Pax Americana

Healing The Reform

Rabbi Michael Lerner:

What now? I say it’s OK to celebrate partial victories, even while acknowledging what has yet to be accomplished. So let’s celebrate this one! … AND … it’s also OK to acknowledge that this bill does not represent most of what we really want.

Amen.

Since the good Rabbi's post is over at a blog alluding to tikkun olam, I think this is an apt phrase to consider, too, as we work to further reform here at home: it is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, but neither are you free to absolve yourself from it.

We won't win every struggle, but it's up to us to keep trying because if we don't, we guarantee failure and really, what other point is there to life or politics?

ntodd

Reinventing The Wheel

Andy Rooney:

I wish we could dedicate Memorial Day, not to the memory of those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of the young people who are going to die in the future if we don’t find some new way - some new religion maybe - that takes war out of our lives.

Some of us do in fact dedicate Memorial Day to trying to save future lives.  Be nice if you'd look around and see the people already working for peace and maybe join them.

And the religion you wish for?  It's called the Society of Friends.  Been around since the 17th century.

ntodd

If You Will It, It Is No Dream

Al Jaz:

George Mitchell, the US envoy to the Middle East, has told Palestinian officials that the US will vigorously pursue the creation of a Palestinian state.
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Mitchell met Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and a delegation of senior figures from Fatah, a Palestinian faction at odds with Hamas.

"The United States is committed to the establishment of a sovereign, independent, Palestinian state where the aspirations of the Palestinian people to control their own destiny are realised," Mitchell said, after talks with Abbas.

He also said that the US wanted the Arab peace initiative, which demands that Israel withdraw from all the land it captured in the 1967 war, "to be part of the effort to reach this goal".

But he did not elaborate on what part the Arab initiative might play in US attempts to mediate a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.

Brings to mind the epilogue of Theodor Herzl's utopian novel, Altneuland:

[I]f you do not wish it, all...will remain a fable.
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Dreams are not so different from Deeds as some may think. All the Deeds of men are only Dreams at first. And in the end, their Deeds dissolve into Dreams.

Been on my mind of late as I look back to the origins of Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in preparation for my trip to Gaza.

ntodd

Peacemaking Among Peoples

Fellow Friend and friend John Wilmerding writes (excerpted with slight blogifying edits by NTodd):

Peacemaking is conflict transformation.  No matter whether it is a micro or a macro peacemaking process, the conditions and dynamics of conflict are transformed, not resolved.  This is why in almost all instances, the term conflict transformation should be substituted for conflict resolution.  Conflict is endemic throughout all human life, and is rarely, almost never, resolved completely.  That having been said, the definition of the word conflict itself needs re-envisioning -- the essential nature of conflict must not be assumed to include violence or fighting, because this has the -- usually unintended -- effect of condoning such violence, and results in a "conceptual (linguistic) masking" of peacemaking as an inherent possibility in all human affairs.

The relationship between statism -- the institution of the nation-state -- and peacemaking is problematic.  This writer believes that nation-states will be with us for the foreseeable future, but the very fact of their existence bespeaks an unhealthy response to the moral mandate of Active Peace.  It has been said that "war is the health of the state", and there is great truth to this.  Nation-states may also be seen as the ultimate outgrowth of the philosophy that all life is fraught with conflict, and the social-Darwinist notion that only the strong survive.

Darwin's theory on the origin of species was essentially correct, but he is often mis-quoted and mis-interpreted regarding the notion of "only the strong survive".  Actually, it is the most adaptable organisms that are able to survive, and they do so by making the most evolutionarily-appropriate adaptation to their surroundings.

Modern life, and especially nuclear technology, have imposed a categorical moral imperative upon humanity -- that is, we, in our great numbers and evolutionary success, have imposed it upon ourselves.  That mandate is for Active Peace, else humanity is not worthy of its name, and will eventually destroy itself, either by fouling its nest (the Earth) or through Active War  especially nuclear weapons.  This is why any theory of Active Peace is inseparable from our -- humanity's -- relationship with the rest of what the Lakota (Sioux) people of North America call Grandmother Earth and Grandfather Sky -- in Christian terms, G-d omnipresent in all of Creation.
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In aid of the most comprehensive, all-encompassing peacemaking and Active Peace, we must all begin to see ourselves as part of circles of humanity, large and small, committed to equitable outcomes in one continuing and wholesome Equity-Restorative Justice process.  This process will continue whether or not any of us fail to see ourselves as part of it.  But if you are ready to cleave to Active Peace, do so, because its labors can encompass all of human life and success on the Earth.  Yes, take care of yourself, but also of your neighbors and even your enemies.  Do not judge others, not even your enemies.  Rather judge their actions, and the consequences of such actions as problems to be addressed  even transformed -- using Active Peace.  Your redemption, and all of ours, utterly depends upon it.

I've been remiss in having John, who writes a lot on the concept of Active Peace, on another Paxcast or PaxLive.  This post is derived from an article he submitted to The Mediator magazine

ntodd

A Cheerless Blank Indicative Of The Misery Which Awaits

I was poking around the American Friends Service Committee site and noticed the campaign against solitary confinement, which is truly a cruel (though not so unusual) punishment.  The sad irony is you can thank the Friends: we Quakers pretty much invented the practice (when we weren't busy building quasi-panopticons).

ntodd

A Testimony From The Brethren

Way back I took one of those online quizzes that matched you up with your "ideal" belief system.  Not suprisingly, Secular Humanism, UUism, and Liberal Quakerism were my top matches.  As I noted then, and had mentioned the other night in a discussion about religion, I still identify myself with Friends because it's my birthright and it fits so neatly with my overall perspective of the world--obviously that was influenced by my upbringing and other philosophical inputs such as tikkun olam and satyagraha.

I've been reading about the history of Quakerism of late because Ericka expressed an interest and, quite frankly, I never really knew much beyond the immediate practices of my original Meeting and my ongoing life experience.  Sure, I've known stories about Thomas Ellwood, Mary Dyer and others, but I had no real notion of the evolution of Quakerism since the days of George Fox.  For me it's been a fascinating journey into the past--hopefully it has been for Ericka, too, since I read a lot of stuff out loud when I'm struck by something.

The current book is An Introduction to Quakerism.  I have found the sect's history to be full of interesting paradoxes, including early perceptions of Friends by "the world":

Quakers were highly popular and therefore deemed especially dangerous: 'These vipers are crept into the bowels of your Commonwealth, and the governement, too', explained one; 'They grow numerous, and swarm all the nation over; every county, every parish'.  They preached perfection, minimised the historic Christ, gave revelation authority over Scripture, and rejected ideas about heaven and hell...They were rude and politically suspect...

There was also popular hostility.  Quakers were accused of being Catholics in disguise, of incest, buggery, witchcraft, and child sacrifice.  They were stoned, mobbed, urinated on, and spat at. Most people in England in that period travelled less than 10 miles from their home in their lifetime so these preachers coming with their strange accents from elsewhere played into the xenophobia of the time.  The trembling and shaking of the Quakers only made them appear more unusual...[T]he physical aspects of particularly women's ministry brought a strong reaction.

Women Friends, in particular, were viciously punished for their 'transgressive' Quaker behavior.  They were incarcerated, pelted, stoned, kicked, spat upon, verbally harassed, and locked behind a 'scold's bridle,' a twenty-pound headcage used to punish any seventeenth-century Englishwoman for 'having too much tongue.'  In the first two decades of Quakerism, literally thousands of these quaking women's bodies were put under control of the British state, who then systematically abused, tortured, and reinscribed their marks of power on these radical, subversive living texts of Christianity.

Tolerant, eh?  Hasn't gotten much better it seems sometimes...

Advent

Howard Thurman wrote in Jesus and the Disinherited:

The religion of Jesus says to the disinherited: "Love your enemy.  Take the initiative in seeking ways by which you can have the experience of a common sharing of mutual worth and value.  It may be hazardous, but you must do it."

For the Negro it means that he must see the individual white man in the context of common humanity.  The fact that a particular individual is white, and therefore may be regarded in some over-all sense as the racial enemy, must be faced; and opportunity must be provided, found, or created for freeing such an individual from his "white necessity." From this point on, the relationship becomes like any other primary one.
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What one discovers in even a single experience in which barriers have been removed may become useful in building an over-all technique for loving one's enemy.  There cannot be too great insistence on the point that we are here dealing with a discipline, a method, a technique, as over against some form of wishful thinking or simply desiring.
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A whole group may be regarded as an exception, and thus one is relieved of any necessity to regard them as human beings.  A Negro may say: "If a man is white, he may be automatically classified as one incapable of dealing with me as if he were a rational human being."  Or it may be just the reverse.  Such a mood, the mood of exception, operates in all sorts of ways...The deadly consequences of this attitude are evident. On the same principle scapegoats are provided, upon whose helpless heads we pour our failures and our fears.

Consider what Melissa Etheridge did in this context:

I told my manager to reach out to Pastor Warren and say "In the spirit of unity I would like to talk to him." They gave him my phone number...I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn't want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife's struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine.

When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.

Brothers and sisters the choice is ours now. We have the world's attention. We have the capability to create change, awesome change in this world, but before we change minds we must change hearts. Sure, there are plenty of hateful people who will always hold on to their bigotry like a child to a blanket. But there are also good people out there, Christian and otherwise that are beginning to listen. They don't hate us, they fear change. Maybe in our anger, as we consider marches and boycotts, perhaps we can consider stretching out our hands. Maybe instead of marching on his church, we can show up en mass and volunteer for one of the many organizations affiliated with his church that work for HIV/AIDS causes all around the world.

There are many paths and none of us has a monopoly on the truth.  We can certainly be outraged by Warren's preachings and inclusion in the Inauguration, but there might be other ways to address our underlying problems with him and his movement.

I would also submit that no matter how one chooses to react to Warren and his invocation, one might consider that people who are less-incensed than you are not less human than you, nor are they bigots, homophobes, or reactionary non-liberals.  Find that common sharing of mutual worth and value...

ntodd

Introspection

I've blogged about moral purity before.  Gandhi did, too...sorta:

If I was a perfect man, I own I should not feel the miseries of my neighbours as I do. As a perfect man I should take note of them, prescribe a remedy and compel adoption by the force of unchallengeable Truth in me. But as yet I only see as through a glass darkly and therefore have to carry conviction by slow and laborious processes, and then too not always with success.

That being so, I would be less than human if with all my knowledge of avoidable misery pervading the land and of the sight of mere skeletons under the very shadow of the Lord of the Universe....The hope of a steady decline in that misery sustains me; but suppose that with all my sensitiveness to sufferings, to pleasure and pain, cold and heat and with all my endeavour to carry the healing message of the spinning-wheel to the heart, I have reached only the ear and never pierced the heart...

I often wonder about the efficacy of nonviolence and though I often call myself an atheist, I'm more aptly described as an agnostic and feel that I am a spiritual being in some ineffable sense.  I guess that makes me a good Gandhian and Quaker, despite my other failings.

Ericka had been asking me about Quakerism, so in addition to pointing her toward Faith and Practice, I ordered a couple of books for her.  I've been reading one--How The Quakers Invented America:

Contemporary Quakers shrink from giving the appearance of being cocksure in their faith.  Many Friends...prefer to characterize themselves instead as lifelong "seekers" because that seems less prideful.  Because they believe in continuing revelation, they feel there's ever more to learn and that their faith at any one time in their lives is less than complete.
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Quakers hold that it is not enough to merely possess faith; one must also be faithful to one's beliefs.  That requires acting on them.
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Quakers can be a little like "Doubting Thomas," the apostle who was skeptical of Jesus' Resurrection until the risen Christ appeared before him, and the apostle apologized: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief."  Like most of us, Thomas already had faith; he just needed to grow into it.

But my name is Nathaniel...

ntodd

Money And H8

The LDS Church is a bit upset that it's being targeted by anti-H8 activists all because it stepped out from its tax-exempt cone of silence to spend millions of dollars loudly fighting against civil rights, using the fig leaf of "hey, we don't hate fags and we're not being political, we just want to defend some arbitrary definition of marriage!"  I'm sorry, but if you can't accept that your actions have consequences, don't ante up.

There is a handy database for you to see if certain people contributed for or against Prop 8 in California.  Two common Methods of nonviolent action include Consumer Boycotts and Selective Patronage, so you might consider using your wallets to effect change by applying pressure on those who supported this egregious attack on civil rights and rewarding good behavior.  You can also, of course, join social networking efforts and donate to the cause in more traditional fashion.

Let's not forget there were similar setbacks in Arizona and Florida, though the California initiative seems to carry more symbolic weight for perhaps obvious reasons.  It's also that this horrid example of knee-jerk mob behavior was in response to a CA Supreme Court decision that finally removed a hateful barrier to civil rights, so there was a truly active component of the hatred that has counteracted a legitimate, just ruling.

ntodd

What Is Life Compared With The Witness Of Truth?

From Wikipedia:

Boston law against Quakers

At the end of 1658 the Massachusetts legislature, by a bare majority, enacted a law that every member of the cursed sect of Quakers who was not an inhabitant of the colony but was found within its jurisdiction, should be apprehended without warrant by any constable and imprisoned, and on conviction as a Quaker should be banished upon pain of death, and that every inhabitant of the colony convicted of being a Quaker should be imprisoned for a month, and if obstinate in opinion should be banished on pain of death. Some Friends were arrested and expelled under this law.

Stephenson and Robinson

Marmaduke Stephenson had been a ploughman in Yorkshire in England in 1655, when his heart was ravished by the love and presence of the living God as he followed the plough. Leaving his family to the Lord's care, he had followed the divine prompting to Barbados in June 1658, and after some time there he heard of the new Massachusetts law and passed over to Rhode Island. There he met William Robinson, another Friend from the company of the Woodhouse, and in June 1659 with two others they went into the Massachusetts colony to protest at their laws. Mary Dyer went for the same purpose. The three were arrested and banished, but Robinson and Stephenson returned and were again imprisoned. Mary Dyer went back to protest at their treatment, and was also imprisoned. In October 1659 Endicott pronounced sentence of death upon the three.

Executions at Boston Common

The execution day was Thursday 27 October (the usual weekly meeting day for the Church in Boston) 1659, and the gallows stood on Boston Common. They spoke as they were led there, but their words were drowned out by the sound of drums. After they had taken leave of one another, William Robinson first ascended the ladder. He told the people it was their day of visitation, and desired them to mind the light within them, the light of Christ, his testimony for which he was going to seal with his blood. At this the Puritan minister shouted "Hold thy tongue, thou art going to die with a lie in thy mouth." The rope was adjusted, and, as the executioner turned the condemned man off, he said with his dying breath, "I suffer for Christ, in whom I live and for whom I die." Then Marmaduke Stephenson stepped up the ladder and said "Be it known unto all this day that we suffer not as evil-doers, but for conscience sake." He was turned off the gallows, saying "This day shall we be at rest with the Lord."

We are saddled with a lot of myths about our nation, from the signing of the Declaration to Paul Revere's Ride to the mystical power of Sam Adams.  You can go further back to the simplified Thanksgiving myths we learn as schoolkids in lieu of the deeper, richer and less noble reality. 

That's particularly true whenever you discuss reasons for the Pilgrims to found Plymouth: they were escaping persecution, yes, but what's rarely mentioned is their own deadly religious intolerance.  Since we Quakers are just a fringe group, I guess there's no compelling reason to bring up our persecution at the very beginning of US history, nor to mark today's anniversary.

Sarah Palin and crew would admonish me for "looking backwards" but as Joe Biden retorted, past is prologue...

ntodd

PS--Found an interesting book online about colonial women including Mary Dyer.