Nemesis as Prayer for the People in our Troubled Time

The well-credentialed author of the book, Nemesis — named for the Greek Goddess who used Her righteous anger to destroy arrogance, hubris and oppression — suggests that the American republic has gone down so far an imperialist path since World War II, the necessary corrective workings  of Nemesis will be financial ruin (if we can avoid nuclear war).  Since the book’s publication a couple of years ago, the increasingly negative globalization of dominant political economies — and today’s headlines — reflect a time of challenge so great we might all unite in prayer or consciousness beyond religious and secular viewpoints, beyond blue and red, beyond our own opinions.

But how to unite for ending oppression in our time?  Being American by birth, let me start with the people I know best.

Americans  have long been praying (some would say preying)  — something all male-dominant systems seem to share in political common.  Our versions of God as male deity don’t seem to be helping or bringing an end to evil; neither does false hope for believers only to be beamed up during armageddon. For that reason, why not try praying that Nemesis end the reign of global oppression — and clear the way for an end to the domination and submission modeled at its roots in the gender war that’s the longest war of all.

Wrap up your invocation to Nemesis in the name of Jesus and the power of Christ if you want; the red-letter reported words of biblical gospels show Jesus cursing political hypocrites with “woe.”

Judaism and other mainstream religions similarly have plenty in their history to allow the cursing of oppressors  — all in the self-defensive  name of freedom.

Spin it for the people and not for the politicians, and we might use our religious heritage to help free ourselves.   Harriett Tubman did that with her Underground Railroad.  Can we affort to do less?

As one image of  female body type that’s not a pornification of culture, Nemesis as Goddess has been pictured  like this:

(Nemesis, by Alfred Rethel, 1837.  Her name is from the Greek word meaning, “to give what is due.”)