We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives are asking you to write to President Obama and Congress on two critical issues:

1. Ask Obama not to appeal U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips’s decision that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is unconstitutional.

Believe it or not, despite the fact that President Obama says he is still committed to ending the military’s discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, his administration has announced that it will appeal Judge Phillips’s decision. Obama should instead embrace the decision and order the military to comply immediately. Of course, many of us wish that he would also downsize the military and use it to advance peace rather than fight wars. We also wish that the military were not one of the only spheres in the economy where people facing financial insecurity could find a job. We have, however, been unsuccessful so far in restricting the military’s spending and wars. Let’s at least succeed in extending equal rights within the military.

2. Ask Obama and Congress to support the call by Senator Harry Reid and other Congressional Democrats for an immediate freeze on home foreclosures.

The banking and investment world has been caught red-handed: it has cheated many people by foreclosing on houses the banks may not have owned in the first place. So tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of those thrown out of their homes may have been thrown out illegally; yet the foreclosures continue. Some centrists and liberals in Congress are calling for an immediate freeze on foreclosures so that no more people get thrown out of their homes. We at Tikkun would prefer that they call for a return of money to all those thrown of their homes in the past unless the banks can prove that they increased interest rates on mortgages out of economic necessity. But that isn’t happening at the moment, so we support the call by Congressional Dems to take this one minimal step: freeze all foreclosures until a thorough investigation of banks’ behaviors has been completed and banks that acted improperly are denied the right to perform any foreclosures for a period of five years.

1. Democrats thought that when they elected Barack Obama he would just snap his fingers and solve all the problems. Democrats don’t understand that change takes time.
2. Democrats don’t realize that no President in history faced the problems Obama faced. It was like the Civil War, the two world wars, Vietnam and the Great Depression all wrapped up in one.
3. Obama made the right decisions, even if they were not popular. Democrats don’t understand that a President has to make the right decisions.
4. The Republicans opposed the President, instead of helping him consolidate a victory that would have made the Democrats the majority party for a generation. Democrats don’t understand how mean the Republicans can be,
5. Obama is a positive thinker. Democrats are sourpusses, always seeing glasses as half-full.

The question: how stupid does the White House think rank and file Democrats are?

Paganism. The name itself has a certain wild and crazy sound to it, a sense of scribbling wildly outside the lines of the establishment. Much as I’d like to claim that aspect of the word, that sense of neo-medievalists dancing naked in the spring moonlight before they copulate in the furrows so that the crops will come again this year, that isn’t me, and it isn’t my paganism. I’m an urban middle-aged man, ex-school teacher, born and raised Jewish. What has brought me to a spiritual place where I can assert my religion is pagan, (or primal, to use Huston Smith’s more encompassing term) ?

I’ve always had an interest in the spiritual, in how we form a bridge from ourselves to something that is bigger than ourselves. Judaism is a community religion; the Talmud says that one cannot be Jewish in isolation, and there is no story I know of a Jewish hermit living in a remote cave by himself seeking G_d. But my family lived in a small French-Canadian town, and even when we moved to Montreal and later Toronto we were never part of a Jewish community. So perhaps that’s the reason that I never felt any twinges of spirituality around Judaism, never felt a personal connection to Something Greater when I was in the synagogue listening to people chant something in Hebrew, a language I was able to memorize enough of to stumble through the form of a Bar Mitzvah but never understood. I read the Bible, cover to cover three times in Grade 5, and while I liked the stories, and absorbed the ethic better than I realized, I was never a believer in the theology. But my spiritual need was still there. Had I been raised by Kabbalists, I might well have found the catalyzing power I was seeking there, but those were not the cards I was dealt.

Workers of Arcelor Mittal demonstrate and shout slogans during a demonstration in Marseille Photo: EPA

My crude and abbreviated translation is below:

On the 12th of October 2010, three and a half million people (the official French count) participated in demonstrations organized by the French trade unions. This is a record turnout. The media and the police recognizes that the demonstrations here are growing. There were 244 demonstrations around France this time as opposed to 230 on Sept 23. They kept up in spite of a huge effort by Sarcozy to sell raising the onset of early retirement for French retirees from 60 years old to 62. Sarcozy’s proposal raised the opposition higher. Students joined retirees and trade unionists. They closed schools around the nation. They are demonstrating against youth unemployment and the precariousness of their future. For many seniors new rules will prevent retirement until the age of 67. The transit sector unions are mobilized to strike. The government counted on the disaffection of masses of people inconvenienced by the demonstrations. However, 71% of the population is in full support of the demonstrations and strikes and 61% is in support of a continuing strike. Sarcozy’s ratings fell. 62% do not have confidence in Sarcozy as a leader. Bankers’ cheating and vast enrichment have been exposed in 2 high profile cases: one is of the owner of L’Oreal [the cosmetics company] who was caught bribing Sarcozy’s ministers and hiring a cabinet minister, Woerth, as her finance consultant. He advocated austerity for French workers while he counseled her to hide money off shore. The owner’s butler exposed the truth here. The next mobilizations are called for Oct. 16, 2010.

In my last post on The Fearless Heart I alluded to having discomfort when asked by a group of people on a conference call to share my own vision. I said I was planning to write a post about the incongruity of that discomfort. Now, sitting down to write about it, I am feeling it.

I chose to write about this for a variety of reasons. Primary among them is the desire to make my humanity, fallibility, and limitations known to you who read this blog, so as to increase the possibility that you would trust yourself to take on more visibility. Another is to create companionship for me and for those of you who identify. Another is to continue and deepen the practice of exposing and undefending my own vulnerability for my own growth and inner freedom. Lastly, related to the previous one, choosing to be on the forefront of the epochal movement towards a different kind of leadership that’s more transparent and less idolized.

“Life is no fairytale,” people say, meaning there is a dearth of happy endings. But that last traditional line “and then they lived happily ever after” is not what the story is about. In most fairytales there are terrible perils and ordeals. The hero is often the victim of bullying and malevolence and must discover both internal and external resources in order to survive and ultimately triumph.

In many stories there are three sons or three daughters who in turn set off into the world to seek their fortune. Before any one of them has gone far, they encounter someone in need, an animal, a beggar, or an old man or woman. The hero is the one who stops to show kindness or to share whatever meager store of food he or she has. Later, in the time of trial, the act of kindness becomes a saving grace, and the animal or old beggar becomes a powerful ally. The bullies, or the ungenerous, generally come to a bad end, though sometimes the former victim chooses to help them and restore them to the human family.

Psychohistorians believe in De Mause’s theory of the psychogenic pump. If children’s primary nurturers are given kindness, acknowledgement and support, they will usually treat their children well and the human race will flourish. When young brains and hearts are nurtured, children grow up without the terror that leads to pathologically frightened adults who dare not take the risks of inventing anything new or thinking outside of the strictures of their parent’s world. Petrified children become closed minded obedient, terrorized, and often pathologically uncreative adults. Support and respect for caretakers acts as a pump of progress improving the conditions for all of us.

If we look at the nations that most oppress women we will find that they bear this out. The norms of misogynistic societies are some or all of the following: early marriage and childbearing, rape, physical abuse, genital mutilation, HIV, infection gross inequality of educational opportunity for girls and the tight grip of orthodox fundamentalist religion. We also find on going wars. The most misogynistic nations currently are, according to UN statistics: Afghanistan, The Congo, Nepal, Sudan, Iraq, Guatemala Mali, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. Though many within these nations strive to make a better world they have been held back because they are stymied by appalling social conditions. In order to understand why people allow appalling social conditions to exist, we may look at a nation’s treatment of women and mothers and in turn mother’s treatment of their children which does yield clues. In studies of people who became rescuers of Jews rather than passive bystanders to Nazi atrocities, compassion and kind mothering were cited as reasons for compassion rather than conformity to cruelty. See here and here.

For those of us who have come out of the closet, National Coming Out Day – which is being internationally celebrated today – is a good reminder of the spiritual journey each of us have undergone since the fateful day we decided to say, “Enough. I am who I am, and from today onwards I will live by it.”

The idea that coming out is a defining spiritual moment in a person’s life is not something you’ll find in mainstream LGBT discourse. Understandably so, of course: those who control religious discourse in America and elsewhere have done a tremendously effective job at turning gay people against organized religion. Ask a gay guy if they believe in God and an overwhelming majority of them will say, “I don’t think so,” or “No, I don’t.”

Rainbow Flag (photo by dbking)

It’s been a tough stretch for LGBT folks in the US. After watching all those young men kill themselves, we find out that two gay teens and a gay adult were tortured and sodomized with plungers and a miniature baseball bat in the Bronx. This follows the verbal abuse, robbery and beating of a man in the Stonewall Inn, a historic gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York City. Homophobia and heterosexism are alive and well. What can we do? Today, as we celebrate National Coming Out Day 2010, I’d like to consider a certain kind of progressive LGBT faith perspective that we might keep in mind to steady us through this period.

Pride has been one of our watchwords for years, and in a society where some organized religions preach, teach, and practice violent homophobia, where Fred Phelps and his gang show up with their signs celebrating hate, where federal law prohibits same-sex marriage and somehow “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has not yet been overturned (punishing poor and working-class LGBT folks who need the military when there’s no other work around), pride is more necessary than ever. Pride is a rejection of religious homophobia, legal homophobia, and interpersonal homophobia. Perhaps most importantly for youth coming out in homophobic parts of the country, pride is a rejection of internalized homophobia. Pride is the ability to stand up tall and say that who we fall in love with, who we find sexually attractive, and how we experience our gender identity are organic parts of ourselves, not sin, not sickness. Pride is the ability to be ourselves without issue.

Interestingly, though, in organized religions of the west, pride is a problem. We learn that “pride goes before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18), that pride is linked to “arrogance of heart” (Isaiah 9:9), that pride is an “evil intention” (Mark 7:22). The gospels are full of characters that just don’t get it, not least because of their pride. Does this kind of pride have anything to do with LGBT pride? I’m sure plenty of people who disapprove of homosexuality and the LGBT rights movement would say so. I’m sure they would say that what I describe as LGBT pride is really narcissism, arrogance, even idolatry: a rejection of God the better to worship human beings.

A favorite photo of two of our favorite people: the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. Vancouver, Canada, 2004. Credit: Carey Linde.

I was surprised when a friend told me that the well known American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron’s talk this week in a 3,000 seat Bay Area venue is sold out, considering that it’s the same week when the Dalai Lama is teaching in the area for four days, including at a sold-out 11,000 seat venue. (You can get virtual participation in Chodron’s event via live-stream video.)

The Silicon Valley newspaper the Mercury News reports:

…the Bay Area appears eager to listen. Already rich in Buddhist traditions from Japan, Vietnam and other Asian countries, the region has become a mecca for religious thinkers of other faiths who are blending Buddhist traditions with their own, as well as a beachhead for the fledgling “interfaith movement.”

I know a lot of people who are blending elements of Buddhism into their lives, without ever saying “I am a Buddhist.”

“Interfaith” is a difficult concept, because it requires a different relationship with one’s own religion, quite apart from other religions:

The human is a fragile being, a furless, clawless, big-brained animal with no fangs. We have little unaided strength and less speed. From epoch to epoch our human condition is one that leaves us vulnerable to a natural world that does not care whether we live or die. We are vulnerable to our own physical and moral limitations and to those of the people around us. And time makes dust and ashes of us all.

Despite our quivering fears, or perhaps because of them, in our will to survive, we huddle together into family, clan, class, tribe, occupation, nation, state, culture, religion, world. These various divisions at once help us to survive and lead us to violent conflicts that threaten our survival. However, one of the most inscrutable battlefields is the terrain of ourselves.

Love/fear, hatred/indifference, injury/pardon, doubt/faith, despair/hope, darkness/light, sadness/joy, consolation/disconsolation, understanding/ misunderstanding, forgiveness/ vengeance, life/death struggle for control of our thoughts and emotions. The contestation disturbs our personal peace and the agitation reverberates from the center of ourselves to change the space around us. The air is different. We take our wars and our peace with us wherever we go.

Year to year, day to day, moment to moment, the human condition requires us to make a decision about whether we will bring peace or war into a situation. The questions become: how do we settle the wars inside ourselves? How do we make peace between the various oppositions striving for supremacy in our heart/minds? What is the key that will allow serenity entrance into our inner most being to mediate our most secret conflicts? How can our own personal peace lead to social justice that is necessary for peace in the world around us?

This week I am in Denver at a different kind of Health Care Reform rally. Community Health Coalition activists from across the nation are meeting with one another and with the bureaucrats who write and enforce the regs. We are learning how health care reform regulations will be rolled out, what they will mean for our country, and how to incorporate them into our organizing practice.

AAIM Meeting

As I discussed in a previous post, I recently moved to Austin Texas and started sampling some of the local community events here. This past week I attended my second meeting of the Austin Area Interreligious Ministries (AAIM). The meeting was organized as a collection of small table discussion groups. The topics for the evening were the Cordoba Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero in NY City, and how to respond to the fear of Islam surfacing in our society.

First, some general observations about the people I talked to there. Many of them were not presently part of any religious church or organization. They attended this interfaith dialogue because they felt a longing for the warmth and sharing that took place at an event like this. Several people mentioned that they viewed participating in this type of respectful interfaith dialogue as a very meaningful spiritual practice for them.

Many people felt that the emotional controversy over the Islamic Cultural Center is starting to wane. Any news story has a natural lifetime for remaining on the front pages before starting to fade from the public interest. This story, however, seemed fade away faster than one would expect given the strong emotions surrounding it. Why might that be happening?

Last week I attended an interfaith dialogue event where I sat at one of 20 round tables with six other deliberately diverse people and carried on a moderated discussion about the current state of Islamophobia in the U.S.

It was a robust and lively conversation, and I felt as though the subject was treated with sincere concern for both America’s fears and the undue pressure being placed upon the average American Muslim citizen by those who cannot differentiate between extremists and the greater Muslim population.

But at one point during the discussion, the moderator had the floor and she asked me a question that made me stop and think hard: “What question do you wish people would ask you about Islam?”

Immediately I thought of a long list of questions I’d been asked about my religion in the past ten years. There have been a lot, but there’s one question I never get asked:

What do I love about Islam?

Dear TDB readers,

I wondered if this description of my online magazine, Tikkunista, was inappropriately self-serving for a post on Tikkun Daily so I asked Dave if he thought it was worth posting. He asked that I share his answer, which follows.

I think this post would help a lot of people understand the appeal to the writer of online writing and blogging. We are looking for more people like you who want to do this on Tikkun Daily. We especially want people, whether they are generalists or not, who are able to take a “beat” that fits with our spiritual progressive mission. We are looking for people who will not focus so much on writing their own views (as most of my own posts do, for example), as on reporting to us – with a smart comment or three – on what is happening on their beat out there in the world. So what is happening in the progressive evangelical or Catholic worlds, in First Nations spirituality/politics, in progressive Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, in more “spiritual” or non-religiophobic atheism, and so on? Some of our best posts have been of this kind. Someone who wants a useful way to spend a few hours a week keeping us up to date on a specific area of their expertise could have as much fun as you have been having these last few years.

====================================================

Tikkunista is the online magazine I created. I describe it as my “weekly winnowing of links to politics, art, and culture”, though the weekly part is a slight exaggeration; it only gets put out about forty times a year. It consists of about 40-55 links, grouped together into about a dozen categories. The first and last two categories are definite: it starts with followups on topics from previous issues, and upcoming political actions (Toronto centric); it ends with Eyecandy (a collection of pretty pictures) and the quote of the week. The eight central categories vary, but always move from heavier political to lighter and more amusing topics, a structure that I adopted for the same reason that parents serve children vegetables before they offer them dessert.

Last week, for example, Tikkunista started with sections on Israel’s somewhat chaotic leadership style (Israel’s foreign minister had just attacked his own prime minister in front of the UN, which is unusual in politics) and on China’s economic expansion (starting from Mao’s “great leap forward”, currently estimated to have cost 54 million lives.) The two sections before Eyecandy’s autumn special were a collection of sculptural websites (Maori, landscape, wooden postmodern) and a look at the positive aspects of computers (which balanced the previous week’s look at their negative aspects.) Each section starts with “Bird’s Eye”, a paragraph or two in which I look at what ties the following set of links together and why it matters. I’ve been putting Tikkunista out into the world for seven years, and from time to time I wonder why I do.

Photo: courtesy of the Swiss canton of Glarus

In many countries, the concern is to get away from Presidents for life, from power-hungry politicians changing constitutions to allow incumbents to have another term, bending the rules to stay in power. Here in Switzerland, the government ministers take it in turns to act as President. So probably a pretty shocking percentage of Swiss would not be able to tell who this year’s President is!

The President’s responsibilities and powers mainly involve chairing the meetings of the coalition government that includes all the largest parties represented in Parliament, and welcoming foreign heads of state and dignitaries, who otherwise might find it hard to understand shaking hands with all seven of the wise men and women. And the world, which rightly shows little interest in the strange ways of a small country in the middle of Europe, has shown some interest in last month’s election of two new ministers being elected by the parliament, giving Switzerland for the first time a majority of women in the government. Switzerland now has a woman President, and both houses of parliament are chaired by women. So there’s feminist rejoicing (and I count myself a feminist) in a country where women only got the right to vote in Federal elections in 1971.

This is a response response to Michael Lerner’s comment about NVC (Nonviolent Communications) and progressive politics, which he posted here.

Dear Michael,

I have been sitting for a couple of days now with the comment you posted on Sunday, reflecting deeply on how I want to respond. I am glad, first of all, that you and I have had sufficient connection and trust between us to continue this conversation personally if we wanted to. This is not the first time these topics come up, and I imagine we will continue to engage on them in the months and years to come, hoping that we are both well enough for long enough to do so. For now, I am writing this publicly because I want the readers to have the opportunity to understand how I see the issues you are raising. I am not writing this primarily to you, nor am I trying to “convince” you. I only want to be understood as closely as possible in what I am intending to say.

To begin with, I share a big piece of your concern. I think of it as tragic that so many people learn and use nonviolent communication only as a tool for personal growth. I know you are concerned that people would have their energy drawn away from political engagement, and I want to give credence to this concern: this is true for some people. However, I don’t think of it as intrinsically so, and I also know people who have come to engage with systems and with social change precisely because of becoming more hopeful about creating a different world through learning NVC.

While I treasure and value the deep spiritual wisdom and growth that I have gotten from years of immersing myself in NVC, for me what’s exciting about it is way beyond the personal. As I mentioned in one of my recent posts, I am less and less comfortable with calling it nonviolent “communication” because it’s so much more than that for me. It’s the intersection of the spiritual, social, theoretical, and emotional that I treasure so much, along with the very concrete blueprint I see in it for how to structure life in such a way that we can create a world that works for all, to borrow Sharif Abdullah’s phrase.

The GOATMILK DEBATES continue…

The motion:“Temporary Marriage is a valid option for Muslims in the modern age”

AGAINST THE MOTION: “Sigheh Marriage [Temporary Marriage or Muta'a] is Sex for Hire”

Fatemeh Fakhraie

I support any way that two consenting adults can safely get it on. And so I don’t think sigheh marriage (temporary marriage also referred to asmut’a, or pleasure, marriage) is a bad idea.

In a magical, lollipop-and-rainbows land.

But in the reality where we all live? No. It’s a terrible idea.

See, in magical Lollipop Rainbow Land, men and women are equal. Sexuality is something between autonomous people who are educated enough to make intelligent decisions about their sex lives. Gender roles aren’t rigidly ascribed or enforced, and no importance is placed on virginity. Everyone respects each other and each other’s choices in this fantastical place. Sigheh marriage would be a wonderful thing in Lollipop Rainbow Land.

But, as this grumpy feminist is constantly reminded, we do not live in Lollipop Rainbow Land. We live in a place and time where women are not seen as equals and are still exploited physically, economically, sexually, etc. In this context, sigheh marriage is a sanctioned path to female exploitation – and thus, in my book, a terrible idea.

To be upfront, I am an American Iranian Muslim who comes from the Shi’a tradition. Sigheh is a largely Shi’a practice, and the vast majority of my knowledge on it comes from the Iranian context. So that’s where I’m writing from today.

I’ve received many comments and questions regarding my analysis of Off the Mat in the “Beyond Spiritual Activism” article. There is a lively discussion happening for certain. Some of the comments are very thought provoking and tough. I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to respond to individual questions but realize that there are many similar issues being brought up and so I wanted to address them in a post. Also, Off the Mat has responded to my article in the comments section and I responded. They are preparing a list of what they consider to be factual inaccuracies in my post which Tikkun Daily will post on the front page of the blog under “Guest – Off the Mat,” not just under the comments section. I fully welcome any critique and corrections. As with any other writer people should question my motives and conclusions and point out any factual inaccuracies.

I understand there are a lot of impassioned voices in this conversation. I’m very used to it as I’ve written about these kinds of things previously. When I wrote about how racism and oppression manifests in the positive thinking culture I received a very similar response. These are some comments on “When Positive Thinking Becomes Religion“:

“This is a terrifically important article,” “This brilliant introduction by Be of some of the dangers of pop destiny picking-for others…is a HUGE help,” “Thank you for a long overdue, intelligent critique of the poisonous nonsense that keeps so many people enslaved to positive thinking,” and “Wow – this is a thorough, engaging and really useful discussion of The Law of Attraction. I am so glad you wrote it!”

There were unfavorable comments as well. What did a teacher of The Secret and a devout practitioner of the Law of Attraction say?

“Your gross generalizations, not all of which are true, lack of objectivity and the “axe to grind” tone sounds more angry and biased…Being angry, taking things out of context and criticizing others may only feel good temporarily.” A devout practitioner of The Law of Attraction states, “This article is so unapologetically biased and filled with absurdities cloaked in typical sensationalist writing it’s laughable…it would appear that your opinion is largely based on conjecture and sound bites as opposed to direct experience and application…perhaps you should have interviewed a few people who actually practice the principles.”

Young man at NYC Pride, 2007 (photo by See-ming Lee)

A recent commentary called September 2010 “one of the [most challenging months] in recent memory for the gay community,” pointing to the five suicides (within one week) of young men or boys who had faced unbearable harassment and bullying because they identified as gay or were thought to be so. The stories are horrifying, even more so in light of the tweeted comment of rapper 50 Cent that “the world [would] be a better place” if gay men killed themselves. While it is encouraging that an anti-bullying movement is arising among heterosexual allies, there is no replacing the lives ended, or calling back the deep grief of those who have lost friends and loved ones.

Those of us who care about human flourishing have to be prepared to take a strong stand here. We must understand the relationship between homophobic dehumanization and devaluation and “death by bullying.” It’s not that those of us who mourn these boys and young men are one-issue activists or are part of a “special interest group;” it’s that we refuse to join the bullies in treating such people as less valuable than other people. In 1964, civil rights activist Ella Baker notably said, “Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son” the movement shall not rest; today, we echo her words in decrying racism and sexism and anti-immigrant fervor – and homophobia. All lives must matter to us. Every last one of us is precious, and there is no calculating the cost of a single life ended by bullycide.