[AGL] The gospel according to Mark, Morford that is...

[Frances Morey]

Maryann,
  I can't recall such an email from you. There was one which Ramsey replied to, though.  Xlibris.com is the only publisher I have had any experience with and they are solidly in the vanity press mein. Any ms with pictures is going to cost more than text only--many times over, in fact. Xlibris is a POD publisher so getting something published is as easy as writing a check. Selling the books after they become available on a print-on-demand basis is where it gets more difficult. I only managed to sell about 200 books. Unlike the South Beach Diet I didn't have 5 million to throw at PR for the book.
  Frances


      Hey Francis!
  Did you get my email re publishing houses other than Eakins?  I had to withdraw my manuscript 'cause after almost 3 years, nothin'!
  Maryann
    ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Frances Morey 
  To: survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the 60s 
  Sent: Friday, April 14, 2006 10:58 AM
  Subject: Re: [AGL] The gospel according to Mark, Morford that is...
  

  To: Rev. Bubba,
  Now THERE's an Easter homily if I ever heard one! Thank you, Right Reverand, for the insights. The only problem with any religion is that it's practiced by humans. So flawed are we as a species that the flaws have become definitive--greedy, amoral, avaricious, wasteful. Religious "leaders" are religion's hammers, the enforcers, the holier-than-thous. Somebody's gotta scare us (or them) into line, eh? It's life's little roller-coaster ride, being scared and then relieved from being scared--that's how movies manage to enthral. Ethics is for those who can think beyond being punished and forced to perform good works or being persuaded to perform them by a mental ability to envision beneficial results from the effort. When you look at how dismal the lives muslim men appear to live it is no wonder that they are capable of becoming suicide bombers. 
   
  Best, (especially the line with the Escalade parked on the Buddhist monk),
  Love,
  Frances
   
  I'm off to commune with the garden and feed the goldfish named "Kitty"


          Frances.
   
  I once knew a young black "minister" who had once been in the Nation of Islam but didn't like it and returned to the more-or-less Baptist fold.  He wanted to have his own church.  Nice guy, really nice, but when I asked him how there could be an "ethical" system WITHOUT a Divine Being, he was totally stuck.   Seems he thought that the reason one was "nice" to people was that one would be "punished" if one wasn't.  If no God, then...evidentally, he thought there would be total moral anarchy!  He just couldn't envision an "ethical act" without accompanyng punishment for "failure"!  Yet, he considered himself a "christian".  Lucky the congregation that got him.  Maybe he grew up.
   
  Not only sad, but ridiculous.  Christianity has a number of very strong features that would...should they actually be practiced....make the world a great place to live.  Of course, most other religions have very, very similar features.  What scares me about "modern Christianity"...especially the Protestant view...is that there seems to be so little room for Meditation or Personal Self-Examination.
   
  It is all about Worship!  and God Rules!  and voting for The Right Kind of Politician (ie. He Who Has the Shallowest View of People.)  Or He Who Can Sanctify My Own Personal Bigotry and Prejudice.  Same goes for most "preachers" so far as I am concerned...with some genuine exeptions.
   
  And it is, in the US..finally, all about money.  Mega-Churchs = Mega-Bucks!  Lots of money to be made these days by promoting "feel good religion".  Always has beed, always will.
   
  The other side of THAT coin, of course, is....."feel bad religion".  Learn just to you can Hate and Kill without Fear of Judgment or Retribution.  We got our Pat Robertsons, the other guys have their Ayatollas.   But then again, these people are all about Power, Money and, most of all, Capital "C" Control....Spirituality is a convenient bit of make-up, like a wig or a false nose.  No real concern by either group.  Controlling people is where the rubber (Note: not talking condoms here) hits the road.
   
  Bad News:  The Rev. Sloan Coffin died this week.  If there was ever a Christian that I thought deserved the association, it was Coffin.  But then, Coffin grew up in an environment of serious scholarship.  Read Martin Buber and Paul Tillich and much more.  Thought about Ethics as a real committment to Self, Community and to Church, but didn't get the importance of either confused with the other.  Will there be another Sloan Coffin?  I doubt it.  His passing didn't seem to have much impact on the news media.  I heard it on NPR the other morning.  I am sure the "media" will be jumping backward through fiery hoops when some old fascist like Kissinger FINALLY DIES...but Coffin.  Naww.  (Hope I am wrong about this, but I ain't seen nothing.)  Too bad Coffin wasn't on the "right" side of things...ie. the Viet Nam War.  Of course, moral courage is much easier to "observe" than to "practice".   I mean, like, there is golf and shopping and taking kids to soccer practice and getting
 the SUV new tires.  Golly.  Life is SO demanding.  
   
  Gotta run.
   
  My Escalade is parked on top of a Buddhist Monk and the neighbors are beginning to complain.
   
  Rev. B
   
   


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