Windy Weather

 

“Windy weather, windy weather

When the wind blows, we all come back together.”

 

This little children’s game ended up being a central piece of my story. It was taught by a man giving an Orff workshop at The San Francisco School who was fired for incompetence and I volunteered to take over. After one class, they decided to hire me as their first music teacher— and I stayed on for 45 years. I’m eternally grateful to that man, whose name I don’t remember and never met again. And that little game is kind of fun!

 

It is a seriously windy day out, so much so that I cancelled my planned walk to visit yet another school and consult with the Orff teacher and am waiting for my wife to come home with the car. Gusts between 25 and 30 miles an hour and trees using their mycorrhizal network to warn each other to hold fast. Feeling trapped indoors, I decided to finish Isabel Wilkerson’s superb book Casteand just closed it having read her vision of a world without caste. So simple, so close at hand, yet so elusive as we keep letting the winds of the past blow us around and knock us off any track that considers our shared humanity. The winds that blow send multiple messages, but the one we could choose— and so often refuse— is the simple reminder that we’re all in this together and that when we claim privilege, consciously or unconsciously, we not only hurt those we place beneath us, but we hurt each ourselves, our families, our friends, our neighbors. “When the wind blows, we all come back together.” Yes, we could and yes, we can and yes, some of us do much of the time and yes, many of us do some of the time, but what’s missing is the clear and shared commitment. 

 

All these children’s games I’ve played for so many years carry multiple layers of meaning for me. Old Man Mosie, Old King Glory, The Mulberry Bush, Lemonade Crunch Ice. Thinking about writing a new book, kind of like The Tao According to Pooh, a look at deep principles of Right Living through the lens of children’s games. A good project for rainy/windy days.

 

Any encouragement?

Fairy Dust

Right and wrong. Ah, there’s a conversation. The path to discovering what’s right in this world walks hand-in-hand with our sense of what’s wrong. The talk between the two is constant and always shifting and we need to be careful about which gets more floor time. It doesn’t take much before the litany of what’s wrong turns into whining and constant complaint and the sense from others that it’s a drag to be around the negative Nancy in the crowd. Likewise, the sunny Pollyanna who thinks everything is awesome and amazing might just be ignoring some of the shadows that keep evil and injustice in business. 

 

After my posts about Religious Trauma, I read the next chapter in Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste and felt compelled to share yet another of her deep insights—the stark contrast between how Germany deals with its Nazi past and how the U.S. deals with its legacy of slavery. This is important information and the kind of muddy path of Wrongs we need to slog through before reaching any path leading to Right.  I believe this is worth posting and worth reading and worthy of reflection. Stay tuned.

 

Meanwhile, I just returned from singing with some 60 k-2^nd graders at yet another school (my 6^th school in the past month) and that was about as Right as you can get. My only complaint? The allotted 35 minutes whizzed by too fast and we only got to sing six of the twelve songs I hoped we would. I suggested that I come back again and there was a palpable YES!! from kids and teachers alike. A group of kids, a guitar and me is enough for a quick trip to heaven on earth and this was especially poignant because the parent who invited me was a former student of mine at The San Francisco School who wanted her kindergarten son to experience what she did. She got off work to attend, testified that she knew every song I sang and sat so happily with her son on her lap singing them. Like I said, heaven on earth.

 

On writing these words, I recall many years back singing with some 100 plus kids in a lovely room in Scotland and that one lasted over an hour. When I reluctantly ended, I began to pack up and five minutes later, one of the teachers told me that one of the kids said to her in a hushed reverent tone:

 

“That man was magical.”

 

I suspected he felt the beauty and energy of people gathered to sing together and it opened his heart in a way that singing can do. But there was more to the story. The teacher asked:

 

“Why do you think that?”

 

“Because while he was singing, I saw some fairy dust around his head.”

 

It turned out that a shaft of light came into the room illuminating dust the way it does. This little boy noticed it and connected it to the energy in the room and came to the inevitable conclusion— there was magic in the air.

 

Today I go off to another school to sing to two more classes. Let’s see if the fairy dust appears.

The Ten Symptoms of RTD

The following is taken verbatim from the therapist.com website:

The effects of religious trauma can be life-altering and long-lasting. Common signs and symptoms include: 

1. Self-hatred 

Some religious movements rest on the idea that some people are inherently evil, untrustworthy, or unworthy of love. Others elevate certain identities over others, leading to marginalization, discrimination, and oppression. This may result in low self-esteem, depression, self-harm or suicidal tendencies. 

2. Shame 

Shame occurs when you equate a negative action with who you are as a person. Many unhealthy religious communities use shame as a way to influence and control others. Instead of learning to accept responsibility for their mistakes and extending forgiveness to themselves and others, people in shame-based religions often learn to cover up or deny anything that could be considered wrong by their community. 

3. Perfectionism 

Some religious communities may identify certain actions or behaviors as indicative of a person’s moral value, and they may promote certain careers or types of families as spiritually superior. This can result in perfectionism, which is often accompanied by high levels of anxiety and stress, as well as the setting of unrealistic goals. 

4. Hypervigilance 

Some religions paint a picture of a vindictive god who punishes people whenever they fall short. Others promote apocalyptic ideas and suggest that a violent end to the world is nigh. These ideas may lead to heightened levels of anxiety resulting in hypervigilance: a constant state of anxiety meant to protect a person from perceived or actual threats of harm. 

5. Difficulty with making decisions 

Many who experience religious trauma are accustomed to making decisions in the context of a certain doctrine and/or hierarchy. If they choose to change their relationship with these institutions or leave them entirely, they may struggle with autonomy and making their own decisions. 

6. Loss of community 

For many, religion provides community. If a person changes or leaves their faith, they may lose contact with many friends, family members, and acquaintances.  

Some people who leave their religious community may experience a season of loneliness and isolation. It can be intimidating to rebuild a community, especially if people outside their faith were often labeled evil or inferior. 

7. Lack of boundaries 

Being part of a religious community often means accepting some amount of feedback regarding how you live your life. Many faith communities also have expectations for volunteering and service.  

These can be considered healthy aspects of religion, as long as boundaries are clear and respected. When boundaries are blurred or nonexistent, a person may struggle to find their identity without input from others. They may also have a hard time saying no to certain tasks or prioritizing self-care. 

8. Delayed social milestones 

Purity culture is a religious concept that focuses on ideas about gender, sexuality, sex, virginity, marriage, and procreation. Religions that rely heavily on purity culture may scrutinize or monitor children’s social interactions and segregate kids based on their assigned sex. In these contexts, LGBTQIA+ people in particular may not have the chance to experience social milestones, such as first dates or kisses, until adulthood. This delay can be frustrating, and some people who had overly restricted lives as teenagers may make impulsive or reckless decisions as adults once they leave their religious communities. 

9. Sexual dysfunction 

Religions that overemphasize purity culture may not prepare their followers for healthy sex lives, even in the context of marriage.  

Many people who struggle with religious trauma practice abstinence until marriage and may feel dirty or guilty when engaging in sex. People from religious backgrounds that preach traditional gender roles may struggle to confront realities about desire, drive, and performance that don’t align with what they learned. Some religions teach about sex in a way that centers obligation instead of consent, resulting in unhealthy, harmful, or even criminal sexual behaviors. 

10. Mental health disorders 

Religious trauma can cause, contribute to, or otherwise worsen mental health disorders. Commonly associated mental illnesses include:

            • Posttraumatic stress disorder

            • Depression and anxiety

            • Obsessive-compulsive disorder/ eating disorders

            • Addiction

             

That’s a long list and a lot of work ahead. At the same time, the Website acknowledges that there can be positive benefits to organized religion.

Is religion necessarily traumatic? 

Religion is not always traumatic. It can also bring: 

• A sense of community and belonging 

• Reflective practices that encourage rest and meditation

• Love and support for those who are marginalized, grieving or struggling

• Emphasis on moral values, such as love, compassion, forgiveness and empathy

To maximize the benefits and minimize the harm will take hyper-vigilance to refuse the inherited ancestral trauma of a few thousand years, the courage to hold each other’s feet to the fire, the inner work of healing, both individually and collectively. Refusing organized religion altogether is a viable option, but that also requires other ways to gather in community, to engage in individual and collective meditation, to offer support for those suffering (all of us) and to guide each other toward our better selves. 

My personal suggestion is replace religion with spirituality, an anthropomorphized “true” God with a Divine Spirit present in all of us and plants and animals as well, to experience such Divine Grace directly through music, meditation, nature, without dogma, without blind faith, without the urge to convert others. Simply be present, attend, awaken. 

The New Mt. Sinai

According to Exodus, Mt. Sinai is where God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses. So was built one of the pillars of the entire Judeo-Christian edifice. From my point of view, there are some that can use adjusting (Why do You have to be the only God? Plenty of room in the playground. And why are You so uptight about graven images?), some seem hypocritical (“Thou shalt not kill” alongside all the smiting You recommend in the Old Testamant? Hello?), some are dubious (You’re okay with people owning slaves, but concerned about other people coveting them?), but truth be told, they’re not a bad start. If the former President had honored even two or three of them, things would have gone better. But he was 0 for 10 and nobody seemed to care that much.

 

But what interests me is not the hypocrisy or the notion of  a “few bad eggs” or “people just needing to try harder to be good Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, etc".). There is something rotten at the core that needs addressing.

 

At a recent Men’s Group, we discussed the role of organized religion in our life and emerged 9 for 9 atheist. We are lapsed Jews, recovering Catholics, indifferent Protestants, with a heavy lean towards Buddhism and paganism. We all found, in our own way, organized religion to be two-faced, falling far short of its original tenets and without apology, doing exactly the opposite. (See the Jewish “Thou shalt not kill”/ the Christian “Love thy neighbor as thyself”/ The Buddhist “Realize the Buddha nature we all equally share”/the Muslim “ Express love towards good and hatred towards evil”/ the Hindu “Harmony in Diversity, Unity within oneself, with others, with God” next to the Inquisition, the Crusades, Native American genocide, African slavery, Nazi extermination, Japanese invasion, the Hindu caste system, the Muslim restrictions for women. For starters.)

 

I once saw a T-shirt that we all should consider wearing. It said:

 

“Religion. Together we can find a cure.”

 

Recently I’m noticing that instead of the mass hypnosis of organized religion as the normal state of humanity, all the baggage of shame, guilt, self-loathing, greed, environmental destruction, war and killing that previously was justified as God’s will now being recognizing for what it is. And even has a name and initials—RTS: Religious Trauma Syndrome.

 

That’s progress! Once we name something as a symptom of an avoidable and curable disease— or at least manageable— we have the hope of finally understanding how destructive and debilitating it can be to our individual human psyches and our collective welfare. We cannot understand or deal with or begin to change that which we have no language for, so just as the term “systemic racism” allows us to look at an ongoing historical pattern far beyond our personal bigotry, so does “religious trauma” give us the possibility of identifying the things that organized religion has done, does do, can do, that indeed qualifies as trauma. Though the sexual assaults within these religions and certain fringe cult brainwashing is part of that, the actual terms encompasses something much wider and indeed, built into the definition of much religious practice. 

 

The website www.therapist.com lists 10 symptoms of Religious Trauma Syndrome. And so from the 10 Commandments that purport to show us the normal and proper way to live that God revealed on Mt. Sinai, we now enter the next evolutionary stage where much of religion’s principles and practices are now a medical issue to be treated at Mt. Sinai Hospitals (and others) throughout the country. 

 

Read on.

Life's Big Questions

• What does the H. in “Jesus H. Christ!” stand for?

• Who invented kissing?

• Is there really a notable difference between an “atmospheric river” and a “helluva lotta rain!?”

• Is there a cure for religion?

• How is possible that Johann Sebastian Bach and Marjorie Taylor Greene are in the same species?

• Why did Rush Limbaugh say that “drug addiction is a choice, not a disease” and that “people who violate the law by doing drugs ought to be accused and ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up” and then got to go to a medical treatment center after confessing he was addicted to pain pills and procured them illegally  by “doctor shopping” to get multiple prescriptions, a crime punishable in Florida by five years in prison? (Charges were dropped when he agreed to get “help for his disease.”) 

• Why should I be surprised by this?

• Are there equivalent curses in Asian religions? (“Guatama H. Buddha!!”/ “Krishna damn it!”/ “What the reincarnation?!!”)

Just wondering

Where Am I?

Let’s play a little game. I go to a conference and the person who greets me at registration is trans. I go to a workshop with some 50 participants and 45 or so are black. I eat at a restaurant with folks who fill out the color wheel— Latinx, black, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Anglo and more. Some are gay, some straight, some young, some old. I never pass a single person carrying a gun. Everyone I meet has a smile, a warm greeting, an effortless friendliness and respect. 
I go to workshops on anti-racism and women's rights and walking to the park, pass a giant mural celebrating Women's Suffrage.

I have dinner with two former students from Colombia and hear how they were warmly welcomed by the local Orff chapter and the school communities where they began subbing before being offered jobs. One described a heartwarming story about his elementary students welcoming Afghani refuge kids— playing with them, teaching them English words, helping them find out how things worked in their new home. This Friday at the same school is Ukraine Day and other refugees will be teaching the American kids how to decorate Easter eggs. 

 

This is not the place the TV news shows and would have me believe. I do believe that the stories they tell are real and the distressing news they share indeed happened. But it's not the whole story. Why don't they show what I'm seeing here?

And why do so many fear this happy confluence of human beings? Why do some (too many!) seem hell-bent on restricting, kicking-out, hurting, hating anyone who threatens their sense of white supremacy? What stops them from understanding how much better it feels to welcome people rather than turn them away, how much easier it is to smile and talk with them than to sneer and curse at them, how much happier we can be if we just accept that we’re all together in the Great Human Project. Our goal is not only to survive— and with the challenges that face us, we will need all hands on deck—but to thrive. People who are nice to each other and feel people being nice to them are simply happier people. What’s the pay-off in making everyone miserable by not making the effort to meet and greet instead of beat and defeat? 

 

I often feel that if only everyone had the experience of actually living in a diverse culture like the one I’m describing, they could finally let go of all the ways they’ve been taught to fear, distrust and hate. They could see first-hand what a joy it is to dwell together in mutual kindness and refreshing diversity.

 

So back to the game. Where am I?

 

(Pause)

 

And the answer?

 

(Pause)

 

If you buy into the media portrayals (as I have even when I know better), you might be surprised.

 

(Pause)

 

Answer in small font below.

 

Texas.

Make Songs with Robots

Despite all the evidence that we human beings are a miserable, hurtful, hateful, sorry lot, I still celebrate the possibility that we can one day become the glorious, helpful, loving and inspiring species we were meant to be. That in fact, we already are— at least the people that I tend to meet and hang out with. 

 

So my whole life I’ve wondered why we’re hell-bent on replacing ourselves with cold, metallic, screened versions of ourselves. Why we have such disdain for the eloquence of the hand that we are forever dumbing it down, such lack of confidence in our intellectual capacity that we revere Smart-Boards and Smart-phones while creating increasingly dumber human beings, such disrespect for our sensory intelligence that we claim everything we need to know exists on screens devoid of smell, taste, texture. 

 

Here at the South X Southwest Educational Conference I actually went to two heart-warming humanistic sessions taught by live, engaging, interactive and soulful human beings. But to get there, I had to get on an elevator that now doesn’t even let you press the floor buttons inside, replacing it with an oh-so-clever-but-oh-so-unnecessary system of scanning your card outside the elevator, choosing the floor there, being directed to a lettered elevator that then stores the knowledge of which floor you want. I had to walk past a sign inviting me to make songs with robots and another asking me to join their excitement about Artificial Intelligence in education. I had to walk across the street where a self-driving car passed me by. I had a severely depressing conversation about the latest barbarity disguised as progress, the Chat GPT and then that same day, got an e-mail from a friend who had one write his bio. Again, oh so clever, but in the long run, not cool. Why are we in such a mad rush to replace ourselves?

 

A friend went to a session on Alexithimia, a psychological complex characterized by the inability to name or express emotion, to read emotional signals in other people. The next in a line of conditions that we create by living so poorly and then have to deal with the consequences through expensive therapies and drugs. We raise children on appliances and wonder why they can’t “play well with others.” 

 

I’m proud to say that I can name and express emotion and in the face of all the above It is, in short–

WTF???!!!!!!!!