Cornel West Takes On Obama

Check out this link to see how a significant thinker in the African-American community is thinking about the President. http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/72-72/5950-the-obama-deception-why-cornel-west-went-ballistic

Superbowl and Rape

I just read about a friendly bet between Bishops in Pittsburg and Minnesota over the Superbowl. Admittedly, I have no television, so it is entirely possible that I have missed it. But earlier this year the quarterback of the Steelers got away with rape. He escaped legal consequences because he is an NFL quarterback and has lots of powerful friends and money. At least the NFL suspended him for a few games at the beginning of the season.

But the only thing I have heard via print media and NPR is how poor Ben has overcome adversity. But what about his victim? And what is the Bishop of Pittsburg all about?

Constitutional Fundamentalism

There is a connection between religious fundamentalism and constitutional strict constructionism. To that point I share Mark Karlin’s remarks below.

I support the Constitution, don’t you? But I don’t support the fundamentalist, “literalist” Sharia version that the GOP touts.

I think that the Constitution is a remarkable document in the development of governments that empowered individuals against oppressive rule and institutions.

It overthrew the privileged reign of royal lineage and put the direction of America in the hands of the population at large. You could argue that the Constitution is the ultimate populist charter for a nation. But on Thursday, the GOP is putting on a political theater performance in the House by reading the Constitution out loud, even though the new red tide of right-wingers don’t support large chunks of it, such as the 14th Amendment, the 17th Amendment, and much, much more.

Here is the preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Since when did the GOP promote the general welfare of the nation?

Instead, we get a GOP Sharia “strict constructionist,” authoritarian interpretation of the Constitution that is akin to Osama bin Laden’s “literal” interpretation of the Koran.

John Boenher, we don’t want a fundamentalist, corporate-financed corruption of the Constitution; we want the real thing.

Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout

 

My Soul is Troubled

My judicatory will hold its annual convention next year at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Some hairsplitters will suggest that the Hope Hotel is not really on the base since it’s outside the gate. However, the hotel is built on property owned by and leased from the base. It was built to support military and civilian personnel who do business on or with the base.

Wright-Patterson is the primary research base for the United States Air Force. Buildings, offices, and labs belonging to military contractors ring the sprawling facility. Wright-Patterson is the largest employer in the Dayton area, and regional economic development organizations see job and regional economic growth as more and more tied to it.

The University of Dayton, a strong Roman Catholic University, used to refuse (on religious grounds) research projects that were directly related to weapons. However, in recent years the appeal of big money has caused U.D. to succumb to the lure of weapons research.

Wright-Patterson is home to the U.S. Air Force Museum with its primary focus on displays of military aircraft. School children are regularly taken through the museum. A recent activity of the Dayton region’s arts program for youth (the K-12 Gallery) was to have the kids decorate model F-16 fighter planes that now “enhance” light posts throughout downtown Dayton. Every performance by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra begins with a rendering of the national anthem that celebrates “the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air.”

Although I have been warned by a friend not to say that Wright-Patterson’s mission is to devise new and more efficient ways to kill people, I would submit that more benign and even benevolent activities related to the base take a secondary position to this primary role.

Many people in my parish work in or with the military or the research associated with the base. Others work or volunteer with the museum. Still others are retired from there. Livelihoods, families, education, economic wellbeing, and even the arts in the greater Dayton area swim in a sea of militarism, a celebration of war and war-making machines, and depend upon the oxygen that comes from that sea. Therefore, there’s little or no critique, and a deep reluctance to overtly explore how our baptismal faith might put every one of us in a quandary.

I am paid, in part, by money earned and contributed to the church from salaries that come through Wright-Pat. I pay taxes that support the military. I am a citizen of a country that is governed, as many commentators have observed, by the Pentagon and the vast military/industrial complex. My brother, a retired Air Force colonel, now works at Wright-Patterson as a civilian. I have a son who is on active duty in the armed forces, which is the only place he could find a job, training, and benefits to support himself and his family. So I write not as one who disinterestedly stands outside of the sea of militarism. I swim there, too.

Much of the time I join the vast conspiracy of silence. But my soul is troubled within me. I promise to follow the Prince of Peace who came proclaiming the kingdom of God in direct contrast to the kingdom of Caesar ruled through violence. This last Sunday (November 7, 2010) we heard the gospel proclamation, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Our congregation renewed our baptismal vows:

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

“I will, with God’s help,” we all proclaimed after each question. But do we really want God’s help in fulfilling these promises if they mean resisting the sea in which we swim, if we understand that the oxygen we take from it is toxic, if we become more deeply conscious that even our silence collaborates with the kingdom of Caesar?

As I write, our President is traveling the world like a an old-fashioned peddler, hawking American goods (including very high-priced and very dangerous weapons) as a way of producing jobs here at home—while the holders of those new jobs will also become addicted to the toxicity of the military/industrial complex.

Something about our Diocesan convention meeting on the grounds of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has struck a discordant note within me. Maybe we can’t get out of the martial sea. But I hope and pray that we can find a way to talk about this. I do not want to simply go to that convention and to have the world see us meeting there, and to think that we are there to baptize what takes place there in the name of and for the sake of Jesus.

I hope and pray that some other souls are as troubled as mine.

 

When Immigration Gets Personal

With all of the debates and hot air out there on the issue of immigrants in this country, it can seem distant and very impersonal until faces start to get put on “illegal immigrants.” (This is a good place for me to state that as a child of God, I don’t believe that God’s children can be illegal due to national origin or immigration. Nations and geopolitical boundaries are human-made and cannot over-ride God. But that’s a discussion for another day.)

I met some “illegal immigrants” the other day. They are two of my grandchildren. As far as we can tell, they are in no immediate danger of deportation. (Where would two children under ten be deported to when the custodial parent is here and the other biological parent cannot take custody of them?)  But because of the recent backlashes to immigrants, they have lost their medical coverage. And in order for them to become “legal” it is going to cost our son and daughter-in-law nearly $5,000 in fees and other requirements.

Because these two children are our daughter-in-law’s biological children from a previous relationship, they are not my son’s legal children. Their mom is a foreigner born in another land. She is here legally and has a green card. The children were born abroad, but their biological father brought them to the U.S. and then abandoned them with relatives.

Our son, married when he was stationed abroad, is an enlisted man in the U.S. Armed Forces. When they returned to U.S. soil, they immediately reclaimed her children. They are loving, bi-lingual, and well-adjusted. But recent laws passed in their state have removed their Medicaid. Our son’s military healthcare does not cover them, because they aren’t legally his. He is facing a long-term deployment, and the family is desperate to get medical coverage for the kids, and legal documents are needed for them to enroll in school and to participate in American society.

So here we have these dreaded “illegal immigrants” who are threatening America. Their step-dad is “defending” America. He’d like nothing more than to legalize his children. But he doesn’t get paid enough to afford it.

Sounds like a Catch 22 designed by Amiziah. But at least I now know what an illegal immigrant looks like and will be able to put faces on them when I read about them in the newspaper.

Chips

This is a guy’s name. He’s a real guy. “Chips off the old block?” I don’t know the derivation. But Chips has power over me.

He gets to tell me how I can think and how I cannot. He has the power to cost me and my friends a lot of money. And money rules, in case you didn’t know it.

Last year, in a public meeting, I complained that a certain Church process was demeaning and humiliating. Chips immediately stood up and said, “Oh, that may have been true years ago, but now it’s a very friendly process. I guarantee it!”

So my friends and I entered this process. Chips was pleased.

Five months later Chips got back to us. “Sorry for the delay,” he said. Then he called in one of my best friends and said that if we pursued our line of thinking, he would personally guarantee that we would get nothing out of the process. But if we changed our way of thinking, then he would be very receptive.

So we changed our way of thinking, even though we knew it was wrong, and Chips then said that he had a solution to our new issue. But his solution didn’t help, because it didn’t address the true problem (the way of thinking that Chips wouldn’t allow us to express.)

Although the boss of our organization says that transparency is a strong value, when we met with Chips and his gang, we were twice asked to leave the room, so that presumably, the gang could discuss us transparently.

Then the friendly process gave us almost nothing of what we had asked. And the final report of Chips gang is that we are deficient in many areas even though we excel in those areas.

“Now it’s a very friendly process,” said Chips. “I guarantee it!”

Chips, I’m having Darke Thoughts about you. Perhaps Amaziah can help me.

Help Me, Amaziah!

Two things, closely related, recently caught my attention.

The Children’s Art Gallery in Dayton, K12, put out this call to artists: “K12 Gallery for Young People and Former Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin request creative design ideas for a new city beautification project called “Fighter Jet – Dayton Takes Flight”. K12 has fifty (50) fiber glass fighter aircraft 4’ x 3’ wide – a blank canvas sculpture if you will. We are calling all artists of all ages to get involved in adorning the fiber glass sculptures to give them flight. These will be placed on public display in the downtown Dayton area. Proposals are sought for decorating the fighter jets.”

The second item that made me widen my eyes and go “Say what?” was the announcement that my church, the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio, is going to hold her annual Diocesan Convention in 2011 on a United States Air Force base, Wright Patterson in Fairborn, Ohio.

What’s wrong with these pictures?

Kids, beautification project, art, decorating fighter jets, killing machines.

Church, Prince of Peace, “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being,”(we say at our baptisms), meeting on the grounds of  the leading research base where they “research” ever newer, more efficient ways to kill people.

Kids, church, killing machines, killing people?

There must be something wrong with me. All these good people who love kids and do art and all these good Christians who are committed to peace and reconciliation in the world . . . they don’t seem to be bothered by the incongruity that’s staring me right in the face. But I haven’t heard another voice raised. Somehow I must be thinking about this wrongly.

Help me, Amaziah, to understand how I’m out of line here.

Why are so many of my thoughts darke?

Interesting Sermon

It hasn’t been often in my 37 years as an Episcopal priest that I’ve had the opportunity to sit on the congregation’s side of the pulpit to hear a sermon. But today was an exception. It was an Ash Wednesday sermon in which the preacher meditated on ashes/dust. When the ashes are placed on the worshipper’s forehead, these words are said: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.”

On the one hand, that’s a pretty harsh reminder about our ultimate physical destiny. We’re going back into the ground and returning to the basic elements from whence we came. But on the other hand, it is an affirmation that we are dust that God fashioned and gave breath to. We human beings are pretty special. We come from the same basic ingredients (dust) as all other things and creatures in the universe. But we’re special dust.

And I take it to mean when all else is said and done, that every human person is special. This may not be what today’s preacher was getting at, but it’s what I took from the homiletical experience. And that’s a good reminder as I ponder the world with my cynical eye and am tempted to discount some dust as not worthy.

Do These People Ever Listen To Themselves?

Reading tonight about the Healthcare Reforms being debated in Congress, and the comments of folk who are absolutely aghast that a penny of their precious tax dollars might be spent to finance an abortion. Where are these folk when tax dollars are spent on extraordinary renditions, incarcerating 13-year olds for life without parole, torture, bombing of non-combatants, stealing from children and spending on the most expensive war machine in the history of the world? Where do all the complainers go when the School of the Americas (now renamed) continues to train military leaders to repress their own peoples in Central and South America? Where are these voices when folk want to spend some tax dollars to provide healthcare, early childhood education, quality elementary and secondary education, college scholarships, jobs for all those un-aborted people in this land and in this world? Where are all those good, righteous folk when all the post-birth abortions are taking place with or without our tax dollars?

We kill, abuse, destroy, demean and dehumanize people at home and abroad with our tax dollars everyday! Do these people ever listen to themselves?

Nobel Peace Prize

I was sitting in my car last Friday morning listening to the news while I waited for my wife to drop off her car for service at the dealership. The National Public Radio reporter played a short clip from Oslo announcing the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Barak Obama. The reporter then went on to say that the President had been awakened before six a.m. by a call from his press secretary to tell him the news. It was totally unexpected by anyone in the White House.

When Ann got into the car a few minutes later there were additional reports coming in on the radio, and she asked me what happened. I completely surprised myself when my voice cracked and tears flowed as I said, “Barak Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize.”

My euphoria was quickly doused by critics and pundits as they made clear just how undeserved was this award, and the endless analysis of the negative domestic political consequences completed the drowning of my initial joy.

Later that day I took heart when I read that Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota (a potential Republican candidate in 2012) said that the only appropriate response to the President was to say “Congratulations!”

But the head of the Republican Party and numerous others trashed the president within just a few hours of the announcement. Are the Pawlenty’s of the world so few in number? Where is any sense of grace and pride that one of us has won such a prestigious award?

Barak, of course, was humble in saying that he didn’t deserve the Peace Prize but that he would accept it in the name of the hopes and dreams of so many around the world.

I disagree with the critics, the pundits, and even the President. He may not be able to point to any single peace or dispute settlement, but he has restored American prestige in the world after eight years of jingoism, manifest destiny, American Empire and “cowboy-ism” in world affairs. That’s a pretty big accomplishment in less than a year in office!

And so I join the Governor of Minnesota is saying to Barak Obama, “Congratulations!”

But this whole episode again raises the question I tried to raise in my first post. Is there any common ground? Are we so divided that nothing . . . NOTHING . . . someone on the other side of the political aisle can do or achieve deserves any credit?

Thanks, Tim Pawlenty. Yours may be a voice crying in the wilderness. But be assured that there are now at least two of us. Is that enough common ground to begin a movement?