There, I’ve said it. I know for some my assertion is scandalous, while for others it is mere common sense. But before you summon the inquisitor to prepare the rack or brand me a heretic or rush to my defense, hear me out.
I used to believe that God answered prayer. Being raised a Christian I was taught that I had an invisible, magical and wish-granting friend named Jesus who cared about all of my problems, however big or small. All I had to do was pray in his name. And if I didn’t get what I asked for there was a good chance it was because I wasn’t praying hard enough. This idea was so central to the Christian faith I was taught that never was I allowed to question the presupposition that God played favorites via a divine competition for “his” attention.
It took many years before I began wondering about the implications of God intervening in the world to answer prayer. I must admit, however, that in my youth I never had made an earnest effort to understand the logic behind prayer. Like many Christians I had a superficial understanding of my religion. I never read the Bible or studied the history of my tradition. And in high school I was too busy skipping Sunday school and getting high behind the Church to care about theology. One of the few times I did attend I remember listening to former WWF wrestler Jake the Snake Roberts with boa constrictor in hand give his testimony about how Jesus saved him. With an old spandex clad wrestler as a primary source of my understanding about the Christian faith I definitely had some learning to do.
When I was ten years old, I had a dream: I wanted a chipmunk to eat out of my hand. I laid peanuts in a trail that led from 15 feet away to the tip of my toes, with one final nut in my palm. I sat for what seemed like hours before the chipmunk arrived. The small animal scurried around, looked the whole situation over, scampered away, and then quickly returned to pick up the first nut in her mouth. After she tucked it into her pouch, she proceeded to the next, and the next, and then scooted away to hide them in her burrow. Happily for me, she returned, getting bolder and bolder, until she had taken every single nut, every one, that is, except the one in my hand. She was much too scared of me to risk jumping into my palm for that final reward.
As you can imagine, I was greatly disappointed. The most carefully laid plans of mice and men (or in this case chipmunks and girls) had come to naught. Unfortunately, no one told me that I had made a good start in acclimating that chipmunk to my presence, or that it actually takes several desensitization sessions for a wild animal to become comfortable enough to first take a nut from a human hand and then – eventually – to jump into that person’s palm for the proffered peanut. I learned that myself last summer when I finally realized my 10-year-old’s dream and trained a chipmunk not only to jump into my palms, but from one of my hands to the other and finally into my lap for the nuts I had placed there. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to finally overcome this animal’s instinctive fear of me. For as opposed to my 10-year-old self, who wanted a “pet chipmunk,” I wanted a relationship with a wild animal.
Wildness, wilderness, Mother Earth in Her most primal state have always been important to me, even as a child. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that listening to the purple martins’cheet, cheet, chert as they talk to each other from our purple martin house, or watching the northern orioles flash their orange-and-black plumage as they fly to and from our feeder, or just soaking up the view from our porch over Lake Mendota has an undeniably relaxing and rejuvenating effect. As Nancy Wood says in her poem,
Too bad there isn’t a Nobel Prize for news reporting.
If there were one (and nominations were accepted from people like me), I would nominate Rachel Maddow. She has reinvented broadcast news, and completely redefined reporting.
Sarah Palin has been drawing attention to herself again lately, this time by calling herself a feminist. Although I think it’s usually best to ignore her, in this case, I have to respond. Writing a dissertation on Nazi propaganda, I discovered — to my utter surprise and horror — that there were women in the National Socialist party who by the standards of their day would have been considered feminist. Seeing Palin in the light of their history ushers us into a better understanding of this controversial figure.
My dissertation, was entitled “Motherhood for the Fatherland,” and it concerned propaganda about women and their place in society written by Nazis of many stripes. In my research, I unearthed Die deutsche Kämpferin — best translated as The German Woman Warrior — a magazine published by a group of Nazi women. These writers were conservative, racist, anti-Semitic, and had bought into the Social Darwinist understanding prevalent among the Nazis, but they disagreed with their bosses about women. They believed that women like themselves should have a piece of the Aryan pie. According to the articles in this publication, the Nordic “race” had a tradition of equality between the sexes, something this group wanted to re-establish as the basis of Nazi society. Without women’s contribution to the fatherland, these female militants believed that the German people wouldn’t flourish.
When most people think of Texas they probably don’t think of Muslims. But here in the land of BBQ and bluebonnets, where the official state religion is football, is where I discovered Islam.
It’s been ten years since I’ve declared the Shahada and in that time I’ve watched the Muslim commmunity in Austin grow and flourish. We have one of the most diverse and progressive activist Muslim communities in the country with almost a hundred nationalities represented. There are seven Muslim houses of worship which include the Sunni, Shia, and Sufi traditions within a radius of forty miles.
Austin boasts two private Islamic elementary schools, two Sunday schools, one of the largest and most active MYNA (Muslim Youth of North America) chapters, and several other community organizations dedicated specifically to the social needs of Muslims in the area.
We also have a robust interfaith scene and the Muslim community is extremely active participating in events that promote understanding among people of various religions. I’m proud to have been involved with such exciting events as the Annual Muslim-Jewish Hands on Housing event through Austin Area Interreligious Ministries.
From the time I became a Muslim I was intensely aware that there was a need for outreach by common everyday-Muslims to offer a real glimpse into the way we live, work and worship. That need became even more urgent after September 11, 2001. It has been my pleasure to work with the Muslim community, as well as the greater community of Austin, Texas to foster understanding and goodwill.
I was extremely honored to be approached by the editors of Tikkun to contribute to Tikkun Daily blog. In addition to my knowledge and practice of Islam and interfaith dialogue, I bring a progressive political outlook, an interest in feminism and GLBT rights, as well as a deep appreciation for the arts.
What is a High Quality of Life?
I once lived for an entire year as an exchange student with a British family in Bristol, UK. Their house, one end of a three-house row, contained three bedrooms, one bathroom, small living and dining rooms, and a tiny kitchen, too small for eating in. They owned one car, a little Vauxhall, and one TV, yet considered themselves well able to feed, house, and entertain a stranger for an entire year.
By American middle-class standards, this family was practically poor, yet their four children received great educations. They attended excellent live theatre all the time; I saw eight professional plays, a handful of concerts, and numerous movies that year, not to mention visiting art museums, historic parks, and nature reserves. The mom sang in an impressive city choir, and their small hallway contained a piano. Their street and tiny front yard were well-cared for and attractive. My school was safe and good. The National Health Service tended to their illness and dental needs (and mine). Their local library was big and well-stocked. We ate healthy breads, fresh fruit and vegetables every day, fresh creams, cheeses, small amounts of good meat. They read good newspapers and watched the BBC. They volunteered both officially, for organizations, and unofficially helping neighbors and relatives. They took vacations to Cornwall and to Spain as well as weekend excursions. In terms of health, personal development, and community, their quality of life was enviable.
Supposedly, in the Bay Area and especially San Jose, we’re a lot more fortunate.
A Sufi leader who had worked for peace and interfaith understanding was able to continue that work even after his death. Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze gathered together for the funeral of Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari in Old City Jerusalem on June 1. His mourning tent received rabbis, priests, imams, and other visitors for three days.
Sheikh Bukhari was the head of Naqshbandi Holy Land Sufi Order, and also the head of the Muslim Uzbek community in Jerusalem. He was a direct descendant of Imam Muhammad Ismail al-Bukhari, the most prominent compiler of hadith (oral traditions attributed to Muhammad (saws)) . Sheikh Bukhari’s family had moved from the Uzbek city of Bukhara to Jerusalem in 1616. The Ottomans placed them in charge of shrines in the Holy Land and Lebanon.
Sheikh Bukhari continued his family’s tradition of service, in part, through active engagement in interfaith activities. He was a co-founder of Jerusalem Peacemakers, and participated in the Interfaith Coordinating Council in Israel, Interfaith Encounter Association and the Sulha Peace Project. Nourished by Islamic traditions and a student of Gandhi, King, and Mandela, Sheikh Bukhari believed that religious leaders have an important role to play in peacemaking.
Here’s our official Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) report, followed by ideas for attendees and those who wished they could have been there about how to do pursue the ideas and work. If you would like to buy recordings of the conference or parts of it, please go to this page at ConferenceRecording.com.
Rev. Ama Zenya and Rabbi David Schneyer at the conference
The NSP/Tikkun conference was a terrific success.
500 people gathered at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, D.C. and heard some of the most amazing speakers address the question of what is the nature of the political and spiritual crisis that we are facing in the world today, and what to do about it.
NSP co-chair (and Catholic Benedictine Sister) Joan Chittister led off with a powerful appeal for compassion as a central theme and NSP chair Rabbi Michael Lerner explained how the Global Marshall Plan and the Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment were ways of giving substance to the central theme of the conference: Creating the Caring Society–Caring for Each Other and Caring for the Earth.
This week I’d like to share some of my own thoughts on God, emotion, and patriarchal thought with you all:
The richness of human emotions, the wealth of nuance and excitement that can be generated by human neediness, the depth of love that can be generated by human relationships — these magnificent aspects of reality are likely to be aspects of God as well. Why should God be any less wonderful than human beings? If one rejects the notions of perfection that come from Hellenistic and patriarchal thought, then one could easily see that attributing emotions, personality, feeling, and caring to the spiritual Being that permeates all of reality is not a put-down or a belittling, but a celebration in God of what we can and ought to honor in human beings. And if we recognize that a caring being is also a being that hurts, yearns and desires, then there is no reason to think we are belittling God when we see that S/He (as the unity of all being) is a yearning, desiring and sometimes hurting totality. It is only if we accept the male-dominated vision that perfection is that which has no needs or lacks and that God must be perfect in this sense that the Jewish conception of God becomes a scandal. But if we think of God in more feminine terms, we may allow ourselves to imagine that all of being is permeated by yearning, desire, caring, sensitivity, love and vulnerability – and that that is not a deficiency but an amazingly beautiful aspect of the Unity of all Being.
Sami Awad is an extraordinary man, and this video is a must see. My thanks to the Metta Center for sending this out in a newsletter a week ago, I’m just catching up. They linked to it on a blog called Compassion Junkie, in which the American founder of the Compassionate Listening Project, Leah Green, writes about her work. She is currently visiting Israel. Her May 31st headline and description for this video is:
Sami Awad, on Auschwitz, fear, and the meaning of nonviolence
The Israeli attack today on the ships trying to break the blockade on Gaza, brought great sorrow throughout the world. On this dark day, our delegation here in Palestine received the profound gift of listening to Sami Awad, Palestinian non-violence leader. Sami is the founding director of the Holy Land Trust.
It starts right in the middle of him talking about visiting Auschwitz:
Human Rights Watch has issued a comprehensive– and disturbing– report on female genital mutilation, aka female genital cutting, aka female circumcision, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
I’ve written a story on the report at ILLUME Magazine (read it here). You can also read the full report from Human Rights Watch here.
Briefly– it’s a widespread problem, affecting at least 40% of girls and women in different parts of Iraqi Kurdistan, and severely affecting their health.
And the attitude of Kurdish officials? Dismissive. HRW’s report has a number of disturbing quotes from government officials; dismissing FGM as occasional, not widespread, almost extinct. “Not a big deal.”
Thankfully, there are number of NGOs in Iraqi Kurdistan that ARE dealin with this problem. I will inquire about what Americans can do to support them, and post what I find out.
Christian Guémy is a French graffiti artist known to the public as “C215″ who has garnered some fame for his intricate, colorful stencil works. His works attempt a revitalization of street imagery: they are bright portraits of children, the homeless, religious figures, or other everyday people. For today’s cities, the urban landscape is a battleground of ideas, ownership, and residents. The streets of modern cities are besieged with advertisements, private apartments, restaurants, stores, graffiti scribbling, and people from all walks of life.
But what happens to the spirit in the mechanized world of commercial city living? When one walks the streets, the all-encompassing marketplace — both social and economic — can be detrimental to the individualism it aims to liberate. There is a routine, a mode of traveling the streets in which one is not fully awake. We are taught to eliminate vulnerabilities for fear of danger, to keep to ourselves, and maintain anonymity. The guise of “safety,” a lesson from the political realm, allows us to disenfranchise, dehumanize, and suppress our unique, spiritual selves.
Imagine you came to a conference about reconciliation. Imagine you are gay, and you discovered that nothing on the agenda explores this dimension of human life. How would you feel, and what would you do? A dear friend just had this experience. I hope you find her story inspiring. I did.
Her first response was isolation and depression. Sensing the group to be fairly conservative, she felt utterly alone, and quite desperate about it, to the point of almost changing her flight and going home early. She kept meditating and praying, and woke up on the third day with an entirely different orientation. She took the microphone, let everyone know that she was gay, and made herself available to talk with people about anything related to the topic that they wanted. I see this as precisely the courage of nonviolence that I have been writing about often. She combined, in this act, radical vulnerability combined with service. Despite her emotional discomfort, she didn’t ask for anything, she didn’t attempt to justify anything, she only made herself available.
I recently posted on Tikkun Daily the following quote on JRR Tolkien vs Ayn Rand:
“There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kld’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.” – John Rogers http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html
It’s been somewhat of a hit with Tikkun Daily readers (as I write this, it’s ranked #5 on our “most read posts of the past 7 days” list). This led me to wonder: Did Tolkien have a view on political economy?
Frodo's mentor
We know what kind of economics John Galt and other Randian heroes espoused. And many more people get turned on to lassez-faire capitalism by Rand’s novels than by libertarian economics treatises. (The first history of libertarianism, by Jerome Tucille, is actually titled It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand). So, if fantasy novels can provide an ideological basis for the opposition, can progressives find inspiration from Tolkien, one of the greatest storytellers of all time?
When I work with couples, I feel like I am under the Big Top. There may not be elephants, clowns, or trapeze artists (not literally, anyway) but there are definitely three rings. The work is exciting and keeps me on my toes. As counselor/ringmaster I have to be aware of what is happening in all three rings at all times.
The ring on my right features one person and the ring on the left, the other. The ring in the middle is where the mystery unfolds, for it belongs to both people. In the beginning the center ring is often either utterly deserted or bloody with the carnage of past gladiatorial battles that may erupt again any moment.
As ringmaster, I have (figuratively only!) a whistle, a spotlight, and a bullhorn. I use the whistle to halt attacks. Attacks are not the same as discussion (even heated discussion) which can lead to negotiation and resolution. My first task is to ensure safety, so that the couple can find the courage to risk revelation and connection. The spotlight brings focus to one person or the other or to a particular issue or dynamic. The metaphorical bullhorn is not to make my voice heard but to help adjust volume. Often one person is speaking more softly, literally and figuratively, and needs to be amplified. Another person may be having difficulty hearing the other, because his or her own volume needs to be lowered a bit.
Keith Ellison is a congressman from Minneapolis and the first Muslim to be elected to Congress. Below is a video of his speech at the 2010 NSP conference in Washington D.C.
Being an atheist in America means being less than human. I know from personal experience, not from being an atheist but from being raised Christian in a conservative Christian town and holding negative biases about atheists. Like many others I thought that a belief in God was the foundation of morality, that Christians were superior to others and that atheists were a threat to believers. I didn’t, however, reach this conclusion consciously after weighing the facts and examining the issue independently. But rather it was something so ingrained within the culture that it permeated the social conscience. And of course atheists were just one group among many targeted by some Christians. But for several years now there have been movements both religious and secular that have championed the rights of other marginalized groups such as gays, people of color and women. Now it’s time for religious and spiritual people to take a stand for non-believers of all varieties.
Recent years have seen the spread of whats called the new atheism. Led by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet who are dubbed the “four horsemen” they are known for their fiery rhetoric and passionate critique of all things religious. While they certainly don’t represent all atheists-some prefer a more moderate approach-they have provided an important voice of resistance and identity for a group that has remained painfully silent for to long. And atheism is one of the fastest growing identities in America. It’s now the third largest group behind Catholics and Baptists. People are fed up with the abuse scandals, hypocrisy, violence and rejection of scientific progress that is associated with so many religions and their teachings. Now that atheism has a renewed interest in the public sphere it is an excellent opportunity for religious people of all sorts to show kindness, compassion and understanding to atheists-all things which are central to their traditions.
I’m both a fan and a critic of the new atheists. I agree with much of what they say but disagree when they indict all of religion or reduce it to its most distasteful elements. I believe religion can serve a useful purpose in our world. It can offer a place of resistance, refuge, healing and renewal. But even as I support critiquing the new atheists I treat atheism like I do any other marginalized group that is targeted by a dominant culture. I liken their cause to other struggles for liberation and freedom. And that is why despite my disagreements I believe their response is just.
“There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kld’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.”
UPDATE: I’ve written a post here at Tikkun Daily looking more closely at JRR Tolkien as an alternative to Ayn Rand– see here.
UPDATE 2: John Rogers, screenwriter, film producer, comedian and comic book writer, is the original author of this statement. Raj Patel heard it from a friend without knowing it was published earlier, and quoted it in his The Value of Nothing. Like many others, I thought Patel was the author. I’m grateful for two Tikkun Daily readers who pointed out the need for a correction. You can find the original statement here: http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html
Who are these guys? Whatever are “business class refugees”? And, most of all, why should I care?
You should care because this album, Business Class Refugees, is a new and extraordinary music, created internationally, in ways that simply haven’t been possible till now. It comes out thirty years after “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” the pioneering Byrne / Eno collaboration which used electronic ambience, and world music behind sampled vocal tracks, but assembled painfully in the studio through analog trial and error. Kartick and Gotam, known as K&G, also weave a beating net of electronic ambience, but overlay it with a stunning selection of Indian and south Asian musicians as foreground. And they do it live with visuals as well, though that comes later.
From liturgy to ideology, Yiddish literature and the mass immigration to the United States, Eastern Europe birthed many of modern Jewry’s most important intellectual and social trends. Its impact on Jewish history is on par with that of Medieval Spain and al-Andalus, and even in some respects the period of the great Talmudic academies in Baghdad.
Yet its incredible history and derivate lessons have been largely limited to books and those familiar with them. The People of the Book have long allowed their expansive history to be confined by the medium through which it was presented. This trend has become particularly stark in recent years, as the Internet has expanded the ways in which history and knowledge can be transmitted, as well as the audience with which it can be shared.
Even as Jewish organizations have created websites, online forums, and online publications in response to the growing demand for online resources, Jewish education has remained largely offline. Even as the digitization of the Talmud has facilitated rabbinic scholarship, it has seemed taboo to suggest that Jewish history, philosophy, theology, and liturgy could be accessed through anything but a book or a knowledgeable person.
Just this past week, however, theYIVO Institute for Jewish Research made significant headway in changing the notion that education for the People of the Book might somehow be confined to books alone. After extensive planning and preparation, the institute launched an online edition of theYIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. While it may not leave book learning totally behind (the print edition is being published by Yale University Press), it is set to alter the way that Jews learn about the heartland of Eastern European Jewry.
(saws)) 
. Sheikh Bukhari’s family had moved from the Uzbek city of Bukhara to Jerusalem in 1616. The Ottomans placed them in charge of shrines in the Holy Land and Lebanon.
