Thanks to Padre Mickey and the Immoral Minority.

Sometimes both passion and reason prevail.

Action over deliberation

"Action over deliberation, decision over debate" -- Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

This is one of the election promises that was made at the Republican Convention tonight. Makes sense for those who eschew thought, study, reflection, and discussion, who would frankly rather fight than carefully consider the consequences of throwing a punch or pulling a trigger. But is this any way to govern or lead a nation?

A more complex view of the role of reason and passion in civic life is presented in a new book Civil Passions: Moral Sentiment and Democratic Deliberation by Sharon Krause. I have not had the opportunity to read it yet, but I am intrigued by the Introduction. It's a bit heavy with academic prose, but it does speak to some of what strikes me as wrong with the current political climate. Consider the following excerpt:

Deliberation is demanding, and for many people this fact may recommend against it. The truth is that citizenship imposes certain burdens on us. Liberal democracy makes these burdens light when compared with some other forms of government but it cannot do away with them entirely. The notion that liberty and equality—the great promises of liberal-democratic government—could be had for free is a dream. The realization of liberty and equality demands many things of us as citizens, but one of them surely is impartial deliberation. Unless public deliberation achieves impartiality, our decision making will be hostage to prejudice and the vagaries of power, with the result that those who have less (less status, less power, fewer resources) will get less (less freedom, less equality). Impartial deliberation is a key to making the promises of liberal democracy real for all of us. Yet liberal democracy also is necessary to the development of impartiality, or so I shall argue in the chapters to come.

There is a circle here, or at least a relationship of mutual dependence. If human beings were not fallible by nature, if we were not naturally limited in the extent of our sympathies and concerns, we would not need liberal-democratic institutions and practices to foster the extensive moral sentiment that impartial judgment requires. If the liberal-democratic principles of liberty and equality were self-justifying and self-actuating, and if the institutions of liberal democracy were self-guiding, we would not need impartial deliberation. As it is, we need both and they depend on each other.

While the demands of impartial deliberation are high, they are demands that we can satisfy, at least so long as we acknowledge the affective dimensions of deliberation. Again, to acknowledge these dimensions is not to bring more passions into politics. There are plenty of passions in politics already. Moral sentiment does involve the public communication of sentiments and a refined faculty of sympathy, and justice will require that some previously silenced sentiments find a new voice on the public stage. But the communication of sentiments is already happening all around us; deliberation is steeped in passions as it is. The challenge is to civilize the passions that we cannot avoid and that practical reason cannot fully transcend....

Read the rest at Introduction.

The Politics of Hate

There is a great deal to read and digest over at Father Terry's new place. One is a link to an article fs apparently has cited before, "The Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism" by Walter A. Davis. There is much that crosses the boundaries of both religion and politics. Here is one passage.

... the emotion in which the literalist passion is grounded. Hatred--of all complexities; of anything that can't be reduced to the simplicity of absolute dogmas and the need to impose that hatred upon the world in a totalizing way. It is sometimes alleged that fundamentalists are just like the rest of us, confused by the world and seeking something to hang onto as a portal in the storm. This view is invalidated by the nature of the answers that the fundamentalist finds: answers that annihilate the problem, turn the desire for knowledge into a farce, and make of confusion the motive for self-infantalization.

[reprinted at Counterpunch].

What seems so bizarre about the political news of the last several days is how swiftly and deftly the Republican spinmasters and their allies have twisted and turned just about everything upside down. O'Reilly, among others, has gone after all those mean and nasty Librul folks on the internet who "shock" and amaze him with the depth of their "hatred" for all things good and great and wonderful. Meanwhile, the anti-war protestors trying to be heard outside the Republican Convention are branded as "anarchists" and tossed into jail. And finally, she-who-will-not-be-named, who is being painted as the teenage victim of, not the political campaign strategists and the right wing religionists, but of those who would dare find fault with not her, but her mother.

This is not new, this Rovian world of doublespeak. But when oh when will people ever be able to talk about issues, disagree, without the incessant need of some to paint their opponents as evil, hate-filled, enemies to be vanquished at all costs?

The desire for knowledge and reason is being twisted into farce, day by day. How many people are watching as many speeches as possible at the conventions, reading, and thinking about the complex issues of war, the economy, the environment, and our relations with people throughout the world? Where is the give-and-take? Why is to disagree or even question forged into an accusation of hate or grounds for seething resentment?

Meanwhile, what about the hurricanes, Dolly and Gustav already, the others possibly yet to come? We did not get the uncut movie version of disaster that we saw during in the early days after Katrina. But the potential for an even greater disaster was there before our eyes and ears if we paid close attention to the complex engineering and weather information that trickled through the media.

The problem is not simply how to survive these disasters but how to deal with the damage they bring. Three years after Katrina and the court decisions are still grinding out at a slow pace, for the most part, the courts just doing their part to make sense of a nonsensical system in which flood damage is insured (generally underinsured) by the government and wind is covered by private insurance -- if and only if one can find the insurance and pay the premiums for both flood and private property insurance -- and no one yet quite knows who pays for what, if anything, if a combination of wind and water cause damage. There are sound underwriting reasons for this, but the government and the businessworld have had several years now to consider a more rational system of insurance or other kind of economic support for repairs and rebuilding, with little to show for it in terms of actual plans or programs. Add to the insurance question the complex ones about where and how to rebuild, even if money is available to to do so. How and when should government assist in building, require more expensive but stronger construction, rebuild infrastructure, and provide assistance and emergency services when disasters do occur?

These are just a few of the many, many issues our politicians should be talking about, among themselves, with experts, and, most of all, to and with us. But these are considered too dull, too complex, and not good for sound bites and media manipulation. The politics of hate and fear sell much more easily. So, instead of breathing a sigh of relief and giving prayers of thanks that the New Orleans levees held fast this time -- and working harder to rebuild and strengthen those that need work and barely made it -- instead of sober and hard talk, sharp disagreements and rethinking of where we go next, the circus goes on and on.

I don't know about you, but I am so, so tired of this. Chicago, 1968. I thought we'd do better by now. It just never ends. I am very weary of it all.

Going Home

This photo was taken near the end of the second visit I paid to the Midwest this summer, in late July and early August. It may well mark my mother's last visit to her home and undoubtedly the last family meal on the porch, one of her favorite places in the whole world. Not only was it the site of family meals, reading, playing games, and all sorts of informal gatherings of friends and family during seasonable weather, it was used on occasion in the cold and snow (one I recall offhand was members of the bridal party at my first wedding lighting and dancing with sparklers on a snowy late November day).

This "new" porch furniture, the porch, and the house itself will be soon up for sale. Meanwhile, Mother remains temporarily at a nursing home trying to build up her strength to travel. The plan for her to leave after my second visit never materialized when she was hospitalized for a week with some new and old problems and generally left in a much weakened condition, I went out to visit for yet a third trip in hopes that I could both keep her company and help determine whether she could travel as planned. In the end, we decided to wait yet again, and she has returned to the nursing home near her home for the time being. Meanwhile, the sale of the house and its contents is proceeding. It will never be the same as she and I last saw it.

I don't know when and if I will write about these trips. Every time there seems to be a sort of ending or resolution, things change. I have had wonderful friends and family lending their ear to the mixed feelings and concerns I have had. Meanwhile, we hope and pray that my mother will find the strength and the wherewithal to get to where she wants and needs to be.

Don't Ask, Go to Hell Policy

Colbert tells it like it is -- about the Anglicans, the Episcopalians, and the Romans. (Hat tip to The Lead). This brought one of the few laughs I've had from all the nonsense from Lambeth. (And this, which conjured up pretty much the same image I had).

The rest is too depressing for words. The "Agony and the Ecstasy" made me weep. I don't know if I want to be associated with people who treat others like that, but I guess everyone's already so busy dissociating with others that I'll just give it a rest for awhile.

Meanwhile, blogging will continue to be light (!) as I travel cross-country to see my mom and see what I can do to help her right now. Thankfully there is little of Pennsylvania along the way (no offense to Pennsylvanians, but your road repair system is... well, lacking, although I did circumvent the northern mess last week by taking Rte 11 around and about the interstate). Next stop, Chicago.

Pray with Bishop Gene

This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.

From Canterbury Tales from the Fringe.

It takes a Brit

The official account of the opening session is on ACNS and is imaginatively titled "The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams opens the Lambeth Conference."

from "Lambeth - what happened on Wednesday" at Thinking Anglicans.

Thank you Simon Sarmiento (who should be ranked far higher than No. 46 on The List) for my M.D.R. of dry British humor.

Getting back in the groove

These are some photos from our recent vacation in Maine.





It's been difficult getting back in the groove now that vacation is over. No doubt it will take several days to just get caught up with work and family and soccer, let alone the Lambeth chronicles. I realize now more than ever how I relied on Fr. Jake to collect and grasp the essential news. Also, I found it a great help to get away from it all -- Anglicana news, legal news, U.S. politics, etc. (although take a peek occasionally online on the day of the General Synod vote on women bishops, the ulitimate significance of which still eludes me).

For Lambeth news, I now find myself relying on Jim Naughton at The Lead, Allie, our favorite Lambeth steward (who seems to keep running into ++Rowan Williams), and last, but not least, +Clumber's reports on the canine and feline bishops (who seem to have taken a few side trips to the local pubs, which is a wonderful way to visit with folks in the U.K., but I worry if +Pittsburgh may end up with more than occasional headache if he keeps reading SFIF news feeds on his Google Reader). While I know there is much more to read, it's about all I can manage right now.

I hope to soon jump in at The Friends of Jake, where IT, David, Ann, Eileen, and Padre Mickey are doing a fine job of posting ideas and news of interest to all those going through Jake withdrawal. But for now, I'm still buried in work (try scanning over 300 new court opinions that piled up while I was away) and ongoing concerns and difficulties about my mother, who has been back and forth between the hospital and the rehab wing of a nursing home (since last night back in the hospital) since mid-May with various ailments (congestive heart condition, diabetes, arthritis) and possibly a new series of strokes. We (my brother in Seattle and I here in New York) have traveled back and forth to the Chicago area, where she lives, several times already and still are working on getting her moved to where we can see that she gets better care and has an appropriate place to live full-time. In my spare time, I manage my daughter's soccer playing (never easy with politics changing the make-up of teams, club-affiliations, etc. while we just try to hang on somewhere), and occasionally get to see my son, who is slaving away at a fast-food restaurant as his summer job while home from college. Thanks to vacation, I even got to see my husband for days on end, though our time together has been scarce since we've been back.

And so it goes.....

It will take awhile before I can get into blogging again. For the first time in many years I did not finish a single book (though I brought two bags of them along) during vacation. I read good chunks of Judge Wood's An Unmarked Trail and, thanks to a recommendation from Franiam, Nicholas Christopher's A Trip to the Stars. I also read bits of Whose Justice? Which Rationality (by Alasdair MacIntyre, whose ideas were addressed by ++ Rowan Willliams in his lecture on "Religious Faith and Human Rights") but did not get back to Charles Taylor's A Secular Age and Mark Lilla's The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West as I had hoped. I'm afraid the ocean, the harbor, the ships, and wind had greater allure. But somewhere in the back of my mind some things were churning, in part by contrasting Judge Wood's commonsense, practical approach to human rights and dignity and conflict resolution with those of philosophers and theologians. Some other day.......

For now, hello to anyone who still stops by, and my apologies to anyone who left posts or emails while I was on vacation with limited computer access and time. I hope to respond and get back in the groove someday soon.

When religion makes itself God, it ceases to be religion

So writes Sr. Joan Chittister in the following passage:

WHAT IS RELIGION ABOUT?

The Sufi tell of disciples who, when the death of their master was clearly imminent, became totally bereft. “If you leave us, Master,” they pleaded, “how will we know what to do?” And the master replied, “I am nothing but a finger pointing at the moon. Perhaps when I am gone you will see the moon.” The meaning is clear: It is God that religion must be about, not itself. When religion makes itself God, it ceases to be religion.

But when religion becomes the bridge that leads to God, it stretches us to live to the limits of human possibility. It requires us to be everything we can possibly be: kind, generous, honest, loving, compassionate, just. It defines the standards of the human condition. It sets the parameters within which we direct our institutions. It provides the basis for the ethics that guide our human relationships. It sets out to enable us to be fully human, human beings.

Religion at its best gives substance to life. Most of all, it enables us to find meaning in life. It gives purpose to the human condition. It sets the human compass toward home. It requires us to be more than we ever thought we could become. It raises our sights beyond ourselves. It sets standards for us that are above the lowest level of the self.

Religion, this great treasure-house of the faith, is the history of our family heroes. It presents us with an historic stream of witnesses from every people on earth who chose the holy, in the face of rejection and ridicule, whatever the cost to themselves. They dared courage, rather than cooperation with evil. They chose love, rather than law. They stood for justice, rather than self-interest. They sought the transcendent, rather than the immediate.

We walk in line with those, religion reminds us, who gave themselves for the great things of God. Doubters themselves perhaps, thinkers always, they clung to faith beyond the institution itself, beyond the “answers,” because there is a place, they knew, where answers end. And it is religion that taught them that.

At the same time, no doubt about it, religion is often religion’s own worst enemy. The tension between religion at its best and religion at its worst drives people from church to church, searching for authenticity. It drives them, as well, from the God of the institution to the God of the spirit within. When religion makes itself God, when religion gets between the soul and God, when religion demands what the spirit deplores—a division of peoples, diminishment of the self, and closed-mindedness—religion becomes the problem.

Then spirituality is the only valid answer to the cry of the soul for the kind of life that makes life possible.

From Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir by Joan Chittister (Sheed & Ward), excerpt published in the Ideas In Passing (6/30/08) newsletter.

UPDATE 7/18/08:

I'm glad you all liked this. Note that if you want more, you can get Sr. Joan's weekly email newsletter with excerpts from her writings by simply going to http://www.benetvision.org/index.html and signing up for "Ideas in Passing" (currently in box in top left column on her Home Page).

This week's "Until Now Rules Are Necessary" is another keeper. It includes this powerful passage:

Life is very short. To get the most out of it, we must begin to attend to its spiritual dimensions without which life is only half lived. Holiness is in the Now but we go through life only half conscious of it, asleep or intent on being someplace other than where we are. We need to open our eyes and see things as they exist around us: what is valuable and what is not, what enriches and what does not, what is of God and what is not. It may be the neighborhood we live in rather than the neighborhood we want that will really make human beings out of us. It may be the job we have, rather than the position we are selling our souls to get, that will finally liberate us from ourselves. It may be what we do rather than the prayers we pray that will finally be the measure of our sanctity.

from The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages by Joan Chittister (Crossroad)

Julie Foudy Gets it Right

Julie Foudy explains How the Game Was Won, clearly and simply. This was a beautiful goal -- great set-up and then an incredible shot taken while leaping over the keeper.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.