Irreverence can help us rationalize cruelty and uncertain times, but what happens when we become addicted to it? I remember looking forward to Saturday Night Live as a kid. Weird Al to this day is one of my favorite musical artists. I love parody and irreverent comedy. Taking serious things down a size has been and always will be an essential part of the human story, and I’m not arguing against humor, or irreverence. Far from it. I’m simply observing what can happen when we consume ourselves with irreverence and throw away the idea of sacredness. I’m actually not arguing against irreverence at all, but rather arguing that reverence has its place as well. In fact, it could be said that I’m arguing that irreverence itself is sacred. Religion teaches that the “Kingdom of God” is a place separate from where we are now, something to attain if we’re good enough. But I don’t see it that way. Buddhism taught me that nirvana is already within us. The “kingdom of God”, “Nirvana”, “Heaven”, whatever you want to call it, isn’t a place. It’s who we are at the very core of our being. It’s from where morality, empathy, and love spring. The kingdom of god is within us, within our bones, not something outside of ourselves.Alan Ginsberg’s poem “Holy” is a great exercise in sanctifying irreverence. Ginsberg was a gay man writing his experiences in a time when persecution was even worse in many ways than it is today. His book was put on trial for obscenity for its content, and he remains one of my literary heroes. Rather than bringing the sacred down into the depths of depravity, he chose to lift what was considered profane at the time up into the realm of the sacred. In his footnote to the famous poem ‘Howl’, he writes: Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!The bum’s as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy! Perhaps this is the answer: not to abandon holiness as a concept but to see everything as holy. Every moment, every act of every human being: holy. Depression and meaninglessness are so commonplace now, they’re staples of every day life. We’ve got ask ourselves, is that normal? Should despair be our default setting? For many of us, we long for justice and demand decency when provoked to action, but live our lives in a way that is intentionally void of meaning and depth, in a way that mocks the very notion of showing reverence towards anything. This disconnect takes away validity from our causes when we suddenly demand to be taken seriously. We shouldn’t blame ourselves for this in the face of so much adversity in the world. We’ve experienced a global pandemic, insurrections, school shootings, and bigotry from unexpected places; such as public figures we once considered mentors. We’ve been hardwired to distrust that which has been deemed sacred by our society. After all, those who wrap themselves in the cloak of the divine, claiming that sacredness belongs to them and them alone have wielded their power as a weapon against the innocent and most vulnerable in our society. We’ve evolved a cynicism towards things and people we once worshiped when their legacies have been tarnished. And rightfully so. Our founding fathers? Slave owners. Organized religion? A sham. History? Filled with blood and suffering. Our personal heroes? Bigots. So we turn on the idea of holiness and say that we embrace the unholy and the profane. But what a disservice that is to our very nature. We are in fact discrediting ourselves and unintentionally buying into the religious idea that who we are is inherently unholy and embracing that as a moniker of pride. I present that we are cutting ourselves short. I believe that this generation gets to define what is holy and what is not, and that the frauds of the world don’t get to define it for us. Our beliefs, thoughts, ideals, art, and literature are holy. One school of ancient gnostic thought taught that every work of art or new piece of writing was scripture. For we are one with god, are god, and within god. How can we create anything that is not a part of that godhood? It would be impossible. One of the hypocrisies that stood out to me the most about church when I was younger was that it was a building. You had to act a certain way inside the church, or else god might become angry with you. You had to get your morality from someone, usually a man, who told you how you should interpret scripture. The church defined holiness for many of us, and therein lies the problem. Just opening the Bible, the supposed textbook of church, showed you how incorrect this system was. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says “ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” And then, in Matthew 23:9-10 we get this passage: “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.” I include these verses not to proselytize, but to hold up a belief system to its own instructions like a mirror. According to the Bible, the church isn’t a building and you shouldn’t be calling anyone a “teacher, preacher, or father”. Now, I’m not saying anything is wrong with going to church or learning from your pastor as long as the message ultimately leads to pure love and understanding, but oftentimes that’s not where it leads at all. It’s my belief that true holiness exists in every day deeds of kindness and love, not in brick and mortar. It exists in the laughter we share with one another, in our pain, our orgasms, our hallucinogenic trips, our creativity, our despair, our shame, and our hopes. “Doing church”, reaching “nirvana”, is as simple as waking up in the morning. We’re already there. And it’s all holy. Thank god for the beatniks.
