Category Archives: Christian fundamentalism

The Altar Call.

July 29, 2016Christian fundamentalism, Christianity, civic commentary, commentary, drama, human behavior, political commentary, psychology, social commentary, sociology, Uncategorized2016 Presidential campaign corruption, Clinton, criminal minds, Holy Spirit, the Gospel, THE HUFFINGTON POST, the political gospel, Trump, Woody Allenruth ann scanzillo

Well.

Woody Allen is a brilliant storyteller, screenwriter, and director.
And, he’s probably, on some level, a criminal.
Yet, I still love the body of his creative work.
(I mean, seriously. His insights, into American character and human relationship ?) …there is none like him, no; not one.

And, I cannot justify that love. Not with law. Not with anything.
It’s unjustifiable.

Likewise, Hillary Clinton may be guilty. Of many things. So, also, might Donald Trump. Who am I to say?

Speaking only for myself, I must acknowledge that I cannot know.

I can, however, acknowledge that, across all systems in this world of marketing and promotion, there is a level of player, in an anonymous strata, that stops at nothing. It stops at nothing, in the act of promoting its figurehead, grasping, in the hopes of some reward or recompense or even personal advancement. And, through that window of possibility, greed and corruption drop their fecalith. And, in that hardened piece of excrement, a seed is carried. That seed finds soil, and takes root. And, what grows can defy both expectation and imagination.

Now, I also grew up bathed in the shimmer and aura of the Gospel preacher. I learned to believe that the words which poured from the mouth of the great orator were practically inspired by God. I learned to fear the presence of the Holy Spirit, descending upon the throng. And, I learned to shudder, deep within my soul, at the power of the words themselves.

As Americans we’ve all, if our minds were truly unbiased and open, heard the two political gospels this month: the gospel of Trump, and the gospel of Clinton. And, all the little henchpeople, exploited or no, in between. I just hope that God preserves our individual capacities for comprehension, reason, and clarity of thought long enough for us to make our very powerful decisions, each of us distinctly, when the time appointed arrives. May we consider all of our choices both wisely, and informatively, with prudence, humility, and internal calm, for the next rightful leader of the free world. And, if we cannot, then I pray God Almighty makes the next move on our behalf. Lord knows, we’ve never needed Providence like we do now.

littlebarefeetblog.com

Name It.

May 15, 2016arts education, Christian fundamentalism, classical music, humor, musicians, performance, psychology, sectarian Fundamentalism, social behavior, social commentary, sociology, UncategorizedAwakening Your Fearless Heart, branding, Harvard health letter, junk mail, mindfulness, naming the daemon, naming the fear, pack rats, Tara Brach, The Music Man Fredonia State University 2016, yin and yangruth ann scanzillo

Last evening. Yet another Friday night.

The debut of a university chamber orchestra. A big band. And, “The Music Man”, in concert.

Having failed to mark not one, but all three really worthy performance events on her calendar, she’d found herself in the kitchen – occupied with the contents of a voluminous, stale smelling cardboard box overflowing with charity collectors, mail order catalogs, medical documents, and receipts, material to which she would affectionately refer in disclaimer to visitors as her “household flammables”. And, emanating from the laptop, mounted on a chair to her left: Tara Brach’s podcast, Awakening Your Fearless Heart.

The latter being the primary intention, this belated sorting was a manifestation of necessary yang to Tara Brach’s yin; and, on this night, she’d forsaken a majority of her colleagues’ live musical offerings to position herself at home, as mediator.

Her house was a load, a prohibitively inhospitable space cyclically overtaken by stuff which could ignite in a heartbeat. These people who had long since graduated to online banking, online mailing, and online purchasing had left her in the awe of their wake. She was a pack rat, the residue of a generation doomed to save.

As she sat, self-righteously separating out the home improvement brochures from their neighboring Harvard health letters she attuned to Tara, who was underscoring these efforts with measured, modulated monikers for successful triumph over human failing.

Be Mindful. Be Present. Name the feeling; know the Fear. Call it out.

She knew what to call it.

You don’t begin life in the shadow of a much older sibling who happens to be male, the only daughter of two parents with diametrically opposed needs (inheriting the lion’s share of their strengths and weaknesses ) without learning to expect equal parts indoctrination, condemnation, and exploitation.

She knew fear. Knew it viscerally, in the cinematic mind inherited from her father, colored by the surefire flames of Hell and the rapturous hope of the heavenlies. She knew it in the sectarian dogma to which her mother had dutifully ascribed, pinning and then initiating her headlong into the warm fellowship of jealousy, envy, gossip, and slander. After all, if “come out from among them, and be ye separate, touching not the unclean thing” was the dicta, then surely all those found either haplessly or willfully just outside of the gate were of all things most contaminated and worthy of immediate rejection.

Decades hence, she would be the master of branding. She would know, in a millisecond, which sin-laden emotion drove any action – in both herself and, formidably, others. She’d learned at the feet of the Sunday School teacher, and the Gospel preacher, and the demons that left prints on all their glass houses. Tara Brach’s multi-headed gargoyle deities would have nothing on her scary story.

But, the guru of inherent good would not be moved – not by anyone’s notions of self-defeat. Brach, too, sat, presiding at a podium, smiling out across the unseen throng of attending participants and, in tones barely penetrating, gently gathered them all into direct self-confrontation.

She wasn’t at all sure she’d wanted a fight, that night. Trauma wasn’t something to be addressed in adherence to some syllabus. You didn’t relive its destabilizing pain in a conference room, or even a warmly lit kitchen. Only God as Infinite Wisdom would have known the protective power in a box of junk mail on any other evening.

Her recognition came in a flood. She allowed it. Inspecting, she both identified and then freely detached.

Anger at being displaced in musical collaborations was supplanted by her own creative efforts. Fear of being left out was diffused by the comforting company of her imagination. In short, by being present in the moment, recognizing her primary motivations, allowing their validity, inspecting them for corrupting influences, and finally submitting to the greater consciousness, she was liberated. Liberated, to clean the kitchen on a night when half the population was sitting in somebody else’s audience.

But, missing “The Music Man” ?

Regret. Transcending even guilt.

Ye Gods.

littlebarefeetblog.com

“The Rifleman.”

February 20, 2016Christian fundamentalism, family history, gratitude, healing, love, nostalgia, relationships, sociology, tributes, Tv seriesChuck Connors, gratitude, Johnny Crawford, memories of dad, memories of family, metamessages, old Tv westerns, single dads, single fathers, The Billy Graham Crusade, The Riflemanruth ann scanzillo

[ *Warning: Ghost writers prohibited from this property.]

The Rifleman is playing re-runs on AMC.

As a young girl, I refused to miss a single episode of this black and white.

We had no television in our house, but my aunt Dora Mae had a small one that she’d acquired through a rental during the moon landing. Mum worked in the machine shop on Wednesdays, so I would milk-flavored tomato soup lunch over Art Fleming’s “Jeopardy” at my aunt’s linen-clothed diningroom table, right across from the silver tea set sitting on the server, the tv nesting in the corner by the window. After school, she’d let me return, to watch my Rifleman while she prepared supper.

The duality in my nature manifest early on. I loved Chuck Connors inner strength, steely jaw, and protective care over his adopted son, played by Johnny Crawford. Because, you see, I also adored that boy. Reaching puberty, did I not deface the corral style cedar fence of a nearby neighbor with indelible scratches: “[ my name ] + Johnny Crawford”. Were any such pre-teen to destroy my own property like this today, I’d have likely already taken an entire family to court.

Funny, how our perceptions change over time, informed by experience. The Rifleman, adopting this sweet little Mexican. Now, the metamessage suggests far more than just affection for a child. Perhaps this boy was the strapping rancher’s own, the mother no longer able or even alive to care for him?

What strikes me most is the suggestion of my own father’s stories of his childhood. Also a slight, wiry, brown skinned boy, he had neither father nor mother to speak of, being tossed from foster care to the Massachusetts orphan’s home. How he would have welcomed a single parent “Paw” like Chuck Connors, equally as proud and mutually respectful.

Johnny Crawford grew beyond the old western series, to star in an evangelical film sponsored by the Billy Graham Crusade. I was over the moon that my childhood crush had “found Christ”, and followed a path that would have forgiven me even the devotion of my neighborhood vandalism.

Am enjoying these memories, on a Saturday morning that promises an end to yet another heavy winter. They layer like pastry, one fine strata at a time, sending my thoughts across the vista of a past sown with the richest seeds of gratitude.

littlebarefeetblog.com