bobsby blog

Creative Commons

2012-01-23T18:43:00.001-08:00

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States License.

Feed the right wolf

2012-01-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

FEED THE RIGHT WOLF

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside all people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.

“One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

“The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kind-ness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfa-ther, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

2011-11-06T11:54:00.001-08:00

http://charterforcompassion.org/img/cfc_sign_eng.png

2011-07-16T19:11:00.001-07:00

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Magnificent read: The intertwining of worlds and cultures keeps each of them fresh and alive. The main character, Jacob, is a fine focus for this interaction.

View all my reviews

Karen Armstrong on Compassion

2011-06-27T10:51:00.001-07:00

A fine exploration of a new world vision and order grounded in compassion, in seeing life through each other's eyes:

Watch live streaming video from uuaga at livestream.com

Justice and the Law

2011-06-14T21:57:00.001-07:00

The law only ensures legality, not justice. Some laws are unjust, as Thoreau, Gandhi, and MLK showed us, and being merely legally right masks real injustice.

Laws can change; justice is something unchangeable that we are called toward. Laws are made to give force, flesh and bones to justice. Circumstances can change the laws for the sake of justice. Our Constitution was originally written to protect 15% of the population who were white males owning property. The Bill of Rights gave some protection to minorities, but has proved inadequate.

At times, retaining a law is absurd. There may have been a time when the right to bear arms by all citizens made sense and was justified, so part of justice. But when the proliferation of armaments of all sorts risks life and limb, then a fundamentalist reading of 'what the writers of the Constitution intended' is absurd--such a reading would re-establish slavery.

The law is always exposed to the call of justice so that it can be reinvented by that call. Giving the most powerful entities in our world system even more power to implement its often-destructive agenda may be legal, but it is hardly justice. Remember that justice may be blind but the law sees very clearly whom it is serving. Legislatures who formulate laws and who are controlled by outside forces destructive of the common good do not necessarily pursue justice.

The Constitution was written, in its own words, ..."in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." 'Establishing justice" and 'the general Welfare' have been sacrificed to some appearance of 'domestic Tranquility,' and makes securing 'the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity' pretty doubtful.

So the Supreme Court's work, though under the call of justice, has to do with the interpretation of law. "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court...' [Constitution, Article III] It judicial focus means it is interpreting the law as legislated and the law's relation to the Constitution. Like fundamentalist Bible readers, some justices see their function as merely preserving [fossilizing?] the words of the text. But, in the real world, we adapt a text to the common good or, here, to justice. So the court's decisions on civil rights and environmental law were a realization that we had grown since 1788 and understood that justice was foremost and that law must reinforce justice.

Many recent Supreme Court decisions are limited to legality and have little to do with justice--in my very humble opinion.

The Charter for Compassion

2011-05-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

The Charter for Compassion

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

http://charterforcompassion.org/site/

non-theism and the ground of reality

2011-05-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

Επ−ισταμαι [ep-istamai], which comes to mean 'to know how to do' or 'to be

skilled' in a particular area, is made up of a preposition, epi, and the Greek work

for 'to stand or be in a spot' [h]istamai. So the word is an almost exact equivalent

of our word, under-stand, except that it can also mean before-stand, uponstand.

The very nature of the word is dual and describes a relationship of the

doer to the object of the doing or 'the done.' One perceives the Other and is able

to name it by its place in an accepted received pattern or conceptual frame;

even our knowledge of ourselves as object is placement in a received pattern.

This dualism pervades the action implied in epistemology; the knowledge derived

also implies a pattern supplied not by the knower or the known, but from

outside either. This was the ground of Kant's critique of pure reason.

In an Aristotelian/Newtonian cosmos, we see the natural law as the patterns of

what we perceive. All things are part of the natural pattern or law inherent in the

idea of κοσμοs or order itself. Both Aristotle and Newton understood that they

were seeing into the 'mind of God,' the necessary source of the perceived order.

Thus the laws νομοι [nomoi] came from another, thus heteronymous laws.

Churches, bibles, revelations, political leaders, and the like all give us world

views that come, not from our own particular or singular experience, but from

another who or which gives the paradigm within which we can place the objects

of our experience; thus understanding involves acceptance of the heteronymous

pattern for understanding particular or singular experience.

Quantum physics, as well as the quantum biology and cosmology which arose

from it, introduces singularity into the cosmos, thus in some ways destroying part

of the 'cosmos' order itself.* Singularity or particularity are the basis of experience

but not of conceptual knowledge since the very nature of conceptual truth is

the recognition of repeated forms in a number of particularities--6 fuzzy, fourlegged,

living [whatever that means], reproducing singularities can univocally be

called 'dog'; knowledge, on this level, is recognizing each as a particular embodiment

of a form, i.e., a 'dog.'

If subatomic particles on the microcosmic level do not necessarily follow any law

imposed from outside [heteronomy], then they become a law unto themselves,

i.e., αυτο−νομοs, autonomous. If this is true on the microcosmic level, then it

would have to be true on the macrocosmic level as well. This is the principle of

indeterminacy. Thus, no completely objective knowledge of the universe is possible

because the heteronymous law cannot apply to an errant singularity

which is not a mere embodiment of a conceptual pattern and which defies the

conceptual patterns or 'laws' implied in the very act of naming it--we also realize

that the conceptual pattern itself is an impossibility except as a construct of mind,

the singular mind and not the 'mind of God.'

Even Einstein was repelled by quantum physics because he was imbued with an

apriori assumption that reality was 'cosmos'; his own Judeo Western mind

needed a cosmos that could be under-stood. "God doesn't play dice with the

universe." That's another way of saying, "There is an understandable cosmos."

Einstein's search for a unified field theory was grounded in this need. (Stephen

Hawking gave up the search.) Such 'under-standing' is impossible when the dualist

relationship governed by heteronomy is removed.

One place to move from this realization is into the existential positing of being

and nothingness, which makes our search for meaning itself an absurdity.

On the other hand, we have experiences of knowing which are not conceptual:

aesthetics, love, beauty, good--systems can subsume these into themselves, but

the experiences themselves are each unique and singular, and, therefore, outside

the ability to objectively under-stand since the object and the subject become

one reality in the experience.**

This insight has been with us since the Enlightenment, but we have yet to completely

internalize its implications. It clearly threatens many institutions, particularly

religion and sources of public morality. Christianity [choose any religion of

book and law] presupposes an organic, Aristotelian universe into which human

relations fit; this fit is part of 'natural law,' but quantum thinking removes the organic

whole which grounds a religion's 'eternal' truths.

The Aristotelian universe in fundamentally hierarchical with a Source as its linchpin--

thus theism grows naturally from this hierarchical reality, which comes from

and is controlled by its First Cause and First Mover. The quantum universe

needs no gods and actually eliminates them all--there is no need for a source of

heteronymous law and order in evolution as quantum process. Thus theism dies

as intellectually incompatible with the human experience itself, which must take

priority.***

However, the opposite of theism is not a-theism. If we lose the puppet master,

then 'god' must be part and commensurate with the universe itself. But, as

Daphne Hampson points out, "Given an inter-related world of time and space and

an expanding universe with 'boundaries' in black holes or ever-receding singularities,

how are we to envision 'God'? If we are to speak of God, then God must

surely be conceptualized as being part of the whole"--and for us "God must be

understood to complete what it is to be a human being and not be conceived of

as set over against humans." (After Christianity 9-10)

So, the epistemology of quantum physics is paradoxical because the 'knowledge

of knowing' has been undermined by the physics it’s trying to under-stand. [Can

there be a science of science?] In a way, it's like trying to see you own eyeball.

We are part of the process itself. It does seem that knowledge as process rather

than knowledge as product is a further development from this.

****

*That's really a tautology since cosmos means order. In Genesis, Yahweh/

Elohim does not make anything from nothing but imposes order, cosmos, of

disorder, i.e., χαοs, chaos. Thus the patriarch, who cannot make life out of his

own body, imposes Law and Order on already existing reality.

**Aristotelians, such as Mortimer Adler, have wrestled with this, and, though the

arguments about 'truth' as underlying all disagreements has some cogency, the

same arguments about the presumption of objectivity for 'goodness' and 'beauty'

are less convincing.

*** Emotionally, theism has died a number of times, most recently during the

Holocaust and on September 11, 2001. Or, at least, the Puppet Master became

one who could be feared and hated--hardly loved, cf., Pat Roberson and Jerry

Falwell.

Tea party hoax

2011-04-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

The original 'tea party' was a hoax as Boston merchants, disguised as Mohawks, dumped their own tea into the Charles. The new groups, which masquerades under the tea party name, interested primarily in self -aggrandizement, in making sure the 'unworthy' are not afforded the American good will, and that America achieve world domination so as to force all programs to kowtow to American interests first of all. We are of the free (unrestricted) market and the unfettered (unregulated) rule of greed. The common good is a foreign idea to the tea party staffs and smacks of rule by the masses. The prologue of our constitution says that, "We the People of the United States (not the toadies of lobbyist and self interest) , in Order to form a more perfect Union (rather the ever widening gaps in American society), establish Justice (in which all are assured of being treated as their nature demands), insure domestic Tranquility (not the tearing of the public fabric by the Rush Limbaughs and Louis Farakans.

Louis Farakhan, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare (general, not special interests) , and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity (who will curse us is we lose it), do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The only true opposite of love is to say, “I just don’t care.

2011-04-27T21:09:00.000-07:00

“The opposite of love is not hate--it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness--it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy--it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death.” These are the words of Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, author, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

We are one family. The oppression of one of us is the oppression of each of us. No one suffers alone—no one is liberated alone. Only when we care for all the Earth as we care for our own, only then will that justice sprout which can blossom into true peace. As Wiesel reminds us, the only true opposite of love is to say, “I just don’t care.”

Only the unity of all humanity can establish the true justice and authentic peace for which our suffering world thirsts.

Information Clearing House

2011-01-19T20:05:00.000-08:00

revolver earth--we are all here, human and non-human [click on picture]

2010-10-11T11:28:00.001-07:00

Consumer or consumed

2010-10-04T20:51:00.000-07:00

In the end, we will end up as consumers or as the consumed. It's obvious that the level of consumption in a minority of the world's population makes even a mild form of equity possible in the present system, and our present system has begun destroying the food sources necessary for those not fated to be born in the wealth of the exploiters. When incidents like the spill in the Gulf destroy the most crucial food supplies, when the water of the world becomes poison, then we have only each other left to satisfy our insatiable hunger. Maybe Soylent Green or the world of Sonmi-451 is not our destiny, but the indicators point toward that end.

The most efficient consumer in our homes is the toilet. As long as it stays unclogged, it will consume our waste with efficiency and convenience. We, too, are the unclogged ingesters of the useless refuse and fecal remains of the consumerist model--to be an unwilling consumer is to be a traitor to the world's good.....even our (so-called) president told us after 9/11 that we would defeat the terrorists by consuming more, not less, that we must uphold our 'way of life' & to this "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

2010-10-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

alt="Go To Project Gutenberg">

fire

2010-08-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

a cardinal in the snow

fire

in cool tomb shroud.

Production of "Closer" at Xavier University: director notes

2010-07-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

Patrick Marber,

Closer—

“Eyes I dare not meet in dreams…..”

THE STORY: Four lives intertwine over the course of four and a half years in this densely plotted, stinging look at modern love and betrayal. Dan, an obituary writer, meets Alice, a stripper, after an accident in the street. Eighteen months later, they are a couple, and Dan has written a novel inspired by Alice. While posing for his book jacket cover, Dan meets Anna, a photographer. He pursues her, but she rejects his advances despite their mutual attraction. Larry, a dermatologist, "meets" Dan in an Internet chat room. Dan, obsessing over Anna, pretends to be her and has cybersex with Larry. They arrange to meet the next day at an aquarium. Larry arrives and so too, coincidentally, does the real Anna. This sets up a series of pass-the-lover scenes in which this quartet struggle to find intimacy but can't seem to get closer. (Dramatist Play Service)

*********

A director's perspective:

We chose to perform Marber’s Closer at Xavier University for two reasons: First, the play forces us to join in the intellectual pursuit of examining all dimensions of our own lives, even the ugly parts, looking at the ways we each connect with the themes, events and characters of the play. Second, the play does not leave us in the puddle of our own scum; part of the experience that some audience members may never get past is that Closer is comedy. We are asked to connect personally with the characters, and we may be quite disturbed at the accuracy of the play’s depictions of those experiences—but, instead of staying in the shadows, we can still see the rainbow through the rain

Let’s begin with a bit of background. Patrick Marber’s Closer first appeared in London in 1997, but this was not his first taste of theatrical success. In 1995, Marber had written and mounted Dealer’s Choice, which won the Evening Standard’s Award for best comedy and the Writers’ Guild Award for Best West End Play. Through 1996, Marber worked on Closer, with in-put from many friends and colleagues in the theater, including Kate Beckinsale, Mark Strong, and Sally Dexter.

Closer opened the next year and won multiple awards, including Marber’s second Eve-ning Standard Award for Best Comedy. Opening on Broadway in 1999, with a stellar cast that included the late Natasha Richardson, Closer was nominated for a Tony as Best New Play and won the New York Critics Circle Award as Best New Foreign Play. The play was made into a Golden Globe winning movie the next year, which was also nominated for two Academy Awards.

Closer was inspired, in part, by Marber’s directing 1953 by Craig Raine, a contemporary adaptation of Racine’s Andromaque; Closer mirrors the imagery of Raine’s work. Others have noted the influence of Strindberg’s Miss Julie and of Stephen Sonerburgh’s film sex, lies and videotape on Closer.

All these works explore the selfishness of desire when detached from love and commit-ment. Closer contains much sex, much desire, but no friendship, no real love. In some ways, it echoes the classic philosophic work, Ich und Du [I and Thou] by Martin Buber—the world of the play contains four “Its,” but no “Thous.” In this world, the line between love, as desire, and hate is thin: endearments are followed by insults; embraces prepare for violence on all levels; passion’s heat gives way to icy detachment. The portrayal of desire, violence, passions are just a few ways we find Closer echoing our own lives.

The stage acts as a light and as a mirror. This light is different from that offered by phys-ics, chemistry and biology, which helps our understanding physical reality. It is not a light like that which is offered by psychology, philosophy or theology, which clarifies inner dynamics. Rather the light of the stage reflects back on us as the audience, revealing ourselves in the faces, bod-ies, and emotions of the characters. These revelations might be embarrassing or difficult, but, if we were honest, each of us would be able to see bits of ourselves in the mirror of these people. “Tat tvam asi”—“I am that which I see.”

Western theater from Aeschylus’s time to the present has always demanded a response from the audience to the experience unfolding before us on the stage. We are called not to be mere spectators, but to be participants in the drama itself. We may find what is happening on stage repulsive or attractive, disgusting or appealing, frightening or comforting. And, though it may be difficult at times to admit, it is these responses that speak more loudly about ourselves than they do about the play itself. Each member of the audience brings their own unique experi-ences to the play; each is invited to enter into the experiences of the characters. The outcome is another unique reality for no two people in any audience see the same play but rather experi-ences the play in the never repeated inner theater of each particular mind, body, and emotion.

When we are confronted with lust trumping faithfulness even in marriage, when we wit-ness men seeking sexual companionship in a sterile net chat room, when we see a woman pros-tituting herself even to her husband, the rawness of these human interactions should not repel us in embarrassment, but rather open us to the opportunity for reflection on our own lives.

This all seems an odd scenario a comedy. “Comedy,” in its classic sense, contains hu-mor and often has a happy ending. The ending of Closer is rather ambiguous, but few would call it ‘happy.’ Rather than merely relegating the play to bin of ‘dark comedy,’ we need to understand the dynamic the play establishes between the four actors and the audience.

The comedy in Closer does not have as much to do with humorous situations on the stage as it does with our own identification with the motivations, the desires, and the dreams of the characters and with our seeing both how they mirror us and how far each of us falls short of our authentic and true selves. We are invited to laugh, perhaps with a note of sadness and regret, at ourselves. We are the Human Comedy.

Does, then, Closer present the despair of an unfulfilled Sartrean hunger? Is hell really ‘other people’? Are men and women condemned to the frustration of unfulfilled desire and to the impossibility of love in any sexual relation, whether a heterosexual or same-sex union? Is sex the only measure of a relationship? Is any true friendship without genital sex between women and men impossible? Absolutely not.

Closer is satire. From Aristophanes to Samuel Beckett, from Terence to Edward Albee, from Jane Austen to Eve Ensler, satire has held up our human vices, follies, and shortcomings for ridicule or irony. Underlying true satire is the vision of authentic life and the hope of achieving it. Closer portrays in stark, often raw, dialogue and action the effects of narcissism, objectification, and consumerism on our humanity. The sexual actions in Closer have as much meaning as sticking one’s finger into another person’s ear—it may be annoying, but it is certainly not intimacy.

The play demands something of each of us. It calls us, as Life itself does, to deeper authenticity, to a reverence for the personal integrity we each deserve, and to the world of interre-lation and interdependence that lies beyond the cloying codependent entanglements of Anna, Dan, Larry, and Alice. It affirms a freedom beyond the lies and pretention that mask our loneli-ness and the mere physicality we mistake for intimacy.

So in a play filled with irony, we are invited to enter our own lives with greater delibera-tion, freedom, and integrity. We are invited to love and to be loved, as difficult as that might be—it is still life’s deepest treasure and meaning.

Carl Sagan's wisdom

2010-05-27T19:54:00.000-07:00

It’s the twentieth anniversary of the famous “pale blue dot” photo – Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). Sagan’s words are always worth remembering:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

2010-05-25T21:03:00.001-07:00

Network of Spiritual Progressives: a message from Rabbi Lerner

2010-04-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

Spiritual and Religious Progressives Invite Secular Progressives to Join in a United Strategy to

Say "No" to Corporate Dominance of the US Economy and Politics and to Tea Party Extremists

The interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives (which is also welcoming to atheists and secular humanists) has placed ads in major magazines calling on elected officials to reject the "inside-the-Beltway" pragmatism and attempts to "be realistic" that have led Democrats in power to policies that conflict with the desires of their own liberal/progressive base and do not address the real fears that have given life to a racist and quasi-fascist mass movement in the U.S.  

The Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP), chaired by Rabbi Michael Lerner and co-chaired by Cornel West and Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, is inviting secular liberals and progressives to join spiritual and religious progressives at a national strategy conference for the coming Obama years -- at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation on Capitol Hill June 11-14. We are reaching out to you to come, whether you be a militant atheist or a practitioner of some spiritual or religious path.

We invite you to register for our conference if you already know you want to come. Please go to http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/conference. Or else, read the rest of this below!   Calling upon secular progressives to overcome their religio-phobia (which has, according to the NSP, crippled the Left by alienating major sections of the population whose economic interests are better served by the Left but whose religious aspirations are often scorned by a liberal culture that demeans religious believers), Rabbi Lerner has invited secular humanists and atheists to form a "united front" against what he calls a "quasi-fascist" revival of know-nothingism, racism, anti-immigrant hatred, homophobia, and militarism that scarily resembles the dynamics of the 1920s Weimar Republic in Germany just before the Nazis came to power.

Because Lerner believes that the Tea Party movement, already influencing the direction of the Republican Party, may lay the foundation for an outright fascist movement in the U.S., he calls upon secular progressives to unite with spiritual progressives to develop a strategy for progressives during the Obama years.

  The NSP is calling its conference "The Caring Society." Rabbi Lerner calls for Congress and the Obama administration to adopt those words as a unifying theme, and to overcome their antipathy to a shared worldview or ideology. "Spiritual and political wisdom in the 21st century," according to Rabbi Lerner, "starts with Americans acknowledging to ourselves and the world that our well-being as citizens of the United States, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Israel, Jordan [and elsewhere] ... depends on the well-being of everyone else on the planet, and the well-being of the planet itself."

  In calling for A Caring Society to replace the "look out for number one" mentality generated by capitalism and what Rabbi Lerner calls "its inevitable consequence -- the globalization of selfishness," the NSP is asking us to support changes in the economic and political arrangements of our society so that support and encourage the very opposite character and personality traits and behaviors, namely those that manifest love for our neighbors, love for the strangers (the Others, the immigrants, the powerless, the poor), and love for the earth in all its physical and spiritual beauty.   In the ads which are appearing now, the NSP puts forward a spiritually based analysis of contemporary American politics.

"The 2008 elections," Lerner contends, "revealed the great  yearning of a majority of Americans for a world based on  peace, social justice, generosity, environmental sanity, and  recognition that our well-being is tied to the well-being of  everyone else on the planet.   

"That yearning is in danger of being discredited as disillusionment and despair is generated by the Obama  administration's failure to fight for that vision.   

"We are all too aware of the way that people in both parties have sabotaged much of the Obama agenda, but we  also know that the administration needs to stop listening  to the inside-the-Beltway pragmatists and realists.   

"Our message to the political establishment in Washington,  D.C., is ‘Stop being "realistic" and instead tell Americans what  is actually needed to end global and domestic poverty,  war, and environmental destruction. Fight boldly to make  America a society based on love, generosity and caring for  each other, on social justice, peace and non-violence, on  an end to domestic and global poverty, on gratitude, forgiveness, and awe and radical amazement at the grandeur  and mystery of the universe, on strengthening families and  challenging the selfishness and materialism that has led to  our economic and environmental meltdown.'"   

Tikkun Magazine bought a full-page ad in the Washington Post three months into the Obama administration's first year in office, urging it to adopt a unifying theme like "the Caring Society" and then showing how each legislative decision flowed from that worldview. Tikkun Editor Rabbi Lerner argues that the most important thing a president can accomplish is to win the country to his or her worldview.  

Legislative victories have only limited value if they are not based on a worldview that the president, the Congress and the political party all share and all enthusiastically use to educate the public.   Lerner reminds "the realists" who rejected ideology that president Roosevelt and Reagan were most successful in shaping the country to their worldview. Reagan's worldview predominated for the next thirty years, right to this moment ("government is the problem, not the solution -- the unrestricted capitalist market and private enterprise is the solution").

The legislation that was passed under Clinton, and the regulations he put in place, were all quickly dismantled under the Bush Administration because Clinton had won his legislative victories by articulating them in terms of the values that Reagan had introduced, thereby reinforcing those values and making it easy for Democrats to capitulate when those same values were the basis of George W. Bush's subsequent dismantling of the Clinton regulations and his policies.   

So it would have been far more consequential for Obama to have articulated the value of "The Caring Society" and then put forward legislative and regulatory policies that fully embodied those ideas, even if they could not yet receive the support they'd need from the Congress. Not only would the Obama administration have won the admiration rather than the skepticism of the American people by sticking to the values they thought they heard him articulating during the 2008 campaign, but Obama and the Dems would also have had a much better chance of picking up more seats in the 2010 election.

While spiritual progressives do not endorse any particular party or candidate for office, we do enthusiastically support a worldview that we think would help America and would have provided (and still can) provide an alternative to the racist and selfish policies that we hear being discussed in public life in 2010.   Instead of us now having to deal with a public wallowing in cynicism and despair, we could have had a social movement and elected officials in the Obama administration and Congress whose advocacy for The Caring Society would have strengthened the very idealism that had led to Obama's 2008 victory.

Perhaps that path might not have produced legislative victories in the short run. But it would have shaped a public discourse that opened to the highest ideals of secular humanism and spiritual and religious love/generosity/caring for others/ethical/ecological sensitivity and awe and wonder at the grandeur and mystery of the universe!   Instead, by choosing to make "passing something, anything" the major priority of the Administration and its friends in Congress, we've seen the Democrats get legislative "victories" that actually strengthened the hold of health care insurance companies and pharmaceuticals and other health care profiteers without restraining rising costs, an environmental policy based on selling indulgences to allow some companies to continue to pollute while meanwhile encouraging nuclear power and offshore drilling, pouring trillions into the coffers of the banks and Wall Street investment firms, escalating the war in Afghanistan, continuing and justifying the human rights violations that Obama himself critiqued while he was running for office, and much else that would inevitably generate anger and doubts about the moral compass of our government.

In fact, many of those in the Tea Party set have legitimate complaints about the way our government has functioned -- but they ally themselves (for some unintentionally) with racists, homophobes, and those who in seeking to defund our government actually end up weakening the very democratic institutions that ordinary people fought to create for the past 240 years as a counter to the arbitrary power of the rich and the financial and corporate elites. Yes, that government has been frequently co-opted and even under Obama operates more in the interests of the wealthy than in the interests of everyone else, but it still is the only mechanism that we have to potentially constrain arbitrary and hurtful power coming both from the government and perhaps more importantly from the corporate elites themselves and through their control of the media and their ability to endlessly finance candidates for public office (to be dealt with below in the ESRA).

  We refuse to trash Obama -- we know that he must be defended against the racist and quasi-fascist forces that confront him daily in DC, but we can't protect liberals and progressives unless we are able to acknowledge what it is about their programs and approach to politics that has contributed to the already-existing anger and hate in some sectors of our society. And some of us still retain hope that the vision that Obama elicited in Americans during the campaign could eventually reappear and shape his remaining years in the presidency.

Moreover, we do not want to deny that each of the major programs passed by the Obama administration has some positive elements as well, and that in thinking about the Obama years ahead we need to give credit for what is positive in the health care and other programs passed! But you are not doing Obama any favor by refusing to critique the way the Dems have been perceived as abandoning the needs of American working people, or ignoring the part that is true in that perception! But refining these positions on Obama is not the main focus of our conference. Our goal is the further development of programs that can unify secular and religious progressives and can speak to the needs of Americans and provide a foundation for a vision of a different kind of society -- one based on our highest values!   And at the conference we hope to find those people in different parts of the country who can begin to organize to get support for the programs we develop, like those listed below.

Major Theme:

Resist the Corporate Takeover of American Society

The Strategy Conference will discuss a variety of specific programs that secular and religious progressives can work on together.

Among them:

• ESRA: The Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution --  Corporations are not persons. Spending money on an election  is not "free speech." The planet and all of its people deserve to  be protected against the power, influence, and environmental  destructiveness of the large corporations, banks, and insurance  companies, and from the concentrated power and ability to  control information and shape public opinion that now resides  in the hands of the super-wealthy (the top 1 percent of  wealth-holders in the world). The ESRA will require corporate  environmental and social responsibility and require corporations with incomes of over $100 million per year to get a new  corporate charter every five years that will only be granted to  those that can prove to a jury of ordinary citizens that they have  a satisfactory history of environmental and social responsibility. AND the ESRA restricts the role of money in elections in a serious and powerful way.  Info on ESRA: http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/ESRA.

A Global Marshall Plan (developed by the Network of  Spiritual Progressives and just introduced into Congress asH.Res 1016 by Congressman Keith Ellison) to end global and  domestic poverty, homelessness, hunger, and inadequate health  care and education as well as to repair the global environment.  See http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/globalmarshallplan.

  • End the War on Terror and Replace the Dept. of  Homeland Security with a Department of Global  Well-being

* End the War on Immigrants. Don't let being "politically realistic" become the excuse for "reforms" that tie slightly less repressive treatment of illegal immigrants to new policies of violence and repression against newer illegal immigrants or those seeking asylum in the U.S. or a way to make a living.  

Organizations that are co-sponsoring the conference with Tikkun and the NSP include: Common Cause, United Religions Initiative, Peace Action, The Nation Magazine, Public Citizen, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, The Institute for Policy Studies, Progressive Democrats of America, the Shalom Center, the Washington Peace Center, and Yes magazine.

Among the presenters June 11-14:

Congressmen Keith Ellison and Dennis Kucinich,

Bill McKibben (author, The End of Nature),

Sister Joan Chittister (co-chair the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and author, Welcome ot the Wisdom of the World & The Gift of Years,)

Rev. Brian McLaren (author, A New Kind of Christianity & Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope)

Medea Benjamin (Code Pink and founder, Global Exchange),

Rev. Noemi Parrilla-Mena (Pastor of Hispanic Ministries to the National City Christian Church Disciples of Christ) ,

Robert McChesney (author, The Political Economy of Media),

Marianne Williamson (author, Healing the Soul of America, A Return to Love, The Gift of Change),

Rev. James A. Forbes (Pastor emeritus of The Riverside Church, director of Healing of the Nations Foundation),

Margaret Flowers MD (Physicians for a National Health Program)

Robert Thurman (author, Inner Revoluiton & The Jewel Tree of Tibet: The Enlightenment Engine of Tibetan Buddhism)

Riane Eisler (author, The Chalice and the Blade & The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics)

Gary Dorrien (Reinhold Neiburh Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and professor of religion at Columbia U, and author of The Making of American Liberal Theology)

John Dear S.J. (activist Jesuit priest, author, A Persistent Peace & Put Down Your Sword),

Rev. Jim Winkler (General Secretary of the General Board of Church & Society of the United Methodists of America),

Jonathan Granoff (President of the Global Security Institute, and a Senior Advisor of the American Bar Association's Committee on Arms Control and National Security),

Sharon Welch (provost of Meadville Lombard Theological School, author, A Feminist Ethic of Risk & Real Peace, Real Security: The Challenges of Global Citizenship),

Rabbi Arik Aschemann, chair, Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel

Rev. Graylan Hagler ( Senior Minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ),

Jeremy Ben Ami (president, J Street),

Bill Moyer (chair, The Backbone Campaign)

Svi Shapiro (author,Educaiton and Hope in Troubled Times: Visions of Change for our Children's World & Losing Heart: The Moral and Spiritual Miseducation of America's Children),

David Loy (author, Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution & The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory),

Rabbi Arthur Waskow (chair, The Shalom Center, author, Godwrestling & Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life) ,

Peter Gabel (Associate Editor, Tikkun Magazine, a founder of Critical Legal Studies, and author The Bank Teller and Other Essays on the Politics of Meaning) ,

Rabbi Michael Lerner (Editor, Tikkun Magazine and author, The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right, The Politics of Meaning, Jewish Renewal & Healing Israel/Palestine),

Paul Wapner (Director, Global Environmental Politics Program, American University and author, Living Through the End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism),

David Korten (author, When Corporations Rule the World, Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth & The Great Turning) ,

Sherry Shapiro ( professor of dance and director of Women's Studies at Meredith College, Raleigh North Carolina, author, Pedagogy and the Politics of the Body: A Critical PRAXIS),

John Nichols (edits The Beat blog column for The Nation),

Shaul Magid (Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies, Indiana University & author, Hasidism on the Margin),

Rev. Ama Zenya (a co-chair of this conference and of the NSP Bay Area chapter),

John Cavanagh (director, The Institute for Policy Studies),

Josh Weiner (poetry editor of Tikkun magazine, and author of The World's Room (2001) and From the Book of Giants (2006),

Nanette Schorr, (lawyer and Tikkun author)

& more.

Gary Peller (Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law School and Tikkun author)

  For more information:  

Contact James Lee, Conference Coordinator at 410 262 8365  

To interview Rabbi Michael Lerner:  Contact Natalie Wollner or Will Pasley at Tikkun Magazine (510 644 1200) or write to will@tikkun.org  

Meedan: English-Arabic conversation

2010-04-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

Just some joy

2010-03-27T07:18:00.001-07:00

[Stardust] KiraKira Waypoints - wonderfl build flash online

Justice and the law

2010-02-04T07:54:00.001-08:00

The law only ensures legality, not justice. Some laws are unjust, as Thoreau, Gandhi, and MLK showed us, and being merely legally right masks real injustice.

At times, retaining a law is absurd. There may have been a time when the right to bear arms by all citizens made sense and was justified, so part of justice. But when the proliferation of armaments of all sorts risks life and limb is as plain as the nose on your face, then an attitude of the fundamentalist reading of 'what the writers of the Constitution intended' is absurd--such a reading would re-establish slavery.

The Constitution was written, in its own words, ..."in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." 'Establishing justice" and 'the general Welfare' have been sacrifice to some appearance of 'domestic Tranquility,' and makes securing 'the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity' pretty doubtful.

The recent Supreme Court's decision a limited to legality and have little to do with justice--in my very humble opinion.

Hope in weakness

2010-01-05T22:25:00.000-08:00

As John D. Caputo tells us, weakness is stronger than power--thus Jesus' God chose the weak to confound the strong, those who are nothing to overcome those who are 'something.' Such weakness undermines the Dominant Powers like relentless water wears through the land. Gandhi, MLK, Dorothy Day, and Nelson Mandela showed us the way of weakness which stands strong in its refusal to use the tools of destruction to bring about healing, to kill in order to stop killing. The world itself must enter the belly of Jonah's whale to be made whole--and it enters the dark one person at a time.

The Stifling of the Spirit

2009-10-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

The Vatican's move to make conversion to the Roman church 'easier' for Anglicans and Episcopalians who object to their Church's position on the ordination of women and on the union or ordination of gay and lesbian candidates makes the Vatican a sponge for the intellectual refuse of a courageous group of followers of Jesus of Nazareth. At a time when the world is fissioning along ideological grounds, Rome, instead of reaching out to heal, takes advantage of ignorance and hatred to increase the number of its own sterile clerics.

-The world needs wisdom, the Roman church gives confusion as confession.

-The world needs healing, the Roman church re-infects ancient wounds.

-The world needs vision, the Roman church gives myopic self-service.

This church will grow smaller, as it ought. Those who sincerely seek the way of God will depart this doomed adventure. On a statue of Livery overlooking the Vatican: "Give me your stupid, your fearful yearning to breathe free--I will give them the freedom of slavery and the wisdom of ignorance ....I lift my torch beside the Penal gate."

A great opportunity

2009-09-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Obama's going to the U.N. and chairing the hearing on nuclear weapons is a marvelous opportunity for the United States to rejoin the world in its search for peace grounded in justice. Often the most idealistic and visionary path is the only one with any possibility of true success. Such is the case here.

On November 4, Barack Obama helped this nation see beyond accidentals to essential competence. Now he has the chance to help this nation and the world see beyond the illusion of nationalist boundaries to the interdependent Earth we all inhabit and of which we are all citizens--except for some who've turned in their papers like Newt Gingerich.

Can't we do better than this?

2009-09-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

If the conduct of the minority in Congress during President Obama's speech is any indication, the anti-Obama, anti-government, anti-everything clique is shrinking to a few pea-brained white guys with Midwest and Southern connections.

In the House, John Boehner from Ohio and Mike Pence from Indiana come out near the top in inane and misinforming blather, while Mitch McConnell from Kentucky seems to want to assume the robes of the late Strom Thurmond as primary crazy old cracker--maybe we're dealing with Kentucky Fried Brains here, though the fact that McConnell leads the Senate in PAC money might mean he's just the GWB Charley McCarthy in a new Dick Cheney Puppet Master's hands.

The clear racism of the right is shining through for anyone caring to see it. The movement to destroy Obama's presidency is grounded in white fear that a man of color will succeed in implementing programs white presidents have failed to pass over the past century.

--from an old retired white guy in southern Indiana

Jefferson and Health Care

2009-09-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

Each of us can have thier own opinion on what any word means, but I was not giving you my opinion on what the Declaration says. The onlty thing I was doing was trying to address what the writers of the Declaration meant by those words--what we might mean is something else. Reading Jefferson, Adams, Hancock, and Franklin make it clear that Jefferson meant the words 'pursuit of happiness' to reference Aristotle's theory of humanity in which he uses that term--remember that most of the people in the Continental Congress were well versed in history and philosophy and would have known what Jefferson's reference was. This is grounded in a lot of historical scholarship on the development of the underlying vision of humanity that emerged in the Declaration during the period called the Enlightenment. Jefferson's referencing Aristotle would be somewhat like your or my using, "of the people, for the people, by the people"--most readers or hearers would know that we were quoting Lincoln.

So your discussion about what you mean by pursuit of happiness is interesting and has real insight---it's just not what Jefferson technically meant when he used the words.

Much of what the Supreme Court does is to interpret or to figure out what the writers of the Constitution meant when they talked about "freedom of speech," "establishment, " "the right to bear arms," "self incrimination," "privacy," and the like, and then to apply that interpretation to the present. They aren't free to use their own opinion about what any of those word means in their own lives--that's what makes the job difficult since a justice might have to rule against his or her own feelings about what the word means in order to be true to the meaning of the drafters of the Constitution.

This may be a point for discussion:

"The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it." (Thomas Jefferson to M. van der Kemp, 1812)

So, as he said in the Declaration, "...to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.'

Again, remembering what Jefferson meant by 'happiness,' government's function is to secure the rights of the governed--so government will naturally interfere if your rights are being violated. For what other reason would we have a police force or military?

Jefferson was especially conscious of the need to protect the rights of the weakest in our society: "In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar." (Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786) So, those unable to exercise their natural rights because they do not have access to good health are more the concern of good government than those who can afford whatever they want. What good is a right to 'life' if you can't achieve it? "The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless." (Thomas Jefferson to William Carmichael, 1790)

*****

There is nothing unusual about federal and state run programs that work very well.

Social Security is a good example: Social Security by itself has been one of the most successful programs the U.S. ever initiated; it was totally solvent and even had a surplus. That surplus would still be there if it weren't for the fact that, since the time of LBJ, presidents have regularly raided Social Security's funding to pay for programs that then don't appear in the budget. Much of the extraordinary costs of the Vietnam War were paid for by taking (stealing?--I guess if the president does it, it's legal....right?) money from the SS principal. Much of the tax rebate in the early part of GWB's term came for a $500,000,000,000 "contribution" from SS--so YOU and I paid for rolling back the taxes on the top 1/2% of money earners in the county; those of us who've taken the most from the system would seem to owe the most back--it doesn't work that way.

Some highly ethical people like Warren Buffett, CEO now of Geico among many other things, have refused SS, refused the tax refund from G. Bush, and have voluntarily paid a higher level of taxes than they are required to do because they feel a greater responsibility because of their own successes--Bill Gates has done similar things. That takes a special kind of person though. By the way, Geico is at the forefront in supporting fundamental health reform.

So, community programs (which is another name for government programs) can work well and have worked well. The idea that all government programs are uneconomical and run by incompetents just doesn't have any ground in facts.

It's a difficult thing, and there's no simple solution; only those without full information would make this a polarizing battle separating people who need to work together into opposing camps. I am not going to let that happen to me since I don't identity with any political ideology or party--some of you who've seen what I've written in the Dearborn County papers will know that I'm willing to support or offend anyone if it's appropriate--but the time comes when we are called to do the right thing--and that's really the bottom line here.

Health Care

2009-09-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

First of all, this has nothing to do with simple labels like 'conservative' and 'liberal' which carnival hawkers on all sides have been using to divide us. I don't have the slightest idea what those things mean since a person who appeals to the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution is called a 'liberal' while one who cites the practices of the late 19th and early 20th century is called a 'consevative.' They are meaningless and empty words which refer to nothing at all except what we might decide to agree upon in a given discussion.

Also, examples from other countries are pretty meaningless because our health care, like our education, our economic policies, and all other functions of private and public sectors are based on the U. S. Constitution--not that of Canada, Iceland, France, Russian, or any other nation.

Jefferson told us in our founding document that 'all men (sic) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator (not a government) with certain inalieanable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' It seems important to understand what Jefferson meant by those words when he wrote them or when they were revised in the Continental Congress.

Clearly the right to 'life' has been argued for over 200 years and the Supreme Court has made no final decisions on what that means in our form of government--which is different from what some religious or theological system might mean by the same thing. [The non-establishment clause of the first amendment to our Constitution addressed this and it has been implemented with varying success.] One thing Jefferson and those following him did insist upon was that life could not be denied a person without due cause--that grounds our fifth amendment. Is the inability to get the health care that can assure life to a reasonable degree compatible with this statement of our very mission and purpose as a nation?

'Liberty' is a tricky thing since those incapable of free choice and those who have shown their choices to be harmful to the community can have that freedom removed by the rest of the community. Children, the mentally or emotionally incompetent, and criminals forego their liberty for innate reason or for free choices harmful to the community. For those who can exercise it, this liberty or freedom means having the means to lead the fullest human life available, to have freedom of opportunity. Avoidable disability from disease or from lack of access unavailable instruments for recuperation from accidents or other events which stand in the way of this liberty viciate the freedom stated as part of our very vision of ourselves as a nation.

'The pursuit of happiness' is, for Jefferson, a technical term based on Aristotle. It means fulfilling the potentials each has for a full human life--becoming the person each of us was meant to be in and for ourselves as well as for the community to which we make contributions which profit the whole commonwealth; it means developing the talents and abilities with which we are born. Things that impare that ability to live a fully human life can be circumstances of two kinds, unavoidable and avoidable. Unavoidable circumstances are outside what a community can address or alleviate. Avoidable obstacles are the responsibility of the rest of us to help remove for those encumberered with them. Not doing so weakens the whole social fabric. A farm worker in Dearborn Co. who is not able to contribute to the economy of the community because he or she cannot afford the treatment, which would bring him back to the condition in which he or she can contribute to the rest of us, creates a situation in which all of us lose both from the loss of service and from the burden such a person places on family, friends, and the resources of the community itself.

So the problems with health care are complex, but they are based on a further understanding of the nation that our founders envisioned. They gave us a mission statement which we have not fulfilled and which is large enough that could never fulfill it--it acts like a guide beyond our reach which shapes our decisions. None of these people expected 2009 to be like 1776 or 1788; they expected us to use the principle, which make us the nation we are, and to apply those to the present circumstances. They also realized that we would discover things that they did not know and that this new knowledge would change our way of acting--for instance, the custom taxes were sufficient to the running of government untile the second decade of the 20th century, when earnings taxes became necessary.

So this disussion about heath care reform is not about factions in society or about special interests who profit from any one system; it is not about parties, which have pretty much become clones of each other--it's why I have left both of them; it's not about handouts or some special treatment by government--it is about govenment working the way it should. One of the functions of government which all can agree upon is the defense of our nation, but we too often think of that in terms of limiting or hostile pressures from outside instead of those which exist within our own nation. No nation based on the power of money has ever survived for long--see 18th century France, 20th century Britain, and actually the Soviet Union--commerce without principle is destructive both to the Earth and to the human and non-human parts of the Earth. Also, since 9/11 we have been obsessed with terrorists from outside, not realizing that, until that date, none of us had much reason to fear foreign terrorists while the threat of forces of violence within our own nation threatened us as they still do. Many more causualties than the 3000+ of September 11 are recorded from acts of Americans against Americans--we don't seem to care much about that.

Health care is not the political issue it's being portrayed as but a test on whether we are going to be the growing and developing nation our founders gave us the tools to become or merely a backwater from which the corrupt and manipulative can make their petty fortune and leave the rest of the community to fend for itself. We are no longer the leader of this world in democacy or freedom; no one looks to us as a model of what democracy can be. That's not all bad since each people have to find thier own way of governing. The real issue has nothing to do with what others are doing but with what kind of a nation we want to be. Do we want our grandchildren to curse us for not having the courage to make hard choices in many areas beyond health care or will they admire us for doing what was right when the forces that would profit from the miserable status quo were battering the nation with lies, false information, silly inuendoes, and fear tactics creating paranoia?

That's the choice. It's not easy, but it has to be made with wisdom and with some faith in our own national vision and in the system we call the United States of America--we'd like to make it one that God could truly bless, so the words of the song are not a meaningless whistling in the dark.

The return of the viral email | Health Insurance Reform Reality Check

2009-09-01T06:25:00.001-07:00

The return of the viral email | Health Insurance Reform Reality Check

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what is my faith? To Jean

2009-07-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

Jean,

Sunday, you asked me a question about my own faith and belief. In the time and place, it was not really possible to answer you in any clear and coherent way; I’m not sure how clear and coherent this will be--but I thought I would try to answer you.

You asked both the basis of my own faith and why I stayed in any way connected with the Catholic church--you’ll see that I don’t identify the Catholic church with the Roman Catholic Church which is an institution which has to be judged functionally just as any other institution does, by whether it serves its purpose or not.

So, let me try this. I’m trying to do this as clearly as I can. Some of this doesn’t get easily into words.

***************

My own experiences have led me to live deeply in what is sometimes called the Pascal mystery--life, hidden in death, becomes greater life. In this part of the country, we experience this quite vividly in the change of the seasons. Right now, the land is lush and green, filled with animal life on all levels, some of which are well beyond our ability to see or to understand. ‘Life’ itself is a great mystery; no one really knows what life is, but we do somehow know when we see it: a plant growing from a seed, an egg hatching to release a new bird, a female deer birthing a fawn---these are clearly life.

But are the 14+ billion years of the evolution of the Universe also a manifestation of life? Nothing comes from nothing, so how would life come from something dead? The Universe itself has to be alive in a fundamental way for it to birth the abundance of life we see. And, unless there’s something quite wrong with the Universe, it has birthed life in countless other places, besides Earth, throughout the Cosmos. We are in a living Universe which birthed our living Earth.

Come November, the world around us here will look dead. The lush vegetation will be gone, most of the animals will have left the area or entered a semi-life of hibernation, and nothing tells any of us that it won’t remain in this dead state forever. However, we know deeply that life returns; we trust that, after this seeming death of winter, the abundance will again surround us. The days grow darker until December 21, and then it begins to grow lighter and lighter. Our natural hope holds onto us as it holds onto the animals in whom new life grows, even as they may sleep, and onto the plants whose seeds slumber in the Earth. [An aside: In the Julian calendar, the winter solstice fell on December 25, so it was appropriate that Christians put the birth of the Christ on the day that celebrated the return of the Light to the World.]

As I experience this and as I look more deeply into what we can know about the origins of the Cosmos, I know that everything is contingent--thats a $5 word for saying that everything depends on something coming first. Plants don’t exist without seeds. Animals don’t exist without parents of some sort. No life exists without an Earth. An Earth doesn’t exist without a Sun as source of all Life energy. Suns don’t exist without a Universe. And, from what we can undersand at this early point in our own evolution and development, the Universe came into existence from an explosive entry from Nothing at all; time, space, and the ‘seeds’ of all that fills them flashed into existence at a single moment. Nothing exists before what we call now the Big Bang--we know pretty clearly that the Universe burst out from a single point 14.5 billions years ago [give or take a billion......].

If the Universe is also contingent, as it must be since it is made up of contingent elements, then it has a Source--totally incomprehensible to us because that would mean we could fit that Reality into the conceptual systems which we have developed, and the only things our conceptual systems can enclose are realities that are less than we are--never more.

For instance, I can name you as a woman, as a married person, as a citizen of the great state of California--those are ideas that have reality, at least by convention. The only one of those that has stayed with you through your life, though, is that you are a woman, and, as our understanding of genetics moves on, we aren’t sure whether that also may be a changing thing for each of us. Be that as it may, there is no way that I can enclose your “Jean-ness” into a concept--you are unique, never to be repeated, never seen before. A Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, spoke about this as the difference between an It and a Thou. [English lacks the 2nd person singular, Thou, so think in terms of the Spanish ‘tu’ as different from ‘usted.’] As an It, you and I are repeatable: a wife, a husband, a teacher, a human resources director, a daughter, a son, and the like. But as ‘Jean’ and as ‘Bob,’ as Thou, neither of us can be repeated; if one of us dies, no one can go out an get another one. However, others can be wife or husband even to Chris and Judi if it comes to that. Your mom has another ‘daughter’ and three ‘sons, ‘ but only one Julie or Mark or Paul or Matt.

What all that comes to is this: the Source of the Universe is beyond any conceptual system or any way of understanding just as Jean as Thou is beyond any concept or understanding. Do I experience a Source of Being and Life? Absolutely. But that is at least as far beyond any ability speak about it as my encapsulating Thou/Jean into an idea; it is, to use a word Rabbi Abraham Heschel often used, ‘ineffable,’ that is un-speakable, unable-to-be-said. Remember Moses at the burning bush? “I am Y*H*W*H---I AM WHO I AM,” or, perhaps better, “I JUST AM--that’s all you can know about Me.”

This source, though, can’t be compared to us or to what’s around us since it is outside our understanding. However, we realize that, unlike the turtle who can leave its eggs to hatch and thrive and unlike the plant that drops a seed which is to become another plant, the contingent Universe rests on its Source, is pervaded by this Source, and is never separate or separable from that Source--nothing we know can keep itself in existence by itself. So this Source pervades all, is deeply embedded in all, and resides at the heart of every atom, cell, plant, animal, the Earth, and the Universe itself. The Source is Incarnate in that Universe. The Source becomes Stuff, Flesh, Matter, and not only ‘dwells’ among us but is closer to us than our very flesh and blood. We are each the children of this Source--another way you might say this is that all of us are children of ‘God,’ if ‘God’ names the source of all Being, Life, and, since that One holds all together, God is then the Source of Love itself.

We experience this Source as personal; again as nothing comes from nothing, person cannot come from non-person. The Universe itself is personal and its Source then is also personal or Person. The closest we have to personal source in our own lives are our biological parents, so it is natural and correct that we imagine this Source as Mother/Father parent of all. This is metaphor, but we can point to the ineffable only by using what we know and drawing comparisons or analogy from our experiences.

Since the Source (or, if you wish, ‘God’) is deeply embedded in all that exists, we can speak of the Source now as incarnate child, or, Daughter/Son. As grounding all that is in Life and Being, it can be Holy Live Giver, in Greek, Hagios Psyche-- Holy Spirit. These are manifestations of this same one Source.

******

This experience is universal and seems part of the human being who is in touch with the interconnected world around us. Some saw this in especially vivid ways and helped others open to new understandings and, more important, to new experiences of reality. Some of these compelling people were the Buddha, Moses, Lao Tse, and Jesus.

Jesus of Nazareth’s experience was especially engaging and brought him followers. He saw himself, other persons, the natural world, and the whole Universe in the hands of a benevolent and trustworthy personal source of Life that he named as parent, as Abba. He experienced deeply the intimate connection between himself and the source of Life, Being, and Love. At times, he speaks in terms of the experience of a pregnant woman sharing one life with the child she carries; that is the intimacy he find analogous to his own relationship to the Source and Ground of Life--it is ours, too. His hope is grounded in the natural world: “Look at the birds in the sky....Look at the flowers in the meadow....No sparrow falls without the loving knowledge of Abba.” He also saw in the life and death of Nature an image of our own---a grain of wheat has to die as a grain of wheat, in order to become the full plant. So we can trust the many deaths that happen in life, whether they be physical, emotional, or personal. So then, this Source [Abba] is so intimately involved with each of us and so completely concerned that we can say that the Source is self-forgetting Care, that God is not only the source of Love but Love itself.

Jesus realized that he was an offspring of this Source, of God---that he was a Son of God. However, one thing that he never said is that he was the exclusive ‘son of God.’ He is constantly pointing out that you and I, too, are a daughter and a son of God. Jesus is the ‘first born’ not the only-born. He is a Christ---in him we clearly see the Divine face; that makes him a Christ. But you and I are also called to manifest the Divine in the same way, to become ‘the Christ.’ You then are Jean the Christ as he was Jesus the Christ---as others are Matt the Christ, Chris the Christ [that’s cheating, Chris], Buddha the Christ, Muhammad the Christ, and so on. This is the foundational experience that Jesus presents us and invites us to enter.

Followers of such a compelling and challenging person will try to preserve the foundational experience, often by organizing it--in this can lie a problem. The process is fairly clear---in the organizing, we find what we call a ‘religion’ forming.

It starts with words: myths, stories, creeds. It goes to actions: ethics and rituals. It eventually builds structures and creates authority by identifying the carriers of the real truth. As long as the participants realize that all of these elements are means to an end, are similar to vehicles whose function to to help us get to or remain connected with the foundational experience, then all goes pretty well. However, when the words, actions, and organization become ends in themselves, when the religion is no long a way but the end in itself, it has lost its function---and, if it takes to itself ultimate authority, then it has turned itself into the source of Life and thus become God. This is idolatry in which a human creation takes the place of the truly Ultimate.

*******

You asked why I stay in contact with to the Catholic church. It’s a great question. The Catholic church has remained sacramental, that is, it shows that material things like water, bread, oil, dirt, ashes, and all the world can be vehicles for the Divine. The Catholic church can celebrate sex as sacramental, as opening us to the union that binds all reality together. This sacramental vision makes the Eucharist central to the Catholic experience--it affirms that in bread and wine we can encounter the Divine incarnate in the material world, just as Jesus did---’Do this in memory of me.’ In other words, remember what I showed you and when you look at food, think of Life. When you look at water, understand that life comes often from death. When you look at the ashes of plants, realize that new plants are coming. When you enter into sexual union, realize you are entering into the intimacy of God with the whole Universe. When you look at death, trust that Life breathes through all the Cosmos---Life is not overcome by death---Ultimate Life overcomes death: this is the Paschal Mystery: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will not only come again, but is always and already here.” So, in the most common words found in the Gospels, “Don’t be afraid.”

Is the Roman Catholic Church commensurate with the Catholic church? This is a touchy area, but, when an institution which has a beginning, a real history, and presumably an end claims that it embodies the whole of the Divine reality, that seems at least arrogant if not blasphemous. It’s normal for humans to want power because we are afraid of so many things. It’s also normal for humans to tie themselves to others who seem to have power, especially if that power claims to be able to save them from all kinds of bad stuff--like a hell that has no basis in the Hebrew or the Christian testaments. Once that kind of fear is gone, those with power become irrelevant since their most important function was to save us from something that has no reality. [Recall how often, especially after 9/11, politicians promised to protect you from what you feared---or what you jolly well ought to be fear if you don’t. Once you realize that your fears are groundless, these people have no power over you.] A religion may be grounded in fear, but the reality that Jesus reveals has no place for such fear.

****

I’m going to close this off since it’s getting long. I’ve never been noted for being pithy.

My love,

Uncle Bob

FEAR OF BIGOTS STRAPS OUR HOPES

2009-07-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

The president is commander in chief of an organization in the executive branch By the constitution he can ban discimination by executive order in the same way Truman ordered the military to be integrated in July, 1948, 5 months before his re-election. The treatment of Lt. Dan Choi is disgraceful and a shameful way to acknowledge the 233 years since the signing of the mission statement which we have often not fulfilled.

The only possible reason for not doing what is clearly ethical, right, and fair is fear of bigots--O'Reilley and Limbaugh are paper tigers and cowards, Mr President. Just say, 'boo,' and they'll run.

Please keep the promises that gave us such hope from November through January. You've got a job to do and it's jolly well time to do it. Stand up for our constitution.

Ben's BBs--Are we insane?

2009-05-22T18:25:00.001-07:00

Obama at Notre Dame May 17, 2009

2009-05-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

Today, I feel proud to be a Catholic and an American, neither of which has been constantly true for me over the past decades. The president challenged America and the Church to open to a wider vision of life, not the narrow tunnel which focuses on life before birth, as important as that is, but one that embraces all humanity, that says that life in a cell on death row is just as precious as life in the womb, and that realizes that, whether abortion comes about through the actions of a medical professional and through the actions of those bombing the civilians of Iraq, the death of children is at stake.

The Church's narrow focus has made its words more and more irrelevant, not just to the nation as a whole but to Catholics committed to bringing Jesus' vision and, even more, Jesus world to reality. The president pointed to the Golden Rule as common to all people--we not only wish others to treat us as we would want to be treated, we also do not do to another what we would not want done to ourselves. None of us wishes to be dismissed from debate if our view is unpopular in a particular community--the Catholic Church, however, has dismissed those who support embryonic stem cell research, those who protect a woman' right to her own body, and those who demand equal treatment of women in the power structures of the Church itself. Such hypocrisy makes the Church's message, even when legitimate, needed, and vital, seem like another piece of dogmatic persiflage thrust on complaint lambs afraid of the voices of their own consciences.

We have a president willing to lead toward greater respect for life. Will the Church continue to be a force of opposition to honestly dealing with all life issues or will it join groups like the fundamentalist sects of the LDS, marginal and insignificant in the true dialogue of humanity?

Is epistemology possible in a quantum universe?

2009-04-02T14:27:00.001-07:00

Επ−ισταμαι[ep-istamai], which comes to mean 'to know how to do' or 'to be skilled' in a particular area, is made up of a preposition, epi, and the Greek work for 'to stand or be in a spot' [h]istamai. So the word is an almost exact equivalent of our word, under-stand, except that it can also mean before-stand, upon-stand. The very nature of the word is dual and describes a relationship of the doer to the object of the doing or 'the done.' One perceives the Other and is able to name it by its place in an accepted received pattern or conceptual frame; even our knowledge of ourselves as object is placement in a received pattern. This dualism pervades the action implied in epistemology; the knowledge derived also implies a pattern supplied not by the knower or the known, but from outside either. This was the ground of Kant's critique of pure reason.

In an Aristotelian/Newtonian cosmos, we see the natural law as the patterns of what we perceive. All things are part of the natural pattern or law inherent in the idea of κοσμοs or order itself. Both Aristotle and Newton understood that they were seeing into the 'mind of God,' the necessary source of the perceived order. Thus the laws νομοι [nomoi] came from another, thus heteronymous laws. Churches, bibles, revelations, political leaders, and the like all give us world views that come, not from our own particular or singular experience, but from another who or which gives the paradigm within which we can place the objects of our experience; thus understanding involves acceptance of the heteronymous pattern for understanding particular or singular experience.

Quantum physics, as well as the quantum biology and cosmology which arose from it, introduces singularity into the cosmos, thus in some ways destroying part of the 'cosmos' order itself.* Singularity or particularity are the basis of experience but not of conceptual knowledge since the very nature of conceptual truth is the recognition of repeated forms in a number of particularities--6 fuzzy, four-legged, living [whatever that means], reproducing singularities can univocally be called 'dog'; knowledge, on this level, is recognizing each as a particular embodiment of a form, i.e., a 'dog.'

If subatomic particles on the microcosmic level do not necessarily follow any law imposed from outside [heteronomy], then they become a law unto themselves, i.e., αυτο−νομοs, autonomous. If this is true on the microcosmic level, then it would have to be true on the macrocosmic level as well. This is the principle of indeterminacy. Thus, no completely objective knowledge of the universe is possible because the heteronymous law cannot apply to an errant singularity which is not a mere embodiment of a conceptual pattern and which defies the conceptual patterns or 'laws' implied in the very act of naming it--we also realize that the conceptual pattern itself is an impossibility except as a construct of mind, the singular mind and not the 'mind of God.'

Even Einstein was repelled by quantum physics because he was imbued with an apriori assumption that reality was 'cosmos'; his own Judeo Western mind needed a cosmos that could be under-stood. "God doesn't play dice with the universe." That's another way of saying, "There is an understandable cosmos." Einstein's search for a unified field theory was grounded in this need. (Stephen Hawking gave up the search.) Such 'under-standing' is impossible when the dualist relationship governed by heteronomy is removed.

One place to move from this realization is into the existential positing of being and nothingness, which makes our search for meaning itself an absurdity.

On the other hand, we have experiences of knowing which are not conceptual: aesthetics, love, beauty, good--systems can subsume these into themselves, but the experiences themselves are each unique and singular, and, therefore, outside the ability to objectively under-stand since the object and the subject become one reality in the experience.**

This insight has been with us since the Enlightenment, but we have yet to completely internalize its implications. It clearly threatens many institutions, particularly religion and sources of public morality. Christianity [choose any religion of book and law] presupposes an organic, Aristotelian universe into which human relations fit; this fit is part of 'natural law,' but quantum thinking removes the organic whole which grounds a religion's 'eternal' truths.

The Aristotelian universe in fundamentally hierarchical with a Source as its linchpin--thus theism grows naturally from this hierarchical reality, which comes from and is controlled by its First Cause and First Mover. The quantum universe needs no gods and actually eliminates them all--there is no need for a source of heteronymous law and order in evolution as quantum process. Thus theism dies as intellectually incompatible with the human experience itself, which must take priority.***

However, the opposite of theism is not a-theism. If we lose the puppet master, then 'god' must be part and commensurate with the universe itself. But, as Daphne Hampson points out, "Given an inter-related world of time and space and an expanding universe with 'boundaries' in black holes or ever-receding singularities, how are we to envision 'God'? If we are to speak of God, then God must surely be conceptualized as being part of the whole"--and for us "God must be understood to complete what it is to be a human being and not be conceived of as set over against humans." (After Christianity 9-10)

So, the epistemology of quantum physics is paradoxical because the 'knowledge of knowing' has been undermined by the physics it’s trying to under-stand. [Can there be a science of science?] In a way, it's like trying to see you own eyeball. We are part of the process itself. It does seem that knowledge as process rather than knowledge as product is a further development from this.

****
*That's really a tautology since cosmos means order. In Genesis, Yahweh/Elohim does not make anything from nothing but imposes order, cosmos, of disorder, i.e., χαοs, chaos. Thus the patriarch, who cannot make life out of his own body, imposes Law and Order on already existing reality.

**Aristotelians, such as Mortimer Adler, have wrestled with this, and, though the arguments about 'truth' as underlying all disagreements has some cogency, the same arguments about the presumption of objectivity for 'goodness' and 'beauty' are less convincing.

*** Emotionally, theism has died a number of times, most recently during the Holocaust and on September 11, 2001. Or, at least, the Puppet Master became one who could be feared and hated--hardly loved, cf., Pat Roberson and Jerry Falwell.

Whaleman

2009-03-08T12:56:00.001-07:00

I don't usually promote a cause like the Social Vibe one below, but this one is special for two reasons:

1. It is inherently valuable. Our own compassion with each other seems directly related to our compassion for our other companions on this good Earth. Whales and dolphins are clearly intelligent, communal, and, yes, empathic beings. They have made a pact of peace with humanity and our response has been to kill them. Protection of life must be complete. Reverence for life is a fundamental requirement for true humanity.

2. This has been generated almost entirely by a generation which is already changing the world. In our own country, these young people have elected a young and energetic president who will make great strides toward our becoming the country that Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Jay, and Hamilton envisioned. They see the challenge of the Declaration and the Federalist Papers as a mission statement far beyond our reach and, therefore, immeasurably valuable--'our reach must exceed our grasp or what's a heaven for?' This generation gives me great hope for the future of this world. They see beyond the limits of race, gender, sexual preference, and even national states--they help show us the world as one interdependent whole whose survival and flourishing depends on the mutual compassion of every being who shares the planet.

We must support these young people-- they are pointing the way beyond the selfish aggrandizement which has almost destroyed this grand and good Earth

Laughter: a sign of peace

2009-02-09T20:41:00.000-08:00

Poor suckers

2009-01-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

Why don't those who identity with the narrow vision of Right to Life realize that they are being used as patsies by those they think are their allies. Why would any partisan court or so-called 'conservative' politician want to overturn Roe v. Wade when they can trundle the decision out every couple of years as a campaign issue that has proved of immeasurable value? No conservative would think of wanting to lose such a club with which to pound opponents, on the one hand, while bludgeoning supporters into oblivion on the other.

Along with gay marriage, abortion makes up the political arsenal of the right, which seems to take delight in picking on the most vulnerable instead of speaking truth to power.

Note that the eight Bush years saw no moves to overturn Roe v. Wade, but those years did see a rise in the numbers and the rates of abortion in this country. Among others, there were two reasons for this: 1.A violent nation reinforces violence. Until we reject violence as our first tool, it will permeate every part of our society. 2. The Bush administration managed to remove the rather pitiful social safety nets which could support those who found themselves with an unwanted pregnancy and who were ignored by the nations health and human services.

A consistent ethic of life would consider the lives of the fetuses United States military weapons splattered on the walls of Baghdad a matter of horror and concern. There were no marches, there were not even a few quiet peeps out of the so-called Right to Life movement.

Wake up, you poor benighted fools, and see how you've been used.

Thank you, young people

2009-01-23T11:28:00.000-08:00

In an earlier piece, I said that we 'ought to give kids a whack on the side of the head' so they'd know that change is in their hands. Now you have given the rest of us a whack that shows that you see the light far better than many of your elders do.

You helped us see beyond illusion, beyond the irrelevant, and beyond fear. You taught us hope and you taught us courage. What I saw on the Mall on January 20 was a passing of leadership to you; you have shown us all that you not only have the right to lead but that you will lead with greater hope and courage than we have often shown.

So, thank you for revealing your strength and your vision. The country and the world are in good hands.

Gaza tragedy

2009-01-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

When national states and religious institutions becomes tools of division among our sisters and brothers in this world, they have become idols and have lost their right to exist.

Those who identify themselves as either Jews , Muslems, Christians, Israelis, Palestinians, or Americans are first of all human beings, part of one family on this good Earth. No religious or national identity is primary; our common humanity and our being part of the living web of the Earth is always first. A 'god' that divides is no god and ought to die--the death of that god reveals the Source of all life, love, and being.

We are one world, one living planet in an interrelated and interdependent cosmos. Only that vision will cure the sickness of alienation and separation that threatens us all.

bobsby blog: Nationalism and the Sermon on the Mount

2008-04-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

bobsby blog: Nationalism and the Sermon on the Mount

Perpetrators against ourselves

2008-04-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

We all live in a polis, a state; so everything is political
because it has to do with our relationships with each other, with
other living beings, with the Earth, and even with the cosmos itself.
Some avoid talking about religion and politics in any depth so as not
to offend people; therefore, they don't talk about anything that
really matters, that addresses our deepest relationships and which
questions the ultimate concerns in our lives. Those questions might
threaten small lives grounded in power, greed, possessions,
prestige, and ego. A desperate people don't want to know about real
solutions. Until we admit we are ill, there is no treatment. So we
go on distracting ourselves from emptiness, living other people's
lives in a fantasy world where 'meaning' has no meaning.

I think our kids need a whack across the side of the head to wake
them up to the realities which surround them. We have become numb
after years of stupidity in government, collusion of media with power
brokers, fear mongering from the center of power whose purpose (according to
Jefferson, at least) is to protect the rights of citizens. We have
traded our freedom for some idea of security which truncates lives,
which protects its tea-cups with nuclear weapons, and which is sold
with a continuing song of fear. If the goal of terrorism is to
instill fear, then the terrorists have won.

Many young people will have the opportunity to vote this year for the
first time, and many of them will not take that opportunity either
because they think that their vote doesn't count or that they
themselves don't count. The choices are mediocre and they see no one
speaking the truth needed for deep change to happen. Cynicism eats at
the spirit of this generation which feels helpless in the face of
power. The cowardice of the present Congress, the deception of the
BushChenCo politburo, and the manipulation of the media feed that
cynicism.

So, we must give them hell!....but also give them hope. They need to feel
that they can make a difference in this world which they feel is
tumbling toward disasters which they can't imagine. The hope that
many so-called 'Christians' have that some Jesus will step in and
rapture them up into the sky is the vision of petty and despairing
people. Religious institutions are silent in the face of violence
against other humans, other living things, and the Earth itself making
them co-conspirators in the criminal behavior which they
countenance--what Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Abraham Heschel
saw as announcing liberty, healing, and hope has now become part of
the problem itself. There are no bystanders in the
face of evil--only victims and perpetrators--those who are silent help only the perpetrators and becom part of their gang. Ironically, we have become perpetrators against ourselves.

We are deeply buried in desception. Only courage Truth can find a way out of such a morrass--and Truth, as Gandhi said, is God.

To Do Justice

2008-03-25T22:43:00.000-07:00

To Do Justice

Bob Sauerbrey

....What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

If you want peace, work for justice. (Pope Paul VI)

As Jesus' initial preaching in Matthew and central to Luke, what we call 'The Sermon on the Mount' embodies Jesus' world more than any comparable scriptures--yet, though cited in different contexts, it remains the most neglected part of the gospels. Many Christians want the Hebrew Law , the Ten Commandments, to be placed on public buildings without suggesting that the Sermon on the Mount be so publicly proclaimed, though the Sermon on the Mount is to Christians what the Torah, embodied in the Ten Commandments, is for Jews. The Mount of the sermon is for Christians what Sinai is for the Hebrew people; Jesus rewrites the Ten Commandments--"You have heard is said...but I tell you..." (Matthew: 5)
In Jesus' words and, especially, in his actions, justice stands at the center. So what is justice? What is social justice?
The word "Justice" has fallen on hard times. In popular culture, it is often synonymous with a form of vengeance, a balancing of the scales; we speak of "bringing someone to justice" not as giving commendation and praise to those deserving those things, but as punishing those who have committed acts against society, humanity, or the world. We speak of "just war" but not "just peace." For Jesus, however, and for all those whose vision and life became a foundation for the great spiritual traditions, justice meant something far different.
The synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, show us Jesus primarily as a healer. He brings wholeness to the sick, but, beyond that, Jesus acts to heal the social network. "You must be whole just as God is whole." (Matthew 5:48) Throughout the Gospels, Jesus consistently acts against the socially acceptable norms when those laws, customs, and traditions violate human beings and divide people from the earth, from each other, and, at last, from God. For Jesus, such laws, customs, and traditions become idolatrous when they become ends in themselves and not means to heal humanity and all the world. All barriers must be removed; all mere membership requirements must fall.
Jesus always eats with the wrong people, eats in the wrong way, and talks to the wrong people. He touches lepers and menstruating women, both unclean in the laws of the Torah. The gospels present Jesus doing most of his work on the Sabbath, including picking grain, rubbing off the chaff. and eating it--all in violation of religious law. We have to wonder what Jesus did from Sunday till Friday evening since he waits for the Sabbath and then acts in a way that most offends the protectors of the structures that give identity to all but, especially, the structures that give power to some and relegate others to the role of the servants of power. His reason: "The Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath. The son of man (Jesus favorite identification of himself and a term that means a human being) is lord of the Sabbath also." (Mark: 2: 27) Is it any wonder that Jesus scared both the secular and religious leaders of his day?
The Catholic Encyclopedia defines justice as "... the most important of the cardinal virtues...which perfects the will and inclines it to render to each and to all what belongs to them." In other words, justice is acting as the dignity of another deserves. Jesus said it another way: Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself. This is the whole Torah and the prophets. (Matthew: 7:12)
Every authentic religious tradition embodies this same definition of what constitutes right action, and each makes it the foundation for the integrity of faith. Some examples:
Don't do to others what you would not want done to yourself. This is the whole of the Torah. (Judaism)
Do for all as you would wish done to you and reject for others what you would reject for yourselves. (Islam)
Don't hurt others with that which pains you. (Buddha)
What you do not desire for yourself, do not put before others. (Confucius)
This is the sum of all righteousness: Do nothing to another which you would not want another to do to you. (Hinduism)
Another and newer voice: I knew... that I didn't want one other person on this earth to suffer the way I was suffering that day. (Loretta Filipov, widow of 9/11 victim, Al Filipov, member of September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows)
St. Thomas Aquinas and others describe justice as right ordering of relationships, as proper caring. When we treat each person, each creature, and the earth according to the dignity each deserves, when we order our personal, communal, and political lives with the love each justly deserves, then conflicts disappear, and what emerges is what humanity has sought for millenia--true Peace on Earth.

Fear, anxiety, and political power

2008-03-25T22:32:00.000-07:00

Faith and Anxiety
Bob Sauerbrey
From Luke’s Gospel:
[The winds] subsided and it was calm again. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” 8:25.
Do not be afraid; only have faith and [your daughter] will be safe. 8:50.
The kingdom of God is very near to you. 10:10.
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body. 12:4.
I am telling you not to worry about your life...nor about your body....There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased God to give you the kingdom: 12: 22, 32.
Were your faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you. 17:6.
From Mark’s Gospel:
“Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid.” 6:51.
The most common phrase in the Christian Testament is “Do not be afraid.” For Jesus, the opposite of faith is not doubt; it is anxiety. Jesus dismisses all fear and anxiety in the “great reversal” that permeates the Gospels: Happy are the poor; cursed are those who trust in wealth and power. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Get treasure that will not fail you, for were your treasure is, there will your heart be also. During the liturgy for the recent feast of the Assumption, we hear Luke make Mary the channel of the fearlessness of those who trust God: “God’s mighty arm strikes down the proud, pulls tyrants from thrones and lifts up the poor, so the starving are filled and the rich go hungry.”
How different from the world we live in where fear and anxiety are the tools of economic and political gain. One evening of television commercials will convince you that “Your body is not up to par. You have bad breath joined to BO which explains why you have no friends. What will happen to your family IF you’re not around; you need more insurance. Your house is infected with more bugs than you can imagine and, if that’s not bad enough, your monthly payments are too high, so we’ll refinance for you.” A challenge: During one evening of television, keep track of the underlying messages that surround us and our children; you’ll find the vast majority of commercials are grounded either in dissatisfaction or fear, which might well be the same thing.
Now we are involved in a political campaign in which one of the most important issues addressed by pollsters is, “Which of these candidates will do a better job protecting America?” From commercial products to presidential elections, the message is clear: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Then they present their product or themselves as a safeguard against what we fear, against what we are taught to hate. We find ourselves in a country joined together, not by what we love, but rather by what we hate and fear.
All of this promulgates “a paranoid view of reality where violence is the only protection against those plotting our doom.” (Walter Wink, The Powers that Be, p.55) The invocation of God as willing the use of violence to advance national interests and as favoring one national system or “way of life” over another is not only blasphemy but also idolatry according to the first and second commandments of the Decalogue. Ironically, Jesus’ plan and vision is rejected in the very name of Jesus.
A spokesperson for an earlier 20th century regime said, “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.” (Hermann Goering, 1946) In this he echoed his own leader: "Through clever and constant application of propaganda people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise." (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. 1923) And when religion becomes part of this culture, the words of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor sound starkly modern: “You (Jesus) craved for free love and not the base raptures of slaves....But you thought too highly of humanity....We have corrected your work and have founded it on miracle, mystery, and authority...[Humanity] knows the value of complete submission! We will have the answers for all and they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves.” The formula for domination: create fear and anxiety then present a system, institution, or product as the one salvation from the fear.
Does Jesus then teach passive acquiescence to evil? No. Jesus reveals a Third way between violence and hopeless acceptance. active non-resistance, active non-cooperation--turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, handing over one’s underwear as well as one’s cloak were traps which turned back on the oppressor and helped even the oppressor see the evil of unjust actions. What Jesus releases is anxiety; faith and fear cannot coexist. “Set your hearts on the kingdom, and these other things will be given as well. There is no need to be afraid.” Luke 12:31-32
Teresa of Avila, the co-reformer of the Carmelites which our own Teresa Benedicta joined, wrote these words in her book of the Hours:
Let nothing disturb you, nothing frighten you. All things are passing; God never changes! Patient endurance attains to all things. The one who possesses God wants nothing. God alone suffices .
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"People can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Nationalism and the Sermon on the Mount

2008-03-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

The Fourth of July
and the Sermon on the Mount

“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than living....We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.” Gen. Omar Bradley, former Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Any Fourth of July after the September 11 attacks invites us to reflect on the response of followers of Jesus to what has happened since then, particularly to the “war on terrorism” that was declared in our name.
Since the earliest centuries, Christians have struggled with following Jesus while, at the same time, being a member of a national or political group which is threatened by outside forces. The earliest Christian communities reject violence completely. Origen in the 3rd century writes, “We Christians do not bear arms against any country....We have become children of peace, and Jesus is our leader.” St. Hyppoclitus in the Canonical Decrees says, “Christian soldiers are not to kill, even if commanded to....If [a soldier] does shed blood, he must not participate in the sacraments.” In our own day, Christians like the Amish and Quakers have taken Jesus’ words quite seriously and refuse to use violence as a response to violence; they understand that such a response turns us into the very thing we oppose.
Power is dangerous and easily corrupts those who wield it. Reading Matthew 5-7 or Luke 6: 20-52, we cannot escape the fact that Jesus always stood on the side of the powerless. He blesses and calls happy those who are poor, hungry, mourning and persecuted while he curses the wealthy, the self-satisfied, the content and those who live in harmony with the powerful. “Alas for you when the world speaks well of you! This was the way their ancestors treated the false prophets.” (Lk 6: 26) Realizing that God alone has the power to effect lasting change, Jesus turns the logic of the world on its head: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you...be compassionate as Abba is compassionate.” (Lk 6: 27, 36) Jesus proclaims, in the prayer known as the Lord’s prayer, that all persons are children of the one God and, therefore, sisters and brothers; living out this realization is the Kingdom of God. In Jesus’ words, the search for wealth and power is completely at odds with the Kingdom of God: “No one can serve two masters...you cannot serve God and wealth.” (Mt 6: 24) In Matthew 25, Jesus identifies the service of God with our service of each other; we are judged by what we have given not by what we have accumulated.
Yet we live in a culture where power, prestige, and possessions are the driving forces in most lives to the point where some have said that consumerism is the dominant religion of our time since it defines our very purpose for living as, in the words of cosmologist Brian Swimme, “getting a job to make money so you can buy things.” We have been willing to spend our children’s future to protect this way of life by all means necessary, even with weapons that threaten the very future of life on earth.
Jesus says, “Take care! Be on your guard from all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” (Lk 12: 15) Our culture of power and wealth, on the other hand, could not even exist if we followed the Tenth Commandment of the Hebrew scriptures much less be followers of Jesus; if we didn’t “covet our neighbors goods,” the motivation would disappear from our consumer culture and business.
Jesus says God is One who can be trusted so we should not be afraid. (Mt 6:19-34; Lk 12:22-32) Our culture says we must trust in our weapons, in our ability to inflict ever greater violence on those who threaten our way of life. We even give total allegiance to human political and national systems thus rejecting the First Commandment by idolatry.
Jesus speaks to our broken world from the cross on which he was broken. He speaks of the imitation of God’s love as the basis for all morality; he envisions a new world order.
This new world order, where love and power now work together, is seen by Jesus as a “wedding banquet.” Meals seem to be his most constant image of what it is all about. Jesus seems to imply a world that is good, joy-filled, trustworthy relational, communal [and] shared. (Richard Rohr, Jesus Plan for a New World: the Sermon on the Mount, p. 171)
Jesus tells us that violence as a response to violence is self-defeating. (Mt 26: 52) We have seen that our own “war on terrorism” has recruited new members for those who would use violence. Violence is the response of the fearful, not of the brave in the world order that Jesus proclaims. A young woman whose brother died in the World Trade Center on September 11 wrote to the bishop of Detroit, “My family is quite clear...that we would never want another family, whether Afghani or American, to feel the way we do now....I do not know what Jesus would do in these current times, but I am certain that he would not advocate the bombing of anyone.”
Jesus calls us away from cultural systems grounded in greed, power, and violence--the Greek word ek-klesia means “to call from.” He does not promise it to be easy but says, “...it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Mt 7: 14)
True love of our nation often involves calling it to its true nature; former Senator William Fulbright has said,
Criticism is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism–a higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar ritual of national adulation. All of us have the responsibility to act upon the higher patriotism, which is to love our country less for what it is than for what we would like it to be.
Somehow, today, we find our nation united, not by love, but by hatred of a common enemy, and Jesus insists that hatred and even anger cannot be part of the Kingdom. (Mt 6: 21-22, 43-45) Hatred and death are part of each other as are love and life. “You cannot build on death, you can only build on life. We must be sustained by a sense of what we are for and not just what we are against.” (Rohr, p. 164) The ubiquitous picture of the earth from space is a symbol of what Jesus was for, one world all of whose children are united in love. Some would call that unrealistic. However, the impact of truly following Jesus plan for a new world order would be profound, or should we avoid this profound change and stop calling ourselves Christians?
As this reflection began with a quote from one of the heroes of World War II, it seems appropriate to end with the words of perhaps the finest leader that conflict produced.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone [but] the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children....This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)