Dan Pallotta

11.07.2003

November 8, 2003

I read a great thought by Thomas Merton today about humility. He was talking about how an excess of desire for humility is in itself antithetical to humility. His summation was, "how can a person be humble when all he ever thinks about is himself?" meaning, how can a person be humble if he is always focused on whether or not he is being humble, that is, always self-focused instead of other-focused.

Some people are naturally humble. It is simply the water they swim in. They don't need to read any of this stuff in order to figure it out. Others of us are far on the other side of the spectrum. We are the ones that read and read about humility and obsess about whether or not we are being humble not even realizing that the pursuit itself is an exercise in self-centeredness. "Am I being humble?" "What do you think about MY humility?" When we finally get to what we think is humility we are so proud of ourselves that the pride itself erases any trace of humility. The more we read about humility the further we get from it!

This is all high-minded stuff. And the interesting thing about humility is that it isn't high-minded stuff at all. It is the stuff of people who keep their focus on themselves in balance, and leave at least half of their thoughts for others. Ugh. That is a tough thought when you're not naturally humble. "Half of my thoughts about others?!" "I can't do that!" I think if we have made it that far - far enough to realize that it is an impossible proposition for us - we have at the very least arrived at the place where we can begin. Thomas Merton describes this arrival as a grace from God. Merton is so good. Just as I am beginning to get proud of myself for arriving at the beginning, he reminds me that I didn't get myself there - God did - and it humbles me.

11.06.2003

November 7, 2003

Zell Miller, a famous Democratic Senator from the South has been lamenting the inability of the Democrats to come up with a message that resonates with voters, especially in the South. He says that the Democrats have allowed too many radical special interests to take over the party and they're scaring off the rest of America. He points to John Kennedy and how Kennedy was for tax cuts and for a strong national defense. John Kennedy was a hero of mine. Some of that sentiment has waned but parts still remain. The things that have made it wane include the fact that he distanced himself from Martin Luther King, Jr. - would not attend King's march on Washington for fear of political reprisal. I don't admire that in him.

This idea that getting elected - that winning - is the most important thing seems illogical. What good is it to get elected if you have to sacrifice the very ideals that you hoped to bring into office? Why be in office with the ideals that could get you elected instead of the ideals that are truly your own? Why not just let someone else with a fashionable set of ideals take the job? There would be no difference between you.

Who will speak for the transgender people if they are a liability at election time? Who will speak for the idea of peace and understanding if it is a losing issue? Who will stand up for patience if the voters think it is a sign of weakness? Who will propose a bold vision for the end of hunger in the world if the electorate resents us sending our money overseas? Standing up for what is right may be a losing proposition, but that is no reason to do what's wrong. We may lose elections by standing up for the misfits and the losers and the freaks in this world, but we will be spreading love. We will be letting these people know that they have not been abandoned or forgotten. It is a victory to lift up the hearts of the disenfranchised and the neglected in this world, even if the election is lost. Love is more important than power. And the gays and the lesbians and the immigrants and the homeless and the children need their human dignity validated more than they need a democrat in power, especially if that democrat has had to distance himself from them in order to get elected. And peace and patience and love and justice need an outspoken advocate more than they need a democrat in power, especially if he needs to vote for a $400 billion military budget to get into office.

What good is power if it cannot be used for love? Perhaps the real question for our age is simply, what good is power?

11.05.2003

November 6, 2003

It is hard to strike a balance between prayer and politics. For the activist, it is hard to strike a balance between leaving it all in God's hands and wanting to take the reins in our own hands. How do we find the middle ground between forcing our own answers on the world, as so many politicians do, and doing nothing but praying, as so many new agers recommend? Should we even seek to strike a balance? Should we follow the example of the monk, or should we follow the example of the religous right's grassroots organizing? Is silence the answer, or is speaking out? I'm 42 years old and I still don't know the answer to this question. But what I do know is that the answer to world peace and the future of humanity rests inside the answer to this question. That makes it a question worth pondering, and we can take some comfort in that. If it is the most important of questions, then we need not be so frustrated that we don't yet have the answer. We can have patience for a question of such weight. And we don't need to feel like losers for not having the answers. Rather we should acknowledge ourselves for the willingness to remain in uncertainty.

There is a violence in the rush to certainty. And we live in an age of confidence, where one is supposed to be decisive and have all of the answers. This is how we define strength and this is what we look for in our leaders. We might be smarter to look for leaders who simply look us in the eye and say, "I don't know. I'm as confused as you are." Perhaps that level of honesty might be a first step on the path to truth. We have to be wlling to allow it as much as the leader must be willing to say it.

11.04.2003

November 5, 2003

Part of the reason the world is in such disarray, and it is in disarray, is because of the news media. I watched CNN for about an hour today and I feel like I ate two pounds of sugar. It's no wonder people are killing one another and voting for wars and military spending. They make every story sound like doomsday, they play ominous music set to a tempo of the most anxiety-inducing tension, and then they bring on experts that simply yell at one another. I watched this show called "Crossfire," with James Carville and some young guy named Tucker Carlson, and they just shout at one another. The trouble is, all of America is tuned into this brainwashing machine every night and every morning.

And to think that their children are watching along! Second-hand smoke is nothing compared to the danger of second hand TV news.

This is where we go to find out what's hapening in the world, yet it is not real. It is a soap opera. I am not saying that a bomb did not go off in Iraq today. It did. But CNN has the entire world focused on this one exlosion. It becomes the focal point of the nation and of the world and it is what most Americans think of as the totality of reality. But the real reality is going on completely elsewhere. The real stuff of life is in our relationships with our spouses and our parents. The way we were breathing today, (or not breathing, because of the tension CNN put in our bodies.) Our prayer life. Our sense of connection with the mystery of life. The homeless man we passed on the street. The way we reacted to the guy who cut us off. The breeze blowing the leaves off of the tree in our backyard. The silence that is the background for all the noise. This is reality, in reality.

If we could all focus on what is real in our lives instead of what CNN wants us to believe is real in our lives, perhaps there wouldn't be bombs going off in Iraq. Reality begins with turning off our television sets. TV news media is the opposite of God. It is the opposite of peace and of silence and of communion with that which could bring us real peace. Real peace is never going to come from the political experts on TV. If they cannot even create peace between themselves, how on earth are their ideas ever going to create peace for the whole world? No, no, what will come from the political experts on the TV news is exactly what they create between themselves - war.

11.03.2003

November 4, 2003

I was reading today about the issuance of an "Amber Alert" yesterday for a missing child. It made me think about the malnourished and starving kids in Sub-Saharan Africa. It made me think about how many of them will be missing from the earth a year from now. Missing their futures. Missing their birthdays and their weddings and their children. Missing their potential. I wonder what some of their little names are. And I imagine. I imagine a world where we are brave enough to make all the chldren of the world our concern. A world where we take upon us the true mantle of adulthood. Where we stop playing childish games and start taking on responsibility for the children. A world where we declare that no matter how impossible or difficult it may be to accomplish we will no longer allow little children to die of malnutrition in a world of bounty and wealth and excess. And I imagine a time when all the children of the world have a law against hunger and starvation that protects them, perhaps named after one little child that we decided would be the last one to die because she didn't have enough to eat.

This is what's really missing.

11.02.2003

November 3, 2003

The religous right is pushing for a Constitutional Ammendment to ban gay marriage and to effectively end civil unions and the benefits that go with them. Will they be able to pass it? A Constituional Ammendment, if I recall, requires the approval of 2/3 of the House and the Senate and 3/4 of the state legislatures. It's not an easy thing to make happen, but then again, who ever thought that the Governor of California would be recalled? Crazy things happen when cunning political operatives tap into an emotional vein in the general public, and unfortunately, the general public seems all too ready to react emotioanlly than to think rationally about the important issues of the day, and all too ready to be manipulated by a media that tells people not just how to think about issues, but worse, what issues to think about.

What is it the religous right is worried about - the moral decay of society? On the list of things contributing to the moral decay of society, gay marriage hardy ought to rate as a priority. The expenditure of 400 billion a year on militia and weapons designed to kill human beings, while millions of children starve to death each year ought to rate above it. The apparent abject lack of veracity on the part of our government on questions involving the need to send our soldiers to Iraq to die ought to rate above it. The overwhelming number of heterosexual men who beat their wives senseless ought to rate above it. The use of the death penalty in a civilized society in direct violation of the Commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Kill," ought to rate above it. The influence of multi-national corporations and the focus they have given every man, woman and child in the world on the acquisition of material things, exterior beauty, consumerism, looking out for number one, and competition against one another ought to rate above it. The commercialization of everything from Christ's birth to His resurrection ought to rate above it. And certainly the use of Jesus' name to divide people against one another ought to rate above it.

The religous right is driven by a pathology. The people attracted to their methods are psychologically dis-eased. Anyone in their right mind concerned about the moral decay of society would look to the gay community for leadership, because you cannot grow up gay without confronting deep and painful truths about yourself. You cannot be out and be gay without having made a fundamentally moral choice to prioritize the truth over a lie. The people in the religous right have chosen hatred and division as their outward operating principles because there is something they hate inside themselves - something divided in their own personal inner lives that they cannot come to terms with.

"A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality." John F. Kenedy said that.