Respectability is not a step upward toward Success, Rightness or Righteousness.
Respectability is a step downward toward Conformity, Sameness, and Blending into the herd.
“Following Jesus is not a respectable religion, and I suspect it was never meant to be. It is a call to truth, justice and liberation for those oppressed, excluded, and disempowered.”
(Diarmuid O’Murchu)
Throughout the 12 years of contemplation and writing of Living with Open Hands 1.0, I was continually hoping that I could start with the mediocre religion I was in and keep pushing myself toward something more pure and authentic. But the closer I got to the center, the more I found “more of the same” proclaiming ” come over here, we are more righteous, more right, more true. It seemed that the competition kept growing out of my control. I realized that the tremendous conditioning of fundamentalism (I’m right, you’re wrong) and evangelicalism (I have the one and only source of truth) was everywhere with dogma blocking authenticity and truth with its pride and insistence of being right. Then I realized that we are all wrong, no one is right. We are only human, puffed up with imaginary rightness.
I was exhausted with nowhere else to go. I went to my own depth and found nothing. My “periphery inward” approach was an empty strawman. I finally had to let go of everything I thought to be true and right; the known. I had to begin again with no assumptions, dogma, theology, without selling myself out to some external authority that wanted so much to “make me right.” As my eyes opened, I began to understand that “if I already know, I can no longer learn.” And that the beginning of wisdom is the realization that I don’t “know” anything for sure. There is no certainty, something we all know deep down.
Living with Open Hands 2.0 is where I found myself and where I began again; knowing nothing, letting go of dogma, listening inward and learning to live my life more naturally, as a human being, from the interior outward. This is the fountain of life that flows forth, new, original, pure, pristine. This is the place from which life begins; within and flows outward.
“Having observed this process, one asks oneself, is there not a different approach altogether – that is, is it not possible to explode from the centre? The world accepts and follows the traditional approach. The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another; we mechanically follow somebody who will assure us a comfortable spiritual life. It is a most extraordinary thing that although most of us are opposed to political tyranny and dictatorship, we inwardly accept the authority, the tyranny, of another to twist our minds and our way of life. So if we completely reject, not intellectually but actually, all so-called spiritual authority, all ceremonies, rituals and dogmas, it means that we stand alone and are already in conflict with society; we cease to be respectable human beings. A respectable human being cannot possibly come near to that infinite, immeasurable, reality.
“You have now started by denying something absolutely false – the traditional
approach – but if you deny it as a reaction you will have created another pattern in
which you will be trapped; if you tell yourself intellectually that this denial is a very
good idea but do nothing about it, you cannot go any further. If you deny it
however, because you understand the stupidity and immaturity of it, if you reject it
with tremendous intelligence, because you are free and not frightened, you will
create a great disturbance in yourself and around you but you will step out of the
trap of respectability. Then you will find that you are no longer seeking. That is
the first thing to learn – not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-
shopping.” (Krishnamurti)
It occurs to me that this was originally the teachings of Christianity. Romans says that we are not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.
Similarly, “The Peculiar People were a Christian movement that was originally an offshoot of the Wesleyan denomination, founded in 1838 in Rochford, Essex, by James Banyard,[1] a farm-worker’s son born in 1800. They derive their name from a term of praise found in both the Old Testament and the New Testament of the King James Bible, in Deuteronomy and 1 Peter.[2]
In the King James Version of the Bible, first published in 1611, Deuteronomy 14:2 includes the verse “For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.”,[3] and 1 Peter 2:9 reads “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”[4]
The Peculiar People is also a phrase used to describe the Quakers, which they adopted with some pride.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peculiar_People
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When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh, it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily
Oh, joyfully, oh, playfully watching me
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh, responsible, practical
Then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Oh, clinical, oh, intellectual, cynical
There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned?
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am
I said, now, watch what you say, they’ll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal
Oh, won’t you sign up your name? We’d like to feel you’re acceptable
Respectable, oh, presentable, a vegetable
(The Logical Song, by Supertramp 1979)
Living with Open Hands 
Posted on October 30, 2022
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