Pax Americana

Good Friday

This one is not from me. but from Sara Miles -- it is pretty darn good!

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/church_year/good_friday_1.php

Dangerous Quaker Fired!

(No, really!)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/29/BAQPVAUVO.DTL&tsp=1

try here

Fasting Again

Well, right now I'm eating because I'm once again starting my fast atthe time Leslie's meeting with Conyers is supposed to start.  Another 3-day affair that you might consider joining in whole or in part.

Hecate had posted a link to an interesting post about the spiritual side of fasting.  It had an interesting quote that I googled to find the original source, which had other thought-provoking things to say:

How much of your daily routine do you perform subconsciously? You may be surprised. Sleepy patterns that barely need your presence to execute. A day of well-rehearsed reflex actions from brushing your teeth to dinner table talk. I once met someone who said, “My wife and I have been married so long that I know what she is going to say even before she says it.” Over the years they simply stop talking, tired of repeating the same old things or simply having nothing left to say.

The behavior of a caged animal is like that. Clearly seen in the worn path around the outside of the cage where day after day, the poor creature circles in the same course with automated steps. An endless rut of same-o same-o where the romance of life is gone. Replaced by dull duty, repetitious responsibility and hopeless escaping. It is difficult to become awakened to how much your life is driven by impulse and instinct.
...
It’s time for a change.

Fasting is a knife that cuts away superficiality, getting to the bone. Effective, because it is able to break up daily patterns upon which you have become so dependent. When those patterns of pleasure are removed, you are left with your own internal resources.

There's more God stuff in there than I generally go for, but it does reflect part of the point of fasting for me: breaking up my own routines.  If I'm to become the change I wish to see I must disrupt my own behavior patterns in the effort to do undermine the status quo in our society.  That's worth the price of admission from my perspective even if what I'm doing doesn't convince Conyers to launch an impeachment investigation.

ntodd

(x-posted at Dohiyi Mir)

When the ocean catches fire, who can extinguish it?

What were Gandhi's last words?

A few days after Mahatma Gandhi died, his secretary, Pyarelal, wrote a detailed account of the assassination, including the following: "At the first shot, the foot that was in motion, when he was hit, came down. He still stood on his legs when the second shot rang out, and then collapsed. The last words he uttered were 'Rama Rama'."

A different exclamation, "Hey, Ram!", is normally attributed to him. (An American scholar has suggested that this version is due to Gurbadu Singh.) In the 1960s his niece, Manu, who was near him, recalled his last words as "Hey Ram, Hey Ram." According to one of the conspirators who was in the crowd, he produced only an inarticulate guttural rasp.

At least some of the witnesses seem to have heard what they expected or wanted to hear. The "guttural rasp" version, for example, might well be dismissed as hostile. However, the fact that two of the other three accounts imply that he said more than just "Hey Ram" once - which a devout Hindu might be assumed in principle to say - suggests that this "normal" version is probably also incorrect.

"Rama, Rama" would beautifully express surrender to Rama's will, whereas "Hey Ram, Hey Ram" would more likely express an un-Gandhian sense of helplessness. However, the mere existence of so many contradictions makes it seem likely that he was heard indistinctly. And indeed, he was frail and old and two bullets had just entered his chest.

In this light it may be of interest that nine months earlier, Gandhi in one of his talks after a prayer meeting suggested unequivocally that his very last words, if he were assassinated, would be "Rama, Rahim": "Even if I am killed, I will not give up repeating the names of Rama and Rahim, which mean to me the same God. With these names on my lips, I will die cheerfully."

Sixty years...

ntodd

The 60th anniversary of Gandhi's assassination

The Episcopal Bishop of California blogs on non-violence, Gandhi & where we need to go from here:

http://bishopmarc.vox.com/library/post/remembering-mahatma-gandhi.html

Dr King

AP:

Nearly 40 years after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., some say his legacy is being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message.

"Everyone knows — even the smallest kid knows about Martin Luther King — can say his most famous moment was that 'I have a dream' speech," said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Buffalo. "No one can go further than one sentence. All we know is that this guy had a dream. We don't know what that dream was."

King was working on anti-poverty and anti-war issues at the time of his death. He had spoken out against the Vietnam War and was in Memphis when he was killed in April 1968 in support of striking sanitation workers.

King had come a long way from the crowds who cheered him at the 1963 March on Washington, when he was introduced as "the moral leader of our nation" — and when he pronounced "I have a dream" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

By taking on issues outside segregation, he had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines, and his relationship with the White House had suffered, said Harvard Sitkoff, a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire who has written a recently published book on King.

"He was considered by many to be a pariah," Sitkoff said.

But he took on issues of poverty and militarism because he considered them vital "to make equality something real and not just racial brotherhood but equality in fact," Sitkoff said.

Just a few excerpts for now:

• Beyond Vietnam, April 1967 - "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
     
  The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
     
  Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
   

• Domestic Impact of the War, November 1967 - Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And then there are those who said 'You're hurting the civil right movement.' One spoke to me one day and said, 'Now Dr. King, don't you think you're going to have to agree more with the Administration's policy. I understand that your position on Vietnam has hurt the budget of your organization. And many people who respected you in civil rights have lost that respect and don't you think that you're going to have to agree more with the Administration's policy to regain this.' And I had to answer by looking that person into the eye, and say 'I'm sorry sir but you don't know me. I'm not a consensus leader.' I do not determine what is right and wrong by looking at the budget of my organization or by taking a Gallup poll of the majority opinion. Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
     
  On some positions a coward has asked the question is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question is it right? And there come a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.
   

• I've Been to the Mountaintop, April 1968 - Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

More later...

ntodd

(x-posted at Dohiyi Mir)

Rude Quakers

The Friend:

Thomas Ellwood's account of how he stood firm in his new Quaker faith, refusing the hat-doffing demanded by polite society in 1659, and joyfully confirming his friends' charge, 'What, Tom, a Quaker!' is one of the most charming passages in Quaker faith & practice (19.16). We can all acclaim a perfect piece of outreach. But there's a little more to the story, as the latest edition of his autobiography, The History of Thomas Ellwood, Written by Himself (1714), reminds us.
...
Ellwood found himself testifying to his faith at the Old Bailey in London. He was among thirty-two Friends arrested for attending a Quaker Meeting; Ellwood kept himself occupied in Bridewell prison by sewing night-waistcoats of red and yellow flannel, but another Friend, arrested for practicing his trade of shoe-making on a Sunday, was less fortunate:

'The manner of whipping there is to strip the party to the skin from the waist upwards, and having fastened him to the whipping-post, so that he can neither resist nor shun the strokes, to lash the naked body with long but slender twigs of holly, which will bend almost like thongs, and lap round the body; and these having little knots upon them, tear the skin and flesh, and give extreme pain. With these rods they tormented the Friend most barbarously.'

Ellwood records, too, the state's somewhat cavalier attitude to the original offence, which is of particular relevance as we find ourselves, once again, debating the circumstances under which the state is prepared to suspend habeas corpus:

'The prisoners complained of the illegality of their imprisonment, and desired to know what they had lain so long in prison for. The Court regarded nothing of that, and did not stick to tell them so, 'For,' said the Recorder to them, 'if you think you have been wrongfully imprisoned, you have your remedy at law, and may take it, if you think it worth your while. The Court,' said he, 'may send for any man out of the street and tender him the oath: so we take no notice how you came hither, but finding you here, we tender you the oath of allegiance; which if you refuse to take, we shall commit you, and at length præmunire you.' Accordingly, as each one refused it, he was set aside and another called.'

I was just thinking about how at one time we Quakers were considered impolite for not doffing our hats, for attending Meeting and all sorts of other things back in the day.  Pinkers are impolite, too, and I'm proud to be a part of both traditions.

ntodd

Meeting

I talk about Meeting in the latest Paxcast, and I thought it might be good to post a little HowStuffWorks kinda thing:

Our word "worship" has its roots in the concept of "worth-ship." Worship is our response to what we feel to be of ultimate importance. Our expression of that feeling of ultimate worthship may take many forms. Worship is always possible, alone or in company, in silence, in music or speech, in stillness or in dance. It is never confined to place or time or form.
...
Careful listening to the Inward Teacher can lead to fresh openings: an inpouring of love, insight, and interdependence. True listening can also bring the worshiper to new and sometimes troubling perceptions, including clear leadings that may be a source of pain and anxiety; yet it can also bring such wholeness of heart that hard tasks can become a source of joy. Even when we worship torn with our own pain or that of another, it is in worship that we discover new strength for what faces us in our everyday lives.

Each experience of worship is different. There is no right way to prepare for spiritual communion, no set practice to follow when worship grows from expectant waiting in the Spirit.
...
Worship in meeting may...begin with stilling the mind and body, letting go of tensions and everyday worries, feeling the encompassing presence of others, and opening oneself to the Spirit. It may include meditation, reflection on a remembered passage from the Bible or other devotional literature, silent prayer, thanksgiving, praise of God, consideration of one's actions, remorse, request for forgiveness, or search for direction. Even in times of spiritual emptiness, Friends find it useful to be present in worship.
...
When a leading is to be shared, the worshiper feels a compelling inward call to vocal ministry. The very name "Quaker" is by tradition derived from the evident quaking of early Friends witnessing under the power of the Spirit. Though ministry is seldom accompanied by such outward signs, some still feel the inward quaking. Vocal ministry may take many forms, as prayer, praise of God, song, teaching, witnessing, or sharing. These messages may center upon a single, vital theme; often apparently unrelated leadings are later discovered to have an underlying unity. Such ministry and prayer may answer the unrecognized or unvoiced needs of other seekers.

When someone accepts the call of the Spirit to speak, fellow worshipers are likewise called to listen with openness of minds and hearts. Diffident and tender spirits should feel the Meeting community's loving encouragement to give voice, even if haltingly, to the message that may be struggling to be born within them. Friends whose thought has been long developing and whose learning and experience are profound serve the meeting best when they, like all others, wait patiently for the prompting of the Inward Teacher. Anyone moved to speak following another should first allow others to absorb and respond inwardly to what has already been said.

Friends should not put obstacles in the way of the call, whether by deciding in advance to speak or not to speak, or by feeling a duty to speak to provide some balance between silence and the spoken word. Even if not a word is spoken, meetings for worship can be profoundly nurturing.

Most Meeting I've attended in my life has been unprogrammed and silent.  I was shocked--one might even say 'appalled'--when I was at Meeting in Celo, NC, and they started by singing hymns (most of which, other than my paternal grandfather's favorite, Amazing Grace, I didn't know) and people gave ministry during the proceedings!  IIRC, Euell Gibbons was a fairly chatty guy in Meeting--he was an Elder and that was certainly warranted, though I don't really have memory of much talking in general back in the day.

The only time previously I've ever been felt moved to speak was at NTodd's Pa's Wife's memorial.  I spoke last, only after so many members of the community, none Quaker other than NTodd's Pa, had shared their witness of her life.  I'd actually intended not to speak at all, consciously and deliberately, despite the admonishment of Faith & Practice to go in without an agenda, as it were.

But how could I not speak?  How can I keep from singing?

ntodd

and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Surah 5, Verse 32.

Here's an inspirational tale of the multiplier effect of one individual's actions. I first read about it in  "The Ornament of the World" by Maria Rosa Menocal, but an article in the December 3rd issue of  The New Yorker tells the full story, with many new details. If you don't subscribe to the New Yorker, I recommend getting hold of this issue, tout suite. It’s about the world’s oldest Sephardic Haggadah, the Sarajevo Haggadah; so called because it resided in the National Museum of Sarajevo, but the book was originally created in medieval Spain. It’s an illuminated manuscript, on parchment with gold and silver leaf, and it was the treasure of the museum. How it made its way to Yugoslavia, after all Jews and Muslims were exiled from the Iberian peninsula in 1492, no one knows for sure. In 1942, when the Nazis were occupying Yugoslavia, they went to the museum to confiscate the book, as they had confiscated and destroyed Jewish texts all over Europe. But the chief librarian, an Islamic scholar named Dervis Korkut, who took his responsibility as custodian of the books very seriously, hid the book from the German officers. He then snuck it out of the building under his coat, and took it to a remote mountain village, where he placed it in the care of the imam of a local mosque. The imam put it among the Korans and other Muslim holy books, and when the war was over, he returned it to Korkut, who then put it back in the library.

This would be a touching and inspirational enough story, but there’s a lot more. About how Korkut and his wife also rescued a young Jewish woman, Mira Papo, who was a member of the partisans, by hiding her in their home for months, and how eventually the tables were turned, and Dervis Korkut’s youngest daughter, a refugee from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1999, was rescued through the actions of Mira Papo-even though Mira had died the previous year.

I do believe that when human beings are at their best, they can make miracles happen.

Iraqi churches are destroyed or abandoned.

You'd have to be mad to hold a Christian service in Iraq today, but if you must, then the vicar of Baghdad is your man. He's the Reverend Canon Andrew White, an Anglican chaplain who suffers from multiple sclerosis and from a fanatical determination to save the last Iraqi Christians from the purge.

Excellent report from 60 Minutes:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/29/60minutes/main3553612.shtml

"When in doubt, do the right thing."

Sermon for Thanksgiving Day - 2007
HOMILIST--PRIOR AELRED
Lessons: Deut. 8:1-3, 6-20. James 1:17-18, 21-27. Matt. 6:25-33.
David Gemmell, my favorite fantasy writer, died in July of 2006 when in the hospital recovering from heart surgery. He was fifty-eight years old. He left a widow and a son and a daughter, an uncompleted manuscript and many sorrowful fans, most definitely including myself.

More than once I have taken sermon ideas from his books, once,in fact, using a rather long quotation and I am going to do that again this morning.

Many of his stories are set in alternative universes that are similar but not quite the same as our own. Usually there are mystics or soothsayers who have unusual powers. This reading is from the Epilogue of his book, "Stormrider." The character "Feargol" is one of the seers who has been transported by mysterious means to the New World in preparation for this day. The "Varlish" are this other world's analogue of our "English."

"Having rested, (Feargol) ran on, moving into sun-dappled woodland. When he arrived at his destination, he sat and waited, gazing down on the distant compound. Few people were stirring there. That was hardly surprising. They were dying.
Here in a rich land with edible roots and game, they were starving to death.
Feargol had waited for this moment for most of the fifteen years he had spent in this great land. ... The Varlish had finally crossed the ocean. They had come in a great ship and had begun a settlement on the coast. They had brought books and chairs and clothing and guns. They had carried beds and pictures and chests laden with goods from home. Not one of them had brought a fishing line or a horse or a mule. Not a single cow and certainly no seed corn. They had expected to be resupplied by sea, but those supplies had never arrived. Now they were dying.
... What happened this day would ultimately set the destiny of the world.
Feargol calmed himself, allowing his spirit to commune with the land. He felt uneasy and had felt that way for months now, ever since these few Varlish had landed here.
Toward dusk he rose from the ground and walked out to meet the seven hunters, laden with meat, who were heading for the compound.
The leader, a tall, broad-shouldered warrior with a broken nose and a scar across his lips, gave a crooked smile as he saw Feargol. He was carrying a small deer across his shoulders.
"Ha! Ghost Walker. Have you come to marvel at our foolish visitors?"
"Not to marvel, Saoquanta. You are carrying much meat."
"They are dying down there. They had one hunter, but he broke his leg. Now they have nothing."
"And you will feed them?"
"It is a small thing, Ghost Walker."
"No, it is not, Saoquanta. It is a great thing. I have seen it."
Saoquanta tipped the deer from his shoulder to the ground. The other six warriors laid down the meat they were carrying. "What is it that you have seen?"
"I have seen the rivers boil and stink and the air darken. I have seen the buffalo vanish and the land laid to waste. I have seen the tears of the mountains and heard the cries of the valleys. The people in that compound will be the fathers and mothers of darkness. Their children will outnumber the stars. They will rape and mutilate the land until there is nothing clean to destroy."
"These ... fools will do this?" said Saoquanta.
"And others like them."
"These words are heavy. They sit like stones upon the heart, Ghost Walker."
"And upon mine."
"What is it you advise?"
"I do not advise, Saoquanta, I merely prophesy."
The broken-nosed warrior nodded. "Your dreams are always true. It is well known that you walk the spirit paths. The Great Spirit has blessed you."
"He has."
"He has blessed me also, Ghost Walker. He has told me to protect my people and to nurture the land. He has made me a hunter of great skill and a provider to my people. I need to think on what you have said."
  With that he moved away from Feargol and entered the trees.
For more than an hour the hunters waited. At last Saoquanta returned. He sat once more with Feargol.
     "If I walked into my camp and I killed a child with my knife, that would be evil and the Great Spirit would be saddened by my actions. Not so, Ghost Walker?"
"It is so."
"If I walk into my camp and a child is starving and I offer it no food and it dies, have I not killed it?            "Yes," agreed Feargol, his heart heavy.
"The fools have children with them. They are dying. I have food. If I walk away now, will not the Great Spirit be saddened, Ghost Walker?"
"The descendants of the people will have no understanding of the Great Spirit," said Feargol." They will be thoughtless and greedy, merciless and vile."
"It seems to me that you are saying that if I do this small evil, then great good will grow from it. This may be a great truth. It is not a truth I choose to understand. I am Saoquanta. I am a hunter. I do not let children starve. This is not why the Great Spirit blessed me." Saoquanta rose and lifted the deer to his shoulders.
Feargol stood. Curiously, the sense of unease left him. He felt free of his burden. "You are a great man, Saoquanta. I shall walk with you, for I know the language of these men."
Together they walked down the hillside to the compound. There were no guards at the stockade, and the gates were open. The hunters moved inside.
Several gaunt men saw them. One of them, seeing the meat they carried, fell to his knees and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving.

That Which Happened

I was poking around GandhiServe, where I've gotten audio for Paxcasts, writing for blog posts, and assurance when I'm full of doubt, and discovered The Gita According To Gandhi:

The author of the Mahabharata has not established the necessity of physical warfare; on the contrary he has proved its futility. He has made the victors shed tears of sorrow and repentance, and has left them nothing but a legacy of miseries.

In this great work the Gita is the crown. Its second chapter, instead of teaching the rules of physical warfare, tells us how a perfected man is to be known. In the characteristics of the perfected man of the Gita, I do not see any to correspond to physical warfare. Its whole design is inconsistent with the rules of conduct governing the relations between warring parties.
...
The Gita is not an aphoristic work; it is a great religious poem. The deeper you dive into it, the richer the meanings you get. It being meant for the people at large, there is pleasing repetition. With every age the important words will carry new and expanding meanings. But its central teaching will never vary. The teacher is at liberty to extract from this treasure any meaning he likes so as to enable him to enforce in his life the central teaching.

Nor is the Gita a collection of Do's and Dont's. What is lawful for one may be unlawful for another. What may be permissible at one time, or in one place, may not be so at another time, and in another place.

I find this to be rather profound.  Essentially the Mahatma is not a "strict constructionist," allowing society to evolve and grow beyond any strictures written down ages past.  Yet we can still find meaning in ancient texts, even inspiration when you re-imagine their stories in your contemporary context.

Looking to his second discourse:

By reason of delusion, man takes wrong to be right. By reason of delusion was Arjuna led to make a difference between kinsmen and non-kinsmen. To demonstrate that this is a vain distinction, Lord Krishna distinguishes between body (not-Self) and Atman (Self) and shows that whilst bodies are impermanent and several, Atman is permanent and one. Effort is within man's control, not the fruit thereof. All he has to do, therefore, is to decide his course of conduct or duty on each occasion and persevere in it, unconcerned about the result. Fulfillment of one's duty in the spirit of detachment or selflessness leads to Freedom.

This commentary really strikes me because, of course, the only thing we really can control as we stumble through the Cosmos is our own choices and actions.  There's no guarantee that we can defeat evil, even when on the side of righteousness and using nonviolent tactics and strategy.  Yet we must act because failure is assured if we don't.

With Gandhi's interpretation in mind, I think the crux of the Gita's second chapter (The Eternal Reality of the Soul's Immortality) is in these three verses:

38. Hold alike pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, and gird up thy loins for the fight; so doing thou shalt not incur sin. [Sanskrit vocals]

39. Thus have I set before thee the attitude of Knowledge; hear now the attitude of Action; resorting to this attitude thou shalt cast off the bondage of action. [Sanskrit vocals]

40. Here no effort undertaken is lost, no disaster befalls. Even a little of this righteous course delivers one from great fear.  [Sanskrit vocals]

I probably should send this to the Democratic leadership, lest we write "that which did not happen" on America's epitaph...

ntodd

The Hundreth Monk

AP:

More than 100 Buddhist monks marched peacefully Wednesday in a northern Myanmar town noted for its defiance of the country's military rulers, the first large protest since the junta violently crushed a wave anti-government demonstrations.

The monks marched for nearly an hour in the town of Pakokku, chanting a Buddhist prayer that has come to be associated with the pro-democracy cause. They did not carry signs or shout slogans, but their action was clearly in defiance of the military government, as one monk spelled out in a radio interview.

"We are continuing our protest from last month as we have not yet achieved any of the demands we asked for," the monk told the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norway-based short-wave radio station and Web site run by dissident journalists.

"Our demands are for lower commodity prices, national reconciliation and immediate release of (pro-democracy leader) Aung San Suu Kyi and all the political prisoners," said the monk, who was not identified by name.

He said they had little time to organize the march so it was small. But "there will be more organized and bigger protests soon." After marching without interference, the monks returned to their respective monasteries, two of those who took part said in telephone interviews.

I recall people laughing at Cindy Sheehan when she was out there holding her vigil, all alone.  More recently and personally, some folks mocked the Shut It Down effort on October 17th because the entire nation didn't fall out when we called for a strike.

No, I'm not comparing our efforts directly with monks engaging the Myanmar junta.  I simply observe that numbers of people protesting doesn't mean anything more than the protesters have a lot of work to do in building more support for collective action (Karin mused in a similar vein right after the National Mobilization).  It requires a great deal of perseverance, sometimes more than I feel that I have.

Gandhi said in a speech in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1911:

Satyagraha means resisting untruth by truthful means. It can be offered at any place, at any time and by any person, even though he may be in a minority of one. If one remains steadfast in it in a spirit of dedication, it always brings success. Satyagraha knows neither frustration nor despair.

Well, I have admittedly known a great deal of frustration over the last few months, let alone several years, so apparently I have a lot more work to do regarding my own personal transformation.  But I'm tryin'.  I'm tryin' real hard, Ringo.

ntodd

Even More Tutu

Terrorist loving bishop (banned from the campus of St Thomas) -- see:

http://wcco.com/local/desmond.tutu.jewish.2.370693.html

now issues shocking claim that God is not Christian!

http://www.postgazette.com/pg/07299/828628-85.stm

A Phony Christian Soldier

Geesh, I wouldn't have noticed this story if I hadn't been perusing Crooks and Liars because I'd dropped by Althouse to see what crazy boxed wine induced hilarity she was posting and she pointed to this wingnut post about Rep. Pete Stark's righteous floor speech (whew!), proving that there is sometimes value reading wacko blogs:

A U.S. soldier who said his Christian beliefs compelled him to love his enemies, not kill them, has been granted conscientious objector status and honorably discharged, a civil liberties group said on Tuesday.

Capt. Peter Brown -- who served in Iraq for more than a year and was a graduate of the elite U.S. military academy West Point -- said in a statement issued by the New York Civil Liberties Union that he was relieved the Army had recognized his beliefs made it impossible for him to serve.

"In following Jesus' example, I could not have fired my weapon at another human being, even if he were shooting at me," said Brown, who plans to continue seminary classes he began by correspondence while in Iraq.
...
Brown said he had no conflict between his faith and military service until after he graduated from West Point in 2004 and began to study scripture and his belief.

During his Iraq deployment he applied for discharge as a conscientious objector but the request was denied, the NYCLU said. In July 2007 the NYCLU and the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal court in Washington, D.C., to order the honorable discharge.

Not the first soldier to apply for CO status, and hopefully not the last.  How odd that once somebody studies Scripture and listens to their conscience, they learn what Christ really said and decide he meant you shouldn't kill people.

As right as it is, this takes a lot of courage, even when you're not talking about refusing to serve in the Wehrmacht...

ntodd

Pope beatifies pacifist

One can distinguish between being a Hitler Youth member of an anti-aircraft gun crew and serving in Hitler's Wehrmacht, but it is still significant that Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) is officially acknowledging the rightness and holiness of Franz Jägerstätter because Jägerstätter refused to swear the oath that Ratzinger swore or don the uniform that Ratzinger wore.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2195611,00.html

[NTodd adding: this is truly a story about an amazing act of moral courage:

Franz Jägerstätter, born in 1907 in the village of St Radegund to an unmarried farmhand, not far from Hitler's birthplace, refused to fight in an unjust war. He knew that the penalty was death.

Thanks largely to the English Jesuit Archbishop Roberts, the Second Vatican Council put on record 40 years ago that refusal to take up arms was a valid expression of Catholic faith. Nevertheless it was and still is far from the norm. Germany's Catholic bishops supported Hitler's aggressive war. Military chaplains swore allegiance to the Führer. Christians fought with a quiet conscience - on both sides. In a historic volte-face the church is about to acknowledge that this conscientious objector was a true martyr. There is no modern precedent.

Is the Pope trying to make amends for his own complicity?]

Those Wily Amish

Slate:

The Amish are a splinter group of Swiss Anabaptists—Christian reformists who emerged during the 1500s. They, like other Anabaptists, sought a return to the original teachings of Jesus Christ, including the tough parts—loving your enemies, forgoing violence, and resisting the accumulation of material treasures. Famously, the Amish today also reject most post-1860s technologies, from electricity to MySpace.com. Less well know is that the Amish also refuse to participate in any form of justice based in retribution, formally living by Jesus' instruction to "turn the other cheek."

Since migrating to America, the history of the Amish has been peaceful. But not law-abiding. While they will "give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," when push comes to shove the Amish put the laws of heaven before those of man. While never violent, they have historically refused to obey many American laws, including education, zoning, child labor, Social Security, and conscription laws, among others.

The Amish have long refused to pay Social Security taxes, which they view as a form of compelled insurance; they also do not accept the Social Security payments. They will not educate their children beyond eighth grade, regardless of mandatory education laws. Teenagers are expected to work in fields and shops, whatever the child-labor laws may say. Some, including investigative journalist Nadya Labi, document allegations that sexual abuse is widespread in Amish communities and that state intervention is minimal. It all adds up to a degree of widespread tolerated lawbreaking that would likely lead other Americans to prison.
...
Should lawbreaking by the Amish...be tolerated? During the 20th century, federal and state officials often answered "no" for both groups. Thus, in the 1950s, the IRS began trying to collect Social Security payments from the Amish. In one famous incident in 1961, three IRS agents seized the plow horses of an Amish farmer named Valentine Byler, auctioned them off, paid off his taxes, and then sent him his $37.89 in change. Later, in the 1960s, Amish parents were arrested, fined, and imprisoned for taking their children out of schools, until in 1972 the Supreme Court declared leaving school at age 13 to be protected as the free exercise of religion.

But today, relations between the Amish and the state are generally stable and low-key. There remain some laws with which state and federal officials still demand full compliance, largely concerning threats to the outside community. For example, states have insisted upon—and largely succeeded in—forcing the Amish to put reflectors (if not lights) on their horse-drawn carriages to prevent traffic accidents.

But those laws whose violation hold consequences for the Amish alone are today by and large left unenforced. In some instances, this is because the government and the Amish have explicitly settled their differences by working out special compromises. (The Amish refusal to pay Social Security has, since 1988, been legalized pursuant to a special congressional exemption. The Amish also won an exemption from child labor laws in the mid-2000s.) But in other circumstances, local police and law enforcement officials have simply given up. For example, in the 1980s, Pennsylvania began to insist that Amish teachers have at least three years of high-school education and state certification. The Amish didn't comply, and eventually the state folded.
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Sometimes (though more rarely in recent decades) the Supreme Court creates a group right by giving a religious or other group the right, under the First Amendment, to ignore a law that others must follow. In 1972, the court thus gave the Amish an exception to laws mandating high-school education in Yoder v. Wisconsin. But such exceptions are unpredictable and seem to depend on the popularity of the group in question...

These formal legal mechanisms can create important legal space for some groups who want to live differently. But they don't quite give the Amish everything they want and they certainly don't work for the Mormon fundamentalists. Consequently, tolerance of lawbreaking creates a more radical form of deviation from uniform national rules. It is by nature messy, awkward, and informal. But it is the de facto bargain we've reached, creating a legal system that allows the Amish to be not just different in the ways Texans are, but different like, well, the Amish...

The article also discusses Mormon fundamentalists and their lawbreaking.  There's also an interesting distinction that I'd never considered: the Amish 'avoid' the law whilst the Mormons 'evade' it.

Anyway, this just caught my eye because it appears that the Amish have created alternative social institutions and in essence have seceded in plain sight.  Not a revolution per se, but they have effectively removed the legitimacy of state authority and carry on their lives as they see fit, even engage in commerce with people on the "outside"!  There must be a lesson in there somewhere...

ntodd

Muscle and Hate

(Cross-posted at A Blog Named Sue)

More than a few things that I've read on the Internet have made me angry lately, and for me, that's not a very good thing. When I get angry, I get ridiculously angry, and it's usually accompanied by a surge in blood pressure that I can actually feel followed shortly thereafter by a slashing headache cutting across my left temple. And I'm not one of those people who can turn anger into constructive energy so don't even suggest it. Anger's like some kind of psycho groupie stalker with me - if I give it the time of day it starts popping up all over my life, usually at the worst possible moment.

But still, stories like this one bring out the worst in me. This one didn't do wonders for my serenity either, especially considering that I know the people involved. (I'm still trying to get my head around that last incident - who gets in a guy's face when the other guy is carrying a kid?) Reading these stories I find myself wishing I had been there, my absurd reveries being accompanied with all kinds of macho self-puffery: "Hey, if these fuckers want to start beating up liberals they can start with this one! Come on, bring it, assholes!"

Whatever. Whether or not I give myself an aneurysm is of no great import, but I know that I'm not alone in feeling this intense frustration. And that's really what we're seeing here: frustration. No one simply decides on the spur of the moment to follow you home and start bitching you out  because you have a Kerry sticker on your car. Whenever I encounter someone like that, I try to remember that I'm simply getting the pointy end of a long line of bullshit that led to that moment. I'm don't do this in order to excuse the unhinged mouth breather in question but rather to keep myself from making the situation worse. Two pissed off people is always worse than one pissed off person. Always.

And yet, here I am, pissed off. I know exactly what's behind the pointy end of my long line of bullshit: genuine despair over the continuing gory clusterfuck in Iraq, feckless non-leadership by the people we elected with the express desire that they end the gory clusterfuck, the continuing public influence of those who would slander a brain-damaged twelve-year-old to make a vague political point, the fact that there are people in this country willing to beat strangers in the street in order to prop up our failed president, etc., etc., etc.  I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I've heard many liberal bloggers and some folks who actually spend time in the real world say we're heading for a replay of 1968 with its riots and suppression of political dissent. It's a tough point to argue. What bothers me is that some of us - myself included, at times - seem to look forward to this, to getting it all out in the open, to finally making the culture war a hot war. Over at The Crack Den, whenever someone (usually the never irksome Steve Simels) makes the 1968 comparison someone else usually chimes in with a sneering post that says something like, "This generation of sheeple will never spill blood."

Well, bully for the sheeple, then. I wasn't born until 1969 and I've never been in a riot, so I'm hardly an expert - but it seems to me that those riots were pretty one sided affairs with the guys carrying the tear gas and night sticks enjoying the upper hand. I can't imagine it being any better today now that they're equipped with microwave death rays and robot dragonflies of doom. Am I saying we should sit down and shut up? Of course not. And if you ever find yourself in a riot situation only you can decide how you should handle it. I'm just saying that let's not look forward to such an occurrence. Remember, someone who's expecting to get into a fight usually finds a way to get into one. Even Shakespeare's warlike mirror of all Christian kings, Henry V, would not seek a battle -  of course, neither would he shun one.

Oh, and if some nutjob reading this meets me and decides he wants to get in my face for being a godless liberal, well, just don't, okay? Do me a favor. Just don't.

More Tutu

I suppose everyone has heard about this (I agree with those critical of this decision -- but you knew that)

http://wcco.com/local/local_story_277101446.html

Peace Chanting

Peace.

What Color Is Your Revolution?

Using karma as a weapon?

Unlike earlier protests in Burma in the past two decades, the Buddhist clergy are taking the lead in demanding social justice and a new political order. And as protests continue, with mounting casualties, the monasteries are the focus of brutal attacks from the heavily armed 400,000-strong military.

But the unarmed monks are retaliating with spiritual tactics that are also powerful in a country where most of the population begins the day with prayers and offerings, and the vast majority believes that good deeds are spiritual capital.

For the monks, refusing food and alms from the military is a gesture that goes to the heart of Burmese Buddhism.

It was backed by an "excommunicative boycott" declared by a group of exiled monks, cutting off religious support from the junta and its supporters.

"The monks of Burma are poor, and they are unarmed, but they exert a life-and-death power over the population," says Guy Horton, a British-based human rights consultant who has spent a decade collecting evidence of the Burmese military's atrocities.

"This goes much deeper than ideology. The government has tried to buy off the monks by building temples and other things. But by attacking the monks they are putting their afterlives in grave danger," says Horton, who is calling on Canada to join a campaign to bring the junta leaders to justice.

Monks normally begin the day by begging for food, and people who fill their bowls earn credits for the afterlife, known as karma. When monks reject food by overturning their bowls it puts the would-be donors in danger of a terrifying spiritual future.

"It's a very high-pressure tactic," explains Bruce Matthews, a Burma expert and professor emeritus of comparative religion at Acadia University in Nova Scotia. "It denies the military their credits. If they die without enough, their rebirth would be at a lower order of existence."

The junta's generals are heavily influenced by Buddhism, says Horton. "They're terrified of the monkhood. They're endlessly filming themselves going to the pagodas, and half of Burmese television is about the military bringing gifts there."

Monks play a role in all major aspects of life, attending marriages and funerals, acting as spiritual counsellors and educating the poor. They run schools, hospitals and orphanages, an alternative welfare system in a desperately poor country with out-of-control inflation.

They also have strength in numbers: about 500,000 people devote their lives to the clergy, but hundreds of thousands of others have spent time in monasteries.

In spite of their unworldly image, Burma's Buddhist clergy have been in the vanguard of political life for decades, sometimes working in partnership with the rulers.

"When you go back in history to how Burma came together, you see that there was a close alliance between monks and warrior kings," says Priscilla Clapp, former chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in Burma. "They took care of people, but they made sure they served the king."

Now, says Clapp, the two generals running the junta see themselves as "modern warrior kings" and have tried – but failed – to resurrect the old partnership. The excesses of the regime, and wretchedness of the Burmese people, have driven the monks to the streets.

"The junta is scared. It's faced with a saffron revolution," she says, referring to the golden colour of some Buddhist robes.

Rank and file soldiers, and some commanders, may be listening to their own spiritual doubts as the demonstrations continue. Unconfirmed rumours abound of two infantry divisions refusing orders to shoot the demonstrators, threatening a split in the army.

These paradoxes of power make the outcome of Burma's democracy marches hard to predict.

I don't know if the junta really is all that religious or not--doesn't really matter.  What's important to note is that all regimes crave legitimacy and thus part of their efforts to create that legitimacy is to build up national/spiritual myths.  We see that in the United States now and we saw it in Nazi Germany.  One way authority can be undermined is by exposing its rank hypocrisy and the hollowness of its myths:

What gave further resonance to the wives' protest was that it was happening in the heart of Berlin, a city that had never been enthusiastic about Nazism. Cosmopolitan Berliners always saw it as a crude Bavarian aberration. Moreover, Berlin was the German base for foreign news organizations that still operated during the war. If political malcontents or the wire services were to get wind of the protest, the myth of the omnipotent Nazi state could be exposed. In fact, London radio did report on the demonstrations.

By the third day SS troops were given orders to train their guns on the crowd but to fire only warning shots. They did so numerous times, scattering the women to nearby alleyways. But the wives always returned and held their ground. They knew the soldiers would never fire directly at them because they were of German blood. Also, arresting or jailing any of the women would have been the rankest hypocrisy: According to Nazi theories, women were intellectually incapable of political action. So women dissenters were the last thing the Nazis wanted to have Germans hear about, and turning them into martyrs would have ruined the Nazis' self-considered image as the protector of motherhood.

I'm not well-versed in Burmese history or culture, though I've followed it half-assedly when Ang San Suu Kyi has made it into the American news cycle. I have no idea if the monks, having been effectively coopted before, will be able to maintain an attack capable of finally overthrowing the junta.  If they continue the pressure and the rest of the nation doesn't simply rely on the monks to do all the heavy lifting, this Saffron Revolution could very well join the Velvet, Rose, Orange and Cedar Revolutions in the ever-brightening rainbow of successful nonviolent struggles (sorry, but the bogus purple revolution doesn't count).

So what if Myanmar does effect regime change nonviolently in the most militarized society on earth, without a US invasion?  Will that mean the Bush Doctrine is dead?

ntodd

Church Threatened with Loss of Tax Exemption

Because a visiting preacher opposed the War in Iraq: (LA Times -- registration required)

http://tinyurl.com/2oafxb

[note from NTodd: you can try BugMeNot to subvert the registration requirement]

National Quaker Week

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2174670,00.html

Turn Our Bowls Upside Down

AP:

Armed only with upturned begging bowls, chanting Buddhist monks in Myanmar have caught the country's military rulers off guard with their peaceful protests.

They have emboldened the public to take to the streets by the thousands to support the most dramatic anti-government protests the isolated Southeast Asian nation has seen in a decade.

Braving monsoon rains, monks in traditional maroon robes demonstrated for a fourth straight day Friday in the country's largest city, Yangon. Followed by clapping onlookers, about 1,500 monks marched after praying at the Shwedagon Pagoda, the nation's holiest shrine and a gathering place for anti-government demonstrations including the failed 1988 democratic uprising.

The monks, who are widely respected in the mostly Buddhist society, bring moral authority to the movement with their nonviolent practices and sheer numbers: There are 500,000 in monasteries across the country.

Their assumption of a leadership role in protests poses perhaps the gravest threat to the junta since the 1988 uprising when the military fired on peaceful crowds, killing thousands and terrorizing the country.

It has put the regime in a quandary over whether to crack down or take a chance and allow the protests to run their course.

Josef Silverstein, a Myanmar expert and retired Rutgers University professor, said the junta may be hesitating to act until it assesses how many monks support the protests and who is actually leading them. Yet waiting much longer could be risky.

"The monks are showing that without arms and nothing more than prayers and marching that they are capable of having greater freedom than people have had," he said. "This could encourage people to be more resistant. The longer this stalemate goes on, the weaker the military looks to the country and outside."
...
The military, which has controlled Myanmar since 1962, has withstood waves of domestic and international protests since 1988 and shows no signs of yielding now. Even if the people are angry and emboldened, and the junta is treated as a pariah by the West, there are no signs of disunity in the army. And the support of neighboring nations, most notably China, as well as oil and gas revenues, keep the military in a commanding position.

Aung Zaw, a Burmese editor of The Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based magazine that covers Myanmar, said the military knows that brutalizing the monks could prompt the wider public — which has largely remained on the sidelines_ to join the protests.
...
The latest protests were triggered when authorities raised fuel prices as much as 500 percent in August. Strapped for cash, the regime was forced to slash the subsidies it had used to keep fuel cheap.

The cost of public transport skyrocketed and families suddenly found themselves having to walk to work and sell household goods to survive.

The government, which has a monopoly on fuel sales, raised prices of fuel from about $1.40 to $2.80 a gallon, and boosted the price of natural gas by about 500 percent.
...
Monks are demanding the government reduce fuel prices, release all political prisoners and begin negotiations with Suu Kyi and other democratic leaders.

What makes this week's protests different than the student-led uprising of 1988 are the monks' non-confrontational tactics — their orderly marches and religious chanting has yet to provoke the military.

Monks leading the procession have carried upside-down alms bowl — a symbol of protest. Some monks are refusing alms from the military and their families — a religious boycott deeply embarrassing to the junta. In the Myanmar language, the term for "boycott" comes from the words for holding an alms bowl upside down.

Speaking of nonviolent action, did you turn your bowls upside for the first Iraq Moratorium Day?  Will you join United for Peace on October 27th?

ntodd

Hungry Like the Wolf

A few weeks ago I was in a local park with my older daughter; we were talking about dinosaurs and whether it would have been cooler to be a hunter like T-Rex or Allosaurus rather than a big herbivore like apatosaurus. This is the type of conversation you have with a six year old.

The topic was a good springboard to a larger conversation about predators and prey in general, food chains, nature and all that rot. I wanted to demonstrate to her that predators get all the good press but it's actually the herbivores that shape and transform the landscape, so I asked her how many pigeons and squirrels we had in the park (hundreds) versus how many hawks (two, as near as we can tell). Looking at the food chain that way, really thinking about the predator/prey relationship in order to help her understand it better made me realize something: we've got it all wrong.

Of course, I don't mean that some animals aren't stronger and more deadly than others; that's obviously true. But we've all been taught that the food chain is a linear, heirarchal arrangement, with predatory animals at its apex, hunting skills representing the height of evolutionary achievement. However, when you step back and look at the animals in the food chain and their relationship with the world around them, you realize that predators aren't that important. To cite just one example: uneaten acorns buried by squirrels grow into forests of oak. No predator has that kind of impact on its environment. The function predators do serve - and it is a vital one - is to keep the prey animal populations from growing to an unsustainable level. Ecosystems face collapse when you take the big predators out of them. But that doesn't make predators sound like the kings of beasts to me; they sound more like a  a circuit breaker, designed to keep the system from overheating and going haywire. Circuit breakers are important, but which do you care more about: your fuse box or your plasma screen?

I'm reluctant to read too much arbitrary meaning into the natural world; it is a chaotic system that our rules and theories only somewhat explain at best - and a cougar hauling the occasional mountain biker off the trail isn't providing any meaningful check on the human population. (I credit that to the scientific principle known as "shit happens.") Those of us interested in peace, though, might benefit from looking at the food chain, in particular the predator/prey relationship in this way, especially since it's not uncommon to hear war supporters (either of this war or war in general) justify their aggressive positions by claiming that they're only following the natural order, ie, "It's a dog eat dog world."

They're wrong. They've bought into the notion that hunting and killing is the height of the natural order, rather than just one part of it. In fact, they don't even realize that the natural order has no height - it's a web of interconnected systems. Where is the height of the Internet? The summit of mathematics? 

It's important to understand this, since I think many of us often feel like we're the outsiders, the ones who have an unrealistic view of humanity, who wonder if a better way isn't possible. We're not. We're the ones who have it right. In fact, I'll go a step further and state that I don't even think human beings are particularly warlike. Oh, sure, we're brutish, crude, selfish and generally dickheaded but that's a pretty far cry from being bloodthirsty warmongers. History is full of examples of such, though, but it's worthwhile to remember that human populations that have embraced war had to be perverted into that state:

All high honors of the state were reserved for the military service and achievements in war. Even the nobles of royal blood must be graded anew on the basis of military service. Nobles without military distinction were degraded to commoners. The objective is to create "a people that looks to warfare as a hungry wolf looks at a piece of meat."

That's the historian Hu Shih writing about the Ch'in dynasty circa 360 BCE. He could have been writing about Sparta, though, or Rome, or Viking Scandanavia, or America during the run-up to the gory clusterfuck in Iraq. War has to be sold to the people. It always has, it always will. They will parade images of predatory strength before us, of wolves and eagles and lions, but they don't even understand the nature of those beasts much less that of human beings.

Are there violent humans, who fight and kill for no reason? Sure. But nearly all of them have some defect of the brain or some incident in their past that warped them into that state. And nearly all humans can be pushed to violence if the circumstances are dire enough or if they're scared enough; animals, even docile ones, will also fight when cornered.

And that's my ultimate point: we're animals. But we're not monsters.

(Cross-posted at my place)

Peace, within & without, comes from compassion

NTodd told me to post a sermon, so you have to blame him for the following!

I have been thinking about something from Benedict Spinoza: "Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."

My own opinion is that there is much truth to this, but it is also true that war is not peace (contra Ingsoc). Nevertheless, it seems obvious that it is much easier to develop interior peace when not in a war zone and also that it is easier to work for peace when one is at peace within. We have a sort of feedback loop and it really isn't necessary to privilege one understanding of peace over the other.

November is known in Mexico as the "month of the dead." On the first day of November, the Church celebrates All Saints day, rejoicing in the good and holy lives of those who have gone before. Traditionally the next day is a day of praying for the departed who might not have done so well. At the time of the English Reformation, Archbishop Cranmer cleaned up the calendar and one of the things he did was to abolish "All Souls day" because, after all, we are all "saints." I dare say that the good bishop have a good theological point, but psychology was very much on the side of the tradition (this is frequently the case & why the tradition is the way it is) and the newest calendar of The Episcopal Church now includes on the second day of November "Commemoration of all Faithful Departed."

Sermon for All Saints by Prior Aelred -- about peace as compassion for others leading to peace within and without.

Lessons:
Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10, 13-14.
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-17.
Matthew 5:1-12.

Prayer and death--these are significant topics, prayer and death--and both are central, I believe, not only to today’s feast of All Saints, but to our observance tomorrow of All Souls.

From earliest times it seems that the Church has conceived the saints in glory as in some way helping us by their intercession and their miracles. This makes sense when we remember that the saints are the ones who have been recognized as being like Jesus and it is He who is the one who now stands before the throne of the Father ever making intercession for us.

In the Gospels the nature of the compassion of Jesus is expressed by the Greek word, "splangchnidzomai," which is usually translated as “moved with compassion.” Jesus was "splangchnidzomai "because of this or that person or situation or because the people were like sheep without a shepherd. The scholars say that the word is an extremely strong one which means a deep agitation of the entrails--a visceral turmoil.

The theory of deification (which I confess is a process that is beyond my ability to imagine) seems to suggest that as we become detached from our biased attachments, our futile pursuits (that are actually concealed attempts to escape), our obsessive concern for the opinion of others and so on, there begins to be formed in us that absolutely gratuitous "splangchnidzomai," which the ancients called "agape" and which is really the inexplicable love which God has for us. Years ago Anders Nygren and Martin D’Arcy argued about the right way to understand "agape." Looking back on it now, it seems to me that they were arguing at cross purposes about whether talk about God's love implied that God could change. This is really a difficulty stemming from analogy based on our experience. Our feelings change. Our feelings invariably get entangled in concerns about reciprocity and what is fair and just and who hurt who more. God's love is unchanging. God loves us in spite of our cruelty and injustice and violence and scandals. The mystics tell us that it is experiencing God's love towards ourselves that makes it possible to share it with one another. We begin to know ourselves loved not because we are good or worthy but simply because we are human. Thus it is that, having accepted God's free love for ourselves, we become able to love all other human beings, to love the human race and condition, not because they have earned it but simply because God loves them.

This does not happen all at once, but as it breaks in upon us and we are able to let go of self interest and from the need to insist on restitution, the mind that is in Christ begins to give us the capacity to love human beings without any sort of discrimination, in imitation of the love, quite without rivalry, which the Father has for us.

So it is that we can be confident that the saints intercede for us -- they have come to share in the "splangchnidzomai" of Christ. The fact that they are dead does not affect that, for, as Our Lord says, God is not the God of the dead but of the living, for to Him all are alive.

But what of those of us who haven't made it yet -- what about tomorrow -- what about hell?

Fr. Anthony used to say that you have to believe that there is a hell but you don't have to believe that there is anybody there. One can go further and state that it is perfectly legitimate for us to hope, in the strictest theological sense, and pray that there is nobody there. Matthew Kelty, a monk of Gethsemani, has proposed exactly that. He points out that Jesus has promised us whatever we pray for and he has decided to pray that everyone who has ever lived the same time he has will go to heaven.

Nevertheless, our attitude must be to hope and not to take for granted that hell stays empty. I hope that Origen's speculation of the "apokatatastis" turns out to be right, and that at the end, as Julian of Norwich says, all manner of things are well for everybody and that even the most obstinate of sinners have learned to accept forgiveness. But there is a great difference between hoping in this possibility and taking it for granted.

Today let us gives thanks for the prayers of those who have gone before, but tomorrow let us join them in their "splangchnidzomai." Let tomorrow be the day on which we pray especially for those with no one to pray for them, who died despairing, the forgotten, those who left behind memories of hate and resentment, those who everyone would like to see burn eternally.

For He Is The Minister Of God To Thee For Good

KSLA in Shreveport, LA (h/t to Elspeth):

Could martial law ever become a reality in America?  Some fear any nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil might trigger just that.  KSLA News 12 has discovered that the clergy would help the government with potentially their biggest problem: Us.
...
U.S. Troops...arrived [during the state of emergency following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, along with forced relocation], something far easier to do now, thanks to last year's elimination of the 1878 Posse Comitatus act, which had forbid regular U.S. Army troops from policing on American soil.

If martial law were enacted here at home, like depicted in the movie "The Siege", easing public fears and quelling dissent would be critical.  And that's exactly what the 'Clergy Response Team' helped accomplish in the wake of Katrina.

Dr. Durell Tuberville serves as chaplain for the Shreveport Fire Department and the Caddo Sheriff's Office.  Tuberville said of the clergy team's mission, "the primary thing that we say to anybody is, 'let's cooperate and get this thing over with and then we'll settle the differences once the crisis is over.'"

Such clergy response teams would walk a tight-rope during martial law between the demands of the government on the one side, versus the wishes of the public on the other.  "In a lot of cases, these clergy would already be known in the neighborhoods in which they're helping to diffuse that situation," assured Sandy Davis.  He serves as the director of the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

For the clergy team, one of the biggest tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or to obey the law is the bible itself, specifically Romans 13.  Dr. Tuberville elaborated, "because the government's established by the Lord, you know.  And, that's what we believe in the Christian faith.  That's what's stated in the scripture."

Pop quiz: who's the person pictured on the left in the above photo?  Answer below the fold (no cheating).

Maladjustment

Dr King:

I must honestly say to you tonight my friends that there are some things in our world, there are some things in our nation to which I’m proud to be maladjusted, to which I call upon all men of goodwill to be maladjusted until the good society is realized.

I must honestly say to you that I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism and the self defeating effects of physical violence.

And I say to you that I am absolutely convinced that maybe the world is in need for the formation of a new organization: "The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment" -- men and women who will be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos who in the midst of the injustices of his day would cry out in words that echo across the centuries: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream;” as maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln who had the vision to see that this nation could not survive half slave and half free; as maladjusted as Thomas Jefferson who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery would etch across the pages of history words lifted to cosmic proportions: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;” as maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth that said to the men and women of his day: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.”

And through such maladjustment we will be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

ntodd

The Word according to Dubya: 50 religious insights from George Bush

I don't have to put words in the president's mouth -- apparently God takes care of that (see #2)

http://timesonline.typepad.com/faith/2007/08/top-50-bushisms.html

The Children of Iraq Have Names by David Krieger

The Children Of Iraq Have Names
by DAVID KRIEGER
CounterPunch
November 2, 2002

The children of Iraq have names.
They are not the nameless ones.

The children of Iraq have faces.
They are not the faceless ones.

The children of Iraq do not wear Saddam's face.
They each have their own face.

The children of Iraq have names.
They are not all called Saddam Hussein.

The children of Iraq have hearts.
They are not the heartless ones.

The children of Iraq have dreams.
They are not the dreamless ones.

The children of Iraq have hearts that pound.
They are not meant to be statistics of war.

The children of Iraq have smiles.
They are not the sullen ones.

The children of Iraq have twinkling eyes.
They are quick and lively with their laughter.

The children of Iraq have hopes.
They are not the hopeless ones.

The children of Iraq have fears.
They are not the fearless ones.

The children of Iraq have names.
Their names are not collateral damage.

What do you call the children of Iraq?
Call them Omar, Mohamed, Fahad.

Call them Marwa and Tiba.
Call them by their names.

But never call them statistics of war.
Never call them collateral damage.

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His latest book is Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age. He can be contacted at dkrieger@napf.org.

Lamenting The Consequence Of War

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 1, Verses 31-36:

When I shall have destroyed my kindred, shall I longer look for happiness? I wish not for victory, Krishna; I want not pleasure; for what are dominion and the enjoyments of life, or even life itself, when those for whom dominion, pleasure, and enjoyment were to be coveted have abandoned life and fortune, and stand here in the field ready for the battle? Tutors, sons and fathers, grandsires and grandsons, uncles and nephews, cousins, kindred, and friends! Although they would kill me, I wish not to fight them: no, not even for the dominion of the three regions of the universe, much less for this little earth! Having killed the sons of Dhritarashtra, what pleasure, O thou who art prayed to by mortals, can we enjoy? Should we destroy them, tyrants though they are, sin would take refuge with us. It therefore behooveth us not to kill such near relations as these. How, O Krishna, can we be happy hereafter, when we have been the murderers of our race?

I'm not what you would call religious, but I've always been fascinated by religions in general and find there are nice nuggets of wisdom, insight into the human condition, and just plain beauty in many things spiritual.  Turns out that Gandhi also looked beyond his own faith for inspiration:

I do not regard every word of the Bible as the inspired word of God, even as I do not regard every word of the Vedas or the Koran as inspired. The sum total of each of these books is certainly inspired, but I miss that inspiration in many of the things taken individually. The Bible is as much a book of religion with me as the Gita and the Koran.

I don't think you need to be deeply spiritual to pursue nonviolence, but you must have faith in humanity ...

ntodd