Tread lightly on the things of earth

AKMA’s weblog entry on Rowan Williams’ first sermon as the new Archibishop of Canterbury — the ABC is the “new leader of 70 million Anglicans across the globe” — influenced me to read and watch the whole thing [sermon excerpts, full transcript 1 and 2, photo and video links].

I am heartened by Abp. Rowan’s display of genuine Christian thinking and being:

Once we recognise God’s great secret, that we are all made to be God’s sons and daughters, we can’t avoid the call to see one another differently.

No one can be written off; no group, no nation, no minority can just be a scapegoat to resolve our fears and uncertainties.” …

The Church exists to pass on the promise of Jesus — “You can live in the presence of God without fear; you can receive from his fullness and set others free from fear and guilt.” …

The Christian will engage with passion in the world of our society and politics — out of a real hunger and thirst to see God’s image, the destiny of human beings to become God’s sons and daughters come to light …

When Christians grieve or protest about war … it is because of the fear we rightly feel when insult and violence blot out the divine image in our human relations, the reflection to one another of the promise of Jesus in one another. …

If all we have to offer is a Jesus who makes sense to me and people like me, we have no saving truth to give.

For followers of Jesus, war — and with inarguable certainty, preemptive war — is not an option, for it means knowingly scapegoating brothers and sisters, knowingly killing others of us whom God loves. Supporting preemptive war may seem to be sensible, may seem to be patriotic, but one thing it inescapably is not: it is not following Jesus.

I agree with AKMA who says, “We got a good one, this time.”

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch writes in a funny but bang-on way about Caring for your Introvert. Man, oh man. I laughed out loud at this paragraph:

Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often take umbrage at the suggestion. As often as I have tried to explain the matter to extroverts, I have never sensed that any of them really understood. They listen for a moment and then go back to barking and yipping.

I have one or two extroverted friends who, yip though they may, actually try to understand me, so I’ll give ‘em some credit. :-)

[via Kottke.org]

After noting the Washington Post report that “many people in the world increasingly think President Bush is a greater threat to world peace than Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,” Horst compares Iraq and the U.S. from his non-U.S. point of view. The result is striking and inarguable, seems to me, especially the table.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams issues warning to Blair and Bush:

Both President Bush with his “axis of evil” soundbites and the prime minister [Blair] in his recent campaign to provide a moral justification for the conflict have become increasingly messianic in tone as they strive to persuade sceptical electorates, [Abp. Williams] said. “There is no war that is holy and good in itself and to bring the heavy artillery of a religious kind, to say that is the only way of resisting evil, is something that has to be watched out for.”

Makes me happy to be an Anglican (the U.S. kind; that is, Episcopal).

[via Aardvark]

Bush Administration:
"We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation."

Yes, this Administration said that (according to Bush at War).

2003-03-03 update: In a comment to this entry, John makes a good point [which I've since lost, possibly with subconscious intent since he called me a "dumbass"]. Some of the citations turned up in a Google search credit the quote to an anonymous CIA person rather than to Mr. Bush himself. I've amended the original entry above to reflect this.

Actions speak louder than words, however; our current U.S. actions shout "we will export death and destruction" more than the words themselves do. As the buck ultimately stops on the President's desk, it's reasonable to hold Mr. Bush responsible for these words -- this thinking -- as reported in Bush at War, no matter who under his authority spoke them.

(I notice that the CounterPunch article in which I originally saw this quote, Armageddon Anxiety, is unchanged from reporting these words as "the President's declamation.")

Rafe points to a site called The Political Compass that addresses “the inadequacies of the traditional [political] left-right line.” Its test assesses your position on two axes, not only the economic dimension (left <-> right) but also the social dimension (libertarian <-> authoritarian).

Hmmm, I score as a libertarian leftist [-3.38/-2.72] immediately adjacent to Gandhi, just slightly to his right on the economic scale. (I couldn’t ask for better company.) This placement earns me this Reading List, the contents of which I, uh, haven’t read yet.

More than a decade of reasonably intense thinking about these issues — fueled largely by reading the Church fathers and other Christian spiritual classics — has brought me to my current point of view. I expect, then, that this quadrant is my home for life. I wouldn’t have predicted my arrival here, though; my youthful self was probably in the top right quadrant: somewhat more authoritarian, much more to the right economically.

What an illuminating exercise!

The photographs in On a Small Bridge in Iraq, a free 39-page PDF book by Natsuki Ikezawa and Seiichi Motohashi, are superb. Ikezawa is a Japanese “novelist, poet, essayist, and translator of Greek poetry”; Motohashi is a “photographer and film director.” The combined effect of seeing Motohashi’s photos and reading Ikezawa’s words is almost like visiting the people of Iraq yourself.

As Lisa writes,

We should get to know these lovely people and the world they live in before we allow our government to execute them through a toxic melange of bombs and sanctions.

We should discover their joys, their difficulties, and for one single moment, try … as hard as we can, to intellectually step out of our own shoes, and into theirs.

Concerning this Glenn observes (in a comment at the Stand Down link below):

This [empathy] is the key difference it seems to me between the hawks and doves; the former have an unwillingness or inability to make that imaginative leap (they find it difficult to walk an inch in someone else’s shoes), the latter do as a matter of course.

I believe we all can make this imaginative leap into Iraqi shoes; we just have to become willing and maybe learn how. I will not rest until all within my small sphere of influence either attempt this leap — at which the angels will rejoice — or else knowingly, deliberately repudiate it in favor of war.

[via Stand Down]

Wendell Berry — whom Steph for years has proclaimed a “master poet” — provides A Citizen’s Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States of America (aka The Bush Doctrine that was published by the U.S. Administration in September 2002):

This [NSS] document affirms peace; it also affirms peace as the justification of war and war as the means of peace and thus perpetuates a hallowed absurdity. But implicit in its assertion of this (and, by implication, any other) nation’s right to act alone in its own interest is an acceptance of war as a permanent condition. Either way, it is cynical to invoke the ideas of cooperation, community, peace, freedom, justice, dignity, and the rule of law (as this document repeatedly does), and then proceed to assert one’s intention to act alone in making war. One cannot reduce terror by holding over the world the threat of what it most fears.

This is a contradiction not reconcilable except by a self righteousness almost inconceivably naive.

Wendell Berry is a man after my own heart. Or is that vice versa? :-)  He writes well what I fumble in trying to articulate at all. Dear God, how exhilarating to read such a writer!

This is essential reading for every U.S. citizen.

[via Doc]