|
By John T. Crestwell, Jr.
October 13, 2002
It is always a wonderful
experience for me to preach and share with you as a Unitarian
Universalist. In my not so distant past, it was not recommended that
I extrapolate from too many sources when I speak without bringing
parishioners back to Bible, as the final word. This was considered
sound theological homiletics.
Well, I don’t know about that… Today, I am very pleased to be
sharing with you, NOT from the book of Amos or Isaiah or Job, or
Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, rather from the book of Daniel Quinn,
titled “Ishmael an Adventure of the Mind and Spirit.” (link to
Daniel Quinn's official Ishmael web site)
So this morning, allow me to be creative, allow for some hyperbole,
allow me to connect with you theologically and philosophically, as I
share with you a fictional story that has an interesting message…
One last note: this is the abridged version of the story so, for
those of you who’ve read the book, I will not be able to utilize and
show many of the intricacies you’ve read, that Quinn uses in telling
this story, but I hope to keep in the spirit of what he conveys.
Okay…
The setting for our adventure is just like any other day on our
planet. Our main character, that is not named, is perusing his local
paper when he comes across a very interesting ad that read:
“TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL. MUST HAVE AN EARNEST DESIRE TO SAVE THE WORLD.
APPLY IN PERSON.”
Only an idealist, I guess, would have the audacity and sheer
boldness to answer an ad like this, I couldn’t do it. I would think
that the first thing that I’d do when I got there was to be offered
a glass of kool aid (grape flavor) if you know what I mean. Anyway…
I know our character’s demographic and psychographic profile is not
Protestant because Christians are waiting on the next world and not
interested in saving this one (I’m being a bit sarcastic). I know
he’s not Buddhist because Buddhism focuses on the self more than
society. He’s not Catholic because he would have to ask the Pope’s
permission to save the world (smile). So, I am guessing that our
character could quite possibly be a Unitarian Universalist.
We can infer that this character is like many of us. He was a
product of the sixties, one who hoped that his social action as a
youngster would somehow manifest into a real and lasting peace in
the 70’s, 80’s and beyond. But he had, like some of us, lost his
zeal and optimism. He had become a pessimist when thinking about
world peace and in his ability to create positive change. So he is
curious to find out what sort of quack would place such an
idealistic, hopeful ad in the newspaper. More than anything, he was
curious to find out who this, what he might call, a con artist, was
up to. For sure this person was robbing people out of their hard
earned dollars by selling false hope. Or maybe, just maybe (his
heart talking now) this person really has something to share?
So he goes on a quest and goes to an office building, somewhere in
town, where the ad told him to go. He finds a very plain building
with nothing extraordinary except a very musky smell. He looks
around the room and is not impressed at all by the décor. He sees
many things that show that teaching is occurring there, particularly
a chair with small mats around, of course, this is the place the
guru would teach his disciples, like the Buddha or Jesus. He finds
his way to a mirror and looks in it, for no known reason, only to
discover that he’s looking through a mirror at some powerful eyes.
These eyes are piercing eyes. The smell of the room and these
engaging eyes reveal to him that he is looking at a gorilla behind
the glass wall. This ‘aint no ordinary gorilla. This is a gorilla’s
gorilla. If any of you have seen a silverback in the zoo, you see an
animal that is massive, powerful and just below the human cognitive
realm; a beautiful thing to see, indeed. And yet it is sad to see
them caged and not free.
Our character’s eyes then gaze upon a poster above the glass wall
that reads: WITH MAN GONE, WILL THERE BE HOPE FOR GORILLA?
He thinks to himself, “this is a sick joke and someone is trying to
make some sort of weird philosophical or political statement. I
should call someone and have this beast freed right now!” He pauses
to think when he catches the gorilla’s eyes again. He hears a voice,
“relax”. He responds, “Did I just hear something that I don’t think
was me?” He hears a voice again. “You’re not crazy”. He thinks to
himself “My God, the gorilla is communicating with me?” “Yes I am”
he hears in his head. Suddenly, he thought sarcastically, “Well I
guess the next thing I’m going to hear is you’re my teacher. I gotta
stop eating late.” The answer came back to him in the affirmative as
the gorilla nodded in agreement confirming to our character that he
was really the teacher, the guru who placed the ad in the paper!
Thus begins a very interesting several days where our character is
taught many lessons by a gorilla whose name, we learn later, is
Ishmael.
Okay, I’m taking a commercial break… I don’t want to totally spoil a
good read for you so I want to get to the meat of the story. But
first I’ve got to establish a few connections, hang with me as I
digress.
First digression, the title of the book is “Ishmael”. This as many
of you may know, comes to us by way of biblical mythology. The story
where Abraham is convinced, by his wife Sarah, to send away his
“illegitimate” son, Ishmael, whom Abraham conceived with Sarah’s
hand-maiden Hagar, at Sarah’s request. Sarah, all her life, could
not produce children, but one day, miraculously, she gave birth to
Isaac. Now, because he was their “legitimate” son, Isaac usurped
Ishmael’s place, his position as heir. Isaac, as the story goes, was
now the inheritor of God’s covenant with Abraham, an eternal
covenant that would produce David and Jesus. But the point is,
Ishmael was sent away. He was rejected. He was taken out, taken
over, and never recognized as a major player in the Bible again. The
story changed. The story changed!
Now, second digression, there’s this talking gorilla sage who
represents, as I see it, primitive evolving humanity. Not the
humanity that builds tall buildings, computers and trucks—not that
humanity, but hunting and gathering humans who ate what they killed.
They lived of the land; picked and ate berries; grabbed figs from
the tree. So the gorilla represents the primitive, hunter-gatherers.
Remember that…
Back to the story…
So, our character looks at Ishmael and asks, “What is it that you
want to teach me gorilla? I would love to save the world. But if
you’re going to tell me to love everybody and just be happy, or give
everybody a ‘Coke and a smile’, I’m going home to see a shrink.”
Ishmael looks at him, almost testing him, and says, “What I want to
teach you, you don’t want to hear.” Our character says, “Oh yes… I
want to hear it!” Ishmael responds, “You want the truth?” Our
character says, “Yes I want the truth. I wouldn’t be here
otherwise!” Ishmael fires back, “You and your culture can’t handle
the truth! I’m about to tell you what no ear wants to hear, what no
eye wants to see, what no hand wants to touch, what you do not want
to understand in your human mind.” Almost without a pause Ishmael
continues, “YOU AND YOUR CULTURE ARE DEAFENED BY THE NOISE OF WHAT
YOU WANT TO HEAR EVERYDAY & IT’S ON TELEVISION, RADIO, IN PRINT, ON
THE INTERNET, IT’S PERVASIVE WITH YOU PEOPLE!” Ishmael said the “you
people” thing. He was not politically correct (smile).
So, our character says, “What is pervasive?” Ishmael says, “MOTHER
CULTURE.” Our character says, “What’s is Mother Culture?” Ishmael
responds, “MOTHER CULTURE IS A QUIET VOICE THAT MOVES YOUR WHOLE
SOCIETY. MOTHER CULTURE INCLUDES EVERYTHING IN YOUR EXISTENCE THAT
PERPETUATES A MENTALITY OF DOMINATION AND DOMINION. LIKE WHEN YOU
HUMANS ATTEMPT TO NARCISISTICALLY CONTROL LIFE IN SUCH A WAY THAT
YOU ATTEMPT TO PUT NATURE AT YOUR FEET. YOU LIVE AND BREATHE AND EAT
AN ATTITUDE THAT THE EARTH IS YOURS AND THE FULLNESS THEREOF. YET
YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE. YOU KILL HUNDREDS OF SPECIES
EVERYDAY. YOU SACRIFICE TOO MANY LIVING ORGANISMS AT THE EXPENSE OF
YOUR LIFE! YOU LIVE TO MASTER THE EARTH, AND DO NOT SEE THAT THE
EARTH IS YOUR MASTER. WHAT BEFALLS THE EARTH BEFALLS YOU. AND YOU DO
NOT SEE IT BECAUSE YOU ARE BLINDED BY MOTHER CULTURE’S STILL SMALL
VOICE. BUT IT IS A POWERFUL VOICE INDEED, THAT SAYS, ‘I CREATED YOU
IN MY IMAGE. YOU ARE MY CHOSEN. SUBDUE THE EARTH. CULTIVATE THE
LAND. CONTROL IT—CONQUER, CONQUER, CONQUER. YOUR PEOPLE ARE CAPTIVES
OF A STORY!’”
That was all our character could handle that day so Ishmael
continued on another day…
“… MOTHER CULTURE IS/ARE YOUR MYTHS. THESE ARE THE MYTHS THAT
SLAUGHTERED THE NATIVE AMERICANS; THE MYTHS THAT KILLED MANY
AFRICANS, JAPANESE, AND JEWS. YOUR MYTHS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR WIPING
OUT THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES FROM NEARLY ALL THE EARTH. THERE ARE
PEOPLE WHO EXIST IN YOUR WORLD WHO ARE THE FORGOTTEN. LIKE HAGAR’S
SON, THEY ARE NOT A PART OF THE STORY ANY LONGER! THEY EXIST IN
REMOTE PLACES, EXOTIC LOCATIONS ND THEY STILL HUNT AND GATHER.”
Ishmael continued on still another day…
“Your myth of existence is based on a biblical construct, like the
story of Cain and Abel. You know it… Cain usurps Abel’s power as
God’s favorite, by killing him. Your theology teaches you that this
is humankind’s first murder. The myth is much bigger than that!
Cain, which in Hebrew means, “to acquire or create” was a farmer, an
agriculturalist, called the ‘tiller of the ground.’ His job is to
control land.
Abel was keeper of sheep, the Sheppard, who represents
hunter-gatherer peoples. Cain killed Abel. Thus, what you have is a
dichotomy between agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers. But most
hunter-gatherers, most Abel’s are gone, save a few places, due to
the aggression of you and your ancestors. Yours is a society of
Cain’s, a society of agriculturalists. Yours is a society of
‘Isaac’s’ who, maybe not purposely, changed the world from one way
of living to another.
|
