Can you believe?

Trust, the first testimony

2012-01-26T23:52:00.000+04:00

Evening without
electricity

A flood of water from an empty
third-floor apartment cascaded on
an electrical panel in the entryway
and shut off our electricity for
twelve hours.

Four candles heated my dinner

Took about half an hour for the
food to start sizzling

Reading my first paper book in
months; the battery on my
e-book was low

When I became a Christian, part of the context was a personal crisis of trust, as I've said before. It's not surprising therefore that trust and betrayal are crucial issues for me, and I tend to interpret Quaker spirituality through that screen.

Many people come to Friends because they've been hurt or their faith betrayed in some authoritarian part of the church, and they expect that we will not hurt them this way. I hope we live up to this expectation--without, however, our living in fear that our own Christian testimony might be irritating and must therefore be hidden or weakened. I hope we can offer those who have been wounded by religious abuse the love and healing they (we!) have every right to expect, just as I received love and healing from Friends for the injuries inflicted by my own family's completely anti-Christian cult of obedience, with its toxic mixture of fascism, racism, and violence.

(An aside: I still would like to ask Christianity's critics, as justified as they often are, to "meet Jesus halfway.")

I'm thinking about the importance of trust and healing for two reasons. First, I just heard today that the writer Keith Miller died a few days ago. Keith Miller was one of Earlham School of Religion's very first graduates--in fact the first to be awarded the degree that is now known as Master of Ministry. He was drawn to ESR by Elton Trueblood, who argued for a faith that was both "rooted" and "incendiary," and a lot of Trueblood's and ESR's inspiration was evident in Miller's writings. Miller was passionate about healing and honesty in the church, and is credited with helping ignite the small-group movement, at least in North American Christianity. Little cells of honesty and vulnerability have played a huge role in strengthening the church's ability to offer healing from betrayal.

The second reason this stuff about trust came up this evening was Joseph Stalnaker's post on quakerquaker.org, "The SPICE of Life." I've seen several descriptions of Friends discipleship that use the SPICE acronym, and Joseph's is among the best and most succinct I've seen recently.

Opinions vary on whether the SPICE formula is either accurate or adequate. For example, see Martin Kelley's important analysis of the reinvention of Quaker testimonies under the influence of modern individualism. Also, it would be a mistake to confuse the testimonies with the fundamental reality on which they rest, our relationship with God. The testimonies are secondary; they're our collective attempts to understand what it means for us as individuals and communities to live in that relationship. So, Jim Healton is right to say that believing Jesus is the Christ is "the one testimony that binds them all together." And R.W. Tucker is right to say, "In very practical ways, the Cross is the most revolutionary fact in history." (My emphasis.)

Given all that, I still defend SPICE as a simple, memorable way to communicate something quite awesome: the new life in Christ. Whatever commentary we might want to add, each of the SPICE-y ingredients says something about our values, culture, and ideals; and the more we do to make those things accessible to the world and our own children, the better.

What do trust and healing have to do with SPICE? To me, trust is SPICE's missing ingredient, namely the crucial link between faith (or conversion) and discipleship. Without trust, SPICE remains theoretical. Without trust, how can we unbind ourselves from greed, violence, intrigue, autonomy, and elitism? In the absence of real trust, the church drifts back into functional atheism (Parker Palmer's term, I believe) and into the dishonesty that Keith Miller protested against with such passion. When we trust God and each other, miracles are possible. When that trust is gone, we have no high expectations, no vision, we just focus on paying the rent and doing whatever it takes to keep the show going. If we're worrying about what those others are holding behind their back, how can we truly and cheerfully answer that of God in them? If we don't let go and trust that the Holy Spirit will guide our worship, how can we avoid ecclesiastical theatrics, exhibitionism, or (equally deadly) simply hiding in the seamless perfection of dead silence?

Evil, ignorance, and the sheer complexity of life will still have their way, so we are going to continue to betray each other for the foreseeable future. In other words, the church will continue to be populated and led by wounded and wounding people. This is why I'm so concerned that churches care about ministries of healing, both for long-timers and for newcomers. It's why I like the idea of "bills of rights" in churches. Trust is such a precious ingredient in any mixture of SPICE that it deserves unstinting attention in the way we design and lead our church. Any time we see trust confirmed and honored, it reflects that first, essential movement of trust in the life of any believer: the moment we realized that God really does love us, and that with this love we can build a worthy life.

Friday PS: I wondered whether my words about worship without trust could be interpreted as a slam against liturgy. Although I have my controversies with liturgy, this time I was referring to Friends, not to liturgical churches. Liturgy, reverently conducted, can happen with or without trust, and sometimes can even be a bridge of tradition, stability, and sacred message, when trust is entirely absent for a season.

Martha of Ireland is back! "How to earn your salvation in 14 E-Z steps," part one.

You can prepare for the World Conference of Friends ... whether or not you're attending. Information and registration for the Salt and Light online study course (in English, French, Spanish, and Russian) are here.

The varieties of religious heartbreak.... Christopher Priest's variant: "I was ordained to speak the truth and invite my brothers and sisters to find Jesus instead of Pastor, to discover Truth instead of Tradition, Revelation instead of Religion, and to pull the plug on the fruitless deception of a mythologized Christianity."

Adam Gopnik, "Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America." "How did we get here? How is it that our civilization, which rejects hanging and flogging and disembowelling, came to believe that caging vast numbers of people for decades is an acceptably humane sanction?"

Trust But Verify Dept.: Mavrodi is back!! (This link eventually goes behind a paywall.)

"The story of Ann Lee, a female messiah" (book review).

Friend Ken Haase on community evolution: individuality, diversity, and compound intelligence. (And why corporations aren't necessarily good examples of this new species.)

Sunday alert: How Reedwood Friends are marking the end of Peace Month. Guest: Bill Jolliff.

Ubuntu's "Head-Up Display"--first reactions and a preview.

Scientist and guitarist Jean-Rene Ella, once again:

Conflict and a wider perspective

2012-01-19T23:45:00.000+04:00

Indonesia comes to

Elektrostal

The Historical Museum hosts
a visit by dancers and musicians
from Indonesia

A Russian ensemble welcomes
the visitors

Indonesian diplomat addresses
the gathering

City official presents visitors with
a statuette of city founder Nikolai
Vtorov

The Fingers--excellent Indonesian
jazz band

The Institute in its

winter outfit

I was once part of a Crane MetaMarketing creative team helping a public education project on behalf of civil justice. As we and our partners strove to frame an engaging message, we encouraged them to zoom back from their focus on statewide challenges, out to the national "tort reform" scene, and beyond that, to the founding values of the American nation and its ideals of "fair play."

It seems to me that the impulse to zoom back, take a wider perspective, is always important when we try to understand conflict. If we go wider, maybe some of the words and categories we use too glibly can become unstuck from their captivity to specific interests. Tort reform is a great example: on whose behalf is the law being "re-formed"? Advocates of this reform say that frivolous lawsuits and astronomical judgments must be curbed, but rarely reveal their sponsors' interests in being insulated from the consequences of damaging behavior. So they'll select the most scandalous anecdotes that support their position. (I'm sure that their opponents, the trial lawyers, are going to emphasize the unfairness of marginalizing actual victims--the ones who actually suffer from "reform"--and say less about their own economic interests in suing early and often!) We formed messages to empower citizens to zoom back and look at the actual goals and values of civil justice rather than the claims and counterclaims of biased activists. We didn't want audiences to be limited to choosing which highly-paid actors would be their proxy heroes; we wanted each audience member to be able to picture himself or herself as the hero who could discern the "true north" of justice and knew how to access and protect the institutions of law to pursue that justice.

Reformers and activists get into conflict all the time, even when they're supposedly on the same side. The "Occupy Wall Street" movements are a great example. It's not surprising that activists clash; most wouldn't be involved if they didn't have strong opinions, a clear sense of urgency, and personalities to match. The one who values tactical effectiveness is inevitably going to clash with the one who emphasizes consensus and community-building. Here in Russia, the "Honest Elections" movement, which has a lot in common with "Occupy," sometimes pits organizers who want to be as provocative as possible against those who want as broad a civic base as possible.

In all of these conflicts, I yearn for a strong Christian presence for this reason: in the widest possible perspective--the perspective of eternity--tactics and categories are subject to a much more basic test: do they glorify God? Maybe a more functional way to put it would be: do they increase access to the Kingdom? For me, the most basic value in any Christian participation in social reform is its evangelistic value.

There was a time in recent evangelical history when to emphasize evangelism meant to avoid social concerns in favor of soul-winning. That false dichotomy is, I hope, long gone. Those who are gifted in direct evangelism can work closely and lovingly with social prophets, tax refusers, Occupiers, no matter how tongue-tied the latter might be on doctrine. Of course they'll sometimes get on each other's nerves, but in an eternal perspective, those irritations are minor.

Working together, believers demonstrate that the Good News is concretely good. Without pious happy-talk, we can demonstrate the "signs and wonders" of behavior based on love rather than greed or violence or elitism; and provide a community where together we deal with the tragedies and bondages that we know will continue to afflict us. Here's what the church did for me: it taught me that the response to my sister's murderer was not to wish for his execution, but to ask why he became a murderer, and to work against the death penalty and violence in all its false claims of redemption. Either Jesus claims victory over violence and death or he doesn't--I choose to believe that he totally does. But violence and death still happen, and so my church also grieved with me and gave my murdered sister Ellen the funeral she didn't get within my family for twenty whole years.

Maybe the ultimate conflict humans find themselves in is total war. I'm in one of those life phases when I find myself going over and over World War II--the war that killed over 50,000,000 people and brought my parents together, making me possible. Two summers ago I reread Churchill's history; last summer I read the new history by Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War; and now I'm listening to the recordings of the CBS Radio broadcast day of June 6, 1944, and (while Judy's in the USA) I'm watching the HBO series Band of Brothers. It seems as if in that war, practically our whole species lost perspective. Those whose evil behavior seemed to have ignited the war were a microscopic minority compared to the ordinary soldiers and civilians who slashed and clawed away at each other, physically and verbally, for those long and bloody years--almost none of whom had any actual grievance against those on the other side. It was a planetary orgy of evil, but that evil was not the "Hun" or the "Jap" or any other objectified group; it had infiltrated and taken possession of millions, and our inadequate spiritual vision did not mobilize us for the Lamb's War that we really needed to wage.

This cartoon by Tom Tomorrow is right on target--as far as it goes. The missing dimension isn't supplied by Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. It's supplied by the Gospel and the community formed by the Gospel. Without this dimension, the pattern of the last panel repeats endlessly.

Another case study of a failure of perspective: "Why Last Saturday's Political Conclave of Evangelical Leaders was Dangerous."

Another argument for going wider and deeper: "The Wheel of 'I Want More'."

By far the most satisfying thing I read all week: "Give it up for George Kennan."

Artificial outrage, exhibit A: "Accusing WikiLeaks of murder."

Robert Gates, who served as secretary of defense under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, ... spoke sternly of Manning’s leaks, accusing him of “moral culpability.” He added, “And that's where I think the verdict is ‘guilty’ on WikiLeaks. They have put this out without any regard whatsoever for the consequences."

I believe that Manning and WikiLeaks did have regard for the consequences--namely the exposure of cynical power politics and a hoped-for end to impunity. It was those in power who seemingly had no regard for consequences--tens of thousands of lives lost, American credibility shredded, billions of unbudgeted dollars burned. It is the wider perspective that helps reveal who uses language honestly and who uses it tendentiously.

Artificial outrage, exhibit B: "Exploiting religion to call for the President's death is unacceptable." Just to show that progressive groups are not necessarily unfamiliar with exaggerations and selective quotations.... The header to the online petition to demand Kansas State House speaker Mike O'Neal's resignation mentions neither the larger context of his idiotic "prayer" (the widely-circulated, crudely jocular use of Psalm 109 to call for U.S. President Obama's demise) nor O'Neal's defense--that he was just "praying" for the end of Obama's presidency, not his death. There's really no defense against his circulating such garbage, but its juvenile banality is revealed by his e-mail's cover words:

At last--I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up--it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!

Come on, does anyone believe that O'Neal solemnly sits down, opens his Bible, bows his head, and literally prays for Obama's death? And, even more incongruously, that he would then be humbled by a petition from an Internet-based campaign organized by people who are probably far more liberal than Obama? O'Neal does apparently need a crash course in biblical literacy, but the Kansas State House is a better organization to determine whether they're fed up with their Speaker than petition-signers goaded by overheated rhetoric.

"Skin Deep": In his intro, Buddy Guy gives his mother credit for the inspiration of this song, which I'm using in some of my classes. At this concert, which I described here, I was just a few meters to the left of this videographer. The song gives me goosebumps.

I've been around a while
I know wrong from right
I learned a long time ago
Things ain't always black and white
Just like you can't judge a book by the cover
We all gotta be careful
How we treat one another

Skin Deep
Skin Deep
Underneath we're all the same
Skin Deep
Skin Deep
Underneath we're all the same
We all, all are the same

A man in Louisiana,
He never called me by my name
He said "boy do this and boy do that"
But I never once complained
I knew he had a good heart
But he just didn't understand
That I needed to be treated
Just like any other man

Skin Deep
Skin Deep
Underneath we're all the same
Skin Deep
Skin Deep
Underneath we're all the same
We all are the same

I sat my little child down
when he was old enough to know
I said out there in this big wide world
You're gonna meet all kinds of folks
I said son it all comes down to just one simple rule
That you treat everybody just the way
You want them to treat you
Yeah

Skin Deep
Skin Deep
Underneath we're all the same
Skin Deep
Skin Deep
Underneath we're all the same
We all are the same
Skin Deep
Underneath we're all the same
Skin Deep
Skin Deep
Underneath we're all the same
We all are the same
Yeah

Conversations

2012-01-12T23:42:00.000+04:00

Winter's progress,

on mobile phone,
part two:
Our neighborhood

We were having a Christmas meal with some friends not long ago. The topic turned to faith and religion. One friend found it hard to understand why people need religion when, to her, it seemed that everything essential about our relationship with God can be found within.

I have a great deal of sympathy with this way of thinking, which (despite collectivist stereotypes of Russian people) I encounter here fairly often. Since my parents and many of my Northern European relatives grew up utterly rejecting the religion industry, this viewpoint helped form me, too, except that in my parents' case, they didn't believe that there was anything inside, either.

When I meet a person who has found a loving spiritual home in a structured and hierarchical setting, or who seems on a positive path toward that setting, I would never seek to divert them. But for those who seem to know God exists but resist organized religion, I feel a warm connection with that resistance. That is my story. But I still gently challenge the false binary choice: either you choose the whole apparatus or you're condemned to be a church of one. If God has set your spirit free, how can you work out all the implications of that freedom on your own? And one implication is this: others might be hungry to hear about that freedom. This seemed to be the case at that recent dinner, where other people around the table were intently listening to our conversation.

At its worst (we noted), religion becomes yet another form of bondage, where words that claim sacred power are used to lash and control people on behalf of someone's own agenda. But at its stripped-down best, religion seeks to make a liberation that is centered in God communicable and portable and accessible, and gives us a way to meet each other at last in a place where we can take off our masks. We can cry and laugh and sing and be silent. Together we might honestly, unaffectedly ask Jesus what might be the next step in our newly-born desire to bless our neighbors in his name.

As we considered our friends' arguments that God is within and that churches are essentially crutches for weak people with inadequate internal guidance, we realized there was another missing dimension in our friends' experience: multi-generational churches. It's just assumed that you grow up secular; to choose a church is to fill a need (and meet others filling that need), and if you don't have that need, you don't make that choice. It follows that churches are filled with people who are otherwise inadequate. (Of course that's not entirely false!--but not in the way they mean.) They don't take into account what is normal in much of the world: churches whose cultures have been formed by generations of people born and growing up inside the church, whose ability to function autonomously was helped, not hindered by that church upbringing. Yes, I personally made a choice to leave atheism and join a church, but, thank God, the church was already there to receive me, and its core community was built over generations. For many people here, those sorts of generational ties, even within the Orthodox stream, were cut during the decades of official atheism. Of course I knew this history intellectually, but these conversations helped me to understand at a deeper level why the phenomenon of church community is so hard to explain.

I've learned that we cannot be too glib in describing the Quaker ideal of church as a community of people voluntarily gathering around Christ as the head, supporting each other in learning how to gather this way and working out its disciplines and ethical consequences. Can such a flimsy structure really bear the awesome weight of being God's people? And Russians (Orthodox and Protestants alike) sometimes feel that the atmosphere of a church should be solemn, for example. Prayers should represent the saints and councils, not just our own thoughts. Scripture should be studied with a priest or pastor present and guiding, not just in any old miscellaneous setting. The apparent "Jesus and me" superficiality of much Western Protestant culture is not our ally in our communication.

Another conversation, a few days later: We asked a friend whether she was planning to be at the next big political meeting "for honest elections," scheduled for February 4. (I always approach this topic carefully and with humility--as intensely curious as I am about how our Russian friends and acquaintances feel about these meetings, we are not here to push people either toward them or away from them.) She said that she had no faith in large meetings; they change nothing. "What good does it to to tell these men that they are thieves? Don't you think they already know? 'Oh, thank you for telling me that I'm a crook; I had no idea.'"

To me, there is no such thing as a trivial conversation. But I must say that the proportion of conversations that drift into very deep matters--whether it is God or the fate of the country--seems to have gone up dramatically over the past two months. There's a new intensity, a focus, a sharpness in the air. I hope I'm gaining in my ability to listen and pray accordingly.

Rachel Held Evans gives us a glimpse into the wave of evangelical conversations about marriage and sex, some stirred up by a recent book by a controversial pastor whose book I'm not planning to talk about since I'm not planning to read it. Evans also challenges me in a way that I don't plan to take up personally, although I totally agree with her: "... perhaps we egalitarians need to be a little more open about what our relationships actually look like." It's always amused/frustrated me that the evangelicals who criticize homosexuality so bitterly have nothing nice and inviting to say about heterosexuality. But that's a different conversation.

Further to the conversation about the charges of Western church superficiality ... "Clothing Matters: What we wear to church." "We deceive ourselves when we breezily claim that God does not care what we wear to church. God cares about our hearts, and what we wear is often an expression of our hearts. So what does our relaxed worship attire say about us?" My counter-argument concerns the church persona that people may be putting on along with their church attire, distancing themselves from both God and their own daily reality, and reinforcing the shame of the unchurched who believe they're not good enough to be "in church." But the discussion is well worth having.

This is Peace Month in Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends. You can see individual days' peace-themed readings on Facebook.

Joe Boyd's personal "Occupy" confession. It doesn't take as much wealth as you might think to be among the worldwide 1%.

"The cost of serving Portland--and Jesus--as an Oregon politician."

A couple of Russia-related links: "Crime and Non-Punishment" and "Navalny's Tenuous Coalition." The latter article, which is a thoughtful exploration of Alexei Navalny's ties to Russian nationalists (and which nationalists?), mentions Boris Akunin's correspondence with Navalny. A translation of those Navalny/Akunin interviews is being published by opendemocracy.net/russia.

"Ron Paul and the Liberal Interventionists": Shock therapy for those who feel a toxic overload from traditional political categories, but are still brave enough to explore some of their tangled roots. Also, see the January 9 comment, "Why can't the right produce their own thinkers? They keep raiding our side."

Openculture.com never fails to deliver wonderful treats. "An uplifting surprise for Dave Brubeck in Moscow (1997)."

Now really is the "Needed Time." A song you might remember from the film Sounder. These musicians refer to Lightnin' Hopkins, whose version Taj Mahal incorporated into the film's soundtrack--so I've included Hopkins' version in this week's blues offering.

New Year shorts

2012-01-05T23:31:00.000+04:00

Here's how procrastination works. I've been meaning to use these vacation days to (1) grade exams, and (2) write a paper on using songs in the classrooms for our conference on the dialogue of languages and cultures scheduled for our institute in March. So far I've used them to read Anne Lamott and Jo Nesbø, not to mention a horrifying book on the rise and fall of the gas chamber; watch movies and TV with Judy; go shopping; enjoy guests; help make "Olivia" salad and carrot cake; and sleep. Here it is Thursday; Saturday is Christmas (in Russia) and Monday I go back to work. Hmmm.

I have no comment on the Republican caucuses in Iowa, USA, two days ago. I do have a comment on the way the state of Iowa is often portrayed in the media, as a place where uneducated people walk around with their knuckles grazing the ground, with the exception of a few enlightened urbanites in four or five parts of the state. When I was on the Friends United Meeting staff, I visited Iowa a fair number of times--almost always in rural parts of the state. (Maybe metropolitan Oskaloosa doesn't qualify as rural.) I saw a lot of evidence that people in Iowa take education very seriously, seem unusually willing to receive new immigrants and refugees, and stay in touch with national and world events. Quakers, both pastoral and nonpastoral, are not numerous in the state--at last count there were about forty congregations--but they do have deep roots.

It was fun to see signs in Norwegian at the McDonalds restaurant in Decorah, Iowa. And I knew I was in Fairfield when I saw the golden domes of the Maharishi University of Management campus.

Another thing I've successfully put off: writing an article about a genre or theme in Christian writing that might be called ... well, I'm at a loss for a catchphrase. Donald Miller and Anne Lamott are two of the authors I have in mind. Maybe you can name some others. These authors lace their prose with evocative and imaginative Christian references, with far more conversion power, luminosity, grace, sass, and miraculous potential than I associate with liberal Christianity. At the same time, they stick their tongues out at straitjacket variations of evangelical culture. It seems to me that their writings throb with more joy and sorrow and desire than most other Christian nonfiction.

Some other writers I like who are not far off from Miller and Lamott are Robert Farrar Capon, Frederick Buechner, Lauren Winner, and Kathleen Norris. (I'm sure you can name many more; one source for ideas would be people who've participated in Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writing.) I just feel, fairly or unfairly, that these other writers are more invested, publicly, in their orthodoxy than Miller and Lamott, who basically leave it to us to decide whether we're gratified or scandalized by their lack of reassuring formulas.

Not that orthodoxy itself is boring. (Capon's Hunting the Divine Fox remains one of my all-time favorite invitations to Christian faith--hard to beat for sheer engaging delight.) But I remember my pre-conversion life over 37 years ago, when violence and betrayal had shattered all trust I'd ever had in self-proclaimed authorities, whether in family, government, or the religion industry. It's that shattered heart (still not forgotten) that writers like Anne Lamott and Donald Miller speak to. I don't think I'm alone.

A heartfelt goodbye and thank-you to Gordon Hirabayashi, a Friend in Canadian Yearly Meeting whose persistent witness to idealism was important to me in my early years as a Friend. (I explained this a bit here.) Gordon died three days ago in Edmonton, Alberta. (New York Times; National Public Radio.)

How to Save the USA from its own imperial messiah complex!!--learn to spot and absolutely distrust that rhetorical red flag four-letter word "must." As in this op-ed, "How to Save Iraq From Civil War."

Today's news brought word of more horrible acts of terrorism in Iraq; MSNBC's headline says "Iraq blasts kill at least 72, raise specter of civil war." Against this sort of background, the op-ed authors plead:

The United States must make clear that a power-sharing government is the only viable option for Iraq and that American support for Mr. Maliki is conditional on his fulfilling the Erbil agreement and dissolving the unconstitutional entities through which he now rules. Likewise, American assistance to Iraq’s army, police and intelligence services must be conditioned on those institutions being representative of the nation rather than one sect or party.

...

Unless America acts rapidly to help create a successful unity government, Iraq is doomed.

Once again, we're told that only our influence can prevent disaster. Never mind that a chain of U.S. interventions, at the cost of countless billions of U.S. tax dollars and thousands of precious lives, is interwoven with the preceding disasters. I recognize that the op-ed is not asking for military intervention, but rather political and financial pressures. But those "musts" continue to bother me; they're part of a drumbeat that we march to all too often: the USA must determine the balance of power in the Persian Gulf, the Korean peninsula, the Palestinian conflict, Central Asia.... Let me reword the plea: unless America acts rapidly to re-establish democratic control over the U.S. military, the intelligence services, the financial sector, and the national budget, our own republic is doomed.

Rachel Held Evans, "Loving the Bible for what it is, not what I want it to be."

Books & Culture considers four important questions about the King James Version of the Bible.

Patricia Barber (and commenters): "Primitive Christianity Revived--but not by us."

Esther Choi sparks a vital discussion about the Occupy movement and its failures--particularly the accountability vacuum around class arrogance. (Thanks to Judy Goldberger @ Facebook/Quakers Talk About Racism.)

In honor of Christmas (in two days here in Russia), here's a Christmas blues guitar jam from Denmark: "Silent Night." I'd like to think that Franz Xaver Gruber would approve of this version.

How to write about Russia

2011-12-29T23:25:00.000+04:00

Winter's progress,

on mobile phone

Mir Street, this morning, 9:30

City Hall, a week ago, 9:14 a.m.

View from Room 8, 9:34 a.m.

Institute front yard earlier this week

Watching Sakharov Prospect in
comfort, thanks to "Dozhd"

Is it ever possible to make useful generalizations about a place?

Two essayists got me thinking about this question today. The first essayist (brought to my attention by Eden Grace at the Friends United Meeting office in Kisumu, Kenya) is Binyavanga Wainaina. The essay: "How to Write about Africa." The essay's genesis and aftermath are described here: "How to Write about Africa II: The Revenge." As I read the cliches and images, and cringed at times, I remembered David Niyonzima telling Northwest Yearly Meeting that the continent of Africa is "the opposite of dark." (This post.)

Binyavanga Wainaina's jeremiad reminded me that it's hard--maybe impossible--to keep personal biases and motivations out of our writings about people and places. Among our primary motivations may be to enhance our own profiles as wise and sympathetic observers, free of prejudice, neither too naive nor too cynical, far superior to ordinary tourists or jaded reporters. Our extraordinary insights will bring grateful tears to the eyes of locals who had otherwise given up all hope that someone from outside could understand their trials.

The second essayist is David Remnick, whose book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire was the first book I read on the dissolution of the Soviet Union--an event whose twentieth anniversary has just passed here without celebration. The essay: "The Civil Archipelago: How Far Can Resistance to Vladimir Putin Go?"

I honestly believe that Remnick probably doesn't worry overmuch, and does not need to worry, about his personal profile as an observer. But I do think that all of Binyavanga Wainaina's resistance to cliche and stereotype in African reporting applies equally to Russia--and should be taken to heart by those of us who produce and consume this verbiage. I'll never forget my furious reaction to a sectional tag inside an otherwise important Atlantic Monthly article: "Zaire with permafrost."

Neither Russia's nor Zaire's importance is based primarily on how they fit into some ideological or imperial scheme of global relevance. They are simply places on this planet where people whom God loves try to find food, safety, love, and meaning. We can either forget this crucial truth in our pursuit of cleverness, or we can instead try to use our creativity to build relationships that express our common creatureliness.

Remnick's article is a thoughtful and non-sensational look at possible shifts in the nation's center of psychic gravity, as evidence mounts that old habits of resignation and deference to the "power vertical" may be changing. As every competent reporter does, he talks with specific people, both inside and outside the corridors of power, and presents them as, in some ways, representative of the trends he's covering. The constant dilemma for both writer and reader is, of course, how representative are those people, really? Do their moods and motivations actually reflect the country as a whole, or some segment to whom the reporters' (and readers') biases have drawn them?

The story of Russia's fragmented civic culture is rapidly changing--the crystallization image at the end of the article is apt. (When Remnick wrote his article, Vladislav Surkov still occupied his long-time post as deputy head of the presidential staff; now he's been allegedly demoted to a deputy prime-minister's post. But the insights that focused on him are still valid.) I appreciated Remnick's deftly drawn sketches of several actors in this changing scene--Evgeniya Chirikova, Liudmila Alekseyeva, "Sasha and Masha," and Olga Romanova. But here's my worry: do we like those people because they're truly representative of Russia, or because they represent our search for heroes who are like us? Are these courageous people Russia's future, or are we living our fantasy Russian future through these vicarious heroes--without our having to pay the heavy price that the next wrenching political transformation of Russia might cost? OK, here's a thought experiment: are insiders like Surkov and Aleksei Kudrin perhaps the real heroes? They have put themselves right in the center of the enormous grinding wheels that represent the nearly irreconcilable forces attempting to dominate Russia--nationalism, corruption, lust for power, demographic challenges, and the innate, patient decency of Russians (stereotype but true as well!), whose legendary tolerance of abuse does, however, have a potentially explosive limit. I'm not asserting this thesis myself!--my sympathies are with any "hero" who actually gives my own students real hope--but I want to keep us honest as we examine the choices our commentators make.

About four years ago, we took the electric train from Elektrostal's downtown station to Noginsk's downtown station, a journey of about 20 minutes. Elektrostal's station has no turnstiles, so it is possible to get on the train without a ticket. But Noginsk's station does have turnstiles, so you need a ticket to exit. OR you get off the train, jump down onto the tracks, and walk down the tracks about twenty meters, to where the station's perimeter ends, and clamber back into town. The vast majority of the passengers chose that path to free transportation. As one of our friends says, "The government's job is to build fences. Our job is to find the holes."

We see the same phenomenon every Sunday on our way from Moscow to Fryazevo--from one turnstile-equipped station to another. This is a much longer journey, so chances are good that, however they've boarded, passengers will encounter controllers. These are conductors whose job it is to check people's tickets. People who have boarded the train by finding the holes rather than using turnstiles still need to cope with these controllers. Here's how many do it: Everyone knows that the controllers are coming--people begin coming in from the next car in back, heading forward to evade the check. As our fellow passengers see this parade, they leave cigarette packages, newspapers, decks of cards, whatever, to reserve their seats, and join the procession. Sometimes they do this when the controllers have already entered the car. Last Sunday I saw a passenger get up when the controller had actually reached our seats. The passenger deliberately left a tissue on his seat, sidled past the controller, and walked forward out of the car. Badge-wearing guards took up posts at both ends of the car, but not before everyone who wanted to leave was able to do so. Apparently the tacit rule is: the very moment your rear end has gained any altitude above seat level, your ticket is not checked.

As soon as the train reaches the next station, these "jackrabbits," the passengers who have moved ahead of the controllers, exit as fast as they can and run back along the platform to reboard the train at a point behind the car reached by the controllers. This happens in full view of everyone still on the train, including the controllers. The train only stops for thirty seconds, so speed is of the essence. As the controllers move forward, people reclaim the seats they'd abandoned to evade the controllers. At the end of the journey, they must still find a way to get off railroad property without going through turnstiles. At Fryazevo, the microbus drivers will obligingly leave off and pick up passengers at a convenient point just past the station fence, even though it's not a formal bus stop.

I smile as I describe this familiar scene, but it does point to a contradiction that faces all who dream of a more engaged relationship between the average citizen and his or her government. In some ways, the present arrangement ("the government's job is to build fences--our job is to find the holes") reflects an ancient equilibrium. It's an equilibrium that might drive a Western idealist nuts (although I'd argue we have our equivalents!), and we might even argue that it reinforces a fatal self-enslavement that could keep civic reform movements in a permanently marginal status. But up to this point it seems to be working for the powerful and powerless alike.

It's not wrong for idealists, including outsiders, to imagine something different. But let's understand whose future is at stake and whether our fantasies are ultimately rooted in our own intellectual fascinations, in the calculations of empire, or in love.

Some sociological observations of the recent large meetings in Moscow: "Small deeds, no politics."

Mercury and Air Toxics Standards: "The Church is called to be authentically and totally pro-life."

Frederick Buechner is probably the first novelist I really paid attention to after I became a Christian. So it was interesting to see this recent item on the Internet Monk site. (Also see the comments.)

Has your church or meeting adopted a minute relating to the Occupy movement?

Don Miller, "What Happens When You Stop Running?" And what might happen if you don't??

Bankruptcy courts "trying out online chats." I'm not making this up.

Angela Strehli and Marcia Ball--more from this fun collaboration:

New testimony or new commitments

2011-12-22T01:47:00.002+04:00

Last Saturday, we left the Spar grocery store and crossed Yalagin Street and approached our microraion. We assumed that we would go to the left of the huge building #5 that fronts Yalagin Street and enter the quadrangle to reach our building. (Our quadrangle is in the lower right--around the bulls-eye of the children's playground--on the architects' model in the photo.)

credit: elproekt.su

This whole development, spreading over more and more of the old Yalagin Field, is called "Seven Winds," and as we approached the building, all seven of them hit us at once. We tried walking backwards against the wind, but gave up and walked along the front of the building instead, and entered the quadrangle from the building's other end.

We experience this wind-tunnel effect near our buildings often, though not usually this strongly. I have no idea whether it's caused by odd weather, the arrangement of the buildings, or the supposed instabilities of global warming. It may be none of the above, but it does remind me forcefully that we humans are not always in control.

I have no doubt that we're living in unstable times, politically and socially as well as climatically. Do we Friends have either the responsibility or the capacity to consider this global picture, and to think together about its implications for our discipleship? Friends World Committee for Consultation serves as communication hub for Friends trying to answer this question. FWCC's Global Change Consultation is collecting Quaker voices on the subject of global change and distilling spiritual imperatives from these voices by asking Friends to consider six queries:

How has global change affected our communities and ourselves?
What actions have we taken in response to global change as experienced in our area, to express our responsibilities towards all creation? In what ways have my own activities or those of my community contributed to positive or adverse local and global change?
How do changes around us affect our relationship with God? How does my relationship with God affect my responses to the changes around us? What role does faith have in my life and in the life of my community? In what ways do I and my Friends church or meeting community bear witness to our Testimonies in our daily lives?
What stories and experiences from past times of catastrophic happenings such as major droughts – perhaps from Scripture, perhaps the record of regional or local events – might inspire us to respond to the changes the world is facing today?
How can we bear witness to the abundance God offers us and testify to the world about ways in which justice, compassion, and peace may address significant disruption, stress, and tension?
How can we support one another in rekindling our love and respect for God's Creation in such a way that we are messengers of the transforming power of love and hope?

Many Friends have already responded in local and regional clusters to respond to these queries, and some of the responses are available, geographically arranged, at this "Cluster voices" page. I'm part of a small group that will strive to summarize our global Quaker responses to the sixth query, "How can we support one another in rekindling our love and respect for God's Creation in such a way that we are messengers of the transforming power of love and hope?"

I was fascinated by another page on this FWCC Global Consultation site: the long and impressive list of formal statements, dating back several decades, that express Friends concern for creation and sustainable living. I believe that probably all of these statements grew from prayerful processes and represent a weighty charge to us to deepen our commitment to environmental stewardship.

With this charge as a starting point, we could go in several overlapping directions, perhaps guided by our individual spiritual gifts and our congregations' corporate leadings:

One direction is to strengthen the alliance between science and discipleship. This is what I've seen Karen Street doing over many years, asking us to pay attention to the genuine alarms of consensus science, apply them to our individual and community behaviors, and distinguish those alarms from the shifting fashions of ideology. Stan Becker of Baltimore Yearly Meeting has carried on a somewhat similar ministry in connection with population growth. Among the very earliest voices challenging Friends to look at all the evidence--history, science, and our spiritual heritage--was Marshall Massey, who continues to urge us to greater faithfulness.

Another direction would be to model the sustainable Christian communities of the future, whether by teaching and demonstrating individually (but publicly) within our meetings and churches, or by creating whole new communities to do this together. I've met some Quaker families, both urban and rural, who are living out this vision--but I'd love to hear about many more. I really think these efforts are a part of spiritual warfare--taking territory from evil and declaring it God's; or to put it another way, reclaiming the Garden of Eden in our own homes and communities.

A third direction is frankly political. Some Friends are called to be very visible in pushing prophetically for sustainable policies and against short-sighted and destructive ones. In the USA, some Christians seem to have been tricked into promoting sheer ignorance by anti-global-warming demagogues; we need to work engagingly with our own brothers and sisters in Christ, as well as with legislatures and politicians.

Some Friends are decidedly not gifted at being political advocates to advance sustainable public policies. That's fine. We can pray for and pay for those who are.

A fourth direction is one I'm of two minds about: creating more documents and minutes. Northern-hemisphere Friends, particularly, are often intensely verbal, great at generating text. (Look who's talking!) Of course you can't encourage a more mature or more demanding discipleship without communicating about it. But one thing that I saw in that list of formal Quaker statements is that we've pretty well said enough. I hope that the Global Change Consultation that we've undertaking through FWCC is more of an exercise in accountability and mutual encouragement, and a consultation among cultures and hemispheres, than yet another text-generator. Rather than restating everything even more cleverly, let's see if we can learn from our hearts and our experiences. What can we learn from Friends in such places as the Altiplano or Samburu, where local Quakers have no choice but to respect the realities and limits imposed by nature? How can we in fact support one another?

Rather than formulating a whole new "testimony" and lengthening yet again the list of behaviors expected of genuine Quakers, let's return to the heart of the testimonies, the "Gospel order" of George Fox, who felt that the order of our lives together ought to reflect the cosmic order of the living Christ. Or as Norval Hadley put it, let the body reflect the beauty of the Head. If we can restore that macro-micro connection that sees "joyful" and "sustainable" as near-synonyms (not to mention "biblical" and "sustainable"), we'll be well on the way.

I frankly love end-of-year book lists, and here's my favorite.

Further to my post of some years back, "Can evangelicals reproduce?", read this: "Millennials to the Church: Wake Up or We're Outta Here."

"The Four Occupations of Planet Earth."

More than a PS to obituaries for Christopher Hitchens.

From the insufferable-Linux-enthusiast department: "The five fastest-booting Linux distributions."

"This planet of ours is indescribably beautiful when seen from above." A holiday greeting from aboard the International Space Station. Thanks to yesterday's launch from Kazakhstan (notice the Orthodox blessing), the ISS staff is about to be restored to full strength in time for Christmas.

No blues tonight. Christmas is coming....

Hall of mirrors

2011-12-15T03:32:00.002+04:00

Facebook meeting announce-
ment on Saturday morning

  Streaming video from event;
  actress Elena Panfilova
  addresses crowd

  meanwhile, back in our
  town: gingerbreak cookie
  workshop

  gingerbread house (prefab
  from IKEA but fun to
  assemble and decorate)

  so far--a timid winter (that's
  Institute graffiti on construc-
  tion fence)

Poet Fyodor Tiutchev's overworked verse, "Russia isn't for brains to grasp ... but for hearts to believe," has never rung so true as in these last few days and weeks. Sometimes I feel as if I'm passing through a marvelous hall of mirrors, never quite sure of what I'm seeing. Who would have thought that a capital city so determined to shut down a few thousand demonstrators on Monday and Tuesday, would have the "planet's most civilized meeting" (ecological activist Evgenia Chirikova) of 30-40,000 wildly diverse activists on Saturday?

We Americans often seem fond of telling the rest of the world's nations how to conduct their affairs. Maybe we'll get a bit more humble about our lectures on police violence after some recent Occupy episodes (such as this one). As for me, I don't want to confirm this know-it-all stereotype, but I'm also willing to admit that I just don't know enough to be a useful analyst. Since those who do claim to be useful are on all sides of the issues, my reluctance doesn't embarrass me.

For example: was there wholesale electoral fraud in the December 4 legislative elections? Estimates and guesses range from less than 1% of the total vote count to 20%! But I want to know whether the estimator has a vested interest in a high or low figure. I'm quite ready to believe that the ruling party applied a lot of systemic persuasion in the weeks and months before December 4 to line up votes. They probably used methods that are very familiar to anyone who has known Chicago a long time. They also seem to have pressured media outlets and advertising brokers to favor their ads and discourage others; and certainly they have refused to register some political parties who seemed rather normal to outside observers. But on election day itself, if there was truly massive fraud, why did the official results track so closely with some of the exit polls and pre-election opinion polls? The cynic will say that these polls were as crooked as the official vote counts--but that sounds less like a substantial charge than wishful thinking on the part of those who've already made up their mind.

I admire the American political system, but I'm far from claiming that it has worked out all of its bugs, and that it's a 100% exportable model. The U.S. Congress has only two mass political parties represented in it; Russia's equivalent has four. The U.S. cynic might say that the dominant party in Russia essentially controls most of the legislators of the other parties, but a cynical observer of the U.S. could point out how little diversity there is between mainstream Republicans and mainstream Democrats--and how almost all our politicians depend on corporate donors to fund their campaigns. Russia's government has domesticated its biggest oligarchs (sometimes ruthlessly); in the USA, the big corporations often seem to call the shots. In Russia, the Kremlin dominates the broadcast media; but can we honestly say that the large media outlets in the USA are expressions of grassroots democracy? In Russia, governors and mayors have been partly replaced by regional representatives of the Kremlin and by appointed city managers. In the USA, every census seems to be followed by a sad spectacle of redrawing district boundaries to the advantage of one party or the other--often by treating the minority citizens of those districts almost like cattle who can be predicted and prodded to behave a certain way, and must therefore be either concentrated or diluted to match the dominant party's theories.

Some of Russia's most influential politicians essentially echo the old line that Russians aren't capable of mature democracy; the institutions must develop gradually and in a specifically Russian style. In the meantime, things must be run by people with a proven record of responsibility--specifically, those who helped the country recover from the dislocations and privations of the '90s. (But what kind of "responsibility" is it that blames every dissident flare-up on foreign NGOs and American politicians?) The problem with "wait" is exactly the same now as it was when Martin Luther King explained "why we can't wait": too often it functionally means "never." For those who benefit from the present setup, why be in a hurry? But average citizens, driven almost beyond endurance by rudeness and corruption in their contacts with officialdom, can be excused for wondering how much longer they will wait for the present "responsible" government to lighten up on honest people and tighten up on crooks. I think the "we want honest elections" slogan of Saturday's meeting was just as much about being treated as human beings as it was about electoral reform specifically. In the meantime, emigration flows on.

But, again, on the other hand (as we proceed to another mirror in this long hall), are we Americans models of democratic maturity? Right now I watch with shame as America's former claim (or at least pretence) of evenhandedness between Palestinians and Israel has been shredded beyond recognition. Iran, immigrants, access to health care, nothing seems to deserve thoughtful treatment.

In short, neither country is run by Sunday school teachers. The mirrors we prefer to look in flatter ourselves and exaggerate the distortions in the other. The mirror I look into is sentimental about the Russian opposition because they look more like me, but is this a sound basis for choosing what to believe or ignore about Russia? For the foreseeable future, the wiggly mirror and the absolutely normal mirror will be right next to each other here, and sometimes I'll still have no idea which one I'm looking into. But last Saturday, with anarchists and liberals and communists and nationalists walking together with dignity, assembling with great civility for hours, and dispersing without incident, the "normal" mirror seems suddenly to have gotten a lot bigger.

Friday PS: Anatoly Karlin on "Truth and falsifications in Russia."

A Christmas season reminder: Just $7 covers the cost of a copy of Power of Goodness for peace education and community mental health work in Chechnya. Please help us fund the printing of the new edition, which I wrote about here, so that we can supply all of the schools where teachers and psychologists are ready to work.

Loving the Least of These: The National Association of Evangelicals releases its study paper on climate change and its effect on poor people. "Some studies report that climate will take as many as 300,000 lives this year alone."

Alzheimer's ("I wonder if I'll ever have that")--a love story.

Teargassing an "invented people" during a real funeral.

Little Ed!

Occupy shorts

2011-12-08T23:19:00.000+04:00

The election monitoring Web
site kartanarusheniy.ru
was kept offline by attacks
all of election day and beyond.

The streets of Moscow seem quiet at the moment, judging by Internet coverage. (On broadcast television here, they're almost always quiet.) A few days ago, things were quite different--the largest rally of government opponents brought thousands out on election evening. Monday and Tuesday evenings brought out hundreds more, although on Tuesday they were outnumbered by supporters of the current government.

Police response was very restrained on Sunday, as the approved rally grew and grew from the 300 for which a permit had been approved, to over 3,000. But when some of the participants began a march beyond the original location, police moved in and began making arrests. Hundreds more were arrested at the unsanctioned gatherings over the next two evenings--and there have been many reports of officers using gratuitous violence. This Amnesty International statement gives some of the scope and a few details of these complaints. Apparently pro-government crowds on Tuesday were not molested by the police, although as the Moscow Times reports, "...it remained unclear whether their own rally had been sanctioned."

This Saturday's rally at Bolotnaya Square, across the river from the Kremlin, has already drawn 30,000 registrants on Facebook, a roughly equal number on Vkontakte, and has been given a permit by City Hall.

At the same time all of this has been happening, including the daily dramas of arrest, detention, and mistreatment of prominent activists here in Russia, news of the Occupy movement in the USA has continued to stream in. I've especially been eager to follow how the evangelical church has related to this fascinating movement. How many have caught on to the potentially amazing conjunction of evangelism and prophetic service that's been unfolding before our very eyes? Anecdotally I'm aware of several Friends (including personal friends) who've made this connection, and Micah Bales has been eloquent on the spiritual dimension of Occupy in some of his recent blog posts.

Steven Davison, on his blog Through the Flaming Sword, points to another powerful expression of the connection--from a journalist I respect very much, Chris Hedges. In a searing sermon delivered in New York, Hedges asks, "Where you there when they crucified my Lord?" His appeal is urgent: "The Occupy movement is the force that will revitalize traditional Christianity in the United States or signal its moral, social and political irrelevance." Though I don't literally agree with this summary statement, I agree with its urgency: such a convergence comes so rarely that I can't understand why more of the visible church leadership hasn't been lifting its fair share of the load--especially the evangelical leadership, those who've bemoaned the loss of young people, those whose central responsibilities include making the door to faith as accessible as possible to everyone.

Although Hedges probably cannot be called evangelical, I'm glad to see him say publicly that "I am here because I have tried, however imperfectly, to live by the radical message of the Gospel." And I think he is not just rhetorically but also doctrinally correct to say that the "...misuse of the Gospel to champion unfettered capitalism, bigotry and imperialism is heretical."

Making comparisons between today's Russia and today's USA is very risky. Too many variables are in play. On each side of the ocean, glib generalizations are overwhelmed by the complexities of events. Just when we think that we've seen the last word in bureaucratic red tape here, we read about how hard it is to apply for food stamps in Texas. (And I can't help remembering the last time we re-registered here after a foreign trip. We were missing a document, were supposed to have had our employer submit our forms instead of doing it ourselves, and were there at the wrong time, but for some reason the registering officer nevertheless registered us anyway. I think it helped that we didn't come in with a chip on our shoulder.)

So ... for every voting station last Sunday with massive irregularities, there were apparently many whose work was done correctly. As soon as you become cynical about every bureaucrat, you completely marginalize those trying to do their jobs well. And what do you get in return? Less hope, less energy, more corruption. That goes for any country.

Having said that, it is a precious ideal to stand up and petition for redress when grievances occur. And there are massive grievances in both countries. It was interesting to hear American officials comment on the imperfections of the Russian elections. (If there was any humility in Hilary Clinton's remarks, they didn't come through here.) And at the same time, it's been fascinating to see how much coverage the Occupy movement has been given in the Russian government-supported network Russia Today. (Also fascinating: how little I've seen about the Occupy movement in Russian media directed to Russians. Read George Krasnow's "OWS, RT, Russia, What's Next?")

Is there some kind of kinship between the discontent among Occupiers in the USA and the relatively small upsurge of street activism here? Is either country even remotely experiencing an "Arab Spring"? I honestly don't know. I do know that when civic courage links up with idealism, however imperfectly expressed, this can be a wonderful resource for a whole nation. Politicians often want either to crush or to co-opt such risings; isn't it time they found a better script?

Many of the Occupiers have faced--or are now facing--evictions of their encampments. I've mentioned my doubts about defending fixed encampments before; creativity and persistence seem to me to be far more important to the message of the Occupy movement than the holding of "territory" and all the automatic frustrations and distracting side-issues connected with that. To adapt one of the "immutable laws of marketing" of Al Ries and Jack Trout, the most powerful concept in marketing is occupying a place in the audience member's mind. (They originally said "The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect's mind.") Ultimately, the movement is vindicated by being visibly linked, day in and day out, with plain justice for the 99%, not with being a temporary nuisance (and perhaps not even that much of a nuisance) for a tiny percentage of the 1% and their hapless employees.

A thoughtful reflection on the Russian elections of last Sunday, with many links and no glib generalizations. Another view from one of my longstanding favorite observers, Sean Guillory. Saturday PS: Here's a third link, titled with the same historic reference used by Sean, from Julia Ioffe: "The Decembrists."

Would you like to support partnerships with civil society workers in Russia through Quaker channels? Consider making a contribution to Friends House Moscow. One specific concern of FHM close to my heart--support for conscientious objectors. I love Herman Alyotkin's perspective on the work he and his wife Nina Pisanova do on behalf of conscientious objectors and applicants for alternative service, with support (when funds are available) from Friends House Moscow:

Those who choose alternative service today are a small stream that can become a mighty river of people who renounce violence as a central principal of their lives. We should not be put off by today’s small numbers. Alternative service in Germany began with choices made by just a few people, but after fifty years, those who chose alternative service outnumber those who chose military service. We should just keep on working, remembering that God has no hands but ours; work hard and then a miracle will happen.

Please read those words again and make a contribution!

"What Would Jesus Do? The Rise of a Slogan."

"Contemplative Activism as a Model for Mission." (Lausanne World Pulse.)

Subtle praise for U.S. Senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren from Christianity Today's editorial writers. Their principal criticism of her is that she doesn't take into account nongovernmental contributors to the community's support of successful businesspeople--churches, for example. To which I'd reply that she was not commenting on the full picture, but speaking directly into the myth of private success and consequent refusal to pay adequate taxes. The end of the editorial acknowledges that Warren's highly-circulated "pay forward" speech "did not purport to resolve every last question of social roles and responsibilities." It's hard not to conclude that the editorial is actually pretty positive!

Annie Raines and Paul Rishell with John Sebastian, "Can't Use it No More."

Do we need Advent?

2011-12-01T23:07:00.001+04:00

Last week I presented a draft description of "open worship." One of the comments I received via Facebook was, in part, as follows: I think it is very good. It leaves me wondering why programmed Friends feel they need anything else?

As I was thinking about this comment, I noticed an Internet Monk article, "Why I need Advent." In his explanation of Advent's importance for him, Jeff Dunn quotes Sister Joan Chittister:

Christmas is not meant to be simply a day of celebration; it is meant to be a month of contemplation. But because Advent has been lost somewhere between the Thanksgiving turkey and the pre-Christmas sales, we have lost one of the richest seasons of the year. Unless we can reclaim Advent, the lack of it will show dearly in the way we go through the rest of life itself.

Dunn adds:

I need Advent to tell me why Jesus had to die, and that he was born as a baby in order that he could grow to be a man who would be executed as a criminal.

Yet we have made Advent a time of ribbons and bows when it should be a time of weeping and wailing for our sinfulness. If I do not come to see my hopelessness before the Perfect Judge, with nothing to bring before him to buy even one minute’s pardon, then how can I rejoice with the shepherds that a Savior has been born this day in Bethlehem, the City of David?

I understand this idea of a "month of contemplation" and preparation, so that the celebration of Jesus's birth is not just a self-contained holiday, a disconnected mixture of piety and festivity, but contains within it the full scope of the Gospel story. (I remember Anthony Bloom's powerful words on the Good Friday service, "...Instead of the cross on which a living young Man dies, we have a wonderful service that can move us but that actually stands between us and that rude and ghastly tragedy." A more complete excerpt is here, toward the end of the post.) Context grounded in reality is crucial.

Furthermore, this month of contemplation, however well or poorly it is experienced in full depth, has been ratified over centuries by a huge part of the worldwide church. And isn't the church calendar, with its holidays and seasons, simply a larger extension of the acts of worship that we perform on any given Sunday?

Well. Friends don't require Advent observances, but they often have them. Friends don't have a liturgy beyond the inward liturgy of silent worship, but they sometimes incorporate liturgical elements. Is there any consistency at all? I think there is, but I in trying to describe it, I'm reduced to political terms: I belong to a church that deliberately lacks a "power vertical." For better or for worse, we Friends have no hierarchy to carry out a program of interpreting, mandating, licensing, and quality control. Program management happens at the junction of God, the Bible, and the historical and present-day "sense of the meeting." That junction is located at meeting for business, conducted face-to-face by people who (ideally) love God, love each other, and are mutually accountable to each other. If these Friends find no Divine urgency in a practice or ceremony or season or tradition, then we conclude it is not needed, not required of us by God in this time and place, no matter how ancient or beautiful it might be.

The insights resulting from this process are codified for a time in minutes and books of Christian discipline. This applies to local congregations and also to the concentric associations around them--quarterly meetings, yearly meetings, Friends United Meeting (or equivalent, if any)--wherever Friends gather for church government on the basis of prayer. Usually, those minutes and books are concerned with the stewardship of the community and its identity. They describe the beliefs, organizational structures, offices, and ethical expectations that give our church coherence. I've rarely if ever seen codifications of what worship should look like, let alone the church calendar.

Perhaps that helps explain why we haven't codified Advent, but still (the vast majority of Friends worldwide) have elements in our worship beyond bare silence. Those elements are drawn from a variety of sources, among them being

the Bible (see, for example, Peter Blood's article, "The Biblical Roots of Quaker Worship")
the practices and traditions of the larger Christian church (so, for example, some Friends meetings do in fact celebrate Advent, including having children take turns lighting Advent calendars, doing Advent readings, and so on--and some meetings also observe various elements drawn from Lent--but it's not imposed by any body or document)
Friends' traditions, most obviously open worship
the traditions of that specific congregation
national and ethnic traditions of the local congregation
the promptings of the Holy Spirit
the dramatic or artistic gifts of individuals in the congregation--incorporated spontaneously or by planning--

and, in the ideal case, are selected for inclusion in the meeting for worship only after prayerful discernment according to the needs and spiritual obedience of the body.

Have I ever seen this ideal process in practice? Yes! In several meetings I've been a part of, the planning of the meeting for worship was itself a very worshipful process. I remember, for example, West Richmond Friends Meeting, Indiana, USA, on the occasions I was a guest speaker there. Since I lived in Richmond, I was able to attend the planning meetings for the meetings for worship at which I'd be speaking. It was always more or less zero-based-budgeting: several elements were likely to happen each time, but nothing was taken for granted--each element was considered before being put on the list. Equally importantly--we knew that the pastor or worship leader was free to alter the list at any time during the worship if it seemed that something else was needed. Any sermon, any hymn selection, and so on, could be changed without scandal at the last minute.

By the way, I've argued before that unprogrammed Friends, whose worship appears to be based on the purity of silent waiting, nevertheless have elements of programming incorporated from tradition. My favorite example is the meeting I experienced in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting where most all Friends, of all ages, assemble together as part of the education hour, and then break up into age groups. At the end of the hour, they reassemble and walk from the old schoolhouse to the meetinghouse, where they settle into unprogrammed worship. I felt a powerful and beautiful sense of worship during this whole two-hour-plus period, including that procession to the meetinghouse.

And there are unwritten rules in some meetings for the way unprogrammed worship is conducted. Certain topics are unwelcome in vocal ministry. No speaking should occur during the first half of the meeting. You should or should not stand up to speak. Speak only once! You can refer to a previous speaker, but you can't engage in refutation, ask questions, or invite debate. Before speaking, allow time for the previous speaker's words to be absorbed by the community. (How long? Depends on the meeting!) In many meetings, there's a simple table with a Bible in the center of the worship space, in others not. I'm not commenting here on the rightness of these expectations (except when they are concealed, only to be revealed in the way a violator is cold-shouldered). I'm only pointing out that some degree of programming is probably universal.

I began with the question, why do we programmed Friends feel as if we need something beyond open worship? Maybe I can reframe the question a bit. Unscripted communion with the Holy Spirit is absolutely central to the Quaker reformation of Christian worship, but don't our meetings and churches have the freedom to draw (with discernment!) from the full range of what other Christians find meaningful in loving and hearing God, loving and hearing each other, and loving and hearing the wider community during our worship? Why would we give up that freedom?

This Sunday is legislative Election Day in Russia. Here's a low-key and, to my mind, relatively balanced view of the elections. Among our own acquaintances are people who are voting for parties represented in the present State Duma (including the ruling party) and for one of the legal parties not now in the Duma--and they all have well-thought-out reasons for voting the way they plan to vote. I'll be interested to see how the proportions in the new Duma will compare to the voting proportions of our friends. Will the results show that the elections are rigged, or simply that our circle of acquaintances is completely unrepresentative?! (And to those of our friends here who are in despair about Russian "political technology," I like to point out that I grew up in Chicago, where the old slogan was "vote early and often.")

Our meeting's worship place is the location of the district electoral commission (see photo with an electoral commission sign on the left side of the door, and a poster for the ruling party on the right side!), so we can't use it for worship this Sunday. I'll be at home, praying for the nation, and praying against the spirit of cynicism that seems to be at a high-water mark this season. A reminder to myself and others: it's possible to have ones eyes open, and still to remember that the spectrum of God's light always includes hope.

Presidential elections follow on March 4, 2012.

"Do you follow the liturgical year?" and "Why some don't observe the Christian year."

Nancy Thomas on two books, two special audiences.

From Australian Friends: Quaker Voice online magazine is looking for volunteers of all kinds. (Thanks to quakerquaker.org.) And from New England Yearly Meeting's Earthcare Ministries Committee: Quakers in Transition.

"The Way of the Heart--Cynthia Bourgeault Part 1: What IS the Path of Jesus?" (with links to the rest of the series). Interesting points of contact with Eastern Orthodox Christians and Friends.

"The most transparent government Chicago has ever seen, part one." (Caution: unredeemed language and a wee bit of cynicism.)

Believe it or not, "the internet will be back when we return...."

Joe Ely and Jeff Planckenhorn, guitar and mandolin.

Open Worship

2011-11-24T23:59:00.001+04:00

A friend recently wrote to me asking whether I knew of a good brief description of what we "programmed" Quakers often call "open worship" or "Communion after the manner of Friends."

Power of Goodness news:
$7,000 more and we're there!

(above) Power of Goodness, 2nd edition, and teachers' manual

Back in May, I recounted the history of the trilingual peace education/ community mental health project centered on this book.

Last month, Misha Roshchin delivered the layout files to the printer in Grozny. Now the Friends International Library is in its final fundraising push to raise the money to print enough copies to provide for the whole school system. If we can raise $7,000, we will have 4500 copies available. Ideally, we'd like 6,000 copies, so we're not going to turn away more contributions!

The per-unit cost of this book including the children's art that illustrates the stories, is just under $7. How many copies can you help us print?

Send contributions for the Friends International Library to Janet N. Riley, Friends International Library, 17300 Quaker Lane, D15, Sandy Spring, MD, USA 20860. For more details, see the Friends International Library Web site.

Greetings from Chechen psychologists working with Peacebuilding UK and Power of Goodness

(See sidebar here for some terminology information.)

After doing some looking around, I decided to try to write a description of my own. I hope you'll comment and maybe add your own description, or point me to something better.

Part of the task I've set for myself is to write something that can honor the teaching voice of Friends without using insider language. Have I succeeded? What needs to be changed?

Open worship:

It's time to meet with God.

In our worship, we hear from each other, from the Bible, from our children, and from our wider community. Now, for the next few minutes, we want to set aside all other plans and concerns, and give our full attention to the Holy Spirit.

This kind of quiet prayerful attention comes naturally to some of us. Maybe you begin with a prayer, "God, I love to be with you among your people." Or with a Scripture: "You have been our dwelling place in all generations." You remember the promise of Jesus to be with us when we gather. Then you are ready to wait in trust: God knows what you need--and what we need as a community.

It's not quite so easy for others. If you're naturally restless, you're not alone! Follow the advice of Douglas Steere, and think of how you might prepare to meet a deservedly famous leader or teacher: Mother Teresa, say, or Albert Schweitzer. You might stop at the doorstep and adjust your jacket or comb your hair. In the same way, take time to anticipate this meeting with the One who loved you into being. There's no hurry. Don't feel guilty about stray thoughts--just quietly "comb" them away and return to the Center. If the thoughts persist, maybe you need to take them with you to lay at God's feet: "Lord, this is what keeps gnawing at me; please help."

And, if today, for some reason, you can't quiet your soul, simply rest in the silence. Let the rest of us carry this responsibility for today, and just wait in trust. God's word for you today may come through someone else.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit ministers to us in complete silence--an outer silence in our meeting room and an inward quietness in your heart. But today you may receive a word or idea that seems to be alive with God's love, direction, and wisdom. Does it align with God's character as revealed in the Bible? Does it shine light on some problem you've been wrestling with? Are you called to a new commitment? After open worship ends, you may wish to write down some notes, or talk with an elder or pastor.

Maybe the word you have received is not just for you. The Holy Spirit may be asking you to tell the rest of us what you have been given. Stand up if you can, or simply begin speaking. A microphone will be brought to you. Speak your full message, but no more. If it seems incomplete, let it be so: someone else may have the rest of the message. This is not a time for announcements or opinions; the time remains dedicated to waiting on the Holy Spirit. But, on the other hand, don't wait until the message is "perfect." Some of us may sound as if we're experienced at speaking in open worship, but all of us tremble inwardly when the Spirit speaks through us. Remember: as soon as you stand up or start speaking, others are upholding you in prayer.

A pastor or worship leader will end the period of open worship by asking, "Are all hearts clear?" If a message is about to burst from your lips right at that moment, it's fine to ask for our attention. In any case, the elders and pastors are eager to hear about your experiences in open worship.

Last week I was impressed (and slightly shocked) by the sight of a Soyuz spacecraft launched in a snowstorm, with three souls aboard. Two days ago the previous crew of the International Space Station returned to snow-swept Kazakhstan in a Soyuz craft. That spacecraft, looking for all the world like a big Thermos bottle on its side, surrounded by scrubgrass and snow, vividly reminded me that, with all the high technology of the human spaceflight program, Mother Nature still rules.

"What Evangelical Women Want: the political gender gap."

Grandfather and granddaughter teaching together: sounds like a fabulous collaboration. Wish I'd been there.

Stan Thornburg on Peter's denial: "Does our 'accent' clearly show that we are people of another Kingdom?"

"Quakers and Occupy: UK summary."

Happy Thanksgiving! Judy's Thanksgiving feast for our colleagues at the New Humanities Institute included cranberry-pear sauce, apple-cranberry-raisin cobbler, cardamom braid with turkey salad filling, pumpkin bread with a tvorog cream layer, and rice salad with kiwi and grapes. This is the fourth time we've put on a Thanksgiving meal for our Institute family. In honor of the holiday, here's a strangely fascinating video on Thanksgiving symbols from Matthew Weathers at Biola University. Thanks to Open Culture.

Angela Strehli--yet another take on a wonderful old classic:

Snow shorts (and some Occupy thoughts)

2011-11-17T23:30:00.000+04:00

Earlier this week. Our institute visible on left (through the trees); City Hall on right.

We've had winter for about ten days, but as I write this on the late evening of the 17th, I must report that winter seems to have retreated temporarily: the temperature is about 40 degrees F.

Monday morning at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan was quite a different story. I was watching the launch of Soyuz TMA-22, and to my amazement, the countdown continued through a snowstorm that was approaching whiteout. After years of getting used to Florida spacelaunches, with all those multiple TV cameras and clear visibility, it was startling to see just one view of the launch pad, and that view getting more and more obscured as snow hit the TV camera lens.

Via NASA TV.

As the minutes ticked by before launch, I couldn't help wondering how many pounds of snow were on the rocket itself. Of course most of my thoughts and prayers were with the crew and vehicle, remembering that this launch had been delayed until investigation of the failed Progress supply-delivery launch last August was complete. Although the Soyuz launch vehicle has a good track record for reliability, the Russian space program overall has been a dismal story in recent years--and may stay so for years longer.

Two days after the successful launch, I was delighted to be back online for the successful docking of the Soyuz orbital craft with the International Space Station.

Meanwhile, back at the New Humanities Institute, we've been keeping warm, thank you. On Sunday we celebrated our sixteenth anniversary as a higher education institution.

We had a wonderful party, with skits and songs contributed by students and alums (as usual, I was roped into one of the improv drama skits...). And today we marked International Students' Day with a surprise for all students in the mid-morning classes. Instead of going to their normal classes, students were presented with a bucket of numbers, selecting their classroom by chance. In each classroom, a teacher had prepared a lesson on some subject completely outside their normal academic area. One teacher presented her collection of dolls and taught students how to make cloth dolls. Another teacher guided a class in creating edible art. Still another cooked plov with her students. And another taught her students ten out of the hundreds of ways scarves can be knotted into items of clothing or accessories. Other classes learned art history, self-defense techniques, care for cats, and so on. I showed students how to use Linux Mint and a variety of open-source programs such as GIMP to edit photos, Audacity to edit sound files, LibreOffice programs, and so on. At the end of the period we gathered in the fitness studio to report how we'd used the period.

I've been following developments in the Occupy movement with mixed feelings. Having watched month after month of police actions against the tiny groups of pro-democracy campaigners here, it's disheartening to see the kind of baton-thumping and pepper-spraying that Occupy encampments have faced. But I also recognize that city governments are walking a very thin line between freedom of assembly and public safety, and their law-enforcement actions (and mistakes) don't necessarily mean they're a tool of the "1%".

So I'm not all that tempted to second-guess either the activists or the local governments. I'm observing all of this (from a frustrating distance) on a couple of levels:

First of all, something in my heart yearns for a moral revival to sweep the capitalist world. As I'm not the only one to point out, the enmeshed ties of business and government and economic mechanisms, and their resulting concentrations of wealth and power, have become so complex that technical reforms seem wholly inadequate, even if the political will existed to apply them. A higher-level moral awakening, powerful enough to guide both policy decisions and economic transactions, is desperately needed. Obama talked in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign about an empathy gap; rarely has that gap seemed wider than now--coinciding with the gap between the highest paid and lowest paid, and the gap between financial executives' bonuses and their actual performance. Closing this gap must become more important than the ruthless individualism now prevailing, but overcoming the gap won't happen if progressives demand that only the "others" change. We need to understand and address the fears (founded and unfounded) behind that ruthlessness. To me, this is first and foremost a spiritual challenge. Christians: this is your moment to take the Message out of the meetinghouse and into the streets. (Evangelicals: yes, I'm talking to us, too! Let's show that this adjective "evangelical" still has some actual content!)

On another level, I don't worry too much about whether Occupy activists have a single perfectly aligned message. Their biggest message, after all, is simply that they exist. Their numbers, their persistence, their sheer nuisance value, says "this is what happens when you push people too far, when you stress the fabric of democracy beyond endurance with your wealth and your ideologies of sanctified selfishness." Therefore I'm hoping that, as a social phenomenon that demands attention, the demonstrators have staying power. And I hope that those who are not involved directly, whether they're in the 99% or the 1%, begin to notice that our cities are a lot less boring, a lot more fertile, when hundreds and thousands of motivated, engaged idealists meet together with new hope, new creativity, new messages. Do these audiences really want things to calm down into the previous torpor where only hyperventilating television personalities took charge of telling us what we think?

But a literal occupation of territory, day and night, with tents and toilets and all the energy required to maintain and defend that occupation, is a powerful distraction that plays directly into the hands of fearmongers. I'm happy to see a reasonable infrastructure to sustain a constant presence that respects a balance of interests and communicates engagingly with local governments. But there's not much future in acting as dismissive to the claims of the common good as those who put their own wealth first. Closing the empathy gap is a two-way process.

"Occupy Wall Street's Image Problem."

Peter Blood on "The Biblical Roots of Quaker Worship." Please read carefully and comment. I think this would be a fabulous piece to use for adult education in many meetings.

If every child were aware of his or her crucial importance to the family, what would the world be like? "What the Eisenhowers knew."

"Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Power in Japan." A repost with new comments.

It is long past time for Friends to begin a conversation on nuclear power and the much larger issue of how we know what to believe. Many among us insist that what is overwhelmingly the safest of the large sources of electricity should meet standards that no other energy source meets. Many Friends insist that the scientific community is lying about the safety of nuclear power. And overwhelmingly, we as a community insist that solutions to climate change be only the ones we like, even when scientists and policy experts find these solutions partial or even counterproductive.

"Putin, the Confucius Prize, and Western Double Standards."

Turkey and its regional priorities: an interview with H. Akin Unver. (Thanks to foreignpolicyblogs.com for the reference.)

Pepe Escobar examines the Iran nuclear-weapons hue-and-cry. And the Christian Science Monitor recapitulates the history of warnings about Iran's nuclear-weapons capabilities.

An Israeli journalist reports on Palestinian freedom riders.

"Why is Google in love with Bletchley Park?"

Magic Slim!

What is "carnal"?

2011-11-10T23:58:00.001+04:00

Campolo recounts his "famous line":

Other than giving our lives to Christ, there's nothing more important than responding to the needs of the poor, with all that we are and all that we have. Lovingly sacrifice--that's what the world's looking for. The world's tired of churches that seem to spend most of the money they collect on themselves. I mean you look at the typical church budget and ask how much money is being spent on keeping the church going and how much is really spent on the poor.

I was speaking some years ago at Wheaton College in a line that made me famous. Few lines make people famous but I have been both praised and condemned for this one line. 'Cause I was doing my best, I was really doing my best to sensitize these young people to the suffering of poor people and why they need to respond and give their lives to the needs of the poor.

And you know at Wheaton they have to go to chapel every day--it's required--and they're sitting there, 2500 of them, and you know they have Billy Graham on Monday and Luis Palau on Tuesday, so, who is this guy? And I'm pumping away as best I can, and I'm frustrated, and I'm an Italian from Philadelphia, and when we get frustrated we lose control, and I yelled, "while you were sleeping last night, 40,000 children died of either starvation or diseases related to malnutrition ... 40,000 children die every single day from starvation or diseases related to malnutrition," and everybody just sat there, and I said, "And what's worse is, most of you don't give a shit." I have never seen an audience wake up like that audience woke up. I mean, you should have been there. They were nudging ... "Did you hear?" All over I saw ... [whispering] "He said 'shit'..." and I said, "And what's worse is, you are more upset with the fact that I said 'shit' than that 40,000 kids died last night, and that's what's wrong with our Christianity."

Tony Campolo at Christian Assembly, Forest Falls, California, December 5, 2009

Around 1993 or 1994, my first or second year at Friends United Meeting, we published an article by Vince Stults in Quaker Life reflecting the passion for holistic mission he (we) wished would become infectious among Friends. In the article, he mentioned Tony Campolo's famous line about Christian students who didn't seem not to "give a shit" about 40,000 children dying of preventable causes every day.

Campolo has recounted that incident many times, but back in the early '90's, probably many of our readers had not heard of it. We expected some discomfort with our use of an expletive in our Christian periodical, and we hoped that on balance Tony's urgency would explain our momentary departure from our normal squeaky-clean editorial practice--that, in fact, our readers would experience that same creative discomfort that Tony surely hoped he had produced among the Wheaton College students.

In fact we did receive some unhappy responses from readers, as well as positive responses. One letter came from a rural Friends meeting in Indiana Yearly Meeting. (Maybe someone can get hold of that issue of the magazine and fill in the details.) That letter politely eldered us for our "carnal" spirit.

Although I grew up in an atheist family and had no personal background in conservative or Holiness Christianity, and my favorite music pre- and post-conversion has been blues (about as carnal as music can get, maybe), it seemed to me that I knew quite directly what the writers meant. They were charging us with gratifying a sensation-loving element in ourselves and our readers--neither edifying the readers nor glorifying God. This kind of conduct doesn't become those who have been made new creatures in Christ. I'm sure those Friends knew we had no intention of being uselessly offensive, but they wanted us to know that we had crossed a rhetorical line that was important to them.

This reluctance to gratify worldliness is an element of the culture that formed most members of Indiana Yearly Meeting and most students at Wheaton College. After all, if Campolo's audience had not come from such a culture, the use of that word would not have made any impact. Furthermore, a word used spontaneously in a face-to-face encounter may be more forgivable than a premeditated repetition in a magazine that ends up in the hands of readers of all ages and conditions.

To this day I still believe we were right not to cut that incident from Vince's article. After all, the church is God's provision for keeping God's promises to the world's poor and oppressed people, and Tony's discontent with the church's response was well-founded. You can be as "holy" as you like, but if evangelical Protestantism can go on for year after year after year and still not be a threat to the principalities and powers who grind the faces of the poor--and if we can even get enmeshed with those unholy powers--then clearly all that respect for propriety is neither edifying believers nor glorifying God. An occasional outburst of indignation is not the issue; putting all our energy into suppressing our emotions would be far more costly than cleaning up after ourselves when we slip up. Should anyone be able to think about 40,000 preventable deaths among children every day without losing it?

But ... but ... at the same time our critics were not wrong! The way we conduct ourselves in the Lamb's War does make a difference. The catharsis of rage has an addictive quality of its own, as does the feeling of superiority when we think we're flipping the bird to the "oppressor"--objectifying that human being who happens to be a banker or broker or politician, while avoiding our own complicity, and basking in the glow of our moral superiority. The demonic patterns that dramatically impoverish and enslave some of us also wreak a more subtle havoc on the rest of us; and all of us--rich and poor alike--have the right to hear the Gospel preached with 100% of the love that it contains for every single hearer. How will a Quaker message that connects the dots of passionate Christ-centeredness and economic discipleship be heard if its bearer does not show that love?

So here's a task that calls mystics and prophets, introverts and extroverts to be collaborative and creative. How does the Christian's word in the public arena--say in the Occupy movement--reflect both the unconditional love of God for all those trapped in oppressive systems, and the urgent need for those systems to be questioned, redeemed, pulled down? And who will carry out the ministry of eldership, as that rural meeting did for us at Quaker Life?

These thoughts were stirred up in part by an article in Index on Censorship: "Voina: Russia's Robin Hoods." (Caution--a lot of offensive stuff in this article.) I know personally that for many people here, even in this post-Soviet space, there is a big difference between what people say privately and what they'll say or do in public. So, I'm already predisposed to like someone who believes "that it was his duty as an artist to express openly what other people fear to express...." And I strongly believe that neither the presence nor the absence of a political message invalidates art. For me, the more complicated question is: where is transcendent hope in campaigns like Voina's? Is it possible to be as audacious, as courageous, as whimsical, as over-the-top as these people have been in their passion for freedom, and still testify, as Quakers and indeed all Christians do, to a love that is directly available to the whole audience, including the security services?

And as I'm thinking about this, I'm reading Eric Metaxas's Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. I just read about Dietrich Bonhoeffer's uncompromising "no" to the representatives of the "German Church" as they put the pressure on him and his fellow German clergy in London. He delivered this "no" time and time again--always with unfailing courtesy to Hitler's heretical errand-boys. No doubt there's sometimes power in passion, even in outrage; there's also power in restraint.

Brian McLaren, "Q & A: Exegeting Matthew 25."

Many thanks to Benigno Sanchez-Eppler and Susan Furry of New England Yearly Meeting for their work on Raíces cuáqueras: Heredad de textos, an online library of Spanish-language Quaker materials and related links.

"Quantum Theology: Our Spooky Interconnectedness."

"Media to be controlled with ever more sophisticated technical means." But it doesn't mean censorship.

Delta Moon, "Tilt-a-Whirl":

The Gathered Meeting, part two

2011-11-03T23:16:00.000+04:00

The gathering of Russian-speaking Friends, supported by the European and Middle East Section of Friends World Committee for Consultation, took place two weekends ago in Kremenchuk, Ukraine. Judy and I were both able to be present. Judy reported on a European Friends gathering in Tolna, Hungary, the previous weekend, and (as promised) I led a discussion on Thomas Kelly's "The Gathered Meeting."

Сплоченное_собрание ("The Gathered Meeting")

In my session, I began by telling the story I mentioned two weeks ago, about how I first encountered this inspiring essay. It also seemed important to acknowledge the chain of relationships that made this essay even more alive for me. At the Friends World Committee triennial in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1976, I was helping Gideon Juma of Pemba Yearly Meeting by pushing his wheelchair around the McMaster University campus. The wheelchair, and my resulting relationship with Gideon Juma, allowed me to be places and see people I might otherwise not have dared approach in my timid status as a recent convert.

For one thing, I attended sessions of the Africa Section caucus and met Friends who remembered me many years later when I began serving Friends United Meeting. Also, various weighty Friends who joyfully greeted Gideon also included me in the fellowship. One of them was Douglas Steere. He gave me his new publication, "On Confirming the Deepest Thing in Another," the substance of which he proceeded to confirm by being very encouraging to me. It was in that booklet that I first read this story:

Thomas Kelly was a colleague of mine in teaching philosophy at Haverford College for almost five years until his sudden death in 1941 at the age of forty-seven. His Testament of Devotion, which is a devotional classic of the flavor of Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God, has been translated into a number of languages and has been widely read. After his own college years in a small mid-western college, he spent the year of 1913-14 at Haverford College, where he came as a graduate student to study under Rufus Jones. He came to Dr. Jones's study during the first week of his time at Haverford, and in the course of their visit, he blurted out, "I want to make my life a miracle." Instead of cutting him down to size or passing this over as a young man's emotional extravangance, Rufus Jones quietly confirmed this longing in Thomas Kelly, and before his life-span was out, he did become a miracle--a miracle that long after his death is still moving many of his readers to confront the one thing needful.

Rufus Jones confirmed this Godly longing in Kelly, who in turn passed it on to another Jones--T. Canby Jones, one of a group of Haverford students who gathered around Thomas Kelly. Canby went on to teach at that same "small mid-western college," Wilmington College, for many years. That's where Judy and I got to know him better during the years we lived in Wilmington and Judy served as the college's director of financial aid. (I was on the Friends World Committee staff in those years--the imprint of my experiences in company with Gideon Juma were long-lasting!)

In 2005, Canby gave a talk at the Friends United Meeting sessions in Iowa. After giving the main part of his message on the peaceable Lamb who gives the victory (previewed here), he reminisced a bit about Thomas Kelly. I especially remember him recalling the moment that he heard about Kelly's death. At that moment, Canby said, he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that we can have victory over death.

Here are the excerpts and discussion questions we used at Kremenchuk. The main structure of the essay follows William James's description of mystical experience, considered point by point (emphases added):

The experience is ineffable; it is not completely describable in words. We live through such hours of expanded vision yet never can we communicate to another all that wonder and power and life and re-creation which we knew when swept along in the immediacy of the Divine Presence.

Question: Is it worth describing? When? To whom? Why?

To an absent friend we can only say what Philip said to Nathaniel concerning Jesus, "Come and See." And such must always be the report of any experience of God, by individuals or in groups. "He is wonder and joy, judgement and power. And he is more than all these. Come and see."

* * *

The experience has a knowledge-quality. The covering of God in the gathered meeting carries with it the sense of insight of knowledge. We know Him as we have not known Him before. The secrets of this amazing world have been in some larger degree laid bare. We know life, and the world, and ourselves from within, anew.

Question: Is there knowledge that is "indescribable"? What does knowledge consist of? What is impossible to convey, and what must be conveyed?

We have been re-energized with that Power and re-sensitized by that tenderness to meet the daily world of men [and women] with new pangs and new steadiness.

* * *

It is transient. The sense of Divine covering in a group is rarely sustained more than three-quarters of an hour, or an hour. One can not seize hold upon it and restrain it from fading; or restore it the next Sunday at will. Each such meeting is a gracious gift of the Eternal Goodness, and the eyes of all must wait upon Him who gives us meat in due Season.

Question: How are we to understand the word "gift"? How do we learn to expect and receive a gift, rather than to "earn" it by way of rules and formulas?

* * *

It carries a sense of passivity within it. ... It is as amazing an experience as that of being prayed through, ... Instead of saying "I pray" or "he prays," it becomes better to say "Prayer is taking place."

Question: In our times, is it really possible to stop seeing ourselves as "initiators"? How does culture get in the way, and how (on the other hand) does it empower us? What role does Quaker discipleship play?

* * *

A fifth trait of mystical experience may well be added to James' list—the sense of unity, unity with the Divine Life who has graciously allowed us to touch the hem of His garment, unity with our fellow-worshippers, for He has broken down the middle wall of partition between our separate personalities and has flooded us with a sense of fellowship.

Question: When we experience this unity in a gathered meeting, what remains afterwards? How should this influence our future behavior in the faith community?

* * *

One condition for such a group experience seems to be this: some individuals need already, upon entering the meeting, to be gathered deep in the spirit of worship. There must be some kindled hearts when the meeting begins. In them, and from them, begins the work of worship.

Question: Is this your service? (Did you already know this or are you just beginning to realize it?) How should we support you?

* * *

A second condition concerns the spoken words of the meeting.... Brevity, earnestness sincerity and frequently a lack of polish characterize the best Quaker speaking. The words should rise like a shaggy crag upthrust from the surface of silence, under the pressure of yearning contrition and wonder. But in another sense the words should not rise up like a shaggy crag. They should not break the silence, but continue it.

Let's try enumerating the "categories" of helpful vocal ministry:
● biblical quotations
● personal experience
● calls for attention to concerns situations, tasks
● vocal prayer
● singing
● what else

Can such a list really be assembled? How will new attenders know what's appropriate? How will we know what is prophetic?

If you're going to be in Portland, this coming Sunday, here's some of what Reedwood Friends Church has planned.

Julie Ryberg's Cary Lecture at German Yearly Meeting. Julie speaks to the condition of Friends in Europe from personal experience, with three themes: "... what goes on within me when I see the truth about myself and my life. Another is about the dialogue between you and me when we speak the truth about our lives. Yet another is about learning to live the truth in the context of a Quaker community. In each of these aspects, I have experienced a different face of God."

Two fascinating book reviews in Books & Culture: One of them starts out with the question, "Will we, as Earthlings, ever find extraterrestrial life, and what will it mean if we do or don't?" And the other addresses "the patient, cumulative work of consensus science"--particularly in light of (or heat of) carbon cycle arguments.

The calm, straightforward tone of this book, and the huge mass of consensus science on which it is based, are the product of another marvel, the human mind. The patient, cumulative work of thousands of researchers has delivered us a timely warning about our future, a warning that could have been delivered at no other moment in the planet's history. The warning is stark: the carbon cycle, at the root of what we like to think of as the planet's natural cycles, runs on very slow geologic time. Global warming, by contrast, is a fast and furious affair that so far has raised the planet's temperature about a degree Celsius, enough to start the rapid melt of Arctic sea ice and knock many other systems out of kilter.

"Iranian Ballistic Missile Developments: Non-Barking Dog and Dead Monkey." (Thanks to William Sweet at Foreign Policy Blogs.)

With no comment from me: "The Soviet ways are attractive not only to Putin, but to his harshest critics too."

Blues from Moscow: JW Jones and the Jumping Cats.

I Ain't No Stranger

2011-10-27T03:49:00.004+04:00

A few weeks ago I mentioned reading David McCullough's The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. I've always loved visiting Paris--my first memories are from an ocean crossing on the S.S. United States to Le Havre and Paris at age 10, on our way to grandparents in Stuttgart and Oslo--and so it wasn't hard for me to close my eyes and imagine the life of an American expatriate. In 1977, I went from Oslo to Paris the long way--by train and ship, via Bodø, Narvik, Kiruna, and Stockholm. By the time I crawled off the train in Paris, it was a relief to be back in a familiar place. In Paris, I walked for hours and hours, just as McCullough's American visitors did, and in much the same places. I experienced some of the same intoxicating experiences of galleries, architecture, culture, delicious tastes, and, above all, books.

  Our expanding high-rise
  development, seen from
  across what remains of the
  Yalagin Field.

  Downtown Elektrostal's
  new cultural and entertain-
  ment center, named Park
  Plaza. (Literally. Парк
  Плаза.) Yes, that's Lenin.

My September visit to Paris, which combined visa formalities with seeing our son Luke, brought back those memories of half a lifetime ago and more. Too soon, the visit came to an end. I got on an Air France plane to Moscow, took the Aeroexpress train from the airport to Belorussky train station, took the Moscow circle line metro to Kursky train station on the east side, and soon found a green elektrichka commuter train to take me most of the rest of the way home. The slow elektrichka gave me more time to read McCullough's book. Before long, I was at Fryazevo station, from where I could take a bus the rest of the way home. I threw my keys on the kitchen table, turned on the computer, and before long was working on the next day's lesson plans. (Judy was still in the USA.) That evening, I continued reading The Greater Journey.

Laugh if you want, but it wasn't until the following evening, as I was hauling a bag of groceries and a 10-kg box of kitty litter through our courtyard, cutting between the benches full of moms watching their kids on the playground equipment, that it hit me: Aren't I an expat, too? Hmm, I thought to myself as I glanced at the very utilitarian high-rises surrounding the courtyard, if I'm an expat, where's that romantic payoff?

At our building's metal front door, I put down the box of kitty litter, and rubbed the indentations that its narrow plastic handle had made in my fingers. As I got out the magnetic key to the door, my thoughts continued: That's just it. The best thing about our life here is that there is no romantic payoff!! This is where we live. These are our neighbors, our cats, our home.

A couple of days ago, in a conversation with two Friends at the Ukrainian hotel where our gathering of Russian-speaking Friends was going on, I was describing some aspect of the friendly rivalry between the neighboring towns of Elektrostal and Noginsk. As I said, "Our town has ...", one of the others said, "Johan, it's really your town, isn't it?"

I know well enough that thirteen years of annual visits followed by four years of residence does not qualify me as an insider. When we lived in Richmond, Indiana, we sometimes got the feeling that the only way to qualify as a genuine Richmond insider was to graduate from Richmond High. Elektrostal is even more problematic, in a way--for many decades it was a closed city. Russians without special passes were not allowed to enter the city, never mind foreigners. Even now, older people who catch Judy and me speaking English in public will sometimes look startled.

And we're definitely still Americans. Part of our utility as teachers here, after all, is that we are carrying a foreign language and culture. (The Russian term for a "native speaker" is literally a "language carrier.") We have Russian art on our walls, but not only. We listen to Russian music in our home, but not only.... (This evening, washing dishes, I was listening to Muddy Waters singing "Rock Me"--the title of this blog post is from that song--and Otis Redding singing "I've Been Loving You Too Long." I couldn't exist very long without access to this music!) We could never claim our home to be typically Russian.

But from my point of view, normalcy is now Elektrostal. Dixie isn't a nickname for a region of the USA, it's the name of the grocery store across the street. We filter our water without thinking twice about it. If the bus has no conductor, we too participate in the chain of hands passing the fares to the driver. We know what old-timers still call our bus stop ("Dairy") even though the dairy goods store has long since disappeared and the stop has been renamed. We've entered the barter economy--I gave four free English lessons to a technician's teenage daughter in return for getting our refrigerator repaired. There's so much we don't know, but we've learned that almost all our apparent dilemmas will eventually be solved through someone's unexpected kindness.

My German grandparents and their only child spent the first half of the 20th century in Japan. The Norwegian side of my family has included its fair share of world-roaming sailors, and now half of it seems to have moved to the USA or Canada anyway. There are times I have a sort of ghost-nostalgia for what it would have been like to be truly rooted in one place. (Why is it that the tears start to flow when I catch a glimpse of Norway from an airplane en route from Atlanta to Moscow?) But then I remind myself that it's all on the same gorgeous planet.

The Very Worst Missionary has a similar epiphany, maybe, but instead of countries, it's denominations.

In Salem, Oregon, Brandon Filbert draws on Anthony Bloom to explain--and encourage--praying without ceasing.

A fascinating interview with Jean Vanier on his friendship with Henri Nouwen--many thanks to Sarah Baldwin for the reference.

Rebecca Solnit writes "... to a Dead Man about the Occupation of Hope."

"Qaddafi Dies; Should It Matter How?"

Just installed the latest version of Ubuntu (11.10) on the computer on which I'm working now. Installation was much smoother than the previous version. The "Unity" desktop (see my earlier comments here) functions way better now; the awkwardnesses have mostly been removed. For someone who simply likes things to look good and work well, this is a great version. However, for someone who likes to play with the desktop design and behavior, you're out of luck (unless you're a true programmer)--this version has almost no capacity for adjustment. About all you can do is add shortcuts to the desktop, change the wallpaper, and adjust the screen-lock time. There's no screensaver, no window animations or other special effects.

These two guys make me (dare I say it?) proud to be American. (Come back next week for the regularly-scheduled blues.)

The Gathered Meeting

2011-10-20T02:26:00.000+04:00

I remember the first time I encountered "The Gathered Meeting," Thomas Kelly's eloquent description of a meeting for worship that comes under the plenary, conscious sway of the Holy Spirit. The small pamphlet, now available online and as a chapter in Kelly's The Eternal Promise, was distributed as a gentle form of eldering, if I remember correctly, at the 1975 Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology at Haverford College.

As a new member of Ottawa Meeting in Canada, I had come to the conference on the invitation of the editor of the Canadian Friend, Elizabeth Oxlade, who was well-acquainted with this annual event. Apparently at one plenary session the discussion got somewhat out of hand, because the next morning this pamphlet was distributed to remind us of our spiritual grounding. With all the Jungian and Zen and Teilhard de Chardin references flying about the conferences, I remember feeling grateful for a little confirmation that we had not entirely left the Quaker orbit! But most of all, I loved this little pamphlet for its passionate testimony to the reality of whole-group encounter with God. In those years, cultivation of our individual spiritual capacities was all the rage (sometimes with the implication that the spiritual practices of distant cultures must be not just instructive for us, but definitely superior to anything in the Christian garden). But in the gathered Friends meeting, our individual experience is secondary:

And we know not only that we stand erect in the Holy Presence but also that others sitting with us are experiencing the same exaltation and access of power. We may not know these our neighbors in any outwardly intimate sense, but we now know them, as it were from within, and they know us in the same way, as souls now alive in the same areas and as blended into the body of Christ, which is His church.

Evidence of this extraordinary unity can occasionally be dramatic:

John Hughes once told of two Friends sitting side by side in such a gathered meeting. The secret currents of worship flowed with power and then encountered a check. One man moved nervously but did not rise to his feet. Finally the other Friend arose and spoke a few words of searching power, and the meeting proceeded in a sense of covering. After the meeting had broken the man who had spoken nudged his silent neighbor and said “Next time, Henry, say it thyself”.

But as Kelly goes on to consider common features and helpful disciplines of gathered meetings, he doesn't want us to be overly diverted by such "striking side-phenomena" but to stay with the main point: the encounter, however intense or diffuse, of our community with the One who gathers us.

It may not have risen to the level of "striking," but I vividly remember an Easter Sunday at Ottawa Meeting during which nobody at all spoke, and when the meeting was ending, it seemed that many of us had joyful tears in our eyes. In pastoral meetings, I remember times when the pastor completely abandoned the sermon because it became clear in the gathering silence that the Holy Spirit was moving among the people and assembling quite another sermon. And another 35-year flashback: in one of my first visits to Philadelphia, I noticed a posting for a Fifth-day morning meeting at one of the downtown meetinghouses. I wandered in and found two middle-aged men sitting in silence in different parts of the large room. For a beautiful little segment of eternity (fifteen minutes? an hour? I couldn't tell), I sat there, feeling encompassed by the love flowing around and between those two men. By their speech and appearance, I guessed that these men had very different careers and life journeys, but I caught the sense that this weekly communion gave a unity that went way beyond what any sort of social similarity could offer.

Tomorrow Judy and I leave for Kremenchuk, Ukraine, for a gathering of Russian-speaking Friends from seven countries. One of the organizers, Sasha Gorbenko, came to me a few weeks ago and asked me to prepare a talk on this good essay he had been thinking about.... Yes, it was "The Gathered Meeting." Just as I was despairing at my ability to do justice to the assignment, last night's e-mail brought a draft translation of Kelly's words into Russian, by Natasha Zhuravenkova of the Friends House Moscow staff--a true labor of love that gave me new hope. So that's what we're up to this weekend. I'm not asking for "striking side-phenomena," just a tender-hearted discussion of how Kelly's description of the features and disciplines of a gathered meeting might apply--or adapt--in Russian-speaking contexts, and how we can claim, with integrity, the unity that Kelly describes.

"Women's hearts are sometimes sore."

On the one hand, we read that we are God’s children, just like our brothers, and that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, just like our brothers, and our hearts rise to the challenge and joy of bearing public witness to the love of God, and then we find that we are not allowed by the traditions of the church. We suffer in between the “yes” of God and the “no” of our religious culture.

Al Aqaba, Palestine. "I've been a journalist all my life. I think this is a pretty good story."

There's no place like poem. (This obscure tag is NOT Nancy's fault!)

Rachel Stacy walks cheerfully into Turkey and Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams.

"I am a Pentecostal pastor. I am very well aware of my background. I like signs and wonders, but I love justice more." Thanks to Brian McLaren for the reference.

A beautiful tribute gallery from Yaroslavl's ceremonies honoring their fallen ice hockey team Lokomotiv.

Lots of missiological gems, some downloadable, in this bibliography/sampler from the "Reading the Bible Missionally" module of Redcliffe College's MA in Bible and Missions.

"Learning to Pray"--an interview with Pete Greig.

Evgeny Morozov: "Five Books" on the philosophy of technology.

More on "Occupy"--orderly civil disobedience vs "the chaos seems to work." (Thanks to Stephen Dotson via "Occupy, Quakers!" on Facebook.)

Lightnin' Hopkins had a great blend of musicianship and attitude:

Occupation

2011-10-13T23:30:00.000+04:00

My favorite "occupy" image so far has also been
seen by others here in our town.

Russia Today coverage; my first thought was of USA
coverage of Strategy 31 arrests.

The "Occupy Wall Street" campaign and its sister actions around the USA have been featured on Russian television news several times recently, and have even come up in Institute conversations. I've avoided saying much here, since the inevitable comparisons with Strategy 31 and similar actions here are touchy and not exactly flattering for either country. One student asked me whether it was true that the "American Autumn" was a continuation of the "Arab Spring"--and was something like this possible in Russia, too? It's my strong policy neither to pour cold water nor to fan flames here, so I stayed very neutral, but I find it absolutely fascinating that the subject came up.

Today at our institute we were celebrating librarian Elena Marksovna's birthday, and I mentioned a photo I'd seen of a librarian holding a sign at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration. It turned out that others had seen the same photo. But the very fact that stable-looking middle-class people are taking part in this "Occupy" campaign reminded me of one of the most prominent features of commentaries I've seen about these activities: sociological analyses of the participants, sometimes with the undisguised message that "they are not normal people like you and me." They have too many marginal people; they don't have enough marginal people; they're supposedly only white and middle class; they're disaffected spoiled children. Whatever the category, they're not worth paying attention to--and that is always a lazy way to critique a movement.

Another theme of "Occupy" commentary concerns the imperfections of the message. This relatively thoughtful commentary in Christianity Today points out, reasonably enough, that "Like most protests, the Occupy Wall Street folks are better at identifying something that is wrong than identifying a way forward that is right." But Bruce Wydick's comments make some extrapolations about the protesters and their motivations that deserve a courteous challenge:

"The protests are centered on Wall Street because they target political corruption in the finance industry. But the world of finance is very complex." Wydick explains:
As a graduate student at Berkeley, I was a teaching assistant for Christina Romer, a macroeconomist who arguably understands economic recessions better than anyone on the planet. She and Larry Summers, another brilliant economist, spent two grueling years as President Obama's chief economic advisors, trying to untangle the mess. Bottom line to protestors: If Christina struggles with it, you don't understand it.
Although I'm sure he's right, I absolutely resist the possible implication that you must not protest what you don't completely understand. In fact, one of the reasons people on both the left and the right are upset, at least intuitively, is (I believe) that markets, governments, and private elites have become so complex and enmeshed that nobody can understand them; nobody has any realistic handle on any sort of mechanical solution. What's needed is a top-order values response--a reassertion of ethical values that gives a proper place to elemental justice.
"In such a climate it may be more strategic to focus on the common anger than on specificities." That may be true in some sense, but I think it is unjustifiably cynical. Some people in the movements seem to be very specific in their focus. This is what they see: the accelerating and relatively unregulated concentration of wealth in the hands of a few just after the country as a whole has bailed out the financial industry, and just as a stubborn, perverse resistance to the very idea of paying a bit more in taxes to benefit the most vulnerable is for the first time in many generations becoming political orthodoxy. Is this not a specific enough reason to be upset?

Furthermore, I don't see that anger--while certainly present--is the predominant mood. I also don't agree that, as Wydick claims, "The protestors would like to see the financiers thrown in jail." Reasonable regulations with real teeth are badly needed, but I don't see retroactive vindictiveness as a theme in these protests. It seems far more important to challenge the cultish assumption that super-rich financiers are their own best regulators than to slap around any individual who operated within the pathetically inadequate regulatory climate of the recent past.
Bruce Wydick's most important points are absolutely on target:
...Even if the protestors don't understand much about financial economics, they have a clear sense that something is wrong. That something, however, lies deeper than the behavior of a relative handful of Wall Street moguls. That something, I believe, is a sense of material entitlement that has crept into the American psyche. This sense of material entitlement has infected our personal choices, our politics, and our financial system.

The crisis has spiritual roots. Jesus warns his followers, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions" (Luke 12:15, NIV). But a syncretistic form of Christianity has emerged in our country, a syncretism that mingles genuine New Testament Christianity with the consumer materialism of the American Dream.
...

This spirit of entitlement in America also lies at the root of our national debt problem, a crisis exacerbated by the housing and finance meltdowns.
Amen! But just as a lack of academic expertise is not a disqualification to protest, neither is not having every single one of our spiritual ducks in a row. Wydick, however, believes that the "Occupy" movement is captive to this same entitlement mentality:
In this spirit, Occupy Wall Street protest signs seek to ignite a revolution of the 99 percent against the (richest) 1 percent, who are responsible for our troubles. Christians of course are forbidden from supporting this kind of worldview. The dissipation that exists in our country, unfortunately, has not been confined to 1 percent of the population. Christianity teaches us that all of us stand as imperfect, self-absorbed, broken people, each of us a contributor to the problems of the world in our own, creative way.

Political action has often served in our country as a lazy shortcut around the harder work of evangelization. If we are unconvincing in changing people's thinking, we attempt to control their behavior through the political process.
But how do we know that the "Occupy" protesters are totally acting from a self-righteous us/them mentality? Maybe many of them far more self-reflective than commentators give them credit for--in fact, maybe some of them are as insightful as we observers are! Should "imperfect, self-absorbed, broken people" whose eyes have been opened to grievous abuses all just stay home, stick to their churches and Bible studies, leaving the economy to "experts" and waiting for Christian celebrities to come up with the next big evangelization gimmick? (In all fairness, Wydick isn't saying this, either!!) I'd much rather see thousands of Christians following the example of Micah Bales and deliberately creating a Christian witness within the movement. "Political action" vs "the harder work of evangelization" is a false dichotomy.

The people of the "Occupy" movements are diverse; none of the stereotypes (villainous, marginal, or heroic) can fairly summarize them. The same is true of those who stay home and don't participate, and those who continue to go to their daily jobs on Wall Street. All of them are made in the Image of God and are dearly loved by God. I hope and pray that all of them hear this wonderful message and are empowered to think about its ethical implications. Christians helping to occupy Wall Street and K Street and everywhere else touched by this movement can help this prayer become reality.

More comments on Bruce Wydick's column on the "Occupy" movement.

The Common English Bible: Look up the verses you cherish most--or know the most about. How does this translation measure up?

Another event I'd like to participate in: Christ at the Checkpoint.

Two ZDNet takes on Google engineer Steve Yegge's Google+ "we don't get platforms" rant: Larry Dignan and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.

Another treat from Open Culture: Marshall McLuhan on "the stupidest debate in the history of debating," Ford vs Carter, 1976.

Friday PS: "Briton navigates the rough without paying bribes." David Simons says, "Most of the corruption in Russia is actually a myth." (Note: Moscow Times stories eventually go into the paywall archive.)

Guy Forsyth goes back to Denmark, gives us a fresh version of "Mona."

Light

2011-10-06T23:14:00.000+04:00

John 9:39-41: Jesus then said, "I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind." Some Pharisees overheard him and said, "Does that mean you're calling us blind?" Jesus said, "If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you're accountable for every fault and failure." [context]

John 12:35-36: Jesus said, "For a brief time still, the light is among you. Walk by the light you have so darkness doesn't destroy you. If you walk in darkness, you don't know where you're going. As you have the light, believe in the light. Then the light will be within you, and shining through your lives. You'll be children of light." [context]

I was captivated by news of the Nobel prize in physics, announced this week. (See this Nobel press release; and more links at this Science Daily link, provided by Joel Sax via Google+.) These three scientists and their colleagues have been studying the nature of the universe's increasingly rapid expansion on the basis of observations of distant supernovae. The Swedish academy's press release aptly cites a poem by Robert Frost in citing an implication in these scientists' work that eventually the universe will freeze completely. (Long before the monkeys can finish typing Shakespeare?)

Meditating about these scientists' work, as well as about Syria, Occupy Wall Street, and other current news, I had a sudden experience of new hope and perspective. Human beings are meant to attend to light. These scientists are doing essential human work--gathering light and learning more about God's creation--and passing their insights to the rest of us. Compared to their work, and to our participation in their work through appreciative attention, all the sniping and conniving around us shrinks back to the level of triviality. We can't ignore that static and pollution--it hurts our children! ... it takes prisoners! ... it even seems to succeed sometimes in blocking the light!--but we can put it in perspective. Most importantly, we can remember what we believe, and draw on that Light to continue, together, to shine.

Light has so many associations for us Friends, and for me. I'll never forget the underground monastery in Buzuluk where the monks lived in tiny, dark cells in their efforts to live closer to the Light. The inward Light that enlightens everyone is the very basis of Friends missiology. (Every person entering Life he brings into Light. John 1:9.) And I always love reading about Abba Joseph:

We are told in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers how a brother once came to talk with Abba Joseph of Panepho. "Abba," said the visitor, "according to my strength I observe a modest rule of prayer and fasting, of reading and silence, and so far as I can I keep myself pure in my thoughts. What more can I do?" In answer, Abba Joseph rose to his feet and held up his hands towards the sky; and his fingers became as ten blazing torches. And the old man said to the brother: "If you wish, you can become completely as a flame."

I can't read that story without (timidly, I admit) starting to reach up with my hands....

Valery Aushev

Yuri Chistyakov

documentary; download
sampler here

This might be a good point to mention that next month Russia celebrates the 300th birthday of one of humanity's greatest scientists and most versatile thinkers, Mikhail Lomonosov, cofounder of the university (Moscow State) that bears his name. Last weekend I went to Elektrostal's Paustovsky Central Library and heard a fascinating talk about Lomonosov. The talk was given by Valery Aushev, screenwriter for a recent television documentary series on Lomonosov's life. We also heard from scientist and poet Yuri Chistyakov and saw two of the first five episodes of the documentary series, including a program devoted to his years at Marburg University in Germany--also associated with Boris Pasternak.

Aushev put to rest the Soviet-era myth that Lomonosov was a dirt-poor peasant who more or less crawled from his fishing village to Moscow on his hands and knees for an education. Not that his youth was trouble-free; he left home partly to escape his stepmother. The end of his life remains shrouded in mystery--was he poisoned at a state dinner?--and even his final burial place is somewhat under question. In between, however, there is no doubt about his achievements in chemistry, physics, ceramics, geography, linguistics, poetry, and education.

"It's the theater of the absurd." Russian Baptist leader Yuri Sipko on recent events. (Original.)

"So real it hurts." Race, privilege, and caring enough to confront--at Occupy Wall Street. This essay has something of the costly intensity of a conversion experience. (Thanks to the Facebook group "Quakers Talk About Racism" for the reference.)

Susanne Kromberg on "The hard topic of forgiveness."

"The myth of innocence": Four principles for experiencing grace.

Studebaker John in Montreal:

Studebaker John oscarkapac

Cold shorts

2011-09-29T22:02:00.000+04:00

OK, it's only been a week since summer technically ended here, and already 7 degrees C. seems balmy. Judy and I both have colds; even our cats are sneezing. Our guest Liz from Germany, just arriving from the airport, was barely in the door when she offered to make us tea! Well, I'm going to sniffle my way through a few short (but, to me, urgent) items, and then call it a night.

We spent last weekend at the Baptist seminary near the charmingly-named Chaussee Entuziastov ("Highway of the Enthusiasts") and the offices of Big Change to participate in the board meetings of Friends House Moscow. We now need to put our minds to the task of raising funds for the fascinating work that Friends House Moscow does. One of the most dramatic reports we heard was a first-hand account of traveling in the Caucasus regions to give Alternatives to Violence seminars. Services to conscientious objectors also await fresh funding.

Irina Ryazanova, director of Big
Change, speaks with FHM board

Maybe the best testimony to the power of modest funding for worthy startups is the story of the organization that hosted us, Big Change--providing vital services to residents and former residents of orphanages. We were among their very first funders, and now they are much bigger than we are, attracting support from government and big business.

We also enjoyed the comfort and warm hospitality of the Baptist seminary. This is the second time the seminary has hosted Friends House Moscow board members.

These days, I'm enjoying David McCullough's book The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. McCullough opens his book with vivid portraits of the American scholars and artists who began flocking to Paris just a generation or two after the founding of the American republic. I'm using the word "republic" deliberately, referring to the self-consciousness of these Americans as representatives of a new nation founded on specific political ideals. Even as they admired the depth of culture and the breadth of scholarship available to them in France, they were also patriotic carriers of a "republican" identity--that is, a consciousness of egalitarianism, a rejection of aristocratic and militaristic patterns associated in their minds with Europe. Artist and future inventor Samuel F.B. Morse, talking about James Fenimore Cooper:

I admire exceedingly his proud assertion of the rank of an American ... for I know no reason why an American should not take rank and assert it, too, above any artificial distinctions that Europe has made. We have no aristocratic grades ... and crosses, and other gewgaws that please the great babies of Europe.

I was immediately reminded of the first generation of true-believer Bolsheviks after Russia's 1917 revolutions--proudly and self-consciously marching under a proletarian banner into a classless future--and, if necessary, concealing any streams of clericalism or aristocracy in their past.

It was interesting that these early American expats encountered certain hints of a more inclusive democracy right there in France. In 1838, Charles Sumner observed how "well-received" black students were at the Sorbonne, and noted in his journal, "It must be then that the distance between free blacks and the whites among us [at home] is derived from education, and does not exist in the nature of things." In McCullough's fascinating chapter on medical education in Paris, Wendell Holmes attends lectures by obstetrician Marie-Louise La Chappelle, who was "a shining case in point of why women should not be excluded from a medical education."

Two years ago I gave my students an exercise in writing six-word stories along the lines of Ernest Hemingway's famous example: "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn." (Inspiration for the exercise came from this Wired feature.) I recorded some of my students' efforts here (scroll down past the main item).

Last Sunday, one of the Moscow Meeting attenders brought in a bulletin from a Catholic church in Moscow. She pointed to the printed summary of the homily, on the theme of "the last shall be first and the first shall be last," and said, "Look how simply this is written. Why can't we Friends write things that are as easy to read?"

Would we gain anything from an exercise devoted to six-word Quaker statements of faith? Actually, I doubt it, but it made me think about the ways in which our expressions might begin to approach the actual simplicity of our core faith and practice. My suggestion for the first line is actually six words (in English, that is), from Jesus (Mark 15; context):

"Repent and believe the Good News!"

These six words beg a lot of commentary, both devotional and learned, but right there in those few words are the rhythm and passion of the appeal we make to the world. The Quaker corollary is like unto it ... in these eight words from George Fox:

"Christ has come to teach his people himself."

(In Russian, you can say this in just six words! "Христос сам пришёл учить свой народ.")

Jesus is the real thing--God's direct provision for reconciliation, forgiveness, and new life. But the religion industry, especially post-Constantine, worked overtime to privatize repentance and monopolize God's good news. Encountering layer upon layer of regulations, licensing mechanisms, and hierarchies, early Friends said "Enough!" Fox's principle cuts through (or ought to cut through) all that. In the service of this essential and radical simplicity, it's worth working to provide appropriately simple ways to communicate, and thereby, to invite.

Many Quakers would say "It's impossible to reduce a living faith to mere words; that's why we won't adopt creeds." Of course words alone are not enough. Even Jesus's "repent and believe" required parables, signs, wonders, and ultimately murder and resurrection to intersect with your life and mine. But words are a start. Too often we allow the insight that "words aren't enough" to trump the discussion. Equally wrongly, we assume that our only audience (especially in the "West") is those who are nervous about faith language--and maybe for that reason many of us pander to that nervousness by being as vague as possible about what has made life meaningful for us. In doing so we forget about an equally important audience--those who are ready for faith, who hunger for words of life, and who deserve to hear that they don't need the religion industry because Christ has come to teach them himself.

Here's Lewis Benson's commentary on George Fox and "Christ has come....", thanks to the New Foundation Fellowship.

In anticipation of the upcoming World Conference of Friends, here are a number of Salt and Light events.

"It's not 'class warfare,' it's Christianity."

Is this article fair? Why or why not? ... "Wall Street protests reveal slice of America's barely tamed brutality."

And I find it almost impossible to believe that this article is about the USA ... but it is: "Former Pennsylvania judge sentenced to 17 1/2 years in federal prison" for accepting more than $2.6 million in return for sentencing teenagers to two private juvenile prisons.

In Moscow? You have another couple of weeks to see this photographic exhibition on Manezh Square near the Kremlin. (Or see it on the Web site.)

You're not the only one who wonders why female cartoon and video game heroes are so woefully under-armored.

Once again I'm using this song, Eva Cassidy's version of "Time After Time," in my high school classes this week.

Eva Cassidy - Time After Time silvere_vlc

Revolutionaries

2011-09-23T01:26:00.001+04:00

Internet is down on Yalagin Street. Making do with phone...
....................

It's sad and ironic that the official U.S. position on Palestinian membership in the United Nations is so negative. Why is it up to the USA to decide that such membership would be a "shortcut"? You'd never believe that our own nation began in a revolution.
....................

It's also remarkable, given our revolutionary origins, that now death row appeals don't succeed based on demonstrating new doubts about old evidence. The defendant must now prove his innocence.

Is "American exceptionalism," always problematic but often inspiring, starting to fade? Time to remember a more solid foundation for faith: the One who was executed so that we might live.
....................

If I had a video of "5-0 Blues" by Corey Harris, that's what I'd paste here tonight.

Fictional shorts

2011-09-15T03:19:00.000+04:00

When I first picked up Hold Still, Nina LaCour's novel of depression and recovery, I didn't realize it was written for the teen market--but when I figured that out, it didn't keep me from finishing the book. It's funny--when I was in high school, I devoured Dostoevsky, Koestler, Theodore Roszak, Norbert Wiener...and now, forty years later (that's right, I'm just now missing my fortieth reunion at Evanston Township High School), I like nothing better than to read a good novel about high school life.

For one thing, I don't remember having a "life" in high school, so it's great to borrow someone else's. I read about social anxieties, rivalries, boy-girl agonies, dances and parties, and all those other details of high school life in part to fill in huge gaps in my own experience. I kept a daily diary starting halfway through my freshman year, but that doesn't help me figure out what a "normal" high school life might have been. In those years, my home life was one crisis after another, with both my parents drinking, and the older of my two sisters repeatedly running away from home, eventually committed to a mental institution from which she escaped, only to be murdered on the streets of Chicago before her fifteenth birthday.

For me, during those years, school was my refuge--the classroom and the library, specifically. The fewer friends, the better--that way I didn't have to explain stuff. (A couple of my teachers, and a couple of guidance counselors, knew a bit of the picture, and in my last year I was blessed with two good friends as well. In a wonderful burst of insight, a librarian whose name is recorded in my diary--Willett?--gave a book of Langston Hughes' poetry to the school library in my sister's memory.)

Hold Still's heroine Caitlin becomes socially paralyzed when her best friend Ingrid commits suicide. Her burrowing into safe anonymity reminded me of my more or less permanent determination in high school to be anonymous to all but a select few. There are lots of differences in our two stories (aside from mine not being fiction!)--her immobility follows a specific trauma, whereas I hid as a matter of general policy, and was actually happy most of the time. She's not particularly ashamed of her parents, but mine drank constantly and fought constantly. But there was a moment of instant connection between our two stories--when Caitlin's friend Taylor asked her how Ingrid killed herself. My version of this story came on the first school day after Ellen's death. I was sitting in a phys ed class assembly--a lecture on not doing drugs--and more or less drifting along in my own world, when I heard the coach talking about an Evanston Township High School girl who'd been found murdered in Chicago. I felt the instant gut-wrenching imperative to interrupt him and tell everyone she was my sister before the coach made connections in his sermon that he had no right to make. I hated being that exposed, but had no choice.

Caitlin wrestles with guilt over not having revealed the fact that Ingrid cut herself even to the point of carving words on her stomach. Here too I have a point of contact, being aware that people I liked (from a distance) were clearly becoming alcoholics; I had no idea what to do about it. I loved Caitlin's and Ingrid's involvement in their photography class ("hold still"); for me, a class in television production in my senior year was my first peek into the world of creativity beyond text. The birth and growth of new friendships for Caitlin in the novel were believable; I'm grateful to have had some of the same experiences before my high school years ended.

Of all the books "for young readers" I've read in recent years, trying to fill in that gap in my own life, nothing has yet moved me as much as Dicey's Song. This was my first exposure to the world created by author Cynthia Voigt, and, to tell you the truth, this was the one book of hers I didn't actually read; we listened to it as an audio book on a family car trip. Never have I so wanted a trip to last long enough to get us to the end of the recording! In fact, I think we circled the last few blocks near our home in Richmond, Indiana, at the time, because we couldn't bear to interrupt the reading.

Since then I've gone on to read the first book in Dicey's series, Homecoming, and many other books by this author, whose ability to convey unsentimental truths in realistic kindness and love is almost unique. My own mother's mental illness and its devastating impact on our family made me ready to learn how another group of young people met a similar challenge. And, along the way, Dicey and her family also managed to fill me in on some of the "normalcy" of growing up that I don't remember experiencing for myself.

Books and Culture recently published, and made available online, an absorbing article by Joseph Bottum on "God and the Detectives." He estimates that, of the thousands of detective and crime novels published each year, at least 200 have an explicitly religious dimension. There are so many that we can identify subgenres--Anglican women clergy detectives, for example, or crime novels set in medieval times. Bottum discusses the critera for a genuine religious detective story, and what might be the self-limiting factors built into the genre that prevent crime novels from reaching the level of truly unforgettable literature.

When the Adam Dalgliesh novels of P.D. James were serialized and presented on television, I remember that the American packaging of those stories by WGBH Boston included brief comments from the author herself. She said in one episode (I'm going from memory here) that the attraction of the murder mystery is the restoration of the moral order. Creation has been wrenched out of order by the commission of murder, and we derive satisfaction from a resolution that puts it right again. If I remember correctly, Dalgliesh was himself an agnostic, but that doesn't mean he couldn't be used as an agent of Godly justice.

Along those same lines, I'm reflecting on why I found the two novels I've recently read by Jo Nesbø, Nemesis and The Snowman, so satisfying. I don't think in fact that P.D. James's thesis works for me here. I want the crimes to be solved, of course--but it's mostly because I like the hero and don't want him to fail. There's a conflict driving the narrative, and I want my guy to prevail. But that's almost a side issue. In The Snowman, the plot is so intricate that I often lost track of details and plunged on anyway, trusting that things would make sense in the end. (The story chains together several candidate villains, and I think that is all I want to reveal here.) The real attraction of the novel is the recovering/relapsing alcoholic and workaholic Harry Hole.

Bottum's essay in Books and Culture considers W.H. Auden's commentary on detective fiction. "In Auden's reading, mysteries are essentially theological, for they concern, at root, innocence and guilt as states of being—as metaphysical realities." Bottum assesses Auden's commentary and finds it wanting, basically because there is no primordially innocent stage upon which the drama of violation, guilt, and justice play out as the detective narrative progresses from murder to investigation to arrest and trial and--presumably--a classic execution by hanging. For me, that stage is actually inside Harry Hole's head. The main drama is his reflections on his own cynicism, addictions, betrayals, and central values. Much of this drama is surprisingly biblical, considering the near absence of actual religious language. All of this intimate drama serves to increase the reader's investment in a successful outcome, even though we know that, to Hole, all satisfactions are fragile and temporary.

More righteous links:

(After September 11) "The silence of Holy Saturday."

Where is Senator Hatfield when we need him? "To Pray or Not to Pray? Civil Religion and the 9/11 Memorial Service."

Damaris Zehner: "Anger at the poor."

The Academic Forum for Peace: Eastern Orthodox Archbishop Kallistos Ware is one of the Golden Jubilee medal winners.

Education and character: "What if the secret to success is failure?"

"Plain Text/Information Density"--the sheer efficiency of the humble word.

Permit us a long-distance boast: "Multnomah County Library is number two in the nation."

"Arctic ice coverage shrinks to near record low--Russian meteorologists."

Several commenters mention that Windows 8 looks a lot like Ubuntu Linux's Unity desktop. Here's more about what's coming up for Ubuntu and Unity (beta available now).

"Every kind of sickness and disaster"

2011-09-08T23:56:00.000+04:00

I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, "Are you going to start listening to me here?" Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.

U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, campaigning to become the Republican presidential candidate, made these comments in a campaign stop in Florida. Later, she explained that she was joking, and still later, that her words about God were a metaphor.

I don't know how seriously to take either of her explanations. Linking either a frustrated God or the "roaring" American people to fatal calamities is a strange form of humor; and it's hard to understand exactly what the metaphor consists of, and what it's pointing to. But the Face the Nation interview in which the "metaphor" explanation came up was fascinating for another reason--host Bob Schieffer's question, "Do you believe God uses weather to send people messages?"

Bachmann utterly avoids the question. My guess is that, as someone who takes the Bible seriously, she very much does believe this, but she also knows that to say so directly to a broad audience would be risky. Much of the audience would probably be predisposed to label anyone saying "yes" to Schieffer's question as totally on the fringe. The discussions around Ryan Lizza's article on Bachmann, "Leap of Faith," reveal how little mutual understanding there is between biblical believers and secular commentators. (Here's a sample of the discussion.) Furthermore, it sometimes serves politicians in both camps to pretend that the gap is even larger than it really is, in order to demonize their opponents--sometimes literally.

I know I'll never be on Face the Nation--certainly not as a political candidate!--but the whole thing made me wonder how I'd answer Bob Schieffer's question. I did a quick survey of biblical disasters as expressions of God, and I come to a complicated conclusion:

1) God does "use weather" and other calamities "to send people messages"--at least in biblically recorded history.

2) However, God has not licensed today's politicians and commentators to link Hurricane Irene, the East Coast earthquake, the 2004 tsunami (cited at the 2009 sessions of Northwest Yearly Meeting), the 2010 earthquake in Haiti (cited by, among many others, by Pat Robertson and Patriarch Kirill) as expressions of God.

First of all, the more conservative your philosophy of Scripture is, the more reluctant you ought to be to assert what God is saying in any natural event not recorded in Scripture. Anything beyond that is "interpretation," normally not permitted to a literalist. There are many instances in the Bible of prophets foretelling disasters, but they are directly linked to the behavior of people in the hearing of the prophets. The Hebrew nation, on the eve of the crossing into Canaan, are warned (Deuteronomy 28:58-61):

If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God—the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. [context]

These warnings are echoed by generation after generation of prophets, reminding their audiences of the consequences of obstinately ignoring God. After the predicted disasters strike, they plead with their audiences to repent, and plead with God to give the nation another chance.

The specific issues that grieve God are very clear: large-scale abandonment of faith in favor of idolatry, immorality, and unjust treatment of poor people and foreigners. It would take a very, um, liberal interpretation of these warnings to make them cover budget deficits--but if they did, wouldn't they be aimed at people unwilling to pay taxes to serve the common good just as much as at governments spending more than the people had contributed? Rarely, if ever, do we see biblical disaster warnings directed against the advocates of specific policies; they are broadly directed at the whole nation that has (often with the exception of faithful remnants) completely abandoned their covenant faith. Those nations who are outside the covenant are not threatened at all with biblical disasters unless they have mistreated Israel.

(The exception to the this-generation horizon of most biblical prophecy concerning disasters are the warnings recorded about the end times--but these mostly refer to tyranny and combat rather than weather or natural disasters.)

Thus, the safest, most conservative interpretation of these biblical linkages between prophecy and disaster is that they are exactly that: confined to the times and places of the Bible, not a pattern that any latter-day politician or television personality can simply claim by extension for his or her own use. The authorized spokespeople for God's warnings are the prophets, who are accountable to God and to other prophets. With the important exception of Moses, none of the prophets who issue disaster warnings are people of power, or people seeking power. In the ebb and flow of their relationships with the political leaders of their time, they do sometimes gain influence, but they remain fiercely independent of those leaders.

This does not mean that God cannot do today what God did in biblical times, but to extend the patterns and criteria of biblical prophecy (especially prophecies of disaster) is very risky, and should be done with the modest admission that nothing in the Bible is a 100% noncontroversial stamp of approval on present-day prophecy. Whom can we name, among today's disaster commentators, as being worthy inheritors of the mantle of those biblical prophets? Who speaks with tears in their eyes, pleading with their whole nation to abandon idolatry and treat widows, orphans, and immigrants with justice--all with no personal agenda?

And who is the legitimate audience for today's prophets? The biblical prophets addressed a nation (and its neighbors) formed by a common history. The nation of Israel was founded as a covenant community, bound to God by promises. Is the USA (or the planet) bound to the same blessings and curses listed by Moses for that original community? Or is that original nation (and its Christian extension) still bound by that covenant to continue extending God's blessings to the world as a whole? Rather than threatening others with earthquakes and hurricanes, or blaming others for the disasters they've just experienced, shouldn't our focus be on the evangelism and ethical testimonies that make those blessings real?

The hero-worshipper in me sometimes wishes for a powerful prophet to arise, explain our times and our disasters, and tell us all what's what. But as far as I'm concerned, the coming of Jesus completely restructured the way prophecy works. Jesus put an end to the historic cycles of messianic heroes and leaders; he's the ultimate and sufficient reconciler between us and God, rendering all gatekeepers and hierarchs obsolete:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. [2 Corinthians 5:17-21; context; my emphases.]

Today's prophets are in our churches and meetings. You might be one of them. I'd tell Bob Schieffer that if these confirmed and accountable prophets tell me that God has spoken through the weather, I'll take them seriously--but, based on the biblical record, their message is unlikely to serve the interests of anyone running these days for high political office.

Friday PS: A couple of other points: God can act through weather that isn't disastrous as well. Jonah was thrown from the boat in weather that could have been disastrous had he not been honest with the sailors. Jesus calmed several storms.

The meteorological or seismic wrath of God is a huge subject unto itself, with centuries of commentary to help us understand (or not) collective punishment vs the justice and mercy of God. My point here is that is that it is not at all strange for a Christian to believe that God speaks to us through weather, but this belief is not a license to identify politically convenient present-day targets as objects of God's speech. That job, if it exists at all, goes to genuine prophets, not self-anointed celebrities.

"Defining 'cutting-edge' in an upside-down kingdom." ... From Lausanne World Pulse, September issue.

When we decided on the theme for this issue, "Women on the Cutting Edge of Missions," we were focusing on "typical" images of influential, wise, creative women who are greatly impacting missions and evangelism today. On a secular level, we would look to the equivalent of Angela Merkel, Ho Ching, or Condoleezza Rice. On the Christian historical level, we would look to Priscilla, Clare, Catherine Booth, or Mother Teresa.

But as you will read in this issue, "cutting edge" has various facets, the least of which is the typical definition. We must continually come back to the reality that we are God's workers in an upside-down field. As our authors remind us, women who are indeed on the cutting edge of missions are often nameless to most and can easily go faceless in a crowd of those who are perceived to be "the powerful."

"Christianity is really so bloody simple!"

"The language of the left: rejecting relativism and naming bad theology." Garrett FitzGerald: "Progressives need to own up to the simple fact that there is such a thing as bad theology."

"Forgive everyone for everything." --Be sure to read the comments, too.

"Beautiful music at Ground Zero."

The New York Times's Bill Keller reflects on the 9/11 decade and "unfinished business."

PDF file: "Lopping Off a Limb? Indiana Yearly Meeting’s Troubled Relationship With West Richmond Monthly Meeting," in Quaker Theology's "Special Preview Edition." Stephen Angell comments on Indiana Yearly Meeting's relationship with West Richmond Friends Meeting, and the difficult decisions facing the Yearly Meeting this fall.

Charlie Musselwhite plays guitar at the Will Shade gravestone benefit concert.

Bookstore shorts

2011-09-01T12:54:00.000+04:00

With the exception of a couple of days in 2004, I've really not spent any time here in Paris since the 1970's, when I made three trips here as a tourist and to visit a friend. One of the places I've not seen since the mid-1970's is this fascinating bookstore in the Latin Quarter, Les Editeurs Réunis (11, rue de Montagne-Ste-Geneviève; Метро: Maubert-Mutualité). Once I was in the door, it was very hard to leave, although my self-discipline seemed to leave quite soon.

Actually, to be fair to myself, of the five books I bought, only two and a half are for myself. One was a nice small-format book of lectures and discussions by Alexander Men' entitled On Christ and the Church. The other was a favorite Anthony Bloom book, On Meeting, that I had given away and hadn't been able to replace since. And of course now I'll have to do all my highlighting and underlining over again. But what a delight it was to lay hands on that cherished book once again.

In my first visit to the store, thirty-some years ago, I bought a Norwegian-Russian dictionary, which I still have. Today I bought another dictionary, a Russian-English dictionary of criminal jargon. This is the half-book in my count--I half bought it for myself and half as a gift. Since I can't cut the book in half, stay tuned to see whether it does become a gift or stays with me.

The other two books really are for someone else--they're books to help French speakers learn Russian. I don't qualify. It's interesting to be somewhere where I'm dependent on someone else (my son Luke, here on a research fellowship) to communicate. I feel almost as helpless here as I was in Mongolia.

That is, I would feel almost as helpless, were it not for the high proportion of English speakers. And I've not run into that famous "attitude" toward English-speaking visitors. Quite the contrary. Yesterday, I had a great experience with a taxi driver as we jointly searched for the Fedex dropoff point nearest the airport. He spoke no English, but he was from Poland, and we got by with a combination of Polish and Russian, and a lot of humor.

Now that I'm reminiscing about bookstores and books, this might be a good place to mention Mark Hatfield. A Republican, Hatfield was a two-term governor of Oregon and served in the U.S. Senate for thirty years. As a Christian politician, he held seamless-garment views--opposing war, capital punishment, and abortion.

I first heard about Hatfield when I was still living in Canada, more than a a third of a century before becoming a resident of Oregon. I knew that he was a rare species: a Republican senator who opposed the war in Viet Nam. I was working in an Anglican bookstore at the time, so I was able to get my hands on his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place as soon as it was published. He wrote so eloquently--not just about Viet Nam, but also about the seductions of power and the dangers of civil religion--that as soon as I finished the book, I wrote him a letter of appreciation. Not only was I not in his constituency, I wasn't even in his country, so I didn't expect to hear from him. But I did, and that thoughtful reply from him is still in my files back in Oregon.

After a long illness, Mark Hatfield died last month. Here are two worthwhile tributes--first, Christianity Today reprinted an excellent mid-career interview with Hatfield from 1982, six years after Between a Rock was published. Second, a tribute from Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, who served in the senator's office for eight years before entering on his ecumenical and denominational career.

"The lasting legacy of Lesslie Newbigin"

According to Newbigin, the public truth of the gospel has been reduced to a personal message about the otherworldly future of the individual person. He believed, however, that the gospel is a message about the goal of cosmic history. In the death of Jesus God dealt with the evil of the whole world, and in his resurrection the renewing power of a renewed creation broke into history. This restored creation will one-day fill the whole earth and all of history will culminate in the kingdom of God. If this is true, Newbigin argues, the Gospel is not a private message. It is news about the goal of universal history, the cosmic completion of God’s purpose to restore his original creational intentions for the whole creation and all of human life.

"I have power," says the pastor of Germantown Mennonite Church, Philadelphia. "I took it on as my cause to love the hell right out of him, and to remember that even angry, racist, fearful people needed Jesus."

Julia Bacha: "Pay attention to nonviolence" in the Middle East--specifically in Gaza and the West Bank.

And Christian Peacemakers invite you and me to their 25th anniversary Peacemakers Congress. Theme: "Re-imagining Partnerships for Peacemaking." Reba Place Church, Evanston, Illinois, USA, October 13-16, 2011.

Rupert Murdoch as "Bible mogul." And ... "Blogosphere abuzz over Murdoch as 'Bible Mogul'."

Two stories about "innocent Norway" that should be read together: "Norwegians more trusting after July 22" and "Tighter security around cabinet ministers."

"The National Religious Campaign Against Torture Speaks Out on Cheney’s Memoir."

"Examining a labor hero's death"--new evidence of Joe Hill's innocence.

David "Honeyboy" Edwards, 1915-2011.

Ron "In A Blue Mood" W comments on a new edition of one of the greatest blues albums ever recorded: Hoodoo Man Blues.
Sample: --you can hear the Leslie speaker's effect on Buddy Guy's sound, as Ron W mentions in his review of this disk.

Two versions of "Mean Woman Blues".... and I'd love to know which you like better (or as the case may be, dislike less).

Anthony Bloom speaks and we listen

2011-08-25T12:32:00.000+04:00

Last week I described plans for a Bible study for our meeting. Now it's confession time: I am always a nervous wreck as I anticipate having to speak or preach or lead a group! I've done it a million times, and sometimes successfully, but it is never easy. Especially when it's not in my native language. I'm always secretly hoping that something will come up that will pre-empt the event that I've been preparing for so hard.

So, from that escapist point of view, this Sunday was promising. As worship and a round of introductions and announcements came to an end, two visitors we'd not seen before asked to speak--and they told us of their horrendous experiences looking for work. They had been recruited by someone at a public place to paste handbills, and ended up in virtual slavery for a month. If that weren't enough, two of our members were in a foul mood about something that had happened in June when I was in the USA. As we set out the tea and biscuits, the on-duty rep of the organization we rent our meeting space from came in and announced, to regulars and visitors alike, that we needed to get a better teapot, that our contract with the organization didn't obligate them to supply endless amounts of hot water. "Get something that will hold four or five liters," she boomed.

Even as I tried to sort all this out, and as we put out the after-meeting tea, I piously wondered whether the atmosphere was really all that conducive to a Bible study. When I suggested, with studied tentativeness, that "maybe" it was time to convene our study, I half expected not even to be heard. But I was, and everyone settled down. (Everyone! I'd wondered whether half the people would leave, either fuming or scratching their heads! But as it turned out, I ran out of handouts; people had to share.) With a full 45 minutes left before we had to leave the premises, I'd run out of distractions. Time to start.

The handout included the full Anthony Bloom sermon that I excerpted last week. It also included these questions for discussion, based on sermon and related Scriptures:

... A lot more is required of us if we want to be the people of God, the people who can say that the divine word belongs to them. Do we really want this?
... A genuinely godly people--a genuinely New Testament people--must be the kind of community that could write the Bible themselves, giving it birth and preaching it from personal experience..... What are the similarities here with Friends' understanding of the Bible?
... it would be a two-fold revelation for all who hear us: a revelation of the word that is being proclaimed, and a revelation that the proclamation has become flesh and blood, a living reality for people. Beautiful words and thoughts, of course, but realistic?
Is this what we see? Can we really say that the community we constitute, whether large or small, is a full-bodied confirmation of the news we carry, the good news that Jesus brings to the world? How does our meeting's current [self-study] project, "Improving the meeting's effectiveness," connect with these questions from Bishop Anthony? [We're currently undergoing a survey-driven process, homegrown but something like Natural Church Development.]
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness ... (2 Timothy). What concrete examples can we imagine to show how Scripture could be active among us?
... All the promises of God are 'yes' in him. (2 Corinthians). What promises of God are implied here and in the sermons of Metropolitan Anthony? How do we relate to those promises?

In 45 minutes we got through the first three questions, leaving us with plenty for later. But the discussion was outstanding--I was so proud of our community. Among my outstanding impressions from the evening were things said by three of our participants. Our most (apparently) cynical was eloquent on the way the Bible shapes his faith. Our most idealistic was lyrical about the image of love shining from the Bible. And a member known for bluntness said, "Isn't it a bit presumptuous of us even to hint that we, those of us in this room, could reconstitute the Bible?" Concerning those latter two, I said, "It's this very tension--between the idealistic and the prophetic reality-checker--that reflects an ancient and very important dialogue in the church. It's a natural division of labor, and we need both poles."

I have to thank the Holy Spirit for this--there is no way I could have predicted such a riveting session, that 45 minutes could be so full and (despite my initial nervousness) end so quickly.

Two prominent obituaries.

Jack Layton, Canadian scholar and politician. When I lived in Canada, the New Democrats were led by David and Stephen Lewis, and I was there to see the New Democratic Party actually hold the balance of power in Canada. When David Lewis resigned the party's leadership in 1975, I remember his eloquent speech as a classic statement of the democratic socialist creed that was a viable political option in Canada in a way that was not possible in the USA. In those years, even conservatives (like some of my relatives) would sometimes vote for the NDP based on the merits of their local candidates.

Since leaving Canada, I'd somewhat lost track of Canadian politics, but the NDP came back to my attention in a hurry this spring, when the national election gained them enough seats to become the official opposition. The NDP leader in this amazing success story: Jack Layton, one of the most interesting and inspiring politicians in recent memory. He died this past Monday. Among the many, many articles and editorials that were written in the hours following his death, this editorial (in a newspaper that did him no favors in life!) is one of my favorites.

Jerry Leiber, songwriter. Just as Jack Layton labored on behalf of policies to make people's lives better, Jerry Leiber worked with songwriting partner Mike Stoller and many other collaborators for decades to make people's lives more fun--and subverting race lines in doing so. Just a couple of weeks ago, I embedded the wonderful song "Stand By Me," product of a collaboration among the two writers and Ben E. King. For all Leiber's versatility, he always claimed to be deeply rooted in the blues. Here's a link to his best-known song, performed by the song's original original artist and the great Buddy Guy. And Jacob Adelman's AP obituary.

"Who does that sort of thing?" "You'd be surprised."

Libya: Even revolutionaries need lobbyists.

Speaking of problematic clients: The church fathers on the "salvation of the Devil."

The colleges with the most religious and least religious students.

Helena Cobban: "New potential for Jewish-Palestinian solidarity."

Got time for a truly fun and absorbing documentary? This one is about physicist Richard Feynman.

Daniel J. Kasztelan's Friends United Meeting Triennial photo gallery: "We Are FUM."

Friday PS: New Friends United Meeting presiding clerk, Cliff Loesch. (One of those times when I hear about a choice and say "of course!")

Buddy Guy at the Waterfront Blues Festival. I must have been just a few meters away from this videographer, but his camera is a lot better than mine. (Language caution--this video illustrates the point I made here.)

Anthony Bloom speaks to Friends

2011-08-18T12:18:00.000+04:00

I'm going to keep it short tonight; my whole evening has been spent troubleshooting my mobile phone and its micro memory card. Each time I add files, the card becomes "read-only" and refuses to cooperate--but only for the "sound" folder. Videos and photos can be added and deleted as always. I'm now on my third workaround, hoping that my phone isn't corrupting new cards as soon as they're inserted....

The month, I'm helping with a Bible study at Moscow Friends. Rather than plunging directly into a biblical theme, we're going to explore how we understand the Bible and its role in forming us as individuals and a community. I remember a very helpful Wednesday evening discussion along these lines at North Valley Friends in Newberg, Oregon, USA, and I'm eager to see how a similar discussion might go here. A new translation of the Old Testament has recently been published and has been widely discussed (see this item for a bit of an introduction to the discussion), making now a perfect time to choose this theme.

For our first discussion, I chose several scriptures on God speaking to us, through the Bible and through Jesus--including the well-known passage from 2 Timothy. On a hunch, I also went to a book of sermons by one of my favorite Russian Orthodox writers, Anthony Bloom (the bishop of Great Britain and Ireland at the time he died). There I found a sermon specifically addressing what it means to be a biblical people. I was struck by how close his sermon on the Bible is to the classic Friends view. Anthony Bloom is consistent: he teaches honesty in prayer, in our relationships with each other, and in our relationship with the Bible:

The Gospel was born in the Church. Both the congregation of Israel and the church existed before there was Scripture. It was from within that community that the awareness of God emerged--and with it, an awareness of God's love, a vision of His ineffable beauty, and a vision, as well, of our own status and fate, formation and calling. The community of the People of God is the kind of community that knows for sure that they have something vital to witness about--namely about the One who is their new life, the object of their love and joy. A genuinely godly people--a genuinely New Testament people--must be the kind of community that could write the Bible themselves, giving it birth and preaching it from personal experience. If we're not that kind of fellowship, we don't really belong either to the Gospel or the people of God.

Often we comfort ourselves with the thought that we are a community of prayer where the word of God is preached and proclaimed, and where we seek, one way or another, to live by that word. But if we look around ourselves, everything we see indicates just the opposite. If we were a community where the divine word is being born from the very depths of our experience, it would be a two-fold revelation for all who hear us: a revelation of the word that is being proclaimed, and a revelation that the proclamation has become flesh and blood, a living reality for people. The community that preaches the divine word would by its very life serve as proof of what it is proclaiming.

Is this what we see? Can we really say that the community we constitute whether large or small, is a full-bodied confirmation of the news we carry, the good news that Jesus brings to the world?

One of George Fox's biographers said that if the Bible disappeared, it could be reconstructed from his writings. Anthony Bloom's sermon seems to be asking us: if the Bible somehow disappeared today, could it be reconstructed from the testimonies and experiences of our communities? Of your church, or mine?

As usual, Anthony Bloom does not mince words. What will our little fellowship do with his challenge? What first steps can we make to become the kind of people of God who don't just read the Bible as an old document, or one that makes us individually "wise unto salvation," but begin to incarnate its meaning and message--not just for ourselves but for those around us? If I'm not mistaken, Wess Daniels and his community are considering similar questions--see "Reading the Bible for transformation" (including the comments) and "The company we keep."

Sergei Nikitin, head of Moscow's office of Amnesty International (and former staffer at Friends House Moscow) asks us to look at this special edition of Amnesty's video journal, devoted to cluster bombs and the financial institutions that invest in these banned weapons' manufacturers. Honest question: If we find out that our bank or investment company is part owner of a company making weapons, given our teachings against all war and preparations for war, what do we do?

OK, we don't know everything that we're linked to through our investments, but when we find something out, what's our responsibility? (Especially when we're discussing becoming people who incarnate God's word!!) Equally awkwardly, shouldn't we put some effort into finding out those connections? Recently, Judy and I found out that our credit card company, whose card we use for all work-related expenses, raised our interest rate by four percentage points. We began looking for a new credit card. We ended up choosing to get a card from Everence (formerly Mennonite Mutual Aid). Interestingly, we are paying the same interest rate that our old card gave us before the sudden increase. Might this credit-union-based institution be an alternative for at least some Friends?

Ground-level reflections on London's riots: "When is enough enough?" (Thanks to Jeremy Mott for drawing this to my attention.)

"Why did Japan surrender?"--and what does this interpretation (that the atomic bombs themselves were not decisive) do to conventional Quaker views of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (See "How the Grinch Stole Hiroshima.")

"The Pentagon's fake jihadists." ... "Put what follows in the category of paragraphs no one noticed that should have made the nation's hair stand on end."

"Transfigured by the Spirit"--a review of Richard Werbner's Holy Hustlers, Schism, and Prophecy: Apostolic Reformation in Botswana. Is there, as the reviewer suggests, a parallel between 17th-century Quakers and the Eloyi church?

Enjoy this performance (and digital art) by Pamela MacCarthy:

Anxiety

2011-08-11T23:16:00.004+04:00

I spent two nights in a row on airplanes, finally unfolding myself in Moscow last Saturday and flopping my disoriented self into my Elektrostal bed that evening. Had I not promised to be the door-opener at Friends meeting on Sunday, I would probably have been in bed still on Monday morning--cats permitting.

At any rate, things seemed a lot clearer after Monday morning coffee. I walked over to the New Humanities Institute and noticed that Institute's backyard was surrounded by a high fence. Walking around the building, I was able to see what the fence concealed: a brand new foundation for the Institute's new annex. Wow, I leave for a month and a half and look what happens!

I'm truly impressed and encouraged that this daring project has begun. The college-level population is in a slump; birth rates in the corresponding years of the early 1990's were low, and our Institute enrollment has declined. (See the population pyramid at right, which reflects many aspects of Russia's 20th-century Calvary walk.) But in more recent years the birth rate has been increasing. With the Institute's expanded offerings (art and design, and the new tourism faculty) and its programs for children and high school students, it needs to build for the future--despite all the uncertainty of today's world.

A bit of that uncertainty was captured by this brief post, "More Market Indigestion," on the Chicago Reader's Web site:

Well, great. I dump my million shares of Procter & Gamble this morning after they lose $1.71 a share on Wednesday—and today P&G is up $1.94! The Dow rises 423!

I dropped out of the market yesterday after the New York Times advised me that investors were worried about debt problems in Europe. But today, guess what? There was "easing of concerns over Europe’s finances."

Europe's stock markets plunge again, but Wall Street goes up. Commentators comment on market participants' stampeding behavior, while fueling it themselves with their breathless delivery of instant analysis. "A large majority of Americans say the United States is on the wrong track and nearly half believe the worst is yet to come, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday."

Norway's horrible one-person murder spree of last month is followed by Britain's riots. On very different scales, both cases betray evidence of pathological alienation. Standard and Poor's downgrades its rating of the USA's ability to avoid default, causing ripples of anxiety and indignation and an unseemly scramble among politicians to exploit the crisis for election gains. (Causing more alienation?) And just as we get a bit of encouragement on the USA's unemployment front, the American post office announces plans to reduce its workforce by 120,000.

Government officials strain credibility in explaining why we Americans are in Afghanistan when our main security threat is our own solvency--and, in the meantime, we suffer our worst combat losses in the entire campaign.

I would love to think this is a strategic moment for evangelists. In all this anxiety, there seems to be a vacuum of faith. I don't mean an absence of religious language--there's a lot of it in use, too often in the service of savaging one's political opponents. (With some hesitation, I offer this example, which cuts both ways!) I mean the kind of faith that:

locates our present and our future in God's own economy
values us for our preciousness in God's eyes, not by worldly standards
assembles and motivates the Body of Christ to cherish and support each other no matter what happens
shows the world that being in a community of believers really can overcome alienation.

So much of the world's discourse, the world's politics, seems based on the constant search to identify, denounce, and destroy enemies. (Or pretending to do so to gain votes. And given the power of religious language, that's just as bad.) In the Lamb's War, we don't search for enemies, we search for prisoners--and do everything we can collectively to free them.

Friday PS: Is the USA guilty of economic "hooliganism"? Michele Berdy, Moscow Times's guide to English-Russian communication, considers correct usages of this term. (Link expires in a month, and archives are for paid subscribers.)

Some links from the past week:

Do you have to be in a perfect church to know "the kind of faith" that I mentioned above? Read this: "On the 'One True Church'."

"The Economy of Holiness."

"Why Mums Go to Iceland [this Iceland!] and not to Britain Yearly Meeting." For context, here's the PDF-format epistle from the just-concluded yearly meeting sessions, and a press release.

My heroine of calm economic commentary posts these helpful comments and links.

To my frustration, the New York Times paywall seems to be ... paying off. Seth Mnookin, "The Kingdom and the Paywall."

As the political season in Russia heats up, I'm going to point back to one of my own comments on Western observers.

"Appeals Court Overturns Anti-War Demonstrators' Convictions."

Is this the "weirdest video ever"?

"Stand By Me." This video was shown at (and provided the theme for) the Friends Women banquet at Northwest Yearly Meeting's recent sessions. With over 60 million hits on various sites, you've probably already seen it, but it seemed to fit with the vision of a church that cherishes and supports the community.

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

PDX shorts

2011-08-04T20:43:00.006+04:00

I'm sitting at PDX (Portland, Oregon's international airport) awaiting the start of my journey back to Russia.

I've got very mixed feelings. Two years in Elektrostal has recalibrated my sense of "home"--I miss our apartment there, our cats, our kitchen, our friends, students, neighbors, Moscow Quakers. But we've been received with such warmth everywhere we've visited in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The visit began with the wonderful 2011 edition of the Waterfront Blues Festival. In Oregon we had an absolutely delightful time at Northwest Yearly Meeting sessions; and if anyone got tired of hearing all our stories from Russia, they certainly concealed it well! In Washington, we learned to drive tractors; in Idaho, we were treated to authentic shashlyk; and everywhere we enjoyed countless reunions with friends, relatives, and Friends.

Even so, I'm ready to be ... home.

During these weeks in the USA, I've been hearing a lot about taxes. Very few people seem to be in favor of them! Two rather odd thoughts hit me as I listened to some of the intricate discussions about the difference between raising taxes and increasing revenues. Here they are:

FIrst, progressive Democrats generally call for taxes to be increased (or tax loopholes reduced) on rich people, or as the President often says, "those like us who can afford to do a little more." In return, some Republicans seem to dislike the "rich" label entirely, preferring some alternate label such as "job creators." Why not redefine the category entirely? I suggest raising taxes for those who benefit the most from the stability, legal protections, and infrastructure that those taxes pay for. I don't know anyone who is opposed to reducing waste and corruption, but once those are found and eliminated, taxes are just like all other transactions--they circulate in the economy. Let those who don't want to pay taxes also refuse the benefits of a stable country with roads and courts and an educated workforce.

Secondly, how do we apply Jesus' guideline, "Give Caesar what is Caesar's and give God what is God's"? (Mark 12:13-17 and parallels). This is not a rhetorical question--in a democracy, who is Caesar? I just note with some amusement that tax refusers (conscientious objectors to paying military taxes) are told that they must pay taxes to support the whole federal package, regardless of their beliefs. Does this also go for the rich?

It's the time of year when I find myself reading Jeremiah again. This time through I was particularly struck by these words from chapter 23: (Eugene Peterson's The Message)

25-27 "I know what they're saying, all these prophets who preach lies using me as their text, saying 'I had this dream! I had this dream!' How long do I have to put up with this? Do these prophets give two cents about me as they preach their lies and spew out their grandiose delusions? They swap dreams with one another, feed on each other's delusive dreams, trying to distract my people from me just as their ancestors were distracted by the no-god Baal.

28-29 "You prophets who do nothing but dream—
go ahead and tell your silly dreams.
But you prophets who have a message from me—
tell it truly and faithfully.
What does straw have in common with wheat?
Nothing else is like God's Decree.
Isn't my Message like fire?" God's Decree.
"Isn't it like a sledgehammer busting a rock?

30-31 "I've had it with the 'prophets' who get all their sermons secondhand from each other. Yes, I've had it with them. They make up stuff and then pretend it's a real sermon.

32 "Oh yes, I've had it with the prophets who preach the lies they dream up, spreading them all over the country, ruining the lives of my people with their cheap and reckless lies.

"I never sent these prophets, never authorized a single one of them. They do nothing for this people—nothing!" God's Decree.

33 "And anyone, including prophets and priests, who asks, 'What's God got to say about all this, what's troubling him?' tell him, 'You, you're the trouble, and I'm getting rid of you.'" God's Decree.

34 "And if anyone, including prophets and priests, goes around saying glibly 'God's Message! God's Message!' I'll punish him and his family.

35-36 "Instead of claiming to know what God says, ask questions of one another, such as 'How do we understand God in this?' But don't go around pretending to know it all, saying 'God told me this...God told me that....' I don't want to hear it anymore. Only the person I authorize speaks for me. Otherwise, my Message gets twisted, the Message of the living God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

37-38 "You can ask the prophets, 'How did God answer you? What did he tell you?' But don't pretend that you know all the answers yourselves and talk like you know it all. I'm telling you: Quit the 'God told me this...God told me that...' kind of talk.

This gives me a clue as to why earlier generations of Quakers were extremely reluctant to put words in God's mouth. I was really struck by Eugene Peterson's rendering of verse 35: "Instead of claiming to know what God says, ask questions of one another, such as 'How do we understand God in this?'...." Might this be the biblical basis for our practice of using queries for mutual accountability?

Righteous links:

"Clearly, this is not a pacifist God we serve." "In the days since the attack and arrest, the media has been abuzz with reflections on whether or not Breivik can or should be called a 'Christian.' Each argument depends upon some stated or implied criterion for what constitutes Christian identity: a form of 'belief,' of personal piety or religious experience, of ethical comportment, of ritual practice, of theological commitments, of cultural identity, of ecclesial participation, of relationship to political orders."

"Let's discuss ... the Lord's Supper." There's a genuine discussion in the comments.

"If you're struggling with loneliness...."

"Marvel overcomes its fear of a black Spider-Man." Thanks to Sharon Smith for the reference.

"Geek Theologian." Wired founder Kevin Kelly: "Technology can maximize our special combination of gifts, but there are so many technological choices that I could spend all my time just trying out technologies. So I minimize my technological choices in order to maximize my output. The Amish (and the hippies) are really good at minimizing technologies. That's what I am trying to do as well."

Back to Russia with the "Little Red Rooster." (Mishouris Blues Band.)

Innocent Norway

2011-07-28T22:30:00.009+04:00

Part of a screen capture from english.aljazeera.net, last Saturday

"This tragedy marks the end of Norway's innocence"

These words are the title of a thoughtful article by Anthony Browne in the Telegraph. This theme of Norway's "loss of innocence" was all over the media in the hours and days following last Friday's tragic events in Oslo and Utøya. (Example one. Example two. Example three.) For several reasons, this line makes me uneasy.

First of all, Norway is not an isolated land of noble primitives. For over a century, Norway has had one of the world's largest privately-owned merchant navies (presently ranking number 6). The German conquest of Norway in World War II led to armed resistance and Nazi reprisals. The treasonous Quisling was a Norwegian, and the Nobel-prize-winning novelist and national treasure Knut Hamsun refused, even at war's end, to renounce his admiration for Adolf Hitler. After the war, Norway joined NATO. Norwegian forces have fought in Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Norwegian politicians know how to play hardball with each other, as in the recent case of the nasty fight over choosing a new fighter plane for the air force.

Murders are rare, but not nonexistent. Ditto for domestic violence, public alcoholism, suicide, hate crimes and (as I've seen myself) racist and neo-Nazi vandalism. There is no aristocracy in Norway, and many Norwegians share an aversion to immodest displays of wealth, but class tensions do exist.

I'm presenting this very miscellaneous bag of behaviors simply to say that Norwegians are neither ethereal angels nor completely unacquainted with violence.

Maybe some refer to Norway's "innocence" as a sly commentary on the country's famed prudence and idealism. Surely these values amount to national naivete, detached from the realities of this world. But what if this so-called "innocence" is not innocent at all, but rather a deliberately chosen and logically defensible way of life? Most Norwegian political parties, left and right, share a basic assumption that the national economy can and must balance private enterprise and social justice. Norwegian forces seem ready to join U.N. peacekeeping missions at the drop of a hat. Alfred Nobel assigned Norway the privilege of awarding his Peace Prize. As a source of public and private development aid, Norway is often the world's per capita champion donor. Even as a petro-power, Norway displays exemplary behavior--depositing huge amounts of oil and gas earnings into a sovereign welfare fund advised by a Sunday school teacher. As for kings and politicians, their roles may reflect the functional chieftains of Viking days--not expecting exaltation and well-guarded Olympian isolation, but simply expecting to do their jobs just like everyone else.

These features are not proof of innocence or naivete; they reflect a long series of national bargains, worked out over years of debate and many election cycles. They reflect a pragmatic understanding that a good life for me is most easily achieved and maintained if a good life is within reasonable reach of all. Would such a pragmatic and functional national covenent survive a new regime of highly-armed separation of government offices and politicians from their people--or a defensive and reactionary attitude toward foreign ideas and people?

Some of the commentators citing Norway's innocence and its loss are themselves Norwegian--for example, this much-discussed column by crime novelist Jo Nesbø. But I can't help wonder whether others simply don't want to believe in Norway's achievements. Surely such national sanity and quality of life must come at some awful price, and--aha--now we see what it is! But in the aftermath of the July 22 tragedies, it's important for Norway to remember the long and deliberate history of its national consensus that freedom is better than fear.

To sum up: don't confuse the July 22 attacks as a question of some fatal Norwegian flaw to be labeled "innocence." That's a diversion; these attacks clearly revealed some real flaws to consider urgently. It's not as if Norway is too innocent to have police forces--why did it take them so long to respond to Breivik's attacks on the youth camp? There is nothing about Norway's national idealism that requires helicopters and boats to be unavailable when an emergency happens, or to avoid connecting the dots when a self-proclaimed extremist buys materials that can become explosives. The more we believe in nonviolence and trust, the more vigilant we have to be to confront evil on our own terms.

More Norway-related links: Meeting for Grief and Hope (this Saturday, Seattle, USA). The power of truth, love and nonviolence (Fellowship of Reconciliation), "Breivik and his enablers" (New York Times), "Some Terrorists Are Blonde" (Foreign Policy Association). And a moving song that became an anthem for those grieving July 22 and committing themselves to the nation's young people. (Thanks to Barbara Berntsen for the reference.) Click on "show more" to see the words.

Friday PS: "Norway's atrocity: the mental tunnel" (OpenDemocracy).

Pastor and evangelist to the whole planet: John Stott dies at age 90. New York Times. Christianity Today. John Stott Ministries.

Becky Ankeny in Elektrostal

Northwest Yearly Meeting's new general superintendent-elect (starting at the end of the year) is Rebecca Ankeny--here's a brief introduction. Becky's appointment was approved at the Yearly Meeting's business sessions yesterday. With great affection, we also recognized the wonderful service of our outgoing superintendent, Colin Saxton, who will be serving as the new general secretary of Friends United Meeting.

Two items from Russia Religion News: "A New Russian Bible" and "Russian Supreme Court tries to limit use of 'extremism' cases against believers."

Norway's Knut Reiersrud, "I Don't Feel No Ways Tired"

July shorts

2011-07-21T14:13:00.004+04:00

Happy 20th
birthday, Sonic!
(Generations trailer)

This Sonic the Hedgehog item is actually late by a month--Sega calculates the beloved video game character's birthday as June 23, 1991. That's when his first Genesis game was released on the North American video game market. That very summer he became part of our own family's culture, with me being the first family member to overcome Dr. Robotnik at the end of level 1. (This is not the first time I've taken the opportunity to mention this triumph! That, however, is nearly the sum total of my own gaming experience!)

Thanks to Tina Russell for the photo of Sonic enjoying a 20th birthday serving of his favorite chili dogs. As part of this 20th anniversary year, Sega announced that Sonic will appear again in Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this coming November, the same month that the new game, Sonic Generations, is scheduled to appear.

A few hours ago I stepped up to the cafe counter at the nearby Border's bookstore here in Eugene, Oregon. I told friendly and efficient Stephanie, working behind the counter this evening, that I had received an e-mail from Border's, telling me that I'd earned a free drink. She said, "Well, you're supposed to download and bring in a coupon, but since we're closing for good this evening, I'll honor your free drink offer.... You can choose any drink, any size." I had heard that Border's was facing liquidation, but I hadn't realized that this calamity had come so soon--and I utterly admired this employee's wonderful poise and competence just hours from the end of her very last cafe shift.

The store itself apparently will not be closing for weeks or months, during the liquidation process. But I'll shortly be back in Russia, meaning that the next time I'm here, there will be a huge hole in the cultural fabric of this side of town. If you want to know what happened to this once-proud chain of over 1000 bookstores, there are plenty of places to find reflections and analyses. (National Public Radio. American Booksellers Association. The Bookseller [UK].) But I simply want to wish their employees the best as they face a borderless future. I know I'm not supposed to like big chain bookstores, but this location served us well.

Unlike some customers, who apparently previewed book for free while planning to buy them from Amazon, I really did buy books there--and coffee, too. Today's goodbye purchase: Patricia T. O'Connor's Woe Is I. It's going back to Russia with me--I have in mind a particular colleague, who always asks me questions about how to distinguish such usages as (to quote from O'Connor)...

DIFFERENT FROM/DIFFERENT THAN. What's the difference? The simple answer is that different from is almost always right, and different than is almost always wrong. You can stop there if you like.

NOTE: You may use either one if what follows is a clause (a group of words with its own subject and verb). Both of these are accepted: Respectability is different from what it was fifty years ago. Respectability is different than it was fifty years ago. But use different from when no clause follows. Respectability is different from reliability.

Friday PS: More from Financial Times on Borders in the context of the larger retail environment.

Another closure: the end of the Space Shuttle program, which was originally envisioned as a fleet of workhorses for the American and international space program. Sadly, it turned out that reusability turned out not to be a bargain, nor was it a guarantee of safety. In coincidental commemoration of this milestone, I've begun reading a fascinating history, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age, by Matthew Brzezinski. (Amazon link.)

Considering the cost of launching even the tiniest cargo into orbit, it's amazing to read that Wernher von Braun and the Army ballistic missile team tried to persuade their bosses to let them launch the world's first satellite for a mere $100,000. Interservice politics sidelined the Army team in favor of the Navy for a "civilian" satellite and the Air Force for weapons ... until the Soviet Union unexpectedly won the first round of the space race with their Sputnik.

There are certainly still "hidden rivalries" in spaceflight today, but it's amazing that the USA must for the time being now rely on Russian facilities to send American astronauts to the International Space Station--that station itself being a remarkable multinational effort.

Righteous links:

Speaking of books, see Internet Monk contributor Jeff Dunn's "My Summer Reading List." Be sure to read the comments--and, if you like, add to them. I'm going to keep checking what's been added. Have you seen any good reading lists recently? I'm especially eager to hear about books that would interest adult students of English.

Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends begins its annual sessions in just a few days. Will you be there? Judy and I are participating in two banquets and two workshops--and, I'm sure, many joyful reunions.

From the Evangelical Environmental Network: "Heat wave bearing down on 150 million Americans."

Jim Wallis got almost ten minutes on MSNBC today to talk about God and budget priorities. Video.

"A National Leader in Search of a Post"--and a new post in search of a national leader??

Friday PS: Looking with horror at familiar streets and buildings in Oslo, via BBC.

Today's blues dessert is from Toots Hibbert and Playing for Change (best known for the viral video, "Stand By Me")

Measuring the storm

2011-07-14T22:35:00.004+04:00

The Storm of War

Andrew Roberts writes:

The Second World War lasted for 2,174 days, cost $1.5 trillion and claimed the lives of over 50 million people. That represents 23,000 lives lost every day, or more than six people killed every minute, for six long years. At the Commonwealth Beach Head Cemetery just north of Anzio in Italy lie some of the men who fell in that campaign, in row after row of perfectly tended graves. The bereaved families were permitted to add personal messages to tombstones below the bald register of name, rank, number, age, unit, and date of death. Thus the grave of Corporal J. J. Griffin of the Sherwood Foresters, who died aged twenty-seven on 21 March 1944, reads: 'May the sunshine you missed on life's highway be found in God's haven of rest'. Gunner A.W.J. Johnson of the Royal Artillery, who died the following day, has: 'In loving memory of our dear son. Forever in our thoughts, Mother, Joyce and Dennis'. That of twenty-two-year-old Lance-Corporal R. Gore of the Loyal Regiment, who died on 24 February 1944, reads: 'Gone but not forgotten by Dad and Man, brother Herbert and sister Annie'. The gravestone of Private J.R.G. Gains of the Buffs, killed on 31 May 1944 aged thirty, says: 'Beautiful memories, a darling husband and daddy worthy of Everlasting Love, His wife and Baby Rita'. Even two-thirds of a century later, it is still impossible not to feel fury against Hitler and the Nazis for forcing baby Rita Gains to grow up without her father, Annie and Herbert Gains without their brother, and for taking her nineteen-year-old boy away from Mrs. Johnson. If one then multiplies each of those tragedies by 50,000,000, one can begin to try to grasp the sheer extent of the personal side of the composite world-historical global cataclysm that was the Second World War.

The aftershocks of this cataclysm also literally propelled my mother and her parents from Japan, the land of her birth, to Germany in 1948. (They were involuntarily resettled by the U.S. military.) Her next move was to the USA, where she met my father, the son of a Norwegian resistance leader. Thus I was an indirect result of the massive dislocations and relocations triggered by that war.

The graceful linkage of micro and macro scales is one of the amazing gifts that historian Andrew Roberts brings to his new history of World War II. It parallels his ability to link the objectivity of a deep ecologist, observing the ebbs and flows of huge battlefields along with the strategic breakthroughs and blunders they represent, with the moral outrage of one who cares deeply and eloquently about human dignity.

Roberts does not grant Hitler even the remotest drop of sympathy or sentimentality, yet he cuts the monstrous Corporal down to human size, where we can examine both his cleverness and his insecurities.

In personal terms, although Hitler was easily able to bully and swindle fearful and naive men such as Schuschnigg, Hacha, Chamberlain and Daladier, when he came up against men of the calibre of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin, he found he had more than met his match.

I've read more than my share of histories of World War II--last year I re-read all of Churchill's six volumes--but I could not put down this new book in large part because of its humane, absorbing, intelligent reflections on the central puzzle of the war: was Allied victory inevitable? If, for example, Hitler had left military leadership to the professionals instead of constantly interfering (remembering that sometimes he was at least tactically right!), would Germany have won? On the other hand, given the Allies' advantages in productive capacity, Russia's endless resources of space and human reserves, and the choice of nearly all the world's leading atomic scientists to end up in the USA, was a long-term German victory even possible? And could a personality like Hitler have possibly kept his hands off the steering wheel?

Those whose moral vision of the world is formed by Isaiah 11:6-9 ("...and a little child will lead them...") might find little of consolation in the author's dense, multidimensional portrait of our planet's six-year bloodbath. Nonviolent heroes, such as Norway's teachers or the villagers of Le Chambon, don't figure in this history. I'm not surprised nor distressed; what emerges for me is the collective behavior of humans as a species of animal, acting and reacting with varying individual capacities but with no collective ability to resist that special evil that depends on fear and prejudice, on wholesale objectification, on blood-mythology and blood-intoxication. It is this specific distortion--ignorance, neglect, or outright concealment of the truth of our creation in the image of God--that nonviolent evangelists always and still need to address with persistent urgency. In this struggle, books like The Storm of War don't have to depress us; they remind us of the stakes.

And what about the Allies' "victory"? Despite the carnage, the loss of fifty million, the grieving survivors, and the global shift of populations, we humans did survive. Collectively, we all "won" and the "Master Race" myth "lost." Mostly. Didn't it? Keep watch!

Pam Ferguson, "Living with ambiguity."I struggle with the ambiguity of pastoring. There is great peril in this vocation as well as great good. My husband and I learned from our work with refugees in Africa that the most important thing we could do was to communicate our willingness to do everything we could WITH them and nothing FOR them. That has continued to be our philosophy for ministry."

Christianity Today interviews Eastern Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware.

Deseret News: "Landmark evangelical survey finds both unity and division." (Via Pew Forum.) By the way, am I detecting some need on evangelicals' part to be reassured that we can be intellectuals?

"God's lobbyists: the hidden realm of religious influence." Guess which is "By far the largest religious organization that discloses its lobbying...."

Among the impressive musicians at the last Waterfront Blues Festival: Grady Champion...

Waterfront Blues

2011-07-07T10:09:00.001+04:00

Lisa Mann and Her Really
Good Band

Curley Taylor and Zydeco
Trouble

Meschiya Lake and the Little
Big Horns

Roberson and Beese

Karen Lovely

Curtis Salgado

Brother Yusef

Buddy Guy

Bill Rhoades

Grady Champion

The Billy T Band from Oslo, Norway, on the Miller Stage and on the large screen.

"You brought me here to play blues. I'm not going to disappoint you."

Buddy Guy, headliner of Day 3 of the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival 2011, did not disappoint me ... except in one respect. (More about that later.) He really did play blues, in contrast with much of what the Blues Festival offered.

What often seems to be popular now is a slick package of commercial soul and funk through which performers race without much connection with the audience. In order to get a good spot for hearing and seeing Buddy Guy, I had to endure a couple of hours of what seemed to me to be interminable offerings along those lines. Buddy Guy's band had to wait while the previous band went overtime with endless repetitions of the chorus of "Signed, Sealed and Delivered."

To be fair, it's hard to lead in to Buddy Guy. When he's at his best, he brings a unique energy that goes beyond his virtuoso guitar playing. For one thing, he plays right to the audience. Most of us know his signature songs by heart--but when we didn't come in with the chorus to his satisfaction, he said, "I was in India last week and they didn't f*** it up the way you did." On our second try, he pronounced himself satisfied: "Portland, I love you."

Those asterisks relate to my peeve with Buddy Guy. He and his band are tight and highly prepared, but part of the magic of a BG appearance is his apparent spontaneity and the way he messes with the audience. His liberal use of profanity is part of that, I guess, but it struck a false note with me--a false note that, in my delight at seeing him again for maybe the tenth time, I tried to ignore, but it wouldn't go away. I don't want Buddy to be like all those other slick and safe performers whom we endured to keep our prime locations on the grass, but on the other hand, the Waterfront Blues Festival is a family event. Lots of kids were there to hear him. I saw a kind photographer lift up a small child to the photo stand so that she could take a picture with her little camera. Doesn't "playing to the audience" mean taking the children into account, too?

Buddy Guy actually addressed the issue of profanity directly in talking with the audience. He said that for years he wondered why radio stations weren't playing blues, and thought that maybe the explanation was the rough language of the genre. But then he heard radio stations playing hip-hop lyrics that made the barroom language of blues performers seem tame. So why bother exercising restraint?--he seemed to imply.

OK, if I had to choose between Buddy Guy with his uncensored mouth and no Buddy Guy at all, I'd choose letting him say what he wants. But it will still feel like a false note.

While more popular hybrid bands play the festival's big stages, the music on the Front Porch Stage is often more traditional and rootsy. And that venue has benches and a real dance floor. I love hanging out at that stage because I hear acts that aren't as well known but still amazingly good. Among this year's standouts were Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns, Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble, Lisa Mann and Her Really Good Band, and Roberson and Beese.

Two performers were at the very top on terms of both musicianship and showmanship: Brother Yusef, and Grady Champion. Brother Yusef played solo, but he got a band's worth of sound out of his guitar and his foot-operated tambourine. His warmly humorous commentary put blues into musical and social context. Grady Champion was one of several very good harpists in the Bill Rhoades Harmonica Blow-Off (all backed by Bill's "house band" of incredible blues musicians)--but Grady has a star quality that could make him a worthy successor to Buddy Guy. And, at least this time, no false notes!

Righteous links:

Donald Miller: "All Great Spirituality Is Subversive." I agree wholeheartedly, with one rhetorical caution: don't let being "subversive" (that is, quietly sabotaging the habits and bondages of this present world in favor of Gospel values) become another code word for being superior to other Christians.

"African Election 2011 Update."

"One Big Blagojevich Blamefest." Why do Illinois voters and politicians "collude" in spectacular mismanagement and corruption, election after election after election?

"The Mother of All No-Brainers." David Brooks wonders what has happened to his political party as it's poised to achieve all it could reasonably want.

In Russian but mostly pictures: Elektrostal architecture in four parts.

Brother Yusef:

Forgiveness, part two: families and forgiveness

2011-06-30T10:49:00.015+04:00

I went through my childhood knowing that there were two things we children were never going to tell anyone. The first was that Dad got insanely angry with my mother; the second was that from time to time he threatened suicide.

"We children" included the author of these lines, Frank Schaeffer; these secrets are included in his 2007 book, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.
His father was evangelical author Francis Schaeffer. He and Edith Schaeffer founded the Christian community and retreat center in Switzerland known as l'Abri. I first became acquainted with the writings of Francis and Edith Schaeffer when I worked at a Christian bookstore in Charlottesville, Virginia. This bookstore was in some ways dedicated to the Schaeffers (and to C.S. Lewis). In those years, Francis and Edith were on the top level of the conservative Christian intellectual celebrities, along with J.I. Packer, R. C. Sproul, Malcolm Muggeridge, and a few others.

This book isn't the first to tell us what it can cost to grow up in the family of celebrities, but he is fascinating on the subject of the spiritual dimension of those costs. Instead of writing a full review of the book myself, I'll refer you to Jim Forest's good Amazon.com review, and just make a few additional comments.

Some reviewers of Crazy for God have been very unhappy with Frank Schaeffer's revelations. He was accused of exploiting his parents' notoriety, betraying their privacy, being an "Accuser of the Brethren" (i.e., a tool of Satan), and in general of having a vindictive, bitter spirit, unable to recognize that his parents "did the best they could." (Ah, that familiar cliche!)

I'm not sure I'd like Frank Schaeffer if I knew him personally--sometimes he doesn't seem like a very nice guy, even though he seems to attract loyal friends. He comes across as bitter, abrasive, at times raunchy. But he's also wicked funny, scathingly self-critical, and, taking the book as a whole, capable of much more depth and nuance than his critics give him credit for. Even as he's describing his parents' pandering to the good opinion of wealthy people, his father's violent temper, his mother's very frank approach to sex education, he goes on to credit them warmly for their militant unwillingness to judge those who faced condemnation from many of their guests and visitors, particularly homosexuals and unwed mothers. They had no patience at all for racial discrimination. Frank says,

I saw that my parents' compassion was consistent. Their idea of ministry was to extend a hand of kindness, and to truly practice the rule of treating others as you would be treated. It was such a powerful demonstration that it gave me a lifelong picture of what Christian behavior and love can and should be.

A little later, he says,

I once thought Dad's ability to present two very different faces to the world--one to his family and one to the public--was gross hypocrisy. I think differently now. I believe Dad was a very brave man.

Suffering from bouts of depression, I have come to understand that the choice is to carry on or not, no matter how I feel. And since my dad literally had no close friends, let alone a confessor or therapist to talk to, his suffering was in near-total isolation. When that bleak grayness envelops everything for a few days or hours and sucks all the joy and air out of a day, as a writer I can just shut the world out, if I want, and retire to some inner cave and nurse my depression. Dad craved privacy, too, but his work was people. And Dad never sought counseling.

There are implications in Frank Schaeffer's writing for us religious consumers and followers as well. As a reader, I could choose to treat a memoir such as Frank's account of the Schaeffer family as a 100% reliable recording of family life--despite his disclaimer right up front: "What I've written comes from a memory deformed by time, prejudice, flawed recall, and emotion." Alternatively, I could reject it as a betrayal of some code of no-dirty-laundry. What I choose to do is to read the book as nothing more nor less than a phenomenon, an artifact of life in an evangelical subculture that "generates saints and neurotics in roughly equal proportions" as one of my friends once described Holiness Christianity. What matters, then, is not whether Schaeffer's account is fair and accurate; what matters is whether he has faithfully presented his own viewpoint. If so, then it's up to us to think as honestly about our biases as he has been in reporting his own.

And what might our biases be? In two separate comments, Schaeffer mentions several of them. First, Schaeffer comments on the crises of faith experienced by Billy Graham (a family friend) and by Francis Schaeffer himself, and how these two men resolved these crises.

To an outside observer, these self-fulfilling miracles of renewed faith might be open to question; they might even seem to have something to do with the fact that Dad and Billy, and many others,had a vested interest in their belief, belief through which they found meaning, the respect of others, and also earned a living.

In general,

. . . the less one knows about the "holy" people we follow, the better. One of the mysteries of human need is that religious leaders must become more than the sum of their fallible, sometimes awful, parts, because other people need them to be more. This does not make the religious leader a hypocrite; it just shows that the rest of us are desperate.

In his helpful review of Crazy for God, the Internet Monk (the late Michael Spencer) said,

We all must forgive our parents. If we are parents, we must ask our own children to forgive us. We are all human beings, sinners and beggars. When Schaeffer finds the confessional in his Greek Orthodox tradition, he says he was finally able to start apologizing to his own family. Will we ever learn this lesson? Or will we just continue down the insane road that assumes somehow everything is all right because we have a collection of Bible verses propping us up?

One of the blocks to my forgiving my own parents was a clause added to the family will after I left home--a clause which explicitly removed me from the will. Somehow I obtained a copy of the will--I can't remember how--and kept it among my papers. One Sunday I preached a sermon on forgiveness at Reedwood Friends Church, and toward the end of the sermon, I tore up that document. Up to that point, I hadn't realized the tangible power that piece of paper had to block my ability to forgive.

Bible verses can do, of course, far more than simply "prop up." I'm still turning over and over in my mind the revolutionary implications of Psalm 130, cited last week. Here's Eugene Peterson's version of verses 3 and 4:

If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings,
who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,
and that's why you're worshiped.

Merry Emergency Christmas (today)! This year I'm not "left behind."

More links:

The late R.W. Tucker's article on "Revolutionary Faithfulness" is online here. Much has changed in the forty-plus years since he wrote this diagnosis of Quaker theological drift and critique of "the cult of middle-class nonviolence," but the article hasn't lost its relevance.

"Should Christians pursue external beauty?"

News from Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends: Search Committee proposes Becky Ankeny as next superintendent.

Prayer request for Peacemaking Conference in Congo, July 8-12.

"At troubled Crystal Cathedral, a new ministry outstrips the traditional one." (Thanks to mondaymorninginsight.com for the reference.)

Helena Cobban, "Eyes Open in Gaza."

Department of Ephesians 5:8-13: "DOJ Conducting Criminal Investigation of Deaths of Two Detainees."

Chris Hedges, "Gone with the papers."

There is nothing, of course, intrinsically good about newspapers. We have long been cursed with sleazy tabloids and the fictional stories of the supermarket press, which have now become the staple of television journalism. The commercial press, in the name of balance and objectivity, had always skillfully muted the truth in the name of news or blotted it out. But the loss of great newspapers, newspapers that engage with the community, means the loss of one of the cornerstones of our open, democratic state.

Tomorrow is the opening day of the Waterfront Blues Festival. On Sunday evening, Buddy Guy will be on stage...and there are times when nothing else will do but to see Buddy showing off. A sample:

Buddy Guy - Make A Woman Feel Satisfied by bebepanda

Do I really need to forgive?

2011-06-23T08:54:00.003+04:00

Moscow
to Mongolia

Novosibirsk station

gardens of Siberia

Lake Baikal

nearing Mongolia

5873 km from Moscow

made it! (border stop)

Sukhbaatar city

Sukhbaatar hillside

Sukhbaatar street

After years of being told about Jan Karon's Mitford novels, I've finally picked one up. It's like a small-town American Episcopal equivalent of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels--a little over the top with the sentimentality and atmosphere, and in this one I picked randomly (In the Company of Others: A Father Tim Novel) the wall-to-wall Irishness in place of Botswana.

Far outweighing these features is the central theme of the novel, so far. (I'm about halfway through it.) That theme is forgiveness, for oneself and for others.

I know of few themes of Christian discipleship that are as problematic and, sometimes, even irritating. It's extremely risky to prescribe forgiveness to others, considering how often and how glibly it's been advised in situations of ongoing or unhealed abuse, for example. In my own case, I remember being told that my parents "did the best they could" in raising me and my two sisters. "They did the best they could" seems to me to be an all-purpose escape clause for people (me included!) who really ought to be held accountable to make better choices. Could not my parents have made more of an effort to overcome racism, to choose their children instead of alcohol, to encourage us instead of shaming us?

Years have gone by since the last time someone gave me that line about my parents doing the best they could. In other words, there's been time for healing. And time for another very important realization: (Psalm 130, NIV)

If you, LORD, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

I cannot grant that my parents couldn't have made better choices, but I've had time to understand how limited my mother's resources were for coping with America's diversity, having grown up in the Nazi-dominated context of her childhood and youth. I understand better how alcohol sapped my father's strengths in all senses, and how he began to recover in the very last years of his life--and I still shake my head at the miraculous road he took to arrive at his Eastern Orthodox conversion in his last few months.

More than that, I've understood how much I depend on God's mercy in my own life. How many people might even now be saying, "Don't tell me that Johan was just doing the best he could do!" I am acutely aware of the swath I must have cut through people's lives in my first ghastly year at Friends United Meeting, when the organization's financial hemorrhage caused me to reduce the staff by a third, through a combination of attrition, early retirements, and outright layoffs. How I wish I'd had a few more years of leadership experience and wisdom before I encountered that challenge! (And my remaining years at FUM supply me with lots of other instances I could spend most of my time reviewing with a sigh: "How differently I'd do that now!")

My biggest challenge of all in the forgiveness department: Tyrone King, the man who was convicted of murdering my sister Ellen. But that task of forgiveness was inextricably tied up with forgiving my parents, for (in my earlier jaundiced interpretation) causing my sister to start running away from home in the first place, over and over, to the point where she even could have been found in a Chicago south side bar by Tyrone King. In addition, I had to forgive myself for surviving her--and that was not easy. Although Ellen was two years younger than me, I saw her as more creative, more interesting, more deserving of a long and productive life. Forgiving myself was one of the hardest things I've ever done--and by "hardest" I mean hard and disciplined work of recovery and learning spiritual self-discipline. In some ways, life as a self-blaming victim was easier, believe it or not.

This isn't the first time I've mentioned my struggle with forgiving Tyrone King, but the crucial point that occurs to me now is that forgiving him for the unrestorable wound of the past is NOT the same as saying that his crime was in any way justifiable or a result of his environment. I am simply aware that both Tyrone and I are accountable to God, and it's up to God to figure out what to do with each of us. In the meantime, I can't spend my life replaying mistakes--minor or tragic, mine or others. I take responsibility where I can (working to overcome my own denial!). Then, after what is sometimes an embarrassingly long lag time of dwelling on the past, I come back to the blessings of the present. So, sitting here at a cafe in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, I take another sip of coffee and turn back to Jan Karon's novel.

Time for just one "righteous link"--worth attentive reading. I submit it not as my judgment on current affairs in Russia, but rather my resistance to reductionist, mechanical interpretations of the Soviet collapse: Everything You Think You Know About the Collapse of the Soviet Union Is Wrong.

Finally, another helping of blues dessert:

Onward to Mongolia

2011-06-16T17:21:00.011+04:00

We are not carrying video equipment on our rail journey from Moscow to Ulan Batar, so I was glad to see this well-made video by a Danish traveler. The Danish commentary sounds very nice to my Norwegian ears, but if you don't know the Scandinavian languages, there are elegant English subtitles.

On Saturday we will get off the train at Sukhe Batar, just across the border with Russia, and stay there for a few days. Then we will take another overnight train to Ulan Batar, but unfortunately we have to go from there to the USA by airplane. *sigh*

The Trans-Mongolian Railway from Inuk Jørgensen on Vimeo.

Political correctness

2011-06-09T23:57:00.007+04:00

According to a handout I've seen used in some English classes in Russia, a man can be arrested in the USA for holding the door open for a woman, and white people can be arrested for attempting to enter a blacks-only establishment.

Sometimes these kinds of stories are part of the "Americans have no common sense" genre of humor. But the specific target of these two stories was "political correctness," or "politkorrektnost'," which has supposedly reached absurd lengths in the USA.

Sometimes I wonder why some people here, including some of my students, are so ready to believe these stories. It's not that some such incidents could never have happened somewhere. After all, among all the urban-legend lawsuits cited in favor of tort "reform," surely somewhere an absurd case did happen. But you don't need to condemn civil justice or political correctness; sometimes the explanation is just stupidity.

Two factors seem to increase the likelihood that my students and their families might believe in the absurdity of political correctness USA-style, particularly in connection with race. The first is the longstanding tendency to compensate for Cold-War propaganda of the past, when Soviet mass media regularly informed its audiences of instances of American injustice and racism. (Sadly, of course, these reports were not without foundation!) To the more jaundiced members of the audience, however, all reports from TASS and Pravda were taken with a grain of salt. If the Soviet media said it, it probably wasn't true. Perhaps American minority groups were not doing as badly as the Soviet press claimed.

Secondly, the English-language instructional material I see and hear is overwhelmingly white. Images and voices of English-speaking people who aren't white are available to my students primarily from imported television shows and films, usually dubbed with Russian voices. I don't even want to talk about music videos, in which black people are typically shown festooned with jewelry and reliably delivering all the other gestures and cliches of that genre. (So are white people, but audiences usually make subconscious allowances for the behaviors of their own race or group.) In the face of these inputs, I have ninety minutes a week with most of my classes in which to present a more accurate representation of the diversity of English-speakers.

Am I right in observing that the terms "politically correct" and "politically incorrect" are now almost always used ironically or critically? Maybe the most accepted positive variant is "inclusive language," but that term seems to refer mostly to gender inclusivity. Is there a straightforward, positive umbrella term for all efforts to use language in ways that don't objectify and demean groups and categories of people? What seems to be happening now is that those who support political correctness continue to use the term half-humorously and half-apologetically, often in quotation marks, willing to endure the double irony for the sake of easy reference. Example: this "sample paper" for English students.

The best reframing I ever heard for "political correctness" came in the context of a controversy over gender-inclusive language and hymns at First Friends Meeting in Richmond, Indiana. This must have been twenty or more years ago. As we were slogging through some difficult discussions, Mary Garman of Earlham College gave a guest sermon one Sunday morning. She suggested that the language we use is not just a matter of comfort within the community; it's also a matter of hospitality. When we "widen" our language to include more people, we're welcoming those who might have felt invisible in the old language--and that's an outcome that's worth some discomfort. That's a dimension of evangelism, not a political "win" for a faction of the church.

Translator and Moscow Times columnist Michele Berdy wrote a helpful guide for Russian teachers and students of English, "Bias-Free and Inclusive English." (PDF file.)

"What is something you feel you can’t say in church or around other Christians?" Michael Hyatt (Thomas Nelson Publishers) interviews Anne Jackson, part one, part two.

"The Search for the Historical Adam"--a survey of current conversations and controversies around Genesis and science. "...Michael Cromartie, the evangelicalism expert at Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, sees high stakes, calling the new thinking an 'urgent' and 'potentially paradigm-shifting' development with 'huge theological implications.... How this gets settled is extremely important.... 'It seems urgent that the best people stop trading emails and get together for a real meeting in the same room,' Cromartie said. He wants leading evangelical thinkers in science and Scripture to jointly work out an accord, because otherwise this problem 'could produce a huge split right through the heart of conservative, orthodox, historic Christianity.'"

Seth Godin: "Three years ago this week, I posted this checklist, in the naive hope that it would eliminate (or perhaps merely reduce) the ridiculous CC-to-all emails about the carpool, the fake-charity forwards, the ALL CAPS yelling and the stupid PR spam."

Dave Katzman describes "Pinetop Perkins's Last Session."

"Over 28% of GRAMMY Award categories eliminated for 2012."

The Space Shuttle photographed with the International Space Station. And here's video.

"And if you ever have the blues, remember what I tell you. You'll always hear this in your heart."

lightnin' hopkins charly

Sending messages

2011-06-02T23:54:00.005+04:00

Given my elemental fascination with Nazism, it's not surprising that I'm reading In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin--I'm always trying to understand how a "modern" and "civilized" society, including some of my own relatives, surrendered so completely to a regime of utter cruelty and criminality. Maybe an account of this family of American observers, I figured, will give me some new insights.

And maybe it still will--I've barely started reading the book. At the point I stopped reading this evening, the Dodds, the ambassadorial "American family" who represented the USA in the early years of Hitler's regime and who are the subject of this book, have not yet even left the USA to take up the post. Right now I'm pondering, not Hitler, but Franklin E. Roosevelt. The new American president faces what is represented as a political dilemma: what to do about the documented, systematic cruelty faced by Jewish people under Hitler's new government. To protest or not to protest? Business as usual, or boycott? Open the gates to refugees, or continue underfilling even the existing quotas?

...Roosevelt understood that the political costs of any public condemnation of Nazi prosecution or any obvious effort to ease the entry of Jews into America were likely to be immense, because American political discourse had framed the Jewish problem as an immigration problem. Germany's persecution of Jews raised the specter of a vast influx of Jewish refugees at a time when America was reeling from the Depression. The isolationists added another dimension to the debate by insisting, as did Hitler's government, that Nazi oppression of Germany's Jews was a domestic German affair and thus none of America's business.

With hindsight comes our realization that the conventional "framing" of that era effectively abandoned millions of people to industrial-scale genocide just a few years later. But even discounting hindsight, simply judging by the standards of that time, a reign of brutality had descended upon Germany, and the evidence was abundantly clear that Jewish people were a specific, special target of that brutality.

Yes, the Depression was a true crisis. In that crisis, Roosevelt threw convention and caution to the wind and became a master of economic and legal improvisation, throwing one idea after another into the supreme effort to head off a financial meltdown. He "reframed" the crisis in practically spiritual terms: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself...." Why then did fear stop him from helping Jews? It's a haunting question.

Some who advocated or denounced various possible American responses to German anti-Semitic brutality were concerned about how those responses would be interpreted by various audiences. I wish it were possible to say to every politician, "Earn a reputation for honesty, and you won't have to worry about 'message'." My fantasy president of 1933 would say to Germans and Americans alike, "O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! ... O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind." (Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776.)

I've always been pretty skeptical that it is possible to project a desired "message," or avoid an undesired one, through symbolic behavior. For example, among those debating American responses to German brutality, there was a worry that a concern for the oppressed would send such an irritating message to the oppressors that things would get even worse for the oppressed--but history has few if any examples of tyrants' hearts melting because nobody protested. When the USA invaded Iraq, we critics of this thoroughly despicable adventure were told that our protests "sent the wrong message" to the world, namely that we were not united. Damn right we weren't! What would have been a "right" message, if the "wrong" one was the truth? When the president of Iran sent George Bush a letter, our message experts seemed to analyze every aspect of the incident other than the plain text of the letter.

Coincidentally, while I was thinking about the debates over helping Jewish Germans, I came across this discussion in Christianity Today, about whether or not the U.S. ambassador to China should visit an unregistered church there. Would it send a powerful "message" about U.S. support for religious freedom or would such a visit be unhelpfully interpreted as demonstrating unregistered churches' ties to foreigners? Nobody said anything about the relevance of the ambassador's own spiritual needs. If there is integrity to the ambassador's visit--a genuine communion with other believers and with God--that is the only framing that counts. Any other messaging is bogus, and its interpretation by Chinese Christians or the Chinese government is beyond anyone's ability to control.

Speaking of Iran: Beyond Denial"-- The 1997 Iranian TV series Zero Degree Turn, featuring an Iranian/Jewish romance against the backdrop of the (not denied) Holocaust "... offers a unique invitation to call attention to the relationship between popular media and affective engagement, and to cultivate new knowledge where political grandstanding too often trumps substantive engagement."

"Syria in fragments: divided minds, divided lives." (Thanks to Helena Cobban, justworldnews.org.)

"When children suffer." Thinking prayerfully about prayer and suffering, with the help of Stanley Hauerwas and Peter Greig, as well as Kate and Emily.

"Baptizing dead Quakers."

Blues in Moscow: "I've Got to Sleep With One Eye Open." "You got to be careful what you pray for ...."

Lighting another candle in the dark

2011-05-26T23:56:00.012+04:00

1964 (Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting)

1992 (Friends
General Conference)

2001 (Friends
General Conference)

1997 (FIL)

2005 (FIL)

newest (needs funds)

Teachers' manual

If you go to the "Recent Grant Program Award Recipients" page of the United States Institute of Peace Web site and scroll down to the entry entitled "HUNTER, CHRISTOPHER, Centre for Peacebuilding and Community Development, Bude, United Kingdom," you'll read about a peace education and community mental health project that's a direct descendant of the famous Quaker book for young people, Lighting Candles in the Dark.

The story of this book's connection goes back to the work of a small group that was once known as the Quaker US-USSR Committee, who gathered back in 1983 with a concern to develop spiritual linkages with the people of the Soviet Union. (Janet Riley, one of the group's founders and its leading activist even today, remembers hanging wallpaper in the home of Jay and Carolyn Worrall near Charlottesville, Virginia, and talking with Jay about this vision. This was mere months after Judy and I had left Charlottesville for Richmond, Indiana, delaying my first meeting with Janet for about five years. But I vividly remember the Worralls' home and can well imagine how fertile a place it would be for a new concern.)

Among the committee's activities was publishing Friends material in the Russian language and recovering the longstanding connection between Friends and Russia. Parallel to the work of this committee, and linked to it by personal relations among Friends who had a love and concern for Russia, was the group that eventually founded Friends House Moscow in 1996. At some point I found myself in both groups.

The story of the Quaker US-USSR Committee and its publication activities is told here on the Friends International Library's Web site. On the same site, you can read the history of Lighting Candles in the Dark, which we published in 1997 in a Russian-English bilingual edition. In 2005 we changed the name to Power of Goodness, added the Chechen language, and added several new stories from Chechnya--but kept the children's art that was one of the 1997 edition's outstanding features. New pictures by Chechen children were included.

That same page, toward the end, explains the Chechen community mental health connection. Ever since the 1964 edition, this Candles / Goodness book has been a wonderful resource for peace education, drawing upon world literature, history, and contemporary testimonies to bring nonviolence and ethical behavior to life for young readers. In 1994, Janet Riley spent a school term in Novgorod, Russia. There she found that these stories had cross-cultural appeal for her pre-teen students--and thus was born the vision for the bilingual and trilingual books, with the addition of art and stories directly linked to the cultures of the newly-included languages.

(In another testimony to the power of story to convey values, Janet found that John Woolman's Journal had similar cross-cultural power for young people and adults alike--and, as a result, we began one of the most rewarding collaborations I've ever been involved with, the publication of Woolman's Journal and Plea for the Poor in Russian. Russian Friend Tatiana Pavlova, a historian in the Russian Academy of Sciences, translated Phillips P. Moulton's edition of the Journal with just enough hints of archaism in the language to evoke a parallel with Woolman's English. In her own voice, she also wrote an introduction that provides an extraordinary account of Friends, our faith and place in the Christian world.)

Back to Power of Goodness and the concern for Chechnya.... Chris Hunter, a former worker for Britain Yearly Meeting in Russia, had set up an organization to provide community mental health care for children traumatized by civil war in Chechnya. He and his mental health partners were among those who received copies of the 2005 edition, and they quickly realized the healing and encouraging power of the stories. Many hours of discussion and consultation resulted in a manual of discussion questions and teaching resources for mental health workers and teachers. The grant from the United States Institute of Peace will go into training and organizing for the use of these materials directly with children and their teachers, and to raise awareness around specific psychosocial challenges faced by children in the Chechen context.

When we adopted the name Friends International Library, we were not signalling an abandonment of our concern for Russia, but we were recognizing that the project that has become our central focus, Power of Goodness, might have a powerful ministry in other parts of the world--particularly where cycles of violence make it hard for children even to imagine what nonviolence and peace might concretely look like. Can we imagine an Arabic/Hebrew edition? What about an edition for Cyprus or Sri Lanka? Where else?

I've been involved now for twenty years, and Janet for nearly 30. Our tiny group currently includes Misha Roshchin of Moscow Meeting, Sylvia Mangalam of Canadian Yearly Meeting, and Chris Hunter of Britain Yearly Meeting, and treasurer Lynn Kamplain. It's clearly time to build a larger group--and to expand the donor base as well. (The new edition of Power of Goodness awaits full funding to be printed; right now it's in the final proofreading stage.) Of course we realize that such a group will not only have to test new cross-cultural leadings, but sooner or later they'll also have to replace us! Last week we (Janet, Misha, and I) had a wonderful conference call with about six people in the Baltimore-DC area of the USA, who were interested in this work. If you are intrigued, let us know--we'd love to give you more details.

I'm a bit scared to attempt a list of all the people who've been involved with Friends International Library and its publications over the years--it's very possible I'd leave someone out. But I think I should make a start, if only to find out where I've gone wrong. (I'll reserve the right to add to this list.) Janet Riley, Jay Worrall, Kent Larrabee, France Conroy, John Barlow, Matthew Roazen, George Hughes, Toby Riley, and Ann Treveranius are names I associate with the original concern. Nadya Spassenko, Mary Moehlman, Anthony Manousos, Wayne Copenhaver, Anne Friend, Janet Chapin, Misha Roshchin, Jay Worrall III, Shirley Dodson, Tatiana Pavlova, and Dale and Von Keairns were involved with Russian-language publications (and Janet Chapin, Sergei Kazantsev, and Gennadi Samokhodkin were particularly involved in the project to gather children's art). My diaries, now located in safe deposit boxes half a planet away, record the names of the people who met at our committee gatherings and retreats twenty years ago--if you were there, raise your hand. [NOTE: This listing corrected on Friday 27 May.]

Here are two PDF-format articles that add more to this history:

Chuck Fager's A Friendly Letter, no. 70. Scroll down to the article about Janet Riley.

Friends Journal, France H. Conroy, "A Call for Spiritual Linkage."

And here's a link to Peacebuilding UK, who were awarded the U.S. Institute of Peace grant.

In other righteous links,

"Dorothy [Day] in Love."

Alert--please don't let this happen!--"Killing Fulbright-Hayes". (Note that the United States Institute of Peace is another major American peace asset in danger of budgetary strangulation.)

"Liberal Quakerism: 'Profession' without 'Possession'?" "I think what Doug [Gwyn] is saying is that, by abandoning the original Christian and biblical framework for our tradition while continuing to use the vocabulary, we end up talking jive."

"Moscow's Hidden Secret."

Jackson Lears on "The Same Old New Atheism."

A report on a program whose name achieves a new height of bureaucratic lyricism: the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.

"Up Above My Head," there is music in the air.

Why are we here?

2011-05-19T23:49:00.006+04:00

in front of the All Saints
Church at the Tikhvinsky
Convent, Buzuluk

"Why are you here?" I get this question constantly. Sometimes the question refers to why an American couple, with all the presumed advantages of life in the USA, would choose to live in Russia. Sometimes the question is more specific: why Elektrostal, a Stalin-era industrial city not mentioned in any tourist guide to Russia that I've ever seen.

These questions come up all the time. For example, a few days ago, an architecture student whom I was coaching in preparation for a seminar she was to attend in Germany, grilled me closely on what could possibly interest me in Elektrostal. One of my colleagues mused on the lengthy process we went through to get work visas: "Our authorities know that Russians want to leave for the West, but they can't understand someone wanting to come in the other direction."

On one level, it's easy to reply that we're here to serve as a metaphorical bridge of understanding between our countries, or between Friends (Quakers) and the Russian people to whom our Quaker ancestors related for many generations, from Peter the Great, through Catherine the Great and Alexander I, to the story of Buzuluk and the relief missions. We can speak of the great Friends tradition of citizen diplomacy. Concerning Elektrostal, we can talk about our personal friendship with the visionary educators who founded the New Humanities Institute and continue to make it a special place. We can mention all the ways that Russian culture inspires us, and how I've dreamed about living in a Russian-speaking environment since I was sixteen years old and just starting to learn the language. But what I'm increasingly interested in is this: What's behind this recurring question? What does it tell us about the psychic landscape of our host country?

I was reading a fascinating speech by Sergei Chapnin, the editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate (the official periodical of the Orthodox Church in Russia), and all those questions came back to me as I read these lines:

In earlier discussions [at the conference where Chapnin spoke], it's already been said that we're in a condition of post-imperialism. Even twenty years later, we cannot bear to talk about the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, we still want to call our world Russian. We want to talk about the Russian people and Russian culture. Meanwhile, all of it has already long been Soviet or, more accurately, post-Soviet--and not "frozen" post-Soviet, but actively evolving. I am convinced that we are using the wrong concepts to describe the reality around us.

The values of post-Soviet culture are very contradictory and don't form a single picture. These internal contradictions have led to this: we have lost the ability to talk about ourselves, our ancestors, and each other positively, to create convincing and attractive images. Every image created these days has something hiding up its sleeve: it could be something ideologically unacceptable, or humiliating, or just cardboard and plastic.

You won't find a positive image of contemporary Russia either in high culture or in mass culture. We don't like ourselves and don't respect each other. So then how can we expect others to like us? And given all this, what kind of modernization can we expect?

There's a complete absence of a coherent picture of our here and now. Our image of the past is mythologized; it includes manifestations of heroic tragedy--and banned tragedy. And there's no clear image of our future.

(The full talk, in Russian, is here. Paul Goble's summary in English is here.)

A friend in Buzuluk put it another way: "We're living in nevremen'e"--an aimless non-time, which I interpret as sort of the opposite of kairos. Chapnin's whole speech is fascinating--see Goble's summary--but it's those words "We don't like ourselves and don't respect each other" that really stood out.

The words are not literally true--I can cite many experiences of Russian individuals liking each other, respecting each other. And Russians really do love their country! Nevertheless, on an intuitive level, I think I follow Chapnin's argument. In Soviet times, despite the supposed totalitarian control, there was certainly plenty of scope for corruption and the "hit-and-miss" approach to life summed up by the untranslatable word avos'. And all of that continues. But for those who were idealists in Soviet times or simply dutiful by nature, the official ideology and a growing body of related "best practices" gave some kind of coherence to life. I can think of several people in this very city who speak openly of their sense of acute post-Soviet loss--not that they regret the advance of freedom and initiative, nor do they gloss over the unspeakable repressions; they are simply noting the lack of positive energy in today's society. And as evidence, they cite the brusque and dismissive behavior they observe around them. For example, a few days ago, one of my friends said this about Russia's national minorities: "Look how they cluster together and support each other. And Jews are the same way. You don't see Russians taking care of each other that way." Squelching my American need to challenge, analyze, and correct, I simply made mental notes and kept my mouth shut.

Chapnin talks about the dangerous ways the vacuum he describes can be filled--using myths and conceits drawn from both crude nationalism (processed in a Soviet matrix) and Soviet-era civil religion with its pagan overtones. Meanwhile, that generation of Russian Orthodox leaders whose faith and practice comprehended both their specific tradition and universal love is aging and dying out.

Dilemmas are resolved (if they are ever resolved!) not by theories and advice--least of all, advice imported from abroad--but by example and story and abundant grace. I'm under no illusion that the presence of expatriate idealists like me solves any of these puzzles, even microscopically. It's my privilege to witness, not advise. But I'm more and more convinced that my top priority is to love.

I don't mean that I'm to become all sentimental, or to buy into Russian exceptionalism any more than I buy into American exceptionalism. It's not that complicated: this is a land and a people that deserve to be loved, and I'm here, so I humbly need to apply both heart and intelligence to loving this amazing, proud, wounded, suspicious, beautiful country. What this means in practice--I'm not always sure. But the task of finding out, day by day, transaction by transaction, is certainly worth the best that I can bring to it.

What about you? There's absolutely no reason to believe that all Russia needs to solve its problems is more foreigners!! (Although, just for the record, the government is officially rolling out the red carpet for "experts.") But, given the numbers going in the opposite direction, bringing in a few more people committed to come, learn, serve, and love can't do any harm, can it?

Righteous links:

A tragic symptom and the seeds of response: "Violence, death and cover-up in the Russian army." And on the same site, British Friend Madeleine Reeves writes about "illegals" in migrant Moscow.

Another discussion of priority: "The most precious and urgent thing that the Religious Society of Friends has to advance is the Everlasting Gospel...."

And more on priority: "Are Friends 'bumper-sticker' social justice? Can we be more?"

"The Legacy of [Korean Quaker] Ham Sok-hon." (And you can find an online edition of Ham Sok-hon's Queen of Suffering: A Spiritual History of Korea here.)

"Disappointment, despair, and Harold Camping" ... "after all, they're family."

A couple of blues links: a Chicago Reader profile on Alligator Records on its fortieth anniversary; and the Roadhouse podcast no. 325 features winners from the 2011 Blues Music Awards, held May 5th in Memphis, Tennessee.

Jean-Rene Ella, "Soon One Morning"

May shorts

2011-05-12T23:59:00.013+04:00

City Hall, January and May

Visit my classroom. In addition to my college-level listening comprehension class this year, I've been teaching an exam-preparation class for the Unified State Examination in English. (A bit more about the exam here.)

In parallel with the exam's structure, our classes feature exercises in listening comprehension, reading comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, essay-writing, and letter-writing. While we were away in Samara and Buzuluk, I put together an online class session with two elements (listening comprehension and reading comprehension) for those who couldn't come to the make-up sessions I offered to substitute for the classes missed because of my absence. Here's the lesson--feel free to send me the answers to the questions so I can compare your English to that of my students!

The sample lesson doesn't include the grammar and vocabulary exercises that my students so look forward to--so I'll include a couple of them for your pleasure. (Click on the thumbnail at left. Same source as the reading exercises in the lesson above--Afanasyeva et al., Practice Exam Papers for the Russian State Exam, 2010 Revised Edition.)

Every class also includes audio comprehension exercises based on music. I write lines from song lyrics on the board, with lots of missing words and phrases that the students attempt to fill in while listening to the songs. (Sorry, I don't remember who first gave me this idea, but we've enjoyed it a lot.) Of course the students put up with a fair amount of blues material, widely interpreted--from Robert Cray to Eva Cassidy to Layla Musselwhite--but also from other sources, such as The Kills, The Fray, Arbouretum, Sarah Masen, Rea Garvey, Oasis, Fountains of Wayne, Weird Al Yankovic, Aretha Franklin. Sometimes students suggest songs to use--one student suggested the Beatles' "Drive My Car." Yes, the Beatles are still acceptable, and not just "Yesterday," which I've heard far more often here than the rest of my life combined.

Got suggestions for us? We need songs in English, with the voice track distinct and not drowned out by the instruments, and content that's conducive to classroom discussions.

When we got back from our trip beyond the Volga, the first time I logged back online, my operating system told me that the new version of Ubuntu Linux, 11.04, was ready to download. Even when everything is working perfectly, I always find upgrades irresistible, so I accepted the upgrade and waited eagerly to see how Ubuntu's controversial new Unity desktop would look.

Ever since Mike Slothower at River of Life Friends Church first convinced me to install Ubuntu instead of Windows, I've been somewhat nervously promoting Linux to anyone who starts complaining around me about Windows. When people told me that Linux is for geeks, I tried to point out gently that the subject wouldn't have even come up if they'd not been complaining about some irritating aspect of their present system. But, to be honest, I also remembered that as a new user three years ago, I had to do a certain amount of troubleshooting with audio and USB peripherals to make my new Linux installation happy. Fortunately, each succeeding version of Ubuntu has been less geeky and more intuitive than the previous.

The latest version of Ubuntu, 11.04, has that new Unity desktop that takes some getting used to. If you don't feel like getting used to something new, you still have the choice to log in with the "classical" GNOME desktop, which has windows and menus that still work more or less like a very streamlined version of MS Windows. Unity reminds me a bit more of Mac OS desktops. Instead of the traditional hierarchy of menus, and status-bar links to open windows and applications, the Unity desktop is radically simple, relying on a disappearing "Launcher" bar that includes the most important applications along with any applications that are running at the moment. It also includes folder-opening and application launcher icons. If you click on an application icon in that bar, it starts (if it isn't already operating) or it reveals all open windows related to that application. You can also cycle through open application and folder windows with a combination of keys. This is the only thing that caused me trouble at first. I kept searching for window links in a status bar that no longer has them--that space is now used for the main menu of whatever application is "in focus"--before learning to use the Launcher and the keystroke cycler. Now that I've made the transition, the whole thing seems a lot faster and more fun than traditional desktops.


desktop with Launcher bar	see all open windows at once	see an app's active windows

I think Ubuntu had already left the land of hobbyists for the general user long before this new version, but now I'm sure of it. However, if you want an even more user-friendly installation, I still recommend a refinement of Ubuntu known as Linux Mint. I use Ubuntu on my home box, and Linux Mint on my laptop, and have no problem hopping back and forth between the two.

Friday PS: Blogger.com has been offline (or rather in read-only mode) for hours. I wonder when I'll be able to publish these profundities!

Friday evening, 21:54 Moscow time: Blogger says it's back. Let's see (poised to push "publish post")....

Righteous links:

soul midwife: "Certain Women." "I have a church that I attend that is my public place of worship. I belong to that group and they belong to me. But my personal church is certain women and men--who I meet together in various upper rooms, cell phone calls, emails, living rooms, offices, retreat spaces and wait and listen to God."

"Praying to Saints."

Am I sometimes embarrassed by it, by the mawkishness, sentimentality, folk-religion verging on folk-magic, gaudy, tawdry, excessive messiness of it all? Yes, I am. The rational, reasonable side of my brain wants to tone it all down, and have a proper, seemly, correctly-based practice in accordance with the strictures of theology and with a biblical verse pinned on like a badge....

And that’s the part of my brain that hears an uncomfortable echo of “Could not this ointment have been sold at a great price, and the money given to the poor?” in the way I’m thinking and reacting to these sobbing, slobbering, running after signs and miracles people who sell their beads and make novenas and have sure-fire prayers that never fail, but contingent on being published (usually the one that begins “O most beauteous flower of Mount Carmel”) – all those people the latchet of whose sandals I am not fit to undo. I knew already about my inner Pharisee; here I have discovered my inner Sadducee.

Martin Kelley appointed editor of Friends Journal. Best wishes to Martin, who was the first person to send me encouragement at the very beginning of this blog, nearly seven years ago.

"The most important woman in Chicago journalism...."

"The Divided Memory of Victory," Sean Guillory.

"Fifty Years Later, Minow Reflects on 'Vast Wasteland' Speech."

Vintage photographs of Moscow, 1909. (Thanks to The Moscow Times.)

Ana Popovic and her guitar--enjoy her extended solo...

Memories of Buzuluk

2011-05-05T23:56:00.005+04:00

AFSC staff in Russia

at work in the State Archives

Nansen photograph of famine
victims in Buzuluk

area of old cemetery where
mass graves are located

Fordson tractor imported by
American Friends (Sorochinsk)

tractor tourist

church at underground cloister,
by Richard Kilbey

one of the cloister's
restored entrances

in the passageway

Sukhorechka

newspaper office in Sorochinsk
(American Friends office in '20s)

unusual monument in Buzuluk
cemetery (could it be a Friend?)

original (above) and Lyuba
Radchenko's translation
(below)

Friends House Moscow
has a limited number of
copies

Sometimes (I admit) during morning prayer my brain skates perilously close to sleep, and occasionally slips over the edge. This morning, in my half-dream, I kept being tugged back to Buzuluk. Specifically to old Buzuluk--to 1921, 1922, then to 1929, 1932, 1937. I wasn't exactly recalling scenes or events; it was as if the soul of the city was asking for company, or for prayer.

In 2008, Judy and I visited Buzuluk for the first time, having heard for years about the role of British and American Friends headquartered there, carrying out a massive ministry of famine relief and economic reconstruction. I wrote about that first visit here and here; and last September I wrote about some related events in Samara and Buzuluk--the publication of a Russian language translation of Constructive Spirit; the Richard Kilbey exhibit in Samara, and a historical conference. We weren't able to get away for September's events, so I was eager to get back to the region to visit our contacts there and deepen my own understanding of those events of 90 years ago.

I'm not surprised that my unconscious is still meditating on what we saw and heard over the six days of our trip. From the first moments of our arrival, our host and guide for the visit, historian Sergei Kolychev, was concerned to make history as concrete as possible. It began with our first steps off the train at Buzuluk's station--he greeted us and immediately pointed out the rails on which relief goods arrived in Buzuluk, and the location of the warehouses where they would have been stored.

As our bus left the station area for downtown Buzuluk, Sergei pointed to the road on which the earliest relief workers reporting seeing bodies lying, dead from starvation or disease. Later, on our last full day, he took us to the old city cemetery and pointed to the area where a mass grave held famine victims. In that same cemetery, bordering on the Tikhvinsky Convent, is the presumed burial place of the schemamonk Maksim, a blind, saintly elder of the church who died in 1937 in the custody of the authorities, refusing to the end to confess to false accusations of counter-revolutionary activities. There was one bittersweet element of mercy at the end of his earthly story, and it involved the spiritual gift of healing for which he had long been known. His prayerful intervention resulted in the healing of the prison director's wife, as a result of which he was allowed a Christian burial instead of the common grave into which most dead prisoners were dumped.

The monastery where he had served, Holy Transfiguration Monastery and its associated underground cloister (where we visited in 2008), had been confiscated bit by bit, and finally shut down completely in 1929--its facilities converted into a reformatory and its underground passages blown up. Although the prison remains, the underground cloister, capped by a new church building, is being restored--we revisited it on our third day in Buzuluk, and I was amazed by the progress made in less than three years. We walked through the restored passages and spent a moment in a freshly rebuilt chapel. Every single person who had been associated with that monastery, who had not renounced their faith, and who had not died earlier, was executed in 1937.

Thanks to Sergei Kolychev's diligence in putting us in these places, supplying us with their historical context, my appreciation for Buzuluk's Calvary Walk through the twentieth century deepened. He and another historian, Nikolai Makarov (who was a crucial guide during our 2008 visit) also accompanied us to the local office of the State Archives, where we saw a Russian translation of a 1923 film made by British Friends to raise funds for the Buzuluk work.

That film helped me realize something that hadn't really been clear to me before. Somehow the sheer scale of the tragedy had given me the impression that Buzuluk was an impoverished town. Yes, there was rural poverty in that part of Russia before the 1917 revolutions, but as the film revealed, Buzuluk was a modern, highly developed little city. Agriculture in that region had always been precarious, but pre-revolutionary regional governments had instituted grain banks as buffers for harvest failures. In one of our walks, Sergei pointed out the home of the man who informed Moscow that the Buzuluk region seemed to be well-supplied in grain despite 1920's bad harvest. The consequences were swift in coming: wholesale confiscations.

The archive office already has hundreds of pages of archival material from American and British Friends to help them in reconstructing those sad days of local material. They asked us for help with some of the less legible handwritten photo captions; we promised to try. Sergei and Nikolai have a couple of longer-term goals--a memorial plaque, perhaps at the railroad station, for the Quaker relief mission; and a memorial book giving a full and well-illustrated account of that history in its full regional, historical, and spiritual context.

During our days in and around Buzuluk, we also revisited Sorochinsk, where we met again with the editor of the town newspaper, Liubov Mazylo, whose office is in the house used by American Friends during the famine relief mission. She and her staff interviewed and photographed us. Later, she reunited us with the priest of the Sorochinsk church, and took us to the machine shop of a local farm. We visited the village of Sukhorechka, which appears in some of Richard Kilbey's work. Sukhorechka's energetic and visionary priest, Father Anatoly, described his parish's plans to develop church grounds into a fruit grove for the whole community to enjoy.

On our way to Buzuluk, we spent a day in the Volga River port of Samara, Russia's sixth-largest city, known for its central place in Russia's aerospace industry. We visited the diocesan museum that had housed the Kilbey exhibition last September, and were glad to meet with its director Olga Radchenko, as well as with Lyuba Radchenko, translator of Constructive Spirit into Russian. The museum gave a valuable overview of the geography, history, and Orthodox presence in the large Samara region. The museum also introduced me to a number of significant personalities, including the complex story of Metropolitan Manuil, whose contributions to church history were unique byt whose tortuous lifetime of encounters with Soviet power reflects the experiences of millions.

"Demythologizing 'radical' Christianity."

Brian McLaren's "Open letter to Christian songwriters"--to which I'd like to add one personal comment: many songs would be greatly helped with the simple substitution of "we" and "us" for "I" and "me."

I was very grateful to be able to attend Canadian Yearly Meeting in 1987 to hear my beloved mentor Deborah Haight give the annual lecture for that year, which she entitled "Meeting"--and now I'm also grateful to have stumbled across the lecture again online--in PDF format here.

A Buddhist writer, Richard Eskow, wrote what might be the most Christian piece I've seen on the death of Osama bin Laden. Oh, but "what if torture works?"

YouTube has a new partner--Mosfilm, who made some of the all-time classic Soviet-era films, and who have promised to put as many of 200 films online, with English subtitles, over the next months. More background from Open Culture.

Rahab and Delilah, "The Hero and the Villain."

Siblime Oblivion's guide to the top ten blogs on Russia.

BBC News on the fiftieth anniversary of the flight of America's first astronaut.

Once again, blues from Brazil:

Buzuluk bulletin

2011-04-29T07:34:00.002+04:00

Reporting to you from the Old Windmill cafe in downtown Buzuluk. Our Internet options here in Buzuluk are limited. We'll have more time to catch up with our online life on the weekend, but in the meantime--these few words.

We're in the middle of an intensive visit to Samara, Buzuluk, and Sorochinsk--all places associated with the massive British-American Quaker relief effort in this region during and after the great famine of 1921. It is humbling to realize that, in the welcome and help we've been given in place after place, we're continuing to reap the harvest of goodwill that resulted from those events of ninety years ago.

Yesterday we visited a large farm not far from Sorochinsk. At the farm's machine station, one of our hosts explained to the workers that the "ancestors" of the tractors they were working on were brought to the region as part of the American Friends' relief work. Tractors were not unknown in pre-revolutionary Russia, but in the Volga region, almost all tasks now associated with machinery were then done with animals. But the famine killed or weakened almost all the work horses--and bringing in tractors seemed the only way to keep agricultural work going.

More soon!