Religion ought to be assisting the human heart to cleanse itself of resentments

When we put religion in the context of creation we learn a little humility; we see that there's no such thing as a Buddhist ocean, or a Roman Catholic rain-forest, or an Anglican river, or a Lutheran cornfield or a Baptist moon.

The second problem with religion is that it's about religion and not about spirituality. It's that whole thing of pointing to the moon and confusing the finger with the moon. So, they should be pointing to spirituality. We should be teaching every thirteen year old meditation including sexual practices that are ways into mysticism and also ways into safe sex.

The human species can't deal with it's moods and resentments. Look at Bosnia, it's all about resentment. We did a summer program in New York and a fellow showed up from Croatia; he'd just received an award from the United Nations for his non-violent work. He said, "I don't have anything against the Serbians or the Muslims, the problem is our politicians who are building on the resentments. It's their war, not our war."

I think a lot of the Reagan years were about building on resentment - on a backlash against women and against black people. Religion ought to be assisting the human heart to cleanse itself of resentments and hatreds. Unfortunately it's so often used to make things worse.

~Matthew Fox

   http://www.levity.com/mavericks/fox.htm