Yesterday I had my last appointment with a psychiatrist, Dr. Yvonne Sturm, who is leaving her private practice to work for the federal government at the VA Hospital.
I met with her for the first time in April. To my friends who were curious about the process of me going to a psychiatrist, I decided that I could describe her best as "Dr. Lillith Sternen-ish" (the character married to and divorced from Dr. Fraiser Crane from the television show Cheers). Actually she's more like a cross between Dr. Sigmund Freud and Dr. Lillith Sternen because she's not a U.S. citizen (I asked her yesterday), she's clearly Eastern European.
During the half dozen times I visited her office as a patient she would--out of the blue--ask me a question about world politics or U.S. politics as a preface to asking how the medications she was perscribing me were working and what side effects they were causing and other "clinical behaviors" for want of a better word.
Yesterday in the midst of her doing a patient summary interview with me to give to my new psychiatrist, she stopped typing on her laptop, looked me straight in the eyes and asked me, "So why is it that this Dennis Kucinich fellow is not electable? They all say that people won't vote for him. I don't understand this."
I couldn't help but laugh out loud when she asked me this question. She could not possibly have known that just prior to leaving the house to come to my appointment with her I'd read an article that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were trying to limit the candidate field in the debates and were caught on video having a discussion on a debate stage. I had hit the "publish post" button just before rushing out the door. She also could not possibly have known that I was a Kucinich supporter in 2004 and remain so despite the other clearly qualified and distinguished candidates in the field for the Democratic nomination.
So I gave her the same standard response I gave to all the people who looked at me cross-eyed for being a Kucinich supporter in 2004, "A person is electable if enough voters cast a vote for them. The problem is how to educate the U.S. voters. There are alot of ill-informed and, quite frankly, stupid voters in the United States."
Dr. Sturm laughed a bit and then said, "Yes, there are."
To which I replied, "And the proof of that is that they elected George W. Bush not once, but twice!"
She chuckled again and said, "Yes, last week I had a patient come in to me complaining of nausea and when I asked her if she thought her medication dose needed to be lowered she was said to me 'I can't tell if it's the medication, or George Bush'". We both laughed.
I'm gonna miss Lillith. My new psychiatrist's name is Dr. Clapp. Now that's an ominous name. But I have to wait until September to find out in person what he's like and whether he likes to talk politics.
In the meantime I promised to send Dr. Sturm information on Dennis Kucinich. She can't vote for him, but she can campaign for him. I wished her well and told her that she was going to have her hands full with all the veterans from Bush's War coming home with PTSD.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Two Candidates' View of the Democratic Process!
According to AP, Fox News picked up Clinton and Edwards on stage with their open mikes expressing their mutual desire to limit future presidential forums by excluding other candidates.
John Edwards whispered, "We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group." Hillary Clinton agreed, "We've got to cut the number ... They're not serious.''
"Candidates - no matter how important or influential they perceive themselves to be - do not have and should not have the power to determine who is allowed to speak to the American public and who is not" responded Rep. Dennis Kucinich, another of the Democratic Presidential hopefulls.
John Edwards whispered, "We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group." Hillary Clinton agreed, "We've got to cut the number ... They're not serious.''
"Candidates - no matter how important or influential they perceive themselves to be - do not have and should not have the power to determine who is allowed to speak to the American public and who is not" responded Rep. Dennis Kucinich, another of the Democratic Presidential hopefulls.
Power to the People!
I'm happy, I just read this article from this morning's New York Times. I couldn't agree with it more. It seems like my political/social values are now being shared by a majority of the voters in this country. Finally there is a chance that I might be represented in the oval office by someone who shares my views!
New Populism Is Spurring Democrats on the Economy
By ROBIN TONER
Published: July 16, 2007
On Capitol Hill and on the presidential campaign trail, Democrats are increasingly moving toward a full-throated populist critique of the current economy. Clearly influenced by some of their most successful candidates in last year’s Congressional elections, Democrats are talking more and more about the anemic growth in American wages and the negative effects of trade and a globalized economy on American jobs and communities. They deplore what they call a growing gap between the middle class, which is struggling to adjust to a changing job market, and the affluent elites who have prospered in the new economy. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, calls it “trickle-down economics without the trickle.”
Populism is hardly new in the Democratic Party. Al Gore vowed to fight for “the people versus the powerful” in his presidential campaign seven years ago, and Republicans have long accused the Democrats of practicing “class warfare.”
But the latest populist resurgence is deeply rooted in a view that current economic conditions are difficult and deteriorating for many people, analysts say, and it is now framing debates over tax policy, education, trade, energy and health care. Last week, Senate Democrats held hearings on proposals to raise taxes on some of the highest fliers on Wall Street, the people at the top of private equity and hedge fund firms.
In the House, Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Financial Services Committee, convened party leaders and economists for a searching discussion of “globalization, outsourcing and the American worker — what should government do?” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, offered the participants some blunt marching orders: “The American people want to know what we’re doing about their economic security.”
Their language, and to some degree their proposals, reflect a striking contrast with the approach taken by Democrats during much of the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton asserted that trade would create American jobs and that paying attention to the concerns of Wall Street would help the economy by lowering interest rates. The more populist tone is one indication of a broader debate among Democrats over economic policy and how much they should break with the careful centrism of the Clinton years embodied by Robert E. Rubin, the former treasury secretary, who was a champion of free trade and cutting deficits.
So far, Republicans have, by and large, stuck by their free-market philosophy. They point to a rebounding stock market, declining deficits and steady if unspectacular economic expansion as evidence that conservative policies of tax cutting, less regulation and more trade are working.
But Democrats say they are responding to economic trends that the statistics in the headlines do not capture, including middle-class insecurity about jobs, the affordability of health insurance and the costs of education. The times have changed, these Democrats argue, and six years of Republican tax and economic policies have heightened the inequities.
Even as Mrs. Clinton has sought to associate herself with the economic growth of her husband’s administration, she, like other Democratic presidential candidates, has been expressing a sharp skepticism toward trade and globalization under President Bush. In recent weeks she has announced her opposition to the proposed South Korean Free Trade Agreement and denounced globalization that “is working only for a few of us.” She accepted the endorsement of former Representative Richard A. Gephardt, who spent much of his political career fighting what he asserted were unfair trade agreements.
And Mrs. Clinton has increasingly focused on “rising inequality and rising pessimism in our work force,” and suggested that another progressive era is — and ought to be — at hand.
Former Senator John Edwards, another Democratic candidate, staked out similar positions months ago and regularly notes that in the last 20 years, “about half of America’s economic growth has gone to the top 1 percent.” Mr. Edwards praises recent efforts to raise taxes on private equity and hedge funds. His campaign manager, former Representative David E. Bonior, notes that Mr. Edwards has been sounding these themes since his first presidential campaign in 2004.
“John Edwards was there at the beginning of this,” Mr. Bonior said.
While campaigning in Iowa last week, Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, suggested that even those who followed the standard advice for coping with a globalized economy — get more education for higher-skilled jobs — were losing out.
“People were told, you’ve got to be trained for high-tech jobs,” Mr. Obama said, “and then it turned out that some of those high-tech jobs were being outsourced. And people were told, now you need to train for service jobs. And then it turned out the call centers were moving overseas.”
It is not unusual for candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination to move left in the primary season; Mr. Clinton himself touched on some of these populist themes in his 1992 campaign. But all the major Democratic candidates for president are promising to use government to ease the insecurity of the middle class, on issues like education and health care.
Sixteen months before the election, with their domestic platforms being formed, these candidates are proposing, for example, to let the Bush tax cuts expire for the most affluent Americans and, in some cases, redirect that money to expanded health care. On the campaign trail and in Congress, Democrats are also talking about expanding assistance for college and help for workers who lose their jobs to cheaper labor abroad.
Democrats have also been pushing for legislation that would allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare with the pharmaceutical industry, a favorite target of the economic populists.
Democratic leaders say that unless Congress restores the confidence of the middle class, it will be hard to sell Americans on more trade or even an immigration overhaul.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to do trade agreements, immigration reforms or any of these other kinds of reforms,” Ms. Pelosi said, “until we present a positive, aggressive economic agenda to the American people — until they know where they stand, now and in the future.”
Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, said, “Trade may not be the reason, or the number one reason, they’re losing their jobs, but they think it is.”
Democratic leaders in the House recently announced that their legislative priorities did not include the renewal of the president’s “fast track” authority to negotiate new trade agreements, which expired this month. First, they said, they want to find ways “to expand the benefits of globalization to all Americans.”
There is anxiety on both left and right of the Democratic Party about this new populism. Many on the left worry that the Democratic establishment is merely paying lip service. They are skeptical about the party leaders’ loyalties, noting that many rely on huge contributions from Wall Street, and many have a long commitment to a free-trade agenda. Democratic leaders have, in fact, tried to advance some trade agreements this year, only to meet with substantial resistance within their caucus. Many of the new populists also see the Democratic establishment as far too cautious in confronting what they see as broad inequities in the tax code.
At the same time, centrist Democrats, like those at the research group the Third Way, worry that the party is veering left away from the optimistic, pro-growth, business-friendly policies that Mr. Clinton championed.
But many Democrats argue that this is an inevitable response to the dislocation and unease in much of the country, which was a crucial factor in the party’s victory in Congress last November. The case for populism is made most powerfully by the Democrats who were elected to Congress last fall. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who defeated a Republican incumbent with an attack on the trade and economic policies of recent years, said he was convinced that the populists were on the rise. He noted that he carried Ohio by 12.5 percentage points two years after John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, lost the state by only about 2 percentage points, and with it the presidency.
“That’s because of the economic populist message,” Mr. Brown said. “They voted minimum wage, they voted trade, they voted student loans, they voted health care and prescription drugs, over what their traditional conservative social values might suggest. And that’s the route to winning Ohio for Hillary or Barack or anybody else.”
Even Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who is viewed as far too much of an establishment, free-trade Clintonian by many populists, says the party must respond. “The party that deals with globalization and economic security will win,” Mr. Emanuel said.
New Populism Is Spurring Democrats on the Economy
By ROBIN TONER
Published: July 16, 2007
On Capitol Hill and on the presidential campaign trail, Democrats are increasingly moving toward a full-throated populist critique of the current economy. Clearly influenced by some of their most successful candidates in last year’s Congressional elections, Democrats are talking more and more about the anemic growth in American wages and the negative effects of trade and a globalized economy on American jobs and communities. They deplore what they call a growing gap between the middle class, which is struggling to adjust to a changing job market, and the affluent elites who have prospered in the new economy. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, calls it “trickle-down economics without the trickle.”
Populism is hardly new in the Democratic Party. Al Gore vowed to fight for “the people versus the powerful” in his presidential campaign seven years ago, and Republicans have long accused the Democrats of practicing “class warfare.”
But the latest populist resurgence is deeply rooted in a view that current economic conditions are difficult and deteriorating for many people, analysts say, and it is now framing debates over tax policy, education, trade, energy and health care. Last week, Senate Democrats held hearings on proposals to raise taxes on some of the highest fliers on Wall Street, the people at the top of private equity and hedge fund firms.
In the House, Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Financial Services Committee, convened party leaders and economists for a searching discussion of “globalization, outsourcing and the American worker — what should government do?” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, offered the participants some blunt marching orders: “The American people want to know what we’re doing about their economic security.”
Their language, and to some degree their proposals, reflect a striking contrast with the approach taken by Democrats during much of the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton asserted that trade would create American jobs and that paying attention to the concerns of Wall Street would help the economy by lowering interest rates. The more populist tone is one indication of a broader debate among Democrats over economic policy and how much they should break with the careful centrism of the Clinton years embodied by Robert E. Rubin, the former treasury secretary, who was a champion of free trade and cutting deficits.
So far, Republicans have, by and large, stuck by their free-market philosophy. They point to a rebounding stock market, declining deficits and steady if unspectacular economic expansion as evidence that conservative policies of tax cutting, less regulation and more trade are working.
But Democrats say they are responding to economic trends that the statistics in the headlines do not capture, including middle-class insecurity about jobs, the affordability of health insurance and the costs of education. The times have changed, these Democrats argue, and six years of Republican tax and economic policies have heightened the inequities.
Even as Mrs. Clinton has sought to associate herself with the economic growth of her husband’s administration, she, like other Democratic presidential candidates, has been expressing a sharp skepticism toward trade and globalization under President Bush. In recent weeks she has announced her opposition to the proposed South Korean Free Trade Agreement and denounced globalization that “is working only for a few of us.” She accepted the endorsement of former Representative Richard A. Gephardt, who spent much of his political career fighting what he asserted were unfair trade agreements.
And Mrs. Clinton has increasingly focused on “rising inequality and rising pessimism in our work force,” and suggested that another progressive era is — and ought to be — at hand.
Former Senator John Edwards, another Democratic candidate, staked out similar positions months ago and regularly notes that in the last 20 years, “about half of America’s economic growth has gone to the top 1 percent.” Mr. Edwards praises recent efforts to raise taxes on private equity and hedge funds. His campaign manager, former Representative David E. Bonior, notes that Mr. Edwards has been sounding these themes since his first presidential campaign in 2004.
“John Edwards was there at the beginning of this,” Mr. Bonior said.
While campaigning in Iowa last week, Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, suggested that even those who followed the standard advice for coping with a globalized economy — get more education for higher-skilled jobs — were losing out.
“People were told, you’ve got to be trained for high-tech jobs,” Mr. Obama said, “and then it turned out that some of those high-tech jobs were being outsourced. And people were told, now you need to train for service jobs. And then it turned out the call centers were moving overseas.”
It is not unusual for candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination to move left in the primary season; Mr. Clinton himself touched on some of these populist themes in his 1992 campaign. But all the major Democratic candidates for president are promising to use government to ease the insecurity of the middle class, on issues like education and health care.
Sixteen months before the election, with their domestic platforms being formed, these candidates are proposing, for example, to let the Bush tax cuts expire for the most affluent Americans and, in some cases, redirect that money to expanded health care. On the campaign trail and in Congress, Democrats are also talking about expanding assistance for college and help for workers who lose their jobs to cheaper labor abroad.
Democrats have also been pushing for legislation that would allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare with the pharmaceutical industry, a favorite target of the economic populists.
Democratic leaders say that unless Congress restores the confidence of the middle class, it will be hard to sell Americans on more trade or even an immigration overhaul.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to do trade agreements, immigration reforms or any of these other kinds of reforms,” Ms. Pelosi said, “until we present a positive, aggressive economic agenda to the American people — until they know where they stand, now and in the future.”
Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, said, “Trade may not be the reason, or the number one reason, they’re losing their jobs, but they think it is.”
Democratic leaders in the House recently announced that their legislative priorities did not include the renewal of the president’s “fast track” authority to negotiate new trade agreements, which expired this month. First, they said, they want to find ways “to expand the benefits of globalization to all Americans.”
There is anxiety on both left and right of the Democratic Party about this new populism. Many on the left worry that the Democratic establishment is merely paying lip service. They are skeptical about the party leaders’ loyalties, noting that many rely on huge contributions from Wall Street, and many have a long commitment to a free-trade agenda. Democratic leaders have, in fact, tried to advance some trade agreements this year, only to meet with substantial resistance within their caucus. Many of the new populists also see the Democratic establishment as far too cautious in confronting what they see as broad inequities in the tax code.
At the same time, centrist Democrats, like those at the research group the Third Way, worry that the party is veering left away from the optimistic, pro-growth, business-friendly policies that Mr. Clinton championed.
But many Democrats argue that this is an inevitable response to the dislocation and unease in much of the country, which was a crucial factor in the party’s victory in Congress last November. The case for populism is made most powerfully by the Democrats who were elected to Congress last fall. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who defeated a Republican incumbent with an attack on the trade and economic policies of recent years, said he was convinced that the populists were on the rise. He noted that he carried Ohio by 12.5 percentage points two years after John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, lost the state by only about 2 percentage points, and with it the presidency.
“That’s because of the economic populist message,” Mr. Brown said. “They voted minimum wage, they voted trade, they voted student loans, they voted health care and prescription drugs, over what their traditional conservative social values might suggest. And that’s the route to winning Ohio for Hillary or Barack or anybody else.”
Even Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who is viewed as far too much of an establishment, free-trade Clintonian by many populists, says the party must respond. “The party that deals with globalization and economic security will win,” Mr. Emanuel said.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Living Whole During Illness
Today at LiberalChurch, we celebrated the members among us who are cancer survivors and talked about how LiberalChurch has helped them with their cancer journeys. Vicky Goplin and Martha Dewitt talked about their personal experiences. I also talked about why I feel called to help the American Cancer Society in their efforts to end cancer even though I've never had a cancer diagnosis and gave details of the Burnsville Relay for Life benefitting the ACS and our church team efforts.
Approximately 40 luminaria bags honoring specific cancer survivors or memorializing specific cancer victims circled the worship stage. The children heard a book about children who had cancer and had drawn pictures about their cancer journey and who had written about what their pictures represented read by Kimberly Boynton who is a cancer survivor. Vicky and Howie Goplin sang an old spiritual about living full during times of illness or grief or loss. I think the title of the song is "It Is Well With My Soul".
Vicky led us in a guided meditation on gratitude and healing following our silent meditation/prayer time.
After church the youth had a picnic fundraiser and Howard Bass (husband of Kimberly Boynton who is also a cancer survivor) and Joe Mayer (who's wife Jeanine has been living with cancer for 5 years and is currently having chemo treatments again) were the grillmasters and the meal prep team along with their children, Sarah,(Lauren wasn't there), Britta, Zach, and Ana, and Jake the son of Sherrie Hemmen-Tilly, cancer survivor.
Following lunch there was a car wash. Jenna Ruble, cancer survivor, helped out with the wash along with Taylor Hall--her dad is undergoing chemo for a non-cancer illness so he is having the same type of journey. What a perfect day for a car wash it was! We washed 10-12 vehicles (forgot to keep count) of Open Circle members--no outside people showed up despite attempting to place an announcement in the local newspapers and putting bag-signs up at street corners along County Road 5 and Highland Drive. In total between donations for luminaria bags, the fundraising meal, and the car wash, we raised $490 for the Open Circle of Friends Relay for Life team to give to the American Cancer Society.
Well, between Girl Scout Camp and a church service/lunch/carwash, I'm tired now. I think it is time to read, meditate, and take a nap for the remainder of the day!
Approximately 40 luminaria bags honoring specific cancer survivors or memorializing specific cancer victims circled the worship stage. The children heard a book about children who had cancer and had drawn pictures about their cancer journey and who had written about what their pictures represented read by Kimberly Boynton who is a cancer survivor. Vicky and Howie Goplin sang an old spiritual about living full during times of illness or grief or loss. I think the title of the song is "It Is Well With My Soul".
Vicky led us in a guided meditation on gratitude and healing following our silent meditation/prayer time.
After church the youth had a picnic fundraiser and Howard Bass (husband of Kimberly Boynton who is also a cancer survivor) and Joe Mayer (who's wife Jeanine has been living with cancer for 5 years and is currently having chemo treatments again) were the grillmasters and the meal prep team along with their children, Sarah,(Lauren wasn't there), Britta, Zach, and Ana, and Jake the son of Sherrie Hemmen-Tilly, cancer survivor.
Following lunch there was a car wash. Jenna Ruble, cancer survivor, helped out with the wash along with Taylor Hall--her dad is undergoing chemo for a non-cancer illness so he is having the same type of journey. What a perfect day for a car wash it was! We washed 10-12 vehicles (forgot to keep count) of Open Circle members--no outside people showed up despite attempting to place an announcement in the local newspapers and putting bag-signs up at street corners along County Road 5 and Highland Drive. In total between donations for luminaria bags, the fundraising meal, and the car wash, we raised $490 for the Open Circle of Friends Relay for Life team to give to the American Cancer Society.
Well, between Girl Scout Camp and a church service/lunch/carwash, I'm tired now. I think it is time to read, meditate, and take a nap for the remainder of the day!
Friday, July 13, 2007
In Memoriam
This was posted today on the Presbyterian's More Light listserve (akin to VOS in Presbyland). Not sure if any of you know this person, but perhaps some of you may know of her.
RE: Celebrating the Life, Ministry & Legacy of Letty Russell
Yesterday we lost one of the most valiant and thoughtful theologians, teachers, writers, visionaries and spirits of our generation, the beloved Letty Russell. More Light Presbyterians gives thanks for the life, ministry and legacy of Letty Russell, and we extend our condolence and prayers to her beloved partner Shannon Clarkson.
Dr. Letty Russell was the Professor Emeritus of Liberation Theology at Yale Divinity School. Letty's life, writings and vision touched countless lives and challenged people of faith and the Presbyterian Church (USA) to live into a vision of the realm of God wherein all persons are sacred, all persons are of equal worth, all persons are to be offered full-table hospitality, and all persons are to live together in harmony.
Sylvia Thorson-Smith said of Letty today: "Did you feel a lessening of feminist energy this morning? We have lost one of our most beloved foremothers."
Rev. Talitha Arnold, pastor, United Church of Santa Fe, a student, colleague and friend of Letty and Shannon shared today:
"Dr. Russell, or "Letty" as both students and faculty knew her, was one of the pioneers in Liberation, Feminist, and Justice Theology. Her teachings, writings, and advocacy not only helped shape generations of seminarians, both women and men, but also helped transform the mainline Protestant church in terms of women's leadership and justice ministries. She was an early pioneer to give voice to the rights of GLBT persons in both church and society. Her books, articles, and sermons helped provide the framework for denominations like the United Church of Christ to move ahead in becoming open and affirming of all God's people, regardless of gender, race, orientation, class or ethnicity.
An ordained Presbyterian minister, Letty was one of the first women to graduate from Harvard Divinity School. The year of her graduation, the Harvard faculty spent an entire week debating whether or not give "Honors" that year to stellar students, since it would mean giving such an award to a woman--namely Letty. They finally did so.
She was also one of the first women to be ordained in the Presbyterian church. She was also one of the first women professors tenured on the Yale Divinity School faculty. A tireless advocate for justice and the way of Jesus Christ, Letty and her partner Shannon spent the last several years developing a Women's Theological Institute to provide education--and scholarships--in feminist and liberation theology for women church leaders and professors from Asia, South America and Africa. "
Mary E. Hunt, sent the following note earlier today as well:
"Letty Russell, feminist theologian, died peacefully at home last night (July 12, 2007) after a valiant and graceful struggle with cancer. Shannon Clarkson was with her. They were accompanied near and far by legions of friends and colleagues. May she rest in the peace she envisioned and worked for throughout her life of scholarship, service, hospitality, and friendship. WATER extends sympathy to Shannon on this great loss. May Letty's memory be a blessing and her work a source on inspiration to the many people around the world whose lives she touched." Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D., Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual, www.hers.com/water
One of the ways we honor a person's life, vision and teaching is to remember... to be ever mindful of Letty's vision of a Church and a world wherein all are embraced as children of God ... and all are invited to be together at God's table of hospitality... and to keep working for the dream of Letty's vision to become a reality.
More Light Presbyterians pause this day in the midst of working for spiritual, ordination and marriage equality to give thanks to God for the life, ministry and legacy of Letty Russell, to pray for her beloved Shannon Clarkson, and all those loved so well by Letty.
with gratitude and care,
Michael Adee
MLP Executive Director
RE: Celebrating the Life, Ministry & Legacy of Letty Russell
Yesterday we lost one of the most valiant and thoughtful theologians, teachers, writers, visionaries and spirits of our generation, the beloved Letty Russell. More Light Presbyterians gives thanks for the life, ministry and legacy of Letty Russell, and we extend our condolence and prayers to her beloved partner Shannon Clarkson.
Dr. Letty Russell was the Professor Emeritus of Liberation Theology at Yale Divinity School. Letty's life, writings and vision touched countless lives and challenged people of faith and the Presbyterian Church (USA) to live into a vision of the realm of God wherein all persons are sacred, all persons are of equal worth, all persons are to be offered full-table hospitality, and all persons are to live together in harmony.
Sylvia Thorson-Smith said of Letty today: "Did you feel a lessening of feminist energy this morning? We have lost one of our most beloved foremothers."
Rev. Talitha Arnold, pastor, United Church of Santa Fe, a student, colleague and friend of Letty and Shannon shared today:
"Dr. Russell, or "Letty" as both students and faculty knew her, was one of the pioneers in Liberation, Feminist, and Justice Theology. Her teachings, writings, and advocacy not only helped shape generations of seminarians, both women and men, but also helped transform the mainline Protestant church in terms of women's leadership and justice ministries. She was an early pioneer to give voice to the rights of GLBT persons in both church and society. Her books, articles, and sermons helped provide the framework for denominations like the United Church of Christ to move ahead in becoming open and affirming of all God's people, regardless of gender, race, orientation, class or ethnicity.
An ordained Presbyterian minister, Letty was one of the first women to graduate from Harvard Divinity School. The year of her graduation, the Harvard faculty spent an entire week debating whether or not give "Honors" that year to stellar students, since it would mean giving such an award to a woman--namely Letty. They finally did so.
She was also one of the first women to be ordained in the Presbyterian church. She was also one of the first women professors tenured on the Yale Divinity School faculty. A tireless advocate for justice and the way of Jesus Christ, Letty and her partner Shannon spent the last several years developing a Women's Theological Institute to provide education--and scholarships--in feminist and liberation theology for women church leaders and professors from Asia, South America and Africa. "
Mary E. Hunt, sent the following note earlier today as well:
"Letty Russell, feminist theologian, died peacefully at home last night (July 12, 2007) after a valiant and graceful struggle with cancer. Shannon Clarkson was with her. They were accompanied near and far by legions of friends and colleagues. May she rest in the peace she envisioned and worked for throughout her life of scholarship, service, hospitality, and friendship. WATER extends sympathy to Shannon on this great loss. May Letty's memory be a blessing and her work a source on inspiration to the many people around the world whose lives she touched." Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D., Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual, www.hers.com/water
One of the ways we honor a person's life, vision and teaching is to remember... to be ever mindful of Letty's vision of a Church and a world wherein all are embraced as children of God ... and all are invited to be together at God's table of hospitality... and to keep working for the dream of Letty's vision to become a reality.
More Light Presbyterians pause this day in the midst of working for spiritual, ordination and marriage equality to give thanks to God for the life, ministry and legacy of Letty Russell, to pray for her beloved Shannon Clarkson, and all those loved so well by Letty.
with gratitude and care,
Michael Adee
MLP Executive Director
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Does it really take a health care economist to figure this out?
The New York Times today reports an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine which studies what happens when people who were previously uninsured for health care hit medicare age. To the findings I just say, "Duh! Did it really necessitate a study to figure this out? At least now, there is proof of one aspect of the effect of having no health care coverage does to people. Unfortunately this study doesn't cover those who had no health care coverage and died before they hit 65 years of age. That is another significant effect of no health care coverage.
Here's the article...
Some Chronically Ill Adults Wait for Medicare
By GINA KOLATA
Published: July 12, 2007
When uninsured adults with common chronic illnesses became eligible for Medicare, they saw doctors and were hospitalized more often and reported greater medical expenses than people who had had insurance. And their increased use of medical services continued at least until at least age 72, researchers are reporting today.
Their study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, is one of the first to follow a large group of people through that crucial time of transition from being ineligible for Medicare to receiving Medicare benefits.
Its researchers, led by Dr. John Z. Ayanian, an associate professor of medicine and health care policy at Harvard Medical School, used data from the Health and Retirement Study, a federally financed study that included 9,760 adults who were 51 to 61 in 1992. Dr. Ayanian and his colleagues focused on 5,158 of them who survived to age 65 by 2004 and who either had private insurance or no insurance at all before receiving Medicare.
The participants were interviewed and surveyed about their health and medical care every two years until 2004. That allowed the Harvard researchers to ask what happened when people who had not had insurance suddenly could have their health care paid for by the federal government.
The effect that emerged — a surge in the use of health care by those who were previously uninsured — was concentrated in people with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Those are conditions, the investigators noted, in which treatment can prevent serious consequences that can require extra doctor visits, hospitalizations and expense. In the study, 2,951 of the 5,158 participants had one of those conditions.
When such previously uninsured people became eligible for Medicare, they had 13 percent more doctor visits, 20 percent more hospitalizations, and reported 51 percent greater medical expenditures than those with the same diseases who had had insurance all along.
Although the findings made sense, said Jonathan Skinner, an economist at Dartmouth College, they were not a foregone conclusion.
“You might expect that if you fall into habits of not using much health care, you might continue not to use it,” Dr. Skinner said. Instead, the study found a sort of pent-up demand among the uninsured.
“It shows how unfair our system is,” said Louise Russell, a research professor at the Institute for Health at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. “These people were not getting care, and they were at least as in need of it as the people who were insured.”
The study also shows that it may be less expensive than expected to provide universal health insurance, Dr. Ayanian and his colleagues concluded. Medicare is bearing the brunt when uninsured people put off seeing doctors or seeking medical care until they turn 65.
“A lot of the prior research focused on the health benefits of extending insurance coverage,” Dr. Ayanian said. “Our study suggested that it may be cost effective.”
But, economists note, it has to cost more to insure everyone than it does to leave some people out.
“The quick interpretation is, ‘Well this saves money,’ but it’s a partial savings,” said Mark Pauly, a health economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “You get some money back, but it’s still going to cost money.”
Dr. Mark McClellan, the former head of Medicare who is now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the study had limitations.
The uninsured, he said, were very different from the insured people in the study. They had much less education, their incomes were lower, they were more likely to smoke and to be depressed.
The researchers accounted for differences with statistical adjustment. But, Dr. McClellan said, statistics can never completely solve the problem of large differences between groups.
For example, he said, the characteristics of the uninsured are also correlated with caring more about the present than the future. A trait like that, he added, “may lead to the need for more medical services down the road.”
That does not mean that the uninsured do not need health insurance, he said, but it does raise the question of what is the most effective way to provide it. For example, instead of just paying for doctor visits and leaving it to patients to find doctors and seek care, it may be better to also provide case managers who will contact patients and prompt them to take medications like drugs for high blood pressure or to report on their blood sugar levels if they have diabetes.
“Health insurance is supposed to not just prevent the complications of chronic diseases but also to keep you healthier,” Dr. McClellan said. “And Medicare historically has not done a very good job of that.”
Even now, he said, with expanded screening services, only about half of Medicare beneficiaries avail themselves of them.
Dr. Alan Garber, a health economist at Stanford, also raised the question of how best to expand medical services. Reducing costs, he added, should not be the driving factor.
“There are many good reasons to advocate coverage of the uninsured,” Dr. Garber said. “At the top of the list, though, is a belief that coverage expansions can improve health. If they also reduce costs, that is icing on the cake.”
Here's the article...
Some Chronically Ill Adults Wait for Medicare
By GINA KOLATA
Published: July 12, 2007
When uninsured adults with common chronic illnesses became eligible for Medicare, they saw doctors and were hospitalized more often and reported greater medical expenses than people who had had insurance. And their increased use of medical services continued at least until at least age 72, researchers are reporting today.
Their study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, is one of the first to follow a large group of people through that crucial time of transition from being ineligible for Medicare to receiving Medicare benefits.
Its researchers, led by Dr. John Z. Ayanian, an associate professor of medicine and health care policy at Harvard Medical School, used data from the Health and Retirement Study, a federally financed study that included 9,760 adults who were 51 to 61 in 1992. Dr. Ayanian and his colleagues focused on 5,158 of them who survived to age 65 by 2004 and who either had private insurance or no insurance at all before receiving Medicare.
The participants were interviewed and surveyed about their health and medical care every two years until 2004. That allowed the Harvard researchers to ask what happened when people who had not had insurance suddenly could have their health care paid for by the federal government.
The effect that emerged — a surge in the use of health care by those who were previously uninsured — was concentrated in people with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Those are conditions, the investigators noted, in which treatment can prevent serious consequences that can require extra doctor visits, hospitalizations and expense. In the study, 2,951 of the 5,158 participants had one of those conditions.
When such previously uninsured people became eligible for Medicare, they had 13 percent more doctor visits, 20 percent more hospitalizations, and reported 51 percent greater medical expenditures than those with the same diseases who had had insurance all along.
Although the findings made sense, said Jonathan Skinner, an economist at Dartmouth College, they were not a foregone conclusion.
“You might expect that if you fall into habits of not using much health care, you might continue not to use it,” Dr. Skinner said. Instead, the study found a sort of pent-up demand among the uninsured.
“It shows how unfair our system is,” said Louise Russell, a research professor at the Institute for Health at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. “These people were not getting care, and they were at least as in need of it as the people who were insured.”
The study also shows that it may be less expensive than expected to provide universal health insurance, Dr. Ayanian and his colleagues concluded. Medicare is bearing the brunt when uninsured people put off seeing doctors or seeking medical care until they turn 65.
“A lot of the prior research focused on the health benefits of extending insurance coverage,” Dr. Ayanian said. “Our study suggested that it may be cost effective.”
But, economists note, it has to cost more to insure everyone than it does to leave some people out.
“The quick interpretation is, ‘Well this saves money,’ but it’s a partial savings,” said Mark Pauly, a health economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “You get some money back, but it’s still going to cost money.”
Dr. Mark McClellan, the former head of Medicare who is now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the study had limitations.
The uninsured, he said, were very different from the insured people in the study. They had much less education, their incomes were lower, they were more likely to smoke and to be depressed.
The researchers accounted for differences with statistical adjustment. But, Dr. McClellan said, statistics can never completely solve the problem of large differences between groups.
For example, he said, the characteristics of the uninsured are also correlated with caring more about the present than the future. A trait like that, he added, “may lead to the need for more medical services down the road.”
That does not mean that the uninsured do not need health insurance, he said, but it does raise the question of what is the most effective way to provide it. For example, instead of just paying for doctor visits and leaving it to patients to find doctors and seek care, it may be better to also provide case managers who will contact patients and prompt them to take medications like drugs for high blood pressure or to report on their blood sugar levels if they have diabetes.
“Health insurance is supposed to not just prevent the complications of chronic diseases but also to keep you healthier,” Dr. McClellan said. “And Medicare historically has not done a very good job of that.”
Even now, he said, with expanded screening services, only about half of Medicare beneficiaries avail themselves of them.
Dr. Alan Garber, a health economist at Stanford, also raised the question of how best to expand medical services. Reducing costs, he added, should not be the driving factor.
“There are many good reasons to advocate coverage of the uninsured,” Dr. Garber said. “At the top of the list, though, is a belief that coverage expansions can improve health. If they also reduce costs, that is icing on the cake.”
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Pope Says We Are Not True Church
Glad to be part of one of the "not true" churches:
Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.
The Indigos
While reading a friend's CaringBridge webpage my eye caught an advertisement/article about "The Indigos". This faith community was one I had not yet heard about. Have you? Here's the website...
The Indigos:
Healing, Helping and Understanding
Who are these amazing and precocious beings of Light?
The Indigos are a soul group of awakened and enlightened beings who have come to assist our world in a global transformation. They are here to ignite a shift in consciousness and help move us out of the " old paradigm systems", which include: our educational, political, religious, medical, nutritional, technological, family dynamics and all fear based belief systems. They come to Earth, bringing with them, Universal wisdom, Divine knowledge, of what is to come, and they hold a clear vision of peace, harmony, perfection and unity for this world.
What is an Indigo?
The term "Indigo", first, describes their life aura, which is a beautiful deep blue or “indigo” color. Each person comes into this world with a life aura color. The life aura color can tell you a lot about who you are, what your mission is and what you are here to learn, as well as, describe some of your traits, behaviors and type of personality you have. The Indigos carry with them distinct traits, personalities and a global mission, which is very different from any other life color that has come before. They truly represent the next level in human evolution.
To find out more about life aura colors, please check out the book, Understanding Your Life Thru Color, by Nancy Ann Tappe. She was the first to discover the Indigo life aura.
(There are a few different viewpoints as to when the first Indigos actually began being born here. I will use the viewpoint I was taught by my teachers and facilitators.)
It was sensed that about fifty years ago, some 5%-10% of the children coming to Earth were "Indigos. They were the "Scouts or the Pioneers". They were here to "scope out the territory", so to speak, and/or lay the energetic groundwork for the newer Indigos who were born in the 70's, 80's, and early 90's.
INDIGO TRAITS AND PERSONALITY
The Indigos are truly old souls. Their deep, deep eyes hold the wisdom, and secrets of this planet. They know the Divine blueprint of our universe. They come to Earth holding a clear and immediate vision of peace and perfection for us and for our world.
They are immensely likable and endearing. They are self-reliant and self-sufficient, independent and strong willed. They are highly intelligent, deeply intuitive, gifted and full of energy. They have a high self-esteem, and an almost regal sense of entitlement. They are sensitive, compassionate to other living things, can display sympathy, as well as, empathy for others. They react to unfairness and have little patience for rules, discipline, authority (authority without explanation or choice), or "old" structures. They are easily bored with assigned tasks, and see a better way to do things at home and at school. They "know" when someone is out of integrity or is dis-honest with them. (They are great lie detectors!) They can read you like a book, and can spot hidden agendas or attempts to manipulate them. Many Indigos feel the strong need to help and be of service to others, even putting their own well being at risk. They can come across as fearless and ready to tackle things head on! It is their mighty and powerful nature that gives them the strength to push through their perceived challenges and strives to excel beyond the limits. They truly exemplify the next stage in human potential and are opening doors to the unlimited possibilities, which yet exsists to be experienced. They are masters incarnate. They are amazingly creative as artists, musicians, writers, and inventors. Many are quite advanced technologically. They love and need the freedom to express him or herself, in whatever way they see fit. But...they still need our guidance and some boundaries, so they can feel safe in this world.
In addition to all of the wonderful attributes these magnificent Beings have, there are those traits that are more challenging to deal with. We are seeing more and more of these children in great emotional pain. They are lashing out at home and in school. They can refuse to do things they are told to do, can be difficult to handle, and some are just out of control. They are easily frustrated by ritual-oriented systems. They are non-conformists and can, therefore, have trouble fitting in. School can be difficult for them, educationally as well as socially. They don't feel like they "fit in". They feel like strangers in a strange land. They feel mis-understood, and are angry and frustrated with the limitations and constrictions that are placed on them, especially in school. They can be overly aggressive, or withdrawn at play. Some have been known to feel uneasy "in their skin", uncomfortable in their life, and unhappy being here on Earth. They are disillusioned, confused and are uncertain. We are seeing a dramatic rise in depression, suicides and violence among the Indigos. They are acting out there rage on others and some will take it to such extremes, as to kill someone. Do you remember Columbine High School? These behaviors can be an emotional roller-coaster ride for their parents, as well as, for the rest of society.
Hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of Indigo children and Adult Indigos have been labeled ADD, ADHD, ODD and/or Bi-Polar. These labels and the drugs that they are given are not benefiting these children or adults. The drugs offer only the opportunity to help them "fit in" with society better, and help their parents, teachers, bosses, and co-workers handle them better. They do not like taking the drugs, and react quite defensively to being labeled. Their inner feelings of being "different" are validated.
Instead of feeling joy, standing powerfully in their own thuth and, because of their more "awakened", and deeper intuitive understanding of life itself, they feel ashamed, of their "perceived" differences.
Parents, educators and our society, as a whole, need to better educate themselves on the effects that these drugs have. Many Indigos are perscribed and taking a combination of drugs, without understanding the profound consequences. Besides, the physical damages, the drugs are cutting them off from the "Light", which is their Source, thus lowering their Spiritual energetic vibration. This can lead to so many emotional and physical challenges that are too numverous to mention here. It truly messes with their very sensitive and fine tuned systems. It can also de-rail them off the path from their Mission and Purpose of being here. There are many, many other more natural solutions. These drugs are not the solution, only a band-aid, and a very inadequate one, at that.
(Please note that this is my personal opinion from my experiences with clients I have worked with, whom shared their personal stories.)
Let's begin by understanding the source and the depth of their pain and work together in finding the ways to help our children and the Adult Indigos feel loved and accepted on this Earth.
The Indigos:
Healing, Helping and Understanding
Who are these amazing and precocious beings of Light?
The Indigos are a soul group of awakened and enlightened beings who have come to assist our world in a global transformation. They are here to ignite a shift in consciousness and help move us out of the " old paradigm systems", which include: our educational, political, religious, medical, nutritional, technological, family dynamics and all fear based belief systems. They come to Earth, bringing with them, Universal wisdom, Divine knowledge, of what is to come, and they hold a clear vision of peace, harmony, perfection and unity for this world.
What is an Indigo?
The term "Indigo", first, describes their life aura, which is a beautiful deep blue or “indigo” color. Each person comes into this world with a life aura color. The life aura color can tell you a lot about who you are, what your mission is and what you are here to learn, as well as, describe some of your traits, behaviors and type of personality you have. The Indigos carry with them distinct traits, personalities and a global mission, which is very different from any other life color that has come before. They truly represent the next level in human evolution.
To find out more about life aura colors, please check out the book, Understanding Your Life Thru Color, by Nancy Ann Tappe. She was the first to discover the Indigo life aura.
(There are a few different viewpoints as to when the first Indigos actually began being born here. I will use the viewpoint I was taught by my teachers and facilitators.)
It was sensed that about fifty years ago, some 5%-10% of the children coming to Earth were "Indigos. They were the "Scouts or the Pioneers". They were here to "scope out the territory", so to speak, and/or lay the energetic groundwork for the newer Indigos who were born in the 70's, 80's, and early 90's.
INDIGO TRAITS AND PERSONALITY
The Indigos are truly old souls. Their deep, deep eyes hold the wisdom, and secrets of this planet. They know the Divine blueprint of our universe. They come to Earth holding a clear and immediate vision of peace and perfection for us and for our world.
They are immensely likable and endearing. They are self-reliant and self-sufficient, independent and strong willed. They are highly intelligent, deeply intuitive, gifted and full of energy. They have a high self-esteem, and an almost regal sense of entitlement. They are sensitive, compassionate to other living things, can display sympathy, as well as, empathy for others. They react to unfairness and have little patience for rules, discipline, authority (authority without explanation or choice), or "old" structures. They are easily bored with assigned tasks, and see a better way to do things at home and at school. They "know" when someone is out of integrity or is dis-honest with them. (They are great lie detectors!) They can read you like a book, and can spot hidden agendas or attempts to manipulate them. Many Indigos feel the strong need to help and be of service to others, even putting their own well being at risk. They can come across as fearless and ready to tackle things head on! It is their mighty and powerful nature that gives them the strength to push through their perceived challenges and strives to excel beyond the limits. They truly exemplify the next stage in human potential and are opening doors to the unlimited possibilities, which yet exsists to be experienced. They are masters incarnate. They are amazingly creative as artists, musicians, writers, and inventors. Many are quite advanced technologically. They love and need the freedom to express him or herself, in whatever way they see fit. But...they still need our guidance and some boundaries, so they can feel safe in this world.
In addition to all of the wonderful attributes these magnificent Beings have, there are those traits that are more challenging to deal with. We are seeing more and more of these children in great emotional pain. They are lashing out at home and in school. They can refuse to do things they are told to do, can be difficult to handle, and some are just out of control. They are easily frustrated by ritual-oriented systems. They are non-conformists and can, therefore, have trouble fitting in. School can be difficult for them, educationally as well as socially. They don't feel like they "fit in". They feel like strangers in a strange land. They feel mis-understood, and are angry and frustrated with the limitations and constrictions that are placed on them, especially in school. They can be overly aggressive, or withdrawn at play. Some have been known to feel uneasy "in their skin", uncomfortable in their life, and unhappy being here on Earth. They are disillusioned, confused and are uncertain. We are seeing a dramatic rise in depression, suicides and violence among the Indigos. They are acting out there rage on others and some will take it to such extremes, as to kill someone. Do you remember Columbine High School? These behaviors can be an emotional roller-coaster ride for their parents, as well as, for the rest of society.
Hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of Indigo children and Adult Indigos have been labeled ADD, ADHD, ODD and/or Bi-Polar. These labels and the drugs that they are given are not benefiting these children or adults. The drugs offer only the opportunity to help them "fit in" with society better, and help their parents, teachers, bosses, and co-workers handle them better. They do not like taking the drugs, and react quite defensively to being labeled. Their inner feelings of being "different" are validated.
Instead of feeling joy, standing powerfully in their own thuth and, because of their more "awakened", and deeper intuitive understanding of life itself, they feel ashamed, of their "perceived" differences.
Parents, educators and our society, as a whole, need to better educate themselves on the effects that these drugs have. Many Indigos are perscribed and taking a combination of drugs, without understanding the profound consequences. Besides, the physical damages, the drugs are cutting them off from the "Light", which is their Source, thus lowering their Spiritual energetic vibration. This can lead to so many emotional and physical challenges that are too numverous to mention here. It truly messes with their very sensitive and fine tuned systems. It can also de-rail them off the path from their Mission and Purpose of being here. There are many, many other more natural solutions. These drugs are not the solution, only a band-aid, and a very inadequate one, at that.
(Please note that this is my personal opinion from my experiences with clients I have worked with, whom shared their personal stories.)
Let's begin by understanding the source and the depth of their pain and work together in finding the ways to help our children and the Adult Indigos feel loved and accepted on this Earth.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Paid versus Free Ministry
Over on the VOS listerve there has been a conversation about the merits of paid versus free ministry. I posted this last evening but I am being blocked as a spammer. Funny.
I am on vacation but can't help but respond briefly to this thread. First, let me admit my bias as a seminary trained and employed pastor in a congregation. I really like the idea of going to college and graduate school and then finding a paying job in my field of interest. For me it happens to be in a church.
What I wonder about as I read this thread is if we value a seminary educated clergy. I know that some people don't; they mistrust the seminary educational system, particularly if it includes an element of modern biblical criticism. I think it is important when we talk about paid versus free ministry that we make a distinction between educated clergy and paid clergy. What are we really talking about when we talk about the value of free ministry versus paid ministry? Do we have a problem with education, or do we have a problem with the model?
Having said that, my own experience in two churches over 20+ years is that having a paid pastor can get in the way of having a priesthood of all believers. Congregations, with the help of pastors, can come to believe that they are paying the pastor to be the resident holy person. It's the pastor's job to pray, preach, visit, evangelize; its the congregation's job to be fed. Some pastors love this model; some congregations have come to expect it.
But it doesn't have to be this way. It is also possible to have paid clergy in a congregation and have a genuine priesthood of all believers. Paid clergy can cultivate this kind of model; churches can expect it and look for clergy who have experience in practicing it in their previous church experience and employment.
My own seminary education did not teach me how to be a pastor; there is simply no way a classroom setting can do that; the only way to learn is on the job. So why, then, not skip the seminary education and go straight to the church? What my seminary education gave me was a
foundation - in biblical scholarship, church history, COB history and practice, introductions to listening and counseling skills (I learned just enough to know that I need to have a strong professional and volunteer referral network), worship practices, a community of students and faculty to think and practice with, and probably more that doesn't come to mind at the moment.
There are individuals and churches who don't see much value in this educational foundation. Personally, I would never choose to be part of such a congregation. In the same way that I value the education of a physician and a trained counselor and a school teacher, I value the education of clergy. Choosing to use the services of a doctor in no way diminishes my responsibility to take care of a my own physical well-being; but they bring something to the table - their medical education - that makes it possible for me to live a healthier life. It is the same with educated clergy.
From an evangelism, church growth perspective, it is very difficult to grow a church in communities where education is valued highly with clergy that are not similarly educated. It may not matter much in some parts of the country and in some communities, but in places where the people are highly educated and professional, they tend to expect the same from their clergy. Sometimes when I listen to these discussions about paid versus free ministry and I put it together with the fact that we have very few churches in major metropolitan areas in our country, I understand better why it is we are in rapid numerical decline.
I am on vacation but can't help but respond briefly to this thread. First, let me admit my bias as a seminary trained and employed pastor in a congregation. I really like the idea of going to college and graduate school and then finding a paying job in my field of interest. For me it happens to be in a church.
What I wonder about as I read this thread is if we value a seminary educated clergy. I know that some people don't; they mistrust the seminary educational system, particularly if it includes an element of modern biblical criticism. I think it is important when we talk about paid versus free ministry that we make a distinction between educated clergy and paid clergy. What are we really talking about when we talk about the value of free ministry versus paid ministry? Do we have a problem with education, or do we have a problem with the model?
Having said that, my own experience in two churches over 20+ years is that having a paid pastor can get in the way of having a priesthood of all believers. Congregations, with the help of pastors, can come to believe that they are paying the pastor to be the resident holy person. It's the pastor's job to pray, preach, visit, evangelize; its the congregation's job to be fed. Some pastors love this model; some congregations have come to expect it.
But it doesn't have to be this way. It is also possible to have paid clergy in a congregation and have a genuine priesthood of all believers. Paid clergy can cultivate this kind of model; churches can expect it and look for clergy who have experience in practicing it in their previous church experience and employment.
My own seminary education did not teach me how to be a pastor; there is simply no way a classroom setting can do that; the only way to learn is on the job. So why, then, not skip the seminary education and go straight to the church? What my seminary education gave me was a
foundation - in biblical scholarship, church history, COB history and practice, introductions to listening and counseling skills (I learned just enough to know that I need to have a strong professional and volunteer referral network), worship practices, a community of students and faculty to think and practice with, and probably more that doesn't come to mind at the moment.
There are individuals and churches who don't see much value in this educational foundation. Personally, I would never choose to be part of such a congregation. In the same way that I value the education of a physician and a trained counselor and a school teacher, I value the education of clergy. Choosing to use the services of a doctor in no way diminishes my responsibility to take care of a my own physical well-being; but they bring something to the table - their medical education - that makes it possible for me to live a healthier life. It is the same with educated clergy.
From an evangelism, church growth perspective, it is very difficult to grow a church in communities where education is valued highly with clergy that are not similarly educated. It may not matter much in some parts of the country and in some communities, but in places where the people are highly educated and professional, they tend to expect the same from their clergy. Sometimes when I listen to these discussions about paid versus free ministry and I put it together with the fact that we have very few churches in major metropolitan areas in our country, I understand better why it is we are in rapid numerical decline.
128,000
That's the latest membership numbers in the Church of the Brethren:
There is lots of hand-wringing in the denomination about these numbers, and plenty of blame being thrown around especially from conservative churches who think its the liberals' fault. But the simple reality is we don't have enough churches where the people actually live today - in the cities. So it's no surprise we are losing members, and it isn't likely to change until we begin planting churches in urban areas.
The Church of the Brethren reported a 1.4 percent decrease in membership last year, to about 128,000. Membership fell by a similar percentage in 2005, the church said.Methodists and Presbyterians also reported losses.
There is lots of hand-wringing in the denomination about these numbers, and plenty of blame being thrown around especially from conservative churches who think its the liberals' fault. But the simple reality is we don't have enough churches where the people actually live today - in the cities. So it's no surprise we are losing members, and it isn't likely to change until we begin planting churches in urban areas.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
More on the lucky date July 7th
Ok, I admit I'm on vacation and while at the laundrymat I can't bring myself to comment on suicide bombings in Iraq and how perhaps there may be a shift in the U.S. Congress to try another bill with a date certain for troop withdrawl...
...instead I will ask, "Perform any weddings yesterday?"
This from the Star and Tribune...
________________________________
To have and to hold, from this (lucky) day forward.
Saturday signaled good fortune and numerous nuptials. Has anyone saved the date for 8/08/08?
By Gail Rosenblum, Star Tribune
Last update: July 07, 2007 – 10:16 PM
Katie Strong knew her wedding day would be long. She just hoped the date -- 7/07/07 -- would be lucky as well.
After an early start to buy fresh bouquets at the St. Paul Farmers Market, her house phone began ringing shortly after 8 a.m. as family and friends called with questions and good wishes.
"Good morning," Strong, 21, said with a grin. "Wedding Central."
It was absolutely Wedding Central across the Twin Cities on Saturday, a date some consider the luckiest of the century -- especially if they're in the wedding business.
Wedding venues, from churches to country clubs, have been booked for months, some with twice the number of weddings as usual.
Chris Rehwaldt, sounding harried after picking up the phone at Buttercream Bakery in St. Paul, said the morning was "kinda crazy." A caterer at Bearpath Country Club didn't have a second to talk. "We're running around doing 100 things."
In a typical year, marrying Minnesotans tend to avoid July weddings. Too hot. Too buggy. The popular months are September and October. This year, though, 7/07/07 was hard to resist.
The number seven has long been associated with good fortune. In Judaic and Christian traditions, God rested on and sanctified the seventh day after creating the universe. Buddha is said to have walked seven steps after birth. In Islamic tradition, 7, 70 and 70,000 have been used as expressions of the infinite.
And Saturday wasn't just the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the new millennium. It also fell just after July 4, creating the option of an extended celebration.
Married at the mall
At the Mall of America's rotunda Saturday, where white folding chairs were arranged in rows of seven, Matt Bermel, 26, and Kristi Stuhr, 23, were feeling lucky in love and a little shell-shocked.
A while back, they threw their names into a lottery for people who wanted the 7/07/07 date. "What if we win?" Stuhr asked.
"We'll talk about it then," Bermel told her.
She found out just three weeks ago that they had been picked. "I called him at work. I said, 'We won.' " Not to worry. She found a lovely wedding dress on craigslist. Fifty bucks.
Luckier the second time
Upstairs, far from the crowds, Jennifer Muller-Yauch and Jason Yauch, both 35, said their teary vows in the Chapel of Love in front of a much smaller audience: Two people.
Muller-Yauch was married once before and has a 15-year-old son, Jacob. Does this marriage feel luckier? She laughed. "Actually, it does."
Strong (who woke up this morning as Katie Zuraff) was up at 5:30 a.m., along with her parents, Vicki and Bruce Strong of Woodbury. "I have to smile when I say that so I don't cry," said Strong, not normally a morning person.
By 7:55 a.m., she was back at her folks' house for a quick breakfast of bagels and coffee, before her hair and make-up appointments started. Her cell phone rang. Her future husband, Chris Zuraff, 22, was asking for directions to a restaurant. "You mean, you're not calling to say you love me, that you want to shower me with kisses, that I'm the most beautiful woman you've ever met?" she asked.
"That, too," he said.
At 3:30 p.m., Strong and Zuraff, graduates of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., stood in front of more than 200 guests at Woodbury Lutheran Church. The bride looked glorious, the groom handsome and composed, the flowers perfect. Pastor Dean Nadasdy noted the date, but said the young couple "have bigger things on their mind, like God and faith."
Still, he couldn't resist as he looked at Chris, who begins four years of study at Luther Seminary this fall: "You have no excuse to forget your wedding date."
Gail Rosenblum • 612-673-7350 • grosenblum@startribune.com
...instead I will ask, "Perform any weddings yesterday?"
This from the Star and Tribune...
________________________________
To have and to hold, from this (lucky) day forward.
Saturday signaled good fortune and numerous nuptials. Has anyone saved the date for 8/08/08?
By Gail Rosenblum, Star Tribune
Last update: July 07, 2007 – 10:16 PM
Katie Strong knew her wedding day would be long. She just hoped the date -- 7/07/07 -- would be lucky as well.
After an early start to buy fresh bouquets at the St. Paul Farmers Market, her house phone began ringing shortly after 8 a.m. as family and friends called with questions and good wishes.
"Good morning," Strong, 21, said with a grin. "Wedding Central."
It was absolutely Wedding Central across the Twin Cities on Saturday, a date some consider the luckiest of the century -- especially if they're in the wedding business.
Wedding venues, from churches to country clubs, have been booked for months, some with twice the number of weddings as usual.
Chris Rehwaldt, sounding harried after picking up the phone at Buttercream Bakery in St. Paul, said the morning was "kinda crazy." A caterer at Bearpath Country Club didn't have a second to talk. "We're running around doing 100 things."
In a typical year, marrying Minnesotans tend to avoid July weddings. Too hot. Too buggy. The popular months are September and October. This year, though, 7/07/07 was hard to resist.
The number seven has long been associated with good fortune. In Judaic and Christian traditions, God rested on and sanctified the seventh day after creating the universe. Buddha is said to have walked seven steps after birth. In Islamic tradition, 7, 70 and 70,000 have been used as expressions of the infinite.
And Saturday wasn't just the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the new millennium. It also fell just after July 4, creating the option of an extended celebration.
Married at the mall
At the Mall of America's rotunda Saturday, where white folding chairs were arranged in rows of seven, Matt Bermel, 26, and Kristi Stuhr, 23, were feeling lucky in love and a little shell-shocked.
A while back, they threw their names into a lottery for people who wanted the 7/07/07 date. "What if we win?" Stuhr asked.
"We'll talk about it then," Bermel told her.
She found out just three weeks ago that they had been picked. "I called him at work. I said, 'We won.' " Not to worry. She found a lovely wedding dress on craigslist. Fifty bucks.
Luckier the second time
Upstairs, far from the crowds, Jennifer Muller-Yauch and Jason Yauch, both 35, said their teary vows in the Chapel of Love in front of a much smaller audience: Two people.
Muller-Yauch was married once before and has a 15-year-old son, Jacob. Does this marriage feel luckier? She laughed. "Actually, it does."
Strong (who woke up this morning as Katie Zuraff) was up at 5:30 a.m., along with her parents, Vicki and Bruce Strong of Woodbury. "I have to smile when I say that so I don't cry," said Strong, not normally a morning person.
By 7:55 a.m., she was back at her folks' house for a quick breakfast of bagels and coffee, before her hair and make-up appointments started. Her cell phone rang. Her future husband, Chris Zuraff, 22, was asking for directions to a restaurant. "You mean, you're not calling to say you love me, that you want to shower me with kisses, that I'm the most beautiful woman you've ever met?" she asked.
"That, too," he said.
At 3:30 p.m., Strong and Zuraff, graduates of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., stood in front of more than 200 guests at Woodbury Lutheran Church. The bride looked glorious, the groom handsome and composed, the flowers perfect. Pastor Dean Nadasdy noted the date, but said the young couple "have bigger things on their mind, like God and faith."
Still, he couldn't resist as he looked at Chris, who begins four years of study at Luther Seminary this fall: "You have no excuse to forget your wedding date."
Gail Rosenblum • 612-673-7350 • grosenblum@startribune.com
More Fun with 7-7-7
I'm on vacation with my family near Port Clintin, OH and have been reading the Toledo Blade newspaper which along with the Cleveland Plain Dealer are the closest geographic news sources in "hard copy" print. I enjoyed this article by the Toldeo Blade's science writer, Jenni Laidman, yesterday and thought I'd share it. If you look back at 6-6-6 you will see a related post by Liberalpastor.
--------------------------------------------
A Devil of a Wrong Number
All this talk about 777 this Saturday -- July 7, 2007 -- got me thinking about Satan and his number, 666. Turns out, somebody is in big trouble, because there is now big confusion about what Satan's number really is, and he hasn't been getting his calls.
OK, remember the best damn radio show on the planet? Radio Lab? Well, I was listening to some past shows, including one called Detective Stories, and it talked about research into an ancient Egyptian garbage dump. Teams of scholars in Oxford, England, are sifting through this old trash and uncovering some surprising things, including new sayings by Jesus, and ancient porn. (The two items are not related.)
But my favorite finding was a bit from the book of Revelations where the Number of the Beast was revealed to be not 666 but 616. One typo and Satan's whole realm is disconnected.
I immediately thought, Grand Rapids, Mich., the Beast lives in Grand Rapids, which now, you know, makes sense... Jerry Ford, Amway, The Beast. All clustered in the 616 area code.
Now now. Of course I don't think that really. But I do wonder what the consequence is of all those spells and Satanic rituals based on the wrong number. I imagine this has created quite a problem for operators in the underworld. (Not like New Jersey, I mean the real underworld.) Even Satan is not immune from the plague of the misprint.
"I'm sorry, 666 has been disconnected. Please check your number and try again."
--------------------------------------------
A Devil of a Wrong Number
All this talk about 777 this Saturday -- July 7, 2007 -- got me thinking about Satan and his number, 666. Turns out, somebody is in big trouble, because there is now big confusion about what Satan's number really is, and he hasn't been getting his calls.
OK, remember the best damn radio show on the planet? Radio Lab? Well, I was listening to some past shows, including one called Detective Stories, and it talked about research into an ancient Egyptian garbage dump. Teams of scholars in Oxford, England, are sifting through this old trash and uncovering some surprising things, including new sayings by Jesus, and ancient porn. (The two items are not related.)
But my favorite finding was a bit from the book of Revelations where the Number of the Beast was revealed to be not 666 but 616. One typo and Satan's whole realm is disconnected.
I immediately thought, Grand Rapids, Mich., the Beast lives in Grand Rapids, which now, you know, makes sense... Jerry Ford, Amway, The Beast. All clustered in the 616 area code.
Now now. Of course I don't think that really. But I do wonder what the consequence is of all those spells and Satanic rituals based on the wrong number. I imagine this has created quite a problem for operators in the underworld. (Not like New Jersey, I mean the real underworld.) Even Satan is not immune from the plague of the misprint.
"I'm sorry, 666 has been disconnected. Please check your number and try again."
The Wonders of Seven
My mother has a sorority sister from college who has as a personal goal to visit each of the wonders of the world...I guess that she has a few more places to add to her list now. This article published on 7-7-7 @ 7:05 pm (somebody's clock was off 2 minutes!) explains that voters around the world have made a new Seven Wonders list...
7 New Wonders of the World Chosen
By BARRY HATTON 07.07.07, 7:05 PM ET
The Great Wall of China, Rome's Colosseum, India's Taj Mahal and three architectural marvels from Latin America were among the new seven wonders of the world chosen in a global poll released on Saturday.
Jordan's Petra was the seventh winner. Peru's Machu Picchu, Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer and Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid also made the cut.
About 100 million votes were cast by the Internet and cellphone text messages, said New7Wonders, the nonprofit organization that conducted the poll.
The seven beat out 14 other nominated landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower, Easter Island in the Pacific, the Statue of Liberty, the Acropolis, Russia's Kremlin and Australia's Sydney Opera House.
The pyramids of Giza, the only surviving structures from the original seven wonders of the ancient world, were assured of retaining their status in addition to the new seven after indignant Egyptian officials said it was a disgrace they had to compete.
The campaign to name new wonders was launched in 1999 by the Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber. Almost 200 nominations came in, and the list was narrowed to the 21 most-voted by the start of 2006. Organizers admit there was no foolproof way to prevent people from voting more than once for their favorite.
A Peruvian in national costume held up Macchu Piccu's award to the sky and bowed to the crowd with his hands clasped, eliciting one of the biggest cheers from the audience of 50,000 people at a soccer stadium in Portugal's capital, Lisbon.
Many jeered when the Statue of Liberty was announced as one of the candidates. Portugal was widely opposed to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Another Swiss adventurer, Bertrand Piccard, pilot of the first hot-air balloon to fly nonstop around the world, announced one of the winners - then launched into an appeal for people to combat climate change and stand up for human rights before being ushered off the stage.
The Colosseum, the Great Wall, Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal and Petra had been among the leading candidates since January, while the Statue of Christ Redeemer received a surge in votes more recently.
The Statue of Liberty and Australia's Sydney Opera House were near the bottom of the list from the start.
Also among the losing candidates were Cambodia's Angkor, Spain's Alhambra, Turkey's Hagia Sophia, Japan's Kiyomizu Temple, Russia's Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral, Germany's Neuschwanstein Castle, Britain's Stonehenge and Mali's Timbuktu.
Weber's Switzerland-based foundation aims to promote cultural diversity by supporting, preserving and restoring monuments. It relies on private donations and revenue from selling broadcasting rights.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, keeps a list of World Heritage Sites, which now totals 851 monument. But the agency was not involved in Weber's project.
The traditional seven wonders were concentrated in the Mediterranean and Middle East. That list was derived from lists of marvels compiled by ancient Greek observers, the best known being Antipater of Sidon, a writer in the 2nd century B.C.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos lighthouse off Alexandria have all vanished.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
7 New Wonders of the World Chosen
By BARRY HATTON 07.07.07, 7:05 PM ET
The Great Wall of China, Rome's Colosseum, India's Taj Mahal and three architectural marvels from Latin America were among the new seven wonders of the world chosen in a global poll released on Saturday.
Jordan's Petra was the seventh winner. Peru's Machu Picchu, Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer and Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid also made the cut.
About 100 million votes were cast by the Internet and cellphone text messages, said New7Wonders, the nonprofit organization that conducted the poll.
The seven beat out 14 other nominated landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower, Easter Island in the Pacific, the Statue of Liberty, the Acropolis, Russia's Kremlin and Australia's Sydney Opera House.
The pyramids of Giza, the only surviving structures from the original seven wonders of the ancient world, were assured of retaining their status in addition to the new seven after indignant Egyptian officials said it was a disgrace they had to compete.
The campaign to name new wonders was launched in 1999 by the Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber. Almost 200 nominations came in, and the list was narrowed to the 21 most-voted by the start of 2006. Organizers admit there was no foolproof way to prevent people from voting more than once for their favorite.
A Peruvian in national costume held up Macchu Piccu's award to the sky and bowed to the crowd with his hands clasped, eliciting one of the biggest cheers from the audience of 50,000 people at a soccer stadium in Portugal's capital, Lisbon.
Many jeered when the Statue of Liberty was announced as one of the candidates. Portugal was widely opposed to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Another Swiss adventurer, Bertrand Piccard, pilot of the first hot-air balloon to fly nonstop around the world, announced one of the winners - then launched into an appeal for people to combat climate change and stand up for human rights before being ushered off the stage.
The Colosseum, the Great Wall, Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal and Petra had been among the leading candidates since January, while the Statue of Christ Redeemer received a surge in votes more recently.
The Statue of Liberty and Australia's Sydney Opera House were near the bottom of the list from the start.
Also among the losing candidates were Cambodia's Angkor, Spain's Alhambra, Turkey's Hagia Sophia, Japan's Kiyomizu Temple, Russia's Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral, Germany's Neuschwanstein Castle, Britain's Stonehenge and Mali's Timbuktu.
Weber's Switzerland-based foundation aims to promote cultural diversity by supporting, preserving and restoring monuments. It relies on private donations and revenue from selling broadcasting rights.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, keeps a list of World Heritage Sites, which now totals 851 monument. But the agency was not involved in Weber's project.
The traditional seven wonders were concentrated in the Mediterranean and Middle East. That list was derived from lists of marvels compiled by ancient Greek observers, the best known being Antipater of Sidon, a writer in the 2nd century B.C.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos lighthouse off Alexandria have all vanished.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Look Who's Talking!
I personally find the results of this study surprising. Anyone want to chat about it?
This was published by the Assoc. Press....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Another stereotype -- chatty gals and taciturn guys -- bites the dust.
Turns out, when you actually count the words, there isn't much difference between the sexes when it comes to talking.
A team led by Matthias R. Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, came up with the finding, which is published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
The researchers placed microphones on 396 college students for periods ranging from two to 10 days, sampled their conversations and calculated how many words they used in the course of a day.
The score: Women, 16,215. Men, 15,669.
The difference: 546 words: "Not statistically significant," say the researchers.
"What's a 500-word difference, compared with the 45,000-word difference between the most and the least talkative persons" in the study, said Mehl. He said the least talkative person in the study -- a male -- used just over 500 words a day, while another male topped that by more than 45,000.
Co-author James W. Pennebaker, chairman of the psychology department at the University of Texas, said the researchers collected the recordings as part of a larger project to understand how people are affected when they talk about emotional experiences.
They were surprised when a magazine article asserted that women use an average of 20,000 words per day compared with 7,000 for men. If there had been that big a difference, he thought, they should have noticed it.
They found that the 20,000-7,000 figures have been used in popular books and magazines for years. But they couldn't find any research supporting them.
"Although many people believe the stereotypes of females as talkative and males as reticent, there is no large-scale study that systematically has recorded the natural conversations of large groups of people for extended periods of time," Pennebaker said.
Indeed, Mehl said, one study they found, done in workplaces, showed men talking more.
Still, the idea that women use nearly three times as many words a day as men has taken on the status of an "urban legend," he said.
"We realized we had the data," Mehl said in a telephone interview, so they went back to their recordings and calculated the actual numbers.
Their research began with one group of students in 1998, two groups sampled in 2001, two in 2003 and a final group in 2004. One of the 2003 groups involved 51 students in Mexico, the rest were all in the United States.
The students were fitted with unobtrusive recorders that sampled their conversations -- the students didn't know when the recorders were on. From the samples, a total number of words for the day could be calculated.
Of the six groups sampled, women used more words than men in three and men used more words than women in the other three, including the one in Mexico.
The research was limited to college students, but Pennebaker said he believes it would probably apply to others in the same age range.
"The question is, how it applies to people as we get older," he said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
Mehl said he thinks it should apply across age groups, but he wondered how it would be affected by different cultures.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
This was published by the Assoc. Press....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Another stereotype -- chatty gals and taciturn guys -- bites the dust.
Turns out, when you actually count the words, there isn't much difference between the sexes when it comes to talking.
A team led by Matthias R. Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, came up with the finding, which is published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
The researchers placed microphones on 396 college students for periods ranging from two to 10 days, sampled their conversations and calculated how many words they used in the course of a day.
The score: Women, 16,215. Men, 15,669.
The difference: 546 words: "Not statistically significant," say the researchers.
"What's a 500-word difference, compared with the 45,000-word difference between the most and the least talkative persons" in the study, said Mehl. He said the least talkative person in the study -- a male -- used just over 500 words a day, while another male topped that by more than 45,000.
Co-author James W. Pennebaker, chairman of the psychology department at the University of Texas, said the researchers collected the recordings as part of a larger project to understand how people are affected when they talk about emotional experiences.
They were surprised when a magazine article asserted that women use an average of 20,000 words per day compared with 7,000 for men. If there had been that big a difference, he thought, they should have noticed it.
They found that the 20,000-7,000 figures have been used in popular books and magazines for years. But they couldn't find any research supporting them.
"Although many people believe the stereotypes of females as talkative and males as reticent, there is no large-scale study that systematically has recorded the natural conversations of large groups of people for extended periods of time," Pennebaker said.
Indeed, Mehl said, one study they found, done in workplaces, showed men talking more.
Still, the idea that women use nearly three times as many words a day as men has taken on the status of an "urban legend," he said.
"We realized we had the data," Mehl said in a telephone interview, so they went back to their recordings and calculated the actual numbers.
Their research began with one group of students in 1998, two groups sampled in 2001, two in 2003 and a final group in 2004. One of the 2003 groups involved 51 students in Mexico, the rest were all in the United States.
The students were fitted with unobtrusive recorders that sampled their conversations -- the students didn't know when the recorders were on. From the samples, a total number of words for the day could be calculated.
Of the six groups sampled, women used more words than men in three and men used more words than women in the other three, including the one in Mexico.
The research was limited to college students, but Pennebaker said he believes it would probably apply to others in the same age range.
"The question is, how it applies to people as we get older," he said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
Mehl said he thinks it should apply across age groups, but he wondered how it would be affected by different cultures.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Unhealthy Situation
If you are a pastor in the Church of the Brethern denomination it is now critical that your spouse works in a job with health insurance benefits. I wonder how many Brethern pastors and members of their households have preexisting conditions which will make them uninsurable now.
This is a sad situation and is just a microcosim of what is going on nationally. Time for universal health coverage! Now, the burden has been shifted from the denomination and congregations on to the individuals and more bankruptcies will occur.
I'm on vacation in Ohio too and my daughter got swimmers' ear and needed an Rx which I filled at the local Walmart. In front of me was a retired gentleman who paid over $140.00 cash for his sleep medication--after insurance coverage. He was shaking his head as he opened his wallet.
We've got to get control of this situation and fast! Any of you Brethern clergy want to comment on your personal situations? Progressive Churchlady would like to hear your story!
This is a sad situation and is just a microcosim of what is going on nationally. Time for universal health coverage! Now, the burden has been shifted from the denomination and congregations on to the individuals and more bankruptcies will occur.
I'm on vacation in Ohio too and my daughter got swimmers' ear and needed an Rx which I filled at the local Walmart. In front of me was a retired gentleman who paid over $140.00 cash for his sleep medication--after insurance coverage. He was shaking his head as he opened his wallet.
We've got to get control of this situation and fast! Any of you Brethern clergy want to comment on your personal situations? Progressive Churchlady would like to hear your story!
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
King George Strikes Again
The Decider has now decided that he is also the Supreme Court.
“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive."
This is not the same thing as pardoning Nixon. This is sparing a buddy some jail time for crimes committed to help his administration in unlawful actions. It is more like The Sopranos than the Ford administration.
“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive."
This is not the same thing as pardoning Nixon. This is sparing a buddy some jail time for crimes committed to help his administration in unlawful actions. It is more like The Sopranos than the Ford administration.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
The Changing Face of Burnsville
The Star Tribune profiles the changing face of my home:
Cornelius Dipo Ajayi smiled at his wife, Marriam, and tried to look reassuring as the Metro Transit bus carried them farther and farther south.There are nice houses in south Minneapolis, he told her. We'll ride the bus from downtown and you'll see.
Coming to America was a good thing. Nigeria was home, familiar and dear in so many ways, but the West African country was in political and economic disarray. Ajayi's life had been threatened. Schools were in turmoil, and the future looked bleak for the children: daughter Dele, 15 when the family emigrated; son Damilola, 10, and daughter Oluwafunmi, 3.
Once in America, coming to Minnesota made sense. Friends from Nigeria had settled here and offered their home as a temporary stop.
But coming to Burnsville?
They had boarded the wrong bus, and it was carrying the Ajayis through Richfield and Bloomington and into Burnsville. There, debating whether to try a return trip, Ajayi saw a sign on an apartment complex: "Now renting."
That was seven years ago.
"We came to Burnsville by chance," Marriam said, smiling, as the Ajayis gathered recently in their townhouse to watch "American Idol" and talk about their place in the suburban melting pot.
"But since we came here, we have liked it."
Rapid change
Nothing tells the story of the changing suburbs like numbers from the Burnsville schools, where nearly one student in eight -- 1,229 of 10,339 -- has a limited proficiency in English.
Seven years ago, just one student in 33 needed help with the language.
"The community itself only has a history of 40 or 45 years," said Ben Kanninen, the district superintendent. "In the past 10 years, they've seen demographic change far more rapid than anything they saw in the first 30 years."
Half of the limited-English students in Burnsville give Spanish as their first language. A quarter list Somali. Significant numbers of students speak Cambodian, Laotian, Russian, Chinese, Amharic, Arabic and Hmong.
Change has not come without problems, but difference is increasingly seen as the norm, said Kay Joyce, principal at Burnsville High School.
"It's not unusual at all now to see a student of color voted in as homecoming king or queen or as captain of an athletic team," she said. "In the elementary grades, especially, it's what they all know."
Kanninen agrees. "There are people who resist change -- any change -- and there are individuals for whom this is a bad thing," he said. "Some of the newer people say they feel they're kept at arm's length, a little outside. But I don't get a sense there's strong resistance."
The evolution of the larger community can be shown through numbers, as well. In 1980, Burnsville was home to 1,163 immigrants; the largest group was Germans. By 2000, the number was nearly 4,500, and more than half were newcomers who arrived in the 1990s from Asia, Africa, or Latin America.
Hints of the changes abound in the coffee shops, on both sides of retail counters and in that most traditional of community institutions, the service club. Ajayi joined the Burnsville Breakfast Rotary Club a few years ago. Before him, an immigrant from Uganda led the club in organizing a project to build wells in his homeland.
Breakfast members Michael Follese and Jay Van Arnam said that Dipo -- the name that Ajayi asks friends to use -- is hardly their only local contact with the larger world.
"My kids in high school have Russian friends," Follese said. "I'm on a treadmill at the health club next to a guy with a scarf around his head."
At the market, at the clinic, at theaters, "you see everything from Russians to Ethiopians to Hispanics," Van Arnam said, and that has altered the popular notion of what it means to be from Burnsville.
"I don't look at anybody as an immigrant anymore."
For security and schools
Ajayi, 47, grew up in Lagos, a sprawling city of more than 10 million people on Nigeria's Atlantic coast.
It was a fairly comfortable life for Ajayi, who earned degrees in business and worked in advertising, rising to manage a major agency. His perks included a car and driver.
But Nigeria was governed by military dictators, and the political instability caused the crime rate to soar and the educational system to deteriorate.
Men who mistakenly identified him as a political enemy once surrounded him on his way to work and appeared poised to kill him. Desperate, he showed them his identity card as a church deacon. "Finally, one of them said, 'It's not him. Let's go.' I was shivering the whole day."
Still, the decision to leave wasn't easy.
"Leaving parents, that is hard," Ajayi said, and as he spoke, Marriam began to cry.
"We lived with both of our mothers," he said, reaching to comfort his wife. "We have cousins who are getting married this year. We would have been the key people for them to have at their weddings.
"The family is important in our culture. Even today, seven years later, I feel a continuing sense of something missing."
Damilola, 16, who goes by Peter ("My friends have enough trouble with my last name"), and Oluwafunmi, 9 -- Funmi, or Debra to her friends -- turned from the TV to watch their parents and listen.
"In the time before we left for America, my mother would come to my room," Marriam said. "Sometimes she would comment: 'I'm not sure I will ever see you again.' "
She died in 2002.
Has Dipo considered bringing his mother to America, to Burnsville? He laughed, and Marriam laughed, too.
"Life is too secluded here," Dipo said. "There is not enough interaction going on. My mother would not like it. She is the kind of person who walks miles and says hello to everyone."
Marriam wiped at her tears and smiled, thinking about Dipo's mother charging through the cul-de-sacs of Burnsville, engaging young and old. "People here are more reserved," she said.
"But they haven't been unfriendly," she added. "They don't turn away when they see you out. They will smile and wave and say, 'How are you?' "
Their townhouse, which they bought in 2002, is in a cluster of homes on a private drive. They have mingled some with neighbors, Marriam said, often through the children, and she has a plaque recognizing her involvement in the local Head Start. But it's a far cry from the communal society they all remember -- all but Funmi, a toddler when the family left Nigeria.
"I can't remember anything," she said with a blissful grin.
Africa remains in her brother's memory. He remembers the fragrant bean cakes called akara that his grandmother made especially for him. He misses her, and he misses her bean cakes.
"I miss my grandfathers," he said, softly but with weight, as if he were talking about the sun and the moon. "They were there, and I loved them."
He misses friends, too. "One of my cousins, Mayowa, was my best friend. We played video games together. Primitive video games."
The memory causes him to brighten. "One good thing about coming to America: better video games."
A sophomore at Burnsville High last school year, trim and fit, Peter says he may try out for the soccer team next year. He's good at math and wants to be a computer programmer.
He expects to follow his older sister to college. Dele is at the University of Minnesota, studying fashion and psychiatry. "She wants to work in New York," her bemused father says.
Naive expectations
Dipo is a gentle, courtly man, proud of his degrees and the professional reputation he established in Africa.
He arrived in Minneapolis with his family on a Sunday afternoon in September 2000. The Twin Cities looked clean, intelligently designed, welcoming.
"I was naive," he said, with "too many expectations that I would just glide into my new life here. I sharpened up my résumé, dressed up and went out on interviews. But this was a time when the economy was not good. The people interviewing me were not even sure they would keep their own jobs." Others seemed put off by his accented English.
When he couldn't get anywhere with advertising or public relations companies, he took entry-level sales jobs.
"My accent was very, very raw, and the customers were not patient with me," he said. "As soon as I opened my mouth and started to speak, they would ask, 'Is there someone else?' I was very worried. Is this how it's going to be? Have I made a terrible mistake?
"The first thing is to survive, to see that my family survives," he said, so he swallowed his pride and took cleaning jobs at the Mall of America and the Metrodome. But he lost the mall job one night when, exhausted, he fell asleep in a restroom.
"They marched me out and told me never to come back," he said. "I cried. I shed tears."American Idol" was over, and Peter and Funmi sat on the floor reading. They stopped reading and looked up at their father, perhaps trying to imagine him in a janitor's uniform and sitting on a bench, crying.
Dipo went home and told Marriam what had happened. "I asked her, 'You want to go back?' I talked to myself, too. 'Do you want to go back, or stay here, or just drop dead?' "
The debate raged in his head, but not for long.
"I decided, 'OK, I will stay,' " Dipo said. "Coming to America is a leveler. I had some remorse for coming out of my comfort zone, for losing part of my identity. But it will work out."
He is a man of strong faith -- he is pastor of a small nondenominational church in St. Paul -- and that faith extends to his new life in this new land.
He went to the Internet, which told him that the best opportunities available for recent immigrants were in health care and insurance.
After three months of study, he obtained the necessary credentials and landed a job with Met Life in Bloomington. He now works in insurance and investments at New England Financial, a Met Life company in Minnetonka.
"Dipo has a work ethic and attitude that surpasses that of most people," said Carol Schulstad, his supervisor. He is a model for achieving "good balance to his life," she said, and his story connects him with a growing segment of the Twin Cities population.
Maintain the family
Dipo's mind often returns to Africa. But he said Minnesota has a strengthening hold.
"You get a car loan, you get a mortgage, your kid goes to college," he said. "You can't look back. At church now, after seven years, I am looking at doing missionary work -- from an American base.
"The most important thing for the immigrant is to keep the unity of the family. Maintain the cultural unity of the family and stick together in challenging times, and you can attain much."
Marriam adds, "If I passed today, would I want my body to be transported back to Nigeria? No. This is home. We have made this place our home."
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Our Younger Generation: Hope for the Future!
Reading about the results of this poll yesterday gives me a bit more hope for our future here in the U.S.A. If the current state of the economy continues for any length of time, it would seem that once these young people enter the working world and form families, they are less likely to drift to the right to protect their economic interests. Unlike their counterparts of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s (who are now their parents) economic growth the previous generation experienced as they entered the work force appears to be no longer available.
Here's synopsis of the new poll as reported in yesterday's New York Times...
________________________________________________
Young Americans Are Leaning Left, New Poll Finds
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MEGAN THEE
Published: June 27, 2007
Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll. The poll also found that they are more likely to say the war in Iraq is heading to a successful conclusion.
The poll offers a snapshot of a group whose energy and idealism have always been as alluring to politicians as its scattered focus and shifting interests have been frustrating. It found that substantially more Americans ages 17 to 29 than four years ago are paying attention to the presidential race. But they appeared to be really familiar with only two of the candidates, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both Democrats.
They have continued a long-term drift away from the Republican Party. And although they are just as worried as the general population about the outlook for the country and think their generation is likely to be worse off than that of their parents, they retain a belief that their votes can make a difference, the poll found.
More than half of Americans ages 17 to 29 — 54 percent — say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008. They share with the public at large a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with this group, and of the Republican Party. They hold a markedly more positive view of Democrats than they do of Republicans.
Among this age group, Mr. Bush’s job approval rating after the attacks of Sept. 11 was more than 80 percent. Over the course of the next three years, it drifted downward leading into the presidential election of 2004, when 4 of 10 young Americans said they approved how Mr. Bush was handling his job.
At a time when Democrats have made gains after years in which Republicans have dominated Washington, young Americans appear to lean slightly more to the left than the general population: 28 percent described themselves as liberal, compared with 20 percent of the nation at large. And 27 percent called themselves conservative, compared with 32 percent of the general public.
Forty-four percent said they believed that same-sex couples should be permitted to get married, compared with 28 percent of the public at large. They are more likely than their elders to support the legalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana.
The findings on gay marriage were reminiscent of an exit poll on Election Day 2004: 41 percent of 18-to-29-year-old voters said gay couples should be permitted to legally marry, according to the exit poll.
In the current poll, 62 percent said they would support a universal, government-sponsored national health care insurance program; 47 percent of the general public holds that view. And 30 percent said that “Americans should always welcome new immigrants,” while 24 percent of the general public holds that view.
Their views on abortion mirror those of the public at large: 24 percent said it should not be permitted at all, while 38 percent said it should be made available but with greater restrictions. Thirty-seven percent said it should be generally available.
In one potential sign of shifting attitudes, respondents, by overwhelming margins, said they believed that the nation was prepared to elect as president a woman, a black person or someone who admitted to having used marijuana. But they said that they did not believe Americans would elect someone who had used cocaine or someone who was a Mormon.
Mr. Obama has suggested that he used cocaine as a young man. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a candidate for the Republican nomination, is a Mormon.
By a 52 to 36 majority, young Americans say that Democrats, rather than Republicans, come closer to sharing their moral values, while 58 percent said they had a favorable view of the Democratic Party, and 38 percent said they had a favorable view of Republicans.
Asked if they were enthusiastic about any of the candidates running for president, 18 percent named Mr. Obama, of Illinois, and 17 percent named Mrs. Clinton, of New York. Those two were followed by Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, who was named by just 4 percent of the respondents.
The survey also found that 42 percent of young Americans thought it was likely or very likely that the nation would reinstate a military draft over the next few years — and two-thirds said they thought the Republican Party was more likely to do so. And 87 percent of respondents said they opposed a draft.
But when it came to the war, young Americans were more optimistic about the outcome than was the population as whole. Fifty-one percent said the United States was very or somewhat likely to succeed in Iraq, compared with 45 percent among all adults. Contrary to conventional wisdom, younger Americans have historically been more likely than the population as a whole to be supportive of what a president is doing in a time of war, as they were in Korea and Vietnam, polls have shown.
The nationwide telephone poll — a joint effort by The New York Times, CBS News and MTV — was conducted from June 15 to June 23. It involved 659 adults ages 17 to 29. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points for all respondents.
The Times/CBS News/MTV Poll suggests that younger Americans are conflicted in their view of the country. Many have a bleak view about their own future and the direction the country is heading: 70 percent said the country was on the wrong track, while 48 percent said they feared that their generation would be worse off than their parents’. But the survey also found that this generation of Americans is not cynical: 77 percent said they thought the votes of their generation would have a great bearing on who became the next president.
By any measure, the poll suggests that young Americans are anything but apathetic about the presidential election. Fifty-eight percent said they were paying attention to the campaign. By contrast, at this point in the 2004 presidential campaign, 35 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds said they were paying a lot or some attention to the campaign.
Over the last half century, the youth vote has more often than not gone with the Democratic candidate for president, though with some notable exceptions. In 1984, Ronald Reagan won his second term as president by capturing 59 percent of the youth vote, according to exit polls, and the first President George Bush won in 1988 with 52 percent of that vote. This age group, however, has supported Democratic presidential candidates in every election since.
The percentage of young voters who identified themselves as Republican grew steadily during the Reagan administration, and reached a high of 37 percent in 1989. That number has declined ever since, and is now at 25 percent.
“I think the Democratic Party is now realizing how big an impact my generation has, and they’re trying to cater to that in some way,” Ashley Robinson, 21, a Democrat from Minnesota, said in an interview after she participated in the poll. “But the traditional Republican Party is still trying to get older votes, which doesn’t make sense because there are so many more voters my age. It would be sensible to cater to us.”
That a significant number of respondents said they were enthusiastic about just two of the candidates — Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton — to a certain extent reflects that both candidates have been the subject of a huge amount of national attention and have presented the country with historic candidacies. Mr. Obama would be the first black president and Mrs. Clinton the first woman. Other candidates could begin drawing attention from this group as the campaign takes a higher platform.
More important, though, at least for Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama is the impression this group has of them. In the poll, 43 percent of respondents said they held an unfavorable view of Mrs. Clinton, a number that reflects the tide of resistance she faces nationwide. By contrast, only 19 percent said they had an unfavorable view of Mr. Obama.
Marjorie Connelly, Marina Stefan and Dalia Sussman contributed reporting.
Here's synopsis of the new poll as reported in yesterday's New York Times...
________________________________________________
Young Americans Are Leaning Left, New Poll Finds
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MEGAN THEE
Published: June 27, 2007
Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll. The poll also found that they are more likely to say the war in Iraq is heading to a successful conclusion.
The poll offers a snapshot of a group whose energy and idealism have always been as alluring to politicians as its scattered focus and shifting interests have been frustrating. It found that substantially more Americans ages 17 to 29 than four years ago are paying attention to the presidential race. But they appeared to be really familiar with only two of the candidates, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both Democrats.
They have continued a long-term drift away from the Republican Party. And although they are just as worried as the general population about the outlook for the country and think their generation is likely to be worse off than that of their parents, they retain a belief that their votes can make a difference, the poll found.
More than half of Americans ages 17 to 29 — 54 percent — say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008. They share with the public at large a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with this group, and of the Republican Party. They hold a markedly more positive view of Democrats than they do of Republicans.
Among this age group, Mr. Bush’s job approval rating after the attacks of Sept. 11 was more than 80 percent. Over the course of the next three years, it drifted downward leading into the presidential election of 2004, when 4 of 10 young Americans said they approved how Mr. Bush was handling his job.
At a time when Democrats have made gains after years in which Republicans have dominated Washington, young Americans appear to lean slightly more to the left than the general population: 28 percent described themselves as liberal, compared with 20 percent of the nation at large. And 27 percent called themselves conservative, compared with 32 percent of the general public.
Forty-four percent said they believed that same-sex couples should be permitted to get married, compared with 28 percent of the public at large. They are more likely than their elders to support the legalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana.
The findings on gay marriage were reminiscent of an exit poll on Election Day 2004: 41 percent of 18-to-29-year-old voters said gay couples should be permitted to legally marry, according to the exit poll.
In the current poll, 62 percent said they would support a universal, government-sponsored national health care insurance program; 47 percent of the general public holds that view. And 30 percent said that “Americans should always welcome new immigrants,” while 24 percent of the general public holds that view.
Their views on abortion mirror those of the public at large: 24 percent said it should not be permitted at all, while 38 percent said it should be made available but with greater restrictions. Thirty-seven percent said it should be generally available.
In one potential sign of shifting attitudes, respondents, by overwhelming margins, said they believed that the nation was prepared to elect as president a woman, a black person or someone who admitted to having used marijuana. But they said that they did not believe Americans would elect someone who had used cocaine or someone who was a Mormon.
Mr. Obama has suggested that he used cocaine as a young man. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a candidate for the Republican nomination, is a Mormon.
By a 52 to 36 majority, young Americans say that Democrats, rather than Republicans, come closer to sharing their moral values, while 58 percent said they had a favorable view of the Democratic Party, and 38 percent said they had a favorable view of Republicans.
Asked if they were enthusiastic about any of the candidates running for president, 18 percent named Mr. Obama, of Illinois, and 17 percent named Mrs. Clinton, of New York. Those two were followed by Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, who was named by just 4 percent of the respondents.
The survey also found that 42 percent of young Americans thought it was likely or very likely that the nation would reinstate a military draft over the next few years — and two-thirds said they thought the Republican Party was more likely to do so. And 87 percent of respondents said they opposed a draft.
But when it came to the war, young Americans were more optimistic about the outcome than was the population as whole. Fifty-one percent said the United States was very or somewhat likely to succeed in Iraq, compared with 45 percent among all adults. Contrary to conventional wisdom, younger Americans have historically been more likely than the population as a whole to be supportive of what a president is doing in a time of war, as they were in Korea and Vietnam, polls have shown.
The nationwide telephone poll — a joint effort by The New York Times, CBS News and MTV — was conducted from June 15 to June 23. It involved 659 adults ages 17 to 29. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points for all respondents.
The Times/CBS News/MTV Poll suggests that younger Americans are conflicted in their view of the country. Many have a bleak view about their own future and the direction the country is heading: 70 percent said the country was on the wrong track, while 48 percent said they feared that their generation would be worse off than their parents’. But the survey also found that this generation of Americans is not cynical: 77 percent said they thought the votes of their generation would have a great bearing on who became the next president.
By any measure, the poll suggests that young Americans are anything but apathetic about the presidential election. Fifty-eight percent said they were paying attention to the campaign. By contrast, at this point in the 2004 presidential campaign, 35 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds said they were paying a lot or some attention to the campaign.
Over the last half century, the youth vote has more often than not gone with the Democratic candidate for president, though with some notable exceptions. In 1984, Ronald Reagan won his second term as president by capturing 59 percent of the youth vote, according to exit polls, and the first President George Bush won in 1988 with 52 percent of that vote. This age group, however, has supported Democratic presidential candidates in every election since.
The percentage of young voters who identified themselves as Republican grew steadily during the Reagan administration, and reached a high of 37 percent in 1989. That number has declined ever since, and is now at 25 percent.
“I think the Democratic Party is now realizing how big an impact my generation has, and they’re trying to cater to that in some way,” Ashley Robinson, 21, a Democrat from Minnesota, said in an interview after she participated in the poll. “But the traditional Republican Party is still trying to get older votes, which doesn’t make sense because there are so many more voters my age. It would be sensible to cater to us.”
That a significant number of respondents said they were enthusiastic about just two of the candidates — Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton — to a certain extent reflects that both candidates have been the subject of a huge amount of national attention and have presented the country with historic candidacies. Mr. Obama would be the first black president and Mrs. Clinton the first woman. Other candidates could begin drawing attention from this group as the campaign takes a higher platform.
More important, though, at least for Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama is the impression this group has of them. In the poll, 43 percent of respondents said they held an unfavorable view of Mrs. Clinton, a number that reflects the tide of resistance she faces nationwide. By contrast, only 19 percent said they had an unfavorable view of Mr. Obama.
Marjorie Connelly, Marina Stefan and Dalia Sussman contributed reporting.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Politics of Jesus
I read Andrew Sullivan most every day. I often disagree with him but he is certainly an interesting read, and no more so when when he is trying to hold together being gay with being a Republican in today's right-wing Christian influenced version of the GOP. But sometimes he says things that are completely off-base. In a recent post about what he fears about Obama (what he fears is that Obama is a transformational candidate who could cement big government thinking for decades to come) he comments on Obama's religious appeal. He doesn't like it because he doesn't think it is true to his understanding of Jesus and Christianity. Sullivan says:
Jesus practiced a politics of radical equality. This is where his religious vision led him. No one knew better than the Roman empire, a profoundly unjust regime built on the backs of peasants and slaves, how dangerous such a religious vision was. Jesus was not unique in his day. Why was John the Baptist beheaded by Herod? Why as Passover approached each year did the Roman authorities march a Legion to within easy striking distance of Jerusalem? Religious people motivated by visions of justice and equality are dangerous people. Their vision may be religious but it has real political consequences.
It is true, of course, that Jesus had no vision of a big government programs to put in place his religious vision of justice. He also had no vision of traveling around Galilee in a car. The only big government he knew - and the only big government that existed in his day - was built from the ground up on authoritarianism and injustice. The practical tools and the evolution in thinking had not yet been invented to make it possible for a democratically based system of government to tackle enormous social problems and deliver goods and services in a just manner.
If Jesus were alive in America today would he advocate the abolishment of Social Security and a return to fear and the prospect of destitution and poverty for seniors? Somehow I doubt it. And for the same reason he would support a healthcare delivery system that guaranteed care for every person.
Any religious vision that seeks to embody equality and justice has political consequences. It is not possible to be for it and remain above the fray of politics. Think Gandhi; think MLK Jr.; think Mandela. And if you happen to live in the realm of a deeply unjust regime, it can get you crucified.
For my part, I believe Jesus had no politics, let alone the big government politics of our time.How does Sullivan think Jesus ended up on a cross, crucified by the Roman empire? He was crucified as a political revolutionary, a threat to the peace and order of the state. Why? Because he was, truly, a threat to the peace and order of the state.
Jesus practiced a politics of radical equality. This is where his religious vision led him. No one knew better than the Roman empire, a profoundly unjust regime built on the backs of peasants and slaves, how dangerous such a religious vision was. Jesus was not unique in his day. Why was John the Baptist beheaded by Herod? Why as Passover approached each year did the Roman authorities march a Legion to within easy striking distance of Jerusalem? Religious people motivated by visions of justice and equality are dangerous people. Their vision may be religious but it has real political consequences.
It is true, of course, that Jesus had no vision of a big government programs to put in place his religious vision of justice. He also had no vision of traveling around Galilee in a car. The only big government he knew - and the only big government that existed in his day - was built from the ground up on authoritarianism and injustice. The practical tools and the evolution in thinking had not yet been invented to make it possible for a democratically based system of government to tackle enormous social problems and deliver goods and services in a just manner.
If Jesus were alive in America today would he advocate the abolishment of Social Security and a return to fear and the prospect of destitution and poverty for seniors? Somehow I doubt it. And for the same reason he would support a healthcare delivery system that guaranteed care for every person.
Any religious vision that seeks to embody equality and justice has political consequences. It is not possible to be for it and remain above the fray of politics. Think Gandhi; think MLK Jr.; think Mandela. And if you happen to live in the realm of a deeply unjust regime, it can get you crucified.
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