Yes, it’s musterbation again! No, no, no, NOT masturbation, but MUSTerbation! I’ve written about MUSTerbation before (though judging from my blog search stats, thousands of people think masturbation is spelt with a ‘must’.)
Quite simply, MUSTerbation is when human beings decide that something has to be done or stopped at all costs. It is when we cause problems and go to extremes of behaviour and emotion, working ourselves up, because we lose sight of a bigger picture and start to make ourselves look ridiculous by going all out for a lesser goal. We have tunnel vision. We can’t take off the blinkers. We keep saying to ourselves and others, I MUST … or They MUST … or MUSTN’T.
We become unable to say: “I really do WANT this to happen, and I will feel upset if it doesn’t. But hey, there is no law in the universe which says that I must always have what I want. Other people are involved. They can make different choices to me. I have to like their choices, but I respect their right to make them.” Instead, we say: “I MUST get my way at all costs - and the chances are I will make myself look ridiculous in the process and may even end up harming myself or others.” Somehow respect for individual autonomy gets lost.
Religious people are often expert musterbators. Their claims to have divine links gives this particular weakness a sharp edge. Suddenly what you must have can somehow become attached to what you know god wants, so that it is not only you involved, but your god as well. And when you are fighting for her or him, you can (as history shows) justify anything. In fact, if you have two religious musterbators on opposing sides, you almost certainly have a war on your hands with no chance of immediate reconciliation.
There was a dreadful clash on Sunday in one of Christianity’s holiest churches. Israeli police had to intervene and arrested two clergyman after an argument between monks erupted into a brawl next to the alleged site of Jesus’ tomb. Somehow the bigger picture - the teaching of Jesus on reconciliation and love, and the damage to the reputation of Christianity - got lost in the musterbation process as people fought to win for god at all costs.
The Times reported the story
The clash between Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks broke out in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered as the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection.
Dozens of worshippers traded kicks and punches, knocking down tapestries and toppling decorations at the site in Arab East Jerusalem.
The brawling began during the Feast of the Cross, a procession of Armenian clergymen commemorating the 4th-century discovery of the cross believed to have been used to crucify Jesus.
The Greeks objected to the march without one of their monks present, fearing that otherwise, the procession would subvert their own claim to the Edicule — the ancient structure built on what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus — and give the Armenians a claim to the site.
The Armenians refused, and when they tried to march the Greek Orthodox monks blocked their way, sparking the brawl.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police were forced to intervene after fighting was reported. They arrested two monks, one from each side.
A bearded Armenian monk in a red-and-pink robe and a black-clad Greek Orthodox monk with a bloody gash on his forehead were both taken away in handcuffs after scuffling with dozens of riot police.
Six Christian sects divide control of the ancient church. They regularly fight over turf and influence, and Israeli police are occasionally forced to intervene.
“We were keeping resistance so that the procession could not pass through … and establish a right that they don’t have,” a young Greek Orthodox monk with a cut next to his left eye told AP.
The monk, who gave his name as Serafim, said he sustained the wound when an Armenian punched him from behind and broke his glasses.
Father Pakrat of the Armenian Patriarchate said the Greek demand was “against the status quo arrangement and against the internal arrangement of the Holy Sepulchre.” He said the Greeks attacked first.
Archbishop Aristarchos, the chief secretary of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate, denied his monks initiated the violence.
After the brawl, the church was crowded with Israeli riot police holding assault rifles, standing beside Golgotha, where Jesus is believed to have been crucified, and the long smooth stone marking the place where tradition holds his body was laid out.
The feud is only one of a bewildering array of rivalries among churchmen in the Holy Sepulchre.
The Israeli government has long wanted to build a fire exit in the church, which regularly fills with thousands of pilgrims and has only one main door, but the sects cannot agree where the exit will be built.
A ladder placed on a ledge over the entrance sometime in the 19th century has remained there ever since because of a dispute over who has the authority to take it down.
More recently, a spat between Ethiopian and Coptic Christians is delaying badly needed renovations to a rooftop monastery that engineers say could collapse.
This story reminded me of a famous saying by the psychotherapist Albert Ellis: People are like seagulls. They go around SHOULDING all over the place!
You can see the fight for yourself below.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypPxGL62dUY]
Six Christian sects divide control of the ancient church.
It baffles me how Christians cannot understand how petty this makes them appear to non-Christians. What business do Christians have trying to convert others when they can’t even convert those with whom they are supposed to agree?
It brings me back to what made me become a “real” Christian: the promise of change.
“Jesus will change you,” they told me. “You don’t have to do anything. Just let Jesus change you into the person He wants you to be.”
Well, Jesus did change me. He made a legalistic, holier-than-thou person who couldn’t get along with others who disagreed with me.
And apparently, I am not the only one changed by Jesus in that manner. Clerics seem to suffer of the same disease!
They sound like a bunch of toddlers. I always cheered myself up in regard to toddler tantrums and all that fighting children do when they do not have the power to communicate the way they feel, by remembering that when they became adept at communicating they would stop behaving in that fashion, they would learn to give-and-take and rationalise things a bit more in their own heads.
It seems that people whose lives are “taken over” by religion lose that power. Is it because they stop thinking for themselves? They become followers?
I don’t really know. But it conjured up a rather amusing picture in my head - all these monks having a bust-up.