I have been thinking about these religious observances this spring. We have finished Lent and now going into Ramadan.
Both are similar since they ask to give up some pleasure as in Lent and to fast from daybreak to sunset in Ramadan. What is missing is the original intent of these two self denial religious observances ….
The whole idea of the fast and the giving up of a pleasure is to feel for those in continuous need. To realize your wealth in the face of poverty and to become closer to the ideal of god the merciful. Not just to feel…but to act to end the poverty.
However these have just become suffer- fests. Before Lent there is all manner of indulgences from eating all the rich foods in the house to rid the home of the temptations of eating well. To the crazed festivals of the Carnival …then the self denial for 40 days.
In Ramadan it is a suffer fest and then a food orgy before sunrise and and after sunrise…a few traditional foods are used to break the fast….however it is a time of cranky people and closed shops during the day and parties in the night time. Women are expected to cook these nightly feasts while fasting during the day….
The whole intent of both is to become aware and DO SOMETHING in the community, the town, the city, the country, the world to end the suffering of billions of people.
What kind of brownie points are you getting if you suffer a little and say “oh poor people really have it rough” or some such and not actually do anything to end the world suffering?
The wealthiest countries have the power to end war, to end poverty, and make this world a paradise on earth. But there is no will among the leaders. They sit on their bags of money, fat, richly dressed, smug in their opulent living and have no thought that the people they are bombing is their brother and sister…. only that the bomb makers are getting more rich more fat in their hoarded wealth. The wealthy do not care about anything but their money.
These leaders are very clever since their subjects are ignorant and believe the lies they are told to justify keeping their people under heel, stupid, and compliant to the monstrous wishes of the depravity of their leaders…..
So the sham pious fast during Ramadan not knowing that they could feed 10 people a day rather than fast themselves…. for that is as worthy in the eye of god as their own suffering….To spend their wealth for the comfort of those less fortunate. It is a shame on the religious leaders to not insist on these better more noble actions…why ?…they too, are fat and powerful, full of their own importance.
The world’s leaders sit on their bags of money refusing to spend on the welfare of the needy….who, by the way, are needy because of their caustic evil actions in the world…. The wealthy have created the abject poverty in the world while twisting scriptures to make the poor, victims of the wealthy’s greed, responsible for not working hard enough to become wealthy. Yet…. and Yet… few maybe a hand full ( like less than five of the worlds billionaires ( and kings, sultans, presidents, rulers) may have ever known want, hunger, homelessness, and the poverty billions live in everyday. My bet is they never knew a day of real want in their lives.
There are hundreds of scriptures from every holy book in the world that says be kind to the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked…love thy neighbor…..Love Thy Neighbor….but the fault lies in the Leaders and the readers of these scriptures who mangle and twist them to agree to their lust…lust for power, lust for gold, lust for depravity …..They justify their hatred, their killing with scriptures. And so the religions created to bering people together now blow up neighborhoods, create refugees, and those who seek peace. Those who have nothing left after the wealthy, the predator class, have sucked their bones dry and murdered their way to the top of their bags of money are still being used by the predator class.
A camel can go through the eye of a needle easier than the rich man and woman can enter heaven.
