Table fellowship and Virginia ham

I just don't seem to have the attention span or focus needed to keep up with multiple complex issues--especially at those times that I am working during the day. So while I've been focussed on how those with smaller blogs can find some way to cooperate in a way that is mutually beneficial, while still retaining their independence, I've completely lost track of some other things. For example, I had totally blanked on the fact that the bishops in the Anglican Communion were having a major meeting this week. Via the Episcopal News Service, we have this story about Archbishop Peter Akinola and other archbishops of the "Global South" refusing to share Holy Communion with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Seven "Global South" archbishops refused to receive Holy Communion with their fellow Primates February 16, alleging that they were "unable to come to the Holy Table with the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church because to do so would be a violation of Scriptural teaching and the traditional Anglican understanding." Now, I have tremendous admiration for Bishop Katharine. Archbishop Akinola, not so much. But while my first thought was just about the "snub" aspect of the action. It was only a little later that it occurred to me the extent to which this action goes against something that was really central for Jesus. From the web site of The Center for Progressive Christianity: It is probably no coincidence that many scholars today believe the stories about Jesus’s open table are considered some of the most authentic historical passages in the gospels, in part because they are so unique for the times. Marcus J. Borg wrote in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, “one of his (Jesus’s) most characteristic activities was an open and inclusive table.” (p.55) Later he notes that, “The inclusive vision incarnated in Jesus’s table fellowship is reflected in the shape of the Jesus movement itself.” (p. 56) And on the subject of food, I found something interesting at a new blog called epiScope. The post is entitled "Virginia Ham", and it discusses the "unreasonable rift" in the Episcopal Church... But in the present rift among our Episcopalian neighbors, one feels it is not so much deviant ideas, but how deviant behavior is defined. As we have recently seen, Virginians regard homosexuality as deviant and, I continue to insist, abhorrent. As we have also seen, they are loath to acknowledge this abhorrence, claiming, for the most part, they are constrained to obey the edicts inscribed in the book of Leviticus. Well, Leviticus prescribes dire consequences for any of us who fancy Virginia ham as well. Good one--wish I'd thought of it. (Given that the most publicized recent rift in the Episcopal Church in the United States has been in the Diocese of Virginia.) More here. Alternate link for comments

Just doing what the voices tell me...

I used that line the other night in response to someone who has tried to "reason" with me about the futility of my latest internet project. I was being tongue in cheek, but I was also referring to something I've addressed before, in my story God, the Blue Puppy. As the mother of young children who watched Blue's Clues, I enjoyed the idea that God left little "clues" to let me know when I was on the right track toward fulfilling the purpose She has in mind for me. Of course, now that my kids are 11 and 13, that show is a distant (sometimes pleasantly nostalgic) memory, so I don't talk about "God's Clues" any more. But from time to time I do feel "called", for lack of a better word, to take action. How do I know it's something I'm meant to do? 1. It feels out of character and scary. 2. The damn thing just won't go away. So, while I don't have a name for that insistent feeling that there is something I must do, there is an image/metaphor that seems to pop into my mind: Joan of Arc. Of course, the big problem with that... ...is that for Joan, it led to this. And, you know, I am so not into that. Of course I'm being metaphorical here--I don't expect to be barbecued. "Flamed" perhaps, in the good old-fashioned usenet sense, or potentially banned or reprimanded, depending on the site. Because the issue I currently feel that I must do something about, was spurred by the Orwellian-ly named Blogroll Amnesty Day. But it's not just about medium to small blogs being purged from the blogrolls of the "big dog" bloggers. It's about the increasingly evident consolidation of power that can be seen in some of the top ranking blogs. That's just wrong in my mind. The blogosphere has such potential to be truly democratic. As I wrote yesterday, But the blogroll purge which, as I have already stated, does not affect me personally, has been the catalyst that prompted me to revisit some of these issues. Also an overarching issue that I have noticed over time: the man really tries to have it both ways. On the one hand, he's been quoted as saying that he is "not a leader" or that he's "just a guy with a blog". But on the other hand, he has often behaved like a very autocratic guy who just "happens" to have one of the most widely read blogs on the Democratic side of the aisle. And he has a great degree of power over what issues can see the light of day in front page posts. This was starting to remind me of the situation with the mainstream media. They were controlled by interests other than "we the people", and they were too willing to play along with Bush during the buildup to the war in Iraq. They were also silent for far too long about the election integrity issues that many of us saw a mile away. Anyway, in addition to work, digging out from the snow, and just generally the day to day responsibilities of an ordinary American who does *not* have ad space worth $9000 a week needs to keep up with, this is what I've been working on lately...

Puppy Bowl!

I can't help myself--everywhere I look on the internets (well, the bloggy part of the internets, at least) I'm seeing posts about the Super Bowl. And I. just. don't. care. Seriously, to care any less than I already do, I would probably need special equipment. But, not wanting to be left out of the fun completely, I thought I would post about the Puppy Bowl. No, not that kind of bowl. I kid. This kind of Bowl... Animal Planet has reinvented the Big Game with the cutest, fuzziest and - at times- fiercest players on the field. When we say "rookie" we aren't kidding - some of these athletes are just nine weeks old. From bulldogs to boxers and everything in between, it's a fantastic team playing in a spectacular brand-new stadium. Join us for tackles, fumbles and fouls on the third annual Animal Planet Puppy Bowl premiering Sunday, February 4, 3-6 p.m. ET with encore presentations at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET only on Animal Planet. Click here for more. Alternate link for comments

Douglas Adams speech excerpt

The following is an excerpt from the Douglas Adams video I linked to in this post. Since I can't get a screen capture from the video, I'm including this image of Douglas Adams with his daughter, Polly. The conclusion of Adams' talk on endangered species: There is a kind of terrible irony that at the point that we are best able to understand and appreciate and value the richness of life around us, we are destroying it at a higher rate than it's ever been destroyed before. And we are losing species after species after species, day after day, just because we're burning the stuff down for firewood. And this is a kind of terrible indictment of our understanding. But, you see, we make another mistake, because we think somehow, this is all right in some fundamental kind of way, because we think that this is all sort of "meant to happen". Now let me explain how we get into that kind of mindset, because it's exactly the kind of mindset that the kakapo gets trapped in. Because, what has been a very successful strategy for the kakapo over generation after generation for thousands and thousands of years, suddenly is the wrong strategy. And he has no means of knowing, because he is just doing what has been successful up till then. And we have always been, because we're toolmakers, because we take from our environment the stuff that we need to do what we want to do and it's always been very successful for us-- I'll tell you what's happened. It's as if we've sort of put the "pause" button on our own process of evolution, because we have put a buffer around us, which consists of medicine and education and buildings, and all these kinds of things that protect us from the normal environmental pressures. And, it's our ability to make tools that enables us to do this. Now, generally speaking, what drives speciation, is that a small group of animals gets separated out from the main body by population pressure, some geographical upheaval or whatever. So imagine, a small bunch suddenly finds itself stranded ina slightly colder environment. Then you know, over a small number of generations that those genes that favor a thicker coat will come to the fore and you come back a few generations later, and the animal's got a thicker coat. Man, because we are able to make tools, we arrive in a new environment where it's much colder, and we don't have to wait for that process. Because we see an animal that's already got a thicker coat and we say we'll have it off him. (Laughter.) And so we've kind of taken control of our environment, and that's all very well, but we need to sort of be able to rise above that process. To rise above that vision and see a higher vision--and understand the effect we're actually having. Now imagine, if you will, an early man, and let's see how this mindset comes about. He's standing, surveying his world at the end of the day. And he looks at it and things, "This is a very wonderful world that I find myself in. This is pretty good. I mean, look, here I am, behind me is the mountains, and the mountains are great. Because there are caves in the mountains where I can shelter, either from the weather or from bears that occasionally come and try to attack me. And I can shelter there, so that's great. And in front of me is the forest, and the forest is full of nuts and berries and trees, and they feed me, and they're *delicious* and they sort of keep me going. And here's a stream going through which has got fish in it, and the water's delicious, and everything's *fantastic*. And there's my cousin Ug. And Ug has caught a mammoth! Yay!! (Clapping). Mammoths are terrific! There's nothing greater than a mammoth, because you can wrap yourself in fur from the mammoth, you can eat the meat of the mammoth, and you can use the bones of the mammoth, to catch other mammoths! Now this world is a fantastically good world for him. And, part of how we come to take command of our world , to take command of our environment, to make these tools that we need, is that we ask ourselves questions all the time. So this man starts to ask himself questions. "This world" he asks himself, "so, who made it?" Now, of course he thinks that, because *he* makes things himself, so he's looking for someone who will have *made* this world. "So, who would have made this world?" he thinks. "Well, it must be something a little bit like me. Obviously *much much* bigger, and (glancing up) necessarily invisible, but he would have made it. Now, *why* did he make it?" Now, we always ask ourselves "why" because we look for intention around us, because *we* do things with intention. We boil an egg in order to eat it. So, we look at the rocks and we look at the trees, and we wonder what intention is here, even though it doesn't have intention. So we think, what did this person who made this world intend it for. And this is the point where you think, "Well, it fits *me* very well. You know, the caves and the forests, and the stream, and the mammoths. He must have made it *for me*!" I mean, there's no other conclusion you can come to. And it's rather like a puddle waking up one morning--I know they don't normally do this, but allow me, I'm a science fiction writer (laughter). A puddle wakes up one morning and thinks "Well, this is a very interesting world I find myself in. It fits me very neatly. In fact, it fits me *so* neatly, I mean, *really* precise, isn't it? (Laughter) It *must* have been made to have me in it!" And the sun rises, and he's continuing to narrate the story about this hole being made to have him in it. The sun rises, and gradually the puddle is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and by the time the puddle ceases to exist, it's still thinking, it's still trapped in this idea, that the hole was there *for* it. And if we think that the world is here *for us*, we will continue to destroy it in the way in which we have been destroying it, because we think we can do no harm. There's an awful lot of speculation one way or another at the moment, about whether there's life on other planets or not. Carl Sagan, as you know, was very keen on the idea that there *must* be. The sheer numbers dictate, because there are billions and billions and billions, as he famously did *not* say, in fact, of worlds out there, so the chance must be that there's other intelligent life out there. There are other voices at the moment saying that if you look at the circumstances here on earth, they are *so* extraordinarily specific that the chances of there being something like this out there, are actually pretty remote. Now, in a way it doesn't matter. Because think of this--Carl Sagan, I think, himself, said this. There are two possibilities: either there is life out there on other planets, or there is no life out there on other planets. They are both *utterly* extraordinary ideas! But, there is a strong possibility that there isn't anything out there remotely like this. And we are behaving as if this planet, this *extraordinary*, utterly, utterly extraordinary little ball of life, is something we can just screw about with any way we like. And maybe we can't. Maybe we *should* be looking after it just a little bit better. *Not* for the world's sake--we talk rather grandly about "saving the world". We don't have to save the world--the world's fine! The world has been through five mass extinctions. Sixty-five million years ago when, as it seems, a comet hit the earth at the same that there were vast volcanic eruptions in India, which saw off the dinosaurs, and something like 90% of the animals on the planet at the time. And another 150 million years earlier than that, another giant, giant, giant extinction. The world has been through it many times before, and what tends to happen, what happens invariably after each mass extinction, is that there's a huge amount of space available, for new forms of life suddenly to emerge and flourish into. Just as the extinction of the dinosaurs made way for us. Without that extinction, we would not be here. So, the world is fine. We don't have to save the world--the world is big enough to look after itself! What *we* have to be concerned about, is whether or not the world we live in, will be capable of sustaining *us* in it. *That's* what we need to think about. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. (Applause). Alternate link for comments

"America Says No" Rallies

So, whatever happened to the notion that "Elections have consequences"? George W. Bush, after his narrow "victory" over John Kerry in 2004, claimed that he had a mandate to press forward with his agenda, rather than trying to work in a more bipartisan manner. You know, "Reach across the aisle"? Apparently that is only considered an admirable trait when it's Democrats that are in power. The midterm elections have been described by many as being driven largely by public dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq. From those elections to any public opinion poll I've seen, the message from the American public has been a resounding "No!" to the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq. Bush's response has been the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and yelling "La la la la la!" For anyone who is not aware of this... Volunteers will host actions in cities and towns across the country within 24 hours of the president’s speech with a simple message: "America says NO more troops in Iraq!” I will be the first to admit that I am tired of trying to oppose a president who is so bound and determined to ignore and isolate any voices outside of his small circle of "yes men" (and women). Do I believe that we can change his mind on the escalation of the war in Iraq, announced last night in a special address to the nation? Sadly, no. But the world is watching us, and I think it would be a sad commentary on American apathy if these rallies were sparsely attended. What does that say to people in other nations (who used to hold our country in such high regard) if our response to Bush acting in direct opposition to our will, is, "Yeah, whatever." Click here to find a vigil or rally in your area. Alternate link for comments

A prayer for the new year

Holy Mother...Loving Father... Source of All That Is... Oh--You know who You are! That daughter You gave me said a funny thing yesterday: "It seems like God has gotten shy over the years" (Meaning You don't talk to people like in the "old days") I said I wasn't sure that was true-- that sometimes it just doesn't get written down Sometimes people aren't sure it's really You (Or are afraid to believe that it is) And I told her of the time I heard from you (or one of Your "people") "Help heal the world" were the words I heard while lying in bed early that morning And then You held me close Maybe I imagined that, but it didn't matter The words felt real enough, and the need for healing was real, so I promised that I would Later I learned about tikkun olam, the Hebrew phase which translates to "repairing the world" That confirmed the notion that the call to help heal the world was true and real... It's also impossible There can never be enough glue, tape, bandages, needles and thread, hammers and nails, hope, patience, and love, to get the job done I suppose that's why the baptismal vows say, "I will, with God's help" So as we begin a new year, I ask again for Your help Help me to find the strength, energy, and love to keep working to mend that which is broken, both in myself and in the world You entrusted to our care. Alternate link for comments

On Poverty

I strongly recommend reading Christy Hardin Smith's post Bringing Poverty to the Table. Yes, as I suspected, the post was prompted by Edwards' announcement yesterday. But even if you support a different candidate, please read. As Christy noted at the end of the piece: That it has taken a Presidential candidate standing up and talking about this issue to get it back on the front pages of newspapers — at least for the day yesterday — is unconscionable. But at least people are talking about it again, and for that I applaud John Edwards for sticking to a topic that all of us need to be talking about much more frequently. I don't have a candidate to support yet, as Gore still seems unwilling to run, Feingold has said he won't, and Howard Dean is a man of his word, who promised not to run if elected chair of the DNC. But poverty is one of those uncomfortable, dauntingly big and complex issues that tends to get swept under the rug by the majority. Maybe it's a bit like global warming in that respect. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were graphic examples of the urgency of both issues--we can't afford to ignore either. So I will join Christy in applauding Edwards getting poverty back into the headlines, even for one day. But I hope it will be for longer than that. Hopefully other candidates and officeholders will join him. And I don't say this as a supporter of any political candidate. I say it as a human being. I also say it as an Episcopalian who is proud of my new Presiding Bishop who insists on keeping the focus on this issue, in spite of the efforts of others to shift the attention back to issues of human sexuality. From an interview in June of 2006: Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: We need to be examining the poverty that is real around the world. We need to be examining the fact that our brothers and sisters, Anglican and not, in places like Africa and Asia don't have enough to eat. Their children don't have the opportunity to go to school. AIDS and tuberculosis and malaria are rampant in many parts of this world and people with those diseases don't have access to adequate health care. That's where our focus needs to be. And, from a description of Katharine Jefferts Schori's book, scheduled to be released in January... Grounding her reflections in a theology of the reign of God—‘God’s dream for creation’—she dares to ‘dream big’ herself, casting a vision of a world without poverty and hunger, where we all recognize our interdependence with every other child of God. Jefferts Schori's book can be preordered here. And I have heard those words echoed by Bishop Gene Robinson, and by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and by many other people I respect and admire. I hope that more and more people will talk about it--especially people who have an audience. And when people try to distract us with something shiny, I hope that we will redirect, and bring the discussion back to issues of vital importance for our human family. (Also posted at Daily Kos, My Left Wing and Street Prophets) Update: I just discovered that Part II of Christy's discussion of poverty is now posted at FDL. Alternate link for comments