LivingNonviolence

Nature Deficit Disorder

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:55:00 +0000

One of the things I remember most fondly about my childhood home in Randolph, New York, is the open spaces outside. To the north was a long lot where my father usually planted the garden. To the West was a large empty field big enough for a ball game.

Part of my responsibility as a family member was working in the garden. It's where I cultivated my love of tomatoes, ripe and freshly picked off the vine in the backyard. And even though I complained about the weed pulling and hoeing, the time spent outside with the vegetables is now a pleasant memory.

In the same way, I would often rush through my dinner to get out of the house to play ball. Every evening when there was enough light to see and there were enough kids from the neighborhood to make teams, we played in the big field. I'm sure I spent far more time playing outside than inside. If no one was in the field, you could often find a game of kickball at the playground, two blocks away. It was always dark when I heard my name called to come home.

I read an interview today with Richard Louv. He's the author of a book called Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. He attributes several of childhood ills these days to little time spent outside in the natural world, including psychological disorders, childhood obesity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). According to Louv, parents and educators from all over the U.S. have communicated with him about how behavior changes in ADHD kids after they've had an experience in nature.

Children don't have to have Yellowstone National Park or the Badlands of South Dakota next door, although one would hope they might experience them as something other than an "in and out of the car" tourist. Certainly we need to do all we can to protect these wonderful natural environments from those who would exploit or damage them for private profit.

But all children can have some outside play space nearby. It may be more difficult in the city but planners can plan for it and developers can include it and homeowners can demand it. And we can get kids out of the city into natural environments. The Sierra club has a whole host of outings available, led by members and available to all. There are groups like "The Children and Nature Network," founded by Louv: www.childrenandnature.org that can help.

Nature deficit disorder need not be a legacy we leave our children. Our relationship to the creation around us is a significant component of a nonviolent lifestyle. If there's no opportunity for relationship we do violence to our children and grandchildren. Let's make sure they have spaces to be outside, to hear the birds, inspect the insects, climb the trees, and gather the flowers, the shells and the stones. They're gathering something even more precious in the process.

Carl Kline

The Joy of the Little

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:15:00 +0000

Several years ago a group of twenty from the U.S. went to India in a program on Gandhian nonviolence. We met up with some folks from India and began the program at a teacher training institute named after Gandhis' wife, Kasturbai. We were only there a few days when we were told the well had gone dry. Although the school normally had many more residing there, in a few short days, western water users managed to drain all the water available.

In order to supply even more modest needs, forced by the circumstances, we took a bullock cart each morning some five kilometers to another well, where we filled a fifty gallon drum. This had to meet our needs, as the whole area was in the midst of a severe draught. It meant each person had a little more than a gallon a day for drinking, cooking, bathing and flushing.

I discovered and appreciated water in a new way. I had always found joy in swimming, in being immersed in a lake or the ocean. But here I found joy in a cup of water, poured slowly and carefully over a hot and sweaty body. Each drop offered profound refreshment as I realized this was all there was.

This experience with water so invaded my consciousness that when I returned home, I continued my Indian bucket bath tradition. Next to the shower I placed my gallon bucket and plastic measuring cup. Each day I'd get half a bucket of water, squat in the shower and appreciate the pleasure of a little. This went on for about a year before the convenience and ready access of a warm shower overcame my consciousness of the worlds' lack. I'm convinced westerners need an experience of the needs of others at least once a year, or the materialistic nature of our culture begins to cut us off from any experience of solidarity.

Fasting has had similar results. The first time I did a serious fast of three days, I realized why people said the poor were lazy. It wasn't laziness. It was lethargy, the result of being nutrition poor. When you don't eat, you don't have energy. When you don't have energy, you appear lethargic. So rather than understand the dynamic, as often happens, the victim is blamed.

A longer fast, of nine days, helped me understand the joy of the little. Starting to eat again, I was advised to start slowly. It never tasted as good! It hasn't since.

I call it the joy of the little. A little water, appreciated. A little food, not taken for granted. A little kindness, unexpected. A little love, in that most vulnerable moment.

Nonviolence is about the little, the everyday, done in solidarity with all the sentient beings. I have to keep reminding myself of this in a world of bigness, where big and important people do big things, and miss the joy of the little.

Carl Kline

When Equality & Justice Shall Be the Fruit of Peace

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0000

There was an opinion piece in the Boston Globe recently entitled, “War’s glass ceiling.” Perhaps it would make your own conflicting emotions churn as mine did. The subtitle read, “Pentagon moves closer to allowing women to fight.” Above the article was printed a large photograph of a young woman in full battle gear in Iraq, her finger on the trigger of her rifle as she runs for cover. The article begins by pointing out that “over 130 women have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq…,” adding wryly, “and yet they were not in combat.” The article goes on to address the paradox that women in the armed forces are not officially assigned to combat, but due to increasingly blurry role distinctions often find themselves fighting alongside male comrades. Urging an end to the paradox, and looking beyond the hypocrisy, the author writes, “Ladies, get your guns. And grenades. And possibly your gut-slitting knives.”

The sexism in regard to women in the military is as blatant as in so many other facets of life, as homophobia was on full display in the recently repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell policy.” In the long road to equality and justice, however, these are both struggles that do not excite me. While my head says, “of course there should be equal opportunity in the military,” my heart and soul cry out against the myth of might, the perpetuation of war and weaponry as the way of conflict resolution. I cry out at the largest context of institutionalized violence the world has known, the young of nations arrayed against each other to kill and to be killed. War, and preparation for its presumed inevitability, is the backdrop for all the violence that tears societies apart, youth killing each other on urban streets, domestic violence, bullying. Mothers, fathers, and children look out of windows that will never frame the missing one, only to wonder at the slaughter. And there is cold comfort in the mechanical words of praise that come so easily from generals and politicians.

My thoughts turned round and round while reading the Torah portion called B’shallach (Exodus 13:17-17:16) during the week that I read the article about women in the military. These chapters in the Torah tell of Israel’s crossing through the parted waters of the sea, told to be silent as they look back upon the drowning of the Egyptians. It is a portion of both violence and hope, of teaching meant to counter the violence and help us look beyond. The Sabbath on which this portion is read is called Shabbos Shira/the Sabbath of Song. It is so called because of the song that Moses and then Miriam sing in awed response to what has just happened. In the traditional way of chanting the “Song at the Sea,” joy is diminished in the interplay of sprightly tune when singing of Israel’s redemption, and mournful undertone when singing of the drowning of the Egyptians. As in pouring off drops of wine at the Passover Seder when reciting the Ten Plagues, ritual comes to teach us that we are not to celebrate the destruction even of those who would harm us.

The Prophetic reading, called the Haftorah, for “the Sabbath of Song” is from the Book of Judges (4:4-5:31) and contains the song of Deborah, creating a parallel with the song in the Torah reading. Rising to a crescendo of violence, it is a song of dissonance. A judge in Israel, Deborah seems to look beyond the din of battle, as it rages in the moment, to a time of peace, “My heart is toward the lawgivers of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among the people…. Instead of the noise of adversaries, between the places of drawing water, there they will tell the righteous acts of God, the righteous acts of restoring open cities in Israel.” Fleeing the field of battle the enemy general, Sisera, is taken in by Ya’el. As he sleeps, she pierces his head with a tent peg.

Of women representing all who wait, we come to the end of the reading and cross a threshold. The Haftorah ends as we enter the home of Sisera’s mother and encounter the ubiquitous grip of palpable grief before the unavoidable truth that there shall be no homecoming. In the universal plaint of the one who waits, perhaps the end is meant as counterpoint to the violence, “Through the window the mother of Sisera looked forth, and peered through the window; why is his chariot late in coming? Why tarry the strides of his chariot?” The question lingers, asked twice, why, why?

As the Song at the Sea begins, it too looks ahead beyond the violence, az yashir Moshe/then Moses sang. Commentators are quick to point out that literally the words mean, then Moses will sing. It is a song of the future, a song to be sung in the time of the Messiah, the time of the ultimate redemption, when swords shall be turned to plowshares and spears to pruning hooks. The song of Moses, the song of Miriam, the song of Deborah are all one song. Of pain that gives rise to hope, it is also our song. It is the hope for a time when valor shall not be sought on the battlefield, when equality and justice shall be the fruit of peace.

Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein

The Other America Turns 50

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

2012 is the 50^th anniversary of Michael Harrington’s book, The Other America: Poverty in the United State, originally published by the Macmillan Company. My well-worn copy was printed by Penguin Books, Inc. The impact of the book can be judged in a small way by the frequency of reprints: 1964 (three times); 1965 (twice); 1966 (once); 1967 (twice). My 1967 Penguin Special Edition cost $.95, new.

The opening paragraph reads, “There is a familiar America. It is celebrated in speeches and advertised on television and in the magazines. It has the highest mass standard of living the world has ever known.” Then Harrington turns his attention to the 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 citizens in America who are poor. They live in “the other America.” He identifies those who live in this America as “the unskilled workers, the migrant farm worker, the aged, the minorities, and all the others who live in the economic underworld of American life.” Households with an annual income of less than $3,000 were officially poor in 1962. He describes “the other America [as] an invisible land.”

Thanks largely to Harrington’s book the invisible became visible. President Kennedy began thinking about poverty in new ways. Following Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson pledged in his State of the Union Address in January 1964 to wage “an unconditional war on poverty.” He picked Sargent Shriver to be in charge. But in Johnson’s “guns and butter” approach, the Vietnam War siphoned funds from the Poverty War, which was never adequately funded. Nevertheless, poverty was now out of the closet to stay. Or is it? The U.S. Census Bureau Study “Child Poverty in the United States: 2009-2010” is anything but encouraging. According to this report in 2010, 21.6 percent of America’s children live in poverty—the highest percentage since 2001. In 10 states the poverty rate was above 25 percent in 2010. Rates were higher for ethnic and racial minorities. Between 2009 and 2011, the percent of children living in poverty increased in 27 states and decreased in none.

In 2012, one Republican candidate for president has been heavily criticized in the media for saying that he doesn’t care about the poor. But is he alone? Are any presidential candidates talking about poverty in America? Ask yourself how many leading news stories have you seen in print or heard on television in the last year that focused on poverty in America that were not at the same time appeals for charity. When Tavis Smiley and Cornel West took their poverty tour in 2011 they tried to create a new national debate, but who listened?

An article by Maurice Isserman in the Winter 2012 issue of Dissent magazine suggests that one reason why we hear so little about poverty in America today may be due to Harrington’s book. Isserman points out that when Harrington described poverty, he talked about “the culture of poverty.” Harrington meant that the cause of poverty was a lack of money. But Shriver and the Johnson administration focused on ways to change the culture. This meant creating pre-school enrichment programs, job-training programs, and community action agencies. It was war on the cheap. Whereas the New Deal invested $5,000,000,000 in public works, the War on Poverty programs were less than $1,000,000,000. Given thirty years of inflation the real comparison is more like one-tenth rather than one-fifth of the sum. Some programs like Head Start have been very successful, but many lacked funding and adequate support.

Isserman says that Harrington was drawn to the concept of the culture of poverty because he thought it would prod the government to invest in better housing, better health care, better education, and jobs. But in the 1970s “neoconservatives” (a term coined by Harrington) turned the concept upside down and blamed the victims. Now it was not the lack of money that caused poverty, but the attitudes and behavior of the poor. The Reagan administration embraced the neoconservatives. And later, in 1992, candidate Bill Clinton pledged to “end welfare as we know it.” The War on Poverty was now a war on welfare.

I never met Michael Harrington, but I have to think that this crusader who joined Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker movement before joining the Young People’s Socialist League and later becoming a leader of the Socialist Part in America would be with the Occupy Movement today. And he would be hopeful for our future. Isserman calls The Other America, “Harrington’s love letter to the United States.” At the end of the letter, Harrington penned these words, “What is needed if poverty is to be abolished is a return of political debate, a restructuring of the party system so that there can be clear choices, a new mood of social idealism.” And he asked, “How long shall we ignore the underdeveloped nation in our midst? How long shall we look the other way while our fellow human beings suffer? How long?”

David Hansen

According to Our Worth

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis Cole-Dai) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:00:00 +0000

Last week I attended a "legislative coffee" in the town where I live. It was an opportunity for dialogue between state legislators and their constituents. Much of the discussion focused on a controversial education bill that would, among other things, introduce merit pay for 20% of the state's teachers, who generally rank among the most poorly paid teachers in the United States. When some citizens argued that all of our teachers need higher salaries than they currently receive, one of my state senators responded, "I believe in the capitalistic view that people should be paid according to their worth."

I was stunned. Surely, I thought, the man hadn't meant to say that. But no, as the fellow rambled on, it became clear that he hadn't misspoken, and I hadn't misheard. From his "capitalistic" point of view, some people are worth more than others as human beings simply because of the work they do.

If anybody else was bothered by our senator's remark, nobody let on. The conversation continued without a ripple. Maybe that's because the senator had espoused something that most Americans have come to accept as natural fact--that the value of a human being can be determined by his or her job. But that isn't a natural fact. It's an ideological belief, one that has been too long dominant in our culture; one that has wreaked incredible violence on the lives of our fellow citizens and on our society at large.

Grace Lee Boggs

Recently I heard an interview with the philosopher and activist Grace Lee Boggs. Even at the age of 97 years, dependent on a walker to get around, she's trying to reinvigorate poor neighborhoods in Detroit, a city that's on life-support. She's also trying hard to wake Americans up. She urges us to re-imagine "work." It's not, she reminds us, synonymous with a "job."

When work gets reduced to a job, human beings are reduced to laborers and consumers; community is reduced to a mass of individuals; concern for the common good is reduced to preoccupation with self-interest. Real work means far more than having to do whatever we must to make a living, which sometimes feels like selling our soul. We must recover a sense of the dignity and worth of work. If we do that, we'll also recover a sense of the dignity and worth of workers.

Grace Lee Boggs' insistence that we need to re-imagine "work" applies just as well to "the market" and "the economy." We need to envision new ways of helping one another survive and thrive, in community. Alternatives to the prevailing economic model are certainly out there in America, at least on a small scale. Some of them are called "solidarity economies"; others are described as "gift economies." Both types have existed in some form or another, somewhere in the world, for thousands of years. They aim to meet the needs of all members of a community instead of a select few. Instead of being rooted in a "survival of the fittest" mentality that prizes the maximization of profits for private gain, and which does not hesitate to plunder natural resources, these economies are grounded in the values of respect, cooperation, democracy and environmental sustainability.

In both these types of economies, human beings have inherent worth and dignity. Their value is not determined by their labor, but by their very existence. The economy and its various markets (including the labor market) are regarded as tools for the maintenance of the community, rather than the community being regarded as a tool for the maintenance of the economy and its markets. This is a crucial difference. The former affirms and sustains life, the latter commodifies it.

Examples of solidarity economies include community-controlled credit unions, food-buying cooperatives, and community land trusts. Gift economies, which have been especially common among indigenous peoples, focus on the welfare of the collective; they involve resource-sharing based on need. A good illustration of such a gift-based, non-commercial market is a "Really Really Free Market," held weekly or monthly in a public place. Members of the community are welcome to bring to the RRFM things they no longer want or need, and to take away things that they do. Everything is free; nothing bought, nothing sold. Such markets sometimes also offer services like hair-cutting, lawnmowing or oil changes. Food and entertainment may also be available. Every market takes on a life of its own, grown as it is in the soil of its own community. In the video below you can hear a "free marketer" reflecting on his experience in Pasadena, California, just one of dozens of cities around the United States where such markets have emerged.

If I can round up some folks to help me, I'd like to consider starting a free market in the town where I live. Maybe you could get one going where you live, too. From what I can tell, it should be fairly easy for us to do. Basically we just need to find a public space in which to hold the market, set a time to do it, and spread the word.

If we manage to get a Really Really Free Market going here in Brookings, South Dakota, I'll let you know.

Maybe I'll even send a special invitation to my state senator to come and join us, according to his worth.

Note: If for some reason you can't see the viewer above, click here to watch the video.

Phyllis Cole Dai

Truth & Spin

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:18:00 +0000

When I was in high school, I sang in our church choir. As a preachers kid, I was generally rebellious about church activities. But I didn't mind the choir because I liked singing, and besides, there was some camaraderie in the group that made it enjoyable. People weren't religiously "stuffy;" in fact, sometimes they were quite irreverent.

One Sunday, sitting in the choir loft, I was actually listening to my father preach. I'm not sure today what he said. I don't remember. What I do remember is that, whatever it was, in my own mind I said, 'that's the Truth!" The word had a capital T.

It wasn't an opinion or a half truth my father uttered but what I recognized at the time as an absolute Truth.

The culture I inhabit these days doesn't have much use for even the small letter truth. Instead of the healing that comes from "speaking the truth in love," we have "spin doctors," who try to heal our sicknesses with the manipulation of language, sometimes with outright lies.

We all stretch, avoid, exaggerate, hide, deny, ignore the truth . Of course, those in the public eye are the most proficient practitioners, as they are likely to be caught in deceptions most frequently. But I do it and I expect you do it as well. As children we learn quickly to tell mom and dad about the bad behavior of our siblings and our own complete innocence. We soon learn some admissions and confessions are better left unspoken. Truth becomes half truth and half truth dissolves into "spin."

Writing in Harijan in 1942, Gandhi, who understood "Truth is God," wrote: "Only Truth quenches untruth. Love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only, but for all. Those who observe it may be few, but they are the salt of the earth; it is they who keep the society live together, not those who sin against Light and Truth."

As he often did in life, so in death, Gandhi challenges everyone to do the hard interior work that makes Truth real in the world. Prayer, or being in touch with Truth, must be a regular and daily activity. Thought, word and deed, all three, must be pure and Truthful. The pursuit of Truth, of necessity, will involve means that are consonant with the ends desired.

In a world of "spin," our dedication to the work of nonviolence will include an adherence to Truth, as best we can discern it.

Carl Kline

Urinary Irony

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:01:00 +0000

Is “irony” the right word? I watched the news reports last week and listened to the outrage of American leaders, civilian and military. The images of young soldiers urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters were pervasive for a couple of days.

The often repeated response seemed to be that “the actions of these young men was not consistent with American values.” “They are in a distinct minority.” “Their desecration of the Taliban corpses flew in the face of their military training.” As people at various levels of command, both civilian, and military, sought to explain the heinous act, targets for blame were cited. “The young men were out of control.” “They should have been better supervised by non-commissioned or commissioned officers.”

The irony of the situation struck me. Of course urinating on a dead human body is an unspeakable act. It utterly and violently denies the humanity of the enemy. It is also an act that diminishes the humanity of the person who does it. It is an embarrassment to the USA and to the military and to all the people, civilian and military, who have to work in the war zone. But what I found noticeably absent was any outrage or embarrassment about the killing of human beings in the first place. Clearly, the killing must be consistent with American and military values and clearly, it is within that value system to train those young men to kill in the first place. Watching the news and commentary and responses was another one of those “Alice–falling-down–the–rabbit–hole” kind of experiences. Outrage over the act of expending bodily fluid on the body of a dead enemy - - silence about the act of destroying the life force of another human being. My brain cannot reconcile this.

In a week when we observed the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. and celebrated his nonviolent action for social change, it seemed a sad and odd juxtaposition of news stories. King’s preaching was so clear – that violent means will never result in lasting, peaceful and nonviolent ends - - that violence begets violence. The photos that accompanied the news reports surely proved his point beyond a shadow of a doubt. The violence of war dehumanizes us all. From the highest places in the government to the chain of military command to the young members of the military who run amuck without adequate supervision to those of us who continue to pay for it - - the violence of war dehumanizes us all. The great urination is only the latest violent symptom of how disconnected we are from a collective consciousness that recognizes and values human life as sacred.

“Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…”

Vicky Hanjian

Lighting the Way Home

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:00:00 +0000

On the shortest day of the year, darkness then descending into the longest night, there is an annual gathering in a church near the Boston Common to remember and to mourn. It is an interfaith memorial service for homeless people who have died in Massachusetts during the past year. Always held on December 21^st, words on the cover of the program underscore the symbolic power of the date, “The longest night of the year…, The longest night to be un-housed!”

I have participated in this community of mourners for several years. The immediate mourners, the family of the deceased, are the homeless themselves, gathered in the pews. I have often felt embarrassed here, to be welcomed into this community of the living and the dead. It is not only an embarrassment for what I have, seen in the immediate disparity, for instance, simply in the clothes I wear. I am humbled and embarrassed, rather, for what they have and give to me. There is a deep bond and sense of community among them, a gift freely shared, as powerful as any connection among people I have seen. Unlike in past years, sitting among the mourners this year, amidst the members of this holy congregation, my own tears came in a way they hadn’t in other years.

Among them, I could see their faces now, the intensity of their gaze as they listened to one of their own speak. My eyes kept returning to a man across the aisle from me, his appearance, I’m sure, belying his age. His face was striking, soft and hard at the same time, furrowed lines in weathered skin, graying hair to his shoulders, a bushy beard also streaked with gray, a beard both handsome and scruffy. I watched him as a child began to sing with a voice so haunting, accompanied by his father on piano, a bond so strong. The man across the aisle leaned forward, with shoulders hunched, and began to sob. I turned away as my own eyes welled, so as not to intrude. Later, I learned that his wife had died a year ago, the two of them having lived together on the streets for so long.

I confess that I hadn’t thought before about couples living their married lives upon the streets, without a home, without a bed in which to make love. This was a street poet’s loving lament, tender and biting, the voice of a woman as she looked up toward her husband while reading from her poem, “I Love Being Homeless.” Of a young couple caught in the street’s inexorable grip, with voice choking, Mike, an organizer of the service, told of the couple’s death together only two weeks before. These people his congregation, his holy work among them, in tears he added that fortunately their baby was not with them at the time.

All along the lower edge of the u-shaped balcony that surrounds the simple church, and along the floor at the base of the walls, there are cardboard tombstones, each with a first name and a last initial, unless it is for John or Jane Doe, the homeless and unknown. A man came up to speak, “people call me Shaggy, but my real name is David.” He looked around at all the tombstones and said, “All these people who passed away, a lot of them are my friends.” The names that were upon each cardboard “stone,” so many of David’s friends, were read individually as a candle was lit for each one. By the end, there was an undulating field of light at the front of the sanctuary, the light of so many souls flickering. I too was given a piece of paper with names to read. I felt a special bond with those names, and with the people who were called by them. I kept looking up at the cardboard markers to see if I could find them, Juarez S., Robert C., Gerald F., John N., Lorraine S., Richard S., Leonard M., Jeffery O., James W., the names by which each was welcomed into this world and by which they now were remembered.

God’s candle is the human soul, ner Hashem nishmat adam, and so for each of these, God’s light diminished now in this world, however many candles we would light. Coming during the week of Chanukkah, a time for raising up light, the Torah portion was Parashat Miketz (Gen. 41:1-44:17). Concerned primarily with the unfolding story in all of its drama of Yosef and his brothers, the portion begins with reference to the final two years of Yosef’s imprisonment: vay’hi miketz shna’tayim yamim/it came to pass at the end of two full years. Looking to the book of Job, the rabbis make a startling connection with this verse that would seem to be but an introduction. Chapter 28 of Job begins with a description of miners going down into the earth, bringing light to guide them in the midst of deep darkness. Speaking of each miner, the text says, keytz sam la’choshech/each one puts an end to darkness. Playing on the words keytz and miketz, both referring to an end in the passing of time, the verse from Job comes to speak to each one of us with its powerful reminder, each one puts an end to darkness.

It is not enough to reach out to the homeless only to mourn. On these long winter nights, it is for each of us to help put an end to darkness, together lighting the way home. From the same church where the memorial service is held, Mike leads people out to find the hidden homeless, those who don’t go to shelters and are wary of contact, bringing socks and hats and gloves to them, hoping their names won’t be upon those cardboard markers next year. Until we bring a more just and equitable society, we need to go out into the night with Mike and bring warmth and caring to those who could freeze to death in the meantime.

Painfully aware that it is not enough to mourn, neither is it enough to meet the immediate needs of the currently un-housed. If we would see the time when everyone has a place to live, it means challenging and changing the nature of a society in which so many are left out in the cold to varying degrees. During the memorial service, a sign was referred to that had been on the medical tent at Occupy Boston, “Let the raid begin, we want to go home….” Giving ironic voice to those in the tent encampment who had nowhere else to go, that sign was also a reminder of how far we have to go until we all come home.

Prefacing my own words of prayer with the hope that our mourning would be a call to action, I offered an adaptation of the Jewish memorial prayer, El Molei Rachamim, chanting first in Hebrew, then reading in English (see below). As it is the miners in the Book of Job, not God, who bring light into the depths of darkness, only we can transform our words of prayer into action and bring the light of a new day, when none shall die for want of such basic human rights as food, clothing, shelter, and health care. When that time comes, we shall again gather on the shortest day of the year, unafraid of the longest night, and celebrate the holy community of the once un-housed.

Memorial Prayer for the Homeless

O God, exalted and full of compassion, grant perfect peace in Your sheltering Presence, among the holy and pure, to the souls of all those whom we remember today, who have gone to their eternal home. Welcome them home, please, with open arms. Show to them the love and acceptance denied to them in life. Knowing that You have given us the resources, help us to create a just society in which everyone has a place to call home. In Your embrace of their souls, please show to them the meaning their lives held for You. Be a mirror, God, in which they may see Your image in their eternal selves. Please forgive us for not seeing Your image in them, and help us to open our eyes to the holiness of every single life. Master of mercy, we beseech You, remember all the worthy and righteous deeds that they performed in the land of the living, deeds of infinite meaning in Your eyes, however small, whether for family and friends, whether on the streets or in shelters, for each other and for others. May their souls be bound up in the bond of life. You are their portion. May they rest in peace. Let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein

My New Year's Wish

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis Cole-Dai) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Well, it's officially 2012. I just wrote the date on my first check of the new year. Doing that took some effort, as it does every January. It's an artificial exercise, turning one year into the next at the command of a calendar, but we make the change without complaint, don't we, and sometimes even with celebration, because by now it's customary around the world to do so. It's as if the Gregorian calendar were natural law rather than the product of a sixteenth-century pope.

The Gregorian calendar is a man-made construct, and harmless enough. In some ways, obviously, it's even helpful. But some constructs--especially ideological ones--are downright fictions in which we regularly participate without much thought, sometimes with grave consequences. This was made clear to me once again over this past holiday season, as I visited with my friends and relatives. As we discussed the many challenges our society now faces, a number of my dear ones stated emphatically why they could not or would not participate in any movement for social change. Their comments fell along four general lines of reasoning:

Reason one: "I'm only one person. I have no power. There's nothing I can do to change things."

Reason two: "The way things are is the the way things have always been and always will be. It does no good to try to change them."

Reason three: "The way things are in the nation at large has nothing to do with me and my life."

Reason four: "If we change the way we're doing things in this country--if we do what's good and right when nobody else in the world is doing the same--other countries will soon surpass us. We'll no longer be number one."

To me, these reasons for disengagement are serious ideological fictions. Behind them lurk despair rather than hope; estrangement rather than interdependence; fear rather than fellow-feeling. Certain powerful forces within our society would prefer to have us regard these fictions as self-evident facts, "givens" to be assumed, just like the Gregorian calendar. Indeed, those powerful forces routinely count on, and daily benefit from, our doing exactly that, even as we and our neighbors--not to mention generations to come--pay an excruciating price for yielding to them more authority than they are due.

I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to pay that price any longer. Not without raising my voice. Not without putting up resistance.

I know full well how tempting such ideological fictions can be, and how seductive can be the voices that espouse them from seats of power and corporate boardrooms, over the airwaves and even from pulpits. I try not to judge my loved ones for choosing to live by them. At the same time, however, I resolve to work shoulder to shoulder with those who would expose these fictions for what they are by proving that another kind of world is possible. I believe in that world, don't you? If our eyes are open, we see signs of it every day.

This year, I'm going to make a New Year's wish: That all of us might take more seriously our place in the scheme of things, and understand more fully the need for change, and own more unreservedly our own capacity for helping to create a more nonviolent society. Let us do so without complaint, and even with celebration, until that far day when the work of loving the world becomes customary--not because someone has commanded us to love, but because it is in our very nature.

Happy new year! Feliz año nuevo! Kul 'am wa antum bikhair! Shanah tovah! Xin nian yu kuai! Bonne année! Ein gutes neues Jahr! Maligayang bagong taon!

Note: If for some reason you can't see the viewer above, click here to watch the video.

Deep peace,
Phyllis Cole-Dai

To Do What is Right and Just

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Strangely, or perhaps not, I find two recollections coming to me with this year’s reading of the Torah portion Vayera, a portion so filled with moral struggle and challenge, memories that I don’t recall ever before rising from the mists of time and thought in relation to this Torah portion. They are memories of interactions that occurred in the early years of my rabbinate, at board meetings of my first two congregations, coming to me now in relation to each other for the first time. The first incident took place in my first congregation, at the first board meeting following the death of the rabbi emeritus, who had served the congregation for thirty-five years. It had been an overwhelming experience to officiate at his funeral, the entire community joined with each other as mourners. The primary item on the agenda for that board meeting so soon after the funeral was whether to continue to pay the rabbi’s pension to his widow. I was aghast that this was even a question. The rabbi had never belonged to a rabbinic organization, all of his support along the way and for the future coming through the congregation. At the end of a very painful meeting, the vote was taken. The decision was not to continue making payments to the rabbi’s widow. I am finding that tears still come to my eyes as I recall that moment. I had never felt so angry and ashamed of a community that I was part of, let alone the leader of. With all of the authority that I could muster as a young rabbi, I rose to my feet, my hands trembling on the edge of the table, and with a voice devoid of warmth, I slowly articulated each word, “this is a shandeh!” The Yiddish word for “disgrace” hovered in the air.

The second incident coming to me now in relation to Torah portion Vayera occurred a few years later, now in my second congregation. My active involvement in a campaign to ban American nuclear submarines from training in Canadian waters had become cause for displeasure and discomfort among some in the congregation. At a particular board meeting we discussed the matter. Living on the coast along whose shores the subs passed, I spoke of the dangers posed directly to us, and through training for their use of the danger posed to the entire world by nuclear weapons. I offered words of Torah, passionately explaining the rabbinic understanding of the commandment to seek peace and pursue it, “seek it in your own place and pursue it in another.” Thinking he had found the answer, one member of the board suggested that I speak to the “universality of peace,” and not about specific issues. Saddened and discouraged, I said nothing more.

Each of these incidents is about values lived in the breach. Each case represents a knowing of what is right, of the ultimate value that is at play, and of not doing it or giving it heed. I have no question that each board member who voted to cut off the rabbi’s pension payments to his widow knew that it was wrong. While one may differ in regard to the politics of the second incident, I also believe that the board member who suggested speaking to the “universality of peace,” knew the emptiness of such an approach. Living in the moment in accord with ultimate values is how we fill life with meaning.

The Torah portion Vayera is filled with teaching and drama. With this year’s reading, I have come to see that one of it’s teachings is of the dissonance that inheres in the breach between knowing what is right and doing what is right. At the outset of the portion, we learn of two commandments, the visiting of the sick and the welcoming of guests, each meant to be an expression of kindness. Three strangers appear to Abraham, messengers of God, angels representing the Holy One. As God speaks directly then to Abraham, convalescing following his circumcision, Abraham has the chutzpah to in effect tell God to please wait while he looks to the needs of his guests. From this, the rabbis teach that it is “greater to welcome guests than to receive the presence of the Sh’china,” underscoring that human needs take precedence, or that serving people is indeed to serve God. The Slonimer Rebbe here cites the words of Psalm 89, olam chesed yibaneh/the world is built on kindness, to which he adds, the essence of the world’s creation is the attribute of love…, the entire sequence of the creation of the world and its sustenance as it continues through the generations is through the attribute of love. Abraham comes to be associated in Jewish tradition with loving-kindness.

How painful then to see the failure even of our father Abraham, his disconnect between knowing and doing what is right, of values lived in the breach. From his sublime expressions of kindness at the outset of the portion we are stunned at what appear to be such lapses in events that follow. Where is the kindness we wonder as Abraham passes Sarah off as his sister to Avimelech, king of Gerar, into whose harem she is taken. Where is the kindness when Hagar and Yishma’el are sent out into the desert? And where is the kindness when Isaac is bound upon the altar? If these represent breaches, it is in his argument on behalf of the innocent who may reside among the evil ones of Sodom and G’morrah that Abraham rises to the ideals he represents. Knowing that he too can fail, as so often do we his descendents, there is even greater power when both he and we respond to God’s greatest hope.

Prior to the destruction of the two cities, most pointedly due to the violence shown to strangers, the welcoming of guests made a capital crime, God determines to tell Abraham of the destruction to come, in order that he shall command his children and his household after him that they shall keep the way of God, to do justice and righteousness/la’asot tz’dakah u’mishpat. We are those children, called to keep the way of God, not to live values in the breach, but in all ways and moments of life to do what is right and just.

Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein

A Different Christmas Story

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:07:00 +0000

In my Advent reading this year, I read the Christmas story in Luke’s gospel and compared it with a statement issued on 17 December 2010 by a Buddhist-Christian consultation on “Structural Greed” and an earlier World Council of Churches study document “Poverty, Wealth and Ecology: The Impact of Economic Globalization—a Background to Study the Process,” written by economist Rogate Mshana.

In our popular culture we learn that Jesus was laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn. The local establishment was booked because of the government decree that ordered everyone to return to the town of their birth. Sort of like telling people they need to get a birth certificate before they can vote in the 2012 election in the United States. The hidden poll tax is not exactly illegal since it is indirect, but it will prevent the poor from voting. Make no mistake about it: voter suppression is a campaign issue in this country. Communities of faith should be registering congregants and visitors to vote in record numbers on Christmas Eve, at least that’s my opinion. But the focus of my blog contribution is elsewhere.

Maybe Mary put Jesus in the manger not because the inn was full, but because she was poor. She was not in the inn because she could not afford it. Lack of housing is a common problem for the poor. Poverty is about more than not having enough money. It means not having housing, not being able to buy nutritious food, not having access to good schools or adequate health care, dealing with illness without resources, often living in unsafe environments, facing daily reminders of social discrimination and exclusion, and being reminded constantly that it is your own fault. One person running for the Office of President of the United States was candid enough to say that in his world if you cannot afford private health insurance--well, I don’t think he actually said you should curl up and die, but his intention was unmistakable. Christmas? “Bah-Humbug!”

We don’t hear a lot about Structural Greed this holiday season, but it’s a good concept. In the Buddhist-Christian Common Word on Structural Greed the authors write that “one of the primary reasons for the global financial crisis is that over the past centuries economic processes have been progressively motivated and structured by the goal of maximizing profits for capital owners and thus monopolizing the world market.” The writers go on to acknowledge that we have become comfortable with greed and the idea that accumulated wealth is necessary for human progress. In the statement, Buddhists identify Three Poisons: greed, hatred and delusion. The antidote is becoming a generous, loving and compassionate person. But the conference participants go on to say that if we only focus on individual greed we are maintaining the status quo. Accordingly, we need to develop strategies for countering Structural Greed.

Rogate Mshana’s paper offers both a framework for analysis of Structural Greed (although he does not use that phase) and strategies for addressing it. He says that we need theological reflection, economic analysis, ongoing dialogue, and practical action.

Theological reflection leads to the insight that poverty is a spiritual problem as well as an economic one. Economic analysis shows us that the market mantra of economic growth is not sufficient and cannot be sustained in a divided world. The 500 richest people in the world have a combined income that is greater than the income of the poorest 416 million people. Economic growth has not and will not lead to greater equality. We need to create conversations in communities of faith about the reality of wage theft, home foreclosures, unemployment, and poverty in our communities. Faith communities can be places for these sacred conversations. Finally we need proposals from practical action. Here is where I find Mshana’s idea of a Greed Line especially helpful. Establishing a Greed Line offsets the Poverty Line and creates a whole new conversation.

Mshana proposes five ways to measure greed. Absolute Greed could be defined in terms of annual personal income and total property and assets owned. Income Ratios, a second matrix, invites us to look at the income ratio between, say, management and labor, or wealth and poverty. A Dynamic Greed line, the third matrix, measures the rate of wealth increase and profit growth. Usually high rates or growth or return on investments could suggest undue political influence or insider knowledge. The fourth matrix proposed is Categorical Types of Enrichment. Where does the money come from: expropriation, bonuses, stock options, investments, wages, etc? Investments and dividends, primary sources of wealth for the wealthy, are taxed a lower rates than income. The fifth matrix is Other Considerations, such as consumption levels. There are both conceptual and educational advantages to the Greed Line. It is a creative way to frame the conversation and it offers guidelines for analysis, education, conversation and action.

The Occupy Movement reminds us daily that we need to turn the page. We need a new economy. We need to replace the ethics of apathy with a call to compassion. We need to challenge Structural Greed with Economic Democracy. In the Buddhist-Christian Common Word on Structural Greed, they recall these words of Buddha, “In a situation of crisis, act as if your turban is on fire.”

David P. Hansen

Gushing

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

“You have to learn to gush, people, you have to learn to gush!” It was the end of a four-day writers’ workshop and the leader was giving us her parting wisdom. Her philosophy for helping people to learn to write from the heart is one of positive criticism and affirmation. Over and over she would exhort the group to “tell her what you loved” after each person had read her piece.

She told the story of meeting a woman on the check-out line in a local supermarket. The woman looked sad and withdrawn. Our leader complimented the woman on the beautiful saffron colored scarf she was wearing - - remarked on how beautifully it brought out the color of her eyes and the highlights in her hair. A simple enough gesture on the check-out line.

A few months later, the same woman walked up to our leader on the street, wearing the same scarf. They greeted and the woman explained how our leader might just have saved her life. She had been depressed and was entertaining notions of suicide when the first encounter happened. By chance, an effusive and sincere compliment lifted her spirits just enough for her to be able to make the effort to get help with her depression. The woman placed the saffron scarf around our group leader’s neck, embraced her, and went on her way.

I am not a “gusher” but the story stayed with me as I wondered about how often I could have verbally expressed my appreciation and valuing of another person a little more enthusiastically - - maybe say “I love you” in place of the cursory “love ya!” Maybe “use my words” to let someone else know how much I feel cared for by their kindness to me. Maybe tell another person that I receive them as a blessing in my life. Maybe let them know that their inner beauty is visible to me or tell them how much I respect their opinion on things that matter.

We live in a vast and pervasive culture of disrespect and un-civility. Our social interactions are often liberally laced with insults and put-downs in the name of humor. We tend not to see others as wounded and we unthinkingly add to their wounds. We tend not to see others as valuable and easily de-value them with thoughtless, thrown away words of disregard. Human dignity can be stripped away so easily and in the process a person of infinite worth is de-humanized.

As I was growing up, the old cliché: “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” provided some momentary relief against a bullying insult – but belied the truth that words hurt in ways that do not heal.

I may never be a “gusher” but I know for sure that I can slip under the cultural penchant for insult and put-down and find words of grace and love and affirmation and comfort and appreciation for another person, and maybe, for just a few minutes, subvert the dominant paradigm. Who knows when a human life may be hanging in the balance?

Vicky Hanjian

Hind Swaraj for the 21st. Century

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

In my readings of Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, I couldn’t help but make a strong connection between the problems Indian society was facing in 1920 and the problems we are facing now, almost a century later. Our problem is not that of an oppressive mother country, but a flaw in our society even more grave. Gandhi stated that “the English have not taken India; we have given it to them. They are not in India because of their strength, but because we keep them” (HS, 34.)

Like the Indians nearly one hundred years ago, we were not fully aware of the consequences of our actions. Now it’s evident that we have become slaves. But in my view, what makes our situation even worse is that there are no oppressive laws that have brought us to this state of injustice; only the indirect will of the people. We’ve made ourselves slaves to the corporations. We’ve allowed them and their marketing to make us believe that by consuming we can obtain happiness. We bought into the scheme perfectly and are only now seeing that the final result is far from the happiness promised.

Even now as I’m writing this, there’s an advertisement in the bottom corner of my Microsoft Word 2010 software telling me I can now have three dimensional effects in my power point presentations if I buy the full Microsoft Office 2010 software. Why do I need 3-D for any presentation? Yes, it may look cool and draw some attention, but does it add anything at all to the content of the presentation? Does it help me convey my point or opinion any clearer? This is one large aspect of the problem: at all moments of our waking life we are bombarded with the next latest and greatest gadget or style; told our lives will be bettered by always having something new, by always buying more. And now like a dog sitting patiently for another treat, society sits waiting for the next phone to come out that will allow us to send e-mails that much faster, even if there is no real problem with the phone we have now. At what price are all these new technological advancements and industrial progressions really coming? Is this materialism really worth the price we’re paying; the slavery it puts us into?

The Occupy Wall Street movement brings up some hope that our country may be moving in a better direction and that control may slowly be moving back towards the people, but I still have my doubts about the whole thing. We can’t expect that things will change and all those who are at the top of the corporations and government offices will give up their greedy ways only because we ask them to; a grander social change is necessary. I saw a picture on the web recently of a group of the Occupy protesters in New York. The person who posted the picture had gone through and marked all of the brand name products, from shirts, hats, bags, to the cameras and video recorders the protesters were using to capture the event. How can we expect the greedy to stop accepting and taking so much money, if we keep spending so much and paying their inflated salaries? Are not those who we are upset with just reflections, manifested to the extreme, of ourselves? Do we just “want English rule without the Englishman,” “the tiger’s nature, but not the tiger” (HS, 26), the capitalist and competitive system without the greed?

This is where I see the relevance and need for Hind Swaraj in the U.S. If we want to end corporate greed we must first end our own greed. If we want a deeper rule among the people, we first need a deeper rule over ourselves.

What is Swaraj? Gandhi points out that even if the British were to be expelled from the country, it would not mean that all the problems Indians had attributed to them would also disappear. It was up to the society to bring about that change, to stand up and form a system that suited them. For Hind Swaraj, for home rule, all must obtain self-rule.

The first crucial step the society must take for the social reform it wants is to look deeply into what is really going on around us and become fully aware of everything we see. Gandhi criticized civilization. Even in 1920, all the progress achieved in working towards a higher civilization was actually enslaving people into the system of civilization. Those who work towards those possessions of progress “are enslaved by temptation of money and of the luxuries that money can buy.” (HS, 32)

This is the largest problem facing our society. We have been disillusioned like a dreaming man; all the marketing and advertisements have shown us the way we should be living, and being in a deep sleep and dreaming, we are not able to realize it’s not the truth. It’s not until the sleeping person wakes up that they discover the falsehood in their dream. Occupy Wall Street seems to be our alarm clock. It’s time to wake up and see the way of truth, no longer the dream life corporations have put in front of us. Civilization is more than monetary and material wealth.

We have forgotten not only to perform our duty but what our duty is. We’re not living to achieve wealth and luxuries, but to help those around us and better the livelihood of all. What kind of civilization pits all of its inhabitants against each other? We must no longer rate civilization by the industrial progression it has made but by happiness and moral fiber of the civilians. We need to set our hearts on the whole of the society not only ourselves. The drive for possessions has driven out care for those around us. Our civilization has led to the creation of the “99%” that are now calling for an end to corporate greed. We must be sure this call is not for the greed of the 99%, but for the bettering of our civilization.

Our freedom lies in our hands. Only through our actions

will the nation be freed from the immaterial bonds of material possession that hold it down. “Swaraj has to be experienced, by each one for himself. One drowning man will never save another. Slaves ourselves, it would be a mere pretension to think of freeing others.” (HS, 56) The nation’s freedom will only come from each of us freeing ourselves. We created the slavery so only we have the ability to abolish it. The first step must be a look at how drawn in we are to the “American Dream” and how conscious we are of all the things we purchase, a deeper understanding of why we buy the things we do. Only after we realize where the passions of our hearts are and where they should be can we become free and begin work towards a civilization and society that is truly for the people, by the people, and of a non-greedy people.

In our new clarity, we must see that the words of Gandhi from the past are still as relevant as they were a century ago.

Logan Fleer - Participant in a Gandhi Study Program, Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, India

Giving Thanks as a Source of Humility, a Counter to Arrogance

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:00:00 +0000

To be thankful both requires and engenders humility. I find myself looking back at Thanksgiving, reflecting on the teaching of one day for every day. As we pause to consider that for which we should be thankful, it seems to me that we would do well to recognize that many of our greatest gifts are not of our own making. Numerous “accidents of birth” determine so much of later opportunity. Skills that require great dedication to develop, whether in music or art, science or sports, often grow from native ability that springs of its own from our genes. The very act of giving sincere thanks, therefore, should be a counter to arrogance. If something that in its essence or origin is not of my own making and has not come to me due to some intrinsic merit, then my giving thanks should be an act garbed in humility.

For all of the beauty of Thanksgiving, I think that what might be one of its deepest lessons is often missed. As with so many holidays, we can easily avoid grappling with the implications of particular moments in sacred time, and forget as well to draw meaning and responsibility beyond the bounds of a day. As a day to inculcate humility through the act of giving thanks, Thanksgiving offers an opportunity through which to address and redress inequities that divide Americans into a de facto class society. Gratitude for what we have is a tacit acknowledgement of what others don’t have, of the fine line that separates having from not having. Offering a time in which to consider what separates people from each other, Thanksgiving can open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and our hearts to feel the needs of others. If fortunate enough to be gathered on Thanksgiving with friends and family, our very gathering might awaken us to the loneliness of so many who have no one to be with and no place to call home. As Phil Ochs sang long ago, “there but for fortune, may go you or I.”

The story of Thanksgiving, so much a part of the American myth, especially so in New England, is most often told and transmitted in a way that violates what could and should be its essence. Rather than drawing from and speaking in accord with the humility that is meant to go hand in hand with giving thanks, the telling becomes one of arrogance. It is the arrogance of leaving out the consequences of white settlement upon indigenous populations, a process that began with Plymouth Plantation, of peoples and nations, of cultures and languages destroyed. How much deeper our expressions of gratitude would be, if carried on the same breath came acknowledgement of the pain and suffering of so many that is such a part of the founding and becoming of this nation. Approached as a source of humility learned through the act of giving thanks, Thanksgiving could be a day of national t’shuva/repentant turning.

I found these thoughts coming to me in reading the Torah portion that came during the week of Thanksgiving, Parashat Toldot. Bringing to mind the ways of Native Americans, I heard the description of Esau with perhaps a twist of irony, a man who understood hunting, a man of the field/ish sadeh. We are told that Esau called himself Edom/the Red One. Beloved of his father, Isaac, Esau is able to hunt and then prepare a meal with which to satisfy the hunger and longing of his father. His way as a hunter is not rapacious, but the way of one who knows and loves the fields and forests of home. Twice wronged by his brother Jacob, the birthright and blessing of the first-born are each taken from Esau through trickery and deceit. Upon realizing that the blessing meant for him has been given to his younger brother, Esau said to his father, “Is this, then, the only blessing you have? Bless me, too, O my father!” The text then tells us very simply, And Esau lifted up his voice and wept/va’yisa Esav kolo va’yevk’.

The Jewish People, descended through the line of Jacob, has been blessed with a legacy that invites us to wrestle with God and with people, to engage with text as seekers and questioners. We are invited to interpret Torah and to add our voices to an ever-unfolding dialogue as part of the “inheritance of the community of Jacob/morasha k’hilat Ya’akov.” It is a beautiful inheritance, a beautiful legacy of the other son of Isaac and Rebecca, the brother who was a simple man who dwelled in tents/ish tam yoshev ohalim. It should be possible to love that legacy as it has come to us, and also to hear the pain in Esau’s cry, as it too has come to us. It is a personal challenge for each one of us, as people, as Americans, to be grateful for the blessings we have been fortunate to receive and to respond to the injustice that leaves others in want.

Of Isaac, the father of these two brothers who were so different, the rabbis said, it is for his great humility that our father Isaac is praised/g’dolah anavah she’bah nishtabach Yitzchak Avinu. May we too be praised for great humility, the key that can open our hearts to hear the cry of another’s pain, the tone and song of our prayers of thanksgiving.

Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein

The Silent Clown Speaks

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis Cole-Dai) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Chaplin with Gandhi, London, 1931

Perhaps you have heard of Charlie Chaplin, the "Silent Clown" so famous for his slapstick films of the silent-movie era. But his most commercially successful film--and perhaps his most prophetic--was actually a "talkie." Released in 1940, when the United States was still at peace with Nazi Germany, The Great Dictator was almost entirely a product of his creative genius. He wrote it, he produced it, he directed it, he starred in it. Notably, it was the very first feature film to satirize and condemn the antisemitic and fascist policies of Hitler and the Nazi Party.

Chaplin was an admirer of Gandhi. His son, Charles, Jr., would later recall "how admiringly he spoke of Mahatma Gandhi...not only one of the most brilliant men he'd ever met, but one of the most godlike as well" (My Father, Charlie Chaplin, p. 339). The actor was inspired by Gandhi's choice to live in solidarity with the poor and the outcast. He was also impressed by Gandhi's assertion that supreme independence requires shedding all that is unnecessary. He regarded this principle as the foundation of Gandhi's argument against the varieties of "machinery" that destroy human beings politically, economically, socially and spiritually. That he shared Gandhi's perspective on this point is quite evident in The Great Dictator.

In this film Chaplin plays a Jewish barber trying to survive in the fictional nation of Tomania (i.e., Germany). Toward the end of the movie, his character is mistaken for the country's ruthless dictator Adenoid Hynkel (i.e., Adolf Hitler), with whom he shares a remarkable resemblance. (Chaplin was playing both roles.) Made to deliver a victory speech in front of a massive military crowd and also over the radio to the entire nation, the Jewish barber instead rails against "machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts." He begs his people to unite as human beings, to "fight [nonviolently] for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security."

"Let us fight," he cries, "to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness!"

The Jewish barber's speech, of which I've quoted just a few lines, is the rousing climax of the film. Its delivery is so passionate that I agree with those critics who believe that Chaplin stepped totally out of character to speak the words from his heart. Comedic commentary this is not. It is an ardent humanitarian appeal. Today, if we forgive the sexist language of his day, Chaplin's final speech as The Great Dictator continues to resonate powerfully. Such is the timeless nature of prophecy. It testifies to Truth, just as a finger points toward the moon. Truth, like the moon, is unchanging.

I invite you to watch the Silent Clown deliver his plea to Tomania in the video below. It is a plea to us as well. It is a plea to that within us which too readily obeys, and becomes, The Machine; to that within us which can resolutely rise up and resist The Machine. The original film clip has been remixed in this version with news footage and music by Hans Zimmer. Generations after Chaplin, its claim upon us is as contemporary as ever.

(Note: If for some reason you can't see the viewer above, please click here to watch the video.)

Deep peace,
Phyllis Cole-Dai

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:58:00 +0000

Diary Of A Peacekeeper: Healing And Security For Miracle

By Maria Helena Ariza

I was born and raised in Colombia, a country that has endured more than 50 years of armed conflict between the government and armed groups. Thousands have died and 3 million people had fled their homes. But like the majority of the urban middle class population, I never directly witnessed political violence.

I’m lucky for having felt safe and free. But I know that people in remote villages are vulnerable to terror and recruitment by armed groups. They are underserved by the government, deprived of education and other services, and forgotten by those who have the luxury of security.

I have made it my personal mission to overcome the indifference that leads to vulnerable people being ignored. I have built my career around protecting people threatened by violence.

Working for Nonviolent Peaceforce gives me the opportunity to be an agent of change in the South Sudan. Every day, my fellow peacekeepers and I strengthen relationships with locals, build their capacity to prevent violence, and provide protective accompaniment to people at risk of violence.

I recently had the privilege of meeting Miracle.* She was kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army and forced to become a combatant and a “forced wife” of soldiers. Days before we met, she was reunited with her family. Like other returnees she faced the risk of re-abduction and being ousted – or even killed.

Miracle desperately needed psychosocial services and safe transportation to the Child Transit Center where she would receive them. Our peacekeeping team and a government social worker met with Miracle’s family at their home and explained the services available for Miracle.

Miracle was deeply traumatized and unwilling to speak. Although she didn’t talk or smile, she got into our car and waited for the adults to finish their conversation – a sign that she felt safe in our presence.

With Miracle in tow, we traveled for hours on one of the most dangerous roads in the region. We dropped Miracle off at the Child Transit Center and she began the long journey toward overcoming the effects of abduction, physical abuse, and sexual violence.

After Miracle spent a month in the transit center, the NP team accompanied her to her family’s new home. As she adapts to her new, more secure life, we have follow-up visits with her, monitor her physical and emotional wellbeing, and address the security challenges she faces.

Stories like Miracle’s demonstrate the vital role Nonviolent Peaceforce plays in remote areas. For me, it’s personal. Visiting Miracle’s village takes me back halfway around the world to Colombia. I can empathize with the vulnerable communities in isolated areas of my home country. As I travel dangerous roads to meet with Miracle, I know that I am overcoming the indifference that is pervasive among my countrymen. I am risking my safety and moving out of my comfort zone to stand up for people affected by violence. Each time I meet with Miracle, I defy indifference.

Maria Helena Ariza (back row center in above photo) is a peacekeeper in South Sudan. She was born and raised in Colombia and has an M.A. in International Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame.

* Name changed to protect client.

Date Published:

Wednesday, October 19, 2011, from the Nonviolent Peaceforce Newsletter

Amazing Faith Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

I recently attended an “Amazing Faith Dinner.” The meal was sponsored by a local interfaith group called Global Interfaith in Action (GFIA). The theme of GFIA is the Golden Rule. Positively stated it enjoins us to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and negatively, “Do not do to others what you do not want done to you.” In one form or another, this rule is found in all major faith traditions. One of the goals of GFIA is to promote interfaith dialogue by creating opportunities for people to live in the spirit of the Golden Rule. The Amazing Faith Dinner is such an occasion. The dinner that I attended in November was a first for me. The following is a report about what happened during the evening. I offer this account in some detail with the thought and hope that others may replicate this gathering in other communities.

The plan is simple, which is its charm. GFIA selects a host for the evening and provides the meal and a facilitator to guide the discussion that occurs as the dinner is shared. The dinner is kosher and vegan. The meal and time for sharing is two and one-half hours. The setting is a private home. Everything is done to make the setting inviting and the guests comfortable. GFIA extends an open invitation to the dinner on its website and then selects the hosts, facilitators and guests for each household. I did not know the name of the host until a few days before the dinner. I met the other guests and the facilitator at our host’s home.

When I arrived at our host’s home at the appointed hour of 6:30 two other guests were already there. We sat in the living room and exchanged greetings and pleasantries while waiting for others to arrive. Soon the facilitator for the evening joined us. We were told that two or three of the people who had planned to join us for the evening had sent regrets. This meant that our group was two Moslem women, me and our facilitator. The couple hosting the evening had not planned on participating in the meal or the discussion. We quickly agreed that everyone would be welcome at the table, including the teen-age daughter of our host couple.

After we were seated around the table, our facilitator began the conversation by asking each of us to introduce ourselves. One of the women wore a hijab. She was Syrian by birth and has lived in the U.S. for twenty years. She and her husband own a popular restaurant that we all knew and frequented. The second guest introduced herself as a Moslem but she did not wear a hijab. She told us that she and her former husband were divorced. Our hostess, the daughter of a Christian minister, identified herself as a Christian but she allowed that she had many questions about the church and about Christianity. Our host identified himself as non-religious. Their teen-age daughter said that she thought the Golden Rule was a good thing. Our facilitator identified himself as a member of the Church of the Brethren. He said he was attending seminary on line and preparing to become a pastor. I introduced myself as a retired Christian minister. We were an eclectic group. The facilitator was the only one who had participated in one of these dinners previously. It was a new experience for all the rest of us.

Introductions completed, a stack of three-by-five cards was placed on the table. Questions were written on each card. We were instructed that each person at the table would take a card in turn and have five minutes to answer the question while the rest of us listened attentively. There would be no discussion during or after each speaker. The questions were open-ended. “What does faith mean to you?” “Do you think doubt is the opposite of faith?” “Do you believe in miracles?” “What has your faith been important to you?” “Do you meditate or pray?” Because our group was small, we were able to have two rounds of questions. The last half-hour was open for general conversation. At the end of the evening we were asked to fill out an evaluation form and on a separate card asked if we would consider hosting or facilitating a dinner in the future.

I have participated in interfaith panels and discussions in the past, but this evening was one of the most intimate group conversations that I can recall. The design of the evening was simply to have us to break bread with people from other faith traditions and enjoy a conversation, and to do this in a private home with a limited number of people. At the end of the evening we exchanged emails and facebook information and agreed that we want to continue to meet together in each other’s homes.

Obviously our group was self-selected in the sense that each of us chose to participate in this dinner, but there were no preconditions. I believe that in total there were probably eight to ten dinners that evening. Each dinner probably had six to eight people. I think this is the second or third year for the Amazing Faith Dinner, but I have not checked with GFIA about either the total number of participants or how many years they have sponsored this event. The plan is simple in design and relatively easy to implement. Bon appétit,

David P. Hansen

Of God's Promise and Ours

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I had the opportunity recently to speak as part of an interfaith panel at a program sponsored by Franciscans at the St. Anthony Shrine and Ministry Center in downtown Boston. Participating in the discussion were the usual suspects, a priest, an imam, and a rabbi. The name of the program was, “Pilgrims of Peace: Reflections on Peace framed by the Abrahamic Traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The gathering was held on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Assisi Interfaith Peace Gathering, convened in Assisi by Pope John Paul II on October 27, 1986.

Though I hope I can help to move others, I am not always especially moved as a participant on a panel. Last night was different. I was deeply touched by the sensitivity and the depth of thought and struggle shared by my colleagues on the panel. Speaking first, Imam Talal Eid, someone with whom I have been on other panels, managed to address a deeply challenging topic, the perception of Muslims as terrorists, with a remarkable touch of humor that set people at ease. He told of participating in a similar gathering at which a Hindu speaker preceded him. As words of peace were offered from the Hindu tradition, Imam Talal’s wife whispered to him with agitation, “who is he to speak of peace,” referencing the killing of Muslims by Hindus in India. Imam Talal whispered back to his wife, “you should be careful because some people are going to say the same thing about me when I speak.” The point brought home with a gentle smile, he then went on to speak of the need and the challenge to reach out to each other beyond stereotypes as the start of peacemaking.

Wearing the traditional hooded woolen robe of a Franciscan Friar, Father Joseph Nangle spoke passionately and poignantly of the historic sins of the Church against both Jews and Muslims, in his own way asking for the forgiveness of the Jew and the Muslim sitting next to him. Reflecting my own commitments drawn from Jewish sources, he went on to speak of the activist way of pacifism, as it is rooted for him in Christian tradition. His words formed a natural bridge to my talk. Looking back to the recently read Creation story at the beginning of a new year’s Torah reading cycle, I sought to convey the underlying ethos of Torah and life as it flows from the very first words of the Torah, from the first moments of Creation, v’ru’ach Elokim m’rachefet al p’nei hamayim/and the breath of God hovered over the face of the waters. The world begins in a moment of utmost gentleness, simply as a breath upon the waters. In every moment of creation continuing to unfold, that gentleness offers a vision of the future toward which we strive, and the way of our own being in the world if we would arrive at that time.

In the printed program for the evening, words written by one of the organizers offer a natural bridge from the creation story to the following week’s Torah portion, the story of Noah and the flood. It is a bridge from the hope of creation’s beginning to the horror of violence that comes to fill the world, destroying people, animals, the earth itself, “we are now being challenged to reach out beyond humanity, because violence is being visited on God’s creation as well. There is an ever-growing consciousness in all religious traditions that respect and peaceful relations must be fostered not only between people, but also between humans and all creatures as well.”

That is what lies at the heart of the story of Noah and the flood, a warning that if we do not recognize and embrace the common bond that joins all life then life shall not be sustained on this earth. The ark itself, rising upon the flood waters, becomes a symbol of wholeness, all species living together, eating of the same food, the wolf and the lamb and the little child to lead, a reflection of the garden that was and that yet might be. Of the rainbow in the sky, formed of tears and light intermingled, a sign of God’s covenant made with all creatures, with people and animals, and with the earth itself, God’s promise never to destroy the earth again. And God continues to wait and hope for a sign from us, that finally we too shall make the same promise.

Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein

Exclusion and Religious Violence

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 16:18:00 +0000

One of the fondest memories I have of Gandhian communities in India is of morning and evening prayers. There was a school in Bangalore where we sat with small children as they began their day with prayers from all the wisdom traditions of the world. There was an evening with a boys school in Coimbatore, where some 300 young voices joined in the chants and hymns from all the world's religions. There were those times in Gandhian communities as the sun rose, and again under the stars, when we sat in a circle on the raised prayer site in the center of the ashram. We chanted Hindi prayer songs, sang Christian hymns, read from the Koran and the Hebrew Scriptures, closed with a universal prayer

I marveled at these experiences. How I wished my countrymen could try it. What a difference it might make if public schools in my country started their day with a recognition of religious wisdom and diversity. What a difference it might make with respect to religious tolerance, religious acceptance, religious understanding. What a difference it might make in preventing religious violence.

The problem is exclusivity. Christians misuse sayings of Jesus to promote Christian imperialism. Jews use ancient promises in their tradition to justify occupation of another people. Muslims misuse the Koran to uphold acts of terror against the innocent. Fundamentalist Hindus foment violence against their Muslim neighbors.

In each and every case, adherents to each religion claim exclusive rights to the truth and the path to the divine. In ruling out the pathways of others, they lay the ground for dissension and violence.

In my own Christian denomination, the United Church of Christ, I'm grateful we are a "united and uniting" church. We are a combination of three Protestant communities that joined together in the 1950's. We have also been working consistently to work more closely with others and heal some of the brokenness in the body of Christ, the church. We pride ourselves on being a welcoming church, the first major denomination to recognize the ordination of women and of gays and lesbians. Still, we are light years behind the need.

As Christians continue their efforts to talk to each other, the world is aflame with inter-religious conflict. And with each new spate of violence, more people despair of religious understanding or succumb to the inevitability of warfare.

Here in Brookings, South Dakota, we have an inter-faith dialogue. We have been meeting for two years now, once a month. The evening begins with a meal. When the Hindu community is host, we know we will have an excellent vegetarian meal. When we visit the Islamic Center, we anticipate and enjoy dishes common to the Muslim community. When we are hosted in a Christian church or at the public library, we know we will sit down to a buffet of excellent pot luck.

Conversation and discussion follows the meal. We avoid presentations and experts. All questions and comments are acceptable, as long as they are respectful and don't steal speaking time from others. We have gone from the polite to all questions are appropriate. We include persons who are Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Bahai, Quaker, Agnostic and Atheist. We find our traditions often have similarities we didn't recognize before.

Because the Hajj had just concluded, at our last session, we found ourselves exploring the topic of pilgrimage. We discovered how many of our group, from several different traditions, all had a profound experience of pilgrimage. The characteristics of each were common. It confirmed again the words of Ramakrishna, the nineteenth century saint: "God has made different religions to suit different aspirations, times and countries. All doctrines are only so many paths; but a path is by no means God himself. Indeed, one can reach God if one follows any of the paths with wholehearted devotion."

Gandhi respected all the wisdom traditions. A way of nonviolence does as well. But even more important, those of us who profess nonviolence must constantly find ways to practice and preach inclusivity, rather than the violence of the exclusive.

Carl Kline

Homage to One, and to Seven Billion

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis Cole-Dai) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0000


Outside the garage, the morning after.

Around 1:00 a.m. on October 9, in the peaceful college town of Goshen, Indiana, Linda Miller was painting in her garage. Her 58-year-old husband Jim, a biology professor at Goshen College, was in the house. The couple's two school-age children were out of town at a marching band competition. It was just another ordinary night in the ordinary life of an ordinary family in an ordinary town.

Suddenly, out of the darkness, Linda was attacked by a young, well-dressed white man whom the police would later describe as a "would-be robber", a "home invader." Linda's cries of distress roused Jim out of the house. He managed to divert the assailant's attention, and Linda, though severely wounded, managed to get to a phone inside the house and dial 9-1-1.

When the police arrived, two minutes later, Jim lay dead of stabbing wounds in the yard. Linda, however, was still alive.

Today, after a period of hospitalization, Linda continues her recovery at home. The couple's attacker has not been found.

Jim Miller

Goshen College is my alma mater. Jim starting teaching there the same year I enrolled out of high school, more than 30 years ago. Like nearly every other professor on that Mennonite college campus, he was a man whose faith was synonymous with a commitment to a life of service and an ethic of nonviolence.

Since learning about Jim's murder, I've often wondered what the final moments of his life were like. But imagination fails me. It simply won't take me where real life took him. This is all I know for certain: Unarmed, he put his own body between his wife and her attacker; between her flesh and her attacker's knife. He sacrificed himself for the woman he loved. I suspect, though, and with good reason, that he would have done the same for a complete stranger. To say this is not to diminish his love for Linda. It is to acknowledge his love for humanity, despite the horrors we human beings are so capable of inflicting upon one another.

"It is in the shelter of each another that people live." So goes the Irish proverb. Jim Miller embodied this proverb, by the way he taught and the way he died, and whether we knew him or not, his life can inspire the rest of us. And "the rest of us" are many. In the very month that Jim died defending his wife, our world's population reached seven billion. Seven billion lives. Seven billion people needing to be sheltered by one another.

Not many of us will be asked to sacrifice our lives to shelter even one of those seven billion. But I do think our commitment to nonviolence asks us to sacrifice something. What are we willing to do? What are we willing to give? These are not questions to be answered once and for all. They are questions to be lived, and answered, daily.

As you reflect on these questions, I invite you to watch the video below. It's presented by Playing For Change, which has partnered with the United Nations to create an original anthem for a world now seven billion strong. The song, called "United," is performed by musicians and singers from around the globe. "We have to bring the world together, we have to live as one," they tell us. "We have to bring the world together, we shall overcome."

It's a song Jim Miller would have loved.

(Note: If for some reason you can't see the viewer below, click here to watch the video. Also, translations of those verses that are sung in languages other than English are included beneath the viewer.)

Verse (in Lingala):
This is the answer for the people
Who lost their loved ones from war
This is the answer for the people
Who lost their loved ones from hunger

Verse (in Spanish):
The moment is what counts
Live smiling until the end
But happy days will come
That nobody can believe (Chorus)

Verse (in Hebrew):
It´s time to say
We are all one heart
This song is of all of us
So let´s sing it together in one big voice. (Chorus)

Verse (in Arabic):
Lord of peace
Gift us with peace (Chorus)

The Evolving Nonviolence in Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:34:00 +0000

I just returned from a few days in Mexico with groups of nonviolent activists. In a climate of violence, these courageous people are waging a struggle to reclaim their society for their children and their nation's future.

The primary inviting organization was www.evolucionmexicana.com. These are people who are working to return the political process to ordinary citizens. They favor citizen power over political party power; solidarity over egocentrism; lawful behavior over corruption; competition over monopolies; empowered citizens over paternalism; systemic leadership over pyramidal leadership; and participation over passivity.

They are a countrywide network with tens of thousands of members. They are able to turn out large numbers for mass demonstrations and have done so in recent months. Their patience and work ethic seems admirable, especially as they are people with jobs, families, a life. But as violence escalates, one wonders if their efforts won't escalate as well. After a nine hour nonviolence workshop, it was evident people were interested in more, and that what had transpired would find a home in their future work.

Evolucion Mexicana has much in common with the Occupy Wall Street movement. It has much in common with those citizens who we now refer to as the Arab Spring. As monolithic economic interests have gone global, purchasing political power in country after country, so have peoples' movements gone global. And we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg so far.

A second group I met with was comprised of a dozen or so activists who recently staged an office occupation. They occupied a government office responsible for investigating the abuse of alcohol laws. After staying in the office for twenty seven hours, they secured pledges from several officials to consider community selection of investigating personnel. The final result from this occupation is still not known, but it was an empowering experience for those who participated. They spoke about how they now know the power and possibility of nonviolence. Some of their peace flyers began appearing on office walls in the building. The police who were supposed to be giving them a bad time were actually supportive, so much so, the office manager had the police arrested.

A third group has started a half-way house for young men just coming out of prison. The home has eight occupants, all under the age of 22. The average age for gang members is probably 16 years of age with the average life expectancy in a gang of 3 years. Going to prison may have saved their lives and the half-way house offers a fresh start. They are helped with work or school opportunities and all the residents are required to do one or the other. Plans are in the works for a second home as the first can only hold ten.

The final group I encountered was a school class of 150 thirteen and fourteen year olds. I was asked to speak with them about nonviolence. Little did I know while I was speaking, that very morning, the father of a classmate had been found murdered. He had been kidnapped a couple days earlier and only now had his body been discovered. Nor did I know a government official had tried to come into the school that morning with his bodyguards, only to be turned away by the principal as no guns were allowed on the campus. The government official was not happy.

Here were teachers and administrators working diligently to provide a peaceful environment and a hopeful future for children and young people. And here were students with insight beyond their years into the causes of violence in their society, and possible alternatives. As two of the girls said after the program, "we want to know more about nonviolence. So do several of our friends."

Carl Kline

What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men? The Shadow Knows.

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:55:00 +0000

It seemed like a reasonable question. I fired off the email to the Worship Committee chairperson, asking if there were a rationale for the shift in the order of worship that placed the celebration of the sacrament of communion prior to the reading of the scriptures and the sermon instead of following - - a departure from 2000 years of liturgical tradition. I felt a sense of disruption in the liturgical movement from “Word” to “Table”, the comfort of tradition, the rhythm of centuries of practice. I was uncomfortable and I didn’t like it. So - -I asked my question.

The responses came back, neither measured nor explanatory, but full of defense and pain. I had to examine my original question again. It had seemed reasonable enough, but something was awry. I had unwittingly activated great discomfort and sorrow. I had opened old wounds.

So –another inward quest began and I began to see how unskilled my question was. Underneath it was the muck of a lot of my own dissatisfaction with a variety of issues related to our little church – and all that hidden stuff found its way into the tone of my question - - and a certain violence to the soul of another was the result.

It took awhile for me to connect all the dots and arrive at the awareness that I had relaxed my vigilance and compassion toward my inner “terrorist”, that shadowy part that I prefer to keep away from the light of day. In the process, I allowed it to hold sway and I ended up hurting another person.

This was a very instructive episode for me. It was all too easy to give expression to the negative impulse within - - to act out of the needs of ego rather than out of the desire to offer understanding and compassion. Not a pleasant awareness for one who aspires to live a life that honors the way of nonviolence.

So – another process had to be set in motion. All of this happened during the Days of Awe –the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur – days filled with opportunity to do tshuva, to return to a higher way, a higher truth. So, after much examining of motivations, I made my apologies and asked for forgiveness from the parties involved. Relief, restored relationships, a deepened understanding of the fragility of other human beings all became the fruit of an uncomfortable lesson.

As the nightly news and the headlines are filled with Khadafy’s death, with the various “occupations” happening around the country, with disastrous earthquakes, with conflict about the economy, with questions about the troop draw-downs and the ending of wars, I am ever more mindful of the fragility AND the resilience of the human spirit.

The discovery embedded in the High Holy Days is that forgiveness works. The strenuous part of the process seems to be finding the way into the shadowy places within where pain and dissatisfaction and rage and frustration and fear reside. With compassion for the self that endures in the shadows, light is brought into the pain. Until I can do that, I run the risk of the shadowy places “calling the shots”, as it were.

So I sit pondering questions about our collective ability to examine the shadowy places of our collective unconscious processes –our collective ability to do tshuva. It so often seems as though our collective “inner terrorist” is in charge and we choose not to recognize it. It does its unexamined work in the halls of congress, in the canyons of Wall Street, and in the hidden depths of the “situation room.” I look to the worldwide community that embraces and practices nonviolence to shed its light of compassion into the shadows, to bring into broad daylight the fear and anger and self-righteousness that so often determine the behavior that shapes world events. It is in this often unseen community that I find the fortitude to continue the work of shaping my own life into an expression of compassion. Thanks for being there.

Vicky Hanjian

A Sukkah Among the Tents

noreply@blogger.com (Carl Kline) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:23:00 +0000

It has been a hard week to sit in the sukkah, the harvest booth that is the central symbol of the Festival of Booths. The blustery winds and the driving rains of autumn have been discomforting. In a mundane way, our hope for the weather as we would like it to be and living with the weather as it has been is ironically instructive. It is about living with the tension between the ideal and the real. This is exactly what the sukkah is meant to teach, how to live in the world as it is with the faith that we can yet see and help to bring the world as it might be. Though learning to persevere is no small lesson, in regard to weather there is little we can do to make change. In regard to social realities as they are and as they might be, there is much that we can do.

Change begins with the faith that change can happen, that we are not stuck where we are, either as individuals or as a society. The Zohar speaks of the sukkah as tzilah di’m’heymanuta, “the dwelling of faith.” As one great dwelling place, pulsating with themes of Sukkot, the faith that change is possible fills the air at “Occupy Boston.” Tents neatly arranged in ordered formation, one so close to another, I thought of the camp of Israel dwelling in sukkot along the way of the desert journey from slavery to freedom. For all of the winds that have torn at their tents and the driving rains that have soaked them, there is among

the encamped a pervasive sense of hope before the harsher storms of social and economic disparity that have brought them together. Marking the perimeter at one end of the camp is a fragile sukkah of bamboo poles and of colorful fabric fluttering joyfully in the breeze. The entire structure sways in time to the wind, its strength found in the love and commitment that built it. The utter fragility of all these dwellings of faith united in common purpose underscores the illusion that a fractured society can find strength in brick and mortar.

Some four hundred years ago, Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz, known as the “Sh’loh,” an acronym from the title of his book, “Sh’nei Luchot Ha’b’rit,” looked around at the excesses of his day and wrote, “my heart burns whenever I see people building houses to be like the castles of princes…, as though it will be forever…. If God gives you great wealth, build houses according to your needs, and not more….” Excess has become an American way of life that undermines the common good. If heeded, the advice of the Sh’loh offers a way to furrow wealth back into the society from which it comes, rather than using it to fund excess.

Engaging in tzedakah as the pursuit of justice for all, enriching the

soil and psyche from which collective wellbeing grows, those with more can become leaders in the way to a healthier society for all. Rather than identifying the “one percent” of highest earners as evil, our challenge is to make common cause. Giving more of one’s own if one had more to give was the way of the farmers of ancient Israel. Offering perspective and critique on our own tax debate, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes from nineteenth century Germany, “concern for the welfare of one’s needy neighbor was seen as a direct result of the landowner’s enjoyment of his own harvest before God; the Jew was taught not to rejoice in his personal happiness before God without first having done everything in his power to give practical aid to his less fortunate brother.” Generosity and concern for the common good were affirmed as a mark of pride, the farmer stating on completion of the “poor tithe,” a tax of ten percent, “I have rejoiced and I have also given joy to others.” As a harvest festival, Sukkos was a time of such pronouncement.

Like Shabbos, Sukkos represents a vision and a way, a path of ordinary deeds leading toward the “day that is all Shabbos,” the time when a great “sukkat shalom,” a sukkah of peace, will embrace the whole world. Welcoming guests, inviting others to share from one’s own bounty is the way of the sukkah. It is the way modeled by the basket of apples from which all may take at the entrance to the ingathering that is Occupied Boston. Critiqued for not having a detailed plan and clear goals, the overarching goal of those occupying public space in our cities is very clear. It is to create a more just, equitable, and peaceful society. Gathering in witness to what is wrong and to what might be, those faithfully dwelling in the public sukkah are offering an invitation for all to join together in finding the way. As we leave the sukkah and arrive at Parashat B’reishit, the Torah portion of Genesis, it is time to begin.

Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein

Reflections on the 23rd Psalm

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis Cole-Dai) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:57:00 +0000

The 23rd Psalm is without a doubt one of the best known and most memorized and most frequently recited passages in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. It offers solace to the hungry (“thou preparest a table before me”), rest for the weary (“thou leadest me beside still waters”), and hope for those in despair (“yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear for thou art with me"). Visions of the Garden of Eden abound. The psalmist seems to be telling us, “These are hard times, but hold on to hope, better days are coming.” But what if there is more to it than this?

I'm reading this psalm again as the "99 per centers" continue their demonstrations on Wall Street and around the county, the drive to circulate petitions to recall Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin gains momentum, and people are organizing in communities all across America. They are doing so in the face of the determined opposition of some political leaders, the steadfast refusal of some segments of the media to cover the story, and the stubborn indifference of certain financial establishments. I tell my wife that the "1 per centers" would like us to believe that we have the right to be poor but we do not have the right to protest about the fact that we are poor.

Reflecting on the 23rd Psalm, I recall a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On January 1, 1956, as the boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, was entering its second month and a new year was dawning, Dr. King reached for words of hope as he prepared his sermon. He did not, however, turn to the 23rd Psalm. He opened his Bible to the Letter of Jude and read these words, “To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forever more! Amen.” The title Dr. King gave to his sermon on that January morning was “Our God is Able.” He told members of the congregation, “God is not incompetent . . . . God is able to beat back great mountains of opposition.”

Years later, in preparation for the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, Dr. King called for an “economic bill of rights for the disadvantaged” and for a national program that would abolish unemployment and establish a supplemental income program for those whose earnings were below the poverty level. In this same article ("Showdown for Nonviolence"), he proposed a national health care program and an end to investment in an immoral war, which, as he saw it, was diverting money from social programs.

Now, as I see it, people of faith are confronted with a problem. If, as Dr. King said, God is not incompetent, but able; and if, as the Psalmist assures us, God is actively going before us—preparing and leading—and walking with us, how do we reconcile our faith in this God with the plain fact that 99 per cent of us are on the street while 1 per cent of us is in the penthouse? The Occupy Wall Street website says, "We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We suffer from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we are working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent."

How might people of faith reconcile the reality of the 99 percent with the vision of the 23rd Psalm? I find the answer to this question in the first verse, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Americans have subscribed to the myth that utopia, a world without want, can be realized if we each pursue our private dreams. This myth tells us that an abundant life that satiates all our wants and desires is possible if we only focus on what it is we want for ourselves. The psalmist is not against personal responsibility, but as I read it, the psalmist defines this myth not as utopian but its opposite. It is anti-utopian, leading not to personal fulfillment but to the destruction of the common good. With its opening line the psalm debunks the picture of a perfect world in which personal whims and private greed are satisfied. Rather, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” means that abundance is found in respecting relationships and in honoring our commitments to each other.

In a world in which the pursuit of wealth is widely regarded as the most important thing, and human beings and relationships are transformed into commodities to be used to satisfy personal desires, we who are people of faith say with the psalmist, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." That is to say, greed is not our guide.

My next contribution to LivingNonviolence will follow this line of thought with reflections on a proposal being offered by the World Council of Churches that we should establish a “greed line” as well as a “poverty line.”

David Hansen, Ph.D.

Something That Matters Has Started

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis Cole-Dai) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 17:54:00 +0000


An "Occupy Wall Street" rally.

I hope that you've been following "Occupy Wall Street," an ongoing demonstration against socioeconomic inequality and corporate greed in America. (Read its "Declaration" here.) Keeping current with OWS developments isn't easy except through "alternative" news sources. Coverage by the conventional media has been, for the most part, spotty, contemptuous and dismissive, even though this demonstration--or perhaps more accurately, this movement--that began in New York City on September 17 has now spread to more than 80 cities across the country.

I'm heartened by these nonviolent protests, even as I'm deeply distressed by the violence often perpetrated against the protestors by police. It's offensive to see my fellow citizens being harassed, pepper-sprayed, roughed up and beaten with batons. It's also offensive that their abuse is rarely shown, and just as rarely denounced, by the mainstream media. I shouldn't be surprised. The mainstream media are embedded in the very system the protestors are crying out against: a system in which predatory capitalism, represented by Wall Street, is squeezing the life out of American democracy, threatening the futures of all Americans, jeopardizing other nations, and endangering the health of the planet.

I watch these protests from afar, here in South Dakota, wishing I could be there. While the movement has been criticized for not being organized enough, for not being representative enough, for not having a clear enough agenda, and so on, none of this bothers me one whit. These same criticisms are routinely leveled against nascent social movements that have arisen from the anger and agony of citizens who refuse anymore to be partners in their own oppression. Yet such movements have often been this country's best conscience and its most dynamic catalysts for reform when its highest ideals have been betrayed. Simply put, we need them.

This fact is indisputable: the economy of this nation no longer serves the needs of its people (but for a wealthy fraction); rather, the people are now meant to serve the economy. This is backwards. This is wrong. And the people are finally rising up to say so. I hope somebody is listening. The people in this social movement may not yet have strategic clarity, but they do have moral clarity, and that's where it all starts.

This is, I believe, a potentially historic moment in this country. Decisions must be made, now, not by the powerful few but by the rest of us, who for too long have abdicated our own (greater) collective power and acquiesced in our own economic subjugation. It's time to make up our minds. Who do we want to be as a nation? What are we willing to do as citizens to help make it so? With whom are we willing to join to help bring it about?

There is no question who is on the right. The OWS protesters have laid bare the truth that we should have recognized long ago: Our economic system has lost its legitimacy, because it no longer has as its priority the welfare of the people. That same system now directly threatens the legitimacy of our democracy. Last week I actually heard on a cable news program some political pundits discussing the advisability of postponing national elections until the country and its economy are more stable. Imagine: "Let's postpone democracy now for the sake of democracy later." As I said, things are falling apart.

Things are falling apart, and they need to be rebuilt. Rebuilt with creative and courageous moral vision, not to be the same as they once were, but to be the most they can be--not for the sake of the corporations or the banks or this or that political party, but for the sake of the people. All the people. This is a tremendous, even revolutionary, undertaking. OWS is giving us a start on the job. We ignore this citizens' movement, and this critical moment in history, at our own peril.

I can't go to Wall Street or the other protest sites around the country. But I can demonstrate, speak up, advocate, organize, bear witness to a better way here, where I live. I'm going to find a way to, somehow. There are infinite ways I might do so. I doubt that I'll be carrying a sign or shouting slogans or sleeping in a park until the System finally risks stepping out of its mansion to talk--really talk. But I'm going to do something. And I'm inviting you to do the same.

This historic moment calls on each of us to do something constructive, right where we are, as we're able. In the video below, the young performance poet David Bowden (pictured right) inspires us to "unpack our boxes of brilliant ideas and share something that the world can use":

Paint, all you painters, paint something that captures
Write, all you writers, write something that answers
Build, all you builders, build something that shelters
And start, all you starters, start something that matters

If you ask me, something that matters has already started in New York City. I thank everybody who started it. I thank everybody who's keeping it going. Let's all keep it going, wherever we are. There's too much at stake, not to.

(Note: If for some reason you can't view the video player below, click here to watch.)

Deep peace,
Phyllis Cole-Dai