Mr. Watanabe’s Lawn Mower

A.K.A., hijacking the Jesus Movement and the destruction of the American Episcopal Church

Once again, I was uncertain whether I was dreaming.

No one could leave the premises unless I first disassembled the lawn mower, laying every part in single file, tucked up against the chain link fence running along the concrete driveway. It seemed to make little difference that it belonged to Mr. Watanabe, or that Siri spell checker converted his name into Mr. Eats Baby.

Once all the parts were on display, anyone could then casually stroll past them, with the barest of glimpses, and leave the property unhindered. Until then, however, they were trapped. Whatever that meant.

That morning, I put my thinking on hold, letting the odd lawn mower dream have its casual, subconscious way with me. Then, unexpectedly, as the sun was setting, it struck me: that the way we overcome difficult problems is to break them down into simple parts. Lay it all out.

When we do that, the solution is sometimes so obvious that we can casually stroll past it with barely a glance. And when it becomes so utterly simple to leave, to escape, our freedom is taken for granted.

An oversimplified metaphor

But, I wondered, how does this relate to matters of consciousness? Because I still have a hard time explaining the difference between a dream and so-called wakefulness.

It’s easy enough to see this as an everyday life metaphor, I thought, but the ground gets really spongy when trying to cross-relate anything to matters of consciousness.

For years, some of my experiences in Pittsburgh had been gnawing at me. I had lived there in the early 1970s. I enjoyed the town, but there were behaviors I had observed inside their interpretations of Christianity that had really bothered me. I guess Mr. Watanabe’s Lawn Mower was mowing me down. Making me disassemble my experiences, making them simple, making them clear.

Why should I care about the Episcopal Church?

In a lot of ways, I don’t. But Mr. Watanabe was reading between the lines, and I started dashing out this essay.

The schism in the American Episcopal Church is a perfect example of the battle of consciousness, and how it can be ignored as inconsequential. But the plot thickens, because I had known a number of the players in this pugnacious drama.

Long after I had left Pittsburgh, the Episcopal Church opened her doors to become more inclusive. In protest, opinionated factions broke away, citing things like tradition and loyalty to the faith, and proclaiming the value of the church’s fundamental creeds.

Far from being humble, grateful or apologetic, the breakaway groups railed offensively against women as priests, gays as members, and more such abominations. Go ahead and leave home if you want to, but these guys were slamming the door so hard on their way out that they were causing the house itself to crack and wobble.

The break away team — far from exemplifying their claimed standards of Godliness — endorsed their real standards: bigotry and exclusion. They’ve even managed to give the appearance of aligning themselves with ecclesiastic powers in nations proven to torture and maim women in the name of a just God.

And these (mostly) men justified their behavior in the name of love. Even though it is obvious that love is not at the root of their behaviors. But then again, is it really all that obvious?

Maybe it’s more like Mr. Watanabe’s Lawn Mower. When it’s all put together, and dressed up in its robes and vestments, it’s hard to see things simply. They are too opaque. Break it down though, and the truth becomes more and more transparent.

It’s hard to figure out deeper motivations, deeper matters of consciousness. Don’t you agree? It’s like that pesky chain-link fence along the driveway. It’s like a boundary line between us and the world of deeper consciousness and realization.

Pittsburgh signs Jesus in the first round of the draft

I actually hung out with some of these grand schemers in Pittsburgh, back in the early 1970s, these posturing leaders who have since permanently fractured a mother church, a mother church more than willing to accept their more conservative views.

Mothers have a way of always accepting their children, even when their children reject their own mothers. Mom’s often say, “It’s okay that you do things different. I still love you. And you’re always welcome here.”

On the other hand, these ‘shakers and breakers’ used the Episcopal Church, in my opinion, to get what they wanted, and then they turned their backs on her. And I believe my metaphor remains spot-on when it comes to matters of deeper awareness.

That’s because in the world of the ‘breakers and abusers’, it seems awareness is typically only good to the point of personal convenience. We’ve only to ask a simple question to prove or disprove this:

Where are the teachers who can breakdown deeper awareness like Mr. Watanabe’s Lawn Mower? Who can make it that simple? So easy that you hardly realize what’s just happened?

Such teachers don’t exist or proliferate because they are too easily bought off by ego, money, fame, adulation and power. That’s why the old zen masters and Taoist sages refused to provide the deeper realizations to the unworthy.

These guys have certainly weakened if not destroyed the American Episcopal Church, and now they are all either dying or retiring. But they don’t fool me. They’ve plundered the church (a.k.a. the rape of consciousness, awareness) for their own benefits, and now they slink away all innocent and cherubic. All in the name of Jesus.

Gentlemen, you are far from being even little, tiny baby cherubs.

In my opinion:

• You represent the worse of human failures in matters of deeper consciousness, awareness and realization.
• You promote unity in the name of divide.
• You promote love and acceptance, in the name of biased opinions and obvious dogma.
• You promote certainty as certain, but only if it conforms to your exclusive definition.
• You are so utterly and transparently off base that you can’t even consider out loud how utterly uncertain you truly are.

This hijacking of terminology is your great legacy. Your attempts to convince the rest of us that bigotry is inclusive, being right is all that matters, dark is light, and that close-mindedness is actually noble is your living, breathing testimony.

The siren’s call

I haunted Virginia Beach coffee houses in the late 1960s. I was in Chicago’s hippie Old Town in 1970. I strolled Ann Arbor’s Art festivals that same year. I thumbed my way to New York’s Chautauqua Institution. And I landed smack in the center of Pittsburgh’s Jesus culture in the early 1970s.

Hijacking terminology goes way back with you guys. Take the Jesus Movement, for example. I saw you guys take the disillusioned and idealistic youth of the 1960s, and use your charisma to convert them into the Jesus Movement. To be clear, I’ve nothing against Jesus. But I’ve a great deal against deliberate distortion and deception.

You turned many of my friends into dedicated, enthused followers, even using those very words to persuade them. Telling them to dedicate their lives to the movement, and that true joy is only found in the movement, and that genuine dedication is very much about being a follower. I heard it all, including that, “Jesus was a revolutionary, and we need a revolution.”

One of the annual Jesus conferences in early 1970s Pittsburgh was actually called Revolution + One. It’s since been rebranded as Jubilee.

In reality there was no revolution at all. It was simply close-minded fundamentalism cleverly disguised in hippie garb, and singing hip Christian rock with British accents. And all this while never once supporting genuine free thinking.

I watched fresh, young and inquisitive ‘revolutionary’ minds open up with real questions. But then the well-rehearsed performances began. I watched you clever guys bombard them not with free-thinking-in-return, but with bombastic I’m-out-thinking-you-in-return strategies. You used finely honed theological responses based on strident, unapologetic fundamentalist Christian apologetics. You broke them and you domesticated them. For Jesus.

You ruined that generation of open minds with your latent and decidedly hostile psychological warfare. And don’t even try to say you didn’t do it. Because I watched you. I was right there, a perfect, non-descript, anonymous witness. You never knew me. But I recorded it. I sat right next to you. I literally ate dinner in your homes.

Your legacy, gentlemen, is waste, divisiveness, close-mindedness and closing off the portals of truth.

You sicken me to the point of death. Which should tell you something. But, as charter members of The Spiritual Smugness Society, you really don’t need to be told anything, do you?

So there you go. Dreams 101. Mr. Watanabe and I will now go mow some consciousness lawns somewhere else. Our blades have become far too dull tending your gardens.

In closing

Yogi Berra once noted, “It’s tough to make predictions especially about the future.”

In the context of this article, here’s a little spin on Yogi truth telling.

It’s hard to claim the prize if you never finish the race.

Deeper, repeatable experiences in consciousness will rarely occur if our leaders and teachers don’t focus on the prize, at all costs.