If you’ve been married or partnered for many years or know anyone who has been, you’re going to enjoy Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear in the NYT about the woman who refused to let her husband’s midlife crisis get a reaction out of her. She doesn’t say what prompted her own change of approach to life in general, including to her husband, but I would be staggered if she hadn’t clued in to some spiritual practice or tradition. If she invented it whole cloth on her own, she’s a genius.
The author, Laura Munson, has written about her life in Montana here, and people are leaving comments already about the NYT piece, including this gem:
My grandmother is a family therapist and was a close friend of Virginia Satir who once said “The problem is not the problem, but how you handle the problem.”
A new report released by the Human Rights Watch documents the rot within India’s police system. The sad part of this report is that the research is based on the experience of people who live in some of India’s less devastated states and region. For example, the entire central belt (states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa) which is home to the most mineral-rich states and home to most of India’s aboriginal people (numbering officially about 75 million) is not covered in this report. And it is in this belt that some of the most undemocratic practices of the Indian state get played out (for more information on this region click here). As progressives, one task has always been the struggle to counter dominant representations of the nation. In this sense, the global rhetoric of democracy has made it tough for anyone to pose serious questions of erosion of fundamental rights in those places that are too easily assumed to be “democratic.” This report must be seen as part of the attempt to document another India, one that has failed most of its citizens.
Before the United States was a nation, before it boasted the most powerful military on earth, before its economic, educational, scientific and cultural influence made it a leader of the world, the founders understood that they owed “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” They knew the nation they were bringing to birth would be part of a family of nations. Thus, they wrote the first of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration is a document that established a foundation for human rights. (I recognize the internal contradictions of slavery, blindness to women’s rights and a lack of respect for indigenous peoples made this and other early declarations of human rights far from perfect.) Human rights are rights that inhere in the human person by virtue of her/his humanity. The Declaration is a radical document that has inspired humankind to strive to make governments more responsive to the needs of their people.
I was somewhat criticised (correctly) by Helen Shapiro, who has posted comments to this article. Helen emailed me directly, wondering why I would answer so stridently with respect to who sits on the Jewish Court for Social Justice.
The stridency was a mistake. I cut and paste from a previous reply to someone else, someone I don’t trust. But the stridency reflects a strong concern of mine –
by: Dave Belden on August 5th, 2009 | Comments Off
Naomi Klein has a fine prophetic piece in The Progressive this month. She laments the economic recovery that is now likely under way, because it is happening before we got around to completely changing our economic system. We are wasting the crisis. As a result full-growth capitalism will resume its destruction of the planet’s ecosystems. But it will happen in a meaner way than before, because it wasn’t just water that was bailed out to save the ship, it was people, and many of them will never recover. Her last word:
Capitalism can survive this crisis. But the world can’t survive another capitalist comeback.
Yes, well. What did we expect?
It seems that what we need are more small and medium scale catastrophes caused by global warming to get us off our backsides. Lacking them, we may slide into the the full scale huge catastrophes that may truly devastate us.
In the realm of consciousness and culture, evolution is a two-way street. Its persuasive influences move us not only to pursue our own ascension, to improve ourselves, but also to try to make things better here on earth during our brief sojourn in this world. That is, not only are we called to rise to higher stages, but we are also called to bring the wisdom of these higher stages down to the levels that need assistance. Our world is full of trouble and suffering, and those who have attained elevated states of consciousness have a sacred duty to use this light to make a difference. And now, through the insights of integral philosophy, we have more detailed instructions on how we can actually bring more beauty, truth, and goodness into the world. Thus it seems to me that the role of human consciousness in the evolving universe, our place within the cosmic economy, is to gradually perfect ourselves by bringing perfection down to us. In this way we directly participate in the creative act of evolution by which the universe is brought forth. We become partners with spirit in the grand pageant of development wherein our personal evolution is directly linked with our participation in social evolution.
A dialogue listserv I subscribe to received several emails about participation in a meeting to assist Carleton University build a dialogue program.
One correspondent, a former professor at Carleton now serving as a dean in western Canada, does not trust the administration of Carleton. She suggests our dialogue group talk about participating in Carleton’s initiative, but only after individuals attend (and not as representatives of the dialogue group) and report back to the group.
This is dialogue as distraction: we’re willing to talk to each other but not the the Carleton administration!
by: Dave Belden on August 4th, 2009 | Comments Off
Eigen
As the host of Tikkun’s Phone Forum I shouldn’t play favorites, but I did find the discussion last night with psychologist Mike Eigen to be one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking of the series for me personally. You can access the recordings here, in three parts this time. People have said that the interview part is often better than the Q&A, which is one reason we split them, but I think the reverse was true this time.
Mike Eigen is the author of 12 books, a psychologist in private practice and a psychology professor. Dharma Cafe says “Michael Eigen is widely acknowledged to be the finest, most profound psychoanalytic writer of our time.” I asked him about his article in Tikkun, “Out of the Spiritual Closet” (which will go up on our site Sept 1, but until then you have to buy the issue on the bookstands or here, so we can survive financially).
It’s an amazing image, this one that suggests that if we all came out of our spiritual closets, we could make progress in creating a caring world. It implies the courage of all those who have come out of the GLBT closets, and also the promise of cultural change as a result. It suggests the fierce anger of a culture that created such a closet in the first place.
Eigen wrote of watching the movie “Into Great Silence” about the monks of Grand Chartreuse, “When I saw the faces in prayer and meditation, I felt shells of shame being to fall off my soul and inner body.” We talked about the expectations our culture lays on men, and the shame of appearing weak, or insufficiently focused on winning.
Tikkun lies at the heart of Siona Benjamin’s work. “To repair the world through images,” she says, “is what I seek to do.”
Born into the Bene Israel Jewish tradition, Benjamin grew up Jewish in a Muslim and Hindu community while attending Catholic and Zoroastrian schools. Living her life at the intersection of multiple faith traditions, as well as moving from Bombay to Iowa for graduate school and then to New Jersey where she is currently based, has made her desire to find “home” a constant preoccupation of her life. The conclusion Benjamin has come to: home doesn’t exist. “In this increasingly trans-cultural world, home is where you place your tent. The world is getting smaller,” she says.
Benjamin’s work reflects this. Drawing from the faith traditions she has lived within, combining them with modern images and stories, Benjamin’s art is truly multi-cultural. “I have always had to reflect upon the cultural boundary zones in which I have lived,” says Benjamin. These reflections have paid off in the form of beautiful, intricate, and fascinating work that Benjamin produces, so unique to her own exploration of identity while able to maintain a quality that allows her audience to understand and relate to her work. Observing her art is like analyzing fiction, each piece unfolding in meaning, each color and line a different symbol for what Benjamin seeks to communicate. In part, this draws from Benjamin’s background as a set designer (similar to Chagall) and her love for the narrative and characters of the stage. Along with the art pieces displayed in Tikkun’s photo essay, selections from her “Finding Home” series, and those similar to it, Benjamin does art installations involving blue dancers acting out her work. Check out a video about it here.
The New York Timesreported last week, in response to the Episcopal convention in Anaheim earlier this month, and in light of “profound rifts over sexual issues within Anglicanism,” that Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has released a statement addressing the issues of gay clergy and same-sex unions.
The Archbishop here signals support for the human dignity and civil liberties of LGBT people. While suggesting that the Anglican Communion recognize “two styles of being Anglican,” however, he also argues that “a certain choice of lifestyle has certain consequences.” The Church, he writes, will only change its stance on the blessing of same-sex unions after they have been justified by “painstaking biblical exegesis” and subsequently widely accepted within the Communion. Until that point, a member of a homosexual couple will continue to be treated just as “a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond.”
In light of both the ongoing conflict within the Anglican Communion and the Archbishop’s latest missive, The Immanent Frame has posed the following question to a handful of leading thinkers and asked for a brief response: why has homosexuality persisted as a divisive issue for religious traditions and communities, within the Anglican Communion and beyond? And what are the likely effects of the Archbishop’s recent intervention?
Visit The Immanent Frame for responses from Mary Anne Case, Eric Fassin, Siobhán Garrigan, Jimmy Casas Klausen, Mary-Jane Rubenstein and Emilie M. Townes.
Back in May I posted in Home Defense Victory about how a group of people kept the sheriff away from Tosha Alberty’s foreclosed home in Oakland, CA. The week before last Tosha called a bunch of us to come at once. The sheriff had arrived unexpectedly. I couldn’t get there. I don’t know how many did. She was evicted.
David Bacon just sent us pictures from an action at the boarded up home on Friday. Here: “Home Defender activists sit in on the steps of the home of Tosha Alberty, her husband, four children and two grandchildren, who were evicted after First Franklin Mortgage Services, owned by Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, foreclosed on the home. Community activists in the Home Defenders campaign of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) sat in on the house steps behind the padlocked gate in an act of civil disobedience, and were arrested for trespassing by the Oakland Police.” Bacon earlier wrote the story here. More pics and info after the jump.
My spouse Mark and I watched Doubt last night. We both found it quite thought-provoking. Not because it concerned clerical pedophilia, but because it made us think about how we judge situations and people.
As many of you know, the movie takes place in a Catholic middle school in the Bronx during the fall and winter of 1964. The main characters are a new, progressive priest in the school (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and the conservative Mother Superior, who has run the school for many years (played by Meryl Streep). The dialogue is extremely stylized and the acting so fantastic that the movie really got under my skin. I found myself rooting for the priest, hoping against hope that he hadn’t had sex with any of his students. This was an unlikely stance for me, since I’ve been actively involved in the movement against predatory sexuality.
Part of the reason for my feelings was Meryl Streep’s acting. She presented Sister Aloysius as a stern, unforgiving disciplinarian with no compassion and little give-and-take. We first see her striking and/or scaring some of her charges as they attend mass. Her lips, often puckered in disgust or condemnation, make a beautiful middle-aged actress look like an ugly, withered, old woman. We meet a person who has given up on life and lives by the limiting and limited rules she has inherited in a top-down organization, the Catholic Church. She’s a walking stereotype of the “Right Hand of God.”
Yesterday I went to the monthly East Bay Really Really Free Market (a.k.a. Hella Free Day), which is on the north side of Lake Merritt. It’s a non-commercial, mutually supportive event. People bring things to share to which anyone is welcome — objects they don’t want anymore, skills, their presence and company. The idea is that through convening non-commercial and mutually supportive events, our social fabric can be transformed — oh yeah, and it’s fun, too.
The Really Really Free website lists some platitudes that express what Really Really Free Markets are reacting to, and what they aim to create. Why have a Really Really Free Market?
Because there is enough for everyone
Because sharing is more fulfilling than owning
Because corporations would rather see landfills overflow than anyone get anything for free
The Jewish Court for Social Justice, by unanimous decision, rejects the opinion of B’nai Brith Canada with respect to the matter of Dr Hassan Diab’s employment at Carleton University. We remind B’nai Brith that Canada is a common law democracy and that an accused is presumed innocent, most especially in these circumstances, inasmuch as Dr Diab has not been accused of a crime in Canada.
Donna Schaper sent us this rumination on the way we liberals are dealing with right and wrong over the Gates Crowley affair, or Gatesgate as people are having fun with calling it on the web. Donna writes “When anti-racists figure out how to have less fun with this story, we could begin the business of opening doors.” She also says, in her self-deprecating and visionary way, “When I figure out how to stop hating Lou Dobbs for the hate he promulgates, we will have found our way through the door of the house we’d like to live in.” (Note: Valerie Elverton-Dixon also wrote on this here last week)
Opening Doors
by Rev. Donna Schaper
For many people, God is not still speaking. God is still spanking. Setting up too high a bar. Telling us we are bad. God is still sneering. You are bad. Racism…..needs a spanking. People don’t.
Finding a way beyond racism is a lot like standing on your own front porch trying to make the key turn in the lock. Someone must be to blame because the key isn’t working. Perhaps it is I? Others look on, wondering if you really belong in that home. Maybe you don’t. The beat of the mastering narrative goes on, owning us when really should own it. The master narrative: right and wrong. Me right, you wrong. You right, me wrong. This story is as spacious as any plantation. It also pays out the same wages in oppression, self-loathing, and planter power. Blame is its game and blame is its name.
When Henry Louis Gates, Jr., an African American Harvard professor, was arrested after pushing his way into his own house, small became large. The nation remembered racism.
Naomi Klein has a 
This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from p. 146 of Steve McIntosh’s book 
The New York Times 
Back in May I posted in 
Donna Schaper sent us this rumination on the way we liberals are dealing with right and wrong over the Gates Crowley affair, or Gatesgate as people are having fun with calling it on the web. Donna writes “When anti-racists figure out how to have less fun with this story, we could begin the business of opening doors.” She also says, in her self-deprecating and visionary way, “When I figure out how to stop hating Lou Dobbs for the hate he promulgates, we will have found our way through the door of the house we’d like to live in.” (Note: Valerie Elverton-Dixon also 
