Illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1909

Children have been told horror stories for as long as storytelling has existed. Should a child become traumatized hearing a story like Hansel and Gretel, where the witch plans to throw the children into the oven to make a nice meal, parents can tell the child not to worry, “That’s just a fairy tale. Things like that don’t really happen.” But they do.

Self Portrait

Sometimes in the midst of the mundane or the profane of the day, I find myself musing about the meaning of it all. My friend Rev. Jim Burklo just sent along his latest musing, and while it doesn’t answer all the questions about life, the universe, and everything, it did bring a smile to my face and some peace to my morning. May it do some of the same for you too. Read on!

At first, the numbers were clear to me. There was the 1% of the population, and there were the 99%. The division was based on income and on assets. The 1% made 20.3% of the income in 2006, averaging $1,243,516. They owned 34.6% of total assets in 2007 and 42.7% of total financial assets. The 99% was everyone else. This picture, upsetting as it is, made some sense to me.

Then it got muddied.

Because the bottom salary of the 1% starts at $382,593. So, doesn’t that mean that some of the 99% actually make extremely comfortable income. Then are they still part of the 99%? Hmmm… Something in that picture doesn’t quite capture the depth of an experience of injustice and powerlessness that I read into the expression “We are the 99%.” So what to do? Is it really 99%, or is it only 90%?

A mosque in Dearborn, MI attended by members of the reality TV show, "All American Muslim." / Photo Courtesy of TLC

We are community leaders from the three Abrahamic faiths who don’t normally look to reality TV to teach lessons of faith and religious freedom. But TLC’s new show, All American Muslim, is doing just that. It’s also come under recent attack from Islamophobic extremists who seem to have forgotten the values on which this country was founded. Rather than tune out in protest, as Americans, it’s time to tune in.

Photo Courtesy of Len Radin

When our children were little and pressed their outsider noses against the lighted shop windows of Christmas, I decided we’d celebrate Hanukah. I wasn’t delighted that it commemorated a military event instead of “peace on earth,” but the children could join the season’s merry-making.

Also, the tale of Maccabean rebellion is embedded with legendry appealing to children. The rag-tag Maccabees’ incredible victory over a mighty state, the cleansing and rededication of the great Jerusalem temple, the radiant image of a one day oil-lamp, miraculously glowing for eight days. So, I plunged into candle-lit monorahs, dreidles, fried potato pancakes (latkes), small gifts, and a child’s Hanukah story.

Lowe’s recently pulled its advertising from the popular television show “All-American Muslim,” bowing to the pressure of Isalmophobes. It is unworthy of our business as Americans who care about the stories of all American religious communities.

We now need a new place to shop, as we approach the new year. Help us draft Home Depot to be the tolerant alternative!

We are asking Home Depot to buy the spots on “All-American Muslim” that Lowe’s used to purchase. If they do so, those who sign this petition commit to turning first to Home Depot as our home, appliance, and hardware store in 2012. We shop tolerantly — and want Home Depot to be our go-to store for religious freedom.

By signing this petition, you are showing that you want all religious communities in
American to have a free voice. You are exercising your freedom to shop at stores that further religious tolerance.

SIGN ON NOW! DRAFT HOME DEPOT AS THE STORE OF TOLERANCE IN 2012!

(I am back from a three-week hiatus. For the time being, I am not writing about the Occupy Movement, though I imagine I will return to this theme.)

In April, 2004, in the last week of her life, my former colleague Julie Greene participated, with my sister Inbal and with me, at one of our intensive residential retreats. We all listened for those few moments when she would wake up and speak to us from wherever she was. More than once, she repeated this one sentence which I still carry: “There is no reason to wait even one minute longer.”

I know very well about waiting, because it’s one of my coping mechanisms I acquired as a child. I learned to endure hardships by knowing they will end, and counting the minutes, or days, or even years at times. I learned to survive having no capacity to change circumstances, and in the process lost some of my sense of power to create change. I still, to this day, continue to wait, though less and less, in all aspects of my life. For a less stressful time in which I can finally shift an inner pattern, or the compatible people with whom I can connect, or the circumstances that will bring more ease into my life, or the perfect opportunity for making a difference. What would it mean to shift that habit completely and bring the future into the present?

When I remember Julie’s words and leave behind my habit of waiting, I sometimes experience a kind of glee, like a child that just discovered a new way to climb on the counter and get the goodies that were previously out of reach. This is a subversive act, because it means embracing my power, releasing the shackles of helplessness, becoming an agent in my life and beyond. It’s a way to move to another story, of living as if the future, previously a dream, is truly here, now.

Figure 1

HOBOS TO STREET PEOPLE: ARTIST’S RESPONSES TO HOMELESSNESS FROM THE NEW DEAL TO THE PRESENT
by Art Hazelwood
Freedom Voices, 2011

In 1939, the iconic American photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) took and disseminated a photograph of a mother and her two children on the road in Siskiyou County, California (Figure 1). Like all of Lange’s Depression era images, this work reveals the powerful human pathos of poverty and homelessness. Viewers cannot fail to feel the agony and despair of a mother trying desperately to maintain her family in the midst of overwhelming economic catastrophe. Like hundreds of her photographs, this effort represents the essence of socially committed art, the result of a visual artist who used her creativity to call attention to the human face of social disruption and human suffering.

Art historians universally accept Lange as one of the masters of American photography, both for her outstanding artistic skills and for her profound empathy for the most marginalized members of society during the Great Depression. Her image is the first illustration in a new book entitled Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Responses to Homelessness from the Great Depression to the Present, written by socially conscious artist Art Hazelwood in conjunction with a traveling exhibition on homelessness art in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Occupy Oakland protesters at the Port of Oakland CC/Steve Rhodes

Tax policy may seem far from the passion of Occupy, but it is essential to this moral movement. We need to leverage this energy and engagement to start a national dialogue about the kind of society we want to live in, and how to get there. By reforming the capital gains tax, we will call upon the wealthiest Americans to pay more for essential economic stimulus and social programs.

At the same time that income equality is growing, states are slashing education and safety nets at unprecedented rates. This leaves the most vulnerable Americans without basic opportunities and protections. We need to channel more money to states to protect social services and reverse layoffs of public employees. We must invest in job training programs, particularly for high-growth sectors like health care workers and home weatherizers.

All of this requires money, and we need to ask the wealthiest Americans – who have benefited the most from the jobless recovery – to contribute more. Reforming taxes on capital gains, the profits from sales of stocks and other financial assets, will target the wealthiest without hurting the economy.

Creative Commons / JMozzolaa

On Monday night, November 14, 2011 the mayor of New York City ordered the police to evict the 500 or so overnight occupiers in Zuccotti Park. The eviction happened around 2 a.m. He did not tell them to leave within 72 hours. Or 48 hours. Or even by morning. He moved them out by force at 2 a.m. using surprise. In addition the police put the tents and tarps, many of the backpacks, computers, notebooks, sweatshirts and granola bars into a trash compactor and let the grind be heard throughout the park. As Rev. Robert Coleman of Riverside Church said, “I have the receipts for the 100 tents we bought. I’d like the city to repay my congregation for the destruction of our tents.” Sacred space may start with tents and have a middle stage in church buildings, even sanctuaries. Sacred space has no need of one place. It can occupy many, at the same time.

Consider the way in which too many Christians, Jews, and Muslims have imagined the city of Jerusalem as their privately or parochially owned sacred space. We speak often of a two state solution to the “problem” of Jerusalem. That political solution need not stop the sacralizing of space, the universality of the human urge to call one place “Ur” or original home.

The “Other Israel Film Festival” in Manhattan chose films that related the stories of minorities in Israel. These perspectives and backgrounds rarely receive attention in the popular media. “The Promise,” or at least the first part of a four-part series, is a dramatic historical-fiction that introduces Israel/Palestine and the conflict to foreigners of the land.

When the characters speak in Hebrew or Arabic there are no subtitles; just as there are no shortcuts to understanding the complex dynamics of Israel/Palestine. The audience is limited by their individual understandings of the local cultures, the histories, and yes, even the languages.

Many of us will be visiting with family over the coming holidays, starting this Thanksgiving. How can someone who supports the Occupy movement have a civil conversation with family members who may have a different view of things? How can you be prepared if someone else brings up the topic? I’d like to start the ideas flowing on this with a few thoughts here.

For such a discussion it’s vitally important to set realistic goals about what you want to accomplish. It’s probably impossible to change someone’s mind with a short conversation about facts if they have strong emotions about their beliefs. Don’t even try, this is not about winning debate points awarded by some imaginary judge. What is it about then? I’ll address that later.

Here’s some specific suggestions on what to do and what to avoid doing.

Amidst the contrasting tones and strikingly honest symbols in Bonner’s sculpture series called Exploring the Perpetrator, Bonner confronts the powerful forces that have threatened her spirit and health.

By exploring domination, as she calls it, Bonner has been able to find ways to survive her abusive past. She has found profound intersections between her own exploitation and that of our society. Like many before her, she has connected the personal with the political. Bonner invites us to not only recognize the perpetrator that controls our own well being, but also those forces that control our system.

Grass by Lorraine Bonner. Click on the image above to see more of her art.

To see more of Bonner’s work, visit the Tikkun Daily Art Gallery and visit the artist’s website.

I have led mindfulness and loving-kindness meditations at Occupy Boston. Meditation is, of course, valuable as a refuge from stress. Participating in an occupation, which may involve living outdoors under threat of possible arrest and police brutality, can certainly be stressful (I myself am only a day visitor to the Occupy Boston encampment). But I believe mindfulness can actually address the core problem that the Occupy movement confronts, i.e. the greed of the wealthiest 1 percent.

The thesis of my eBook, Occupy the Moment, is that greed is literally an addiction, a distortion of the brain systems that govern habits and rewards. The way to overcome greed is to “be in the moment” or to practice mindfulness.

In the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha identified inordinate desire as the fundamental source of human suffering. To overcome suffering, he identified a path that included mindfulness, the practice of focusing on the present moment with a friendly, nonjudgmental attitude.

Recent findings in neuroscience validate the Buddha’s claims. When we want something, the brain transmits a chemical called dopamine. When we get what we desire, internal opioids are released. The latter are substances chemically similar to morphine and heroin. So you can start to see how desires become literally addictive.

Nader, Nawal, and baby Naseem of the Aoude family in their Dearborn, Michigan home. / Courtesy of TLC Network

The new TLC series “All-American Muslim” hasn’t even aired yet, and it’s already come under fierce and prejudiced criticism.

The reality show follows the everyday lives of five Muslim families living in Dearborn, Michigan, whose population has the largest proportion of Arab Americans for a city of its size. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 33.4 percent of residents said they were of Arab ancestry.

The issues they face are similar to everyone else’s – some are trying to start a family, getting married, and venturing to open a new business. They disagree with each other. They deal with rowdy children and guilt-tripping parents. The characters talk, act, and look like average Midwesterners. Because they are.

Ever since the beginning of the Arab Spring, and especially since the early days of the Occupy movement in the US, I have been following the wave of unrest that’s been sweeping the globe with great interest. I have visited the Oakland Occupation and participated in the general strike on Nov. 2^nd. I have been writing about my amazement, my humility, and my concerns for some weeks. On the basis of all I have seen, heard, read, and felt, I continue to nurse some hope that this movement may be the beginning of transcending the legacy of separation and creating new social structures attentive to the needs of humans, other life forms, and the planet.

At the same time, if I imagine for a moment that the Occupy movement succeeds in replacing existing governments with some other form of governance, I am not so confident that the outcome will be what I most long for: a world that truly works for everyone.

I am fearful that the people who are now the 1% would be mistreated, shamed, incarcerated, or even executed. I am fearful that women will still have an equally challenging time having physical safety, full inclusion in decision-making, and the possibility of affecting the ways that decisions are made. I am fearful that racial and ethnic divides will continue to plague us, and that some people will continue to suffer poverty and human indignities. I am fearful that consumption will continue rampant and the march towards depletion of the earth’s resources will go on. I am even fearful that a new 1% will emerge, sooner or later, and what might be gained would be lost.

Prioritizing social transformation without attending to the ways in which all of us have internalized the very systems and habits of heart and mind that we aim to transform runs the risk of re-creating these systems and habits. From my reading of history, such lack of attention to the internal and relational realms has resulted in astonishing amounts of pain and suffering, sometimes for millions of people. On smaller scales, this lack of attention has meant that many social movements are plagued by vicious conflicts, resentment, cynicism, and despair even while doing inspiring and uplifting work.

Our friend Rev. Jim Burklo (Center for Progressive Christianity) just visited the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  His visit is chronicled in this latest musing that I found fascinating and wonderful, especially what happened at the very end… (read on).

Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen, October 2008. wikimedia commons / Muhammad ud-Deen

On September 30, 2011 a U.S. drone in Yemen assassinated Anwar Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen accused of participation in terrorist activities against the United States. While there is a legitimate debate to be had about the justification and legality of targeted killings as a matter of policy, President Obama should not be permitted to assume this authority unchallenged.

Al-Awlaki’s killing is the first instance of a U.S. administration openly targeting an American citizen for assassination and comes amid a rapid increase in the use of targeted killings abroad. This issue was last raised in 2002 when Kamal Derwish, also a U.S. citizen, was killed in a similar operation. The Bush administration denied that he was an intended targeted, thereby avoiding the constitutional question, but Condoleezza Rice argued that targeting Derwish would have been “well within the balance of…[Bush's] constitutional authority.” In early 2009 Admiral Dennis Blair reaffirmed that the president has the right to assassinate an American citizen that is believed to be “working with terrorists.” The Bush administration avoided a constitutional confrontation while creating the legal framework for a 2010 Obama memorandum that justified the targeted killing of Al-Awlaki.

The wall that we think we build between life and death, between good and evil, dissolves into mist on All Hallows Eve.

And the shadow of death looms large over us reminding us of our earthly mortality and our complicated selves.

We wear the masks that reveal our internal Otherness. We costume ourselves in our fantasies and look our personal monsters in the face.

On All Hallows Eve we see our own all too human un-holy-ness. And we are not afraid.