While at home, I do some part time handyman work to make ends meet. Today I was removing some wallpaper. And as I did, I mused a bit. There were three layers which needed to come off the wall: the outside paper, the paper backing, and the glue. As I worked, I saw this as a metaphor — for society. (Stay with me on this.) The wall I was working on was once a plain and simple wall, as our society once was plain and simple; and as the Amish, for instance, have chosen to continue to be. Then we started to layer the society with increasingly complex media entertainment systems, increasingly complex materialistic systems, increasingly complex technological systems… Each of these layers of systems, it would seem, has drawn us farther and farther away from: time with God, time with family, and time with community. Now, congruent to this metaphore, the print on the wall paper I was taking off today was rather ‘busy’ — as our society tends to be rather ‘busy’ with our almost frenetic participation (compulsive TV watching, driving everywhere, buying everything…) in the systems. So, some options: We can just slap on some more wall paper, with a somewhat less busy print (a bit less cable options, a bit less driving, a bit less shopping…); or, we can roll up our sleeves and go at intensively stripping the wall paper, the backing, and the glue off, getting to the bare wall (barest of (or no) TV watching, the barest (or no) driving, the barest of shopping, etc…) And once at the bare wall, we can either: start the whole layered wall papering process (addictive/compuslive behavior) up again; or — we could simply paint the wall white, or one of some other basic flat color. That’s what the College of Mary in Bismark, North Dakota did. On a campaign trip to North Dakota several years ago, we noticed all the walls, of all the college buildings at this particular school, were painted in a flat, and rather drab looking, sandstone color. We were told that was done by design, because: “It’s the people here who provide the color.” And wouldn’t it make more sense, spiritual sense, that people (family, community — and God, too) provide most of the “color” in our lives — not predominately the components of these inanimate systems? Note: I’m doing more handyman work tomorrow. Stay tuned.
12/6/04
We are readying to launch on a campaign tour of the Southeast to raise more awareness about the campaign and to look at rural poverty issues in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia… It will be a 6,000 mile trip. We are trying to raise campaign donations as soon as possible for this. If you can help, please consider it: Schriner Presidential Election Committee, P.O. Box 15, Bluffton, Ohio 45817. Thank you.
12/1/04
An Associated Press article said today that a hospital in the Netherlands has recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns (and other babies with serious physical maladies). What’s more, this hospital has already begun to carry out this form of euthanasia. This is clearly: wrong. In these cases, the baby should be allowed to live as long as possible. In addition, “Care Teams” should form around the baby and the family. A Care Team would consist of, say, extended family, neighbors, fellow church members… to work together to help the baby and the parents in as many ways as possible. And it is in this working together that the baby gets more help, people grow closer, and more love in general develops. So in the scheme of God’s permissable will (in this case, allowing the baby’s malady), there is the potential for all types of spiritual good to come about — if people are willing to stretch themselves. If we just terminate the life for the sake of our own convenience, no matter how we rationalize it otherwise (and this would not just be the parents negligence, but also all the others who could get involved with a Care Team, but don’t), haven’t we broken, not only the letter of the 5th Commandment, but also: the spirit of it? I think so.
11/25/04
I interviewed Chicago’s Carmen Kinglsey today. She was a member of Mennonite Volunteer Service in Chicago, and worked with the organization “Play for Peace.” She explained Chicago is quite segregated, white sections, black sections, hispanic sections… Play for Peace would coordinate high school students from each of these sections to work as teams that would oversee play projects in elementary schools. That is, elementary students in these various segregated zones would come together and the high school students would help coordinate “circle games,” games of tag, sports, and so on. The intent: to break down barriers. And some of it worked, said Carmen. Note: We propose a U.S. Department of Peace. And under this umbrella, we would try to promote similar intitiatives in cities across the country. Because peace, ultimately, ‘begins at home.’
11/23/04
It’s three weeks past the Election and our neighbor still has his Kerry/Edwards sign up. It stands as a lone sentinel in the town. Seeing him out in the yard the other day, I joked: “Still waiting for the provisional ballots to come in?” He didn’t smile. Apparently he’s taking it hard.
11/22/04
During Campaign 2004, I gave a talk to a sociology class at Bluffton College about part of my plan for: Jobs in America. I said I believed we needed to be looking at this issue through a “different lens.” And first off, we needed to assess how many people were feeling fulfilled in their jobs now, in relationship to the God-given talenst they’ve been given. (I suggested we use a “National Social Survey,” like the ones being used in a number of European countries at present, to help gauge this.) And two, we need to be looking at the nature of jobs in general in America through a “different lens” as well. Is, for instance, a particular job itself, “life support,” or not? California author Steve Gerdsmier told me he believes some 80% of the jobs in America (CPAs, tele-marketers, insurance agents, stock analysts…) don’t produce “life support.” That is, he said, these jobs consist, primarily, of just shuffling paper and don’t contribute much to the “necessary stuff of life.” What is necessary? Gerdsmier said it’s the basics around: food, shelter, medical, energy, education, transportation, clothing, communication… Gerdsmier quotes Buck Minster Fuller, who designed the geodesic dome and authored the book Critical Path, as saying many of these paper shuffling jobs have started up in the last century, and with them has come an economy geared to making money, but not common sense. (Fuller said these paper shuffling jobs have become so entrenched in American society, that we can’t see the forest for the trees at this point.) Gerdsmier added a shift to much more of a “life support” oreientation would have a lot more people back to the land on small organic farms, more people researching and developing non-polluting wind and solar energy for heating, cooling, transportation…, there would be more local interdependency, including some barter, more teachers (and much better student/teacher ratios), more skilled craftsmen (carpenters, metal workers…) doing more local projects for local people… What’s more, Gerdsmier said a change to a much more uncomplicated “life support” way will naturally lead individuals to live more simply, and with less. With people living with less, and with more people focused on the basic “stuff of life,” there would also naturally be more free time — for God, for family, for community.
11/18/04
Our daughter Sarah, 9, just got done reading a book on the Trail of Tears. President Andrew Jackson pushed an Indian Removal Bill through Congress, which ultimately set in motion a gruesome, 1,000 mile march west from Georgia to Oklahoma that claimed some 4,000 Cherokee lives. (In solidarity with the Cherokees, we retraced this route on a campaign tour three years ago.) On the march, children were separated from parents and many walked barefoot through the winter… ” One of the U.S. militia men, who oversaw the march, wrote: “I fought through the Civil War and saw men shot to pieces and slaughtered by the thousands; but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I’ve ever known.” After reading the book, Sarah asked: “Dad, do you think Andrew Jackson went to Heaven?” Perhpas an even more pressing question is: “Are many of us in America today going to Heaven?” As the American people in general did virtually nothing to stop the Trail of Tears then, which was going on right under their noses; many in America today are doing virtually nothing to stop the ‘Trail of Tears’ going on right under our noses (thanks to modern media) today: Genocide and mass starvation in the Sudan; children working in sweat shops in Indonesia, China, Mexico; millions living in sqaulid conditions at refugee camps in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan… There are reports some of the parents in these camps are selling their children for as little as 30 American dollars, so the rest of the family doesn’t starve. Yet we in America think nothing of spending $30 on a meal at TGIF Fridays. Are we nuts? Where is the spiritual leadership in this country that should be calling us on this? Where?
11/16/04
I went to a talk today at Bluffton University by Arick Asherman, who is the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR). The group was founded in 1988, in response to serious abuse of human rights by Israeli military authority in the suppression of the Inftifada. An impassioned Rabbi Asherman, who grew up in Erie, P.A., said among the Israeli citizenry and spiritual leadership, there has developed “extreme nationalism,” with little compassion for the innocent victims on the Palestinian side. And that’s why, out of a sense of spiritual principle, Rabbis for Human Rights formed. Rabbi Asherman said RHR has, for instance, volunteers who act as human sheilds to protect Palestinians as they harvest their olive crops. They visit Palestinians, and Israelis, in the hospital after a bombing. “We condemn Israeli, and Palestinian, violence,” said the Rabbi. Asherman said one of his acts of civil disobedience (which he is currently on trial for) is standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer that was just about to demolish a Palestinian home. What’s more, RHR volunteers try and stand side-by-side with Palestinians as they are rebuilding their demolished homes. He said this gesture might just keep another little 10-year-old Palestinian (who has watched his parents be humiliated with the demolition), from growing up to become a terrorist. Asherman said both sides seem to have “seemless world views” at this point that the other side, in it’s anger, isn’t listening. His group provides a ray of hope for helping metaphorically build a bridge, as opposed to a (not-so-metaphoric these days) wall. So what can we as Americans, on a grassroots level, do to promote peace in the Middle East? It would seem to me that instead of just tacitly waiting for another ‘governmental solution;’ the most impactful thing we could do is: support (financially, and otherwise) the Rabbis for Human Rights cause now. See: www.rhr.israel.net
11/15/04
The kids and I regularly go to Bluffton’s Senior Center to read the magazine: The Good Old Days. Yesterday we were reading a story about a Cincinnatian’s reminiscence of the old Rte 49 Fairmont-Downtown Zoo trolley. It ran on tracks and was pulled by horses. Then it stopped, replaced by buses which received power from overhead wires. Then those were retired in favor of the diesel buses. John Patton wrote: “The new fleet of orange-and-cream buses might have meant progress for the city…” Did it? The horses didn’t pollute, like burning fossil fuel to provide electricity does, or burning deisel does. (Read: global warming, carcinogenic emissions, and so on.) What’s more, Patton noted the horse drawn transportation moved at a decidedly slower pace. And was that bad? Fast paced traffic leads to scores of traffic deaths (one every 13 minutes in America) and maiming a year. It contributes to a fast paced society that, among many things, is absolutely thread through with stress disorders. This all begs the question: “Is all of what we are calling ‘progress’ in America, really progress?” My take: no.
11/12/04
A tinder box is growing among Arabs, and others, in the Middle East. According to a recent Time Magazine article (9/13/04), “hosilities toward the West, in particular the U.S., appears to be on the rise.” The factors, according to the article, include the U.S.’s continued support of Israel’s policies toward Palestine and contempt for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. What’s more, Western popular culture is starting to tremendously impact the Middle East as well. What a lot of this modern popular culture panders is: rampant materialism; sexual imagery; lewd forms of art (modern American music, cinema…) Oh, many in this country don’t see anything wrong with this. It’s just, well, free-market capitalism, or, freedom of expression, or… Is it that some in these other countries: ‘hate our freedom?’ Or, do they hate the byproducts of how we’re expressing our freedom. Example: I interviewed a woman from India last year who said the youth in her country for generations expressed the utmost respect for elders in that society, demonstrated a love for simplicity and spiritual principle, believed in modesty of dress… Then within one generation of being exposed to ‘Western popular culture,’ many of the youth in India, she said, now have lost much of the respect for elders, dress immodestly, and are inordinately caught up in material pursuit… Sure, there’s extreme political oppression in some of these countries that needs to be addressed by the international community. But, this is by no means black & white, but rather a set of complex issues — in which we (the U.S.) needs to be looking on “our side of the street as well.”