Charter for Compassion

CHARTER FOR COMPASSION TRAILER from TED Prize on Vimeo.

On November 12th, I pledge to join the conversation and engage my RE class of 4th graders as we deviate from our World Religions unit on Judaism to discuss the Golden Rule and how compassion lives universally.  Where better than in the heart of the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18) to begin this dialogue on compassion and indeed, The Great Commandment?

If you are not familiar with the Charter for Compassion, or for that matter are not up on the great work of history of religions scholar Karen Armstrong, then run to your nearest bookstore or library and pick up any number of her great, accessible reads, beginning with Through the Narrow Gate to more recently, The Case for God. She has received a fair amount of press as a recent TED 2008 prizewinner for her work in calling for a Judao-Christian-Muslim interfaith call to arms of sorts - with the Golden Rule as the central tenet that would find a first and foremost place in the religious practice of adherents of these and other world faith traditions.

You can view her TED talk here, and see a sample of the Unitarian Universalist religious education curriculum available for RE leaders here.

How will YOU join the conversation?

An Obamanation!

Ohmigosh.

I lend my happiness into the pool of millions of others in this nation and around the world who sat back and clapped and cheered and cried and stood in witness to this historic event.

Holy Daughter and Holy Son were so happy, they ran out onto the cul de sac, shouting Go Obama! Yah, Obama! We live in a mostly Democrat neighborhood on a mostly Democrat street but the great irony is that we weren't able to vote.

So on behalf of this green cards-in-waiting family, thank you thank you to all who voted, any many for the first time.

As a UU, it means a lot to know that we'll have a President in the White House who gets issues of inequality and social justice. Who sees beyond the blue and red and supposedly-divisive colors on the U.S. ma. More to the point, who sees beyond the U.S. map, period.

I am ecstatic, as any Canadian in the U.S. would be, to know that change is immiment in January. I've been staring at my neighbor's Impeach Bush window sign for more than a year and I can't help but wonder, as I saw it again this morning, what the reaction in the White House was. Blink and miss the news - I had to go searching for it. Apparently, President Bush passed election day quietly. As he has much of this term as President, as well. He gave a public statement this morning that was magnamious in spirit. It will be an interesting time ahead to see how he rides off into the Texas sunset as the most unpopular President recent history has ever known.

But I so can't wait to see Barack, Michelle, their daughters and their new puppy cross the threshold into The White House. It really will be the dawn of a new era in U.S. politics. I don't envy him the work and challenges ahead of him. I worry for his safety but I wish him godspeed and every success. He's campaigned hard yet made it all seem effortless. For this alone, he should be applauded.

Happier days are here on the horizon, if only because the psyche in the nation has lightened.

God bless America.

11.04.08

It has been exactly 7 years, 1 month and 24 days since I last felt so compelled to park myself in front of CNN News and not move.

Today, on E-Day, D-Day, V-Day or B-Day - a label which changes invariably depending on one's slant - I shall revisit that feeling. It's a similar one, minus the shock. I feel emotional yet guilty for feeling as though I own such a personal stake in all this. I feel helpless if more than a little fearful but most especially, I feel far and away removed from this election process, just as I felt miles apart and worlds away on 9/11 from Ground Zero.

And yet, then as now, I am amazed at the epic show of patriotism that continues to sweep this nation, despite disastrous evidence to the contrary from the powers or lack thereof that be. Everything this country purports to stand for, including its symbol, its tattered and torn flag ~ which has been veritably dragged through international mud these past two administrations ~ has been tried and tested. But still Americans rally God Bless America without missing a beat, and I confess: I stand on the edge of the crowd with a baffled if bemused and respectful look on my face. God really does bless America with a patriotic pride unmatched elsewhere. It's incredible really. History books will surely pay testament to this sentiment, how ever misguided it might seem to us foreigners at the best and worst of times.

Equally incredible is that this epic campaign ~ which is assuredly the longest, most expensive, painful and drawn-out affair I have ever bore witness to (said the outsider on the inside with her nose pressed against the window looking out whilst viewing her reflection from within) ~ is that it entailed little mud-slinging of GWB, and nowhere in this process was there ever a battle cry for impeachment or electoral college reform. That, to me, is seems like a rather grand hoodwink. So much money pissed down the promotional drain, and for what? Pomp and circumstance.

It's been that kinda year of feeling betwixt and between. We weren't able to vote in the Canadian federal election this year, on account of being ex-pats. Nor are we able to vote in the U.S. federal election, on account of being aliens. A legal tax-paying kind, mind you, but an alien and an immigrant and a foreigner nonetheless.

So we stand on that patch of soil between two countries, singing This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land with equal conviction in both languages and accents - Canadian and American - yet unable to really stand up, be counted and assert our say.

Early indicators point to an Obama Victory. I'd like to hang my hat on that hook, really I would, but I was quite sure Gore had won in 2000. And, of course, he did ~ in more ways than one. Pathetic Presidency or Prized Pulitzer - there's really no contest, is there?

I can't believe Republicans dare to still rally around their dysfunctional political party and have the audacity to believe this country needs yet a third term fear-based ideology, domestic neglect, corporate nepotism, lobbyist greed, and war-mongering. It astounds me. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got. I remember thinking that exact thing when Bush got elected in. People politely watched Fahrenheit 9/11 in the penultimate days to the 2004 election, and yet still, they voted him back in. It would seem America got what it deserved, or so thoughteth this cynical and disillusioned Canadian, back in the day circa November 2004.

But then a curious if ironic thing happened a few short months later in the spring of 2005. We decided to up and move to the UnUnited States of America. And I began to have a different take altogether and a sudden vested interest in American politics. Funny that, eh?

Well, not really. My disillusionment and mistrust of Americanthink has not dissipated. I see the map below and I'm astounded to see how red it is. And not just in red states. I encountered two serious Sarah Palin costume-clad gals on Friday who saw their costume not as mockery but as starstruck tribute. They like her, they really do!


And so, I can't help but feel apprehensive today. I want to believe but maybe all this decade of doom, gloom and fear is beginning to rub off on me, too.

I mentioned to Holy Hub last night that perhaps Obama's grandmother passing away on the eve of the election was a good thing. Maybe she's heading to heaven to sway the Big Kahuna. To which Holy Hub responded, "Yeah, well what if God is a Republican?"

It was a horrible seed of a thought to plant in my brain just before nodding off. I slept with one eye open all night because when push comes to shove comes to hightailing out of Dodge, I'd hate to be part of the exodus alluded to below so soon after pulling up temporal roots here.

*******************

From the MANITOBA HERALD, Canada:

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada
has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased
patrols to stop the illegal immigration.

The possibility of a McCain/Palin election is prompting the exodus
among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to
hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of
sociology professors, animal rights activists and Unitarians
crossing their fields at night.

'I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a
Hollywood producer huddled in the barn,' said Manitoba farmer Red
Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota.

The producer was cold, exhausted, an d hungry. 'He asked me if I
could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I
didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my
screenplay, eh?'

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Mr. Greenfield erected higher
fences, but the lib erals scaled them. So he tried installing
speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. 'Not real
effective,' he said. 'The liberals still got through, and Rush
annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk.'

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet
liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station
wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for
themselves. 'A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged
conditions,: an Ontario border patrolman said. 'I found one carload
without a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa
Valley cabernet, though.'

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border,
often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives.
Rumors have been circulating about the McCain administration
establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to
shoot wolves from airplanes, deny e volution, and act out drills
preparing them for the Rapture.

In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes ingenious ways of
crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens
on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After
catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs,
Canadian immigration authorities began stopping busses and quizzing
the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary
Clooney hits to prove they were aliv e in the '50's. 'If they can't
identify the accordion player on 'The Lawrence Welk Show,' we get
suspicious about their age,' an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are
creating an organic broccoli shortage and renting all the good
Susan Sarandon movies. 'I feel sorry for American liberals, but the
Canadian economy just can't support them,' an Ottawa resident said.
'How many art-history English majors does one country need?'

Political Truth or Dare

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been many moons since my last blog post.

Summer had a way of seducing me into that comfortably numb place of apathy about all things religion and politics. Life is short, so is summer – why sweat the big stuff? Or is it small stuff? I can’t rightly discern anymore.

Truth
I no longer know what I know for sure, so snafu are the times. All I know is that by the time the Democratic Convention rolled around, I was more than ready to escape out of Dodge to Orcas Island, which is hours from mainland and miles apart in liberal aesthetics. Islanders have life figured out. I gotta get me some of that living one fine day.

Unfortunately, returning home entailed being bombarded with the Republican National Convention in the mass media on a 24/7 basis. These conventions are fascinating on so many levels, not the least of which is that they are packed to the rafters with regular Joes and Josephines who I would presume, lead a relatively normal life somewhere else other than as sign holders and groupies at a political conference.


In Canada, our national political parties are lucky if they can elicit the interest of several hundred people, let alone tens of thousands, make that millions in the Neilson ratings, during their election year convention weekends. Such is one of our many attitudinal and altitudinal differences. Heck, our politicians call national elections less than two months out. How’s that for quick, painless and frugal campaigning? Sure, there’s the regular mud-slinging, although a politician’s religiosity is still considered relatively sacred ground and mostly irrelevant to the task at hand. But the line between public and private life is still blurred. In the course of the past week, no less than three NDP (progressive social democratic views on the left side of the spectrum) party candidates have resigned over allegations of pot smoking and public nudity.

Thank God for politicians – who else would we lampoon nationally?

But thank God for short elections, as well. Enduring three years of active campaigning, not to mention innuendos, mudslinging and bi-partisan slander at the expense of real world news – to say nothing of productive government reform or lack thereof in the interim years – it begins to weigh on the psyche like a dead, lead weight.

Little wonder some of us begin to feel desperate for escape.

Or begin thinking mathematically. 43 days until the election. $1 billion in total campaign spending. Two+ years of active campaigning, if one adds to the equation Obama’s coming out party on Oprah and Audacity of Hope book launch in the fall of 2006.

A billion dollars. That’s a large chunk of change. That equates to the gross domestic product of India. That’s sick, and I don’t mean sick as in chill, cool, and far out. I mean sick as in demented and deranged and dysfunctional and decrepit.

Especially since these millions upon millions of dollars end up getting sucked into the media slot machine vortex so that Internet bells might ring and news junkies then salivate over the spat out and regurgitated remains that constitute soundbite belches and cliché-ridden sentence fragments on some obscure journalist’s blog.

Dare
Which is why it was laugh out loud funny to listen to Fox News’ outcry over the article of CBC "opinion column" pundit, Heather Mallick, with her rather colourful take on Sarah Palin a couple of weeks back. Fox apparently took offense at Mallick’s harsh critique of Palin as a white trash “type” with a porn actress look, “a permanently alarmed expression,” and “a voice that could peel the plastic seal off your new microwave.”

What blondie on Fox News was most incensed by, however, was not so much redneck and hick typecasting which proved “incendiary”~ it was that the CBC, as Canada’s publicly-funded broadcasting corporation, would not censor such free wheelin’ and egads! ~ misogynist speech about their new Alaskan husky bitch. How dare Canada have its own version of the first amendment?

It’s nothing if not humorous and more than a little sadly ironic, actually. Because at this point in my Fox News diatribe, I beg to question: isn’t this media indignation a little like the pot calling the kettle black?

As much as Fox News purports to be fair and balanced (and I’m a size 4 - when are clothing manufacturers going to get their labeling right?!), we all know it’s the embedded journalist cog in the Republican wheel of theocratic media feeds. The public gets it, but in this post-RSS age of MEdia syndication, we’re willing to tune out the offensive in favor of a more palatable and digestive news source. One that lets us sleep in salacious pleasure with our integrity each night. Not that Fox News doesn’t permit the same for so many. In true supply/demand fashion, a super-sized, zombaic graveyard of conservative Americans live, eat, breath, love it and stand in line for another heaping plate of it. Ratings and advertising demand proves this and indeed, so too, do the Republican advance polling numbers.

But the indignation did not stop there. Is that how Canadians really feel?, blondie went on to question, in what I’ll take to be a rhetorical tone, if only for the sake of my precarious footing on this rapidly-sinking American soil. The last time I can remember Canada being blanketed on such a wholesale basis was last December’s snowstorm. Suffice to say, it was equally as cold.

I get that she’s demanding an apology – apology is practically written into the polite and unassuming fabric of Canada. (C stands for cold; A is our apology for that; N is for northern backwater; A is another apology for that, too – we are very sorry; D is for drunkards; and A is our third apology – we are very, very sorry we have better beer than you do, America).

And heck, I feel downright compelled as an Americanadian to bow down in shame. It’s the typical Canadian response. Geewhilickers, Fox News, on behalf of all Canadians (because I’m magnamious like that – I’m sorry but it’s true - such that I would dare want to speak for all my fellow Canucks)… we’re so very sorry to have offended your Dominionist sensibilities. I mean what does that Heather Mallick know anyways? She said it herself ~ she out-hicks Palin on the small town front.

But unlike most Canadian news stories that enjoy less than two seconds of fame on American networks, the blasphemous stench from this one endures. Greta Van Susteren went on record to denounce Mallick as a pig, a comment that arguably posits Greta in the same pile of trough slop, journalistically speaking. Still others have been equally vocal. “Those morons up north just can’t keep their ignorant mouths shut when it’s really none of their socialist business…the People’s Republic of Canada is no friend of the USA,” rants one fellow, whom I would have to guess, has close familial ties to Levi Johnston. He makes a valid point though. Who are we Canucks to diss Americans? The unwritten rule within dysfunctional families hints that only family members can pick apart the system or lack thereof. Outsiders should mind their own business.

Indeed. North is north and south is south, and never the twain shall meet, especially when it comes to maters of patriotism, healthcare universalism, and hockey supremacy. As much as we straddle a common border, share a continent, speak the same language, and have similar consumerist tendencies, we are two wholly other worlds apart. We are like cheek-kissing cousins who oft get confused about whether to kiss left or right, how to turn the other cheek, or even when to bare the bottom ones.

Left, right, left, right, left. All is not fair in love, war and politics.

It would be easy to label Canada’s own bi-partisan angst a Democrat versus Republican one, but in fact, the integral differences between Canada’s two main political factions – the Conservative party and the Liberal Party. To suggest that the Conservatives are to Republicans as the Liberals are to Democrats is to make a gross error in generalization. The spectrum spread between the two is ever so slight as to render them both virtually centrist, give or take a degree or two in spectrum-speak. The Green Party and NDPs are the more socialist parties yet they only ever manage to garner a small portion of the left wing vote….too small to count, really. And I won’t even speak of the Bloc Quebecois Party except to mumble Sacriste Tabernacle under my breath and something else about merde that doesn’t necessitate repeating.

And so, to borrow a clichéic paragraph from standard journalism pages a moment, our systems are very much apples to oranges. Yet similarities persist. We have our out with the old, in with the new voting patterns, too. And often, what we find is that it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other – there often is no greener grass on either side of the so-called great political divide, to push the clichés to shove, if I may. Canadians are typecast for being just as bi-partisan when, in actual fact, most Canadians are equally chimerical in their wolf/sheep political views as Americans. It would be nice to think that most of us stand for only conservative values or only liberal issues, but the fact remains, most of us, aren’t that easy to pigeonhole.

Case in point, do the Republicans actually think Palin speaks to the feminist vote? I was pro-Hillary from a feminist perspective but not when it came to certain political issues. Palin, however, is the antithesis of female empowerment in this nation.

Holy Son confessed to his grandparents while visiting Alberta this summer, that if McCain won the election, we were moving back to Canada. The jury was still out on that one this past summer actually, but with Palin as the Republican ticket sidekick now, a green card re-assessment would definitely be in order.

We can do little more, as betwixt and between citizens, than cross our fingers and trust that this time, Americans are sick and bloody tired of having their good name tarnished and sullied internationally. With war-fatigue at an all time high, the mortgage industry in ruin, national debt at a chart-topping level, and financial markets in near collapse, there has never been a more opportune time to take a chance on change and dare I suggest, begin to rebuild the empire at a grass-roots community level.

I know it’s audacious, but one can still hope.

The Great Divide

Despite the miles between the Puget Sound and Knoxville, Tennessee, yesterday's church shooting hits close to home.

For they, the murdered two, the wounded seven and the remaining traumatized congregants at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, TN, are my brave brethren in matters of faith, tolerance and values.

And yet, so too, is Jim Adkisson the shooter, my kin. I pray for him, as well, in this, his darkest hour. If I am to be perfectly honest in these quiet moments of the aftermath, I must then confess my own sins: the hate and fear that eats at him against liberals like us UUs also oft lives in me in no small degree when I am faced with tunnel vision, conservative religiosity; and manifests itself in bewilderment and anger when I see headlines like this.

As much as love is the doctrine of our church, the quest for truth our sacrament, and service our prayer, I don't always feel peace and harmony when we dwell together. I look around and marvel at our diversity - I love to see the gays and lesbians with their arms draped around one another - how many church homes afford a safe environ within which they might do so? And I love to see evidence of mult-faith leanings in the room - such as hijabs and kippahs and bright red forehead tikka bindis - as well as the plurality of ethnicities present in the sanctuary.

But I also notice those forever absent ~ the ultra-conservative fundamentalists of every ilk within our communities who are considerably less tolerant and not nearly as socially just. I won't just pick on Christians here - for there are countless millions in this nation and on this planet who wouldn't be caught dead in a UU Church, except perhaps on a suicide mission, as Mr. Adkisson set out to undertake yesterday. That's alarming to me.

And yet who am I to cast stones? I could no more in good conscience sit and worship at Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas or amongst the FLDS and any others who yearn for Zion than my father-in-law, an endtime Christian, might pretend to feel harmonious and at peace hanging out in fellowship at my UU church on any given Sunday. It would be a huge form of torture for him and when I set my worldview aside in order to appreciate his, I get that. This is the great and grievous divide of religion, and I feel it acutely, if only because I often think at times such as this, that church as a construct propagates divisive politics and tribalism ~ and I say this knowing full well that our non-doctrinal, non-dogmatic church is not like the others.

But nevertheless, we appear to "stand for" liberalism and tolerance, and even shades of "affluence," if Mr. Adkisson's resentment of liberals taking jobs away from him is any indication. And this scares me ~ which is evil in and of itself because fear breeds hate and hate breeds division and division breeds othering.

I have absolutely no soteriological yearnings except insofar as I hope to have one last taste of buttered popcorn whilst sitting down for that last private flashback screening of This Was Your Life, Holy. And OK, I'll admit, I wouldn't so much mind if there was a free-fall bungee drop at the end of brightly-lit tunnel, where I could then practice a somersault or five dozen before leaping to either nirvanic extinction, or that next subway stop in the journey. But apart from those minor indulgences, I pray only that we earthlings might find a way to apply salvific cravings and heaven and hell motifs to the ones of our own making right here on earth.

I'm nothing if not an idealist. I really do think the Real Thing is building the world a home, and furnishing it with love, and growing apple trees and honey trees and snow-white turtle doves. And let's not forget the part about teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony.

The trick to 'New Eden' hunting is not in searching out greener grass but rather, in finding the common ground - the space between the dichotomies and polarities that divide us all. It's not in Birmingham, Alabama - where gun fire still rhymes acutely with children's choir. It ain't in Topeka, where nothing, even a funeral, is sacred anymore. It's nowhere near Eldorado, Texas and speaking of Zion, it sure ain't in Jerusalem, (if pilfering Obama's Wailing Wall note for profit is any indication). And sadly, it isn't in Knoxville, Tennessee either.

But one fine day it might (nay it shall) be in all those places at once, wherein we dwell together in peace and unity. Peace starts from within as the little light, the beacon, we shine for others in namaskar omniscience, so that they might find their way to safe harbour from that lost, lonely and dark place. It is the light we illumine in honour of treating all people kindly, because they are our brothers and sisters, of taking good care of the earth, in all it's heaven and hell projections - and in trying to live lives filled with goodness and love, because that is how we will become the best men and women we can be.

Yesterday, today and forever more, Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger were and continue to be those candles, those beacons. May their Love and Light never die.

My Artist's Prayer

I'm still working through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. I actually went back and retraced my steps somewhat, given that a new member joined and was eager to start from the beginning. I was happy to accommodate, if only because I had lost my artistic way somewhere at Chaptuer 6 - abundance. Hmmm...interesting.

So now my local group has dwindled to just a couple of us ~ I attribute the attrition to the fact that it's free, that self-commitment is tough psychological work and that the structure lends itself to working from beginning to end. There are a few newbie members who lurk in the background, happy to associate themselves with the group but leary to come out and give it a try.

This week's chapter is the 7th in the 12 step series - Recovering a Sense of Connection. I have been pondering lately the connection between being left handed and tapping into right brain sensibilities, as it relates to connecting to spirit and higher creativity. And lo and behold, what should I stumble across but a recent comment on my neurotheology post a few months back, in which a keen viral marketer (perhaps the good doctor herself), exhuberantly spouted the wisdom and message of Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight memoir. You can hear her speak here on Ted.com.

Anyways, a couple of chapters back, we were encouraged to write our own Artist's Prayer. I wrote mine a month and half back - just before I fell off the artist's cart.

Here is mine in all its Wordle glory, glory, hallelujah.

Soldier Boy

We had the infamous torturing of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and now it seems a certain American soldier has stooped to a new all-time low by using the Quran as target practice.

Let's face it, this war has done more to tarnish the name of Americans worldwide than anything else in quite some time. And the simple crux of the matter is this: it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. America is as America does in the world. Did Michelle Obama really say and mean that contentious pride comment in relation to how she feels about her homeland? Of course she did. Ask the average American and they'll guiltily admit the same - they're ashamed even as they cry for their beloved country. And more to the point, they're ashamed that they're less than proud to sport an American flag with the same kind of abandon that they used to on the Fourth of July, because patriotism is carefully seam-stitched into every star and stripe on the flag of this brave and free land.

And while one soldier's actions hardly define the mosaic of thought and ideology in this nation, they do speak volumes about what kind of dangerous frontier games are really being played out there in the killing fields. It is random and calculated acts of stupidity like this that ensure wars get fought again in the next generation, in the interests of redeeming the injustices done to one's forefathers.

In the year following our move to the U.S., I used to blog indignantly and incessantly about politics and religion and what I called the metonymical madness of it all, wherein the part - in this case, the soldier - really does stand for the whole on foreign lands.

Little wonder then that William F. Shulz, a former UU Minister, head of the UUA and past Executive Director of Amnesty International, argues as much in his various books and lectures, most notably when he speaks of defending human rights as a matter of mandatory public relations and crisis management for America.

It is a bitter pill to swallow - this business of admitting that the euphoric balloon has popped which has the hungry, homeless baby now crying in her broken-wheeled stroller. History will not be so kind to America circa new millennium - this much we know to be true.

In the absence of a spoonful of sugar, bitter pills are best administered crushed and crumbled. And perhaps that's as apropos a metaphor as any for the medicinal measures necessary to contend with the fall and some semblance of resurrection of the empire in the decades to come. There is something quite humbling and hopeful about admitting disease and agreeing to rehabilitation treatment and therapy.

That is not to say I hold much hope that U.S. foreign policies will change from a mindset of war and to one of peace and love. I am nothing if not a Pollyanna, it's true; but I do not believe that even Barack Obama can lead us there in the immediate future. Having said that, I do believe hope is indeed audacious and that it is a much higher ground than the cesspool of resignation and the oxymoronic place of uneasy patience the Republicans would have us stand upon.

But I have come to see that just as that lone soldier is representative of his nation, I the Canadian immigrant (deemed a former patriot by my own government and an alien by this New southern Eden, if only because it suits the Bush agenda of tribalism and "othering") have my own civic responsibility as a soon-to-be green card holder to embody the peacekeeping ethos of my people and my own convictions. In matters of God, duty and country, the dictum must still remain, "'This above all, to thine own self be true."

I have done my fair share of soapbox raging against the republic, it's true. I archived no less than 200 pages yesterday - most of them rants of contempt and civil disobedience.

I wore my fury like a badge of honour and took considerable pride in maintaining my stalwart pose - you know the one: arms crossed and wide, Larry Craigian stance in which one foot was in and one foot was outside the cubicle, so to speak.

All that much better to straddle the border, I would think, and not have to be wholly committed to either side. I would watch lips move countless times these past years in performative utterance of the pledge of allegiance and marvel at the truth, lies and videotape of American nationalism, all the while pondering what the average American thinks when they declare this pledge. Do they really mean it? And if so, I'd wonder to myself in those brief moments of time and space where sacred and secular meet in mimetic discord: does a tiny piece of them die a mini-death every time said allegiance to their one God-given nation results in actions antithetical to true liberty and justice?

And yet a funny (funny as in queer, strange, surreal funny) thing has happened these past three years. I have gone from feeling like Jane Goodall - all human and wholly-other as I studied and documented the behaviours and habits of the apes; to feeling a kind of hybridity born of ex-pat assimilation and outsider perspectives. My rant can no longer be the apologetic I Am Canadian rant of Molson Canadian beer fame.

My latest rant is more cross-cultural and North American treaty in flavour - it is the rant of Americanadians who see their respective nations with a kind of displaced and double vision, such that one view informs and strengthens their place as a global citizen and compatriot, rather than tribal member and patriot. It means I am apt to get teary-eyed when singing Oh Canada or The Star Spangled Banner, and that I am equally guilty of suspicion when I hear the war-mongering rhetoric of either nation - be it on CBC or C-Span.

But to be honest, my rant has been fairly non-existent lately. I gave up on following the political race - it's just too long and tedious a marathon and watching the rabbits run countless expensive laps is quite frankly, exhausting, dizzying and disheartening. Especially given that, in Canada, we're accustomed to holding a one-day, not a two-year, federal election.

So I stepped down from the soapbox quite some time ago and retreated to the space of apathy between the dichotomies. I don't wholeheartedly endorse that space either - it's a bit like standing at the centre of the teeter totter. Yet it has done much for quieting my rage and bringing about a certain inner peace of mind. If the only change and world peace I can properly effect now is my own, then I will claim that as success.

Until I see headlines like today's Quran controversy that elicit my knee-jerk rage, once again. Perhaps if we just stopped calling this human thing a race, then the good leaders of the world might see fit to stop competing as though there was actually a finish line with a gold medal to show off.

What's been done in the name of Jesus?
What's been done in the name of Buddha?
What's been done in the name of Islam?
What's been done in the name of man?
What's been done in the name of liberation?
And in the name of civilization?
And in the name of race?
And in the name of peace?

Everybody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else

Can you tell me how much bleeding
It takes to fill a word with meaning?
And how much, how much death
It takes to give a slogan breath?
And how much, how much, how much flame
Gives light to a name
For the hollow darkness
In which nations dress?

Everybody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else

Everybody's seen the things they've seen
We all have to live with what we've been
When they say charity begins at home
They're not just talking about a toilet and a telephone
Got to search the silence of the soul's wild places
For a voice that can cross the spaces
These definitions that we love create --
These names for heaven, hero, tribe and state

Everybody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else

"Justice" - Bruce Cockburn

Born a Tribe, DiaTribe

"We light this chalice to remind ourselves..to take good care of the earth, because it is our home."

UU Chalice Lighting Response

As I look out upon the blanket of snow that is covering these parts of Seattle and the Puget Sound region, it's hard not to think about earth and climate and ecotheology, especially in the penultimate couple of days leading up to Earth Day 2008.

I love how the words above find themselves sandwiched in the space between loving kindness for our fellow brethren on this planet, and living lives of goodness and love. Earth is the sacred ground upon which this covenant finds communitas, just as the wind becomes a Holy Spirit that whispers the Truth and Beauty of these words.

I think there was a huge part of me that resisted the notion of Church for years because no religious institutional construct could ever come close to my ideal of what Church should look like.

The closest I've come to discovering such a sacred place was in the environs of a couple of outdoor chapels in the Kananaskis foothills of the Canadian Rockies. And while I still consider nature to be the greatest of all the houses of worship on this planet ~ from the beaches, the mountains, the meadows, the forest, the rivers, the canyons, the deserts, and the tundra, to the Great Lake and ocean waters; I have since reconciled my notions of holiness relative to place.

I now see nature in more panentheistic terms - that is to say that I recognize that the no-longer sentient and seemingly profane wood in the pews can be a glorious creation of the divine tree from which it came, and that the tranquil, wooded view from our sanctuary is a blessed sight to behold.

Today in church, we sang This Land is Your Land. Long time no sing that classic folk song. We sang a more globally-correct version that mapped a vision "from Patagonia to the Azores Islands," rather than the Americanized one that saw only "from California to New York Island," or even the Canuck version I found myself automatically singing today as befit my own tribal upbringing, which had me imagining the limits of the land "from Bonavista to Vancouver Island."

And it got me wondering: Why are people so scared of having a global vision? What is it about one-world sensibilities that scares so many? And for that matter, why must we be so tribal and totemic and contentious and greedy and wasteful and toxic and so fearful of humane response? We kill our earth softly every day and in doing so, we annihilate pieces of our collective soul like so many piercing pinholes in the fabric of existence.

I don't pray much but when I do, it's inevitably for a quantum shift in Worldview. Not to dissipate plurality but rather to really and truly integrate it in both thought and deed ~ this whole, great big, messy co-existent, web of life. Think about all those sexy in words for a minute...Innovate, Integrate, Involve, Intrigue, Ineffable, Indigo, Infinite, Integral.

We're all in this together. It is your land, my land, and ultimately, no one's land because no single one of us can hold claim and title except through our good deeds. To take good care of the earth, because it is our home.

I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
Each blade of grass,
Each honey tree,
Each bit of mud,
And stick and stone
Is blood and muscle,
Skin and bone.
And just as I
Need every bit
Of me to make
My body fit,
So Earth needs
Grass and stone and tree
And things that grow here
Naturally.
That's why we
Celebrate this day.
That's why across
The world we say:
As long as life,
As dear, as free,
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.

Jane Yolen

Desperate Theology

One of my seven deadly TV sins is Desperate Housewives. As I always say, takes one to know one.

A new episode aired this past Sunday and the theme was religion. It was only a matter of time before God came to Wisteria Lane (shoddy ratings owing to viewer attrition, stale satire, a few months long writer's strike, and show hiatus notwithstanding).

God entered stage north when the tornado struck - in all its mysteria, hysteria and Wisteria wonder. That was where we left off a few months ago.

God was asked to stick around awhile or so it might seem. Sunday's episode opens with Lynette deciding - post-cancer and tornado scares - that she wants to start going to church. So she approachs Bree, the lesser of all irreligious evils called friends, and Bree offers to take Lynette, her reluctant couch-slothing, football-loving hubby, and their four amiable children to her Presbyterian Church. All all was well and swell until Lynette dared raise her hand during the sermon to ask the Pastor some pointed questions concerning that oh-so awkward topic of good, God and evil in the Garden of Eden.

Bree was mortified and later suggested that Lynette might be better off with the Unitarians because she heard that with them, "anything goes."

Someone at the Unitarian Universalist Association must have been loving the timing of that desperate if disparaging dialogue, coinciding as it did with the latest UUA ad campaign, which includes full-page ad spreads in Time magazine and the like. Perhaps that line was even bought and paid for in pop culture fashion. If it was, kudos to the UUA for doing some saavy church planting in TVland. Who rightly knows.

Who knows indeed. In fact, who knows might well be the two words I would have chosen, rather than "anything goes," to describe us them thar Unitarians. At the very least, it would have been "seek freely."

On the topic of UUism though, I've found myself not quite evangelizing or spreading the good news of UUs these past couple of weeks, so much as setting the record straight. One young Mom I know wants to find a new church home for her pre-teen daughter ~ one far removed from the church of her childhood. She may indeed find what she's looking for in our humble abode. She's planning to attend an upcoming Coming of Age ceremony to hear how our daring young 13-year olds articulate their own personal theologies. In two words? Damn inspiring.

A few other members that I've not so coincidentally met through my other community spheres lately have validated how important the fourth principle of UUism is to them ("a free and responsible search for truth and meaning") with respect to the religious direction they want for their children.

Another friend of mine I spoke with this week admits that God is Who and what's keeping her from going to Church. The latest UU print ad in Time magazine this month (with the tag line, "Is God keeping you from going to church?") succinctly speaks to her truth.

And as for buddy, my newfound investment advisor who attends a "non-denominational" Christian church here in town...I dunno, I get the impression he was a tad worried about my weird hybrid breed and brand of religion, on account of the dangers of relativism and humanism and the Immanent rather than Transcendent mask we UUs tend to place on God's face. I smile, raise my hands and assure him I'm in no more danger than him on my bike ride through life, even if I do appear to be pedaling a little crazily and yelling, "look ma, no dogma!" at the top of my lungs.

I like that I attend a church where I can freely raise my hand, ask a question of Peter the Pontificator at the Pulpit during service, and know that he'll have no more THE definitive answer than I do. If anything, he knows exactly how to frame the Definitive, Divinitive questions. And to this I give a reverential bow and murmur Amen, brother.

Because what I've noticed is that when God isn't busy hanging out at the busy corner of Sacred and Profane streets, panhandling for us to notice His presence, (or on Wisteria Lane for that matter), he's meditating and chillin' in the Gaps. As a fellow UU friend insists, this is the precious if precarious place upon which we all do well to stand. He calls it "the space within the dichotomies." Now if that's not cosmic, kismet and inane, I don't know what is.

And what do ya know? I've found a couple more two-word phrases to add to my UU description peace pipe and smoke ~ "don't know" and "what is."

In deed and blessed be. :)

1 Artist Way NW

I've started a local 12-chapter "recovery" tribe centered around following the principles and exercises outlined in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way ~ which, at their core, are really spiritual truths, of sorts. The book is 15 years old but the work is timeless, and is primarily focused around treating creativity as a sacred expression.

Keats, Gandhi et al nailed it when they declared Beauty to be Truth and Truth, Beauty. I believe all art great and small to be an expression of the Divine so this book speaks to me.

At its most basic level, the homework entails:

a) Morning Pages (writing 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness journalling first thing each morning;
b) The Artist's Date - making an artist's date with Self once a week to let my inner Artiste out to play
c) Weekly Walks - walking each week, ideally 3 times, to connect and commune with nature.

So we the people begin meeting tonight. I'm mucho excited about finally 're-claiming' my inner-artiste. I've never really allowed myself permission to delve down this road - be it writing, painting, collaging, whatevering. I allowed the spark to be snuffed out by others in grade school and then made up all sorts of excuses why I shouldn't take Art in junior high and high school.

But what I've noticed is that no matter how much I deny it, my inner Creator wants to ooze out anyways. Like when I help the kids with their creative projects for school. Or Halloween costumes. Or whatever.

So tonight marks the beginning of this reclamation process. To be continued...