Silent on Gaza?

My response to the situation in Gaza: I am getting quiet. That does not mean I have no human concern, outrage, worry, or sense of what is right and wrong. Hardly. Specifically, I want the one side that has dominated our foreign policy for over half a century to stop doing so. I sense with real anguish that things much get much worse for that to happen.

The awful violence in the Middle East is being reflected in the tiny insignificant mirror of certain blog comment threads. Lots of typists screaming and name-calling with no consciousness of their own addiction to outrage, self-righteousness, and moral superiority.

Incidentally, the entire Bush Administration has been a real meth lab for those addictions.

I'm waking up to a sense that all the noise has to stop, at least here in my own head. That's the place I can at least try to control.

A couple of resources I'm finding helpful: J. Brent Bill's Holy Silence (Quaker perspective), and David Cooper's Silence, Simplicity, and Solitude (Buddhist perspective).

Along these same lines, I have no interest in arguing with those who feel prayer and meditation are "doing nothing."

We execute Quakers, don't we?

While the corporate media wraps their little brain around the fact that our Justice Department is pro-torture, Fresh Air has a great excerpt from Garry Will's new book, describing the events leading up to the Massachusetts execution of Mary Dyer, Quaker, in 1660.

And the interview at the same link is the clearest historical argument for separation of Church and State I've ever heard.

Go say Hi

To Quaker Fruit Salad.

She's left for college and started her own blog in her own voice and all of a sudden her Mom's friends (and Friends, as in Religious Society of) in the blogosphere are coming to visit. Oh well.

She's as cool as her mom too so it's worth the click.

A Quaker Post

I had an interesting exchange with Forrest of A Quaker Watering Hole about this post. I, in my pushy/helpful way, offered to help set up some kind of discussion/Skype group on "taking back Jesus" for Quakers and perhaps other lefty Christian seekers. He responded that "Back at the old blog, we're already getting rowdy on the old one-post-at-a-time system, which I'd expect to lend itself better to reflective comments."

My response:

I think in terms of reflective comments you may be right. It's the difference between sitting in a meeting and just talking, or, having only those who write a prepared statement ahead of time be allowed to speak. The prepared statements will definitely be more reflective but not everyone will participate. Those of us who have been blogging for a number of years sometimes pull our hair out over "lurkers," those who read but never comment.

Were the comments at the interest group meeting at Pacific Yearly Conference less reflective than if everyone there had written an article on the subject of "taking Jesus back" for Friends Journal?

Reflection need not be swapped for spontaneity in all cases: one of many reasons I go to Meeting.

He replied:

All right, I play go on dragongoserver.net and I don't necessarily think any longer about those moves than if I were playing a real-time game.

And thinking a long time is certainly no guarantee that the Spirit is being consulted in the process.

Neither I nor John have a copyright on the idea of "Taking Back Jesus." I asked him for permission to use his statement, because I had that opportunity, but my sense was that he didn't mind anyone reprinting it.

The real difference I see in a real-time game is that it ties me to the computer for the duration, keeps me there responding timely to the other guy's moves.

So if you start such a discussion, I'd like you to invite participants to also read & comment on 'my' site, but I don't see the advantage to joining in myself, under that time-constraint. Enjoy!

So this thread is for those who want to discuss the whole "blog post" versus "chat" dynamic, and also for those who want to join a Skype discussion on "taking back Jesus." Or you can just email me see sidebar. Thanks, Forrest, for your willingness to let me post this stuff.

Christians? Happy?

There's an interesting post over at Quaker Street (BG linking to Quaker blogs? Get used to it.)

Apparently Jean Paul Sartre wrote about Christians coming out of church with smiles on their faces and deduced that happiness was a hallmark of Christian living or some such nonsense. Any quote from French philosophes of the twentieth century prompts "the taking of the Advil" at Chateau Blue Gal. Here is my comment from there:

I have known Christians who felt some obligation to be either happy or sad but I'm with the Buddhists on this one: mere human emotion is Monkey Mind.

I think the hallmark of a true Christian is both a broken heart and a joyful one. We've been to hell and come back. We know the pains this world can produce and we know the way out is hard, but we're not alone and we don't have to be afraid.

My recent leadings (and yes I'm a newly Convinced Quaker) have been both sad and joyful.

Other things to read today:

Manila calls the founders of Live Earth, "the Man." He's right.

Blogenfreude loses it. And shouldn't we all?

Are you an English teacher? Please prepare your red pencil and give Mitt Romney's finance chair an "F". Then expel her. From the English-speaking world.

Off to the airport and lots of waiting. Should have wifi but may not have power supply. We'll see.