Tikkun olan
I was listening to NPR while I made breakfast this morning so I found out that the FBI has issued a warning about terrorist attacks today as I was flipping flapjacks. Noah was singing and sliding around the kitchen. His hair was sticking up and he has one of those preschool kennel-coughs. I looked down at my grungy-happy boy, tormenting his companionable puppy and I was once again amazed by my own good fortune. I don’t know why I’m so lucky when so many people aren’t. I’m not more deserving than other mothers. Tragedy is looming, right now a mother is holding her dying child in her arms, and here I am pouring maple syrup on my happy, healthy kid’s pancakes.
This uneven allocation is the biggest obstacle I face in my personal search for spirituality. I cannot understand the cock-eyed distribution of suffering.
Religions, of course, have answers but none that make sense to me. The theory that I especially dislike is the one that says we *control* our destinies with good thoughts. You know, think positive and it’ll turn out just dandy because the universe is all about WHOLENESS. I guess that explains the holocaust, right? I mean, those Jews *have* always been a dour people. Get this:
You don’t have to protect yourself from anything! In fact, an attitude of protection will surely bring you to the vibration of the thing from which you’re protecting yourself. Because you can’t look at something and say, “Oh no, I’m saying a prayer to protect myself from you,” without achieving vibrational harmony with “you”, whatever you are.
That’s from Abraham-Hicks.
They are “a group of obviously evolved teachers, [who] speak their broader Non-physical perspective through the physical apparatus of Esther [Hicks].” The teachings basically say that if you ignore something, then it’ll go away. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts.
/sarcasm mode on
Gee, someone should share this enlightened way of thinking with those kids in Miami. Of course, the Abraham-Hicks theory is that kids who are living in hellish situations (they talk about crack babies on their site) are spiritually evolved beings who *want* the experience of extreme suffering. Boy, isn’t that swell! That sure relieves the awful responsibility I was feeling towards the poor and suffering people on our planet! See, Abraham says that people *choose* their suffering. Take homeless people for example:
Have you ever gone down to the part of town where the homeless live and offered them a job? Jerry has. They do not want it. Now, does that make them inappropriate? No, it makes them vibrationally resistant to your job. It makes them vibrationally resistant to playing the game the way you all want them to play the game. They have got something working for them. They are eating; they are free. You might not choose it so it may be inappropriate for you, but do you see what we are getting at?
So those homeless kids in Miami have “got something working for them. Gosh, now I can get back to thinking all those happy thoughts and reveling in “abundance” while I’m busy with my pancakes!
/sarcasm mode off
Frankly, this kind of head-in-the-ground thinking makes me sick. I worked in a homeless shelter and let me tell you that Esther (and the “spiritually evolved beings” she’s channeling) are full of shit. Mental illness, abuse, head injuries, drug addictions, etc. etc. Some people are *damaged* and it’s got nothing to do with their “vibrational resistance.” Offering most homeless people a job is not going to fix all the damage in their hearts/souls. And if they refuse it, that doesn’t relieve our (society’s) responsibility to help care for that person. (I’m a bleeding heart liberal, can you tell?)
Compare the above to the Jewish concept of tikkun olan (or tikkum olam or tikkun olam or … you get the picture). From this page:
Tikkum Olam, ‘repair of the world.’ We’re not going to get paradise, we’re not going to get a better society until we all work together and bring up the person who is the weakest and who is most in need.
Judaism sure as hell doesn’t answer all my questions but at least Judaism doesn’t tell us it’s ok to shirk responsibility.
good point
THANKS!
Yeah. You should hear their ACTUAL VIEWS on the Holocaust. Apparently all six million of those Jews wanted to suffer as well. Sick sick people, the Hicks.