Frederick Sparks over at Black Skeptics penned a response to my article “Reason and Racism in the New Atheist Movement.” Here are a few of my comments on his analysis. His words are in bold.

Yet if he bothered to read the rest of the book besides the passages criticizing new atheism, he’d see that Hutchinson hardly argues for walling off god belief and African-American religious institutions from criticism.

I’ve never stated or even suggested that African American religion or religion at large should be walled off or shielded from criticism. What I am saying is that religion is incredibly complex and shouldn’t be reduced and dismissed with statements like it “poisons everything” or that it is “child abuse.” In order to resist this totalistic stance I highlighted some ways in which religion has played a positive role in the African American experience. Religion has been used for vast amounts of things – both transformative and destructive and thus we should avoid simplistic dismissals of it (or naive totalistic embraces of it). That’s it. Following Spark’s logic, because I’ve written about the positive role that the Catholic Church and Catholic social teaching has played in Dorothy Day’s life I must believe the Catholic church should be walled off and shielded from being criticized about the child sex abuse scandal. I simply don’t understand this kind of logic.

Demonstrators and clergy carrying a golden calf in the shape of a Wall Street bull march from Judson Memorial Church to Zuccotti Park on Sunday, October 9, 2011. / Tom Martinez and Dennis Hearn

The local chapter of NSP in Washington, D.C. has been involved in creating an alternative to the standard conservative prayer breakfast that takes place each year, and we are inviting you to do the same in your community. We’ve been working with Occupy Faith D.C. to create “the People’s Prayer Breakfast.” You can do the same in your area of the country. It doesn’t have to be this week – take your time and make sure you do outreach to Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Ba’hai, Sikh, Wicca, Buddhist, Quaker, Unitarian, Religious Science, and all other possible communities of faith to get them involved in the planning.

In the case of some terms, people might have doubts as to whether they’re names or descriptions; like “God”—does it describe God as the unique divine being or is it a name of God? (Saul A Kripke, Naming and Necessity, p. 27)

Our text seems to be preoccupied with names. Moshe (Moses) went to Pharoah as instructed, and instead of freeing the slave people, Pharoah makes their life even more miserable. Moshe complains to God about the suffering of the people and the failure of his mission, but God wants to talk about names. The text relates (Shemot 2:6):

And God spoke to Moshe, saying: I am ADNY. I have revealed myself to Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov as El Shaddai, but with the name ADNY I had not revealed myself to them.

Moshe wants to know how the people will be freed, and God answers with a seemingly irrelevant discourse on names. Why does it matter with which name revelation was conducted in the past? In attempting to find meaning in this emphasis upon ancient names, we will find ourselves confronting very contemporary issues regarding faith and science.

Even as we focus upon the centrality of names in the current verse, we can’t help noticing the preoccupation with names in the early part of the book of Shemot (Exodus). This book begins with an enumeration of the names of the tribes, then Moshe names his children, then Moshe is concerned in his first dialogue with God that the Israelites will ask of him what God’s name is, and here again, in this speech announcing the deliverance from Egypt, God begins by announcing a new previously undisclosed name. It is fitting, I suppose, that this book, called Exodus in Greek, is traditionally known as Sefer Shemot, the Book of Names, in Hebrew. What’s all this business about names?

Vodun practitioners from all over the African Diaspora traveled to Benin (formerly Dahomey), the birthplace of the religion, this week to participate in what is known as International Voodoo Day. This January 10 festival of prayers, libations, sacrifices and other rituals is the most important Vodun gathering in the world.

As a Haitian-American, I can’t help reflect on this most African part of our heritage in the New World especially as it is continually maligned by those whose knowledge is restricted to popular images that favor the macabre. Those of us who recognize and respect Vodou’s complexity know we must defend it because the religion remains trapped in stereotypes making it extremely difficult to dispel geopolitically driven myths too entrenched in the spectacular.

Growing up as a child in Haiti, I had no concept of what is referred to as “Voodoo” in the U.S. In fact, the more appropriate word, Vodou, was not part of my vocabulary. The tradition that some members of my family followed was known as “serving the spirits.” Even that phrase was not something we actively used, since our actual engagement was rooted more in daily practice than naming. Serving meant living in a world where the sacred and secular were blurred. So it was commonplace to see adults pour libations of water and coffee three times onto the ground upon awakening in the morning before even speaking to one another. Or sometimes they rushed to the outhouse, I would learn later, to expunge bad dreams that should not be spoken in order to deflect their mal-intention and prevent entry into the home. These and other very conscious acts of psychic repulsion taught me that serving the spirits was foremost about communion and protection.

Santa Claus in Japan. Credit: Creative Commons/Kodomo No Tomo.

I found myself talking about Santa Claus with Sara the other day. She is a charming little girl, 8 years old, and now at a wonderfully delicate developmental stage of her life.

Sara is at that age where the emerging presence of doubt and inquiry are grappling for predominance with the evocative fantasies which have largely colored her young mind for much of her blessed childhood. She was inspecting holiday decorations in my office when I asked her if she thought Santa would visit her this year. The conversation so enchanted me that I hastened to write it down at once to the best of my recollection.

When I reached manhood, I saw rising and growing upon the wall shared between life and death, a ladder barer all the time, invested with an unique power of evulsion: this was the dream….Now see darkness draw away, and LIVING become, in the form of a harsh allegorical asceticism, the conquest of extraordinary powers by which we feel ourselves confusedly crossed, but which we only express incompletely, lacking loyalty, cruel perception, and perseverance….

Rene Char, Fureur et Mystere

Last week, we discussed the confusion surrounding the blessings given by Yizhak in terms of the texts’ “concretization”, the way textual blessings might take on interpretations based on changes in their historical actualization. This week, we will leap beyond blessings into dreams and from dreams into reality, and perhaps, back again, by focusing upon the episode of Yaakov (Jacob)’s dream of the ladder ascending to heaven as narrated at the start of this week’s Torah reading.

There are several midrashim which will guide us on our exploration of dreams. The Midrash latches on to an extraneous word in the verse- “and he chanced upon the place and rested there”. The Midrash explains the word vayifga, “and he chanced upon”, as meaning “he prayed there”, using as a proof text the use of the same term in the Jeremiah 7:16 and 27:18. The Midrash states that there, in that place where Yaakov rested, Yaakov created the evening prayer, the Arvit service, described by R. Shmuel bar Nahman as embodying “May it be Thy will that You remove me from darkness to light”. A second curious midrash is found on verse 28:16, which reads “and Yaakov awoke from his sleep, mishenato“. The Midrash alters it to miMIshnato, from his studies, from his “learning”. At first glance, one might suspect a surprising anti-study, anti-intellectual message, likening study to sleep, in that Midrashic reading. Why is the midrash linking study to sleep?

Children showcase the "Houses for Change" they've made at a Martin Luther King Day event. / Photo Courtesy of Family Promise

“Homelessness won’t disappear,” Rabbi Lerner said in his keynote speech at the national conference of Family Promise, an interfaith nonprofit helping homeless families, “until people collectively work to end homelessness.” Family Promise has created a national campaign, Houses for Change, to do just that. It is a grassroots educational crafts project to arrange at family gatherings, congregations, schools, scout troops and other organizations.

Since its launch a year ago, more than 15,000 kids and parents have made their own unique Houses for Change collection boxes to raise awareness of homelessness and raise funds to help homeless families.

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.

Buddhist monks in orange robes chant in one corner of the Occupy Oakland encampment. Across the plaza, a reverend in a rainbow stole reads Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Six Principles of Nonviolence” at an interfaith events tent, and a rabbi gives a Jewish blessing. A block away, candles burn on an unorthodox altar to the death of capitalism, and passers-by leave flowers and notes on the concrete bench that has become a vigil area for activist Scott Olsen, whose skull was fractured by a tear gas canister on Oct. 25. Nearby, a woman wearing a hijab talks about how a tentful of anarchists kindly lent her their rug when it came time for her to pray. There is a striking cheek-by-jowl feel to the interfaith interactions here — a spontaneity and intimacy so different from the stiff pageantry that can sometimes accompany carefully orchestrated interfaith events.

Click on any image below to open this photo essay from Occupy Oakland’s general strike on Nov. 2.

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.

What Kind of Person Can’t Afford Community College?

I’m going to begin this blog like a Cassandra, but end it more positively. No one needs another blog entirely dedicated to how awful things are.

So here’s the bad part:

I was talking with some moms recently and one, disparaging an acquaintance who was saving up to attend a two-year college, asked with an incredulous laugh, “What kind of a person can’t afford community college?”

The remark sent a chill through my bones. First, she was so insulated by privilege that she honestly didn’t know how a decent hardworking person could not afford the bottom rung of the educational ladder, and second, that she seemed to consider it a moral failing to be poor. Finally, she represents the people most likely to vote, most likely to lobby a school board, Congressperson, or Council member.

Textbooks

“Books are actually very expensive,” I pointed out, and later I wanted to kick myself for that answer because even without books, tuition at a community college – the very institution set up to serve all – is too expensive for a worrisome segment of the workforce. I recall talking to a waiter who told me that when the price went up to $20 a unit, he couldn’t afford to go anymore. He had two kids and he couldn’t work a second job. However, he was very interested in books for his kids. It was painful to think that someone willing to learn and grow, wanting a better job, wanting to contribute more knowledge to his kids and capable of contributing more skill, and taxes to the economy, should be barred from that opportunity. How un-American! And how troubling to meet a person with a great deal more power in the world who insists that he and people like him don’t exist.

The Western Wall is busy during Tish B'av.

1. “What are you doing here?”

On the last night of Ramadan – the month-long fast observed by Muslims – I pass through the Jordanian-Israeli border at a crossing called the Allenby Bridge. This is the only border crossing open to West Bank Palestinians. It is the only way Palestinians can come and go from their country. This border is patrolled and controlled by Israel.

I am here to renew my visa. But most of the crowd is made up of Palestinian families wheeling enormous suitcases and coming to Palestine for the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that immediately follows Ramadan.

At the border, I’m quickly pulled aside by Israeli security. Because I live in the Palestinian West Bank and write – for this website and others – about Palestinians, Israelis, the conflict and the occupation, I’m regularly questioned.

Though I was surprised the first few times, now I’m used to this, to being pulled aside, interrogated and asked to wait.

“Where are you going?” one Israeli official asks me. “Why are you coming to Israel?”

“I’m going to Ramallah,” I say. “That’s where I live.”

He nods and squints at my passport.

“Samuel?” he frowns. “Are you Jewish?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “I am.”

He pauses.

“What are you doing here?”

The official leafs through my passport and makes a quick phone call. An armed guard appears behind me. “We’re going to ask you some questions.” The guard presses me forward, through a set of doors and to a row of chairs. He doesn’t say anything. I take a seat next to a Palestinian father and his two daughters, who have also been set aside for questioning.

The family next to me – and most of the crowd here – are Muslims. They’re fasting, waiting for sundown to eat, drink and smoke their cigarettes. There are no windows inside and no one can see the sun set, but people glance at their watches. One man unpacks a woven prayer mat and slings it over his shoulder. It’s almost time to pray.

A protest of foreclosures in San Francisco. Credit: Creative Commons/Steve Rhodes.

I recently sold my home. It was the first home to sell in my neighborhood in 6 months. Now my realtor tells me there are amazing deals on the market, homes that are selling for 200,000 or 300,000 less than they were a couple of years ago. She tells me that virtually all the houses on the market are foreclosures and that great deals are available.

It’s not quite as bad as she describes but the housing report for July shows that just over 26% of homes sold in the Bay Area were foreclosures and that nearly 20% of all the homes sold were underwater. It’s like a fire sale or a “going out of business” sale. And that’s the problem, each of these homes represents a family that has lost its home, the biggest investment they would likely make for their entire lives. Now it’s gone, poof. We could explore the “whodunit” and why but many others are already following that trail. I’m interested in the emotional and spiritual impact that this dislocation inflicts on our lives and families.

Friday mornings are quiet in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian West Bank. Most of the shops are closed; the market is quiet. This is a holy day for Muslims, jummu’ah, and most people take the morning off from work to pray. The muezzin’s call to prayer, the adhan, from the central mosque rings through the streets.

“God is the greatest,” he calls. “I bear witness that there is no God except the One God.”

On Friday, the local imam also makes his weekly sermon; this is also played through a loudspeaker. One section of the Qu’ran that is typically read on Fridays is Surat al-Ghashiya.

In it, God is speaking to Mohammad: “They do not look at the camel – how it was created; at the sky – how it is raised; and at the mountains – how they are erected, nor at the earth – how it is spread out,” God says, “Remind them. All you can do is be a reminder.”

The imam’s voice rises and falls, sometimes distorting over the loudspeaker. After prayer ends, I get a call from a Palestinian friend, Nabil.

“I’m finished at the mosque,” he says. “Come over for lunch when you’re ready. Do you remember where I live?”

Ramallah is perched on the top of a series of rocky hills, and made up of smaller villages and towns. Nabil lives with his wife and children in one of the outlying neighborhoods of Ramallah, a short drive from the center of the city. I take a small public bus there, full of old men, also returning from prayer.

Nabil’s home is in an old, crumbling six-storey apartment complex. He greets me on the street and leads me upstairs to the third floor. Inside, his apartment is crowded with couches, chairs and bookcases.

Nabil takes me by the arm and gives me a quick tour.

There are souvenirs from his family’s recent trip to Mecca, framed portraits, and piles of kid’s toys. On one wall, there is a poster of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and one of Dora the Explorer. His two daughters are playing on the floor when I arrive but stand up to greet me.

Eiren Caffall © 2010

I have just come home from an island.

It is small and magical, and set 12 nautical miles out into the Atlantic, and I have been returning there in the summers since I was a teenager. I have been drunk on its landscape since I first set foot there, seasick and naive, and trailed behind my parents through the cathedral woods and stumbled onto a marsh awash in wild iris that I followed to the shore.

I was hooked then. I was in sway to the place.

Yesterday was the 4^th of July, a national holiday of independence in the USA. I am drawn to reflecting on the topic, and especially how it plays out in the North American culture within which I live and work. Independence is one of the highest values in this culture. Its two interweaving strands of meaning appear as a rejection of dependence, of being in need of others, at their mercy. Both interfere with conscious interdependence, the practice of collaborating with others to create outcomes that work for more and more people.

Moving toward Inner Freedom
On strand of meaning is about the freedom to make choices without having to consult with others. I often see this showing up as a somewhat rebellious stance: “You can’t tell me what to do.” I have had this particular experience enough to recognize that it comes with some kind of satisfaction, some sense that I am standing up for myself. I can so understand the appeal of this response.

This widespread experience has far-reaching consequences for our ability to create a livable future. For a prime example, our material possessions are a sacrosanct institution. We are given the right to dispose of the resources we own as we see fit. This idea is part of the core allure of the modern commodity-based economy, despite all the hardships so many of us experience. We have the carrot of believing that if we accumulate enough resources than no one can tell us what to do. This is the consolation prize for the separation, scarcity, and powerlessness that we experience so often.

This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from Rev. Sarah S. Ray:

The Divine Glance

Rumi wrote of it. Christ Yahshua (Jesus) certainly experienced and shared it, when he spoke of “letting your eye be single,” and “full of light.” The Hindus and Sikhs call it Darshan.

And yet, with millions of Christians in this country, it seems virtually unheard of. Even feared.

I experienced it for the first time at the Healing Center in Columbia, SC, sometime in late 2001 or early 2002, if I recall. It was a group that focused on “A Course in Miracles” and they had a leader from “The Academy” as it was referred to.

I came in a little late and the group had already started. The leader, Peter, was standing with his arms up in the middle of the room. I think someone told me later that what he was doing was called, “creating the space,” but I can’t be sure. Peter was a tall, thin man with a fascinating accent (Australian, maybe?) and medium brown close-cropped hair. He looked at me with this loving smile of joy on his face as I came into the room. I felt instantly connected to him even though I had never met him before and then I felt a force come from him that touched me all around my head and shoulders.

I didn’t recognize what it was at the time and Peter himself did not seem to know what he had done. When I told him after the meeting what had happened, he said, “That wasn’t me, that was you!” Actually, I think it was both of us. I was ready to receive it and he was ready to give it.

One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough. –Hafiz

I am currently writing a book tentatively titled, Spirituality: What it is and Why it Matters. The book’s central idea is that the common theme of the enormous variety of traditional and contemporary spirituality is a set of virtues–habits of mind, emotion, and action–which provide long-lasting personal contentment and lead us to compassionate and generous action towards others. Here is a tiny excerpt from the working draft of Spirituality, on one of the most important of those virtues:

Gratitude plays a powerful role in spiritual life–as much in the contexts of traditional religion as in the more eclectic, less traditionally oriented spirituality of the present. Contemporary Catholic spiritual teacher David Stiendl-Rast tells us that “Gratitude is the heart of prayer.” And the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart suggested “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.” In gratitude we find an experience, a day-by-day practice, and a way of life. It is a feeling that arises spontaneously within us, something we can consciously cultivate, and a habitual response that shapes our experiences and actions.

For a traditional example, consider how the Jewish prayer book is filled with long and complicated verbal formulas to organize the adult Jewish man’s relation to God, yet the day’s prayers begin with a simple appreciation for being alive: “Thank you God, for returning my soul to my body.” Whatever else the day holds–a mid-term we haven’t prepared for, a medical procedure, seeing our parked car slammed into by a drunk driver–at least for these few moments we will have cultivated appreciation for what we have.

This week’s Spiritual Wisdom is about Shavuot, the Jewish holiday celebrating the giving of the Ten Commandments (actually more literally translated as “10 Speech Acts”). Shavuot begins this year on Tuesday night, June 7, and goes through June 9. The tradition is to stay up all night June 7th studying, so as to be prepared for the moment of revelation at dawn Wednesday, June 8.

Beyt Tikkun synagogue will hold a Sunrise Shavuot service in Berkeley, California, from 5:45 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. (including bagel and lox breakfast) at the westernmost end of the Berkeley pier at the westernmost end of University Avenue. If it rains, it will be moved to 951 Cragmont, Berkeley. All are invited.

The following passage comes from Rabbi Phyllis Berman and Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s recent book, published by Jewish Lights: Freedom Journeys: The Tale of Exodus and Wilderness across Millennia.

Sinai: The universe says “I”

The Israelites stood at the foot of Sinai.

They gazed at the holy mountain, but could not see its crags, its precipices. The clouds enfolded it into an enormous mirror.

More than enormous: Infinite.

In that mirror each one saw a self, and the entire people: saw all who had just trekked out of slavery, and ancient Sarah with her husband Abraham, and many many descendants, beyond the generation that had just fled slavery and on and on, to many centuries later.