Category: American Affairs

NOT JUST A SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

Each week I go to the post office to get the Quaker meeting’s mail. A while back, I wound up going after regular counter hours (the lobby’s open longer) only to find a notice that we’d received a package too big to fit into our rental box. That meant a special trip early the next week to pick it up.

I assumed the mystery mailing would be a big envelope for our finance committee or maybe a box of books for the library or religious education.

No, it was smaller than that, from the apparently richly funded Liberty Counsel Project in Orlando, Florida. I opened it to find a DVD addressed to

PASTORS
&
PATRIOTS

and must admit to being offended.

It’s not that I’m opposed to defending “faith, freedom, and family,” as they put it, but I do take Ephesians 6 seriously. No carnal weapons, only those of the Spirit. Besides, I see no awareness of the impact of corporate employers and economic forces and even popular entertainment culture in the “systematic assault on our liberties” – meaning, if you read between the lines, an imposition of their standards upon the rest of the populace.

The mailing’s title phrase reminds me how much our understanding of the Bible teachings  (and I include Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren in this stream) differs from many other denominations. To me, “patriot” carries too much of the nationalist strain, denying what one Mennonite minister expresses simply as, “We believe Christ came for all people, not just Americans.” The patriot image also inevitably carries a musket, and no intention to “love thine enemy,” much less feed one. And then there’s Samuel Johnson’s observation that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Ahem!

How much I’d prefer instead to see

PASTORS
&
PEACEMAKERS

as a recognition of a higher path and calling.

The subheading, “Silence is not an option!” is also troubling from my perspective, one that embraces silence as strength and speaks quietly in Truth. Shouting (as the exclamation point suggests) too often seeks to drown out all others’ … including the Holy One. Well, the group does keep talking about “doing battle,” but from everything I’ve read, Jesus takes up a cross, not a sword, and urges us to do the same.

Curiously, I was not the only one to first read that line as “Science is not an option” … but then, real scientists don’t shout, either. Still, in the overall scheme of their argument, this may be altogether fitting in their larger stand.

As I continue to reflect on the mailing, there’s no way of escaping many of the ways people and institutions keep trying to wrap God and Jesus (among others, depending on the place and its populace) in flags and partisan causes, rather than opening themselves to the Holy One’s larger mission.

It’s enough to have me thinking of a new bumper sticker:

LET’S SAVE JESUS!

Amen?

WHAT ABOUT THAT “BROAD CONSENSUS” IN THE CONSERVATIVE CAMP?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

My introduction to the news site Politico came in being handed some of its articles for our newspaper to republish. The problem was in refitting them to our available space – they were way, way too long, and very difficult to distill. For the record, I love long, closely reasoned reports, even though I’ve also been an avid briefs fan for much of the daily news budget.

From the pieces our publisher had selected, I perceived an underlying leaning to the Republican establishment. Still, having such connections can allow access to unique insights and information. I’ll listen, as long as it’s grounded in fact.

More recently, I was surprised to learn that the organization includes not just the oft-quoted Politico.com website, either, but is more crucially built upon a Capitol Hill newspaper that is published anywhere from once a week to five times weekly, depending on the political insider news happening. (Oh, how I love that flexibility. Just imagine being free to say, “Let’s hold off another day.”)

As we sink into the big money at play in the ongoing Republican presidential primary season – and the congressional and statewide elections to follow – Politico’s investigations into the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, become especially intriguing. I’d thought, as conservatives, they’d all be in the same camp.

Instead, Politico is ruthlessly on their trail. It makes for some fascinating – and frightening – reading.

For some of the latest, click here.

AWAITING THE WISDOM OF SERPENTS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Failed Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s recent endorsement of Donald Trump is disturbing on several fronts.

First, Carson was seen as morally pure, if nothing else, up to this point. Maybe even as innocent as a dove, as Scripture puts it. Not so anymore. He’s cast his lot with, well, dare we say those of ungodly ways?

Second, though, is his reasoning, that Trump is saying one thing in public but something quite different in private.

(Huh? Which one can we trust? Carson believes the words in private, but coming from a con man, can you ever be sure you’re not being sold only what you want to hear? A private conversation can be awfully seductive.)

If this is the case – and Carson’s not the only one perceiving the public/private dichotomy – are Republican voters not being set up for another of the kind of candidacies that have been fueling their anger, the politicians who promise them what they want to hear and then do something quite the opposite in office as they do the bidding of their biggest campaign contributors? Is Trump cynically plying this into the biggest betrayal yet? Is his “telling it like it is” nothing more, as he knows, a big lie?

Of course, the alternative, his public pronouncements are equally terrifying.

Either way, this can’t have a happy ending, not with all the anger and hate that’s brewing.

ABSOLUTELY, THAT HIGH COURT DECISION WAS CORROSIVE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

How can we have political equality when one voice can pay to drown out all others? Or buy off all the candidates?

The flood of campaign spending from the super-rich has already corrupted our democracy. At what point does it destroy it?

Conservatives like to quote Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Now it’s time to look in the mirror.

Repeal Citizens United.

One way or other.

For some of the latest, click here.

PLEASE ALLOW QUIET

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Look at the modern American addiction to noise – TV, cellphone, iPod, who knows what else. All of the mindless twitter.

Anything to keep us from thinking or reflecting deeply. From direct, sustained experience, observation, and tinkering.

It’s enough to run away, toward freedom.

THE WIKILEAKS INFLUENCE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

When it comes to the cloud over Hillary Clinton’s emails, a natural question would ask, “What was she thinking?”

In light of serious Wikileaks involving other diplomatic matters, I wouldn’t be surprised if she feared the official site would be compromised, targeted, already hacked, or simply betrayed by a disgruntled employee. Confidentiality, like it or not, is part of international diplomatic maneuvering.

Hillary learned early that not even the White House was safe from intrusions by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who somehow left notes on the guest room pillows.

You’re not paranoid if there’s a reasonable expectation of attack. Had somebody suggested to her to go another route? It could have been viewed as prudent, perhaps.

Just a hunch. We’ll see.

IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHENTIC AMERICA

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

I’m a sucker for writing that stays close to the grain of everyday experience. The charge often leveled against such transparency or luminosity accuses such work of being “superficial” or even “banal.” (Recently, I saw a blast of “shallow” fired at one poet, and I’m still angry – maybe I just don’t have a lot of patience anymore with work that baffles me more than it informs or moves emotionally or spiritually. After more than a quarter-century of returning repeatedly to his pieces, I’m still amazed at their depth and continuing revelations.)

You also seem quite aware of what I call the “motor oil” dimension, something I think is required in the sustained voice of any current, authentic American artist: an ability to acknowledge the oil stains and discarded cans in the American landscape – urban or rural. It comes up as cigarette butts, the Port-o-John, the neighborhood Arby’s, or the sounds you detail. Makes the beauty of the turtles all the more authentic. (By the way, what is the sound of a turtle’s voice?)

Turtles – like serpents – go into realms humans cannot. Must be part of their mythological empowerment.

Hmm, thinking of Snyder again, how his Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems came from summer employment, as a forest fire lookout atop icy Sourdough Mountain, while yours was more Siddhartha-like along a muddy river. Also, of the gentle humor I’ve admired so much in Brautigan’s work, also present here.

~*~

Rust and Wound 1

For my own resulting poems, click here.

 

GETTING THE LABEL RIGHT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

When it comes to Bernie Sanders’ chances in a national election, much discussion seems to revolve around his self-proclaimed “socialist” identity. The critics say it would repulse most voters in the heartland – and that’s why he wouldn’t get far on the road to the White House.

While he wouldn’t be the coalition builder Hillary Clinton embodies, I’m not so sure Bernie’s really a socialist. But as I look at his positions, the label I see is “hippie.” Or as I’ve been arguing, hippies came – and still come – in all varieties, few of them fitting the mass-media stereotypes. Bernie could have been living down the dorm hall from me, or even in the rundown apartments we rented.

Early in the race, his rallies did look like hippie reunion time. All we needed was the right band to dance to. And now? It’s a youth movement, ripe for the Revolution of Peace & Love.

At least our alternative isn’t another Hubert Humphrey, rest his soul. No, I suspect Hillary was also a hippie – one of the intense ones of the activist sort.

And both with something resembling a social conscience.