Evil Comments by Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh Re Haiti

To the left:  Earthquake Aftershocks in Haiti  (Picture by Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times/ January 20, 2010) A man duckes under police tape warning passerbys to avoid ruins of the Notre Dame Cathedral of Port-au-Prince after a 5.9 magnitude aftershock shook the Haitian capital on January 20, 2010.

Possibly a million Haitians are homeless and thousands upon thousands are dead or hurt.  Televangelist Pat Robertson declared to his viewers of the 700 Club that the Haitians had been punished by God for "having made a pact with the devil".  Apparently, this theological claim is based on the "Black Jacobin" slave revolt in the late 1700s which resulted in Haiti becoming the first non-white colony to win independence from a Europen power, in this case France.  Robertson stated:  "They (Haiti's rebels) said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French--true story.  . . and so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

Fellow right-winger Rush Limbaugh also added his voice criticizing President Obama for supposedly "politicizing" the disaster by offering prompt and substantial American assistance.  He discouraged people from making contributions.  "We've already donated to Haiti.  It's called the US income tax."

Fortunately, there was little indication that Americans had heeded Robertson or Limbaugh.  The response of most persons seemed to be summed up by Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman who characterized them as "utterly stupid."

But the fact that Robertson and Limbaugh could even speak as they did in light of the enormous tragedy is mind boggling.  This is a natural disaster and it is not parallel to the Holocaust, a man-made tragedy.  Human intent is eliminated from the equation in Haiti.  And yet, the impact of the comments are as evil in all ways as comments of people who wish to deny the Holocaust of Jews in World War II Europe.  They are evil because they deny and dismiss glibly the very real pain, suffering and death that annihilation of populations experience. 

In the case of Robertson who cloaked his comments in theological language, the evil is compounded by promotion of a God who is vindictive, unloving . . . the Great Disciplinarian.  Robertson fails to understand the great lesson of Job and of most of human experience:  You cannot explain suffering by using the category of God and if you try, you will diminish yourself, the sufferer and God.  Better to shut the hell up and just be silent before the tragedy and before the Holy One.

For myself, I follow a gentle and forgiving Jewish rabbi who cared when he came into contact with hurt and brokenness.  When I read of him, I do feel it is Good News.  What good news is in Robertson's comments?  Who gets comforted by his statements?

Everytime there is a huge natural disaster these far right preachers and pundits love to make statements like Robertson's and Limbaugh's.  Remember, we heard similar stuff about New Orleans when Katrina happened.  Such a difference between this and this Episcopal Prayer on the Occasion of a Natural Disaster: 
 Compassionate God, whose Son Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus:  draw near to us in this time of sorrow and anguish, comfort those who mourn, strengthen those who are weary, encourage those in despair, and lead us all to fulness of life; through the same Jesus Christ, ou, r Savior and Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever.  Amen.

Book Review: Impact Free Living According to Geoff Dyer

At the end of each year, I scan all of the lists of the best books published in the past twelve months.  This year, I immediately checked out a book that appeared on several lists.  This is what the Economist said in its blurb:  "Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. By Geoff Byer.  Pantheon; 304 pages; $24. . . Mr. Dyer is one of the most interesting young English writers.  Every Dyer novel seems to end in a moment of ecstatic transformation.  This time, though, there is darkness visible.  His fourth novel, this is by far his best." 

The book is constructed around two seemingly disparate narratives and there is no obvious transition between them.   First, there is Jeff in Venice.  A writer, Jeff Atman, is sent by his publisher to cover the Venice Biennale art exhibition.  The Biennale becomes the background for Jeff's mostly non-artistic interests:  desire, sex (if you are squeamish about extremely detailed descriptions of sex you may not want to read this), drinking, drugs, food, fun   . . . . . . I imagine Atman as a slightly Woody Allen-esque neurotic art critic who suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder. 

The characters in Jeff in Venice all seem "very now" in their trendiness, irony, lack of deep-seated ethics. In one memorable statement, Atman remarks that "it's possible to be a hundred percent sincere and a hundred percent ironic at the same time." 

There are hints at depth and more than surface at almost all corners:  Jeff in Venice recalls the great Thomas Mann novel  Death in Venice.  His surname "Atman" is the name of the Hindu Brahman who is regarded as the Universal Soul .  . . a lower-case "atman" is the essence of an individual.  In the reflective light of Venice everything is constantly shifting and changing.  Nothing is as it seems.  This includes Jeff who is yearning for some kind of transcendance in the disorganized frenzy and aimlessness of his life.  This yearning takes him astray early on as he dies his salt and peppered hair before the Biennale.

Just at the moment when Jeff bids farewell to the woman he has been sleeping with during the exhibition, the narrative concludes.  What now?  Will he see her again?  No answers.  We are now in Varanasi, the great Hindu pilgrimage city formerly known as Benares, on the Ganges.  And someone is talking to us.  Is it Atman?  Maybe but we cannot be certain it is him and the text does not reveal this protagonist's identity.

Here in the epitome of otherness (to Westerners) he immerses himself in visiting Hindu temples, funeral pyres on the Ganges, transacting with the poor Indian masses, deciphering holy men and fake holy men, relating to and looking at other Western tourists.  Slowly Varanasi assumes a grip on him that he cannot shake.  He doesn't quite understand this grip.  But he literally ingests it with a little water in his mouth from the Ganges.  And from that moment forward he disintegrates, going native in dress and mysterious thought.

At least, that is what we might think.  His (Atman's?) reconfiguration and dazzling death at the end is a release of himself into a bigger Reality.  As in Venice, the reflection on the water, the importance of the water, makes what seems to be real only ephemeral.  And this includes the protagonist's own life.

What is going on in these two separate but related stories?  I read them as a narrative of the loss of ego.  In the Venice story, Jeff Atman loses himself, his dreams, his ideas through Venice itself and in sex and drugs.  In the Varanasi story, the protagonist loses himself in Varanasi itself and in the addictive connection to the water, the rites, the buildings and to something mysteriously bigger, overarching.

To the right:  British novelist, Geoff Dyer

One of the key passages in the Varanasi section is a key to this idea:  "For a few days we were joined by Sayoko, a young Japanese woman.  She was eating dinner at a table on her own and Darrell asked if she wanted to join us.  She spoke very little english and so, when she had sat down at our table, he began speaking to her in Japanese--which, even by his standards, was pretty cool.  Sayoko and I couldn't say much to each other, but she was easy to be around.  Her way of being in the world was unlike anyone else's I had encountered.  Having worked in London, in journalism, often interviewing artists, I had pretty well accepted that the sole point of existence--especially for artists, but among journalists too--was to make a mark, a splash, to draw attention to oneself.  Sayoko was the opposite.  She moved through the world as though the idea was to have a minimum impact on it.  Like a skilful driver, she negotiated her passage through things without collisions or near misses.  In the context of Varanasi the comparison made no sense, but to be in her company was to be reminded of how relaxing it was not to be honking your own horn and constantly expecting a crash, not to have your attention strained to the breaking point. . ." (p.p 235-236).

In Venice everyone was honking their own horns and the ancient city would long outlast them.  In Varanasi people were constantly bouncing off of each other in close proximity.  But the city and the water of the Ganges would long outlast them.  And some persons, Sayoko included, glide  and navigate through these realities not impacting them unduly.  At the end of the Varanasi story and at the end of the book, the protagonist or Atman navigate away from it all to some other shore.  Optimistic?  Pessimistic?  Hopeful?  Hopeless? Meaningful?  Meaningless?  Dyer leaves those conclusions to his readers.

I can't get this book out of my mind.  Now I am looking forward to the second reading.

So What Is An Ogee?

Incredibly, The Blue Ogee has been in existence for a few years (with long dormant moments) but I have never shown the design of an ogee on the blog. 

Here is a design of an ogee arch.  The definition of ogee arch in the Encarta dictionary is:  "An arch whose sides curve gently inward toward the tip and then curve upward steeply to meet in a point."

The ogee is an elegant design rarely seen in modern or post-modern art and architecture.  May the discussions in this Blue Ogee blog be equally elegant and unusual for the society in which we live.

Voucher Code

Word beyond Words

Just a few weeks ago, my eight month old grandson, Caetano, said his first word "Da-Da."  We had been anticipating what word this would be for several weeks and "Da-Da" obviously pleased my son.  Now Caetano is on the life-long journey of  using words in all of the variable situations he will encounter.

He will learn rather quickly that words carry incredible power--for good and for ill.  He will learn that words can convey complex thoughts and emotions, words can hurt, and words can heal.

In my childhood, great emphasis was placed in my working-class family on proper use of words.  It was understood that truthfulness was a basic virtue (Thou shalt not lie).  Lies, even little seemingly innocuous ones, were not acceptable.  Good casting of words in readable and pleasant penmanship (now almost a lost art) was important.  If words are important, then the way you write them is also important.  Some words were never to be used in our family--Dad and mom made sure that we understood that disrespectful words such as the N word could not be uttered. Some words ("I love you" and "Thank you") were deemed to be very good. I think that my parents'  attitudes of truthfulness, caring and respect helped ground me in my own ethical perspectives as an adult.

I have a repetoire of memories of hurtful words:  "Fag!"  "You are the least popular student in your home room" (by my school counselor). . . . these are only two examples that still stand out.

I also have one fairly recent memory of words that were liberating:  "I am gay." 

Christian faith development also has forced me to think a lot about words.  How do you engage in God-talk?  What did it mean in my evangelical Protestant background to repeat the words "  I believe in Jesus Christ and accept Him as my personal Savior."  What about words in prayer?  How do I account for my strong attachment to the words in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, quite apart from what these words point to?  Why do I love repeating the great creeds of the church when I am not sure I believe the words?  Do beliefs make a difference, really?  Or is it more that the words expressing the beliefs make a difference?

One of the things that I have learned in the monastic practice of lectio divina is to give close attention to words, their cadence, their construction. Their sound can produce new meanings.  And I am reminded very often that monastics always have  been attached to words, painfully copying and conserving books before they could be printed or mass-produced.

Words count.

Last Sunday, the First Sunday in Christmas, the Gospel reading was of the Prologue to the Gospel of John:  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God."  So now the Word is embodied, in-carnated, grounded in the person of Jesus.  Here we have jumped from the power of words to the ground of all expressions and reality:  the Word . . . the Word made flesh.  The immensity of this thought is stunning.  Yes, words count.  And now we are in the realm of poetry and metaphor:  The Word, the Logos.

What is it that makes Jesus, the human, the Word?  Can words answer this question.  Is the answer beyond words?

The Hope of the Poor

Left:  Classroom pic from school run by the Episcopal Anglican Church in Goiania, Brazil for poor children.

In the suffrages recited during morning prayer we pray " Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten; nor the hope of the poor be taken away."

Lately I have been chewing over in my mind these wonderful phrases from the Book of Common Prayer and, especially, thinking about what constitutes the "hope of the poor."

At first glance, this should be a no-brainer for me.  Since I spent several years in the mid-Sixties living in a Brazilian favela and since much of my professional life was spent working with marginalized groups in Africa, you would think that I could articulate what is the hope of the poor in some credible way.  Even now, in retirement, I live in one of Indianapolis' poorest areas. 

One of the first things that I realize is that the poor do, in fact, hope.  They may hope for something big, like better days ahead.  Or they may hope for something more specific, like a nice backpack to take to school.  They may sometimes hope for massive political change that will recognize their existence and their aspirations.  No doubt, this is part of the great political dramas of our times in Gaza or Brazil with the election of President Lula or here in the USA with the election of Barack Obama. 

As I am writing these reflections, the health care debate is focused on the US Senate.  Even though we do not often see the poor on TV  discussing health care, it seems reasonable to assume that they are hoping that something comes from all of the talk and posturing of both parties that will benefit their lives.

Sometimes the hopes of the poor are cast as dreams for this world.  This is one way of reading the United Nations Milennium Development Goals inspired by the great economist Jeffrey Sachs.  Obtainable or not, the idea of the concrete possibility of the eradication of poverty is powerful in itself.

Some years back we used to hear more of  "theologies of hope" and we were often pointed to German theologian Jurgen Moltmann.  Theologies of hope live in synergistic relationship to the theologies of liberation. . . . they may give theological articulation of the yearnings of the marginalized and take communities of faith into unknown territory.  For example, if it is true that poverty is not an individual moral flaw but a structural element in the human polity, how should churches and faith communities respond? 

Hope is never an illusion.  Hope may be the motor that causes either an individual or a whole group to move to new realizations.  Hope is not distributed, like some scarce commodity, to just the middle classes and rich (who, curiously, are often victims of hopelessness about their own lives and who live out post-modern ennui).  It is a part of the human condition, part of how all humans--poor and rich--are wired.

Which brings me to the answer to my question:  What constitutes the hope of the poor?  The hope of the poor is whatever makes them think or believe that a better or more just time is ahead or obtainable.  If this hope is "taken away" then part of their humanity itself has been taken away. 

More of our involvement with the poor should be in listening to their hopes, sharing in their dreams.

Make a Vow to the Lord and Keep It (Psalm 76:11)

On the left:  Br. Daniel-Chad Hoffman and Br. Daniel-Joseph Schroeder, Guardian of the Community of the Gospel during Reception of Full Members in the Community of the Gospel, All Saints Episcopal Church, Appleton, WI April 16, 2009

Today at Christ Church during Morning Prayers we recited Psalm 76.  As the reading went on, perforated by lengthy pauses, I was struck by verse 11:  "Make a vow to the Lord and keep it."   

In my life I have only made a few public vows that seemed at the time irrevocable.  I also broke these vows.  So my record in keeping what the Encarta Dictionary calls "solemn promises" is not good.

Yet, on April 16, '09, during the joy of Easter Week, there I was surrounded by the Guardian and members of the Community of the Gospel and a Priest of the Church making vows as a full member of the Community of the Gospel.

Those vows were:  "To live a life consistent with your Baptismal vows, continuing in the Apostles' teaching, proclaiming by word and example the Good News of the Gospel, seeking and serving Christ and striving for justice, peace and dignity of all persons."  And, as if this were not enough, there was more:  To "be diligent in prayer, study and personal service . . . submitting yourself to the love and guidance of the Holy Spirit as Christ submitted himself to the will of his heavenly Father"  . . . "to serve Christ as an active member of your parish, serving Him and the local community according to your talents and gifts in so far as your state in life permits" . . . to "accept the advice of the authority of the Guardians of this Community, the Council and your formation team."

To the right:  Br. Daniel-Chad and the Rev. Tyrone Fowlkes of Chicago who administered the vows.

Reciting the vows is  daunting. But it is easier than actually keeping the vows.  At Christ Church this morning the words kept echoing in my head "Make a vow and keep it . . . . make a vow and keep it . . . . . make a vow and keep it . . . . make a vow and keep it."

After the vows,  the hard work of the monastic life kicks in big time.  The only way to honor  the vows is to remember them often and to renew them.  This is why the congregation renews their baptismal vows at every baptism according to the Book of Common Prayer. 

But not so easy!  There are bills to pay, the groceries to buy, family  to relate to, activities everywhere . . . .American life is busy always.  In the bustle of daily life, I forget what I am about.

Hey, Br. Daniel-Chad, keep remembering those words:  Baptismal vows, word and example of Good News, justice, peace, dignity, prayer, study, service, submission, obedience, acceptance.  This is what it is all about  after April 16th.

Keep those vows.

Book Review: Philip Roth The Humbling

To the left:  Author Philip Roth

Maybe it is the fact that I am 66 years old.  Now I am reading books in which aging is a major theme.

This is one reason why I picked up The Humbling  (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009, 140 pp) by America's greatest living novelist, Philip Roth. 

This weekend I read The Humbling in one two hour session.  The story is of Simon Axler, once golden boy of the New York stage, now  66 years old.  The tone of the novel is set by the very first paragraph:  "He'd lost his magic.  The impulse was spent.  He'd never failed in the theater, everything he had done had been strong and successful, and then the terrible thing happened:  he couldn't act.  Going on-stage became agony.  Instead of the certainty that he was going to be wonderful, he knew he was going to fail.  It happened three times in a row, and by the last time nobody was interested, nobody came.  He couldn't get over to the audience."

The deep depression that Axler's lost gift causes is the theme of the first part of the book.  He can't shake this depression or the conviction that his best moments are behind him.  His agent, acting almost like a friend of Job, tries to entice him into a major return to the stage with no luck whatsoever. 

The second section of the book, titled "The Transformation" is about illusions, desire and falsely grounded hope.  I won't tell what happens in this disturbing section in order not to give away the plot.  But sex is here and in surprisingly large amounts for a guy who thought he was done with even desire. 

The third section of the book, "The Last Act" describes how Axler decides that he can have one measure--one last measure--of control in his life.  And how he can, as it were, return to the stage.  But this return is dark and troubling.

The Humbling reminds me that the American idea of a youthful aging process is a great myth.  Aging is what it is:  physical breakdown, mental uncertainties, loneliness, remaining desire, deterioration, memory of the past, of better days.  True, some people because of their genes and chromosones and because of their disposition or material wealth handle aging better than others.  Still,Roth's book stands as a potent reminder that aging ain't for sissies.

The truth of this fiction by Roth is hard and very cold.  No matter how much we are told that you are only as old as you feel or are inside, no matter how older persons are marketed as at a wonderfully sunny place, the reality is more on the side of Simon Axler. 

Something Happens in Monastic Prayer

The work of the monastic, whether in a monastery or "dispersed" (such as me) is to pray.   We are meant to be living prayers. We keep the Hours or the Office.  I often go to Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis in the early morning to offer prayers with  clergy and members from the Book of Common Prayer.  Throughout the day, while cleaning the house, shopping, working in the garden . . . I find myself talking to and, more often, listening to God.

What happens in all of this prayer?  Unlike other activities in our society, there is no "bottom line" outside of prayer itself.  You can't judge the prayer by the notion that you have "gotten through" to God and He has granted some request.  Most often prayer is offered in silence and the re
sult is just more silence.  Most monastics would not see this as bad.  Too much noise anyway in America.

In this blog I  want to witness to one experience that I have had with prayer, especially now that I am becoming more disciplined and stablized in it.  Each day I pray for the other brothers and sisters in the Community of the Gospel, the clergy of Christ Church, different bishops, including the Rt. Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.  I also pray for members of Christ Church by name.  We pray for each person at least once monthly and often more frequently if there are special needs.

But what happens if I have been angry at that person?  Or if I have been hurt by words or actions or inactions of that person?  What if there is something about the clergy person that I just don't get? 

One day last month I was helping with the prayers and was reading out loud the names of the persons in the congregation.  My own name was there.  The very next name was of my ex-wife, with whom I had lots of difficulties.  On the second Sunday in Advent at the Eucharist we prayed for the Archbishop of Canterbury and yet, I have been really angry at him for his attitude towards the U. S. Episcopal Church and for his deafening silence on the "death to gays" movement in Uganda, where a huge population of Anglicans live.  I had a difficult exchange with a member of Christ Church last month and, lo and behold, several days later that person was sitting facing me in the Choir during morning prayers. 

What I have learned from praying for these persons is that it is impossible (for me anyway) to pray for them and retain some level of rancor, disharmony or anger.  By offering them to God in my prayers and intercessions, I somehow also take them into myself.  They are a part of me.  This mitigates my feelings in a significant way.  It seems to me that this is the wonderful logic of Jesus' admonition to pray for your enemies.

Of course, that does not mean that I have to agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury's policies and actions.  Or that I may not keep in mind the obvious boundaries between me and my ex-.  Or that whatever someone does to me is OK  But it does mean that you cannot retain anger or bad feelings for those you pray for.  Put simply, from my experience:  You cannot be angry at someone and pray for them at the same time and expect that you will still be angry after having handed them over to God.  Prayer modifies this process. Rather than focusing on my own hurt or sense of injustice, I try to understand the other person.

Well, then, it looks as though this seemingly non-utilitarian activity mysteriously does have some result:  It creates more harmonious relations between God and me and between others and me.  It is a great silent community builder.

Honoring Nelia

I am lucky to have great kids. When I am with others my age, I don't spend time lamenting how my children disappointed me. To the contrary, I am very proud of both of them and of the others who have been part of our extended family (like Tseliso and Greg).

At this very moment, my daughter, Nelia, is flying to the Kingdom of Swaziland in southern Africa on mission for several weeks with the Glaser Foundation of Los Angeles. Glaser works in pediatric AIDS and focuses great effort on Africa.

Nelia is a Tulane U. Master of Public of Health graduate. She now has a track record on working for several agencies with AIDS related issues, mainly in the Caribbean and Africa. Over the past few years she has gone to Angola, Mozambique, Mali, and Madagascar . . . to name but a few of the places where she has interfaced and encouraged local AIDS workers.

Like most people, I am not always exactly sure about the work details of my kids. But in Nelia's case, I know that her commitment emerges from deep within her value system. And I know that the agency she works for and Nelia herself are doing incredible good. Nelia witnesses the AIDS pandemic in Africa and speaks always with respect and honor not only for HIV+ Africans and their families but for the hard-pressed agencies that try to meet their needs.

So, sure, this is Dad's show-off blog. I am proud of Nelia and want to honor her work. At Christmas we will be hearing about health and wholeness in Swaziland. Thanks, Nelia, for your work! Love, Dad

De-Celebritize the Salahis

Growing up in the Fifties, I was exposed to some celebrities: Ed Sullivan, Elvis, later the Beattles. This exposure was mediated by television and a few periodicals. And while the girls swooned at Elvis and Beattles performances, it was a limited exposure.

Other things mattered. Discussions at school were not exclusively about movies, television, media. In my setting, in those days, I had a life beyond those things: church, a family that actually had meals together, some civic involvements. For sure, it was not always great. I also had the gang of Kepner Junior High School thugs who waited to chase me to the bus stop and beat me up when they could and who generally made 8th grade a living hell. Still, I had a life. I didn't have to live through the lens of famous people.

It is with these thoughts that I have thought about the Salahi gate crashing incident at the White House during the State Dinner for the Indian Head of State. Leaving aside just the despicable act of crashing a party uninvited or the dangers that this act revealed to our own young Head of State, what does it mean when there are people out there whose value systems will lead them to do anything in order to bask in the glow of fame and celebrity? When I viewed the video clip of Mrs. Salahi entering the party in her sari, I have the feeling that here is a woman who somehow feels fulfilled.

If the Salahis actually had done something, anything, to contribute to the welfare of the world and its peoples--any little thing whatsoever--then at least you could say, well, maybe they have a reason for being there. But their records show nothing that is even remotely high-minded. The Salahis themselves embody what celebrity culture does to people. They demonstrate the worst that can happen in a culture regulated in its sense of attainment by what I call celebrityism: needing to rub shoulders with fame, even if you don't deserve to be there.

Outside of the legal and procedural and security issues that the Salahi gate crashing raise, we should think a little about how many other Salahis are out there: People whose highest value and ethic is being famous or being with the famous. People who have this value are devoid of substance. And I worry about young persons who are immersed in this kind of culture.

This is where I have conflicting feelings. By calling attention to this couple, even in this blog, and even for reasons of arresting such incursions into the White House in the future, are we essentially giving them what they want?

They weren't celebrities. Now they are. How can we de-celebritize the Salahis while discussing the serious issues their little escapade raise?

Get New Strategies for Gay Marriage

To the left:  Gay Liberation by George Segal, Sheridan Park, New York City, Photo by Dan Hoffman.

In the last few hours, the New York State Legislature denied marriage to gays by a significant margin. Now that state joins Maine, California and other states that will not allow gay persons to marry.

A couple of weeks ago I heard Tony Kushner speak in Chicago. In his hard-hitting and provocative speech, he noted that it is a grossly unfair burden to expect gays to go through fifty different legislative and referendum procedures to secure the right to marry. It is unfair and places gays on a constant roller-coaster in which, if they do secure marriage rights at one level of government, they can be withdrawn. California is a good case study.

Kushner did not spell out an alternative. Maybe this alternative lies in the courts and the congress. Maybe gay rights advocates should step back and cast this struggle from a new perspective. There must be more than one strategy to achieve gay marriage.

I think that it is time for Human Rights Campaign and Lambda and the other organizations claiming to represent gays and lesbians to address this critique. Why does this issue depend upon one state-by-state strategy only? I think Kushner is right.

Blue Ogee Resurrected!!!

Over the past year, the Blue Ogee Blog went dormant as I explored monastic spirituality, enjoyed social networking, retired from bookselling, traveled extensively and--to put it colloquially--kicked back a little.

But lately I have been thinking when reading a new book or attending a great movie or just talking about significant issues with a friend: "I would really like to write about that." So, with my gun reflection yesterday, I have reinitiated the Blue Ogee.

Truth be told, when I saw the number of site visits on the site meter (now more than 1,600) I thought, well, someone, somewhere is reading this stuff. So, here we go again. The mission of the Blue Ogee is exactly the same now as in the past and you can read it on the header for each posting.

Since I have also learned how to post photos on this blog, I am including a few recent ones for you to get acquainted with me. It will always be good

to hear your comments. (Top picture at the Printers Row Book Fair in Chicago, June, 2009--Bottom pic at a squatter settlement near Goiania, Brazil in May, 2007)

OUTLAW GUNS--ALL OF THEM

Over the past year I have become angrier and angrier about the Wild West culture that seems to be perpetuated in the United States in the name of Constitutionality. The nation is awash in guns. They are everywhere and, even if you do not see them, are definitely there: in your neighbors' closet; under the carseat; in the purse of a passing pedestrian; in the pocket of the guy in front of you in the grocery store check out line. Just because you do not see them is not a reason to live in the delusion that they are not there and that they may not be turned against you, if the circumstances conspire in that direction.

So four innocent police officers in Washington State, persons who are probably doing their best to do their job of protecting the public, are mowed down by someone with a criminal record who secures arms. There have been others: The MD who had an abortion clinic; the gay person who was at church; the cashier in an all night store who was shot here in Indianapolis just last week. And so many others. Every day's newspaper brings more tragic news . . . . . .

Look, I live exactly one block away from the worst mass murder site in the history of the city of Indianapolis. Several years ago, an entire family of Mexican immigrants to the USA--all seven of them--were murdered by two guys (actually their neighbors) who thought that they were hoarding money. The victims included childred asleep in their beds. These guys who murdered the hapless neighbor family had also been in prison. They managed to get guns. I am sure that anyone can do it.

We need some politicians who have the guts and ability to name this issue very publically and to take on organizations such as National Rifle Association. Sure, people hunt deer. But the same laws that protect those people also make it possible for guns to get into the wrong hands.

We need to understand what the constitutional issues are around arms and have a very, very public discussion on them. If there are constitutional protections, maybe they need to be amended. We need to start somewhere.

It is true that guns are everywhere, even in countries where people are prohibited from possessing them. But the difference in gun-driven crime rates is vastly different between such countries, as the United Kingdom, and the USA.

I do not want to live in a society that is violent or that has easy access to tools of violence. Hey, America, when are we going to go after the guns?

LIFE IN THE HOOD

For a good part of my life I lived in and worked with underprivileged parts of town and with underprivileged populations. This began in the Sixties as soon as I graduated from college and was sent to one of the world's poorest regions, the Northeast of Brazil. While working in missions, I spent vast amounts of time in economically poor areas. I remember once, in the early Eighties, being "smuggled" into Soweto, South Africa in the back seat of a car. This was when it was strictly prohibited by the apartheid government for whites to spend significant time in Soweto. While a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, I lived right on the boundary with Harlem and this taught me a good deal about urban poverty in the USA.

Now in my later years I have purchased a house in the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. This is one of Indianapolis' most economically challenged neighborhoods. My house, dating back to 1922, was a renovation or flip. I fell in love with it right away. I noticed that some other houses on my street were also renovated and others were not. Since I had lived in downtown Indianapolis in the Old Northside, where I rented, I thought that I was well prepared for the new arrangement.

But, moving to this neighborhood from one of the most recently gentrified parts of Indianapolis has been a rough ride. I am a liberal, progressive Christian, both theologically and politically. I was theologically trained in the heyday of Latin American liberation theology with its emphasis on "God's preferential option for the poor."

What I am finding, however, is that it is one thing to subscribe to a theological tenet and another to actually live life day to day in the hood. Maybe when I was travelling and living in Latin America and Africa I could do so "charitably" knowing that I would always return to my middle class life in the USA. It is uncomfortable for me to think this: Maybe I believed that somehow I was doing a favor for those stuck in the slums of Brazil or South Africa or wherever for me to be with them.

So now I am in the hood on a street that seems to be constituted of people of many backgrounds but including some very marginalized persons with criminal and drug backgrounds. Even though there is a kind of stability in the neighborhood (a core of residents who stay) there are plenty of houses for sale and the care of some of the houses is incredibly bad. There is a good deal of petty crime and there has been an effort by some persons who have purchased recently to establish a Crimewatch. Just one street over is the site of Indianapolis' worst mass murder in which an entire Mexican family was killed by neighbors, ex-convicts, who believed that they had money stashed away somewhere.

Here are the challenges for me: The first is to be able to say that I live in the inner city or the hood. At first, I kept telling people that I lived "near" one of Indianapolis' fine historic residential neighborhoods, Woodruff Place. With time, I realized that saying this was a way of obscuring that, sorry, I really do live in what lots of people I know consider to be a really bad neighborhood. Now I just state up front that I live in the inner city. The second is personal security. When I lived in New York City, I was street conscious but I didn't worry about my security. Now when I return home from work downtown late at night, I either take a taxi or get a ride with my partner. The walk from the bus stop doesn't feel safe for an older white haired guy. And there are precedents of muggings. The third challenge is material. I am simply afraid that I have saddled myself with an unsellable piece of property when the time comes to unload it and move on. The fourth challenge is how to live my Christian life in this neighborhood. Since I walk and ride a bike a good deal, I have made a practice of greeting most people around the neighborhood. I have tried to get to know most of my close neighbors and to practice good neighborliness. Outside of keeping up my own property and being a friendly presence, I don't have a clue. There are neighborhood associations but, frankly, I am so busy that I don't have any time for one more involvement. A friend of mine in France once told me that she did not believe in inter-class relationships that worked. At the time I dismissed this thought as elitist. Now I wonder if she was not right after all.

This isn't where I thought I would be at almost age sixty five. But this is where I am at. Personally, in spite of the challenges I have listed, I am very comfortable and blessed. My space in this neighborhood is a good space. So I guess that I will just continue to be sure that the security system is working and go on with life.

The Reading Life--'07

One of the joys of being a bookseller in retirement, as I have been for more than six years, is seeing and handling new books just as they are released. I read reviews often and get a lot out of them. But the actual experience of manipulating and even smelling the ink of a new book is much more visceral.

I don't read books in order to enhance my work at the bookstore. I read books because it is a long-established habit, put in place when I was a child due to parents who saw to it that I visited regularly the weekly bookmobile that parked in the nearby strip mall. Books have always represented journeys into other worlds--whether the worlds of others' imaginations or the actual worlds of far-off lands or times.

So what was I reading in '07? I thought that I would post a few comments on my own book log for last year. Maybe you will find something of interest.

One cluster of books that I explored focused on the Middle East. The involvement of the U.S.A. in that part of the world has demonstrated to me how little I know about Islam, Middle Eastern cultures or history. I began the year by reading President Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. Carter provides a narrative of recent Palestinian and Israeli history. He advocates an even-handed approach to Palestinian issues, advocating both Israel's right to exist and the urgent need to address Palestinian grievances. Another book that took me to an unknown place was Libyan author Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men. With shimmering, beautiful prose Matar follows the life of a nine-year old Libyan boy, Suleiman, as he is being raised in the family of opponents to the dictator Quadaffi. More than anything else, I think that this is a novel of a boy's loss of innocence. I had resisted reading a book that I thought might be a book produced for women readers mainly: Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. Nafisi, a literature professor in Tehran just as the Revolution is getting under way, details her experience of bringing together select women English literature students to discuss Austen, Elliot, Fitzgerald, Nabokov and others at her apartment. She toggles back and forth between the broad Iranian cultural and political setting, the individuals' personal lives and interactions with the great authors and texts. The power of this book--definitely a book for men as well as women--lies in the quiet act of resistance that the reading group's very existence represented. Having read a review of Let It Be Morning by Sayed Kashua in the Financial Times, I decided to find the book and read it. Kashua is a Palestinian Israeli. The novel details the events over several days when young Palestinian Israeli's home village passes from Israeli control to the control of the Palestinian authority. The confusion in the village, including violence among neighbors, is vividly described. The protagonist's own perplexity and near immobility is highlighted.

Two journalistic accounts of the occupation of Iraq caught my attention. One was The Prince of the Marshes and Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq by Rory Stewart. During the first year of occupation, Stewart was appointed deputy governor of amara and then Nasiriyah provinces in Iraq. In this diary he recounts the incredible confusion, cultural insensitivity and mostly groundless hopes of the occupiers as they attempted to impose Western notions on an ancient society. Sometimes the book is funny but mostly it points to how outrageous much of the behavior of the occupiers was. A similar book was Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Here Chandrasekaran discusses the near impermeable bubble that houses American diplomats and other non-military personnel trying to "help" Iraq. What is revealed is incredible naivete, corruption and a sense of being out of touch with day-to-day life surrounding the bubble, sometimes just yards away from the check points. The New York Times listed this volume on its list of the 10 best books of 2007.

Most of the rest of my reading in '07 was more by personal impulse rather than by theme. Since I had visited Mt. Vernon in '06 and had read with appreciation other works by eminent historian Joseph J. Ellis, I enjoyed reading His Excellency: George Washington. The fortunate aspect of this book is that Ellis recognizes Washington's greatness while at the same time calling attention to his weaknesses such as vanity and posturing. Another book that I almost closed before getting very far into it was Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides. This book describes the attempted destruction of Native American cultures in the Far West, especially the Navajo, through the lens of Kit Carson. I wasn't sure that I wanted to read about Kit Carson. But Sides spins a wonderful tale. What occured to me was how similar the bias of those Americans occupying the Far West were to the occupiers of the Middle East today.

What else? I dabbled in the classics just a little. Robert Fagles' translation of Virgil's Aeneid caught my attention and I read it with much pleasure. Also, I picked up Seamus Heaney's bilingual translation of Beowolf and read it on one sitting on my trip to Brazil. What I really liked about this book was the interfacing of the modern English text with the old English text. This very interface teaches a lot about how our language has developed in the last thousand years.

I love memoirs. Calvin Trillin wrote About Alice, a slim volume describing his long and fulfilling marriage to his wife. This was an uplifting book and reminds me that long term intimacy also exists even in a time when writes have more fun describing disfunctional families. Another memoir was by novelist Mary Gordon titled Circling My Mother. In this clear eyed book, Gordon recognizes the many contradictions in her mother--her obsessive Catholic faith and her drinking. But her love for her mother is evident. I learned from this book a lot about how in-grown immigrant and post immigrant Roman Catholic culture was up until the late sixties and seventies.

Finally, I want to mention three works of a broadlytheological nature. For many years I had wanted to just pick up and read Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. This book, based on the author time in WWII concentration camps describes how survivors of the camps were often persons who were able to find meaning through work, the inner creative life or in suffering itself. A very different volume was An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Wetern World's Most Austere Monastic Order by Nancy Klein Maguire. The author describes the experiences of five men in the world's most austere Roman Catholic order, the Carthusians. This order sort of constitutes the boot camp of all orders and seemed to practice a kind of spiritual flagelation that is very strange to me. But Maguire shows that even those monks who finally give up and leave still maintain an appreciation for Carthusian practice. Alan Jones is Dean of Grace (Episcopal) Cathedral in San Francisco. He wrote Common Prayer on Common Ground: A Vision of Anglican Orthodoxy. Jones believes that the genius of Anglicanism is its sense of healthy agnosticism and its ability to allow more than one interpretation or belief. He asserts that this ability to listen to more than one side to a question without needing to take a stance is, in fact, the orthodoxy of Anglicanism.

Where did I get the time to do this reading? It helps to be dependent largely on public transportation where otherwise boring trips can be broken by good reading. Even I am surprised that I was able to do this reading--and I know that I have forgotten to mention several books.

So I wish you good reading in '08. If you want to comment, why don't you tell Blue Ogee readers what you want to read in the year ahead or what you found interesting in '07?

I'VE DECIDED FOR PRESIDENT

Here we are in the new year and the Bush countdown continues, thank God, without what I thought was going to happen and may still happen: some crazy invasion or provocation of Iran. It is impossible to imagine that rational people who govern would allow this--but, hey, this administration is full of people who are reported to believe in the Left Behind series and who, at lower levels, are graduates of Patrick Henry University. So reason is left behind, opening the doors to n'importe quoi.

In the meantime, a real and much greater danger, Pakistan, with its nuclear missiles and abilities, is in chaos mainly because the same incompetent administration that got this nation into war in Iraq under false pretenses chose to support one leader only and then bungled fatally the return of Benazir Butto.

It is very unfortunate that a country that formerly enjoyed high standing in the world has gone down such a crazy path in the most volatile region in the world, leaving many domestic and other international issues in limbo. Whoever is elected President of the United States is going to inherit one huge mess. This is why I am taking this election extremely seriously--the stakes are simply too great to ignore.

Actually, I have attempted to be relatively open-minded about the choices facing the electorate, even watching several of the Republican Party debates and trying to listen to what those guys are saying. The problem for me is that all of the Republican candidates are spending their time posturing over how to support the already failed Iraq policy and who is the most conservative and who is the most Christian. The most discouraging and disheartening moments of the last two weeks has been watching them, including last night on the ABC debate, not generate one single new idea.

On the other hand, in spite of their considerable differences, I have found that all of the the Democrat candidates are actually talking new ideas and offering hope that the future might be less of the present. And they know how to construct sentences in a correct and lucid and sometimes even inspiring manner. At this point, because the Indiana primaries come so late that they will just be a footnote or sideshow, I have decided that I will vote for whoever is the Democratic nominee. I could live with all three of the current front runners.

However, I watched the crowds at the Iowa caucuses respond to Barrack Obama and I saw how he ignited their faces and their hopes. I saw young people around him at his celebration after the caucuses. So, for the moment, I am thinking that it would do America a lot of good to cast our lot with someone who can, for once, inspire. I know that resumes and past experience are important. But in a world in which our own young people and a great part of the international population are alienated from the best in this country, it is not negligible to imagine Obama as president. So much for experience when you consider where G.W. a supposedly experienced governor of a major state, has led us.

I am decided. Obama is my candidate. But plan B is, ok, if he does not get the nomination, I will vote for any Democratic nominee.

We need change--the more the better.

FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!

Well, since Thanksgiving I have been thinking a lot about food--preparation, entertainment, purchasing. Now that the big Christmas week is here, I am getting stuff ready for my family and a few friends who will visit. Probably some of you are doing the same. So I want to recommend a wonderful book and website that might be of interest to you and you prepare those feasts.

At the bookstore where I work, I sometimes get advance readers copies of books that are about to be released. In October I picked up a book titled The Amateur Gourmet by Adam D. Roberts (New York: Bantam, 2007). Adam is a self-taught cook who left the practice of law in order to follow his heart right into the kitchen. He loves cooking, takes great delight in having his friends around and writes a warm and joyous prose (and, ironically, he was trained in law school!!!). As you can imagine, I read a good number of books in 2007, mostly ponderous theological, political and historical volumes. But I am naming Adam's book my selection for best book of 2007. The reason: His contagious enthusiasm moves the reader away from packaged or fast food to something very basic and essential: Cooking and eating well.

The good thing is that if you do not have access to his book, you can get to know him, his cooking, his partner and his friends through a fabulous website. Just go to: www.amateurgourmet.com and you can even sign up for his postings. Do it! And then try some of his cooking. Later this week, when my daughter Nelia spends time in Indianapolis from Washington, DC, I plan of baking with her his most recent offering on Red Velvet Cake.

So this is my final blog of the year. I am glad that I revived The Blue Ogee. Your readers comments, both public and private, have been much appreciated.

Have a good holiday and New Year.

ONE THING AT A TIME

There she was in the bookstore staff break room: watching a DVD, talking to a friend on the phone, eating and reading a magazine--all at the same time! I watched this exercise in multitasking with utter amazement. How is it possible to be present to each task in such a situation? For sure, I was acutely aware of age. I am 64 and she is 21. Is my generation as comfortable with multi-tasking as her generation apparently is?

Even during the day, as a bookseller, I wear an earpiece and there are simultaneous conversations occurring on it while I am working with customers. Often I just yank it out because I have trouble doing more than one thing at a time.

Is this because I am a guy? I read somewhere that women are more prone to multitasking because of their multiple responsibilities in work and at home. That sounds plausible. But I am thinking that age is now more of a factor. Listen to the while doing homework. Watch TV while reading . . . . . .

It now seems that in America multi-tasking is the big thing. And yet, I am happiest and feel most inner harmony when I can give full focused concentrated attention to single tasks.

This becomes clear to me when I am involved in my other part time job as a cleaner of downtown residences. I love this work. The reasons are many. I can see a concrete difference in the looks of the house when I leave. I enjoy the people I clean for. Sometimes the activity of cleaning houses makes me feel cleaner.

The business of cleaning in silence involves working out strategies for reaching a goal (a beautiful polished and clean home). You can't do this by juggling three things at a time. It is only accomplished by one small task after another. Dust the baseboard. Polish the table. Disinfect the toilet. Vacuum the carpet . . . .the tasks are multiple but they cannot be done in groupings but only one after another.

So cleaning has taught me the wisdom and discipline of one thing after another. Of one thing at a time. This is how life works.

In silence I clean. I am present to single tasks aimed at a final goal. I take it one thing at a time.
You can't have it all at once.

WATERBOARD BUSH AND CHENEY

In the mid 1960's, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil. This was at the height of the American-sponsored military dictatorship in that country. During that period, many people who were opposed to the military simply disappeared and many others were detained without habeas corpus and experienced torture. This was not a secret. Everyone in Brazil and the world outside of Brazil knew what was up.

The ideological self justification of the military was anti-communism and the Cold War. They were fighting against radical terrorists who were threatening the order of things (meaning the very wealthy and landowning oligarchs).

Naive Peace Corps volunteer that I was, I believed that the U.S. supported the Brazilian military but that we ourselves would never practice torture on opponents. Of course, Brazilian slums in the state of Pernambuco were a long way from Viet Nam and it was way too easy just to remain ignorant of what our troops might be doing over there. So I was permitted a
smugness that more or less persisted in my mind until post 9/11 and the resulting huge flow of information on how our own government, in the name of another big ideological struggle, deals with detainees.

During the past several weeks, I have become very alarmed by pronouncements from government officials regarding torture. Calling waterboarding anything other than torture seems to me just to engage in games of opportunistic euphemisms. I was surprised, as were many other Americans, to learn that the candidate for attorney general of the United States (subsequently confirmed) stated that he didn't know whether or not waterboarding constituted torture. President Bush himself states that the U.S. simply does not practice torture but that we do waterboard. This week there were many media interviews of persons who have administered waterboarding to detainees and even our own soldiers. At least one of these persons stated that the method, sometimes euphemistically termed "simulated drowning" was in fact torture. He mentioned that it is a method that was used in the Inquisition.

My proposal is this: Since there are soldiers and other government officials dealing with waterboarding who must undergo the experience themselves and since the Bush administration asserts that this is not really torture, why not demonstrate the benign nature of it all by publicly undergoing the exercise. Yes, I invite Bush and Cheney to undergo waterboarding and then I will listen, maybe, to what the have to say. Since they consider it relatively harmless, they might consider it just another day's work, say, something like taking a flu shot as an example fo the American public.

Hey, George and Dick, what about it?

P.S. A final thought: It seems to me a very short jump from waterboarding foreign detainees for whatever reason and finding that this is an acceptable practice within the United States on Americans themselves. Just a pause for thought . . . . . . . .

A CRACKED WELCOME

When I moved to this 1920's home in Indianapolis' inner city and began fixing it up last year, I consciously wanted it to be a place of hospitality. So I hung a beautiful little ceramic plaque stating "Welcome" at the doorpost.

If I were asked if the idea of a hospitable home has worked, I would probably say "More or less." On the "more" side I have had some great dinners for family and friends. There have been several international visitors who have stayed here: one from Brazil and another from Germany. At some social events here people have met new acquaintances. One visitor said that when she came here, she always felt special.

On the "less" side of my response, the list is longer. Because the house is located in a neighborhood where crime does happen, I am very careful when I open the door after the doorbell rings. A friend asked to stay here for a week with his partner and I turned him down not because of space but because I felt too busy at the time. I spend more time imagining great social moments than in actually implementing them.

Sometimes it seems that my hospitality is more about how I want to understand myself than how I actually practice my relationships with others. How is it possible to practice a hospitable life when fear and busy-ness characterize our society and ourselves?

Being hospitable seems to me all about what happens also when I am away from this house, interacting with others. Is my body language welcoming? Do I listen? Do I "boundary" others outside of my space? How do I respond to persons who are definitely "other"--homeless, panhandlers, etc.?

A few months ago, I was trying to get into my mail box and knocked the "Welcome" plaque off its hook. It fell and cracked into two pieces. I took it into the house and managed to glue it together with Gorilla Glue. It is back on its hook now, a cracked, definitely imperfect "Welcome." It announces to all and to me that, yes, there is a welcome in this house on Tecumseh Street but it is less than perfect: for the time being, a cracked welcome.