the goddess in my garden

The Contract

2008-03-22T18:42:00.002-07:00

The Contract says

It's a good deal for you

and it really helps us out.

The Contract says

You're so important to your country

and your country is so important.

The Contract says

We make all the rules

and we choose your rights.

if you read between the lines

The Contract says

We are your conscience

and we get to play God.

if you read between the lines

The Contract says

We don't care about your health

and we don't care about your Soul.

The contract

Your life is not worth the paper it's written on.

Friday's 'Voice'

2008-03-17T12:49:00.001-07:00

Society dictates how power is distributed. Institutions and ideologies determine who has privilege to be dominant and who must defer. Some persons are given great power to make choices for themselves and other people and are protected from the consequences of their choices.... Religion serves to define the nature of power and its legitimate uses. Religious leaders must choose whether to collude with the dominant culture as sanctioning agents of abusive power or to be prophetic critics of the way power is distributed and defined.
- James Newton PolingThe Abuse of Power

Canada - Afghanistan: I weep

2008-03-13T18:57:00.004-07:00

How sick did it make me to see the picture of S. Harper standing, smiling, with his cronies cheering in the background in the House of Commons. So they challenged the Liberal party of Canada to a game of Chicken, and they won. They won on the backs, on the lives of Canadian military personnel and Afghan citizens. The citizens of the world have become pawns on the slippery, oil soaked game board of power and greed. This form of 'democracy' has got to go. What does it mean anymore to measure public opinion, except perhaps to count exactly how many people you've just thumbed your nose at and done what you want anyway?

Morsels from John Dear SJ

2008-03-07T23:34:00.004-08:00

The God of peace is never glorified by human violence.

The false spirituality of war - “war is not the will of God”

The last words of Jesus to the church - “put down your sword”

The message of Jesus from the Cross - the violence stops here in my body.

John Dear is here in Vancouver for the Thomas Merton Society's annual conference on peace. These are some of the powerful bits I came away with tonight.

I hope this is true...

2008-03-04T17:32:00.000-08:00

today's 'Voice'

2008-02-27T11:55:00.000-08:00

In the absence of Jesus’ physical leadership, a new power to lead emerges among the disciples. Like the disciples, we honor Jesus’ absence when, as Christian communities, we do not look for a single leader to ride into town on a white horse and save us. We honor Jesus’ absence when we do not "look up" to a single human leader on whom we can depend for everything. We honor Jesus’ absence when we discover the Spirit of Jesus the Servant animating us as a Christian community of faith.

- Thomas R. Hawkins
Faithful Leadership

today's 'Voice'

2008-02-22T11:45:00.000-08:00

Power understood as the ability to accomplish desired ends is present in human relationships no matter how particular communities or societies are organized. Nevertheless, Christian communities recognize that the source of power in their life is the love of Christ which inspires and directs them. This is a style of power not of coercion but of empowerment of others.... It also connects to those at the margins of society who search for word of God’s love and justice.

- Letty M. Russell
Church in the Round

The Pragmatist

2008-02-20T00:07:00.002-08:00

I truly believe in a Christian Anarchist vision (version?) of society where we rely on the smallest possible units/collectives to meet the needs of and build community. However, the pragmatist in me always lurks. Waiting for people of wisdom to hand me a gem for the dragon's treasure hoard. While I may desire and try to model an anarchist community, around me is the semblance of other society (or as Peter Maurin might refer to it, the shell of an old society!) This shell contains the whispers of democracy and the memory of belief in participatory governance. Do I work with it, or don't I?

Here I sit, up too late, over stimulated by the excellent presentation I attended tonight. Where several gems were handed over to the dragon. Discussion of the Security (HA!) and Prosperity (HA!) Partnership (HA HA HA!) agreement was well attended and presented. The particular gem I'm polishing at the moment is this: a philosophy of the "right" in politics is to throw mud at the "left", not to get voters to change sides, but rather to muddy everything so that voters believe all politicians are unclean and convincing them to opt out of the electoral system. So instead of needing 50% plus 1 to win things, they really only need 20% plus 1 and the elite 20% of the population who support them will always vote. This is supported by several examples in Canada where clearly the majority of citizens felt one way on a particular issue and yet managed to elect a government who went the opposite direction from them on the issue.

This rings very true for me. Not enough that I'm going to rush right out and volunteer on anybody's campaign, but you may hear me telling you to get your ass out and vote. Don't be shocked or dismayed. Just think about it, 'k?

Driven...

2008-02-19T23:08:00.000-08:00

“ Every war, when viewed from the undistorted perspective of life's sanctity, is a "civil war" waged by humanity against itself."

- Daisaku Ikeda

Prayer

2008-02-18T22:33:00.000-08:00

What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?

Thomas Merton
Thoughts in Solitude

today's "Voice"

2008-02-13T15:31:00.001-08:00

Language has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone, and the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.

- Paul Tillich

Oh Canada!

2008-01-23T23:12:00.000-08:00

Stephen Harper's panel on the Canadian Afghanistan military mission has reported. Here's my reaction to this particular bit, quoted from today's Vancouver Sun newspaper (Arm-twist NATO: Manley - Mike Blanchfield, Canwest):

Manley said Canada's efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan cannot be completed by February 2009 and there is no "operational logic" to pulling troops out on that date. An immediate withdrawal would "squander our investment and dishonour our sacrifice to date."

The report also talks about 'defining' or 'refining' the goal of the mission. Hello? At the cost of close to 80 lives of Canadian military members and countless Afghan citizens we can talk about defining and refining our goals? That aside, back to the above quote. Squandering our investment? Dishonouring our sacrifice? I believe in my bones that the greatest dishonour to the sacrifice of lives on both sides (but from my perspective as a Canadian-particularly the lives of Canadian military) is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. In case you've never heard it before, that's the definition of insanity! So we'll sacrifice more of the same, in the same manner, with the same results. Do we consider the abbreviated lives of all these men and women to be an 'investment'. If we're going to use that language of finance, what's the return on that particular investment? How does that manage to 'appreciate'? I don't have an answer for that. I'm pretty sure all those 'experts' don't either.

today's 'Voice'

2008-01-18T20:31:00.000-08:00

We still need prophets to summon us back to the spiritual roots of wholeness and peace. We still need broadcasters of God’s word and magnifiers of God’s truth, so that we will understand and turn and be healed.

- Kenneth L. Waters, Sr.
I Saw the Lord

'Voice' from Sojourners today

2008-01-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

Jesus reassures us that every effort to love ourselves and others more faithfully, however imperfectly we are able to do this, is a response to God’s call to love as he loved. It is a response to the two greatest commandments as they stand in relationship to one another.

- Paula Ripple
Called to Be Friends

2008-01-16T23:34:00.000-08:00

Found this image at http://www.manitobawildlands.org/images/water_drop_shiny.jpg

It wasn't exactly what I was looking for but it comes close.
When I'm having a moment of appreciation, often my thoughts turn to water, in it's various forms.

Appreciating a moment....

Hope & Love

2008-01-12T22:55:00.000-08:00

There is so much to do and pray for, so many to pray for and with. Our friend and inspiration Aldona is suffering a setback in her cancer treatment/recovery.

Ronnie & I had a scary moment about 9:40pm.
Too excited after greeting the pugs walking across the street, she was not impressed by the man on his bike on our sidewalk. Towing her around him as she barked, she slipped out of her collar and circled him, barking. He got angry (I'm sure he was feeling threatened) but she really didn't get that close to him. She was in the street, barking at him, and then he got aggressive towards her and started pursuing her. My throat is sore from how I screamed at her to come to me. Which she didn't do. Instead she bolted down the street to the other end. I wasn't sure that she wasn't scared of ME by this time so I followed her, fearful of how far I might have to go. But she came back, clearly understanding how angry I was, she was subdued and scared (I've never screamed like that before - I was fearful for both our safety). Fortunately, we were on our own street. It's nice to be reassured that she'd probably defend me if need be. She probably would have won that fight, but in the end we'd have lost because dogs that bite aren't popular. It's too bad the guy got so aggressive. I didn't even bother trying to say that she got away accidentally and that she would leave him alone if he ignored her and stopped yelling at us. I didn't want to interact with him in the dark.

On to love.
I've been reading "The Four Loves" by C.S. Lewis. I wanted to read it because an excerpt from it was quoted in a daily Sojourners email recently. Of course finding the particular section was a challenge. I wasn't sure I wanted to read the whole thing (so many books, so little time) but I started at the beginning, as my anal self will often do. I forgot how enjoyable and quirky C.S. Lewis is. I got about halfway through and then skipped ahead. Sure enough, the section I was looking for is very near the end. So much of it is good, I'm going to quote a bunch from the last chapter.

The four loves under discussion are affection, friendship, eros and charity. He also talks about need-love and gift-love. He writes about the loves in a sort of hierarchical sense, but in the end when writing about charity which is the love associated with God, he strongly asserts that it cannot stand alone at the expense of the "natural" loves.

There is one method of dissuading us from inordinate love of the fellow-creature which I find myself forced to reject at the very outset. I do so with trembling, for it met me in the pages of a great saint and a great thinker to whom my own glad debts are incalculable.

In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St Augustine describes the desolation in which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him (Confessions IV, 10). Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one's heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away.

Of course this is excellent sense. Don't put your goods in a leaky vessel. Don't spend too much on a house you may be turned out of. And there is no man alive who responds more naturally than I to such canny maxims. I am a safety-first creature. Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as 'Careful! This might lead you to suffering.'

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether there is anything in me that pleases Him less.

And here is the part that I had previously read and led me to reading the book in the first place:

There is no escape along the lines St Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell

So much of love is human, scary, messy, hard, tiresome, unappreciated, flawed and painful. It is also necessary, beautiful, creative, uplifting, inspiring, dramatic, nurturing, comforting and hopeful.

Community changes and grows

2008-01-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

After a casual inquiry into his state of wellbeing by Vikki, Chris 'fessed up to us that he and Yvonne are engaged! It seems that if I'd been reading HIS blog more closely, I'd have learned that a few weeks ago. Ah well, it was looking like true love and lo, it is! Congratulations to them both. That will be the third marriage that sprouted from this house in some fashion. Maybe we have a new vocation option. :-)

Pieces of the puzzle, don't know what the picture is...

2008-01-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

faith = 10
religion = 7
"church" = 4
community = 8
worship environment = 5
fruitful thought/ideas = 6

Nonviolence

2008-01-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

Very often people object that nonviolence seems to imply passive acceptance of injustice and evil and therefore that it is a kind of cooperation with evil. Not at all. The genuine concept of nonviolence implies not only active and effective resistance to evil but in fact a more effective resistance... But the resistance which is taught in the Gospel is aimed not at the evil-doer but at evil in its source.

Thomas Merton
from Passion For Peace

Sojourners Verse & Voice from 19 Dec. 2007

2008-01-01T17:56:00.000-08:00

Your princes are rebels
and companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe
and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow's cause does not come before them.

Isaiah 1:23

Too many people come into community to find something, to belong to a dynamic group, to find a life which approaches the ideal. If we come into community without knowing that the reason we come is to discover the mystery of forgiveness, we will soon be disappointed.

Jean Vanier
Community and Growth