Empty yourself of everything

Let the mind rest at peace.

The ten thousand things rise and fall while the self watches them return.

They grow and flourish and then return to the source.

Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.

The way of nature is unchanging.

Knowing constancy is insight.

Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.

Knowing constancy, the mind is open.

With an open mind you will be open hearted.

Being open hearted, you will act royally.

Being royal you will attain the devine.

Being devine you will be at one with the Tao.

Being at one with the Tao is eternal.

And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.

Tao Te Ching (Ch-16)

Let us pray.  How many thousands of times have I heard that phrase. You know I use to catch religious radio shows in the old days. By accident.

I will never forget the prelaw party my buddy Willard put together back in 1971. He happened to know three or four others who had been accepted to law school the only 'day' law school in the state with only 209 openings.

Someone brought liquid opium and Willard had the weed. There was beer and it was going to be heaven. His mommy was gone so he had the house to himself. A great stereo system.

Now I got to go back a little in order to put all this in proper context. I never liked weed, unless it was tobacco weed. MJ did nothing to me.  Of course I look back now and the biggest problem I had in my life was noise. Too much noise in my head. I would try praying as a boy and later meditation. I could never, or almost never get rid of the noise.

People like Willard reacted to good THC and the noise went away. Did not work for me. All through college everybody had weed. Or so it seemed.

But Frank started dunking a couple joints in that opium and I am telling you, all my noise went away.

Later on I wanted to get into the act, not really being myself, and of course dumped the brackish liquid on the white carpeting.  I do not think I saw much of Willard after that night.

At any rate, the others left earlier and I think there were just the three of us felons, and Willard decided to get us to other music. So he is turning the dial--we had dials in those days--and all of a sudden there was this deep southern voice coming out of the stereo:

Hold it. Hold it. Do not touch that dial. Folks three hippy commies smoking dope and preparing to sin even more have just tuned in.

Don't touch that dial boys.

I mean, we are laughing so hard. Uncontrollably.  It was so funny.

See in those days, the radio programs would have these 'ministers' on the air doing magic tricks.

I see a woman in Cleveland who is receiving surgery tomorrow, surgery on her left knee. We must pray for her.

And sure enough some lady from Cleveland would call in and talk about her pending surgery.

It's like that seer who used to have his own show talking to ghosts in the audience. 

Some lady took this so far that she speaks with your dead pets for you.

All kind of harmless really.  It sells soap and everybody leaves happier thinking grandpa is feeling better in heaven and smoochy the dead poodle is getting in some good runs during the day.

Then Pat Robertson and all these fake shamans saw that they could make a lot of money. And they turned the whole damn show into a money-making machine and added the political angle and they were off and running. TAX FREE.And they took note of a Father Coughlin from the thirties.

Father Coughlin was doing ok in the early thirties. Supporting FDR and spreading the WORD over the radio waves.

Oh he would throw in some virulent garbage about how bad the Jews were. Not that far from the main stream Christians really.

But as Europe heated up, the priest would rant and rave about how great Hitler and Mussolini were. And well the FDR Administration kind of got pissed and that was the end of Coughlin. He died in '79 at the age of 88.  

I have spoken before of Pat Robertson standing hand in hand with four or five people on his show praying that Supreme Court Justices would die.  Heads bowed with that funny squint these idiots all have which is supposed to demonstrate to the audience that they are praying hard. I guess the harder the squint the harder the prayer and the more likely our lord and savior will hear them.  It has to give a bunch of people in the audience headaches.  There would be thousands and thousands of people squinting real hard to show the tv gods how intensely they were praying.

This is where the words LET US PRAY  became LET US PREY.

Let us prey upon the mentally weak.

Let us prey upon the uneducated.

Let us prey upon the unread.

Let us prey upon the older richer folks who are afraid to die.

Let us prey upon those who hate minorities.

Let us prey upon those who hate Jews and Muslims  and all religions that do not jive with their own.

Let us prey upon those who work for ten bucks an hour and think their pains are somehow related to illegal immigrants or commie atheists.

Let us prey upon those who are too afraid to walk down their own street because of gang activity.

Two things grabbed me today that brought all this to the fore.

First, it was THE RUSH.  The rush was making bets concerning the death of Ted Kennedy:

Rush Limbaugh offered himself some kudos Wednesday for predicting in March that the health care bill wouldn't be passed before Ted Kennedy's death.

"Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill," Limbaugh said at the time.

Indeed, with Kennedy's passing, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) has called for health care reform legislation to be named in his honor. Limbaugh, who was criticized for his insensitivity over the Kennedy remarks, is expressing vindication. "I predicted it, and I caught all kinds of grief for it out there," he said  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/26/limbaugh-congratulates-hi_n_269711.html

Are not we all proud of rush? Is he not a true seer? I bet he made fifty bucks off of the janitor for that prediction.

This of course is not praying, it is simply bad taste. Who better to put a bad taste in your mouth or a rumbling in your bowels than rush?  But is this bad faith on the part of rush any different from those wearing the collar of religion praying that god kill judges?

Rush does not do much praying and stays away from religious matters most of the time.  He loves to grab onto it when he can use it, of course. Does anyone really believe that rush gives one goddamn about the termination of a pregnancy or the death of a baby for that matter?

But he kind of fits into this:

Let us prey.  He  has a lot in common with the new religious right for sure.

The second item that just blew my mind comes from our very own TPM:

Chris Broughton, the man who brought an assault rifle and a handgun to the Obama event in Arizona last week, attended a fiery anti-Obama sermon the day before the event, in which Pastor Steven Anderson said he was going to "pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell", Anderson confirmed to TPMmuckraker today. Anderson also said Broughton had informed the pastor about his planned show of arms-bearing, but "he planned out the AR15 thing long before he heard that sermon," delivered Sunday August 16 at the fundamentalist Faithful World Baptist Church in Tempe, AZ.

This is the second example of the gun-toters at the Arizona Obama event tied to the violent fringes of American life. "I don't obey Barack Obama. And I'd like Barack Obama to melt like a snail tonight," Anderson said in the sermon.

The sermon, which was titled "Why I Hate Barack Obama" and also contained virulent anti-gay themes, continued:     http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/pastor_of_gun-toter_at_obama_event_day_before_even.php?ref=fpa

First, how exactly do snails melt?  It sure sounds painful do you not think?

Okay so what am I going to do today?  Well, let's see. Go to church. Grab my assault rifle and my gun and holster and stand across the street from the President of the United States.

You might think, well at least church should calm one down a bit.

NO

The fascist is running the service and not paying taxes and getting everyone armed and getting everyone angry.  

LET US PRAY that the true Christians win the fight against the false prophets and the false preyers.