These are examples on a national scale, but there are thousands of clergy and lay persons who have dedicated their lives to helping others. Every community seems to have one or two people that tirelessly meet the needs of those in crisis. They feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and champion the oppressed. These people are what God intended for us to be and we should try to be more like the little old lady up the street who brings us chicken soup because she heard that we were sick.
There was a woman in my neighborhood when I was growing up that never set foot in a church, but made sure that the sick were cared for, the hungry fed and the suffering comforted. She prayed every day, and was never far from her Bible. I remember how a local pastor made it his mission to destroy the woman because she refused to go to church, but worshiped God in her own way. When the woman died, she was remembered by the thousands of people that she touched over eighty-seven years of giving. The preacher passed away in obscurity several years later.
Chance? I think not. You reap what you sow. There are thousands of ministries throughout the world that carry out God's will every day, but the very few that abuse the trust of their congregations do serious damage to the legitimate goals that these ministries try so hard to achieve.
Beware! Look for snakes in the garden. |
