Uncategorized – Earthly Religion

Democracy needs …?

October 31, 2026
Byron Carrier

Democracy needs our rage and our courage. The impending midterm elections are a chance for Americans to take their country back. To quote our hideous president, "If you don't fight like hell, you won't have a country anymore." Only the oblivious and indifferent fail to see this historic challenge. What does it take to alert and awaken those who barely pay attention, who think this is just another round of typical politics? It isn't. We're in the midst of a coup worthy of a Shakespearean…

October 1, 2026
Byron Carrier

Oh, no! Our position is precarious. We go Vulnerable to various Scoundrels, utterly nefarious. We gotta question why. So goes the opening of my song, pertinent when I started it in 2017, and even more true today. We're living in a time that could have been scripted by both William Shakespeare and the Marx Brothers - tragedy and comedy - misdirecting us. Suffering and jokes have replaced vision. We're locked in the audience of a perverse play, and our shouts of outrage and dismay don't…

June 24, 2025
Byron Carrier

Goodbye, UUers. Yours was a center of my life, while I was at the edge of yours. I’m glad for our time. I knew lots of good people, challenges, and fulfillment, if not much pay or collegial respect. What I once championed has changed. Time to regret what it has become lately and leave it behind. Here’s why. I was born two hours before my country annihilated over a hundred thousand civilians in revenge and warning, an act I’ve seen rationalized many times in this…

November 14, 2023
Byron Carrier

Uneasy I had a dream the other night where I had taken a corner too fast on a sharp curve and went over the edge, trying to steer down a cliff-like drop. It reminds me of our country lately, especially my part in this. (Sorry, readers, this post appears to be current when in fact it appeared in 2016. Blue Host (publisher of my web site) attached the current date to it, and I don't know how to fix that.) The half-way decent Republican we…

August 31, 2022
Byron Carrier

One of my favorite sermons was one I gave in St. Joseph, Michigan in 1971. I used the pulpit to preach what I truly thought was true and good: pot. I put a notice of the topic in the newspaper, and sure enough, some plain-clothes police showed up. I preached in favor of the legalization of pot, explaining it enhances moods and leads to creative thoughts. Because it was still illegal, the joint I appeared to roll while in the pulpit was just imaginary. But…

February 4, 2022
Byron Carrier

Welcome to Saint Patrick’s Day! May your shamrock not fall in your green beer, and if it does, drink it! Even if this day isn’t what we might have thought it was, it is our excuse to wear green and party, even if none of this makes historical sense. I don’t want to ruin it for you, for in these dismal political times we need excuses to party, but even so, the legends of the day need some deconstructing. Saint Patrick wasn’t Irish; perhaps he…

January 31, 2021
Byron Carrier

Well, it's been a busy year so far. We're hunkered down, avoiding the Covid, keyed up, toying with racist fascism, and dimly worried, denying how hot we could get. Yet the stay-at-home days and months have mellowed us to homier routines. Some say we're already into the early days of the Age of Aquarius. Hope so. I'm proud of the Democrats, especially those in Georgia, for helping barely rescue us from a madman conman who thinks he can act like a privileged, uncontrolled king. I'm…

December 31, 2020
Byron Carrier

2020 – The Year that Wasn’t Easy An Appreciative Lament I started out the year feeling kinda spiffy. Then I fell on my face Until I fell on my face Then I cut the very tip of my main guitar finger off. (Ever try to open and apply a band-aid when one hand is already bloody? You can’t. Passive-aggressive sadists have designed it so it can’t be used.) Which had barely healed when I smashed the tip of my second-most main guitar finger, which infected…

December 31, 2020
Byron Carrier

For diligent readers, my December 2020 involvement in On-line Forums on various subjects. (Cleantechnica and KOS, mostly) If interested, read these Reflections I contributed to online forums in December of 2020. Byrd on KOS in Response to Winter Rabbit’s Wounded Knee – 130-year Anniversary: Winter Rabbit jarringly reminds us – what we were told was glory was, in fact, gory. I stumbled upon the now-peaceful fields of Wounded Knee a year back. At the curio shop, a convivial mix of natives and western whites mingled. …

November 29, 2019
Byron Carrier

Our dear Grandma Aggie died. Grandma Aggie Pilgrim, revered local elder of her Takelma Tribe and of Natives in general, also loved, and was loved by, people in general. Humanity was her family. Life on Earth was her larger home. How often we assume we'll have more chances to be with our dear ones, only to find those chances have ended. I've seen Grandma Aggie many times over the years. I always liked her and felt she liked me too. She had good vibes. Just…

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Welcome to EarthlyReligion,
where Eden (Earthlife, including us)
is remembered, revered, rescued, and revived religiously!

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The dream of an Earthly Religion…

Earthly: our precious natural earth which allows us our bodies, lives, cultures and future.

Religion: from the old root words religare and religio, meaning “to bind back to the root and be whole again.” This does not assume we need to believe in God or the Bible. Rather, we should be well-related with our own bodies, each other, natural life, and natural existence as it actually is. If there is connection with divinity or God, it is in and through our bodies and beings that we relate primarily, not via scriptures, traditions, rituals, or supposed religious authorities. In short, by religion we mean “relating well with reality.”

The emphasis here is on the earthly. It is not an afterlife or an instead-of-life that interests us. Living well here on earth together does.

While we take our religious perspective and work seriously, we don’t want it to be stuffy. Too often, religions can be alien to the human condition rather than affirming of it. They can be demeaning and demoralizing, dull and bossy, ponderously pretentious. We lean more towards the fun and sexy, natural and lively, human and humane, thoughtful and pertinent.

Reality: the obvious and inescapable stuff of physical existence. We intend to enjoy and tend our lives in these bodies, for our time, in our cultures, for our singular and interrelated ecosystem. There may be more, but there is AT LEAST THIS of which we are born, in which we live, and into which we will die.

God or no-God is not the point; Earth is. Both believers and non-believers are welcome here, for we all share a common source, opportunity, and responsibility: life as it is and could be. This ranges from simply improving one’s own life to your helping save and restore Eden’s, not just to “sustain” it, but veering it to thrive as never before. If you value your life, each other’s, and Earth’s – welcome!

Learn more…

Democracy needs …?

Oh, No!

Good Bye from the Edge

On the Edge

Besides Chores, a Life of Love?

Simple Days and Splendid Ways – Saint Patrick’s and Other Days

My part in online forums in January 2021

2020 – The Year that Wasn’t Easy

Reflections on Old Racial Wounds, Hope, Global Warming, Pollution, and Transport

Grandma Aggie