What Would Jesus Cut?

"If evolution of form takes aeons, why should we expect wonders in the evolution of thought and conduct?  And yet the age of miracles is not gone.  As with individuals, so with nations.  I hold it to be perfectly possible for the masses to be suddenly converted and uplifted.  Suddenness is only seeming.  No one can say how far the leaven has been working."  Speech at Buddha Jayanti, Bombay, CW 5176

I went to the first protest rally I'd been to in many years yesterday.  I chanted.  I sang.  I talked to friends.  I listened to speeches.  I took pictures.

There were a lot of angry people.  There was a lot of sarcasm and demonization of others.  There was a lot of talk of fighting.

There were also moments of grace.  There were moments of warmth and humor.  There were moments of a spiritual connections with others who struggled and with God.

I've had a theory for many years that the next evolution in Homo sapien would not be spiritual and not physical, Homo anima.  I found the quoted passage in Gandhi's speech reassuring.

The only visible sign of a presence by the forces of authority were a couple of friendly cops on bicycle.  Gandhi's and Dr. King's methods of non-violent protest have become the norm.  The crowds are no longer physically threatening even if they might be politically threatening.

And it's not just here in America as several signs reminded the protesters.  "Walk like an Egyptian."

Perhaps the next evolution is upon us.  Miracles happen.

Difficult Times

"These are difficult times.  If all want power who will render silent service?"  Notes to Baba Raghavdas (H.), Hindustan, 16 Apr. 1946

This morning I did the dishes, kissed my wife, took the girls to school.  I realized that I needed to find some way to give each a morning affirmation before the pain and boredom of their daily grind was fully upon them.  They are so weary, broken, and angry before their days in class.  It's hard to watch them get out of the car and drag themselves toward the entrance.  It makes me sad.

I planned dinner for friends tonight and shopped.  I cleaned the girl's bathroom so that our guests would not know what slobs we are.

I checked my email.

I listened to the latest news from Libya.  I wonder if I could stand, non-violently, when a madman's thugs show up with machine guns to kill all who protest against him.

And if a man broke into my house to rape my daughters, or kill my wife, or just to steal my TV, what would I do?

I'm glad these are not decisions I have to make today.  I'm glad my choices are cleaning floors, and cooking meals, and having lunch with a friend.

Difficult times, indeed.

The Beginning of My Understanding

"That is why I can take the keenest interest in discussing vitamins and leafy vegetables and unpolished rice.  That is why it has become a matter of absorbing interest to me to find out how best to clean our latrines, how best to save our people from the heinous sin of fouling Mother Earth every morning.  I do not quite see how thinking of these necessary problems and finding a solution for them has no political significance and how an examination of the financial policy of Government has necessarily a political bearing." - 'A Fatal Fallacy,' Harijan, 11 Jan. 1936

I believe this is the statement that began my understanding of Gandhi.

I am not a political creature.  I know that many of you are.

The grand scheme of things is not my focus.  The dark and dirty corners of my life are.

I have organized and lead mass protests, but the energy and time I spent doing so were not as valuable as the time I spend each morning doing my dishes.  Even if the results of the protest were positive and productive, my own household clean and well organized, living a life of service to my family and friends, helping those around me who struggle to joyously accomplish the very valuable day to day tasks that we are all faced with, brings me closer to an understanding of what God is calling me to do.

When I read about Gandhi's vision of non-attachment to the things of the world, I begin to understand when I think about all the things I am responsible for maintaining in my family's life.  Simply keeping that much stuff clean often seems like a nearly overwhelming burden.  Less stuff means more time to contemplate my navel and less time sweeping the floor.

But this is what I have been given, right now.  And least you misunderstand me, I love driving my kids to school, and picking up the trash they leave in the living room, and cooking the meals even when they hate what I have cooked and dig into the pantry for the Hot Cheetos®.

I Voted for Richard Nixon, pt. 2

"The stench that comes from that life (politics) has appeared to some to be so suffocating that they came to the conclusion that politics were not for a god-fearing man."  Speech at Guildhouse Church, under the auspices of the Franciscan Society, The Guildhouse, 23 Sept. 1931

Not that I'm a god-fearing man (sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not), but the stench does appear to be suffocating.

Even if I ignore the creeps and crumb-bums and ignoramuses who go into politics in this country, even if I ignore present day political policies designed to ensure that tens of thousands of Americans die from automobiles, junk food, toxic air and water, etc., even if I ignore the money that has always swamped our political system and now threatens to drown us all, I can't ignore the guns and bombs.

I have a marksman's medal awarded by the U.S. government for shooting an M-16.  I loaded a live nuclear bomb on my airplane in a revetment in Germany, strapped in the pilots, taxied it out, and saluted the end of the world.

My first vote was for a crook, a criminal.  My last vote (Barack Obama) was for (sigh) just another politician.

But I have hope that things can change.

I Voted for Richard Nixon, pt. 1

"My bent is not political but religious and I take part in politics because I feel that there is no department of life which can be divorced from religion and because politics touch the vital being of India almost at every point"  Letter to G.S. Arundale, Young India, 6 Aug. 1919

In 1972, having just left home to go to college, I registered and voted for Milhouse.  My father was a dyed in the wool Republican and I respected and feared my father.  I was afraid of everything.  Voting Republican was an attempt to put up a bulwark against fear.

After this election, I fell in with a bad crowd - bridge players.  I spent the four years learning the finer points of how to squeeze RHO to unblock his queen of hearts.  I lost track of politics.

Then came the military and politics had a new urgency for me.  Politic decisions affected my paycheck.  Political decisions could end my life.  An bent winged bug sucker (F-4E Phantom) with my name spray painted on the cockpit could fly away with a nuclear bomb to help end the world.  I had a baby girl.

My views changed.  Unfortunately, politics in America had not.

A young Englishman (yes, that Dudley Moore) is talking to a friend about his upcoming visit to America:

“Paxton Whitehead: They (the United States) have inherited our two party system.

Dudley Moore: How does that work?

Paxton Whitehead: Oh, well, they have the Republican Party which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party, and they have the Democratic Party which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party.” – Beyond the Fringe, 1962

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuZ46v5SftI 

I just couldn't vote for Defense Policies that had the end of the world as a backup plan and Republican or Democrat, that was and remains our country's fall back position.

Quibbling

"Our besetting sin is not our differences but our littleness.  We wrangle over words, we fight often for shadow and lose the substance." Letter to G.S. Arundale, Young India, 6 Aug. 1919

I'm afraid anything I say will only muddle or obscure this simple analysis of what besets modern politics, modern life.

Egypt

"I think political life should be an echo of private life and that there cannot be any divorce between the two."  Speech at Government High School, Bangalore, 1915

A friend said I must have lots of things to say about what is happening today in Egypt and the Middle East and the non-violent uprisings going on.

I don't.

I don't know enough even though I have been to Egypt in the past five years and spoke to many citizens about many things.  Even though I have close friends who have live in Cairo for, at least, the last 10 years.

I don't know what the poor and the working class struggle with on a day to day basis.  I don't know how the police behave during a routine traffic stop.  I don't understand what role religion plays in people's lives.  I don't have to buy groceries or drive across town or pay taxes or serve in the military.

And I know very little about non-violence.

I know there is a difference between choosing non-violence and just not having the guns to demand what you want.

 

Our Hybrid Lives

"I saw in the recitation, the beautiful recitation that was given to me, that God is with them whose garment was dusty and tattered.  My thoughts immediately went to the end of my garment; I examined and found that it is not dusty and it is not tattered; it is fairly spotless and clean.  God is not in me."  Speech at Government High School, Bangalore, 1915

I'm a recycler.  Yea, I put stuff in the can on the curb to avoid the dump, but I that's only a small, and I think insignificant, part. 

My mother's mother died thirty or more years ago.  My wife and I were recently married.  We were poor and had little furniture.  More than a bit of the furniture in my grandmother's home was shipped to us.  We still use most of what we received then in our current home.  Bookshelves, bed frames, a table, lamps, stuff I've forgotten belonged to her.  I cherish this stuff.

My desk and my desk chair were bought second hand.  I have my old desk, also bought second hand, in the garage.

I collect not just my old photos, but the old photos from my family and my wife's family.

I buy a lot of my clothes second hand.

We have used cars and furniture collected from family and friends.  We have old dishes and old mismatched silverware and pots and pans and serving platters collected from family.

It's not that I hate wasting stuff.  I do, but that's not it.

I know this will sound new agey.  Yuck...

But I love going to the old places in old cities.  I feel like I can feel all the people that have lived there.  It's not like I see ghosts or can feel 'old Mrs. Grundy's' spirit, but these places have an energy for me.  There's a heart beat, a soul in these places.

My tatters come second hand.  I choose tatters.  I don't earn tatters.

God is not in me.  But I have decided to choose God.

(Title from Chances Are by Sheryl Crow.  One of my favorite songs.)

Maladjusted

"...there are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted... It may be that the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted."            Dr. Martin Luther King

 The temptation to anger about...our political system, the environment, the economy, the starving millions, the way we treat animals, the war...the list is endless, leads generally to only to one of two things.  Violence - lashing out at the perceived institution responsible for the injustice, and make no mistake, these are injustices. O inertia, apathy, at the size and number of things that need to be fixed in this world.


Most of us choose apathy.


Oh, we recycle or become vegetarians or vote or use energy-saving light bulbs or stop wearing fur, small gestures that soothe our conscience, but have little effect on our actual ways of living.  

Don't get me wrong - these things are better than nothing.


But...How many of us are willing to stop driving?  How many of us are willing to stop paying taxes?  Hell, how many of us are willing to stop voting Democratic or Republican and look for an alternative to these two sad sacks.


I am not maladjusted.  I drive.  I pay my taxes.  I eat meat.  I have stopped voting for either of the two parties, but I put no money or time into the effort to make a third party viable.


I want to be maladjusted.

Collateral Damage

"We should understand that the less violence a religion permits, the more is the truth it contained in it."  The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Raghavan Iyer, p 103

Translations of the Bible vary on what exactly is meant by the Sixth Commandment.  Many scholars say that the intent was not "thou shall not kill," but rather, "thou shall not murder."  The difference makes killing in self-defense or defense of kingdom or kin acceptable.

Faced with the choice of killing or being killed, I don't know how I would react.  If someone attacked my wife or daughters, I would defend them.  I would like to think that if a neighbor was attacked I would go to their aid.  But what of a total stranger?

And what kind of aid would I provide?  What kind of defense would I put up?  I don't own a gun, but their is a baseball bat next to my bed and on more than one occasion when a noise has waked me in the night, I have taken it with me when I investigated.

And then there is the whole question of the food I eat?  Is it murder to eat a steak for dinner?  I know that I didn't kill the cow, but the cow died for my sins.  I'm trying to reduce the meat I eat, but I'm not vegetarian yet.

But what if the commandment really is "thou shall not kill?"  I don't see any 'if, ands, or buts' in that statement.

My money supports the killing of thousands in far away lands.  People who intend no harm to me, my kin, and my country .  Women and children caught in the crossfire.  I am responsible for their deaths.  Directly responsible.

Lucky Man

"(Modern Civilization's) greatest achievements are the invention of the most terrible weapons of destruction, the awful growth of anarchism, the frightful disputes between capital and labour and the wanton and diabolical cruelty inflicted on innocent, dumb, living animals in the name of science..."  The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Raghavan Iyer, p. 83

I am a lucky man.  I don't have to think about these things if I don't want to.  I can indulge myself with wonderful food, mass entertainment, and tons of stuff to make my life easier, softer.

And I do.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/373116/february-07-2011/exclusive---the-seven-deadly-sins---gluttony-mash-up

FYKSYAR4G3GH

Freedom from Attachment

My Mother-in-Law, Jean, died last week after a long slow deterioration.  There was sadness and relief in her finally letting go.  The burdens of life had been set down and whatever is beyond accepted.

Jean spent years letting go of the many things that cluttered the life of a upper-middle class mother and wife.  She gave away many of the things she loved to family and friends.  When she died there was not much left to deal with.  Odds and ends.

My life is buried in the things I own.  The amount of time I spend cleaning and organizing the things of my life comes close to exceeding the times I actually "use" those things.  If I was actually a well organized person rather than a slob, keeping track of my things might take more time than the time I spend putting the things to use.

And it's more than I just using these things for some apparently valued purpose, I have an attachment to these things. I like my things.  I invest some part of myself in my plastic coffee filter holder that I have used for years to make coffee every morning.

How does this happen?  Why is a part of my soul owned by an old copy of Cyrano de Bergerac and my TV remote and a teeny tiny bottle of olive oil I bought in a Paris shop filled with sand I collected from the Egyptian desert?

I don't want freedom from these things.  I'm not sure I agree with Gandhi on this subject.  There is something sacred in some of these things.

"Kicking the tires and lightin' the fires"

"My patriotism is all-embracing and I should reject that patriotism which sought to mount upon the distress or the exploitation of other nationalities." Speech at a Public Meeting, Rangoon, 9 March 1929

I wrote in my very first blog post that I was a veteran.  I am a veteran because Ronald Reagan made all Cold-War military personnel veterans and I am thankful for that.  I have a VA loan on my house.  Tomorrow, I go for my first orientation and examination at a local VA clinic.

Despite President Reagan, I did not fight in any war.  We were at peace.  The Soviet Union was collapsing.  My service was six years of repairing and launching an ancient, but stalwart aircraft on a daily basis, practicing for the end of the world.

The Air Force taught me a lot and I am proud to have served.

Does that make me a patriot?
I feel lucky to live in the United States of America. 
I am rich beyond much of the world's wildest dreams. 
I have leisure to contemplate and write about philosophy. 
I have choices about how I live my life. 
Survival is not my top priority.
I vote.  I vote relatively faithfully.  Except for Obama, I have voted Green Party since 1984.   I voted for Obama so that every African-American child could have the same dreams as every other child in America, not because I believed he would bring something new to the White House.  I will go back to voting Green Party.  I remind my fellow Democrats and Republicans that "One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

I am sad for my country.  Given a great gift, we squander it.  We mount upon the distress of other nations.  We exploit other nationalities.

We invest our treasure in guns and we reap the interest from our investment.

Am I a patriot?

Would Jesus Drive?

"Living so as not to hurt others"

In July 2002, a small, now defunct, magazine called "The Other Side" published an article I wrote which I titled with the above question.  "The Other Side" was a left wing Christian magazine similar, if slightly more radical than, "Sojourners".  They did little editing to the original article except to change the title.  I guess they felt that "Would Jesus Drive?" was too in the face of their readership.

The thesis of the article was that driving an automobile was an act of violence.  Even though I now drive daily, my beliefs haven't changed. 

Ninety three (93) people a day are killed on our nations roads every day.  The number injured is probably ten times that high and many of those injuries are life changing.  And how many billions of dollars do we spend on new cars, upkeep, infrastructure, not to mention gasoline.

Our neighborhoods are chopped up by black dead zones, strips unsafe for life of any kind.

Exhaust from our cars is changing the atmosphere.  Mass extinctions are taking place all over the globe.

And then there are the oil wars.

So how do I "justify" driving?  Foster daughters.  Living in a moderately sized city with children, it is impossible to give them what they need without a car.  I knew that in 2002 when I wrote the article.  We have designed our cities to make life without a car extremely difficult even for people who don't have children.

Does the good out-weight the bad?  I like to think so, but...