Green Faith and Chia Churches

The Green Faith's Buck-Neckid Cathedral!

Huffington Post - The Mayor Emanuel Playbook offers a peek at Green Faith Initiatives! Click my post title.

Green Churches - now that's something. Synogogues and Churches (I can not imagine a Green Mosque other than the paint job) that are Way Green and in full communion with Eco-Theologians Rev. Tommy Barry and Daffy Matt Fox.

In essence, Ecotheology is about as sensible to me as Scientology . . .well, almost.

It is one of those seamless garments crafted with the way hip and the almost hep in mind - folks who, after having introduced yourself to them, will tell you, loudly, and in no uncertain terms that they 'watch only public television, listen only to NPR, and read only the New York Times!'

Gracious me. How can one not be overwhelmed by such an unsolicited proclamation and shink whelp-like into the shadows?

Easy.

Ecotheology began at the University of Southern California in 1967 with Lynn White a Medievalist who held that patriarchal Christianity is anthropocentric -Man Centered (I thought it was Christ Centered) and therefore very, very, very bad. Man uses the Earth! He treds on Mother Earth; plucks her fruit; butchers the fawna and salads up the flora! The old, " I Love Animals . . .they're Delicious!"

If it were not for people the earth would be a lovely place.

People are to the Earth, what Whitey is to all other Races. Bad. Good people want to give the Earth back to the Earth. We elect many Green Machine Party hacks. Like the Chicago Metropolitan Water Reclamation District's Lesbian Green Advocate of reversing the flow of the Chicago River - Debra Shore. Debra Shore laces her polemics in Father Barry's ideas.

Father Tommy Barry shed his mortal husk in 2009 after years of evolving. Father Barry gave hope to the unfulfilled worshiper who who demands cosmic linkage. Such worshippers and sacerdotal functionaries can be found in the hipper Parishes of the Catholic Church. The ones where the outre is encouraged - liturgical requisites be damned.

These are churches that fulfill - personal ministries are doled out and embraced no matter how daffy: Amnesty for All Illegals, Peace Agitation, Solidarity with Criminals, Terrorists, Race Falgellators and the Sexually Preposterous.

If the Church ain't Green, it's patriarchal, racist, fascist and mean. Mean! No what I mean?


I believe that the Green Faith might find more telling theology in the 22nd Chapter of the Gospel of Yossarian in Joseph Heller's brilliant satire Catch 22.

Joseph Heller's Green Jesus -Capt. Yossarian at Snowden's funeral.


Here is the context - B-25 bombardier Yossarian has flown more than one too many missions over Italy and the former Yugoslavia in WWII. On one mission, a gunner Snowden had his guts spill out all over Yossarian having been rendered by Nazi flak. Yossarian stripped off all of his clothes and climbed a tree. He is visted by venture capitalist Milo Minderbinder who wants to sell chocolate covered Egyptian cotton to the troops and asks Yossarian to taste it.

Gripping the bough above with both hands, Milo began inching his way out on the limb sideways with utmost care and apprehension. His face was rigid with tension, and he sighed with relief when he found himself seated securely beside Yossarian. He stroked the tree affectionately. “This is a pretty good tree,” he observed admiringly with proprietary gratitude.

“It’s the tree of life,” Yossarian answered, waggling his toes, “and of knowledge of good and evil, too.”

Milo squinted closely at the bark and branches. “No it isn’t,” he replied. “It’s a chestnut tree. I ought to know. I sell chestnuts.”

“Have it your way.”

They sat in the tree without talking for several seconds, their legs dangling and their hands almost straight up on the bough above, the one completely nude but for a pair of crepe-soled sandals, the other completely dressed in a coarse olive-drab uniform with his tie knotted right. Milo studied Yossarian diffidently through the corner of his eye, hesitating tactfully.

“I want to ask you something,” he said at last. “You don’t have any clothes on. I don’t want to butt in or anything, but I just want to know. Why aren’t you wearing your uniform?”

“I don’t want to.”

Milo nodded rapidly like a sparrow pecking. “I see, I see,” he stated quickly with a look of vivid confusion. “I understand perfectly. I heard Appleby and Captain Black say you had gone crazy, and I just wanted to find out.” He hesitated politely again, weighing his next question. “Aren’t you ever going to put your uniform on again?”

“I don’t think so.”

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Funnier than Heller, is the Green Faith initiatives that are sure to ignite the passions of the unfulfilled. Time to build that Chia Cathedral?