corners

Still round the corner there may wait, a new road, or a secret gate.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

H/T DeeDee

Priorities

"I did not have sexual relations with that women" January 26, 1998







"This government does not torture" October 5, 2007

quotes from this week

David Barton, with (appropriately) Wallbuilders, with reference to the U.S. Senate being opened this morning, for the first time ever, by a Hindu prayer:

Barton says given the fact that Hindus are a tiny constituency of the American public, he questions the motivation of Senate leaders. “This is not a religion that has produced great things in the world,” he observes. “You look at India, you look at Nepal — there’s persecution going in both of those countries that is gendered by the religious belief that is present there, and Hindu dominates in both of those countries.”
And while Barton acknowledges there is not constitutional problem with a Hindu prayer in the Senate, he wonders about the political side of it. “One definitely wonders about the pragmatic side of it,” he says. “What is the message, and why is the message needed? And will it actually communicate anything other than engender with folks like me a lot of questions?”

The (current) Pope

Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one church,” the document said. The other communities “cannot be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense” because they do not have apostolic succession — the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ’s original apostles.

[…]

The document said Orthodox churches were indeed “churches” because they have apostolic succession and that they enjoyed “many elements of sanctification and of truth.” But it said they lack something because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope — a defect, or a “wound” that harmed them, it said.

Despite the harsh tone of the document, it stresses that Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue.

“However, if such dialogue is to be truly constructive, it must involve not just the mutual openness of the participants but also fidelity to the identity of the Catholic faith,” the commentary said.

Jesus:

"I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls"

Hat tips to Hemant and Siamang and Eliza

2 questions

Today Rachel posted this quote on JaC

“There is a theological ’silent majority’ in our land who wrap their Bible
in the American flag, who believe that conservative politics is the necessary
by-product of orthodox Christianity, who equate patriotism with the belief in
national self-righteousness, and who regard political dissent as a mark of
infidelity to the faith.”
- Senator Mark Hatfield, Conflict and Conscience,
1971

It reminded me of two questions I recently addressed to my delightful Aunt Kathy, which she has not yet addressed. Perhaps someone here could help me out--someone who claims to be a christian and who also supports the iraq war (I know you're out there)

Here's what Jesus had to say about how to react to our enemies

It's been said "love your friends, and hate your enemies". But I say: Love your enemies! Bless those who curse you! Do good to those who hate you!

Question #1.How is an American Christian who claims to be trying to obey Jesus best to carry out these commands in the case of radical muslim extremists who are clearly their enemy, who clearly curse them, who clearly hate them? In this particular case, is the American Christian to just ignore this command from Jesus?

Paul reiterates it:

Repay *noone* evil for evil. Do no avenge yourselves.

Question #2. For an American Christian who believes one is to obey Paul's words as Scripture, how are they to apply this command in the case of radical muslim extremists?

Ah hell--one more question, I guess:

Question #3. How is a Christian who is an armed member of the armed forces of this or any nation supposed to apply these commands from Jesus and Paul in the context of their *job*, which involves, among other things, killing their enemies?

(maybe I'm a little confused, or missed something, or something. Hmmmm)

the cosmic censorship hypothesis and naked singularities

I ran across this wiki article today by accident (while looking for the one on technological singularity, which is also fun, which I also ran across by accident some time ago while looking for something else. but here the mad infinite digression stops, because I can't remember the something else any longer). It said this:

In general relativity, the cosmic censorship hypothesis (CCH) is a conjecture about the nature of singularities in spacetime.

Singularities that arise in the solutions of Einstein's equations are typically hidden within event horizons, and therefore cannot be seen from the rest of spacetime. Singularities which are not so hidden are called naked. The weak cosmic censorship hypothesis conjectures that no naked singularities other than the Big Bang singularity exist in the universe.

I have an *extremely* vague idea what this is talking about. How vauge is your idea of what it is talking about? In any case, it strikes me as fun and funny.

Pine cones

A quote from my totally awesome sister Kat. It's from her recent post on a totally rocking new blog, where you too are invited to share your three blessings!

I have this wierd facination with cruching pine cones. When I see
them on the ground I love to crunch them under my shoe. It is just the
most satisfying crunching sound and brings back great memories of camping days
of yore. Well today I went out to my car to get something while at work
and I hear a little rustle in the tree right next to my car and turn to see what
it is and there on the ground next to my car is a freshly fallen pinecone all
ready for me to crunch. Its wierd I know but mmmm such a treat.
Grin

Quote from Jim Henderson, and OTM's Idealab

From this interview. I love this. He nails several things perfectly in one beautifully succinct statement.

Here’s how people feel whenever they enter a new experience—alone and stupid. Churches need to “attack” those feelings by training Christians (the non-professional and non-highly motivated kinds) to simply say “hi” to someone who they have not noticed before.

good god those highly motivated kinds can be creepy, can't they? I'm laughing while writing here. Go Jim.

Oh, in case you didn't know about it, I highly recommend the book which drew Matt and Jim together: Jim and Caspar Go to Church (Caspar is Matt's last name--don't ask me--I think he goes by either or something)

And while I'm promoting Off-the-Map's Stuff, Can I recommend also their monthly ezine, Idealab, which always has kewl stuff in it. You can subscribe here.

Irony again

70023

reported civilian deaths in Iraq since U.S. invasion and occupation in 2003 (as of May 21, 2007)

Near the top of Google's headlines today was this story. It begins

Washington - The United States urged Israel Monday to avoid harming civilians as it conducts military attacks against Hamas in the Gaza Strip but stood behind the Jewish state's right to defend itself.

US State Department Sean McCormack said Israel should 'take all possible actions' to prevent civilian casualties and damage to Palestinian infrastructure and to ensure the Israeli-Palestinian peace process stays on track.

This from the nation who *coined* the euphemism "collateral damage"

A quote from Charlie Clements from April 2003--one month pre-invasion

I am a public health physician. In January I participated in a ten-day emergency mission to Iraq, sponsored by the Brooklyn-based Center for Economic and Social Rights. Our task was to assess the potential consequences to Iraqi civilians of a war on Iraq. As a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a Vietnam veteran, I have some understanding of the potential consequences of the air war we are about to unleash on Iraq as a prelude to an invasion by U.S. troops. The Pentagon will refer to the innocent victims of this assault as "collateral damage," but I've seen their faces, and I think they should have another name. One that occurs to me is "children," since half the population of Iraq is under 18 years old.

and from iraqbodycount

This is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks). It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion.

And this, attributed to Jesus

Love your civilian enemies, and try to avoid killing them while you are bombing your military enemies

learning as an antidote for sadness

Found this quote today, from T.H. White's Once and Future King, which I suppose I shall now have to read (and it will doubtless be a pleasure!). It just resonates perfectly with me. As I continue to work on finding my Yes, I'm convinced that part of it is a huge motivation to learn, to understand things and people, to get my head around them. When I'm doing this, I feel Csikszentmihalyi's flow--especially, funnily enough, when I'm doing maths.

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn--pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics--why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plough."

It seems to be the exact opposite of what the writer of Ecclesiastes says

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

And funnily enough, both are true. So there's a nice example of antinomy for you. One thing that would make christianity more appealing, IMHO, would be if more of its practitioners were willing to embrace the way in which reality seems to be very much chock full of antinomy.

A Sinead O'Connor interview

HT to Helen for this.

Harp magazine published last year a moving interview with Irish singer songwriter Sinead O'Connor. (Her latest album, Throw Down Your Arms, can be had at Amazon for US$8) I thought she really nailed it throughout the interview. Some quotes:

So yeah, I think music is the thing that rescues God from religion and politics

What bothers me about him [George Bush]is he seems to have the wrong facial expression when he talks about violence. He smiles! But they are all victims of a culture of violence, a culture of being brought up to believe this is how you sort things out.

I suppose what I see in all this is that there are all these people who claim to be representing God and who are actually killing each other, killing people. You can't judge one side or other to be better or worse than another-anybody who claims that they have God on their side while committing an act of violence is blaspheming. ... I think we all need to say, "Look, the way we've been sorting out these things doesn't work. Maybe we could try to sort it out lovingly.

I try not to get involved with politics of any description. But I am interested in the cause of rescuing God from religion.

And I suppose if I had to say anything to a 20-year-old [me], I'd say, "Sinead, look-just don't give a shit when these people are telling you you're a piece of shit. Don't buy into it." I came to believe I was a complete fucking monster, so I had to recover.

But as a child I grew up in a very theocratic society, so I sort of became interested from a very small age in rescuing God from religion. And it became apparent that music and singing was a way one could do that.

the Pentagon bans Youtube, myspace, etc.

I guess you know that Mr. Bush and co are getting pretty desparate. This is unfreakingbelievable. The Defense Department has announced it will begin blocking access on its computers and networks "worldwide" to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other popular Web sites, according to a memo sent Friday by Gen. B.B. Bell, the U.S. Forces Korea commander.

So the U.S. has what, 300,000 troops deployed worldwide right now? They are cutting off access to what for many is a primary mode of communication and connection with friends and family back home. They're claiming it's to protect both "bandwidth and sensitive information". I guess we might as well just move to China. Now not only is the Bush administration illegally monitoring civilian phone usage, it's outright attempting to ban parts of the web.

Of course, it's totally ridiculous. You can't ban parts of the web. It's like trying to swallow the ocean. Soldiers will use private networks or other web services to accomplish the same things.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Propaganda Minister

Mother's Day Proclamation

This proclamation was written by Julia Ward Howe, who in 1870 sought formal recognition for a national Mother’s Day in the US. HT: Sharon

Mother’s Day Proclamation
by Julia Ward Howe

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

quote for the day

Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health; everything unconditional belongs in pathology.

--Friedrich Nietzsche

Confidentiality

Another quote from Mark Driscoll which speaks, once again, to the fact that I am completely mystified as to why 5000 people are willing to sit through hour long sermons by him every week (this is from the sermon at Mars Hill on 3/18/07)

Some people, they believe in this thing called confidentiality. I’ll just say
this as an excursus. We don't believe in confidentiality at Mars Hill. Like I’ve
had people come to meet with me and say “I’m cheating’ on my spouse and I think
I’ve got AIDS” I’m like well I’m gonna tell them." They’re like “Well, I thought
we had confidentiality.” No, we have heaven and hell. We don’t have
confidentiality. We don’t. “Well I thought you were supposed to keep it secret.”
No I’m not gonna keep it secret. If you’re molesting your kid, if you’re
cheating on your spouse, if you’re ripping off your employer, I’m pulling the
fire alarm. That’s how we do it. We walk in the light as he is in the light. We
tell the truth. I had one guy “I think I got AIDS. Don’t tell my wife.” You know
what? I need to tell your wife. You’re gonna go home and sleep with her. You’re
gonna maybe give her AIDS then she’s gonna call me and say “I’ve got AIDS”. Then
I’m gonna go visit her in the hospital and preach her funeral and get up and say
“Well hey I kept a good secret for Jesus.”

Didn’t ya’ll wear a bike helmet as a kid? Of course that’s not how we do it. We tell the truth, and we encourage people to repent. And sometimes if they fail to or refuse to, they just get furious. It’s like water on a cat man—they’re just freaking out. That’s cool though (pause…laughter)--water on a cat.

This makes a certain sense from the perspective of Mars Hill. I mean it makes sense to me that if someone is harming someone else who is clearly under their power, like an adult harming a child or a developmentaly delayed person, then it is totally right for another adult who learns of that to ... go to the appopriate authorities and see that the harm stops. And Mars Hill, as far as I can tell, does definitely see women as being in this position with regards to men. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding.

But ... isn't this ... taking away the opportunity for the offender to face the challenge of being an adult, of realizing and facing up to and trying to make amends for their own wrongs? It feels much more like a parent dealing with two children here, protecting one from the other. God doesn't do that with us! He lets us hurt each other, if we must, and then he lets us realize the extent to which we have hurt each other, and experience reconciliation in ... his time, not the pastor's.

I remember Amy Carmichael writing about doing this even with children. Challenging them to do the right thing, and then allowing them to make their own choice, even if that meant another child was being hurt.

This Mars Hill method feels a lot more like the method used in the sect I grew up in. What I have seen looking back at my experience in that sect, and looking at the lives of those I know who are still part of that sect, is that it nearly completely shuts down forward progress for the members. I and they were/are treated as children, and thus progress toward adulthood is never made until one gets out of that system. This was enormously damaging to me as I've had to make up for years of very little growth in maturity.

what do you think?

Simplicity

This via Deanne:

“Simplicity means a return to the posture of dependence. Like children we live in a spirit of trust. What we have we receive as a gift.” — Richrard J. Foster

Wanted: Your first gut reaction to the quote.

Wanted: Your reaction upon further contemplation.

=)

The "Great Moral Issues of Our Time"?

So there appears to be a bit of a foofoorah brewing on the internet around a recent letter written by James Dobson and his friends from the religious right to the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)

In the letter, Dobson and co. criticized Rich Cizik, an NAE leader, for focusing on global warming as a moral issue. They said

"More importantly, we have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."

Now Jim Wallis of Sojourners has challenged Mr. Dobson to a public debate on "What are the great moral issues of our time for evangelical christians?"
What do think? Are ...

1.The sanctity of human life
2.The integrity of marriage, and
3.The teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children

... the top three great moral issues of our time? Or could perhaps ...

4.16,000 children die of starvation every day
5.What the U.S. government has called "genocide" in Darfur
6.800,000 people, (including 14,000 into the U.S.) being trafficked every year

... be equally or even more pressing moral issues?

Indeed, if, as NOAA suggests, global warming may lead to increasing occurrence of highly destructive category 5 storms (i.e., more Katrina like events--more people dying, more internally dispaced persons, etc.), then doesn't that make global warming a great moral issue?

tough question of the week

So there seems to be a bit of a conversation going on over at Conversation at the Edge about abortion, growing out of a recent Time magazine article. In that conversation, Jennifer shared the link to her story on Imnotsorry.net. In Jennifer's story, a priest was trying to convince Jennifer not to have the abortion, and Jennifer asked him

If God kills babies why can’t I?

I think that's a reasonable question for all the christian pro lifers out there.

Quote from Leo Tolstoy

A single execution carried out by prosperous educated men uninfluenced by passion, with the approbation and assistance of Christian ministers, and represented as something necessary and even just, is infinitely more corrupting and brutalizing to men than thousands of murders committed by uneducated working people under the influence of passion.

Every war, even the most humanely conducted, with all its ordinary consequences, the destruction of harvests, robberies, the license and debauchery, and the murder with the justifications of its necessity and justice, the exaltation and justification of military exploits, the worship of the flag, the patriotic sentiments, the feigned solicitude for the wounded, and so on, does more in one year to pervert men's minds than thousands or robberies, murders, and arsons perpetrated during hundreds of years by individual men under the influence of passion

--Leo Tolstoy, from The Kingdom of God is Within You.

quote of the week

Found on Banzai's blog, buried way down in the comments on one of his posts:

Seattle is such a great place. We have two Mars Hills: one to smack us around and the other to spend the next decade examining what it means.

This won't mean much to non-insiders. But to those who know both seattle mars hills, it's quite funny. Here's Mars Hill #1, and Mars Hill #2 (not neccesarily in that order). You figure it out. Good luck.

two quotes and a new word

Two quotes and a thought.

From Suzanne Wolfe

Art and literature "enrapture us," Suzanne said. "It's the last real presence of God in a consumer-crazy world. It kind of returns us to a sense of what is real and what is good and what is true."

From Dr. M. Scott Peck

In a letter to her sister, Saint Theresa of Lysieux wrote, "If you are willing to serenely bear the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter." To define a "true Chrisitan" is a risky business. But if I had to, my difinition would that that a ture Christian is anyone who is "for Jesus a pleansant place of shelter." There are hundreds of thousands who go to Christian churches every Sunday who are not the least bit willing to be displeasing to themselves, serenely or otherwise, and who are not, therefore, for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter. Conversely, there are millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and agnostics who are willing to bear that trial."

I think Dr. Peck does touch on a reasonable definition for "true Christian", and I find it disturbing from both sides. I mean that from one side, I no longer think it's such a great idea to be displeasing to myself. I mean that Christianity was the place where I developed the toxic self negativity which I am now learning to give up/grow out of. From the other side, if this is the definition of "true Christian", then it has seemed to me that a solid majority of those who call themselves christians certainly don't fulfill the meaning of the definition--neither the "serenely bear", nor the "being displeasing to yourself." Or maybe I guess I mean mostly the "serenely bear" part--"they" tend to be very very busily avoiding and escaping their dislike of themselves.

And in a lecture this week on Relapse Prevention,Dr. Alan Marlatt introduced me to the idea of drawing a distinction between "lapse" and "relapse", and he talked about how this distinction has helped addicts in recovery. This struck me as amazingly useful and sensible.