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Practice Resurrection: Easter, Google and Chavez

3/31/2013

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Google, known for its many doodles to mark special, often random days, went with Cesar Chavez's birthday rather than something more Easter-themed.  Apparently, a lot of people were upset and would have rather seen bunnies and eggs, oh my!  Some even mixed Cesar with Hugo Chavez, the late Venezuelan president and controversial figure(!).  I thought this article got it right on, however:
Google’s odd choice should remind us that whatever one thinks of Chavez’s politics, they are impossible to understand apart from his belief in the resurrected Christ.
For Chavez, social reform was never merely external. Without peace of spirit and purity of heart, there was little point in pursuing justice. Collective bargaining, just wages, shorter workdays: for Chavez none of these made sense outside the fact of his risen Lord.
Beautifully said.  Whether Google meant to make the connection or not, I would rather see a man practice resurrection than see another marketing tool take over a holiday (holy day).  That phrase, practice resurrection, is now the name of a book by Eugene Peterson but comes from a wonderful poem by Wendell Berry.

Here it is in full:


MANIFESTO: THE MAD FARMER LIBERATION FRONT
by Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay.
Want more of everything made.
Be afraid to know you neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery any more.
Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something they will call you.
When they want you to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace the flag.
Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot understand.
Praise ignorance,
for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium.
Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion--put your ear close,
and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world.
Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap for power,
please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap.
Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and politicos can predict the motions
of your mind, lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn't go.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Copyright Wendell Berry
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A House is a House

3/26/2013

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The word "farfetching" comes from the poet Mary Ann Hoberman's book, A House is a House for Me, first pointed out to me by my friend Rachel D.  It's a beautiful children's book with a wonderful message: everything and everyone has a place, has a home... not just us humans.



Here are some quotes [all sic] from the book.
"The more that I think about houses,
The more things are houses for things.
And if you get started in thinking,
I think you will find it is true
That the more that you think about houses for things,
The more things are houses to you. 
[some examples given] 
Perhaps I have started farfetching....
Perhaps I am stretching things some.....
A mirror's a house for reflections....
A throat is a house for a hum....
But once you get started in thinking,
You think and you think and you think 
[more examples] 
And once you get started in thinking this way,
It seems that whatever you see
Is either house or it lives in a house,
And a house is a house for me! 
[more examples, ending the book with:] 
And the earth is a house for us all."
It's a beautiful message, and I believe pertinent to my free-ranging thoughts found here on this blog, while also acknowledging we live on this one beautiful gem in a sea of darkness and light.

And we're living on a living planet, circling a living star....
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Energy Matters

3/25/2013

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Amidst the ongoing debate on the parameters and extent of the Second Amendment, there is some troubling news that the assault weapons banned (first passed in 1994 and allowed to expire in 2004) still does not have enough votes to make it to the floor of the Senate.  Furthermore, many gun makers are having trouble hiring enough people to manufacture the increase in demand for guns and ammunition.

It makes me think of a recent discussion I had with a friend about energy versus matter, flow versus stasis, wave versus particle.  The first is related in Einstein's famous equation:
Light, whose speed is the key factor in relating energy to matter in the equation above, can also be considered both as a wave and a particle.  So what first appears as a dichotomy is actually two states of similar source, or two sides of a coin, if you will.  

The question I have: which is more powerful?  Can energy/flow/waves ever stop matter/particle/bullets, a la Neo in The Matrix?


Granted, this was in a computer program and not in the "real life" sequence of the movie, but the guy does stop the sentinels somehow in "real life" at the end of Matrix:Reloaded!


Anyhow, I do wonder about the power of guns and how do we stop violence.  I would like to learn and train more in the nonviolent arts of Qigong andTai Chi, tapping into the energy source behind and in all matter we see and experience.  There's some pretty cool videos that show how powerful these guys can be!


Now isn't that cooler than bullets, if not the way out from violence?  Maybe we can't stop bullets physically once they're fired, but there's a lot of training we can do (and energy we can tap into!) before someone pulls the trigger.

May we beat swords into plowshares with our minds, hearts and hands.
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The Things That Make for Peace: Iraq War

3/19/2013

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Ten years ago our country was led into a war of choice we were told was a necessity.  In order to stop the threat of Saddam Hussein and his alleged "weapons of mass destruction," we had to massively destroy a country with our own weapons, bought and paid for by the American people to enrich American corporations.  We were lied to, bamboozled and fooled into killing thousands of Iraqi men, women and children.  Our ideals of freedom, democracy and equality were contorted into a misguided ideology left thousands of our own men and women dead and maimed, some physically and perhaps all psychologically.

Whether you were for or against the war, whether you were duped or defied the powers that tried to instill fear into your heart, we all agree now that the Iraqi War was an egregious mistake and a blot on the nation's, if not the world's, conscious.  If you do not agree that the war was a mistake or that our leaders along with the media should be held accountable for war crimes, please consider:
  • A new BBC-Guardian expose on how our military and one man in particular used training for Latin American death squads and torture methods in Iraq to instigate the sectarian war and violence that continues to today.
  • A powerful story of an ex-soldier who signed up a few days after 9/11 only to be sent to Iraq and become paralyzed.  He is now choosing to end his life slowly due to the immense pain and discomfort he feels.
We continue to try and "fight terror with terror."  Obama has escalated drone warfare, even though it isn't cheap, surgical or decisive and is causing similar damaging psychological effects as those in more direct combat, to say nothing of those in constant fear of being watched, targeted and killed. Fighting with terror doesn't work.  It doesn't bring peace.  Terror is not one of "the things that make for peace," as Jesus urges us to dwell and act upon (Luke:19:42).

As long as America refuses to be a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), our population will continue to pass judgment on the likes of Joseph Kony while not holding accountable our own leaders accused of war crimes, except on national television of the likes of Michael Moore.  I am not saying fight violence with violence.  I am saying we should hold other world leaders to the same standard as our own, and we should act in ways that prevent and contain those who would act violently.

May our hearts be every filled with peace, even in the most trying of circumstances.
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