Grief in Ft. Hood Stltoday.com

Once again we are left with this question “Why”  in the face of the tragedy in Ft. Hood Texas. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/DD83C5587765EED386257666001A410B?OpenDocument
No matter what led to this heinous act;  psychosis, extreme anger or ideological differences, there is no justification for taking innocent lives.  The fact that the perpetrator was a physician and a psychiatrist makes this  even more incomprehensible; but I think we never know what goes through these murderers’ minds. How they justify their acts, is only understandable to them.  Our military personnel were killed in their own home by one of their own. 

 The fact that the perpetrator is a Muslim should not be a reflection on Islam. Islam does not condone these crimes.There are more than 4000 Muslims in the military serving our country with pride. The Muslim community of Greater St. Louis and all the national Muslim organizations have condemned this horrific act.

I do not want to speculate about the…

Again, again, and again!

When does it stop?

Never, never, and never!

Unless you stop it.

   Soldiers and horses entered Mt. Yun-ju. The master (Yun-ju) sat upright and    motionless.

   The commander,  without bowing, sat facing him and asked, “When does the world    attain peace?”

   The master said, “Waiting for the commander’s mind to become satisfied.”

   The commander then bowed and made him his teacher.

So long as everyone thinks “that’s none of my business,” it never stops. It is the karma of thinking so and acting so. Isn’t it karma of the people here?

   Men of great power, why can’t you lift your legs?

Even though great, one cannot lift even one’s own legs. Why? Because: one is bound by karma.

   Men of great strength, you row so hard! But, your boat is moored.

However hard one may try, one cannot advance. Why? Because: one is bound by ego.

   Seeing a fire…

photo courtesy of Fred's wife Saundra

My friend Fred died last Friday evening.   We had gone to high school together and gotten reacquainted through Facebook.  I always enjoyed reading Fred’s updates; he was funny, had wide-ranging interests, and was a family man in the best sense of the phrase.   He was a cyclist, runner, competitive triathlete, a husband and the father of two children.   On the last night of his life he went out for a run and died of cardiac arrest, at 43 years of age.

In the face of death I feel like a child.  I cannot understand it.   It is huge, and confusing and awful.  Over the course of the last week my mind has returned again and again to the suddenness of Fred’s death.   I imagine he thought that night would be like any night.  His wife thought he would come home from his run, like…

Salt Lake City Tabernacle, photo courtesy of utahhdr.com

Civil Religion is an attempt—a successful one, in my short experience—to foster mutual understanding among members of disparate religious (and nonreligious!) traditions.  The advantages of the blog format are its convenience and its transparency: readers can easily access posts,  participate in the comments, and readily search, recover and distribute the content.  These are good things, mostly.  But because blogs expose participants to a potentially hostile public gaze, there can be a reluctance on the part of bloggers to engage in the kind of mutually self-disclosing dialogue that leads to real understanding. If one fears that reflective self-criticism will be exploited by bad-faith opportunists, one is less likely to engage in open discussion. I know I’ve felt a bit of that in my short tenure as a participant here, though, happily, that fear has been largely unrealized.

That’s why I was interested to read about…

Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand

With the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (which fellow blogger Sharon Autenrieth wrote about here) coming up on November 9th, I thought it would be a good time to let people know about an amazingly moving book that you can receive absolutely free from The Voice of the Martyrs, a non-profit organization founded by Richard Wurmbrand that aids the persecuted church around the world.

The book is Wurmbrand’s Tortured for Christ. It is a personal account of the persecution he faced as a result of preaching the gospel of Christ in Communist Romania.

(Not too long ago I wrote about Wurmbrand and the book on my blog, echad. Rather than reprinting that here, If you’re so inclined you can read that post here.)

For more about Wurmbrand, or to sign up online to receive your free copy of Tortured for Christ, you can visit www.TorturedforChrist.com.

(For what…

We have just passed All Souls Day and All Saints Day on the traditional Christian calendar,  days which emphasize our belief that we are bound together in the communion of saints.  Given this belief, it is fitting that those two days of remembrance should be followed so closely by the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, November 8.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to speak out against the proposed U.N. resolution on religious defamation believing it would limit freedom of speech.  Meanwhile, many advocates of religious liberty have expressed concerns that the Obama administration has not sent strong enough signals on its commitment to religious freedom, particularly to countries like China which have a history of human rights abuses.   But while the debates continue and advocacy groups seek policy solutions, the persecution of people of faith continues, in dozens of countries including India, North Korea and Iran.

The International Day of…

Archbishop Raymond Burke outside the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica before the 2005 Final Four. Photo by Huy Richard Mach, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

It’s always interesting when the national media “finds” a story that local hacks have been covering for years. That’s not exactly what’s happening with the American press’s recent discovery of St. Louis emeritus Archbishop Raymond Burke - after all, the archbishop began making headlines before he was even installed here in 2004 - but it’s close.

Since his move to Rome to lead the Vatican’s version of the Supreme Court, Burke’s profile has heightened. Over the last 18 months, he’s made some public statements - mostly either to gatherings of Catholics, or the the Catholic press - that have caused momentary stirs in both the Catholic and political worlds.

Amy Sullivan has written a piece for Time, called “A Tale of Two Priests,” comparing Burke to Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, though the story is really about Burke. Sullivan’s thesis is that Burke…

On my way to China, I stopped over in Spain for some meetings. Having a few extra days, I went to Manresa, Spain where we Dominicans have a monastery of nuns. What an incredible experience!

In the archives of a medieval monastery.

This monastery has been open since the 13th century. It is just above the cave where Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, wrote his famous “Spiritual Exercises.” Ignatius used to sit outside the door of this monastery and listen to the prayers of the nuns as they sang their evening office. Their prayers are still quite inspiring, as I can attest.

On the right is a photo of some books in the monastery archives. Top left is a bundle of contracts the monastery entered into in the year 1344. Every contract they have ever signed is still preserved on these shelves. The sense of history is deep, as is…

Fred Phelps came to town yesterday afternoon.

Fred Phelps

(For a quick primer on the infamous pastor you can check out his Wikipedia page here.)

Phelps was in town with members of his Westboro Baptist Church to protest at Hazelwood Central High School because of its Gay/Straight Alliance club.

It should be noted that Westboro Baptist church — much like the book burning Amazing Grace Baptist Church — is an independent Baptist church that bears little to no resemblance to a typical Baptist church and is not affiliated with any of the major Baptist associations or conventions.

But I don’t want to talk about Fred Phelps or his Topeka, Kansas based church.

I want to talk about the counter protest that took place with the intent of disarming Phelps’ nausea-inducing message of hate with a message of love.

Organized by Ed Reggi, the counter protest consisted of upwards of 60-70 people, about 10 times as many…

Have you been enjoying the bright beautiful full moon? Western people see a man’s face in the moon, while Eastern people see a hare pounding rice cake. Why? In the East we learn the story of the hare in the moon as children, and we associate it, in the form of bright round rice cakes, with celebrations such as new year’s day. The presence of the hare comes from an ancient Buddhist story from India.

In an early incarnation, the future Buddha was born as a hare, and he freely gave his life out of compassion for a stranger in need. This story was beautifully told in a poem by the 19th-century Zen monk and poet Ryokan. I read his poem to the morning meditation group at our center recently, on the day of the full moon, and I’d like to share my translation of it with you now.

“The Hare in…

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan addresses the 64th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York, Thursday, Oct., 15, 2009. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson)

St. Louis native, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York started his own blog recently. And he’s wasted no time attracting readers.

On Saturday, he teed off on the New York Times while equating the great American pastime of baseball with “another national pastime” - anti-Catholicism.

“It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime,” Dolan wrote.

Dolan was miffed about several recent stories in the Times. Mostly, he believes, the journalism is biased against Catholics, especially on the sensitive issue of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic church, a problem he blamed on “a tiny minority of priests.”

Commenting on a Times story about a priest who fathered a child (and that we blogged about here at Civil Religion), Dolan wondered what all the fuss was about,…

credit:louisianaprolife

Does the White House know about this?

Dr. Leroy Carhart, controversial late-term abortion doctor, was spotted at the Pelosi/Reid unveiling Thursday of the final house health care bill. Dr. Carhart, currently under investigation by the Nebraska AG for unsafe medical practices, traveled to Washington and was photographed holding a sign which read “Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice”.

He was spotted by Concerned Women for America’s Wendy Wright who also snapped the photo.

According to LifeSite News,

Carhart is currently under investigation by the Nebraska Attorney General’s office after three of his former employees came forward with sworn affidavits that told of illegal activity, unsafe conditions.

All of the women said that they did not have any medical training or licensing, yet they were instructed to perform medical duties that they were not legally qualified to do, such as starting IVs, dispensing medication, and assisting with surgeries.

They claimed that drugs often came up missing, and that…

Rabindranath Tagore

Having recently lost my full-time job, I have become free to pursue other options. I am writing this post from Rome, Italy, on my way to Macau, China where I will be teaching philosophy and website design for the next two months. I will let you know what the world looks like from there.

On the way here, a friend from India reminded me of this quote by Rabindranath Tagore which we had heard in a homily at church:

The song I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my guitar.

Loosing my job has been a real blessing, a chance to reassess God’s call to me. Though I loved my teaching position, I feel as if in some ways I have stood accused by Tagore’s words–always just about ready to sing, but never really doing so. I go to China…

Leftover Halloween candy languishes in its plastic pumpkin on top of the refrigerator; for the moment, the kids are satiated and I’m being good.  All the sugar brings to mind a favorite hymn, “Jesus, the very thought of thee,” a few stanzas of which are here:

Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast;
But sweeter far Thy face to see,
And in Thy presence rest.

Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find
A sweeter sound than Thy blest Name,
O Savior of mankind!

O Jesus, King most wonderful
Thou Conqueror renowned,
Thou sweetness most ineffable
In Whom all joys are found!

Celestial Sweetness unalloyed,
Who eat Thee hunger still;
Who drink of Thee still feel a void
Which only Thou canst fill.

O most sweet Jesus, hear the sighs
Which unto Thee we send;
To Thee our inmost spirit cries;
To Thee our prayers ascend.

The original Latin text is by Bernard of Clairvaux,  the great religious writer and reformer of…

www.ucc.org

I‘ve been accused by someone within my denomination of assaulting the first amendment. He describes activities I’ve had a major role in as a “full-fledged assault on conservative media” – “an organized campaign . . . a carefully planned, well-funded systematic assault on talk radio and Fox News that involves at least seven major liberal American religious denominations.”

I’ve never seen myself as a part of something like that and I’ve never been described that way before. It brings home the talk about cyberpolarization — how we tend to use media that reinforces our own viewpoints and therefore are not aware of misinformation and are not sensitive to insults and accusations lacking objectivity and logic.

Jeffrey Lord (From The American Spectator)

And it gives me a lens from which to see how it works. It occurs to me that others might be interested in that view. So I’m going to first…

As I stand at the top of the tallest mound, I see the obvious necessity of building the mounds.  The flat, low ground next to the largest North American river should have flooded often.  The  physical structure of the environment necessitated higher ground.  But the mounds are also monuments.  Monuments serve purposes not dictated by the physical environment, but by psychological impulses.

The 20th century psychiatrist, Carl Jung, believed that every interaction between mankind and his environment originates and expresses mankind’s psyche.   What psychological impulses lead to monument building?  I don’t know, but given the chance, I would have questions for the Cahokians themselves.

To the Cahokian chief, I would love to ask, “Why it is that people in power must build exhibits of that power?”  Did the impulse to build the mounds come from the chiefs?  The shamans?  Or is there something about mankind’s social psychology that the needs of a society…

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We don’t like to think about hate crimes. They are a disappointing reminder of parts of our history we would just as soon forget.

While the story about the white judge who denied an interracial couple a marriage license is slightly distressing, most of the comments about the New Orleans justice of the peace, have been along the lines of “Hey, our country has moved past that.” The justice said he wouldn’t marry the couple because he didn’t think interracial kids were a good idea.

Governor Bobby Jindal said “Disciplinary action should be taken immediately - including the revoking of his license.” The couple did get married, but now have a sad story to tell.

Much more inconvenient and terrifying is getting shot for your religion.

Two men were shot in the legs on their way in to the Adat Yeshurun Sephardic Congregation in Los Angeles the other day, and the gun man neither spoke to…

Many years ago when I was working in New York I found myself on a bus with a friend, arguing about religion.  We had known each other since we were children in Hawaii; she was an atheist, or maybe an agnostic (I was never really sure), I was Roman Catholic, and religion had always been a strange area of silence and even strain between us, one of the few things we rarely talked about during slumber parties or after-school walks to the ice cream store.  And now here we were in our twenties, living in New York, starting our adult lives, and she wanted to know why I still went to church every Sunday.  I felt curiously shy and inarticulate, trying to talk about my faith in front of this person I had known for most of my life.

Image courtesy of bbc.co.uk/radio4

But she continued to push, asking me to explain…

Dia de los Muertos folk art by Kevin T.; available at Photobucket.

Samhain is one of the most widely known of the Pagan holidays in (perhaps tied with Yule). It’s certainly the least understood.
I suppose that’s fitting. It is the holiday Pagans themselves celebrate with one foot in the mundane world of candy, costumes and parties, the other at the edge of the Farthest Shore.

The biggest community-wide notice of the holiday is the annual Witches’ Ball. It’s a fund-raiser for June’s Pagan Picnic, and is held at a popular local banquet hall. It’s a great Halloween party for grown-ups. And this year, they’ve added a community ancestor altar. I’ll be there.

I’ll also be at an event Saturday. Maria Guadalupe and her group of local artists are throwing a Day of the Dead party at MoKaBe’s, corner of Arsenal and Grand Blvd., from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. There’s a samba parade…

In a previous entry (Do You Really Want Peace on Earth?) I mentioned the upcoming Mindfulness Day. We had a nice event, meeting new and old friends and enjoying “golden wind” on a clear autumn afternoon. In my presentation, one of three offered that day, I talked about why we have problems and how to solve them.

All problems come from selfishness due to self-preservation. The accretion of four billion years of self-preserving action and its results (karma) has created hard shells with which we shroud our individual and collective selves, like shellfish. Confined and limited, we can no longer move freely, knowing and acting well.

No one likes the selfishness of others, but everyone loves one’s own. Selfish individuals or groups are hated, hit, hypnotized in hubris, but eventually humiliated due to their own karma, like iron crumbling in its own rust. Like cancer, selfishness grows from its essence and destroys…