Religion and Politics

Bosom Buddies? Or a Deadly Mix?

             I recently read The First Muslim, a Norfolk Public Library book on the life of Mohammed. The author, Lesley Hazleton, is a mid-eastern religions scholar and a self-described agnostic Jew. As I read her book, though, I guessed wrongly that she must be Muslim. Her writing seems to glow warmly around the Prophet in his life-long struggles and accomplishments.

            Orphaned at a young age, he made his way as a camel boy, tending to the beasts of burden in caravans of merchants who traded in goods across the prosperous, seventh-century Mideast. He learned a lot about the ways of the world from that experience.

            Later, he had a life-altering encounter with God, and he became a prophet, soon gathering followers while also making enemies of those who feared or scorned his message. Yet despite the many insults, rebuffs, and persecutions that came his way, he practiced non-violence and expected his followers to do the same.

            As his reputation as a prophet grew, his followers became the majority in the area around the city of Medina, and Mohammed rose from among them as a political leader in a culture where religion and politics were not separate. As his influence grew, he abandoned his earlier non-violent philosophy and became the commander-in-chief of a tribal-like body which engaged in wars with neighboring tribal powers.

            I always thought it was uninformed hearsay that Mohammed’s Muslim armies killed their defeated enemies if they refused to convert. But apparently, with Mohammed’s blessing, it did happen on a few occasions.

            I’m not used to thinking of religious founders in that way. My own spiritual heroes—Jesus and Buddha but also Yogananda, Baba Ji, and others—teach pacifism in the highest sense of that word. They avoid getting involved in politics, despite the temptation to do so.

            This made me think about religion as a form of politics. It’s been that way, of course, for most of history, but it’s not supposed to be that way in the United States. With church and state separate, non-violence and other spiritual behaviors can become competing ideas in society. But if church and state are joined, there’s a danger that there will be no moral check on power, and with unchecked power comes oppression, at least according to the history I remember from school. Forcing another to confess belief in your religion or face ostracism, persecution, or even death is a definite form of oppression.

            I then began to wonder if it often happens that people lose their idealism, if not even their spiritual direction, when they gain or attempt to gain power of a political kind. The most renowned spiritual teachers tell us the world is just a dream. Why do so many, including spiritual leaders, tend to get lost in the politics of it?

            I think they yield to the siren song of power, which is linked to a number of human vanities but stands by itself as the most dangerous because it encompasses them all. In our world with its dominant paradigm of violence, knowing how to exert power with wisdom, justice, and mercy is a blessed attribute rarely found or taught.

            Perhaps we’re meant to discover it for ourselves.

 

 

Stuck in Traffic

A Serious Case of Over-Drive

             “Stuck in traffic” is so common here in Hampton Roads, VA, that no one is ever surprised if you’re late. Late is normal, especially for people who have to take one of the tunnels to get where they’re going. Tunnel traffic backs up almost every day. I don’t see how the thousands of people can stand it who have to go through the tunnels to get to work.

            Call me small town, I guess. Yesterday I had a poetry gig in Newport News. I live in Norfolk. That means I had to take the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel across the Chesapeake Bay to get to my destination. Traffic was heavy but not congested, which means that most people drive over 65 mph in a speed zone posted at 55. I’m not comfortable with that and neither is my ‘97 Chevy Cavalier. We’re trying to extend our time together, so I hold my speed at 60, give or take a few.

            Meanwhile, traffic whizzes by me like I’m standing still. Lanes I’m driving in suddenly disappear, forcing me to merge with the speeding cars coming up from behind. I don’t drive that much on the expressways, and frankly it’s a little like a scary acid trip until I get the hang of it.

            But it wasn’t the speed that stood out for me the most yesterday. It was the spectacle of no movement at all.

            Jala and I were coming back from my gig at about 4 p.m. We ran into only one patch of congestion where we had to creep and crawl for a few miles. I considered that really good luck and was thankful for it.

            As we reached the tunnel, however, I thought I caught sight of traffic standing still in the northbound lanes coming out of Norfolk. “Uh-oh,” I thought, and when we emerged on the other side of the tunnel I saw it was true. The west-bound lanes were standing still for miles. (To see what I mean, click here and view photos published in the Virginian Pilot.)

            “That looks like hell over there,” I said to Jala. “And people do this every day.”

            And we mentioned people we know who do.

            “It’s not sustainable,” I said, imagining even more cars in time to come as population continues to grow. Politicians vote to build more roads to accommodate the commerce, but more roads bring more cars, more greenhouse gases, more climate change. I don’t really see a way out of these spiraling conditions except to keep my business as close to home as I can.

           Face it, “stuck in traffic” has become part of the American way of life, of which Hampton Roads is a typical example. To me, it’s sort of a nightmare, but I don’t know what to do to wake up from it. I’m not an engineer or a scientist or a city planner, and I have to make a living and run my errands, too.

            But I feel for the people who are stuck in traffic day after day after day. I don’t imagine there are many who enjoy that. I do imagine that great numbers of restless people stuck in traffic can create a collective force field of impatience and anger, which in turn makes our roadways toxic, and not just from exhaust fumes.

            I hate to say it was better in the old days, but to me it was. I enjoyed driving. Now I feel vulnerable on the main roads and highways and exasperated at the frequent back-ups. Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s because I’m not used to driving on the expressways that much, maybe it’s that there are so many more cars on the road than there used to be. Whatever the reason, I think the so-called American Way of Life is over-developed and unsustainable. It’s got a serious case of over-drive, and we don’t seem able or willing to make the basic changes necessary to get healthy again unless a lot more people become content enough—or poor enough—to just stay at home.

            The cost to our society of our much-touted mobility has become too high.