more poetry

Ok, so I'm slightly obsessed with poetry lately, but I think that's ok; my guess is that it is kind of an epiphenomena of what's been going on with my soul as of late. So when I was at camp a few weeks ago, somehow Shakespeare's sonnets came up in discussion, and I, like virtually everyone else, had a sonnet still tucked away in the corners of my brain that I had memorized during high school. So I began to recall it, and as I did it was as if I were reading it for the first time, even though "I" "knew" the poem "by heart", it felt more like I was discovering the poem anew as I spoke it out loud, and in some ways it felt almost as if the poem were reading me, not I it. And it was an incredibly beautiful experience.

A large part of the beauty of this particular sonnet, for me, is in saying it out loud. For when I let the lines carry my voice, the very act of speaking the words with raw honesty seems to carry my body to a different place. The line that begins "Like to the lark..." always leaves me breathless with a racing heart by the time I get to the end of it, because I never pause between that line and the next. So partly out of physiology and partly because of the words themselves and what they point to, I am left gasping at the beauty of it all. And then the last two lines become a sort of contented sigh, passing through me like truths that cannot be harnessed, denied or controlled.

I am still swept away by the beauty of these words and the huge meaning they express in such brevity, amazing. There is a sense that I "understand" this poem now far better than I did when I memorized it for school, but there is also a sense that I have always "understood" the poem, in that the way I speak the words now is the result of continuous testing and re-speaking when I first learned them, and that too is a strange truth in itself. Perhaps this sonnet-remembrance experience has more in common with my spiritual journey than I first may have thought. Both are journeys of rediscovering something learned long ago that suddenly, under the right circumstances, has burst open with a supernova of meaning; a supernova that leaves both glittering beauty and a dark black hole..... kind of like the poem... Hm.



Sonnet # 29

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Where Are Nukes at the Table of Peace?

By Brent McDougal, on EthicsDaily.com

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the toughest of them all when it comes to using nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden and terrorists in radical states such as Iran and Afghanistan? And by the way, while you're pondering that, mirror, mirror, what should people of faith and those who seek peace demand of candidates and leaders who feel the need to appear the toughest against our enemies?

In response to Barak Obama's statement that nuclear weapons were "not on the table" with regard to ungoverned territories in the two countries, Hillary Clinton responded that "presidents should be careful at all times in discussing the use and nonuse of nuclear weapons," adding that she would not respond to hypothetical questions about the use of nuclear force.

"Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrents to keep the peace," said Clinton, "and I don't believe any president should make blanket statements with the regard to use or nonuse."

The race is on to see who is the toughest, the biggest and the baddest when it comes to defending America against terrorism.

Targeting a person or small group with nuclear weapons? Seriously? Detonating a nuclear bomb on a country to eliminate a few persons within their population? Really? Ridiculous. And yet Clinton scores big for being hard-hitting, ready to strike at the least indication of terrorist activity, while Obama scrambles to define himself in stronger terms.
...

As a person of faith, and one called to be a "peacemaker" by Jesus, I'm shocked that candidates who say they follow the same teachings as I do could be so careless regarding the use of nuclear weapons. The same follows with the use of torture and the reflex use of violence against our enemies.

(continued)

Read the whole article at EthicsDaily.com.

Peacemaking or Peacemongering?

I came across an interesting post this morning. It describes peacemaking as doing the hard (and often uncomfortable) work of bringing people to emotional maturity. Peacemongering, on the other hand, is seeking to maintain a (false) peace by catering to the whims of the least emotionally mature.

The example the blogger used was a family going to a restaurant: the family has decided and is on their way to go to a Mexican place, but the six-year-old decides he wants McDonald's and is willing to protest the whole way, so the parents just wanting a peaceful evening with the family give in to the six-year-old, therefore rewarding him for his immaturity. I can see the point in this example, but does it hold water when applied to larger interpersonal relationships? What about international relationships?

I'm also wondering if this isn't setting the author up to make value judgments about other people's lifestyles or cultures and endorsing a "tough love" approach to making "them" more like "us" (homogenization). (Leading to labeling preemptive wars or wars under the guise of "liberation" as "peacemaking.") What do you think?

The Politics of God

"After centuries of strife, the West has learned to separate religion and politics — to establish the legitimacy of its leaders without referring to divine command. There is little reason to expect that the rest of the world — the Islamic world in particular — will follow."

(From the New York Times Magazine)

The twilight of the idols has been postponed. For more than two centuries, from the American and French Revolutions to the collapse of Soviet Communism, world politics revolved around eminently political problems. War and revolution, class and social justice, race and national identity — these were the questions that divided us. Today, we have progressed to the point where our problems again resemble those of the 16th century, as we find ourselves entangled in conflicts over competing revelations, dogmatic purity and divine duty. We in the West are disturbed and confused. Though we have our own fundamentalists, we find it incomprehensible that theological ideas still stir up messianic passions, leaving societies in ruin. We had assumed this was no longer possible, that human beings had learned to separate religious questions from political ones, that fanaticism was dead. We were wrong.

Read the whole article here.

Thanks to blogger Jon for pointing this out to me.

Listening - the common ground amid conflict

The Seattle Times earlier in August ran a story about a local woman who believes in the healing and redemptive power of merely listening to others' stories. And it's not just her anymore. Her organization, The Compassionate Listening Project, is an international force for conflict resolution. Not just stopping fighting or imposing a fragile (and often false) "peace" onto a crisis situation, but rather cultivating deep reconciliation among individuals and populations that have been cultivating deep division for so long.

The article is worth reading. It is one model for genuine peace-making - both among ourselves and as a vision for international conflicts that popular culture or the military-industrial complex would have us believe is impossible.

A New Book Remembers Sacco & Vanzetti, and Injustice Served

(From the Washington Post)

Eighty years ago this week, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts executed two first-generation immigrants from Italy, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, for crimes they almost certainly did not commit. Before and after the executions, passions aroused by the case, in the United States and around the world, were incredibly intense. In part, this was because the case had strong political overtones at a time when much of the country was swept up in the Red Scare. In part, it was because, as the noted newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann wrote, "No man . . . should be put to death where so much doubt exists." And, in part, it was because Sacco and Vanzetti were appealing men, whatever one may have thought of their politics. In an interview with the New York World three months before his execution, Vanzetti was quoted as saying, in halting but powerful English:

"If it had not been for these thing, I might have live out my life, talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have die, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as we now do by dying. Our words, our lives, our pains -- nothing! The taking of our lives -- lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler -- all! That last moment belongs to us -- that agony is our triumph!"

Read the whole article/book review at the Washington Post.

Thanks to blogger Jon for pointing this out to me.

Have Camera - Will Photo

There's just so much I miss by not having a digital camera. So Christie and I finally broke down and bought one. We asked all our friends what cameras they have, tried them out, price shopped, you know the drill. Eventually, we came to a Canon S3 IS - a bit on the low end, but good enough for a starter camera for us. And heck, with shots like this (sunflower amid tobacco blossoms by the compost bin) we can't complain. (Click on the pic... there're raindrops on the petals!)

the present time

Today I preached at church, and it was a very interesting experience. Lately I have been creating my sermons rather amorphously, leaving an awful lot up to my own theologizing - for better or for worse. I haven't been focusing on in-depth exegetical (aka Biblical study & interpretation) work, not going to the original languages, not reading commentaries, basically not using the tools I've spent years learning about and have faithfully used on many a successful sermon.

Instead I have been focusing on attentive readings of the scripture texts as well as readings of my life and the lives of those I'm supposed to preach to, and then I use the given theme to try and draw out possible important ideas.

Today's theme was especially fruitful and provocative: "Discern the Present Time". When I first read it I was struck by how much application it had to my own life, how much it resonated with my current reassessment of where my life is and where it is going. Discernment is something I've been very familiar with lately, it is an ongoing process in my life, but discerning the present time was a new framing for me. Usually when I think about discernment, I think about making a decision or choice for the future, but instead I find myself now, just as the theme stated, focusing more on the present time, on having fidelity to the current moment.

Fidelity to the present time can be very tricky, because we seem to much more naturally find ourselves getting caught up on past or future times – lately many are asking "how will my stocks perform through this market drop?" Lately I'm asking "What am I going to be or do with my life? Where is this life of mine going?" But as I’m sure you have heard in many a pithy proverb: if we only focus on and worry about the future and/or the past, we miss out on the beauty of this present, perfect moment.

So, I find myself asking the question that seems to consume me daily: “how then shall we live?” How do we discern what kind of just life I/we need to live in this moment? I find myself looking for (and found myself talking about in my sermon) the signals or pointers or road signs that let me/us know that the path we're choosing is one that is faithful.

In one of the scriptures there was a call to be a “healing and redeeming” agent in the world. Phrases like “wholeness of body, mind and spirit”, “strengthening of faith”, and “reconciliation and healing of the spirit”, to me are examples of the road signs that tell us we are on the right path. And perhaps that is all I/we need right now, to trust the journey and trust that when the time is right, it will yield fruit.

Euro-Flannel?

Q: What do these three images have in common?
A: As of next year, they will all be associated with the Netherlands!

Last week I was appointed by my denomination as the new President of the church in Europe. In February, Christie and I will be moving to Rotterdam in the Netherlands to assume the duties and begin our new life in Europe. ... And my calendar is already packed.

What will happen when a West Seattle Peace & Justice minister goes to Europe? How will an activist fare in a larger administrative role? How will I look in a Citroёn? Burning questions that will be explored right here.

maybe tears are enough

Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that I'm a crier. I cry fairly easily. Those who know my family know that this is a seemingly genetic trait I share with my mother, grandfather, aunts and cousins. When I was a teenager it was rather embarrassing and socially awkward to burst into tears at random moments. As I've gotten older, I think that I don't cry quite as much as I once did, but when I really think about it, I probably do cry just as much, but I have just gotten a lot more comfortable with it. One could say I have a healthier relationship with tears now than I once did

So when I saw an article entitled "Tears and Compassionate Connection" in an e-zine I receive regularly, I immediately clicked on it. It is a beautiful article that begins with a story of a young Palestinian woman who was arrested by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. Unlike the stories I hear from my women friends about using tears to get themselves out of situations, this story was very different. The young woman describes how seeing two of the soldiers at the checkpoint: a man and a woman, both crying, opened a space for her to forgive.

I have had incredibly powerful experiences of tears - one day I began crying for seemingly no reason, only to find out later that a woman near me was crying, and that I must have sensed her distress, even though I could not see her. I remember one time apologizing to a male friend for crying while we talked, only to have him say that he wished he could cry too, but couldn't. I jokingly tell friends that I should be a professional mourner (apparently in some cultures they actually have such things) since I cry so easily. In some ways I think I already do this, I mourn for the dead parts of our world and for my friends.

Tears, for me, as I've grown into them, are most often openings, just as the article suggests. Like a big smile, tears silently speak volumes and gift those around with a truth that is otherwise unspeakable. And so, I wonder, if sometimes tears are enough: words can't make another's pain go away, but tears can validate that pain, and shed a light of honesty that unites us even when all we can see is difference.

"Sometimes crossing the street can save a life."

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle's fairest and most objective major daily newspaper) last week featured an article about an outreach program focused on people on the streets. It tells the story of Mary Williams (who also happens to be an active member of Community of Christ) and her on-the-street "ministry" (my word) of compassion and help to people weighed down by poverty, drugs, abuse or any of a host of other inner-city plagues.

The outreach starts simply with offering a drink of water. How tremendously appropriate.

I spent an afternoon with Mary Williams not too long ago, when she set up her table on the sidewalk brimming with brochures and helpline information, and a basket of cupcakes and bottled water. She is a sight to behold: unafraid to talk to anyone, to strike up a conversation, start building relationships, offering information without being the least bit pushy - in short, showing the passers by that she actually cares about them. She doesn't just see sickness or mental illness or depression or poverty or addiction. Williams manages to convey a healthy care in her work. That one afternoon was inspiring enough. The P-I article last week raised my estimation of her and her work even higher.

Read the article. It's enough to give me hope.

Because blogger Jon doesn't think my blog is funny enough.

All Is Not Lost: Another World Is Possible

There is a wonderful poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that tells the story of a crowd at an airport gate waiting for a delayed flight. Why don't I just post it for you.

Wandering Around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal

After learning my flight was detained four hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.
Well, one pauses these days. Gate 4A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.

“Help,” said the flight service person. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she did this. ”

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly: “Shu dow-a, shu-biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, sho bit se-wee?”

The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought our flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the following day.

I said, “No, no, we're fine. You'll get there, just late. Who is picking you up? Let's call him and tell him. ”

We called her son, and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and would ride next to her — Southwest Airlines.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad, and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out, of course, that they had 10 shared friends.

Then I thought, just for the heck of it, Why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up about two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies, little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts, out of her bag, and was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, the lovely woman from Laredo. We were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers, nonalcoholic. And the two little girls on our flight, one African-American and one Mexican-American, ran around serving us all apple juice and lemonade. And they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend — by now we were holding hands — had a potted plant, some medicinal thing, poking out of her bag. With green furry leaves. Such an old-country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, This is the world I want to live in, the shared world. Not a single person at this gate, once the crying of confusion stopped, had seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too. This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

More on Rorty

Richard Rorty is dead. For those who loved him as a person, and also those who just knew him – I had the good fortune to spend an evening with him in Hamburg – this sentence is an expression of pain alone. But for those who loved him as a theorist, the question is what this sentence means besides. Certainly: one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century has died. What will come after him, will someone take his place? As with other great philosophers and writers, the answer is: of course not. One has to live with such losses; they are forever. But in Rorty's case, questions and answers lead beyond truisms. To explain that, I need to get slightly personal.

Read the whole article at Eurozine.

I post this because Richard Rorty had (and continues to have) a profound and formative influence on my personal philosophy and theology. His work has shaped my own, his style inspired me, his approach made sense to me, his answers (or, rather, his way of answering) spoke/speaks to me. I will miss his continued insights, and will continue to read the writings he left us.

(Thanks to Blogger Jon for pointing this article out to me.)

5,000th Prayer for Peace

My church is a peace church. We find one of the primary expressions of the Gospel in our lives to be working for peace - on personal, political, social and international levels. As disciples, we also recognize that peace has a national/international conflict-resolution dimension.

In addressing this, in addition to more "earthly" efforts, our denomination has for several years offered a prayer for peace at our headquarters, every single day. Typically, a particular nation is given special attention each day, offering the participants and worshipers and opportunity to learn about the special challenges and callings facing unique and diverse peoples across our planet.

Today marks the 5,000th daily prayer for peace offered by our church since we began this practice. At one o'clock, in Independence, Missouri, (that's 11 o'clock in Seattle) this landmark prayer will be offered like all the others: to the Spirit of Peace and to people to respond to It. Today, for Suriname.

A Prayer for Healing

The following is a prayer given to me by a Roman Catholic relative, who herself received it at a Mass she attended before arriving at my grandmother's funeral. For some reason, this woman decided I would like it. It has hung over my desk since then, and silently presided over my work. I offer it now to the folds of cyberspace.

God of endless love,
ever caring, ever strong,
always present, always just:
Who guided your Son
to save us by his life and his cross.

Gentle Jesus, shepherd of peace,
join to your own suffering
the pain of all who have been hurt
in body, mind, and spirit
by those who betrayed the trust placed in them.

Hear our cries as we agonize
over the harm done to our brothers and sisters.
Breather wisdom into our prayers.
Soothe restless hearts with hope.
Steady shaken spirits with faith.
Show us the way to justice and wholeness,
enlightened by truth and enfolded in your mercy.

Holy Spirit, comforter of hearts,
heal your people's wounds
and transform our brokenness.
Grant us courage and wisdom, humility and grace,
so that we act with justice
and find peace in you.

We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

awesome

Today I was walking with a small group of youth into the woods here at camp on our morning silent meditative walk. I had the most interesting experience:

Due to high winds last fall, throughout the pacific northwest, there are many trees that have fallen down. Our woods here are no exception. As we walked along a well-worn, very wide path, we suddenly came to a spot where a huge tree (about a two foot trunk width) was laying across our path. Serendipitously enough, our theme this week is "The Road, The Way" and so there we were with an unsurpassed object lesson... the teachable-moment-watcher in me was tortured because our little group had covenanted together that we would make the journey into the woods in silence, and so I was confronted with an ultimate moment of the "gappy theology" that I've previously talked about. I was not able to tell them what they should think about what was happening, wasn't able to tell them what the metaphor was, I had to trust that the tree itself spoke more than I could ever say.

Wordlessly, one of the campers led the way around the tree, through the brambles and branches, and back onto the path. And then my stomach dropped slightly: the first thing I saw when I looked up from our circumnavigation of the wind-fallen tree was a peace pole, decorated years ago by another camp, and facing me was the side that said "OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD." Indeed. The fallen trees ahead and behind are visible testimonies of the awesomeness of God.

I find it so amazing that I am constantly learning new things about God. I am only now coming to terms with the awesome, destructive side of God. It almost seems un-politically-correct to say that a part of me was in awe of the beauty of the destruction that "God/creation/ultimate power/the ground of our being" is capable of. But that is exactly how I felt. I can't wait to see what other amazing things I discover about God this week.

Community of Christ Begins Legal Fight to Protect Historical Name

AP — The Community of Christ filed a federal trademark infringement suit against a small church in suburban Kansas City for what the larger church says is an improper use of its former name and initials.

The Community of Christ, which has about 250,000 members worldwide, is suing the South Restoration Branch of Raytown. The lawsuit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court.

The Community of Christ, headquartered in the Kansas City suburb of Independence since 1920, split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1860. Its members remained behind when the larger Mormon church relocated to Utah. It was known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly abbreviated as "RLDS," until 2001 and still holds trademarks on both designations.

"The church legally trademarked these names decades ago," presiding Bishop Steve Jones said in a statement issued Wednesday, "and has taken all appropriate steps throughout the years to retain its ownership of all right, title and interest in and to the marks 'Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' and 'RLDS'."

The term "Restoration Branch" refers to members' belief that the movement restores proper doctrine lost by the larger church. Membership in the Restoration Branches consists largely of people who left what is now the Community of Christ in the 1980s, disagreeing with its decision to begin ordaining women. Other doctrinal differences also exist between the larger church and the Restoration Branches, which have an estimated 12,000 members.

In April, the Joint Conference of Restoration Branches adopted a resolution to use the RLDS name, although not all branches have done so. But while the Community of Christ no longer uses its former names, it is not willing to give up trademark rights to them.

"The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and RLDS names are integral to our heritage and will always be a significant element of who we are," Jones said. "Furthermore, there are nations in which the name Community of Christ could not be used, and there are important implications for legal documentation pertaining to such things as land titles."

No one answered the South Restoration Branch's listed telephone number, and court documents did not list an attorney.

AP - Community of Christ sues church over name
Independence Examiner - Church sues to protect name
Hays Daily News - Community of Christ sues small church for using its former name

Religion as an Entree to the Arts?

The state of the humanities in the US can be measured by present achievement: would anyone seriously argue that the fine arts or even popular culture is enjoying a period of high originality and creativity? American genius currently resides in technology and design. The younger generation, with its mastery of video games and its facility for ever-evolving gadgetry like video cell phones and iPods, has massively shifted to the Web for information and entertainment.

I would argue that the route to a renaissance of the American fine arts lies through religion. Let me make my premises clear: I am a professed atheist and a pro-choice libertarian Democrat. But based on my college experiences in the 1960s, when interest in Hinduism and Buddhism was intense, I have been calling for nearly two decades for massive educational reform that would put the study of comparative religion at the center of the university curriculum.

Above is excerpted from a fascinating article that puts religion at the center of a liberal arts education - a suggestion that is significantly un-typicial in today's heavily secularized education environment. It is worth reading in its entirety. (Thanks to blogger Jon for pointing this out to me.)

The Day Hope Died

Today - August 4, 1914 - the greatest socialist party ever, died. The German socialist party voted in Parliament to authorize "war credits" in preparation for World War I. It violated every felt and expressed impulse to hold solidarity with the workers of every country, and fell tragic victim to nationalism and patriotic myopia.

The German socialist party held the swing vote - a sizeable portion of the Reichstag, actually - and could have prevented World War I and perhaps ushered into Europe a prosperous and exemplary society that valued protecting lives more than gaining land, resources, prestige and power. Instead, they bought the old nationalist line and voted in financing of the war machine, and authorized sending German workers against French workers, for the benefit of German politicians and bankers.

At the time, socialists were well represented in the Reichstag - oftentimes vying for majority control in the ruling body. They had a party membership in the millions, had thousands of news dailies, had established grassroots networks of activists and union halls, community centers and soup kitchens, and determined the politics in much of the southern half of the country. They could have ended WWI before it started - and there was heated debate among them whether they should or not. But in the end, they made the wrong choice, and put their extraordinary weight behind an unjust cause, just for the sake of nationalism. As a result, the rest of the century would be spent in warfare of spiraling severity and scope.

Also as a result, the fractured, hypocritical, failed socialist party infrastructure disintegrated, and is virtually forgotten in Western history. Americans only know the Cold War propaganda version of "socialism" - and react to the very word.

This is a sad day in history - one that we would do well to remember and keep close to our hearts. Never violate our principles, especially for the sake of nationalism and patriotism. Our conviction of peace and solidarity with all peoples, our commitment to welcoming the stranger, caring for the widow and orphan, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, healing the poor - this is our rock, our worship of God. And no false god or idol can take its place, no matter what flag it is wrapped in or over which it waves. History proves the folly of nations. God will bear out our faith with righteousness.