Where’s the Justice…In Dogma or Karma?

by Guest Author Jacqueline Gum

I’m going to assume that at least some of you have seen the bumper sticker “My Karma Ran Over My Dogma.”  I saw one the other day and my inner voice bellowed, “I don’t get it!”

Again, that annoying voice, summoning another call to action: Research, figure it out, allow opposite views, distill, refine, and finally define.  One of these days, I’ll learn to ignore that voice and embrace the adage, “Ignorance is bliss.”  Is there peace in a pasture of ignorance?  I think I’d sleep better.

So I read a bunch of stuff about both.  Dogma is most commonly associated with a set of beliefs that are predominantly religious.  Most Western faith based religions believe that faith in Jesus Christ will absolve them of the consequences of sin.  But dogmatic teaching not tempered with wisdom can misguide a person to ignore real life experiences, including any social structure.  There is a “you reap what you sow” component, and you could end up burning in hell for the really bad stuff, but in the end… it’s all good.  You’ll be forgiven.

Eastern philosophy suggests that each person is responsible for their own actions, and that one accumulates good or bad karma according to their own desires and actions.  Payback can happen in this lifetime or the next, but the point is to evolve, knowing that if you don’t, some version of bad will get you.

“My karma ran over my dogma” could suggest that the eastern philosophy is superior, so much so that it “runs over” the philosophy of dogma.  Then again, maybe the person sporting this bumper sticker just abandoned the Catholic church and became a Buddhist.  Or maybe (and most likely), the “It’s okay, I’ll be forgiven” attitude got run over by a little karmic payback…?

So my inner voice, always seeking balance and justice started stuttering.  Wh-wh-wh-what?  Is karma giving dogma the middle finger?  As in, “Do good now, jerk, or else.”  Get yourself to the point where there is no need to ask for forgiveness.

A dogmatic Christian might argue that there is no man without sin, and that’s plain.  I’ve sinned…this I know.  Somewhere along the line I was taught to believe that I’d meet my maker.  But somehow I also surmised that I don’t want to have to make an inordinate number of apologies on that day.  So I tried to atone for those sins.

But as I got older and explored more spiritual doctrines, I also came to believe that it’s incumbent upon us to evolve into better beings… to learn the hard lessons and apply them every day.  It feels comfortable to believe that there is some reward at the end.

In pondering all this, my twisted mind conjured a vision. I was talking to a big ball of light trying to justify my screw-ups and a big booming voice interrupted.  “Uh no…there’s no big platter of forgiveness here.  You were supposed to be good and do good back on earth.  No, no, no… instead of forgiveness we offer evolution, depending on how much you learned and applied.  You had a shot!  You could have gone back as a wise, judicious leader of all people, but you blew it because you assumed you’d be forgiven.  In the end, yours was a selfish life so you have to go back and really learn the lessons this time.  That’s the GOOD news.  The BAD news is that I’m sending you back as an amoeba ‘cuz you got a whole lot of evolving to do.”  Hmmm…..

I jumped the line and ran through a force field.  I found myself standing on a cloud, talking to a cool looking guy dressed in a robe and sandals.  After hearing my story, he said, “Just a little time in the fire, pretty lady.  No worries, I’ll have you back up here soon.”  Hmmm….

Both seem valid and I see justice in either.  In the end I found this quote from Gandhi and decided that it made the most sense to me:

“If we only had a handful of words to speak in one lifetime, we’d be far more judicious in how we used them.  Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words.  Manage and watch your words, for they become your actions.  Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits.  Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they become your values.  Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.”

For a little guy, he sure had a lot of big ideas.

AUTHOR INFO: 

Midwestern-raised Jacqueline Gum is the author of Confessions of a Corporate Slut, a novel about a woman who successfully navigates a male-dominated corporate world.  Jacqueline’s familiarity with this type of corporate world and the challenges a woman faces in it stem from her own business successes in a male-dominated industry.  She also blogs regularly on her website at http://www.jacquelinegum.com/blog about all types of everyday injustices we all suffer and asks the question, “Where’s the Justice?”

Her second novel, The Accuser’s Burden, is about a successful career woman grappling with questions of loyalty, love, corporate intrigue, and social justice when her husband commits an unspeakable crime against her best friend and mentor.  It has been short listed for the William Faulkner Words & Wisdom 2012 Competition in the novel category, and she is currently seeking representation for it.  (Read Chapter 1)  In the meantime, she continues to actively write, working on her third novel, The Flame Dame Chronicles.

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BOOK INFO:

Confessions of a Corporate Slut is the wry retelling of the tale of a corporate wife—YES, it is a career.  The title is metaphorical…tongue in cheek for smart women who give away their intellectual property for free…to benefit a spouse.  Its publication preceded the very public stories of Silva Spitzer, Elizabeth Edwards, et. al. Midwestern Review gave it a 5 star rating.

Buy it on Amazon
Also available on Barnes & Noble

Woman Versus Machine

Machines are supposed to make life easier or more enjoyable.  They are not supposed to make us feel stupid.  Inventers do not sit around, trying to dream up a machine that will constantly frustrate people and make them feel like incompetent fools.  Of course, given the fact that machines frequently do just that, one does wonder if there isn’t some evil plot going on.  The relentless degradation of our belief in our intelligence is even reflected by the explosion of books written specifically for dimwits who are incapable of handling life’s complexities without having simple instructions in monosyllabic words to follow.

I confess I’ve had to resort to reading some of those books.  So you can imagine my trepidation when I bought a “smartphone.”  Would I be clever enough to conquer it?  Or would this smartphone be smarter than me?   I decided to keep score.

The smartphone scored 1 point immediately for convincing me to order it even though I already had a perfectly adequate cell phone.  But I also gave myself ½ point because the free time and bonus minutes that came with the smartphone nearly compensated for its cost.  I use a prepaid service, so I have to buy the time anyway, just to keep my cell phone activated.  Once I received it, I had no problem adding the new smartphone to my account online.  One point for me.  Next was porting my cell phone number to the new smartphone and transferring the air time and minutes.  Everything went great until it came to transferring the minutes.  It would only transfer a reduced number of my minutes.  One point for the smartphone for blocking me just as I thought I’d be able to do all this without calling customer service.  Score:  smartphone—2 points, me—1 ½ points.

I called customer service, and eventually I was able to explain exactly what had happened and what I needed them to do to fix things.  One point for me for successfully communicating the complicated situation, plus half a point for persisting until I had made it clear and another half a point for not feeling embarrassed by the mess I had made of it.  Everything was straightened out, but for some reason, I did not leave both my phones turned on as I was told to do so that the process could be completed.   Minus 1 point for blocking myself.  However, I did figure out my mistake in less than a day and before I called customer service to ask what the problem was, so I got half a point back.  I was temporarily feeling pretty smug about things because now I was up a point on the smartphone—3 for me, 2 for the smartphone.

The usual tussle over the owner’s manual occurred.  The information that came with the smartphone was totally inadequate.  One point for the smartphone.  I found the full manual online and downloaded it.  One point for me.  But even after reading the whole manual, I realized I still wasn’t sure how to make a call on my fabulous new phone.  Minus ½ point for me.  The only way around that kind of complete ignorance is to simply stumble forward by attempting to make a call.  I was able to program in my sister’s phone number and then call her using the fancy voice-activated dialing feature.  One point for me.  I couldn’t figure out how to put her on speaker phone or increase the volume, so I hung up, losing the point I had just gained.  But I was still half a point ahead, at 3 ½ for me and 3 for the smartphone.

I called my sister back, this time trying to use the headset that came with the smartphone, not realizing that it was only for listening to music.  She couldn’t hear me at all, and I had to hang up again.  The smartphone got one point for crossing me.  Later, I figured out that the smartphone had actually double-crossed me, so it got a second point.  The stylish, but useless, gel skin that came with it covered the volume control button, which is why I couldn’t find it when I was talking to my sister.  Working out the volume/speaker phone issues ended up taking a lot of what I’m calling “pointless practice” in which I called my home phone instead of an actual person.  And even though I didn’t count any of that, the smartphone had still surged ahead at 5 points to my 3 ½ points.

More research was necessary before I tackled the next step—taking pictures with my smartphone.  After rereading that part in the manual, it was actually pretty easy.  One point for me.  Moving the pictures to my computer was more challenging.  I managed to email a single picture to myself—one point for me—but it used up an excessive number of minutes—one point for the smartphone.  So emailing the picture was pretty much a draw.  However, the best way to transfer pictures from my phone to my computer is to use a micro-SD card in the smartphone to store the pictures I take and then take the card out and insert it into my computer.  One point for me for figuring that out.  Except I didn’t have a micro-SD card, so I had to buy one, resulting in one point for the smartphone for making me spend more money on something that “came with everything.”  Another draw.  Nevertheless, I had cut the smartphone’s lead by a point:  smartphone—7 points, me—6 ½ points.

To test out the wifi connection and browser set up, I took my smartphone to the library to use their free wifi.  That worked like a charm.  Hooray!  Score a point for the home team.  I tried to email another picture using the free wifi.  It didn’t work.  Instead, it again sucked away a whole bunch of minutes.  Oops!  One point for the smartphone.  Then I tried to set up access to my email account so I could use my smartphone to check it.  Gmail not only blocked my smartphone’s attempt to log in, but also sent me an email to warn me of the “suspicious activity” and the apparent attempt to hack my account.  Har har har.  Now I had two machines fighting each other.  Gmail did give me some complicated instructions on how to set up my account to allow this suspicious activity if it was something I had caused and that I wanted to occur.  I declined to follow up since I didn’t really care about being able to access my email account from my smartphone.  Although I may not deserve it because I didn’t actually succeed, I still gave myself ½ point for following the initial steps correctly and did at least make contact with my email account.  Gmail probably deserves several points for blocking all this suspicious activity and thwarting both of us, but I’m leaving Gmail out of it because this is between me and my smartphone, now tied at 8 points.

We’ve had a few small skirmishes since then.  For instance, the smartphone strategically assigned Web access to a multi-use button, so I’ve accidentally connected to the Internet several times already, which uses up a fraction of a minute every single time.  However, I have a zillion minutes because I only use my cell phone for emergencies, and I never have any emergencies.  So that’s a minor irritation I can ignore and is probably only worth half a point for each of us (the smartphone for doing it to me and me for not getting upset about it).  And last week when I tried to take a picture of the ocean, glare completely obliterated the display.  I was able to shield it just enough to find the camera menu and snap a few shots.  I figure that’s another point split between us, leaving us tied once again.

Currently, we’re at a standoff with 9 points each, warily eyeing the other whenever our paths intersect.  Although the smartphone is perfectly capable of crossing me at any time, it still needs me to charge it up and turn it on.  So if I ever do have an emergency, I’m hoping the smartphone will let bygones be bygones and join me in my efforts to resolve whatever external challenges might arise, after which we can resume our ongoing rivalry of who is smarter—me or my smartphone.

Driving Through a Rainbow…

Double Rainbow near Craigellachie BC

Recently a friend asked if I’d like to accompany her on a road trip to a city twelve hours’ drive away. Although it was the height of summer and I had determined to stay in my own ‘hood, I decided to forego the fireworks competition in my backyard I never miss, as well as various other celebrations and events, and join her. After all, our destination was a city where two of my three brothers live. We could have a mini-reunion and besides I would get to play a couple of rare rounds of golf with the older bro who has always been a scratch golfer and a joy to watch, along with Irv, my usual partner, who only started golfing a handful of years ago and considers a game with our big brother as much a privilege as do I.

My friend took the afternoon off and we left Vancouver at 1 pm, car full of the usual bags of snacks (my contribution) and healthy protein (hers).

Shortly before 7:00 we were getting pretty road sore when we drove around a corner just past the lyrically named Craigellachie (means rocky hill – love that Gaelic) and before our eyes appeared a brightly intense rainbow – and then moments later a second, weaker one. Jackie mentioned she had always wanted to drive through a rainbow and wondered out loud if this could possibly be the one. That would be cool, said I, never thinking such a thing were possible.

I snapped a few pix as we went along, enjoying the intensity of the colour of both the ‘bow and the sky. Rain began to fall on us and then several phenomena appeared all at once. We could barely take it all in. The sky turned blue/grey and tiny raindrops came flat at the windshield on the barest of angles. These tiny pinpoints each made a prism. It was like a million glittering diamonds. It happened so fast I could hardly get to the phone camera, but managed to click off two shots before dropping it down again in order to enjoy the spectacular sensation of the shower of sparkles. Suddenly I noticed the end of the rainbow on the road. Though the bow had appeared to be on our right, at that moment it too appeared to be coming directly at us, showing its spectrum of colours parallel to the roadside, just inside the shoulder. At the same time Jackie saw the spectrum appear on the hood and the passenger side fender of the car. Too focussed on the phenomenon on the road, I caught only a glimpse of this. Alas, there were cars behind us and though Jackie slowed down as best she could, we could not stop. Paralyzed in the moment of awe, this time I failed to get a shot.

No matter. I will never forget the sight of those twinkling ‘diamonds’; and the rainbow on the road is indelibly impressed upon my memory. Besides, I will always have this post and the pix I did get should I ever feel the need to jog my memory.

Afterward, with the second rainbow still visible, Jackie phoned her husband to tell him of our experience. In his normal droll way, without missing a beat he asked if we had found the pot of gold at the end of our rainbow. In our state of wonderment neither of us had thought of that! Which is just as well. Apparently chasing rainbows would have been a fruitless gesture. I remembered my editor, a pilot, telling me he had twice flown through a rainbow. I contacted him and he described his experiences: ‘I was flying a sightseeing charter through a valley. There was a rainbow in front of us, right across the valley. As we got closer, the rainbow got smaller until it formed a complete circle. We flew through the centre of the circle and looked back to see it get larger and form a normal rainbow again. Another time I spotted a rainbow near my track so I flew directly toward it and through it with the same result’.

His closing remark made me laugh out loud and was typical of him: ‘It is really hard to find a pot of gold in a circle­’.

Both Jackie and I still feel bathed in the magical energy of that experience. And I can tell you with certainty what my friend knew all along: While the phenomenon may be physically circular (and I don’t doubt it is), one can indeed drive through a rainbow…

Getting Closer…

Getting closer still…

Into the Rainbow… A shower of sparkling diamonds…