Tag: History

WHEN YOU WIPE OUT HOPE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I keep thinking about that negative reaction to Barack Obama’s promise of positive politics – that red bar and circle over the word HOPE. And then all the destructive backpedaling from those deriding any outlook of hope – their refusal to work together for any real solutions to the issues facing the nation or world.

Or their blatant cry of NOPE!

Doesn’t that make theirs the party of No Hope? The party of Despair? Or even the party of Hate?

That’s how it looks from here, even before we add Trump’s tyrannical bluster.

Well, I’d welcome a similar red circle and bar over their campaign posters and ads in the fall. Along with a bold proclamation: NOPE! NOT THIS ONE! OR ANY OF THEM!

Just to be fair.

SHOT OUT OF A CANNON, IN A WAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

What’s amazing that I was able to somehow go from oh-so-white-middle-and-working-class high school to the hippie realm in a span of just four years. Could it even be the same person? Damn, I’ve been lucky at times!

Here she was, the three-day (or however many) cheerleader from the Biggest City in America, now with me, the Eagle Scout and one-time biochemist hopeful turned flower-child yogi from a place I thought was hilly. Me, the one some had hoped would become a minister, now turned agnostic/logical positivist, with someone who’d grown up at leftist rallies. Sounds like something they’d shoot out of a cannon at the circus while you applauded.

Should we talk about who was greener, in the sense of naïve, when we met?

But she came at the turning point. One where our shared idealism met at a crossing. And we were soon off, our own separate trajectories.

Fortunately, we parted on speaking terms. And still do.

HARLEY HEAVEN ON LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

Laconia Bike Week – more formally, the 93rd Laconia Motorcycle Week – comes to a climax this weekend, and in New Hampshire the annual event opens the summer tourism season. Even where we live, more than an hour away, you can hear it in the air, especially if your windows are open at night. Let’s call it a buzz. Everybody who can wants to be out on the road with the wind in their hair – New Hampshire is, after all, one state that does not require helmets be worn by either the driver or the passenger. Some wags do, however, suggest the state motto should be changed slightly, to Live Free and Die. A bit of risk does have its attraction.

Always scheduled to end on Father’s Day each year, the legendary name Laconia lands somewhere between Daytona, Florida, and Sturgis, South Dakota, both on the map and on the calendar of avid motorcyclists. The Weirs Beach landing in the small city of Laconia is the centerpiece of the gathering, promptly teaming with black-clad riders and vendors of all sorts. Since local schools are usually making up for days that were closed for snowy weather, families don’t arrive for vacation any earlier than the Fourth of July anyway, and any earlier than mid-June, the weather can be a tad too cold or wet for other folks. So the thousands of bikers who show up are a welcome boost to the hospitality industry, not just in the mountainous Lakes Region but across the state as they seek meals, entertainment, and lodging in the midst of roaming the wooded landscape.

It wasn’t always so. Before motorcycles became respectable, fights and even riots could break out. I’ve heard plenty of stories.

Now, however, things have mellowed out to the point many of the activities are labeled family-friendly. A majority of the iron horses seem to carry two, one clutching the one proudly clutching the handlebars. That, in itself, may have a calming influence. And then there are others who simply want to show off their impeccably polished machines. We were passed on the highway this morning by a small trailer carrying two such Harleys from New Jersey. The owners obviously weren’t going to subject them to the long road itself.

Unlike many of the names in the region, Laconia is not one given by the Native peoples. Rather, it’s originally a city in Greece. That might not be the only reason for the New Hampshire city’s name, though. In 1629, a partnership called the Laconia Company organized to prepare much of colonial New Hampshire for development; while I’m finding much of that history hard to follow, it does appear that one of the partners soon became a pirate. Really. I’m sure you can find many pirate flags and images at Weirs Beach this week, so maybe there’s an underlying connection. Who knows?

For those who do ride into the Granite State, a reminder: when you’re on your way home, be sure to pull over and put your helmets on before you cross the state line. It’s a safe bet the Massachusetts troopers will be waiting for those who don’t.

Let summer begin.

FEELING A BERN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I was already deep in trying to comprehend and explain just what hit us in the hippie outbreak of the late ’60s and early ’70s. As I’ve recounted, there were many overlapping strands of activity and interests within the movement, many of which continue as active parts of the American scene, and no one could possibly embrace them all.

Many of those I knew could be hardworking, responsible, loyal individuals taking steps toward lofty goals. Some of the others, well, lazy was only part of their problem. ‘Nuff said?

Outwardly, the subsequent decades weren’t kind to our vision, however hazy it may have been. So much went underground, even as it became accepted part of American culture. Organic food, anyone? A peace protest? How about yoga?

And then Bernie Sanders embarked on his White House run. Attending his early town hall meetings was like a retired hippie reunion, except that there were a lot of serious, neatly attired young adults there, too. It felt like a hippie revival, actually, at least for those of us of the more political activist vein, plus a lot of back-to-the-earth types.

Yes! Keep the faith and keep on truckin’!

What a relief after the embarrassing recognition that many who continue in the stereotypical “hippie look” carry an air of loser more than the cutting-edge adventure and discovery we embraced in our youthful exuberance. Yes, there are still beards and long hair, along with the baldness and natural-looking cuts.

Looking back, I can point to a host of reasons the movement lost direction and traction in the ’70s. This time, I’m hoping we can keep our eyes on the destination and our egos in check. We’ve had enough bad trips, OK?

Remember, it’s not just the White House if we want to make the changes we’ve long dreamed.

If we should have learned anything in the hippie experience, it’s this. Nobody can do it alone.

RANTERS, THEN AND NOW

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

One of the most remarkable periods in world history came in mid-1600s Britain, an outbreak that included the execution of the monarch by commoners (rather than a rival for the throne) amid a host of social, economic, and political upheaval. For an overview of the ferment, you can read Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down or Antonia Fraser’s Cromwell, Our Chief Among Men.

My primary interest, of course, focuses on the rise of the Quaker movement out of the waves of conflict – with the rise of a two-party political system and a loyal opposition as a byproduct of a pacifist faith. I also see parallels with much of the counterculture experience I’ve known from the hippie era on, where some have remained faithful but many others have flaked away.

The waves of English radicals can be fascinating, from the New Model Army and Levelers, Diggers, and True Levelers on through the Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchists, and others, but for Quakers, the Ranters presented a special cross to bear.

Like Quakers, the Ranters espoused personal experience of ecstatic faith, and the two movements were often confused with each other by the wider public. Unlike the discipline and discipleship among Quakers, though, Ranters had no qualms about sexual promiscuity or any other limitations (it was all God’s will, in their eyes, no matter any hurt to others), at least until persecution hit and they readily recanted. Not so the Quakers, who insisted on eternal Truth. God doesn’t change.

So here we are. What are our deepest values? Where do we stand firm, and where do we yield and bend? What is principle and what is opportunistic? How far out is our vision, and how much a matter of short-term maneuvers?

Where are we – each of us – truly accountable?

Anyone else feeling uncomfortable?

WHY WOODPECKER CAN’T KEEP UP

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Many days in the newsroom I had the feeling of same-old, same-old. I’d seen it all before. Another election, just different names and tallies. Another car crash or house fire. A store opening or a restaurant closing. Graduations or obituaries. It’s a long list. And then something refreshing would come along, something that prompted the exclamation, “I’ve never seen that before!” Contrary to the doom-and-gloom image of the business, many of us at the newspaper loved having something uplifting to present.

These days, though, it’s more likely to be along the lines of this couldn’t be happening, could it?

The American presidential campaign is just the most obvious. The Woodpecker Reports appearing at the Red Barn are supposed to be a reminder of the underlying currents we thought would be shaping this election season – the history and power-brokers moving behind the scenes, especially. Things we’d seen before, round after round, including the same players or their disciples. Woodpecker can hammer away in the infected trees, as he’s been, but when the forest catches fire, he’ll take flight. I know this: things are spinning too fast to keep up. And that’s before we get to the climate instability that’s more glibly called global warming.

~*~

I’m still aghast at the reports of Sen. David Perdue’s “joking” when he encouraged participants at a religious conference to pray that President Obama’s “days be few,” a reference to Psalm 109. The audience apparently picked up on the calamities to be inflicted not just on the transgressor but on his spouse and children, too – evil thoughts, without question. In the text, however, King David is pouring out his soul in response to political persecution, a situation the Georgia Republican blithely ignores. King David’s lines certainly fit as a cry for help from Obama: “Wicked and deceiving words are being said about me, false accusations are being cast in my teeth,” as verse 2 reads in the New Jerusalem translation. “In return for my friendship they denounce me. … They repay my kindness with evil, and friendship with evil” (verses 4-5) match the good intentions Obama had for reasoning with a Republican Congress. As for the evil man oppressing the king, “He had no thought of being loyal, but hounded the poor and needy and the broken hearted to their death. He had a taste for cursing; let it recoil on him!” (verses 16-17).

Taken in its fullness, the Psalm – perhaps even the Holy One – could point to Perdue and laugh, “The joke’s on you.”

Except that this is serious, deadly serious. Prayer is never a joke, not for the faithful. And the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:7) warns: “You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished anyone who misuses his name.” (The New Jerusalem here gives quite a different insight than the more traditional take of “taking the Lord’s name in vain,” usually seen as colloquial cursing or words not uttered in polite company.)

In a broader context, we can remember that King David could be both passionate and brash, qualities that got him in deep doo-doo more than once, and thanks to Abigail, he even had to recant one of the curses he was about to impose on her husband and all the males in her extended household (I Samuel 25).

While we’re at it, we can also leap ahead to Jesus commanding his followers, “Love your enemies,” and to look for the plank in their own eyes when faulting the splinter in another’s.

Nowhere do I accept an argument that it can be OK to pray for evil.

~*~

Only hours later came the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the worst mass slaying by a solitary gunman in the nation’s history.

As I read a few headlines quoting people who were suggesting the sinfulness of the lifestyle was the reason for the tragedy, I once again found myself aghast. (When I reread the reports more carefully, this was not their argument; rather it turned against Islam and its followers. Still, I have no doubt the original line of anti-LGBT argument is circulating through many circles.)

What angered me in my reaction was the notion we see all too often of blaming the victims. If their lifestyle were to blame, how then do we align that with shootings in churches, schools, even movie theaters, as we’re seeing? You’re going to blame Amish children or their parents? Come on, now! Or is something else the cause? At the moment, the United States has more guns per capita than at any previous time in its history; firearms were relatively scarce, even on the frontier, as you’ll discover reading wills from the period.

Let me suggest another calculus:

The more guns, the more murders. Period.

~*~

I just wish that mass shootings weren’t becoming same-old, same-old news in America, with only the numbers and frequency rising. Or that the anger weren’t fueling hatred.

Maybe I need to head out to the garden to see what’s new there. Even picking weeds might be uplifting.