what shall we do?

While checking what I can watch during commercial breaks during Monday Night Football, I came upon one of my favorite movies, The Year of Living Dangerously (1982).  It's truly a great movie, set in 1965 Indonesia, with Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver, and with a great performance as Billy Kwan, the Oscar-award winning actress, Linda Hunt.

It's especially meaningful as we approach Lectionary Year C during Advent, when we hear the words of the people to John the Baptist, "What should we do?"  Billy Kwan, via Hunt, asks those words to himself/herself.  Billy agonizes over his position of relative affluence in a nation ruled by a military dictatorship.  His tragedy is felt at several different levels.  If you don't know what I mean, do yourself a favor and watch the movie!

a night for a sonic Sheltie

I would guess that, for his entire life, Halloween has been our dog Duncan's least favorite night.  I don't think it has anything to do with ghosts and goblins.  Rather, it's been the frequent ringing of the doorbell, as trick-or-treaters pay us a visit.  With each ring of the bell, a fusillade of barks has emanated from our Shetland Sheepdog.

I suspect tonight will be different.  Living as we do now, with only one neighboring house in sight, I'm not expecting anything like the deluge, relatively speaking, that we had last Halloween.  (There were at least 150 kids who came by.)

I'll miss it, but I suppose Duncan won't.

“Every time I plant a seed / He said kill it before it grow”

Regardless of how one feels about ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), it is a bit sobering to see how the Congress is pressing its agenda against the group. De-funding the group has become a high priority. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) has had to remind his colleagues something they apparently forgot from their US Constitution classes back in school. Because separation of powers is integrated into our nation’s highest law, legislatures cannot pose as the judiciary. Bills of attainder are prohibited by our Constitution. For those rusty on constitutional law, a bill of attainder declares someone guilty without benefit of a trial. They are declared “tainted.”

If anti-ACORN legislation is to avoid being so narrowly focused on one group so that it is unconstitutional, the net must be cast much wider. As Glenn Greenwald reports, the effort supported by vast numbers of Democrats and Republicans alike “to de-fund ACORN is written so broadly that it literally compels the de-funding, not only of that group, but also the de-funding of, and denial of all government contracts to, any corporation that ‘has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.’”

If that’s the standard, then ACORN is peanuts compared with the real heavy hitters, including some major Defense Department contractors. (Is comparing an acorn to peanuts a pun?) Anyway, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have a long history of defrauding the US government. Blackwater, the “private security firm” (a.k.a. mercenaries) is known to have committed murders in Iraq. DynCorp employees were involved in trafficking child prostitutes. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Why haven’t we heard the kind of outrage directed at ACORN applied to these other, vastly wealthier, vastly guiltier organizations? And, need I say, even still vastly more funded by the US government?

gratitude for a backache?

I don’t feel very well today, but I thank God. I’ve been fighting off a sinus cold, but I thank God. I somehow managed to hurt my back, so that movement in most directions is a real pain, but I thank God. I thank God because I have a luxury that some people don’t have: “sick days.” Some people, even if their backs are killing him, still have to get out of bed (sometimes early in the morning) and labor at back-breaking work.

My aching back has reminded me of God’s blessing.

new possibilities for life

“We believe that God’s lifegiving Word and Spirit has conquered the powers of sin and death, and therefore also of irreconciliation and hatred, bitterness and enmity, that God’s lifegiving Word and Spirit will enable the church to live in a new obedience which can open new possibilities of life for society and the world.”

That’s a quote from Article 3 of the Belhar Confession. We used it in our worship service today at a meeting of the Presbytery of Geneva. We’ve been using it in a year-long process to explore the possibility of including it in the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Book of Confessions. As can be surmised from the following statement of faith, the immediate situation in this South African confession was apartheid:

We believe “that any teaching which attempts to legitimate such forced separation by appeal to the gospel, and is not prepared to venture on the road of obedience and reconciliation, but rather, out of prejudice, fear, selfishness and unbelief, denies in advance the reconciling power of the gospel, must be considered ideology and false doctrine.”

The life giving Word of God enables us “to live in a new obedience which can open new possibilities of life for society.” How badly we need that in our country, where it seems that we’ve painted ourselves into ideological corners. We’re so suspicious of each other.

But that isn’t the way of Jesus Christ. The way of Christ leads us “to venture on the road of obedience and reconciliation.” There are plenty of voices in our society—fearful, paranoid voices who seek to fill us with fear and paranoia—but that is not the way of Christ. These voices are on both the left and the right. These voices deny “in advance the reconciling power of the gospel.” They should be seen for what they are: “ideology and false doctrine.”

can we say "never again"?

With all the sound and fury of the health care debate grabbing our attention, there’s an issue still lingering in the background. How seriously are we going to investigate torture, which is illegal in both US and international law? Gay Gardner, an Amnesty International member, expresses some things in her letter to President Obama that I often have felt. This is part of Amnesty’s “Ten against Torture” action:

“As a human rights activist and volunteer member of Amnesty International for more than 25 years, I have worked against torture, and to end impunity for torture, in many countries. I never expected that there would come a time when the United States would be the principal focus of my human rights work. It saddens me to hear from current and former officials of my own government many of the same arguments justifying torture and advocating impunity for its practitioners that were made in so many other societies that have grappled with torture and its aftermath…

“We can and must demonstrate to ourselves and to the world that we are strong enough to look at the ugliness in our past and determine how to rectify it. This task is a vital part of strengthening our powers of moral suasion with other countries, which will be needed to help solve a host of global challenges. We must show the world that we understand how serious torture is and that we are committed to preventing it in the future. Hiding from our past will project weakness and fear, not confidence and strength.”

For me, this isn’t just political; it’s also an expression of spirituality. Those of us who would worship Jesus Christ must also admit that he is one who was tortured. He was condemned by the state, and considering the crowd he was attracting to himself, it’s not beyond the realm of possibly to see how he could be considered guilty.

As Gardner says, she—and I—hear the exact same arguments and excuses coming from our current leaders that we’ve heard coming from dictatorships all over the world. In his death on a cross, Jesus was executed as the lowest of the low—the worst of criminals. In those tortured today, Jesus is tortured yet again.

from the sublime to the...

Since I like to watch the show Real Time with Bill Maher, I figured it was about time I got around to seeing Maher’s movie, Religulous (2008). (A fusion of “religion” and “ridiculous.”) First of all, the movie is very funny. And Maher is very up front about where he’s coming from. He even has some scenes with his mother and sister. Having seen his critique of religion before, I pretty much figured where he would be going with it. Maher goes after almost all expressions of faith, but he focuses mainly on Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism.

I’ve noticed that Maher tends to commit what philosophers call the “straw man” fallacy. He presents a cartoon version of the faith—which, admittedly, many people have never outgrown. For example, Maher says that Christians believe there was a “talking snake” in Genesis and that Jonah was a guy who lived in a big fish. Articulate people like Cornel West, when he’s appeared on his TV show, don’t let him get away with that!

But did I say that the movie is funny?

I love being Rushified

“Living in the limelight / The universal dream / For those who wish to seem.

Those who wish to be / Must put aside the alienation / Get on with the fascination / The real relation / The underlying theme.”

I just watched I Love You, Man (2009) on DVD. I’ll admit that it was one of those movies that I didn’t feel worthy of a trip to the theater. Still, a movie that comes up with the word “Rushified” (something I experienced the first time I heard “The Spirit of Radio” from Permanent Waves), can’t be too bad.

The movie plays off the stereotype of men having fewer friends than women. In the character played by Paul Rudd, he has none. Though it is an exaggeration, it’s not too far from the truth. But as we see at the Snakes and Arrows concert, with the roles of Rudd and Jason Segel, Rashida Jones displays the unpardonable sin of not knowing who are the “Holy Trinity” of progressive rock! (By the way, for those who haven’t been Rushified, those lyrics at the beginning are from the awesome song “Limelight” from Moving Pictures.)

“Slapping the bass!”

"You lie!" to President Obama. Rep. Joe Wilson R-(SC)

Is it any surprise that the town "hell" meetings have now come to the Capitol itself? Never in my life have I heard anyone, from either party, behave so shamefully during a Presidential speech to Congress. Once upon a time (before Obama), Senators and Representatives would register their strong dissent by not applauding!

those bullies up the hill

I’ve been to HSBC Arena five or six times to see the Buffalo Sabres. One of the signs lining the rink is for Bully Hill Vineyards. (I haven’t been to the Sabres for two or three years; I suppose they still have the sign.) I didn’t know where Bully Hill was. I figured it was a vineyard in western New York!

Anyway, today was Banu’s and my 15th anniversary. We were up above Keuka Lake. September 3 is our anniversary, and several people had birthdays at the restaurant.

Bully Hill has quite a few buildings: winery, gift shop, art gallery, restaurant, and so on. In the gallery, Susan B. Anthony has a poster called “Constitutional Amendment, Mass Meeting.”

And that is Banu is sitting on a boulder next to one of the vineyards. (She bullied me into taking her to Bully Hill!)