I'm sure you're right for the reason for our different reactions, that you identify with the state, and I don't. I have, I think, the same hurt though, only it comes from a slightly different direction. My hurt that things aren't going right doesn't come from a sense of a state having let me down or not following a right path, but a terrible grief that we humans are so cruel to each other, that humanity as a whole has let itself so down. I just don't know sometimes how we - humanity - will ever answer the Almighty when he asks us why we have not been our brothers' keepers and why we weren't kinder to each other.
In the story of creation, God specifically assigns humanity the task of being the keepers of the Garden and all we ever do is blow it. Around Easter time there was an interesting thing on the Discovery Channel on Cain and Abel, and the point was made that the word "blood," as in "thy brother's blood cries out to me from the ground" - the word in Hebrew would actually translate to the plural - "thy brother's bloods cries out to me from the ground."
In other words, what the person was saying, was all the generations that would have come from Abel cried out to God from the ground. That has been haunting my dreams lately. All the generations that cry out from our bloody ground.
My thoughts aren't as organized as I would like, due in part to what I am doing on the side, but the thought occurred to me yesterday, that was I was trying to say about Jeremiah Wright's speech is that the essence, to me, of what he said, of what I heard that he said is that the rich countries, like the US, or like Canada, whatever charitable things we do, we are like the rich men in the Temple, pouring our coins with great pomp and circumstance as an offering. There are others who give little, like the widow's mites, but that what they give is all that they have.
I don't speak simply of money, but of the spirit of our giving.
Well, you certainly ask an interesting and hard question at the end of your post about searching for common ground with other faiths. Paul searched for common ground too, as in when he told the Ephesians, I believe, that he was there to preach the "Unknown God" to which they had set up altars, to them.
However, the difference is that he used what there was in their culture to preach Christ not to water down Christ. Far too often when people search for common ground, what that means is that they deny Christ the place at the right hand of the Father in their effort to find common ground. They become unequally yoked.
Layla
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Ah there's the rub
Perhaps it's because you don't vote - but the reason I ignore politics as much as possible isn't a lack of interest in the way the world works or things go together, but because it always seems to be done so very wrong. It's been long and long that anyone's done something I could be proud of being part of as an American. Because I *do* so self-identify, it's painful to me.
For myself, I'm more likely to pay attention to international politics or religious trends worldwide, or what one might call the "mental state" of a group of people rather than what my own government does or doesn't do. Heavens, my *city* government annoys and disgusts me, how much more so the other levels?
Speaking of which, what are your thoughts on the efforts by (some) leading Muslim and Christian leaders to find common ground?
For myself, I'm more likely to pay attention to international politics or religious trends worldwide, or what one might call the "mental state" of a group of people rather than what my own government does or doesn't do. Heavens, my *city* government annoys and disgusts me, how much more so the other levels?
Speaking of which, what are your thoughts on the efforts by (some) leading Muslim and Christian leaders to find common ground?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
more on fools
You're more than welcome on my front porch. I realized however, that I didn't specifically include Canada in my general feel of how things are going. I think that the west has seriously sinned in the eyes of God. I don't think we want so much to do good to the world as we want to do what is good for us personally. Sometimes the two coincide, but if they don't we are more than happy to turn a blind eye, like what happened for instance in the genocide in Rwanda. They had nothing at all that the west wanted. So what did we care, generally speaking, if they died or if they lived? Our chickens will all come home to roost. We have had the benefit of the word of God and we have twisted it and used it for our own ends and to keep other people under our thumbs. I do not believe that God will leave that unpunished.
Ultimately we are all, black and white and brown and yellow, responsible for our own sins, but there is also a judgement of nations on the final day. And I don't think that either of our countries is going to look that good.
For myself, I am interested in politics because I live in the world. I am interested in the whole sociology of it all, how things fit together and what has led to what. I am not interested in politics in the sense of believing there is a future here to be had - I firmly, and every day more believe the only citizenship I have is in Heaven, so in terms of an eternal POV, I find I don't really favor one side over the other.
My half black and half white nieces and nephews live in a large city and they go to a private Catholic school which is very mixed, upper middle class. In spite of it being a Catholic school, there are Muslim students as well as Christians from many denominations, including nominally Christian, and children from atheist families. But they have been called the 'n' word. They didn't know what it meant.
My sister and BIL are not at all activists in any sense of the word, not even in terms of informing them that different races exist. To my nieces and nephews, every one is just people. They have black grandparents and white grandparents, black aunts and uncles and white. They don't know the difference - or didn't until someone focused on a difference.
What I see the worst of here is people's attitudes towards First Nations peoples. I wouldn't ever say that Canadians are better than Americans because there's less racism towards blacks - I have no doubt at all that that is only because we have far less blacks here. Whatever is more in evidence, people will be prejudiced against. Here it is the First Nations who live in poverty, in crime because we as a white society have put them there. They did not put themselves there. And we have kept them there while loudly and proudly proclaiming our distaste at the UN over other nations' human rights violations. We are no better than they are. Our discrimination and our violation of their God-given dignity has simply taken a different form.
And I know it is more than a little weird that I have no fear of walking down dark alleys regardless of who is there. It is quite possible that if it were someone other than myself, I would fear, I don't know. I don't know why I have no fear at all in that regard. It's not even that I deliberately put myself in danger. I don't think about it until later when I realize what I have done. Anyway, whether through absent-mindedness or whatever, I've been in enough strange places to find myself fearless in that regard, but only because I know who holds my life in His hands.
I once found myself in a country in Latin America, not Mexico, btw, lost in what was a very poor area of town. I wasn't familiar with the area and wanted to find a restaurant. I hadn't realised that it was Sunday and almost everything was closed. All of a sudden I found myself surrounded by at least a dozen men wanting to know what I wanted. "A restaurant," I told them.
One of them escorted me to his grandmother's house, where I ate, and then realized that I had forgotten my wallet at the hotel. They spoke poor English and I didn't speak whatever dialect they were speaking. But jeepers that was embarrassing. I made myself understood as best as I could, hurried back to the hotel, got my wallet, and hurried back to the place and paid the lady. In retrospect I realized how badly it could all have gone. I was also wearing embarrassingly expensive jewellery. I only learned later that the area had some serial killer on the loose who preyed on tourists.
In real life, if I were to have actually thought about it, I wouldn't have found myself there to begin with, and I wouldn't have been there wearing the jewellery I was wearing. God takes care of his fools, I guess.
Layla
Ultimately we are all, black and white and brown and yellow, responsible for our own sins, but there is also a judgement of nations on the final day. And I don't think that either of our countries is going to look that good.
For myself, I am interested in politics because I live in the world. I am interested in the whole sociology of it all, how things fit together and what has led to what. I am not interested in politics in the sense of believing there is a future here to be had - I firmly, and every day more believe the only citizenship I have is in Heaven, so in terms of an eternal POV, I find I don't really favor one side over the other.
My half black and half white nieces and nephews live in a large city and they go to a private Catholic school which is very mixed, upper middle class. In spite of it being a Catholic school, there are Muslim students as well as Christians from many denominations, including nominally Christian, and children from atheist families. But they have been called the 'n' word. They didn't know what it meant.
My sister and BIL are not at all activists in any sense of the word, not even in terms of informing them that different races exist. To my nieces and nephews, every one is just people. They have black grandparents and white grandparents, black aunts and uncles and white. They don't know the difference - or didn't until someone focused on a difference.
What I see the worst of here is people's attitudes towards First Nations peoples. I wouldn't ever say that Canadians are better than Americans because there's less racism towards blacks - I have no doubt at all that that is only because we have far less blacks here. Whatever is more in evidence, people will be prejudiced against. Here it is the First Nations who live in poverty, in crime because we as a white society have put them there. They did not put themselves there. And we have kept them there while loudly and proudly proclaiming our distaste at the UN over other nations' human rights violations. We are no better than they are. Our discrimination and our violation of their God-given dignity has simply taken a different form.
And I know it is more than a little weird that I have no fear of walking down dark alleys regardless of who is there. It is quite possible that if it were someone other than myself, I would fear, I don't know. I don't know why I have no fear at all in that regard. It's not even that I deliberately put myself in danger. I don't think about it until later when I realize what I have done. Anyway, whether through absent-mindedness or whatever, I've been in enough strange places to find myself fearless in that regard, but only because I know who holds my life in His hands.
I once found myself in a country in Latin America, not Mexico, btw, lost in what was a very poor area of town. I wasn't familiar with the area and wanted to find a restaurant. I hadn't realised that it was Sunday and almost everything was closed. All of a sudden I found myself surrounded by at least a dozen men wanting to know what I wanted. "A restaurant," I told them.
One of them escorted me to his grandmother's house, where I ate, and then realized that I had forgotten my wallet at the hotel. They spoke poor English and I didn't speak whatever dialect they were speaking. But jeepers that was embarrassing. I made myself understood as best as I could, hurried back to the hotel, got my wallet, and hurried back to the place and paid the lady. In retrospect I realized how badly it could all have gone. I was also wearing embarrassingly expensive jewellery. I only learned later that the area had some serial killer on the loose who preyed on tourists.
In real life, if I were to have actually thought about it, I wouldn't have found myself there to begin with, and I wouldn't have been there wearing the jewellery I was wearing. God takes care of his fools, I guess.
Layla
Hmm
I'm going to have to look up that text of Obama's speech, I hate listening to those things, but reading is another matter.
As for racism/classism - of *course* racism still exists and prior generations of racism have affected what class you end up in. My caveat is that some radical speakers (of whatever stripe) persist in acting like people today are still in that mental place. Maybe it's because I live in a very mixed city... I don't know. Maybe I object to it so much because I took a very liberal subject in college and I've found so much of what I was taught was tilted so much as to be virtually useless. It does make a difference in how you think if you live a big town and you have no way of evaluating the relative danger that someone presents other than their skin color and manner of dress.
Here I'd say it's *vastly* more how you dress than your skin color. I remember back in HS, my male friends all used to wear field jackets and occasionally spoke German - someone thought they were starting a skinhead gang. If I was a middle aged non-white woman, seeing that group walk down the street would have made me justifiably nervous. When I see young males of any color in a group, the first thing I look at is what they're wearing. Gang clothes? "Normal clothes"? (You'll remember the Angeleno gang member - which you could see by his clothing - who had the SWAT team two doors down from me. He glared at me for looking out my *own window* on a Sunday morning when he and his cronies were on their way back from something requiring identification concealment). Am I afraid? Yes... sometimes a bit. It's a reaction, like having your knee whacked and kicking. Do I live in that fear? No, I agree - if God wants me dead/hurt, He will arrange that (she says, looking at her crutches).
Yes, America has hurt other nations. I ... think the reason we try to defend ourselves is that (at least the way it's presented to the people of this nation) is that we want to HELP. And we do. We try to be the police officer, the social services worker, and the conscience to the world. If the elite who bend reality use that well-meaning for their own foul purposes... how is that surprising? I see us trying and trying and failing... and the only thing I come up with is, "Come, Lord Jesus, Come!" His rule will be perfect - it will also be totally authoritarian and very strict. Governed by the Living Christ, 1000 years afterwards, Satan will be able to stir up rebellion... not even God's Son, a member of the Trinity, will be universally liked.
I don't know if you remember or not - but I do agree with the comparison of America and Rome. And I also agree that we're about to fail, just as Rome did. I live in a completely non-sustainable area... there's not enough water here to support 1/10th of the people that live here. Forget food, forget transportation, there will be NO WATER if something dire happens. And it's about to - I believe that with all my heart. I don't *like* it, but I believe it.
In the year 2010, the euro will go paperless. Right now the dollar is dying. Europe is about to become one country for all intents and purposes. Russia and China and India are doing things under the surface. Africa is dying out. South America is ??? but news there isn't good. Famine is going to be widespread this year as wheat prices are rising and the effects of the weather here and the wheat rust haven't taken effect. Corn's going up. The rice harvest is off, prices are going up there. And America is fat and lazy and focused on bread and circuses. What do you *think* will happen? Hungry people don't play nicely. Hungry governments don't either. No, I believe we're about to die off... but hopefully Jesus will come and rapture us out before it hits. If not... you may find me on your front porch, kids in tow.
As for racism/classism - of *course* racism still exists and prior generations of racism have affected what class you end up in. My caveat is that some radical speakers (of whatever stripe) persist in acting like people today are still in that mental place. Maybe it's because I live in a very mixed city... I don't know. Maybe I object to it so much because I took a very liberal subject in college and I've found so much of what I was taught was tilted so much as to be virtually useless. It does make a difference in how you think if you live a big town and you have no way of evaluating the relative danger that someone presents other than their skin color and manner of dress.
Here I'd say it's *vastly* more how you dress than your skin color. I remember back in HS, my male friends all used to wear field jackets and occasionally spoke German - someone thought they were starting a skinhead gang. If I was a middle aged non-white woman, seeing that group walk down the street would have made me justifiably nervous. When I see young males of any color in a group, the first thing I look at is what they're wearing. Gang clothes? "Normal clothes"? (You'll remember the Angeleno gang member - which you could see by his clothing - who had the SWAT team two doors down from me. He glared at me for looking out my *own window* on a Sunday morning when he and his cronies were on their way back from something requiring identification concealment). Am I afraid? Yes... sometimes a bit. It's a reaction, like having your knee whacked and kicking. Do I live in that fear? No, I agree - if God wants me dead/hurt, He will arrange that (she says, looking at her crutches).
Yes, America has hurt other nations. I ... think the reason we try to defend ourselves is that (at least the way it's presented to the people of this nation) is that we want to HELP. And we do. We try to be the police officer, the social services worker, and the conscience to the world. If the elite who bend reality use that well-meaning for their own foul purposes... how is that surprising? I see us trying and trying and failing... and the only thing I come up with is, "Come, Lord Jesus, Come!" His rule will be perfect - it will also be totally authoritarian and very strict. Governed by the Living Christ, 1000 years afterwards, Satan will be able to stir up rebellion... not even God's Son, a member of the Trinity, will be universally liked.
I don't know if you remember or not - but I do agree with the comparison of America and Rome. And I also agree that we're about to fail, just as Rome did. I live in a completely non-sustainable area... there's not enough water here to support 1/10th of the people that live here. Forget food, forget transportation, there will be NO WATER if something dire happens. And it's about to - I believe that with all my heart. I don't *like* it, but I believe it.
In the year 2010, the euro will go paperless. Right now the dollar is dying. Europe is about to become one country for all intents and purposes. Russia and China and India are doing things under the surface. Africa is dying out. South America is ??? but news there isn't good. Famine is going to be widespread this year as wheat prices are rising and the effects of the weather here and the wheat rust haven't taken effect. Corn's going up. The rice harvest is off, prices are going up there. And America is fat and lazy and focused on bread and circuses. What do you *think* will happen? Hungry people don't play nicely. Hungry governments don't either. No, I believe we're about to die off... but hopefully Jesus will come and rapture us out before it hits. If not... you may find me on your front porch, kids in tow.
Wright speech
Thanks for clarifying and you're welcome in my garage band anytime.
If I might say something, hopefully without causing offence, since I don't know just how much you followed about what Obama's pastor actually said, what he said was that if America did not change it's ways, then "God damn America if it does not change its ways" for among other things, enslaving their black brothers, for putting Japanese Americans in concentration camps, for causing the deaths of millions of innocents over the world. There is not one word in that that is a lie. That, as far as I can see, is perfectly in keeping with all of the prophets in the Old Testament, from Israel to Nineveh and on.
God warns nations with damnation all the time if they do not change their ways. It is hard for Americans to hear, and it is very hard for non-Americans to say to an American, but American policies have caused a world of hurt to many throughout the world and what that pastor said, is how the world sees America. Outside America, there are many private conversations these last few years, in which - and not with glee at all - people believe they are seeing the last days of America, just as Rome experienced its last days. To many outside the US, there is no difference at all between Rome and the US.
The first news bites regarding Jeremiah Wright that came out only had the "God damn America." They didn't have the context. It's unfortunate that they hardly ever do have the context but go for what will create the most outrage. I would link to the text but it seems only to be audio and my computer can't handle that. CNN played the whole context the other night which is why I happen to know it.
But, if you are interested in Obama's response, this is the written link. And here is a rather interesting article that someone wrote on Wright's speech.
I would beg to differ slightly about your observation about class and racism though in the sense that it is the racism that brought about the class. When people have been torn from their roots, when families have been sold apart in slavery so that all natural family ties are broken, when up until the 60s black men had their masculinity looked down upon and were to step aside every time a white man came along - where is the pride supposed to come from?
I have a friend in the northern US. I wince because she always refers to race. As in if two people get into a fight, she will say that a black man and a white man fought. Race is always mentioned. Honestly I think I am probably a little weird because I think I might just be color-blind. I don't notice race. It has to be pointed out to me. There can be one black man in a room full of white people and if someone were to say "that black man over there", I would be the one staring around the room asking, "Where?" I just don't see color.
I also think that just like Germans with their Nazi past being a little sensitive to subjects like Jews, Americans are more than a little sensitive in the same way about black Americans and haven't yet come to terms with what slavery did and how it reverberates to this day. It is hard, as a person, never mind what color you are, to forgive and move on when there is no true understanding in the heart of just how you were wronged by the other party.
I think white Americans aren't even aware of how pervasive the racism is. Obviously there are going to be differences depending on where you go in the US, but I've traveled through most states, and I've never not been aware of the racism. It just comes out in the strangest situations when there isn't even any reason for it. It's sort of like when you live somewhere, you don't notice certain things because they are the norm. I'm sure you would notice a lot of things here that I don't notice because I live here. And it's the same thing with other nationalities when they travel to the US - they notice because they don't live there.
Please don't think I'm throwing stones. We do not have the history of slavery here that you have. But what we do have is native Canadians living in similar poverty and taking up similar positions in our jails and having a similar lack of 'class' which isn't a matter of class, it is a matter of racism which is what led to the poverty to begin with.
We are one of the richest countries in the world and we ignore our native problem like we had nothing to do with it, as though we are not our brothers' keepers. The people living today may not have personally done what was done to the natives, but there is a responsibility. It is not easy to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps when someone stole your boots. And it isn't up to us to judge others but to help our brothers, whoever they may be, in whatever need they happen to be.
Of course, I should say here that a lot of people think I'm a little insane in that there isn't any street anywhere I'm afraid to walk down, in any city. When people ask me for money, I give them money with a "God bless you." I've never had any problems. The God who brought the children of Israel out of slavery across the Red Sea is surely able to keep me from harm if he wishes to. But I haven't read anywhere where I should pass by or not give to someone who asks me for anything.
Who you are isn't always your choice. My half black and half white nieces and nephews are always going to have their every move judged by the black color of their skin. If they get into trouble as teenagers, there are people who will attribute that to their black skin. The fact that they are half-white will never enter into it. They will be judged by blacks and whites alike as black people, not as whites. There will be people who will not hire them because they are black. They won't be told that's the reason, but that will be the reason.
They will never have the choice to claim only their white heritage. They shouldn't have to make a choice, but that's not really the point. They will have to deal with things that I, as a white person, will never have even considered. I never have to wonder if I'm turned down for a job or someone seems unfriendly to me if it is because of my skin color. They will wonder that. Although, again, the circumstances here are quite a bit different since there are a lot fewer blacks here. Most of the racism is directed at Native Canadians, and it is there, believe me, and as strongly as the racism against blacks in the US.
Anyway, my main thing that I don't understand is how "God bless America" said in church either by or related to a political situation isn't taking God's name in vain and isn't perceived to be a bad thing, and "God damn America" said in church and either by or related to a political thing is a bad thing. I don't get it.
I don't see how you can have things both ways. Either all mention of political things should be kept out of church (which I am highly for) or not. I remember when Bush was running for president, there was a pastor somewhere who apparently threatened his flock with excommunication if they didn't vote Republican. There was an outcry, but it wasn't nearly the outcry that there has been over an oppressed people calling attention to injustice.
And just to be perfectly clear for anyone who reads this post, I'm not American, don't vote, and it's not about whether Obama should or shouldn't be president.
Layla
If I might say something, hopefully without causing offence, since I don't know just how much you followed about what Obama's pastor actually said, what he said was that if America did not change it's ways, then "God damn America if it does not change its ways" for among other things, enslaving their black brothers, for putting Japanese Americans in concentration camps, for causing the deaths of millions of innocents over the world. There is not one word in that that is a lie. That, as far as I can see, is perfectly in keeping with all of the prophets in the Old Testament, from Israel to Nineveh and on.
God warns nations with damnation all the time if they do not change their ways. It is hard for Americans to hear, and it is very hard for non-Americans to say to an American, but American policies have caused a world of hurt to many throughout the world and what that pastor said, is how the world sees America. Outside America, there are many private conversations these last few years, in which - and not with glee at all - people believe they are seeing the last days of America, just as Rome experienced its last days. To many outside the US, there is no difference at all between Rome and the US.
The first news bites regarding Jeremiah Wright that came out only had the "God damn America." They didn't have the context. It's unfortunate that they hardly ever do have the context but go for what will create the most outrage. I would link to the text but it seems only to be audio and my computer can't handle that. CNN played the whole context the other night which is why I happen to know it.
But, if you are interested in Obama's response, this is the written link. And here is a rather interesting article that someone wrote on Wright's speech.
I would beg to differ slightly about your observation about class and racism though in the sense that it is the racism that brought about the class. When people have been torn from their roots, when families have been sold apart in slavery so that all natural family ties are broken, when up until the 60s black men had their masculinity looked down upon and were to step aside every time a white man came along - where is the pride supposed to come from?
I have a friend in the northern US. I wince because she always refers to race. As in if two people get into a fight, she will say that a black man and a white man fought. Race is always mentioned. Honestly I think I am probably a little weird because I think I might just be color-blind. I don't notice race. It has to be pointed out to me. There can be one black man in a room full of white people and if someone were to say "that black man over there", I would be the one staring around the room asking, "Where?" I just don't see color.
I also think that just like Germans with their Nazi past being a little sensitive to subjects like Jews, Americans are more than a little sensitive in the same way about black Americans and haven't yet come to terms with what slavery did and how it reverberates to this day. It is hard, as a person, never mind what color you are, to forgive and move on when there is no true understanding in the heart of just how you were wronged by the other party.
I think white Americans aren't even aware of how pervasive the racism is. Obviously there are going to be differences depending on where you go in the US, but I've traveled through most states, and I've never not been aware of the racism. It just comes out in the strangest situations when there isn't even any reason for it. It's sort of like when you live somewhere, you don't notice certain things because they are the norm. I'm sure you would notice a lot of things here that I don't notice because I live here. And it's the same thing with other nationalities when they travel to the US - they notice because they don't live there.
Please don't think I'm throwing stones. We do not have the history of slavery here that you have. But what we do have is native Canadians living in similar poverty and taking up similar positions in our jails and having a similar lack of 'class' which isn't a matter of class, it is a matter of racism which is what led to the poverty to begin with.
We are one of the richest countries in the world and we ignore our native problem like we had nothing to do with it, as though we are not our brothers' keepers. The people living today may not have personally done what was done to the natives, but there is a responsibility. It is not easy to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps when someone stole your boots. And it isn't up to us to judge others but to help our brothers, whoever they may be, in whatever need they happen to be.
Of course, I should say here that a lot of people think I'm a little insane in that there isn't any street anywhere I'm afraid to walk down, in any city. When people ask me for money, I give them money with a "God bless you." I've never had any problems. The God who brought the children of Israel out of slavery across the Red Sea is surely able to keep me from harm if he wishes to. But I haven't read anywhere where I should pass by or not give to someone who asks me for anything.
Who you are isn't always your choice. My half black and half white nieces and nephews are always going to have their every move judged by the black color of their skin. If they get into trouble as teenagers, there are people who will attribute that to their black skin. The fact that they are half-white will never enter into it. They will be judged by blacks and whites alike as black people, not as whites. There will be people who will not hire them because they are black. They won't be told that's the reason, but that will be the reason.
They will never have the choice to claim only their white heritage. They shouldn't have to make a choice, but that's not really the point. They will have to deal with things that I, as a white person, will never have even considered. I never have to wonder if I'm turned down for a job or someone seems unfriendly to me if it is because of my skin color. They will wonder that. Although, again, the circumstances here are quite a bit different since there are a lot fewer blacks here. Most of the racism is directed at Native Canadians, and it is there, believe me, and as strongly as the racism against blacks in the US.
Anyway, my main thing that I don't understand is how "God bless America" said in church either by or related to a political situation isn't taking God's name in vain and isn't perceived to be a bad thing, and "God damn America" said in church and either by or related to a political thing is a bad thing. I don't get it.
I don't see how you can have things both ways. Either all mention of political things should be kept out of church (which I am highly for) or not. I remember when Bush was running for president, there was a pastor somewhere who apparently threatened his flock with excommunication if they didn't vote Republican. There was an outcry, but it wasn't nearly the outcry that there has been over an oppressed people calling attention to injustice.
And just to be perfectly clear for anyone who reads this post, I'm not American, don't vote, and it's not about whether Obama should or shouldn't be president.
Layla
Quick responses
A garage band sounds like fun! :) Yes, I really do sing poorly. If I got training and all, I would probably be a half-way decent alto - but most of the current church music is set for tenor/soprano voices and I've nothing in that range. Fortunately you can't hear me for the guitars. I remember going to women's Bible study and we'd have a small group with just a woman and her guitar to lead us... this woman had a very light soprano and I sounded like an ox singing along. I do love to sing! Well, at least someday our Maker will tune up what He's given me and point me in the correct direction for song.
As for the objection - yes, I object to a pastor saying "God Damn America". I don't care why he said it. He's a *pastor*. If a political leader says it, if an actor says it, whatever - I won't care for that person, but I hardly think they're shirking their duties. But I don't hear Paul saying, "God damn Rome" - a much worse place to live. Nor do Christians in other countries, far more repressive than our own, call from the pulpit for damnation to come on a country. Either he was taking the name of our Lord in vain or he was being serious - either is disgusting.
I think, and have thought for a long time, that race problems in America are largely a camoflague for class problems. We have a taboo about discussing class issues in America -we are supposedly all middle class! There is nothing that prevents someone of any color in America from climbing to the top - provided they have the self-expectations to do so. That comes with class. Education, in my opinion, means less what you know that what you expect of yourself to achieve. I could give you endless examples from my own family and my inlaws. Yes, there is still some racism, but *far* less than you might think. Certainly less racism that would affect opportunity (for instance I can't even imagine race being taken into negative effect in a hiring situation, and non-white/Asian races are given college entrance preference). Yes - African-American males are disproportionally in jails, etc. Is that racial? I'd say 20% race, 80% class. If you grow up in poverty, around people who expect nothing of themselves other than survival, and value is given to surface things - of course your opportunities will be limited.
There's no fix outside of our Lord's return. Or a total do-over... in which case we'll have new problems. (Okay, our grandchildren will - we will be frantically dealing with survival).
Don't know if this was helpful at all... :)
As for the objection - yes, I object to a pastor saying "God Damn America". I don't care why he said it. He's a *pastor*. If a political leader says it, if an actor says it, whatever - I won't care for that person, but I hardly think they're shirking their duties. But I don't hear Paul saying, "God damn Rome" - a much worse place to live. Nor do Christians in other countries, far more repressive than our own, call from the pulpit for damnation to come on a country. Either he was taking the name of our Lord in vain or he was being serious - either is disgusting.
I think, and have thought for a long time, that race problems in America are largely a camoflague for class problems. We have a taboo about discussing class issues in America -we are supposedly all middle class! There is nothing that prevents someone of any color in America from climbing to the top - provided they have the self-expectations to do so. That comes with class. Education, in my opinion, means less what you know that what you expect of yourself to achieve. I could give you endless examples from my own family and my inlaws. Yes, there is still some racism, but *far* less than you might think. Certainly less racism that would affect opportunity (for instance I can't even imagine race being taken into negative effect in a hiring situation, and non-white/Asian races are given college entrance preference). Yes - African-American males are disproportionally in jails, etc. Is that racial? I'd say 20% race, 80% class. If you grow up in poverty, around people who expect nothing of themselves other than survival, and value is given to surface things - of course your opportunities will be limited.
There's no fix outside of our Lord's return. Or a total do-over... in which case we'll have new problems. (Okay, our grandchildren will - we will be frantically dealing with survival).
Don't know if this was helpful at all... :)
Monday, March 24, 2008
This and that
Hmmm. Is your singing dreadful? The reason I ask is I am pretty sure I am going to be having a garage band this year. I always wanted to be part of a garage band and at over forty, I seem to have lost all shame. Since you're under forty, I can tell you it's a great relief not to worry about what people might think. One of the benefits to being over forty.
My grandmother was a fiddle player as well as a guitar player and she and her five sisters had quite a singing group. My great-grandfather was a shocking man because he was a fiddle player who welcomed all to his home where he fiddled away as his five beautiful daughters danced the night away with the young men who came a courting.
Anyway, my parents played the guitar and the harmonica and my mother at least has lost all shame. Bob Dylan is her favorite singer. I have various brothers-in-law and nephews who are also into the guitar and I think my shamelessness has finally convinced them to lose theirs. So so far I have four guitarists, if I count myself, two trumpet players, alas no drummers, but the parents of one of my BILs play the clarinet. And one possible mandolin player. I have two seed-filled foreign things that someone can shake in time to the music. Surely something can come of that this summer. Doncha think?
I get to the the girl singer as well since no one else is volunteering at this point. I am calling this my second childhood and we are all practising that 80s shake of the head that everyone had to get the shaggy hair out of our face. I emailed everyone a bunch of songs to practise with and when the snow is gone and the dog poop raked up, hopefully once or twice a month, we will shake, rattle and roll.
Anyway, back to Obama or maybe Jeremiah Wright, the pastor. What was the horrible thing he said in your opinion?
First of all, I thought that the controversy which seems to be mainly among white Americans, not blacks, illustrates perfectly my opposition to religion in politics as practised in the US. However, that being said, I also thought it illustrated the differences between Christian blacks and whites in the sense that unlike many who have been adversely affected by missionary efforts that decimated entire cultures and left people without anything to lean on, black American slaves took heart from the stories of Moses leading the children of Israel out of bondage. They took the gospel of Christ, and the dignity that we are all children of God and there is in Christ, neither slave nor free, to heart and it is that sort of politicising that led to the eventual abolishment of slavery. Christ gives strength to the prisioners and gives them courage to fight (without weapons) for freedom.
I don't think that most white Americans get it really. In a very real sense slavery only ended with the Civil Rights movement in the 60s when school finally became integrated and people weren't sent to the back of the bus based on race. That is not a long time for anyone to get over it, although it is always easy for the person who wasn't wronged to believe that the wronged party should just get over it already.
Slavery, particularly as practised in the US destroyed families, destroyed human dignity and self-worth, something that blacks have yet to recover from. And it is debatable whether US foreign policy has done more good than harm, on the scale of things. One can make an argument for the US in terms of WW2 but US policy has destroyed and kept in poverty most of Latin America. Like the whole which came first, the chicken or the egg, it becomes a question of whether two wrongs make a right or whether two rights right a wrong. But there are plenty of people all over the world who have every reason to damn America.
It's strange to me how white Americans can applaud a politician speaking in a white church and saying "God bless America" and promoting the idea that the US is somehow better morally than other nations and that is not seen as a bad thing, but when a member of a race that is still oppressed says the opposite, that suddenly is a bad thing.
That's my beef with religion and politics and why I just don't vote any more. Everything seems to be a choice between the least of evils and nothing is actually a choice for the good.
Although, and I don't know if you heard it at all, but the speech that Obama gave after all the controversy and reruns of J. Wright's sermons, was brilliant. I don't believe that Obama will ever be president but that speech will take its place in the history books along with Martin Luther's "I Have a Dream" and Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you."
It was a grownup speech. He didn't throw anyone to the wolves just because it was politically expedient to do so. He very neatly and clearly expressed the racial divisions as they are, not how people like to pretend they are, right down to his white grandmother expressing her fear of black men on the street to her dearly loved black grandson without ever seeing the irony in that.
My utter distaste for politics and religion aside, I stood up and cheered when I heard that. I have mixed-race nieces and nephews, and in him, I saw them, trying to walk the line between their two cultures.
Layla
My grandmother was a fiddle player as well as a guitar player and she and her five sisters had quite a singing group. My great-grandfather was a shocking man because he was a fiddle player who welcomed all to his home where he fiddled away as his five beautiful daughters danced the night away with the young men who came a courting.
Anyway, my parents played the guitar and the harmonica and my mother at least has lost all shame. Bob Dylan is her favorite singer. I have various brothers-in-law and nephews who are also into the guitar and I think my shamelessness has finally convinced them to lose theirs. So so far I have four guitarists, if I count myself, two trumpet players, alas no drummers, but the parents of one of my BILs play the clarinet. And one possible mandolin player. I have two seed-filled foreign things that someone can shake in time to the music. Surely something can come of that this summer. Doncha think?
I get to the the girl singer as well since no one else is volunteering at this point. I am calling this my second childhood and we are all practising that 80s shake of the head that everyone had to get the shaggy hair out of our face. I emailed everyone a bunch of songs to practise with and when the snow is gone and the dog poop raked up, hopefully once or twice a month, we will shake, rattle and roll.
Anyway, back to Obama or maybe Jeremiah Wright, the pastor. What was the horrible thing he said in your opinion?
First of all, I thought that the controversy which seems to be mainly among white Americans, not blacks, illustrates perfectly my opposition to religion in politics as practised in the US. However, that being said, I also thought it illustrated the differences between Christian blacks and whites in the sense that unlike many who have been adversely affected by missionary efforts that decimated entire cultures and left people without anything to lean on, black American slaves took heart from the stories of Moses leading the children of Israel out of bondage. They took the gospel of Christ, and the dignity that we are all children of God and there is in Christ, neither slave nor free, to heart and it is that sort of politicising that led to the eventual abolishment of slavery. Christ gives strength to the prisioners and gives them courage to fight (without weapons) for freedom.
I don't think that most white Americans get it really. In a very real sense slavery only ended with the Civil Rights movement in the 60s when school finally became integrated and people weren't sent to the back of the bus based on race. That is not a long time for anyone to get over it, although it is always easy for the person who wasn't wronged to believe that the wronged party should just get over it already.
Slavery, particularly as practised in the US destroyed families, destroyed human dignity and self-worth, something that blacks have yet to recover from. And it is debatable whether US foreign policy has done more good than harm, on the scale of things. One can make an argument for the US in terms of WW2 but US policy has destroyed and kept in poverty most of Latin America. Like the whole which came first, the chicken or the egg, it becomes a question of whether two wrongs make a right or whether two rights right a wrong. But there are plenty of people all over the world who have every reason to damn America.
It's strange to me how white Americans can applaud a politician speaking in a white church and saying "God bless America" and promoting the idea that the US is somehow better morally than other nations and that is not seen as a bad thing, but when a member of a race that is still oppressed says the opposite, that suddenly is a bad thing.
That's my beef with religion and politics and why I just don't vote any more. Everything seems to be a choice between the least of evils and nothing is actually a choice for the good.
Although, and I don't know if you heard it at all, but the speech that Obama gave after all the controversy and reruns of J. Wright's sermons, was brilliant. I don't believe that Obama will ever be president but that speech will take its place in the history books along with Martin Luther's "I Have a Dream" and Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you."
It was a grownup speech. He didn't throw anyone to the wolves just because it was politically expedient to do so. He very neatly and clearly expressed the racial divisions as they are, not how people like to pretend they are, right down to his white grandmother expressing her fear of black men on the street to her dearly loved black grandson without ever seeing the irony in that.
My utter distaste for politics and religion aside, I stood up and cheered when I heard that. I have mixed-race nieces and nephews, and in him, I saw them, trying to walk the line between their two cultures.
Layla
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Welcome back!
And Happy Easter... He is Risen! :)
Good Friday services were needed and a true blessing here as well. I went in exhausted and beaten down from a long bad day and walked out full of my Savior's love. Sure, my church is noisy (oh boy howdy are we noisy) but it is definitely a "joyful noise unto the Lord". I'm old-school and really prefer organ and piano music, but the electric guitar and amplifiers do serve to break down the barriers - you are *there*. And no one can hear my dreadful singing, no matter how loud I want to be! :)
As for Obama... I work very diligently to ignore the candidates until they've figured out who the ones you can actually vote for are. Too many years have passed where I've become enamored of someone early on and they've garnered virtually none of the votes needed to even to the real election. But I couldn't completely ignore the foo-foo-rah about his pastor's remarks. Frankly - his pastor has said some horrible things. Do I think that means that Obama follows his pastor? Doubtful. I ... am sorry, my dear. I don't like any politician, and I tend to think that they do the most politically expedient thing rather than the most honest thing. Claiming religion is one of those things - unless I can see proof in action (and action going back well before elections were part of the picture) I tend to think they call themselves "Christians" because most Americans are Christians at least in name. Is Obama's religion that sort? No clue - as I said, I've been ignoring it most diligently. I would counsel, however, not to become too enamored of anyone whose charisma is powerful. Charisma, generally speaking, is rarely given to our brothers and sisters in Christ. My concern is that some of Obama's more vocal and powerful supporters are not the sort that I would wish to ally myself with.
Then again... I am a cheerful optimistic fatalist and I'm rather expecting the end of the world in the next few years, so expecting to get a President that I could trust and be proud of is far too much to ask. Instead I'm expecting someone who will sell his or her soul to the AntiChrist *or* someone who dies in office and is replaced by someone who will.
Speaking of which, I read the other day that the euro will be going paperless in 2010. Interesting? Ah yes, the world is extremely interesting - more so every day.
Very glad to hear that you've been so wrapped up in your project that you've been happily unaware of time passing by. :) I think it's time for me to go make coffee and get my kids ready for Easter Sunday School.
Good Friday services were needed and a true blessing here as well. I went in exhausted and beaten down from a long bad day and walked out full of my Savior's love. Sure, my church is noisy (oh boy howdy are we noisy) but it is definitely a "joyful noise unto the Lord". I'm old-school and really prefer organ and piano music, but the electric guitar and amplifiers do serve to break down the barriers - you are *there*. And no one can hear my dreadful singing, no matter how loud I want to be! :)
As for Obama... I work very diligently to ignore the candidates until they've figured out who the ones you can actually vote for are. Too many years have passed where I've become enamored of someone early on and they've garnered virtually none of the votes needed to even to the real election. But I couldn't completely ignore the foo-foo-rah about his pastor's remarks. Frankly - his pastor has said some horrible things. Do I think that means that Obama follows his pastor? Doubtful. I ... am sorry, my dear. I don't like any politician, and I tend to think that they do the most politically expedient thing rather than the most honest thing. Claiming religion is one of those things - unless I can see proof in action (and action going back well before elections were part of the picture) I tend to think they call themselves "Christians" because most Americans are Christians at least in name. Is Obama's religion that sort? No clue - as I said, I've been ignoring it most diligently. I would counsel, however, not to become too enamored of anyone whose charisma is powerful. Charisma, generally speaking, is rarely given to our brothers and sisters in Christ. My concern is that some of Obama's more vocal and powerful supporters are not the sort that I would wish to ally myself with.
Then again... I am a cheerful optimistic fatalist and I'm rather expecting the end of the world in the next few years, so expecting to get a President that I could trust and be proud of is far too much to ask. Instead I'm expecting someone who will sell his or her soul to the AntiChrist *or* someone who dies in office and is replaced by someone who will.
Speaking of which, I read the other day that the euro will be going paperless in 2010. Interesting? Ah yes, the world is extremely interesting - more so every day.
Very glad to hear that you've been so wrapped up in your project that you've been happily unaware of time passing by. :) I think it's time for me to go make coffee and get my kids ready for Easter Sunday School.
Christ is Risen
On Good Friday we went to a concert of Mozart's Requiem. The old stone church we attend once or twice a year unfortunately has no parking lot and the city has grown up around it which meant we had to walk six blocks.
I have been reflecting on some particularly bad times some years ago, which you know about in part, dear girl, and how reassuring I found it that in every country I lived in (Europe), in each village there was a church steeple to remind me that my dear Lord was known here too and that no matter what, I was not as alone as I felt. That although I was quite without any earthly relations where I was, I was not without the more important kinships that Jesus, through his blood, made possible.
Happy Easter.
Layla
I have been reflecting on some particularly bad times some years ago, which you know about in part, dear girl, and how reassuring I found it that in every country I lived in (Europe), in each village there was a church steeple to remind me that my dear Lord was known here too and that no matter what, I was not as alone as I felt. That although I was quite without any earthly relations where I was, I was not without the more important kinships that Jesus, through his blood, made possible.
Happy Easter.
Layla
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Obama
First of all, dear lady, I'm so sorry I've been MIA. *Giving myself a quick, hard slap across the face.* I've still been busy with what I had privately emailed you about. Not that is a good excuse at all.
I have a ton of questions about Barack Obama for you. The way that fits into this board, is my usual I-don't-get-the-way-Americans-mix-religion-and-politics-but-I-don't-like-it.
I like Obama though. Political views completely aside, just as a human being he is the most charismatic person I can ever remember seeing. Canadians are crazy about him and from what I hear he has the same effect in other countries. I know politics don't interest you overly much but I've been wondering if you caught any of the Obama-Jeremiah Wright pastor stuff on the news?
If so, what do you think about it? I won't ask any more just now in this post since I don't know what you've been following.
Layla
I have a ton of questions about Barack Obama for you. The way that fits into this board, is my usual I-don't-get-the-way-Americans-mix-religion-and-politics-but-I-don't-like-it.
I like Obama though. Political views completely aside, just as a human being he is the most charismatic person I can ever remember seeing. Canadians are crazy about him and from what I hear he has the same effect in other countries. I know politics don't interest you overly much but I've been wondering if you caught any of the Obama-Jeremiah Wright pastor stuff on the news?
If so, what do you think about it? I won't ask any more just now in this post since I don't know what you've been following.
Layla
Sunday, March 2, 2008
sermon link
We disagree quite often on the judgement of believers and the loss of salvation, this sermon goes over the various judgements, including those pertaining to believers, and I think clears up my position quite nicely (it should since I've been listening to Dr. McGee since I was a preschooler).
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Thru_The_Bible_Sunday_Sermon/Archives.asp
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Thru_The_Bible_Sunday_Sermon/Archives.asp
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