Planet Quaker

Shortly after my first daughter was born I realized that she was not something new that was added to my life, on top of what was there, in addition to the rest.

Becoming a parent was not like becoming a stamp collector. It did not indicate a new interest but a new center.

Parenting was now the center of my life and, actually, I also came to know, it was the center in a way my life never had a center, before.

My life was taken apart for me and around this child I had to re-collect and re-structure all those scattered pieces--at least the ones that could be adapted to fit--around this new center. If it didn't fit then out it went. Lucky I was not alone in this.

It was, in the words of a contemporary prophet, about "...what to leave in, what to leave out."

Some of what got "left out" was hard to turn loose of, but that baby was easy to hold on to, necessary to hold on to--for all of the struggle and the difficulty. Putting the baby aside was just not an option.

My father said a time or two that he thought being in the Marine Corps made a man of me but he lived to hear me say that it was really the babies. Whatever I might have looked like before, I become a grown up (insofar as I really have) when the babies showed up.

This is no recent opening to me.

What is new, though, is how this perspective is broadened now that I realize that in a less dramatic and more gradual way the center of my life has become that daily, abiding grace called, by some, Christ. As my children grew so, too, did the "intrusion" of the Spirit into my consciousness, so too did my engagement with and submission to the Inner Light--showing me what needed to be changed in my life, giving me strength to do it and gentle but unremitting grief when I fell (and fall) short.

Just like the babies did.

Slowly, gradually but relentlessly and with a momentum not dictated by me, things that are not consistent with this divine principle that is transforming me are being eliminated--some of them going kicking and screaming and tearfully and painfully. These things just become harder to hold on to than the guide who is at the center of things for me, now, just as turning over and going back to sleep became harder for me to do--less appealing, even--than getting up to tend to a vomiting child.

The work in me is not over, by far. But the list of that which must go is clear to me and the sound of the chipping away is constant. And in joy I can look back at what once I was and forward to that which I can expect to become once God is "done" with me, when there is no "me," at all.

I once heard someone say that it's not about making God part of one's life--it's about making oneself part of God's life.

Little children will show the way, indeed.

February 09, 2010 08:09 AM

NOAA has set up a new site: Climate Watch magazine, includes Arctic Air Ushers in Chilly December and January too, it’s due to Arctic Oscillation, with the Arctic currently at higher than average air pressure. The Arctic is much warmer than usual. Data and Services, including Climate and You Understanding Climate, including Annual State of the [...]

February 09, 2010 02:45 AM

The Forecast: Climatologists are warning that the temperature increase over pre-industrial times could reach 4°C (>7°F) by 2060. Many more areas would see decreased precipitation; others with increased precipitation would still have drier soil, causing floods and famine; the hottest day of the year in northeastern North America could be 18-22°F hotter than ever before. [...]

February 08, 2010 04:06 AM

Seems like every handful of years, somebody starts yammering about how much money candidates spend to get elected. About how that spending is going up and up and up. And they claim that that's a sure sign of corruption.

Not likely. Look instead at the ratio of federal spending versus spending by presidential candidates over several decades:

See how the ratio varies between 1 and 20.5 and 2.5? That's because candidates spend in proportion to the power they'll have. If you want them to spend less, expect them to do less and spend less of your own money.

UPDATE 2/8/2010: Sam Nelson of clevernamehere.com fame (which would let you guess his email address) noticed that I was plotting the wrong column from the DebtArticle.csv dataset. I've re-generated the plot, and included 2008 spending (which is for a partial year, so in your head, move the rightmost point lower). The graph is a little more noisy, but still serves to make my point.

Data sources: Federal spending and Presidential campaign spending.

[Tags economics, politics, campaign, finance, reform ]

February 07, 2010 05:05 AM

What follows below is the major part of a letter I sent to a couple of Friends shortly after we saw one another at a local Quaker event.

I wrote them because they wanted to hear what I shared with a different small group. It is based on some journaling we were asked to do during the event, following which we were asked to "prepare a message" inspired by our writing. --Liz
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

What is dear to me about Quakerism

When we gather for worship, the living Silence embraces us and we are joined to one another: we are yoked together with the Spirit.

It is such a precious time.

And when, out of the silence, someone feels moved by the Spirit... when the Living Spirit speaks through one of us while we worship, we are being offered such a gift.

I wait to hear what my fellow worshiper has to offer. Perhaps it is a message of how God has reached that person and has helped her or him be transformed, broken open, brought closer to the Spirit.

And it is in the silence that the community who hears such vocal ministry will come to bear witness to that person's transformation and healing. We will help hold the Friend prayerfully as she, or he, sinks down into the Seed and begins to share the story...

So of course I become expectant in the waiting: How is God speaking to me, to us, through this person? What is God calling me, or us, to do?

When I hear of someone's experience of how God has been speaking to him or her, of being broken open, of wrestling to yield to God's guidance, of being transformed; when I hear how God has spoken so deeply to that person that her or his life is changed, then I myself am somehow also changed, at a deep and wordless level.

It is as if I am being made ready for God to open me, too.

Maybe not immediately, maybe not the next day, but at some point.

When that time comes, I know that I will be called upon to speak out of the living Silence, to share how it is that God has worked on my soul, has broken me open, and has helped me be transformed.

And when that time comes, not only do I know that the gathered body will bear witness to my words during worship, but I also know that I will be held tenderly by God.

Blessings,
Liz

February 05, 2010 08:47 PM

This is a short piece I wrote during a local Quaker event where we were given just a few minutes to journal about any part of our Quakerism. --Liz

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Power of God--the Loving Principle and Inward Teacher--lives and flows through me. It is a living current and I may step into it and follow its direction, or I may resist or struggle against it, or I may remove myself from it and watch it go by, at least for a time.

But when I am in that Stream, when I add my energy to the Great Current, I feel alive, ready, engaged, and attentive--able to risk in ways I hadn't before, and able to see how God is leading me--sometimes gently and sometimes insistently--into a measure greater than who I thought I was.

I am called into More--more of who I am, more fullness of Life, more depth of Love, more willingness to be an agent of the Living Loving God.

February 01, 2010 08:30 AM

Have you seen the January – February issue of Quaker Life magazine? The theme for this issue is a New Kind of Quaker.

The cover story, "What Does A New Kind of Quaker Look Like?" by Scott Wagoner is on the QL website. An early version of my article, "The Essentials of Quaker Practice" appeared here last October. Two of the main articles that are not available online are “The New Quakers: A Faithful Betrayal?” by C. Wess Daniels and “Friends United Meeting – The Original Convergent Friends Group” by Jack Kirk.

Wess looks at the future of Quakerism as requiring a break with the forms of our current institutions in order to be faithful to the true spirit of Quakerism. He quotes George Fox, Peter Rollins, Everett Cattell, Chad Stephenson, and the Gospel of John in proving his points. Excellent work, Wess.

Jack Kirk, a former editor of Quaker Life (who I haven’t met, and so I won’t call him by his first name in this post), gives a brief and lively history of Quakers in America. He cites my blogpost/definition of convergent Friends as a clue to the new stirrings of the Holy Spirit among Friends. He likens this coming together of several strands of Quakerism to the “growing sense amongst these separate and diverse yearly meetings that they shared many concerns and perhaps belonged together in some way” that led to the formation of the Five Years Meeting and eventually Friends United Meeting (FUM).

I resonate strongly with Kirk’s desire that “we could return to that early spirit, come together to learn from each other’s experience, with a commitment to follow boldly where the Living Christ may lead us.” I agree that “He [meaning the Living Christ] speaks as clearly now as he did then. He calls us to a spirit of embrace and not one of exclusion. He moves in our midst as wind and as fire.” I appreciate Kirk’s closing query, “Are we willing to let him reshape and transform us to serve in a new age?” I am honored that my words have spoken to Kirk’s condition, and been published in this magazine.

Where I see the difference between the formation of the Five Years Meeting and the current convergent Friends movement is that a century ago, Friends discerned that God was calling them to form a new organization. They felt that the movement of the Holy Spirit would be best served by coordinating “their work together in such areas as production of Sunday School curriculum, peace work, young Friends activities, promoting the welfare of African Americans and the American Friends Board of Foreign Missions.” (I quote Kirk here because I am not an expert on the origins of FUM.)

Today, we see the derivation or evolution of that inspired work into a bureaucratic institution supported by a fragile coalition. I don’t hear anyone calling for the formation of new “convergent” institutions. I suspect we have become burdened by our inheritance of our spiritual grandparents’ treasures and their neuroses. Perhaps we need to break free of the weight of our inheritance, sort the treasures from the junk, and wait to see where God is leading us.

This could take more time than we’re accustomed to thinking about. Like a whole generation. It may be our work just to name the fact that what we’ve got is not working. Is our generation’s work merely to clear and hold space for the next generation? Is it enough to be really plain and stop squandering the Earth’s resources so quickly and hold Phyllis Tickle’s rummage sale so that our children and grandchildren can use the proceeds to build a new foundation for the centuries to come?

Perhaps we can be public witnesses to the fact that no human institution lasts forever. No political empire, no church hierarchy, no economic system will serve forever more.

Maybe we are like the Seekers in northern England who didn’t know quite what they wanted but they knew clearly what they didn’t want and they knew enough to be faithfully and patiently seeking together.

Maybe our role model is Moses – to lead our people out of Egypt but never to enter Canaan.

I don’t know. We can only be faithful in what measure of the Light we have been given. But I’m grateful to Quaker Life for inspiring these thoughts and the discussions that will ensue, here and in Quaker Meetings and Friends Churches all over the world.


P.S. If you don't get the reference, the phrase "A New Kind of Quaker" reminds me a lot of "A New Kind of Christian," a trilogy of books by Brian McLaren.

January 31, 2010 08:05 PM

When I taught science, I learned that some students believe scientists are white men. Many are, of course, but there are a large number of exceptions, many quite prominent. Shirley Jackson, past president of American Association for the Advancement of Science, physicist, etc, etc. Shirley Jackson David Blackwell, mathematician, etc (check out video interviews, including his experience [...]

January 28, 2010 04:26 AM

REDD, Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, has been described as one of the few accomplishments at Copenhagen, an agreement by the rich world to pay people in the forested world to care for the land. Scientists don’t find this a slam-dunk solution—problems include reversibility (land owners changing their mind, or forest fire), additionality (is [...]

January 27, 2010 05:19 AM

I am the only Quaker I know who talks about a return of the military draft in a positive way. In the same way that I am considered a heretical Christian for not accepting (or necessarily rejecting) the idea that Jesus was "born God," I am a heretical Quaker because I don't think the volunteer army was a victory that improved the condition of us or our country. I think it was, rather, a diabolical victory that serves the powers, not the kingdom.

The draft once provided an impetus for resistance to war. Facing the draft once developed the peace testimony among Friends as individuals and as a religious society--and showed that testimony to the world as an alternative response to a call for war. I don't often talk about this among Friends but when I do, by this point, I usually have to ask to be heard out.

Please, hear me out.

The all-voluntary military was not the product of enlightenment or the movement of Christ, it was not in any way "spiritual progress" for national policy. When the all-volunteer army was created the military was in disarray because of the unpopular war in Vietnam. Richard Nixon, as president, was brought to understand that the mutinies, the killing of officers by the troops in the field ("fragging"), desertions and even the peace movement within the military itself were a threat to the "reliability" of the armed forces, an especially ominous development in light of the political rebellion at home against the American policy in South East Asia.

After the spectacle of the National Guard shooting down students at Kent State University many wondered, right or wrong, whether, called upon to put down a rebellion at home driven by opposition to that war, the "real" military, with a core of draftees at its heart, would uphold "law and order" if it was called upon to do so.

This military, with a core of draftees at its heart, was certainly not "optimally" reliable in Southeast Asia.

Faced with being forced into harm's way in a war they didn't support, and watching flag draped coffins on television, a generation (or maybe even two) of young men, along with their parents, their wives and their girl friends became a formidable opposition to that war--an opposition that went into the streets and, increasingly, into the voting booth. Over time a consciousness began to develop among those involved in and sympathetic to the anti-war movement about the infrastructure of US policy, in general, and the interests that it served. Not just Vietnam, the whole political/economic system was under attack.

If you weren't there you might underestimate the flash point potential that was rolling around the campus and the ghetto between 1967 and 1972. If you were there you might over estimate it, too. But, as I say, people were afraid, regardless of how real the danger was of everything coming apart.

This opposition was effectively co-opted, and America made safe for "the party" in the midst of which we still live, by two measures. The first was the 18 year old vote, that laid to rest the "old enough to die but not old enough to vote" slogan that had great traction, at the time. ("you're old enough to kill, but not for votin'..." in the words of a prophet of the day).

The second was the all-volunteer army (which sapped the strength of another line, from the same song cited above, "...you don't believe in war, but what's that gun you're totin'?").

These two, but especially the latter, put an end to the anti-war movement, at least as a mass movement, almost overnight. Safe from the possibility of going to war, most young men, their parents, wives and girl friends were no longer interested in marching, protesting or voting for people who ran on anti-war platforms.

No longer able to visualize themselves, or someone they loved, in one of those flag draped coffins the war in Vietnam just didn't seem to pressing an issue, anymore.

The now defunct "citizen army," was designed by the founders of this country as a check on the ability of the government to fight wars and to oppress its own citizens with military force. Their scruple against standing armies was based on experience and they held to the idea that a country could not engage in wars that the citizenry did not support--at least grudgingly--if the ranks were filled (as volunteers or conscripts) with people who had to lay down their lives, in both senses of that phrase, to fight them.

This was not entirely effective, but the difficulty of raising an army was a restraint on imperial ambitions. No, the draft did not prevent the Vietnam War, but it sure was without doubt, on its way to putting an end to it--until those who wanted to prolong that war (and the American imperialist party to which we are all invited, at birth) put an end to the draft.

You can look all this up, by the way. The Vietnam revisionists have been at work but mainstream history still tells the tale accurately enough.

Would we have gone to war in Iraq (either time) if, when Congress pondered the question, Senators and House Members knew they would have to go home and tell their constituents that they (or their children) had to suit up and go kill and be killed?

Would we still be at war in Iraq if, over the past eight years, high school class after high school class graduated substantial numbers of its members into camo--while parents of younger children saw their growing up as creeping ever closer to the age of conscription?

(Did you graduate from high school between 1964 and 1973 or so? Been a class reunion? That table off to the side that has pictures of classmates who have died...examine it carefully, next time.)

I wonder how many bright young conservative men who support(ed) war in the Middle East would do so if there was a chance they would have to go fight it? Would that at least slow down their enthusiasm, cause them the kind of soul searching it did in young men prior to the all volunteer army?

I wonder.

This is at bottom a question of integrity. Joe Biden and Sarah Palin have children who have gone to war. But how many people who support (even passively) the war(s) would do so if their children were part of the pool? And if they would--then fine. They would be living their faith--instead of letting others live it for them, without paying the price of that faith, themselves.

Yes, the draft was corrupt in those days--the poor and people of color were drafted more often than the white and the affluent--and women never were. One thinks of George Bush and Dick Cheney who found comfortable, legal evasions that one cannot help but think were set up to benefit people of their race and class. But enough white, middle class kids found themselves unwillingly in uniform (and their friends and parents could find their names, later, inscribed on a wall with many friends of mine in Washington DC) to cause substantial opposition--opposition that (it seems hard to imagine this today) had the stability of this country teetering on a precipice.

What about Quakers and Mennonites and others who have a scruple against war?

How did we fare under the draft, and how have we fared since?

Sometimes when I talk to younger Friends about it there seems to be a superficiality to what they say, and I have seen some "cracks in the wall" in regard to the Middle Eastern wars among them, too. Not outright support but an uncertainty, an inability to articulate the basis of their faith in the face of pro-war ideology. It is not the durable conviction that is heard in Friends (and others) who spent World War II in the work camps, who had to do some thinking and soul searching to receive their CO status in the Sixties and the Seventies.

This is not their fault. They grew up in a situation in which they have not been required to contend seriously with this, in which their faith has not been tested (or even explored) by swimming against the cultural tide. They have not grown up required to prove/test themselves.

And such proving/testing was not only edifying to them.

Other young people looking at military service today are deprived of the example and the model of young Friends (and others) testifying to their faith through conscientious objection. Who is actively, seriously, obviously presenting the alternative of peace to main stream young people these days in the same graphic way that Friends, Mennonites and others did in the past?

Yes, we do work with our young people, and we do reach out to young people beyond our hedges whose conditioning has gone unchallenged all their lives, but not with the energy or the organization that we used to. And our young people are not as engaged or focused--they don't have to be--on their spiritual development around war (and how the tendrils of war branch out into our every day lives and all of our relationships).

Who can doubt that we have an out-of-control military, today, that is dictating policy to the President in a way that, in the days of McArthur, got Generals cashiered?

Who can doubt that it's easier to prolong wars when the people who make the decisions (even passively) do not have any chips of their own on the table?

Who can doubt that it's easier for us to all settle back into our own daily lives if the cost of the wars that keep our own personal consumption oriented oil guzzling party going don't touch us in obvious and direct ways?

Have we been "bought off," here? Can we--safe with our children from the storm--just "sit it out" and "mail it in" in regard to opposing the wars fought in our name (fought with our money? By the way, where is the Hyde Amendment for spending money on war against the moral conviction of ... I digress)?

Do we look to Friends like Chuck Fager and the others who work with young people caught up in the military to do that for us, instead of taking our turn to do it when it is our turn, or the turns of our children to face the possibility of fighting? Have we forgotten that when we did that kind of standing up for ourselves and our children we were also standing up for others who are not heard as clearly as we might be?

Because there was a time we were heard clearly on this. CO status was a hard-won recognition by the world that a scruple against war was legitimate and respectable and that recognition made it powerful in the eyes of people who, before, completely discounted pacifism as a means of engaging evil.

Do we think that it's no longer necessary to "hard win" that status is some kind of benchmark or the improved spiritual condition of us, our children or the world? Or do we face the truth that no longer needing to go through that just means we have bought off the system, accepting our own safety in return for letting the evil or war go on without much resistance from us?

Now a significant portion of Americans can outsource paying the price for the "American Way of Life" and no longer need to contend within their own heart about whether it's worth our own lives and the lives of our own children.

Have we outsourced our calling to testify and witness against war, deprived of the most urgent goading we could have to do so? Has our peculiarity (our fitness for a particular purpose) as a voice against war been neutralized?

If so, has this edified us or has it caused our condition to deteriorate when the world needs us (and others like us) as much as it ever has?

If someone thinks war is worth whatever "it" is (this time)? Then they should go fight it or send their children or their grandchildren.

Don't want to fight for it but think it the "purpose' of the war should be accomplished? Then they need to find and pursue a different way to accomplish it.

Don't want to fight for it and don't want to do anything else for it--then they should shut up. They don't have enough integrity to cover their nakedness. they are hypocrites. They should live with that or change it. Just have some integrity.

Nobody should die for what I enjoy (whether I say I want it or not) but that I won't die or sacrifice for.

Thank you, Friends, for hearing me out, on this.

January 26, 2010 06:21 PM

Just because this blog has not been a barrel of laughs lately, I now commend to you humor from somebody else's kid.

Namely Al Hsu's kid. Al's blog is called The Suburban Christian. Which is good in it's own right. He wrote a book by that name too.

But this post is a list of Facebook status updates quoting his seven/eight year old son. Which made me laugh out loud. Maybe because I too currently have a seven/eight year old son.

January 25, 2010 09:26 PM

From a study at UC, Berkeley: Trees invading warming Arctic will cause warming over entire region, study shows: As the Arctic warms, shrubs and other plants are moving in, making the area more amenable to trees. One way they do this is through local warming: snow, and the bare ground replacing the snow, both have higher [...]

January 25, 2010 07:23 PM

On a cloudy day, the macroeconomist, on being asked where the sun is, will point up, and think he has been helpful.

[Tags economics, macro, macroeconomics ]

January 23, 2010 02:56 PM

I highly recommend an upcoming workshop at Ben Lomond Quaker Center, jointly sponsored by Western Friend magazine:

How can thoughtful financial management support Friends' testimonies of integrity and simplicity? From fundraising challenges to simply having an open conversation about how finances can better express Quaker values, we all labor to find rightly-ordered ways of working together on financial matters.

Among the topics to be covered in this program are:

• Fostering open conversations among Friends about money
• Setting up a bookkeeping system for a small meeting or organization
• Creating effective financial reports
• How to read and understand financial reports and use them in Friends' discernment processes
• Socially responsible investing
• Fundraising and the management of charitable gifts
• Managing uneven cash flows: the use of working capital
• Managing restricted funds: assuring appropriate use of special-purpose funds

Who should attend this program? Anyone who is involved with (or interested in) the financial management of a Friends' meeting or organization is encouraged to attend. This program will address the financial concerns of Friends groups of all sizes and all levels of financial sophistication. We particularly urge meetings and organizations to encourage and support the attendance of their treasurers, accountants, bookkeepers, finance committee and fundraising committee members.

To download the flyer and registration materials, click here. If you have questions about the program, the cost, the facilities, call Quaker Center at 831-336-8333 during regular business hours (Pacific Time).

January 23, 2010 12:30 PM

Well, I listened to Larry talking about how Obama failed to change anything. And I heard about Larry's plan to change this: Citizen Funded Elections. It's astounding how someone so smart can miss the mark by so much. The problem is not that special interests are buying congressmen. The problem is that congressmen have power to sell to them. As long as they have the power, they will be able to demand a price.

So, first things first: If we want to be able to trust Congress again, first we have to take away their power. How do we do that? Well, for one, people could vote Libertarian, but I don't think that's likely. More likely would be to demand that state legislators take back the power that rightfully belongs to them, according to the design of our country.

January 22, 2010 12:26 AM

Some time ago, I volunteered to write an answer to this question for a new website. It has to be accessible for people who know nothing about Quakers, and acceptable to the full range of Quakers in North America. This is my attempt. Any suggestions, edits, concerns?

For Quakers, a “meeting” has several layers of meaning.

At first glance, it is our gathering for worship. (In other denominations, the equivalent may be called the service or the mass.) Quaker worship can be programmed, with prepared sermons and music, or unprogrammed, relying on the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit for guidance and vocal ministry.

Secondly, a meeting is the group of people that gathers weekly (or more often) for worship and monthly to conduct business. A Monthly Meeting is the local decision-making body holding authority for memberships and marriages. In many places, this is equivalent to a Friends Church. Some Meetings have more than one worship group under their care.

A Yearly Meeting is a regional grouping of Monthly Meetings, is sometimes divided into Quarterly Meetings, and has varying amounts of power and authority over Monthly Meetings. This authority varies by Yearly Meeting and by the century.

A directory of worship groups, Monthly Meetings, Friends Churches, Quarterly and Yearly Meetings in the Americas can be found online at www.fwccamericas.org.

January 21, 2010 09:29 PM

Shortly after I finished reading Marty Grundy's pamphlet Early Friends & Ministry, I considered more fully the purifying sear of what early Friends sometimes called the refiner's fire. Marty touched on how this quality of the Light helps us understand how we block God's presence in our lives and what blocks us from opening to receive God's love.

So it is that when we pass through the refiner's fire, we are made to become more truly ourselves and what God intended us to be. We become more ready to live up to our measure of the Light we have been given.

In a Meeting for Worship shortly after I finished reading Marty's pamphlet, I also began to consider the phrase "that of God in everyone." I found myself reflecting on some of the writings of Margaret Fell, as shared by Michael Birkel in his Pendle Hill Pamphlet The Messenger That Goes Before.*

Margaret Fell writes beautifully about "that of God" while making it clear that what each of us has inwardly that IS of God--our measure of the Light--is not identical from person to person.

And because of that, God must reach each of us through different means.

As I sat with that statement, I found myself thinking of how the key to my front door does not turn the lock to my backdoor, yet the doors belong to the same house. If my neighbor and I own the same make and model of car, the ignition key to my car does not start the ignition to the car my neighbor drives.

All mechanical keys are similar to one another, yet each one opens--or answers to--only one lock.

Once we ourselves understand both the refinement process and that "that of God" is unique in each of us, then we ourselves can practice the discipline of answering that of God in one another--not necessarily by being "identically kind" to one another but by striving to know how to interact with our brothers and sisters, so their own blocks to God's love and guidance might be cleared away; so that their lock may be opened and God may find a way into their hearts.

Blessings,
Liz

*There are other, more comprehensive books dedicated to the writings of Margaret Fell.

January 21, 2010 10:56 AM

Dr. Robert DuPont got a phone call one day to ask him about nuclear power. His specialty is phobias, people whose behavior is restricted by all the what ifs in their lives. A journalist persuaded him to watch 11 years of media coverage on US nuclear power, coverage dominated by what ifs. From a PBS [...]

January 19, 2010 09:33 PM

In meeting yesterday, I realized that Dr King has been gone for 41 years this coming April. He was 39 when he was murdered. He's been gone longer than he was here.

January 19, 2010 10:04 AM

I was able to make up this list that displays QuakerQuaker.org membership profiles and upcoming gatherings in a geography-focused way.

Countries Australia Belgium Canada France Germany Greece Ireland Kenya Mexico Netherlands New Zealand United Kingdom United States

Select Cities London Philadelphia New York Richmond Greensboro Portland Seattle Birmingham Boston Minneapolis San Francisco U.S. Regions New England Mid-Atlantic Southeast US Great Plains Southwest Midwest North Pacific

U.S. States Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Gatherings by Theme Convergent Yearly Meetings Gatherings Retreats Online Young Adult Gatherings by Location New England United Kingdom Mid Atlantic Baltimore Philadelphia Great Plains Northwest Ohio

January 19, 2010 08:29 AM

In my previous post, I mentioned that I had recently read Marty Grundy's pamphlet Early Friends & Ministry. Marty is frequently called upon to speak to Friends about some element of early Quakerism and how it was practiced, or about the life and leadings of an early Quaker figure.

I was eager to get my hands on this pamphlet when it was made available. I was supposed to have attended a retreat for the Friends General Conference Traveling Ministries Program in the spring of 2009, during which Marty would've presented many of the remarks found in the pamphlet. I had to cancel my plans to attend that retreat because I was sick, and it sickened me in a different way that I had missed hearing her in person.

One thing I have consistently liked about Marty and her writing is that she articulates certain subtleties about Quakerism that speak to my condition. She also speaks to my concern about traditions that may be falling away from the faith as practiced by modern Liberal Friends.

For example, after drawing on the words of some early Friends, Marty reminds us that "the goal of early Friends was to experience and live in obedience to the indwelling Divine Presence, to be made pure and holy, and to live in friendship and spiritual empathy with the entire Quaker community. (p. 7)"

Based on some of the vocal ministry I've heard recently, I worry that some of us, some of our meetings, are losing our focus about just who or what we're supposed to pay attention to. Sometimes the messages in worship seem to focus on remembering how great we are, or remembering how great the community is, or remembering what good works we can do.

Without the reminder for us to "experience and live in obedience to the indwelling Divine Presence," wouldn't we be just like any other support group? Without that reminder, that a Living Principle can speak to our condition directly, what would distinguish a Quaker group from any other group or congregation, for that matter?

Is not having a minister, rabbi, liturgy, or hymns really the message that Quakers want to bring to the world today?

Another subtlety that Marty points out has to do with how modern friends have come to accept terms like "the Light," "the Inward Teacher," etc. Much of why we can use these terms so freely, especially when there is a broad variety of belief among us, Marty points out, is because "early Friends were not so shy" when it came to defining those terms.

Marty also spends time talking about the phrase "refiner's fire," how that phrase was used by early Friends, and how that fire acted upon them, including this example by George Fox:

...[And] then the spiritual discerning came into me, by which I did discern my own thoughts, groans and sighs, and what it was that did fail me, and what it was that did open me.... (p. 6)

Just that phrase alone, "refiner's fire," gave me something to ponder deeply during my next two Meetings for Worship.

(It may be that modern Friends are more familiar with George Fox's Epistle X, which speaks in a different way to this sort of experience...)

I reflected on times in my own life when I felt that the Light of God--this sort of refining fire--was somehow purifying me, shining a light into my soul that allowed me to look at where I had wronged someone, or where I had fallen short, or where my ego had gotten in the way of my listening for God. The experience was both a searing one and one of tremendous release:

I could look honestly at my behaviors, feel God's love for me anyway, and receive the spiritual courage and guidance on how to move forward.

It's a strange thing, to feel fear, love, and release, one on the heels of the other, in such a short amount of time, within a few ticks of the clock...

There are lots of other bits and pieces in this pamphlet worth savoring. For example, Marty has a gift for putting things in a much larger context, and in this pamphlet, she writes about the time that preceded the founding of Quakerism, the attitudes that were prevalent at the time, and how that era led into the next.

And she offers some challenges for modern Friends, too, including comparing today's individualism with that of early Friends, as well as the weight that early Friends gave to the corporate body.

With the Spirit working through Marty's voice, she also successfully pokes at me, personally, and the half of the coin I have been forgetting to consider in my day to day life:

It was also expected that they [early Friends] would add deeper commitments to their daily lives as they became able to do so; it wasn't a matter of picking and choosing bits with which they were comfortable and complacently ignoring the rest...

The question for us is, are we exemplars of faithful living...? Are we open to ongoing nudges from the Spirit to cling more closely to the Root while continuing to discard things, activities, acquaintances, habits, and thought patterns that distract us from closer obedience?... (p.11) (emphasis mine)

At the end of the pamphlet, Marty lifts up the prophetic nature of Quakerism--a topic that I can tell is working slowly on me at a deep level.

Like the corporate nature of our faith tradition, the prophetic nature of Quakerism seems to be seldom talked about. Or maybe more precisely, it's talked about a lot, but it's not named as prophetic.

Well, I sense this post has run its course, so I will leave it as it is.

Blessings,
Liz

January 16, 2010 09:50 AM

Gary Braasch’s site now has a new feature: Climate Photo of the Week. New photos posted on Mondays.

January 16, 2010 03:03 AM

A few weeks ago, a new attender to the worship group was hospitalized and he desperately wanted some of us to bring him some books. I brought him a spare copy I had of Lloyd Lee Wilson's Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order, in part because he had read on our website that this book was one of the threads that had brought many of us together.

A week or two later, I visited the Friend and he started talking about the book and about the concept of a Quaker gestalt, mentioned in Chapter 2.* When he asked me how I myself would define the Quaker gestalt, I replied something like this:

I think of a gestalt as something that is bigger than the whole and all of its parts. And when I think about Quakerism, I often think of it as a tapestry.

The thing is, for many modern Liberal Friends, we think we can pull out one or even a few of the tapestry's threads and still have the pattern or image of the tapestry intact, especially when looking at it from a distance. What I believe, though, is that the interwoven quality of the tapestry, of the Quaker gestalt, is in fact hurt by pulling out any of its threads, by discarding any of its practices, disciplines, or doctrines.

I also believe that from an outsider's perspective, the tapestry won't look different when a thread is removed. But from the inside, from those long-time Friends who have lived and breathed Quakerism, they have known it deeply and wordlessly as a thing-of-the-whole, and so by changing one thread of the pattern, the whole pattern is changed.

As for the primary threads that make up the Quaker gestalt, I name them as the immediacy and centrality of God in our lives; the place of corporate worship and meetings for worship for business; the covenant community; and the transformative power of the Inner Light on our individual and corporate lives.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Now that I've typed this out here, I can add some additional thoughts to the initial answer I offered a few days ago.

For one thing, I don't know that the Quaker gestalt is "hurt" as much as it is changed--for better or for worse--when we start pulling out threads of our Quaker tapestry. Clearly, some early outward forms for many of us Quakers have become empty and we've discarded them or otherwise rely on them much less than our predecessors did, such as convening a meeting of elders or wearing plain dress.

Secondly, I continue to acknowledge fairly openly that I was not raised in the Christian tradition and I don't identify as Christian. Yet I certainly acknowledge that Quakerism's Christian roots are also a vital part of Quakerism's tapestry.

I would say in my earlier days among Friends, I yanked the "Quakerism is a part of Christianity" thread pretty hard, insisting that Quakerism could exist just fine without it being Christian. In hindsight, that was my way of saying I felt I belonged and was accepted by my local Quaker community, and it therefore followed that a belief Jesus didn't have to be a requirement for being Quaker.

Nowadays, as a more mature Friend, others have held my feet to the fire, saying that to be Quaker, I have to at least be willing to wrestle with the faith's Christian roots. And I do.

I wrestle with being Quaker while not identifying as Christian. Sometimes I scratch my head in confusion: How did I end up here?! On my better days, I understand it is not a matter of how we name that Loving Principle: it is how we live by it.

I also recognize that the more time I spend with Quakers--in worship and in fellowship--the deeper I sink into the Seed and the more I learn about how the threads of the tapestry are intertwined. Over the years, I seem to understand more deeply and intuitively that when one thread is changed, the whole pattern of the tapestry is intrinsically changed, even if not noticeably so until years or generations later.

It is a lesson I need to revisit from time to time, and another indication that when I think I understand the wholeness and prophetic ministry of Quakerism, I really have so much more to learn.

Blessings,
Liz

P.S. As I was crafting this post in my mind, I also was reading Marty Grundy's newest pamphlet, Early Friends & Ministry. In some ways, her review of how Friends' travel in the ministry has changed over the centuries speaks to the historical changes of the gestalt of Quakerism. I hope to write about this pamphlet very soon.

*I include a quote from this chapter about the Quaker gestalt in an earlier post.

January 14, 2010 09:45 AM

In the Advices in PYM's book of Faith and Practice, it says, "Come regularly to meeting for worship, even when you are angry, tired or spiritually cold." This is good advice for me, because for the last several months, I have been generally two out of the three on any given Sunday morning. Not so much angry, but just indifferent.

Some weeks I was also sick, or one of my kids was sick, so we did stay home. No where in F&P does it say "Go to meeting even when you are sick." Really, it ought to say, "STAY HOME when you are sick. No one wants to listen to you coughing or shake your hand or breathe your germs." But this is a tangent.

Most weeks I manage to overcome the inertia of my cozy fleece bathrobe and the steady supply of hot beverages and toast that can be found in my own home in order to go to meeting for worship. Why? Not because of the inherent charms of our meetinghouse, which is usually too cold for comfort. Not because I feel enticed by the fellowship of Friends, or because I feel obligated to participate in the life of my meeting.

Lately, I go to meeting because the rest of my family is going. Everybody else is getting dressed and brushing their teeth and getting in the car, so I do too.

And honestly, once I'm there, I'm fine. I find peace and strength and new insights and connections to the Holy Spirit in meeting for worship. I talk to people; I'm friendly to newcomers; I hold babies while their parents eat lunch. You know, the normal community stuff.

But left to my own devices, I'm not so sure I would go. I'm sure I wouldn't have gone this morning. This is really a shift for me. Until recently, I would have said I always want to go to meeting for worship. A few years ago, I wrote a blog post that said exactly that.

Last week, the main insight I had in worship was that all the things that are hard for me right now are fodder for the journey. Learning these lessons IS the point of my life right now.

This week, my main insight was to understand how other people could feel like not going to worship. At least, not to be snotty about it.

And also to acknowledge that sometimes my family is a positive factor in my spiritual progress. Usually I complain that parenting slows me down, gets in the way of the ministry I really want to do. But today I recognized that the discipline I am developing as a parent is good for my spiritual life too.

Thank you God for the many blessings in my life. Even when I am blind to them.

January 10, 2010 09:30 PM

There's a nice remembrance of George Willoughby by the Brandywine Peace Community's Bob Smith over on the War Resisters International site. George died a few days ago at the age of 95 [updated]. It's hard not to remember his favorite quip as he and his wife Lillian celebrated their 80th birthdays: "twenty years to go!" Neither of them made it to 100 but they certainly lived lives more full than the average people.

I don't know enough of the details of their lives to write the obituary (a Wikipedia page was started this morning) but I will say they always seemed to me like the Forrest Gump's of peace activism--at the center of every cool peace witness since 1950. You squint to look at the photos at there's George and Lil, always there. Or maybe pop music would give us the better analogy: you know how there are entire b-rate bands that carve an entire career around endlessly rehashing a particular Beatles song? Well, there are whole activist organizations that are built around particular campaigns that the Willoughby's championed. Like: in 1958 George was a crew member of the Golden Rule (profiled a bit here), a boatload of crazy activists who sailed into a Pacific nuclear bomb test to disrupt it. Twelve years later some Vancouver activists stage a copycat boat sailing which became Greenpeace. Lillian was concerned about rising violence against women and started one of the first Take Back the Night marches. If you've ever sat in an activist meeting where everyone's using consensus, then you've been influenced by the Willoughby's!

January 09, 2010 03:39 PM

Nature Reports Climate Change takes a look at the need for regulations for geoengineering, and their complexity, in Planning for plan B. There is strong concern about rapidly increasing temperatures, perhaps as much as 4°C within 5 decades, and the paths are mitigation, geoengineering, or catastrophe. Re the 2nd path (which is likely to include overlap [...]

January 05, 2010 06:48 PM

So as not to be left out of the blogging meme I like best at the moment, I have chosen not one but three words for 2010. Last year my word was balance. The year before that, it was discipline. I can’t remember anything before that.

This year, my three words are faith, farm and finish.

Faith:

This is to help me remember that I am enough. That we are enough. That God is enough. I believe, Lord, help thou my unbelief. (I've used this phrase before.)

Farm:

This word I stole brazenly from Chris Brogan’s Three Words for 2008, but the concept in my mind is largely from Rob Brezny. My horoscope from December 24, 2009, to be exact. (Aquarius. And occasional others in the past on the same theme.) The point is to keep going at the tedious little tasks that are necessary to any project. Like hoeing on a farm, or filing in an office, or sweeping the kitchen floor, or reminding my kids to use their napkin, not their sleeve. It just has to be done over and over, with little to show for it in the short term, but still essential to long term success.

Finish:

This is probably the most self-evident. The point is to keep at the little and big tasks until projects are actually complete, not just kind of close enough. But really finished. Basically, to wrap things up and not let them fester.

If I can hold onto these three concepts, in each area of my life, it will be a good year. Happy 2010 to all of you.

January 04, 2010 09:37 PM

On January 1st, 2010, a new law came into force in the Irish Republic, which outlaws blasphemy against any religion. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted. The penalty for breaking this law is a fine of 25000 euros.

This law is clearly unjust. Religion should be capable of defending itself against ridicule or criticism, instead of hiding behind draconian laws. Existing laws protect against actual discrimination or incitement to violence. This law is unnecessary, and is clearly against the terms of the European and United Nations charters on fundamental human rights, which both guarantee freedom of speech and expression. Significantly, there is nothing in the law to prevent religious people from denigrating the beliefs of any other group in society.

Atheist Ireland have accordingly published a list of 25 statements on their website, which should be considered blasphemous under the new law, and are inviting the authorities to prosecute them for doing so, so that they may challenge this ridiculous law in the courts.

I am publishing the list of the statements below to show solidarity with this action. Unfortunately, I do not live in Ireland, myself, as I would happily challenge it as well. You will notice that the list includes quotes from the current Irish Justice Minister (who introduced the bill!), the current Pope, Jesus of Nazareth, and Mohammed.


List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Published by Atheist Ireland


1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.

January 03, 2010 01:36 AM

I've been rude to a friend of mine (Simon Phipps) on Twitter. On the one hand, why should I be rude to a friend of mine? On the other hand, if I don't call him out for quoting stupid things (as if he agrees with them), then how much of a friend do I consider him? If I'm not willing to be harsh with him, then I can't value his friendship much. If I'm not able to be harsh with him, then he doesn't value my friendship much.

In particular, I feel very strongly that the wealthy should be responsible for the poor. "Responsible" means several things. First, it means only lending aid appropriately. "Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime." It also means charity should only be for the deserving. "Give an ailing man a crutch and you have gotten him back on his feet. Give a healthy man a crutch and you have taken away his ability to walk."

Responsible also means not using the power of wealth against him. This is a tough one. It's very easy to look at someone who is not as wealthy as you, and decide how they need to be helped. Everyone who has more than someone else can fall into this trap. Certainly my country does it all the time, sending food aid to countries that can't use that food, or to countries where their competitive advantage is that food.

And responsible means consistently advocating for free markets (not using the power of wealth) and private property. When my friends harm that cause, I get very upset. I can understand my enemies, and the people that hate me advocating for coercion. But my friends? That cuts me to the quick.

[Tags economics, harshness, rudeness ]

January 02, 2010 04:37 AM

I have a goal of riding every named Rail-Trail in New York State. There are many more railbeds not used for trains anymore which are also ridable. They are usually unnamed, unsigned, and unpublished. I speculate that this is because the owner is either indifferent or away. I've ridden some of these but I'm more interested in getting the named trails ridden first. I'm maintaining the list of NY rail-trails on my Rutland Trail website.

This past year I rode 2/3rds of the Catskill Scenic Trail (got too dark), the eastern undeveloped end of the Orange Heritage Trailway plus about 200' of the trailway itself, and the whole of the Uncle Sam Bikeway.

Trails I've ridden:

• Ballston Bike Trail,
• Black River Recreational Trail,
• Bog Meadow Brook,
• Cato Fair Haven Trail,
• Catskill Scenic Trail (2/3rds),
• Cayuga Hojack Trail,
• DnH Canal Heritage Corridor North,
• DnH Canal Heritage Corridor South, (partially)
• Dutchess Rail Trail,
• Gorge Trail,
• Hudson Valley Rail Trail,
• Jim Schug Trail,
• Jim Tedisco Fitness Trail,
• Maple City Trail,
• North County Trailway,
• Ontario Pathways Rail Trail,
• Orange Heritage Trailway (the unimproved eastern end),
• Oswego Recreational Trail,
• Railroad Run,
• Rivergate Trail,
• The Rutland Trail,
• South Hill Recreation Way,
• The Uncle Sam Bikeway,
• Wallkill Valley Rail Trail,
• Warren County Bikeway,
• Zim Smith Trail,

Trails I haven't (yet) ridden:

Allegheny River Valley Trail, Auburn Fleming Trail, Canalway Trail, Catherine Valley planned, Catherine Valley, Catskill Scenic Trail (still need to ride the 1/3rd), Chautauqua Alison Wells Ney, Chautauqua Brockton Area Recreational Trail, Chautauqua Brocton Area Recreational Trail, Chautauqua Laurie A. Baer Trail, Chautauqua Nadine and Paul Webb Trail, Chautauqua Nancy B. Diggs Trail, Chautauqua Ralph C. Sheldon Jr. Trail, Chautauqua Village of Mayville Trail, Cheektowaga Trail, Clarence Akron Pathway, Corning Bike Path, Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Rail Trail, Genesee Valley Greenway, Harlem Valley Rail Trail, Joseph B. Clarke Rail Trail (walked a couple of hundred feet of it in October), Lehigh Memory Trail, Lehigh Valley Linear Trail, Lehigh Valley Rail Trail, Newstead trail, Orange Heritage Trailway (still need to ride the paved portion), Outlet Trail, PatMcGeeTrail, Philip A. Rayhill Memorial Recreational Trail, Portage Trail, Putnam County Trailway, Rochester, Syracuse n Eastern Trolley Trail, Shawangunk Rail Trail, Sodus Point to Wallington Trail, South County Trailway, Spring Run Trail (doesn't really exist yet), Tarrytown Lakes extension, Town of Edwards Nature Trail, Vestal Rail Trail, Webster Hojack Trail, White Plains Greenway,

[Tags railtrail, bicycling ]

December 31, 2009 05:41 PM