Tag: Obama

Guest writer at Everyday Liturgy

ELI’m very glad to have the honor of being the guest writer today at Thomas Turner’s blog:

Everyday Liturgy

Thomas wrote me saying,

I would love for you to contribute a 500 word (or so) post about how participating in a particular church or denomination has helped make you the Christian you are today. The purpose of this series is largely ecumenical, and looks at the positive you gleaned out of the experience. If you had a bad experience that turned into something good later on, I would think you could make a great post out of that…

Some of you may not know just how fundamentalist my roots are.

Here’s but one example:

Several people approached my mom to discourage her from marrying my dad. Why?

Because their offspring would be bi-racial.

Plenty of (fundamentalist) Christian groups at the time prohibited “inter-racial” dating and (obviously) marriage and pro-creation.

Southern Baptists were the slave-owning southerns who coined their monicker at the time of the American Civil War (to them known as “The War of the Northern Aggression”). Northern Baptists, as they were once called, later changed their name to American Baptist and became (typically) more progressive and liberal in their views over time.

Southern Baptists proliferated to many places outside of the the South (to the American North and through missionary work, to all parts of the world), but kept their name and, as you might guess, some of their same notions.

(To be fair, things have changed for the better, mostly. Today, folks in churches coming from that tradition run the gamut of very strict and conservative… “old school patriarchal imperialist southern” -if you will- to more gracious and relaxed in their dogma on issues of race, gender, and other matters.)

(By the way, my dad was Puerto Rican. Are you curious to see what he looked like? Here. Like most conversations about “race” –as if that was an actual thing– it’s really just vestige of a medieval mindset and a preoccupation about skin tones and/or physical features. Sadly, it still is and by people you would imagine would know better. But, I’ll tackle that in some other post.)

I wonder how many of them were relieved that I ended up having my mom’s light skin. 

(This is were Obama and I are alike. Like me, he actually looks more like his mom than his dad. Trust me, it’s true. I notice these things! :) )

 

So, what was my journey and where do I stand now?

Give it a read and find out!

Post-election Teachable-moments

Some people are relieved today. I see a lot of joy on Twitter, “You are wonderful. We love you Obama!”

White males took a shellacking and there’ll be gun sales to prove it.

But the victory is a short and really a bitter-sweet one, if anything. The troubles the mire this country are severe.

We must look for ways to love each other no matter how we voted.

I’ve talked to people who are hurting. I live in PA Coal Country. Largely white and low income. A great many get government assistance. The local Walmart is a mad house the days government checks are distributed. Companies are laying off and shutting down, too. For good. So many can’t find work that’s better that we they get with government checks. Some want to expand their little businesses but have low profits, no way to borrow money, and no way to provide what the government mandates if they expand.

Will people be too squeezed to give to charity? I worry about that. Will white people resent black people more and vice versa? That is not okay. Will hatred and divisions increase? We need to heal these rifts. How do we do this?

For my family, it’s the unstoppable incremental demise of making a few hundred dollars too much to be poor, and never really having the chance to make enough to be better off. It’s very precarious for my family. I didn’t have that much confidence in Romney, but I’d hoped the last four years wouldn’t lay waste to the area in which I live. Maybe it’s different for you, but. I see people begging for positive change and improvement, but none is in sight. That’s why people are so ramped up. No matter who’s President, when wages freeze, and food and fuel prices go up, the middle class suffers and deteriorates.

America spent 2.6 billion on the status quo. I shutter at that maddening thought. I can’t even clearly picture in my mind 1 billion dollars, can you? Just a portion of that would alleviate poverty for most.

16 Trillion dollars is out-of-balance. Again, this number is so large as to be meaningless. But what it means in a way that matters is that the interest to pay the debt back to China and others propping us up will ascend, and then the banks will tighten and investing will make little sense. Thus, prices will spike on everything.

I think there is a dear consequence to this path. The path both parties have been party to. Our national priorities aren’t sane. What a strange time and place we live in.

When people talk smack of God’s judgement they think in terms of demise. Maybe fire, or storms, or flood, or nuclear war. But, that isn’t how it works. God doesn’t get in our way.

We suffer not so much for the come-and-go leaders we pick, but for the way we’ve made our way.  That is, natural and obvious consequences: Go into debt, lose your credibility. That sort of thing.

I mourn that times will be tougher, and not really for me, but for those who are already poor. Kids lose out. I’ve see it already for several years. Around here, their parents buy alcohol, or lottery tickets, or cigarettes or other items (TVs, clothes, phones, guns, “toys”) to cope and they don’t keep enough money for food and essentials. Well, the assistance money isn’t food stamps in books (like it was when my mom needed for us, mid-1980s, when my dad ditched us for a while), it’s just a credit card looking thing. I’ve seen it used at McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts. That makes the money run out very quickly. Most run out in a week or two. They tell their kids to wait for school to eat. I’ve seen kids run, not walk, but run to get their free meal at school on a Monday morning, because they’ve hardly eaten all weekend. And these parents need not change their habits. It’s heartbreaking.

People who’ve helped others before will no doubt hunker down and use their energy and resources for self-preservation. Others with means will leave it to the government to remedy, and fail to care. It’s messed up.

And also I know, for sure I know, that struggles produce character.

Those who grew up in the Great Depression were made of stronger stuff. (see photo. Look at the girl’s eyes.) They tried harder and accomplished more, more for their children than themselves usually. They had a revived spirituality, that we’ve now replaced with entertainment consumption.

We’ve had great abundance in America. And, if we don’t have it, we’ll learn from that.  It’s not just about the economy. It’s not about a political party. We’ll learn to be good in deeper ways and give when it hurts. Isn’t that when love is made more manifest? We’ll keep trying. We are resilient.

And remember this too:

Perfect love casts out fear.

O’ God,

Give us your peace. 

If our hope be dimmed, light it with your Presence.

Create in us the stuff that you are made of,

Love, Grace, Hope, Peace

Relieve us from our bitterness and fear.

Heal us, deeply. Inside.

Comfort us who are downcast and weary.

Give us joy in your salvation

And eternal and internal peace that only you provide.

Amen.

Vitriol-proof yourself in 4 Steps

YARGHHH! Ranker, hype, and vitriol.

It’s about 30 Days until the 2012 Presidential election, and you can really tell.

I’ve tried to not get wound up. I’ve tried to ignore the surround-sound ejeculations of venom. But, it’s hard to not get sucked into all the emotion and survive the cross-fire unscathed.

 Big Bird even made the casualty list…Yes, the huge, friendly, yellow character for pre-schoolers on TV. Bear in mind that citizen support will never wane enough to make our feathered friend, or his cohorts, extinct. But, that fact doesn’t cull the madness, does it?

There’s looniness in the air!

It’s a soiling season, so I’ve tried to think of a few way to vitriol-proof myself. Maybe you can share a few tips. Here’s a few I’m using:

1. Unplug.
Short media fasts can reorient me to what’s most important: My regular life, the people nearest to me, and my deepest values that have much to do with Grace.

2. Think long-term.
As much as people “say so-and-so” will ruin everything forever, that’s 95% fear doing the talking. No vote will truly change as much as people say. (Insert which ever name you want to for “so-and-so”, both sides are tooting this horn.) I’m trying to regularly take a few steps back and try to gain wisdom from a more far-sighted perspective. It does help.

3. Feel powerless.
Huh? It may sound ridiculous to say it like that, but seriously, not too much is truly under our control. Admtting this is the first step for me. Changes, for good or for bad, do happen slower than we care to admit. So much is out of our immediate control. Policies, weather, illness, media, cultural hype, and much more. We can control our responses, but not others. We don’t get that much say and the frenzy is proof of that underlying fear.

…which leads me to #4!

4. Be a Duck.
A duck is the water foul that has the sort of feathers to make water bead and roll off, not soak in and cause problems. I try to think of this as a way of being. Unflappable. It’s engaged thoughtfulness sandwiched by what’s known in spiritual formation circles, and ancient Christian tradition, as “holy indifference”. That doesn’t mean I’m apathetic, it means I’m centered on the Source of Goodness through faith, and not tossed to and fro by opinions, circumstances, or any perceived impeding doom. (This takes loads of practice for me! I’m passionate, and through practice I’ve started to learn when to let that loose and when to dail it in. Though I fail too much, I continue the effort.)

Have you been effected and affected by these acerbic times?

What helps you?

When things get fishy

tuna

I’m not trying to carp, but they say things come in threes:

1. Introduced to “Fish Pedicures”.

2. Our kitchen sink smells like tuna (still).

3. Osama bin Laden is buried at sea.

Now, I’d sooner get a defective Nembutal enema then be correct here, butt (sic.) it seems that things have been pretty fishy. (Read: peculiar and fish-centric) Okay, I sort of made the second one up. I probably should have mentioned dead schools of fish or something.

Today, I feel a well….a “disturbance in the force”. Something just isn’t right…ya know? Maybe in the universe. Maybe in the thinking I read reverberating through social media. It’s not just the caffeine talking. I have some very conflicting thoughts and emotions at this point. Something is the matter.

With this talk of the most wanted wealthy, terrorist mastermind being “brought to justice”, I am reminded that human justice (so-called) is focused on retribution and punishment. Those are its first aims. But, must’n we realize there is no justice qua justice at the hands of human beings?

Can this man’s death heal the wounds of those who lost loved ones on 9/11? Never. There has been no score settled. Nothing can repay or compensate for that type of destruction and loss.

Here is where ultimate triumph can only come through the practice of forgiveness. It is the hard stuff, the stuff that happens supernaturally–not through our strength.

Grace trumps our flawed and immature (human) slant on Justice.

Will we ever get justice right?

God cancels our debt. My debt. Yours. Bin Laden’s. God’s work at the cross and ongoing through his people is the working out of this cancelation which does not overlook the evil, but negates it. It pulls its teeth out. It becomes victorious in the most scandalous way (compared to our standards). This way is very unpopular, I might add. Check out the movies. We like revenge and payback. Our movie stars exact it out for us, so we can feel comforted.

So, absorb the important part. The weight and burden of the disparate of goodness and evilness funnels down and is defeated and overcome by sacrifice, and by grace. Christ Jesus’ death on the cross. This is God’s active dealing with evil and human nature gone wrong. In all cases.

I didn’t think I’d feel this way, but all the bin Laden news and stuff has just left me with the creeps. We need help.

What must we change about our view of justice with regards to God’s holiness and mercy? How can we understand and enact justice better, and our active role in meting it out?

Tell me: What are your feelings about the ways of justice, or the recent events concerning Osama bin Laden? Was “justice served”?

And In what ways can grow from this? (And, Yes, I’m fishing for your thoughts.)

How to Think Better in 97 seconds

Critically thinking is something we don’t do enough. Thinking better, and making better decisions has everything to do with thinking more clearly and critically. A bad argument (aka poor logic) shouldn’t fool us, or convince us. Chances are you’re getting kicked around more than you think.

(This is supplemental material for my worldviews class.)

Listen to any radio, talk show, or news program after you understand the following logic issues, and you spot one logical fallacy after another. Now you’ll have the knowledge base to disarm flawed rationalizations and weak assertions.

So, use the next 97 seconds and pick some fallacies that appeal to you. Then, share something new you learned. Or, visit soon, and tell us the first fallacy you’ve spotted.

Absurdity · Accident · Ad nauseam · Argument from ignorance · Argument from silence · Argument to moderation · Argumentum ad populum · Base rate · Compound question ·Evidence of absence · Invincible ignorance · Loaded question · Moralistic · Naturalistic · Non sequitur · Proof by assertion · Irrelevant conclusion · Special pleading · Straw man ·Two wrongs make a right
Appeals to emotion Fear · Flattery · Nature · Novelty · Pity · Ridicule · Children’s interests · Invented Here · Island mentality · Not Invented Here · Repugnance · Spite
Genetic fallacies Ad feminam · Ad hominem (Ad hominem tu quoque) · Appeal to accomplishment · Appeal to authority · Appeal to etymology · Appeal to motive · Appeal to novelty · Appeal to poverty ·Appeals to psychology · Appeal to the stone · Appeal to tradition · Appeal to wealth · Association · Bulverism · Chronological snobbery · Ipse dixit (Ipse-dixitism) · Poisoning the well ·Pro hominem · Reductio ad Hitlerum (Blood libel)
Appeals to consequences Appeal to force · Wishful thinking
Absence paradox · Begging the question · Blind men and an elephant · Cherry picking · Complex question · False analogy · Fallacy of distribution (Composition · Division) · Furtive fallacy · Hasty generalization ·I’m entitled to my opinion · Many questions (Loaded question) · McNamara fallacy · Name calling · Red herring fallacy · Special pleading · Rationalization (making excuses) · Slothful induction
Correlative-based fallacies False dilemma (Perfect solution) · Denying the correlative · Suppressed correlative
Deductive fallacies Accident · Converse accident
Inductive fallacies Sampling bias · Conjunction fallacy · False analogy · Hasty generalization · Misleading vividness · Overwhelming exception
Vagueness and ambiguity Amphibology · Continuum fallacy · False precision · Slippery slope
Equivocation Equivocation · False attribution · Fallacy of quoting out of context · No true Scotsman · Reification
Questionable cause Animistic · Appeal to consequences · Argumentum ad baculum · Circular cause and consequence · Correlation does not imply causation (Cum hoc) · Gambler’s fallacy and itsinverse · Post hoc · Prescience · Regression · Single cause · Slippery slope · Texas sharpshooter · The Great Magnet · Unknown Root · Wrong direction
Masked man fallacy · Appeal to probability · Circular reasoning
Fallacy of propositional logic Affirming a disjunct · Affirming the consequent · Denying the antecedent · Argument from fallacy · False dilemma
Fallacy of quantificational logic Existential fallacy · Illicit Conversion · Proof by example · Quantifier shift
Syllogistic fallacy Accident · Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise · Converse accident · A dicto simpliciter · Exclusive premises · Existential · Necessity · Four-term Fallacy · Illicit major ·Illicit minor · Negative conclusion from affirmative premises · Undistributed middle