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The prayer attributed to St. Francis — Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace — has hovered at the edge of my awareness since childhood, when I first saw it on a plaque in my small-town Methodist church fellowship hall.

I’m still working on forgiveness, whose longstanding shortfall in me toward those who support(ed) BushCo threatens my undoing. I want to applaud daylight dawning on anyone. Really.

On the one hand, Hunter masterfully, justifiably, and with much truth today puts words to the phenomenon of people insisting they’re right even when they’re demonstrably wrong. I like being right, too, but “right” needs to mean “the assessment nearly all people of good will, clear thinking, and command of facts inevitably converge to,” as is now happening about BushCo [as evidenced by its plummeting poll numbers]. When discernment [finally] trumps deception, of course that’s a good thing, a wise thing. The earlier on, the better.

OTOH, spiritual health and community are more important than [kudos for] “being right.” And forgiving, yea, even forgiving willful dumbassery, past and present, is a prerequisite for both. Vengeance, I finally remember, is not mine.

In the process of working on forgiveness, still becoming — on the inside, and maybe soon, on the outside — a Quaker (which may or may not entail giving up use of the word “dumbassery”). You know that eerie, wonderful homecoming feeling you sometimes get as you learn more about something? Like, “Dear God, have I been a Quaker all my life, but didn’t know it?”

What’s being impressed upon me today, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian Nobel laureate, says well, speaking to the perennial assumption that has undergirded support for this war, that “if only we can get rid of those people, then we will all be safe and happy” (as reported by Anne in Friends Journal, Becoming an Instrument of Peace):

If only it were so simple. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were simply necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who among us are willing to destroy a piece of their own heart?

Anne’s experiential vignettes concerning becoming an instrument of peace in the midst of war are speaking to my condition today:

To walk a path of peace in a country that is deeply involved in war brings us to our growing edge.

Yes. As in, for example, growing a commitment to forgiveness where there was none. Then Anne pinpoints where I’m mostly still at in her observation —

My self-righteousness has the poisonous high of an addiction: I like it and I know that I have to root it out of my life. Over and over and over.

[I’m] busted.

Building bridges instead of burning them is such a better plan.

Walking a path of peace sometimes brings us not just to our growing edge, as Anne says, but to our dying edge, too. Rest in peace, Tom Fox. Thank you for your work, your life, and your example.

2006-03-13 update after more thinking:

So where does justice fit in? In all my “foolish talk” about forgiveness, am I whitewashing over BushCo immorality and crimes against God and humanity (e.g., fiscal irresponsibility, destroying creation, screwing the poor, spying illegally, bearing false witness, war, torture)? Are they not accountable?

Here’s where I’m at today: I think if “justice roll[s] down like waters,” then BushCo and enablers will be repaid. Here’s the kicker: But not by me. According to scripture, God says, “I will repay.” Who do I think I am? My job is to lift up, care for, forgive.

(Sometimes I daydream, wondering if it’s as hard for God “to avenge” as it is for me to forgive. In each case, the action seems to run counter to our natures. Mystery indeed.)

As to whether we should be confronting others in their complicity, I observe that all evidence needed to see is already in front of us. Are not those with eyes to see, seeing? Can anyone be forced to see? I think not: we have to be wooed to see. (Still thinking. Insight welcome.)

2006-09-27 update (months later during a Quaker Spirituality class):

I’m clued in enough to recognize in my class reading today that Quaker author Parker Palmer is most definitely speaking to me:

When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless — a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other’s need to be cared for. That kind of giving is not only loveless but faithless, based on the arrogant and mistaken notion that God has no way of channeling love to the other except through me. Yes, we are created in and for community, to be there, in love, for one another. But community cuts both ways: when we reach the limits of our own capacity to love, community means trusting that someone else will be available to the person in need. …

When the gift I give to the other is integral to my own nature, when it comes from a place of organic reality within me, it will renew itself — and me — even as I give it away. Only when I give something that does not grow within me do I deplete myself and harm the other as well, for only harm can come from a gift that is forced, inorganic, unreal.

—Let Your Life Speak, Parker J. Palmer (1999), pp. 48–50

What I’m not sure of is whether this applies in the case of forgiving, especially forgiving those who advocate torture, etc.

Months after I wrote the article above, my hellbent determination to forgive when no forgiveness is forthcoming does indeed appear to me “forced, inorganic, unreal.” Is my forced determination coming more from “my need to prove myself” than from “the other’s need to be [forgiven]”? I think it is.

For if I’m truthful, I must acknowledge I have reached the limit of my own capacity to forgive. What has been done in my name — making war based on false witness, torturing, maiming, killing — is for me, for now, unforgiveable. I hadn’t considered I may be causing harm by pretending otherwise.

I haven’t written anything about the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast, partly because until today I’ve felt kicked in the gut by it, nearly numbed to silence by the magnitude of the suffering.

But today, somehow in addition to the suffering …

Today something’s shifting.

Is this the day the spell over us is finally broken, as when Gandalf broke Wormtongue’s deathly spell over Theoden in The Two Towers?

Is this the day the color of life returns to our faces?

Is this the trauma that causes us to shake off our stupor to discern the deception that compels us to war, to greed, to apathy? Is this the moment we finally hit bottom, recognize our folly, repent of our sins, and begin our long climb back to the world of the living, the thinking, the caring, the doing?

Is this the day that, in our heartbreak, we become human again?

We’re very close.

An imagined monologue from God, peering up from God’s browser (arising from Eyes Wide Open exhibit, after musing on “counting the cost”).

“[We have] a psycho-spiritual disease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in.”

NY Times: Paul Krugman: ‘[If Mr. Bush endures no backlash,] the message we’ll be sending to Americans who serve their country: If you tell the truth, your courage and sacrifice count for nothing.’

Magnificent quote of the day from The Village Gate:

Ultimately, this election persists in becoming an intelligence test for the American people. It’s not only on policy matters, either. Do we still have the moral discernment to detect the difference between a total fake and a flawed but honorable and competent human being?

I think it’s also a test of Have We Learned Anything? Has our attending church all these years (for those of us who have) been for naught if we still can’t discern wheat from chaff? Wheat-sowers from weed-sowers? Fertile ground from hardpan? Figs from no figs? (Or, to go extrabiblical here, cattle from hat?)

Thanks, Allen. This is what I was trying to say, though not achieving this succinctness, in last month’s The elect on Judgment Day.

2004-09-02 update: In addition to Allen’s election-as-intelligence-test and my election-as-life-learning-test, William Saletan at Slate powerfully makes the case (in the wake of Zell Miller et al. at the RNC) that the election has become “a referendum on your right to hold the president accountable,” which, given that in a democracy the president works for us and we can fire him for poor performance, “a referendum on democracy.”

I am so thankful to Dr. Dean — and to the movement he’s started — for rekindling hope in me and giving a spine transplant to the Democratic Party in the U.S. that I’m marching out the door Tuesday morning (February 10) to vote for Dean in the Tennessee primary.

Howard Dean is the only presidential candidate in my lifetime whose campaign I’ve been passionate about — it’s helped me believe my participation makes a difference, and that collectively we the people can take back our country. We can transform our country into one characterized by courage, straight talk, trustworthiness, balanced budgets, and healthy relationships among ourselves and with the world.

My vote will be one fully for Dean; any other vote would be lessened by being partly for the candidate but mostly against someone else. I am tired of voting for the lesser of two evils, and this day, for once in my memory, I won’t have to.

Of course I’m disappointed that the numbers of us choosing to vote similarly isn’t surging, whatever the reasons. One reason gives me pause about the efficacy of democracy’s equal voting representation: when I consider that someone who makes a voting decision Tuesday AM based on the front page of Tuesday’s USA Today has exactly the same political decision-making input I do when I’ve been studying these guys for seven months, it seems not quite right.

But in the end I let go of that conceit and insist that all of us have voices. Commitment to this democratic ideal implies a next step of reforming the media back to being a diverse chorus of voices and views for people to consider instead of being a monotonous, far-too-influential, agenda-laden handful of voices as it is now. A healthy democracy requires a diverse and informed electorate, not one misled by talking heads’ talking points.

For example, what’s up with the media declaring any candidate the winner when most of the nation’s primary voters haven’t yet cast a vote? That just doesn’t make sense in something called a democracy.

A Rainbow Brightens the Day, © caitlin conoverWhat happened to grace? Given primary results so far, is my earlier discernment without merit? — that “Dr. Dean’s campaign is where the grace falls. If God indeed guides our paths, rescuing us from ourselves — and of course I think he does — then this is where I sense he’s busiest. And where he’s smiling.”

Maybe. But because I credit the Dean campaign with initiating the tectonic plate shift that’s begun in U.S. politics, I think I was in the ballpark but without any sense of the final score, something that happens to me all the time.

I amuse myself thinking that intuition-plus-discernment is like a barometer that makes sweeping atmospheric change visible well before its effects appear (clear skies, raindrops). The data provided by a barometer yield no precise forecasts on their own, but we still value the barometer’s input in revealing invisible trends.

The situation as I see it theologically: The God of scripture and my experience is a God of transformation. And transformation finally appears to be underway in our U.S. political landscape. The Dean Phenomenon by most accounts has played an important role in initiating and fueling this transformation: Dr. Dean’s ideas are alive and well, having been appropriated into and now transforming the candidacies of those around him. Hence I think I can still sanely infer that Dean’s campaign is where the grace falls.

Now where grace rains down next will be interesting to see. Maybe it’s spreading further than I had dared imagine.

It has felt like rain in the desert, and I’m thankful for every drop.

2004-02-09 update: Jon Carroll captures the essence of Dean’s contribution very skillfully in SF Chronicle column Thank Howard Dean for Leading His Party Out of the Darkness.

Tonight as I turn in before voting tomorrow AM, I’m pondering the out-of-control budget deficit (and worse, debt) situation we’re facing in the United States, and thinking how much we need Dean’s year-in, year-out budget balancing expertise at our financial rudder. I imagine his “doctor’s bluntness” could help in this situation: We’re going to stop this hemorrhage so you won’t die. But it’s going to hurt. Much saner than “you can have it all, including Mars, and tax cuts, too.”

2004-02-10 update: Done! I stared at the glowing red LED beside “Howard Dean” for a long time before I pressed the VOTE button, remembering, savoring. Making a fully congruent vote like this is a matter of joyous significance for me; it’s my first in a quarter-century of voting AFAICR.

Steph and I were two among a total of four voters in our precinct at 8:15 AM. I don’t know if that’s a data point pointing to a poor primary turnout in Tennessee, or that we live in an intractably Republican suburb whose voters by and large see no need to vote today.

My rules of thumb:
Vote your conscience in a primary — forget “electability.”
Vote the best interests of your country and the world in a general
(which in the U.S. too often means choosing the least-bad candidate among those left standing).

I am still pro-Dean, and always will be, but I hereby expand my scope to ABB.

I have never before in my 4+ decades of life been this engrossed in — and nervewracked by — political caucuses and primaries like today’s in New Hampshire. I have never before given significant sums of money to any political candidate (mine’s going to Dr. Dean). I have never before felt that the soul of our country is at stake.

This, my friends, is turning-point time, a time you’ll remember to your grandkids.

Let discernment abound. Let deliverance begin. Yeeeeeeaaarrrrrgh!

2004-01-28 update: Final results, according to CNN —

Kerry, won 39 percent of the New Hampshire vote, compared to 26 percent for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, 12 percent each for Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and 9 percent for Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

My #1 practical reason why declaring Kerry the nominee is premature:
Hardly any of my African American brothers and sisters — many of whom like to vote Democratic, as I do — have had a say in choosing the Democratic nominee. (Only two states have participated so far, and neither has many “Black or African American persons” according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2000): Iowa, 2.1% and New Hampshire, 0.7%.)

My #1 personal reason why declaring Kerry the nominee is premature:
I still want a candidate I can vote for with knowledge and enthusiasm (for Dean), not one for whom my vote — while still a certainty — is really a vote against someone else (for Kerry against Bush).

The biggest and best news from New Hampshire? — The record turnout (“estimated at about 200,000, compared to the previous high of 168,000 in 1992”). This level of voter participation is a good sign, an early data point in what I hope becomes a trend: the more we citizens participate, the more vital and representative is our democracy, no matter which candidate we elect to the White House.

Early on in 2003, during the buildup to the Iraq invasion, I received lots of email forwarded from conservative Christian friends containing breathless adulation of George W. Bush as an exemplary Christian. One example is the multi-forwarded text of Paul Kengor’s National Review article dated March 5, God & W. at 1600 Penn. —

Though Bush and Democratic nominee Al Gore split the popular vote almost 50:50, Bush cleaned up among churchgoers. Among those who attend religious services weekly, he beat Gore 57 to 40%. For those who attend more than weekly, he won 63 to 36%. (Gore won by 61 to 32% among those who said they “never” attend church, suggesting that the former veep easily bagged the atheist vote.) …

[Religious broadcaster Janet Parshall] has never witnessed such an outpouring of sustained support for a president among Christian conservatives. “They call me and say they’re praying for him,” Parshall says of her listeners. “My callers like him and are thankful. They actually tell me they cried when they watched the State of the Union Address. Imagine that! They love this man.” …

My reaction to the January 28 SOTU was somewhat different than this. Beneath the words, something about the speech and its delivery smelled fishy. Indeed most of its assertions and allegations have since turned out to have been made up or outright deceptions.

Bush believes that God “has a plan” for him. He maintains that he could not be president if he didn’t believe in a “divine plan that supersedes all human plans.” …

The Old Testament story [of Moses in Exodus over whether to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land] spoke to Bush. He felt convicted. He began telling friends he had “heard the call.” God was calling him to seek the Oval Office.

Self-deception, we must whip it

I have a family member who still says, “George Bush sets a good example for all Christians in America.”

No.

When in the course of human events, a leader granted power and authority chooses to abuse that power and authority to invade a sovereign nation on the basis of a monstrous doctrine of preemptive war¹ that bears his name, not for reasons of national defense but for ideology (to forcibly demonstrate PNAC neoconservative imperial wherewithal — pride) and profit (Halliburton no-bid contracts, oil — greed), the prosecution costs of which will be borne by citizens yet unborn (multi-$trillion deficit²), wherein said leader stains his hands with the blood of 10,000 dead (~9,600 Iraqis³ and ~400 Americans⁴) and shatters the lives of thousands maimed and wounded (~2,300+ U.S. military wounded⁵, ~7,500 evacuated through Andrews AFB⁶, plus an unknown civilian casualty count), then that leader does not qualify as an exemplary Christian. He qualifies as a war criminal.

I can imagine the prophet Nathan speaking words like these to Mr. Bush, much as Nathan told King David the story of the rich man who took the ewe lamb from the poor man who had nothing — the lamb who “shared [the poor man’s] food, drank from his cup, and even slept in his arms; it was like a daughter to him.” [The rich man took the lamb from the poor man] and slaughtered it for his guest to eat:

But more significant — Nathan could be pointing his finger at us — we are the people. Being unrepentant in our support of such behavior — to repent means to turn, so as long as we continue to squander lives, treasure, and honor in Iraq, we are by definition unrepentant — means not that we’re “showing resolve” but that we’re being unrepentant of our evildoing, like those who are made to weep and gnash their teeth, thrown out of the kingdom of God (Luke 13:22-30).

Agreeing with the Bush Administration that black is white, up is down, that bad news is good news, that monstrous behavior is godly behavior, does not make you a patriot, it makes you complicit.

This worldview hawks a form of faith without its substance. Its trajectory is not God-ward; it ends instead in darkness.

We — all of us, conservative, moderate, liberal, progressive — can do better than this.

[I actually believe now that a critical mass of us have awakened and are again seeing black as black, white as white — and sometimes, gray as gray — whether we articulate our seeing in theological terms or not. Even so, I still have to rant this out of my system; it’s the closest I plan to come to saying “I told you so.”]

2003-11-19 update:
Revised entry title refers to T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men.

Another oft-forwarded writer in my inbox was Peggy Noonan, whose writing I noticed took breathless adulation to new heights. Piyush Mathur addresses Noonan’s work head-on in a review of her new book, A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag: America Today. Mathur succeeds in highlighting much that I find unbearable in Religious Right (non)thinking.

[via Atrios]

The Bush Administration’s house of cards, built lie upon lie upon lie, is finally starting to fall. I thought I’d be happy when this finally came to pass, but now that it’s begun, I just feel grief at how far we’ve missed the mark as a people.

Why do different ones of us come to see things at different rates?

I foresaw the buildup to this present situation months ago, years ago. Why me? I don’t know.

It’s December 2000: I close my eyes and see this unfolding of events — it looks like a hurricane seen from a weather satellite. And not a satellite loop on a video screen, either, but a live, continent-spanning hurricane I’m seeing as I literally cling to the in-orbit satellite with cold numb hands, looking down at the earth, trying not to fall. I can’t see the storm’s details or the full extent of its destruction, but its trajectory across the face of the earth is clear.

I’ve been compelled since then to “bear witness to the truth,” as Jesus said the stones would do if the disciples didn’t.

Sometimes the truth borne witness to is positive, as was the disciples’ — “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Mine has been a “fire in the bones” variety I can’t get rid of, a warning more along the lines of Isaiah 30:

“Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;

who go down to Egypt without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection [Might],
to Egypt’s shade for refuge.

But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace. …

Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression and depended on deceit,
this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant. …

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.”

—Isaiah 30, Woe to the Obstinate Nation

Now, though, I’m stuck in a quagmire of my own, profoundly disillusioned that so many of us, even very bright ones of us, were so easily duped and so defiant about staying that way.

What disillusioned me most was seeing some of my Christian brothers and sisters who not only didn’t denounce this god-awful national leadership debacle early on but instead actively embraced it.

Now I’m disconnected from participation in my church community for a reason I can’t get past: if persons there are sufficiently undiscerning as to praise the Bush team’s godliness, how can I trust their discernment in other areas? I can’t bring myself to worship in an environment where I cannot trust.

It’s like I finally ran outside the grace that kept me connected.

I recognize this is my problem, but it’s no less a problem to me.

Where I am reminds me of what I wrote to a friend back in March,

If you try to support war in Iraq and confess faith in Jesus, your integrity is breached, because, God knows, the two are mutually exclusive. If you try to do both, you become a stumbling block to Christians and non-Christians alike.

Defending the faith while promoting aggressive war is playing “soul jeopardy” in the gravest way, for who can say how many turn away from the Lord in grief or revulsion as a result?

I just didn’t foresee being so tripped up by the stumbling blocks myself.

[I’m recording this here in hopes I can look back from a near-future vantage point, whole and reconnected, and rejoice at how far we’ve come. Meanwhile, maybe I’m providing a point of identification for anyone else in the same boat.]