When I think of “God,” I translate that to mean “Energy of the Universe” and I am perfectly happy holding a conversation about “God” because I have translated an understanding to which I can relate. “God” does not translate into “Heaven” or “Hell” or “Angels” or “Trumpets” for me — I instead think of an unfillable empty space.
We have all been subject to “Brown Paper Bag Experiences” when others evaluate us not by our inner selves — but by our outward appearances — and many times they wrongly judge us by jumping to incorrect conclusions. In my article, Coercing Faith, Gordon Davidescu posted this Brown Bag comment:
I think the best analogy (or at least the one I just came up with now) is this: Say you see a person walking down the street with a brown paper bag in his hand. Given New York’s liquor laws you know that he has some sort of alcoholic beverage inside. However, you don’t know if that alcoholic beverage is a beer or wine, or even a wine cooler – unless it is taken out of the bag. Converting is sort of like removing the bottle from the bag. Being Jewish means you have a Jewish Soul – but not everyone with a Jewish Soul hidden in their paper bag realizes that they are Jewish until they take it out of the bag – converting, that is.
As we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. day in the United States, 
we are faced with the questions of antiquity that have bothered and constrained humankind: Do we still judge people by color?
Do we still prefer violence over getting along with each other and the world?
It is possible in any way to reclaim our tainted and lost humanity?
I wish those in the churches and the mosques and the community living rooms and the religious leaders would stand up to the politicians and say, “Don’t go to war in God’s name.
Don’t ask for our prayers to cover your bloodshed.
Don’t seek our religious protection for your unholy political wars.
Don’t ask for our faith votes in the polling place. Leave religion out of your killing fields.”
That kind of religious rebellion against the politicians would remove the brush cover from political fanatics who pretend they are doing God’s work in the fields of war by killing those who are of darker skin and lesser opportunity than those wielding the staff and the cross.
Is it possible to see Angels on earth? I believe it is — no matter what your faith or systems of beliefs hold — and I’ll tell you why. After John Cardinal O’Connor died of brain cancer in New York City in 2000, Janna and I found ourselves outside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. We saw a snaking line of mourners outside the beautiful and towering French Gothic church at Madison and 50th-51st.
Continue reading → Seeing Angels in Saint Patricks Cathedral
Yesterday, in a watershed moment in the history of the disabled, U.S. District Judge James Robertston finally instructed the United States Treasury to find a way for the Blind to discriminate between paper money denominations.
Continue reading → Blind Discrimination: Paper Money Feels the Same
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