trapped by benevolence

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Fluttering like a butterfly across the mind field this morning ....

Just because religious institutions may be in the benevolence business is no excuse for imagining they are therefore benevolent ... a self-anointing trap that many such institutions may fall into and then sell to their constituents who are then likewise drowned.

Like a philosophy teacher who may bask in and perhaps fall victim to the designation "philosopher," the benevolence of religious institutions is both delicious and deadly -- a leg-hold trap so sweet that it is as hard to avoid as it is disappointing to observe.

Religious institutions may provide very useful pointers about kindness and compassion and service and understanding, but to arrogate such qualities to the institutions themselves is a step too far ... way too far. Talk about falling victim to your own public relations! This is human, but far from humane, arrogance.

Expositors of the one true faith or the holy mother church or whatever other institution may whimper and whine: "Yes, but when all about me are proclaiming the 'holy mother church' or 'the holiest of all holy institutions,' what am I supposed to do?!"

What you might want to do is to take a lesson from former U.S. President Harry S. Truman who once observed, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!" If you lack the discipline to recognize and actualize the fact that a teacher is not the teaching (at the same time that s/he actually is), then you have failed the very teachings you claim to uphold. What "everybody says" is not an excuse. And ersatz humility or much-trumpeted altruism is not capable of covering the scent of horseshit.

Religious institutions bestow nothing ... they point ... and what anyone makes of those pointings is entirely their responsibility. Can institutional expositors nudge and suggest? Sure, that's part of the job description. Can they get lost in their own p.r.? Sure they can, but it is their responsibility to disabuse themselves of the abuses they can inflict.

And is all this too idealistic and impossibly-high-minded by half? Maybe so, but the alternative is too scum-bucket low by half.

Another day, another butterfly.
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