Hopeful Thinking

Face it. Deep down we are all voyeurs. We love to know what’s going on in people's bedrooms, their bank accounts, their relationships, and within the intimate details of their private lives. The advent of social media and reality television are great indicators of our desire to be supremely nosy. Early progenitors of today’s reality television began as far back as the 1940s with programs like Queen for a Day and Candid Camera. These shows offered glimpses into the private lives of regular, everyday Americans which viewers absolutely devoured. In the early 1970’s, the newly formed Public Broadcasting Service aired a series named An American Family documenting a real family going through a real and painful divorce, thus launching the first example of modern reality television programming. Critics of the series were careful to note that the presence of cameras intruding into the lives of these seven people automatically fostered a contrived reality at best. Pointing to a phen...

I wonder about something. Is there really more hatred in the world now, or are we just seeing more of it? Because I am suspicious about things like hate. I am suspicious of the conclusion that seeing more hate means there are more people who feel hatred. What does it take for you to be transformed from loving someone to hating them? What about from being welcoming to a whole group of people to excluding them? I realize that hate can be learned under certain circumstances, but are these those? The fact is, it’s quite difficult to change a person from one who is perfectly comfortable with the multicolored reality of humanity to someone who suddenly and violently resists it. Of course there are a few; there are exceptions to everything. But by and large, it is quite difficult to make a loving person into a hating one. This is mostly by virtue of the fact that love is easier, and once we find it, we tend to keep it. What I’m proposing here is that hate may feel emboldened righ...

What does it feel like to bang your head against a wall? Does it hurt? Assuming the answer is yes, why do we keep doing it? I love the old maxim which defines the word “crazy” as doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. And yet we do that all the time. In love, we are constantly finding ourselves in this mode. In work, in friendships, in our life’s ambitions, we are taught that we must keep pushing forward. Keep pushing, keep striving, never give up. It’s good advice to a degree. But a bit of finesse is warranted. The danger is in pushing so hard you fall over, or worse, get nowhere. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was king of Ephyra. He was a horrible man. Arrogant, deceitful, ambitious and homicidal. He did everything he could to push against the world and the tide of human progress in favor of his own ego and comfort. He even caused death itself to temporarily cease after he tricked Hades into chaining himself to the underworld. Tempting the wrat...

            Though we have many influences, I wouldn’t exactly say we take Christianity lightly in this congregation. It is treated with respect, of course, but many of us look at any organized religion with a wary eye. We know better than to take religion lightly when there are so many in the world with such strong, even violent ideas about it. But I find myself occasionally compelled to take some of what Christianity says about itself in one area to debate things it says about itself in others. None of this message is intended to sway or convince anyone, either toward or away, from any of the claims made within Christianity. Those are matters of personal faith. But there is still wisdom to be found in the Bible, as in all sacred texts. If we strip away what we’ve been told, if we simply look at the text for ourselves, and ignore the centuries of commentary and propaganda we’ve been told about it, we’d realize a number of things. Such as t...

Sometimes we need physical tokens which are emblematic to our concerns or desires. If we need a bit of luck we often tend to carry a physical symbol of that desire around with us. A little worry stone, a feather, a prayer card. A lock of hair. Gruesome as it sounds in retrospect, I had many a “lucky” rabbit’s foot in my pocket as a child. They were the actual chopped off feet of rabbits. Each with a brassy cap covering the end of the bone, its fur still intact, dyed in various festive jewel tones which served to only further decorated the horror rather than attempt to disguise it. We used to joke, “Not so lucky for the rabbit!” When I was stressed I would comfort myself with the softness of the little bit of fur in my pocket. For some strange reason, even though I am sensitive enough about things like that to prefer my chicken boneless, I still loved those little rabbits’ feet. I truly believed they brought me luck and protection. Nearly all of us are superstitious in one way ...

My grandmother used to say that if you want a wart on your hand to go away, hide your mother’s dish towel. I’ve never had a wart on my hand, so I’ve never found myself with a need to apply that bizarre technique. But I’ve always wondered about the origin of old superstitions. There are other versions of the myth as well. In some research I found mention of rubbing the wart with a dish towel that has been stolen from either one’s mother or a neighbor. It went on to suggest ripping the towel in half and throwing it over one’s shoulder to make the wart disappear. Of course this method is not likely to actually remove a wart in and of itself. But it makes me wonder about the power and purpose of our superstitions. I tend to assume that there is a purpose (and perhaps even a bit of truth) behind some of these strange bits of folk medicine. The placebo effect comes to mind as a way that strange remedies become pseudo-medical treatments over time. How much we participate in the belief ...