In case you haven't heard, it was reported in the Lancaster New Era that Bush has been appealing to his "higher Father" again. In a meeting with a group of Old Order Amish in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Bush was reported as saying, “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.’’ Of course, I find this troubling, because, as we know, when God speaks through George Bush it invariably ends up sounding a lot like George Bush and his fellow neocons. It never sounds like God, who I know to be loving and compassionate. Granted, She is also challenging sometimes--trying to nudge us to do things we don't want to do (or think we can't do) but really, doesn't any good parent do that? This, for example, doesn't sound very much like God to me: "According to Abbas, Bush said: 'God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.'" It is times like this that I sometimes wish that God would just appear to everyone, like in a scene in a Monty Python movie and boom, "I said no such thing! Don't listen to him!" Now I can imagine God saying to me, like in an old Bill Cosby sketch about Noah's Ark, "You know I don't work like that!" "But someone has to tell the people--the Christians who do take Bush at his word when he says he is doing your will--that Bush's will is not what you want for the earth!" "Please don't look at me like that. I'm no good at this sort of thing!" "Could I at least have some help?" Fortunately, once I start looking, I discover that I have a lot of help available to me. Bill Moyers, for example, recently wrote: Let's get Jesus back. The Jesus who inspired a Methodist ship-caulker named Edward Rogers to crusade across New England for an eight-hour work day. Let's get back the Jesus who caused Frances William to rise up against the sweatshop. The Jesus who called a young priest named John Ryan to champion child labor laws, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, and decent housing for the poor - 10 years before the New Deal. The Jesus in whose name Dorothy Day challenged the church to march alongside auto workers in Michigan, fishermen and textile workers in Massachusetts, brewery workers in New York, and marble cutters in Vermont. The Jesus who led Martin Luther King to Memphis to join sanitation workers in their struggle for a decent wage. I like that. People need to be reminded of that Jesus, who was really big on caring for the poor and disenfranchised, and urged us to love our neighbors as ouselves--even to the point of loving our enemies.

Sort of the antithesis to the "Catholic Voters Guide"--the National Council of Churches USA is releasing "Christian Principles in an Election Year". It is available as a PDF that you can print and share--especially, one supposes with anyone who wants to convince you that the five non-negotiable issues in an election are abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, human cloning, and same-sex marriage. Our Christian faith compels us to address the world through the lens of our relationship to God and to one another. Public discourse is enhanced as we engage civic leaders on the values and ethics affirmed by our faith. At the same time, religious liberty and the integrity of our democracy will be protected as candidates refrain from using faith-based organizations and institutions for partisan gain. We offer these ten principles to those seeking to accept the responsibility that comes with holding public office. Click here to read the principles, which emphasize peacemaking and cooperation, global, economic, racial, and enviromental justice, a restorative, not retributive, approach to the criminal justice system, affordable and accessible health care for all, and a commitment to equal educational opportunity for all.

Is there anything we can or should be doing to help support Rev. Barry Lynn and Americans United in this effort? Americans United: IRS Should Investigate Partisan Political Activity By Jerry Falwell Ministries, Says Americans United TV preacher Jerry Falwell has used his Jerry Falwell Ministries to endorse President George W. Bush's re-election in apparent violation of federal tax law, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told the Internal Revenue Service. In a complaint to the federal tax agency, Americans United told the IRS that Falwell endorsed Bush in a July 1 e-mail to supporters and also urged followers to send money to a political action committee that supports Republican candidates. Falwell also posted the partisan election-year appeal on his ministry website. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, said Falwell's action clearly merits an IRS investigation. Falwell, in his "Falwell Confidential" bulletin, wrote, "For conservative people of faith, voting for principle this year means voting for the re-election of George W. Bush. The alternative, in my mind, is simply unthinkable. To the pro-life, pro-family, pro-traditional marriage, pro-America voters in this nation, we must determine that President Bush is the man with our interests at heart. It is that simple." Falwell continued, "However, simply voting may not be enough. I believe it is the responsibility of every political conservative, every evangelical Christian, every pro-life Catholic, every traditional Jew, every Reagan Democrat, and everyone in between to get serious about re-electing President Bush. That is why I am utilizing this column to urge you to support the Campaign for Working Families, which is headed by Gary Bauer. It is the organization that I believe can have the greatest impact in re-electing Mr. Bush to the Oval Office." Here is an excerpt from the New York Times article about Lynn's appeal to the IRS: In an interview yesterday, Mr. Falwell said that an affiliated tax-exempt lobbying organization, not his religious organization, Jerry Falwell Ministries, had paid for the e-mail message and the Web site. Mr. Falwell also argued that his comments constituted only his personal view, and not an endorsement by his lobbying organization, Liberty Alliance. "We report news, write editorials, etc., all of which is protected by the First Amendment," he said. Despite the urgency of his calls to "get serious about re-electing President Bush,'' Mr. Falwell said the lobbying organization "doesn't support candidates or endorse them.'' He said, "It speaks to moral and social issues and it does encourage contributions to organizations like Gary Bauer's." Mr. Falwell defended the right of a pastor to endorse political candidates in his personal capacity, even from the pulpit. Mr. Falwell said he often did this at his church, the Thomas Road Baptist Church. "I support President Bush,'' he said. "I support him on Sunday mornings from the pulpit where it doesn't cost the church or anybody anything. I make it very clear, just like at most African-American churches and many liberal churches, that as a tax-paying citizen I vote. And I tell people who I vote for." He called Mr. Lynn's charges "a fright tactic" intended to silence conservative Christians. "His problem is that I am a Ronald Reagan, George Bush conservative evangelist," Mr. Falwell said.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation is having a national conference in Los Angeles, August 5-9. ORGANIZING THE REAL SUPERPOWER: People of the World Choose Peace Kathy Kelly, organizer of Voices in the Wilderness Rev. James Lawson, one of the principal architects of the civil rights movement Dorothy Cotton, who worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bishop Gene Robinson, first openly gay bishop ordained in the Episcopal Church of the United States. Donzaleigh Abernathy, daughter of Ralph Abernathy, who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Cindy and Craig Corrie, who lost their daughter, Rachel, when she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip Fernando Suarez del Solar, A member of Military Families Speak Out, a national advocacy group of over 600 families, Suarez has traveled around the country speaking out against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Program workshops will cover a wide variety of issues such as workers' and immigrants' rights, military disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation, conscientious objection to war, Muslim-Jewish / interfaith peace relations, the protection of civil liberties and legal rights, end of capital punishment, regional focus on Colombia, Iraq, Israel and Palestine, racial reconciliation, non-violence training and education, and more.

I have a favor to ask... Here you can find an updated version of a 4th of July flyer Demetrius and I offered last year. While the Bush administration was busy pushing "support our troops--don't ask any questions" as the way to be patriotic, I set to Googling and Demetrius started working on graphics layout, and we created a flyer illustrating the values upon which the United States was founded. One might even consider them to be liberal values. But the idea was to take a subtle approach--rather then whacking people over the head with anything overtly anti-Bush (which many people shut out right away)--we were just letting the words of the Founding Fathers remind them of what this country was meant to stand for. Last year around this time, I had a lot more spare time, apparently, because I managed to e-mail a bunch of bloggers and some major ones put up a link to the flyer. Tom Tomorrow's blog, This Modern World put up a link to it, and we got so many hits that we had to upgrade our web service. In the end, we made good use of that upgrade, because we used it to offer free grassroots graphics at The Peace Pretzel and People-Powered Graphics. This year the flyer has been updated a bit, to show more diversity, but is still more "historical" than current, showcasing the wisdom of our forefathers and mothers. Mathew Gross was kind enough to put up a link to the flyer a little while back, which I really appreciate, after I posted a link to it in the comments section on his blog. I just don't have the time to post about this and e-mail lots of people, but since the 4th is coming up so soon, I would really like to see this reach as wide an audience as possible. So, if you like the flyer, I would really appreciate any help you can give as far as spreading the word about it. You know, you tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on...

The Human Rights Campaign has posted an example of an ad that was released in Ohio, supporting the Federal Marriage Amendment. The text of the ad starts with, "Why Don't [Ohio] Senators DeWine and Voinovich Believe Every Child Needs a Mother and a Father?" and continues with: "...Here's the bottom line: homosexual marriage intentionally creates fatherless families or motherless families. Think about it. Every child understands how important a mom and a dad are. Help make your senators as smart as a kid. Pick up the phone and tell their staffs you support the Federal Marriage Amendment, and they should too." That is so offensive and hateful, it leaves me speechless, at least at the moment. If you, however, are not speechless right now, please speak out.

Someone recommended this site to me some time ago, but I never got around to checking it out. I happened to run across a link to it today and clicked. I've seen enough of the site that I'm pretty sure people here would like it, or might want to recommend it to someone, so I am posting the link. Right now I'm working some pretty crazy hours and don't have much time to explore cool things online. (That time could be spent sleeping, you know! I'm really thinking I might need to check out that Church of the Restful Sabbath Demetrius speaks so highly of some Sunday...) Anyway, check out some of the links on the page--I'd love to hear what you find there that's of interest. Here is the Manifesto from the site... Killing the Buddha is a religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the "spirituality" section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. It is for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not. If the religious have come to own religious discourse it is because they alone have had places where religious language could be spoken and understood. Now there is a forum for the supposedly non-religious to think and talk about what religion is, is not and might be. Killing the Buddha is it. The idea of "killing the Buddha" comes from a famous Zen line, the context of which is easy to imagine: After years on his cushion, a monk has what he believes is a breakthrough: a glimpse of nirvana, the Buddhamind, the big pay-off. Reporting the experience to his master, however, he is informed that what has happened is par for the course, nothing special, maybe even damaging to his pursuit. And then the master gives the student dismaying advice: If you meet the Buddha, he says, kill him. Why kill the Buddha? Because the Buddha you meet is not the true Buddha, but an expression of your longing. If this Buddha is not killed he will only stand in your way. Why Killing the Buddha? For our purposes, killing the Buddha is a metaphor for moving past the complacency of belief, for struggling honestly with the idea of God.

Update: http://www.hopeforhealthcare.org is now functional. The site is also available as: http://www.hopeforhealthcare.net and http://www.hopeforhealthcare.com

Hope's short life could easily have ended without many people knowing that she had ever lived. She easily could have been just another statistic, were it not for the fact that her mother, Kimmy, was a tireless activist who had organized thousands of volunteers and was beloved by an online community that truly thought of her as family. As her concerned family, we experienced this tragedy unfolding hour after hour from the moment Kimmy, 21 weeks pregnant, told us she was experiencing some worrisome symptoms. We offered advice and practical help, we prayed, we insisted that she seek medical care and, knowing she did not have health insurance, insisted that we would help with expenses. We waited anxiously for updates. For hour upon agonizing hour, knowing that something was very wrong, her mother fought to be seen in the hospital, due to an unpaid medical bill, because she had no insurance. We cheered her courage and raged about the insensitivity of the "system". We were saddened to finally learn that labor had been induced as a life-saving measure for Kimmy's preeclampsia, and that little Hope's life had ended (ironicallly, 11 years to the day after my own first child was born). And we vowed that we would do something--we would take real action to help insure that there are fewer tragic stories like this in the richest country on earth. And so, Hope for Health Care was born. "Hope for Healthcare" will bring you regular updates on policy, legislation, bureaucracy, corporate malfeasance, and a whole host of healthcare-related issues. Most importantly, "Hope for Healthcare" will offer regular opportunities to take concrete action toward our goals. Whether it's writing letters to the editor and to your elected representatives or volunteering for healthcare events, we will do our best to alert you to as many of these opportunities as possible. "Hope for Healthcare" is a collaborative venture, emerging from both the frustrations and the hopes of Blog for America participants. We need your help: 1. We need to recruit contributors. If you are (or someone you know is) knowledgeable about the issue and has the time and inclination to stay abreast of developments and post updates to the blog, you should consider becoming a contributor. 2. We need feedback on the wording of the "Pledge for Hope," a pledge we hope everyone will sign onto once it's in place. 3. We need suggestions for links and resources to provide our readers, as well as topics we should make sure we're covering. For details, head on over to "Hope for Healthcare": http://colettemarine.com/hope/ This is a temporary URL. Within the next several days or so, you should be able to reach "Hope for Healthcare" at one of these domains: http://www.hopeforhealthcare.com/ http://www.hopeforhealthcare.net/ http://www.hopeforhealthcare.org/ http://www.hopeforhealthcare.info/

jjem wrote this letter to the editor and made it available to others who wanted to edit and send it to newspapers. Here is the version Oscar in Louisville sent to the New York Times, in response to an article about John Kerry criticizing Bush's record and promising patients' rights. --- Hope died last night. Every day we hear politicians say that health care for all Americans is important. We also hear profuse excuses about impossible odds of passage due to partisan bickering, while Hope’s light lies flickering. We hear the pitiful pretext for delayed deeds of valor that ought be done by civil servants and their elected masters, so we are left without Hope. While the excuses flowed, Hope died, and a family was devastated. Hope Valdez was born at 21 weeks gestation – a tiny little girl thrown into an ambivalent world. For hour upon agonizing hour, knowing that something was very wrong, her mother fought to be seen in the hospital, due to an unpaid medical bill, because she had no insurance. She had been compelled to choose between frequenting a physician’s facility and feeding her family, because “care-givers” were more concerned with currency than Hope. My friend lost her baby today because she has no health insurance. I Hope that Senator Kerry won't let it be in vain.

Demetrius wrote the following in the comments at The Village Gate. I want to share it with you here as well... "Hope" is the thing with feathers-- That perches in the soul-- And sings the tune without the words-- And never stops--at all-- Emily Dickenson" I read this quote in the DFA blog a number of times. It brings to mind a song by They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse In Your Soul. The opening lyrics: I'm your only friend I'm not your only friend But i'm a little glowing friend But really i'm not actually your friend But i am The rest of the song could easily be interpreted to be about a child's room, parent's love, the beaming security of a little blue nightlight... and even failures of a (healthcare) system that is meant to serve to protect... I will leave those interpretations to the listener. I don't know what the original meaning of the song is - if there even was one. I'm sure it is just another of their silly little songs. But, I will never be able to hear it again without thinking of Kimmy and Hope. I think about the community that has developed on the Blog. The real friendships and caring that exist between people - many of whom have never met except through messages traded on these glowing boxes... I have never met Kimmy. I only know her thru the Blog and a few e-mails. But, she has to know that she is loved by me and her many friends in this community. Kimmy is my friend (But, I am certainly not her only friend) and there are tears in my eyes this morning for her. "Hope" is the thing with feathers-- That perches in the soul... Hope will always live in the "birdhouse" in our souls. And (to quote TMBG again) we will "leave the nightlight on inside the birdhouse"...

There is a new web site up called Hope for Healthcare, in honor of Kimmy's little girl who was born too soon. Pledge for Hope Read about Kimmy Cash and little Hope for some background here, then weigh in on how you would like the pledge worded. Here are some early suggestions: I pledge, for the sake of millions of people like Hope Cash, to do whatever is necessary to transform our nation's Health Care quagmire into a system where everyone who needs medical attention gets quality care in a timely fashion. I pledge, in the name of Hope Cash, to take action to transform this nation's Health Care system. I pledge, in the name of Hope Cash, to take action to change this nation's Health Care system, such that it includes all citizens. I pledge, for the sake of millions of people like Hope Cash, to help create in our country a Health Care system where everyone who needs medical attention gets quality care in a timely fashion - by any means necessary. Do you like these? Do you have other suggestions? Let's hear them. Hope is Eternal Visit this site to share your own thoughts.

Someone I care about it having a hard time right now. Before I leave for work, I wanted to ask you all to please hold Kimmy in prayer today. Thank you.

A brief reminder that you are invited to join in a common time of meditation, affirmation, prayer or reflection each evening at 8:30 Eastern Time. I introduced the idea here and expanded and clarified here. I offer the following excerpt as another source of reflection during your quiet time, no matter when you manage to squeeze it in. There Is Only Us But there is a different way of thinking about relationships with others. In some ways it seems like a new view. In fact, however, it is as old as all of humanity's great spiritual traditions. That is "There is only us" which is just another way of saying "There is no them." What is different today is that, to the voices of the prophets are being added the discoveries of physicists, biologists, chemists, mathematicians, economists, and psychologists. In short, the rest of the world may be, at last, catching up with Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed, not to mention the Rig Vedas. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And it was without form and void. That is how Judeo-Christian scripture begins. That statement of formlessness has been taken to be a negative. But in fact, God created the universe as an integrated whole. God made the universe without divisions, without categories, without fences. Bit by bit, as a result of the need to label things to distinguish them from ourselves, humankind has broken God's masterpiece apart--categorizing, dividing, making it appear to be more humanity's creation and less God's. Physicists, reporting from the quantum world, say that if one asks an electron whether it is a particle or a wave, the answer is "Yes". And it is both at the same time. More importantly, physicists say that an electron has no meaning or existence except in its relationship to the matter or energy around it. "In the quantum world, relationships are not just interesting; to many physicists, they are all there is to reality." (Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, p.32.) Biologists and chemists describe self-renewing systems. These are systems which are capable of accepting new components into the system and adapting to their addition. What makes this important is the understanding that systems which are not self-renewing are at equilibrium and, as such, are dead or dying. Living entities must be self-renewing, accommodating to change and the incorporation of difference. Otherwise, they die. Mathematicians demonstrate that there is no such thing as inconsequential data. The flap of a butterfly's wings in Tokyo affects a thunderstorm in New York. Even the most minute incident not only can but will have a significant impact upon the whole. This is true in the world of mathematics, but it is true in individual lives as well. Each person has a story of a word or a small act which changed their life. The messages are clear, whether from religion or science. Fundamental reality is not in things but in relationships. There is no such thing as a separate existence. All members of any system, like it or not, are mutually dependent. Click here to read more.

Happy Summer Solstice! The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance has a page on summer solstice, describing the different ways it is celebrated in various religious traditions. The Summer Solstice is also known as: Alban Heflin, Alben Heruin, All-couples day, Feast of Epona, Feast of St. John the Baptist, Feill-Sheathain, Gathering Day, Johannistag, Litha, Midsummer, Sonnwend, Thing-Tide, Vestalia, etc. ... Significance of the summer solstice: In pre-historic times, summer was a joyous time of the year for those Aboriginal people who lived in the northern latitudes. The snow had disappeared; the ground had thawed out; warm temperatures had returned; flowers were blooming; leaves had returned to the deciduous trees. Some herbs could be harvested, for medicinal and other uses. Food was easier to find. The crops had already been planted and would be harvested in the months to come. Although many months of warm/hot weather remained before the fall, they noticed that the days were beginning to shorten, so that the return of the cold season was inevitable. The first (or only) full moon in June is called the Honey Moon. Tradition holds that this is the best time to harvest honey from the hives. This time of year, between the planting and harvesting of the crops, was the traditional month for weddings. This is because many ancient peoples believed that the "grand [sexual] union" of the Goddess and God occurred in early May at Beltaine. Since it was unlucky to compete with the deities, many couples delayed their weddings until June. June remains a favorite month for marriage today. In some traditions, "newly wed couples were fed dishes and beverages that featured honey for the first month of their married life to encourage love and fertility. The surviving vestige of this tradition lives on in the name given to the holiday immediately after the ceremony: The Honeymoon." Click here to read more.

The cool thing about the internet, is that so often while I am looking for one thing, I stumble upon something I hadn't been looking for, but that I might never have found if not for that search. It happened again last night, when I was searching for sites about the meaning of Our Lady of Guadalupe and found this: Arising from the work of author China Galland, the Images of Divinity Research Project (IOD) was founded in 1987 and is now sponsored by the Center for Arts, Education and Religion of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, CA. The Graduate Theological Union brings together nine schools of theology and many institutes to provide a stellar environment for spiritual and religious studies. The Project’s journey begins with China’s research into the story of the Buddha Tara. At a time in which it was commonly held that only men could become enlightened, Tara publicly declared that there was no such thing as male or female and then vowed to be enlightened only in a woman’s body. Further research led to another tradition little known to the West, the Black Madonnas of European Catholicism. Soon she discovered Black or Dark Madonnas in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, South America and the Philippines. As the research continued, the veneration of dark, female divinities was documented in cultures including, but not limited to, Hindu, Tibetan Buddhist, Native American, Haitian, Egyptian and African. China wrote the following about Healing Racism: Public discourse is becoming increasingly religious and theological and yet, it is not very diverse. Political leaders often make reference to the all-powerful male God of might who punishes “evil-doers” and rewards the righteous. We need to understand the power and the dangers of the intersection of politics and spirituality. We need to realize that our concept of the Divine has direct, profound political impact. We need to seize this historic moment to break up this western hegemony of religious imagery and bring forward the rich variety of forms of the Divine that have existed in the human family for thousands of years, especially, but not only, those that are dark and female, in order to bring balance and wholeness to the lives of everyone. We need to see images of these forms. At the same time we have to remember that female images of the Divine are not in themselves transformational. They can be used for oppression and exploitation, as well as empowerment. It is how the Divine is imagined in relationship to the human that is important. We must also have diverse models of women and men, but especially women, who are powerful, spiritually resourceful, compassionate and effective in the work of protecting and healing the world, including its environment and its children. We need to know their stories and to make them known to our children. Whether we seek to heal racism, protect the environment, promote peace or empower women, narrow religious and spiritual imagery creates stumbling blocks, instead of starting blocks for making us comfortable enough with our differences in order to understand and talk with one another.

Yesterday, I invited you to "Join Americans of all faiths by praying, meditating, or affirming the kind of country we want to become, each evening at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time. When I first posted about a different sort of prayer team, I referenced Marcus Borg, who is a liberal Christian theologian. To provide another perspective on the potential power of prayer, I share the following from an interview with Dr. Larry Dossey: One of the best-kept secrets I've come across in the past few years is an organization in Salem, Oregon called Spindrift. If you look up the term "spindrift" in the dictionary it comes from an old Scottish word referring to the fuzzy spray where a wave breaks and meets the air. It's the interface between something ethereal and something concrete, which is how they chose the name. The people at Spindrift have performed experiments for over ten years, showing the ability of what they call "prayer practitioners" to make a difference in what happens in the development and metabolism of extremely simple biological systems, such as sprouting seeds and yeast cultures. They have measured the amount of carbon dioxide a yeast culture gives off to determine how active it is. One reason they don't work with human beings is that plants are much simpler. You can count sprouting beans, and do it time and time again to see if it's replicable. Beans don't change as drastically as humans. It far easier to work with yeast, sprouting beans, wheat seeds and so on. So that's what they have done. They have gone beyond showing that prayer works, and have examined the issue of which prayer strategy works best. They have tested two. The first is a directed prayer strategy, where not only do you provide God, Goddess or the Absolute with the diagnosis of the problem, but you provide the treatment too. You say, "John's got carcinoma of the lung, so make it go away." Or "Harry has a heart attack, we want to see it healed." This is the kind of petitionary prayer most of us grow up thinking is the only kind of prayer there is. But then they tested what they call a nondirected prayer strategy, which is completely open ended, and does not attach a goal to the prayer. They have several of these nondirected prayer strategies. The most famous prayer of this type is "Thy will be done." Another one they used is from the Beatles tune, "Let it be." My all-time favorite nondirected prayer strategy is the caption on the back cover of the first Whole Earth Catalog, "You can't put it together. It is together." One of the assumptions of this nondirected prayer strategy is that at some level, in some way, at some deep level of reality, things are just fine, perfect as they are. Over a decade, Spindrift has shown, and this is the bottom line, that both methods of prayer work. But working with these prayer pracitioners, they have shown that the nondirected prayer method is two to four times more powerful than the directed. How does prayer work? I don't know. I really have no idea how prayer works or who makes things we pray for happen. I am open to the possibility that our "thought energy" changes things in the physical world, which probably makes me the worst kind of heretic to some Christians. But I have read and heard enough about the power of affirmations and the effects of prayer that I can't dismiss it out of hand. Believe--don't believe--or believe in something totally different from what I do. It really doesn't matter to me. But think of it this way: even if prayer doesn't have any sort of supernatural effect, couldn't it have an effect on you? If you spend 10 to 15 minutes a day in peaceful relaxation, reminding yourself of the kind of country, and the kind of world you want to help create, maybe at some point you will find yourself about to make some snarky comment to someone you disagree with, and you will stop yourself. Maybe you will be ready to make some crass generalization about the other side, you will stop and ask yourself, "Is this the kind of us vs. them thinking that adds to the problem rather than helping to make things better? Right now, am I moving closer to or further away from What Really Matters--the kind of world I want to help create?" So the bottom line is this: If you want, in the way you want, I invite you to join me in praying, meditating, sending vibes or thought energy, or affirming the country you are already working to help create. Maybe it will help change the world, moving us closer to bringing about "The Great Turning". Maybe it will change you. Maybe it will just be a quiet time (we all need more of that) when you can remind yourself that you are united in intention and action with people who want to make things better. Whatever it ends up being, in the final analysis, "It couldn't hoit!"

Note: the following was inspired by the very partisan Presidential Prayer Team's latest effort, Pray the Vote. Rather than saying something negative about the PPT, I wanted to think of a positive, inclusive alternative. Something needs fixing. In my humble opinion, something needs to shift in our government, in the public consciousness--in all of our hearts. I truly believe that God, by whatever name you call him or her, can work miracles through us. God can use us as tools with which to build a more just, humane, caring and compassionate world. But we need to allow it. We need to be open, and to really listen for that "still small voice". We need, frankly, to get our egos out of the way. Whenever I think about creating a better world, I automatically think of the way Marcus Borg has explained The Lord's Prayer: The kingdom of God was utterly central to Jesus. One New Testament scholar has written: Ask any 100 New Testament scholars what was most central to Jesus' message, and all 100 will answer: The kingdom of God. We see this in the inaugural address of Jesus in Mark's gospel. It's in Mark 1:15. It's very brief and very pointed. It says simply: "The kingdom of God is at hand." The verse continues: "Repent and believe this gospel." The word "repent," though I don't want to linger over it today, means go beyond the mind that you have and then believe this gospel. For Mark, the gospel is the coming of the kingdom of God. We also see its centrality in the many parables and short sayings of Jesus that concern the kingdom of God. We see it, most familiarly in "The Lord's Prayer". Right up front in "The Lord's Prayer", right after we ask for the hallowing of God's name, we pray: " Thy kingdom come." The kingdom of God is not heaven. I think you all know that. But it's been easy for generations of Christians to imagine that the kingdom of God is about heaven because of the phrase that Matthew uses for this notion. In Matthew's gospel, the kingdom of God is regularly called the kingdom of heaven. That is because Matthew is, perhaps, the most traditionally piously Jewish of the gospel writers. And as a devout and pious Jew, he avoids using the word God out of reverence whenever possible. But when Matthew writes about the kingdom of heaven, he means kingdom of God. Thus, very importantly, the kingdom of God or Matthew's kingdom of heaven is something for the earth's. In a way, this is something we should have known for a long time from "The Lord's Prayer" itself, for when we pray "The Lord's Prayer," we pray: "Thy kingdom come on earth as it already is in heaven." We oftentimes miss that because we say that prayer in the nice cadences and nicely balanced couplets of Matthew's version of it. You know how it goes. "Our father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We leave those little beats of silence, and we miss the fact that every time we pray that prayer, we are praying: Your kingdom come on Earth. As my colleague, John Dominic Crossan, pungently and provocatively remarks: "Heaven's in great shape. Earth is where the problems are." That's why we pray for the coming of God's kingdom on Earth. So, what did this phrase mean? Well, Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God as both present and future. Its present meaning seems to be a power or presence and community that you can experience now. You can enter the kingdom of God, be in the kingdom of God according to the Gospels. But it is also spoken of as future, as something not yet here but still to come. All right, now, try to follow me on this. If any of the words in the excerpt above make little "Whoop! Whoop!" alarms go off in your head, (from Galaxy Quest: "I know that sound. That's a BAD sound!") please consider substituting or omitting the word rather than assuming what I write here is only for Christians. It's not. Christianity is the lens through which some of us see the bigger picture. I think there is a core meaning that people of many faiths, or even no faith in particular, can get behind. One is the idea of a better world--and I'll tell you what Borg says about that in a moment. The other is "go beyond the mind that you have." All of us, regardless of faith or party affiliation, need to be willing to go beyond the minds we have, and what we think we know. Often the minds we have are filled with biases and assumptions about people who are different from ourselves, but we don't recognize them as biases. Let me turn now to the way Marcus Borg describes what the "politics of the Kingdom" might look like: Let me provide you with some examples of what I think this might mean for our time as citizens and residents of this particular country--not a comprehensive list, but some for instances. I think it minimally means universal healthcare. It's just astounding to me that we don't have this in our country. There are countries in the world that are not as prosperous as we who do have that. If the argument is made that the quality of healthcare will go down for all of us if we make it universal, well, should I be entitled to superb healthcare if the cost of that is no healthcare for some people? A politics of the kingdom would also mean a concern about the growing gap between rich and poor in our country. That gap has widened dramatically in the last 40 years. Want a statistic? I know statistics can be distrusted, but try to listen to this one. In 1965, the wealthiest one percent of American families owned 23 percent of what are called family assets. Family assets are anything that can be owned by a family--stocks, property, etc. By 1995, the wealthiest one percent of families in our country owned 43 percent of total family assets. I think it is much more difficult to be a poor person in this country now than it was 40 years ago. It's not only that this wreaks havoc on the lives of the poor, but I think it is making our society an increasingly unstable society for all of us. Yet that gap is growing. The primary factor encouraging the growth of that gap is economic policy, and tax policy, in particular. If you have followed the tax bills before Congress over the last several years, all of them benefit primarily the wealthiest two percent of our population. We throw a sock to people making $50,000 a year or whatever so that everybody will feel good, but the real benefits go to those at the top who structure the system in their own narrow self-interests. A politics of the kingdom would mean concern about ecology, concern for the environment and the non-human world, for God loves the whole of creation, and the whole of creation belongs to God. A politics of the kingdom would also mean serious reflection about what it means to be an imperial power, for we are as a nation the imperial power of our time. Like it or not, that is who we are. We are the Rome of our time. We need to be as thoughtful, responsible and creative as possible about the use of our imperial power, for it can be used in two very different ways. We can use it to control the world in our own self-interest and to impose our will upon the world, or we can use it to build it up. It makes all the difference which we choose. All right, now I ask you this... Does that sound a good vision of what we should become as a nation? Do you believe that prayer, or affirmations, or "sending out vibes" works? Then lets join together, each in our own way, our minds and hearts, and pray a better country.

I just found out this morning that the National Hip-Hop Political Convention will be taking place in Newark, N.J. from June 16-19. After a few people (myself included) commented that we really didn't know much about hip-hop as a culture or a political movement, Kimmy Cash of Punx for Democracy and DIY Politics responded with some resources: I tell you with certainty Hip Hop is a culture and a political force. Just like there is a punk rock culture. It is VERY large and politicians should be very aware of it. If you want to know more about it I invite you to the following links BlackElectorate.com Urban Think Tank - Community for Hip Hop Culture, Rap Music, Black Culture, Black Music, Cultural Criticism & Popular culture Davey D's Hip-Hop Corner: The New Source For The Hip-Hop Generation Please inform yourselves. For more information on the punk rock culture, please go to A History of Punk The Women of 1970's Punk Punk rock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia If you want more information, let me know. It's frightening to know that even within the left it remains unknown. It is a little embarrassing sometimes to realize how little I know about the various religious groups and cultures that exist in my own country. But I certainly enjoy the opportunity to learn. And it's good to be aware of the groups and events out there that can help invite people into the political process in ways that are comfortable, relevant, and meaningful for them. Let's try to keep each other informed about these things. Political activism isn't "one size fits all"--there are many talents and many temperaments. Fortunately there are probably almost as many ways to get involved and make a difference. Here's another upcoming event people should know about: League of Pissed Off Voters National Convention July 16th to 18th 2004 Columbus, Ohio This will be the FRESHEST voter organizing convention ever! You will come as a delegate from your local voter organizing group, hopefully in teams of two or more. We will start by presenting a skeleton 90 day plan for getting the progressive youth vote out in your community. You will then self-track into small working groups and consult with our resident KICK ASS voter organizing experts who will help you tailor your plan to the needs of the community you're organizing! You will leave certified as a League Voter Organizer. Click here for more information.

I posted the bulk of John Kerry--pick up the clue phone! at an anti-Bush web forum called The Smirking Chimp. I left off the religious part (the first three paragraphs) and posted essentially the same thing you can see over at the Dean Leaders blog, with the same hopeful, positive ending. So I was more than a little bit surprised to get this from the "board nanny". You get a clue. We have specifically asked the Kerry/Nader bashers et al to take their endless rage somewhere else. We're an ABB site. We know that a lot of people who will vote for Kerry resent the fact. Fine. It's done. Move on to the next thing, which is actually winning the election. This topic is locked I really was stunned. Endless rage? Hardly. I would have called it a mixture of tough love and stubborn optimism. From what I have heard, this type of censorship among Democrats is not uncommon, but I was still taken aback by the hostility I saw in that response. Before the discussion was shut down, I received a couple of supportive posts, but which indicated, "Uh-oh! You criticized "Mr. Electable." But other responses indicated that I should actually be doing something proactive rather than just complaining. I actually thought that's what I was doing. Why not address the issues that are sending up red flags, rather than just smiling and saying everything's okay? That was the purpose behind a post I wrote in April called "Tune-up before the big November road trip". See, I was sure that sort of thing actually was helpful. What's dangerous is when genuine concerns are censored for the sake of group unity. "Groupthink" has been implicated in some major human tragedies. Just one example is when engineers working on the Challenger space shuttle were pressured to reverse their "no-go" position, in spite of their concerns that the shuttle wasn't safe for flight that day. Most of us agree that is we see danger up ahead, the responsible course of action would be to alert people while there is still time to do something about it. But a lot of people in the Democratic party don't see it that way. They seem to think if we all just pretend everything is fine, put on a show of "unity" and never criticize Kerry or raise any concerns, we'll win in a landslide in November. The whole campaign won't just go careening off a cliff like Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive a Car. I've seen a similar dynamic at play whenever I have tried to address the need for religious voices among the Democrats to counter exclusive, authoritarian version of Christianity that is espoused by Bush and much of his administration. It has been an odd experience sometimes, to feel so compelled to speak out from a religious position that is different from that of the Religious Right, but often finding myself feeling silenced and marginalized by liberals who, I suppose, have felt "burned" by mainstream religion in the past. A lot of people in the more general left wing forums seem to respond to me with something like "Shh! We don't talk about that here!" I certainly don't have the answer, but want to assert that this is an issue worthy of dialog, and that to be true liberals, we need to be accepting of liberal diversity. Here's another important point...you've seen above the way a forum leader responded to my post. Another example was when Charlie Grapski posted a petition to the DNC in the DNC blog comments. He was banned from posting on the blog, as were a number of other individuals who politely attempted to help him get a fair hearing. This is not about me having hurt feelings--I could certainly get past it if that were my only concern, and my life would be a lot easier. But I am already engaged in the process, and have made the decision to vote for Kerry, in spite of his shortcomings, because the prospect of four more years of Bush is too dangerous to risk. What about the people who are alienated and disenfranchised, who believe politics isn't about them, and that their votes don't really matter? Is the "get over it and fall in line" approach really likely to sway them? Or is it more likely to convince them that their cynicism about the political process was dead on? Those were, of course, rhetorical questions. The real question is, what can we do about this, if giving up is not an option, but we see that a single-minded "Anybody But Bush" approach is going to keep a lot of voters home in November?