Category Archives: Ecology, religion, justice

Responsibility and gratitude

Recently, I’ve been reading transcripts of seminars that Bernard Loomer gave at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley. In a seminar on “Surrender,” Loomer said:

“My own feeling is that if you emphasize responsibility too much, you are undervaluing others or the other. Also, you are over-valuing yourself. You are operating with an individualistic conception of the individual, not a social conception of the self. If you have a social sense of the self, you cannot maintain that you are wholly responsible for what you are. You can be responsible within it, but there are limits to which your responsibility extends. I also think that within this attitude of responsibility there is the idea that gratitude beyond a certain point leads to dependence and this is a basic form of weakness. As much as we may not admit this intellectually, many of us feel emotionally that dependence is weakness.”

— Unfoldings, Bernard Loomer, 1985.

Holding one’s nose

My sister Jean sent a link to an interesting map that tries to explain why Martha Coakley lost to Scott Brown.

For me, the most important piece of information is that Democrats stayed home, while independents turned out in force. If I were still living in Massachusetts, I would have had had to hold my nose in order to vote for Coakley. Her law-and-order rhetoric sounded like she was getting paid by the prison lobby. She’s quixotically stubborn at times, so that even after Hillary Clinton released delegates to vote for Obama, Coakley refused to vote for him. While Coakley claims to support equality (broadly construed), including marriage equality, I never saw that she was much of an advocate for people who were poor or economically disadvantaged. While I could stomach her as attorney general (and yes, I voted for her in that post), I did not see here someone who would fill Ted Kennedy’s role as an advocate in the U.S. Senate for those who are poor and oppressed; indeed, she seemed no better than Scott Brown. Given those comparisons, I’m not entirely surprised that Massachusetts Democrats stayed home.

As a religious and spiritual progressive, I’m finding it more and more difficult to distinguish between political liberals and political conservatives. Both political stances seem like shallow ideologies motivated solely by party unity and retention of power, rather than humane political philosophies concerned with making life better for all people. U.S. politics seems to be driven in large part by fairly unimportant wedge issues — abortion, gun ownership, same-sex marriage, testing in schools — rather than by truly important issues like feeding the hungry, caring for children, preventing usury and exploitation of the poor. In those few areas where U.S. politics currently concerns itself with substantial issues — health care, war — the big issues are so narrowed down that they are almost meaningless.

I better stop ranting now, before my blood pressure goes up too much. As ideologues, neither Coakley nor Brown deserved to win; neither one would bother much with the real problems. And so we will continue to not feed the hungry, and not help the suffering, and not be peacemakers; and the last shall not be first because those who are first plan to stay right where they are.

Corrected 21 January, thanks to Philocrites. See comments below.

Sex, food, and giving money away

Last Sunday, we took up a collection for Haiti relief work here in the Palo Alto church; next Sunday is the formal beginning of the annual canvass, or fundraising drive. In the midst of all this, a member of the church happened to send me a column by Nicholas Kristoffy titled “Our Basic Human Pleasures: Food, Sex, and Giving.” Kristoffy writes:

“Brain scans by neuroscientists confirm that altruism carries its own rewards. A team including Dr. Jorge Moll of the National Institutes of Health found that when a research subject was encouraged to think of giving money to a charity, parts of the brain lit up that are normally associated with selfish pleasures like eating or sex.”

I’d argue that sex is not a selfish pleasure (at least, not when it involves another person). Nevertheless, giving money does feel awfully good to me — better than food, maybe not quite as good as sex. Actually, this might be a good rebuttal to the whole doctrine of original sin — if helping others makes us feel so good, doesn’t that mean we are essentially good?

Thanks to Dick D. for sending me the column.

Haiti relief donations

If you want to donate to relief work in Haiti following the earthquake, here are two ideas:

— The blog of the American Red Cross Web site says: “You can donate $10 to Haiti relief by texting ‘Haiti’ to 90999…. We have received more than $3 million as of 9 a.m. EST – through a third party mobile fundraising effort to support our relief efforts in Haiti. 100% of the funds will go to support the Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.” Thanks, Cilla, for pointing this out on a PCD email list.

— The Unitarian Universalist Association Web site tells how to give through the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC): “January 13, 2010. In the wake of devastation wrought by the earthquake which struck the island of Haiti on January 12, 2010, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) and the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) are launching a joint relief effort to bring aid to the impoverished island nation.” Direct contributions can be made at the UUSC’s secure donation site.

If you know of other good organizations providing relief in Haiti, please list them in the comments.

Duties of the household gods

What is the responsibility of the household gods in this day and age? We lived in one house where bread rose better than in any other house we have lived, and when apple cider fermented it was always perfectly dry and fizzy; I credited the household gods for that. Since then, we bought a bread machine, and all the apple cider is pasteurized now so it won’t ferment properly. So what do the household gods do now?

Maine did the right thing

Maine’s governor, John Baldacci, did the right thing today and signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Maine. Like many others, I do hope that Barack Obama was listening when Baldacci said: “In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.”

This makes five states that now have legal same-sex marriage. There are something like twenty-five states that have outlawed same-sex marriage. However, since younger voters increasingly favor legalizing same-sex marriage, I hope it’s just a matter of time before most of those twenty-five states do the right thing, and alter their laws to allow same-sex marriage.

No surprise

This came in from Mass Equality at 11:38 this morning: “Moments ago, the Vermont Legislature voted to overturn Governor Douglas’s veto and recognize marriage equality for all…. Vermont is the first state to recognize marriage equality through direct legislative initiative. Vermont joins Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa as the fourth state to recognize equal marriage rights.”

Sixth anniversary

Today is the sixth anniversary of the invasion of the war of Iraq. So here’s a meditation for pacifists….

Jesus of Nazareth allegedly said:

“Don’t react violently against the one who is evil: when someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other as well. When someone wants to sue you for your shirt, let that person have your coat along with it. Further, when anyone conscripts you for one mile, go an extra mile. Give to the one who begs from you….” [Scholar’s Version, Matthew 5.38-42]

All these suggestions are, of course, absurd. If someone slaps your right cheek, why wouldn’t you just walk away from that person? — and how does this advice apply if someone slaps you on the left cheek? Absurd, absurd. As for that business about the shirt and coat, you have to remember that in a society where people only owned two garments, wouldn’t that would leave you standing around naked? Absurd. Carry a Roman soldier’s pack for an extra mile? Absurd. Give to the one who begs to you? — also absurd.

OK, maybe these things are absurd. But the alternative is the old eye-for-an-eye-tooth-for-a-tooth morality, e.g., when “Axis of Evil” kills some of our people, we automatically go and kill some of their people. Isn’t that old eye-for-an-eye morality just as absurd, in its own way?

Now I tend to be a pragmatic guy, and if someone slaps me on either cheek, I’m going to just walk away. For that matter, I’m not going to give away all my clothes and be naked, I’m not going to carry a Roman soldier’s pack. But as a pragmatist, results matter, and I don’t see that my pragmatism has done much to bring about world peace, either.

I don’t have the answer. But I am drawn to the clarity and elegance of Jesus’s moral philosophy. I’m not sure I want to try everything he suggests, but I do wish I had given money to the beggars I passed on the street today, just to live out his absurd teaching in a small way.

X-posted.