The Pageless Book

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Hate is not natural. When I look at the natural world, I cannot find a single example of hate. Though the wolf feeds on rabbit, he bares no hatred towards rabbit-kind. Though hurricanes rip up trees by their roots and throw them miles from where they seeded, it is not due to some malice. The only example nature provides that comes close to hatred is the acts of a rabid animal. Even that pales in comparison to the depths at which a man who hates will go.

On Sunday, July 27th a man entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and opened fire on the congregation, killing two and wounding several others. Its no small consolation that none of the children who were putting on a play that Sunday are among those wounded . And what was his reason for doing something so senseless? According to a four page letter recovered by police, it was because he hates us. He hates the liberal religious movement of which we are a part. He hates that we welcome homosexuals and transsexuals openly. He hates it that we are so goddamn open minded!

The first and most powerful emotion I felt when I heard the news was anger. Sometimes I feel that anger is too close to hatred to be trusted. Anger is simply not an emotion that I deal with well and, from my point of view, it can be a hard emotion to reconcile with spirituality. However, anger is functional - anger is a healthy emotion, where as hate is dysfunctional. Hate drives men and women to commit atrocities that not only needlessly destroys the  lives of others, but destroys their own as well. Anger that is just and true, on the other hand, can preserve the life and well-being of others.

That is the anger of the members of the Tennessee Valley congregation who stepped forward to wrestle the shotgun out of the shooter’s hand - that anger is a just anger. That anger is why we keep fighting for the rights of gays and lesbians, fighting against the civil-rights violations of our own country and against human-rights violations where ever we find them. I must remember that is function of anger, and that my anger is just

Above Photo by Marcin Wichary. Photo Below by CBS Fan.

Recently, I had found this blog “90 Day Jane,” about a young woman who claimed that she would kill herself in 90 days. She wasn’t deathly ill or depressed - she was claiming to do this because life has no intrinsic meaning. She also claimed to be an atheist. Don’t bother to look for her blog, however… the whole thing was a hoax (excuse me, I meant “art project”) from the start and has been taken down. You can read more about it here.

There’s a lists of reasons longer than my arm as to why I’m disturbed by this recent non-event. First of all, there is the blatant abuse of suicide threats as means of entertainment. Having been suicidal before in my own life, I cannot begin to express how angry this makes me feel. There is also the matter of reinforcing the association between atheism and nihilism. While it may be true that most nihilists are also atheists, the reverse is not true. What most puzzles me, though, is that this even occurred to someone as being a good idea. Chuck Palahniuk and Hunter S. Thompson couldn’t ask for a better example of nihilism.

Why do I think that? Lets pretend for a moment that 90 Day Jane was really going to off herself in grand fashion on her own blog. She claims that her reason for doing this is to demonstrate the meaninglessness of existence. By advertising and making this public, she ironically gives meaning to her own existence - to serve as an example of nihilism. If someone can make their own meaning, that very act proves nihilism to be false. However, if this act becomes a mockery of itself it would serve only as twisted proof (however delusional) of the meaninglessness of existence. This is soundly accomplished through Jane’s half-hearted confession. This ordeal has all the offensiveness of a Nine Inch Nails video but none of the creativity.

It could be argued that I’m over reacting, and I very well may be. But I ask you, what else can you think of that is more of an affront to the principles of Unitarian Universalism? While I am tolerant and open minded, nihilism is not a philosophy that I can accept as being viable to live under or put into practice. It isn’t that I am afraid of the metaphorical abyss of nihilism; I’ve tread that edge before myself. No, I’ve just realized that it isn’t practical or useful. Never has it been said that reality had to be practical or useful, but our understanding of reality should be.

The only time I can think of when nihilism was acceptable is in the movie The Big Lebowski. Something about avowed nihilists beaten up by middle-aged bowlers strikes me as hilarious. If only nihilism was that easy to be rid of…

Above Photo by Señor Codo. Photo Below by Gabriel Agu.

I’ve noticed a tendency among members of liberal religions and other spiritual seekers to discount anger as an emotion that might accompany spiritual experiences. For those who believe that the Divine is perfect love, the idea of spiritual anger, also called righteousness, as being a valid spiritual expression seems misguided at best. However, it is our aversion to anger that is misguided; anger can be spiritual.

The first example that most individuals think of when asked about righteousness is the stereotypical fundamentalist preacher condemning one group of people or another for some minor infraction of biblical law. I would argue that this isn’t righteousness - it is hatred. Unlike legitimate anger which is open to listening to rational arguments, hatred is an extreme form of anger that no longer is bound by reason or conscience. As it is capable of horrible acts of violence and cruelty, rage is rightfully disdained.

Not all anger is hatred, nor can all anger be called righteousness. Anger over a small matter, such as being cut-off in traffic or being given bad service at a restaurant couldn’t be called righteousness with a straight face. So if mundane anger does not qualify was righteousness, what does qualify?

That question goes to the heart of what spirituality is about. Spirituality is nothing less than universal love. Whether we call the subject of that universal love God or something else, that love is the stuff of which spirituality is made. Righteousness, by extension, would be anger tempered by such a love.

What does righteousness look like? It looks like Dr. Martin Luther King speaking on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It looks like rainbow banners held by men and women marching for GLBT rights. And it looks like a gathering of young people wearing Guy Fawks masks outside of Scientology headquarters. This is righteousness in its most honest form - anger tempered by a love greater than any one individual.

Last week, I added my voice to that of other democrats in my state and voted for Barack Obama for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. While I could name and number the faults I find with Hillary Clinton, I voted the way I did not because I was voting against Senator Clinton. I voted for Obama because I saw in him something that I did not see in her; righteousness. He is angry over what has become of this country in this last decade, and yet his love for what this country has been - and can be again - guides his hand. We should all be so brave as to embody righteousness as he does.

There are dangers in righteousness; if you lose the humility that honest love demands, it becomes self righteousness - pretense to that deep spiritual anger. Yet I do not think that we, as a community, are at any risk to losing our humility. I think we can and should risk more of ourselves by expressing our righteousness more than we do currently. It is a part of our spiritual truth and our responsibility to each other.