more bumper stickers

This quirky bumper sticker had Tamie and I in stitches:

"Support your right to arm bears"

Environmental bumper stickers

An interesting bumper sticker I came across:

"Environmental bumper stickers don't mean shit when they are stuck to CARS."

(Thanks to Zach and Amy.)

Catching up with the world

Tamie and I are spending a bit of time in Vermont. One look at the handy road atlas reveals that Vermont is loaded with scenic highways and byways. It is a beautiful area of the country. Of the entire continental U.S., I would say it ranks at the top of my personal scenic charts. I also love the feel of Montana. Vermont has its own style: great cheese; Ben & Jerry's ice cream; it was green before green was cool; life moves at a slow pace; strip malls are kept to a minimum; and the Wal-martization of the world is kept at bay. So, I love the style.

Tamie has a short, humorous post on the subject:
Vermont: So beautiful it's offensive

For now, I'm trying to catch up a bit on the 'ole blogging front. So, more to come. For the moment, I've been enjoying the New England area.

Portland, Maine

No great ideas. Not even any pictures, unfortunately.

I'm just hanging out here in Portland, Maine, scoping out the possibility of Tamie and I moving here to this wonderful little coastal city. I am couchsurfing with a wonderful host, John. He's been great, and today we bicycled around the city. It's only a city of 60,000 or so folk (not including hamsters), but it has a nice, artists/creative community, and the scenery is lovely. Maine has many islands and a beautiful, rugged stone coast. Ferries (the boats, not gay men or the little enchanted girl creatures with wings) shuttle people out to some of these islands, or just take you around for a few hours or a day of taking in the salt air and the inspiring sights.

Try as I might, it's hard to find anyone give the city a negative review, or say anything disparaging about it. It's like pulling teeth. (Or, perhaps, it's a lot like answering that infamous interview question, "Tell us two or three of your weaknesses." You know the one? Where you try to say something "negative" about yourself, but it actually turns into a positive. Like, "Well, ya' know. One of my weaknesses is that I just get so wrapped up in my work that I can get burned out. Yeah. It can be a real draw back, I tell ya.")

So, I dig Portland, and I think moving here is now in the works. The price of living is a bit higher than living in the cornfields of northern Indiana; but, ya know, we expected that sort of thing.

Oh, and by way of a P.S. We camped in the Adirondacks on our way here to Maine. That was good times. And the drive through Vermont was tops. I mean tops. It was gorgeous. Right through central Vermont, through the Green Mountains. Oh yes. Vermont is tops. And New Hampshire has the absolutely best state motto you shall ever hear. "Live free or die."

Amen.

Calling All Fanatics: Protecting nature should be more important than enjoying it

Derrick Jensen is a provocative environmental activist and writer. His basic point: save the planet at any cost. If it costs your integrity? Yes. If it costs your life? Check.

He has a short column with Orion magazine. In the recent July|August edition, "Calling All Fanatics" he starts by saying, "there aren't nearly enough of us working anywhere near hard enough to stop this culture from killing the planet."

Should we be enjoying our hikes, kayaking trips, and nice camping trips when our entire society is continuing to allow the destruction of the natural world, polluting the air and water, sending carbon into the atmosphere, and cutting down the forests (and other overharvesting), all to feed the need for greed--our demand for more and more stuff.

"For anyone not to devote her/his talents and energies to defending the planet is a betrayal of the worst magnitude, a gesture of contempt against life itself. It is unforgivable."

I am inclined to agree. Although I am a theologian by trade, a thinker, I want my theory to be grounded in the reality and workings of the world. From my volunteer work teaching in the local county jail it has become clear to me that there are problems that require immediate action, and words without deeds are dead. People's lives are being stolen and abused. We can sit back and pontificate on incarceration, but I know the names of people who need support because every night they get shut up in cages like animals with other desperate people. They need friends, mentors, and they need activists.

I feel the same way about the environment. I agree with Jensen that there is a "contempt against life itself" at work somewhere in all of this.

Yet as a theologian and spiritual thinker, I also want to ask the deeper questions. I want to ask, where does this "contempt against life" come from. I want to take Jensen's militarism, his do-or-die attitude, his courage, and join it with some intelligent spiritual analysis. By "spiritual" I mean that I want to ask about the "spirit" or "mood" or "attitude" that animates this culture of contempt against life. I do believe, for example, that consumerism is based on contempt. We have to first despise ourselves. Once we despise our lives, then we are vulnerable to advertising and marketing manipulation.

In the past, advertising and marketing was simple: for a content, satisfied, or self-actualized life, just purchase [insert product/service]. The sophistication of our current consumerism is such that we are well aware of our own self-content, and yet we continue to consume. This interests me. Self-contempt is celebrated, in often very subtle ways. Of course we still sell cereal by showing happy kids, but its also hip to be angsty: "yeah, I'm a jaded consumer, and to prove it I wear this jacket and these shoes." Even protests against the system necessitate that we participate in the system.

There's a market for the anti-system crowd. These are the saavy, self-aware types. The advertiser can tap into the contempt and bring it to the surface, no problem. An advertiser can use anything to sell a product or service.

How do we respond to this contempt for life? If our consuming impulse is based on contempt and a discontented consumer, how do we stop the consuming impulse before it begins? How does a person (or a society for that matter) become content, undoing our conditioning toward contempt?

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

"At one moment we deplore our birth and state and aspire to an ascetic exaltation. The next, we are overcome by the smell of some old garden path and weep to hear the thrushes sing."

Were I to comment on the novel, in a very general sense, I would say that Virginia Woolf's Orlando was rather uncompelling. Of course, one might rightly call me to task for using the term "uncompelling," due to the fact that it is not a word--it is not a word in the sense that it cannot be found in a major dictionary. However, if you were to suggest that my word was not a word merely because it was not in the dictionary, I would say that this matters little because you get the gist of what I am attempting to communicate. Or, alternatively, in response to your criticism that my word is not a word, I might respond by saying that Woolf's novel is not a novel.

Orlando is in fact a displaced genre. It is written as a biography and intended by the author as a biography. It is shelved under "fiction," and more importantly, it is being reviewed by this writer as a novel....but not quite a novel....but when you read it, you get the gist of what Woolf is trying to say.

The novel is a biography of "Orlando." It is a loose interpretation of the life of one of Virginia Woolf's intimate friend, Vita Sackville-West, also a writer. Yet it is free and easy with the truth, very "unhistorical," if you will, "unfactual." But then again, you'll get the gist of what is going on. Woolf is taking liberty with the biography to better understand the person. It's like painting a tree that doesn't quite look like a tree but at the same time gives us a better sense of the tree than we would have if we had looked at the tree itself. Or said differently, it's like the fact that what we see in the mirror is never quite what is being mirrored.

Orlando, the one being biographied, if that's a word, which I am sure it is not...oh, but we've had that conversation before....Orlando, subject of this biography, is like Woolf's friend in that s/he is a writer. However, unlike Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is ageless and sexless. Well, not quite sexless. We are treated to a discourse on the life of Orlando, and then we find that while Orlando is in the prime of his life, he falls into a deep sleep and wakes up to be a woman. The "he" becomes a "she," but retains her (or his) prior impressions and understanding of what it is like to be a he. So she understand he, as perhaps no she has ever understood a he. And to top it all off, she sometimes acts like a she and sometimes acts like a he.

Orlando also feels out of place in his/her class. S/he is an aristocrat who can't quite give his/her heart to the life of an aristocrat, but who also on the other hand cannot quite escape the life of an aristocrat. Orlando isolates himself from his aristocratic peers, never managing to quite form any intimacy with them. Later, as a woman, Orlando finds herself living with Gypsies, but she longs for the comforts of her aristocratic lifestyle.

"For what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment? That we survive the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side, the future on another."

Our subject also belongs to no era. As the story progresses, centuries pass and Orlando does not age. S/he is somehow lifted out of time and space, yet s/he seems at the same time to embody each era, be it the Elizabethan Era of the Victorian Age or the modern industrialized city.

In short, this novel is the story of a subject displaced from time, class, and gender. And all of this displacement occurs within a novel that is deliberately displaced as a biography by its author who (despite being a novelist) insists that we approach her novel as though it were a biography.

"How little she had changed over the years....she had remained fundamentally the same."

"I have sought happiness over many ages and have not found it, fame and missed it, love and not known it....I have known many men and many women, none have I understood."

The text is experimental. The prose is beautiful. Yet for me, the novel lacked a truly compelling element. The subject is lifted out of the world such that s/he lacks context. Orlando becomes a sexless character without any true affiliation to any particular era or even alignment with a class. Orlando, the protagonist, remains static, and as such, there is nothing to invest, emotionally or otherwise. The best the reader can do is to sympathize with this character for the extreme displacement that s/he finds his/herself living.

"Morning James," she said. "there's some things in the car. Will you bring them in?" Words of no beauty, interest, or significance in themselves it will be conceded. But now so plumped out with meaning that if they fell like ripe nuts from a tree and proved that when the shriveled skin of the ordinary is stuffed out with meaning it satisfies the senses amazingly....to see Orlando change her skirt for a pair of whip cord britches and leather jacket, which she did in less than three minutes, was to be ravished with the beauty of movement, as if Madame Lopokova were using her highest art."

The protagonist is distant and inaccessible. S/he seems to live in a sleep-like state, unable to awaken to a strong sense of identity. In the above quote, Orlando is in here eleventh hour, nearing her demise, and she experiences an awakening of sorts. The prose is beautiful, but somehow I remain unconvinced. Orlando still seems distant, as if she is experiencing a moment of fullness, when life is being experienced in all of its richness and the heart is full. Yes, she may be living a few moments of being in tune with the wonder of the world, but the reader still is somehow being kept at bay, closed out. As for myself, my sense is that Orlando is not only closed off to the reader but ultimately she is closed off to herself. And perhaps that is the point of the novel, itself, a character unable to ever quite wake up.

The world seeks to establish and settle identity: gender, era, class and social standing. Orlando is displaced in this world, and somehow his/her displacement paralyzes his/her ability to awaken. She remains trapped in a dream.

"Illusions are to the soul as atmosphere is to the earth. Roll up that tender air, and the plant dries, the color fades. The earth we walk on is a parched cinder...by the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. 'Tis waking that kills us..."

But how many of us truly wake from this dream?

Quote of the Day

"If I hadn't shot poor Delia, I'da had her for my wife."

- From the Johnny Cash song "Delia"

Let your gentleness be evident to all

"Let your gentleness be evident to all." (Philippians 4:5)

There are several issues that press the collective spirit of the United States: A decade of war, an economic collapse and recession, an environmental catastrophe, and an inability to address immigration issues. Taken together, we have become more divisive and distrustful, more protective and territorial. As a collective, we want to insist on our rights, we feel the need to fight for what is "ours." It is a spirit of grasping and clinging, we are suspicious of others whom we believe are trying to steal from us: terrorists abroad, immigrants within our boarders, the government, or corporate powers.

"Tolerance" is a word that has been debated in our society for a while. Some mock the idea of tolerance: this isn't a tolerant world for the weak, you have to fight for what is rightfully yours. At this point, the sense of tolerance, civility, and gentleness seem only to be words devoid of substance, political rhetoric to give us a moral sense of superiority.

Paul's exhortation to the Philippians is to "let your gentleness be evident to all." The Greek word here, epieikes, is a difficult one to translate. The idea has to do with gentleness, but it has to do with the type of gentleness that yields and surrenders its right of law over others. The lexical definition is as follows (BDAG): “not insisting on every right of letter of law or custom, yielding, gentle, kind courteous, tolerant.”

The scholar R.P. Martin translates this word as magnanimity: "Aristotle contrasted it with akribodikaios 'strict justice.' For him it meant a generous treatment of others that, while demanding equity, does not insist on the letter of the law. Willing to admit limitations, it is prepared to make allowances so that justice does not injure. It is a quality, therefore, that keeps one from insisting on one’s full rights, 'where rigidity would be harsh' (Plummer, 93; cf. Aristotle, Eth. nic. 5.10 §1137b.3), or from making a rigorous and obstinate stand for what is justly due to one."

Whereas a political or cultural climate such as ours would encourage a person to insist on getting their due and asserting their rights, a spirit of magnanimity or gentleness spoken of by the Apostle Paul would be yielding, kind, tolerant, and pull back from insisting on getting one's full due. What is more, Paul's exhortation to the Philippians is that this spirit of gentleness be "evident to all." In other words, it is not merely a private disposition without public ramifications. The idea is that one's magnanimity overflow into public life such that a person is distinctly marked as a tolerant and kind individual.

I do not think this means that one defers from standing up for justice or righteousness, nor do I think that a person need not express strong opinions related to current day political issues. Nor do I even think it is out of place to discuss one's rights or what is due us. However, such ideological discussions should never turn us against another in such a way that we harshly insist on getting our due without any sense of compassion for others. In other words, "let your generosity be evident to all" ultimately means that a person does not hesitate to pull up short of demanding their rights in deference to others. It is a stance of gentleness as opposed to a harsh and inflexible insistence that right is right.

This spiritual teaching from the Apostle Paul is the mark of one who lives markedly different from the prevailing culture of violence that marks our day and age. "Let your gentleness be evident to all."

Recession, War, and Environmental Catastrophe

"For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked -- not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.

The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America. Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil. And today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.

We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now." - President Obama, June 15, 2010

On this blog we have discussed the fact that in order to move our nation in a different direction, we ultimately need a change to the system--a change in the way we think and live and move about in our lives. Yet we have also noted that such a systematic change will not happen until individuals and communities are willing to sacrifice in the short term to make this happen.

It appears as though the political will may be here for the immediate future to commit to taking steps toward systematic change. Will the people be willing to make sacrifices? To change our way of being? And what specifically will be asked of them?

For me, the discussion is not just about being more energy efficient but also about the deeper spirit to consume, the consumeristic impulses that seem to motivate our behavior. It is, I think, a spiritual struggle, a battle for the way we will orient our souls and our collective national self.

President Obama began his speech by discussing a "multitude of challenges" that have faced the nation: "At home, our top priority is to recover and rebuild from a recession that has touched the lives of nearly every American. Abroad, our brave men and women in uniform are taking the fight to al Qaeda wherever it exists. And tonight, I’ve returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast to speak with you about the battle we’re waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores and our citizens."

He notes the three areas of disaster: economic recession, war, and environmental catastrophe. I see the consumeristic impulse causing or motivating all of these. I wonder if these three events and concerns will shape our political landscape for the next few decades. I wonder if people of faith will respond with enthusiasm.

A Quick Musing on Politics and Powers

Generally speaking, the dominant political power on the right (Republicans) tend to be suspicious of the growth and scope of governmental powers, but they turn a blind eye to any of the damages of corporate powers--environmental abuses, corporate fraud, low compensation toward workers, manipulation via advertising, and pushing out smaller businesses and sole proprietors (i.e., Walmart's destruction of our nation's downtown small businesses).

Generally speaking, the dominant political power on the left (Democrats) tend to be suspicious of the growth and scope of corporate powers, but they turn a blind eye to any of the damages of governmental powers--excessive and ineffective bureaucracy, fraud, corruption and misuse of public funds, the power of political machines, imposition on personal liberties, etc.

I'd be interested in a political movement that was suspicious of all dominant powers, be they corporate or governmental. I would be disposed to supporting a movement that empowered local governments, local communities, and individuals. Not a movement that promotes bare individualism at the expense of community, mind you.

Because bigger is not always better....and it's often worse.

Patriotism of the soil

Tamie and I have been watching the most recent Ken Burns documentary series on the National Parks of the United States. It's been quite amazing to realize just how beautiful the United States is. It is also humbling to realize that many of our most scenic locations were almost raped and ruined. If brave and steadfast souls had not stood up to some of the corporate powers-that-be, then the Grand Canyon might be invested with mines and hotels, under the control of entities trying to extract a profit from her; the grand sequoias, thousands of years old, might have been leveled; the buffalo might be completely extinct....etc.

There is a fantastic quote that I came across. It connects patriotism with the soil.

"What is it that inspires love of the flag, that tunes the ear of America to sing 'My Country 'Tis of Thee'? Is it industrial efficiency, irrigation statistics or trade output? Is it the hideous ore dumps of the sordid mining camp? Is it the blackened waste that follows the devastation of much of our forest wealth? Is it the smoking factory of the grimy mill town? Is it even the lofty metropolitan skyscraper that shuts out the sun and throws its shadow over all below? No, our devotion to the flag is inspired by love of country. Patriotism is the religion of the soil, and the national parks are our richest patrimony."

Patriotism if often cited these days. Patriotism is often placed alongside abstract ideas, like "democracy" or "equality." It is used to advance ideologies. Or it is justification for war. In extreme cases, patriotism is a reason to revoke civil liberties. But what about a patriotism of the soil? What about being patriotic to the land? "Sweet land of liberty"?

I sent the DVD back to Netflix, so I am uncertain who to attribute this quotation to. I had thought it was Stephen Mathers, but surfing the net I also see that someone credits John Wesley Hill. No matter. What I appreciate about this idea is that it questions whether patriotism can be sustained if there isn't an organic source of inspiration. Perhaps so many of the other reasons for our patriotism wind up dividing us because they are ideologically driven, they don't grow out of the earth.

Along with this is a quote (that I did not write down) regarding legislation something to the tune of: every legislator and government official in the U.S. should ask themselves if their bill or plan is worthy of the Grand Canyon. In other words, is the direction of our nation worthy of our greatest and most inspirational natural wonders? There's a certain perspective that one gets, I think, from the natural world; it's something that kind of reorients us back to what is truly important.

Church of the Blessed Life

It's all well and good to guilt people into a more sustainable lifestyle; and perhaps it is even inspiring to discuss a way of life that is fulfilling and integrated. However, the realityis that it is extraordinarily frustrating and taxing to attempt to swim against the current of U.S. consumerism; it feels impossible for one individual to do it--like swimming against the rapids. And, after all, what difference can one individual really make, in the long run? The reality is that we need community. We need local support and networks of people committed to living the blessed life.

How about the church?

It's an intriguing time in the life of the church. Most churches are having a hard time maintaining enthusiasm among the young, particularly singles. The numbers I have seen show that young folks are leaving the churches in a mass exodus, of sorts, although most still describe themselves as spiritual or religious in some way.

Hhhhmmm....what about the church....

Here's the positive thing. Churches are already set up as support groups for local individuals. This is particularly true of "neighborhood churches" that are located in densely populated areas (where people actually live!), allowing people to be within walking distance of the building.

Furthermore, if churches want to imitate their founding member (and subsequent disciples and apostles), which seems to be a common theme among churches, then they will already have an interest in creating a supportive community for living an alternative lifestyle--this could be lifestyle in alternative to the consumeristic matrix within which the greater Western world now participates.

Just imagine it, my friend. (Personally, I have a difficult time not feeling some surge of optimism in writing about the possibility.) Just think of the revolutionary possibilities if churches dedicated themselves to the path of anti-consumerism, to integrity, and to the blessed life. These churches could create new, local markets for goods, for everything from locally produced food to locally made clothes, furniture, cookware, and art. What kind of new employment opportunities might this open up? Might more people be able to quit their jobs on the assembly lines and behind desks and follow their talents and creativity? Working the soil or creating beautiful and useful products?

Such a shift would also create strong relational bonds within a faith community--striving and struggling together for a crucial mission at a critical time. It would be a shift from surviving the world to working together for a new vision. Consumeristic thinking necessarily leads to objectification. Those of us who "work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" end up feeling a little bit like we've sold our souls to the devil. And maybe we have, but it isn't too late to change. Such a transformation would be about the blessed life--approaching the world in a life-giving manner. This is a shift about the way we interpret ourselves, no longer as "consumers" or "human resources" but as relational and responsible human beings--with an emphasis on "being," on being dynamic and alive. This kind of life and this new relational energy could then be used to reach out a hand to those on the margins of the consumeristic society: the disabled, the poor, the addicts, prisoners, prostitutes, undocumented immigrants, and others who are considered a burden by the wider society--but those to whom that Jesus dude tended to gravitate.

Structurally the church is set up to be the catalyst for the blessed life, to turn our attention from thoughtless Walmart, fast food, and strip-mall consumers to becoming informed people of integrity. The system can be changed, we could become spiritually, relationally, and environmentally sustainable people via the church.

So, what's stopping us?

Structurally, the church is set up to be