A Meandering Mind

Morning comes, a new day dawns

My spirit awakes and yet still yawns

Slowly my mind tries to kick in

But, instead,  it goes off meandering. (hal)

This blog was first published on December 26, 2017.  Another very similar one, "My Meandering Mind," was written two years later.  And still my mind meanders (following a winding course, like a stream).  Life is like a stream winding its course from mountain top to valley and eventually life, like every stream, flows into some ocean.  

Merry Christmas on this Second Day of Christmas to all who should happen to read this blog and a very Happy Birthday to our youngest son, Luke.  So many say Luke was born “the day after Christmas” which sounds so anti-climatic and piddling.  And it just isn’t so!  There is nothing anti-climactic or piddling about Luke in his birth or in the journey he has traveled since.  Luke was born on the Second Day of Christmas!  Doesn’t that sound a whole lot better?  I think so.

My aging mind wanders back and forth, from here to there, from there to here,  from then to now, and from now to then, giving me great enjoyment in these morning hours.  I do not see this as a deficit as some of you may think it might be.  To the contrary, this wandering mind is a tremendous bonus.  The gift of a meandering mind takes me everywhere—from childhood memories, to teenage rebellions, to educational pursuits, to the birth of our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and even imagines the unknown  future.  I wouldn’t trade it in for anything!  For example, I am thinking right now of a LP album purchased many years ago called “Love Is A Season,”  by Edye Gorme, one of my favorite singers back then.  In the album she sings, “Love is a season within the heart, we never know when it will come and go.  Love is no season on some calendar chart, there is no place for it, you simply wait for it…”  Now I’m trying to figure out why this album came to my mind—and it is simply this—Christmas is a season within the heart, it is no season on some calendar chart, you simply wait for it…” So, our son Luke was born on the Second Day of Christmas, not some day “after” a date on some calendar chart, for Christmas (like love) is a season within the heart.

Oh, this meandering mind of mine. Now it seems to insist on checking out Edye Gorme.  I discover she was born in 1928 as Edith Garmezano in New York City to Jewish immigrants.  Her father was from Sicily and her mother from Turkey.  Thank goodness there were no bans or walls preventing her parents from coming to this land, for then I would have missed, and the world would have missed the lovely voice of Edye Gorme, singing “Love is a season within the heart…Love is no season on some calendar chart…”

Merry Christmas on this Second Day of Christmas and to our son, Luke, a very Happy Birthday!

Luke, Kim, Ethan and Eleni at Christmastime.
They came in spirit to our house on Christmas Eve,
all the way from Flagstaff, and sang carols to us.
What a gift that was for us!

A Christmas Card for You

 

Dear Facebook Family and Friends at Christmastime,

Where can we find, in this moment of time, a message that will give us hope and encouragement in the midst of a pandemic?Can the Christmas message breakthrough in spite of our fears, our struggles, and yes, even our despair? Cherie and I find such a message  in the third stanza of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.”  The words give us hope and encouragement in the midst of the Coronavirus, Cherie’s diagnosis of cancer, and all the fears, struggles, and despair that we experience along our way.

“And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose

forms are bending low, Who toil along the

climbing way with painful steps and slow,

look now!  For glad and golden hours come

swiftly on the wing.  O rest beside the weary

road, and hear the angels sing.”

Howard Thurman wrote, “Despite all of the crassness of life, despite all of the hardness of life, despite all of the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.” Look now! Stop now! Listen now! Can you hear the singing?  “O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing!”

The angel song is somewhat muted in the midst of life’s crushing load, our toil along the climbing way, and our slow and painful steps, but ....

    “Still through the cloven skies they come with peaceful wings unfurled, 

      and still their heavenly music floats o’er all the weary world; 

      above its sad and lowly plains, they bend on hovering wing, 

      and ever over its Babel sounds the blessed angels sing.”

The angels are singing now.  Their message:  Love is at the heart of things—all things—at all times.

Merry Christmas 

What Is God Doing?

Charles Albert Tindley, an African American Methodist minister, wrote the hymn “Stand By Me” in 1906. For the last several days the words of that hymn have been rambling around in my mind.  There is a rumor rampant among people of faith that God is hanging around just to get us out of our difficulties, to free us from disease, to do whatever we bid God to do.  The hymn suggests that the rumor just isn’t so.  God doesn’t take whatever is “bad” or “traumatic” or “hurtful” away…God stands by us in the midst of it.  I like to say, God “carries” us through whatever kind of “crucifixion” comes our way.  Like the Apostle Paul we spend a good deal of our time praying for God “to take it away” and fail to see, to know, and experience the reality of God standing by us and carrying us through whatever is ours to go through.

“When the storms of life are raging…Stand by me.

When the world is tossing me, like a ship upon the sea…Stand by me.

In the midst of tribulation…Stand by me.

When the host of hell assail, and my strength begins to fail…Stand by me.

In the midst of faults and failures…Stand by me.

When I’ve done the best I can, and my friends misunderstand…Stand by me.

In the midst of persecution…Stand by me.

When my foes in war array undertake to stop my way…Stand by me.

When I’m growing old and feeble…Stand by me.

When my life becomes a burden, and I’m nearing chilly Jordan…Stand by me.”

What does it mean to “stand by”?  When I stood at my mother’s grave and wept, my two daughter-in-laws came up to me, put their arms around me, and stood there with me in my grief.  I shall never forget that moment.  Just think, God stands by us like that!

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. 

  The world is crowded with Him.  He walks everywhere incognito” (C.S. Lewis). 

Fraudulent Christianity

 While It Is Day:  Fraudulent Christianity

“In the eyes of the Christian faith…no state of society can ever prevail, in the past or now or in the future, which satisfies the concern of Christians for the world…He/She (the Christian) is always dissatisfied with the existing state of affairs.” (William Stringfellow)

The following was reported in USA Today on Wednesday:

“President Trump's spiritual adviser Paula White-Cain says she hears victory from heaven…

Megachurch pastor and televangelist Paula White-Cain who is spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, delivered a prayer service Wednesday night in an effort to secure Trump's reelection.

During the service, which was streamed on Facebook Live, White-Cain called on ‘angelic reinforcement’ from the continents of Africa and South America.

‘I hear a sound of victory, the Lord says it is done,’ she said. ‘For angels have even been dispatched from Africa right now... In the name of Jesus from South America, they're coming here.’

White's video has gone viral since it went online Wednesday night. And many have expressed outrage over her words.

‘God is sending angels from a place Trump called a [expletive] to help him get re-elected?’ Bishop Talbert Swan, a pastor, activist and NAACP Chapter President, wrote on Twitter. 'I hear the sounds of victory...' Consider a hearing aid.’

‘She’ll be lucky if Stephen Miller doesn’t send those angels to ICE Detention Centers,’ wrote Ana Navarro-Cárdenas, political strategist and commentator for CNN, Telemundo and The View.

White-Cain also stated that ‘demonic confederacies...are attempting to steal the election from Trump.’”

*****

Will we permit angel “caravans” from the south, north, east or west

 to influence our democratic process?  

We seem unwilling to let any strangers (angels) in these days.

Or, will we release the “better angels” within ourselves?

What “demonic confederacies”?  

How can an election be stolen from someone before he is elected?

Sometimes I am embarrassed to be called a Christian.

Two Issues Out of Many

 The First Issue:  Election Hysteria

Mr. Trump has trumped up his rhetoric about election fraud in the upcoming November election.  Attorney General Barr has echoed that rhetoric making unfounded claims about U.S. elections, vote by mail and voter fraud.  There is no evidence whatsoever to support the rhetoric—but then, evidence doesn’t seem to matter anymore.  Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr are undermining the credibility and legitimacy of the democratic election process.  So is Russia, according to Director Wray of the FBI.  VOTE!

Does anyone remember the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (the Voter Fraud Commission) established by Donald Trump?  It ran from May 2017 to January 2018 and was then disbanded.  The commission’s task was to review claims of voter fraud, improper registration, and voter suppression following Trump’s claim that millions of illegal immigrants had voted in the 2016 election, costing him the popular vote.  No evidence was found to support that claim or of any widespread fraud in the American voting system.  VOTE!

Now, in this election year of 2020, Mr. Trump suggests that if he wins the election it will not be rigged.  But the only way he can lose is if the election is rigged.  Just think about that!  VOTE!

The Second Issue:  Divisiveness

Last Tuesday Mr. Trump once again at his rally in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, disparaged Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar implying that she is not American.  “She’s telling us,” he said, “how to run our country.  How did you do where you came from?  How is your country doing?”

Omar was born in Somalia.  She came to the U.S. when she was eight years old.  She is an American citizen and serves as a representative of the people of Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives. She is as much an American as Mr. Trump or any of the rest of us.  We are all immigrants, or the sons and daughters, or grandchildren, or great grandchildren of immigrants—including Mr. Trump.  

Immigrants, Black Lives Matter Protestors, Democrats and all others in this wonderful place we call America ARE AMERICANS—NOT ENEMIES.  A house divided against itself cannot stand!

Despicable

 The “Law and Order” mantra has been violated by the very person who has been touting it.  Mr. Trump flaunted the law (and order) by holding an indoor rally in Nevada on Sunday without social distancing (and a largely un-masked crowd) in defiance of the state’s ban on local gatherings of 50 people or more.  He also violated the Covid-19 guidelines set by his own administration.

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak called the rally “shameful, dangerous and irresponsible.”  “Tonight,” the governor said, “President Donald Trump is taking reckless and selfish actions that are putting countless lives in danger here in Nevada.  The President appears to have forgotten that this country is still in the middle of a global pandemic.”  Trump later claimed that he didn’t think he was subject to the 50-person guideline.  He sees himself  as “above the law.”

As Governor Sisolak made clear, “This is an insult to every Nevadan (and American) who has followed the directives, made sacrifices, and put their neighbors before themselves.”  For months “we the people” have been denied the opportunity to attend a funeral of a loved one or friend or to visit a grandparent in a Nursing Home, or attend a worship service, or visit with family members.  The people have been faithful to the emergency directives given by the governors of their respective states in response to a still spiraling global pandemic.  Even NFL games are being played in mostly empty stadiums.   But this does not apply to Mr. Trump!  

It is despicable (“deserving to be despised; so obnoxious as to rouse moral indignation”)!  It irks me.  I’m not at a loss for words to describe the rally, held in blatant disregard of the law, and which health officials warn (on the basis of evidence:  Tulsa, Sturgis, etc.) is a “super spreader” event. 

It is repugnant, disgusting, contemptible, irresponsible, deplorable, revolting, odious, disgraceful, dishonorable, ignominious, shameful, base, ignoble, reprehensible, and dastardly.  And so much more…. 

Morning Musings

The hymns of the Christian Church have been a significant part of my life—from childhood to the present.  Many of those hymns I know by heart.  Sometimes a certain hymn pops into my mind as the following did this morning:

“I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies, 

no sudden rending of the veil of clay,

no angel visitant, no opening skies; 

but take the dimness of my soul away.” 

That happens to be the second verse of the hymn, “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart.” The words were written by George Croly in 1867—and here I am pondering those 153-year-old words in the year 2020.  

Would it help if I could see the way ahead?  If I could know what is in store tomorrow?  Would that I could dream a dream which would answer the questions that haunt me?  How wonderful it would be, if like the Apostle, I could have a Damascus Road experience, or hear as clearly as Amos or Isaiah what truth is—a kind of “prophet ecstasy”.  If only the “veil” of “not knowing” were lifted.  To be visited by an angel, as Mary was, would certainly ease my mind and give me a hint of what to expect as the journey continues.  If only the sky would open and give me the “light” by which to see and to know what lies ahead.  

We all seek for the dream, a prophet’s ecstasy, the lifting of the veil, an angel visitant, or an opening sky.  We think if only we had that kind of sight or insight, we would be able to cope, to know, to control, and to “do something”.   We do not want to live in“dimness.”

Croly’s fourth verse seems to say that the dimness that frustrates us so will not be taken away—that it is part of what it means to be human and alive.  

“Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;

Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,

To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;

Teach me the patience of unceasing prayer.”

Croly also wrote the hymn, “Search Me, O God,” in which he says:

“Lord, take my life, and make it wholly Thine

Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine

Take all my will, my passion, self and pride

I now surrender, Lord, in me abide.”

“I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies, 

no sudden rending of the veil of clay,

no angel visitant, no opening skies; 

Words Have Power to Do and to Undo

Words have power and must be protected against degradation.

Words convey deep emotions, knowledge, understanding, hopes and fears.

“I love to feel where words come from,” said Papunehang, chief of the Delaware tribe,

After listening to John Woolman pray in English—a language Papunehang did not understand.

Words, even when spoken in another language, have significance.

“Words can be polluted even more dramatically and drastically than rivers and land and sea,” wrote Malcolm Muggeridge.  “Their misuse is our undoing.”

Words are what we use to teach, inspire, defend truth and seek justice.

Words have extraordinary power.

Words can elevate the human spirit:  “Ask not what your country can do for you…”

Words can also pull down the human spirit.

Words can be debased.

Words can be weaponized.

Words can be misused.

Trump’s misuse and weaponizing of words is “pernicious and dangerous”.

Have you listened to him?  Most of the time his words are “an incoherent word salad.”

He seems unable to string sentences together that make sense.  

He uses words to “demean, belittle, bully, or dehumanize.”

He lies intentionally and with a straight face.

“He says what he wants, when he wants, regardless of the reality of things.”

Some people think this makes Trump a tough guy—it doesn’t.

No!  Reality is reality.  There are no alternative realities.

“The point of modern propaganda,” says Russian dissident Garry Kasparov, “isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda.  It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”

“Without truth and a common factual basis in our national life,” writes Peter Wehner in “The Death of Politics,” “a free society cannot operate.”

If we can make up our own reality, our own script, our own set of facts…what happens to objective truth?  It dies.

Words can do that!

Words can pull down a democracy.

Words have power, even when debased, weaponized, and misused.

As Muggeridge says, words can pollute and their misuse will be our undoing.

"The Pot Calling the Kettle Black"

In 1682, William Penn wrote in “Some Fruits of Solitude,”  “If thou hast not conquer’d thy self in that which is thy own particular Weakness, thou hast no Title to Virtue, tho’ thou art free of other Men’s.  For a Covetous Man to inveigh against Prodigality, an Atheist against Idolatry, a Tyrant against Rebellion, or a Lyer against Forgery, and a Drunkard against Intemperance, is for the Pot to call the Kettle black.”  

This idiom, “The Pot Calling the Kettle Black,” is used to describe a person who is guilty of the very thing of which they accuse another and is an example of what we now call “psychological projection.”  Projection is attributing one’s own faults to another person.

When Donald Trump on Tuesday called Senator Harris “nasty” he was projecting on her his own penchant to be nasty.  If you don’t think Donald Trump is a nasty person you haven’t paid much attention over the past four years.  When he called Harris “disrespectful” he was projecting his own disrespect of others upon her.  Donald Trump has been and is “disrespectful” to all who oppose him or who are critical of him.  That’s a matter-of-fact!

“She’s told many stories that aren’t true,” Mr. Trump lamented.  He went on then to lie about what Harris is for and against.  According to fact-checkers, Trump has spoken a “Tsunami of untruths”—some 20,000 false or misleading reports.  

“It was terrible for her, for our nation,” Trump said about the senator's  questioning of Kavanaugh two years ago.  “I thought she was the meanest, most horrible, disrespectful person of anybody in the U.S. Senate.”  Projection—pure and simple!

We all do it—project our own stuff on to other persons.  By doing so we don’t have to deal with ourselves.  Jesus didn’t coin the phrase, “The Pot Calling the Kettle Black.” He used another phrase:  “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” If one projects on to others his or her own faults—then, it makes that person feel like he or she is without fault and therefore (without sin) has every right to “cast the first stone.”  Trump’s favorite verse in the Bible is “an eye for an eye” and it shows.

“She’s nasty, but I can be nastier than she ever can be,” Trump told The New York Times after Hillary Clinton criticized his comments on women’s appearances in their first debate in 2016. The next day he suggested at a rally that Clinton had “cheated on her husband,” but failed to offer any evidence to his claim.  Yes, he “can be nastier” and indeed is!  He is the epitome of “The Pot Calling the Kettle Black”, i.e. psychological projection.

We must lift our eyes to the hills.  We must mount up
with wings as eagles so that we are enabled to walk
and not faint.

Fraudulent Religiosity

In 2016, while campaigning in Iowa, Trump said:  “Christianity will have power.  If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else.  You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well.  Remember that.”  It was in that same campaign speech that Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,  Ok?”  That statement got all the media attention.  His statement  “Christianity will have power” may have been glossed over by the media, but it was heard “loud and clear” by  80 percent of white evangelical voters nationwide and acted upon in November 2016!

What is this  “Christianity” and who are these alleged Christians who will be given power?  What is this “Christianity” and who are these alleged Christians who were willing in November 2016 (and apparently are still willing) to have Trump “represent” them and their faith “very, very well?”   

One Trump supporter said at the time: “I think Trump is going to restore our freedoms, where we spent eight years, if not more, with our freedoms slowly being taken away, under the guise of giving freedoms to all. Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority.  Rapidly.” (Italics mine).

Is the “Christianity” now represented with “plenty of power…(and) very, very well” by Mr. Trump only a “Caucasian” religion?  Does the “Christianity” now represented with “plenty of power…(and) very, very well” by Mr. Trump include freedom for all persons  or just for white evangelical voters.  Will Trump represent Jews and Muslims, and other religions with “plenty of power…(and) very, very well”?

So we have Mr. Trump representing  a so-called “Christianity” with “plenty of power.”  He says of his opponent:  “He’s following the radical left agenda: take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God…He’s against God, he’s against guns.”  

I was not aware that God and guns were one and the same. Nor was I aware that Christianity is a “Caucasian” religion. Indeed, I was not even aware that “power” is a Christian virtue.

Pope Francis gave expression to Christian irony when he prayed and praised God in these words: “You are immense and you made yourself small; you are rich and you made yourself poor; you are all-powerful and you made yourself vulnerable.”

Oh, the Irony!

Pope Francis gave expression to Christian irony when he prayed and praised God in these words: “You are immense and you made yourself small; you are rich and you made yourself poor; you are all-powerful and you made yourself vulnerable.”

*****

The word “irony” comes from the ancient Greek, meaning “dissimulation, feigned ignorance.”   “Dissimulation” is to hide under a false appearance—to let on, to make out, to pretend.  We use the word “irony” today to mean that what appears on the surface to be expected or true is radically different from what is.  It is “the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of truth.  Irony is often used by writers to create a contrast between how things seem (appearances) and how they really are beneath the surface.  

Some people are “confident that the world is exactly the shape that they see it as, and that all it needs is themselves and those like them to be put to rights, they experience no tension in whole-hearted commitment to their cause; they take delight in the denunciation of their opponents as the unwashed and unrighteous enemies of the good, i.e., themselves.  They live in a world cramped enough to be commensurate to their self-righteous egos.  In such a world, irony is a crime against reality.”

There is irony in Trump’s executive order accusing TikTok of spreading COVID-19 misinformation. Trump accuses TikTok of spreading conspiracy theories about the origin of the coronavirus.  This order comes even as Twitter and Facebook pull down Trump’s posts related to COVID-19 for relaying false information.  That’s ironic!

Pessimism

A pessimist is a person who sees the worst aspect of things or believes that the worst will happen.  A pessimist has no hope or confidence in the present or in the future.  I’m trying my damnedest not to be one!

History helps a little bit.  It was only 80 years or so ago that Hitler was at the top of the world, or thought he was.  “Children in German schools,” wrote Harry Emerson Fosdick, “were using textbooks with statements in them like this:  ‘The teaching of mercy and love of one’s neighbor is foreign to the German race, and the Sermon on the Mount is, according to Nordic sentiment, an ethic for cowards and idiots.”  Hitler didn’t last.  When I read history, Victor Hugo’s remark echoes through it.  Hugo wrote that Napoleon fell and ended up on St. Helena because he “bothered God.”  I feel deep in my bones that what we are experiencing now in our America is not the last word.  I think what is happening now “bothers God.” The Hitlers and Napoleons  and their ilk—even the Coronavirus--are not history’s final word.

“I dare you,” wrote Fosdick, to be a pessimist.  You are troubled by discouragement.  I dare you to stop playing around the fringes of it and to plunge deep into it.  Stop trying to be hopeful.  Accept pessimism, lock, stock, and barrel, and make a creed of it.  Believe that all ideals are delusions, all hopes mirages, that any progress in the past was only accidental….Agree that we have reached dead-end…that dictatorships have the democracies of the world on the run because democracy is essentially unworkable, that goodwill is all fantasy…If you are going to be a pessimist, try being a real one; make disenchantment your final word and futility your creed.  You can’t do it.  At once arguments on the other side begin shouting, and will not be silenced.” We are living in a tough time, but hope abides because hope has carried us through other times.  Deep in us all is the faith that this hope will make things better.

“Easygoing optimism,” said Fosdick, “is silly; thoroughgoing pessimism is fatal; what we need is intelligence, faith, goodwill, courage.”  God is bothered by what is happening just as we are bothered by it.  The present situation (as bad as it is and getting worse day by day) is not the end of the story.  The present situation should not weaken  or rob us of our intelligence, our faith, our goodwill and courage.  It should, rather, call it forth.  To lose that intelligence, that faith, that hope, and not be “bothered” by what is going on is fatal.  Keep the faith.  This moment is not history’s final word.    

What do you see?

"Dubious Science"

Words fascinate me.  This morning I read the words “dubious science” in reference to the so-called “America’s Frontline Doctors,” a group of physicians who were lauded by Donald Trump at his Coronavirus News Conference last night. 

“Dubious” implies a lack of assurance about the worth, soundness, or certainty of something.  “Dubious” means having suspicion, mistrust, or hesitation about something.  It implies the existence of strong doubt.

More than 1,300 Americans died from the coronavirus yesterday.  That’s the highest one-day number since late May.  Are you dubious about that data?  Do you mistrust or suspect that data? Are you dubious about it because Mr. Trump claimed last night that “large portions of the country” were “corona free?”  I’m dubious about his claim.

A conspiracy theorist was interviewed by the Sinclair Broadcast group.  The theorist claimed that Dr. Fauci created the coronavirus using monkey cells.  Are you dubious about that claim?  Fox News has continuously run segments promoting ideas that question the seriousness of the virus.  Have you become doubtful about the seriousness of the virus? Breitbart published a video of those “frontline doctors” who claim that masks are unnecessary and that the drug hydroxychloroquine can cure the virus.  It was viewed 14 million times in six hours on Facebook.  Does that make you dubious of the FDA?  Mr. Trump tweeted a link to that video and endorsed the use of hydroxychloroquine (once again) last night.  The FDA has banned the use of hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of the coronavirus. Who/what are we to believe? The CDC and the Coronavirus Task Force have stated that masks are essential in preventing the spread of the virus, but as many as 25% of Americans are dubious about the efficacy of wearing a mask.

Among the so-called “Frontline Doctors” is Dr. James Todaro.  According to his own online biography, he hasn’t seen a patient since 2018.  Dr. Stella Immanuel just got her medical license last November. She believes that world leaders are really lizards who are dressed up in human suits!  Needless to say, I’m a bit dubious about any claims either of these “frontline doctors” might make!  

There is dubious science.  There is dubious religion.  I hope we can see truth and fact in spite of the dubious.

Land That I Love…

O God, “stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above.”  Land that I Love…”Our fathers’ God, to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing; long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light; protect us by thy might…”. Land that I Love…”God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law.”  These words from our  “patriotic” songs have become the focus of my prayers for this Land that I Love.

I was a young man when I watched on “black and white” TV the antics of Bull Connor in Birmingham, Alabama.  He used water hoses and attack dogs to disperse civil rights demonstrators.  I was a young man when in 1965 John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. John Lewis was a young man then, too. I watched the Alabama State Police attack and beat those peaceful, non-violent marchers under the guise of “law and order”.  Today, as a “mature” man I will watch John Lewis cross that bridge again.

Also, today, as a “mature” person I will watch (“deja vu”) the antics of the Trump administration in Portland, Oregon and hear again the threats of sending more armed camouflaged militia into other American cities.  

In Egypt, protests are banned and when any protest occurs, the participants are called “terrorists.”  In Turkey, the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, describes protesters as “terrorists” including journalists, academics and rights activists. In Hong Kong this month, a 23-year-old pro-democracy protester became the first person to be prosecuted under China’s new national security law.  The young protester was charged with inciting secession and terrorist activities.  Donald Trump says he wants to “dominate” our cities and calls all protesters “terrorists.” As a friend often says, “Enough said…”

“Deja vu” occurs “when information by-passes short-term memory and instead reaches long-term memory.”  It seems to me that what is happening now in my later years (though the present happening is unique) happened once upon a time in my youth.

“O say can you see by the dawn’s early light” what we have seen before is what we are seeing now?  

"O say does that star-bangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
It's a big question mark that ends our national anthem.
Have you ever noticed that?

In. Search of a Better Word

Many say they support the police—period!  They are using the right word if they mean they want to “maintain, sustain, uphold and preserve” all policing in whatever form. To “support” means to hold up or add strength, literally and figuratively.  The columns hold up the roof.

Does this mean I must “support" immunity for law enforcement officers who act unseemly?  Does it mean I support the “knee on the neck” for eight minutes and forty-two seconds?  

Everybody wants to “support” law enforcement, local, state and federal.  We need them.  There is no question about that.  But who wants to support maintaining, sustaining and preserving what we have all viewed in recent days:  police brutality.  You can’t rationally deny that some policing is out of hand.  That doesn’t mean “all” police.  It does means “some.” 

Perhaps we ought to use another word instead of “support" (which seems to me to be rather ambiguous and non-discriminatory).

May I suggest the word “respect.”  Respect means an admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities and achievements.  I respect the police—those who earn it by doing their job in an appropriate way.  I respect the police—they put their lives on the line every day.  Respect is earned.  Support isn’t.

John Robert Lewis

Today I mourn the passing of John Lewis.  I’m thankful that he wrote his memoir Walking With the Wind.  I would urge every American to read it.  It tells a story of an America that “use to be,” an America  “that is now” and holds out the promise of an America “that is yet to be.”  

John Lewis nearly died in 1963 (at the age of 23) after being beaten while leading the famous march over the Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama.  I remember that day for as Lewis wrote, “it touched a nerve (in me) deeper than anything that had come before.” John McCain called Lewis “a personal hero” as he recalled that day.  “In America,” McCain wrote in The Restless Wave, “we have always believed that if the day was a disappointment, we would win tomorrow.” Fortunately for us, all of us, for America, John Lewis won some tomorrows, surviving for another 57 years to help us find our way as a people and as a nation.

John Lewis said, “Giving up on dreams is not an option for me.”  We must not give up on the American Dream, not now, not ever. 

Abuse: A National Pastime

I’ve watched it happen over and over again since I was a little boy.  It seems to be happening much more frequently these days.  What’s happening?  The dehumanization, the defaming, the “put down,” the destructive belittling of those persons who do not or will not conform to another’s way.

It happens in the elementary school classroom and on the playground.  It happens in high school.  It happens in churches.  It is a practice used by those who are in power or who are seeking power to maintain or gain the chair at the head of the table.  In its worst form this practice is the tearing down of a person. It is more than bullying.  A bully is a person “who habitually seeks to harm or intimidate those who they assume are vulnerable.”  What is happening now is more like that of an abuser.  An abuser is a person “who treats another person (or a situation) with cruelty or violence—regularly and repeatedly.”

Domestic abuse has become a national pastime.  Any person or situation that comes along to  oppose the present seat of power, or disagree, or challenge it is made out to be a “hoax.”  Every person who takes a different stance becomes a traitor, unpatriotic, as someone who hates America.  Non-violent protesters are thugs, terrorists, criminals unless “they like me!”

Yesterday it was Hillary, Mueller, Comey, Kaepernick, Gold Star families and McCain.  The list is so long that it is impossible to remember everyone whose life has been impacted and  defaced, whose character has been impugned, whose career has been terminated.

And now it is Dr. Fauci.  

Victor Hugo Speaks In Our Time

If you know nothing about Victor Hugo by all means learn of him.  Read his books and his poems.  He wrote “Les Miserables” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”  A noted poet in his time, he wrote several  poems that speak to me in the present moment.  Perhaps they will speak to you.

Will the “better angels” in our land survive this moment in time? Hugo responds:

Be like that bird

Who, pausing in flight,

Feels the bough give way

Beneath her feet

And yet sings,

Knowing she hath wings.

Who is this character “without character” who has a royal appetite?  Hugo responds :

Possessed of royal appetite, and feeling rather thin,

A monkey one day dressed himself in a tiger’s skin

The tiger had been nasty; the monkey was atrocious,

Wearing on his back the right to be ferocious.

He set himself to gnashing teeth and let loose with this cry:

Conqueror of the jungle, the night’s dark king am I!

As a bandit of the forest, in the bushes he lurked

And snatched away and murdered and other horrors worked.

Laid waste the forest, slit the throats of those passing through,

And with the skin that covered him did all it used to do.

He lived within a cave, knee-deep in butchery,

And all who saw the skin believed the tiger was he.

He would cry out, would bring forth a truly terrible roar:

Behold within my cave the bones of victims before.

Before me all draw back and shudder, everyone doth flee,

All tremble—I am tiger!  Look!  and worship me!

The animals were all awe-struck and fled with great alarm,

A lion-tamer came and grabbed him with his arm,

And ripped off the tiger’s skin like a flimsy piece of tissue,

Laid bare this “conqueror” and said, “You’re just a monkey, you!

“Those who do not weep, do not see.” (Victor Hugo)

Prayer Is....

The rejection of science has always been around from the time of Galileo and Copernicus to the present.  Such rejection has normally proved to be pure ignorance and/or stupidity. Science is often rejected by those who claim to be religious, who think, erroneously, that religious faith is somehow endangered by the advance of science.  The truth is that religious faith is endangered, not by science, but by its own stagnation of religious conceptions.  The act of prayer is one of these stagnated conceptions.

A minister was asked by his congregation to pray for rain.  This is what he said in his prayer:  “Thy servant has been importuned to pray for rain, but Thou knowest, O Lord, that it is not so much rain that is needed on these farms as it is good old barn manure for the success of the crops in this community.”  When prayer is seen and used as a tool for getting what we think is best, or for our own desired ends, it ceases to be what prayer is.  All our praying must end with:  “Not my will, O Lord, but thine be done,” to protect us from our erroneous concept of what prayer is.

I am discovering in my present circumstances that prayer is not asking, pleading or begging that my desire be fulfilled or that what I want more than anything else in the world should  happen, in spite of the facts or with total disregard for reality.  I am finding anew that prayer is a spiritual communion with God, the Love at the heart of things.  

Prayer is itself the reward and the victory.  Prayer is not what comes after praying, but what occurs in the act of prayer itself.  The seeking is the finding.  The wrestling is the blessing.  It is no more the means to something else than love is.  It is an end in itself.  It is its own excuse for being.  

Prayer is living with One who needs us as we need Him.  It is connecting with One who is sharing with us, always, the joys, travails and the tragedies of our living.  

"You pray in your distress and in your need;
would that you might pray also
in the fulness of your joy and in your days of abundance."
(Kahil Gibran, The Prophet)

The New Dark Age

A few days ago I wrote “American History:  A Trail of Tears,”  to encourage us to examine our American “heritage,” which we often romanticize and rob of its reality.  I used Winston Churchill’s words, “A nation that forgets its past has no future.”  I wrote not to disparage that heritage, but to lift it up as part of our ongoing struggle to attain the American Dream. 

What is the American Dream?  “In a real sense, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “America is essentially a dream, a dream as yet unfulfilled.  It is a dream of a land where men (women and children) of all races, of all nationalities and of all creeds can live together as brothers (and sisters).  The substance of the dream is expressed,” he went on to say, “in these sublime words lifted to comic proportions:  ‘We hold the truths to be self-evident, that all men (women and children) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’  This is the dream.” 

We sing of this dream in “America the Beautiful:  “America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea….” Added to those words are the following:  “God mend thine every flaw…,”  words that recognize our continued and often frail attempts to live out that Dream.

Are we entering a new dark age?  (Most are aware of the dark age which settled upon Europe for over six centuries.  It was a time in which science, history, and reason were obliterated.)  When reason is abandoned, when history is fabricated, when science is ignored, we are in danger of such an age falling upon us.  When over fifty percent of Americans are labeled treasonous or unpatriotic, when divisiveness is encouraged and condoned, when peaceful protesters are labeled “angry mobs” making a “radical assault on American democracy,” or as “left-wing fascism,” when any opposition, including the opposing party is castigated, when the free press is called “fake news” or “communist,” the dark clouds gather.  

Donald Trump’s speech last night was a divisive one. There was no attempt to unify.  There was no reference to the Dream. There was no attempt to bridge the gaps.  Reason was abandoned.  History was fabricated.  Science was ignored.  The dark clouds that have been hovering over the Dream are darker this morning.

The dark ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear. This Dark Ages prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by misorientation and built of misinformation. (R. Buckminster Fuller)