tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62041332553169048142024-02-01T22:13:46.209-08:00The Church RelevantUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-24164662511494384152017-08-27T12:22:00.002-07:002017-08-27T18:45:06.102-07:00The Focus is Evil<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My family encouraged me to buy an expensive pair of binoculars before this summer vacation. The ones we kept in the car weren't reliable for the bird watching I do and, so, with recommendations from other birders I bought a Vortex <i>HD</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They arrived in the mail wrapped with impressive packaging and even more impressive instructions. These binocs aren't simply to be put up to the eye. No, there's a two-step focusing procedure to be done first - the center and the diopter must be properly focused. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wondered if all that prep was really necessary as I peered across our little inlet to watch the terns circle and dive. I didn't see much need for the hyper-focus; </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had bought them because they looked cool and I wanted to take them on our holiday.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This past Friday and Saturday brought us--even while on vacation in a remote part of Maine--to social media outlets to get the latest news on the racist rally in Charlottesville, this, amidst the osprey and harbor seals in our little inlet. We were amazed and fearful watching a national gathering of alt-right, neo-Nazi and white supremacists parade with torches chanting, "You will not replace us!", and, "Jews will not replace us!" Some of the 500 marchers carried swastikas; others Trump paraphernalia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It got worse when James Fields intentionally drove his Dodge Challenger into a group of counter protesters killing Heather Heyer, and seriously wounding 19 others. Fields has been jailed on homicide charges. Heather was buried two days later and a memorial foundation begun. <a href="http://heatherheyerfoundation.com/" target="_blank">http://heatherheyerfoundation.com/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This all happened on a Saturday and the bishop of the Diocese of Maryland immediately denounced what happened and challenged churches to respond with similar outcries. <a href="http://www.christchurchcolumbia.org/parish-life/a-message-from-bishop-eugene-taylor-sutton/" target="_blank">http://www.christchurchcolumbia.org/parish-life/a-message-from-bishop-eugene-taylor-sutton/</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">People of faith needed outlets or a way to understand, not be passive, or be afraid of this dark occurrence. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I went to the village church on that Sunday expecting and hoping for some statement. (The binoculars left behind in our cabin but issues of seeing clearly still very present.) </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6L5qV2klOgzaY53sg6uZNfPm0EhOVf7yJLP3RP26lGiZvYwy6B8NcKwjQP-C-JVn0OT9Ri2Up8Bof9vlqPbxlxizf8Wz5pfpBp61yUeI5QX_dxKucIZqvvVkU5Rpg1Q7TyJQseoUPOWdV/s1600/20170813_095018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6L5qV2klOgzaY53sg6uZNfPm0EhOVf7yJLP3RP26lGiZvYwy6B8NcKwjQP-C-JVn0OT9Ri2Up8Bof9vlqPbxlxizf8Wz5pfpBp61yUeI5QX_dxKucIZqvvVkU5Rpg1Q7TyJQseoUPOWdV/s200/20170813_095018.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jesus waiting for you at the door.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now this country church (I'd been there before) has a congregation comprised <u>completely</u> of senior citizens. I don't think there was anybody there under 70. The pastor is a genial man who has turned the musical program over to a younger whiz who flips switches with gospel recordings. It makes for an impromptu warmth and support for the members which is infectious, if occasionally odd. "Joys and Concerns", though, went as far as being happy about the turnout at the pancake breakfast and was there "enough rain for my tomatoes." </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwiYYF8YSQg4uiTSMNBZLSaXDBXIK35IC7cM8CBVE89aCF9W6X14AxojnP6TcoE-8-koj4pfhr1lfm8hfoQw7a__pCPTM39T1IpdLWdrdnkqLP-73L3fBCDG9d0WviCBPBjP7SRzfwLqVn/s1600/20170813_093007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwiYYF8YSQg4uiTSMNBZLSaXDBXIK35IC7cM8CBVE89aCF9W6X14AxojnP6TcoE-8-koj4pfhr1lfm8hfoQw7a__pCPTM39T1IpdLWdrdnkqLP-73L3fBCDG9d0WviCBPBjP7SRzfwLqVn/s200/20170813_093007.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cushions awaiting older churchgoers.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wondered about the personal judgment I'd walked in with and <b>my</b> focus for worship. There was no reason these innocent people should rally around my concern. No reaction to the Charlottesville tragedy to be found here, it seemed. Surely, though, we'd get to the Nazis in the sermon, I figured. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The pastor's message was solid although in parts it sounded downloaded from canned resources - but you couldn't bridle his enthusiasm for wanting to deliver on the theme of "overcoming your fear." The gospel was about Jesus walking on water and from that he abstracted <b>we </b>fear walking on water too...and many other things. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Certainly, a consoling message about fear of white supremacists or the consequences of standing up for justice was at hand. But no. And it occurred to me that this church was a lifeboat getting passengers to the far shore. They weren't much interested in immediate events other than the journey on this barque together.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As dear evidence of that, during announcements, one woman said she was returning to Texas. She apparently summered in Maine among this little community. "Well, we'll look forward to seeing you in the spring, huh?" said Pastor Charlie. "No", she said, "this will be my last trip." There was a brief silence - hanging like a wreath in the air. Everyone knew what that meant. Eyes cast down, Pastor Charlie concluded and transitioned with, "Well, you will be in our prayers." Using this occasion as a lens and means of focus the entire service was intended to bind the sick and fortify the fainthearted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I absently fumbled with my reading glasses going through the motions of arranging my binoculars aware that I was privileged to witness this sight. There was some clarity at least here, for sure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was all good, I thought, as I left early intentionally and missing the ritual of "change Sunday" (don't ask). But as I walked, I wondered how this had become a reliable representation of "church"? Considering the age of parishioners actually in sanctuaries these days. A large number of them must have insisted on this "lifeboat" version. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There can be exceptions. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, the first African American to hold that office, encouraged parishioners with a Sunday morning pew handout explaining a vision of Christianity which he believed was a response to the travesty in Charlottesville. As Bishop Curry wrote, "We who follow Jesus have made a choice to walk a different way: the way of disciplined, intentional, passionate, compassionate, mobilized, organized love intent on creating God’s Beloved Community on earth." </span></span><br />
<a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/message-presiding-bishop-michael-curry-where-do-we-go-here-chaos-or-community" target="_blank">https://www.episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/message-presiding-bishop-michael-curry-where-do-we-go-here-chaos-or-community</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span><br />
<i style="color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Who can argue with this statement? But then, why would you bother? </i><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The focus is all wrong and Bishop Curry presents - using a Martin Luther King 1967 speech as a text - the options of, "are we to choose 'Chaos or Community?' " </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The choice, right now, is between good and evil not between degrees of commotion.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i></i>Confrontation or chaos in the streets a la 1967 isn't on a par with an Auschwitz looming over an uncertain future. It worries me that just like the lack of focus in that little church in Maine, fuzziness continues among church leaders who should know better.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Christians - everyone - are looking for a statement with a little more heft.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Methodist Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton reminded churchgoers of their baptismal covenant interspersed with a returning lament of, "It just isn't right!" Specifically the parts that say, "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Do you </span><u style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">renounce</u><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the spiritual forces of wickedness,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><u style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">reject</u><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Do you</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><u style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">accept</u><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the freedom and power God gives you to</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><u style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">resist</u><strong style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?" <a href="http://www.nyac.com/newsdetail/bishop-bickerton-responds-to-charlottesville-events-9061035" target="_blank">http://www.nyac.com/newsdetail/bishop-bickerton-responds-to-charlottesville-events-9061035</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: #fffcf8; color: #404040; font-family: "gill sans nova" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Seeing Charlottesville clearly for what it was, and saying so, requires the ultimate focus of bold words and even bolder action. +gep</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-86876395491517531832017-08-03T15:18:00.003-07:002017-08-07T09:46:06.042-07:00Jesus As Dangerous...Are We?<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had a flicker of identification with Jesus recently while appealing a Disorderly Conduct conviction. It came from the surprising source - one of my fellow litigants (we had been blocking the same sidewalk in a protest). All during that court appearance I wondered about the definition of "disorderly" and what was a reasonable objection. My friend pointed out the similarity of our situation to the biblical verse Mark 11:16.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Indeed, can a Christian <b>be</b> "disorderly"?</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can a Christian be "disorderly"?</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a reference to when Jesus visited the temple before his crucifixion. The stop comes after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem where he begins a daily routine of teaching before heing arrested later in the week. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This initial trip to the temple is known for his dramatic response to the commerce being carried on there. Because sacrifice was a necessary part of temple ritual and because visitors traveled with their own coinage it had to be "changed" to the standard of the temple (hence the reference to "tables of money changers" in the texts.) Many small businesses thrived in the courtyards adjacent to that holy place, and commerce found its own level of activity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mind you, all this energy transpired in the "Court of the Gentiles" and not in the temple proper. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Think of a walled in football field and at one end - about at the 15 yard line - there's another walled enclosure with the temple's "most holy place" where the Ark of the Covenant rests. The Ark contains the tablets Moses received at Sinai. So, Jesus and his commotion occurred in the wide open area (the remaining 85 yards) designated for gentiles. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jesus maintained that the entire area from Solomon's time was set aside for God. While the Pharisaical rules agreed with him, they were lax in enforcement. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now that we've set the scene, one can visualize Jesus arriving at the great expanse of a gentile courtyard with an expectation of prayer. Instead he is greeted with cheap chatter. It is noteworthy because all three synoptic versions record the surprising scene of Jesus getting violent. He overturns tables, seats and "drives" merchants from their places. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's a lot to think on here. First and foremost, that anger is an emotion that has a place in the Second Testament. Having Jesus float above human emotion isn't accurate or practical. Chances are if he got angry here, he got angry at other times. Sure, he was miffed when his mom goaded him into that Cana wine miracle, and you wouldn't want to be a fig tree anywhere near him. But Jesus wasn't throwing any furniture as he is doing in this reference.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the Richter scale of being upset, his anger even incorporated violent acts. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I hasten to add no one gets hurt. <i><b>There is a line no one can cross with Jesus and profaning the holy is that line. </b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The literal Marcan narrative is very clear, "He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts." (Mark 11:16)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In short: Mark describes Jesus as blocking traffic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not only can't you sell, interact or otherwise transact, you can't traverse (take a shortcut) through this temple area.<i> <b>At base, what's at stake here is taking God for granted, that, is the peril for humanity.</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Given that, it becomes appropriate, more, a necessity for Jesus to get angry and throw things. This is not a tantrum but part of a series of images all week where Jesus enters the flow of historical events. He continues confrontational behavior - adding active debate with the Pharisees - before his arrest. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Observing Jesus getting angry in the temple discloses the connection of passion-just action and steadfast loyalty which characterizes the essence of Christian witness.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In other words, it might seem inevitable that Jesus got angry and that he died on the cross but his choice was in each act. Which loops us back to what we choose to do in each moment of <b>our </b>lives. For example, when can a hostile act be confronted and how can it be drained of its power? <b>C</b><i><b>an a Christian really <u>do</u> something and be reliably Christian?</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">During this time of uncertainty in our country, Brook and I attended a Saturday training session provided by some local churches...<a href="https://www.repairrivertowns.org/" target="_blank">Rivertowns Episcopal Action on Inclusion and Race (REPAIR)</a> in the lower Hudson Valley. The gathering was notable for a number of reasons but particularly that 65 people would gather on a stifling Saturday morning in summer to learn how to "disarm" a potentially violent situation. The training was provided by two instructors from the <a href="http://caeny.org/" target="_blank">Center for Anti-Violence Education. </a></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Julie Hwang, Instructor</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The curriculum travels under the novel label of "upstander" which is a play on words with the word "bystander." Early in the session one understands the difference between the two--and the point of why everyone would bother to spend 2 hours learning this concept. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Center for Anti-Violence maintains--with nodding heads of agreement around the room--that in these fractious days people feel tense and never know when and where a surprise confrontation might occur between fellow citizens. As Trainer Tish Tabb said, "You feel upended and vulnerable...and don't know what to do." </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tish Tabb, "Upstander" trainer</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More heads nodded agreement. Which introduces an alternative to simply being a bystander to an aggressive and/or abusive act, and, instead, becoming an active witness, an upstander. To be clear this behavior doesn't advocate violence or confrontation of any kind. Rather, it is a series of techniques designed to distract the aggressor from the targeted person. It is meant to benignly empower the embattled person. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I asked what happens after the companion upstander effectively distracts the bully and the targeted person is safe. I was surprised and pleased to hear the instructor's response, "Why, you exit the scene quickly." Who wouldn't like that end to a confrontation!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jesus commitment is evidenced in the text and he declared a boundary. That's the model. Likewise--through even our more modest life events--we must enter this culture, stand up for civility and serve justice. Those occasions are at hand. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's nothing complicated about this call or the course local churches should take. To do anything less loses the vision of Christ, his dangerous memory, and our inheritance.+gep </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-54829203842505492772017-06-28T14:08:00.000-07:002017-06-28T17:29:25.022-07:00War With Russia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Two things happened today which might not rise to notice. The first might have...one of our nuclear facilities was breached by a hacker. Not much real commotion since it was the administrative office adjacent to the reactor. Still, it's unnerving.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second should be more consequential but probably won't be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today, the "United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards Their Total Elimination" met--as it has all week--in their second round of discussions. More specifically, the conversation addressed General Assembly resolution 71/258 of 23 December 2016. The United States was not there, but then neither were the other 8 countries which have nuclear arsenals.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The fact is that 120 countries did attend these symposiums and that matters morally. As the New York Times reported there is an outright intention to shame non-participants and it should give us assurance that world opinion is not complacent when super powers toy with whether to re-strengthen and re-deploy nuclear capabilities. Donald Trump has an avowed policy to insure that the U.S. is "at the top of the pack", and, further, he sees no reason to monitor poliferation; more countries should have such capability, he thinks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's the baseline of loose talk on this subject which is giving veteran diplomats heartburn and speaking directly to the question of war with Russia, Iran, or any other nation state with a nuclear arsenal. It presents an unthinkable outcome. The recent heightened tension between North Korea and the United States presents an intellectual test-case for what the tragic aftermath of a "regional nuclear war" might look like. Beyond decimating the northwest Pacific (and making it uninhabitable for part of a century) the refugee crisis would be on a scale we have never seen. The economic consequences would tilt the remainder of the world into a depression. This is clearly unknown territory. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's not a place we ever want to go or be part of creating.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So where does that leave us on war with Russia? Because an escalation of hostilities is a possibility in any of the flash points of Syria, the Ukraine, and even fly-overs in the Baltic Sea there must be a means to match those occasions with mechanisms to stand down any confrontation. Without such aids it is easy to slip into a spiral of hostility. A recent hotline used to avoid such confrontations in airspace over Syria has been voided by the Russians after the U.S. downed a Syrian jet. The Russians have further declared any aircraft west of the Euphrates River now to be an open target. To paraphrase Second Timothy, chapter three, we are living in perilous times. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But we are not helpless. Indeed, it requires us to live with sharpened acuity and a higher sensitivity to belligerent talk...because we know where it can lead. In the realm of diplomacy between nations where the currency of raw power is often used with impunity this might seem naive. But it is the specter of nuclear weapons that requires that we attend to this level, modest as it might seem. Indeed, the bomb has the chastening power, like death, on one's life. When one understands what death is, it defines and enlarges the days you live. Oddly, nuclear weapons and its horrendous consequences, re-directs us to honor the discourse and words we use with each other. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's a postscript here. Currently both Houses of Congress are investigating Russian sponsored hacking and disruption of the 2016 presidential election. If it is confirmed that this did take place (and it seems so) what are we to do? Despite the above advisory about an embargo on belligerent conversation we are not sentenced to a benign response. Curiously, Augustine's advice on "Just War" can be informative but with limitations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(Earlier in this blog I defended "Just War" as a matter of principle, but no more. The lethal battle areas today make collateral casualties so inevitable as to eclipse the luxury of using this description. In short, no war is a "just war.")</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Just War" could at least be informative when gauging what is an affront and to measure and match a response. Please note that the use of force is off the table but if the United States can verify that its essence--the very electoral process it uses to renew itself--has been compromised then an appropriate assertive response might be justified. This brings us into the murky water of what that response might be. Just because a retaliatory cyber-attack is shrouded in the ether, is it not aggressive, destructive, and hurtful if, say, a power grid is compromised and hospitals lose power? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Above, I said that "Just War" principles were "informative" but beyond being a grid for measure we must be exceptionally careful when employing those principles as permission to employ force. Thankfully our founders have concocted a warren of checks, balances and extended conversation intended to coax better responses. Most times that has been reliable and this Republic's salvation. But not always. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At the end of the day--as Thomas Jefferson often said--it is the people who convene in civilization and it is by their standard that a government rises or falls. In the final analysis it is the people who require an elevated tone in their government and sanity among nations. <complete id="goog_2096958832">+gep</complete></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-9338399730178676632017-06-25T13:36:00.001-07:002017-06-25T19:35:40.409-07:00After the Violence Usually the Debris, But Not Always<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVJyULakRXAexF5IV79m8_lzz6dwhE_XIzKUFXAo1osXsUTX8dy90tSTysnA8we3c4I4craLQQzGfjNNePHLu5w64dyfYVgyjPuCszPKAm1agfqSg3Wmtn5rR5Alu140yQi3x7738Ud7-D/s1600/20170617_131950.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVJyULakRXAexF5IV79m8_lzz6dwhE_XIzKUFXAo1osXsUTX8dy90tSTysnA8we3c4I4craLQQzGfjNNePHLu5w64dyfYVgyjPuCszPKAm1agfqSg3Wmtn5rR5Alu140yQi3x7738Ud7-D/s200/20170617_131950.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A re-portrayal of Seneca Falls meeting.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">During a trip to upstate New York, Brook and I stopped off to visit the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls. It's where Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others had formative, first meetings in 1848. It would be 72 years before that translated into rights for women as voting citizens. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The gestation of this movement is fascinating. It began, in part, when women abolitionists were rebuffed from having a say at the world's first anti-slavery convention in London. Women had the same fever over the sin of slavery but had to sit silently in the gallery during debate. On the return voyage from England, Lucretia Coffin Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton used this indignity as energy for organizing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The energy of the Women's Suffrage Movement, the rallies, the marches, the advocacy and the arrests were born of the violence perpetrated on them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That word, "violence", normally infers a physical injury, but violence--according to Webster--can have subtler forms as, "injury by distortion or infringement." Someone can grab your arm...or your rights; it still comes down to the same thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(At this writing the Senate is contemplating removing millions of Americans from the Medicaid rolls under the Affordable Care Act in the name of prudent fiscal policy. Their reason coincides with the conservative view of restricting how government interacts and provides social service. That might be academically reasonable--after all, if your rich enough life is about choices--but in reality millions of lower income Americans <i>already have </i>such social support. The "grab" or take-back of Medicaid allotments from millions of Americans will not pretty. Indeed, on a day-to-day level we will witness a certain violence to lives and health.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I addressed in titling this piece, violence can leave behind human debris. In other entries of this blog I've recorded visits to recuperative military hospitals in Germany and Walter Reed where brave women and men struggled to reclaim lives after an improvised explosive device (IED) injured a limb or brain. U.S. intervention in a foreign war has a new context after visiting these brave veterans. This could be that awful debris of unfulfilled lives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But it's in those hospital rooms and adjacent hallways where the newly wounded military women and men practice their first moments of adjustment and living again. Those times are not that different from Elizabeth Cady Stanton's intention after being silenced and sent to that London gallery when important talk continued on in spite of them. Circumstances could have sidelined them. You're a wounded vet, so normal living isn't possible. You're a woman, so political action and full citizenship isn't possible. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But this is the mystery of what violence brings because that dark force eventually runs out of energy. (Brook just reminded me of nature's rhythm that observes such energy coming and going like a wave, and, with that, follows an inevitable recoil.) In western terms, a space occurs in which we can realize what violence has done. Recognition of this takes some intention because we might witness a whole renewal of the violent cycle again. (Post traumatic stress can have a secondary bewilderment as we wait on the arrival of this insight.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Or, we can live violence as small talk.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Am. Legion crowd after new officer induction.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just today I met Eddie in front of the local American Legion Hall. A very nice guy, he and I, gray haired, settled into our war stories about Vietnam. It was OK but sentimentalizing about war and heroism becomes almost folk art by which we lull ourselves, trading camaraderie and comfort for facing the ugly truth of what we did. Such violent experiences should move us to something else beyond a mimic of trading ball scores. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Too often the Church is like that for our culture. We'll talk about the awfulness of violence, almost like we're visiting the zoo. The terrible creatures of deadly force are "over there." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As Rev. William J. Barber II sums it up for today's church, "do a little prayer, do a little worship, and do a little charity. That's pale Christianity." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rev. Barber's diagnosis? He recommends that the Church be the "moral defibrillator" for the culture. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I would add, those paddles need to used on the Institution first. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(I'm fully confident Christ's Body is healthy and beating somewhere.) <complete id="goog_558389019">+gep</complete></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-51059518703159699702017-06-11T11:58:00.001-07:002017-06-25T18:24:30.270-07:00I'm Back, this time with new-old friends<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sorry for the absence. I've been living in a faraway land thinking only of my garden and a growing list of doctors' appointments.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, while at the consecration of new bishop Carl Wright at the National Cathedral in February I was approached by Executive Director Rev. Alison Liles and Administrator Ms. Shannon Berndt to return to the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. (I had served as their chaplain for two years awhile ago.) "No", they urged, "this time we'd like you to serve as the vice chair."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I needed to mull that one over, some. It meant working for real and not from the safe, spiritual sidelines and commitment had a sting these days. Read on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was a simple mulling, really. I'm not sure the institutional church matters much anymore. The stock answer is that the Body of Christ continues through history as an on-going presence and legacy of Jesus Christ. It takes a better mind than mine to validate all that but my experience with the Occupy movement convinced me that organized religion in America did not significantly contribute to the moral reflection a civilized culture needed. Mostly, it meanders using its own continuing existence as a point of reference. In nearly every occasion the expressed need in the world might be addressed but invariably attention would circle back to what the church was, had done, and would do (if the next fund raising was ever completed.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I accept the generalities in the preceding paragraph and giving sad evidence of these facts will only be mentioned as an afterthought in this blog as I try to find and share the vestiges of a remaining relevant church. There is evidence of such a "church" but now it travels under different presentations and names...and at 73 I didn't think I'd be listing them. The easier ones to see are groups like The Episcopal Peace Fellowship (hereon, "EPF"). There are many reasons I say this. Primarily, for now, EPF is not "church" as we have known it but a factor in its journey of discovery. EPF has a history of cheering from the sidelines as it has--hat in hand--lobbied church conventions to emphasize significant stands. Its agenda has been advocacy and more advocacy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So that's your new definition of "church"? It's a start, because the leftover institutional church has ignored or minimized the importance of witness. To be fair, old church has been urged into other domains such as coziness and member support. There is ample evidence of the present alienating, competitive environment we live in now so religious institutions have offered the kind of succor congregants need. Church leaders emphasize the security of liturgy, fellowship and study, That last item might lead to activism but the subject matter is self referential; highlights will always be prayer, solving modest personal social challenges and, of course, that old standby, "how to grow the church."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me give you an example of the quick-to-the-point energy of EPF. On the very afternoon of my acceptance of the vice chair position I joined a conference call on gun violence. During the call I met Bob Lotz, who after discussing some standard worries on the subject, added that there was even greater worry in his town of Lansing, MI about an anti-Muslim hate group, "Act for America" and their intended "March Against Sharia Law." None of us on the call felt that we had strayed from the subject of gun violence and later I wondered why that was so.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It used to be that old church conversation incorporated any social justice topic but now that continues through pan-need fund drives which in effect say, "relax, we'll scoop up all the requests for need and deposit them in a fund drive or a committee for you." In most churches the general population is spared social justice conversation; one can feel the shift of energy when those challenges are brought up...it's not pleasant.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe if you are in tune with the deeper needs of the world you want to talk about these things and feel your life has been cheaply modified if you don't give some life time to the discomfort of it. There's an itch you haven't scratched. In old church meetings one can feel the dis-ease when the subject of commitment and action must be addressed. It's a visceral reaction, a serious development, and another subject for discussion here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But back to Bob Lotz and that Muslim hate march. I think we talked about other things besides gun violence because we could...and we sorta knew no one else in the old church was going to. If EPF does that alone the search for vestiges for relevant church is vindicated. <complete id="goog_558389016">+</complete>gep</span><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-14715479972285221922014-10-28T06:25:00.001-07:002014-10-28T10:05:04.138-07:00Polite Justice is No Justice At All<span style="background-color: #f2f2f2; color: #1a1a1a; line-height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The church may be grounded in hope – when it isn’t actively enabling oppression – but if I was a Palestinian reading this letter, I wouldn’t invest my future in Lutheran hope. In fact, I would admonish Bishop Eaton and the Lutherans for wanting the respectable ear of the President more than embracing the active reckoning needed as Palestinian hope for a real state and real freedom continues to recede. - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/10/toothless-israelpalestine-occupation#sthash.hoqwWzS7.dpuf</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This recent reporting in Mondoweiss confronts the latest timid justice of institutional religion. This time it's by the Lutherans. It is the kind of response I received at a recent Episcopal social event by a prominent person who should know better, "We don't want to do anything which would antagonize the local bishop." He said. Being courteous trumps justice, I guess.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This "johnny-one-note" answer is based on either inattentiveness or reluctance to enter an untidy diplomatic area by religious leaders. It's probably a bit of both. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Intense Israeli promotion in American media and elsewhere has minimized Jewish incursions into Palestinian land. And it all rides in the wake of resettlement caused by deeply misguided Zionist thinking. That frame of mind, among other things, uses a muddled abstraction of history pieced together from a "promised land" narrative from the bible with the atrocities of the Holocaust and, voila, we are at the doorstep of the eastern Mediterranean expecting a new homeland. How is that necessarily so? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, the world owes the Jewish people sensitive hospitality after Hitler's cultural massacre but that doesn't infer they get a perpetual OK to pass on the same thing to another people. And to be frank, doesn't the current, systematic de-citizenship of Palestinians amount to a re-do of Germany in the 1930's? This is </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">organized religion distracted and missing </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a candid assessment of a critical situation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other flaw--so painfully obvious in the Lutheran statement by their Presiding Bishop--is the odd habit big institutions have of checking with each other. It is billed as "cooperative", or, "relationally sensitive" when it is merely paralyzing. The reference point here is how patient, peaceful, and connected they are, never mind how relevant and true a position is. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sadly, it is part of the continuing indictment of the slowness and incapability of these so-called mega spiritual bodies to mobilize and get on the ground for responsive action. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>How does the average Palestinian experience his/her neighborhood being dismantled and taken away? And how is day-to-day life slowly become an apartheid hell? How is that what used to be my land is not my land anymore? </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could fill a page with questions like this--all the answers rest in a radical re-embrace of justice as fairness, a roll back and redistribution of property, and, lastly, the establishment of one true land for all its residents. That would be truly complicated, very messy, yet very just and something organized religion can't conceive of. Sad to say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-29588813477519159782014-10-23T10:02:00.001-07:002014-10-26T06:10:33.456-07:00General Seminary's Vanishing Safe Space<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In case you
didn’t know, The Episcopal Church has a seminary in New York City. Given
the strains of organized religion these days, it has gone through challenges
ranging from threats of insolvency to student attrition. Through it all
“General” (General Theological Seminary) has honorably muddled through. You
might imagine the seminary’s corporate management has wrung its hands over recent
years through such fits and starts. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, the Board of Trustees has resolved
to keep the place on track. So far this a simple story but what happened next
reveals a more unsettling narrative about why Americans are suspicious of institutions
to include institutional religion. <i>When it comes to things that matter you know
where their hearts are and they ain’t with you.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A new dean
was hired for <i>General</i>, and by lapse and significant indiscretion, his behavior
was interpreted as insensitive to a diverse seminary population. His claim of
“actions out of context” might have explained some things but this is a holy
community. Moreover, it is the context for a denomination proud of its liberality
and sensitivity to gender and sexuality.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So far this
reads as an employment issue: 1) head of organization (dean) doing and saying
goofy things, 2) employees (faculty) complain and rebel, 3) and a board of
directors (trustees) making determination. And they did…by firing the eight
faculty members who complained. So how is
this confusing?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is
unsettling because we expect the Church to be the exception to the culture <i>not to copy it</i>. This gathering of
students and religious scholars is a devotional community more than a graduate
school because it is built on the foundational teachings of Jesus Christ. (Even the secular reader of this blog can pick
up on the different value system supposedly at work here.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One might
say that there is an abiding collective care at work among the members of the
<i>General</i> community and even one of a mutual confessional nature; i.e., when
members are aggrieved and hurting, understanding, justice and reconciliation
would be applied.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sadly, that
did not happen: The Board of Trustees fired the complainants quickly. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">During past
weeks any number of prelates, alums, past faculty, even the local bishop have
pleaded for a reversal of this action. And that’s where things stand now: a
negotiation for moderation which would re-instate those who objected to the dean’s intrusive behavior. All better now?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No. In the
center of the property is a chapel, symbolic for the location because one must direct steps by it on the way to class. From there, on some liturgical days,
the bounds of the property are walked in procession because the land is
declared set apart and special for a holy purpose. It is for study,
preparation, contemplation, even a daring-stretching thought for growth. All
guided toward knowing Jesus, the Christ, and to make him known. And somehow we took it for granted that this was a <i>safe place</i> to do that for all…whoever they might be. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone
might be back in their seats, the faculty is almost rehired, and even a dean might be admonished but how
did this crisis occur at all? Could it be that the Board of Trustees attended
to the order and decorum of the institution rather than the untidy needs of the people in the community? Apparently so. That was then and this is now. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back on
track, the institutional trustees can now do something very un-corporate in
nature: they can trade in that first thought of protecting the organization for the
welfare and safety of the people who walk the path past that chapel every day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-85414320370617690032013-09-05T08:00:00.000-07:002013-09-05T08:00:29.957-07:00Hardly a Struggle<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee had a close vote recommending limited
military action in Syria (10 for, 7 against) the fact that a vote was rushed to
further conversation by the full body and the character of amendment says a lot
of about priorities. They begin and end with us.</span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is something
painfully elemental in such talk about how much “conscience” has been piqued by
Assad’s use of Sarin nerve gas. Pictures of children’s agony have been appropriated
as exhibit # 1 before a court of international value. Breathless, Secretary
Kerry is eager to pile on more evidence of the misdeed. One wonders who he
really thinks he’s talking to…and what’s he got behind his back? Why, it’s an
array of the finest in American weaponry and firepower…this Syrian error can be
corrected with the scalpel of U.S. violence. Here’s the promise: <i>We can do it
better and with a minimum disruption to every day life. Why, you’ll be able to
look out your window while doing the dishes in Damascus and witness the
tidiness of our retaliation! </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can we wake
up to such lunacy?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the disconnect
which haunts U.S. foreign policy: it is perpetually, implicitly imperialist. What
<i>we</i> do and say is most important. The world
could tolerate this if it remained just preachy but a 60 day sustained air
campaign (with a 30 extension if needed, mind you) makes grand statements about
Syrian excesses into a cynical charade. If you thought the Syrian people were
miserable with Assad’s gas just wait until Obama’s missiles arrive, 1400
casualties could be just the starting number. For every intended combatant, ten
more civilians will be harmed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The American
weapons industry has been loyally waiting in the wings to service this need to
form such foreign policy with an added guarantee that “American casualties will
be minimized” if not removed altogether. It is the dirty little secret of
modern warfare post Gen. Colin Powell. It was born by a fear in the U.S. military after
Vietnam that it would be left high and dry by public opinion. Those nightly body
counts by Walter Cronkite are tattooed on this nation’s soul. The solution
is a modern variant of the saying attributed to an American general during that
war in southeast Asia: “find the bastards and pile on!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or, in today’s
military techno-speak, <i>increase the lethality of the battle area for toxic
effect to the opposing force while minimizing friendly consequences.</i> Make war
quick and avoid those headlines of the loss of our boys and girls.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The American
swagger for justice aimlessly searches for meaning because as Mark Twain said, “Our
conscience takes no notice of pain inflicted on others until it reaches a point
where it gives pain to us.” We have so insulated ourselves from discomfort that
we are the faintest voice in things that matter. All this would be a silly lecture
if it weren’t for those missiles pointed at Syrian
soil. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-76421325816109328022013-06-19T14:56:00.001-07:002013-06-24T14:32:26.629-07:00"The God Who Hates Lies" <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The title of this piece is from a book by Rabbi David Hartman. He was writing about contemporary Jewish thought but his premise applies to any tension between a conservative, static interpretation of tradition versus a dynamic, ongoing dialogue. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">He writes, "...the authority of the past cannot claim our allegiance when it conflicts with the immediate reality of the present. Our experience must not be denied because of the authority of the past. <i>This is an image of a God that wants us not to use the authority of the past to lie to Him.</i> </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The past must be validated by your lived experience; if it's not, and you say it is, that is a lie. Your reality has to confirm the validity of the language of the past." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Rabbi Hartman acknowledges the contradiction of a God conveying permanence through history and tradition yet there is an equal claim, he says, that there be a continuing evolution in response to the normative needs at hand, hence our resistance to ascribing false things to God. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church recently experienced the difficulty of honoring such truth before God when it conflicts with scripture. It was awkwardly done but at heart she was correct. Briefly, the story is about Paul casting out a spirit, an exorcism, but Bishop Schori maintained that Paul intruded into her spiritual perception dislocating her from that experience. This is a keenly interesting interpretation and embraces a much larger sense of the holy than the story conveys. Given what we know about Paul's capacity for limitation can we not compare his actions with what seems reasonable today? Sure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">During a recent speech I said the following: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">"St. Ignatius described the Church as
being in the company of Jesus, <i>La Compania de Jesus.</i> We must move away
from doing feel-good charitable acts and self absorbed liturgy which takes us
away to the ozone layer of life but nowhere else. Be in Jesus’s company, that
is with the poor. I have been asked about the relevance of the church. I said that
many a Sunday morning was often nothing more than a museum with a floor show. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Sit in
your pew and watch what really happens. I say “watch” because that’s all you can
do anyway. We sit in rows and listen to an elite group tell us what to do. We
sit still while the choir entertains us, often the music and organ budget
outdistances anything set aside for outreach. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">The Prayers of the People—that wonderful
intrusion from the street and the world—is reduced to a script and read by
somebody who’s all dressed up</span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">. </span><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Our treatment of Prayers of the People now makes me cringe, it’s
almost pornographic in its teasing to make you think it’s the real thing. We
give those prayers no more attention or preparation than reading the back of
a ketchup bottle while waiting for a hamburger. "</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">I was well-received earlier in the talk especially when I took modern culture to the cleaners but when the critique included the church (and this was a church crowd) it became as quiet as a wake. Any sensitive person with an ounce of activism will squirm when listening to the dreadful prayers we place before God on behalf of the poor. We lie to God in this pretense of caring by yawning and numbly reading prayers which engender zero compassion in us. </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-80696678374773300552013-05-06T09:09:00.003-07:002013-05-06T09:29:05.902-07:00Bradley Manning<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The bombing of the village of Granai, Afghanistan occurred four years ago this month--that's how long the saga of Bradley Mannings's humiliation has been going on, i.e., if you include the war crimes he exposed. In that case civilians where killed but our military covered it up. It was his first disclosure of classified documents and an answer to the arrogance of Dick Cheney's statement that after September 11th we (America, you and me) would have to work "on the dark side." Morality would occasionally be set aside for the so gradually, bit by bit, the country we all love--the good guys--morphed into one the conspiracies Julian Assange wrote about. Later, a new President would concoct a paragraph in the National Authorization Act allowing him to arrest anyone, anytime. There would be no trial, and now with drone warfare any bothersome character could be snuffed out. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've seen heroism up close on the battlefield. It is never a pure thing. Often it's a quick reaction to training and certainly to the safety of friends. Oddly, because war is a young person’s enterprise courage can arise out of a swirl of immature ego need in young adulthood but mostly something prompts one to act in that crucial moment.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sure, Specialist Manning had encouragement from his idol Richard Stallman as a new free software devotee, “fight for freedom anyway you can”, he wrote in essays as a gift to Brad. But in his disclosures moments of bravery all came together: a preference for the hacking community, his access to this wealth of forbidden information and his own distress in finding a place in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That’s all psychological and solid but it doesn’t go far enough to describe this young soldiers stepping into the open moment. On the one hand he read the classified documents; on the other—as an inquisitive news junkie—he compared it to the actual outcomes…civilians were killed, and at Guantanamo the Red Cross <i>was</i> prevented supporting prisoners and there <i>was</i> a protocol for torture.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the root of the word, <i>courage, </i>is the Latin word for heart, <i>cor</i>. “Hearting” into that breach for Specialist Manning was less about his personal loneliness and more about holding onto some truth that mattered. This young man, who in early teen years was the only one to ride the Silver Bullet roller coaster, was braving it out again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We owe him our gratitude and support since the Fort Meade trial will be a showcase for how much the system clutches to power yet how </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">this 23 year old remains </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">poised and resilient. And in our reflection on his behavior perhaps we can spend some time on our own: how is it that we have allowed these things to be done in our name? </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-47836762158494097842013-05-06T09:09:00.001-07:002013-05-06T09:09:42.308-07:00Bradley Manning<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The bombing of the village of Granai, Afghanistan occurred four years ago this month--that's how long the saga of Bradley Mannings's humiliation has been going on, i.e., if you include the war crimes he exposed. In that case civilians where killed but our military covered it up. It was his first disclosure of classified documents and an answer to the arrogance of Dick Cheney's statement that after September 11th we (America, you and me) would have to work "on the dark side." So morality would be occasionally set aside for the moment and gradually, bit by bit, the country we all love--the good guys--morphed into one the conspiracies Julian Assange wrote about. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have seen heroism up close on the battlefield. It is never a pure thing. Often it's a reaction to training and certainly to the safety of friends. Oddly, because war is a young person’s enterprise courage can arise out of a swirl of the ego of the immature ego need of young adulthood but mostly it is that crucial nexus of deciding to act.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sure, Specialist Manning had the encouragement from his idol Richard Stallman as a new free software devotee (he inscribed his essays in a note to Brad, “fight for freedom anyway you can.”) In his disclosures and moments of bravery it all came together: his preference for the hacking community, his access to this wealth of forbidden information and his own distress in finding his place in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That’s all psychological and solid but it doesn’t go far enough to describe this isolated young man’s moment of stepping into an open moment. On the one hand he read the classified documents; on the other—as an inquisitive news junkie—he compared it to the actual outcomes…civilians were killed, the Red Cross was prevented from visiting prisoners, there WAS a protocol for torture.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the root of the word, <i>courage, </i>is the Latin word for heart, <i>cor</i>. “Hearting” into that breach for Specialist Manning was less about his personal loneliness and more about holding onto some truth that matters and lasts. This young man, who in early teen years was the only one to ride the Silver Bullet roller coaster, is braving it out again.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We owe him our gratitude and support since the Fort Meade trial will be a showcase for how much the system clutches to power yet how </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">this 23 year old remains </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">poised and resilient </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-29902311117171481372013-02-22T09:41:00.000-08:002013-02-22T09:55:42.512-08:00Which Garden?<br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I’m reading
morning prayers in the basement, never expecting it to come to that. It began
innocently with short, subterranean trips to tame-clean the area; a
project undertaken so my family won't cringe during visits to the laundry. </span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Soon
the walls were white-washed, bright posters were hung, and all stray tools and
thingamabobs had labels in containers. It was bliss in the Shaker way of “cast
your eyes on order and you will feel peace.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The downstairs
now had a beckoning <i>garden quality</i> of safety, coherence, and contentment. It
also had a profound effect on thought as busy activity moved around on the floor
above. Here, it was quiet and still--you moved around but into the depths.
While I was on a desert retreat a retired cleric told me he was there “to make
an archaeological dig on himself.” I thought
that was novel and maybe a journey too-late. But gardens find you when they do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">So, from my
folding chair near the work bench and from this <i>garden</i> it occurred to me there are lots of these places but not all
are meant to be taken seriously. Rabbi Donniel Hartman speaks of differing
descriptions of the Garden of Eden--one in Genesis 1, the other in Genesis 2.
In the latter, God visits his creation and forbids eating fruit from the Tree
of Knowledge. It’s a myth loaded with commandment, violation, and judgment. The
first creation story, however, in chapter one, tells of a generative God who makes
humankind as a likeness with a simple direction-not limited to the garden-for all
creation: multiply, have dominion, <i>it’s
yours</i>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In the
second garden humankind is driven from the premises but in the first garden it
is implicit that leaving will be the dynamic and meaningful thing to do. Both
these versions are meant to inform us as bi-polar truths on a life quest. However,
it is my worry that the institutional church is preoccupied with the second
story while missing the effusive grandeur of the first and it’s loud celestial
declaration…<i>to be! <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">My diagnosis
has flaws. Such archaeological study can help us discern why ecclesial entities consider
their first-rung responsibility to quantify a restoration, inferring a product line of correction and relief. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">Rather than
being festooned with ceremony and hierarchy isn’t a way more entirely focused on
God’s commandment to live into one’s destiny and addressing where societal (and
individual) obstacles interrupt that course more in keeping with what God has set
us to do? </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-46869695520466367882013-02-15T15:11:00.004-08:002013-02-17T06:07:25.268-08:00Lent's Walking Companions<br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">He said his
name was Seymour but I may have misheard him. We met on the express train from
14<sup>th</sup> Street to Grand Central—he was blind and panhandling. I
realized later that he’d timed his pitch - “Ladies and Gentlemen, good day, I’d
appreciate it if you could spare any change” - to coincide with arrival at the
next stop. He perfectly negotiated his cane and cup through the entire car just
as we pulled in. It was nice to watch a real professional in action.</span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">As he got
off he answered the question I had about how a sightless person moved around in
the commotion of an underground rush hour. “Anyone going upstairs and to the
shuttle?” he shouted. I offered my arm and guided him up the stairs. I said I
wasn’t going in his direction but I could “point out” where to go. “I’m
well beyond any pointing out, man.” Chagrined, I walked him to the shuttle.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">Seymour was
well-built at over six feet and muscular. You always wonder about the real story when the impaired was as well-dressed and physically sound as he was.
But as we walked along he told me that he worked in construction and this had
happened “on-the-job.” It wasn’t my business to ask any more questions; it was
obvious he couldn’t see by his tentative steps and celerity with the walking
stick. I could make assumptions, though.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">He was on
his way home to Harlem (on the west side) after a full day’s work of begging on
the more lucrative Lexington Avenue subway. He might do a couple of round trips
on the shuttle for some easy change since the ridership changed every 6 1/2
minutes. He was travelling light so the chances are he wasn’t homeless, his
hygiene was good, and so were his shoes. Which brings me to his blindness. My guess was his sight was somewhat impaired
but he used this full ruse for income.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">As you read
this it might seem he was hustling. If so, that’s a lot of labor
for small change. True, you can get a good spot on the bottom of the escalator but decent returns come from
working the subways where you have a captive audience. I interrupted this fantasy-brought on by my charity*-realizing in the checklist litany for Ash Wednesday my tally wasn't admirable.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">…I have not loved Seymour as myself;
I have been deaf to your call to serve (this mini-journey trivialized it); I
confess the pride, hypocrisy and impatience of my life; …my exploitation of
Seymour. BCP, pp.267-68.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">When we
reached the stairs leading down to the Times Square shuttle he made another announcement.
It startled me how quick it came to his lips; my journey with him was
afterthought. Didn’t I mean anything to him? I wanted some acknowledgement of <i>how kind</i> I’d been. </span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">“Anyone going to
Times Square and the uptown 1 train?”, he bellowed. Soon he was on the arm of
an oriental man and on another Samaritan journey. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">These days
of Lent ask us, “How much of Christ are you?” God will give us plenty of times
to check that out. The true lament is that I never bothered to know Seymour or he, me. The Collect for this season urges us to have "contrite hearts" from the Latin, <i>conterere,</i> meaning <i>bruised</i>. Sharing that bruising with a walking partner the Holy Spirit presents is the deeper, salvific act. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>*Inherited from my institutional church heritage: trivial charity moment satisfies the giver but obscures a larger story of injustice. </i></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-65248084662858126242013-02-02T11:51:00.001-08:002013-02-02T11:51:25.369-08:00A Special Kind of Justice
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I sat in
court with a friend waiting for his case. As it turned out—three hours later--he
was the last to be called. But the intervening time wasn’t wasted. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There was a woman returning for a
review of her case for possession of a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>controlled substance; a man brought from Rikers for second degree
assault only to be told that the DA wasn’t ready; a father who lied to authorities
about his developmentally disabled son—he owed $170,000; a young man (incarcerated)
and woman (not) who disabled a video surveillance camera; a woman released for
possession of cocaine; a man sentenced to 2 ½ years for heroin possession; a
man convicted of assault-reduced in charge, released; …it went on like that for
the rest of the morning. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Multiple
times the accused spoke no English and the court-appointed translator raced
ahead of the judge in off-hand summaries to a bewildered defendant. In all
cases you felt embarrassed for the public humiliation as their stories were aired.
I lost count of the women and men, clothed in orange “DOC” (Department of
Corrections) jumpsuits and their ill-fitting cold weather jackets who sat
cuffed and then were quickly dispatched when justice was done with them. Of the
17 that morning half had made a round trip from jail for nothing. Their cases
were postponed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Everyone was
poor. Most could not understand the vocabulary the judge used and answered in barely
audible grunts. The gallery filled and emptied with teary mothers and
girlfriends. Sometimes rows of stern looking young black men sat on whole
benches…emptying exactly when a friend was convicted only to be replaced by
another young platoon a few minutes later. This was a society dispensing with those
who had not played by the rules but more to the point, here, functioned on the
street where these rules seemed contrived for those on another planet. You
wouldn’t find their fellow citizens here…those who could afford an attorney or savvy
enough to settle out of court. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-32867210514523524562012-10-06T09:43:00.002-07:002012-10-06T09:59:31.697-07:00Street Messages <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's unusual for me to attend more than one liturgy in a three day span these days but a friend was ordained and another had died. Social psychologists say there's a truth in search behavior "you perceive what you are most alert for." Maybe, I like to think the Holy Spirit is in that transaction. I was apprehended by obvious messages from the streets; apart from the liturgies' intention to transport us to a more ethereal place.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ordination took place at St. Mary the Virgin which has probably the highest maintenance for liturgy in the denomination. The service began with the priest leading everyone in, "Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee..." and the rigor continues from there. Much of this routine is familiar to me from my Redemptorist community in Tuscon. There, we do it in darkness at 6 AM. It was a comforting--if aerobic--environment and well done if the intention was to reach through the veil to a transcendent God </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The sermon was preached from a text other than the one read during the service...which gave the impression of it being lifted from the file cabinet. There was an earnest attempt, nonetheless, to adapt it and my friend's big moment. However, the homilist gave us a peek at the real point of all this liturgical energy. It was to declare a space between the new priest and the people. She would be different and rise from kneeling "having met God." All true, I suppose, but she also stood with the wiser eyes of Jesus that our differences are fragile and very slim.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Galilean carpenter's ministry incarnated that unity and encouraged many to join him in a new view. The confusion lies with clergy over identifying with Jesus's crucifixion which later Gospel writers convey that we all share as an idea. In Jesus's words here's an invitation to take up that cross and join him in a fractured life of sacrificial service and love. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clergy don't have the corner on that life posture even though they have extra time to do so. Such a class system is the real worry I have about the institutional church. At every turn God is beckoning us out of ourselves and into a "street" of consequence. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At one point in the service the Gospel was read mid aisle with clouds of incense rising and voices rejoicing. The words of Jesus were intoned from the bowels of the people; a real transporting moment was at hand. From John's Gospel we heard, "I am the bread of life, if you come to me you will not be hungry or thirsty..." </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrwTxZJyCtFje8kH8oJ_Zb0lcNAeZBDHLVdrFZ60QmF_KiMRPhYMNUw0EotY4beWoNpyD2W-IwuPOzOgNT-ExlreneBv9Yfi10E-R-PaMjJa2mjHtZE0HbyUxY4svKfhJw0yh_CWJ7mS3w/s1600/obriens+pub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrwTxZJyCtFje8kH8oJ_Zb0lcNAeZBDHLVdrFZ60QmF_KiMRPhYMNUw0EotY4beWoNpyD2W-IwuPOzOgNT-ExlreneBv9Yfi10E-R-PaMjJa2mjHtZE0HbyUxY4svKfhJw0yh_CWJ7mS3w/s320/obriens+pub.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many of us faced the rear of the church and glimpsed the neon sign of the bar, through the open doors, across the street. Passers-by looked in, many lingered. Framed as it was through wisps of incense it seemed apt for attention and wonder. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With all the moments of mystery we insist upon for holiness, God presents a truer blessing in the connection of genuine meeting always at hand and always so common. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-13021503481473745932012-10-01T10:51:00.002-07:002012-10-02T06:32:26.419-07:00Debt's Revelations<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As OWS evolves it brings the population’s awareness of the corporate death grip on society along
with it. Currently a cluster of working groups are considering all the consequences of debt. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_bFnisAroT8C28VYfKyekCXTCqRvBatK48h1dAvAagn7EnG7JtucZNFSmsmuw8Ci068Mfu13ZZ373QFfZQX7hUQKB5vw8l9cVMNmvzALh3OR1VHwgtYwnoY6Xvju8jgKyIU1LE7XqM90D/s1600/greed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_bFnisAroT8C28VYfKyekCXTCqRvBatK48h1dAvAagn7EnG7JtucZNFSmsmuw8Ci068Mfu13ZZ373QFfZQX7hUQKB5vw8l9cVMNmvzALh3OR1VHwgtYwnoY6Xvju8jgKyIU1LE7XqM90D/s200/greed.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, from the new <i>Debt Resisters' Manual, </i></span><br />
<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/105887484/Occupy-Wall-Street-Strike-Debt-The-Debt-Resistors-Operations-Manual" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.scribd.com/doc/105887484/Occupy-Wall-Street-Strike-Debt-The-Debt-Resistors-Operations-Manual</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and the latest issue of </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tidal</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> magazine, I note two things of interest: the connection to climate change, and, plain old greed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the current issue of <i>Tidal,David Graeber describes debt as, "promises of future productivity." Debt even affects the weather!</i></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_bFnisAroT8C28VYfKyekCXTCqRvBatK48h1dAvAagn7EnG7JtucZNFSmsmuw8Ci068Mfu13ZZ373QFfZQX7hUQKB5vw8l9cVMNmvzALh3OR1VHwgtYwnoY6Xvju8jgKyIU1LE7XqM90D/s1600/greed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_bFnisAroT8C28VYfKyekCXTCqRvBatK48h1dAvAagn7EnG7JtucZNFSmsmuw8Ci068Mfu13ZZ373QFfZQX7hUQKB5vw8l9cVMNmvzALh3OR1VHwgtYwnoY6Xvju8jgKyIU1LE7XqM90D/s1600/greed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_bFnisAroT8C28VYfKyekCXTCqRvBatK48h1dAvAagn7EnG7JtucZNFSmsmuw8Ci068Mfu13ZZ373QFfZQX7hUQKB5vw8l9cVMNmvzALh3OR1VHwgtYwnoY6Xvju8jgKyIU1LE7XqM90D/s1600/greed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_bFnisAroT8C28VYfKyekCXTCqRvBatK48h1dAvAagn7EnG7JtucZNFSmsmuw8Ci068Mfu13ZZ373QFfZQX7hUQKB5vw8l9cVMNmvzALh3OR1VHwgtYwnoY6Xvju8jgKyIU1LE7XqM90D/s1600/greed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>...</em></span><i style="font-family: Arial;">(paying off debt brings) </i><em style="font-family: Arial;">the burden of having to work harder </em><em style="font-family: Arial;">, while at the same time, consuming more energy, eroding the earth's ecosystems, and ultimately accelerating catastrophic climate change at just the moment we desperately need some way to reverse it. Seen in this light, a debt cancellation might be the last chance we have to save the planet.</em></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Debt cancellation? Seems dramatic. Wouldn't our whole system subsequently freeze from a lack of trust? Wouldn't creditors expect debts to be only as good as the next whim of government mercy? In normal times, maybe. The bank on the corner (not all) has changed from an entity which serves debt to one which actively encourages it. The general population must be in debt for the system to function in the global marketplace. </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Behind the curtain there's now a mega financial institution which consolidates varieties of debt into negotiable instruments which are held by other global banks--not answerable to any national government. Such transactions come with fees and a profit for the institution exporting the package of debt and an expectation of interest gain from the receiving entity. It's become more exotic because Wall Street adapted a modest system to estimate when such transactions would be repaid and applied it to these newer, opaque objects. You could buy a financial instrument, a wager, really, but never be sure what was in it or where it originated. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Video blogger Jive Dadson has a homey way of explaining these transactions. Listen especially to what he says about "<u>models</u>" as a root cause of the fix we're in. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">See, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtwHz7xQZNI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtwHz7xQZNI</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This two-headed hydra describes our financial life. (1) A consumerism gone wild and (2) a development of global capital markets requiring high volume of trading for viability. The former (1), by comparison, is the amateur in the room since enticements by the financial industry to the average citizen are applied with startling zeal; the industry's ingenuity to titillate our dissatisfaction with product fulfillment is remarkable--</span><span style="font-family: Arial;">since nobody can afford all this junk</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> credit is needed to pay for the stuff Those credit accounts are bundled and traded; with every handling comes a fee and more money made.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Which brings me to the models/programs used by the financial analysts to squeeze every dime out of these transactions. True, everyone is in new territory and the chosen models can't keep up with the data in real time but what keeps propelling these personalities forward in ever riskier applications? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><u>Greed</u>. It doesn't get more complicated than that. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-57401995354970982542012-09-23T08:10:00.001-07:002012-09-23T08:13:44.076-07:00Occupy's Special Kind of Violent Arrests <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you can see from this clip Occupy Faith was ready to help the protest on September 17th and our consistent message of civil disobedient--non violence--was the tone of the day, from the protesters' side.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watchv=MNqEZF5Cx6s&feature=youtube_gdata_player">http://www.youtube.com/watchv=MNqEZF5Cx6s&feature=youtube_gdata_player</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If the story only stopped there. Since I was arrested early in the day I sat in central booking and watched as my sisters and brothers came in as the hours wore on. Many arrived in bad shape, more with curious stories of being taken into custody.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-M_osACK9gx0za6SuMV1O_wl7bmRaaggr3zRM7On8vi5T8TXKrlQtayiS56rdpdY2UPr68lJPSx4ZQvxwns54QAzMUP5wsP2ckMp2sHGpBqxLJC5mCZoM99gUJbSDg0jcxeYHjrY7pwNj/s1600/sep+17+arrest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-M_osACK9gx0za6SuMV1O_wl7bmRaaggr3zRM7On8vi5T8TXKrlQtayiS56rdpdY2UPr68lJPSx4ZQvxwns54QAzMUP5wsP2ckMp2sHGpBqxLJC5mCZoM99gUJbSDg0jcxeYHjrY7pwNj/s400/sep+17+arrest.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It had to do with an announcement to disperse which should precede the arrest. This often didn't happen, instead, cops would reach into the crowd and nab protesters at random. There's a crowd control technique at work here I'm sure. "Target one, cause confusion in the ranks of protesters, and they'll scatter." With the announcement before arrest version the protesters--now officially recognized as a group by that shout by cops--can solidify and be more problematic for the police. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Now, this is only my estimation but it appears to be the street tactic of the NYPD. Nobody will admit to it but it occurs often enough in Occupy arrests as to seem pretty obvious. I used to think a sketchy detainment was due to an overly zealous cop caught in the testosterone of the moment--but there's a pattern. Occupy protest behavior is based on sticking together. Individuals don't get arrested; friends do. As Lisa Fithian advises, "You always want someone to have your back." If you are in the NYPD facing this kind of crowd sociology you need something to disrupt its cellular structure. That's why many NY arrests of Occupy protesters become chase scenes as cops single out and run down individuals. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">A logical option by the cops...too bad it violates the Bill of Rights.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-24422837428931546652012-09-19T04:21:00.000-07:002012-09-19T04:27:20.044-07:00Media Malaise or Something More<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since I sat on a bench after jail time for a half hour--postponing a pee mind you--talking to a <em>Daily News</em> reporter I was kinda curious about what he would write. So I checked it out the next morning. Nada. This happens all the time but later when I was reading the <em>New York Times</em> there was a spare article back on page 20. The reporting was disappointing to boot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Later, the local public station had a call-in about the Occupy event so I made my first call-in. I kept it simple: "My wife and I left Citibank and moved to a cooperative bank because of OWS." Other than reading <em>The Nation </em><a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/170001/more-180-arrested-occupy-wall-streets-first-anniversary">http://www.thenation.com/blog/170001/more-180-arrested-occupy-wall-streets-first-anniversary</a> that brief conversation on the radio was the only true coverage of what happened over this past weekend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I'm at the age when dopey things bother me on a lower level. This is not because I'm so centered it's because I don't want to waste the energy. But occasionally something comes along to qualify as a prime number one head scratcher and the oversight by the media of Occupy's anniversary--and it's observation is either intentional or lazy. I had the same feeling about Trinity Church's recalcitrance over the use of their Duarte Park property. Plainly reasonable always remains plainly reasonable. In the case of a lack of media coverage <u>that </u>has become the story. Read <em>The Nation</em> story above to see what I mean.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I can appreciate how an editor must choose the very top stories--Mitt Romney's gaff in Boca Raton was a big scoop--but daylong demonstrations and nearly 200 arrests should have come up on somebody's radar. The only conclusion is that another factor is at play; I resist this kind of tinfoil hat thinking because it leads to a paranoia which just isn't so. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgU1UV-H2JNys4CxSwgSXkGOQjbveirhbKMNcxqAOfcU8lTczgYZmDcs_iup11Rg9wmgodIuOt17I-qIidC15BpiyHXTB79TsbqTf6_gU9PTC7j-bziFATpO0o8oxR3uAZ36CY4vT1iSjT/s1600/300+in+duarte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgU1UV-H2JNys4CxSwgSXkGOQjbveirhbKMNcxqAOfcU8lTczgYZmDcs_iup11Rg9wmgodIuOt17I-qIidC15BpiyHXTB79TsbqTf6_gU9PTC7j-bziFATpO0o8oxR3uAZ36CY4vT1iSjT/s320/300+in+duarte.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">But this fallow, news aftermath brings this into focus: this whole power system is inter-related. I've always depended on the freedom of the press--Walter Lippman-like--to lead my reflection because I don't have the time do so. We've always had a compact that newspapers, et al. could be a benign oligarchy to dig in with due diligence and get the facts. Those days died out and we have organs which respond to advertising and entertainment needs. Why? Because they need the money. A questionable focus in this instance. Where's the news?</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-14657476781318296812012-09-18T06:09:00.001-07:002012-09-18T06:19:09.341-07:00It's Better in Jail<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You're getting sick of this excuse: I wasn't trying to get arrested. Brook and I had stayed overnight <i>in </i>the financial district because we didn't want to miss the 6:30 AM muster call for Occupy Faith that Monday morning. She <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">was juggling the phone-texts to our 30+ clergy and I was stumbling around. </span>I'm not functional at that hour, usually squinting, and taking for granted you are who you say you are. Three cups of coffee helps but I was only on my first. Our modest group met in a square across from Zuccotti and from there things radically changed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We began with Rev. William Grant reading the Occupy Faith vision statement and our number grew from 15 to nearly 400 persons! We had not realized that a variety of unattached affinity groups had joined us thinking, "Well, these folks look like they know what they're doing!" Until then Occupy Faithers had had modest intentions. Maybe we'd process to other blockade zones and perhaps say prayers of lament at the bull statue on lower Broadway over a nation's greed. But the OWS field organizers realized this benign offering by clergy had become something else. Luckily Brook kept pumping me with McDonald's coffee to keep me upright when they asked me to do some CD training right on the spot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">So we practiced--all 500 of us by now--right there in that space by first all sitting down. It went well and as I led this exercise I thought I couldn't abandon them if it came to a later action. OWS asked us to lead the procession to the NYPD checkpoint and we did. It was there you could access to the Stock Exchange. Once there we sat down and the arrests began. That was about 8 AM.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">About 20 of us were in that first batch with additonals coming to jail throughout the morning. Each new delegation had stories confrontations with the cops in bank lobbies, side streets, more checkpoints, even sidewalks and financial institutions. One was a doctor on vacation from his Bronx emergency room. Another was a Catholic worker who innocently had forgotten an earlier court appearance and an outstanding warrant. There were two teenagers (minors) from Philadelphia who were swept up in police frustration. Some were bloody, some clearly had broken bones in their lower arms. Each was greeted with wild applause upon entering our lock-up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">As we reached 200 in that holding cell we whistled "Battle Hymn of the Republic", one fellow composed two rap songs (I'd rather stand up proudly in jail than spend my life on my knees!). We sang a few more protest songs throughout the day. In two instances of creativity the plastic water cooler and garbage can were inverted and becoming an ersatz drumming circle a la Blue Man Group. When an officer took those things away because of noise with, "these are for you to clean up in here." To which we chanted, "We are here to clean up <u>out there</u>! Never try to match one liners with Occupiers. In one corner an affinity discussion group convened while some began "silent meditation" in another section.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I'd been to jail twice and about the fifth hour you just want to get out and go home. But there was a blessing this time...perhaps it's an anointing ever-present I could never see or receive. There was an abundant richness of human life and sharing with an intensity one misses outside. Jail is jail and it's not romantic but I was visited with a new expectation not of my name being called for release but of yet one more extraordinary occasion happening...of laughing, singing, being angry together, worrying about how to help each other. I say Occupy "is a gift to me." And it is certainly that, a God ordained joy on the way to justice. At nine hours I was hesitant to leave; they had to call my name a couple of times. </span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-35298332793731307422012-09-14T15:06:00.000-07:002012-09-14T15:20:05.026-07:00The Anniversary (with training) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This weekend protesters who in their distant memory were occupiers are streaming into New York City. But in sum it has still been a crowded calendar. OWS members are nothing if not creative, God are we creative. You can run your fingers over the pages of June, July, and August and jot down days and nights with pub crawls (don't ask me to explain), pop-up arrests, and meetings. Lots of meetings. All of it building to these days...maybe the last time media's big eye is trained on us. Smile!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In these latter days there's been a welcome shift in emphasis to training in civil disobedience and street tactics. It's a vital thing to do; I've noticed a dark cloud descend over us when we have not committed to this preparation. On both December 15th and May 1st when I--and a few comrades--looked over our shoulders at the crowd of promised support it had evaporated. They had run for cover. It's not a bad thing to avoid being taken into custody but you want to be proud that you chose that option. Saving yourself for other actions later in the day is good thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But this is not the manner of scurrying around of the masses I've seen. Often something provocative is done to a cop or she/he pulls away and an additional charge of resistance gets tacked on. But most times rather than calmly regrouping for additional action everyone panics and skedaddles. (True, at any number of smaller, impromptu arrests protesters stand fast.) But f</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or the most part when we have mobilized larger masses--100,000+--there has been an inverse correlation to how well prepared we are to even be </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> the street. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Plainly it is rehearsal and training which brings "courage" to bear in troops in combat or occupiers facing the NYPD. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is this so important? Because of the three parts of street action: 1) preparation; 2) deployment and result; 3) reflection and consolidation, it is # 3 that bequeaths to the future movement a gift or a curse. We want protesters to think back on their experience with satisfaction, pride and enjoyment. Briefly said this is really a formation exercise which builds the character, and adds to the dignity, of the individuals participating. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So in any open time slot this weekend...train, train, train. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-67406708068414330212012-06-22T05:39:00.000-07:002012-06-22T05:39:05.425-07:00Mark Adams Makes Us Better<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mark Adams was convicted of trespassing with us this past
Monday for that infamous intrusion on Trinity’s hallowed vacant lot
on December 17<sup>th</sup>. And so, Judge Matthew Sciarrino became the next unwitting
person to be encircled by Mark’s spell. His Honor intended a lesson to be
learned--even a national point to be made with, “this country was founded on
the principle of private property”, in his sentencing statement. You wouldn’t
have thought Mark had directed or charmed anyone but goodness finds a way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our cases were all referred to as “Mark Adams, et al.” We
seven were the “et al.” and Mark remained in a class by himself, gentle,
attentive, staunchly loyal to friends, with a back bone of steel. We knew the
District Attorney’s whiz kids had him in the cross hairs; they even announced a
“deal” which summarized the system’s frustration with “Mr. Adams.” There <i>would</i> be jail time since this miscreant
dared to defy authority. It's a public worry: such dangerous characters on the loose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The judge got right to it quickly announcing who was
guilty and what would happen. He barely took a breath. I wish I had thought
faster—and didn’t have to pee—since the sentences forced us to huddle under the
benign label of “4 days of community service.” If I was better prepared, centered
and ready—like Mark—I would have asked for jail time in solidarity. It all
happened so fast. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SbNUtdP9NDw/T-RkvMWgGTI/AAAAAAAAAD0/tPUqASgTm8Y/s1600/George+Mark+Jack+Trial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SbNUtdP9NDw/T-RkvMWgGTI/AAAAAAAAAD0/tPUqASgTm8Y/s320/George+Mark+Jack+Trial.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me, pontificating. Mark always attentive, patiently listening. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The court police swarmed Mark in a pitiful display of force. The
charade of a decorous trial on behalf of pitifully wounded Trinity was called out
for all to see and the unassuming, guileless man, with the bushy beard and kind
face did that for us. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Judge Sciarrino was a goner even though he had urged for a stern, well-paced trial. Court agents put Mark Adams in handcuffs with all the
deftness of raw meat being rush-wrapped for a customer. Mark faced it all with
a quiet certainty, a silent, “See what I mean?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For as long as I’ve known of OWS there’s been Mark Adams.
He's the poster person for this phenomenon coming from somewhere else after
his home was swallowed up in foreclosure. There are other parts of his story he
should tell you, not me. Those details add fuel to that motor of energy inside
him of, “Why not justice? Why not now?” He said to me last week that he “came to
join a social movement in Occupy and found a family instead.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think that discernment is what makes his representation
in Occupy so compelling. When others might be drawing from personal agendas he
fulfills what Jesus said of Nathanael in John’s Gospel, “Here is a man of no
guile!” (John 1:47) By no design of his, circumstances around him drop pretense…like
a court room revealing itself as nothing more than a star chamber so Trinity
can collect rents and swagger. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even as I prepare to pick up trash at Tompkins Park for
my days of community service I still breath the air in freedom but my sweet
brother languishes behind bars where he has started a hunger strike “for all
those who are unjustly imprisoned.” Even from jail Mark Adams beckons to our
better selves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-5099476057956122502012-06-19T05:41:00.002-07:002012-06-19T05:42:48.373-07:00A Sad Day for the Church<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Sentencing Statement by Bishop George E. Packard<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVT6DYqLZa197tE3h0OhsS10KwThSRKOVVugzOk4ZcPbLJu0S6y5X0PCW_tzV71TTPw3QSveENXLu6DG0UAGh9wMLC9EDAMm2F3dt3VlhF3hJHYh_KEHIddgYJvb1W0WDv_6eDd0tfFBJC/s1600/cooper+on+the+stand+by+John.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVT6DYqLZa197tE3h0OhsS10KwThSRKOVVugzOk4ZcPbLJu0S6y5X0PCW_tzV71TTPw3QSveENXLu6DG0UAGh9wMLC9EDAMm2F3dt3VlhF3hJHYh_KEHIddgYJvb1W0WDv_6eDd0tfFBJC/s320/cooper+on+the+stand+by+John.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rev. J. Cooper "forgetting" the 11 phone calls with me about Duarte.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Your honor I am not pleading for leniency. Frankly, I
don’t think it’s dignified to do so. Moreover, being treated “equally under the
law” applies not only to its protection but also to its consequences. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">I have admiration for our legal system, this court, and
your administration of these proceedings. Indeed, I have dedicated a good
portion of my life in service to our country. For me, such patriotism is as
real as the ultimate sacrifices my friends have memorialized with their lives
in four of the wars I’ve been in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">No, my great sadness today has nothing to do with the
law, its fairness or even an economic system favoring the few at the expense of
the many in these days. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">It has to do with how Trinity Church has chosen to hop back and forth
between being the aggrieved and trespassed party on the one hand and the
sympathetic ear and support for those who deserve a message of mercy and
forgiveness on the other. There was nothing to be gained by going forward with these prosecutions. Rector James Cooper even appreciated "the healthy debate" about his property. I guess that discussion has limits for him when his corporate side and cash flow takes over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Is this entity a corporation worried about fiduciary interest
or a portion of the Body of Christ? Which are they? We have received our answer
today by their insistence for this action. In a time when we hope our moral
institutions will speak with clarity…this one didn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">I have an additional worry that some witnessing my actions
may have misinterpreted them and joined the protest thinking that the church
condoned them. Alas if it were so. There is no relevant witness to be found in the institutional church today. I was acting on behalf of myself only and to the degree others
felt encouraged to break the law I am sorry but I rejoice they might have reclaimed dignity.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">May God bless our nation; may it abide justly with others."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-53573184886406699962012-06-08T12:19:00.001-07:002012-06-08T13:33:37.436-07:00When Choice is Honorable<div style="text-align: right;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-GdsnGSwoq4IeVTCX84kBgjxoEF2JvuQzjyvGrma5p6n_49ZwmvVL_Vi_MHzPWR-hTvmsavco-2A4S92pUq7hM44v7WVrihqBOYWb0A610D1i8q2VbJgiTMtz_bWLNPkR4AOilLC66Us/s1600/GEP+&+Jack+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-GdsnGSwoq4IeVTCX84kBgjxoEF2JvuQzjyvGrma5p6n_49ZwmvVL_Vi_MHzPWR-hTvmsavco-2A4S92pUq7hM44v7WVrihqBOYWb0A610D1i8q2VbJgiTMtz_bWLNPkR4AOilLC66Us/s200/GEP+&+Jack+2.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jack Boyle and I before he lost 20 lbs.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everybody has choices in life. Some are painful and honorable
others are portrayed as important for appearance's sake. We are facing such stark examples in the drama
between protesters-on-trial and Trinity Church. Recently there has been commotion
about the wisdom of Jack Boyle’s decision “to choose” a hunger strike and
refuse to take his AIDS medication as a witness against Trinity Church’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">prosecution of the December 17</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> protesters. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jack says, “Drop the charges and I will eat
and take my meds.” At first I thought my friend was a little batty, worse,
showing signs of PTSD from that violent early morning roust on November 15</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
at Zuccotti. He wouldn’t be the first to exhibit signs of that trauma’s
aftermath. But after spending two hours with him at his home last Sunday I’m
not so sure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jack was arrested with me and 32 others at Duarte and since
then our relationship has grown from cell mate, to good acquaintance, to better
friend. I could always count on Jack’s enthusiasm at meeting; we’d share a fist bump and an update at many
street actions. I’d placed our pairing into a certain category of casual familiarity
and so it was a jolt when he announced this potentially fatal decision of a meds/hunger strike. Surely I could talk him out of this choice. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But during that
long talk at his apartment I realized I didn’t really know him at all and the
dignity of the man who had the right to make such an existential choice. I didn’t
know his fears of being HIV positive since 2003, his sense of his own finitude
and what “it was good for” or of his dual Irish citizenship, or, most tellingly
the minute-by-minute recall he had of that violent sweep of Zuccotti on
November 15<sup>th</sup> and how a cop had disfigured his hand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those of us who had turned down the District Attorney’s plea
bargains electing instead for a bench trial knew the consequences. We felt it
was important to call into question Trinity’s authority to cite ownership,
declare a trespass, and even to act as a corporation and landlord when its
avowed mission was the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Ours was a choice but Jack’s
take on this standoff brought it to a different level. Even if ill-advised his
action made my worries about 90 days on Riker’s Island look silly and pale. The
rest of us were pikers compared to him. Jack was taking Occupy at its word: the
only control one has is of one’s body. It is the last social and political discretion
we have left--all else has been taken away. Why should we be surprised that one
in our number would commit life and health to this cause?Compared to his more regal use of the term when “choice” is
folded into Trinity’s press releases it is embarrassingly transparent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 16px;">Trinity Church is not seeking retribution or punishment..Trinity fully supports the District Attorney’s decision to offer protesters non-criminal dispositions without fines or incarceration, <u>and also respects the protestors’ right to make a choice</u>…Trinity has welcomed and continues to welcome OWS members, like all members of its community, to its facilities in the Wall Street area. However, Trinity unequivocally does not support the seizure of private property.</span></i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is “corporate-speak”using law to protect interests and a landlord making money.This parish could have “chosen” to step outside of history
and given refuge to OWS instead of saving it for today's huddle of food trucks. This
clergy leadership could have “chosen” to dialogue with OWS instead of folding
their arms. Rector Cooper could still “choose” not to send his custodian to court thereby sustaining these
charges. That would take a miracle of awareness that is so out of fashion on
Wall Street.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And herein is the ultimate blasphemy for God’s church to defer to the law at hand rather than the justice on which it stands. But that would meant Trinity Church would have “chosen” to act as the Body of Christ instead of the soulless corporation it has</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">become.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-10449911616935914812012-05-24T10:24:00.000-07:002012-05-24T19:55:40.104-07:00You Tell'em Diana!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When author Diana Butler Bass made a presentation to the House of Bishops some years ago I found it fascinating...I should have been on the edge of my seat. Her research, seminary professorships, six books and group presentations have made her the prescient voice for the future of American Christianity, notably mainline Protestantism, for our time. Professor Bass is also a nice person and there's the problem. Mind you, I'm not advocating that she get more edgy or spit in someone's eye, no, her ample research tells the story of how mainline denominations have an open moment before them, "a creative third way" (34) that they can discern and act upon...or not.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's the adoptive (not "adaptive") quality of the institutional church I'm wary of. And so, true to form, I had heard--since not verified--</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that she was asked to speak at </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Episcopal Church convention in Indianapolis this summer. Good, if it's true, but this applies to any national venue trying to appropriate a prophetic message. We have a joke in Occupy Wall Street about this kind of routine...it will be a matter of months before the church develops a Lenten study guide entitled, "What was the Occupy Movement REALLY About? What does it say to Christians today?" The Church trades conversation and polite attention for action. Worse, it delegates justice to a few who are emissaries for the rest. For Bass that is close to a tragedy, "...justice is also a verb, something we do to get there--the acts of envisioning, marching to, and embodying--the promised land. Justice is not a program, a political platform, or a denominational position on social issues. No, justice is the pilgrimage of the beloved community." (170)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is justice the harder exercise among other themes of "(rediscovery) of ancient traditions, spiritual practices, and emotive worship" (3) which she cites in places (and spaces) of renewal and hope for the church? I think she is right to say that justice had been mis-appropriated from liberal politics, initially, and, at base, it is a spiritual struggle. (160) The parameters remain difficult to detect; in "Christianity for the Rest of Us," Trinity Rector Jim Cooper glibly riffs on converting pilgrims (215) but </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">five years later </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">was to discover acting on that would be a difficult exercise. He might have been better served to re-read pages which described Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church in Seattle and the courage of Pastor Paul Hoffman as he invited the homeless poor to tent on church property. (163)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's enormously hard "(to be) generously open to change and the remaking of those very traditions." (34) That's Diana's graceful way of saying this: for a system dedicated to ponderous deliberation the end game is order not responsiveness. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieibK3z7aDfTDBVZhxQcwHzOqvVN2MLsBMCUu6kYDh2SmarydIV0PMx2HDW9cMdG8Tl2BcPh7uOhxXdjo_r2XYFdwhFJN0DvYfeWK34nUiNJVxllpdP3EeylgQ-KYegZEYW0mLjXBRj9Mr/s1600/photo+(10).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieibK3z7aDfTDBVZhxQcwHzOqvVN2MLsBMCUu6kYDh2SmarydIV0PMx2HDW9cMdG8Tl2BcPh7uOhxXdjo_r2XYFdwhFJN0DvYfeWK34nUiNJVxllpdP3EeylgQ-KYegZEYW0mLjXBRj9Mr/s400/photo+(10).JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so, Occupy and Bass arrive at the same place, she in her research (253), Occupy in its shunning of hierarchy and ranking. Local is better.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those who have left the institutional church, like David Hayward, "graffiti artist on the walls of religion", </span><a href="http://www.nakedpastor.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.nakedpastor.com/</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> can have the privileged view of prophecy. Doesn't his work convey truth? </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVceB85Cj5lQKnatnEhAgu95WI7r3RS98_N4ck4Jzwd9IyrulpvE1-hvcdHUFbeDpR30DPsmg4V1RpOtfFWVCHxnCyRCv1I7yp6aG8TMEldCirj1WLw6ma7SpMufI7c6E0EQpk7JjBxENm/s1600/photo+(12).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVceB85Cj5lQKnatnEhAgu95WI7r3RS98_N4ck4Jzwd9IyrulpvE1-hvcdHUFbeDpR30DPsmg4V1RpOtfFWVCHxnCyRCv1I7yp6aG8TMEldCirj1WLw6ma7SpMufI7c6E0EQpk7JjBxENm/s400/photo+(12).JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And he's in good company; Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of a day when "religionless Christianity" would be upon us. We'd know that time when "being religious" had no relevance in fact. Is that now? To be clear this is not an era of "no Christ" but rather a startling new span when we would be jolted by God's presence from an entirely new and unexpected direction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those of us who are snarky by nature will be rooting for Diana as she makes her foray into the bowels of institutional, ecclesial life but with low expectations. Better they read her books, go home, pray, connect with a community of faith and then get off their asses. Sorry, was I too blunt?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please see: Books by Diana Butler Bass: <i>Christianity for the Rest of Us (referenced here), Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening, The People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story</i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6204133255316904814.post-1821425597756772762012-05-14T14:23:00.000-07:002012-05-14T14:24:22.407-07:00Chris Hedges Nails It Again<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And this from Chris Hedges today..<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“…The danger the corporate state faces does not come from
the poor. The poor, those Karl Marx dismissed as the <a href="http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/lumpenproletariat"><b>Lumpenproletariat</b></a>,
do not mount revolutions, although they join them and often become cannon
fodder. The real danger to the elite comes from <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/declasse"><b>déclassé</b></a> intellectuals,
those educated middle-class men and women who are barred by a calcified system
from advancement. Artists without studios or theaters, teachers without
classrooms, lawyers without clients, doctors without patients and journalists
without newspapers descend economically. They become, as they mingle with the
underclass, a bridge between the worlds of the elite and the oppressed. And
they are the dynamite that triggers revolt.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is why the Occupy movement frightens the corporate
elite. What fosters revolution is not misery, but the gap between what people
expect from their lives and what is offered. This is especially acute among the
educated and the talented. They feel, with much justification, that they have
been denied what they deserve. They set out to rectify this injustice. And the
longer the injustice festers, the more radical they become…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The power of the Occupy movement is that it expresses the
widespread disgust with the elites, and the deep desire for justice and
fairness that is essential to all successful revolutionary movements. The
Occupy movement will change and mutate, but it will not go away. It may appear
to make little headway, but this is less because of the movement’s
ineffectiveness and more because decayed systems of power have an amazing
ability to perpetuate themselves through habit, routine and inertia. The press
and organs of communication, along with the anointed experts and academics,
tied by money and ideology to the elites, are useless in dissecting what is
happening within these movements. They view reality through the lens of their
corporate sponsors. They have no idea what is happening.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Read the entire article here: <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/colonized_by_corporations_20120514/">http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/colonized_by_corporations_20120514/</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1