written back when i was on the farm...

Vegetables are like people….

They come in all shapes and sizes, and colors, and variations, and imperfections. Some are long and tall, some are short and stubby, some potatoes in fact have legs and arms and noses, some tomatoes are more oval than round, even when the species is supposed to be round…some vegetables have strange knobs and growths, some apples have many, many knots and holes and very few look like the ones in the grocery store. Just like people who also come in all shapes and sizes, with each different characteristic, of beautiful eyes and crooked teeth, or thin or thick hair, or perfect skin, or large ears. There is so much variation.

But the grocery stores try to tell you as well that vegetables come in one standard form of beauty. All tomatoes should be round and perfect, without blemish and firm. All lettuce leaves should be untouched by harmless holes that occur naturally by insects taking a small snack. All cucumbers should be roughly 8 inches long, have the same dark green shiny color and be straight or slightly curved. And all should be uniform size. And the grocery stores tell this to people, and industrial farms therefore produce this, at the cost of our environment and health and excessive waste, through pesticides, herbicides, and genetic engineering, as well as a streamlining of species marketable. Does this sound reminiscent to ideas of beauty on another plane?

We have also been told by the powers that be, that beauty in people is found in a small amount of standard forms: tall, thin bodies (or buff if male), flawless skin, full shiny hair, straight noses and full lips, large eyes. You see this in the magazines and on TV; they eliminate variation. This is beauty. This is what people are supposed to look like. And this is a very slim margin of diversity found in actual people! It is a recognized fact that there is a manipulation of sorts, and some people accept that this is true beauty, and others see it for what it is, and reject it as the standard of beauty for humanity.

While many people have taken the human beauty image hook line and sinker, others are more scrutinizing. Regarding human beauty, we see these images promoted by media, but we are brought back to reality every other second by seeing the diversity of people around us, on the bus, at restaurants, in classrooms, and experiencing the beauty of that diversity through our relationships. But most people are starting to believe ideas of vegetable beauty, because they have no contact with “vegetables in the wild.” Who works on a farm anymore and actually sees real produce? Who remembers that real fruit, just like real people, sometimes come with imperfections? We have one image of beauty in our, that put forth by grocery stores and agriculture companies. Vegetables of diversity, in their true state (and sweetness, good taste, and nutrition!) are blocked out of grocery stores because they don’t pass the image test. Important to remember that there are other types out there, just as beautiful, which taste just as sweet, and are just as (actually more) nutritious. And sometimes the vegetables with imperfections taste the sweetest.

some thoughts on heaven

I've been thinking a lot about some ideas of heaven over the past few months. Not that nebulous idea of sky, or angels, or harps or a big mansion. Heaven is after all not a very concrete idea biblically, not being present in the judeo tradition.

I have sometimes thought about heaven being all those things that we wished could have happened in life but we didn’t get to. It lends itself as an answer for being sad or disappointed in life: "Well, that might be experienced, or is waiting for me in heaven" (or another life). If it can't be accomplished here on earth, then in my heaven I will have the beautiful French chateau with acres and acres of land and no visible power lines and a secret garden.

It is also all those moments that I envision in my head as perfection, and want to do, but don’t because of physical (or lazy!) constraints. It is all those evenings I plan or envision worshiping the Creator dancing in fields with fireflies around, candles lit in the branches of trees, an alter of flowers and stones and shells, and a soundtrack playing the music of all creation—(not actually possible on this earth)--but a vision of something I desire and want to do, the essence of me and my desire to worship. And I think, that will be my heaven, my heaven will be all of those beautiful and intricate moments that have lived in my head but not in reality, coming to pass and being made possible.

But there is also the idea of heaven as the every day moments or small beauties in this very life. It is the life we do get to, the things we experience and see around us, if we notice and take them in and see them as such. It is the dazzling color of the autumn leaves, the way a vine curves around a stone wall, the way the sunlight comes through glass and illuminates all the dust particles swirling around the air, immediately transforming something mundane into a mystical encounter, or, as Jim Wallis writes about recently on God’s Politics it is sitting between home and first, about 15 rows up from the field at Fenway Park for the opening game of the 2007 World Series. In a recent conference I attended at the Duke Divinity School, Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson described ideas of heaven, also touching on heaven being found in the now, rather than this nebulous idea put off for the future. Berry states something along the lines of, “I’d like to think about heaven as a byproduct of life well lived, rather than a destination or goal”(sic).

I wonder at the idea of heaven, and this idea of what it might be and how it is for each person, rather than being a tangible and concrete idea that is uniform and fact for everyone, is actually a construct that helps us through our lives. It takes some pressure off of us and it gives an outlet to that bit of sadness that is inevitable in life, which comes from not being able to accomplish all one wants in life, and not having life perfected. And, concurrently, it is also achievable in the here and now, through the appreciation of the small beauties of the moment. And in these senses the idea of heaven does serve a very important and good purpose, being achievable now and providing a hope that gives birth to contentment and fulfillment, and puts to sleep feelings of unfulfillment and wistfulness.

some ramblings loosely tied to ideas of checklists what makes someone a christian, voting, 'n other random stuff that hopefully stays somewha cohesive

No Religious Tests
by Diana Butler Bass

I couldn't help but be struck by a bizarre similarity in two back-to-back events this week: the YouTube/CNN Republican forum and the swearing in of Pakistan's President Musharaf broadcast by NPR. Although worlds apart, both demonstrated what happens when religion and politics mix in a less-than-productive way—the insistence on religious tests for holding office.
In the case of President Musharaf, he took the oath of office to a country with Islam as the state religion by swearing that he is a Muslim, upholding the oneness of God, and pledging allegiance to Allah. If we had formal religious tests for office holders in the U.S., this would be akin to being inaugurated as president by proclaiming one's Christianity, stating belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, and dedicating oneself to Jesus—essentially a doctrinal test for politicians.
Americans know that the second scenario is not likely to occur. Although the new president lays his (or her) hand on the Bible and references God, these ceremonial acts are interpreted according to individual conscience and imply no specific doctrinal content. Indeed, the Constitution the president swears to protect and defend outlawed religious tests for federal officials, and, during the early 1800s, individual states slowly ended local practice of religious requirements for public office. However, this formal Constitutional principle didn't stop the forum questioners from insisting upon some sort of informal religious test for their candidates. Several people asked about the theological beliefs (not even the more generic religious beliefs) of candidates on a wide range of issues and pointedly quizzed them on their views of the Bible.
Several years ago, I taught theology at a Christian college—a task that I disliked because the class almost always devolved into a sort of checklist of right opinion to get into heaven. The Republican forum reminded me of that experience. The candidates were required, down to specifically quoting scriptures, to "check off" the right religious answers in order to secure their party's bid for the nation's highest office. It is almost as if a politician will utter the magic words - "Jesus is my Savior" or "the Bible is true in all that it affirms" - millions of people will cast their vote for that candidate. While I do not doubt the sincerity of (most of) the answers, the whole exercise struck me as politically dubious.
Americans need to understand that the relationship between religion and politics is a malleable one - there are few clear-cut rules regarding their interplay. The U.S. is neither a "Christian Nation" in the way it is popularly interpreted, nor is it ruled by a rigid separation of church and state. Neither cultural war stereotype is entirely true or entirely false. Rather, when it comes to religion and politics, we live in a perpetual state of creative tension. Throughout our history, faith and politics have created an often nuanced interplay of fine and sometimes conflicting lines—an interplay that requires discernment on the part of politicians, courts, and voters.
As a serious Christian, it matters to me that the president of the U.S. is a moral person with a mature conscience, and that he or she brings broadly shared ethical insights (along with other insights) to political issues. It does not, however, matter by what tradition that moral conscience has been formed as long as the office holder supports the Constitution. In the U.S., broadly shared political ethics generally include such things as respect for all human persons, a commitment to national and global justice, and developing national capacities of happiness, freedom, and liberty for all citizens. This is not a religious creed or a Bible verse. These are commonly held values that we have struggled for throughout our history. In our context, these values arose originally from diverse Christian traditions, but today numerous American faith traditions can assent to them. Although the founders never imagined the variety of religions in the contemporary U.S., they nevertheless opened the door for a creative political pluralism in the 21st century. We should not be electing a theologian-in-chief. We need to elect a good president.
As a Christian, I also know that getting the answers right on a doctrinal test are no guarantee of a person's moral disposition or fitness for leadership. Indeed, one's orthodoxy can bear little relationship to one's practice of faith. Experience, vision, compassion, good leadership, and an ability to govern well are the only tests upon which Christians - or other religious folks - should vote.
Of course, voters have the right to ask about candidates' religious views, and politicians have the right to talk about those views. But when such rights verge on becoming a faith test, then we begin to sacrifice the wisdom of our political system in favor of a testimony that more rightly belongs in church. And a big part of that wisdom is that our president does not make theological affirmations that exclude millions of Americans on Inauguration Day.

Diana Butler Bass ( www.dianabutlerbass.com) is the author of Christianity for the Rest of Us (Harper One, 2006) and a regular blogger for God's Politics.


I really appreciate Bass's article on this topic, especially after hearing so much recently on the faith of the presidential candidates. Indeed this election is a faith-off, with religion and personal faith views playing a large part, much larger than in previous elections I've seen (although how old am I really...), and the Democratic candidates are just as eager to prove their personal faith as a positive point for election as the Republicans.

But actually, I think one reason this article resonates with me so much is this idea of the "checklist of faith." Bass points out how strange the scene seemed, where peoplee are asking the candidates pointed questions about intricate aspects of their doctrinal beliefs. Yes, as she points out, these aspects may not play a huge role in each candidates abillity to lead a nation. But even more than that, it makes me think about the idea of Christians focusing so much on the minute religious doctrine, and judging what it takes for you or I to be a Christian, actually a topic I've been mulling over a lot in the past six months.

Now, I come from a church with strong foundation denominational teaching, where doctrine and church philosophies are very important. And I understand doctrinal importance. Yet at the same time, recently, I've been coming from a place where I think, who am I to judge whether this person is Christian enough according to whether certain beliefs are checked off. Do they believe that the Bible is the full inspired word of god and take a literal understanding of each verse, or is it an inspired guideline for living which has to be understood in context? Do they think that each person's salvation is predestined, or open to free will? Do they believe that it is only through baptism that one is saved, or that if one turns away after one is saved are they still a Christian?

I am going through a very practical time in my faith, as opposed to, what, an intellectual? time. And sitting in some Sunday school classes recently, I was frustrated a bit by the discussion over whether in God's transcendence into the figure of Jesus, he gave up his power to omniscience and omnipotence at his birth, and at what point did he retrieve it for his adulthood or did he ever? "Well yes, because he walked through walls at one point." "Yes that does make things interesting." "And now if Jesus maintains his body, then is he now time constrained as he was on earth?" "And what does that mean then...how can he be interceding for every person's prayers to God the Father, if he still is constrained by time?" My initial reaction was, "Are you serious? does this matter? We will never, ever know all the apsects of God. That's the point! It's God. It's way bigger than anything we can ever understand, and it's not only pointless, but foolish to try to get our head around all these issues." It seems so futile. And...more to the point....it is not what is at hand. How does this (almost strikes me as scientific) understanding of nature and character of God aid our faith and walking out of it in our lives? I have to be honest that at this point in my life these details are not terribly immediate to me, although I can understand that they are fascinating topics for contemplation. But where I am right now, it strikes me as not seeing the forest for the trees.

More and more I am struck by this ability of each us to determine other people's salvation by what checks are ticked off our own lists of salvation. Each of us probably have lists in our heads or hearts, of what it is to be a Christian, and some are long, and some are short; some are detailed, and some are broad and wide. I have lately been distilling it down to more simple things. Do they love God. Are they living a life for him/her? Are they seeking to follow Christ's example in life and submitting to a life in worship and obedience to whatever God calls. Are they seeking to be Christ in their life. I was floored when one of my college professors sophomore year told us that when creeds are read in churches he does not recite along. While a strong Christian, he felt that a mass recitation of belief is not as important (or perhaps is detrimental) as the living out of one's faith. To him, salvation is not granted on a cerebral understanding or belief, but in the action that plays out in ones life. Action becomes reality, and words are just words. And that perspective was very helpful to me, and I had never heard it in the church before. Of course action does come out of belief. But checking off specific beliefs, many of which are cerebral, and actually don't make a difference whether we are following Christ through our lives and love, is not really the point of faith. Although it could be argued that it is the point of religion.

It is important to know what you believe. And there are some important qualifiers and pillars of belief. But perhaps it really is the translation of these important pillars into a life of faith that matters much more than the specific denominational beliefs and intricacies, and it is that truly makes you a Christian--one who follows Christ. But here we are again. With my own list of sorts. Who are we to have this checklist, where if a candidate reaches the bottom of the list, well then, they pass, they are a Christian, and now, bingo, they also receive our vote! I have gotten to a point where I cannot point someone out and say "they are a Christian" or "they are not a christian" or "they do or don't know God." It's a feeling of seeing the smallness of my role and position as a human, or humility, maybe, or a desire not to judge. I don't know. But is it not solely up God to judge, between that one person and God? At this point I would say so. But I, as one person, can continue to love and live a life for God, and be Christ here, and grown in my relationship with Him/Her alongside and in community with my fellow believers who are all doing the same thing...seeking God's face and living lives for God.

And now I realize that all that writing was certainly not in any logical linear fashion with point A, B, and C, and was more like talking in circles. But I have to abandon my frustration with not accomplishing the perfect Western paragraph, and embrace the fact that cycles and speaking cyclicly is also A-ok. But I apologize for all you linear argument readers out there! :)

Peace be apon you all in this Season.

Gift from the Sea

We wake in the same small room from the deep sleep of good children, to the soft sound of wind through the casuarinas trees and gentle sleep-breathing rhythm of waves on the shore. We run bare-legged to the beach, which lies smooth, flat and glistening with fresh wet shells after the night’s tides. The morning swim has the nature of a blessing to me, a baptism, a rebirth to the beauty and wonder of the world. We run back tingling to hot coffee on our small back porch. Two kitchen chairs and a child’s table between us fill the stoop on which we sit. With legs in the sun we laugh and plan our day.
We wash the dishes lightly to no system, fo there are not enough to matter. We work easilty and instinctively together, not bumping into each other as we go back and forth about our tasks. We talk as we sweep, as we dry, as we put away, discussing a person or a poem or a memory. And since our communication seems more important to us than our chores, the chores are done without thinking.
And then to work, behind closed doors neither of us would want to invade. What release to write so that one forgets oneself, foregets one’s companion, forgets where one is what one is going to do next—to be drenched in work as one is drenched in sleep or in the sea. Pencils and pads and curling blue sheets alive with letters heap up on the desk. And then, prikced by hunger, we rise at last in a daze, for a late lunch. Reeling a little from our intense absorption, we come back with relief to the small chores of getting lunch, as if they were lifelines to reality—as if we had indeed almost drowned in the sea of interllectual work and welcomed the fimr ground of physical action under our feet.
After an hour or so of practical jobs and errands we are ready to leave them again. Out onto the beach for the afternoon where we are swept clean of duties, of the particular, of the practical. We walk up the beach in silence, but in harmony, as the sandpipers ahead of us move like a corps of ballet dancers keeping time to some interior rhythm inaudible ot us. Intimacy is blown away. Emotions are carried out to sea. We are even free of thoughts, at least of their articulation; clean and bare as whitened driftwood; empty as shells, ready to be filled up again with the impersonal sea and sky a nd wind. A long afternoon soaking up the outer world.
And when we are heavy and relaxed as the seaweek under our feet , we return at dusk to the warmth and intimacy of our cottage. We sip sherry at leisure in front of a fire. We start supper and we talk. Evening is the time for conversation. Morning is the time for mental work, I feel, the habit of school-days persisting in me. Afternoon is for physical tasks, the out-of-door jobs. But the evening is for sharing, for communication (and for me for creative outpouring). Is it he uninterrupted dark expanse of the night after the bright semented day, that frees us to each other? Or does the infinite space and infinite darkness dwarf and chill us, turning us to seek small human sparks?
Communication—but not for too long. Because good communication is stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. Before we sleep we go out again into the night. We walk up the beach under the stars. And when we are tired of walking, we life flat on the snad under a bolw of stars. We feel stretched, expanded to take in their compass. They pour into us until we are filled with stars, up to the brim.
This is what one thirsts for, I realize, after the smallness of the day, of work, of details, of intimacy—even of communication, one thirsts for the magnitude and universality of a night full of stars, pouring into one like a fresh tide.
And then at last from the immensity of interstellar space, we swing down to a particular beach. We walk back to the lights of the cottage glowing from the dark mists of trees. Small, safe, warm and welcoming, we recognize our pinpoint human match-light against the mammoth chaos of the dark. Back again to our good child’s sleep.

Gift from the Sea

Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others.

The stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still.
This is an end toward which we could strive—to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations, and activities.


Nothing feeds the center so much as creative work, even humble kinds like cooking and sewing. Baking bread, weaving cloth, putting up preserves, teaching and singing to children, must have been far more nourishing than being the family chauffeur or shopping out super markets, or doing housework with mechanical aids.

DDD encore

The question then occurred to me: Well, if that’s so, if the Divine is ultimately formless and genderless, what’s the big deal? Why all this bother?
The bother is because we have no other way of speaking about the Absolute. We need forms and images. Without them we have no way of relating to the Divine. Symbol and image create a universal spiritual language. It’s the language the soul understands.
And yet—and here was the crux—the images that have pervaded our speech, thought, and feeling about the Divine have told us the Divine is exclusively male. They have told us there is only one form and that form is masculine. Indeed, the image, language, and metaphor of God as male has been used so exclusively, for so long (about Five thousand years) that most people seem to believe God really is male.

My friend and mentor Dr. Beatrice Bruteau once described it to me like this: The Absolute Reality, the I Am, can be likened to a dancer. And the forms that the absolute takes can be likened to the dances. The Absolute, she said, dances many dances, in a variety of movements that are constantly giving way into others. When we see the dance, the dancer takes on expression, shape, immediacy, presence, and meaning for us. We can observe the relationship of the dance to the dancer, and we understand that the choreography is infinite. We cannot look at just one movement or one dance and say, that is the dancer.

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As I pondered other reasons for recovering female images of the Divine, I remembered the biblical claim that humans were made in the image of God. Now since human meant both male and female, didn’t that mean both male and female should be used when referring to the Divine? It seemed so logical, so simple, so obvious, that it made one wonder, as McFague put it, “what all the fuss is about.”
She suggests that the fuss is because Western theology has been infected by a fear of female sexuality. She points out that while sexuality is cloaked in the male metaphor for God, it seems blatent in a female metaphor. We are so familiar with male metaphors and their sexuality has been so masked that when female metaphors appear, they seem overtly sexual by comparison. They register in us as taboo.

traveling back to my ponderings in August....From the Dance of the Dissident Daughter--Sue Monk Kidd

The following Sunday, home again, I returned to my own church. The deacons sat together on the front pews. All of them, I noticed, were men. The ministers—three more men—sat in huge chairs up front. I looked from one stained glass window to another. Most of the figures were men.
As the service began, I became acutely aware that every hymn and biblical passage used only masculine pronouns, as if that was all there was. Until then I had accepted that when it said men and brotherhood, that somehow meant me, too. But now, in a place much deeper than my head, I didn’t feel included at all.
I realized that lacking the feminine, the language had communicated to me in subtle ways that women were nonentities, that women counted mostly as they related to men.
Until that moment I’d had no idea just how important language is in forming our lives. What happens to a female when all her life she hears sacred language indirectly, filtered through male terms? What goes on deep inside her when decade after decade she must translate from male experience into female experience and then apply the message to herself? What does that experience imprint inside her? Does it keep exclusive maleness functioning insider her, at least at the level of experience and symbol?

“Women have not only been educationally deprived throughout historical time in every known society, they have been excluded from theory formation,” Lerner writes in The Creation of Patriarchy. That is we’ve been excluded from creating symbol and myth, from the meaning-making process that explains and interprets reality.
This has been particularly true within the church. There women have reigned in the nurseries and the social halls but have been mostly absent from pulpits and places where theology, policy, and spiritual meanings are forged. Within the church, women have been more apt to polish the brass, arrange the flowers, put cookies on a plate, clean up, keep the nursery, be led, pass the credit, look pretty, and be supportive. In other words, women have frequently functioned more as church handmaids than religious meaning makers or symbol creators.
The Church Handmaid is a woman who tries to be a Good Daughter to the Church, trying to be everything it wants and expects her to be. Throughout my life I’d done this without question.
Now, sitting in church, I was full of questions. Why was God always the God of Abraham, never the God of Sarah? Why was it often impossible, rare or difficult for a woman to hold real power in the church? Women had been the largest consumers of church, yet we’d held a vastly disproportionate amount of power compared to our numbers and commitment there. Why had my father always chaired the finance committee and my mother the social committee, even though my mother could manage household budgets and figures with the acumen of an accountant?


Some of these differences may be due to biology, but much of it has come through historical conditioning. My personal belief is that while differences exist, women and men both have an innate and equal ability to engage in the full range of human experiences. (Men can nurture and women can quest for autonomy.) Neither men nor women should be limited to a narrow category of what’s considered feminine if your female or masculine if you’re male. I also believe that men and women contain both “masculine” and “feminine” qualities and that the goal is to balance, blend, and honor both within the individual and culture.

It seemed clear that patriarchy has valued rationality, independence, competitiveness, efficiency, stoicism, mechanical forms, and militarism-things traditionally associated with the “masculine.” Less valued are beingness, feeling, art, listening, intuition, nurturing, and attachment—things traditionally associated with the “feminine.”
As a patriarchal institution, Christianity has tended to value “masculine attributes more than those connected with the feminine.” Author Margaret Starbird put it succinctly: “Institutional Christianity, which has nurtured Western civilization for nearly two thousand years, may have been built over a gigantic flaw in doctrine—a theological ‘San Andreas Fault’: the denial of the feminine.”
Often competitiveness, logic, objectivity, and matters of the head have found preeminence over concerns with inclusiveness, relatedness, or matters of the heart. I recognized the imbalance in the way dogma, theological rightness, triumph of the “Christian Way,” oratorical sermons, church business, nationalism, individual pursuit, conversion figures, and breaking scripture down into its various hermeneutics have frequently been valued over feelings, tears, peace gentleness, group consciousness, and gathering humanity together as a family.
I tried to picture a culture where the valuing was equal. In my wilder moments I imagined a society that paid child care workers, teachers homeless advocates, poets, and bird-watchers as much as it paid professional football players, generals, and corporate CEOs. I tried to imagine a church where it mattered less what your beliefs and practices were and more how relationships were nurtured and healed. I tried to imagine a church that did not support its country’s wars as a matter of patriotic course and instead stood against the devastation and suffering they caused in people’s lives.

from Jim Wallis, Sojourners

Falwell's Legacy
I watched much of the cable television coverage of Jerry Falwell's death and legacy. And I did a lot of grimacing, in response to both the uncritical adulations of his allies (who just passed over the divisive character of much of Falwell's rhetoric), and also the ugly vitriol from some of Falwell's enemies (who attacked both his character and his faith). And there were even some who attacked all people of faith. I ended up being glad that I had passed up all the invitations to be on those shows. On the day of Rev. Jerry Falwell's death, I was content to offer a brief statement, which read:
I was saddened to learn that Rev. Jerry Falwell passed away this morning at age 73. Rev. Falwell and I met many times over the years, as the media often paired us as debate partners on issues of faith and politics. I respected his passionate commitment to his beliefs, and our shared commitment to bringing moral debate to the public square, although we didn't agree on many things. At this time, however, what matters most is our prayers for comfort and peace for his family and friends.
Two days later, I might add that Falwell, in his own way, did help to teach Christians that their faith should express itself in the public square and I am grateful for that, even if the positions Falwell took were often at great variance with my own. I spent much of my early Christian life fighting the privatizing of faith, characterized by the withdrawal of any concern for the world (so as to not be "worldly") and an exclusive focus on private matters. If God so loved the world, God must care a great deal about what happens to it and in it. Falwell agreed with that, and blew the trumpet that awakened fundamentalist Christians to engage the world with their faith and moral values. And that commitment is a good thing. Jerry and I debated often about how faith should impact public life and what all the great moral issues of our time really are.But many conservative Christians are now also embracing poverty, HIV/AIDS, Darfur, sex trafficking, and even the war in Iraq as matters of faith and moral imperatives. It would have been nice to hear on those TV shows that Jerry Falwell, too, had moved to embrace a broader agenda than just abortion and homosexuality. Rev. Falwell, who was admittedly racist during the civil rights movement, was in later years honored by the Lynchburg NAACP for his turn-about on the issue of race, showing the famous founder of the Religious Right's capacity to grow and change. But two nights ago on television, I saw the pain on the face of gay Christian Mel White, who lamented that despite his and other's efforts, Falwell never did even moderate his strong and often inflammatory language (even if maintaining his religious convictions) against gay and lesbian people. They still feel the most wounded by the fundamentalist minister's statements; that healing has yet to be done.Ralph Reed said that Jerry Falwell presided over the "marriage ceremony" between religious fundamentalists and the Republican Party. That's still a concern about the Religious Right for many of us, and should be a warning for the relationship of any so-called religious left with the Democrats. But perhaps in the overly partisan mistakes that Jerry Falwell made - and actually pioneered - we can all be instructed in how to forge a faith that is principled but not ideological, political but not partisan, engaged but not used. That's how the Catholic Bishops put it, and it is a better guide than the direction we got from the Moral Majority. But Falwell proclaimed a public faith, not a private one. And I am with him on that. As I like to say, God is personal, but never private. So let's pray for Jerry Falwell's family, the members of his Thomas Road Baptist Church, and all the students at his Liberty University. And let's learn from his legacy - about how and how not to best apply our faith to politics.

May 8th

I feel saturated by Sustainable Agriculture. The ideas don’t interest me as much any more. I don’t feel inspired by another wholesome farming poem or analysis of the good life or good work anymore. I don’t feel energized by knowledge about industrial agriculture, CAFOs, and eating choices at the supermarket. Granted, I still want to do it. and believe in it. But as a movement of ideas and philosophy, I need to get away from it, or maybe it needs to get away from me, for a little while. Even good water flows away from plants as it sinks into the ground, and if it stays it rots them. The soil is saturated and now must infiltrate deeper and flow away before I can appreciate the next rains….

Rev. Gabriel Salguero: My Living Paradox

Often when speaking to a new group of people, many assumptions are made depending on how I am introduced. If they lead with "Pentecostal" or "Nazarene" I’m pegged as a conservative Republican who has made up his mind about most things. If they lead with "Latino" and "Union Ph.D. student," the assumption is that I am a theological social liberal who has made up his mind about most things. Now I know I'm not the only one who, in searching to be a faithful disciple of Christ, eschews facile definitions too often used to divide and alienate. There are an increasing number of Latino/a, black, white, and Asian evangelicals (just to name a few groups) who in their search to be faithful to the gospel draw from a plethora of sources. Perhaps we are labeled as post-modern believers or anti-traditionalists. The truth is we are part of a long history of Christians struggling to be faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ.

get the full essay from "God's Politics" a Blog by Jim Wallis and friends
http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics/2007/04/rev-gabriel-salguero-my-living-paradox.html

"From where do I get my hope? From the people of this place, and those Israeli/Palestinian peace activists who believe passionately that given justice and equality for all its citizens, peace and human security is possible in this holy land. I take hope, too, from the courage of the young Israeli reservists who, following their conscience, have refused military duty in the territories. ... I have watched, too, those in the resistance movements who believe justice will only come through violence, and in their frustration, pain, and anger have turned to armed resistance, suicide bombs. Suicide bombs tragically take the life of those who use them, and have taken the lives of many Israeli people, and others, and such actions can never be justified. I would therefore like to appeal to those who use such violence, (including those who use the threat of violence by calling for the destruction of Israel) to abandon these immoral and illegal methods, and use nonviolent language and means of working for justice and freedom."

- Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work as co-founder of the Community of Peace People in Northern Ireland, speaking to a nonviolence conference in the West Bank. Later that same day, during a nonviolent protest against Israel's separation barrier, she was shot in the leg with a rubber-coated steel bullet by Israeli soldiers.

appropriate for this time

May all your expectations be frustrated.
May all your plans be thwarted.
May all of your desires be withered into nothingness,
that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

Blessing given to Henri Nouwen by his spiritual mentor

In the vein of Wendell Berry, etc...

In the middle of the violence, Clarence said in an interview that “just plain, pure sentiment” kept them there. He talked about the power of taking a sore and bleeding piece of land and bringing healing to it, about the claim the soil has on lives. He talked about watching seedlings grow into a pine forest, about the bit of ground where they had buried a child and the hill reserved for picnics, about the creek where they had bathed in the summer heat. “People say to you , ‘Why don’t you sell it and move away?’ They might as well ask you, ‘Why don’t you sell your mother?’”

A New Found Hero

Thanks to the recommendation of Marty Purks, I have discovered a new hero, Clarence Jordan. “Clarence Jordan was a strange phenomenon in the history of North American Christianity.” (http://www.koinoniapartners.org/clarence/index.html) Jordan was a white southerner born in 1912 in Georgia. In 1942 he established an agricultural community called Koinonia, “participating love” which was an interracial, intentional, religious community. He stood firm against the flow of the rivers of racial hatred so prevalent in the South and fought for Civil Rights in a theoretical, but also practical lifestyle way, making a statement with his life, along with the lives of other families in the community, as they chose to eat together, farm together, pursue God together, and stand up for Right together. And as the Civil Rights movement progressed, this stand came under furious attack, by members of the KKK, by the town, and often by local white churches, who viewed their integrated community as a threat. There are FBI files on him for bringing to African Americans with him to a white church, where they were refused entrance one Sunday morning, as well as investigation into Communist ties with the farm. Eventually members at this farm would go on to create Habitat for Humanity.
Reading about this history, and this vision makes me want to cry, it speaks to so many of my desires and dreams. “He believed that the best way to effect change in society was by living, in community, a radically different life.” Yes, Yes, YES! In some ways my heart feels broken that here existed such a man, and yet he has died, and it is impossible for me to meet him. How I long to meet him!! And I’m always so excited to find intersections between any of my four passions: environment, faith, arts, and social justice issues. But it goes beyond that. I’ve often found it difficult sorting out my identity of a white American, especially one who does not really know her ancestral roots, of feel a tie to any one cultural community. Embracing and learning from diverse cultures has valuable, but has often left me feeling a little unconnected, and a little lost in terms of who I am, and where I come from. And this often intensifies when looking at the issue of slavery or the history of segregation in America, and the role whites have played in this story. It’s been helpful, really helpful, to find these figures in history who are examples of White Americans who stood against the tide, and fought against slavery, fought against segregation, fought against hatred and injustice. I can hold them up as something to aspire to, and hold them up as heroes.
On a further note….what the civil rights movement of today?…what I can incorporate into my artistic, multicultural/international, social justice oriented, environmental farming community….So that we also can stand strong against the tide and create change by living our lives in a meaningful, intentional, and radical way against the norms of society.

“A community of nearly sixty men, women, and children is facing annihilation unless quick, decisive action is taken by someone in authority. I am therefore appealing to you as a last resort, with the hope and prayer that you might find some course of action before it is too late….We shall not run, for this is America. It is a land where free men have the right—and the duty—to walk erect and without fear in their pursuit of peace and happiness. Should this freedom perish from our land we would prefer to be dead. We gladly offer our lives for its preservation.”
From his telegram to President Eisenhower in January, 1957, when the community was under severe attacks of bombings, vandalism, and violence. He most certainly is a true hero of liberty in America. A new hero for me…

How does one begin a blog? What do you write for the first entry? I don’t know how to start off. This blog is not the start of a new experience; there is no new commencement which it signifies. It isn’t describing my travels, or beginnings in a new place or job, doesn’t mark a birthday or anniversary. Rather, it’s jumping right into life and thoughts at this moment, leaping onto a train speeding by, mid-journey, which has already come a distance, and has much longer still to go. So you can jump on...