A virtual friend posted the beatitudes early this morning and I was grateful. I literally hadn’t thought about them lately. I realized how much this teaching from our belovèd rabbi reaches me, teaches me, and means so much to me.

I actually had an epiphany. There is something very unsettling, not about them, but about the rest of it as compared to them. I could never explain it clearly. I’ve always known but also didn’t know just what it was.

I had a moment of clarity. I almost posted a blithe one-sentence ‘comment’ to that post. It was my impulse. It would have been so easy. I’ve done things like this in the past. Something that might seem so clear and ring so obvious a bell to me can readily look opposite sitting out there naked and exposed. And that’s not to mention completely out-of-context. Certainly it would have been markedly opposed to all ‘reasonable’ expectations as to appropriateness and aptness.

Yet to me it would have been clear. It would have been brutally honest. It would have short-cut carried so much clarity of sincere meaning and devotion.

And I’m so glad I didn’t. Not that I regret all the other times I have done similar to this (or exactly this). I always know what I mean.

I will post that actual one-line blithe response to reflect the clarity of my epiphany at the end of this ‘essay’. It is just possible that my meaning and devotional admiration might well be clear (after the context of all this explanation). It should also be crystal clear why such remarks by me cause such ruckus. It should be readily demonstrated that constraint and timely silence is very valuable and works wonders.

Meanwhile, I’m going to ramble away with my explanations. None of this is truly “planned”. And I don’t have to do it, but I want to. I want to demonstrate that I do want to be proactive and take measures needed to be understood in the hopes that I might impart an unexpected level of enlightenment on someone where I would instead have seemed to have sowed discord. I honestly think that, because of the way my mind processes, and because of the lack of skill I have in responding to things that resonate me, people simply think I take special glee in causing discord. It is far from true.

Most times that people (meaning me) take the time to explain something, it is in give-and-take ‘answer’ to something. They (I) can easily and readily come across as “defensive”. By taking the initiative to present this proactively – however unsolicited – as I have, I can also possibly add to healthy dialogue and present my devotional sentiments in some unattached way. I truly have no dog in no fight [sic]. I feel great that I’m not being defensive – as I know I would have been had I been explaining this after the post and the repercussions.

Now, I’m in the territory of “what the hell is he talking about?” again. So, I’ll try and keep this brief and to the point that I originally intended this ‘confessional’ to be. None of the above was truly planned or intended, as pregnant as it is. I’m just sitting here listening to the very boring NFL draft and freelance writing as I bide time. My hopes, as usual, are to be helpful, to serve, to advance understanding, believe it or not. Or else, don’t believe me. Okay. Focus.

My posting my epiphany would not have come across well.

I would have ‘apparently’ ‘high-jacked’ someone’s post with ‘hurtful’ ‘sarcasm’.

Feelings would have been immediately hurt. I would have been questioned pretty quickly. Had I not been around to assure quickly that no, I am not contradicting the sentiment, the original poster would have been quite offended and ‘defended’ by a supportive coterie of others very offended at my rudeness.

People would have been shocked at my brazen twisting of innocent goodness.

I would have gotten some attack for being so angry and for straying from and squandering my good upbringing.

(Those latter two have actually happened more often than I ever would ever have liked).

And for the five or so people who reacted, an unknown ‘multiplier’ factor of many times more silent judgers would have been incensed at my hate.

You might think this is some exaggeration. I assure that maybe it is not.

I would have fixed it, of course. But fixing lasting impressions and the once-again-met expectations of let-down is not necessarily as fixable as one might hope it is. I would, though, have assuaged and soothed. Time has a way of healing all wounds – or, as John Lennon has famously said: of wounding all heels!

So there is a bridge. There is water. See the water flow. From that vantage it is water under the bridge.

But this is fundamentally what I really mean when considering the beatitudes: to me they are the essence of religion. They are the essence of faith in Christ. They capture the mystic reality of what this human fellow, Jesus, was truly about. The beatitudes are as different from the rest of the New Testament as could be. The rest is a mess. A big conservative political mess. The beatitudes are all one needs. The beatitudes are where it’s at, in my estimation. Nothing else matters. And intercourse if it did.

The beatitudes and the rest of the New Testament are as strangely different and opposite of what the masses understand as is the “Song of Songs” within context of the Old Testament. You get the sense of “where the heck did this come from?!” You may axe yourself, “how did he get this?” “Song of Songs”, of course, when one examines it in close literature study, is a sensual feminist writing. It couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to the male-dominate, woman belittling, woman discounting, woman controlling material that surrounds it than is clear, cool water from a barren desert of dry waterless sands. Look for anything sensual in the rest of the Old Testament and all you’ll find is the conquest fantasy of misogyny. Look it up. Read it in context. It is all rapine property ownership. This is a far cry from anything celebratory or feminist at all. It is what it is. But do note this too: “Song of Songs” does also convey and slyly disclose the narrative of misogynist reactive action, with commensurate understated lament.

As is the comparison of barren desert and cool, clear water is also the comparison of beatitudes with the rest of the New Testament material. At least in my experience and intuition. Say I’m deluded. Say I’m mistaken. But don’t question my sincerity. Don’t knock my devotion. Now, there are indeed some other good mystical materials. They are hit and miss. The mysticism of the Book of John and the infinitesimal true part of Paul’s actual mystical experience are things of beauty. But the good parts are like flecks of true gold in mounds and mounds and mounds of worthless dirt. The Book of John is infused with mendacious anti-Semitism. The Paul material is both co-opted and politically re-told and written over, re-written and ghost-written. It is conservatively supportive of political empire to a degree deliberately denied in favor of a fever-dream of “the world is out to get us” martyr-mongering and highly political fear-mongering. There is way more faux-Paul than you think there is. I’m not here to argue. I simply love the beatitudes and I am content to find ALL of my religion in them. I truly see Christ in them. (And in the mysticism, literally and figuratively).

So that’s that. My impulse [non] post:

Not blessèd are the conservatives