In Part One of “It’s All Crazy,” I reflected on how I became separated from those I cared about most when my relationships somehow got flipped upside down during covid, and how my political leanings changed away from the liberal perspective.

In Part Two, I shared how the sudden and devastating deaths of both my mother and brother resulted in my ongoing skepticism regarding the trustworthiness of our current medical system. Since nurturing my spirituality has always been important to me, in Part Three I’d like to share some of my recent observations about the subtle and not-so-subtle interjection of politics into what was once a sanctuary for me.

Is there anywhere that one can go for peace and silence in the company of others that hasn’t been influenced by political ideologies?

Over the years, belonging to a prayer group has satisfied my need for both spiritual sustenance and like-minded companionship. I actually started in the eighties with a charismatic prayer group. I’m drawn to silent meditative practices, specifically contemplation, which can be deeply moving when practiced in the company of others. Weekly meetings dedicated to contemplative prayer are typically structured according to the teachings of Fr. Thomas Keating, the originator of the method of prayer known as Centering Prayer. The purpose of this type of silent prayer is to open yourself to God’s presence and action in your life. Weekly Centering Prayer meetings are designed to support and reinforce your dedication to a daily at-home Centering Prayer practice.

People gather in silence for a Centering Prayer meeting. The absence of the spoken word allows everyone to shift out of their stressful mental activity and into the stillness we cultivate in meditative prayer. Each person chooses a sacred word that they repeat softly and silently as a way to handle the inevitable distractions and anchor awareness in the present moment.

The meditative practice of Centering Prayer has four movements:

• Lectio, (Divine Reading) Slowly read aloud a brief passage from scripture or other sacred text three times.

• Meditatio, (Reflecting) is a brief pause after the first reading wherein you ponder in your heart what words or phrases from the reading were most meaningful and relevant to you.

• Oratio, (Praying) is a brief pause after the second reading to allow for your heartfelt response to God inspired by the words or phrases that resonated with you.

• Contemplatio, (Contemplating) Rest in silence for 20 minutes after the third reading, using the Centering Prayer method to maintain present-moment awareness and receptivity to the movements of the Holy Spirit within you.

The Centering Prayer meeting ends with a blessing and the prayer group members leave the room as they entered, in silence. It is widely recognized that silence is the container in which God works in prayer groups dedicated to contemplation.

"God's first language is Silence. Everything else is a translation."

~ Thomas Keating ~

As you can imagine, when members socialize or talk politics during the meeting time, it can start to take things in a totally different direction. I noticed that somehow we had become very focused on the inflammatory political issues of our times instead of pondering what the scripture reading meant to us personally.

In 2020, I found a Quaker contemplative prayer group to attend. Now, the Quakers are very politically oriented and even have their own lobbying group in Washington, DC. They’re passionate about working for peace and social justice issues, which is why I chose them. We had one meeting in person at the Quaker Meeting House before lock-downs forced us to meet thereafter on Zoom. The members were lovely people, older folks like me, well-read, cultured, educated, deeply spiritual and, liberal, which I didn’t think would be a problem, at first. After all, I was steeped in the liberal perspective for years, until it got flipped upside down and became barely recognizable to me. I did not leave the liberal perspective. It left me.

As outspoken advocates for nonviolence, I was attracted to the Quakers and their peaceful approach to living life. I started to attend their weekly meetings in 2020. When I first became acquainted with this group, they were focused on racial injustice and were outraged by the shooting and death of George Floyd. Members agreed that it was their moral responsibility to speak out about systemic racism and strongly supported the Black Lives Matter Movement. Although I understand that the issues of racism can be quite complex, I had no problem with either of those issues. What I did have a problem with was the interjection of politics into the weekly prayer meeting.

The fifteen minute sharing time after the readings was invariably extended due to the stressful conditions of the times. The members were experiencing anxiety about covid, concerns about the availability of the vaccine, and worries about the 2020 election. It seemed that because a lot was happening at once, they needed more time to share their concerns. It felt jarring and out of place to me, even sometimes like an indoctrination of sorts. When they talked politics, they just assumed that everyone shared their perspective, supported their candidates, and felt their intense disdain for Trump.

After a while this attitude began to wear on me, so I decided to write a letter to the two gentleman elders in the group and tell them how I felt. They expressed regret for my concerns, but never brought it up to the group in open dialogue, which was surprising to me. It has been my understanding that Quakers engage in an open group discernment process rather than hierarchical decision-making processes or voting. However, for some reason, they chose not to engage in this process regarding my concerns about the political nature of the meetings.

At the end of 2021, when we went on Christmas Break, I decided to take that opportunity to leave the group. I wrote another letter to all of them thanking them for welcoming me, and for all they had taught me, but I felt discouraged. I realized they weren’t going to change their assessment of the situation we were living in, and that they would continue to talk politics, so there was no point in my continuing to attend the group.

The topic of the vaccine just loomed over us all at that time. I had been holding it in for some time, afraid to open my mouth, but I did finally decide to tell them all that I chose not to comply with the mandate. The silence was deafening. I did receive a phone call that evening from one of the members who told me she recognized that it took courage for me to make that admission. That was a nice consolation, but I wished we had just remained focused on the spiritual part of the meeting, as the Quakers had so many valuable insights to share.

I still wanted to believe that I could find a contemplative prayer group that was suitable for me, so I continued searching for one. Eventually I found one where the group met in person, not online, and it took place in a Catholic chapel, which felt very familiar to me, given my Catholic upbringing. Once again, this group was composed of lovely people who warmly welcomed me, but I found it necessary after a couple of years to take my leave for similar reasons to what caused me to leave the Quaker group: Politics.

I was expecting that this group would more closely follow the structure for Centering Prayer as laid out by Fr. Thomas Keating, with whom the members were very familiar. However, this group started the meeting with a check-in where each member updated the group on how they were doing on a personal level. That, while a nice gesture, could be time-consuming. When I first attended the group, I noticed that one member gave a political update of sorts each week, informing everyone what the hot-button issues were and mentioning any legislation that was up before Congress. Needless to say, this update was from the Leftist point of view which did not sit right with me and made it very hard for me to settle into the quiet contemplation part of the meeting. My insides would twist into knots and I couldn’t focus on centering myself, which defeated my purpose for being there. As much as I wanted to respond to the political remarks, I knew that a prayer meeting was not the time or place to debate or discuss politics.

So, once again, I spoke to the group leader, who realized that my point was well-taken. She said she would address it with the politically-vocal member in private, who subsequently decided to leave the group herself when she took offense to my objection as relayed by the leader. After that, the leader did try to restructure the meeting, but it really didn’t last. The political update was eliminated, and the intercessory prayers at the end of the meeting stating political or environmental issues to pray for were also eliminated, but politics crept back in when the group became outraged over the immigration and border issues and Trump’s most recent policy.

So, I got up one Wednesday morning not long ago, and started getting ready to go to the meeting, but then suddenly just decided, “I’m done.” “That’s it for me.” It was getting more and more difficult to listen to remarks about these complex, hot-button issues being discussed and keep my mouth shut. Although I consider the prayer group members friends, there was just no room for a difference of opinion on these contentious issues.

Take the issue of immigration, for instance. Naturally, it’s upsetting to see people suffering in such desperate circumstances. All one wants to do is alleviate their pain by any means possible. It’s easy to become outraged when we hear reports of incidents where legal immigrants have been arrested mistakenly by ICE, and at least one had been deported to El Salvador and incarcerated in a brutal maximum-security facility. Needless to say, no one should suffer like that whether innocent or guilty. But incidents like this can be used to reinforce a particular ideology or to disrupt the financial and social cohesion of our society, or for some other purpose known only to those who benefit from shaping the narrative in a particular way. The immigrant situation contained many moving parts, really just as complex as systemic racism. And just like the issue of covid and the vaccine, and climate change, it was just as difficult to determine what’s real and true.

Not only did I recognize the influence of politics on the prayer groups, but also in certain publications that I had been reading for the last ten years or so. One organization, very well-versed on contemplation and Centering Prayer, put out a series of daily online meditations, which I read “religiously” on a daily basis. I had always found them to be very instructive and inspiring. But I began to notice a slight change in their focus leaning toward the political.

Back on Oct 26, 2017, I remember reading about Climate Change in a meditation quoting Pope Francis:

“..since the first World Climate Conference in 1979, we have known that the globe is warming due to increased carbon emissions. Pope Francis has affirmed that climate change is real and is primarily “a result of human activity.” Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 23, encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco So many people and creatures will suffer and face extinction if we do not quickly change our lifestyle…”

In another one of the meditations, May 21, 2020 Sallie McFague, a feminist eco/theologian is quoted as saying:

“I have often wondered what might compel more Christians to take personal responsibility to mitigate climate change.” “...climate change . . . the central crisis of the twenty-first century. Put simply, climate change is the result of too many human beings using too much energy and taking up too much space on the planet. Through excessive energy use and its accompanying greenhouse-gas emissions, we are changing the planet’s climate in ways that will make it uninhabitable for ourselves and many other species. . . .”

For many years, climate change was viewed as an environmental/scientific issue, where impartial specialists would share their differing views on the subject without being connected to any partisan political group. Now, unfortunately, it has become a political/cultural issue with everything mixed in such as philosophies, religious beliefs, and language, all connected to one’s identity, and crammed in between the short two-year congressional election cycle which makes it difficult to debate in depth and turns it into a very divisive issue. No wonder nothing ever gets resolved. But… maybe it’s not supposed to get resolved?

There has always been something underneath all this that has been gnawing at me. Upon more consideration I realized, I just don’t like the way there seems to be a general consensus that “we the people” are the ones to blame for creating this crisis. The implication is that we are too selfish and unwilling to do what’s necessary to “save the planet,” as if we didn’t care one little bit that it’s all going to hell in a hand basket. I think the question should be, “Is it?” Really? Going to hell? Or is it just being made to look that way? Uh oh! I smell another rat! And this one really stinks. Could this just be another issue designed to divide us from one another? And make us feel guilty, so that we look for someone to blame.

And one more thing… it’s interesting that all these spiritual institutions and leaders are all on board with this climate change thing. If anyone knows how to deliver a powerful wallop of guilt, it’s those folks. Speaking of guilt, all of these issues that I’ve talked about are about guilt, guilt about “systemic racism,” guilt about the immigrants at the border. Even guilt about the transgender people.

Then one time not that long ago I was reading the day’s meditation and I found myself coming across expressions like, the “queering of contemplation,” and the “queering of prophecy,” ideas I had never heard before, not to mention the issue of transgenderism, which was also suddenly making frequent appearances in the meditations. I wondered where this was all coming from and why it was being promoted in a publication about contemplative prayer.

Is there anywhere that one can go for peace and silence in the company of others that hasn’t been influenced by these ideologies?

It does not seem so, not even in Church! With other issues that have caused me concern in the past, I have often “smelled a rat,” and wondered if there was any “co-opting” or “hi-jacking” taking place. This is a way of infiltrating certain groups to usurp their power and authority and swing them over to a different perspective. Christians, in particular, are vulnerable to operations like that because they are committed to following Jesus Christ and living according to the Gospel by showing acceptance for all people regardless of their differences. I noticed that these new political concepts were creeping in and subverting traditional Christian beliefs, but in a way that made it look like they had always been part of the Christian tradition and/or part of our democratic principles, but that we just hadn’t realized it before.

In my opinion, it’s one thing to accept, respect and show compassion for those who struggle with an issue like transgenderism. It’s another thing though, for their personal choice to be imposed upon the entirety of the population or to equate these made-up genders with the Creator’s original design for human sexuality. It also concerns me that this ideology is suddenly everywhere and influencing the minds and bodies of our children, often without parental knowledge or consent.

I was confused about all this myself. I didn’t want to disparage these new identities that a considerable number of people were claiming, while at the same time I had serious doubts about their validity. I suspected that they were invented by those who had something to gain, and that those who were going along with it were being used as tools in this nefarious agenda. It’s confusing because it seems to be promoting the freedom to be who you are, when it’s really about telling you who you are, how you should be, and what language you can use. If you’re not paying attention, you could miss it because it’s just that insidious, and that disturbing, especially where transgenderism is concerned. This is another example of the upside down nature of things today: under the guise of trying to eliminate prejudice or discrimination of one kind, prejudice of another type is created to take its place. Now, that is insidious.

Then I was reminded of the old adage, “Follow the money.”

Invariably, you will discover that there are money interests behind radical changes like these, or that there’s been an exchange of money or other forms of compensation with Christian pastors, or their superiors in return for cooperating with the dissemination of political rhetoric. Readers might find this excellent article by Jennifer Bilek of interest:

How A Handful of Billionaires Created the Transgender “Movement” how-a-handful-of-billionaires-created Prior to that piece, the author posted this one in 2020 the-billionaires-behind-the-lgbt-movement/

Refusing to believe a reassuring lie takes courage. I’m of the opinion that our challenge in these upside down times is to become more human, not less. If we want to improve ourselves, it should be by developing our human potential, not by attempting to transcend humanity through transgenderism or merging with machines as promoted in the transhumanist movement. We’re already equipped with everything we need to become the very best versions of ourselves as the human beings that God created. Each step we take to become more ourselves brings us closer to sharing in that divine essence of God, as we are made in God’s image and likeness. Only reckless arrogance can make us think we can recreate ourselves according to our own whims and desires.

You know that old saying, “You can’t improve on perfection?” Well, I think we humans have a much better chance of messing things up royally if we try to do a makeover on ourselves rather than by just accepting ourselves as God made us, warts and all. I’ve always thought I was supposed to be seeking God’s purpose for my life. That’s been challenging enough, but I’m sure God’s plan has got to be better than anything I could come up with. Take the story of Adam and Eve, the original human couple, living in paradise, no less, but that wasn’t good enough for them. Of course, we don’t have to take the story literally, but metaphorically, it is pretty instructive, considering that their decision to “make Paradise better,” is what precipitated “The Fall…” and look how that turned out.

Before I share with you my “closing” song that sums up our upside down world, as far as the question I posed in my subtitle is concerned,“Contemplation or Infiltration?” I’d have to say it’s a little of both, weighing heavier on the side of infiltration, if I were to tell it as I see it. It can be very subtle at times, while at other times, it’s quite blatant. But I hope I’ve managed to show you the value of following the money, and connecting the dots, and sniffing out the malodorous scent of rats the next time you listen to the news or go to church.

I think I gave it “the old college try” searching for a spiritual group that hadn’t been influenced by these ideologies. In fact, I even checked out one more contemplative prayer group this last month. Now, this group was on Zoom and they followed Fr. Keating’s instructions to a tee. They kept to the four-movement structure of the meeting with the addition of a sacred chant after the readings and a blessing song at the end. It was perfect! However, this last week a couple of people were on the screen I hadn’t seen before and I couldn’t help noticing that attached to their photo and name in parenthesis were their “pronouns.” So, “is there anywhere one can go that hasn’t been influenced by these ideologies” over the last 5 years? I’d say, it’s not likely, but also “yes, there is,” but you really have to pray for it, and actively pursue it, and it could be with only one person at first, but that’s a place to start.

So, this song is kind of sad, but it’s also hopeful. “Look What They’ve Done to My Song (our lives) Ma…” (some lyrics have been changed to fit the story). It’s from 1971 and sung by Melanie. I thought it was perfect in describing what has happened to all of us, particularly over these last years, whether we realize it or not.

MELANIE Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma ('71)

Look What They've Done To My Song, Ma

Melanie

Look what they done to our lives ma
Look what they done to our lives ma

Well, you taught us what was true and right
And it's turning out all wrong ma
Look what they’ve done to our lives

Look what they’ve done to our mind ma
Look what they’ve done to our brain
Well, they told us lies about who we are
And now we’re half insane ma
Look what they’ve done to our lives

I wish I could find a good book, to live in
Wish I could find a good book
Well, if I could find a real good book
I'd never have to come out and look at
What they’ve done to our lives.

But maybe it'll all be alright, ma
Maybe it'll all be okay
Well, if the people want to find the truth
I pray it won’t be too late ma
Look what they’ve done to our lives

(verse in French)

Look what they’ve done to our lives ma
Look what they’ve done to our lives
Well, they tied them up in a plastic bag
Turned them upside down ma
Look what they’ve done to our lives